A Touch of Scarlet

by Liz Talley

  He dropped his hand and stared out at the dying vines clinging to the wooden fence a few feet from them. “I had hoped we might have a chance. But if I go away with your forgiveness, I can live with that.”

  She didn’t say anything more.

  “So that guy. Is he the one who’s helped you move on?” he asked eventually.

  “Maybe.”

  “He doesn’t have your passion.”

  “No, but he needs it.”

  John threw his head back and laughed, startling her.

  “What? He needs me to unleash his inner passion. The man is a walking time bomb.”

  “Don’t ever change, love,” he said, tenderness etched on his face.

  She shook her head because she wouldn’t. She was who she was, and nothing, not even love, could alter her.

  They shared a peaceful moment. Finally, John rose and held out a hand. “Shall we?”

  She accepted his hand. “Your cancer? Are you better? Or…” She didn’t want to think about John being worse.

  He smiled. “It’s in remission for now.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. Life wouldn’t be good without John Hammerstein in it.”

  He curled an arm around her, and she allowed him to hug her. “You are so special, my dear. They broke the mold when they made you.”

  She gave him a squeeze. “Thank you for finally telling me the truth.”

  “I will always be sorry I hurt you. Do know that I loved every minute of life when I was with you? And if this new fellow doesn’t treat you like the queen you are, I will personally take him to task. Tan his hide.”

  Scarlet’s lips twitched. “He already knows I’m a drama queen. I just hope he thinks I’m a risk worth taking.”

  “Well, if he doesn’t, he’s an idiot.”

  “I’m definitely not an idiot.”

  Scarlet and John turned toward the sound of Adam’s voice. He stood next to a pecan tree.

  John didn’t acknowledge Adam. Instead he dropped a light kiss on her cheek. “If you ever need me, you know where to find me.”

  John walked toward the house, stopping to study Adam. For a moment, they looked like dogs squaring off against one another, hackles up, tails straight. But when John extended a hand toward Adam, he took it. “You’ve been handed a treasure. Don’t squander it.”

  Adam nodded but didn’t respond. He released John’s hand and approached Scarlet. A moment later they were alone, or as alone as two could be across the street from a town picnic. She could hear the shouts of children and the twang of a banjo in the background.

  “You okay?”

  “As okay as a girl can be after taking a header into what I think was potato salad.”

  He didn’t smile. Instead he studied her. She didn’t wiggle under the duress of his regard, though she wanted to. It seemed every brush of his gaze weighed, measured and dissected all that she was. And maybe spotted the mayonnaise coagulated near her temple.

  “Your cover-up speech about trying to get me to kiss you didn’t work. A blind man could have seen the truth.”

  “Do you?”

  His smooth forehead furrowed.

  “Care for me?” she asked.

  “All I know is we’ve spent the past few weeks avoiding everything we’ve felt for each other. I can’t do that anymore.”

  “But you have to.” She had twenty more hours of community service to fulfill. Nothing had changed. Yet everything had changed. He’d tossed his convictions aside in front of eye witnesses. Everyone in Oak Stand would be talking about it by the time the sun went down.

  “We can’t pretend this away,” he said.

  “We have to.” What other choice did they have?

  “You think we can? You freaked out in the middle of a picnic because I was with another woman.”

  “Correction. Another woman was feeding you pie and you looked like you enjoyed it.” Scarlet felt anger rise again. Anger at him, Sophie and the whole situation. “I didn’t mean to get so—”

  “Emotional? But that’s what this is between us. Emotional stuff. It’s not about sex, though I can’t say I haven’t been fantasizing about you beneath me, on top of me, all over me during a good part of every day since we met.”

  “Just a good part? Not every waking moment?”

  “And some sleeping ones.”

  “So what do we do about it?”

  He rubbed a hand through his hair. It stretched the fabric of his polo shirt against his flat stomach. “Honestly, I don’t know. I’m into you. You’re into me. But—”

  “There’s always that, isn’t there?”

  There was a resigned look in his green eyes. “What I said about you not being what I’m looking for in a woman was wrong. I form these ideas in my head about what life should be, about who I should be, and I can’t let them go. It’s not very open-minded of me. I judged you because you’re sexy, because you seemed like a self-absorbed actress. I was wrong.”

  She turned away from him. She’d figured that out long ago, but his words still hurt.

  Why did both he and John see her as less than what she was? John thought she was too immature to stick with him through his illness, so he gave up on her. And Adam had thought her too shallow to be worth loving. Sure, he’d corrected himself. But that didn’t change the fact he’d tossed her into some category he’d created. This man thought he could label everything and everyone, and, though she hadn’t yet reached the age of thirty, she’d learned long ago not to make assumptions. It was one rule her parents had hammered home. No lines. No judging.

  “You still make assumptions about me. You think you know me, and you don’t. Not really. You can’t create a perfect world or a perfect girl. Nor can you hide who you are beneath a badge. At some point, you have to accept life and people for who they are, including me.”

  “You aren’t good on paper.”

  “What?”

  “Sophie’s good on paper. You aren’t. But I realize being good on paper doesn’t mean being the right person for the job. It’s a gut-feeling thing, and my gut tells me the right girl is standing before me.”

  She sighed. “This isn’t a job, Adam.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  She couldn’t handle much more. The drama had been epic, but even a vampire queen had her limits. She looked down at the red leather watch on her wrist. “It’s nearly two o’clock, and I promised Roz I would watch her granddaughter Mary Ellen sing.”

  “Mary Claire,” he corrected.

  “Whatever.”

  “But we’re not finished.” He reached out to stop her.

  “We are for now.” She sidestepped him. “You better get back to your date.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  SCARLET LAID LOW for the next several days. She tweaked a few scenes for the play, creating a final script that she dropped off at the high-school drama teacher’s house for an edit. She spent hours driving along county roads less traveled, with the top of the convertible down, her hair whipping in the wind and the sun hot on her shoulders. It was freeing and gave her tangled thoughts and emotions time to unknot.

  By Thursday night, when she’d pulled up to the parking area of Phoenix, ready to start full run-throughs of their patched-together play, she’d reached a decision about her and Adam. She would do nothing.

  She’d fought so long and hard against what she felt for him that to not do so felt more exhausting than before. She didn’t know where they were headed. Or if there could even be any sort of future between them. But she wasn’t going to overthink it anymore.

  Overthinking had gotten her nowhere except lost in the Texas countryside.

  Without her damn cell phone.

  So she was done with thinking and aimless driving.

  “Hello, magic woman,” Georges said, opening the door. Cool air-conditioning and her actors met her as she stepped inside.

  “Hola, Georges.” She dropped her canvas bag holding a few props Rayne and Aunt Fran had whipped toget
her, including the magpie’s jewel. “Hola, guys. I wanted to talk to you about why this production is so important before we start our run-throughs tonight.”

  She delivered the speech Aunt Frances had inspired that day in the auditorium and had helped her perfect last night. For once, the guys paid attention.

  “So you’re saying this play is like us?” Miguel II asked. “The community thinks this book is bad? And they thought the center was bad? Man, that’s—”

  “Don’t say it,” Scarlet warned. “I’m pretty sure it’s a rule violation.”

  “Then we gotta do this right, gringita.” Tito nodded his head emphatically.

  “Right.” She handed out the final script, which consisted of five scenes adapted from the book. Brent had pulled some strings, gotten in touch with the author and received her permission for an adaptation. Scarlet wasn’t a screenwriter, but she had been pleasantly surprised at how much she’d enjoyed translating the author’s words and ideas into a script. “I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting each of your parts.”

  Tito frowned. “What about the cop?”

  “Chief Hinton?”

  “Yeah, he’s doing this, too. He’s Valken’s servant, right? He eats the poison leaves from the fenberry tree and turns into another raven. That’s the best part. When Marco kills him.”

  “You bloodthirsty pirates,” Scarlet said, setting Adam’s script on a chair with her bag.

  The door to Phoenix opened and the man who’d haunted her thoughts stepped inside. Scarlet’s heart sped up, beating like a thundering herd of Thoroughbreds around a racetrack. She wondered what he had been doing since they last spoke. Had he been trying to rationalize his feelings for her? Had he been wrestling over the dilemma of falling in love with the totally wrong person?

  Wait. Love? L-O-V-E?

  She blinked, then rifled through the tote, looking for the faceted jewel. Anything to look busy. To distract herself from the revolutionary thought that had invaded her mind.

  “Hey,” Adam said, weaving around scattered chairs as he approached. He didn’t look at her. “Only a few days until we perform this. You guys ready?”

  “I was born ready,” Miguel II said.

  She looked up and Adam glanced at her. “Are you ready?”

  He seemed to be talking about more than the play.

  She studied him as he stood beside men who had once mistrusted him. It had taken them several rehearsals, but finally they had come to an understanding. They weren’t friends, but they weren’t enemies. Adam was light to their darkness. Erect carriage, golden skin and hair. His green eyes were steadfast, his jaw strong. So damned handsome. Was there any other man in Texas as good-looking as this one?

  Not to her.

  “Yeah,” she said, with a smile. “I think I am.”

  He smiled. “Good.”

  The undercurrent was broken, and the former gang members began to rehearse. When it came time for Adam’s character, he read the part with exactly the right emotion and emphasis. Scarlet had no role beyond providing the mysterious voice of the magpie. She read her lines with an upper-crust British accent, which amused the guys greatly.

  They went through the scenes three times, then Scarlet called an end to practice.

  As she stepped onto the porch with Adam, she paused to appreciate the evening. It was that magical time of day, with the deepness of night chasing the sun away. Fingers of orange and pink reached out from the horizon as if to cling to the earth as stars overtook the light.

  “Beautiful night,” Adam said.

  “Mmm-hmm.” Scarlet shouldered her canvas bag. “You like to talk about the weather a lot.”

  He gave a soft laugh. “A habit from my mother.”

  “She likes the weather?”

  “No, she likes to avoid problems.”

  “And I’m a problem.”

  His smile was warm. “Haven’t you been since I first laid eyes on you? From the very beginning, you pecked at my defenses. I had no recourse but to surrender.”

  “I don’t want to be the woman who tears you apart, destroying all you are. You make me sound like a plague, and I’m not. I’m a woman. I’m not defined by anything other than that.”

  “Nope, you’re not.”

  “And I’m not a job. You can’t pick who you’ll fall in love with from an applicant pool.”

  “No, you can’t.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You’re being awfully agreeable.”

  “Because I’m done with fighting what I feel for you. And I no longer want to hold on to my crazy idea of what life should be.” He nudged her with his elbow. “Come on. I’m trying to go with the flow here.”

  Who could resist smiling at that?

  He reached into his back pocket and withdrew a paper. “I got this today.” He held it out to her.

  She took it. It was a court letter. She quickly scanned the missive. “I’m done?”

  “Yep. I signed off on the paperwork today. The judge got a call from the Texas State Trooper’s office about your visit to the hospital, and it seems your unsolicited community service warmed her heart enough to shorten your sentence. You’ve already completed twenty hours and the rest of the time was suspended.”

  The enormity of that hit her. “I can leave Oak Stand?”

  “If that’s what you want.” Something flashed in his eyes. He didn’t want her to go.

  She should go. It might be best.

  But there was the matter of the play next week. When she’d first arrived, Rayne had accused her of not finishing what she started. If Scarlet left Oak Stand now, the six guys inside would be left with no direction. And what of the play itself? She’d wanted to bring healing to the community still split over the censorship of the book.

  And beyond those reasons, the most important one, was Adam. How could she leave him?

  “I can’t leave,” she said, passing the paper to him.

  “You can’t?”

  “No. The play is next week. We have to show Oak Stand the phenomenal acting skills these guys have.”

  He shifted his gaze from her, staring at Banjo as he ran along the fence on the scent of something. “The play. Of course.”

  She resisted the urge to physically reach out to him. “Did you think there was some other reason to stay?”

  His gaze clashed with hers. “Actually I did.”

  “What reason is that?”

  “This.” He stepped toward her, wrapped his arms about her and covered her mouth with his.

  Sheer elation flooded her body as she opened her mouth to him, slid her hands up his shoulders to his short hair. Sweet desire awakened as it had the first time he kissed her, except this time there were no bars in the way.

  Liquid heat pooled in her stomach and she felt every hard inch of his body against hers. His fingers wove through her hair, angling her head so he could deepen the kiss, as his tongue traced her bottom lip before plunging inside her mouth, then withdrawing again.

  She groaned against his lips, tugging him closer, holding him tighter.

  “Yo. Get a room,” Marco called through the door they’d neglected to shut all the way.

  Scarlet laughed against Adam’s mouth, but he didn’t stop kissing her.

  Finally, he pulled back and gazed at her. “Was that enough?”

  His kiss had drugged her. “Enough what?”

  “Enough for you to stay awhile?”

  “You’re pretty persuasive, Chief Hinton.”

  “I’ve got more tricks up my sleeve if you need more persuasion.”

  She gave him a smile. “I might take you up on that, but where would that leave us?”

  “I’ll show you,” Adam said, taking her hand and tugging her toward the drive. Banjo looked up and wagged his tail, but he didn’t leave whatever he chased. Adam’s hand felt so right in hers. They’d spent so long not touching, not giving in to what they both wanted, she delighted in the simple contact.

  When Adam reached the bright yellow C
orvette, he dropped her hand and reached into the backseat, withdrawing a quilt and picnic basket. “Mind if we take your car? The guys are detailing the ’Vette tomorrow.”

  “Go where?”

  “I want to show you something.”

  “Oh, really?” she drawled.

  His laughter echoed around them. She loved the way he laughed. Reckless abandon. Just as she’d always suspected. “I love that your mind is halfway in the gutter.”

  “I could easily toss it all the way in.” She looped her arm through his. He tossed his keys to Georges, who, true to form, had appeared out of nowhere. “I think Georges must work with Aunt Frances.”

  “I won’t even ask,” Adam said. “Keys?”

  She handed him her keys, tossed her bag in the back then slid into the passenger seat. Adam cranked the engine and they roared down the driveway.

  As they sped down the highway, Scarlet didn’t speak, feeling the moment was too sacred, too tender and poignant to ruin with nervous chatter. Adam handled the car as if it were an old friend, taking the curves smoothly, winding over the empty Texas back roads with ease. They came to a cattle gap, rattled over it, then proceeded down a bumpy dirt road around a thick stand of trees. The view opened up to reveal a small pond glittering in the soft moonlight.

  “Oh,” she breathed, “how pretty.”

  “I bought it when I first moved to Oak Stand, thinking one day I’d build a house out here. It’s only ten acres, but perfect since I can’t even pretend to be a farmer.” He pulled onto a stretch of grass and killed the engine.

  “I’ve never brought anyone here. It’s my secret place, a place where I get away to think. I’ve been out here for the past few days.” He faced her.

  “I probably drove right past you. I spent most of my thinking time riding around in this car.”

  His face remained expressionless. “So what did you conclude?”

  “Nothing. Other than this is not about just sex.”