“Well, if that’s the way you want it.” She shrugged. “But I hear she makes a mean potato salad.”
That seemed to get his attention. “She does?”
“Prize-winning,” Sabrina assured him, barely resisting the urge to cross her fingers. She hated to lie, but she was desperate. At the same time, maybe she wasn’t lying. Maybe Melba did make a mean potato salad. Sabrina grasped at the hope and went in for the kill. “I heard she even took first place over at the Mason County potato festival.”
“Mason County? Whereabouts is that?”
Sabrina wasn’t actually sure since she’d just made it up, but desperate times called for desperate measures. She’d said it, and now it was just a matter of going with the flow and following through. “It’s up around Dallas or Waco or something like that.”
“Mason County, you say?” He seemed to think. “Why, I think I went to a rodeo out there once. They host an annual potato festival, you say?”
“The potato festival. The biggest in Texas.”
“And Melba walked away with first place for her potato salad?”
“And her hash browns.”
“You don’t say?”
“Cross my heart.” She tamped down on the guilt that swore she was a terrible person for getting an old man’s hopes up. But then she’d already gotten Melba’s hopes up, too, and she couldn’t very well let the woman show up stag to her big night. Besides, all she had to do was pick up a few pints of potato salad at a nearby barbecue joint and Eli would be a happy camper.
Two birds with one stone.
“So are you in?”
“So long as we eat before the dance. Potato salad and hash browns.”
“They’ll be ready and waiting.”
The Piggly Wiggly didn’t have a deli section which meant that Sabrina had all of four hours to make potato salad and hash browns, and deliver them both to Melba’s house before Eli arrived to pick her up at 6:00 p.m.
Worse, she’d never cooked up a batch of potato salad in her life. And the hash browns? A great, big, fat never. She had no clue how to do either.
But she knew someone who did.
“Hello?” said a familiar voice after Sabrina hit the call button on her cell phone.
“Mom?”
“Sabrina? Is that you?” Surprise morphed into concern and Sabrina’s chest tightened. It had been so long since her last phone call and she could only imagine the horrifying possibilities that would prompt a phone call running through her mother’s mind. “Is everything all right?”
“Fine. Sort of. I mean, I do have a problem, but nothing bad.”
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I need to make potato salad.”
“Excuse me?”
“And hash browns. And I know you know how to do both, so I thought you might help me out.”
“You’re cooking?”
“Only because of extenuating circumstances,” she blurted, eager to kill the hopeful note in her mother’s voice. “I don’t really want to do it, but I promised someone and I need to follow through.” That or she could kiss goodbye any hope that Eli would take Melba to the sweetheart dance.
“Well,” her mother’s voice carried over the line, “I do have a really good recipe.”
But then Sabrina already knew that. Her mother had been the queen of the kitchen, busying herself for hours to avoid the fact that she was waiting for a man who didn’t have the courtesy to even call.
Waiting.
Or maybe that had just been her way of dealing with the situation. Of trying to hold on when all she really wanted to do was let go.
The thought struck and try as she might, Sabrina couldn’t push it back out. She’d never really talked to her mother about the hows and whys of her relationship with Sabrina’s father. She’d never wanted to. It had been easier to point the finger at someone else than to realize that maybe her father had left because neither one of them had been worth staying for. Not her mother.
And not Sabrina.
Of course, she was all grown up now. Enough to know that her father had been the one at fault. But back then she’d wondered. And worried. And so she’d made up her mind to change. To put as much distance between herself and the woman on the other end of the phone so that she could honestly say she was nothing like Arlene Collins. She’d wanted to be different. To be the sort of woman that a man could love.
A man like Billy.
She nixed the thought and focused on the phone in her hand. “Why didn’t you leave?” she voiced the one question that had haunted her so many nights as an adult.
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t understand. All those years you wasted on a man who didn’t return your feelings. Why?”
“I didn’t waste those years. I spent them raising you, loving you. Maybe I should have left, but I just kept thinking of what my own mother and father always believed—that a child deserved both parents. Good or bad. At least they were there. I just wanted you to have a complete family.”
And there it was. Billy had been right. Her mother hadn’t stayed because she’d been weak. Because she’d feared being alone. Rather, she’d feared disappointing Sabrina.
“Your father wasn’t perfect,” her mother went on. “I knew that when I married him, but he always made so many promises. Boy, the man could talk. Of course, back then I thought it was more than talk. I hoped it was more. And so I gave him a chance. I gave our family a chance.”
“At your own expense. You were miserable.”
“It wasn’t so bad. I had you.” She heard the tears in her mother’s voice and it made her own eyes burn.
“I’m sorry, Mom. Sorry that you tried so hard only to be disappointed.”
“The only disappointment is that you don’t get around to seeing me more. I miss you.”
The words echoed in Sabrina’s ears and filled her with a rush of warmth that pushed away the cold resentment she’d felt for so many years. “I miss you, too, Mom,” she murmured.
“Well, now,” Arlene sniffled as if desperate to hide a rush of emotion, “About that recipe...”
* * *
SABRINA PULLED TO A stop in front of Billy’s cabin a half hour later and sent up a silent thank-you that he wasn’t there. He had a full afternoon before the finals tonight, from meetings with the rodeo commissioner and the board of directors, to a special TV segment featuring the best of the best, which meant he wouldn’t be back until tonight.
Sabrina intended to be long gone by then.
Their time together had ended and while she wasn’t quite finished with her business here in Lost Gun—they still had to pick up five final cowboys to meet their quota and Sabrina needed to match up Sarah—she was finished with Billy.
Tonight was the finals. The end of the road.
She ignored the depressing thought and focused on pulling all of the groceries from the backseat. Inside, she headed for the kitchen and started prepping her potatoes.
“You’re doing what right now?” Livi asked when Sabrina answered her cell a few minutes later.
“I’m helping out a friend.”
“You’re hooking up those old women.”
“No, I’m not.” She was trying to hook them up. Big difference. “So where are you?”
“At the saloon. I’m about to pop the top on a bottle of Redneck Rosé.”
“Since when do you drink Redneck Rosé?”
“Since it’s the closest thing they’ve got to a bottle of champagne. I got the last handful of profiles.”
“No way.”
“Way. I spent the morning at the donut shop out near the interstate. You wouldn’t believe the number of men who eat donuts at six a.m.”
“Cowboys?”
“E
very single one of them. That hunky booty call of yours sent them over from the rodeo arena.”
“Billy?”
“The one and only. They said he paid them ten bucks each to fill out a profile.”
“He what?”
“He paid them and while that violates our strict policy of not soliciting, it doesn’t count because we weren’t the ones dishing out the cash. So it’s all good.” Her voice rose an excited octave. “We did it, Sabrina. We’re going to get our financing.”
“That’s great.”
So why didn’t it feel great?
The question niggled at her for the rest of the afternoon, along with the fact that Billy had paid a handful of cowboys to help her out.
Because he was anxious to send her on her way?
That’s what she wanted to think, but she couldn’t help but wonder if there was more to it than that.
If maybe, just maybe, he’d done it because he knew how important this was to her.
Because he loved her?
She dismissed the crazy thought.
No way did Billy Chisholm love her. Not that she would recognize the emotion if she saw it coming at her like a freight train. She’d never seen it between her own parents. Never felt it herself.
No, he knew their time together had drawn to a close and he was anxious to send her on her way. Paying off a few cowboys had been the easiest way to do it. Which meant she was going to get a move on, follow the recipes her mother had given her, and get the hell out of his kitchen.
And then in less than twenty-four hours, she was going to leave Lost Gun—and Billy Chisholm—for good.
* * *
“HE’S GONE.” Billy heard Jesse’s voice just outside the closed doorway to the dressing area where he was pulling on his chaps. “You can’t talk to him.”
“But he promised me an interview.”
“About the rodeo,” Jesse said. “You want to talk about our dad and that’s not happening right now.”
“So will you talk to me about Silas?” The familiar voice carried inside and Billy recognized Curt Calhoun, the reporter from the “Where Are They Now?” episode. “You can’t expect people to seriously believe that you guys don’t know anything about the bank heist. You had to see something? Hear something? What about the money? Surely he mentioned the money? Maybe even slipped a little out of the way before the fire? There was an entire ten hours between the robbery and the fire.”
Plenty of time to hightail it out to Big Earl’s, give the old man the money, and head back home to celebrate with too much liquor. Which was exactly what Silas had done.
Or so Jesse believed.
But they’d yet to recover the money. Instead, they’d been digging hole after hole, and Billy was starting to think that maybe, just maybe Big Earl and his great-granddaughter were trying to pull a fast one. A ploy to get money out of Jesse and his brothers.
That, or maybe they were after a story of their own.
A way to make a fast buck.
That’s what logic told him, but Jesse seemed so damned sure. And while Billy had a hard time putting his faith in Big Earl and Casey, he trusted his oldest brother.
“I’ll catch up to him eventually,” Curt promised. “You know that. And then I’ll ask him all the questions I’m asking you.”
“I know, but it won’t be tonight. He’s got a rodeo to win.”
Damn straight he did.
Billy pulled on his shirt and concentrated on snapping the buttons. But with every button, he thought of Sabrina and the way she’d popped off his shirt and slid it down his shoulders and—
Concentrate.
Tonight was all about the ride, not the woman he’d left at home.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t help but wonder if she was still there, or if she’d gone back to her motel, or if she was actually sitting in the stands waiting for the bull riding to start.
“Sabrina’s here with me,” Eli told him when the old man called his cell to wish him good luck.
“And where exactly are you?”
“Picking up Melba. We’ve got a date for the Sweetheart Dance.”
“I thought you were going to be here at the arena?”
“I’ve taught you everything I know. You’re on your own, son. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got a plate of potato salad calling my name.”
“But—”
Click.
So much for Sabrina waiting in the stands, eager for a glimpse of him. She wasn’t here, and she wasn’t coming, and Billy needed to cowboy up and get on with it.
He knew that.
But damned if he could stifle the disappointment that rushed through him as he opened the door and joined Jesse for the short walk to the main arena.
19
LATER THAT NIGHT, after an evening spent spying on Queen Melba and Eli as they twirled around the dance floor at the Sweetheart Dance, Sabrina pulled up in front of the motel to find Billy’s pickup parked in her usual spot.
Her gaze swiveled to the man who leaned against her door, arms folded as he waited for her. Her heart jumped into her throat as she drank in the sight of him. He wore a sleeveless white T-shirt with Eight Seconds and Then Some emblazoned in liquid blue. Faded jeans hugged his thighs and calves. Worn brown cowboy boots completed the outfit. His muscular arms were folded, his expression serious as he waited for her. He looked hot and incredible sexy and...worried?
Her pulse quickened and heat uncurled low in her belly as she slid from the driver’s seat. Billy pushed away from the door as she started up the walk toward him.
“What are you—”
“You missed the finals,” he cut in. His brows knit together and his mouth pulled into a tight line. “You weren’t there.”
“I didn’t see the point. Our business is—” She meant to say finished, but he didn’t give her the chance.
He pulled her into his arms and hauled her up against his chest. His mouth covered hers. Strong hands pressed the small of her back, holding her close as he kissed her long and slow and deep. He smelled of soap and fresh air and a touch of wildness that teased her nostrils and made her breathe heavier, desperate to draw more of his essence into her lungs.
Excuse me? a voice prodded. This is a bad idea. A really bad idea. The purpose of missing the finals was to avoid him. Kissing him is hardly an effective avoidance technique.
She knew that, but he was so close and he smelled so good and she’d missed him so much.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he murmured when he finally tore his lips from hers. “I thought about you all afternoon and tonight. And I still won.” He seemed surprised by the fact. “I won.”
“That’s really great.” She couldn’t help the rush of warmth or the smile that tugged at her lips.
“It is,” he said, the words more for himself than her. “But it doesn’t feel great.” His gaze collided with hers. “Not half as great as this.” He kissed her again, fast and urgent, the way he’d done at the waterfall. “As you,” he murmured when he finally pulled away. “I want you so bad.”
Want.
That’s what his sudden appearance was all about.
He was here for one thing and one thing only. Because his body drove him. It didn’t go beyond sex as far as he was concerned. It never would. Even if he did seem different from the smooth-talking charmer who’d approached her that first night.
Honest. Sincere.
There’s no such thing for his kind.
That’s what she told herself, but she just couldn’t make herself believe it. Not with her lips tingling from his kiss and her body buzzing with desire and her heart aching from the fact that she really had missed him. Sure, it had only been a few hours, but it felt like more.
Like a lifetime.<
br />
Anxiety rushed through her, heightened by the truth that echoed in her head.
This was it.
Her last night in town. Their last night.
And while an encore wasn’t part of the agreement, ending things now before she’d had a chance to really say goodbye seemed like the worst idea ever.
She slid her arms around his neck, leaned up on her tiptoes and touched her mouth to his.
The kiss that followed was hot and wild and consuming. Her head started to spin and her heart pounded faster. He tasted of impulse and danger and a touch of desperation that made her chest tighten and her heart ache. As if he needed this as much as she did.
Her hands snaked around his neck and she leaned into him, relishing the feel of his body pressed flush against hers.
He pulled free long enough to sweep her up into his arms and carry her inside. A few minutes later, they were inside her motel room. He let her feel every inch of his hot, aroused body as he eased her to her feet.
They faced each other then, and she knew he was waiting for her to make the next move, to show him that she wanted this, too.
She unbuttoned her blouse and let it slide from her shoulders. Trembling fingers worked at the catch of her bra and freed her straining breasts. She unbuttoned her skirt and worked it down her legs. Her panties followed, until she was completely naked.
He didn’t reach out. He simply looked at her, yet it felt as if his hot hand traveled the length of her body along with his gaze. His violet eyes were dark and deep and smoldering as they touched on every hot spot—her neck, her nipples, the vee between her legs, the tender flesh of her thighs. Desire rushed through her, sharp and demanding, and she reached for him.
She gripped his T-shirt and urged it up and over his head. Her fingers went to the waistband of his jeans. She slid the button free and her knuckles grazed his bare stomach. He drew in a sharp breath, and then another, when she slid the zipper down and her thumb trailed over his hard length.
She hooked her fingers in the waistband of his briefs and tugged his jeans and underwear down with one motion. His massive erection sprang hot and greedy toward her.
She touched him, tracing the bulge of his veins and cupping his testicles. He throbbed at her touch and a surge of feminine power went through her—so opposite the crazy weakness she’d feared for so long.
Texas Outlaws: Billy Page 14