Texas Bad Boys

by Rosemary Laurey, Karen Kelley

  But today the lord-high sheriff showed up and added to the antispa campaign. Now the only way to get men here would be to hogtie them to her Jeep and drag them one by one.

  She passed the neat, white frame building that was Gabe Rankin’s law office, the man who’d set up this meeting at Sweets ’n Treats with her sisters. Oh, boy. Sisters. Nina and Juliet. Lillie’s steps slowed and her stomach crunched. What do you say to sisters you didn’t know you had till a few months ago? Nice genes? That was really pathetic.

  As she pushed open the pink door of the sweet shop, her gaze connected with two women sitting at the little round table in the corner. They looked a bit younger. Sundaes melted in the dishes instead of being eaten, and nervous energy radiated clear across the room. Least she wasn’t the only one a wreck over this. All her life she’d wanted someone to connect to as Mother moved from husband to husband, house to house, bank to bank, the accounts getting larger and larger.

  Mother first married Drew Maddock and brought Lillie into the world but never repeated the birth experience. No more stretch marks for Mother. Lillie slipped into the wire-backed ice cream parlor chair and smiled. “I guess I’m sister number three.”

  The sister with curly brown hair down her back smiled in return and held out her hand. “I’m Nina.” She nodded at sister number two, with short red hair and green eyes. “This is Juliet and we’re both happy to meet you. Offering any family discounts at the spa? We’ll be your best customers.” She winked and laughed, the awkwardness fading.

  Lillie said, “Well, we don’t look a lot alike but Juliet and I have the red hair and green eyes and Nina and I wear our hair long, so we think alike.” She glanced at the two dishes of ice cream. “And I like hot fudge sundaes without whipped cream, just like you two.”

  Nina said, “I’m a photographer. Juliet worked in an art gallery.”

  Lillie added, “And I’m a graphic designer, so we’re all artsy-fartsy.” She couldn’t hold in the sigh. “Why didn’t our father—who only came to see me twice in my whole life—at least tell me about you? I always wanted sisters, least he could have done was tell me I had you two.”

  “Dad didn’t visit me at all and Juliet only once,” Nina said as she pushed an old book and clipped-together papers across the table. “We definitely got the booby prize in dads. But we got first prize in Grandpas. Wait till you read this. It’s Grandpa Pete’s diary that I found at the ranch and receipts that Juliet came across at the Rooster. From what we can piece together our grandparents divorced, and little Drew and Grandma Penelope went back to Connecticut and the country club set. Drew, our Daddy Dear, never had anything to do with Pete till Drew needed money. But the real shocker is that he didn’t pay for anything for us—child support, education, you name it. Grandpa Pete picked up the tab. It seems Drew told Grandpa we didn’t want anything to do with him.”

  Lillie’s jaw dropped. “But Dad told me Grandpa Pete didn’t want anything to do with me.”

  Nina and Juliet nodded in agreement and Juliet said, “That way Drew could skim money from the payments before passing them on, and in Nina’s case he never passed anything on, just kept all the money. If we didn’t know each other we couldn’t compare notes and catch him.”

  Nina fiddled with a napkin on the tabletop. “The only thing important to Drew Maddock was the happiness of Drew Maddock and that was usually in some woman’s bed…till that irate sheik found him messing with one of his wives. There wasn’t even a funeral.”

  “Too dangerous. Too many hostile husbands.” Juliet shrugged. “And I don’t think they even found the body…least not all of it.”

  Lillie eyed the beat-up diary. “What a mess. Wish I’d gotten to know Grandpa Pete. I could have thanked him for what he did, or tried to do.”

  Juliet said, “This may sound a tad off, but sometimes I do have the feeling Grandpa’s spirit is still around the Rooster, like he’s with me, watching over me.”

  Nina sighed. “I get that feeling too. You know, we should do something for Grandpa Pete, like have a memorial of some kind. Everyone liked Pete. It would be a fitting good-bye to a fine man from his long-lost granddaughters. What about a wake at the Rooster? Tomorrow night at eight?”

  Lillie nodded. “Great idea. I like it. We’ll all chip in for a few kegs of beer and food and do it up right. We’ll invite the town. I have a copier at the spa, so I’ll make flyers and look around for memorabilia about the town, his life and what he did here. If we can get people talking, I bet they’ll have Pete stories and we can get to know Grandpa that way.”

  Nina held her sisters’ hands. “It took a while but finally we’re together. Grandpa Pete’s girls.”

  And by the time Lillie left Sweets ’n Treats and her sisters two hours later, she felt more positive than ever that she and Nina and Juliet would always stay in touch and be there for each other no matter where they lived. That’s what Grandpa Pete would have wanted. That’s why he left them the ranch, the Ragged Rooster, and the old hotel. It brought them together at last. They were family.

  The sun set behind a bank of clouds gathering on the horizon as Lillie headed for the spa. Rooms on the top floor were converted into apartments for her and Melinda, with the guest rooms on the second floor. The spa was on the first floor and would be finished soon along with a gazebo and grotto out by the hot spring in the back garden.

  She crossed the street, dotted with couples and families out to enjoy the summer evening, and passed in front of the sheriff’s office. Don’t look, don’t look. John Snow is a jackass. Least that’s what her business side said. But her female side made her look anyway. How pathetic to be ruled by hormones and basic lust.

  And John Snow was there all right, head on the desk and rubbing the back of his neck. She should just walk on by and that’s what he’d want, too, except she could help him with that darn headache. And if she did help, maybe he’d tell the other men and they would change their opinion about the spa and give it a chance. Going to see John was all about advertisement, good public relations, nothing more.

  Yeah, right. Who the heck was she was kidding? Public relations, ha! She wanted to get her hands on John Snow and right now any reason would do just fine.

  Two

  John’s head throbbed. Aspirin had little effect. The door to the office opened and he growled, “Whoever you are, no one’s here. Go away.”

  “In a minute.”

  Lillie June? What the hell was she doing here? He bolted upright, making his head pound worse than ever. “What do you want?”

  “An endorsement.”

  “From me?”

  “At the moment you’re the best I’ve got.” She walked toward him, her hair pulled back into a clip, her eyes greener than ever. No headache in the world could keep him from noticing. But she didn’t stop at the desk; she went around and stood behind his chair.

  He watched her over his shoulder. “You’re going to wring my neck for trying to shut your spa down?”

  “Tempting as that is, no. I need you to talk.” Then he couldn’t remember what he intended to say in response because she began rubbing his shoulders and the base of his neck, lessening the ache that was like an ice pick stabbing into his brain.

  “I’m going to get rid of your headache because that’s what we charlatans do.”

  His head drooped forward. “Damn, that feels great.”

  “Your muscles are hard as a rock.”

  And getting a hell of a lot harder and not the ones in his neck.

  “And as payment for this fine treatment you can go over to the Rooster and tell the other men how this helped you and they’ll come to the spa, and I won’t go bankrupt before the paint dries on the walls.”

  Except he couldn’t walk right now if he wanted to. Telling Lillie to stop wasn’t a good idea because his headache was really going away and, God, he liked her hands on him. Warm, firm, pushing into him, and suddenly that’s exactly what he wanted to do to her. Think of something else besides Lillie!
“You should know that a reference from me won’t do any good around here. My daddy stole money from the bank years ago. I’m the black sheep by association.”

  “That’s why you decided to become a cop? Compensate for his wrongdoing?”

  “Mostly I wanted to drive a car with flashing lights and a siren.”

  “Is your dad living here in town?”

  Town? What town? He couldn’t think about anything but Lillie. “He lives in the Hamptons. Wrote Confessions of a Con, a New York Times best-seller for months. That’s why he and Mom are living in the Hamptons.” And right now he wished he was visiting them there instead of being tempted beyond all reason by Lillie here.

  Enough! He reached around and grabbed her hands. If he got any more turned on he’d implode. Except now he held her slim wrists in his fingers and felt her pulse racing, the rate nearly matching his. Being turned on was tough. Both of them turned on at the same time was downright dangerous.

  He let go and walked around the chair and faced her. He intended to tell her to go away except her eyes darkened to jade. Why didn’t she just deck him for trying to close the spa? It would make things so much easier. “What are you really doing here?”

  “Drumming up business.” Her breasts nearly touched his chest. He could imagine how they’d feel, all firm and round and…

  “Buy an ad in the paper.”

  “I did. It flopped.” He framed her face in his palms and kissed her warm, sweet lips. Maybe this one simple kiss would be enough to get Lillie June out of his system and he’d stop obsessing over her. Not needing everyone in town to see them and without breaking the kiss, he backed her behind the file cabinet. Except how could he stop kissing a mouth that opened so nicely and didn’t suggest he leave at all…until he heard the door open and Rusty Pierce call, “Hey, anybody here? John? I brought you a piece of peanut butter pie from the bed-and-breakfast. I have to sneak it because Betty won’t make it anymore. She fixes those damn granola bars. A man’s gotta have pie and you deserve it since you went head-to-head with that Lillie June gal.”

  Rusty Pierce, the kissing police! Well, damn. The words were like getting doused with a bucket of cold water, and Lillie must have felt the same way because kissing her was now like kissing a pickle. She stepped away and gave him a we-must-be-nuts look, then tossed her head, smoothed her hair, and strutted around the file cabinet as John followed.

  “Hello, Rusty,” she said. “Having a nice evening? I sure am. John and I were just necking in the back room. He’s a fair kisser but I’ve had better. See you around.”

  Rusty gave a rough laugh. “I heard about the scene at the spa, Lillie June. You were throwing things at John. That sure doesn’t lead to necking in the back room.”

  Lillie opened the door and called over her shoulder, “Believe what you want, but I doubt that John wears Sun-dance Peach lipstick and he sure is wearing some now.”

  Crap! John swiped the back of his hand across his mouth to get rid of the lipstick before Rusty turned back and said, “That is some woman. What a first-class pain.”

  Pain? John could relate. His erection pressed against the zipper of his jeans, his only salvation being that standing behind the sheriff’s chair hid his condition. Difficult to convince Rusty that the local sheriff was butting heads with Lillie when he sported the biggest hard-on of his life.

  Rusty plopped the pie on the desk. “So, was Mizz June here to tell you she’s closing the place down?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Well, dang. She’s a hard nut to crack.”

  Except she wasn’t the one with hard nuts!

  Rusty added, “You just keep at her, boy—she’ll give in. Besides, how can she make it financially? She doesn’t have that many clients.”

  Rusty left and John eyed the bag. He didn’t want to be scarfing down pie. He wanted another taste of Lillie and he wanted it to last a hell of a lot longer than a thirty-second kiss on the run that made him hornier than a Dallas traffic jam. Lust rode him hard till he remembered Lillie’s “I’ve had better” comment that referred to his kissing ability.

  What was that all about?

  His dick shriveled. He was a great kisser, dammit. Ask the twins. They broke dishes over his kisses. How could Lillie June not agree? What was wrong with that woman? What was wrong with him?

  Lillie stormed into the spa and tramped her way up the refinished hardwood stairs, past scaffolding, and over paint-splattered tarps. How could she kiss John Snow? Was she completely out of her flipping mind? He wanted her to turn the spa back into a hotel, said she was a quack, a criminal…and then she went and kissed him with enough force to suck the Wrangler River dry as dust.

  But the sucking was over and done with and wouldn’t happen again, especially after that bad-kisser crack. A true stroke of genius on her part, true inspiration…even if it was a big fat lie. The important thing was, she needed to keep a clear head and not salivate over John Snow, spa enemy number one. Knocking a man’s kissing was a guaranteed way to get rid of him.

  She rapped on Melinda’s door and got no answer. Where was she? With that Jimmy guy? After a divorce from hell, Melinda did not need another man in her life even though she always thought she did. Well, there’d be no gab session tonight to get Lillie’s mind off a certain sheriff. She needed something—anything—to divert her thoughts, so she headed for the door at the end of the hallway and took the rickety gritty steps that led to the attic. Cobwebs, spiders, bats, and a hunt for memorabilia were a poor substitute for necking with John Snow.

  Melinda said she’d stored junk there that looked too interesting to throw out. Maybe there was stuff about Grandpa Pete up here. A flashlight sat on a wooden barrel next to a milk glass oil lamp. This was her rendition of Chicago girl does old Western attic. Except this Chicago girl would much rather be doing John Snow. Forget John Snow!

  The place creaked, no doubt caused by the air-conditioning kicking in. Moonlight spilled through the end panes that faced the sheriff’s office. She clicked on the flashlight and opened the window, allowing the night breeze to cool the suffocating interior. Tables, chairs, lamps, books cluttered the area, and a humped trunk that looked like something the pioneers dragged across the plains sat in the corner next to a faded rocker with stuffing poking through the seat.

  She lifted the trunk lid to newer, neatly folded men’s clothes, and the scent of cedar and peppermint. Grandpa Pete’s things? She imagined he’d smell of cedar and peppermints—didn’t all grandpas? Maybe he lived here for a while. Sadness washed over her. She’d give anything to have known him, a real grandpa, someone who cared, really cared about her. To Mother and her husbands Lillie was an acquisition, something that helped them keep up with the Joneses. Like a Mercedes in the garage: Look, we have one too!

  Lillie touched a shirt, then picked it up. Something dropped from the pocket, and as she bent to retrieve it she was shoved hard from behind, making her fall headfirst into the rocker.

  She screamed and the chair flipped over, taking her into an unplanned somersault. The flashlight skidded to the corner, footsteps raced across the wood floor to the stairs, and from the sounds of stumbling and cursing, the pusher tripped down the last part. Served the bastard right! “Damn you, whoever you are! I hope you got bruises.”

  Leaning back she put her hand to her chest to keep her heart from beating right out of her body. Breathe, Lillie, breathe. Search for your calm place, inner peace, beauty and tranquility. Falling water, a cool stream, her hands around the intruder’s neck. She needed to work on this inner-peace thing.

  Again running footsteps sounded on the stairs, revving her heart back to panic mode. What the heck? Things like this never happened in Chicago, and Chicago was crime central.

  Scurrying over the chair, she spotted a pile of books and prayed the top one was a nice thick copy of War and Peace. She stood and swung at the silhouetted figure that crossed in front of her, but he grabbed her arm before she connected. “Lillie?”

 
Holy Lord, the bad guy knew her name. Terror sliced through her, fogging her brain, and she pushed with all her might but lost her balance and fell against him, sending them both over the trunk. He held her tight and she landed on top of him with a solid oomph.

  “Let me go! Let me go!” She squirmed and elbowed him in the gut. “I have connections. I know the sheriff.”

  “Dear God, so do I! Will you hold still!”

  She stopped dead, her heart still racing. “John?” Turning in his arms she peered at him through the darkness. “What are you doing here?”

  “Will you just hold still so I can let go of you without fear of bodily harm? And why were you screaming like a stuck pig? You scared the hell out of me, girl.”

  “I do not scream like a pig.” He let go of her but she didn’t move. Strong arms, terrific body, sexy guy…archenemy. She ignored the last part, the first three things making that pretty easy. “Someone was up here and he pushed me, then took off running, and then you came along—not that I knew it was you—and I grabbed a weapon.”

  John rubbed his gut and closed his eyes. “If the guy ran away, Lillie, why would he return?”

  She rolled to the side, propped herself up on an elbow, and studied John as he lay stretched out on the floor, moonlight falling across his naked torso. Naked and torso went really well together when referring to John Snow. “Maybe they forgot something, like my head on a platter. How the heck should I know? I’m new to this attic stuff. I didn’t even have an attic in Chicago. Mrs. Wilson lived above me, eighty years old and drove a pink Cadillac and had a schnauzer named Pookie and why aren’t you wearing a shirt?”

  He lifted one eyelid. “I was taking a shower.” He pointed to the window behind him. “We’re right next to each other and I’m staying in the upstairs apartment and it doesn’t have air-conditioning. When I heard you bellow I grabbed my jeans and…and…well, I am the sheriff and it’s my duty to check things like this out and…ah, dammit all, Lillie June, why couldn’t you just stay in Chicago with Mrs. Wilson and Pookie and the Cadillac?”