Tempting in Texas

by Delores Fossen

  Hayes could see why Leyton had added that if it works. Sunshine wasn’t an idiot, and there was no reason for her to admit something like that even if she thought she wasn’t being recorded. Plus, there was the legal side of this.

  “Wouldn’t that be entrapment?” Hayes asked.

  “Probably,” Cait readily admitted. “But it’d take time and money for Sunshine to fight the charges. Which I’m sure she’ll do.”

  “She will,” Hayes verified.

  “In the meantime, the film crew will release the recording and air anything criminal that Sunshine says. Even if she wiggles out of the charges, people will know what she’s trying to pull. The arrest will be just the cherry on top.”

  Hayes enjoyed the idea of his mother being charged with something—actually, with anything. But he gave this iffy plan some thought, playing around with various scenarios. If this worked, Sunshine would retaliate and release Ivy’s emails, but maybe that would backfire and the public would turn on her. People could see this as a vindictive act against a dead woman.

  “Sunshine will probably make public Ivy’s emails no matter what happens,” Hayes concluded, and that still felt like a mean fist squeezing around his heart. He couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t make things right for Ivy and keep her privacy. “This way Sunshine would at least get a dose of her own medicine.”

  And just the possibility of that had Hayes brightening a little.

  “That and her bad publicity would overshadow anything about Ivy,” Cait agreed, and she paused, giving him another glance from over the seat. “You could even layer it on by releasing the sex tape of Sunshine if any of this first wave of bad publicity dies down.”

  True. That would keep the mudslinging on Sunshine. Of course, it would also net her any number of interviews, but even that would dry up once the public grew tired of her. Ivy’s emails would maybe get lost in all that mud so that Ivy’s parents wouldn’t have to relive her death again through the media.

  Nor would Hayes.

  Well, except that he relived it in every other way. But this was a good baby step. Again, if it worked.

  “Crap,” Cait muttered when her phone dinged with a message. “It’s from Marty. He said Sunshine’s already there, and she’s pressing him to get started because she has other things to do.”

  “She’s got a meeting with me,” Hayes explained. “At noon.” Which was only about an hour from now. “She said she wanted to put an end to this stalemate.”

  Cait knew what he’d face in that meeting with Sunshine, and that’s probably why she gave him another look. More sympathy. More concern. And even with all of that and the looming Sunshine issue, Hayes couldn’t help but smile at her. God, he was glad she was here. If this worked, he wanted to be able to celebrate with her, and if it blew up in their faces, well, they could console each other.

  They reached the main house on the guest ranch, but Leyton didn’t turn into the parking lot. Instead, he pulled into a small dirt-and-gravel side road that led to some of the guest cabins.

  “It’s Marty,” Cait relayed when her phone rang, and Hayes heard her father’s voice when she put the call on speaker.

  “I’m leaving my phone on,” Marty said in a whisper. “It’ll be in my pocket so Sunshine doesn’t know, but you should be able to catch at least some of the conversation.”

  Good. Hayes silenced his own phone so that Sunshine wouldn’t be able to hear it if he got a call or text. He also took off his seat belt and moved to the edge of his seat to listen better. There wasn’t much to hear, though. Marty had obviously rejoined Sunshine and the crew, and they were going over the consent form. Apparently, there was nothing in it that raised a red flag for his mother because a few seconds later, Marty said they could get started.

  As expected, the reporter introduced Sunshine and Marty, adding the accolade of “country-music legend” for Marty. Sunshine’s intro merely called her the mother of the Little Cowgirls and the star of Outlaw Rebels. Sunshine wouldn’t be offended that none of those “credentials” was about her own personal accomplishments. That’s because she didn’t have any accomplishments. She had made a living off her kids, and would continue to try to do it as long and as often as she could.

  The reporter moved on to making a big deal out of Marty’s sons marrying Sunshine’s daughters and finished it off with a question for Sunshine. “How do you feel about the Little Cowgirls being all grown up and getting married?” he asked.

  “I’m thrilled for them.” Sunshine let her Texas drawl dribble through a bit, but Hayes knew she turned it on and off as easily as a water faucet. “It’s going to be such an exciting day. I suspect I’ll do what all mothers do and cry a bit. But I assure you they’ll be happy tears. I’ve been watching my girls fall in love with the Jameson boys for as long as I can remember.”

  Hayes was surprised he didn’t throw up in his mouth. If he had anything to say about it, Sunshine wouldn’t get within miles of the ceremony. In fact, he made a mental note to hire some security to make sure that didn’t happen.

  “And Marty?” the reporter continued. “Can you tell us how you feel about your sons’ marriages?”

  “They’re all good men,” Marty answered. At least that’s what Hayes thought he’d said, but it was hard to tell because of the loud gurgling sound. Marty laughed. “Sorry, that was my stomach growling. I missed breakfast.”

  That brought on a couple of chuckles and some chatter about editing it out.

  “Sunshine, what about your son, Hayes Dalton,” the reporter said. “We all know he’s the bad-boy star of Outlaw Rebels...”

  Again, Hayes tried to move closer, but Marty’s stomach growled, and it sounded as if a volcano had erupted. Hayes caught the words matching set followed by Marty’s daughter.

  So the reporter was asking about Cait and him, and even if Marty and Sunshine denied a possible pairing, it was still a juicy enough bite that it would almost certainly make its way into any articles that got written about this. If the reporters found out that Cait and he had actually done the deed, she would get caught up in the media hassles. Hayes wanted to avoid that, too.

  Sunshine laughed, pulling Hayes’s attention back to the interview. “Who knows what could happen between Cait and Hayes. I think it’d be a wonderful match since I’ve always thought of Cait as my own daughter.”

  “Since when?” Cait snarled under her breath.

  Hayes hoped Sunshine hadn’t heard that, but there was no way for him to know; in addition to the growling, Marty was apparently guzzling some water or coffee, because there was that sound, too. If they ever did another covert op like this, they’d need to feed the man first.

  “What are you wearing to the wedding?” the reporter asked, the question no doubt meant for Sunshine.

  Sunshine began to describe her outfit, but Hayes tuned her out when his now-silent phone flashed with a text from Abe.

  Your flight’s in two hours. Get to the airport now.

  Well, hell. It’d take him nearly an hour of that to get his things and drive into San Antonio.

  Might not be able to make that flight, Hayes texted back.

  Make it was Abe’s response.

  Shit. Something else must have happened with the BWs and their requested jaw or else Abe wouldn’t have booked him a flight.

  Hayes motioned to Cait that he had to make a call, and he eased from the cruiser. He didn’t go far, and he stayed out of the café’s line of sight so that Sunshine wouldn’t be able to see him from the window. He punched in Abe’s number and then cursed when it went to voice mail. Abe probably didn’t want any discussion or argument about his order for Hayes to get back to LA, but Hayes just kept trying.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Hayes asked when Abe finally answered on Hayes’s sixth attempt.

  “Plenty, and you need to be here for it. The studio wants to talk to you a
bout the show, and you have to reshoot a scene first thing in the morning.”

  Hayes wasn’t sure which of those had caused the urgency. “Is the show being canceled?”

  “That depends on the answer you give during the meeting with the bigwigs later today. Just make sure you say the right thing, Hayes.”

  Hayes huffed. “And what would the right thing be?”

  “That depends,” Abe repeated. He huffed, too. “They’re going to ask if you want Outlaw Rebels to keep going.”

  Hell. He didn’t know the answer to that, and despite what was going on in the diner, Hayes put his full attention on this conversation with Abe. “I need to talk to the rest of the cast—”

  “I’ve already done that. They want to continue for at least another season. This is all on your shoulders now. Say no, and the show will get the ax. Say yes, and you’re committed. Now, get your butt on that plane. I want you here for that meeting. You can think about what you’re going to do while you’re on the flight,” Abe added right before he ended the call.

  Hayes frowned and stared at his phone. He trusted Abe and didn’t believe the man would lie to him, but Hayes wanted to talk to the cast himself. While he was at it, he’d take some of Abe’s advice and do some thinking. Maybe if he could talk Cait into driving him to the airport, he could even run this past her. But Hayes knew that wasn’t likely to happen when Cait practically jumped out of the cruiser.

  “We got her!” Cait announced, and she frantically motioned for Hayes to get back in. They both did.

  Hayes checked the time. He’d been dealing with trying to reach Abe and talking with him for less than ten minutes. “What happened?” he asked as Leyton drove toward the main house and the café.

  “You can listen for yourself once we’re inside. We’ve got it all recorded. The moment the cameraman and reporter stepped away, Marty asked Sunshine point-blank if she was trying to wheedle her way into the wedding.”

  “Wheedle?” Hayes questioned. That seemed a little confrontational for a man of Marty’s charm.

  Cait rolled her eyes. “Yes, he used that particular word. Sunshine said she was going to do whatever it took to see her babies get married.” Another eye roll. “And, yes, she said her babies. She then went on to tell Marty that it was your fault the girls were trying to stop her from going to the wedding and that she was trying to pressure you to get you to back off.”

  Hayes had to get his teeth unclenched. “Right, pressure me by releasing the private emails of a dead friend. Did Sunshine cop to that?”

  Cait outstretched her arms in a ta-da gesture. “She did. Of course, she claimed you’d backed her into a corner, and it sounded as if she was working up some crocodile tears when she said it.”

  Yeah, like her drawl, Sunshine could also fake cry on command, but maybe there would be some real tears once she realized she was screwed. Hayes would have definitely celebrated that particular screwing if his conversation with Abe hadn’t been like dead weight on his mind.

  Leyton pulled to a stop in front of the café, right next to a news van for one of the San Antonio TV stations.

  “Now that you can skip your meeting with Sunshine, you want to come to the police station and watch us book her?” Cait asked as they all got out of the cruiser. She was smiling. Really smiling. But Hayes figured that wasn’t going to last when he answered her.

  “I can’t. In fact, I’m going to see if Marty can drop me at Em’s so I can get to the airport.” He rethought that plan when the cameraman and reporter came out. It was obvious they recognized him, and Hayes would use that to call in a favor. “Say, can I hitch a ride to San Antonio with you guys?”

  They looked as if he’d just handed them a big bucket of gold. Probably because they thought they’d get an interview and photos out of this. Which they would. But Hayes knew that Cait wasn’t looking at this as any bucket of gold.

  “Sure,” the reporter told him. He checked his watch. “But we got to head out now.”

  “Now works for me,” Hayes assured them, and he turned back to Cait.

  Her smile had definitely faded, and her eyes were no longer sparkling with celebration over Sunshine’s arrest. “You’re leaving?” she asked.

  Leyton must not have heard what they were saying, because he headed inside. “Let’s get this done, Cait.”

  She kept her attention nailed to Hayes, and he did the same to her. “The studio wants me at a meeting they’ve scheduled for later today, and I can’t get out of it. Go ahead,” he added. “Finish up what you need to do with my mother. I’ll give you a call later and explain everything, and you can tell me how the arrest went.”

  Maybe there’d be enough humiliation on Sunshine’s part to soothe over some of the anger he felt for her. Then again, there wasn’t enough humiliation in the universe for that. He could say the same for the sickening dread he felt over what he was doing to Cait.

  She didn’t cover her disappointment and surprise with maybe even some hurt thrown in. And this was the problem with them being lovers. There were expectations, always were when it came to sex, and one of those expectations was that he wouldn’t just bolt like this.

  “I’ll call you,” Hayes repeated. “And I’m not leaving for good. I’ll be back for the wedding.”

  “Of course. You gotta do what you gotta do.” Her chin came up, and she adjusted her expression, taking out the disappointment. “Break a leg,” she added with some of her usual snark.

  He didn’t think she was putting a silent curse on him or anything, but the hurt was definitely still there. Nothing he could do about it, though. Judging from the way the interview crew was shoving their gear into their van, they were more than ready to get out of there.

  Because he needed it, he brushed a quick kiss on Cait’s mouth, and he hoped what he told her wasn’t a lie. He wouldn’t be able to explain anything unless he worked it out first in his own mind. The bottom line was he had to decide what the hell he wanted.

  His life in California. The show.

  Or Cait.

  He just didn’t know. In fact, the only thing that was certain for Hayes was that he couldn’t have both. He was going to have to give up one of them.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “UH, YOU WEREN’T really abducted by aliens, right?” Em asked.

  Cait sighed and forced her attention away from the tabloid headline “Little Cowgirls’ BFF, Cait Jameson, Alien Abduction Nightmare.”

  “No,” she assured Em. “But I think my dad once was. That’s why he’s such a pain. They must have implanted some kind of probe in his butt.”

  Em hooted with laughter, which was exactly what Cait had wanted. This shopping trip was already going to be tough enough without adding Em’s alien concerns to it. Or any other concerns, for that matter, because it was obvious that Em was worried about her.

  Cait had considered putting on blinders for this trip to the grocery store to pick up the wine and snacks they needed for a bachelorette party. That’s because she would have to walk past the rack that held tabloids. Tabloids with headlines that sometimes included her—like this one with the alien bombshell. However, she wasn’t the primary focus of most of the magazines. Hayes and Sunshine held that honor. Possibly the aliens, too.

  The store owner, Jay Sidler, obviously loved to keep up with all the Hollywood gossip, because he stocked seemingly every one of the tabloids. He had been especially diligent about stocking the ones that chronicled what Cait was calling the SSS.

  The Sunshine Shit Show.

  It had pretty much started a week ago, a couple of hours after Sunshine’s arrest, when the San Antonio station had “leaked” the woman admitting to extortion. Sunshine had not taken that lying down.

  Nope.

  As soon as she’d gotten out of jail on bail, the SSS had snowballed with Sunshine releasing Ivy’s emails. That’d happened within minutes,
so Sunshine had likely had someone on tap to do the computer keystrokes necessary to put the SSS wheels into action. Shortly thereafter, probably about the time Hayes would have gotten to LA, Sunshine’s sex tape hit the internet and the tabloids. As predicted, that had overshadowed any jabber about Ivy, and stories about her emails hadn’t stayed headlines for more than a day.

  The SSS had gotten real then with Sunshine whining to anyone in the press who’d listen that Hayes was trying to ruin her and that she was going to sue him for every penny he was worth. That was probably true. The woman might try to sue. But some of the tabloids had taken stories like that and spun them into outlandish tales and outright lies.

  Some of those lies had included Cait. Or more accurately, the stories had been a tawdry mix of truth and lies meant to sell copies of the tabloids. The truth that Hayes and she had been seen “together” while he’d been back in his hometown. The truth that they were lovers, though Cait wasn’t sure having sex only once qualified them as that. And besides, there wasn’t proof of their screwing around that one time.

  Some of the lies, like the alien abduction, had really been out there, but there’d been others. One stating there was proof that Cait had given birth to Hayes’s “love child” and was passing her off as a half sister. There was another one that it’d been Cait who’d stirred up trouble between Sunshine and Hayes because she was jealous that Hayes wasn’t making it a “complete set” by marrying her. Some of the stories claimed that Cait had been the one to release Ivy’s emails—again, that one was blamed on jealousy.

  Those stories and more had made tabloid front pages, accompanied by grainy photos that made Cait look like a frumpy serial killer. Well, except for the picture that one of the tabloids had gotten from her high school yearbook. That one had made her look like a candidate for What Not to Wear or a visual example on why colored hair extensions should have been outlawed.