Uncovered: A Hearts of the South story

by Linda Winfree

  “Oh God.” Caitlin hid an obvious smile behind her fingers.

  Tick lifted both hands, palms out. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Ash rubbed his fingertips down Madeline’s bare arm, leaving thrills in his wake. He tilted his longneck in Caitlin’s direction. “Your brother is right…finishing school was wasted on you.”

  Madeline waved a hand. “I’m lost.”

  Tick’s eyebrows rose. “Good.”

  Ignoring him, Madeline turned to Caitlin. “You went to finishing school. For real?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.” She gave an exaggerated shudder. “Even being in Switzerland for a year didn’t make up for it.”

  “Swiss finishing school.” Madeline shook her head. “And you married him?”

  “Hey!” Tick straightened. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Married him…” Ash grinned and took a long pull from his beer. “And promptly corrupted him. Shame on you, Caitlin Marie, taking this good Baptist boy and—”

  “I’m nondenominational. How many times do I have to explain that—”

  “And turning him into a reprobate.” He slanted a wicked smile in Madeline’s direction. “She completely debauched him, you know, dragged him out to the wild Texas society scene, took him to a strip joint—”

  “Oh shit.” Tick slumped, covering his eyes.

  Beside him, Caitlin dissolved into laughter. “It’s a gentlemen’s club. I’ll have you know there’s a difference.”

  Madeline rested her chin on her hand. “So did you buy him a lap dance?”

  “Buy him one?” Ash slapped the table, tears of mirth leaking from his eyes. Every molecule in Tick’s body stiffened, and he sputtered on the sip of Southern Comfort he’d just taken. “Babe, she rented a private room in the club and gave him one. Although my understanding is that is not all that happened.”

  “Holy fuck.” Tick’s head whipped in Caitlin’s direction. “You told him?”

  She held up a hand, laughing too hard to answer.

  “Holy fuck is right.” Madeline stared at Tick and let a slow grin creep over her face. “Oh my God, they would put you under the church if they knew about that.”

  “I think we should call his Aunt Maureen.” Ash managed to keep a straight face for two whole seconds.

  Tick was shaking his head. “I cannot believe you told him.”

  Caitlin wiped her eyes, holding her stomach with one arm. “Ashleigh, you’re a dead man.”

  Ash lifted his hands skyward. “See? Finishing school was a waste of money for you.”

  “Tick, sweet thing.” She nudged him. “Ask your friend over there who owns that particular…what did you call it, Ashleigh? A strip joint?”

  “Thanks a lot, Cait.”

  Madeline gaped at him. “You own a strip club too?”

  “It’s Daddy’s money. I’m just the figurehead. He didn’t want his name on the paperwork. Looks bad with the voters.”

  “Wow.” She considered it a moment then turned an impish smile on him. “So will you take me some time?”

  He laughed. “That depends… Am I getting a lap dance out of the deal?”

  “Cait can give you lessons.” Tick lifted his glass. “She’s damn good at it.”

  “Hey, Hardison!” Troy Lee’s eager voice cut through the chatter. He balanced on the other side of the railing, a few feet above the dance floor, his handsome face open and earnest. “Come play with us.”

  “No, man, not tonight.”

  Troy Lee waved toward the stage. “Come on.”

  Ash stretched, removing his arm from around Madeline’s shoulders, and flicked a hand in Tick’s direction. “Tell you what. If choir boy over there will sing, I’ll play.”

  “Hey, yeah.” Troy Lee grinned. “Come on, Calvert. One song. Maybe two.”

  Caitlin gave him a little shove. “Go on. Thrill me.”

  Tick rose. “You gonna play groupie later?”

  “Playing stripper isn’t enough for you?”

  He laughed and waited for Ash to extricate himself from the booth.

  Surprised, Madeline watched them go. She turned to Caitlin, who gazed after Tick with a soft smile. “Do they do this often?”

  Caitlin shifted her hair away from her face. “This is the first time with Troy Lee, although they’ve done it with the regular group here before. Usually you can’t get them up there until after three beers each. They’re good, though. All that time Tick spent in the church choir as a kid and Ash had music lessons all his life, I think.”

  “Huh.” Madeline’s gaze settled on Ash as the two men threaded through the crowd to the stage. A little ripple of excitement moved over the audience. They wanted to see this as much as she did, obviously.

  Following Troy Lee, they vaulted onto the low platform. Ash picked up a guitar, fiddling with the tuning, and they talked to the other band members in what looked like a small football huddle. Madeline grinned. Next thing you knew, they’d be slapping each other’s butts.

  “You are really having a good time tonight, aren’t you?” Caitlin’s soft question jerked her head around.

  “Yeah.” She considered the oddity of that for a moment. Hell, she didn’t remember the last time she’d had this much fun and laughter in her life, and she sure hadn’t expected it tonight. Her gaze strayed back to Ash. “I am.”

  “Good.” Caitlin twisted sideways in the booth for a better vantage point. “You realize our responsibility here is to hoot, holler and thoroughly embarrass them.”

  A surge of warmth flowed through Madeline and bubbled out in a laugh. “Of course.”

  Lights flashed around the dance floor, highlighting for one second a head with shiny blonde hair. The laughter and everything good froze in Madeline’s throat. Allison Barnett.

  And not too far behind, Stacy and Donna.

  Madeline squinted, focusing in on Allison’s face in the shifting crowd. Troy Lee was talking into a handheld mike, making introductions, and his words washed over Madeline in a dull rush. Tick laughed, adjusting the height on a microphone stand. Allison hung on every move he made, an old hunger in her face that turned Madeline’s stomach.

  “Madeline.” Caitlin touched her hand, and Madeline swung her gaze away from Allison, meeting Caitlin’s concern dead on. “What’s wrong?”

  Below them, Ash strummed an opening riff. A cheer went up at what must be a favored song. Above it, Tick’s voice joined in, with lyrics about lost love and rain and yearning, his raw tone suited to the song’s pained angst.

  Madeline tilted her chin toward the crowd. “The blonde, next to the redhead?”

  “Yes?” Eyes narrowed, Caitlin scanned the heads. “Her? The one in the turquoise tube top?”

  “Yeah. Her.” Madeline swallowed. “That’s Allison Barnett.”

  “What? Her?” Lips parted, Caitlin regarded Allison, obvious surprise on her face. “Oh my God, he lost his virginity with her?”

  Madeline laughed before she could stop it. Caitlin slanted a rueful look at her. “That came out really bitchy and snobbish, didn’t it?”

  “No. Well, kind of, but it’s okay.” Madeline’s attention tracked back to Allison, who’d edged closer to the stage. “He was probably thinking the same thing earlier today.”

  The band had segued into a new tune, a thumping rhythm with lyrics describing a gorgeous woman taking a man’s life apart. Caitlin, eyes narrowed to glittering slits, watched Allison, who gradually eased her way toward the stage and the steps leading to it.

  “Oh, I don’t think so.” Tossing her hair back, Caitlin slid from the bench. “There’s no way in hell that’s happening, honey. He’s mine.”

  Madeline scrambled to follow. “What are you going to do?”

  “Something I didn’t learn in Swiss finishing school.” Caitlin’s boots thumped on the carpeted floor, soon lost in the pounding bass. Madeline caught a glimpse of the rhapsodic concentration on Ash’s face as he played. He was good. Damn Allison for ke
eping her from enjoying this.

  Traveling in Caitlin’s wake, Madeline wound around a handful of customers. Close to the speakers, the beat thudded in her chest at a painful level. Caitlin paused on the steps and reached backward to tap Madeline’s shoulder. She glanced up. “Hey, Madeline.”

  “Yeah?” At this point, she was screaming over the music.

  Easing up a step, Caitlin cupped her hands to Madeline’s ear. “Look at that.”

  Onstage, Tick and Ash shared a mike, belting out the chorus while Ash pounded through the chords. She couldn’t see Ash’s expression, but fun and passion and sheer joy lit Tick’s face. She felt rather than heard Caitlin’s soft laugh. “That’s why I married him.”

  Caitlin continued down the steps. Madeline stayed where she was, her gaze trained on the two singing. Yeah, she could see wanting that emotion in your life every day. Ash swung away, fingers strumming softer as the song faded, the same elements reflected in his expression, and a realization she didn’t want to look at too hard slammed into her chest.

  Whistles and clapping blended with hollers and protests as the pair prepared to leave the stage.

  “One more.” Troy Lee held up a finger, grinning over the mike. “Come on, boys. Just one.”

  Laughing, Ash waved him off, and Troy Lee shrugged, soon charming the audience with his easy smile and good-natured prattle. A few patrons leaving the dance floor brushed by Madeline as they climbed the stairs. She ignored them, wanting to watch Ash, compelled instead to keep her gaze on Allison.

  Ash made it off the stage first, and Caitlin smiled, patting his chest as they passed. His mouth moved in a laughing comment, and he jerked his head behind him in Tick’s direction.

  Caitlin met her husband as he descended. Madeline caught the flash of Tick’s grin before Caitlin pulled him into a bedroom-only kiss that was the sheer staking of a claim, carnal and possessing. He faltered one step under the onslaught but recovered rapidly, lifting her against him and kissing her back. Caitlin tangled her hands in his hair. Wolf whistles and whoops of approval rose, the two of them oblivious to all but one another.

  Madeline caught a glimpse of Allison’s face—narrowed eyes, pursed lips, absolute fury and disgust twisting her features into something ugly and frightening. Her chin lifted, and she backed up, her gaze tracking the club to land on Madeline. Hatred flared in those blue eyes, strong and malicious enough that Madeline fought down the urge to retreat, turn away.

  “I think his Aunt Maureen would be scandalized.” Ash’s laughing voice pulled her from the nonverbal exchange. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Hell, I’m scandalized.”

  Madeline smiled, the expression feeling forced. When she looked beyond him to the dance floor, Allison was gone.

  “So do I rate one of those?”

  He came up another tread, putting them at eye level. A teasing light gleamed in his eyes, clear and pure enough to dive into, and a thin sheen of sweat filmed his skin, a holdover from the hot stage lights. A wide grin creased his tanned face.

  She stared into the sea-colored depths, that terrifying realization squeezing her chest again, stealing her ability to breathe.

  The teasing glimmer faded, shifting into something deeper, a simmering burn that pulled all the oxygen from her lungs. He snaked an arm around her waist, and she grasped his shoulders, meeting his mouth in a kiss that was a raw tangle of teeth and lips and tongues, less finesse and more pure, unrefined need.

  “Hey, you two, get a room if you’re gonna act like that.” Tick’s ribbing broke through the isolated haze of desire surrounding them.

  Ash lifted his mouth from hers, still looking at her like she was the only person in the world. One corner of his mouth hitched in a lazy smile, and he blew out a breath, thumb rubbing the silk at her waist. Heat spread through her system from that small, steady contact. “Look who’s talking.”

  “Hey, I didn’t do anything.” Tick urged Caitlin up the steps before him. “She grabbed me. I just went with the moment.”

  “And enjoyed every second of it.” Keeping their linked hands at the small of her back, Caitlin pulled him along, every inch a woman secure in the fact the man with her was hers and hers alone.

  “Well, hell yeah. Ten months is a long dry spell, precious.”

  Precious? What the fuck kind of endearment was that? Madeline lifted her eyebrows and caught Ash’s eye. “Don’t even consider it, Hardison.”

  “Never even crossed my mind.” He spun her and swatted her ass to get her moving toward the table. “Hey, Tick, that shade of lipstick you’re wearing does nothing for your coloring, man.”

  Eyes sliding closed, Madeline let the noise and heat and Tick’s smartass rejoinder swirl around her, let Ash guide her with warm hands on her waist, let herself wish she could have this moment, all the moments with him, forever.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “You mean, you’ve never done it in a pickup truck? Are you serious?” Madeline’s relaxed laugh trilled over Ash. Her shoulder nudged his side, her thigh aligned with his in the diner booth, each movement sending a rush of heated sensation through him. “Everybody’s done it in a truck.”

  “Well, I haven’t.” Caitlin smiled over the rim of her cup.

  “I’d have figured…” Astonishment coloring her voice, Madeline pointed between Tick and Caitlin. “I’m stunned. You’re from Texas. Trucks everywhere.”

  With a quiet laugh, Caitlin set her steaming tea aside. “You’ve never met my brother. I went to an all-girls boarding school, and when I was home, he made sure I wasn’t alone with any boys with trucks. I had to leave the country to lose my virginity.”

  “Switzerland?” Ash trailed his fingers over Madeline’s arm, drinking in the warm, smooth skin. Damn, she fit good against him. This genuine woman was the one he’d suspected lurked beneath the ballsy bravado, and he loved the way she softened as the night went on, unwinding further with each beautiful laugh and smile, with each easy caress between them. As much as he wanted to take her home and back to bed, he remained perfectly content to sit with her like this, hanging out in the nearly deserted diner at two in the morning after they’d already shut the club down.

  “Greece. European tour with Grandmother when I was eighteen.” She shuddered. “His name was Sandor, and it was the absolute worst sexual experience of my life. It hurt and I was so disappointed I cried, and then I didn’t do it again for three years.”

  “Amazing you ever acquired enough experience to corrupt choir boy the way you have.”

  Caitlin stuck out her tongue at him, much as he’d witnessed her doing with her brother back when Ash had gone to military school with him. “Would you stop?”

  “Why should I when giving you a hard time is so much fun?”

  “I don’t know.” She tilted her head to one side with a distinctly fake winsome expression. “Maybe because I might suddenly recall a story involving you and the words ‘colonel’s office’?”

  He stilled, frozen by the mischief in that look. “Caitlin. No.”

  “Sounds interesting.” Madeline slanted a glance at him from beneath her lashes. “I think I want to hear this.”

  “No, you don’t.” He patted her arm, inevitability staring him in the face. “Trust me.”

  Her gaze swiveled between him and Caitlin, a slow smile spreading over very kissable lips. “Oh, I think I really do.”

  “It’s nothing.” Resigned, he wrapped his hands around his cider.

  “Nothing?” The naughty mockery in Caitlin’s tone almost made him smile. “A threesome with the colonel’s daughter is nothing?”

  Madeline clapped a hand over her squeal of surprised laughter. Tick’s coffee mug hit the table with a thump. “Holy hell, you had a threesome? And you didn’t tell me? That’s wrong. You share crap like that with your best friend, believe me.”

  Gorgeous hazel eyes sparkled at him. “Did you really?” she asked, still muffled by her palm.

  “She’s exaggerating. There was no threesome
.” He sighed and held his thumb and forefinger a millimeter apart. “Well, there might have been a slight threesome involved.”

  He glanced from those laughing eyes to dark brown ones filled with a modicum of shock and a hefty dose of male curiosity. “Hey, I was eighteen. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “I’m sure.” Madeline giggled and wrapped her hand around his upper thigh. Heat shot out from the contact. He shifted and pulled his cell free. Flipping it open, he scrolled through the contacts list.

  “It’s after two in the morning,” Tick said. “Who are you calling?”

  “Vince. To bitch him out for opening his big mouth.”

  Tick’s guffaw drew the waitress’s frowning attention away from the Soap Network. “You had a threesome with Vince?”

  The skin on Ash’s spine literally crawled; there was no other description for the shuddering, creepy feeling. “You don’t have to put it like that. You make it sound like he and I…ah, man.” Tick would never let him live this one down. He slanted a half-amused glare at Caitlin. “See what you did?”

  “You started it, outing me on the damn lap dance. Payback’s a bitch, Ashleigh.”

  “I think we’re going to have to tone it down before they throw us out,” Madeline said, leaning into Ash. “The waitress is giving us the evil eye again.”

  Tick brushed his tousled hair off his forehead. “We need to head home anyway, get a few hours sleep before we pick up the baby from Mama in the morning.”

  After a flurry of goodbyes, Madeline spread her palm over his knee, rubbing in a soft circle. “They are not going home to sleep.”

  “Hell, no.” Ash laughed and hugged her to him. “You about ready to get out of here? You don’t have to work tomorrow, but my day still starts early.”

  On the quiet ride home, she cuddled into his side, tracing random designs on his leg, the soft meandering caresses burning into him. He wanted to hold on to this night, to the feelings wrapping around them. He wanted to hold on to her, so bad it scared him.

  The Ford shuddered to a halt in the driveway, stars peeking down from a clear, cold sky. He climbed from the truck and held out a hand, helping her as she slid out the driver’s side door also. Keeping his hold on her hand, he drew her close and slammed the door, the hinges creaking. “Did you have a good time?”