Texas Heat (Stubborn Texas Siblings Book 2)

by Faith Loveright

  “My brothers would have a conniption fit,” she argued softly. “If Jeff wouldn’t kill you, you can bet Eric would.” “I’m not afraid of your brothers,” Travis declared bravely. “Well, you should be. If they even got wind that we’d slept together, you’d be in danger. If we were to run off together and actually get married, I’d end up a widow before the year’s end.”

  “You’re exaggerating,” he teased, nibbling on her ear.

  “No… I’m not,” she argued. “I need some space. I can’t think about this right now.” “Promise me you’ll consider it,” he demanded. “I’m quite sure I’ll never get enough of you, and that’s a dilemma I never encountered before. That’s not going to change anytime soon if ever. It would make Ma happy, and the idea of walking away from you and what we share makes me itch. I’d be miserable. The only thing I can come up with as a solution is to marry you for real.”

  “Well, there’s one thing you haven’t considered… Texas is my home. My whole family is there… my business is there. I can’t just up and move that far away from my brothers. Even if my brothers could eventually get over my suddenly getting married behind their backs, they would never understand my leaving them that far behind. Not in a million years.”

  “Couldn’t we compromise?” he asked, groaning. “Settle somewhere halfway between my home and yours?” “Oh, sure… that would work,” she said sarcastically. “You leave your business and I leave mine, settling somewhere away from all of our family members where we have to start completely over from scratch. Makes total sense… why, I have no idea why I didn’t think of that sooner.”

  Travis stepped away from her and ran his hand over his hair in agitation, messing it up in the process. “Think on it,” he said quietly. “Go ahead and spend a little time here with the car. I’m going to go sit on the porch in the recliner for a bit. Let me know when you’ve reached a decision,” he said turning away from her. He stopped mid-step and turned just his head to look back at her. “Just promise me you won’t rush to make a choice. I care about you a great deal and I don’t want to lose you or what we’ve found together.”

  Laurie stood motionless as she watched his big body lumber away from her with his head hung low in despair. A lump of emotion formed in her throat as her eyes moved to the tattoo on his arm. The big heart with his mother’s name surrounded by thorns and roses made her soften towards him even more than she had when he’d held her in his arms, pressing his body urgently against her own. Travis had a heart as big as all of Texas, and she knew that if he fell in love with her, he would never let her down. A love like that was so enticing… but so frightening at the same time. She was torn as she thought of her options.

  The last thing she’d expected when she’d set out on this trip with Travis was a real proposal… Or the feelings he’d unearthed in her. She knew she had a history of making bad choices when it came to men. Her brothers were both quick to point that out to her on a regular basis. Before making a permanent decision like marriage, she had to take some serious time to really think it over. This wasn’t the time to be impulsive. She had to think about more than the way her blood heated every time she even thought about the big sexy man who had claimed both her body and her heart.

  As he settled his big body into the lounge chair, Laurie turned her attention back to the car. At least this was something she knew how to deal with; unlike her growing feelings for the man who’d just asked her to be his wife. She had some serious soul searching to do, and she knew her only hope of concentrating on the decision she had to make, was burying herself in her work.

  Chapter 10

  Laurie’s cell phone rang and she sighed heavily. For the last several days, she’d been enjoying the pretense of being Travis’s wife. His mother was a loving gentle woman with a big heart who clearly just wanted to see her son happily settled down. The fact that he’d jumped on board with her plans had gone a long way in her sunny outlook on life. She’d had her fair share of moments that had concerned both Travis and Laurie as far as her health went, but they’d known going in that the older woman was at death’s door.

  Travis had been attentive, seductive and insistent with her and the way he touched her every chance he got had made her giddy. She’d spent a lot of time thinking about his proposal and she’d wavered back and forth between wanting to leap first and worry about the consequences after the fact, and listening to that tiny voice inside her head that said that it was an epically bad idea.

  “Hello?” she said into the phone as she walked out onto the front porch for privacy. If she was right and one of her brothers were checking up on her, she didn’t want Travis’s mom to overhear the lies she’d have to tell her siblings to cover for what she was really up to. The one thing she knew she could never do was tell them the truth. They’d both be there in her face in a matter of hours, calling her a fool and dragging her back home by her hair. That wasn’t an option. She wasn’t ready to walk away from Travis yet, and thinking about what that might mean scared her, but it was the God’s honest truth.

  “Where the Hell are you?” Eric barked in her ear. Laurie could hear his children in the background and Jeff grumbling a quiet apology on the other line. She sighed heavily and made a fist around the deck railing.

  “I told Jeff before I left,” she answered evasively. “I just had to get away for a few weeks. Honestly, I’m fine you guys.”

  “Don’t give me that bull,” Eric scolded coldly. “I’m not stupid little sister. I know you well enough by now… you don’t leave your shop for anybody or anything unless it involves another stupid choice with a man who has no intention of making an honest woman out of you.”

  Laurie had to bite back the words of argument that leapt to her lips. She wanted to throw it in her brothers’ faces that the man she’d left with had asked her to marry him, but she knew if she did that, it would only open a can of worms that she had no desire to deal with just yet.

  “I’m not even going to dignify that with a response,” she said instead. “Think about when Madeline first came into your life, big brother. Did you see me trying to interfere or warn you away from her because of your past? No. You didn’t,” she answered for him when he only grunted in response.

  “Sooner or later, you are going to have to accept the fact that I’m a fully grown woman, perfectly capable of making my own decisions for my life. I’m not saying that your accusation is true, but IF it was, it wouldn’t be any of your business. You can tell Jeff that our deal is off and you should know that when he was out of town, he was looking for the surliest bull he could find to practice on so to take his hits in order to be ready for rodeo season when it comes around. Do with that information what you like.”

  Having said that, she hung up without giving her brother a chance to respond. Not wanting to take a chance on them calling her right back, she flipped the phone to the off position and headed back into the house to hang out with Travis and his mom. After her confrontation with her brothers, it would serve them right if she did just run away and get married behind their backs.

  If she wasn’t so attach ed to the idea of living in her home town despite her brother’s interfering ways, she might have just gone ahead and thrown caution to the wind and done it, too. Lord knows it would have served her interfering brothers right. That was no reason to permanently tie her life to a man’s though. Not any more than the fact that they had beyond incredible chemistry and out of this world sex that led to mind-blowing orgasms.

  It was what she was starting to feel for Travis in the depths of her very soul that had Laurie wavering the most. If only she was certain of his feelings for her, her decision would be a lot easier to make. The word love had yet to come up out of his mother’s earshot, and she had no idea if he meant it when he said it to her in front of his mother or if it was all for the older woman’s benefit. For that reason, she had been hesitant to say the words back to him, even in front of his mother. She had gone out of her way to try to show him in every
way she could possibly think of though. That had to account for something.

  She found Travis sitting with his mom in the living room, sipping a cup of coffee. He stood when she entered the room and went over to her side, tugging her into his arms and placing a hot kiss on her mouth, instantly making her forget all about the anger her brothers had stirred within her. This man was very good at doing that… making the rest of the world just fade away to nothingness with a simple touch.

  Laurie slumped against him as he swept his hands up over her back to tangle in her hair as he ravaged her mouth. Her knees went weak and her nipples puckered into hard peaks against his chest the longer the kiss went on.

  When the kiss finally broke, they were both breathing heavily and his voice shook with desire as he admitted that he’d missed her while she was outside and asked if everything was alright back at home with her family. How he’d known the call had been from her brothers, she had no clue, but she wasn’t about to question it. They’d grown very close in an extremely short amount of time. It made sense in an odd way that he could read her so easily.

  “As usual, my big brother was in one of his moods,” she answered breathlessly.

  “Let me guess,” he said, groaning when she settled her hand on his belly just above his belt. “He was angry that you’d left town without bothering to check in with him and tried to convince you that you had to come back or risk certain doom.”

  Laurie arched an eyebrow at him and grinned. “What? Where you listening in on our conversation, or were your ears just ringing, sensing the fact that we were talking about you?”

  “Talking about me, huh?” he asked full of good humor. “I’m sure your brother just loved that.” “You have no idea,” she answered, laughing so hard her belly hurt. She could only imagine what his mother was thinking but right at that moment, she was enjoying the openness between herself and Travis too much to care.

  “So, did you give him the play by play of every moment behind closed doors during our honeymoon?” he asked huskily, pressing his growing erection between her legs to let her feel how affected he was by her hot body being held in his arms.

  Laurie laughed again. “Do I look like I have a death wish? Or worse yet, a desire to bury my husband so soon after tying the knot?” she asked, smiling up at him, thoroughly enjoying their banter.

  “I love the sound of that word on your lips,” he said in a lowered intimate voice. “Husband… sounds heavenly.” She whimpered and moaned when he brushed his lips against her jaw bone. When he whispered the words “I love you, Laurie,” it was all she could do to remember to breathe.

  “Trav…” the word was strained and came out as a plea of sorts. His mother cleared her throat and stood on shaky legs.

  “On that note, I do believe that was my cue to head towards bed. I have no desire to watch the two of you get all mushy. Nor do I wish to watch you make out like a couple of sex starved teenagers.”

  “Stay… Keep doing your knitting,” Travis said, not taking his eyes off Laurie’s face. “I’ll just take my wife to bed for the night. That way you don’t have to worry about watching us go at it like the newlyweds we are and we can make love without an audience.”

  When he swept her up into his arms, Laurie moaned and rested her head against his chest, giving in to the need to touch her tongue to his lips. Travis groaned and tangled his tongue with hers, sucking it into his mouth.

  After the loving was over close to an hour later, Travis turned to look at the woman at his side. He reached out and brushed her bangs off her forehead, tucking the strands behind her ear. “Run away with me, Laurie… Marry me. I can take good care of you. You don’t have to work another day in your life if you don’t want to.”

  Laurie sighed and snuggled into his chest, playing with his chest hairs with her fingertips. “I love what I do,” she said softly. “Fixing cars is the one thing I’m really good at in life. When I’m frustrated or can’t think straight, the puzzle of fixing a problem in someone’s engine is the only thing that makes it better for me. I’d go crazy if I couldn’t work on cars. My dream is to rebuild the older classics from the ground up… taking a piece of trash that doesn’t even run and making it into the hottest, fastest car in town.”

  “So you can keep the shop after we get married,” he said, compromising. “Just say we can always be like this together,” he begged, kissing the curve of her neck.

  “You’re just saying that because it would make your mom happy,” she said, sighing sadly. “No… I’m saying it because it would make me happy,” he told her honestly. “I want to be with you, Laurie. For real and for always. I didn’t expect to feel this way when I first suggested that you come here with me… At the time, it was all about the sexual tension and nothing else. But somewhere along the lines, it became about a whole lot more, and I’m sure I’m not the only one that feels this way. Admit that you love me, Laurie…”

  “Heaven help me,” she muttered in a breathy voice. “You know I do.”

  Chapter 11

  Travis lifted Laurie up in the air and spun her around with a grin from one ear to the other. “Sweetheart, we’re going to be so happy together,” he promised as he lowered her feet back down to the ground with her body held up tightly against his own.

  “I do believe this is love,” she whimpered when he pressed a kiss to her neck. “But I can’t marry you…” A scowl crossed his face and he stepped away from her with his arms wrapped around his own chest in a reassuring hug. It was a lame attempt to mend the heartache that had zinged through him with those four terrible words.

  “Why the Hell not? If you love me, what’s to stop us from doing something about it?” “Don’t put unnecessary pressure on me, Travis. My brothers would have a fit if we got married. They’d say we barely know each other. We only met a couple of weeks ago. Eric lost his first wife in a terrible accident, and as a result, he’s so overprotective of everyone he loves, he often goes to unnecessary extremes to protect us… even from ourselves without bothering to listen to all of the information before he decides that we are going to get hurt unless he steps in and does something about it. He blames himself to this day for not being there and doing something to save Victoria. My little brother hasn’t been the same since our parents died… He seems to have a death wish and fights Eric at every turn… But he’s even louder and more obnoxious in his need to protect me. He sees it as his job with Dad gone to make sure that no one ever hurts me.”

  “You make it sound like a hopeless case… I’m not giving up on you, Laurie. I’ve never felt like this. I can’t lose you… I need you in my life, and I don’t mean just as my mechanic.”

  “Just… let’s get through this visit. After we get back to Texas, we’ll test the waters with my brothers… see if we can make things work when we’re not playing the part of a couple of newlyweds. You need to see what my life is really like before you can start making such huge decisions for the rest of your life. I’m not a girly girl or a city girl, Travis. The dresses and skirts I brought with me are the only ones I own and the only reason I even had them was because my mom bought them for me for church … other than the little black dress and it only stepped out on the town on the rare occasion that I had a date. I’m a blue jeans and t-shirt kind of girl. Either that or overalls. Is that really the sort of woman you want for a wife?”

  “I know exactly who you are Laurie. You forget… we met because my car broke down. I’ve seen you in action. You’re amazing. I work with animals for a living. That’s not exactly a sexy job either. When I look at you, it isn’t your job I see. I see the red hot lover I love holding in my arms in the dead of night.”

  He tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled at her, looking into her eyes. “We would be amazing together, Laurie. I could see to the animals and you could make sure the farm equipment and the vehicles are in good working order. I fail to see the down side in this situation.”

  “Are you going to back off and give me the time I asked
for?” she asked, dragging her hands down his chest to wrap around his waist so she was hugging him.

  “I don’t like it, but yes. If that’s what you really need from me, I’ll wait until we get you back home to mention it again.”

  A crash sounded from inside the house and Travis cursed, running towards the front door shouting for his mother, praying she would answer. He’d been so busy falling for Laurie, there for a while; he’d managed to forget what had originally brought him back home in the first place.

  His mother was lying in the middle of the kitchen floor, flat on her back. She was as white as a ghost and her eyes were closed. The way she was sprawled out on the floor indicated that the fall had been a nasty one. He ran over to her side and carefully lifted her head from the floor, cradling it in his lap. “Ma? Talk to me…” he begged tearfully.

  Laurie dug into her pocket and pulled her cell phone out, dialing 9-1-1. Her hand was shaking as she gave them the few details she had and then hung up, going over and settling her hand reassuringly on Travis’s shoulder. “The ambulance is on the way.”

  “I’m not ready to lose her yet,” he told her huskily. “She practically begged me to reassure her that there was a chance for her to become a grandmother before she died… Now that there’s actually a chance that it could happen, I need more time to give her what she wants so badly.”

  “You’re kind of rushing things a bit, aren’t you?” Laurie asked, leaning down and pressing a soft reassuring kiss to the top of his head. “We’re just getting things off the ground in this relationship… Isn’t a bit early to be talking about having kids together?”

  “Not when it seems to be the only thing my mom wants before this inoperable tumor in her head takes her life, no. I don’t think its rushing things at all,” he argued, taking her hand in his own and clinging to it.