by Tina Leonard
“Oh.” Mimi nodded and glanced down at the contract.
The men went back to watching the mute TV; Tex could feel the back of his neck burn red. Was it wrong to do a favor for one’s friends, he asked himself? He looked after Mimi. He looked after Cissy. It was all the same.
“Well, there’s a big fat loophole right here on page one,” Mimi said, grabbing his attention. “I don’t know if you noticed or not, but it says right here on page one that if Cissy marries, she’s out of a job.”
“Huh?” Tex said. “She was married when she was hired by Marvella, though she didn’t tell.”
“And probably that’s why she didn’t care about the proviso being in here,” Mimi said. “Is she still married?”
“No,” Tex said, his head swimming. “You mean, all she has to do to null and void this sucker is say I do?”
“I think so. It says right here that her employment terminates if she becomes married, pregnant or physically challenged. I think that decodes to mean ugly.” Mimi laughed. “Marvella is not an equal opportunity employer. I think that would get her in trouble with the EEOC.”
Mason and Tex looked at each other.
“Hell, Tex,” Mason said, “all you have to do to save Cissy is marry her, get her pregnant or fatten her up and cut a Mohawk out of that platinum hair. Talk her into a nose ring.”
“She could start eating onions so her breath is always bad, and she could wear black fingernail polish,” Mimi suggested, feeding off of Mason.
“She could become a man,” Mason said slyly.
Mimi and Mason went off into the giggles of their days before everything had gone wrong, but Tex was too busy pondering to care.
Marriage. Pregnancy. Or a midlife crisis complete with Oprah and buckets of ice cream and maybe sprouting armpit hair.
No, Cissy was too fastidious to let herself go. And she had nine kids, so that let out the pregnancy route.
That left one option, and it was so numbing and incredible that he almost couldn’t even consider it.
On the other hand, it made a strange sort of sense.
CISSY ENDURED THE HATEFUL looks as she walked into the dining room of the Never Lonely Cut-n-Gurls. Cissy was Enemy number 1—but maybe in her heart she wanted to be.
She had wanted Tex to win. And she’d deliberately talked Marvella out of buying him at the raffle. After having a long heart-to-heart talk with herself, she knew that it was time for her to face facts. And it also meant bucking up. No more praying for a way out. There was about a year left on her contract, not a lifetime.
“Cissy,” Marvella said, “you’re looking simply horrible today, dear.”
The stylists laughed.
“Are we pining for something? Someone?” Marvella asked.
“No.” Cissy put her plate down on the table. “You can all resume eating,” she said to her sisters. “Although my gran always said that loose lips sink ships, so you all might want to tighten up on the starboard sides. And the port sides.”
Okay, so now open battle had been declared.
“Witch!” someone whispered under her breath so that Cissy could hear.
“Maybe,” she replied calmly. “But you look like you’ve already had the evil eye liberally applied to you, so I’ll pass you over today.”
Marvella thumped her fork down, glaring at Cissy. “Why did you do it?”
“I didn’t know Tex would win. No one has stayed on Bloodthirsty before.”
“You know how I feel about my sister,” Marvella stated.
Cissy thought about how she’d give everything she owned to have her brother and two sisters back. “And I think that’s a shame. Maybe you should make up. Forgive her. Life is short, Marvella.”
So many women at the table sucked in their breaths Cissy feared she was going to have to perform the Heimlich on someone. “Easy, girls,” she said, “chew before you choke.”
Marvella seemed to have turned into a frozen sculpture at the head of the table. “After everything I’ve done for you,” she said. “Those ratty kids of yours would have had nothing without me. How did you think you were going to feed them? Did you think Granny was going to be able to lift her share of the load? Did you dream that looking like an expensive hooker was going to land you a job in some secretary’s office?”
“Marvella, I am sorry that you’re upset,” Cissy said, “but it’s a charity rodeo. It’s not a windfall inheritance. It’s not life and death. You have a problem with anger management, and frankly, it’s not your best asset.”
The table went completely silent as Marvella and Cissy stared each other down like dueling foes.
“I will never terminate your contract,” Marvella promised her with a voice of steel. “I don’t care what happens to those brats or that old woman you call Gran. And if she should croak while you’re in my employ, you will not be attending her funeral.”
“You can’t do that. It’s not within your rights as an employer,” Cissy said.
“First of all, read your contract with a fine eye, honey. I own you. And for the amount of money I sent to your family, you should be grateful. But you’re not…and you know, I’ve just decided you’re going to have to take a major pay cut.” She smiled icily at Cissy. “Bad economy, you know. Downsizing. Scaling back. And here’s a fresh twist,” she said, glancing around the table, “I’ll split your pay cut between the first three women who make your life so miserable that you apologize to me.”
Cissy stared blankly at her employer. “You’re a bitch.”
“Well, that really hurts my feelings.” Marvella smiled and rose from her chair like a queen. “Good night, ladies. Have at it.” She gestured regally to Cissy and left the dining room.
The stylists turned their gazes to Cissy, looking like so many hungry cats.
Chapter Nine
Cissy had found her spine, and all in all, she felt better about her situation. At least until she opened her bedroom door and realized someone was in her room.
“Cissy!” Tex said quietly, but loud enough to get her attention. “It’s only me.”
Sighing with relief, she went inside and locked the door behind her. “Have you ever thought about calling?”
“Have you ever considered not being so jumpy?”
“No. Marvella’s put a bounty on me, and I thought one of the stylists was trying to collect.” She shrugged at Tex. “It’s just drama.”
He commandeered the chair in front of the window and looked out. “Bad thing, drama.”
“It’s okay. I’ll survive it.” She wasn’t so sure, but it didn’t matter anymore. She had just about given up hope of ever escaping Marvella’s endless hatred.
“I’d offer to stay and protect you,” Tex said.
“That’s heroic. But I’m not your problem.”
“Well, you sort of are. You’ve become my problem, anyway, because we keep rescuing each other and that creates ties and, you know, it’s sort of there between us.”
She looked at him. “What’s between us?”
“Who knows?” He tipped the chair and grinned at her. “Something usually reserved for soap operas, probably. What do you say we find out?”
“What are you talking about?” He looked way too sexy shoved back in that chair. Right now, she was almost depressed enough to tell him that she needed his lips to kiss away the fear and desolation building inside her.
“Mimi found a clause in your contract we think we can use,” Tex said. “But sit in my lap while you try it on because I have to whisper it to you.”
She glared at him, tempted and determined not to show it. “I don’t think so.”
“Didn’t you say that your stylist pals have incentive to do you harm?”
She nodded.
“Well, I’m watching the street here, and they’re lining up out there, babe.”
She flew to the window.
“Looks to me like they’re planning to call attention to you.”
Three stylists held up signs that
she could read. “Cissy is a Sissy,” she said. “Cissy Gives Bad Kissy. Cissy Takes a Pi—”
“That one refers to the fact that you’re really a man in drag,” Tex interrupted. “No further clarification needed.”
She gasped. “How dare they?”
“You said—”
“I know what I said! But I didn’t think they’d take it into the town!”
He sat her in his lap, and she went without protesting. “Why would you imagine Marvella’s girls wouldn’t be creative?”
“I don’t know. I was thinking garden snakes and things. That’s what they did before.”
“Well, the ante is obviously upped.”
“Back to the clause you want me to try on,” Cissy said, a bit desperately.
He grinned. “That’s my brave girl. Now, listen carefully, because the choice you make will affect your future. Really.”
She couldn’t tell if he was serious. Outside, she could hear the chanting stylists. “Tex, if you truly have a way to rescue me, now’s the time to hit me with it.”
“Wish granted,” he said cheerfully. “You need to be ugly.”
Her mouth opened helplessly.
“Well, now, if that’s not a sight for sore eyes.” Tex looked inside her mouth. “Very pink tongue. Very sexy.”
She snapped her mouth shut before saying, “You mean like stop washing my hair? Don’t brush my teeth?”
“You have to be physically challenged. Yeah, that probably fits. It’s shallow to say that you should stop at going bald, because I know very attractive bald women. And major weight gain won’t help much, either, if you’ve been looking at the recent lingerie shows for booty-full ladies. A lot of men find meat instead of bones very attractive. I’d opt for all of the above and see if you can hit any of Marvella’s deal-breakers.”
“Let me see if I understand you. You want me to gain a hell of a lot of weight, shave my hair, oil my head and grow grunge on my teeth.”
“That would definitely put a crimp in my get-along,” he said, too cheerfully for her temper.
“Do you have a plan B?” she demanded. “Because I’m not certain I can meet all of those criteria. Why should I give myself a cavity over a crazy woman?”
“Well, you probably shouldn’t. Okay, plan B involves pregnancy.”
She wanted to slap him. “You’re toying with a situation that is crucial to me.”
“I’m being crucial! Didn’t you read your contract?”
“Actually, yes. And I never saw anything about being physically challenged or pregnant. I wouldn’t have signed that.”
Tex narrowed his gaze on her. “When you gave me the contract, you didn’t refresh your memory by glancing over it?”
“No. I was in a huge hurry to get out of her office before I got caught.”
“Is there any way your signature could have been forged?”
She shrugged. “At this point, what difference would that make? I can’t prove that’s not my contract.”
“True. So we’re back to getting you pregnant.”
“Oh, no, we’re not,” Cissy said. “I can’t feed the many mouths I have now.”
“So true.”
She sighed, wishing he hadn’t gotten her all excited about nothing. “Tex, is it too much to hope that you have a plan C? And that it’s a real plan?”
“There is a plan C,” he said, and she could tell he was very reluctant, “but the other two are much easier.”
“I think we’d best at least discuss the third option. The first two don’t exactly get my hopes up.”
“Marriage,” he said simply.
“Marriage?” she repeated. “I’ve been married. I didn’t enjoy it.”
“That reminds me. Did Marvella know you were? I mean, obviously, she didn’t.”
“I never mentioned it. When I came here, I didn’t know what had happened to my husband. One day, he was in his house, and then he was gone. And after a while, I called the police, and then I realized he was never coming back. Frankly, I thought it more likely that he’d found another woman. It never occurred to me, given our circumstances, that he might have been killed. Seemed more likely that he’d tired of our marriage of convenience.”
“Well, Marvella has no use for you if you’re married.”
“I have no use for being married.”
“But it gets you out of the contract,” he pointed out.
“Yes, but then I’m right back where I was before. I’d like my life to go forward. Not back into the pits.”
“I’m not suggesting you marry another gangster, Cissy.”
She looked at him, her gaze connecting with his as she realized he was finally being serious.
Tex took a deep breath. “I’m suggesting you marry me.”
The look on Cissy’s face was priceless. Thank God he hadn’t had too much invested in the offer, or he’d be devastated. She looked like she’d just as soon become high priestess of the snake species.
“Okay,” she said brightly. “So we’re back to me losing my toothbrush. Maybe I could go retro punk rock instead of totally bald. That might be even more effective—”
“No, all the men who love kink would be after you, and the girls would be jealous and try to copy you, and then this would become the Never Lonely Cut-n-Kinks, and it would be superdisturbing. Trust me.”
“It’s so sad that I’ve come to a place in my life where yet another man offers to marry me to bail me out.” She looked at him with soft eyes. “I suppose you don’t want to sleep with me again, either. That time in the barn was a one-off.”
“Now that you mention it—”
“I really don’t want another marriage of convenience, even though you’re a nice guy and cute and smell good and can ride bulls just for the hell of it. Do you know what I mean? There’s marriage, and then’s there’s marriage, and the next time I do it, I really, really want it to be for real.”
His Adam’s apple jumped in his throat. What could he say? Of course he wanted to sleep with her! He didn’t know what kind of weirdo her husband had been, but Tex recognized a superhot, asteroidal kind of woman when he saw one. They were as rare as comets, but this woman was Cissy’s Comet. He’d be happy to catch onto her tail and ride all around the galaxy. Right now, just from her sitting on his lap, he had a hard-on he was trying to camouflage.
But he couldn’t say that. Could he? It seemed ungentlemanly when he was supposed to be rescuing her. Yes, Cissy, I’ll marry you to get you out of your contract, and you’ll have sex with me because I’m an opportunistic pig.
“We could see what developed,” he said hopefully, trying to hedge.
She shook her head. “You’re awfully kind to bail me out. We’ve done that a lot for each other. But I really want true love. It’s the pits when the moving vans come and the utilities get shut off and your house goes back to the bank because you’re breaking off what shouldn’t have been in the first place.”
Tex drummed his fingers on the windowsill. “We could agree it would only be for a short time, but long enough so that Marvella realizes you’re safe from anything she might decide to do.”
“Another contract,” Cissy said softly. “Yet another deal. Do you know, Tex, I just don’t think I can go into another thing in my life that’s brokered up front.”
“Cissy, there’s no guarantee on happiness, and there’s no forever. I know what I’m talking about here. You’ve got reasons to consider my offer.” Outside, the evil stylist stepsisters had gone quiet. “They’re not going to give you peace for long.”
“I can handle it.”
“Do you really want to apologize to Marvella?” He thought he might as well illuminate the dark side of her situation.
“No, I don’t. The very thought makes me shudder.”
“Then be a kick-ass female with a trashy side,” he told her. “Let’s do the unexpected. She’s got you right where she wants you. A prisoner. And it only goes down from here, unless you get out.”
&n
bsp; She bowed her head before looking at him with those deep aquamarine eyes highlighted by the silver fall of hair. “Just what would you get out of this?”
Ah, the trap. She didn’t want another marriage of convenience; she didn’t want another “deal.” Check it out: she did want to be made love to. He wasn’t about to admit that marrying her would give him an instant bravo from his family. Goodbye Budus Interruptus, forever. Because nobody could look at this female and assume he wasn’t doing everything possible to keep her. Pulling out all the emotional stops, diving in way past the superficial Tex. And stay away from the rescue theme, he told himself, she’ll toss you out for that one, too, because she wants to do this on her own.
Not if I can help it, he thought.
“I get safety,” he said. “Safety from all the women who chase me. It does get irritating when females tirelessly chase a man.” He didn’t need to elaborate. He’d just been won by ten eager ladies—she could draw her own conclusions about his truthfulness. “And I get you,” he said diplomatically. “I think I’d like to have you around for, oh, three months or so.”
“As friends?” she asked.
“If you like,” he said gallantly, but the real answer was Hell, no!
“If I agree to this marriage, Tex, we’ll have to change that,” she said, her voice so hopeful it sent velvet thrills all over his skin. “I’d really like you to make love to me again. Not a rush-of-passion thing. I want one night under the stars.”
“Well, we’ll see,” he said magnanimously, not wanting to scare her half to death and not wanting to appear too eager. “Friends is fine, too,” he lied.
“I’d like this marriage to be real,” she said, her smile shy.
“Sure, sure,” he said, open to agreement. Where sex was concerned, he was going to be very easy.
She curled gentle fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, lightly stroking against his skin. “I won’t know much about lovemaking. You’ll have to show me.”
His eyes closed as he enjoyed her fingertips touching and feeling him. “You knew everything you needed to know when we were in the barn.”