by Amie Stuart
“You said Jade wouldn’t understand about Charlene, and Charlene said she hadn’t heard from you.”
“I just don’t see the point.”
“She’s your sister. That’s the point.”
“All she does is preach!” Rowdy thought of the fistfuls of letters he continually found all over the house.
“You could at least humor her. It’s not like she has a lot to do in there, Rowdy. If that’s what keeps her spirits up, then more power to her.”
Rowdy shook his head and sipped his beer, unable to understand Tim’s defense of Charlene. “I’m swearing off women, and that includes my sister.”
Rowdy could feel Tim’s eyes boring into him, but didn’t turn his head or bother to elaborate.
“The day Rowdy Yates swears off women is the day I know something’s not right with you. Man. I saw the way Jade looked at you today. And I saw the look on her face when she was playing with Hope. Better yet, I saw the look on your face when she was playing with Hope and talking to the girls.”
“Slumming. She just wanted to see how us down home folk lived.”
“Boy!” Tim growled. “You obviously ain’t in the mood for company, so I’ll leave you be.” He gave Rowdy an easy punch in the arm and stood up. “If you feel like talkin’, you know where to find me.”
“Her mom’s a judge!” Rowdy looked up at Tim, trying to figure out how to get his point across.
“So?”
He tried again. “Her dad’s a professor!”
“Again, so? What’s your point?” Tim shrugged and Rowdy blew out a long slow breath.
“My dad was a drunk and a wife-beater. He died in the hospital where I put him.” Rowdy poked himself in the chest for emphasis. “It didn’t matter so much when I thought Skye was just...normal, ya know. When I thought she was like me and she might understand. But her family...her sister’s even a damn lawyer, and her brother graduates from college this year. And her mom...you saw her! Skye spent her birthday at a country club!”
“So, lemme get this straight.” Tim leaned against the rail, still frowning. “Just because she comes from a nice family, you don’t wanna date her?”
Rowdy paused. Put in such simple terms, it did seem stupid, but this wasn’t simple. “You’re missing the point!”
“Which is?”
“My sister’s a felon; her sister’s a lawyer!” he practically shouted. Was it that hard to understand?
“So now who’s the snob?”
AFTER TIM LEFT, Rowdy sat outside a while longer, grumbling into his quickly warming beer. Finally, he dragged himself into the house, got a fresh beer and a couple of sandwiches. Plate and drink in hand, he wandered into his office and flipped on the computer, trying not to think about last night’s chicken salad picnic in Skye's bed. Or making love to her after he’d come in from the bar and she’d been all warm and sweet and sleepy.
He scanned the onslaught of e-mail with a frown. Before he could change his mind, he sent an e-mail to the CagleFans list owner and unsubscribed.
BY MONDAY NIGHT, Rowdy was completely fed up with his own company but in no mood for family. Or nagging, which he knew he’d get plenty of if he went anywhere near the Boudreauxes. He ended up at Carmen's Hacienda, eating dinner with Pauline Kelso and her cousin Tiffany, who was visiting from Houston. With their nearly identical blond hair and tanned, slender bodies, the girls could have passed for sisters rather than cousins. He and Pauline had gone to their senior prom together.
Over beer and his second plate of enchiladas, he agreed to go back to Pauline’s place and hang out a while.
Thirty minutes later, he found himself sitting on her couch sipping a longneck. The window AC unit worked overtime and left the air freezing cold and slightly damp. It was like being in a meat locker, and every footstep anywhere in the house reverberated up the walls of the single-wide trailer.
The girls had spent their day at the community pool attached to the trailer park and had fresh tan lines to prove it. Rowdy found himself coerced into rubbing lotion on Tiffany’s sunburned back. He had a beer in one hand, his other hand up the back of her skimpy yellow top and Pauline wedged up tight against his other side, scratching his back.
They were cute, and he was a man. Rowdy was sporting a minor hard on. Life didn’t get much better than this, did it?
They sat for a while, reminiscing and telling tall tales about their high school days and all the trouble they’d gotten into.
“Remember when we nearly got caught screwing in the front seat of your pickup truck?” Pauline asked in the middle of a fit of the giggles.
Rowdy nodded and joined in. “It was the only truck in the student parking lot with fogged up windows.” At Tiffany’s puzzled frown, he added, “At lunch.”
Rowdy had passed his normal two-beer limit at dinner, and was well into his fifth by the time the sun set. By the time Tiffany disappeared into a back bedroom to fight on the phone with her boyfriend, he and Pauline had moved to the faded living room carpet. She sat with her back against the couch and Rowdy sat across from her, his back propped against the black entertainment center.
Pauline tucked her knees up under her and stretched her oversized zoo t-shirt over them. “Remember prom?”
He ducked his head and snorted with laughter. “Yeah,” he drawled. They’d gotten drunk and snuck into the hotel pool with three other couples. Skinny dippin’ and more plain craziness he was happy not to remember.
“You wore that tux jacket and those starched, sharp creased Wranglers with a black Stetson, and you looked good enough to eat.” She shifted her shirt and stretched her long legs out on either side of him, her lower lip caught between her teeth.
Rowdy pointed his longneck bottle at her and grinned. “And as I recall, you did.”
She’d given him a blowjob in the parking lot of the posh hotel their prom had been held at. Before the prom.
“I wasn’t the only hungry critter out that night.” Pauline eased to her knees and crossed the foot separating them. She pressed her full breasts against his jean-clad knees.
“You wore red satin. Sleeveless,” he murmured, enjoying the buzz that hummed through his blood and the admiration in her eyes. “And no panties.”
The lipstick on her lush lips was long since gone, with only a touch of pink on the outer edges, and her heavy eyeliner had smudged a bit under her eyes. Even with most of her makeup gone, Pauline was sexy—blatantly so, with her sharp cheekbones and full lips. And while his body responded to the feel of her pressed against his, something he couldn’t pinpoint nagged at him.
The trailer shook with Tiffany’s footsteps as she entered the kitchen.
“You still eat pussy?” Pauline murmured with a slightly drunk smile.
He chuckled, but before he could answer, Tiffany spoke up from the kitchen. “My God, Paulie.”
Rowdy watched her cross the tiny kitchen, her tiny breasts jiggling under her snug, yellow tank top and her pert, sharp nipples at attention. Well, tiny compared to Jade. Where had that come from?
“Out here talkin’ ‘bout eatin’ pussy.” Tiffany frowned, but there was no doubt she wasn’t really scolding her cousin. She just didn’t want to be left out of the fun. She squatted down beside Rowdy and gave Pauline a little shove. “Slut.”
Rowdy wasn’t stupid. He knew exactly what they both wanted, and he was tempted. He was a free man after all. Right?
But how to avoid ending up in the middle of a catfight?
“So what did Julio want?” Pauline asked, narrowing her eyes at her cousin.
“We broke up. He’s too controlling.” Tiffany leaned against Rowdy’s arm and rested one manicured hand on his shoulder. “So, Rowdy, are you controlling?”
He smiled down at her, fully aware of Pauline still leaning against his legs. “Only if you ask nice.”
“I bet you’d never tell your girl to come home in the middle of her vacation.” Tiffany gave him a flirty little smile and squeezed his shoulder.
Tiffany pushed him down on the carpet, and he relaxed and just let it happen. She tasted like beer. Once upon a time that wouldn’t have bothered him, but now, something about the whole situation left him gasping for air.
He could feel hands at the waist of his jeans but they weren’t hers.
Pauline. Rubbing his erection through the worn denim, then her fingers working the button-fly open. Rowdy had every man’s fantasy at his fingertips, literally.
He knew he could have ‘em both. He’d grown up with girls like Pauline. He got it: Small town survival of the fittest. Girls who used their bodies as bartering tools to snare a husband because that’s what their mother had done, and they’d never been raised to expect more from life. At the same time, sex was as much a recreational sport as football, and they knew the rules of fooling around. Who would and who wouldn’t commit to something longer than one night.
So they were a little easy. So what. Girls like Pauline and Tiffany were all he’d ever known. They were his kind of girls. Weren’t they?
About that time, Tiffany jammed her tongue in his ear and Pauline got her hand down his jeans.
Rowdy's eyes flew open and he stared up at the trailer’s water-stained ceiling. He couldn’t do this. Suddenly queasy, he struggled to push both women off of him.
He tried to blame it on the enchiladas and beer, but he knew better. Up until seven months ago, a situation like this wouldn’t have bothered him. Hell, he would’ve probably taken them up on their offer and never thought twice about it. But now he was filled with the same unsettling twist in his gut that had forced him to give up his Wife-For-A-Night routine.
“I can’t do this,” he panted harshly, pushing at Tiffany again. She finally released her grip on his ear and sat up, yanking off her tank top to reveal a set of breasts he would have taken great pleasure in enjoying six months or a year ago. He gulped in stale cold air. Then Tiffany leaned in to kiss him again, and he gently pushed her away, shaking his head and struggling to sit up.
“If you want us one at a time, I’ll go wait in the bedroom,” Tiffany offered with a little smile.
Her offer struck him as slightly pathetic and he winced, then stumbled to his feet and re-buttoned his jeans. Rowdy blew out a harsh breath, ran his hands through his hair and looked down at the two women at his feet.
Lucky for him, they looked more puzzled than angry. “I-I’m sorry, ladies,” he apologized, retrieving his ball cap from the coffee table. His car keys and cell phone sat tucked inside it.
“You’re just gonna leave us here like this?” Pauline demanded, her arms crossed beneath her unfettered breasts. He’d never even realized she took her shirt off. There was something slightly unappealing about her breasts, with their little white un-tanned triangles.
“We have needs, too, you know,” Tiffany added.
With one more apology, he quickly kissed them both goodbye and ducked out the door. He wasn’t fast enough to miss Tiffany’s parting shot, but he kept moving. “I thought you said he’d put out?”
Ouch!
He knew better than to drive after all that beer, which meant he had at least a one mile walk home. Hopefully, the girls wouldn’t be so pissed they’d do something to his truck before he could come pick it up in the morning.
And, if his luck held, by the time he got home, he’d be relatively sober. Sober enough to shower with lots of hot water and not drown himself like he deserved.
His skin crawled with dissatisfaction and he felt edgy, despite all the beer. The girls had left him with a restless craving for something he couldn’t identify. Something he didn’t want to look too closely at.
Once upon a time…well, it wasn’t once upon a time anymore, and he had a lot to figure out. Rowdy secured his ball cap on his head and started walking.
BIG GIRLS DON’T
THERE WAS NO getting out of work the next morning. Unable to sleep in, I’d gotten up, skipped my early-morning mail check and Pilates in favor of a trip to the donut store on my way to the office. By seven, I was at my desk working on last week’s reports. That’s how Danny Ramirez, my boss, found me two hours later.
“How was your birthday?” Danny gave me his customary mega-watt smile as he snatched a chocolate glazed donut from the box and settled in on a corner of my desk, completely uncaring of whether he got icing on his crisp white shirt. Danny reminded me a bit of the actor from Law and Order, Benjamin Bratt.
“The birthday from hell.” I sadly curled my lip for emphasis. I set aside some invoices and work orders and leaned back in my chair. Early on in our relationship, my good-looking, gregarious supervisor had intimidated me. A married, father of four and devoted to his wife, he was a first-class flirt, but completely harmless, and I’d quickly warmed to him.
“Oh, now, surely turning thirty wasn’t that bad. You’ve just hit your prime.” He took two more bites of his donut and waited for an answer.
I pushed in the drawer that held my keyboard and sighed. “Being dead seems a happy alternative at this point, Danny.”
“Your mamacita on you again?” He smiled down at me and sipped his coffee, then popped the last of the donut in his mouth.
“Her, and my entire life going to shit.”
“What life? You don’t have a life, Jade. You need to find yourself a nice man and have babies. Quit dreaming after him.”
My heart skipped a beat and I frowned up at Danny in shock. For a minute I thought he’d meant Robbie, then he picked up the framed, autographed, publicity photo of Chris Cagle that sat on my desk and shook it at me. It had come with my fan club membership.
I snatched the photo out of his hands and gently set the picture frame on the other side of my computer monitor, though all my enthusiasm for him and every other man on the planet had gone retrograde.
“Aren’t you on a diet?” I quirked an eyebrow at him, then threw a stack of finished invoices in the “completed” basket and it slid against Danny’s hip.
“Shhhh,” he said with a wink.
“I need to get out and check on my accounts.” I shut down my computer, stood and handed him my report and the box containing four donuts. I’d only eaten one.
TUESDAY PASSED MUCH the same as Monday night, in bed. The list didn’t interest me, Chris Cagle didn’t interest me. I’d missed ticket sales for Ft. Worth and Houston. I couldn’t get it in gear enough to care about tickets for San Antonio. And I damned sure didn’t want to read all those gushy happy e-mails.
Getting out of bed required too much effort, so I curled up with the pillow that still smelled like Robbie and watched chick movies.
By the end of the day, I had indigestion and had cried along with so many scared, battered, ex-wife-of-psychopaths and Mafia kingpins I needed a bottle of Midol to pull me out of my slump. Or put me completely out of my misery. Now I remember why I hated chick movies.
I stopped for donuts again Wednesday morning and found myself flicking bits of glaze off my blouse or out of my car while making the rounds. Nerves had me eating, despite the fact I knew better. But I couldn’t ignore my final stop of the day: the Bluebonnet Dancehall.
By the time I pulled in the parking lot shortly after lunch, I was hot, sweaty, sticky and cranky.
But thank Heaven for small favors. Rowdy’s Bronco wasn’t in the lot, only Toni’s old GTO and Susie’s SUV were. My stomach quaking with dread, I took one last sip of my Sprite, grabbed up my organizer and climbed out of the car. By the time I covered the twenty or so feet to the front door, my skin felt like it was on fire.
Just inside the door I stopped and jammed my sunglasses on top of my head, letting a blast of cool air wash over me.
“Well, hi there, Jade.” I recognized Susie Boudreauxe's voice, even if I couldn’t quite focus on her yet. “What a miserably
hot day it is.”
“Afternoon, Susie. Miserably hot would be an understatement.” I blinked a few times to clear my vision and headed toward her.
Toni stood behind the bar with an extra cool smile on her face. “Hi there.”
I set my organizer on the bar and pulled out the fliers with our latest sales and promos and slid them toward Susie.
They knew.
Despite my nerve-induced upset stomach, it was business as usual. She took them and tapped her fingers on the slick paper, even as Toni leaned forward. “So what’s this I hear you’re a snob?”
Blarh! All I could do was blink.
“I thought you liked Rowdy,” Susie chimed in before I found an answer.
“You two had so much fun at the barbecue!”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so smitten, and I’ve known him since he was a sprout.”
“And Tim says he’s never brought a woman around before. Ever!”
I felt like a ping pong ball listening to them go back and forth. The more they talked, the more my head spun and my stomach protested. “My mom—”
“That uppity bitch who came in here with you the other night?” Toni scowled and wrinkled her nose. “All she needs is a broom!”
“The one who thinks you and Rowdy are engaged?” Susie asked.
“Yeah, she’s—” I sighed, then forced myself to spit it out, “—got very rigid ideas of what’s proper and acceptable—especially for someone my size. That’s how she raised me. That’s no excuse for saying something rude about Betti, and I deserved his anger, but—”
“In this case, mother doesn’t know best.” Toni grabbed a glass and furiously filled it with ice before slamming the cover to the ice bin. She poured lemonade from the cooler on the opposite side of the bar and returned to set it in front of me.
“Thank you,” I whispered, then drained half of it. “And, yes, I know she’s a bitch. She said I picked Robbie on purpose—to annoy her.”
“Did you?” Susie asked from her spot beside me.