Texas Bad Boys

by Rosemary Laurey, Karen Kelley

  He went inside the office and up to bed. Too many questions about Pete and his granddaughters and not enough answers. And there was also his unexplainable attraction to Lillie June to deal with.

  And by the time the six A.M. alarm went off—which he didn’t need because he’d been staring at the damn ceiling all night—he still couldn’t come up with an answer for either problem. Beauty? Sex? He’d had both before. So what made Lillie so special? John stood and looked out the window through the pearl gray of early morning to the spa across the alleyway. A light came on in the second floor and someone moved about. Lillie. He could tell that much just from her silhouette on the lace curtains.

  He’d so much rather be waking up beside her or in her than across the alleyway. His dick swelled and got damn uncomfortable. How much longer did he have in the Gulch before going back to Dallas? A week or so? Too damn long to live with a permanent erection. Least he’d be gone all day and out of sight of Lillie; that would give him some rest.

  He showered and dressed and tramped down the stairs, and from the back hall he spotted Lillie sitting in the big oak sheriff’s chair. Long green skirt, yellow jacket, coffee in hand, looking sexy as hell. She lifted her coffee in greeting. “Morning, sheriff. Up bright and early I see.”

  He was up all right. “What do you want?” He already knew what he wanted!

  “I ran into Jimmy last night, having coffee with Melinda, and he said you were going out to look for clues or whatever on the riverbank today. Since my sisters and I are your number one suspects, I think it’s in our best interest for me to tag along on your fact-finding mission.”

  “What if you’re not invited?”

  “It’s a free country and I want to see what you find firsthand.” She stood. “We’d better get a move on. The weather station says we could get rain, and running around in the mud doesn’t sound like much fun.”

  “Then maybe you should stay here and keep dry.” Fuck. After not sleeping all night because of her, he didn’t need her around all day to distract him more. He’d be thinking about kissing her, holding her, getting into her pants—he was always thinking about getting into her pants. He wouldn’t find a damn thing but trouble if Lillie came along.

  She held up a basket. “Hope you like vegetarian fare. I have lunch.”

  He didn’t move. The farther away he was from Lillie the better. From here he couldn’t smell her herbal fragrance mixed with her own feminine scent, which made him crazy. He couldn’t feel the warmth of her petite body or be tempted to touch her hair, pulled back into a band. “Isn’t there a wake for Pete tonight? Don’t you have to work on that?”

  “Juliet and Nina are taking care of preparations for the wake; I’m taking care of you.” She swallowed. “I mean following you.”

  She dug into her basket as if she needed a diversion after that last crack. “I found old photos of the Silver Gulch Hotel and some of the guests. Did you know Buffalo Bill stopped by Silver Gulch? Did you know he really hunted buffalo? Why would anyone ever hunt a buffalo?”

  She was rambling. Good. Least he wasn’t the only one affected by last night. She handed him the pictures. “I brought these—thought you might be interested since you grew up here. Look, here’s Bill standing in front of the hotel.”

  She flipped to the next picture and smiled, a genuine one this time. “And look at this. Here’s Pete with his new bride, Penelope, from back East…least that’s what it says on the back. Pete’s happy enough but Penelope looks as if she has swallowed a lemon. Small wonder they got divorced. Grandpa said in his diary that Penelope never belonged in the West. It sounded like she married him on a lark, wanting to get back at her parents for not sending her to Europe for the summer with her girlfriends. Seems it wasn’t the proper thing for an unattached lady from back East to do.”

  Lillie seemed to lose herself for the moment. She was so excited about finding information about her family that it touched his heart. The one thing they shared was love of family. His grandmother saved his family; Lillie’s grandfather brought her family together.

  So, how could sisters so enthused with finding each other polish off their grandfather? Sometimes he really hated being a cop, made him too damn suspicious. Maybe today he’d find evidence that supported the accident theory and get everyone off the hook—except with Lillie following along evidence would be the last thing on his mind.

  She handed him more photos and his fingers connected with hers. Her gaze met his and he’d never felt a bond like that to anyone else. His heart pounded and his lungs constricted as if he couldn’t get enough air when the real problem was he couldn’t get enough of Lillie. He touched her cheek and her eyes went to jade. Then he scooped her into his arms and kissed her.

  Backing her to the desk, he sat her on the edge, dropped the pictures on the top, and slid his hands under her soft T-shirt, connecting with the smoothest skin on earth. He trailed his hand up her sides to her bra and tucked his fingers underneath to the warm swell of her breasts, making him want all of her right then. But this was the sheriff’s office, public place number one.

  He stepped away. Her eyes were glazed and her breaths shallow. His head was spinning. “Jimmy will be here any minute. I don’t want him to find us like this. And someone could look in the window or come in.”

  The old clock on the wall ticked out the seconds and she nibbled at her bottom lip. “I should care about those things but I don’t know if I do or not.”

  His blood surged. “Hell, Lillie, did you have to say that?”

  “You want me to lie and say I don’t want you?”

  “Oh, yeah. Definitely. That would help us stay apart and we need all the help we can get.”

  “Because you think I’m a murderer?”

  “Because I have no idea what the hell’s going on and I can’t think for squat with you around except that I want to have you.”

  The back door opened and Jimmy sauntered into the room. “John? Lillie?”

  “Morning, Jimmy,” John said, with more calm in his voice than he thought possible under the circumstances. “Lillie and I are going out to look for clues along the riverbank about Pete’s drowning.”

  She gave him a bright smile of appreciation for including her, but he so didn’t deserve it for what he was about to do to her.

  “You wait here and I’ll get some flashlights and some rope. You never know when you’ll need rope. Then we’ll take off.”

  What Lillie really wanted to take off was John’s clothes and have her fill of him. Could that ever happen? She sat in the chair and Jimmy parked behind his desk by the window. He said, “You sure got yourself here bright and early this morning.”

  If Jimmy was looking for an update on what was going on between her and John, he was asking the wrong person. Not only wasn’t it any of his business, but she didn’t know. “I want to find out what happened to Pete as much as John does. Nina, Juliet, and I had nothing to do with his death and we don’t need anyone in the Gulch thinking we did. This is our new home and being accused of murder is no way to make friends. Do you realize Pete thought we didn’t want anything to do with him and we thought he didn’t want to see us? Isn’t that sad? My father was a donkey’s butt.”

  Jimmy played with a pencil on his desk and asked in a nonchalant voice that didn’t fool her for a moment, “And the fact that you wanted to spend the day with John didn’t enter into you being here?”

  A little…maybe…maybe more than a little. Being with John was like eating a gallon of ice cream: not good for her but she’d pick up the spoon and dig in anyway. “You wouldn’t ask that if you’d been around for our little argument last night. John’s a cop head to toe.” Though there were some pretty impressive parts in between.

  Lillie checked her watch. “Wonder what’s taking John so long? He went to get flashlights and”—she glanced outside and jumped up—“damn that man. We don’t need flashlights—it’s daylight. And why would we need a rope? It’s a riverbank, not a cave.”
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  She kicked the trash can across the office. “He left me behind, that dirty rotten creep.”

  Jimmy’s eyes widened. “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. I think he did.”

  And to think she’d compared John to ice cream. She loved ice cream. She should have compared him to anchovies. She hated them. “Where’d he go?”

  “For what?”

  Lillie went to Jimmy’s desk and leaned over, bracing her arms on the top. She growled, “Do not mess with a messed-over woman. Spill it. Where’s John gone off to looking for clues?”

  Jimmy sat up straight and folded his arms. “I will not be intimidated. If John wanted you to stay behind you should do it and stay out of harm’s way.”

  “I’ll tell Melinda you’re seeing that cute little blonde over at the Rooster.”

  Jimmy’s eyes widened. “But that’s a lie.”

  Lillie smiled too sweetly. “These are desperate times.”

  “No kidding. Dang.” He leaned back in his chair and bunched his shoulders in resignation. “We found Pete’s boat capsized downriver from the bait shop.” He pointed toward the back of the office. “Bait shop’s that way next to the picnic grove.”

  Lillie grabbed her basket and raced out the back door. John Snow was and always would be a pain in the butt on many levels and this time he’d outfoxed her. Well, she could fox with the best of them. The advertising world had taught her that much. She’d catch up with Sheriff Snow and tag along whether he wanted her to or not.

  But an hour later, with sand in her shoes and bug bites and a storm bearing down on her as she waded along the riverbank, she still hadn’t found John. Where the heck was that man? And where were clues about Pete?

  Thunder rumbled in the distance and clouds collected overhead. A gust of wind swayed the treetops. She should have paid more attention to the weather than the bank. So far she’d found driftwood, two frogs, a turtle sunning himself—or maybe it was herself—on a rock, fishing lures dangling in trees from lines cast too close to shore, and a butter-colored dog that looked part Lab but mostly indiscriminate heritage that had followed her for the last twenty minutes. Though, truth be told, she was probably following the picnic basket.

  “Since you’re out here,” she said to Butter, “you could be more helpful. Like find one of Pete’s boots or something. Don’t dogs do that sort of thing? Where do you live, girl? Are you someone’s pet? You look well fed.”

  A big fat raindrop splashed in front of her, sending ringlets out into the still river. Butter danced in circles and splashed into the water as if this were paradise. “Crazy dog, you got me all wet.”

  Not that it mattered because the gray sky suddenly opened, drenching her and everything in sight. The trees on the shore offered more protection than the open river, so, hooking the basket over her arm, she grabbed an exposed root to help climb off the shore…except the root moved? And it had a tail and a head and looked pissed as hell.

  Snake! Oh, God, she’d grabbed a snake! She had snake cooties. She screamed, let go, and jumped back, landing in the water butt first. Butter studied the snake as it slithered under a boulder and then she darted up the bank. “Fair-weather dog.”

  Lillie pushed herself up. She looked like a statue in a fountain…a really ugly statue. Splashing every step, she trudged her way to the sandy bank, then crawled her way up the side, this time taking special care where her hands went.

  When she got to the top and into the trees, Butter barked and nudged her arm. The rain beat harder, the trees not offering as much protection as she’d hoped. She stumbled through the woods following the dog. With luck she’d lead her to a road where she’d flag down a ride—probably from Jack the Ripper, the way her luck was going. But instead she spied an old fishing cabin that looked as if one good gust would knock the place flat.

  Praying no Jack the Ripper was there, she ran for the cabin, Butter at her side. Together they leapt onto the crumbling porch, Lillie shouldered open the door, they darted inside as lightning cracked, and she slammed the door shut. She turned and looked straight at John Snow sitting by a fire, bare feet propped up on the hearth, Butter already lying down there, a perfect Norman Rockwell moment. And John was drinking something steamy in a mug and he was dry! The no-good rat didn’t have a wet spot on him! “You!”

  “You?”

  She lunged at him full force, knocking him and the mug out of the chair and onto the floor, without Butter moving an inch.

  “Ouch,” he said from under her. “What the hell was that for? And you’re getting me all wet and where’d you get the dog?”

  “I grabbed a snake, damn you. A real live one with a mouth and beady eyes and it wiggled, and I’m soaked to the skin, and the dog found me, and this is all your fault, and where in the heck are we?”

  John paused, and the only sounds were the crackle of the fire and dog snores. He touched her cheek, his fingers warm against her chilled skin, a soft smile suddenly at his lips. Then he rolled over, trapped her beneath him, and kissed her. “I think we’re in big trouble.”

  “What are you doing?” she mumbled with his mouth on hers. “You think I’m a murderer and you’re a sheriff. Isn’t there a no-kissing-the-killer rule? Why did you leave me at the office and not take me with you?”

  “Oh, honey, I want more than kissing and I left you because when we’re together all I think about is you and me and like we are now and I don’t think you murdered anyone. You’re too busy finding stuff out about Pete and enjoying it to want him dead. It doesn’t fit.”

  She framed his rough chin in her hands and pulled his head back a bit. “You’re just saying all those things to get me to spread my legs.”

  “Would I do that?”

  “Oh, heck yes.”

  “Maybe, but actually I’m telling you the truth—I swear. I don’t know what it is between us…lust at first sight?”

  He nuzzled her neck and kissed her throat and she swallowed a gasp. “How do you know I’m not just faking all that enthusiasm for Pete and for you just to throw you off?”

  He smoothed her hair from her face. “You have enthusiasm for me?” He grinned and she couldn’t resist stroking her thumb over his lower lip—smooth, sensual, very kissable. His eyes smoldered. “You don’t fake anything, not even the color of your hair.”

  He kissed her again, this time his tongue slipping between her lips. He tasted warm and sweet and of coffee mixed with brandy. He tasted male and that was the best taste of all. She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back, her mouth opening so easily to his.

  “You’re shivering. You’re cold. You need to get your clothes off.”

  “Is that lame excuse number two or three for getting a woman naked?”

  His eyes looked deep into hers as if deciding what to do. She didn’t think a guy like John needed directions, so what was he thinking now? He sat up and let out an audible sigh. “Your lips are blue and your teeth are chattering. You bit my tongue and that wouldn’t be bad except I got a feeling it wasn’t on purpose.”

  He ran his hand over his face. “I thought about you the whole blasted night, Lillie June, and as much as it kills me to say this—and trust me, it really does kill me—I’m going to get you out of your clothes and warm you up and it’s not going to have anything to do with sex or lust or whatever’s driving us crazy. I owe Pete and getting you sick isn’t how to repay him. I might die of pent-up frustration but that’s the way it’s got to be.”

  She stared at John, the most handsome man God had seen fit to put in her life. Not only did he want her, he wanted what was best for her. A unique situation for Lillie June. “Wanna bet, big boy?”

  “Bet what?”

  “You’re about to find out.”

  Four

  John held up his hands and leaned back as if warding off some threat as she grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him. “Don’t do this, Lillie. A man only has so much self-control and you are Pete’s granddaughter and you need to get dry and…and�
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  Lillie scooted from under him and stood, her eyes dark, a hint of devilment lurking deep inside. She tucked her hands into the waistband of her skirt. “You want me to get dry? I can do that.” Slowly she peeled the wet cotton over shapely hips, exposing creamy skin and damp green panties clinging to every crevice of her feminine body. “See, just like you want.”

  The skirt fell, and his breath caught as the damp cotton pooled at her ankles and the firelight gave her body a shimmering glow. He didn’t need glow—he needed wrinkled and gray elephant skin, though, truth be told, he’d probably be attracted to her that way too.

  He needed to escape…except escape meant running out into a damn monsoon. He had to choose between a rain storm and Lillie. No contest! But he had to keep his hands and every other part of his body from hers. How could he conduct an investigation if he didn’t? “Blanket. I’ll get a blanket.”

  “Make it big enough for two.”

  He stood, then shoved his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t reach out and grab her to him and take her in some kind of Neanderthal lip-lock. At thirty-one, that he had such little control over himself was damn pathetic. He headed for the bed. If he could just think of something besides Lillie stripping nearly naked and this bed!

  He went for diversion. “My dad and grandfather built this fishing shack when Dad was just a kid. A lot of people around here have them. Pete has one by Small Creek around the next bend. The cabin is pretty much a mess. I think he left it to Gabe. They used to go fishing and…”

  And when he turned back Lillie was right in front of him in a green bra and panties but cold. Shivering cold. She snapped the blanket from his hand, flung it around her body like a cape, held it tight with one hand at her neck, the other grabbing it closed at her middle, as she ran back to the hearth, then sat and scooted as close to the fire as she could get without sitting on the dog or becoming charbroiled.