The Junkyard Cowboy (Tall, Hot & Texan Book 3)

by Christie Craig

  “It’s not like that.” She collected the empty pizza boxes to toss away.

  “Right. You’re on the search for a little-penised funeral director.”

  “Would you stop with the small penises?” Jennifer gave the boxes a good push into the trash. “The guys could come in and hear us.”

  “Right.” Savanna, now standing by the stove, poked at Jennifer’s burnt pie. “It looks like it would have been good.”

  “Yeah.” Jennifer turned to run water in the sink for the dishes. “Mom taught me how to bake it. It was the only thing she taught me how to cook.” But damn, after all this time, it shouldn’t hurt to talk about her. But it did. And she knew why.

  The ashes of guilt still lingered. All those years of professional help and girlfriend therapy hadn’t washed it away. Not all of it.

  The kitchen got quiet.

  Bethany went to the table to collect the glasses. “Well, I can’t deny I’m relieved you don’t like the guy. He’s clearly a jerk. Did you hear how he came at me? Like some wise ass.”

  Jennifer swung around. “He was not a wise ass. He was right.”

  Bethany grinned and looked at Macy and Savanna. “There it is. The spark. I knew I saw it. And did you hear her defend him?”

  Jennifer closed her eyes and suddenly wanted to cry. “I can’t handle this.”

  “Handle what?” Savanna left the pie to shoulder up against Jennifer.

  Jennifer swallowed her unshed tears. She might as well tell them. She would eventually. “He kissed me. Or I kissed him. I don’t know who did it. But no sooner than it happened we both pulled back and said the same thing.”

  “Said what?” Bethany rubbed her hands together. “Yum?”

  “No. We both apologized and said it shouldn’t have happened.”

  “That’s depressing,” Bethany said. “Was he that bad of a kisser?”

  “No, it was . . . awesome. Maybe the best I’ve ever had.” She recalled oh, so clearly how it had felt to have his body on top of hers, his lips on hers, his sleepy sexy gaze on her. “But it was the right thing to stop it.”

  “The right thing is overrated,” Macy said.

  “Not this time. Not only is salvageable material management at the top of the divorce rates, but he put himself through school working as a bartender and a roofer.”

  “Oh, that’s not good,” Macy said. “They both have the highest rates of divorce.”

  “How do you know?” Savanna asked looking at Macy.

  “I googled it.” Macy shrugged. “I’m not saying I buy it, but—”

  “And it gets worse,” Jennifer continued. “Add his family history of divorce and the fact that he’s already been divorced himself, and it’s almost a given that any relationship with him will end in heartbreak.”

  “Sometimes you have to gamble on things,” Savanna said. “Take a risk. A leap of faith.” She bit down on her lip. “He’s so hot.” She chuckled.

  “I agree,” Macy added, and Bethany nodded.

  “I can’t,” Jennifer said. “I’m going to be thirty-one next month. I know what I want, and it’s time I stop looking for it in all the wrong places. Plus, you’re forgetting one very important thing.”

  That thing that had been running amok, banging against Jennifer’s better judgment, pinching her pride, and hanging on her heartstrings.

  “What are we forgetting?” Macy asked.

  Jennifer tightened her spine. “That he said it was a mistake, too.”

  To feel rejected when she’d been going to reject him was insane. So, explain why she felt it—why she was now even more tempted to stick her toe in the relationship water to test the temperature.

  • • •

  Bundy’s heart thumped against his chest bone. He put the car in park, straightened his tie, and lifted the collar of his shirt up to make sure it hid his tattoo. He should have never gotten the damn thing. It had gotten him arrested the last time.

  Through the side mirror, he watched the sheriff get out of his car. He was a big man. It might take more than one bullet.

  The sound of his window going down filled the car. Bundy’s head itched from the wig, the tie felt like it was choking him, and his palm itched with the need to feel the weight of his gun. But his gut said, “Not now.”

  “Howdy.” The sheriff neared the window.

  “Hello Officer. What’s the problem? I’m almost sure I wasn’t speeding.”

  “Nope,” the sheriff said. “But your brake lights aren’t working.” He dipped down and eyeballed the front of the car.

  Was he checking out the wig? Could he tell it was wig?

  “You got a license?” the sheriff asked.

  “Yes, sir.” Being the Boy Scout he was, he’d already put the right one in his wallet. The one that identified him as Harold Coleman of Tennessee, and pictured him with the wig. He handed it to the man. “Car’s a rental. Sorry about that. I’ll make sure to let the agency know.”

  “What’s brings you out to my part of the woods?” the sheriff asked.

  Could it be this easy? Could he drive away from this without killing anyone?

  Thankfully, Bundy had noticed the road signs. “Heading to Glencoe. Applying for a job at Jackson Canning Company.”

  The man studied the license.

  “Kind of nice out here,” Bundy said.

  “We like it.” The sheriff handed the license back. “You have a nice day and make sure you get that light fixed before you cause an accident.”

  “Yes, sir.” Bundy used the same tone he offered his parole officer. If there was one thing he gave his old man credit for, it was teaching him to kiss ass.

  As Bundy watched the cruiser pull out around him, he swallowed the gulp of panic. Then he smiled. See, that proved just what kind of man he was. He hadn’t killed the sheriff just to kill him. He hadn’t overreacted, either. Any other hit man would have taken him out immediately. And they probably would’ve enjoyed it.

  A frown pulled at his lips. But it did prove he needed to be more careful. He needed to lay low, go back to the hotel, wait a while. Maybe get the car’s brake lights fixed. The thought hit that he could leave. Most hit men, if the first attempt went bad, didn’t stay around to do the job.

  That’s what made him the best. He was a man of his word.

  And he had the junkyard asshole to teach a lesson.

  He put the car in gear and started driving. He might be calling it a day, but Ted Bundy wasn’t a quitter.

  • • •

  “I don’t think I can do it!” Pete said, setting down the knife. “Even if I managed to cut a piece off, I might break my choppers. If I could cut off a few chucks of the pie we could suck on them.”

  Clay bit the inside of his mouth to keep from laughing.

  “I’m sorry, Pete,” Jennifer said, sounding earnest and making Clay feel bad for almost laughing. “How about after dinner I bake another one.”

  “You don’t need to do that,” Clay jumped in.

  “If she wants to, she can,” Pete jumped. Clay almost kicked him again under the table. But remembering the man had no qualms about kicking back, he restrained himself.

  “I want to.” She offered the old man a smile that could have melted petrified wood.

  Clay picked up his sweet tea and took a sip. Fine, he’d let her deal with Pete. She was a big girl.

  Well, not really. He recalled with clarity how small, feminine, and soft she’d felt beneath him.

  “Ain’t she sweet as sugar?” Pete said.

  Yeah, she was. That quick taste he’d had of her mouth had him wanting more.

  “Sorry I missed meeting your friends. I found out a friend of mine was feeling ill. He lives by himself, so I offered to help out a while.”

  Standing from the table, Clay collected the paper plates.

  “I can do that,” Jennifer said.

  They’d barely spoken since the kiss. And for good damn reason. The woman was husband hunting, and he didn’t want to appe
ar a willing candidate.

  “You cooked,” Clay said.

  After Jake and the crowd left, Clay had grabbed his computer, sat at the kitchen table, and researched everything he could find on Ted Bundy, Junior. The hundreds of articles on the real Bundy made the search difficult. But not impossible.

  He didn’t like what he’d read. The man should still be in jail. But from what Clay surmised, it seemed the system had gone easy on Bundy due to the evidence of his being an abused kid.

  Clay sometimes hated how cold his outlook was when dealing with sad backgrounds on criminals. Unfortunately, the correlation between abused and abusive was too strong to deny, and too few got rehabilitated.

  “I’m not sure grilled cheese and ham sandwiches qualifies as cooking,” Jennifer said.

  “They were good,” Clay offered and walked to drop the plates into the garbage.

  “That they were,” Pete said, giving up on the pie and settling back into a kitchen chair. “Did your mama teach you to cook?”

  Jennifer didn’t answer right away. Glancing back, Clay recalled the hurt in her voice when she’d mentioned her mom’s death.

  She stared at her tea as if debating her answer. “She . . . only taught me to cook a pie. And then only because I begged her. My mom was half Hispanic. My grandma was a cook and a maid. Mom followed in her footsteps because . . . because she didn’t have the means to go to school. So, she was determined that my sister and I wouldn’t work in the domestic field. She ran us out of the kitchen if we went in there. Told us to go study to make something better out of ourselves. She passed when I was sixteen.”

  Clay took in the details adding them to his everything-I-know-about-Jennifer list that he felt compelled to keep.

  The dark hair and slightly olive skin hinted at her heritage. He was more surprised at her having a sister. For some reason, he got the sense that other than her friends, she was alone in the world. Hopefully, he was wrong.

  “Well, I hate to differ with your mom, but there is no shame in knowing your way around a kitchen.”

  “I agree,” Jennifer said. “I regret I didn’t fight her on it.”

  “It’s never too late to learn,” Pete said. “For a while there, I watched those cooking shows. I tried cooking bananas foster, the fancy kind you put fire to. You can still see the burnt spot on the ceiling.”

  Pete and Jennifer laughed.

  Jennifer just put her hand on top of Pete’s. “I’ve actually been thinking of taking a few cooking lessons.”

  “Well, if you need someone to practice on, I’m your guy.”

  “I’ll take you up on that,” she said with true affection. Truer than Clay had heard from a woman in a month of Sundays.

  Pete got up and fed Devil who had rested at Jennifer’s feet for the entire dinner. Then he left the kitchen to go watch reruns of Family Feud. Jennifer started rummaging around the fridge as if preparing to cook her pie.

  “You do know you could tell him no,” Clay said, missing the easy camaraderie they’d found earlier.

  “I know. But I like him. He’s kind of cute.” The face she made was cute, too.

  Clay grinned. “You can still say that after what we saw last night?”

  She chuckled. “Yes.” Their eyes met, held, then she stuck her head back into the fridge. If that wasn’t a chilly brush off, he didn’t know what was.

  He turned to start the dishes.

  “You know,” she said. “I’m just going to make a mess fixing the pie. Why don’t you go watch TV and let me do this?”

  “Sure,” he said, feeling run out, let go, unwanted.

  Perhaps he’d been worried over nothing. He wasn’t even on Jennifer Peterson’s candidate list for husbands.

  Which was a good thing.

  He could relax.

  Not worry.

  So why did he suddenly feel excluded? As if they’d just announced the guys who’d made the football team and his name wasn’t called.

  He sure as hell didn’t want to be a contender.

  Frowning, he grabbed his laptop off the counter and went into the living room. The sound of dishing clinking, water running filled the small house. Sitting on the edge of the sofa, he googled “divorce rates by career.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Sunday morning Jennifer rolled over in bed, feeling rested for the first time. She’d slept well, with the exception of her one pee break. Upon stepping out of the bathroom, she had found Clay standing beside the sofa.

  “You want some milk?” His voice had been sleepy-husky, his hair mussed, his jeans unbuckled and his chest bare. He’d looked warm, cozy and middle-of-the-night sexy.

  Did she want . . . ? The tiny three-letter word, “yes,” did cartwheels on the tip of her tongue, but she realized his offer had been milk. She wanted his company. She wanted him.

  That was dangerous. She only had five more days to be in his company, and it was best not to romanticize it. He was playing bodyguard. She was supposed to be playing interior decorator to his house and business. And tomorrow, she would start on that. So, she ducked her head and said, “No, I’m fine. But thank you.”

  She’d left him, and it had taken her a good hour to go back to sleep, but she’d managed.

  Now, with the sun spilling through the window, she stood up, stretched and then smiled remembering both Clay and Pete eating her pie last night. She wondered over the feminine satisfaction of seeing a man enjoy something she’d made. There had only been one piece of pie left when she went to bed. Pete had called dibs on it. Seeing the two men argue over it had made her feel needed and—her mother would hate it—but good in a domestically-feminine kind of way.

  Then Pete had hugged her when she went to bed and thanked her for making him a pie. She wasn’t even sure why she’d taken a liking to him so much. Maybe because she’d never had a grandfather, and that’s what he reminded her of. Somebody’s pawpaw.

  As she got dressed, she smelled dark-roasted coffee.

  When she walked out, Clay sat at the kitchen table working on his computer. Almost startled, he looked up and closed the lid.

  “Good morning.” He smiled, his bright eyes looked playful, and he appeared well rested.

  Maybe that’s what they’d both needed. Just a good night’s sleep, so they could battle the awkwardness the kiss had brought on.

  “Morning,” she said. “Can I steal a cup of coffee?”

  “No, but you can have one.” His smile deepened.

  How had she not noticed he had a dimple in the corner of his right cheek?

  “You look cheery this morning,” she offered.

  “Is that a crime?” he asked.

  “No.” But along with the discovery of his dimple, it suddenly felt disarming. When the man smiled—or really smiled—he was even more attractive. She found a cup from the cabinet and filled it.

  “Where’s Pete?” She went to the fridge and added milk to her coffee until it became the caramel color that her taste buds preferred.

  “I convinced him it was his time to feed the horses and check on the cattle.”

  “He works for you, right?” she asked, realizing the relationship between the two wasn’t employer to employee.

  “Yeah.” He sipped his cup, and his eyes sparkled at her over the rim.

  “Why did you hire him instead of someone . . . younger?”

  “I kind of inherited him with the ranch.”

  “It was in the will.”

  “No,” he said. “But he’d lived with my grandfather for ten years. What was I going to do, throw him out?”

  She considered what he’d said. “You are a good man, Clay Connors.” If only you were a funeral director. If only you didn’t come from a broken family. If only . . .

  He flashed his dimple at her again. “You should remember that.”

  That seemed to mean something, but she wasn’t sure what.

  “Speaking of Pete,” Clay said, “I told him we’d fix breakfast. He should be back shortly, and whe
n he’s hungry he gets grumpy.”

  She chuckled. “He said the same thing about you.”

  “Can’t ever trust an old cowpoke.” He sipped from his cup. His gaze and grin stayed on her.

  “What about a young one?” She wrapped her palm around her warm cup and felt a similar warmth curl up in her chest.

  “Most of them wouldn’t steer you wrong.”

  They stayed right there, her standing, him sitting, both staring. She took a sip of the hot coffee, eyeing him suspiciously over the rim. Something about him was different.

  He set his cup down. “How do you feel about biscuits, gravy, eggs and sausage?”

  She blew on the steaming brew “You know how to make biscuits and gravy?”

  “Piece of cake. And I’ll teach you, and you can count it as one of your cooking lessons.”

  She hesitated. “You trying to show up my pie-making abilities?”

  He laughed. “Wouldn’t dare. That pie was the best. Pete already finished it off, by the way. Besides, I could really use your help. The one thing I’ve never mastered with cooking breakfast is getting it all done at the same time.”

  She sighed. “I’m not much of biscuit maker.”

  “You know how to scramble eggs, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, you take over that job. And set the table.”

  He stood and pulled out a can of biscuits from the fridge.

  “I thought you were going to make homemade biscuits.”

  “I never said homemade. But the gravy is homemade.” His dimple winked at her, and he pointed to cabinet. “Oh, grab the skillet from under there.”

  She knelt and stared into the dark cabinet. All she found was a single cast-iron skillet.

  “This one?” she asked.

  “Yup.”

  She stood up, the weight of it surprising. She remembered her mom using one just like this. “My mom used to cook with cast iron.”

  “Some people swear by it,” Clay said.

  Jennifer smiled. “The last Christmas, Dad bought her a set of non-stick cookware. She made him take it back because she said her cast-iron pans doubled as cookware and a weapon.”

  He laughed. “I actually had a murder once where the man was killed with one.” He took the skillet from her.