“So there’ll be more than just rodeos here,” she said.
“The income has to be steadier than a once- or twice-a-month event. Training will be a huge draw, but an arena this size needs more to make it profitable. We’ve got three country-music promoters signed up to schedule big events here and several festivals looking at using the land and the arena for weeks at a time in the off-season.”
Allie’s smile turned into a light chuckle.
“What?” he asked.
“I never thought you’d find your calling as a tycoon.”
He matched her laugh. “Hardly. I’m just a guy turning an old man’s dream into reality and hoping to make a living at the same time. The J. Roger is a lot of land, but it’s not fit for much more than rodeo. Its ranching days are long over and since we’re lucky enough to be near a major highway, why not take advantage? Increased tourism will be a shot in the arm for Lost Gun, too. It’s win-win.”
“Spoken like a real businessman.”
He shrugged. “Least my daddy can’t say my college tuition didn’t get put to good use.”
“I always thought he wanted you to follow him into law enforcement. I mean, after you finished riding bulls.”
James snorted. “Can you see me and my father working together on a daily basis? The man is single-minded and driven, but he’s a little black-and-white for my taste.”
“Maybe you have to be in his line of work, especially when you’re raising two kids all on your own.”
“Speaking of J.R.’s fathering skills,” James said, pulling out his cell phone and checking the screen for missed calls. “I haven’t heard from Ginny.”
Judging by his predictions last night, he’d expected his sister to call him at some point since the big fight at the Gunner place. Allie couldn’t help but be pleased that she hadn’t.
“That’s good, though, right? Means she has things under control and doesn’t need her big brother to ride to the rescue?”
He frowned and, from his expression, Allie could tell he wasn’t so sure. His relationship with his father had always been complicated and she didn’t imagine much had changed.
“Why don’t you give her a call if you’re worried?” she suggested. “I can make myself scarce. I really should head back to town at some point.”
“Why?”
The question disarmed her. After so many years of chasing him around, she didn’t expect he’d be reluctant to let her go, even for just a little while.
“I just thought you might want some space.”
He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her up close. “Now that you’re here, I’m finding that I’m not so anxious for you to leave. And that’s going to turn out to be damned inconvenient, especially with that big job offer you’ve got hanging over your head.”
“It’s not hanging over my head,” she denied, opting to ignore the warning she’d gotten from Sam that Eric was anxious for her to make a decision sooner rather than later. The job was a marine biologist’s dream. Working in the private sector, the budgets would be huge. She’d have access to sea creatures and scientific equipment that even cutting-edge universities could only dream about.
And then there was the location. A Caribbean island with an annual average temperature of seventy-nine degrees made up for the occasional hurricane threat. It was a hell of lot more enticing than the one-hundred-plus temperatures they sometimes saw in Lost Gun.
But Lost Gun had Hook—and that was no small incentive.
Unfortunately, he was more insightful than she’d given him credit for. He stared at her with one brow arched high, forcing her to revise her claim.
“Okay,” she admitted. “It’s hanging over my head. Anybody else would have said yes the minute the offer was made. But I haven’t. Maybe it was because of the unfinished business between us. Maybe it was something more. It’s a big decision and I know it sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s not. I have a lot to consider.”
They’d wandered to the area just above the chutes, prime seats where the spectators had unhampered views of the cowboys climbing into a nine-by-two-by-six metal cage in order to tempt fate. Allie leaned up against the railing, her hands grasping the bars behind her. James settled into the seat in front of her and kicked his boots up beside her.
“Like?” he asked.
She wasn’t going to say, You. How pathetic would that be? Not taking an amazing career opportunity just because she was still in love with a guy who hadn’t given her the time of day for years until this weekend? Besides, the truth was a lot more complicated.
“This is going to sound crazy,” she said, “but I’m not sure marine biology is really what I want to do with my life.”
His eyes widened. “You’d better not say that too loud. Your daddy paid good money for that education.”
She snorted. “He paid for my undergrad work, but I had scholarships, jobs and internships that covered the rest. I’m not a mooch. Not when I wasn’t one-hundred-percent sure what I wanted to do. But I’m good at science and I enjoy the research and the animals. Still, there’s always been something holding me back from going full-throttle.”
“A doctorate isn’t full-throttle? Hell, Allie, you finished your undergraduate work in three years when it should have taken you four. You have one graduate degree and you’re about to get another. I’d say that’s about as full speed ahead as it gets. And I haven’t seen your dad in a while, but I bet he’s crazy proud of that PhD you’re about to earn.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, “but he’s also big on a person loving what they do. I want to love what I do. I like it a lot, that’s for sure. But—”
“But, what? Allie, you’d be living on a resort in the Caribbean, playing with dolphins and chasing starfish all day. What’s not to love?”
“Could you do it?”
He clucked his tongue. “I’d go crazy in about five minutes, but I’m not a marine biologist.”
“Do you even know what a marine biologist does?” she asked.
“I have no idea. I suppose I haven’t given you much of a chance to tell me before this weekend, either. And up until now, I’ve kept you pretty busy doing things other than talking about science.”
A rush of heat suffused through her at the memories. She’d spent nearly every quiet moment since he’d headed out to meet with his investors reliving every touch, every kiss, every intimate lick and taste and thrust. She and James might have the odds stacked against them when it came to career paths and ambitions, but in the department of making love, their compatibility could not be denied.
He sat up, leaning forward so that his elbows were on his knees. “So tell me about your latest, greatest discoveries in the world of marine biology.”
She kicked at his boot. “Trust me, you don’t want to hear about dolphins and starfish.”
“Sure I do. Wouldn’t be the first time you talked about them. You’ve always loved critters from the sea.”
“No, I haven’t,” she argued. “I never thought about marine life back in high school. I only paid attention in biology because Mrs. Frasier stopped by the pharmacy for her mother’s heart pills and she reported my grades to my father even before she told me.”
“Is that how you remember it?”
“Yes,” she insisted, though she had to confess that a lot about school was a blur to her now—except for the parts that had to do with her and James.
“You always had a knack for science,” he reminded her. “You helped me out with chemistry at the junior college and you were two years behind me.”
She tried to remember and did conjure up an image of poring over college-level textbooks in James’s living room and stealing kisses whenever his father wasn’t looking.
“Funny how I remember it so differently. I was so messed up when I left Lost Gun, I had no idea what I wanted to do when I got to school. I just fell into marine sciences because my roommate, Samantha, already had her eyes on the program at Port Aransas.”
“Well, I can’t contradict your memory since I wasn’t there,” he said, “but as I recall, it was at the state fair your junior year when you refused to ride up to the old barn with me until I won you a stuffed dolphin by playing those rigged games on the fairway.”
“Oh, my God,” she said, blushing at how she’d once so brazenly bartered sex for a stuffed animal. “I totally forgot about that.”
He cursed as if exasperated, though she could tell by the tilt of his grin that he was teasing. “Teddy Bear wouldn’t do. Stuffed horse? No way. Had to be that damned fish.”
She opened her mouth to correct him, but by the crook of his grin, she knew he’d said fish just to get under her skin.
Well, it was working—but not in the way he intended.
Or was it?
It had been years since she’d felt this comfortable teasing and bantering and talking—really talking—to someone she’d just made love with. She hadn’t been celibate since they’d broken up, but none of the men she’d dated and certainly not the few that she’d slept with knew her the way James did—and none of them ever would. She and James had been friends since they were kids. Unless she discovered the secret to time travel, no man would ever understand her with the kind of depth as James Hooker.
But did she really want to go backward—or forward?
“I bet my daddy still has that damned ‘fish’ in his attic. Unless the new Mrs. Barrie threw it out, which is entirely possible.”
James stood and gestured so she’d follow him down the stairs to the main ring, which was fluffy with freshly turned-over dirt.
“You don’t like your new stepmother?”
She shrugged. “My father’s happy and that’s all that matters. I don’t really know her. She moved to town after I’d gone off to school and I don’t see her that often.”
“But you would if you lived here again.”
Yes, she would. She really hadn’t considered that piece of the puzzle. She hadn’t had much of a chance to consider anything beyond getting James’s attention. Now that she’d done that—and then some—she had some serious thinking to do.
“I guess I would.” She kicked a wad of dirt off the step, then eyed James directly. God, he was handsome. His dark hair curled a bit under his cowboy hat and the shadows of the brim did magical things to his sapphire-blue eyes. Her mouth watered at the possibility of them going back to the house and spending the rest of the day and night in bed, but as the air grew thicker with all the complications swirling around her, she decided she needed some time to think.
“Why don’t you give your sister a call and I’ll go back to the diner? Maybe you can meet me there later for dinner?”
But he immediately shook his head. “I’m not interested in floating our business out for the whole of Lost Gun to weigh in on just yet. Go on if you need to take care of some things, but I’d sure like it if you came back. I can throw a couple of steaks on the grill. Open a bottle of wine.”
“You have wine?”
“No,” he replied. “But I can get some.”
She ran her hand over his cheek, loving the feel of his rough five o’clock shadow against the sensitive skin of her palm. She wanted more than ever to experience that texture on other responsive parts of her body. And she would. Later. After they’d both had time to think.
“Tell you what,” she suggested. “You take care of the food and I’ll bring the wine.”
“Think you can get your hands on one of your aunt’s lemon-meringue pies?”
“I’m pretty sure that can be arranged.”
He snared her around the waist and when he kissed her, she was immediately struck by the intensity. The crash of his lips on hers, the wild tangle of their tongues, the hard press of his hand—the one the bull had mangled—told her one thing loud and clear. He would let her go, but only after he was certain she was coming back.
8
AS HE WATCHED Allie’s car kick up dirt on its way off the property, James caught sight of another vehicle heading in. He instantly recognized the oversize F-10 truck as the one his father had insisted Ginny drive for safety, despite James’s warnings about the trouble teenagers could get into with a flat bed that was so spacious.
Per usual, his father had ignored him. He’d bet his best ranch horse that the old man was regretting it now that Ginny had hooked up with Wade Gunner.
“Was that Allie Barrie I just saw pulling out of here?” Ginny asked after she hopped down from the elevated cab, her hair pulled up in a bouncy ponytail and her eyes, just a tad lighter than a Texas summer sky, free of the redness he would have expected after last night’s show.
“Yup.”
He didn’t add anything else. Now that Allie had left, the significance of the fact that she’d been here at all started to seep in. He’d been weak last night—broken down by his father’s humiliating antics over his sister’s choice of boyfriends and stressed out over the inspection by the investors. Or maybe he’d been in a nostalgic mood, remembering when he’d been so crazy in love with Allie, he would have been willing to fight off the world in order to be with her.
Whatever the case, the reunion he’d been avoiding had happened and damn if it hadn’t been one of the best nights of his life.
The dogs came tearing around from the back, their barks morphing into excited yelps when they recognized who’d shown up this time around. After the parade of strangers they’d endured today, even Buggabear danced in a circle when Ginny attempted to scratch him behind the ears.
Once she had the pack moderately settled, she followed him through the house and into the kitchen, where he pulled out two sodas from the fridge and popped the tops.
“So, are you going to tell me what Allie Barrie was doing here?” she asked.
“Are you going to tell me about you and Wade Gunner?”
“Yes,” she sassed.
He should have figured. She hadn’t driven all the way out to the ranch to talk about the weather.
“Go ahead, then.”
“I asked first.”
“Hey, you came out to my place, clearly to unburden your soul. So unburden. I have work to do.”
“I can help,” she offered.
“Maybe after you tell me whether I need to add ‘clean up the spare room’ to my to-do list because Pops kicked you out.”
“If only,” she groused. “He grounded me for lying about where I was last night. I couldn’t have left the house at all if I hadn’t promised that I was coming here and that I wouldn’t make a single stop on the way here or back. And I’d bet a hundred bucks he tracked me on the GPS.”
“That’s a sucker bet,” James said, wiggling his nose as the carbonation from the soda shot up his sinuses. “Of all the kids in that high school of yours, you hook up with the one that’s going to get under his craw the most. Was that on purpose?”
“No,” she insisted, but James’s doubtful stare changed her tune. “Okay, maybe. At first. But not now. Now, I really think I love him.”
“But you’re not sure?”
“I’m almost eighteen,” she said, her tone snapping as if he’d just questioned whether or not water was wet or the sky was blue. “We have fun together. We laugh a lot. We talk a lot. He doesn’t rag on Dad, even though he has every reason to. He just says I have to be patient and let Dad get to know him. Then he’ll know Wade is more than just a last name or the little brother of the man who gets a kick out of pissing him off. He says if I keep my grades up and don’t get in any trouble because of him, Pops’ll eventually come around.”
James combed a hand through his hair and whistled. “That’s mighty grown-up for Pete Gunner’s kid brother. Maybe he was adopted?”
His quip drew a reluctant grin out of his sister, the kind of smile that warmed his chest and made him forget, for a moment, about his own volatile love life. Being over a decade older than Ginny, he’d always skirted the line between the roles of protective big brother and surrogate father. Not that J.R. didn’t take his job
as patriarch seriously, but after losing his wife to hemorrhaging when Ginny was born, he’d become even more overprotective of his children, especially his daughter. She was the last piece he had of his wife and James could understand why J.R. fought so hard against losing her either to cruel fate or, worse, to the family that had been nothing but trouble since they cruised into town.
“I guess someone in that house has to be the grown-up,” Ginny conceded. “Though Pete’s not so bad, once you get to know him. He’s full of the devil, but he stuck up for me last night. Even you didn’t do that.”
James pulled out a kitchen chair and slid in across from his sister. “You were doing a pretty good job of sticking up for yourself on your own. I figured after that, if you needed me, you’d have called.”
“But would you have answered? What with Allie Barrie staying overnight?”
“Who told you she stayed overnight?”
Ginny grinned and sipped her soda. “You just did. Look, I was only a kid when you and Allie were together, but I always liked her. I never understood why she lit out on you after you got hurt.”
“She didn’t light out. I pushed her out. It was complicated.”
“More complicated than me going out with the boy our father would most like to arrest and throw in jail?”
“Believe it or not, yeah.”
“Because she was pregnant?”
James felt the air swoosh out of his chest. Ginny hadn’t even been in her double-digits when he and Allie’s relationship had imploded and since then, the topic of their teenage pregnancy had never been deemed fit for dinner-table discussion. But he and J.R. had fought about the mess on more than one occasion, especially after his father realized that James had pushed Allie away. Ginny must have heard more than either of them intended.
“How do you know about that?”
She took a long sip of her soda, her gaze locked on the grooves on the kitchen table.
Blazing Bedtime Stories, Volume VIII: The Cowboy Who Never Grew UpHooked Page 15