Hot and Bothered

by Crystal Green

  Suzanne sighed. “Well, I could see this coming ten miles away.”

  Rochelle didn’t ask what she meant. She merely kept watching the nonstop motion of the city below—traffic, horns, and the urban flow muted by the glass.

  “Believe me,” Suzanne said, “it’ll wear off, Rochelle. I have three divorces to prove it.”

  “I know.”

  “About the divorces or about the feelings you might’ve developed for a man who was only a passing thing?”

  “Both.”

  Rochelle’s phone dinged with a text. Her heart sank, because she knew what it signified when she got a ding instead of a ring when she was expecting her father’s call. And so did Suzanne as she squeezed Rochelle’s shoulder and left the suite. It was as if she didn’t know what to say about all the men in Rochelle’s life as well as the ones not in her life.

  With an even heavier heart, Rochelle grabbed the phone from the nearby table. She sank into the sofa and rested her head against the back as she read the text.

  Stuck in a meeting. Sorry. Maybe tomorrow?

  Yes, tomorrow or the next day, or the next. She texted back what she always did.

  Sure. Good luck tonight.

  She didn’t expect a reply, and she knew better than to wait around in the hopes of getting one. Instead, she dialed up Tucker.

  It wasn’t the first time she’d contacted her cousin over the past two weeks, either.

  He must’ve still been in his garage back in Nevada, because his voice had a concrete echo to it when he answered.

  “What’s goin’ on, Shel?” he asked.

  Words felt like icicles spiking through her. When her chest crushed them down into flying shards, the unwelcome emotion caught her heart in its trap, too.

  She couldn’t talk. She needed a minute.

  God, but she needed so much more than that.

  “Shel?” Tucker asked in his low tone. “Everything okay?”

  She nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. Before now, she would’ve fought tooth and nail to hide any weakness, to show everyone that she didn’t care and that she could make it on her own. But now that seemed so pointless.

  When she found her voice, it was muddled. “How’re . . . things?”

  Her cousin laughed softly, knowing that she was actually asking about Gideon. But he couldn’t stop himself from lightening everything up as much as a guy like Tucker could. “Business is good for me. Thanks for asking.”

  “Okay.” She grasped the sofa’s carved mahogany arm. “That’s cool.”

  His voice leveled out. “But I hear your bodyguard’s in a sad state. Just like I told you a few days ago. He’s been haunting the saloon, on a real destructive streak when he isn’t on a job.”

  Tucker had told her before that Gideon was drinking too much, and he’d even gone back to old habits, taking women home one after the other. That’s what killed Rochelle the most—his return to form. He hadn’t liked it when she’d reduced him to a sex toy on their last day together, but there he was, at it again. And she’d made him go back to it.

  The thought of him being with someone else made her feel the jealous, bitchy claws of rage ripping at her, but what right did she have to it?

  Tucker sighed. “I’ve never seen him like this. Gideon’s always kept himself in check, like he wanted to prove to everyone that he was the complete opposite of his dad.” He paused. “I’m sorry me and the boys had a hand in this. We should’ve never stuck our noses into what you and Gideon had going on, but . . .”

  “You thought he’d sleep with me and toss me out, like he does with all the others. I get it, Tuck.” She blew out a breath so heavy with regret that it took extra effort. “But this isn’t your fault. It’s all on me.”

  Tucker listened patiently as she went on, even as her voice cracked.

  “I’ve always tried to be so good at everything I did, but isn’t it weird that I’m so terrible at this?”

  “At what?”

  Could she say it? All she could manage was a compromise.

  “At dealing with how I feel for him. I’ve never been able to handle that.” Even back when they’d first been together, she’d been so eager to please Gideon that she’d done the exact opposite with him. But she was always doing the opposite when it came to him, wasn’t she? Leaving when she should’ve been staying, holding in her emotions when she should’ve been spilling them out, just as he’d bravely done with her.

  What would happen if she ever told him how confused she was about what he did to her and how she couldn’t function with him out of her life?

  “Shel,” Tucker said, “I guess now’s a good time to remind you that you’ve always been the skittish type. You never had a boyfriend when we were kids, and if anyone was interested, you’d turn your back on him. There were a few boys in town who tried to snag your attention, but you were always avoiding it.”

  “Except for Gideon.”

  “Well, you did a pretty good job of hiding that one from us altogether.”

  He was right about the avoidance, and things hadn’t changed much as she’d grown up.

  “Aren’t you done with it yet?” he asked.

  “What—avoiding?”

  “Yeah. I mean, it’s not like I’m one to lecture you . . .” He trailed off, as if he might be thinking of that dancer at the Pink Ladies he’d been trying so hard not to stare at. “But would it be the end of the world if you gave Gideon a call? Would the sky come crashing down on you?”

  “It’s too late for calls.”

  Even she knew it was a lame excuse. Tucker’s pause confirmed that, and it gave a swarm of conflicting thoughts enough time to careen around her head, slicing each other until streaks of red blocked everything else out.

  Rochelle clutched the phone. Red made her think of Cherry, a woman who’d never made an effort with the man who had been so right for her.

  The Chicago lights blurred before her. She didn’t want to be Cherry. She didn’t want to ask herself every morning when she woke up “What if I’d been brave enough to take a chance on him?” She couldn’t live as a shadow of herself, driving off into an unknown, unsure horizon.

  And she’d known it ever since Gideon had walked out on her.

  ***

  Two weeks was a long time to be on a binge, but what did Gideon care as long as Kat kept the whisky coming?

  A gaggle of shot glasses lined the bar in front of him, slightly obscured by the low-riding brim of his Stetson. He was holding his latest drink between his fingers, scanning the saloon.

  Since it was early afternoon, the action was light, and “Freebird” was on the jukebox. Hooper and Dustin, elderly motorcycling regulars, sat with their beers at the opposite end of the bar while a trio of tourists camped in the middle, playing a video-poker machine and hooting every time they hit two jacks and got their money back.

  Amateurs.

  As the ceiling fans whisked away the heat sneaking in from the outside, Kat leaned against the bar, her arms crossed over her chest, showing off some lean muscles under that black T-shirt she wore.

  She caught the direction of his gaze and rolled her big blue eyes. “Don’t you dare eye-screw me, Gideon.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it, Kat.” There was a slur to his words, which was odd, because he didn’t slur, ever. Hadn’t slurred since he’d tasted his first whisky at the age of eight when he’d snuck into his dad’s liquor cabinet and gotten the belt for it afterward.

  Okay, maybe there’d been a couple of youthful slurs after, but so what.

  “Glad to hear you’re looking at me like a sister again,” she said. “Because I won’t do as a substitute for Little Miss Getaway.”

  He shut out the mention of Rochelle. It was bad enough that Kat and the rest of his friends were giving him the constant worry-eye since she’d left town,
but to have to think about her, too? Not gonna happen.

  At least Boomer wasn’t here to give him a rash of shit; he was on another case out of town. Ben and Liz Hughes were busy with Liz’s new dinner club, so they hadn’t been around, either, and Jesse Navarro had been holed up at the Pink Ladies, keeping track of an extra-horny doctor convention that’d landed in Vegas this past week. That left Kat to squawk over him.

  And she was taking her job seriously.

  “I just never thought I’d see the day, Gideon Lane,” she said, shaking her head.

  “What? When you had to cut me off?” Gideon toasted her with his whisky and then tossed it down, sucking in a breath through his teeth at the burn. “Hate to tell you, but I’ve got a whole collection of bottles back at my place. Trouble is, I hate to drink alone.”

  “Trouble is that from home you wouldn’t be able to pick up the next woman who walks into the bar.”

  Gideon gestured for another shot. At the same time, he cast a long, slow look at one of the tourists playing video poker. She was blond, dark eyed, and bouncy as she squealed at her friend, who was winning back his bets. Hell, maybe the guy, who had a crew cut and ruddy cheeks, was her boyfriend, seeing as her other companion was a woman. Either way, Gideon couldn’t give less of a shit.

  He only wished Rochelle could see how much her leaving hadn’t affected him.

  The blonde smiled at him and he smiled back. Kat refilled his glass and thumped her hand on the bar to get his attention.

  “I have to say, cowboy, that your pop never met a drink he didn’t like, and I had to ban him from the saloon about fifty times over. He thought with his dick about as much as you’re thinkin’ with yours these days.”

  “Fuck off, Kat.”

  “No, Gideon, you fuck off.” She braced her hands on the bar and leaned toward him, her gaze fierce. “I’m stuck between wanting Rochelle to get her ass back here so you can sober up and telling her to stay away forever, because she’s made you a real mess. And you’ve never been a mess—not even in the worst circumstances.”

  He knew Kat wouldn’t bring up his secret about his parents, but he started to point at her anyway, just to cut her off. Instead, he knocked over an empty glass.

  “See,” she said. “A mess.”

  As she cleared his collection, he took her words in, knowing every one of them was right.

  He swiped a hand down his face. “For years, I hoped she would come back, Kat. I never really thought she would, so when I saw her standing here in the saloon that night, I thought it was a dream. Mostly a bad dream, because when she left the first time, I never forgot her. She was the only one who ever did that to me, so of course, she was the one I wanted more than anything.”

  “You know what that’s called?” Kat asked, tilting her head in what he thought might be sympathy.

  “No.” He still had his pride, so he wasn’t about to tell her that “eternal flame” fit the bill.

  “Masochism,” Kat said. Sympathy wasn’t even within a hundred-mile radius.

  He leaned his forearms on the bar, and Kat reached over to flick up the brim of his hat.

  “Buddy,” she said, “even if I don’t like what you’re sayin’ about that woman, I know what you’re trying to say. Sometimes, there’s one person in your life that you feel you’ve always known, no matter where they are or where they’ve been. They walk into a room and it seems like you just saw them yesterday and that you’ll wither away if they ever step out on you. I hate to say so, mostly because I’ll kick Rochelle’s butt if I ever see her again, but a part of you would’ve been waiting for her to come back whether it was years ago or now.”

  She might as well have just called him Tommy.

  Gideon’s gaze connected to Cherry’s portrait above the bar. That wasn’t really true, though, was it? Because Rochelle was his Tommy . . .

  Oh, hell. He couldn’t decide who the crap Tommy was anymore.

  Kat sighed as she claimed the last of his glasses and set them in a tub beneath the bar. “Who knew that the quick-draw cowboy would turn out to be a closet romantic? I guess that’s what happens when the girl of your dreams isn’t so cooperative. Damn, I’m really gonna kill her if I see her again.”

  “I’d stop you from killing her, you know.”

  Another sympathetic tilt—this one for real. “I know, Gideon.”

  So what came next? What did you do if the girl of your dreams rejected you? Who would ever accept you after that?

  Kat grinned consolingly and walked off to wait on Dustin and Hooper, who were checking out the tourists, waiting for their chance to suggest a game with them in the back room. But it seemed as if the blonde with them had a good idea of how she’d keep busy while her companions kept playing the machine.

  She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and bit her lip in Gideon’s direction. It reminded him of Rochelle’s games before things had turned serious, and suddenly all he saw was Rochelle and her challenging green eyes, Rochelle and her smile, which could either turn him on or turn him to mush.

  In every woman he only saw Rochelle . . .

  The scrape of a stool across the floor brought Gideon back to rights, and as his vision cleared, he realized that the man playing video poker had caught sight of the way Gideon was watching Rochelle. Or, rather, his girl. Because it was stinkin’ obvious that the blonde wasn’t just a friend from the way the guy was glaring.

  Hell, Gideon hadn’t realized how big the slab of beef was, either. Steroids must be the cocktail of choice for this knuckle-dragger.

  He tipped back his hat a little further, sat up in his seat, drank his shot, and then saluted the science experiment across from him.

  As the blonde tugged at her man’s arm, the guy nodded at Gideon.

  “You mind keeping your eyes to yourself?” he asked in a booming voice that had Dustin and Hooper chuckling at the other end of the bar.

  The memory of the punch Gideon had taken from Rochelle’s cousin Jonsey warmed his jaw. He was just drunk enough not to give a crap about getting another pop to the kisser. It might even knock some sense into him about Rochelle, blasting her out of his mind or at least putting her in the same semi-hidden box where he’d re-packed the pain he carried around from life in general.

  Kat already had a hand near the shelf where she stored Casey’s Special, but Gideon subtly shook his head at her and then turned back to the lug.

  “That’s the thing about America,” he said lazily. “My eyes can go where the hell they want to. I think that’s in the First Amendment.” He smiled at the blonde, tipping his hat to her now.

  Yeah, he’d just invited trouble, and it sped around the bar to him like a steamed up locomotive. Gideon halfheartedly stood from his stool and waited for the punch to come.

  Wouldn’t you know it—the sucker landed his fist just where Jonsey Burton had managed to connect with his jaw.

  Gideon stumbled back a step, laughing at the irony. That was two punches he’d taken for Rochelle now, and he’d take a thousand more of them.

  Masochism, Kat had said. She’d nailed it.

  And she was already up and over the bar with the bat, yelling and escorting the ogre and his friends out. The big guy was complaining about the money he had left on the video-poker machine but Kat wasn’t having it.

  Gideon worked his jaw as the front door slammed and Kat’s boot steps clopped over the floor. On the other side of the bar, Dustin and Hooper were giving him the sarcastic slow clap, and Gideon tipped his hat to them, too.

  Then he sat down again, ordering another shot.

  “Oh, hell no,” Kat said. “For the first time in history, you are cut off, cowboy. I mean it.”

  “She’s right,” said Hooper from the other side of the bar as he and Dustin came around it, looking like they were feeling sorry for him now. “Quick-draw, don’t mind us if we see you sa
fely to bed. You’re in a bad way.”

  Hooper’s walrus mustache loomed in Gideon’s sight as they dragged him from the bar. Even Dustin’s greaser look seemed like it was being reflected back from a funhouse mirror.

  Gideon jerked away from them, holding up his hands, ambling carefully toward the door. Shit, he hadn’t been this drunk in years, not since he was ten and him and Buzz had snuck a bottle from Dad’s cabinet out behind Uncle Dennis’s barn. They’d puked ’til Dennis had found them, promising them they’d never want to drink that much again and not giving them any more punishment than what they’d already endured.

  Right now, Gideon was cool with being punished and punched. He was in a bad way.

  Kat followed him out the door, not so much to see that he left but just in case the Beef and his entourage hadn’t driven away. But they were gone, and as she watched Gideon go home, he lifted his hand in a wobbly version of a farewell.

  He pulled on every dignified inch he had left in his body and made his way toward his house, busting through his door, tossing his hat carelessly away, and taking refuge on the first comfortable surface he could find—his sofa. As he drifted off to a place where he wouldn’t have to see Rochelle’s face anymore, he caught the scent of her shampoo on his furniture. He let at least that much of her remain in him, clinging to it, hating himself for not wanting to let go.

  Then again, he’d never been able to let go . . .

  He awakened with a spike in his skull, noticing the smell of honeysuckle. He was fuzzy, and when he saw Rochelle’s beautiful face above him, he thought he was dreaming. He felt her hand on his cheek and the warmth of her aura until he was consumed by it.

  “Gideon?” she asked, and her voice was everything.

  He smiled at the dream.

  She stroked his skin, and he touched her hand. So real . . .

  It was only when he felt the dull pain in his jaw from the punch he’d taken that he realized this was no dream, and his heart hardened, unwilling to endure another beating.