Lone Star Hero

by Jennie Jones

  He checked over his shoulder once again to make sure Molly wasn’t lifting too many tiles at once. He’d tasked her with stacking them elsewhere because they were in the way of where the crane needed to be once it arrived tomorrow. The woman had perseverance. It was either her temperament or her courage that was seeing her through this endeavor to get the hacienda ready for her business and ready to make the town shine.

  She turned to pick up a stray tile and caught Saul’s attention.

  He’d like to be the one to make her tender and warm and trembly, and all the sensual, sensitive stuff he didn’t care to think about too often.

  He wanted her, no denying it. Wanted her in a warm and sensual way, and in a hot and passionate way. Just wanted her. Any which way. But he wasn’t right for her and didn’t want to be, because being right for Molly would mean he had to change his plans and succumb to hers. That wasn’t going to happen.

  Surely Molly had already seen the huge money-making opportunities around here, for herself and the town. She could get involved with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and get some cooperative tourist thing going with the Palo Duro Canyon. There had to be some great walking trails in Calamity Valley, too. Had she considered all the possibilities? Going by the notes she’d left lying around, she appeared to be concentrating solely on her photography business and not the broader outlook. Maybe it was because she had so much on her mind. Like the jerk and the money he owed her.

  “Hey, Molly.” He leaned against the table, arms crossed.

  “What?” she asked, raising the brim of her baseball cap and swiping a gloved hand over her brow.

  Which left dirt marks on her forehead.

  “I’ve been doing some thinking on your behalf.” Just because he didn’t want to be under some spell didn’t mean he couldn’t or wouldn’t impart information that might help her when he’d gone. He wasn’t going to change his attitude toward her, he’d just stopped the personal stuff. That was too close to the likes of a relationship than he was comfortable with, given that he wasn’t sticking around. The last thing he wanted was to own the same tag as all the other men in the Mackillop women’s lives—arrived, liked, then left when things got too close to the bone.

  He pointed over to the lodge house. “You might want to live in the two-story section of the hacienda instead of the washhouse.”

  “Lodge house.”

  “Yeah, that one.” He offered her a smile expecting to see her finger, but she didn’t move.

  “Why would I do that?” she asked.

  “Because the lodge house will offer you more accommodation opportunities for tourists. Because you deserve to live in the hacienda—not the washhouse.”

  “I’ll live where I damn well choose. Thanks for your input though.”

  She went back to her tile stacking.

  “Can’t you take advice?”

  “We’re wasting time here,” she said, indicating his work bench. “Haven’t you got to get your valley placements and hip grooves sorted out?”

  He shook his head in a slow, ponderous manner. “Thank God I’m in charge.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said thank God you’re in charge. I might have forgotten to slot my hips into the right groove.”

  “Sounds like you might need to get your tool out,” she said, giving him a lift of her mouth that almost became a smile.

  “You’re thinking about sex?” he asked, enjoying the sudden banter.

  “Me?” Her eyes widened. “No way. You’re thinking about sex.”

  “I am now.”

  “See? Told you. I bet you think about sex all the time.”

  “Not true. Not anymore. When I was seventeen I thought about sex every minute. But when I turned twenty it was every couple of minutes. So I grew up, right?”

  “Oh, so adult. How about now? When you’re, what, thirty?”

  “Every fifteen or so minutes. So that’s only three or four times an hour. Unless I’m looking at you, and then it’s every second.”

  The tile she was holding slid out of her hands and crashed to the ground.

  “More than that even. Every moment.” No point in being dishonest.

  “So, are you thinking about sex with me now?” she asked, her voice whispery.

  “What do you think?”

  “We’re not right for each other.”

  “That’s correct,” he said. “Doesn’t mean I can’t tell you I like looking at you.”

  Molly stared at him until she realized her mouth had gone dry. He thought about sex every moment he was with her?

  “So we’ve got that out of the way,” he said, unfolding his arms. “We look at each other, we like what we see but we’re not taking it anywhere. So like you say, let’s get on with what we’re doing,” He put his attention on the his work table, hands either side of the graph paper.

  “Fine. Let’s do that.” Like it was going to be so simple.

  I am not going to think about kissing or sex. Not going to.

  “Don’t say ‘fine’,” he told her in an aggrieved tone. “I said it first, and I meant it for the correct use—I’m okay with getting on with the next task in hand. You say it and it means you’re pissed. I wish women didn’t say ‘fine’ when they don’t mean it.”

  Molly pulled her work gloves off, threw them into the wheelbarrow, and marched to his work bench. “I have no inclination whatsoever to see you naked,” she said, stabbing a finger his way. “You can keep your hat on as far as I’m concerned. And your boots. And your pants.”

  “Naked? Now you’re thinking about me naked?”

  “You admitted you wanted to have sex with me, and the obvious conclusion is that I picture you naked.”

  Both his eyebrows shot up. “It is?”

  “But rest assured I have no intention of making you take your pants off in my presence.”

  “Fine. So we both understand each other.”

  “Fine. Now get back to work.”

  He moved fast, yanked her into him, and kissed her.

  Molly instinctively opened her mouth, and heaven arrived.

  All too soon, he released her.

  “What did you do that for?” she asked, trying to stop her knees from buckling. It hadn’t been a “sweet kiss” it had been a full-on hot kiss.

  “I’m proving a point. You want me to take my pants off. You were trembling just then when I kissed you. You want me as much as I want you.”

  She was still trembling—and—he did want her? “I’m not right for you.”

  “As it happens, I’m not right for you, either.” He shrugged. “Look, sometimes I just want to kiss you,” he said in a tone that suggested he was holding onto his patience while he explained the simplest multiplication to a ten-year-old.

  “Well you can’t, because we’re not right for—”

  He took hold of her again, kissed her again, and heaven filtered from her mouth to her throat, to her chest and down her legs to the soles of her feet.

  “Being around you is a lot frustrating,” he told her when he released her.

  She swallowed hard. She’d been about to get cozy with that kiss. She’d even raised herself to tiptoes to get closer to him. “Is that a fact?” she said as caustically as she could.

  “Don’t start another argument because you know damn well I won’t kiss you unless I’m sure you want me to. You wanted that kiss.”

  “I did not.”

  Before she had time to take a breath, he was kissing her again. Stop kissing him back. He’ll think you like him. But her tongue wasn’t listening. I’ll give it five more seconds.

  She gave it six, then pulled her lips from his. “You have to stop doing this,” she said, breathlessly.

  “Don’t you want it?”

  “You’re a fairly good kisser. But I can take it or leave it.”

  “Prove it.” His eyes were now storm blue, his focus intent. “Prove you don’t feel what’s between us.”

  “Fine.”
She gave a resigned sigh and before he had a chance to even blink, she yanked his head down until his mouth struck hers and kissed him like she hoped he’d never been kissed before.

  His arms slid firmly around her, crushing her against his hot chest. He’d challenged her, and she’d only wanted to stir him up, but his body had gone hard. The whole packed-muscle six-two length of him hard and keen.

  There was a possibility this was the point she might beg him not to stop. She couldn’t let that happen!

  With a determination she hadn’t known she possessed, she pushed away.

  “See? Means nothing to me,” she said, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth as though ridding herself of his pathetic—stunning!—kiss. “I can kiss you any time I like, and not get bothered by it. I know you better than you know me.”

  “You know nothing about me, and there’s a lot more to be proved.”

  “Sorry. I’m all proved out.” She made her way passed him, her entire body energized and tingling. “Get on with your calculations,” she called. “I’ll get lunch ready.”

  She stomped across the courtyard, picking up her work gloves from the wheelbarrow and slapping them against her thigh as she strode away before he got the last word.

  That was showing him.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Psychic in Ring of Debauchery!

  Molly couldn’t believe what she was rereading.

  “It’s just a headline,” Lauren said.

  “It’s the end of my life!”

  “You’re not even psychic,” Pepper said.

  Molly stared at the online newspaper on her laptop, which was on the countertop in the kitchen, and at the headline about the young psychic with debauched tendencies who resided in Hopeless. “I just came in to get lunch ready,” she told her cousins. “I thought I’d check the news and my email while the eggs were boiling and I find this!”

  “It’s much worse than the greed rumor,” Pepper offered.

  “The Texas Portal is a rag that focuses on gossip and classified ads,” Lauren said. “It’s not the Amarillo Globe.”

  “But the Globe emailed me!” Molly said. “They want an interview. In situ. In my den of iniquity.” Texas wasn’t the world but it was Molly’s whole world.

  What would the people who knew her, or had known her in her youth, think if they read this? All the old Crazy Molly and Wacky Mackillop stuff would come out again.

  “Don’t go worrying about what others might think,” Pepper said. “They don’t even read that Portal rag.”

  “No, but they read the Globe,” Lauren said. “Maybe you ought to do the interview with them and laugh it all off, before they print the article without you.”

  “Is that legal?”

  “You should check in with Marie. She started all this. She’ll know how to finish it.”

  Would Momma know? It had been Momma’s fault the hot photos of Saul had gotten out in the first place. Those photos had gone viral—well, they’d gone around Texas. People were tweeting his abs. The shame of it.

  “This is turning into a fiasco,” Lauren said.

  “I know,” Molly agreed. “And even worse, I just kissed him four times.”

  “You did what?”

  “We told you to ignore him.”

  “I was ignoring him. He obviously didn’t like it.”

  “He’s not going to ignore you anymore, Molly. Not after this.”

  Molly stared at the screen on her laptop and the front page spread of the online rag, featuring Saul’s abs and the adoring expression on her face as she reached for the fountain. Now photoshopped as his abs. She picked up the strap on her Pro camera and twisted it around her hand, like a talisman. “So what am I going to do about this headline? Because I don’t want to be debauched. I want to be a photographer.”

  “You’ve got to tell him.”

  “You’ve definitely got to tell him.”

  “Gosh, you are having a hard time of it,” Pepper said.

  “I’m so glad it’s not me.” Lauren paused. “But we’re with you in spirit, Molly. We’re on your side. You can do this.”

  Nerves were making Molly’s skin prickly and maybe her legs were trembling. It was difficult to discern where the trembling originated because her whole body was shaking, but since the trembles usually started in her thighs whenever the matter of Saul came up, she presumed that was the source, so she clenched her butt muscles and firmed her thighs.

  He’d come in ten minutes ago for his lunch and she had to get this done. She picked up a printed copy of the Texas Portal front page, which she’d taken from the online newspaper’s website.

  “Here,” she said, handing it to Saul.

  He finished chewing, and put his thick ham salad and boiled egg sandwich onto his plate.

  “I can explain,” she said as he took the piece of paper off her.

  Maybe she ought to have explained first, before letting him see it. His face registered shock—it definitely wasn’t amusement—then his focus zoomed in as he read the article beneath the photo, not naming either of them, but suggesting that something wicked and naughty was happening in Calamity Valley, around the Hopeless area, involving a den of sexual freedom and a young psychic.

  Molly swallowed. “I’m so sorry.”

  He was still studying the photo, his expression a mix of incredulity and awe.

  “Momma’s really sorry too.”

  He blew out a laugh. “Is this where your sexual deviance problem came from?”

  Molly nodded. “Probably. But Momma’s getting us out of the fix she accidentally put us in.”

  “So Marie did this?” he asked, aiming the printed sheet of paper at Molly.

  “By accident. And she’ll get us out of it.”

  “Is that wise?”

  “She knows what she’s doing.” Please let Momma know what she’s doing.

  He looked at the photo again. “I don’t remember you staring so adoringly at my chest.”

  “It’s photoshopped. Momma did it. And it’s not your chest—it’s your abdominal muscles.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with them?”

  “Nothing! They’re spectacular.”

  He tilted his head. “But my chest isn’t?”

  “It’s equally spectacular. But women have a thing for washboard abs and you have them.” She shrugged as though saying, “Come on. You’ve got them, you can’t deny it.”

  “And you like them?” he asked, with a lazy smile in his eyes.

  “Not particularly, but I am a woman and I do notice stuff like this, whether I want to or not.”

  “When did you take these photos of me?”

  “Oh, right, yes...” Oops. “Just before I asked you if you’d mind me using photos of you in my business brochure.”

  “And Marie, who got us into this, is getting us out of it?”

  Molly nodded. “She knows what she’s doing.” Pleeeeease know what you’re doing, Momma.

  “Pardon me if I don’t appear convinced.” He stood, crumpled the sheet of paper in his hand and threw it onto the countertop. “Okay, let’s forget this nonsense and get on with it. We’ve got a lot still to do this afternoon.”

  He wasn’t worried about the photo? What a relief. He was still going to build her roof.

  “Good idea,” she said, becoming stalwart and steadfast. “You carry on with your I’m-in-charge routine, and I’ll do as you ask because I’m desperate.”

  “For sex?” he asked with a lift of an eyebrow.

  “For a roof!”

  He gave her his hot-contractor, narrow-eyed smile.

  “You are so smug, Solomon.”

  “And you are such a liar, Mackillop. You like looking at my abs.”

  “Do not. When is the crane arriving?”

  “Tomorrow. By the end of today, I want to have finished double-checking all my calculations, and you need to have moved all those roof tiles that are stacked in the courtyard out of my way. If you need a hand, I’ll give you
a hand.”

  Great. There were only fourteen dozen stacks left to shift. “I don’t need your hand. I’m in charge of tiles, remember?”

  “You’re overseeing the tiles.” He stuck the tip of his finger into his chest. “I’m in charge of everything.”

  “That’s not actually right, because—”

  “Unless you want me to walk out of here, annoyed and aggrieved that my near nakedness has been the front of amusement and humiliation all around Texas.”

  “There’s no humiliation for you,” Molly told him, stepping back. “You’ve got perfect abs and women want to look at them. What about me? I’m the one with the grievance here. I’m the one with the sexual appetite.”

  He turned away but not before she’d seen a flash of a grin.

  “I might add that I’m not in the least bit interested in your stupid abs,” she told him. “Or your stupid chest. Or even your stupid shoulders, come to that.” She glared at him when he swung back to her, his grin gone, replaced by a baffled expression.

  “Stupid?” he asked. “Is that the best you’ve got?”

  “I’m currently speechless at your ridiculous and over-the-top aggrieved perception of what is nothing more than an accidental interpretation of an innocent situation. Stupid is the first word that comes to mind.”

  “Fine. Let’s get on with our day, shall we? Because this entire situation, not to mention your stunning array of vocabulary, is beginning to feel one hundred percent stupid.”

  “Fine.”

  He grabbed his work gloves and strode to the door.

  Molly suddenly remembered something she had to speak to him about. “Um... since we’re chatting,” she said quickly, making him pause.

  “Chatting?” he asked, with a disbelieving look on his face.

  “There’s a valley meeting tonight in Hopeless.” She’d owned up about the photos, it hadn’t gone too badly, and now she had to deal with the next thing on her plate. “Want to come?”