Hayes wasn’t sure of that at all. Maybe Shayla wouldn’t intentionally run him off the road, but her “fervor” made her a very loose cannon.
“Shayla, I don’t want you to call me again,” he said and was about to hit the end-call button when Shayla blurted out something.
“It’s because of that cop, right?” Shayla said, and Hayes heard the sob at the end of that question. “You’re seeing that cop now, and you don’t want anything to do with me.”
Hayes nearly did some blurting of his own so he could tell Shayla that he’d never wanted anything to do with her, that she’d been a pain in his ass. But there was no need to slop out intentional hurt when there was a better way to go here.
“Shayla, you’re violating the restraining order by calling me,” Hayes reminded her.
“I know, but I had to talk to you.” More sobs followed by more fast-talking. “I had to find out if you’re really with that cop like the tabloids are saying.”
So Shayla had read those. Hopefully, Sunny had gotten wind of them, too, so she’d quit worrying about him. “Yes, I’m with the cop,” Hayes lied.
Except it wasn’t technically a lie. He was indeed with Cait, and there was that whole thing about him wanting to kiss her.
“I don’t know why you’d want to be with her,” Shayla continued. Her voice had some whine in it now. “She’s not even that pretty.”
He winced and rethought his stupid idea to have this call on speaker. “Cait’s a knockout,” he disagreed. “She also wouldn’t violate a restraining order or run me off the road. If she had a mental health problem, say like a pattern of stalking, she’d get help for it. And she’s a pro at feeding ornery ducks.”
That last part had just tumbled from his mouth, but he was glad it had when Cait snickered. He enjoyed seeing her happy. Enjoyed feeling that way himself, and that’s why Hayes ended the call. He pressed the button without so much as a goodbye, and then he blocked Frances’s number.
“A knockout,” Cait repeated, snickering again. “You shoveled out some deep BS when you told her that one.”
He turned to her, snared her gaze. “No, I didn’t.”
Hayes figured that Cait had picked up on the change in his tone. Definitely not snickering material. He was serious, and she must have seen that change on his face because she took a step back.
Cait shook her head. “I don’t want to become just another seat warmer on your Harley.”
“Yeah, I got that. But you’re more than a seat warmer.” Whatever the heck that meant. Hayes thought maybe it was like bedpost notches, but whatever it was, it notched up that need again to kiss her.
So that’s what he did.
He didn’t go with a “testing the waters” approach. He’d been testing Cait for years and didn’t want to give her the chance to move another step back before he’d gotten a good taste of her. Hayes hooked his arm around her waist, ignoring the twinges he got from that moving around. Twinges be damned, he put his mouth on hers.
Oh, she was good and tasty, all right, and her mouth was a whole lot softer than he’d thought it would be. Soft and very welcoming. As was the soft sigh she made. He took in that sigh, letting it slide right into his own mouth as he deepened the kiss.
And he realized this was a big-assed mistake.
He got her taste, all right. Got the feel of her, too, in his arms. Ditto on receiving the maximum amount of pleasure you could get from a kiss. But pleasure that intense didn’t stay in the mouth region. Nope. It zip-lined straight to his groin, causing his dick to get very interested in what might happen next. In fact, his dick, which was often delusional with stupid plans, thought this was a really good start to barn sex.
Cait might have been on the same barn-sex wavelength with him, too. That was a shocker. But Hayes got a strong impression of exactly that when she looked up at him. Her eyes had a dreamy look in them. Wispy, even. And her warm breath hit like kisses against his mouth. He didn’t see a single sign that she was going to stop, so he figured she was about to go back in for kissing, round two. Followed by barn sex, round one.
Or not.
Shaking off that dreamy, wispy look as if it were a piece of broom straw, she started walking toward the door. Even though he’d been wrong about her wanting more kisses and barn sex, Hayes figured she would say something to acknowledge what’d just happened. Maybe even issue some kind of declaration that they should never share another lip-lock again. And she spoke, all right, without even looking back at him.
“We need to leave now,” she said, as if discussing the weather. “Don’t want you to be late for your appointment.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
WITH THE FAMILIAR female chatter going on around her, Cait used the hot glue gun to put a seed pearl on the garter that one of the triplets would be wearing for the wedding. Across from her at the massive dining room table that they were using for the crafts, Sunny and McCall were tackling the little satin bags that would hold party favors for the guests while Em and Hadley were hand stitching lace on the dresses.
They’d moved these particular preparations to the Jameson ranch—Cait’s childhood home and where her mother, Lenore, lived—where Sunny and Shaw lived now, temporarily, so there’d be room for Kinsley and the baby.
Kinsley had really gotten into the spirit of things and was painting the sign that would be at the entry of the reception. This way to love, laughter and happily-ever-after. Or rather afters, since there’d be three sets of “I do”s. Lenore was creating dried flower centerpieces that would go on one of the reception tables.
Cait didn’t mind helping, but the decorating gene apparently hadn’t dropped into her DNA pool. The mindless gluing of the seed pearls was one of the few such duties she could manage because, plain and simple, she sucked at the other stuff. But Cait plugged away at it, trying not to think that she still had about eight million pearls to go. Trying also not to think of Hayes.
Trying not to think that she was so screwed.
Cait had become acutely aware of that when Hayes screwed her with that barn kiss. In that scalding-hot span of thirty seconds or so, she’d realized she was going to lose this battle she was having with herself over guarding her heart or having great kisses and sex with Hayes. The great kisses and sex were winning out.
She’d spent three days trying to rid herself of these feelings. Sort of like one of those detox diets, but instead of kale smoothies and lemon water, she’d thrown herself into work. Cait had volunteered to do all of Leyton’s reports along with her own. She’d done patrol duty—hardly a necessity in Lone Star Ridge—and she’d binge-watched everything in her Netflix queue.
It hadn’t fixed diddly-squat.
Her body still wanted more kisses and the sex. And she hadn’t been able to convince herself that Hayes’s screwing her over wouldn’t continue until he grew tired of said screwing and moved on.
According to tabloid stories she’d browsed over the years about Hayes’s relationships, she estimated she had about a two-week shelf life. In other words, the eggs she’d bought today would still be fresh after Hayes had had his way with her and then dumped her. That wasn’t much time in the grand scheme of things, but she was betting whatever he did with her, and to her, it would be far more memorable than an egg.
When Cait heard someone clear their throat, she looked up to see that every eye in the room was on her. Considering the set of their expressions, they’d been staring at her for quite a while.
“What?” Cait protested, automatically wiping her face with her glue-dotted hand.
“Uh, you muttered Hayes’s name,” Kinsley explained.
“And something about kale smoothies,” McCall added.
“Eggs, too.” That came from Sunny.
“Sex was the only word I caught,” Hadley supplied.
Good grief. Now she’d taken to random mumbling? She couldn�
�t even keep her private thoughts to herself? Apparently not. She’d just blabbered enough of her mental conversation aloud. Now everyone was waiting for an explanation.
“I’m not hooking up with Hayes,” Cait said, hoping that would clarify things and silence any questions. She glanced around the room and thought she had allies here. “I mean, none of you can possibly believe Hayes would be the right choice for me.”
Her mother smiled and winked at her. “Depends on what you’re thinking about doing with him.”
Cait frowned because she was sure that was a sexual comment. From her own mother, no less. Which made it worthy of a gazillion frowns along with some ick.
“Well, Hayes isn’t exactly the ‘white picket fence’ type,” Hadley tossed in, speaking to Cait around the pins she had in her mouth. Some of her words came out a little garbled, but Cait got the gist and was about to agree with her when Hadley added, “But then neither are you.”
“Am, too,” Cait protested and frowned again because she sounded whiny. And she was lying. The only fence she wanted was the one around the small pasture where she kept her horses. Not a picket one, either, but one strong enough so that the horses couldn’t break through it.
She sighed, regrouped and tried again. “Hayes wants to see if he can try to make things work between him and me, but the chances of that happening, even temporarily, are nil. He’ll leave after the wedding.”
Cait was 100 percent sure that no one in the room could dispute that last part. However, the temporarily was definitely on the dispute table. Thankfully, Hadley helped nix any discussion about that.
“I need to fit the bodice on you,” Hadley told Sunny. “Your boobs are growing like fertilized weeds, and I want to make sure it isn’t too tight.”
Sunny stood, and with some help from Em, Hadley slipped the bodice over Sunny’s shirt. Hadley gave it a few tugs, frowned, tugged some more. During the whole adjustment, she continued to glance at Cait as if prompting her to continue. Em, Sunny and McCall were doing the same thing.
Cait pretended she didn’t notice.
There was silence, for a long time, and McCall was the one to break it. “Can you tell us where you took Hayes three days ago?”
Oh, that. Cait hadn’t expected the quick shift in conversation, but she should have. This was Hayes’s family, after all, and they’d want to know. She considered giving something about Hayes and her simply wanting to spend time together, but since she’d sucked at the other lies, she went with a dodge.
“Not really,” Cait answered. “Anything about that should come from him, not me.”
More silence, accompanied by lots of staring. Again, McCall spoke. “Do we need to be worried about him?”
“No,” Cait said as fast as she could.
Of course, that was a partial lie, but she had to choose her battles here. She really didn’t want Sunny upset, so it was a lie for the good of her future sister-in-law and future nephew or niece. And that gave Cait a reason to shift the conversation again.
“Do we need to be worried about you?” Cait asked Sunny.
“Yes, good question,” McCall agreed. “Do we?” With the pins still in her mouth, Hadley muttered something similar.
“I’m fine. Really,” Sunny added when she continued to get concerned stares. “The spotting has stopped. I also had the appointment with my OB, and he did an ultrasound. All is well.”
The words were right, but Cait heard something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Apparently, the others heard it, too. Well, her mother didn’t. Lenore kept her usual la-di-da expression—which was probably the way she avoided a lot of stress—but everyone else just kept staring at Sunny.
Finally, Sunny huffed. “I was going to wait and do a big reveal after the wedding, but I guess I can tell all of you now.” She smiled, and as if a fairy princess had doused her with magic glow powder, Sunny’s face lit up, and she slid her hand over her belly. “I’m pregnant with twins.”
The surprised silence lasted a few more seconds before everyone dropped what they were doing and went to her. Sunny got a boatload of hugs, some of them transferring glitter, seed pearls and even some paint to her clothes and hair. But she didn’t seem to mind. Her amazing smile only brightened even more, and it pleased Cait all the way down to the soles of her feet.
Out of all the triplets, Sunny was the one who’d most wanted to be a mom. Ironic since she would technically be the last to accomplish that particular goal. McCall had Austin’s twins, whom she was planning on adopting, and in somewhat of a bombshell, Hadley had been a surrogate for a friend. The child she’d carried, Bailey, was now a big part of Hadley’s life and had already spent some time with Leyton and her. Times were definitely changing for the former Little Cowgirls.
Cait was mega happy for them. She truly was. Equally happy for her own brothers, too, but for the first time in her life, she was starting to wonder if one day she, too, would want more. Frowning at that thought and mildly pissed off because her body was giving her nudges for Hayes to be considered in that “more” future, she pushed all of that aside.
“Hayes,” Kinsley said.
Cait practically snapped to attention. Good grief, had she done more of that mindless mumbling and said his name? But when she glanced up, she realized Kinsley’s attention wasn’t on her. The girl was looking out the window.
“It’s Shaw,” Kinsley added, “and he has Hayes with him.”
“Shaw shouldn’t see the dresses,” Em quickly pointed out. Or at least that’s possibly what she said. She had pins in her mouth again and mumbled some syllables that didn’t exist in the English language.
Sunny shook her head and got a scolding from Hadley, who told her not to move. “Someone should go to the door and warn him.” She glanced around the room, and at that exact moment, the only one who didn’t have some kind of wedding stuff in her hands, or her mouth, was Cait.
Cait suspected a tad of matchmaking might be going on, but she chose to take care of the duty herself when Kinsley volunteered. This was despite the fact the girl was holding a dripping-wet paintbrush and was far too eager to ogle a straight-fire man that Cait didn’t want her ogling.
“I’ll do it,” Cait muttered, and she headed to the door, ignoring the giggly twitter of conversation that started the moment she stepped out of the room.
Yeah, this was matchmaking. More than a tad of it, too.
That should have riled her, and it might have, if Cait hadn’t been just a teensy bit thrilled at seeing Hayes. Of course, she’d eat every bit of the wedding decorations, seed pearls and pins included, before admitting that.
She hurried to the door and opened it before Shaw and Hayes could just waltz in, but she quickly learned that Shaw had no such waltzing intentions anyway. He was already heading toward the barn. Hayes was in the front yard, glancing around, but he turned toward her the moment Cait stepped onto the porch.
He smiled.
And it was indeed that panty-melting smile.
“You can’t come in,” Cait warned him. “There’s a rule that no one with a penis can see the wedding dresses. Or something like that,” she added in a mutter.
The smile made it to his equally panty-melting eyes. “I think that only applies to the grooms, but don’t worry—I won’t be coming in. Shaw needed to get something to fix Slackers’s pen, and I rode over with him so I could get out of the house. I suggested a moat and castle guards for the pen, but Shaw figured a sturdier latch would do the trick.”
One could hope.
It occurred to her that Hayes might be getting cabin fever. After all, he had a very busy, very public life in California, and other than Em’s truck, which his grandmother had driven here, he didn’t have a vehicle. If the rumors she’d heard were right, it’d be another day or two before the parts came in for his motorcycle to be fixed. Even then, he might not be up to riding it for a whil
e.
With that smile still in place, he stepped on the porch with her. He reached up, and her heart skipped a couple of beats when she thought he was going to touch her. And he did, sort of. Hayes plucked a seed pearl from her hair and held it up to examine it.
“Wedding decorations,” she supplied, snatching the seed pearl and flicking it away.
Hayes removed another. Then another. And then several more from her cheeks. Of course, that meant he was now touching her in multiple places, and she wasn’t backing away.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he said in that foreplay drawl.
“Really? I haven’t given you any thought whatsoever.”
Her comment would have been a whole lot more believable if she hadn’t sighed a little at the end of it. But she couldn’t help herself. Now that she knew what it was like to have his mouth on hers, Cait was having trouble not remembering, well, his mouth being on hers.
And wanting it there again.
“You should go on a date with me,” Hayes added, and this time she didn’t think his touch on her cheek was for seed-pearl removal. He lingered there a little too long before he slid his fingers down her chin.
“Your family doesn’t believe the ruse that you came back here to be with me,” she pointed out. And, crap, she sighed again. Apparently, touching was just as effective as full-out kissing. “So there’s no reason for us to go on a date.”
“Sure there is. We could have dinner, do some more kissing and see where that leads us.”
Cait managed both a scowl and an eye roll. “We already know where kissing would lead us.”
He smiled, leaned in.
Cait stopped him with her hand to his chest. “So help me, if you say climb on, bitch, and kiss me, I’m going to make sure you get duck-feeding duty for an entire week.”
That didn’t stop him, and before Cait could come up with a worse threat, Hayes managed to sneak in a kiss. It was just the slightest brush of his lips, but it rang her bell way too loud, and she might have reached out and hauled him to her for a real kiss, but another sound got her attention.
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