DORI WEIGHED HER OPTIONS. Technically, she couldn’t deny Jimmy Jr. service in the Double Nickel unless he became obnoxious. She removed a cup and saucer from a stack on the drain board, poured Jimmy’s coffee and carried it to him, along with a handful of creamer containers. Jimmy would wail about needing more cream in his coffee if she didn’t.
Jimmy pushed back his hat with his thumb and winked at her. “Thanks, darlin’.”
She looked him in the eye. “If you make trouble with Tanner Jones, I’ll call Deputy Holt. So help me, I will.”
Jimmy shrugged and glanced down the counter to where Travis Neff still held the issue of Texas Men. “Whatcha got there, Travis?”
“This here belongs to Dori.” Travis held it out to her.
Dori started down the counter to retrieve her magazine, but Jimmy caught her wrist. “I think I’ll have me a piece of pie, too, Dori. Would you get that for me? You know the kind I like.”
Dori trembled with fury. “Let go of me.”
“Oh.” Jimmy looked down at his fingers encircling her wrist. “Force of habit, darlin’.” He didn’t release her, and his thumb caressed her pulse. “While I’m eating my pie, I’ll take a look at that magazine, Travis.”
Dori glanced at Travis, who appeared ready to resist. And if he did, he’d no longer be working for Devaney Trucking come morning. Travis had a wife, and kids in college. It was just a magazine, Dori reasoned, not worth having a man lose his job over. She swallowed. “He’s welcome to see it, Travis.”
Travis looked unhappy but relieved. As he passed the magazine down the counter, Jimmy released Dori’s wrist and reached for it. Dori turned toward the pie keeper and pulled out the last piece of lemon meringue. Someday, she vowed. But when she made her stand against Jimmy Jr., she wouldn’t risk the welfare of innocent bystanders.
“So this is the ol’ boy I’ve been hearing about for days.” Jimmy held the magazine at arm’s length and squinted at the picture of Tanner. “He don’t look so tough to me.”
Dori clenched her fists. “Jimmy, I’m warning you…”
“Hey, relax, baby.” Jimmy set the magazine beside his pie plate. “I ain’t fixin’ to do a single thing except look him over, just like everybody else packed in here. This is the most excitin’ thing happening in town tonight.”
Dori sighed. She had herself to blame for this mess. Meeting Tanner in such a public place and telling people about it was bound to stir up curiosity. But she’d done it for her own protection. Despite Tanner’s wonderful letters, he could be some weirdo. Even the publishers of the magazine warned their women readers to use caution until they got to know the bachelor they’d decided to contact.
Pulling her order pad from her pocket, she wrote out Jimmy’s ticket. She wanted to slap it on the counter, but she laid it down carefully and walked away. It was almost nine, and Alice had just come in the door to relieve her.
“Now see what I’ve done,” Jimmy said. “I’m powerful sorry, Dori Mae. I spilled coffee all over your Romeo’s face.”
Dori had known it would happen the moment she’d given up the fight for the magazine. She could probably order another, if she wanted it as a keepsake. While she waited for Alice to put her purse away in the back and come out to take over, Dori pointedly ignored Jimmy as she finished cleaning up and pocketing her tips. An uneasy silence had fallen over the men sitting at the counter, but none of them made a move to leave.
“I’ll find a way to get rid of him,” Jimmy said, obviously trying to goad her into a response.
She glanced up at Jimmy and fought the urge to scream that she was never coming back to him, so he might as well get on with his life. But he wouldn’t have believed her. He’d bragged to his friends, who had passed on the word to her, that eventually she’d come crawling back, love starved and desperate to be with her son again.
And the truth was that she was desperate—longing to greet her son every morning when he awoke and kiss him every night before he went to sleep. And sometimes she desperately craved the comfort—and yes, the excitement—of a man’s strong arms. But Jimmy Jr. was not that man.
“I’ll discourage him in no time. See if I don’t,” Jimmy said.
Dori lifted her chin. “Maybe he’s the kind who won’t discourage so easy.”
Then a man walked through the door at exactly nine o’clock. Dori noticed that his eyes were even bluer than in his picture. Tanner Jones had arrived.
2
MINUS THE ROSE, which he’d lost the nerve to take with him into a café full of truckers, Tanner pushed open the door of the Double Nickel. Just inside the entrance he paused to get his bearings and saw Dori at once. After that, he could see no one else.
Her picture hadn’t done her justice. Her skin was more translucent, her eyes more luminous, than a mere camera could reveal. She noticed him as quickly as he’d noticed her and she became absolutely still, mirroring his absorption. For a few seconds they just looked at each other. Tanner knew it was the sort of crystallized moment that would live forever in his memory, no matter how things turned out.
“As I live and breathe, if it ain’t the famous Tanner Jones.’
The comment snapped through Tanner’s preoccupation like a whiplash. If someone in this cafe had already recognized him as the owner of Jones Construction, his plan was dead. He glanced warily at the cowboy standing about three feet from him, his hat tilted back and a mocking smile on his handsome face. All conversation in the café had stopped.
“You fooled me at first,” the cowboy said into the strained silence. “I thought maybe you’d wear your hard hat and muscle shirt.”
Tanner relaxed a little. The guy probably recognized him from the article in Texas Men. And for some reason, he was threatened by Tanner’s arrival. Tanner shifted his weight to the balls of his feet so he could sidestep a punch if one came. From the gleam in the guy’s eyes, Tanner almost expected it might.
Instead, the cowboy stuck out his hand. “Let me be the first to welcome you to Los Lobos, Mr. Tanner Jones.” His exaggerated courtesy reeked of sarcasm. “I’m Jimmy Devaney, Jr., Dori’s husband.”
Husband. Tanner had wondered what little glitch would pop up to spoil his fantasy of Dori as the perfect woman for him, but this sure as hell hadn’t been one he’d expected. He could have sworn Dori had written that she was divorced. Not separated, or thinking of leaving her husband, but divorced.
Then Tanner registered the last name this cowboy had just given him. Devaney. As in Devaney Trucking, the biggest business in town. Wonderful. He shook Jimmy Devaney’s hand. “Didn’t know Dori was married,” he said quietly.
“I’m not. We’ve been divorced for two years.” Her voice had a lazy drawl that he liked, but there was a strong current of tension running beneath her words. She approached him with a small purse slung over her shoulder, bringing with her the scent of fresh flowers. Her cheeks were pink and the dreaminess he’d seen in her deep brown eyes when he’d first walked in had been replaced with anger.
She inserted herself between Tanner and Jimmy Devaney, with her back to Jimmy. Then she took an unsteady breath and managed a smile as she looked up at Tanner. “I’m Dori Fitzpatrick. I’m happy to meet you, Tanner.”
Her smile made him forget all about her exhusband. It was the most uncomplicated, honest smile he’d seen on a woman in years. He touched the brim of his hat. “I’m happy to meet you, too, Dori.”
She gestured toward an empty booth. “How about a cup of coffee?”
“Sounds great.”
As he started to take her elbow to guide her in that direction, Devaney grabbed his arm. Tanner released Dori’s elbow and shook off Devaney’s grasp. Then he turned slowly to face him. “What’s your problem, mister?”
Devaney glared at him. “I’d advise you to keep your hands off my wife.”
“Dori tells me you’re divorced.” Tanner kept his voice even. “That makes her your ex-wife, cowboy.”
“Dori’s the mother of my kid. An
d I aim to see she don’t disgrace him by acting like a little tramp.”
Tanner’s jaw tightened. “Now that’s a real ugly thing to say about a lady, Devaney. I advise you to apologize.”
“Apologize?” Devaney waved something in his left hand and Tanner recognized a coffee-stained copy of Texas Men. “When she goes and writes to a total stranger and asks him for a date? Where I come from, there’s a name for a woman who’d do that!”
Tanner sighed. He was going to have to fight the guy now. “Okay, Devaney,” he said, his voice echoing the weariness he felt at the prospect of a fistfight in the parking lot of the Double Nickel Truck Stop and Café. “You win. Let’s go settle this outside.”
Devaney’s jaw worked and he clenched his hands, but he didn’t move. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“No, but I thought you could hardly wait.”
Dori came up beside Tanner. “You’re not going to fight him. I can’t let you do that.”
“How sweet.” Devaney sneered as he glanced around the café. “She’s worried about him. Anybody think I should dirty my hands on a drifter from East Texas? Hell, I could buy and sell you twenty times over, Jones.”
“If you say so.” Tanner now understood the glitch he’d been expecting. If he wanted Dori Fitzpatrick, he’d have to get past this moron, who was unfortunately connected to the most powerful family in town. Tanner figured anybody with a lick of sense would make his excuses and start the long drive back to Dallas. Hell, he was still getting responses from that article in Texas Men. Somebody else would turn up, somebody without a belligerent exhusband in the wings.
“And I got important contacts,” Devaney added.
“I’m sure you do.” Tanner was sick of the prolonged exchange, but at least it confirmed what he’d suspected. Like most bullies, Devaney was a coward. There would be no fight in the parking lot, at least not until Devaney had rounded up a few of his friends to safeguard the outcome and make sure the attack caught Tanner unprepared. “Tell you what, let’s table this discussion for now,” Tanner said.
“Table it?” Devaney sneered. “What are you, some chairman of the board?”
Dammit. Tanner sucked in a breath. “Just an expression,” he said quickly. “We’re both tired. Let’s discuss this later.”
Devaney pulled his hat over his eyes. “Nothin’ more to discuss, sucker. Here’s the deal.” He pointed a finger at Tanner. “Get too friendly with Dori and I’ll make your life so miserable you’ll wish you’d never set foot in Los Lobos.” He stormed out of the café without a backward glance.
The truckers sitting in the café muttered under their breaths. Then they gradually returned to their meals and conversations.
Dori touched Tanner’s arm. “Forget the coffee. I should have known this wouldn’t work.”
Readying his excuses about why he needed to get back to Dallas, Tanner faced her.
“I’m sorry I made you drive all this way for nothing,” she said. The light had died in her brown eyes. “I’ll be happy to pay for your motel room and gas, though.”
The memory of how excited she’d looked when he’d walked in the door came back to haunt him. He felt his resolve to leave being replaced with a desire to bring back that glow of anticipation. He fought that desire with images of himself beaten to a bloody pulp by Devaney’s friends. In a town run by Devaneys, nobody would come to the aid of a stranger from East Texas.
“Look, I understand completely,” Don said. “There’s no point in taking on somebody like Jimmy Jr. when there’s no reason to.”
Ah, but there was. He’d begun to fall in love, just a little, while reading and rereading her letters and gazing at her picture. In person she was even more beautiful, with a sweetly curved body and dewy skin that beckoned for his touch. He searched her expression. “Do you want me to leave?”
A sad smile appeared. “That’s not a fair question.”
The sad smile did it. The last of his good sense evaporated in its gentle warmth. “Let’s have coffee,” he said. Then he watched the glimmer of hope in her eyes grow and discovered it gave him far too much pleasure. He was in big trouble.
“I guess I owe you at least a cup of coffee,” she said, as if she dared not read too much into his suggestion.
“At least that much.” Tanner settled across from her in the booth and watched in fascination as she removed the net from her hair. Red-brown tresses the color of polished walnut tumbled over her shoulders and caught the light. She raised a hand and signaled the waitress behind the counter with a grace that captivated him. No wonder Jimmy Devaney, Jr., wanted her back, Tanner thought. Her equal wouldn’t exist within a five-hundredmile radius of this tiny burg.
“Are you hungry?” Dori asked as the waitress approached. “I get a discount here, so order anything you want.”
“Coffee’s fine,” he said.
She looked disappointed.
“Maybe a piece of pie,” he added, ridiculously willing to please her. “Apple, if they have it.”
Dori smiled at the waitress. “Two cups of coffee, Alice, and a piece of apple pie for Mr. Jones.” She glanced at him. “Warm, with ice cream?”
“Sure.” He loved the way Dori said “ice,” as if it were spelled “ahce.” Tanner had grown up in the Midwest, and although he’d lived in East Texas for fifteen years, he’d never picked up a Texas drawl.
Alice wrote the order on her ticket pad. “Cream in your coffee, Mr. Jones?” She studied him closely.
“Black, thanks.”
“Good.” Alice left with a satisfied expression on her face.
“What’s good about black coffee?” Tanner asked Dori.
“Jimmy Jr. drinks it with a ton of cream.”
“Oh.” It wasn’t much, but at least here was a little evidence that somebody wanted Dori to find a new love. He wasn’t sure how Alice would stack up in a back-alley brawl, though. Then he remembered the rose sitting on the seat of his truck. Now might be just the right moment to get it. “Would you excuse me a minute?” he asked. “I left something in the truck.”
She looked startled, then suspicious. “Uh, sure. I’ll, ah, be here.”
As he headed out the door, he realized she thought he was never coming back. Well, now was as good a time as any for her to learn that her exhusband might be a coward, but Tanner Jones didn’t operate that way.
DORI WATCHED HIM walk out and berated herself for being surprised. Of course he was leaving. He’d just been waiting for a convenient moment, and her intuition about his strength of character had only been wishful thinking. A soggy blanket of despair settled over her. Until his unimaginative exit just now, she’d liked everything about him, from his startling blue eyes to his scuffed Western boots. She’d liked the way he’d been willing to step outside with Jimmy, although she never would have allowed that to happen. He hadn’t seemed like the kind to sneak out of a thorny situation, but that’s exactly what he’d done with some lame excuse about getting something from his truck.
Damn, she just might cry. Grabbing a napkin from the metal holder, she pressed it against her eyes and lowered her head while she thought of the one subject that usually kept her spirits up. But even the mental image of Little Jim didn’t help much tonight, because now she wondered if she’d ever live in the same house with her child again.
“It’s a little wilted, but still pretty,” explained a deep baritone near her shoulder.
She sniffed and glanced up into the concerned blue depths of Tanner’s eyes. Then her gaze drifted to the deep red rose he held toward her. She looked away quickly and bit her trembling lip as tears quivered on her eyelashes.
“Hey, Dori,” he murmured, easing in next to her on the seat and covering her hand with his.
His thigh rested next to hers and the hand holding the rose lay over the back of the booth. The scent of deep, piney woods enveloped her, and she had an almost uncontrollable urge to nestle into the curve of his arm, to soak up his solid strength.
; “You thought I was leaving.”
She nodded, still not trusting herself to look at him.
He rubbed his fingers across the hollows between her knuckles. “I knew you thought that. I could see it in your eyes when I told you I had to get something out of the truck. Even if I’d have reassured you, you wouldn’t have believed me.”
His easy caress was the most gentle, loving touch she’d experienced in months. She’d suspected how needy she was, but hadn’t understood the depth of it. With almost no effort, he was transforming her wariness into a languorous anticipation for anything he suggested. As she reacted to his touch, she began to worry that her objectivity would disappear in no time, and she had to remain objective. So much was at stake.
She took a deep breath and pulled her hand from beneath his. Then she angled herself to face him, but moved to the far corner of the booth. He watched her with compelling intensity. A tightening of sensual awareness told her she would have to be very careful. She didn’t plan to become physically involved with this man until she knew a great deal more about him, but restraining herself wouldn’t be easy—not when he could churn her up so completely with just a look.
When he smiled and held out the rose, her breath caught in her throat. There was more tenderness in that one smile than Jimmy Jr. had shown her in the entire seven years of their marriage. And as she absorbed it, she realized she couldn’t let this obviously nice guy stay and be subjected to whatever Jimmy might dish out.
She accepted the rose. “I will remember this night, and your gallantry, for the rest of my life,” she said softly. She lowered her lashes and buried her nose in the fragrant petals for a long, heady moment before lifting her gaze to his once more. “But I want you to go. I wasn’t honest about the situation here, and I’ve lured you into a trap because I needed…”
Holding Out For A Hero Page 2