Ted’s expression darkened. “That made it damn convenient, didn’t it?”
Doug’s inclination was to say go to hell, but this was Ted. “Hey, what’s the problem?”
Tension swirled in the air. “Just remembering old times.”
“Look, Ted, I know what’s bugging you. I didn’t screw her. What, you think I’d hit the sheets with a woman too drunk to know her mind?”
To Doug’s amazement, relief flickered in his friend’s eyes.
Doug sat forward in his chair, forearms resting on his thighs. “I’m telling you something as a friend, Ted. Alex is a mountain you’re never gonna see the top of. She doesn’t care about you in the same way you care about her and she never will. Give it up. Do yourself a favor. Marry Mary Jane and have kids. She loves you.”
A muscle in Ted’s jaw tightened. “Mind your own fuckin’ business.”
Doug shook his head. He stood up and started toward the door.
“It’s you she wants,” Ted said behind him. “I can see it. In all the years I’ve known her, I’ve never seen her want any man. But she wants you. And I know how it goes with you, old buddy, how it’s always gone. It’s just a matter of time before you’ll be fucking her and to you, it won't mean shit.”
Doug’s spine stiffened. Turning back, he stabbed the air with his finger. “Ted, because we've been friends for so goddamn long, I’m gonna forget what I just heard, but if you ever say anything like that to me again, I’ll knock your friggin’ teeth out.”
He stamped out the door.
Chapter 20
After the exchange with Ted, Doug had difficulty keeping his mind on buying groceries, but he did it, then stopped by the Exxon station and filled his gas tank before leaving town. Country living required more organization than he had anticipated when he first decided to do it. For instance, a couple of times, he had found himself at home with barely enough gasoline to get back to town.
As he headed for home, he re-hashed what had just happened between him and Ted. He couldn't remember ever having had a quarrel with Ted Benson about anything. And for sure, never about a woman.
The county road that went past Alex’s driveway required a sharp right turn off the main highway. As he neared the turnoff, his thoughts veered to her. She would have a helluva hangover today. She would need food in her stomach, but did she have anything to eat in her house? He had bags of groceries in the back of his truck. The least he could do was feed her. As if the Silverado had a will of its own, before he knew it, he had made the turn onto the county road that would take him to her driveway.
When he reached it, he put the transmission in “Crawl” and let his truck creep up her rugged driveway. The slow progress gave him the time to wonder if she knew about the Forest Service land trade with Miller.
By the time he parked on the upper level in front of her house, she was waiting for him, hanging onto a shovel with one hand and a rubber hose spouting water with the other. She was wearing huge canvas gloves and mud-covered rubber waders that reached clear past her knees.
From the looks of the puddles and dirt piles, she had been digging something from the end of a drainpipe. Somehow, he knew she had taken on this physically demanding digging project to punish herself for last night.
He brought the pickup to a stop, but she made no effort to meet him or greet him. As he opened the door and slid out, she looked at him with unsmiling eyes.
“Hi,” he said cheerily. “Thought I’d better come up and check on you.” She didn’t reply, so he pushed on. “What you need, lady, is a bigger pair of boots.”
She peeled off one glove and pushed what had to be a pair of two-hundred-dollar sunglasses onto the top of her head. “Don’t tell me what I need.”
He guessed a friendly reception was too much to expect. After last night, today she might feel cornered and embarrassed.
He walked to the back of the truck, pulled a jug of cold milk from one of the sacks and opened it. “I like those sunglasses with the boots. A real fashion statement.” He unsealed the milk and offered her the jug, letting a twinkle steal into his eyes. Where’d you get ’em, Rodeo Drive?”
She stared at the milk for a few beats, then re-covered her eyes with the sunglasses. Nope, not in a joking mood today. But she did reach for the milk, almost greedily, and took a huge swallow.
“For somebody who doesn't drink, you sure were making up for lost time last night.” He took the shovel from her hand. “Let me do this. You must feel awful.” Before plowing the shovel into the pile of mud that plugged the drain, he nodded toward the water hose. He wouldn’t put it past her to spray him when his back was turned. “Why don’t you turn that water off?”
She handed the milk jug back to him, then clumped toward the faucet mounted on the side of the deck and shut off the water. He felt more at ease.
He returned the lid to the milk and placed the milk inside his pickup, then set about digging the mud from the end of the drain. “Looks like you drank those guys under the table.” She crossed her arms and watched him dig. “Poor old Pete couldn’t make it in to work today.”
She made a sarcastic snort and pushed back a golden sheaf of hair. Her hand trembled, he noticed. She had to be glad he had taken this digging chore away from her though she would never admit it.
The back deck rail was roughly head high. She propped an arm on the rail and leaned her forehead against it. “I seem to be constantly thanking you for something. Now, I suppose I should thank you for bringing me home. Everyone else just left me. I’d probably have killed myself or someone else if I’d driven.”
“You’re welcome. In truth, it was my pleasure.”
She glared at him. “Do you have a reason for being here?”
He had freed the drain pipe. He stuck the shovel into a pile of mud and chuckled. “I know a few hangover remedies. I’ll trade you one for picking up where we left off last night when Butch showed up.”
“As usual, I don’t know what you're talking about.” She flung back her messy hair in a gesture of defiance.
“I believe you do.” He moved to her side and rinsed mud from his hands under the faucet. “I know you’d had a few, but you weren’t passed out. You expect me to believe you don’t remember telling me you’re horny?”
Unflinching blue eyes fixed on his. “I did no such thing.”
“Yes, you did. Not in those exact words, but you said it. What’s more, I believe you meant it. Now that you’re as sober as I am, don’t you have the guts to do what you really want to? I say let’s go for it. I’ve got nothing but time and you look like you need to lie down anyway.”
She scowled, blushed from the neck up and appeared to be studying a pattern of rocks on the ground. “People say and do things they don't mean when they drink too much.”
“Maybe. But they also sometimes lose their inhibitions and say and do what they really want to.”
“This is silly.” She spun on her heel and headed for the deck steps.
Reflexively, he grabbed her forearm and brought her around to face him. “I’m trying to be friends with you, dammit, but you're the rudest person I've ever met.”
She squared her shoulders and hoisted her chin. “How many times do I have to say it? I’ve got all the friends I need. But even if I didn’t, this doesn’t strike me as a friendly conversation.”
“You know what your problem is? You’re a snob. And you're a coward. You’re scared to death you might come down to earth and do something normal and like it.”
She attempted to jerk her arm away, but he held on firmly. She kept her captured arm rigid, her hand in a tight fist. Her jaw clenched, her eyes shot sparks. “Let. Me. Go.”
“What if I don’t? You gonna shoot me?”
She tugged her arm against his strength. He cupped her nape with his free hand, hauled her to meet his mouth and crushed his lips to hers.
The warmth and sweetness of her mouth gentled him and maybe her, too. Her lips parted and let his tongue slip int
o her mouth. Her tongue slid along his. Lust coiled and ached in his groin. He moved his hand down, clutched her ass and pulled her against him, pressing her against the swelling in his shorts. When he had to breathe, he tore his mouth away and heaved for air. She, too, was breathless.
“You’d better be careful,” he said hoarsely. “No woman kisses like that who wants it to end there.”
Her lower lip trembled. A torrent of emotions showed in her eyes—anger, fear, passion. He was positive he saw passion. “About that hangover,” he said. “I might not be able to cure it, but I guaran-damn-tee you I can make you forget it. What do you like, Alex? Hard and fast? Slow and easy? My fingers, my tongue? Just say the word.”
Her face flushed. Her wrist squirmed in his grip. She pushed hard against his chest with her free hand. She was no match for his strength, but reason and sanity came back to him and he released her.
She stood there rubbing her wrist, her gaze locked on his. “Damn you,” she said in a throaty whisper. “Stay away from me, you...you rapist. Just get the hell off my property. Right now.”
He backed away, more unsettled than he had been in a hulluva long time. A few seconds later, his breathing returned to normal. “You’re a handful, Alex McGregor. You’re a handful.”
“And you’re as much an arrogant brute as someone else I know. Maybe you’d like to black my other eye.”
Anger shot through his system. “You know better than that.”
“What I know is your reputation. Just because I said something I shouldn’t have, don’t think I’m going to be another one of your bedroom statistics. I mean it. Leave me alone.” She marched toward the deck stairs, the rubber waders chuffing and her perfect ass twitching in tight jeans.
“And what statistics are those?” he said to her back, unable to leave it alone and walk away. “You think I’m making marks on the wall by my bed?”
She clumped up the stairs. “Nothing you do would surprise me.”
Crushing frustration seized him. “Lady, if fucking you was all I wanted, I could have done it last night.”
She stopped and turned back, a little cat smile on her lips. “Then why didn’t you, Don Juan?”
“I don’t know why I didn’t. Maybe because I had more respect for you than that. What I do know is this. It’s gonna happen between us, Alex. And you’re gonna love it as much as I will.”
“In your dreams.” She whirled and continued her trek up the stairs.
“I heard something you might want to know, something that might be important to you.”
A few more steps. “The only important thing you could tell me is that you’re leaving town.”
“Yeah? Well how about this? Roads. Old military roads. But screw it. You’re so goddamn smart, you can figure it out for yourself. When it’s too damn late.” He turned and stalked toward his truck.
Her voice came from behind him. “All right, Mr. Hawkins. You have my attention. What about roads?”
He turned back and looked up at her. She stood at the top of the deck steps like some damn queen. “Across your land. And a screwed-up survey and a land trade by the Forest Service. Get your lawyer to check it out.”
“Wh—What do you mean, land trade?”
“A hundred and twenty of Miller’s acres in exchange for Old Ridge Road.”
“How do you know? Who told you that?”
“A reliable source.” Angrier than he had been in a long time, he yanked open the Silverado’s door, climbed behind steering wheel and fired the engine, then stuck his head out the window. “Don’t call me Mr. Hawkins, babe. Last night, we talked about fucking. That makes us first-name buds.”
He willed himself to calm as he turned his truck around in her driveway. He began the rocky descent, watching her in his rearview mirror. Christ, that hadn’t gone at all the way he had planned. As usual, he was amazed at what a gutsy, hardheaded broad she was. She didn’t give an inch. He could see how, even with the odds stacked against her, Godzilla might come out the loser in his fight with her.
The feel and the scent of her in close contact hung in his mind. If last night’s episode hadn't erased the idea of seeking the company of some more ordinary woman, today’s encounter had killed it forever. There could be no other woman. For some damn reason, she had him by the heart and balls and he seemed to be unable to escape.
He stiffened his legs and rearranged his pants. She was still standing on the stairs when he lost sight of her.
He reached the highway and the choice of a left turn that would take him to town or a right turn that would take him home. He thought of his commitment to Bob Culpeper, which made him think of Cindy Evans and Kenny Miller. He glanced at his watch. The best time to talk to Cindy in the Rusty Spur was a weekday afternoon when business was slow. The safest meeting place was the bar, because he had no intention of getting trapped with her somewhere private.
****
Alex refused to move until his pickup left her sight. Only when the rear of the vehicle sank below a rise in the road did she collect herself. She clomped to her gardening shed at the back of the house and peeled off her rubber boots. Then she padded barefoot to the kitchen. With trembling hands and perspiring brow, she filled a glass with ice cubes and reached into the refrigerator for a Diet Coke. Then she concentrated on not allowing the liquid to boil out of the glass as she poured it over the ice. Just a small exercise of will power.
She felt funny between her legs. Tingly and swollen and wet. Muscles up inside her flexed and made her shudder. Never in her life had she been kissed like that. Good Lord. He had put his tongue into her mouth and she had sucked on it. What was worse, she had enjoyed it. Her heart beat faster just thinking of it.
He was right. A part of her hadn’t wanted things to end there. God, what had she started?
She carried her drink to the sofa and sank to the soft leather. Her head throbbed with every heartbeat. She leaned back, closed her eyes and pressed the cold glass to her temple, willing her thoughts to what was important. Old military roads. Had Kenny discovered the old wagon trail, which she believed was an extension of Old Ridge Road? And if so, did he intend to claim the right to use it? And what could he be trading to the government?
She couldn’t concentrate on Kenny and the old road because her mind kept drifting back to Doug and his kiss. Was something going to happen between them like he said? Of course not. Sex had ceased to be a part of her life years ago. Still, how would it feel, his naked body against hers?. How would his—she couldn’t make herself say the word—how would he feel, hard and swollen inside her? The sensation eluded her. Too many years had passed...
She sat up abruptly. Good Lord! Liquor had fried her brain. She had too much to do to waste a minute on such thoughts. She had to call Bob Culpepper and ask him what kind of land swap Kenny could be engineering with the Forest Service.
****
The cool, dark atmosphere inside the Rusty Spur belied the balmy day outside. Country-western twanged from the juke box sitting on the corner of the unlit stage across the room. Doug gazed toward the horseshoe bar. Cindy looked busy cleaning and glancing up at a soap opera playing on a TV that was parked at an angle on the end of the horseshoe bar’s back leg.
Doug approached the bar and she looked up and gave him a once-over. He would have sworn her eyes landed on his belt buckle. He took a seat on a tall stool, glad the high bar stretched between him and her. “Whatcha doing?”
She tossed her towel across her shoulder and planted a hand on her hip. Her ample endowments thrust against tiny buttons straining to hold a tight knit shirt together. “Cleaning. That tell you how bored I am?”
Doug glanced at the stainless steel bar deck and its reflections of soft overhead lighting. In his youth, he had been responsible for cleaning in his brother's tavern, so he knew keeping the stainless glowing called for some dedication.
She returned to wiping off water spots and fingerprints.“Where ya’ been? I ain’t seen you in a long time.”
The corners of her lips twisted into a smirky smile, she picked a plastic bottle off the backbar and squeezed a liberal helping of lotion that smelled like strawberries onto her hands. “Oh, yeah, I forgot. You’re the one that hauled the Queen of Swede Creek out of here. The drunk Queen of Swede Creek.”
Ignoring the dig, he pulled out his money clip and peeled off two dollar bills. “Draw me a Bud.”
She reached into the freezer and pulled out a frosted glass, filled it from an oak tap, then bent forward in an exaggerated gesture and placed the glass in front of him. Mammary flesh threatened to spill from her shirt’s v-neck all over the bartop. “That was some black eye Kenny gave her. Everybody in town’s talking about it.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
She checked her nails, then moved to the beer cooler. Out came a can of Coors Light. She brought it back to the bar deck, popped the top and gave him a grin that could only be labeled a leer. “Gonna buy me a beer?”
Cheap enough, Doug thought. He could see she was relaxed, maybe had already had a couple. “Sure.” He dug for his money clip again and added two more dollars to the bar top.
“Long as somebody pays for it, the owner don’t care.” She picked up the towel and wiped away the wet ring left by the beer can. The slope of her breasts plumped with her arm movements.
“So what’s everybody in town saying?” he asked, hoping to bring her focus back to Miller and Alex.
She shrugged. “Surprised something didn’t happen before.”
“You know these people pretty well, don’t you? Miller? Alex? Charles McGregor?”
“Yeah, I know ’em. Me and Charlie—well, it wasn’t any secret about me and Charlie.” She took a long pull from her beer.
“I was told Miller’s a friend of your family’s.”
The Love of a Stranger Page 22