by Reece Butler
Maybe he could write everything that happened today down to make sure he’d remember? Nah, something as important as losing his job wouldn’t fade by morning. Nor should memories of his time on that doctor’s bed. Without a condom. His urgent woody started to droop.
“I’ve got a mind to keep you locked up just to give your parents a chance to get home and see you for once,” said Max.
“I met them in Dallas not that long ago.”
Max gave him a sheriff’s evil eye glare that must scare the hell out of the teenagers. He’d learned it from his father and grandpa, because it sure had made Eric take a step back when he was that age.
“That was last year,” replied Max in disgust. “You took them to some fancy steak restaurant. I heard your mom cried for days after you took off for Peru. She thought you’d be staying for a few days with them. Not just overnight.”
Eric looked away, keeping his expression tight. “I had work.”
“And work is more important than your parents?” sneered Max. “They stopped in Dallas, thinking you’d be there. The office said you hadn’t been off the mountain in months.”
Eric sighed, remembering the choice he’d had to make. He’d had no idea his parents would be in Dallas. He didn’t have to explain the complex situation. But this was Climax, where damn near everyone was related to him one way or the other. He had little choice.
“I’m responsible for a few villages. There were issues that I had to take care of. I hadn’t counted on Mom, Dad, and Pops showing up in Texas.”
“Issues? A few foreign villagers are more important than your family? Or do you have a family there? You haven’t had a girlfriend since high school that I know of, and even then you didn’t give Susie much of your time. Is that it? You don’t want to be here because you have a wife and family in Peru?”
Eric’s forehead was wide enough that two cold bars, one above each eyebrow, touched his skin when he leaned forward. Max wouldn’t stop until he knew everything. He’d always been that way, needing to figure things out.
“Obviously you haven’t seen the size of Quechan women. The top of their heads barely reach my chest. There’s no way I’d touch someone that size. There’d been an earthquake, and we were worried one of the glacial lakes might blast down the mountain in an aftershock.”
“That a big problem?”
“An entire town of 18,000 people were completely buried with alluvial matter after an earthquake in 1970 released one of those glacial lakes. It was the worst recorded earthquake in the Western Hemisphere. In total, over seventy thousand people died. So yeah, it’s a big problem.”
Max stared for a moment, then gave a brief nod. “So, no woman. What’s your excuse for blasting into town like hell on wheels, getting drunk, and thinking you could whip my ass?”
“Thinking?” He grabbed the change of topic and ran with it. “I would have ground you into the dirt if that woman hadn’t interrupted!”
“Nah, you’re not good enough.” Max curled his lip at him.
“Anytime, Max. You name the place and time.”
“No booze, no witnesses, just me and you at the ranch.”
“You’re on.” Both Eric and Max jerked their heads. Nothing more was needed.
“What’s this fight really about?” demanded Max.
Since Eric was going to be hanging around, and Max would find out sooner or later, he might as well come clean. A town sheriff did not appreciate being blindsided.
“I got fired.”
Max’s head jerked back. “Fired? The hotshot engineer screwed up?”
“Hell, no! There was a hostile takeover. New broom sweeping clean and all that.”
“So, find another.” Max’s lip curled up in a sneer. “You’re an engineer. Go fix things.” Like Eric, Max had earned an engineer’s steel ring. He’d removed it when elected sheriff, for safety’s sake. “No wonder you got drunk. How long you planning to hang around?”
Eric blew out his breath, making his too-long hair flutter.
“I can’t take a paying job in my field until a year from now.”
Max turned his back and took the two steps over to his trash can. He dropped the toothpick in the bin. It took him a minute or two to tap a new one out of the box on his desk, and chomp down. His father and grandfather had the same habit.
Eric remembered the time he and Max snuck some hot cinnamon toothpicks into the sheriff’s box. They weren’t around when he found out, but from what they heard of the ruckus it had caused in the courtroom, the whupping was worth it.
“You got any plans?” asked Max, breaking in on Eric’s memories.
“Matt wants me to seduce the doc for him. Other than that, nope.”
Max chomped for a bit more. Eric wasn’t sure how he did it. A good bruise was starting on his own jaw, his nose was set at a new angle, and a butterfly clip held the skin on his cheek together where a fist had done some damage. Eric grinned, then winced and touched his own jaw. Max’s eyes crinkled in return. It was not a good sign. Eric’s stomach tightened.
“What all did you said to Doc Meshevski while you were doing the horizontal mambo?”
Eric closed his eyes and leaned his head against the bars. He exhaled, hard.
“You know about that?”
“It’s my town,” Max replied, as if that answered everything.
“I wanted that luscious blonde the moment I saw her roaring towards us.”
Her squirming had damn near made him come in his pants. And she’d given him the most mind-blowing orgasm he’d ever experienced. Unfortunately, by tomorrow he might not remember a damn thing from about an hour before he took his first drink.
“What did the doc say?” asked Max.
“Talking was not on my mind. Why? Is there something I should know?”
“Doesn’t matter. You probably won’t remember by tomorrow.”
Eric slumped onto the bunk. He let his head fall back against the wall. “Tell Nikki about my forgetting so she won’t think I’m treating her like a one-night stand. I want more of her.”
“I saw the way she looked at you.” Max leaned back in his chair, balancing on the back feet just as if they were still in algebra class. “From the way her headlights pointed in your direction, she was wishing for more.”
“Then, for God’s sake, remind me about that in the morning!”
Chapter Fourteen
Eric opened one eye. The harsh Peruvian sun at noon blasted in. Lightning strikes of pain erupted. He silently swore and jammed it closed. His eyelids crashing together felt like thunder echoing through his skull. He couldn’t help the groan that escaped. It was so loud the vibration on his skin hurt.
“About time you came around, boy.”
He let a thin sliver of light in through the eyeball farthest from the giant bellowing at him through a megaphone. He couldn’t see anything but a dirty white wall on that side, so he tried the other eye. A too-bright, narrow room wavered for a moment before he shut it out.
“Where am I?” he croaked.
“Behind bars, just where you should be after what all you did yesterday.”
His head felt like it was exploding. His body was numb where it didn’t hurt like hell.
“Damn. Tell me I didn’t get drunk.”
“Call it what you will. You and Jack Daniels got to be good buddies.”
“You sound pretty damn happy about the situation,” said Eric with a groan.
“I am.” The deep voice sounded familiar, but his fuzzy brain couldn’t pull out the name. The sound of the man’s breathing was like Darth Vader, it was so loud. “You picked a fight with the wrong guy and he wound your clock.”
Great. Not only had he gotten drunk, he’d picked a fight with someone he shouldn’t have. Or some ones. He’d damned near killed the last man he fought, high in the mountains. He deserved to die, and someone had taken care of it after Eric tossed him aside. Those knives were sharp and so were the teeth of the animals that took care of his rem
ains. A couple of weeks and the jungle took care of everything. Since then he hadn’t had more than one beer at a time. Since the muffled voice spoke English he wasn’t in a Peruvian prison. That would freak him out for a few hours, but they wouldn’t hold him long. He had money, and could buy his way out.
So, not Peru. He strained his brain to remember. Someone had sabotaged all the vehicles right before he was to fly home. That took so long to fix he’d not only missed his flight from Lima, he’d missed Lance and Simon MacDougal’s wedding. Matt had picked him up at the airport in Missoula, then left the next day for that cattle auction. He’d taken Max’s kid to the clinic then headed to the Climax Roadhouse and had a beer. Everything after that was blank.
So, he was in jail. In Climax. That meant the person laughing at him, the guy he fought with, was—
“Max.”
“That’s Sheriff Gibson to you, boy.”
It was the last word and the phrasing that clicked. This was not his buddy, Max. This was the retired sheriff, now judge. The one who loved to use his belt on his sons. Eric had caught a few slaps of it himself.
“Yes, sir, Sheriff Gibson.”
“Your memory coming back?”
“No, sir. Process of deduction.”
“You lost me twenty dollars. I figured a man like you, working in those mountains instead of sitting behind a desk, would take my son in a fair fight. But no, you let some woman distract you and—”
“Dad? What are you doing in here?” Loud thumps reverberated through Eric’s brain as someone else stomped in. “I told you to stay in the office.”
“You don’t tell me squat, boy!”
Eric closed his eyes and stuck his fingers in his ears. He didn’t need to hear Max get reamed out once more time, or the other way around. He certainly didn’t need the gruff old man hollering. After it got quiet he waited a few minutes just to make sure. The aroma of decent coffee wafted past his nose, waking his brain. No way would the old bastard give him the good stuff from the Roadhouse.
“Max?”
“I swear, that old man is getting even more stubborn and pigheaded and…” Max exhaled.
“And you love him anyway because he’s your father,” said Eric.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t change the way he behaves,” grumbled Max.
“Bet your mom keeps him in line.” That got a chuckle. “She still work for you?” Sandra Gibson could run the police department with one arm tied around her back. She could have been a top administrator in Billings, but instead she fell in love with the Gibson brothers.
“Mom quit to be a wedding planner.”
“There hasn’t been a wedding here in, what, five years?”
“Marci needed help. Mom had a great time doing it.”
Eric grunted. The thought of a wedding gave him hives.
“You know why you’re in here?” asked Max. “Or are you as clueless as the last time you got drunk and tried to beat me senseless?”
“I…”
The previous day crashed into his mind in one huge bomb. He inhaled, then choked. He rolled onto his side, coughing and silently cursing the pain in his ribs. He remembered! Though he’d drank damn near half a bottle of whiskey, his memories were not gone! He lay there, using the excuse to get his breath to give him time to gather his thoughts.
As the old sheriff said, he’d fought Max and been distracted by a woman. The woman Matt wanted him to seduce into their bed. The town doctor, for God’s sake! Only she’d damn near jumped his bones rather than the other way around. And…he groaned. He’d been so eager that he hadn’t used a condom. She was a doctor, though. Surely he was safe. He remembered falling asleep right after, the deepest one he’d had in too long. And when he woke, his good ole buddies dragged him into jail.
He groaned once more. His job was gone. He had nowhere to go to escape the memories, the nightmares, and the sense of disappointment he always felt here. But nobody expected him to remember a thing.
He needed time to figure out a plan of action. He could do nothing about his job, but he needed to find something to do that would take him from this place. As for the doctor, how would she react when she saw him again? Would she want more, or pretend they’d never touched?
He’d keep this gem to himself, at least until he saw the way the wind blew. Maybe it would be to his advantage. What would people tell him he’d done? Would they lie, hold back bits, or be honest and open? He needed something to keep him from going crazy here. He’d know something the good townspeople didn’t. A chance to get back at the ones who looked at him as if he wasn’t quite good enough because he wasn’t a rancher. It might keep him sane until he could plan an escape.
Bedding the delectable doctor would certainly keep him from getting bored. He promised his little brother that he’d help him bag a wife. The fact that he’d enjoy it immensely only made the prospect more interesting. So did her challenge, and veiled eagerness in her eyes when he mentioned spanking.
“Your dad said he bet on me beating you in a fight but a woman distracted me.” Eric carefully rolled to face out, still hiding his rising cock. “There’s no other way you could’ve beat me, then or now.”
“I’ll admit to a lucky punch knocking you out this time. Course, I wasn’t drinking Jack.”
Eric suddenly thought of Max’s job, and what the consequences could be if push came to shove. “Tell me you weren’t on duty.”
“You’re not charged with assaulting a peace officer, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Am I free to go?”
“Not till the doc clears you.”
“What doc?” said Eric, playing dumb. The way he felt, it wasn’t difficult.
“You see The Observer’s front page with Lance and Simon’s wedding picture yet?”
“Can’t say I did.” He turned his head and immediately regretted it. He waited for the waves of agony to clear. “Can’t say I didn’t, either.”
“Sit up and I’ll show you. If you can manage to do that, I’ll hand over some coffee.”
Eric knew a challenge when he heard one. If he lay there like a beaten rug, word would get around. He couldn’t do anything about Max knocking him out yesterday, other than pretend he didn’t remember. But this he could do something about. He gritted his teeth and dropped his legs off the bunk.
The universe exploded inside his head.
He rested there for a moment. He had to do this or die. But though he wasn’t a rancher, he was a Montana cowboy. So he cowboyed up and got ’er done. A moment later he leaned back against the cool cement-block wall.
A khaki sleeve held up a newspaper. The face behind it had a couple of bruises, matching his sore knuckles. He squinted at the photo, recognizing Lance and Simon all duded up. They looked pretty damn pleased with themselves. Between them was a tiny woman with a huge smile. Long, dark hair fell past her waist. Her light-colored dress was simple and elegant, as were the classy pearls around her neck.
“Looks like they got a good one,” he said. “Who is she?”
“The doc’s younger sister. Name’s Marci.”
Eric didn’t have to fake the stagger that hit him. The woman he’d bedded was related to this scrawny little thing? And why was Max showing the photo to him? He’d play along, though.
“Female doctor, huh? She married?”
“Nope. Why? You interested?”
“Hell, no! Matt’s the marrying kind, not me. And anyhow, I want my woman big enough to bed without breaking.” He pointed to the newspaper. “Someone that size would have a hard time having a big baby.”
“Simon and Lance will be finding that out after Christmas.”
“She’s already carrying that son they want so bad? No wonder they married so fast.”
Max took another look at the wedding photo and folded up the newspaper. “Doctor Meshevski is the best thing that’s happened to Climax in a while. But there’s a problem. Her contract says the town provides her accommodation. She’s been living in that apa
rtment of Harry Perkins.”
Eric pictured the rat hole above the garage that was the place for parties during high school. “That place should’ve been condemned years back.”
“She wanted her privacy, and it was the only place available. She came from back East, some big city hospital, but she hasn’t complained. Marci even lived with her a few weeks.”
“She could’ve lived in my place, but nobody asked.” He tentatively rolled his head from side to side. It didn’t fall off.
“I’m asking.”
“Now?”
“You got a problem with a female doctor living in one of your bedrooms? She spends most of her time at the clinic or visiting her sister.”
Eric scratched his chest, pretending to think about it. There was no problem whatsoever. He had to fight to hold back the shit-eating grin that tried to erupt. Having that wild woman living in his bed, encouraged to be there by the town council? No, siree, that would not be a problem. But he couldn’t let Max know.
“Can it wait a few weeks? Matt’s said he’s got a woman he wants me to warm up for him. Some tall blonde with a great rack and sweet ass. I plan to haul her into my bed as soon as I find her. You know who he’s talking about?”
Max, caught drinking, snorted coffee out his nose.
“Hot?” Eric smirked. “That’ll clear out your sinuses.”
Max coughed for a bit before clearing his throat. “Yeah, I’ve got a good idea. And no, it can’t wait. You know that apartment leaks like a sieve. Can’t have the town doctor living with bugs.”
“Damn. Matt says the woman he wants works with Brenda.” He frowned. “Might be a problem to have Blondie screaming my name a couple times a night if her boss is sleeping down the hall. Maybe the doc could stay at the ranch.”
“Too far from town if there’s an emergency,” said Max quickly. “Why don’t you stay at the ranch and let the doc live in town?”