by Shirl Anders
“Thanks,” she muttered, not sure what to think, but the accompanying embarrassment vanished.
“You do this all yourself, sweetness?” Zeb asked, pulling the truck around the circular drive. He glanced at her as she bit her bottom lip and nodded. “You have a hell of an imagination, baby,” he said, stopping the truck. “And style.”
She would have smiled, but she was still mad at him, so she reminded him of something she’d been reminding him of since they’d met. “Sugar’s not getting you anything.”
Zeb figured he wasn’t getting it for a while after he laid it down to Carly anyway, so he was glad he’d gotten her sweet pussy before he’d had his say. He knew it wasn’t his fault this mess was happening, and he knew an unemotional mind wouldn’t be throwing blame and anger his way over it. But he knew not to expect Carly was going to be reasonable or unemotional over the shit he had to lay down to her, so he was prepared to shoulder her anger, if she kept spreading it his way.
He also knew when he walked into Carly’s pad, and he could see it was hers from the ground up, that he was going to be amazed, and he was not wrong. From the great room, high ceilings, skylights, windows damn well everywhere all showing beautiful lake scenes, to the kickass boulder fireplace that filled half of one wall, the place was amazing.
He was going to tell her too, when he got the other stuff out of the way and she came back to him all sweet like she normally was. Then he was going to make love to her, telling her how cool her lake house was, because she was blushing over it.
He wasn’t sure if she was shy about having someone see her vision when she’d never let other men in her life see it, which he liked being the first, or if she was hesitant about the show of wealth. He got that part, because he did not show his out there for the world to see either. He’d learned after he’d sold his first couple of songs and the money had rained in on him that wealth had its own set of issues.
Luckily, he’d had Travis Call as a friend, and Travis managed some of the biggest names in the music business. Travis had told him to put away in his savings two times as much as every penny he spent, and Travis also said that having money did not give Zeb an instant asshole card. Travis’ advice, and seeing several singers hit big, get carried away in fame, booze or drugs, women, partying, and hangers-on, then crash big time, had shown Zeb more than he ever intended to have going on in his life.
That and the little detail that he had never wanted his mother to discover his wealth had kept him low key about it, just like Carly was. His mother was a no-show in his life ever since she’d made a new family, while leaving him to rot with a carny dad who’d died when Zeb was twelve. But Zeb’s mom had been too busy with her new baby to be assed enough to come get Zeb. Zeb had ended up in foster care, until he’d run away from that, finding a home with a traveling band at fifteen.
But he just knew with some sad intuition that his old mom would become an instant leech if she knew her forgotten son had some money. He’d heard, because one of Tula’s people caught some gossip on the long wind—that his mom was divorced now and living without her three kids from her second marriage. Man, he’d been praying a long time she’d get fixed before she married husband number three, if she hadn’t already.
Zeb watched Carly’s sweet ass swinging ahead of him, and it took all his sordid thoughts away, then she stumbled on her heels and he reached forward to catch her elbow and steady her. It got him closer behind her, where he wrapped an arm around her, pulling her into his body.
Her hands pushed on his forearm holding her waist. “No, Zeb,” she said.
But over the top of her, into her ear, he said, “We have to talk.”
She huffed. “You’re so bossy.”
“We’ll talk about that later,” he told her, then he guided her to the couch, where he ended with her on his lap. Her skirt went high, nearly enough to see she did not have panties on. But he turned his gaze from that sweetness, while holding Carly from getting off his lap, like she was trying to do.
“Your husband,” Zeb stated flatly.
Carly stilled against him, her gaze and chin lowered like she wanted to curl in on herself. “Is freaking trying to kill me!” she exclaimed, without looking up.
Surprising the hell out of him.
“Baby,” he uttered in a rumble, then her arms were thrown over his shoulders as she landed against him with a sob. He took it. He took all of it, holding her close.
Only over thirty minutes later, what he could not get was why she wasn’t still cuddled against him like she had been, instead of pacing in front of him. Her hips were swinging with her pacing strut, like each swing was aimed at his head, trying to knock him out.
“So let me get this straight,” Carly said, and not very sweetly. “You just decided to tell Vincent this shit and he just decided to tell Finn this shit and you all just decided to have a meeting about it without me and talk about my personal shit so everyone”—right there her hand flew up with her hip swing—“knows not only is my marriage in the tank, but he is freaking trying to get rid of me besides!”
Zeb gritted his teeth. He was not going there, so instead he offered her his new rules. “You go somewhere, you are not by yourself. You are never by yourself with Shaw. You call me every two fucking hours to check in, and you can do the charity and the damn pageant, but nothing else for a while.”
Carly whirled around with her skirt flaring, and her eyes sparked as she smiled through gritted teeth. “Do not tell me what to do,” she ground out.
Zeb rose so fast, she stumbled back, and he did not try to catch her this time. “I get you’re fucking upset so I will cut you some slack. But you will do as I say for your own protection and you will help me damn well figure out what your asshole is after by getting you out of the picture.”
He didn’t wait for an answer or her acknowledgment; instead he stalked off before he lied to her and got openly pissed or threw her over his shoulder to fuck her into his way of thinking, and it was not the right time to be doing that.
Carly locked herself in the smaller back bedroom she used when she stayed at the lake house. It was kind of sad, but she never used the master because it felt too big, too open, and too empty of another person to help her fill it up. So she’d made a very comfy room out of a smaller bedroom that did have an attached bathroom. In her bedroom, she threw herself on the bed, with hot tears coming again because she was so mad at Zeb.
“How dare he!”
She pounded her plum-colored bedspread, then grabbed her white bed pillow that was edged with plum and did a crying face plant into it. The entire time she wept, she told herself it was because Zeb had gone rogue on her life and now everyone freaking knew how stupid she was. Sometime later in the dark after she’d cried herself to sleep, she woke to knocking on her door and Zeb’s voice.
“Go away!” she’d cried, and then she’d crawled under the covers and gladly went back to sleep, where everything was not hurting her so much.
That left her a crumbled grouch in the morning that looked like in her bathroom mirror to have been on a drunken and crying tear the night before. She didn’t even want to leave the house, or bedroom for that matter, but she’d be damned if she was going to cower. It bothered her that she’d left WTSF already for half a day the day before. There were things she needed to look after there, and worrying about that kept her from dealing with everything else.
Expect for one small detail, which she took care of before exiting her bedroom, Carly really hoped to leave without running into Zeb. She didn’t want to talk to anyone, least of all him, but she made it to the front porch thinking she was free, before she heard his voice.
“What part about not going anywhere alone did you not get?”
Carly flinched, surprised by Zeb’s voice, as out of the corner of her eye she caught the flash of red Zeb didn’t know about. She slowly turned to see Zeb leaning against one of the stone porch posts. He was barefooted, unshaven, and looked as if he’d just rolled out of bed, which left
him so sexily rumpled she wanted to curse and stamp her foot.
“I heard every part,” she said through her teeth. “I’m not stupid,” she added, and she wasn’t nice about it.
Zeb’s gaze flicked over her shoulder; before it had been going slowly over her dressed in wedged sandals, a cute brown and pink patterned sundress, with a short white jacket that was woven loose and airy but did frame her breasts really well. Then he straightened, because she knew he’d seen the car approaching by now.
“My ride,” she said firmly. “See, I won’t be alone.”
Carly was certain she heard an actual growl come from Zeb as she turned and waved at Sam, who stopped his red BMW under the portico.
“No men here?” Zeb accused behind her, which Carly chose to ignore even as it pierced her and she forced a brighter smile than necessary.
“I’m going to work.”
She didn’t turn around to see Zeb’s dark look as she stepped down to go to the BMW, but she could feel it laser-beaming her back. Well, he didn’t tell her everything, so she didn’t have to tell him everything!
Sam was wearing a dark suit with a white shirt, and he had his straight black hair pulled back tight in a long braid. He was a very handsome man, but Carly barely looked at him as she chewed the nail on her little finger, while looking, unseeing, out of the window on the passenger side.
“Dude didn’t look too happy,” Sam mentioned after about five minutes of driving.
Carly roused herself out of brooding. She didn’t even know why she’d called Sam to come get her, it was just he was the only one she could think of that didn’t know her well enough to realize what a loser she was. A loser with a husband trying to get rid of her.
Sam’s comment made her wonder what he might think about her being with that dude that was not her husband, and she opened her mouth to try to explain, but then shut it with the impossibility of being able to explain anything.
Then Sam nearly made her cry. “Vincent advised me on this situation, Carly; he’s got all his men on alert and you will be watched. But lady, I wanted to be here besides that because you called me.”
“Thanks,” she whispered, not sure what to say.
She was especially not sure about the part of Vincent and all his men covering her. Did that mean the guys at WTSF all knew Rick was trying to get rid of his wife? God. She smacked her forehead. Could this get any worse? The answer: why yes, it could.
“Thing is I can’t know your pain, but my wife Vita has dumped me for a political career in Dallas, where she’d really like to keep my existence unknown so the Indian husband off the reservation doesn’t blacken her image.”
Carly’s eyes were wide looking at him as he glanced at her, then ahead. Ohmygod.
“Not the same as your drama, babe. But you won’t judge me, I got a feeling, and I want you to know I won’t judge you the same way.”
Carly sucked in a breath, then she tried not to cry ... but damn it, a small tear trailed down her cheek. “It’s them,” she whispered. “Not us.”
He nodded. “Bastards,” he growled.
“Yeah,” she agreed, wiping away her tears. “I just can’t get my head around the fact I picked a man that could do this. How did I not know he was capable of—” Her voice faltered.
“None of us can know that, Carly. People show their best side in the beginning. We all do a sales job at first, and people change. Think that’s the hardest ... they just completely change.”
She nodded. He was right. She’d seen it in other people’s relationships before. Especially through the PI work some of the guys at WTSF did. Big changes. Like night and day, from loving to deadly. She couldn’t stop her body shivering, while thinking that she’d slept with a man that wanted her dead.
“It just feels so out of control, and Zeb isn’t helping by telling everybody behind my back, and I don’t know, he just—”
“Figured this out before you did,” Sam said, quietly.
Carly blinked at him, while inwardly she felt the surprise hit her. Was that why she was so mad at Zeb? Because he’d owned it and gone ahead and done something, while she was still hiding her head in the sand, hoping it would go away? Maybe she was mad at Zeb because he wasn’t a coward and she was. But still, she tried to defend herself—
“He has just involved everybody without asking,” she muttered.
Sam smiled. Carly got the full effect of his hotness factor as she gulped. Wow, handsome man.
“There are men that do, and then men that think about it ... in this situation, I’m for the brother that will do, babe.”
Carly was still thinking about Sam’s words after he dropped her off at WTSF by walking her all the way inside and not leaving until he saw Cabe and Tag were on the premises. Then Sam further didn’t leave until she’d promised she’d call him if she needed anything. But he’d said not to call him to make that mean-looking biker dude jealous, because, Sam said, he was not certain he could take Zeb when Zeb tried to pound him. Then Sam had kissed her forehead—just like her dad might—making her tear again as he’d said goodbye, while she realized that besides many people like Sam knowing her husband was a very bad man, they also seemed to know she was with Zeb.
All that got her was sitting at work thinking about Zeb, because she’d realized something else ... she had no freaking clue what to do about her dick husband, so maybe it was a good thing these guys seemed to have a freaking clue what to do.
FIFTEEN] Only Thought Of You
After Carly left, Zeb tried to finish his coffee, but his gut was too tight while he stared at the place the red Beemer had just been to pick up his woman. That was a fucking handsome Indian driving it, too. A dude that looked more right by Carly’s side than Zeb did, and the handsome Indian was a dude Zeb did not know.
“Hell,” Zeb muttered, dumping the rest of his coffee over the porch rail before he turned and stalked back into the house.
He’d expected Carly to be upset, but she was taking it too far, swinging her cute ass with her blond ponytail bouncing out to that Beemer and a man Zeb did not fucking know. Doing that after a night locked in her damn bedroom and away from him—far away from him.
For the first time Zeb began to wonder if this was going to undo their brand-new relationship, and that really pissed him off.
“No fucking way,” he snarled, getting his boots and leather jacket to leave.
But he didn’t go straight to Carly to set her right ... lucky for him he called Vincent, who told him Beemer dude was one of his friends looking out for Carly too. Vincent also didn’t ask why Zeb wasn’t at Carly’s side, taking her to work or why she was sending SOSs to other men. But they did make a date to meet with Justice Walkinghorse later that day.
As much as Zeb wanted to straighten Carly’s fine ass out, he decided to give her some more time to deal with it, and he went to check them out of Rowdie’s. Only problem with that was he ran right into Tula, when he wasn’t damn well looking.
“Zebbie, baby, you’re home!”
Zeb nearly cringed, and he wasn’t a man who did that, as he stiffened and turned, just outside his motel room door. He grimaced over the damn nickname she used, which he hated, and before he could really take her in, Tula was on him. Her arms were thrown over his neck, while her fake breasts hugged up against him and he got that she must be ready for some pageant event, because she was decked the hell out in a barely-there green sequin dress.
Damn it.
He didn’t touch her as she hung off him and he thanked the powers that be that he still had his shades on so Tula couldn’t see the disgust in his eyes.
Damn it.
“Baby-waby, oh my God, you’re home!” Tula cried, as if this was his initial homecoming and not months before.
That stupid baby talk she used on him probably brought his head together faster than the shock would normally allow, as he realized he really hated it.
“What the fuck,” he growled.
Tula knew him well enough
at that sound to unlatch and back up quickly as she forced a trembling smile, while wringing her hands. “Baby-waby, I—”
“Stop the hell calling me that,” he snapped, backing her further up with wide eyes and the start of damn tears.
Tula could cry over anything, and he’d usually back off when she started it so he wouldn’t have to hear her bawling like a baby, making him feel like a creep. He was very glad to notice he didn’t feel that sensation this time ... her tears weren’t moving him, because he couldn’t give a fuck. Except for—
“Why? Just fucking tell me why?”
“Baby!” she wailed, and he could tell she was going into meltdown, so he grabbed her arm and pulled her into his room, where he slammed the door shut.
“Zebbie, I needed something that was for me!” she wailed. “I have to do it now, before my looks go!”
Zeb’s hand hit the back of his neck as he grunted as if someone had punched him. Shit. It was the lamest excuse for what she’d done that he’d ever expected to hear. Then he realized that she wasn’t ever going to tell him why to his satisfaction. Never.
“So you fucking won’t fight the divorce and the prenup,” he growled at her.
Then Tula’s sequins heaved, with her new large breasts looking like they were inflating as she shook from head to toe and blew him away, by crying, “No, baby-waby! We can be together now! You’re here! I’ll make it up to you, you’ll see! Soon your wifey will be the new Miss Redrock! It will be amazing! You can write a song about it!”
Zeb nearly trashed the TV stand into the wall. He managed to stop himself with a curled fist, but not before Tula launched at him. He had no choice but to haul her up against him, and at just that damn moment, the motel room door opened and the sunlight outside blinded him.
“Zeb? Who is this?”
Fuck! It was Carly.
Before he could utter a word, Tula, while plastered to him, wiggled around in his one-armed embrace, and exclaimed, “You’re that fucking mean judge! Baby-waby, what’s she doing here?”
Then Zeb found out Carly didn’t just get jealous ... she got what she wanted, and she didn’t mess around.