When he had his game face on, that is.
But he wasn’t beefing up his image at the moment. He was hiding from it.
Cole pasted on his most charming grin and hid the cake plate behind his back.
“Hey there, sugar.” He summoned his best panty-dropping drawl. “Nice dress.” He winked and went the extra mile to lay it on thick. “Or it would be if there was a lot less of it.”
“In your dreams.”
He grinned. “Every night.”
* * *
If only.
The thought struck Nikki just as Cole smiled again, and heat spiraled through her.
A crazy reaction considering Nikki was an ice queen when it came to men like Cole Chisholm. He dropped lines faster than a cow dropped patties. She knew it because she dropped a few of her own when she was out in public. Just to keep her image in check and her mother at arm’s length.
But it was useless flirtation that didn’t really mean anything, and no way should she actually be blushing because of it.
Because of him.
“Are you eating cake?” Nikki noticed the speck of frosting at the corner of his mouth.
He looked as if he wanted to deny it, but instead he finally shrugged. His right arm came around, revealing a crystal plate and a half-eaten piece of fluffy white cake. “Nothing wrong with a man enjoying a good dessert.”
Her gaze shifted to what looked like a large glass of chocolate milk sitting on the hay bale next to him. She arched an eyebrow. “A Back Burner? A Brown Cow? A Russian Six Shot?” She ticked off a few alcoholic drink possibilities because this was Cole Chisholm, of all people.
Wild.
Wicked.
Reckless.
He grinned. “You know it.”
“Which one?”
“The first one.”
Something about the way he said the words roused her suspicion. She stepped toward him, grabbed the glass before he could snatch it out of her reach and lifted it to her lips. “You’re drinking plain old chocolate milk,” she said after a quick whiff.
“Says you. I’ve got a ton of Everclear in there, sugar. That’s why you can’t smell it.”
“No, you don’t.” Understanding dawned. “You’re hiding in here so that no one will see you drinking chocolate milk and eating plain old wedding cake.”
“Darlin’, there’s nothing plain or old about this cake.”
“It’s vanilla. No filling. Plain.”
“And just what would you have done differently?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe a chocolate ganache with a raspberry-liquor filling. A little crème fraîche on the side.”
“You’re a food snob.”
“I am not.” She averted her gaze. “I like a plain old piece of cake as much as the next person. I’m just not hungry right now.” Her gaze met his again. “Stop trying to change the subject.”
“Which is?”
“You’re hiding.”
“Says you.” He glanced past her. “No one saw you come out here, did they?”
“You are hiding.”
“It’s called self-preservation. There’s something going around out there and I don’t intend to catch it.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Strep? Flu? Meningitis?”
“Mary Lou Harwell.” He shook his head. “She won’t leave me alone.”
“She’s young and nice and pretty. Trust me, you could have worse problems.”
“She wants me to father her children.”
She shrugged. “No one’s perfect.”
He grinned and her stomach hollowed out again. “So what’s the big deal with the cake and the milk? I could see if you were eating bean sprouts or quiche or something equally unmanly, but it’s just cake.”
“It’s cake and whole chocolate milk. As in wholesome.” His mouth drew into a thin line and he shook his head, as if he’d already said more than he wanted to.
“And Cole Chisholm can’t be wholesome?” she heard herself ask. As if she didn’t already know the answer. She’d spent more than one night with a beer bottle full of ginger ale back at the honky-tonk.
Cole didn’t seem as if he wanted to talk, but then he finally shrugged. “I’ve got an image to think of.” He walked back over to the hay bale and retrieved his plate.
“So chase the cake with a few whiskey shots and you’re good to go.”
He looked at her as if she’d grown two heads. “A man can’t eat cake with whiskey. Do you know how awful that would taste?”
“Apparently you’ve never had a good whiskey sauce poured over buttered pound cake.” Did she just say that out loud? “Not that I’ve ever tried anything like that. I’m more of a Twinkie girl.” Her hands tightened around the wine bottle and she barely resisted the urge to take another swig. But she’d already destroyed enough brain cells. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be spouting nonsense about whiskey sauce and crème fraîche, or any other dead giveaway that she was more than just a bar cook at the local honky-tonk. No, if she’d been thinking clearly, she would have kept her mouth shut. Even more, she would have turned on her heel and on Cole without so much as a backward glance.
At the moment, however, she couldn’t not look at him as he forked some cake and took a bite. The speck of sweet, decadent frosting still sat at the corner of his mouth as he chewed.
Nikki had the sudden urge to cross the few feet between them and taste the sweet icing. Her mouth watered and she tightened her fingers against the fierce hunger.
This is totally whacked. He’s not your type, remember? Even more, she had a refined palate. She’d sworn off any and all nongourmet when she’d registered for her first culinary class two years ago. She didn’t do cake. And she certainly didn’t do men like Cole Chisholm.
Unfortunately, her hormones had a very short memory and they couldn’t seem to get past the warmth in his smile and the twinkle in his violet eyes and the fact that she’d been totally celibate for much too long—since her one and only one-night stand with Mitch Schaeffer. The one-night stand that had simply confirmed what she’d already known in her heart. He’d been her first and her last.
Because Nikki wanted more than a few hours of hot, breath-stealing sex. She wanted a real boyfriend. A man to bring her flowers and make her breakfast and make her feel like more than just a sex object.
Not right now, of course. The last thing she needed was to tie herself down.
She had a future waiting for her, one well beyond the city limits of her desperately small town.
But someday...
Someday she would meet a good man, a faithful, honest and true sort who didn’t spend his Friday nights lighting it up at the local honky-tonk. She saw too many of those every weekend and it didn’t bode well for a healthy, monogamous relationship. No, when she settled down, it would be with a solid, dependable, tame man.
Cole Chisholm, with his womanizing reputation and his “here today, gone tomorrow” mentality, did not make the grade. Even if he did like whole chocolate milk.
Still, wrong or not, Cole Chisholm did smell terribly nice. Her nostrils flared and the butterflies in her stomach did a few somersaults.
She drew a deep breath and tried to ignore the crazy tilt to the floor. “I think I need to sit down.”
Cole grinned and patted the seat next to him. “Take a load off.”
She hesitated. “I’m not having sex with you.”
“See?” He held up the glass of milk. “I told you this stuff kills the old image.”
“I’m not having sex with you because I’ve had way too much sex tonight and I’m really tired.”
“Is that so?”
She shrugged. “A girl has to have some down time. Not that I don’t want to have sex with you. I totally
would if my feet weren’t hurting so bad.” She wasn’t sure why she kept rambling except that with the music playing in the distance and his close proximity there seemed something oddly surreal about the moment. “I’d be all over you.”
“Ditto,” he murmured, downing a huge swallow of milk. He took a bite of cake and his eyes closed as if savoring the medley of flavors.
“It’s got real vanilla bean,” she blurted.
His eyes opened and collided with hers. “What?”
“The cake. That faint hint of flavor is vanilla bean. It’s April and Crystal’s favorite. They commissioned a baker in Austin to do it.” Even though Nikki could have totally nailed it herself. Her flavors had all been there, but she’d been nervous about her decorating skills. We’re talking a wedding cake, for heaven’s sake. That, and the last thing she needed was to tell the world that she’d been cooking up more in the honky-tonk’s kitchen than crispy fried pickles. “I’m working on my culinary degree,” she heard herself add when he kept staring at her.
What was she doing?
She wasn’t supposed to be blurting out her life story. She had an image to protect. A facade to perpetuate. She had to keep her game face on.
In front of a man drinking whole chocolate milk?
The truth registered and while she knew he was all about lovin’ and leavin’, he wasn’t going anywhere at the moment. No, he was looking at her as if he wanted to hear what she had to say. As if he wasn’t half as surprised as he was interested.
“I didn’t know you were going to culinary school.”
“No one does.” When he arched an eyebrow, she added, “My mother would freak. She thinks women have fought too hard to get out of the kitchen. She hates to cook. She watched my grandmother cook and clean herself into an early grave and she swore she wouldn’t make the same mistake. Cooking is right up there with being barefoot and pregnant.” A big no-no in Raylene’s book. Which was why Nikki and her sisters had grown up eating fast food.
Her mother would never understand her career choice any more than she would accept the fact that Nikki was breaking Barbie tradition and leaving home after finals.
Especially now that her sisters were married and Nikki was the only one left.
The enormity of the situation pressed down on her and she slumped on the hay bale next to Cole Chisholm. “What the hell am I going to do?” She swallowed against the huge lump rising in her throat. “I’ve got finals in two weeks. I need to concentrate. To focus. I can’t focus with my mother all over me, which means I need to figure out a way to get her off my back. And all because my sisters tied the knot.”
“I hear ya. I’m ready to pack up and leave today, but I can’t. I’ve got business here in town with my brothers and I’m stuck for at least a week. Meanwhile there are at least two dozen women hot on my heels.”
A smile tugged at her lips. “Only two dozen, huh?”
He grinned. “Give or take a few.”
Nikki wasn’t sure if it was the wine or the warmth of Cole’s hard body that sparked the next thought. Maybe a little of both. Regardless, an idea rooted and she found herself smiling.
“I should get married,” she told him. “My mother’s given up on Crystal and April because they did. If I jumped ship, too, and married some man that she totally disapproves of—which is basically every man—then she wouldn’t have any reason to hold out hope.” Nikki’s gaze shifted to Cole with his wicked good looks and his charming smile and his empty glass of chocolate milk. “I’ve got an idea that might save us both.”
3
“I DO,” NIKKI SAID a half hour later as she stood in the far corner of the monstrous wedding tent and faced Cole.
Crystal and April had already left with their grooms in a flurry of bubbles to catch a plane to Hawaii for their honeymoons, and so Nikki had lucked out. She wouldn’t have to explain anything to her sisters tonight.
Likewise, Cole’s brothers had already left with their fiancées. Only a handful of guests remained and a few reporters. They stood on the sidelines, snapping pictures of the spontaneous wedding between Lost Gun’s hottest bachelor and the town’s most notorious bad girl.
Now Cole was officially off the market, which meant every single female in town would stop gunning for him. Likewise, Raylene Barbie would be so horrified that her youngest daughter had done the unthinkable, that she would stop sending texts and badgering her about the family business.
Nikki could have some peace to focus on finishing her degree and Cole could spend the next week or so in town without having a horde of women breathing down his neck and bringing him potluck. It was extreme, but it would actually work.
After Nikki’s proposition and Cole’s acceptance, they’d ironed out the details of their “marriage.”
An arrangement in name only since they didn’t actually have a license, nor did they intend to get one.
Not that anyone else knew that.
No, in the eyes of everyone in Lost Gun, their marriage would be legal and binding.
For the next few weeks, that is.
Until Cole aced the championship in Vegas and secured himself a place in the history books and Nikki took her final exams. Then they would go their separate ways and leak the word that they’d split. Nikki would head to Houston for her internship and Cole would bask in the glow of his sixth championship buckle.
Until then, they would play the happily wedded couple right here in Lost Gun.
And I now pronounce you husband and wife...
“You may now kiss the bride.”
The minute the words were out, panic rushed through Nikki, along with a flutter of anticipation. While she’d thought through most of the details, she hadn’t counted on the kiss.
No biggie. She was the resident bad girl. She kissed men in her sleep and she didn’t get uptight over it. Or weak in the knees.
Especially weak in the knees.
Cole was just another in a long line of many.
That’s what she told herself. The problem? It wasn’t true. She’d had all of a handful of kisses in her day, even though the men’s bathroom wall over at the honky-tonk would argue the opposite. And they said women liked to gossip? Men were worse, constantly wagging their tongues to feed their egos even though there was little truth to any of it. She hadn’t made out with the entire offensive line back in high school or gone to third base with every ranch hand down at the Circle J.
For the first time, she found herself wishing that she had so that her hands wouldn’t be trembling quite so much as this particular moment.
Nikki closed her eyes as Cole’s lips touched hers. Quick. Meaningless. That’s all this was. He would plant one on her and then it would be over and done with. Curtain drawn. Elvis has left the building.
But then her lips softened under the sudden pressure of his mouth. His tongue swept her bottom lip and slipped past to deepen the connection.
He pulled her closer, his hands at the base of her spine, burning through the thin material of her dress and stirring her deprived hormones.
The chemistry between them was instant and explosive and she couldn’t help herself. She knew this was all a farce, but she kissed him back anyway.
In the interest of putting on a really good show, of course.
No way did she buckle because it just felt so freakin’ good.
No. Way.
She slid her hands up his chest, her palms flat against the stiff material of his jacket until she reached the solid warmth of his neck. Her fingers curled around, holding him close.
Okay, so maybe it felt a little good.
The floor fell away as she leaned into him. His warmth overwhelmed her. His scent filled her nostrils and made her heart pound and—
“Nicole Renee Barbie!” Her mother’s voice shattered the passionate
haze surrounding Nikki and Cole and her eyes popped open. “What in tarnation do you think you’re doing?”
She whirled to see Raylene walking toward them, her latest fling—a trucker named Dale Something-or-other she’d picked up last night at the bar—hot on her heels.
“Kissing a man.”
“I’m not talking about the kissing. I’m talking about this.” She motioned to the bouquet in Nikki’s hands and old Judge Collins who’d been napping in the corner while his wife talked the kitchen out of a plate of leftovers when Nikki had snagged him to do the ceremony. “You didn’t just do what I think you did.”
“These fine youngsters are now happily married,” the judge announced, stifling a yawn. “Mother.” He motioned to the woman standing with a plate in her hands. “My work here is done. Time to call it a night.”
“Thanks so much.” Cole shook the man’s hand. “I’ll settle up with you first thing tomorrow.”
“Don’t worry about it.” The judge’s wife waved him off. “He won’t even remember it. We’re just happy we could be a part of such a wonderful occasion. Marshall doesn’t get to officiate too often on account of he has trouble remembering all the words.”
“He did just fine tonight,” Cole assured the woman. “Just fine. Isn’t that right, sugar?” He turned to Nikki, but she was too busy looking at Raylene.
The older woman shook her head, her cheeks a bright red. “No, no, you couldn’t have.” Denial gripped her expression, as if the Dallas Cowboys had just lost the Super Bowl and she had a wad of cash riding on the game. “No way did you just saddle yourself to some low-life, snake-in-the-grass man.”
Before Nikki could speak, Cole stepped around her and caught her mother in a gigantic bear hug. “Don’t think of me as just any old snake-in-the-grass, Mama Barbie. We’re family now. That makes me your snake-in-the-grass.” And then he planted a huge smack on her cheek.
4
NIKKI CLIMBED INTO the backseat of one of the stretch limousines that had lingered behind to take the out-of-town wedding guests back to the local motel and focused all of her attention on trying to ignore the man who climbed in behind her.
Texas Outlaws: Cole Page 3