The man must have been six foot and a half, if not taller. His hair was indeed long. It hung loose and free around his shoulders, an enviable chestnut color. He had just come from the bathhouse down the street. No one could appear that fresh and cool in this heat.
A tiny pang of jealousy lodged in my heart upon seeing him. To enjoy the freedom of wearing your hair down, not confined beneath a cap or nailed to the scalp with pins, must be heavenly.
I may be a woman of questionable virtue, but I wore my hair up during the day as any self-respecting woman did.
There was some commotion among the smaller, shiftier variety in the saloon with Luke’s arrival. I assumed they were nervous, and rightly so. It was rumored Luke Pierce was a master card player and an unrivaled marksman. He did not lose when he played, or if he did, nobody ever lived to tell about it.
“You come to the right place, sugar.” The hurdy-gurdy girl known as Little Sally extricated herself from the arms of a local and sauntered in his direction, her two-bit smile as wide as it could get without revealing her missing front tooth.
The harlot. When she was not turning tricks, she was unconscious in the opium shack on the edge of town. She refused help of any kind with her addiction, content to languish in a hazy stupor.
Luke ignored her, giving her a wide berth as he strode up to the counter. Each footstep pounded against the pine boards of the pockmarked floor, jarring through the soles of my satin-heeled slippers.
Lord, he was a huge bear of a man, complete with a brown wool suit. It stretched across his body, straining at the seams to cover his endowed frame. The suit makers surely grinned with glee when Luke paid them a visit; all the material required to cover the man them a visit; all the material required to cover the man boggled the mind.
I was behind the bar, pouring the usual rotgut into clean glasses, when his eyes fell on me. They were light brown, a rich whiskey color. The expensive kind, not the watered-down swill we served here.
He smiled, and the ends of his heavy mustache lifted, easing the look of criminal intent on his lined face.
If I did not know better, I would have said he was working with Bill Cody out of Wyoming. He had that dangerous, unpredictable showmanship air about him.
But Luke Pierce was a cattleman, a baron to rival all Texas cattle barons. I heard tell his herd stretched farther than the eye could see, and as I discovered upon arrival in town, the naked eye could see for miles.
He was not handsome in the refined, upper-class sense, although his clothes were as rich as any gentleman’s. It was his devil-may-care attitude that lit him from inside.
I have to admit I was most curious about Luke Pierce.
“And who are you?” His voice was belly deep and sounded ill-used. A cigar smoker, maybe. Or perhaps all the smoky-backroom high-stakes poker games men of his station liked to play had worn his voice.
I looked down the bar to see Thomas Blevins, the owner of the booze house, give me a nod. I knew the routine without him telling me. Rich customer. Give ’em whatever he wanted.
That was usually my motto too, but I was more discriminating with my customers than Blevins. I did not play cute with every cowboy who walked through the door.
Luke was still waiting for my answer when I turned back. “Prudence,” I said at last, knowing where this conversation would lead, but curious despite myself.
It elicited a giant knee-slapping laugh from the bear of a man.
A prostitute named Prudence was often a source of hilarity around here.
The flecks of yellow in his eyes sparked with amusement. “Prudence! You’re the best-looking thing I’ve seen all day. Come and have a drink with me.”
He slapped a large bill on the bar and shoved it in my direction.
Yup. Just as I expected. Why should this man be any different from the others? I was a working gal, and payment was expected.
But something about this good-natured, long-haired, jovial man dressed in a wool suit struck me. Struck me as right, in spite of the money on the bar. I felt comfortable with his eyes on me. Comfortable in his presence.
Safe.
Why hadn’t she taken the car? Because Jake had implied she’d gained weight. Lila hated to admit her rear might be a tad larger than when he last saw it. Though it might be bigger, she comforted herself with the thought it was all muscle. She’d worked hard over the last couple of years to keep herself in shape.
But did he care? Oh, he’d been looking. She’d caught his eyes dropping to check her out. Whether he acted on the interest was a whole other story.
Lila huffed along, juggling bags from hand to hand, hoping the weight would shift and let the blood circulate. It didn’t.
Stopping on the sidewalk under the shade of a large pecan tree, she set her burden down, allowing her reddened palms to rest. A hot breeze lifted the blond tendrils of hair around her face.
From behind her she heard a truck slow and roll to a stop. Afraid to turn, Lila stared at the rough bark of the giant tree. It could be anyone, perhaps the owner of the house beyond the pecan? But she had a tickle of giddiness in her belly that it was neither. The tickle that meant Jake was near.
“Hope you don’t have ice cream in those bags.” Jake’s lazy tone drifted across on the breeze.
Her heart beat painfully and her belly tightened. Would she ever outgrow this physical reaction? Lila turned to face her husband. He relaxed behind the wheel of his truck, an arm propped against the outside of his door. His hair looked wind-blown, pushed back from his face in disarray. If she squinted, the truck disappeared and she could imagine him in her bed, his hair messy and his skin hot from an afternoon of lovemaking.
His gaze took her in.
The bottom of her stomach fell and a rush of desire went straight south.
“You don’t, do you?”
Grappling with a flood of emotions that screamed Please hold me, she’d forgotten the question. “Don’t what?”
“Have ice cream? It’s going to melt in this heat.” His brows rose in question, seemingly unaware of her discomfort.
“No. But I’ve got chicken livers that need to be refrigerated.”
He looked down at her purchases but didn’t ask. “You want a ride back to Barbara’s?”
The question was simple. Did she want a ride? She practically jumped up and down right there on the sidewalk considering the prospect. Being cloistered in the cab of a truck with Jake Winter brought back memories. They’d steamed up many a cab window after they were first married.
But that was then, before their spilt. She’d have to work extra hard to get him to overlook their past, and this might be the opportunity to get close. To lay a soft hand on his thigh. To brush her shoulder against his. To stare at his mouth when he spoke and lick her lips.
Yeah, it might be fighting dirty, but she had to take ’em as they came. Anything to convince him they deserved a second chance.
He eased from behind the wheel and stepped around the hood of his truck to stare at her. His eyes fell to her sandals and traveled back up again, lingering on her chest in a familiar, possessive gesture.
He had attitude, and it broadcast loud and clear in the way he moved. Like a man confident in his skin. In everything he did, conscious or not. She knew from experience most of it was unconscious, although he could ratchet it up for more effect when he wanted.
Lila felt a trickle of sweat slide between her breasts. Yes, this was exactly what she wanted. What she needed. Now if the man would simply kiss her!
“You sure you don’t have anything sweet to eat?” His tone implied teasing, but her temper ignited. She was hot, turned on by a man who claimed they had nothing in common anymore—if they had nothing in common, why was the front of his jeans tight and why was her breathing shallow and labored? And all while standing on a public sidewalk with half the town driving by.
She had to think hard to form a coherent sentence. “No, nothing sweet. I’ve got to watch my weight, you know.”
/> His head lifted, meeting her gaze. He smiled again and shook his head. “Well, let’s get Nate his livers.”
Lila climbed into the truck after the bags were settled on the cab seat squarely between them. He did it intentionally. It couldn’t have been clearer that he wanted her to stay on her side of the truck than if he’d said the words out loud.
“How do you know the livers are for the cat?” She asked in an offhand manner, but the idea that Jake knew more about Granny’s life than she did stung.
He pulled the truck away from the curb and turned on a shower of icy air. “Whenever Mom butchers chickens, she saves a few livers for Barbara and I take them over to her.”
“Oh.” She stared straight ahead through the front window, feigning interest in the passing scenery, but the heat curling off his body had her stomach in knots. God. He smelled good. It reminded her of early Sunday mornings, naked, under cool cotton sheets.
She curled her hands into fists to keep them off him. She wanted those Sunday mornings back. She wanted to stroke her feet over his, feel the rasp of his hairy shins as he wrapped his legs around hers, the comfort and security in his whole body embrace.
Jake cleared his throat. “What’s the diagnosis on Barbara, anyway? She due to live another thirty years?” There was a standing joke about Barbara Gentry in town. People predicted she’d outlive most of the Bombshells, as well as most of the town.
“She’ll be fine as long as she slows down and allows that shoulder to heal.”
She saw him glance over at her from the corner of her eye. “You up for that?”
She turned to face him, her emotions controlled. “What?”
He resumed his watch over the road ahead, his expression no longer lazy. “You’ve never been able to handle sickbeds or the people in them.”
Her heart wounded at the accusation in his words, her gaze snapped back to the front. What he brought up occurred years ago, when she was a young, newly married woman barely out of high school. She hadn’t known how to cope then. Why couldn’t he give her a break? Give them a break?
“Jake, I was eighteen at the time. I was scared. My husband was in the hospital.” They had no idea at the time that his weight loss and lack of appetite were preliminary symptoms of something worse. Much worse.
Her explanation met silence. She peeked across the seat; his profile was hard and uncompromising in the glare of the afternoon sun.
“I didn’t mean to run out on you that night, but I was scared witless, terrified you were going to die on me.”
“So instead of letting me help you, you fled.”
Her body rocked with the steel under his words. “How could you help me? You were the one in the hospital bed.”
“We could have talked. You should have told me what you were feeling.”
She hadn’t. Not at first, too wrapped up in what he was feeling. What he was enduring.
After that night, the accusations came with increasing severity over the next year. She couldn’t handle commitment, he said. Couldn’t handle the day-to-day uncertainties life dished out. She was married to a man with Hodgkin’s disease, who might not live to old age. They had no business being married, he’d said.
No business being married. God, it had almost killed her when he said that. For years afterward, she sometimes wished it had been her with the diagnosis. If it had been the other way around and she’d been the one to get sick, they might have made it. As a couple.
After Jake came home from the hospital, he closed up, shut himself off from her. He wouldn’t allow her to comfort him, or even accompany him to the doctor’s office. With her background chock full of insecurities and low self-esteem, she’d bought into his objections, fell prey to her shame, thinking he knew what was right for the both of them.
Bottom line, he didn’t want her anymore. Couldn’t afford the attachment, he claimed. And after a year of living as strangers, Lila left.
Not to return for ten long years.
Jake turned his truck into the drive of the white bungalow at 534 Priddy Drive. Granny sat in a lounge chair on the front porch drinking iced tea. Steve Ann reclined in an adjacent chaise longue, flipping through a magazine.
She’d get it now. No way would Granny let this one alone. Coming home with Jake in tow was fodder for the gossip mill. She hadn’t exactly told her grandmother yet she wanted to patch things up with Jake. Though the sharp old matron wouldn’t miss a beat.
“There’s the old lady now. I’d better say hello.” He opened the driver’s door despite Lila’s negative hiss.
He grabbed the bags, savoring the silent challenge with a quirk of his lips he threw her way. He eased from the truck and slammed the door in her face. “Barbara, my girl, how the hell are you?”
She could hear his voice clearly, full of easy Texas charm. He bent low, kissing Granny on the cheek.
Why couldn’t he do that to Lila?
Granny wrapped her good arm around Jake, rubbing his back like a familiar child. “Fine now that you’re here.”
Lila watched from inside the truck. The cool air dissipated in the encroaching heat.
Jake stood and disappeared in the house with the grocery bags, Granny close behind.
She couldn’t sit in here and watch the reunion like an idiot! Grumbling, she jumped from the truck and grabbed her pocketbook, throwing the strap across her shoulder. In her haste, the fastener on the leather wallet sprung loose, spilling the contents of her financial life onto the driveway.
Bending to retrieve flyaway business cards, she didn’t see Jake’s shadow fall across her for several seconds.
She saw his scuffed leather work boots first. They stood directly on top of a postcard advertising free panties with a purchase. She followed the crease of his faded jeans up to the vee of his thighs. The familiar bulge made her face flush. Made her fingers itch to touch. Her eyes flew the rest of the way to his face.
“I’m appreciating the view as well.” He wiggled his eyebrows in the direction of the gaping neckline of her cotton T-shirt, taking advantage of her position.
If she really thought he meant what he said, she’d stay down there forever. Let him look all he wanted. But she knew he was only teasing.
“Can I collect my things?” She pointed an index finger to some business cards beneath the toe of his boot.
He squatted until his face came level with hers.
Lila could smell him. Clean, strong, and so totally male. He moved his boot, and before she could react, he scooped the card up, holding it out for inspection.
“Victoria’s Secret?” He read the title. “Shop there often?”
What should she say? Yes? In the hope he would come swooping into Dallas and carry her off to bed? Three straight days in bed might satisfy her initial lust. Maybe.
Not that it was likely to happen.
“And if I do?” she queried, almost out of breath.
“You must be making some guy’s night. That’s for sure.” He handed her the card and stood, looking off across the street.
No, no guy had shared a night with her in a very long time. The only person who’d seen her silkies lately was Fiona, her Maine coon cat.
Lila stood, confused—and dammit, irritated—by his sudden distance.
“Y’all gonna stand out here all night, or are you gonna come inside for some iced tea?” Steve Ann’s voice broke the mood and Lila looked to the nurse on the porch.
“Mrs. Gentry wants you to fix dinner, Lila. And Mr. Winter, she wants you to stay.”
Lila strode to the front door, anger making her brave. She added an exaggerated swing to her hips, rolling those muscles she’d worked so hard for. She claimed her glass from Steve Ann’s outstretched hand and took a long, deliberate drink, licking any trace of moisture from her lips.
“Uh-huh, that must be some damn fine iced tea Mrs. Gentry got in her kitchen.” The nurse’s comment was low enough to reach Lila’s ears only and she cast a sideways glance at Steve Ann. In that second t
hey exchanged an intimate assessment of the situation.
“Okay. I’m getting my things.” The woman knew how to take a hint.
She hoped Jake took note.
The door to his truck wrenched open.
Looking across the drive, she saw Jake slide behind the wheel. Disappointment soured in her mouth and spiraled down her belly until she thought she might yell. Anything to stop him from leaving.
“Tell Barbara I can’t stay for dinner.” He nodded his head and turned the key in the ignition, filling the drive with the purr of the engine. Lila watched him pull away and point the truck south, back into town. As much as she wanted to drag herself away and step inside the cool foyer of her grandmother’s house like his brush-off didn’t matter, she couldn’t.
And she didn’t even get around to asking him about Miss Pru’s!
Lesson Number Seven —
Men love a nearly naked woman. They also love admiring a woman dressed in risqué clothing. Wearing the latter will ensure you get to the first, quickest.
Chapter Nine
Jake barely saw the road ahead. His gaze turned inward, to the cowardly way he’d left his wife standing on her grandmother’s front porch. She’d looked exactly like she had when he’d returned from his first bout of chemotherapy. Full of hope and love. And unbelievably beautiful in a short denim skirt and peach tank top. Her sun-kissed skin glowed like gold and every time he got near, he couldn’t help but run a palm over her shoulder, down her back, or up under her skirt.
And then he went and ruined it.
He reminded her of the remission that day, the uncertain state of his health, and the possibility the cancer would return in the future to claim him.
He made his uncertainty a certainty. Sacrificing their love to keep her safe. Undamaged. And emotionally whole.
And he didn’t just remind her of it once. He’d done it over days and months, until the time had stretched into a year, and finally Lila couldn’t handle it anymore. Her willingness, ah, Christ, her open sexuality hadn’t been enough to douse his pain. His worry. Of someday leaving her alone.
Deconstructing Lila (Entangled Select) Page 7