Sweet Summer Sunset (A Coldwater Texas Novel)

by Delores Fossen

  “I don’t want to use it,” Rayelle went on. “But Brenda insisted on it. In fact, it was the last thing she said to me before she died.”

  Because he no longer felt steady on his feet, Nico eased down in his desk chair. “I don’t understand.” But he was getting a bad feeling about this. The sort of feeling he was sure he would almost certainly have right before his bull ride with BYB.

  “Brenda made me promise to bring Piper here for the summer. So that you could help the girl get over Brenda’s death.” Rayelle motioned toward the envelope she’d given him. “It’s all in the letter.”

  A letter. From Brenda. Nico felt two things—the good and the bad. He wanted to read whatever Brenda had to say to him. A sort of message from beyond the grave. But it worried him, too, especially considering that Brenda had wanted Rayelle to come to Coldwater with Piper.

  Rayelle stood. This time, she dusted off her suit. “Read the letter,” she insisted. “I think Brenda spells it out better than I could.”

  “Spells out what?” he asked.

  Boy, did that tighten her mouth even more. “That Brenda had reservations about you being around Piper. Trust me, I have them, too. In fact, I have so many of them that I’m hoping...” She stopped, and Rayelle didn’t spell out what had caused her to change her mind about what she’d been about to say.

  “Just read the letter,” she added, and she turned and walked right out of his office.

  Nico managed a goodbye, but his attention was already on the letter that he took from the envelope. It wasn’t a short note but rather three handwritten pages. He wouldn’t have nearly enough time to go through all of it and then steel himself up again before his appointment. For now, Nico just skimmed it, looking for the part about Brenda’s reservations about him.

  And he found it.

  Well, hell.

  Nico got it then. Something he hadn’t especially wanted pointed out to him, even by someone he’d loved. But there was no mistaking it.

  Nico now knew that he, too, was a dick.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Dear Naughty Cowgirl,

  Help! I’m getting married to the greatest guy in Texas. Seriously, the greatest! We’ve been together for over a year now and we’ve acted out all our fantasies. LOL, yes all. I’m talking three or four times a day. Now, I’m looking for something extra special for our honeymoon night. Something he’ll never forget. Any naughty suggestions?

  Lovey Dovey in Abilene

  EDEN’S FINGERS WERE poised over her laptop keyboard as she read through the post again. Normally, it was a snap to answer one like this. After all, it was her specialty. Well, the answering was anyway, but that was what counted for the Naughty Cowgirl Talks Sex blog. No one—including the advertisers on her site—would come to her house and demand to do a spot check to see if she practiced what she preached.

  Good thing, too.

  She’d personally only tried a handful of the naughty suggestions that she’d come up with in the past five years, and the prospects weren’t high that she would be trying them in the near future. Hadn’t been since Damien had divorced her.

  Eden didn’t tear up at the thought of her ex’s name. No. She was past that. Past the humiliation of the totally unexpected divorce, and now she’d moved on to some particularly pissy anger.

  Nico was right. Damien was a dick, and she was just going to have to get past the pain and misery he’d caused her. She thought the anger might help with that. The right amount of anger could smother the flames of heartache—which was a line that she’d used once in her blog.

  Eden gulped down a decent-sized swig of Diet Coke and eyed her gray tabby, Miss Kitty, who was eyeing her. He was sprawled on his back on the floor, his belly bulging out on both sides of him, and as usual he had that look of disdain.

  She was certain of it.

  Miss Kitty blamed her for Damien leaving, and because of it, he’d been giving her the cold shoulder treatment along with acting out.

  Of course, maybe the cat also had a bad attitude because of his name.

  His previous owner, one of Eden’s elderly neighbors, had thought Miss Kitty was female when she’d gotten the feline as a kitten. After the neighbor’s death when Eden had taken the cat, she’d considered changing it to something more masculine. However, since everyone else continued to call him Miss Kitty, Eden had gone with the flow.

  Lovey Dovey, for now, in Abilene, she wrote, once she got her fingers moving on the keyboard.

  Three or four times a day is too much. You’ll go blind from having that many orgasms.

  Eden stopped, hit the backspace key and was about to give it another try when her phone dinged with a message. From Damien. She couldn’t stop the low growl in her throat when she read his text.

  Heard you were still upset. Just checking to make sure you’re okay. I’m at my mom’s most of the day if you want me to stop by.

  Mentally, she ripped that text apart, word for word. No. She wasn’t okay, and yes, she had been upset, but she’d eat the dying row of cacti on her living room windowsill before she’d admit it to Damien.

  To anyone for that matter.

  She’d followed all the rules with Damien. Hadn’t jumped into a relationship with him. Heck, she hadn’t had sex with him until after he’d told her he loved her and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

  Apparently, his notion of “the rest of his life” was thirty-two months and eleven days.

  She downed the Diet Coke as if it were a shot of alcoholic courage, slapped the can on the coffee table and tackled the blog again. This was her job, Eden reminded herself. One of them anyway. It paid the bulk of her bills, and she needed to suck it up and get it done. Plus, she did enjoy writing it.

  The blog had been a sort of release valve from the pressures of living in a small town and trying to still be herself with her parents’ strict restraints. A way of also spicing up her own sex life with Damien. That’s why she’d started it. Small at first. Basically, just a simple webpage, and no one was more surprised than she was about the way it had taken off. She now had over twenty thousand subscribers, a reminder that she was doing something right. Even if it didn’t feel so right at the moment.

  Lovey Dovey, for now, in Abilene, she wrote.

  Seriously, is he really the greatest guy in Texas? Or will he break your heart into a thousand little pieces when he dumps you and finds a perky-butted Mimi?

  Clearly, she was going in the wrong direction again and gave the backspace on her keyboard another workout.

  Her phone dinged again. Twice. The first was from her mom, and it had the name of a dating site she wanted Eden to use. Not a surprise. The last sixteen messages from her mother had been for dating sites or attempts to set her up on blind dates. As Eden had done with those other messages, she didn’t respond. Anything she said right now would only encourage her mom to continue.

  The second text was from—who else?—Damien. It began with the poop emoji.

  Feeling like this. Afraid I hurt your feelings when I sprang Mimi on you. Can I come over and talk it out?

  This one she did answer. Eden texted him back a supersized poop emoji with the single word No and forced herself to focus on her work.

  Lovey Dovey in Abilene, she started.

  Keep your hands and mouth on your guy as often as possible during the honeymoon. Many couples who’ve been together for a while jump right into sex. Don’t. Make sure there are plenty of long, lingering kisses. Then, gallop up the pace Naughty Cowgirl–style by touching, tasting and teasing to give him a honeymoon night to remember.

  It wasn’t her best effort, but sadly it wasn’t her worst, either.

  Ever since her breakup, it had been hard to solve other people’s relationship concerns when she hadn’t been able to solve her own. But her readers wanted more than what she’d written here. They want
ed specific tips, positions and settings. They wanted her to map out some foreplay for them.

  Lovey Dovey in Abilene, she tried again.

  Naughty up your honeymoon with a new move. While your honey’s on a chair or the couch, strip and sit on his lap. Lean back until your body is resting against his lap and your head is by his legs. This will give him a spicy new view of you while you have naughty sex. Enjoy that naughty orgasm you’ll both surely have.

  She hit the save button just as she heard the knock on her door. Damien. He’d likely come to rid himself of the guilt that he was feeling over upsetting her. It was small of her, but Eden didn’t want him relieved. She wanted him to wallow in misery for falling out of love with her and falling right onto Mimi and her massive breasts.

  Eden set her laptop on the coffee table and went to the door to tell him that. It wasn’t Damien, though.

  It was Nico.

  One look at him, and she knew his day hadn’t been any better than hers. Maybe even worse. She should have expected as much after he’d left the law office that morning with Brenda’s stiff and starched sister. Now Eden was the one who felt guilty because she should have checked on him after finishing her shift and coming home.

  With his hands bracketed on her doorjamb, their eyes met. His were gray, but they were like one of those strips that you stuck into swimming pools to determine the chemical level. The color was always changing. Right now, that gray was too dark, more like gloom-and-doom storm clouds. Not his usual. Most of the time his eyes were like spring rain.

  “On a scale of one to infinity, just how bad was your day?” he asked.

  “Infinity,” she said. It was a scale Nico used for lots of things like pain levels from injuries, drunkenness and moods. “You?”

  “Infinity,” he agreed.

  Eden took hold of his arm and tugged him inside but not before she got a glimpse of her neighbor, Sherry Winslow, peering out her front window at them.

  Sherry had a knack for growing the best verbena in Coldwater and believing the worst was looming on the horizon. The woman wasn’t a big gossip, but she probably suspected that Eden was suicidal and that’s why Nico was there.

  Eden nixed her plan to get him a beer and instead went to the kitchen cabinet to pour him a good-sized shot of Irish whiskey. When she went back into the living room, Nico was already seated. Except Nico didn’t actually sit. He more or less lounged in a “been there, done that” sort of way.

  Nico had his legs stretched out in front of him and the back of his head resting on the sofa. He would have looked at ease to most people, but Eden knew him too well. There were those stormy eyes and the tight set of his jaw.

  “Did you just get back from a ride?” she asked. Because she smelled the scent of saddle leather and pasture grass on him.

  He nodded. “I needed to check on some bulls and thought a ride would help.”

  Obviously, it had, but he didn’t volunteer what was eating away at him. Correction: he didn’t volunteer exactly what had gone wrong with Rayelle’s visit. Maybe it was just that the sight of the woman had brought back the grief, but Eden thought it might be something else.

  She sank down beside him, waving the whiskey under his nose until he took the glass from her. He lifted his head and downed the whiskey in one gulp. As if that’d cleared his head some, Nico glanced at her, then the laptop.

  “You’re working,” he said.

  “More like failing at working,” she explained.

  Now that Damien had moved his veterinary practice to San Antonio, Nico was the only person in Coldwater who knew about her blog. He’d even helped her with responses a time or two. Now he sat up, his eyes skirting over the laptop screen as he read what she’d written to Lovey Dovey in Abilene.

  “If the greatest guy in Texas doesn’t keep a grip on her hips, she’s going to slide off him and hit the floor,” Nico grumbled. “Plus, unless he’s fast, she’ll get light-headed in that position. Instead, tell her that sex is just an itch that needs scratching, and she should quit playing around and scratch.”

  Obviously, that wasn’t Nico’s best effort, either. Normally, he could help her work out the logistics of positions and such, but scratching and itching weren’t exactly romantic words. Eden wasn’t sure if Nico had said that because of his bad mood or if it truly was stellar advice. She didn’t press him to try to figure it out. Not when they obviously had bigger things to discuss.

  “I should have checked on you sooner,” he said at the exact moment she said, “What happened? Why are you giving up sex again?”

  “You first,” Nico insisted.

  Since Eden wanted to get to his problems, she didn’t argue, something that would only waste time. Instead, she rattled off her laundry list of woes.

  “Damien keeps sending me pity texts. Roy’s still walking on eggshells whenever he’s around me. I have blog-block and can’t give a decent Naughty Cowgirl answer. My mom is trying to set me up on dates so I’ll get over my broken heart. And I think Miss Kitty’s neutering failed and he knocked up the neighbor’s calico.”

  Nico stayed quiet as if going through each of those, one by one, and then his attention shifted to the cat. Yes, the very cat who hadn’t moved a fraction of an inch since Nico arrived.

  “He’s sneakier than he looks,” she insisted, “and he’s mad that he can’t stay with Damien all the time instead of just one week out of the month. But a week is all Damien wanted.” Eden nixed the subject of the cat and gave Nico’s arm a nudge. “Now, spill it. What’s wrong?”

  “I’m a dick,” Nico said without hesitation.

  She waited for more, but apparently that was it. “I’m going to need a tad more info than that if you want me to give you words of sympathy or wisdom. The best I can manage from that is a hmmm or a questioning grunt.”

  The tad more started with him cursing some, but all the profanity seemed to be aimed at himself. “I sleep with women who think of me as a notch on a bedpost. Heck, I sleep with women, period. Too many of them. It’s like a blur once the mind-blowing pleasure is gone.”

  Okay. That helped her fill in some of the blanks. This wasn’t exactly a revelation since she’d known Nico for nearly twenty years. He’d nailed nearly every one of her friends. Heck, he’d even nailed some of his own friends. In fact, it was possible that Eden was the only nonmarried, nonmean woman in Coldwater who hadn’t been in his bed. That was because in his mind, she’d always been Damien’s. In her mind, too, until Damien had walked out on her.

  Eden didn’t nudge Nico this time. She patted his arm instead. “You’re a nice guy with a good heart.”

  Nico groaned and quickly shook his head. “I don’t respect sex.”

  That filled in another blank, but that was because she remembered overhearing a lecture that Nico had gotten from his oldest brother, Kace. It’d been around the time Nico had turned sixteen, so Kace would have been about twenty-one, and he’d sounded like the authority when he’d told Nico that if he didn’t treat sex with respect, then he might as well jack off in the shower.

  At the time Eden had blushed at the advice. Had blushed even more because she’d just stood there listening to a private conversation. But Kace’s advice had resonated with her even though she hadn’t been entirely sure she’d given it the right interpretation. To her, respect meant feelings. As in feelings more than mere horniness. And that’s why she hadn’t gone all the way with Damien until she’d been sure that his feelings for her were love.

  Of course, now she knew that was a crock. Love could be as fickle as a man’s erection.

  Nico dragged in another of those deep breaths, drawing her attention back to him, before he reached in his pocket and pulled out some papers. A letter, she realized.

  “It’s from Brenda,” he said. “She left instructions for Rayelle to give it to me after she died.”

  Oh mercy. Obviously
, this had punched Nico in the gut and he figured it would do the same to her because of the effect it was having on him. “You want me to read it, or you want to tell me the gist?” she asked.

  He seemed to have a mental debate with himself and handed her the letter. “Page two, third paragraph,” he instructed.

  Eden skipped straight to the second page, and she zoomed in on what had put Nico in this state of mind.

  Brenda had written:

  Piper looks up to you, Nico. You’re her big brother in every way that counts. She wants to spend the summer in Coldwater so she can be with you. I think she needs that, too, so you can help her get over losing me and starting her new life with Rayelle. But, Nico, I’m worried. You know in your heart that you might not be the best influence on Piper.

  Eden groaned, ready to defend Nico, but he stopped her.

  “It’s the truth,” he insisted. “You know it’s the truth,” he amended.

  As his friend, Eden wanted to argue with that, but she couldn’t. Piper was sixteen, a vulnerable age. And while Eden seriously doubted that Nico’s reputation would cause Piper to start sleeping around or having sex without respect, this might mess with the girl’s head in very bad ways.

  “Page three, paragraph one,” Nico prompted her.

  Dreading what might be there, Eden went to that page and continued to read.

  So, I’m begging you to do right by Piper. For the time that Piper and Rayelle are with you, make them believe you’re the man that Piper already thinks you are. The man that I’ve always known you could become.

  Lord love a duck. Talk about a guilt trip. Part of Eden wanted to blast Brenda for putting this on him, but the other part of her got it. Man, did she get it.

  “So, what are you going to do?” Eden asked, because she had no idea what else to say.

  “Page three, last paragraph,” he answered without even sparing her a glance.

  Her attention zoomed down, all the way to the bottom of the letter, and this time when Eden thought, Lord love a duck, it was for a different reason. Now she did blast Brenda.