“I should warn you about Jimmy Jr.,” she said. “He came to the door and wasn’t pleased about you going along to Abilene with me and Little Jim. He might try something.”
“And he might be all talk.”
“He might. I doubt he’d ever take you on man-to-man.”
“No. He’s a certified bully.”
Dori shoved her hands in the front pockets of her jeans and stared down at her running shoes. “That’s what worries me. He won’t challenge you to a fair fight, but he might talk some of his buddies into waylaying you sometime when you’re alone.” She glanced up, her expression troubled. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Tanner. Maybe it would be best if you gave up on me.”
“We’ve already had this discussion. You’re wasting your time trying to convince me to leave, unless you want me to go for your own reasons. But I refuse to run away from Jimmy’s threats.”
Admiration shone from her eyes. “You’re almost perfect, you know that?”
There. That was what he’d been searching for all these years, a woman who looked at him, not at what he represented in material perks, and was impressed. “I’m far from perfect, but I’m glad you think I’m even close.”
“The one bad thing is the way you spend money, Tanner. I couldn’t tolerate that in a husband.”
“I can change.”
She smiled. “I’m glad you said that, because I’ve thought of a way to help you. Here’s my plan. For the next week, if you agree, you’ll be on a budget.”
“A what?”
She looked a trifle smug, but on Dori the expression was cute. “I figured you weren’t closely acquainted with that concept. Here’s how it would work. Whatever we do together all week has to cost less than the total I’ve come up with.”
He already knew he’d hate this. “And what is that total, pray tell?”
She walked over to the desk and picked up the pad and pen left there for guests. She wrote a figure on the pad, ripped off the page and handed it to him.
He stared at the small amount, less than it would cost him to dry-clean one of his custom suits. “No way.”
“It can be done. You just have to use your imagination instead of your wallet. That’s my condition, Tanner. Unless I truly believe you can be more careful with money, we have no future together. We should end it now before we both get hurt.”
He looked at the amount and considered once more spilling the beans. Then he gazed at her standing in the circle of light created by the desk lamp. Her braid had loosened during the day, giving her a wonderfully disheveled look that he longed to improve upon. He recalled the promise in her kiss, the press of her ripe body, and could think of one thing they could do that would cost nothing at all.
“It’s a deal,” he said.
“Good.” She took the paper back and drew a crude map on the back. “Here’s how you get to my house.” She handed him the paper before picking up her purse and the White Ranger. “You can come by for me at nine tomorrow morning. I don’t have to be at work until one. Good night, Tanner.”
He watched her head for the door. He wanted to call her back, yet knew she wouldn’t stay the night, which was what he really wanted. “Thanks for giving me a second chance,” he said.
She opened the door and stopped, turning to look back at him. “I thought about calling everything off, but when you told me you were in room nine, I figured that was a sign we should hang on a while longer.”
After she left, Tanner shook his head. Talk about close calls.
7
TANNER WASN’T SLEEPING as well as usual since he arrived in Los Lobos. Sexual frustration could do that to a person, he’d discovered. He’d finally drifted off about one in the morning when the sound of yelling and people running brought him wide-awake. He pulled on his jeans and boots and opened his door, expecting to see flames leaping from one of the motel rooms.
The sidewalk in front of the long row of rooms was crowded with guests in various stages of undress, so that Tanner had a hard time figuring out where the problem originated. He moved out into the parking lot for a better perspective, which was when the breeze blew the stench in his direction. He coughed and held his breath as he studied the row of open doors and noticed wispy smoke drifting from room sixteen.
A cowboy ambled over to him, buttoning his shirt as he walked. “Smells like somebody threw a stink bomb in that room,” he commented to Tanner. “Probably high school kids.”
“Could be.” Tanner breathed through his mouth as the smell became worse. He didn’t think for a minute it was high school kids, despite the juvenile nature of the vandalism.
“Aren’t you that ol’ boy from East Texas that’s here to see Dori?”
Tanner gazed at him, not feeling particularly friendly at the moment. “Who wants to know?”
The man stuck out his hand. “Heck Tyrrell, a friend of Dori’s. I stop in at the Double Nickel whenever I’m in town.”
Tanner shook his hand. “Tanner Jones.”
“I know. I was there Sunday night. I made a run to Amarillo yesterday, but now my rig’s in the shop until tomorrow afternoon, so I’m bunking here.”
Tanner grew wary. “So you work for Devaney Trucking?”
“Yeah.” Tyrrell rubbed his neck and looked uncomfortable. “A man’s gotta have a job, and Devaney pays good.”
“I understand.”
Tyrrell hesitated, then spoke again. “Listen, Dori’s something special. We don’t want to see her get hurt.”
“Seems like she’s already been hurt.”
Tyrrell looked down the road, where a wailing siren and flashing red lights indicated a fire truck was on the way. “Somebody shoulda punched Jimmy Jr. a long time ago,” he said quietly.
“Probably.”
“Treat her right, Jones.”
“I intend to.”
As the fire truck pulled in, Tanner excused himself from Tyrrell and headed back to his room. Room number nine. Dori’s lucky number had saved him from some inconvenient nastiness.
THE NEXT MORNING Dori dressed in jeans and a San Antonio Spurs T-shirt her parents had sent her. With the budget she’d put Tanner on, he wouldn’t be taking her anywhere fancy. She smiled as she remembered the look of disbelief that had crossed his handsome face when she’d set a limit on the amount he could spend on her in the next week. She’d half expected him to refuse to abide by her budget and was very glad he’d decided to go along. Apparently, he understood the importance of proving he could be thrifty.
And someday she might tell him how tough it had been for her to walk out of his motel room after the way he’d kissed her. Keeping him at arm’s length while she evaluated his suitability as a husband and father was themost difficult thing she’d ever had to do. But she would continue with that course of action for Little Jim’s sake.
After some inner debate, she left her freshly washed hair loose. She didn’t wear it that way often because she was either working at the café or puttering around her house, and unbound hair got in the way. Besides, Dori had always thought when a woman let her hair flow loose around her shoulders, she was signaling an interest in romance. Dori hadn’t wanted to give off those signals. Until now.
Her doorbell rang at precisely nine, and she marked down punctuality on her mental list of Tanner’s good qualities. The list was growing. If he could just learn to budget…
She pulled open the door and forgot all about the spending habits of the man standing on her tiny front porch. Dressed in a soft blue work shirt and snug jeans, Tanner looked even better than he had in the Texas Men magazine photo, and that was saying a lot. Or maybe her perception of him was beginning to shift as memories of passionate kisses colored her view.
From behind his back, he produced a Hershey chocolate bar and a single white carnation. “Bargain candy, bargain flower in virginal white, signifying my pure intentions,” he said with a wink. “Do I have to save my receipts, or will you keep this all in your head?”
She lau
ghed and accepted the candy bar and carnation. “After two years of watching every penny, I’ll know when you’ve crossed the line. Thank you. This is very nice.” She stepped back and ushered him inside.
“Let me have the flower back,” he said as she closed the door.
“What, you’re going to recycle it for tomorrow? That may be going a bit far, Tanner.”
“You’ll get it back in a minute.” He slipped the carnation from her fingers and snapped off a good part of the stem.
“Hey! That’s my present you’re mutilating.”
“I just found out where it goes.” He moved closer and tucked the carnation in her hair. The delicate scent of the flower mingled in a heady combination with his woodsy after-shave, and his breath fell softly on her face as he concentrated on getting the flower anchored behind her ear. “There.” His tone had undergone a subtle change, from bantering to husky, and his hand lingered on her cheek.
She looked up into his eyes and could read intentions that were far from pure. Her pulse raced.
With a rueful smile he backed away. “Sorry. Almost forgot myself for a minute.”
She was impressed with his self-control. And perhaps a little disappointed. Which was very unfair of her, she realized.
He glanced down at her hand. “You’re going to melt the candy bar, holding it like that.”
Immediately, she relaxed her death grip on the Hershey bar.
“Gonna give me a tour of your house?”
“Sure. Let’s go back to the kitchen first. I’ll put the candy in the fridge.” Her legs a bit rubbery, she led him to the kitchen, a long, narrow room with her refinished round oak table at one end, a closet for her secondhand washer and dryer at the other. The kitchen window looked out on the backyard, where Little Jim’s swing set and a picnic table took up most of the area. A red oak, an unusual tree for the area, shaded the picnic table. The leaves had begun to turn and a few had fluttered down to make bright scarlet patches on the grass. The tree had captured Little Jim’s imagination and Dori had rented the house because her son loved that tree.
Tanner braced his hands on the sink and peered out the window at the view over the cedar fence that surrounded the yard. He stared at the large two-story house about a mile away, where an upstairs window was visible in a break between the branches of the large cottonwoods that surrounded the house like sentinels. Tanner glanced over his shoulder at Dori. “Little Jim’s room?”
“That’s right. If those trees grow any more, I won’t be able to see it.”
Tanner looked back at the house. “Let’s hope you don’t have to worry about that.”
Longing filled her heart as she imagined having this broad-shouldered man beside her, helping her fight what seemed like an impossible battle. A sigh must have escaped unnoticed, because he turned around, concern in his eyes.
“Let’s drop that depressing subject,” he said. “You spend enough time worrying, as it is.” He winked. “Let’s go see the rest of the house. I want to find out if you’ve put a velvet rope across the door to your bedroom.”
“You really think I’m prissy, don’t you?”
“No, I think you’re sexy as hell, and if I don’t crack jokes I’m liable to grab you and try to seduce you, which would spoil everything, right?”
She found breathing difficult. “Right,” she whispered.
“Then let’s get on with the tour.”
“Right,” she said again, and walked ahead of him out of the kitchen. This plan had seemed so logical when she’d written to Tanner suggesting he come to Los Lobos for a week so they could get acquainted. But the sexual tug she felt every time she looked at him had nothing to do with logic.
She led him back through the living room toward the hall.
“You’ve been very creative with your decorating, by the way,” he said as they passed through the living room.
“You have to be creative when you’re on a budget.”
“So I’m learning.”
She walked down the hall and paused before Little Jim’s room, which looked pretty much as he’d left it six months ago. His yard-sale toy box sat in one corner and his twin bed held the assortment of stuffed animals he’d collected since he was a baby. “My son’s room, obviously,” she said. “Jimmy Jr. thought Little Jim was too big for stuffed animals, so he left them all here. He left most of his other toys, too.” She didn’t admit that sometimes, when the ache for her son was too much to bear, she slept here surrounded by his cherished bears, squirrels and bunnies. Little Jim’s scent clung to the soft toys, and breathing it in helped her sleep.
Tanner glanced into the room but made no comment.
“I suppose he is too old for stuffed animals,” Dori said.
“Nobody ever gets that old, Dori. The way your exhusband treats Little Jim chills my blood.”
She glanced into his eyes and drew strength from the anger there. “Jimmy always told me I didn’t know anything about raising boys.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’ve seen what you’ve done with that boy, and you know everything you need to know. He’s a great kid.”
A smile trembled on her lips. “Thanks, Tanner. Hearing that helps a lot. You know, I think if Little Jim had been a girl, the judge would have ruled differently, thinking girls need their mothers more. God help me, I’ve sometimes wished Little Jim had been a girl so I wouldn’t have lost my child.”
His gaze grew more intense as she talked. “Dammit, why don’t we just—” Abruptly he stopped speaking and turned away with a muted curse.
“What?”
He faced her again, his expression more placid. “Never mind. Let’s continue the tour.”
“Okay.” She could guess what he’d been thinking. The talk about Little Jim had brought him back to the idea of a quickie marriage in Las Vegas. Fortunately, he’d thought better of bringing up the subject again. “This is my room.” She gestured toward the door. “Bathroom’s across the hall.”
She stood back and let Tanner look in. He did a double take at the pictures of her son that covered all four walls.
“I had a lot of pictures, because Little Jim is the only grandchild on both sides. When he…went to live with the Devaneys, I hauled them all out and tacked them up. Then we take pictures every week, as you saw yesterday. Rolls of film are one extravagance I allow myself.”
Tanner stood silently examining the walls full of pictures. Finally, he turned back to her, a grim set to his jaw. “Let’s go,” he said, his voice strained. “We have a house to build.”
He wouldn’t tell her where they were headed when he guided her out the door and into his truck, but she saw what appeared to be a picnic basket in the back.
“You won’t get us lost, will you?” she asked as they took off down a back road.
He grinned at her. “Worried about being stranded with me in some lonely spot?”
The idea filled her with more excitement than she dared tell him. “I just meant you don’t know the area very well.”
“No, but Elmer does. I spent some time talking to him this morning before I picked you up.”
He seemed so proud of himself, taking her out for an inexpensive picnic, that she hated to rain directly on his parade, so she chose a more oblique approach. “I’m surprised Hanson’s Department Store was open this morning.”
“Hanson’s?” He glanced at her. “What do you mean?”
She angled her head back toward the truck bed. “Isn’t that where you bought the picnic basket?”
“Oh.” He nodded. “A picnic basket would blow the budget right off, wouldn’t it?”
“I’m afraid so, Tanner. But still, it’s a great idea. You have a handicap, being from out of town and all. You don’t have a lot of the things you might otherwise.”
“I hate to tell you, but even if we were in East Texas, I’d be out of luck. I don’t own a picnic basket.”
“Well, now you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“But—”
“I borrowed it from Elmer’s wife, Beatrice.”
Dori chuckled at his self-righteous expression. “That’s great, Tanner.”
“I’ll be darned if she didn’t have the whole works— tablecloth, silverware, plastic plates and glasses. The only thing I paid for was the food, and she helped me make the sandwiches in her kitchen.”
“I’m impressed.” She was also touched. Tanner had taken her so seriously that he’d befriended the motel owners and asked for their help. She suspected Tanner wasn’t used to asking people for special favors. “So you’ve made friends with Beatrice, then?”
He drove with one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting on the floor shift. “I think you’re the reason she was so helpful.”
“Me?” She found herself staring at his shift hand only a few inches from her knee. The Texas sun had burnished his skin, and there was a small scratch near his thumb that had nearly healed. His fingers curved lazily over the shift knob, and she could see that his nails were short and clean. It was a working hand, probably scratched by a rough piece of board or a wayward screwdriver. And she wanted to feel the caress of that capable hand on her skin.
“I get the idea that a lot of people in Los Lobos would like to see you break free of Jimmy Jr.’s domination,” he said. “They just can’t be too vocal about it.”
Dori sighed, as much to release sexual tension as anything. “I know. I’ve had some great support from a couple of old high school friends. They’re the ones who advised me to get married again. They were all set to help me find somebody, but then I saw the magazine and decided to try that, first.”
Quietly, smoothly, Tanner moved his hand from the gearshift and laced his fingers through hers. “I’m glad.”
Desire jolted through her at the subtle pressure of those strong fingers. She took a deep breath. “You know, we have to remember something.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Tell me and I’ll add it to the list.”
“We might not get Little Jim back. We could get married, and pay the lawyer a lot of money, and still not get him.”
Holding Out For A Hero Page 8