Tangled Up in Texas

by Delores Fossen

  So far, it hadn’t.

  No matter how much fence he checked or how many nails he hammered, he couldn’t get the image of Sunny’s tat out of his mind.

  Love you forever.

  Maybe getting it had been some kind of impulse. Sunny’s way of remembering losing her virginity to him. Or even a drunken celebration that had ended in a tattoo parlor while she offered up her butt cheek to a tat artist. That didn’t seem like Sunny’s style, but Shaw had firsthand knowledge that tequila shots and such often led to decisions that reasonable sober people didn’t make.

  It could also be that at the time she’d gotten it, Sunny had truly felt that she loved him. His feelings for her back then had certainly been deep. Not enough for love you forever, but he had been pretty young and not looking for anything permanent. Since Sunny had already been making plans to leave Lone Star Ridge, he hadn’t figured forever was on her to-do list, either.

  So, maybe this was a decision accompanied by a high blood alcohol level. That would have settled a lot better in his mind if it weren’t for one big thing.

  She hadn’t had it removed.

  It was still there, highly visible to anyone who ever saw her naked. He remembered Hugh’s reaction when Shaw had introduced himself.

  I know who you are. I got almost daily reminders of you before Sunny and I broke up.

  At the time, Hugh’s comment hadn’t made much sense, but it sure as heck did now. Any time Hugh had caught sight of his fiancée’s ass cheek, he’d seen Shaw’s name—inside a Love You Forever heart, no less. Being the jerk Hugh was, he’d certainly wanted Sunny to get rid of it, and she hadn’t. Why?

  Shaw wasn’t sure he wanted to ask her that. Because it could open a big can of worms about not only her feelings for him in the past but also her feelings now. He wasn’t ready for that, wasn’t ready to hear her laugh off the tat as a stupid, drunk mistake, either. Wasn’t ready for her to confess that she had indeed loved him forever but couldn’t be with him because of the baby issue.

  No.

  He preferred to stay in the dark at least for a while longer until he could sort out this jumble in his mind. The last thing he wanted was a conversation that would lead to some kind of ultimatum that would send Sunny running again.

  Shaw rode back to the main house, figuring that since the fence repairs hadn’t fixed his head, he’d at least get some paperwork done, but the moment he stepped into the barn, he knew head fixing would have to wait.

  Leyton was there.

  One look at his brother’s face and Shaw knew he was in for a dose of bad news. “What’d Marty do now?” Shaw asked automatically.

  “Not enough,” Leyton said right off, confirming Shaw’s premonition. “I had two meetings with Marty and Aurora, and ended up going to see a lawyer to draw up some paperwork. Both Marty and Aurora will sign documents claiming Marty’s paternity of Kinsley.”

  Okay. That didn’t sound bad since Marty was her father. “And?” Shaw prompted because he was still waiting for the other boot to fall.

  Leyton gathered his breath. “Aurora says she just can’t deal with Kinsley, that she needs a break, and she doesn’t have a clue how long that break will be.”

  “Obviously, a candidate for World’s Bestest Mom,” Shaw grumbled.

  His brother made a sound of agreement. “Aurora said Marty could take Kinsley, that she’s had to deal with her for the past fifteen years and now it was Marty’s turn.”

  Not a news flash since Aurora had already said something similar. “How’d Marty react to that?” Shaw asked.

  “In that not enough way of his. He’s going to relinquish custody, too, though he will pay child support and set up a trust fund for her.”

  Yeah, not nearly enough. “Where does that leave Kinsley?”

  Leyton didn’t have a quick answer for that, but Shaw could see where this was going. “If one of us doesn’t take her, CPS will,” Shaw said.

  His brother nodded, added some profanity, and they both stood there mentally shaking their heads along with wanting to rip Marty a new one. Their cursing ended when Shaw spotted Sunny making her way toward him.

  Correction: she was storming toward him.

  “What’d you do to piss her off?” Leyton asked, glancing back at Sunny.

  “I’m about to find out. Excuse me for a minute,” Shaw said, walking toward Sunny.

  “Are these true?” she demanded, waving a fistful of papers at him.

  Shaw wanted to tell her he needed a tad more information than a fist wave so once he had caught up with her, he took the paper from her hand and had a look. They were legal documents from Little Cowgirls, and...

  Shit.

  Specifically, they were copies of his legal documents, the ones Marty had signed since Shaw had been a minor at the time. Any time Shaw was to appear on screen, it had required a signed release that detailed exactly what he was to do in the scene. There were ones for him bringing horses into the corral, teaching Sunny to ride, but he immediately saw the one that had pissed her off.

  The episode called “Sunny’s Heart-throb.”

  Where he’d been instructed to kiss her.

  “Marty signed that the day before that whole ‘sore nuts’ fiasco,” Sunny pointed out. “Did the producers tell you to kiss me?”

  Oh, this was so not going to sound good. “Yes. But I’d been thinking about kissing you.” Hell, he’d got hard-ons thinking about her.

  She huffed so loud that he doubted she heard anything past the yes. “Did they tell you to spend time with me?”

  Again, so not going to sound good. “Yes. But I would have spent time with you even if they hadn’t said that. I was attracted to you.” Along with trying to resist her because of the age difference. And he was getting those hard-ons.

  That earned him another huff. And worse, there was the look of betrayal in her eyes. She marched a few steps away and then turned right back around to spear him with those betrayed eyes.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked. Not so much a demand as her other questions, and her voice trembled a little.

  Shitting shit shit.

  Why had this come back to haunt him now?

  Shaw had the answer to that when he saw Sunshine’s sticky note. He had just finished reading it and had started to feel the anger and bile rise up inside him when Em’s truck came to a noisy, fast stop next to Sunny’s SUV. But it wasn’t Em who got out. It was Ryan. Obviously, the boy was worried about Sunny.

  Welcome to the club. Shaw was worried about her, too.

  “I didn’t tell you because I was an idiot teenager when all of this happened,” Shaw said. “And I honestly forgot about it.”

  Apparently, that wasn’t the right thing to say to her because the look of betrayal turned to one of heartbreaking hurt. “You forgot that the producers told you to be my boyfriend?”

  When she put it like that, it made him want to amend his idiot-teenager label to include that he was obviously an idiot adult. Since he didn’t want to continue any idiocy, he settled for saying, “I’m sorry. I’m especially sorry that your mother used me and this to hurt you.”

  Her mouth trembled again, and she stared at him a long time before she nodded. It didn’t seem to be an acceptance of his apology or this situation. More like resignation.

  “I have to go,” she muttered. Shaw reached for her to maybe pull her into his arms, but she waved him off. “I have to go,” she repeated.

  She stopped only long enough to say something to Ryan that Shaw couldn’t hear. Then she got in her SUV and drove away.

  Ryan watched her leave before he walked to Shaw and handed him something. Bloody hell. Not more papers.

  “Did I sign away my soul to the devil or something?” Shaw snarled.

  “No, but that’s what Sunny might do.”

  Shaw’s gaze snapped
to Ryan’s to see if the boy was making a really bad joke. But, no, there wasn’t a joke anywhere in his expression.

  “It’s a contract that my dad wants her to sign,” Ryan explained. “He says he’ll be a real dad to me and give her a baby. All she has to do is go back to him.”

  Yeah, definitely no joke, but it was laughable. “Sunny won’t go back to Hugh, not after the way he’s acted.”

  “That’s what I thought, too, and then she got those.” Ryan tipped his head to the release forms that in a way had been like selling his soul. He just hadn’t known it at the time.

  “Sunny’s so upset that she might do something she’ll regret,” Ryan went on. “You have to stop her from signing her life away.”

  * * *

  SUNNY DUG HER pencil so hard into the sketch pad that the paper tore. She had known she was in the wrong mood to draw a children’s cartoon character, and the ripped paper proved it. Sunny tossed the pencil and sketch pad aside and went to the window of her bedroom.

  It was raining, and the sky was a dull thick gray that mimicked her mood. She was mopey and sulking—she knew that, too—but she just hadn’t been able to break out of this pit of despair. What a difference twenty-four hours could make. Yesterday, she’d climbed out of bed with Shaw and had felt on top of the world. Today, she was on the bottom of it.

  She was wavering between bouts of cursing Shaw and wanting to douse Sunshine with the prune surprise and mosquito traps. When she wasn’t feeling one of those specific things, she was crying.

  God, it shouldn’t hurt this bad.

  Not for something that had happened a lifetime ago, but it shook her to the core to think that the Little Cowgirls producers or—heaven forbid—her mother had convinced Shaw to agree to being with her. Kissing her. Which in turn had made her fall in love with him.

  Plenty would say that it was first love and therefore wasn’t real, but Sunny knew that it had been. And that every man she’d met or been with since had never stacked up to Shaw.

  That was the reality that cut to the core, too.

  With her defenses stripped down, her heart on her sleeve, Sunny knew that no man would ever stack up, either. Shaw was her Achilles’ heel, her blind spot.

  And the love of her life.

  Too bad she would have to give up the second love of her life—a baby—to be with him. Of course, maybe Shaw had decided he didn’t want to keep dealing with the likes of Sunshine and the crud she kept bringing into his life.

  Her phone buzzed again with a call. Sunny didn’t even look at the screen because she had no intention of answering it. Sunshine had put out the word about Shaw’s contracted work on Little Cowgirls, and that had spurred the potential suitors to start calling her again. That’s why she’d silenced her phone and put it on vibrate, but even that sound was annoying to her, so she reached down and flicked it off. Sunny had no sooner done that when there was a knock at the door.

  Em.

  She knew it was her before she even opened it. And Sunny immediately took a step back. Because Em was holding a duck. A wet one. Em was wet, too, the raindrops beading on her red slicker, which told Sunny that her grandmother had picked this particular waterfowl from her critter menagerie.

  “Brought someone to cheer you up,” Em said. “Hard to stay blue with a duck around.”

  Sunny wasn’t so sure about that, but the duck was indeed cute. White fluffy feathers and a bright yellow bill. Sunny reached out to stroke its head, but it made a weird sound. Not a quack. More like a loud, protesting squawk. Not just one, either, but a stream of them that sounded like a distress signal.

  “I’ve named him Slackers,” Em went on, ignoring the squawks. “I’m going to take him to the school during my community service reading time. But I also thought he could give you some inspiration for your drawings.”

  When the duck began to flap around, Em set it on the floor, and with those high-pitched squawks, it waddled with lightning speed underneath Sunny’s bed.

  “I need to talk to you about Ryan,” Em said.

  Sunny had been about to go after the duck, but that stopped her. “Is something wrong?” She instantly felt guilty about her moping. Yes, she’d checked on him, had even had pizza with him the night before, but he had to be hurting just as much as she was.

  “You could say that. I overheard him talking on the phone to someone at the college,” Em explained. “He’s got a chance to do some fancy-shmancy summer program in Austin, but he’s turning it down because he doesn’t want to leave you alone.”

  Her heart went to her knees. “Ryan said that?”

  “Not in those exact words, but that’s the gist of it.”

  For Pete’s sake. The duck would have to wait. Sunny went in search of Ryan. He wasn’t in his room but rather in the dining room, where he preferred to work. He was on his computer but looked up when she came in and offered her a thin “I’m worried about you” smile. Sunny offered him the same in return.

  “Em blabbed,” she said. “I know about the summer program you were offered.” Sunny sank down in the chair next to him.

  “It’s no big deal. It’s just a series of enrichment workshops for students interested in premed.”

  “That sounds like the very definition of a big deal.” Sunny sighed. “I’m okay. I’m not going to fall apart, and I don’t want you giving up anything—even a little deal—because you’re worried about me. If you’re determined to worry, you can do that in Austin during these workshops. Then I can worry about you worrying about me.”

  She’d added that last part to put a lighter spin on this, and it sort of worked. He gave her a slight smile.

  “Things suck for you right now,” he said. “I’d have to leave next week, and that seems too soon.”

  She slid her hand over his. “Things don’t suck all the way for me right now. I’m the mother of a six-foot-tall bouncing baby boy who should take premed enrichment workshops.” Sunny paused. “You’re concerned about the money.”

  That put some fire in his eyes. “You’re not signing that stupid contract with my dad,” he insisted.

  “No, I’m not. And I don’t need to sign it to pay for your classes and a place for you to stay.” Thank goodness for Slackers Quackers. “What about Kinsley? Have you told her about these workshops?”

  Ryan nodded. “We’ve talked. She’s okay with it. And she’s sort of wrapped up in her own stuff right now.”

  Yes, Sunny had seen the way Marty had reacted to the girl, had been with Kinsley afterward in the hayloft. She was hurting, and Marty and her mom certainly weren’t helping. For now, though, Sunny put that aside to focus on Ryan.

  “Would you be able to stay in the dorm for these workshops?” she asked. “Because I wouldn’t want you moving into an apartment or a place where you’d be alone.”

  “I could move into the dorm.” There was still hesitation in Ryan’s voice, his expression.

  “Then that’s what you’ll do.” She brushed a kiss on the top of his head.

  The hesitation continued, but she could see him working his way through this. “I’ll pay you back when I can.”

  Sunny sighed again. She’d won the kid lottery when it came to Ryan. “I’ll take payment in free medical care after you’re a doctor. Go ahead. Make whatever arrangements you need to move into the dorm next week.”

  “Thank you.” He stood and hugged her. It qualified as the best hug ever.

  Feeling a whole lot better, Sunny turned to go back upstairs, and she practically ran right into Shaw. Her heart did a little flip-flop, and she didn’t think it was because he’d startled her. Shaw often had that effect on her. Sometimes, like now, she forgot how to breathe.

  He wasn’t looking his best today. The rain had soaked his hat, which he gripped in his hand. Had gotten to his shirt, too, because it was clinging to his chest. His hair was rumpled, his eyes were
tired, his forehead was bunched up. Still, he ticked off all the “hot cowboy” boxes, especially since she supposed those tired eyes were because of her.

  Ryan and he exchanged a glance, one that she suspected comrades would share, and for the first time she wondered if they’d talked after she’d driven away from Shaw.

  “I wanted to give you some time,” Shaw said to her. “But not enough time to think about accepting Hugh’s offer. Ryan showed me the contract,” he added.

  “I blabbed,” Ryan readily admitted.

  She gave Ryan a look to let him know that was okay, that it was all part of this package of them having the right to worry about each other. Which meant they had the right to get in each other’s business.

  “I’ll burn the contract if I can find it,” Sunny assured Shaw.

  “Then, I’ll make sure you find it. It’s in my truck. I would have burned it myself, but, well, it wasn’t my place to do that.” He mumbled something she didn’t catch and took her by the hand. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

  “It’s not a duck, is it?” she asked, causing him to blink twice.

  “No. It’s...not a duck.” The way he paused, it made her think he’d planned to say something else entirely. So, unlike Em he hadn’t intended to use a duck to try to cheer her up.

  She expected him to take her outside to his truck, but he headed up the stairs instead and led her to her bedroom. The door was closed, but when he opened it, there was no sign of Em or the duck.

  “I’m going to call my lawyer and tell him to back off fighting Sunshine,” Shaw said, still leading her. He took her to the window, the very one she’d been staring out earlier. “That’ll give her the go-ahead to sell or publish the sketchbooks.”

  Sunny couldn’t shake her head fast enough. “No. Don’t. If you do that, she wins. I don’t want her to win.”

  Shaw’s response was fast, too. “And I don’t want her to keep dicking around with our lives.”

  They were in complete agreement on this. “I called Hayes and told him to try to fix this. I laid a guilt trip on him because all of this started with Tonya and those diaries. Yes, I know that’s not a direct connection to what Em did to get back at Sunshine, but Hayes might do something just to stop me from pestering him.”