by Tina Leonard
He’d convinced her that now was not the time for her to dream of settling in one place. Especially not within reach of his easy appeal. Calhoun and his painted women.
Everything inside her was telling her to run this time.
CALHOUN STRODE AWAY from the motor home, wishing Last was around so he could kick him. Everything had been going along just fine, until his boneheaded brother showed up! All Olivia had needed was an excuse to steer clear of him, and crazy-looking, stubborn Last had given her excuses aplenty.
He might never get his lips locked to hers again. Calhoun found that a depressing thought.
His cell phone rang. “Hello?” he asked.
“Hey,” Archer said. “Last been your way?”
“Yeah,” Calhoun said. “The big plan spoiler.”
“What?”
“Never mind. What’s up?” Calhoun asked, resigned to the occasional hell that his brothers could be.
“Tell Last to get his ass home,” Archer said. “Mason’s in full froth that he just up and left like that.”
“No can do. Boy Wonder is long gone on his Wonderbike.”
“Meaning?”
“He rode out of town on an expensive motorcycle. Was wearing boots that cost a buck’s antlers, and he’s slipped back into goth mode. Attack of Mohawk Man. Earring, too. If I was a betting man, I’d be betting a tattoo parlor was his next stop. But he says he’s not drinking, so I’m trying to be grateful for something.”
Silence met his words.
“Okay,” Archer finally said. “Did he give you a timetable for his return?”
“Nope. Said he had to get away from his life, or some drama like that.”
“Damn it! Mason’s gonna crap.”
Calhoun nodded in sympathy as he ambled into a bar, claiming a bar stool for his own. The bar keeper came over and Calhoun pointed to the hanging sign advertising a beer. A second later, a beer sat in front of him: yellow genie in a bottle. “If only it were so easy,” he murmured.
“What?” Archer asked.
“Never mind.” He took a huge swig. “So, tell Mason he’s gonna be shorthanded awhile, I guess.”
“When are you coming back? Did you ride the bull?”
“Ride would be too optimistic a verb,” Calhoun said. “I would choose cling. Did I cling, you ask? No, I clung perhaps three seconds, and then lost my pride somewhere south of Bloodthirsty’s hooves. However, two sweet children saw my shame and came to cheer me up.”
“Last thing I’d want around is rug rats after I’d been thrown,” Archer said dryly. “So, are you coming back?”
“Not tonight. I’m nursing my pride. Because not only did I get thrown, but I got thrown, if you get my drift. Right off my game.”
“Ah. Woman-quest. Good for you. I was worried about you when you said sweet children had comforted you in your moment of shame. Glad to know you’re at least allowing women to speak to you. You’ve been very prickly about the female species lately. We were all starting to wonder.”
“She’s the mother of the two children I mentioned,” Calhoun said on a growl.
“Oh,” Archer said. “Good play.”
“I did not play them. They played me.” Calhoun was getting very ruffled with his brother, and even the yellow genie in a bottle wasn’t helping him relax.
“How’s the art? Still full breasted?”
Calhoun blinked. Olivia wasn’t what he’d call full breasted. Breasts weren’t what made a woman beautiful anyway, but he didn’t expect his brothers to understand his particular appreciation of the female form. When he transferred his visions to canvas, they merely saw breasts. Which was strange, considering the women were completely naked, he mused. Of course, maybe the breasts he painted drew the eye more since he spent so much time laboring over them.
God, he loved breasts, and he had a pretty good notion Olivia’s would suit his artistic desires very well, though a man would have a devil of a time getting that woman’s bra off. He had a better shot at putting a bra on Bloodthirsty. He frowned. How in the hell would he get Olivia’s bra off? An erection grew inside his jeans and he shifted, feeling ornery.
“I might never see the one pair of nipples I believe I was destined to view,” he muttered.
“Hello?” Archer said. “Are we having the same conversation? Because I’m pretty certain I wasn’t participating. Although if we’re talking real life and not still life, I might want to get in on it.”
“You couldn’t handle this crew, trust me.”
Archer laughed. “All right. Listen, you’re going to have to cut your quest short. Mason’s mood is worse than ever, and when I tell him Last has hit the trail, he’s really going to flip. I don’t want to be the one to give him the worst news. You’re going to have to be here for the family caucus.”
Calhoun frowned. “The caucus to tell him that Last has pulled a ‘Mason’ and run off? I think Mason should recognize that his own reaction to disenfranchisement was the same as Last’s and suck it up. That is to say, he hit the trail first, wearing his tail tight between his back legs. Last’s just following family tradition. And God, we have a lot of family tradition.”
“No,” Archer said. “I meant the caucus to tell him that Mimi’s selling her ranch.”
“What?” Calhoun sat up straight, tightening his grip on the beer bottle.
“That’s right. Selling out. Gettin’ out while the gettin’s good. Or as good as it’s gonna get anyway.”
“Why?” Life as they’d known it and revered it seemed to suddenly be grinding to a halt. Maybe it had been skidding for a long time, and they’d all simply ignored it, hoping the skid would stop.
“The short answer is, she can’t take care of her property and her sick dad and her baby. Even with the housekeeper helping out. Long answer? That’s a mighty big place for one little lady to manage, and if any of us thought Mimi’s soon-to-be ex-husband was going to be a ranch man, we were destined to be disappointed. He’s a city-slick lawyer, not a cowboy. Not that I’m criticizing…”
“But you are criticizing,” Calhoun said. “Because Brian never did come home to Mimi.”
“I’m merely saying their marriage arrangement didn’t include him living here. And obviously, it didn’t include her living in Austin or Houston.” He sighed. “The final nail was probably Mason’s long trip since he’d been doing most of the work over there after the sheriff took sick. But Mason was gone too long, and Mimi got overwhelmed, I guess. She’s decided to tell everybody in town officially that her father can’t resume his duties, and she’s taking them over. She figures she can do a better job of sheriffing and everything else she’s got to manage from town.”
“Yeah, I’m hearing that,” Calhoun said slowly, “but it sure is hard to swallow.” He felt terribly guilty. Sure, they’d all tried to pick up a little slack at Mimi’s place, but with the brothers marrying one by one and heading off with their new brides, Mason’s absence and Last’s paternity lawsuit, they’d been shorthanded.
He ground his teeth. “I should pack up and come home tonight.”
“Well, normally I would say hell, yeah. But it’s been a long time since I’ve heard you mention a flesh-and-blood woman, Calhoun. And you ain’t talking about painting her, either.”
“I painted her kids’ faces,” Calhoun said gruffly. “I’d like to do a portrait of them. They’re pretty cute for rodeo brats.”
“And so,” Archer said, “maybe you should ease out of there slowly tomorrow. No point in running home. I’m in no hurry to face Mason with Mimi’s news.”
“Don’t suppose she’d tell him herself.”
“Even if she did, she’d still want us around for moral support. You know, something’s not quite right with our Mimi.”
Calhoun swigged from his bottle and waved for another, though at this point, he knew the yellow genie of relaxation was not going to have her way with his tension tonight. “Do you have anything more on that hunch?”
“No. It’s just feel
s like something’s not right.”
“You felt this while she was unburdening her plans to you?”
“Yeah. It was the strangest thing,” Archer said. “I could tell she really didn’t want to talk to Mason. You don’t think she’s mad at him for being gone so long, do you?”
Who knew what went on in a woman’s brain? They had emotions all over them, even etched into their eyelids, so delicate that a man could pierce their feelings without even meaning to. Calhoun closed his eyes, thinking about Olivia. Olivia was one big emotion. Not in a bad way, of course. But he could tell he’d have to tread carefully with her for a long time, if he had a long time—which he didn’t—and if he was of a mind to romance her.
Which he wasn’t. Romance wasn’t his thing.
Seduction, then.
No. Even Jefferson males on their horniest days didn’t seduce emotionally tender females.
“Crap,” he muttered. “This is all going from bad to worse.”
“I know. I feel like a clothesline that got caught in a storm. Whipped and tangled.”
Calhoun shook his head. “I’ll be home tomorrow night. We’ll kick it around a bit more before we tell Mason.” Sighing, he turned off the phone, putting it back into his pocket. “Oh, Mason’s not going to take that well,” he said aloud. “Jefferson men seem to have endless woman trouble. It should be so easy for us. We clean up good, we’re strong, we’re smart…”
He slumped a little, trying to absorb what Archer had told him. This was simply not going to be good. He was sure matters had taken a flashing-red-light turn for the worse.
Someone lightly tapped him on the shoulder. He turned.
Olivia stood beside him, her eyes wide, her lips trembling, obviously wrestling with her thoughts and trying hard to be brave.
And then she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.
Chapter Six
Olivia caught him so off guard that Calhoun didn’t have a chance to hesitate, nor wonder why he was getting such a gift. By the time she’d put her lips so sweetly against his, two or three times, he gave over to base instinct and pulled her into his lap. The empty beer bottle went spinning away but he held fast to Olivia, drinking her in as fast as a man could gulp when offered such nectar.
If he was a gentleman, he’d have understood she wouldn’t have searched him out in a bar if something wasn’t troubling her. But he was just a man, though smart enough to give her everything she wanted.
Besides, she felt way too good. He wouldn’t stop to ask questions. They could talk later.
The bar erupted in cheers and hoots and catcalls. Calhoun didn’t want to let her go, but Olivia seemed to regain her former stiffness. Breaking away, she stared at him, her eyes large, her mouth rosy and a little swollen from the heat with which he’d kissed her.
Ah, if she’d only let him kiss her some more, he could really send her away looking like a well-kissed woman.
With a guilty glance around the bar, Olivia turned and hurried off. He watched her sweetly fitting jeans go with regret. A woman whose backside filled out Wrangler jeans the way hers did ought to be on canvas.
“You Jefferson dawgs have all the luck,” someone called. “Women just throw themselves at you.”
“Shut up,” he called back good-naturedly. Olivia hadn’t thrown herself at him, because if she had, he’d have caught her for certain. She’d merely been testing herself.
If he hurried, maybe he could catch her while she was still in test mode.
Tossing some money on the bar, he ran after Olivia.
“Go, Calhoun, go!” someone cried out to a burst of rowdy cheers.
He ignored the applause and caught up to Olivia. “Hey,” he said, catching her hand to turn her to him. In the faint light from the tents, he could see her eyes, big and serious, as she looked up at him. “What was that for?”
She cocked her head. “Earlier you said I was afraid.”
“Yeah? So?”
He watched her take a deep breath. “I’m not afraid. Not as much as you are.” Removing her hand from his, she strode away.
Tricky little minx. He’d have his way with her on some level, just to satisfy his curiosity. “No fair, cow-girl,” he said, catching up to her so he could grab her hand more securely this time and turn her toward his chest. “It’s only verbal foreplay when you toss out dares and then run off. You know I have to catch you and participate, or we’ll never move to second base, which is verbal seduction.”
She stared at him. “Verbal seduction?”
“Ah, yes. The thinking part, if you will, of the chase. Listen and learn.” He pulled her underneath a light-strung tree, slowly kissed each of her palms in turn, then put his lips against her ear. “You’re beautiful,” he said, and when she would have moved away, in doubt, he held her delicate chin against him so that his lips touched her ear while he caressed her neck with his fingers.
“You are beautiful in so many ways you can’t even understand, because it takes an outsider to see the whole you. And maybe it takes an artistic eye to see what you can never see. You’re fun. You’re tricky. You hold all your hopes and dreams and worries in your sexy eyes, and men would give the use of their roping arms to lie with you at night. You’re hot, Olivia Spinlove. Where you see Mother when you look in the mirror, men see Catch Me If You Can. And we want to so bad.”
She was standing still. His words had completely stunned her. Now, he would tell her exactly what only the wild part of her sheltered little heart dreamed of knowing.
“You rock a man with your body and your tease, Olivia, and because you don’t do it deliberately, you come off sweet. So sweet that a man can taste you just by looking at you. It makes him dream of having you melt on his tongue.”
“Stop,” she said, backing up slightly.
He let her move away, watching her like a hawk.
She hesitated, her eyes so wide he knew he would live with that memory forever.
Then she turned and fled.
He snorted to himself, watching her go with satisfaction, his nostrils flared, his jeans full of unspent heat. “Now who’s scared?” he said to her perfume as it lingered gently on the nighttime wind.
OLIVIA QUIETLY let herself into the motor home, careful not to wake her family. She was burning from Calhoun’s words—and the shocking part was that he’d never kissed her after he’d caught her. He’d merely used words to ravish her.
Words the woman in her had thrilled to hear.
She sank onto the bed next to her children, surprised to find herself trembling a little. Passion was not a well-met friend. It was, if anything, a passing acquaintance that had often left her stranded.
But tonight her heart raced and her breath seemed tight, and she wanted to run back to Calhoun and beg him to say everything he’d said again so that she could remember it, and please, would he mean it, damn it, because she so badly wanted to be the woman he claimed he saw—
“Pathetic,” she whispered to herself.
Kenny murmured in his sleep. Olivia glanced over at him, then gasped as she looked at her two beautiful sleeping children.
She was falling! After warning herself over and over again about falling for a man, especially a charming cowboy who clearly knew his way around lots of women, she had practically begged him to seduce her! She was to blame for going after him and taunting him—and he was right. It was verbal foreplay she’d been offering, a path that could only end in her own disaster. Again. Hadn’t she burdened her father—her family—enough?
The Jeffersons were not settling types, as evidenced by Calhoun’s younger brother Last, who rebelliously escaped his responsibilities. And Calhoun, painter of naked women, what would make him settle for just one? If Olivia ever fell for another man again, it would have to be someone serious, who would love Kenny and Minnie as much as a man could, in the role of father.
Calhoun couldn’t.
And there she was, practically begging him to make love to her.
In fact, her body had told him everything he’d needed to know. She was his for the taking.
It was only the gentleman in him that had kept him from doing more than whispering seduction in her ear.
Olivia turned off the tiny night-light and curled up next to her children.
From now on, she would watch herself closely. Thank God she’d realized the disastrous path she was on.
BY MORNING, CALHOUN had a hangover but it wasn’t from the yellow genie. It was from sitting up all night thinking about the little barrel rider and her family. What was it about her that made him want to possess her so badly? Did he see himself in her and her disorganized gypsy band of a family?
Heaven knew the Jeffersons were gypsylike. Whether it was the attics of their minds, the lay of the land or the hearts of women, the Jefferson men wandered.
By God, Olivia made him want to make a pit stop.
She was dangerous to his way of life. Or perhaps, his lack of a way of life. He had no way. He had the ranch and a load of paintings. He had artistic vision.
He had a half-baked erection he couldn’t shake no matter how much he thought about cold things.
Maybe a long swim in Barmaid’s Creek was what he needed. December’s chill on the water oughta knock the stiffness out of his drill.
And it would clear his head. Keep him away from those treacherous children of Olivia’s. They were a huge part of the problem. They wanted him. They’d said so, and he could feel it, and it made him want them, too.
“How dumb is that, huh?” he muttered, pulling on his plain, worn-down brown riding boots. “What you need, Calhoun, is to bring a few more children into this family for a while, because we don’t have enough men acting like kids. Yes, we need more responsibilities, because we’re managing so well with the ones we’ve got.”
No wonder Mimi was selling her ranch. It wasn’t as if they’d exactly helped out their little neighbor in need. They’d tried, but Mimi needed a full-time man.