by Tara Janzen
Doug? The mechanical disaster of the free world? Hal’s jaw went slack. What was going on here? Where was the lady who’d run him ragged for a month?
“You know, Stevie,” he continued in a more intimate tone, “I’ve really missed you.”
Hal’s control snapped. “Wait a minute, cowboy,” his tone gave the term a derogatory slant. “I don’t know who in the—”
“Who’s this guy?” Kip asked Stevie.
“He’s—” she started, but Hal didn’t give her a chance.
“I’m the guy who’s picking up all the pieces you left: I tune the Mustang; I fix the beer coolers when they break; I keep the suppliers off Stevie’s back.” Hal slowly leaned forward, resting both hands on the bar and leveling a steely-eyed glare at the younger man. “And I’m the guy she comes home to every night. Got it?”
Kip nodded. “Got it.”
“Good.” At least that’s what he said, but somehow he got the feeling he hadn’t made that much of an impression on her ex-husband. The man certainly didn’t look worried.
“You must be Halsey Morgan,” he said, pushing his Stetson farther back on his head. “I heard you were taking good care of Stevie. Kong says he hasn’t been right in the head since you hit him.”
“I only hit him once,” Hal said, trying another thinly veiled threat.
“Must have been a helluva punch.” The kid grinned.
Hal gave up. Kip Brown was so laid-back, it was no wonder why nobody hated him. “Do you want a beer?” he asked carefully, a part of him still expecting a show of spirit.
“Please.”
“That’s a buck seventy-five,” Stevie said calmly.
Hal shot her a surprised glance. She was serious. She hadn’t budged from her resting place on the bar, but her mouth had a definite no-nonsense set and her eyes were glacial gray. Between them they probably gave away ten drinks a night—but not to Kip Brown, not even a lousy glass of draft. His own spirits picked up considerably.
“Ah, Stevie. It’s just a beer,” Kip said.
“To you it’s just a beer. To me it’s a buck seventy-five of product. I can’t have you stealing me blind on both ends, Kip. I’ll never make it.” Her voice remained mellow, almost to the point of boredom, and Hal realized he was witnessing a scene the two of them had played many times before.
“Can we talk about this in the back room?” Kip asked, and Hal noted the first note of uncertainty in the other man’s manner.
“Sure.” Stevie shrugged and slid off the stool.
With a grin and tip of his hat, Kip followed her around the end of the bar. Hal was okay with the turn of events, until out of the corner of his eye he caught the gentle pat of the cowboy’s hand on Stevie’s rear end.
Instant dislike welled up in his chest. The kid was smooth, damn smooth. If he got any smoother, he was going to be peeling his butt off the boardwalk.
Stevie moseyed over to her office chair and plopped herself down. Kip leaned his hip against the desk, his glance straying to the open ledger.
“I’m in trouble.”
“So what else is new?”
“I mean really in trouble this time, Stevie.” He pushed off the desk and began pacing the room. Not once did he meet her gaze. “I have to have my cash now. It’s not as if you don’t owe me. The divorce laid it out real clear. We had ten grand in this place—five belongs to me. You’ve paid me one—that leaves four.”
“I can add,” she said dryly. But that doesn’t mean I’ve got it. Besides, the deal says installments of five hundred. Not four grand flat out.”
“I gave you the car.”
“I’m still paying on it.”
“I gave you the house.”
“I’m still paying on it too.”
“Brenda’s pregnant.”
“What?”
“She’s pregnant, Stevie. I’m going to be a father.” He stopped halfway across the office and looked up at her from under the brim of his hat, a sheepish grin curving his mouth.
She gasped. “A father? You?” Suddenly she was wide-awake.
“Pretty wild, huh?”
“Unbelievable,” she agreed breathlessly. “You’re going to marry her, aren’t you?”
“Next week. I was going to invite you, but Brenda didn’t think it was a good idea.”
“Well, thank God one of you is thinking!” Stevie choked back her shock.
Her tactlessness didn’t go unnoticed, and slowly the smile faded from his mouth. “You never thought that much of me, did you, Stevie?”
“Kip, I—I loved you,” she stammered, completely taken aback by his out-of-character statement. Talking about anything personal from down deep had never been their forte. “I still care about you.”
“Yeah, the way you care about Doug and your mom, or Nola, but not the way you need to care about a husband. You never needed me, period.” His voice lowered to a rough edge. “It took me a long time to figure that out, Stevie.”
“I needed you,” she said a bit more defensively, thoroughly confused by his new approach. “We started this business, didn’t we?”
“You’ve missed the point, sweetheart,” he said. “I’m talking about love and respect, and as usual you’re talking about bottom lines and cash on the barrel. I didn’t make much of a business partner for you either, did I?”
For a man whom she’d known most of her life, Kip was making her strangely uneasy. They were on the verge of some very deep truths, something they’d never come close to in their marriage. Stevie didn’t see a need to dredge up the past now. “I couldn’t have done it on my own.”
“Wouldn’t have done it is more likely.”
“Well, maybe you’re right there,” she reluctantly conceded. “I can think of a hundred other things I’d rather do every day besides come down here and pour beer.”
“And I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do.”
He was heading somewhere with this conversation; Stevie just knew it. “What are you getting at?”
He took his time in answering, settling himself on an empty case and resting his arm on the desk top. When he was situated, he looked her straight in the eye. “I want the Trail back. For once in my life I’ve got something worth fighting for—my family. I want to do right by them, Stevie. I don’t want my kid growing up with just a bartender for a father. For four grand I can buy my way into the bar where I work in Steamboat, but they’re only talking five percent of the business. I’d rather have my own place, this place. I know I can make a good living from this bar.”
Stevie slumped back in her chair with a sense of wonderment and delight. Against all odds Kip ‘TNT’ Brown finally had grown up. “Where will you get the money to buy me out?”
“Brenda.” When Stevie stared quizzically at him, he added quickly, “She has a trust fund and she wants a clean break. Six thousand dollars, Stevie. Think what you can do with it.”
What were they doing back there? Hal wondered for the thousandth time. He tried to resist checking the clock again, but his eyes lifted upward anyway. Forty minutes. He’d had her back there for forty minutes. When he thought about all the things he could have done with her in forty minutes, he felt a little queasy. She was putty in that back room. With you, not her ex-husband.
Hal took a deep calming breath, which didn’t calm him in the least. One way or the other, Stevie Lee was going to be the death of him.
“Hal? I think you gave me the wrong drink,” a man quietly suggested, pushing his glass over the bar.
“What did you order, Ned?”
“Gin and tonic.”
Hal took a sip and set the glass down. “This is a Scotch and soda,” he explained absently, and went back to polishing the finish off the cash register. What were they doing back there?
Ned started to say something, then changed his mind and wandered away with the drink.
“Promise me you’ll think about it and get back to me?” Kip asked, walking Stevie back through the hallway with his arm a
round her shoulders.
“I promise.” She smiled up at him. “I’m very happy for you.”
“Thanks. You know, there’s . . . uh . . . something else I came here to say tonight.” He stopped just short of the bar and turned her in his arms. With visible effort, his dark brown eyes lifted to meet hers. “I always hated myself for running around on you, Stevie. I was serious when I said it took me a long time to figure out why I did it. I needed somebody to need me, to depend on me. You never did, and I can’t blame you for that. I wasn’t all that dependable back then.”
“You weren’t all that bad either. It takes two to make a marriage, and two to break one.” A month ago Stevie would have choked on the words she spoke as truth tonight.
“That’s mighty generous of you, ma’am,” he said, giving her a big hug. With his arms around her and his mouth close to her ear, he whispered, “You’re a good lady, Stevie, a strong lady. No regrets?”
“No regrets.”
He squeezed her tightly for a long moment, then set her away. “If I want to get out of here with my face in one piece, I better leave now.” He nodded toward the bar and the blond adventurer watching them with grim, steely blue eyes. “I’ve heard a lot about that guy. I think you may have met your match this time.”
“I know I have,” she admitted with a grin.
“Halsey. Nice meeting you.” He tipped his hat on the way out, keeping well to the end of the bar.
Stevie watched him leave with a new lightness in her heart. Her gaze roamed over the bar, and for the first time she saw the place as an asset instead of a liability. With the mere scrawl of her signature, she could walk away with six thousand dollars. It had been Kip’s dream, his talent that had breathed life into Trail’s End. Only Hal’s presence this summer had enabled her to even come close to running in the black.
As if on cue, her gaze met his. His eyes were still stormy behind the cool facade of his rugged face. When his hair swept back from his face, it wasn’t because a stylist had spent hours getting it just so. No distinguishing label of any kind graced his shirt pockets. The wear on his jeans had been hard won, and his boots were made for walking—miles and years of it, up mountains, through rivers, across deserts.
Days in the sun and nights in the wild had lent a hardness to his body and put those wonderful feathery lines at the corners of his eyes. She doubted if his hair would ever find its natural color, or if his skin would ever lose its special golden luster. Freedom, he’d called his sailboat. He was the essence of freedom. Tonight, Kip had handed her her own freedom on a silver platter.
Hal forced himself to hold his painfully casual stance leaning against the low shelf behind the bar. Sometimes no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t tell what was going on in her mind. With time he hoped to figure her out completely, but the look of excitement Kip’s visit had left in her eyes made him wonder if he’d get the chance.
“Good-looking kid,” he said for starters.
“Takes after his mother.”
“Dresses sharp,” he lied, not really liking the put-together look but curious about what Stevie liked.
“If you like drugstore cowboys.” She shrugged. “I never did figure out how he afforded such expensive clothes. I guess it’s a matter of priorities. Mine were always on paying the bills.”
“Yeah, I’m not much of a clotheshorse myself.” The beginnings of a smile twitched a corner of his mouth.
“I noticed. But then,”—one winged brow lifted suggestively—“it’s not exactly your clothes I’m interested in.”
“Must be my money.”
“Not exactly.”
“My mind?” He pushed off the shelf and started walking toward her.
“Oh, you’ve got a fine mind, Mr. Halsey Morgan,” she said with a sly smile, taking a step backward and leading him into the hall. “But I was thinking of something a little more . . . physical.”
“Are you making a pass at me?” He followed her every move, slowly and surely closing the distance between them.
“For all practical purposes, yes.”
His arms went around her the instant they touched, and he lowered his head to the curve of her shoulder. “I love you, Stevie Lee. I truly do. More than I’ve ever loved anyone else in my life.”
The tender moves of his mouth on her neck sent a cascade of feelings down her body, turning her soft and warm inside. “Let’s close this pop stand and go home together,” she whispered, turning her lips to his ear.
“Shut down early?” Surprise registered in his husky voice. “I know we don’t have much of a crowd, but I’m sure I can squeeze another fifty bucks out of them.” What was he saying? He mentally kicked himself.
“Not tonight, Hal. I need you.” She paused for a second as the reality of what she’d said hit home. Kip had been right; she’d never needed him. But this man, the one she held so dearly in her arms, she needed him the way the earth needs the sun.
Ten
Midmorning shadows hovered in the corners of Stevie’s bedroom loft, turning the light a soft bluish-gray. Never an early riser, she considered the lack of an east-facing window a blessing. Hal, on the other hand, got up with the sun whether he could see it or not, no matter how late he’d stayed up the night before. Worse, he always was cheerful and full of energy the minute he opened his eyes.
Even through the protection of the pillow jammed around her head, Stevie heard him rattling around downstairs in the kitchen, singing to the radio and, more than likely, making his own brand of claptrap. Behind his back she’d taken to dumping a couple of heaping teaspoons of instant coffee into his lighthearted brew. She needed coffee with a power punch to start her system in the morning.
“Coffee’s ready!” he hollered up from the bottom of the stairs.
“Hah,” she whispered doubtfully, snuggling deeper into the bed.
“Come on, lady, get it in gear. I know you’re awake up there, and you’ve got exactly . . .” he paused, and Stevie groaned, knowing what to expect next—“fifty-three minutes and forty-two seconds. Forty-one. Forty. Thirty-nine.”
“All right, already,” she said softly, hanging one leg over the bed. At his count of twenty-two, she hung the other leg over. The man was relentless; he never gave up on her, and he always got what he wanted.
At ten seconds and counting, she decided to give him a break and called down, “I’m up. I’m up.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“Okay, Attila,” she muttered under her breath, thrashing around in the covers until they released her. On leaden feet, she dragged herself to the top of the stairs. Grouchy, rumpled, and indignant, she peered down at him. “Satisfied?”
“Not when you look like that,” he said, his gaze taking a leisurely tour up the creamy length of her legs to the high-cut teddy wrapping her body in soft cotton and lace. Loose, white ribbons trailed down the front of the lingerie, tangling up in the unbound strands of her hair. Until he’d met Stevie, he hadn’t known such teasing concoctions existed, but with her he was making up for lost time. She had every color and style imaginable, and she wore them all with a sizzling, unconscious sensuality. No wonder she didn’t have anything but jeans, T-shirts, and sweaters to wear over them. The lady must have spent a fortune on her lingerie, and by his estimation she’d spent it wisely. Watching her, Hal felt the heat building in his loins. He felt every breath she took, every rise and fall of her breasts shoot right through him, and he started up the stairs.
The predatory gleam in his eyes did more to wake Stevie up than any amount of verbal coercion. A very feminine tremor of apprehension wound its way into her anticipation, adding a sharp edge to the feelings tumbling through her body.
“Hal”—she edged away from the stairs, even as a soft smile curved her lips—“I don’t think we have time for what you’re thinking.”
“Believe me, Stevie, what I’ve got in mind isn’t going to take long.” He kept on coming, one step at a time, an equally soft smile playing
with the corners of his mouth. “You’ll be surprised.”
“Changing your style?” she inquired with a lift of one silky eyebrow.
“Just keeping you guessing.” Two steps below her, he slid his arm around her thigh and still kept coming, lifting her onto his shoulder.
“Hal!” she said with a gasp, and gasped again as his open mouth traced the edge of her teddy over the curve of her hip. His wet, gnawing kisses never stopped. They traveled up her body as he lowered her to the bed. They teased the tops of her breasts and the valley between. His fingers unlaced her ribbons, inch by inch, slipping the lingerie from her body. And when he had her breathless and bare beneath him, he slid out of his jeans and into her.
The gentle force of him caught at her desire, carrying her instantly into a higher plane of sensation. Hal’s head dropped to the curve of her neck as her tightening response drew a low groan from deep in his throat.
“Ah yes, Stevie, yes.” His mouth came down hard on hers, devouring the sweet depths in an act of passion to match the rhythm of their bodies.
A whirlwind of the purest physical pleasure spiraled up from their joining, pushing her over the brink into a mindless realm where the only thing she felt was the man on top of her, around her, inside of her.
Long, sweet moments later, he lifted his head and rubbed his nose down the side of hers. “I think we set a new record,” he whispered tenderly, kissing the side of her mouth.
Stevie’s lashes fluttered open, her body still pulsing with the aftermath of climax. “Mmm,” she agreed with her last ounce of energy, stretching languorously beneath him.
“I’ll race you to the shower.”
“You go ahead without me,” she murmured, her eyes closing again for the drift back into sleep.
It was a short drift. “No way, lady”—he rolled her over on top of him—“we’re up for good.”
“Five minutes,” she pleaded.
“I already gave you ten.” A teasing grin spread across his face.
He had her there, and with reluctance apparent in every move, she forced herself to her feet. “Okay, but I get the shower.”