A Little Texas

by Liz Talley

  What was it about Kate that was different from all the other women he’d encountered in Oak Stand? He’d resisted every woman who’d come to him looking for a hard man and a good time. Why couldn’t he resist this one?

  He slid the stick between his fingers and took his shot. He missed.

  Kate beckoned a worn-out-looking waitress toward her. “I’ll have another whiskey sour while I beat this guy. And tell Bones to give me the good stuff, not that crap he used last time.”

  The waitress rolled her eyes but nodded.

  Kate moved toward him, brushing against him as she eyed her shot. “Did you miss that on purpose?”

  “Of course not,” he lied, enjoying her bottom brushing against the fly of his jeans. His hands literally shook as he forced himself to remain cool and ignore the flare-up igniting inside him.

  Kate lined up the shot and sank her striped three ball in the side pocket. She was good, but not good enough to beat him.

  So he let her win.

  And that seemed to tick her off. Her eyes glittered as she sank the eight ball in the corner pocket and dropped her cue stick in the stand between the three tables. She walked a little wobbly in her heels. She’d had way too much to drink.

  She placed a finger in the center of his chest. “Why did you let me win?”

  He regarded her like a chocolate lover would a box of Godiva. Sweet temptation stirred his blood, swirled around in his pelvis and heated him. “Because if I kissed you, I might not stop. And I really want to respect myself, Kate.”

  Her mouth opened. Then shut. “Then why the hell did you come here?”

  He wished he knew the answer to that one.

  Kate’s face softened. A seductive smile hovered on her lips. She pressed the accusing finger against his chest and allowed her hand to slide to his shoulder. “So what would you do if I kissed you anyway?”

  He looked around the crowded bar. Every now and then, people blatantly stared at the ex–gang member shooting pool with the bad girl come home. No one had bothered them during their game, nor had Tamara or Brent appeared. Just him and Kate, in their own little world. He moved closer to her, smelled the spiciness of her breath, the subtlety of her perfume. “I might slide my hands down to your tight ass and pull you up against me. Then kiss my way down that pretty neck till I get to those sweet little—”

  She pressed a finger to his lips silencing him. “Or?”

  He forced a bark of laughter. He wanted her so bad. Just a taste. Electricity thrummed between them, and everyone else in the bar faded away.

  Kate didn’t give him time to answer. She lifted onto her toes and kissed him.

  He closed his eyes and savored the feel of her body against his. He felt like a man dying of thirst tasting water for the first time. He knotted his fists before reaching for her waist and stepped back. “Don’t.”

  “I guess now I know what you’d do.” The edge in her voice smacked him.

  He flinched. He’d made it worse. Now she was hurt and a hurt Kate seemed a most dangerous thing.

  He directed his gaze away to the writhing dance floor. It looked like a full-on line dance was in progress. “How about we forget pool and dance?”

  She shrugged. “Whatever.”

  Kate spun a little too fast on her high heels, teetering before correcting herself and heading for the dance floor without looking back. He handed the cue stick to a bearded guy waiting his turn and followed her. As he stepped onto the scuffed oak floor, a slow country song started. He thought it was Keith Urban. Haunting and seductive.

  Shit.

  “You two-step, cowboy?” Kate asked. But she wasn’t asking him. She’d asked Brent, who was heading toward the bar and a smiling Tamara.

  “You know I do.” Brent’s nostrils actually flared as Kate crooked a finger at him.

  Kate looked Rick right in the eye and said, “Then let’s get it on, if you’re man enough.”

  Brent feathered his brown hair with one hand and grinned. “And you know the answer to that one, too.”

  Rick’s fist knotted again but this time for a different reason. He watched as Kate pressed her finger into the cleft of Brent’s chin, then smiled the kind of smile that would get a girl in trouble. Brent didn’t waste time gathering Kate into his arms and sliding smoothly across the dance floor.

  Rick stood there for a full minute, feeling like a loser, watching them sway and twirl around the floor before turning toward a now unsmiling Tamara.

  He sat on the empty stool next to her.

  “Vintage Katie,” Tamara muttered. “You wanna make her jealous? I’m good at the two-step and better at making girlfriends mad.”

  “She’s not my anything,” Rick lied, trying to pretend it didn’t bother him seeing Kate’s whiskey-bright eyes glitter beneath the Christmas lights strung among the beams above the dance floor. Her hands laced through Brent’s hair, and that action made his blood boil.

  Suddenly, she and Brent disappeared. His eyes scanned the crowd until he found them, in the process of getting tangled in each other’s arms, pressed against an old pinball machine.

  Oh, hell no. He moved toward them, jealousy pecking at him like a hen at seed. No way he was going to sit there and watch her wrap herself around another man. Especially since she was doing it out of anger at him.

  He grabbed Kate’s arm as Brent lowered his head toward her. “Let’s go.”

  “Hey,” Brent said, lifting his head and tightening his hold on Kate’s waist. “Back off, dude. The lady can choose for herself.”

  “Yeah, I can choose for myself.” Kate’s words were slurred.

  Rick looked at her. “You’re drunk.”

  She twisted her arm from him while at the same time moving away from Brent. “The hell I am. I never get drunk.”

  Brent eyed her and nodded. “Yeah, she’s drunk.”

  Kate crossed her arms. “I hate this damned place. I hate everybody in it, and I don’t need you two assholes to tell me what to do. I’m not that stupid poor girl anymore. I say who and when. I make my own decisions.”

  Neither Rick nor Brent responded. Kate’s gaze roved the honky-tonk wildly as if looking for a way out. She looked on the verge of coming unraveled. “I want to go home.”

  “Let me take you,” Rick said, taking her by the arm and giving Brent a look that brooked no argument. He didn’t want to fight the man, but he’d do it if he had to. Brent had a good three inches and thirty pounds on him, but Rick had grown up on the streets. He fought dirty.

  But Brent nodded. “Go with him, Katie.”

  Kate looked at Rick, eyes burning. “He doesn’t want me.”

  Her words ripped through him and he felt as though he’d been kicked in the gut.

  He was saved from answering by Brent. The man stooped and planted a kiss on Kate’s forehead. “Everybody wants you, Katie. Go home, sweetheart.”

  KATE COULDN’T EVEN MANAGE a wave to Tamara as they pulled away from Cooley’s. “Why did I come here tonight?”

  Rick shifted gears and ricocheted out of the gravel parking lot. “To get away from Justus. To get away from everything that makes you feel.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Phil,” she said, slipping off her shoes. “I acted like an idiot.”

  “No one paid that much attention.”

  “Of course they did. Half that bar couldn’t wait to watch me fall on my face. Or my ass.”

  Kate felt mooney. Light-headed. Of course, she was smashed. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d gotten drunk. Most of those times had been in college before she’d had the sense to know she needed to be in control. At all times.

  “Don’t you dare throw up in this car,” Rick said.

  “As if,” she said, before hiccupping. God, was she drunk.

  The moon played over the fallow fields, highlighting a random Angus cow or forlorn haystack. Trees flashed by in between fields and Kate felt miserable.

  So she laid her head down in Rick’s lap.

&nbs
p; “What are you doing?” he asked. She felt his flinch.

  “Resting.”

  He took one hand off the wheel and tugged at her shoulder. “Get up. You’re going to hit the gear shift.”

  She looked up at him. His jaw was clenched. She liked the way it looked, so she reached up and traced the pulse throbbing there. “I won’t hit it.”

  “It can’t be comfortable lying over the console.”

  “I’m good.” She slid her hand from his jaw to the collar of his tight T-shirt. It was gray and lifeless, like all the others he wore. But the pulse that beat beneath her fingers was very much alive. She smoothed the fabric over his chest. It was broad and hard, just like his stomach.

  “God, Kate. Please.”

  She could feel his erection by her ear. She so wanted to touch him. Wrap her fingers around him. Her damned mouth watered at the thought. She slid her hand lower still.

  His caught it. “Kate. Respect my decision.”

  She jerked from his lap and threw herself across the car to the bucket seat. Her side hurt from where it had pressed against the console. “You’re a tease.”

  His fingers clenched the steering wheel, knuckles white in the faint moonlight. “I’m not the one touching and kissing and—”

  “Bull. You show up at the bar, looking like a present for me, brushing against me and teasing me with the chance of a kiss. Then you chastise me for wanting you. For doing what I know you want me to do. What kind of game are you playing?”

  He glared at her. “I’m not playing games. That was you sliding your ass against me, licking your lips and slithering all over me. Then you went off with some other guy to punish me.”

  “Why did you come tonight? You said you had things to do.”

  She knew he’d come for her alone, and that made her blood simmer. If he wasn’t going to do anything other than make her want him so bad she lost all reason, did things she’d never consider, like drown a fifth of whiskey and seduce Brent Hamilton, why bother?

  “I wanted to do what Tamara suggested—go out while I still had the chance.”

  “Right. Whatever.” She folded her arms across her breasts and watched the road’s broken yellow lines rush toward them as they headed for Cottonwood. If he wanted to lie, let him lie.

  “Okay, fine. You want the truth? Well, here it is. I can’t stay away from you.” He turned his head to look at her. She saw naked emotion in his eyes. Desire. Torment. “I couldn’t stop myself from going tonight.”

  “Then why are you stopping this from happening? Why can’t we have sex, please each other? Life is tough. You gotta take pleasure where you can.”

  “I stopped living that way.” He paused before letting out a breath. She could see he was grappling with the right words. “I can’t go back to the man I was.”

  “It’s not using me if I want it as bad as you do.”

  He closed his eyes briefly before refocusing on the highway. “So you want to use me?”

  At that, she fell silent. Did she want to use him because she felt something for him, or because he was forbidden? Or maybe both? But deep down in places she suppressed, she knew that Rick meant more than a standard affair. Normally, that would make her run from him instead of run toward him.

  The alcohol had dulled her senses. She wouldn’t allow herself to feel more than lust or friendship toward Rick. She couldn’t. She wasn’t wired like other girls. “No. Maybe. I don’t know. All I know is that it could be good between us.”

  He nodded. “No doubt. But you use sex as a weapon, Kate. It shouldn’t be a tool to control people.”

  Even through the haze of whiskey, she felt as though she’d been slapped. His words fell hard against her, stilling her, making her face the fact she did use sex as a way to maintain control. She always had. Sex made her feel powerful. Loved. What a sad notion.

  Before she could give it more thought, Cottonwood appeared like an apparition in the night. Rick hooked a right through the gates.

  Silence reigned as the car hurtled toward the huge white house. Kate was glad they were almost there. She needed to get out of the damn car. Get away from Rick and his accusations. Away from the guilt he made her feel. Away from the doubt he’d awakened in her. At that moment, she really wanted to hit him.

  When Rick killed the engine, the back porch light went on.

  Kate blinked at the brightness.

  “What the—” She started as a man in a wheelchair emerged in the glow of the porch light. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  The Twilight Zone theme song played in her head. Her bio dad was waiting up for her like she was some fifteen-year-old home from her first date?

  Her anger at Rick boiled over onto Justus. She felt as if ropes had been placed on her and they were slowly and surely strangling her. Once again, another man tried to control her, tried to tell her who she should be, tried to layer guilt on her.

  She tasted bitterness in her mouth as she climbed from the car. The world rocked a bit, so she waited for it to steady. It didn’t. She moved toward the man in the wheelchair, nearly tripping on the stupid herb stuff planted between the pavers. She righted herself, but still listed. She looked Justus straight in the eye and in her best smart-ass voice drawled, “What’s up, Pops?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  HER FATHER DIDN’T LOOK AT HER. He looked at Rick. “What the hell do you mean bringing her home at 2:00 in the morning in this condition?”

  Kate didn’t give Rick time to answer. “If I had my way, I wouldn’t be home at all. I’d be in his bed. And, by the way, this is not my home.”

  She rocked a bit as the dark night swirled around her. Why the devil had she continued ordering whiskey? She stifled a belch as Rick shut the driver’s door and came around to stand beside her.

  Justus puffed up like a blowfish. “Right now, this is your home. And I am—”

  “Not going to go there tonight,” Rick finished, his voice soft but firm. He put a hand on the small of her back.

  Before she could think better of it, she leaned into him, allowed him to support her, even though it made her angry he thought he had to intervene.

  “Kate, come inside,” Justus demanded, banging his good hand on the wheelchair tray.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” she said, aware she sounded more like a teenager confronting her dad after a night of necking at the drive-in than a grown woman. Her stomach lurched against her ribs.

  “I’ll damned well tell you what I want to. I’m your—”

  A brittle laugh escaped her. “You want to play daddy now? Tonight? I’m nearly thirty-one years old, Justus. Too late, buddy. You had your chance and you didn’t take it. Or have you forgotten that day? That would have been a good time to play daddy.”

  Her mind tumbled back to the day he’d rebuked her in front of all those people. Pain struck fast and fierce, boiling up inside her, banging against her heart. She couldn’t stop the rage. “How could you do that? I was nine. Nine years old. Do you know what it did to me? You are cruel and the worst person I can even—”

  “Kate,” Rick said. “Stop. It’s not the time.”

  “I hate you,” she said, narrowing her eyes at the man who’d hurt her so many years ago. “I will never be your daughter, so you might as well save us the drama, give me the money and let me go back to Vegas.”

  Kate could feel the contents of her stomach rising, burning a path up her throat, through her nostrils. As the hurt and anger from long ago came forth, so did the whiskey. She broke away from them and ran for the garden behind the house.

  She made it in time to vomit on Vera’s emerging flowers.

  She sank to her knees and let her body rid itself of the poison.

  Then, for the first time in a very long time, Kate cried. She cried for the little girl she’d once been, a little girl who had stupid dreams of a family, of a room with a bed that didn’t poke her with its broken springs, of a dinner not served on a TV tray. Dreams of shiny dolls and brand-new books. T
hanksgiving dinners and Christmas Eve services. Good-night kisses and baby brothers with toothy grins. Then she cried for the woman she’d become. A woman who held so fast to the pain of the past that she couldn’t see the present with a man. Any man.

  And she wept because she didn’t know what else to do.

  Jeremy was wrong. Kate the Great couldn’t fix what was broken this time.

  RICK GLARED AT JUSTUS. The bastard didn’t know when to quit. And neither did his daughter.

  “I don’t want her around you,” Justus said, rolling forward. His thinning hair gleamed silver in the light of the moon. Shadows withdrew and emerged again in wicked patches of darkness as tree branches swayed with the stirring of wind.

  “You’re telling me to stay away from her? You sent me to get her, if you recall.”

  “I remember,” the old man said, halting his chair directly in front of him, “but that doesn’t mean I want you sniffing around her. Anyone with eyes can see what’s going on between you. She’s not—”

  “The sort of girl to be with riffraff like me?” Rick couldn’t stop himself from baring his teeth at Justus. He wasn’t good enough for the daughter Justus had thrown away? The irony didn’t skip past him.

  “Come now, Enrique, don’t play the poor servant boy with me.”

  “Don’t treat me like one.”

  “Just because you feel subpar does not mean the world views you as such.”

  The man’s words seared Rick. “Who said I view myself below any man?”

  Justus shrugged. “It’s evident in the way you react. If you paint yourself in that light, you should expect to be treated as less than what you are.”

  Anger boiled over. The old man was cruel sometimes, but there was an elemental truth to his words. Rick had been raised to accept he was of the servile class. His people were washerwomen, maids, gardeners and migrant workers. It did not matter that he was born an American citizen. In many people’s eyes he was an intruder, unwelcome and unwanted like weeds in the cracks of a sidewalk.

  Justus’s mouth tilted in a parody of the Cheshire cat, his hand mimicking the animal’s tail as he flicked it toward Rick. “I don’t cotton to stereotypes. I respect the man you’ve become.”