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Authors: Liz Talley

Tags: #Home On The Ranch

BOOK: Vegas Two-Step
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“Why?” Nellie asked, squinting critically at the sheer top and putting it back on the rack.

“Because you want to see him again. You’ve got the biggest guilt complex of anyone I know. Your grandmother did a real number on you.” Kate pulled the blouse from the rack and pushed it at her insistently. “Here. Try this on.”

“No. Too revealing.” Nellie shoved the blouse back with its other too-revealing friends. The boutique was full of outlandish snips of clothing that barely covered all the right parts. “And don’t bring my Grandmother Tucker into this. I know I’m what she made me. I can’t change who I am.”

“Bullshit.” Kate turned on her. “You hide beneath that small-town Tucker girl shield like she taught you. I know the real you, Nellie. I grew up with you. The real Nellie would wear this shirt without a bra.”

“Yeah, right,” Nellie snorted. “I’ve grown up, Kate.”

“I know. It shows.” Kate nudged her hand with the hanger. “You need some excitement in your life. Some sexiness. Something more than baking blueberry muffins for the Ladies Auxiliary’s fashion brunch. I think you found that last night, right?”

True, Nellie thought, finally taking the wispy shirt from Kate’s outstretched hand. It
was
a nice shade of cranberry. With a similarly colored camisole underneath, it would probably complement her golden-streaked hair nicely. She turned her attention back to Kate, who was jerking hangers across the rack with unfettered frustration. Nellie noted her friend’s expression—resolute determination, absolute annoyance. Not a good combination. Kate furrowed her raven eyebrows beneath her spiky cobalt-streaked hair and pulled out a clingy yellow shirt. She held it up in front of Nellie, shook her head and returned it to the rack.

“You do know me better than anyone, Kate.” She and Kate had bought their first bras together, smoked their first cigarettes together and taken their first college exam together. “That being said, you know I cannot help who I am.”

“Wrong. I know you can.” Kate shoved her toward the dressing room, sweeping a huge assortment of clothing over her arm and following behind.

Nellie plodded into the dressing room, wishing they had stayed out on the main floor of the chic boutique. In the privacy of the fitting room, Kate would unleash on her. And Nellie didn’t want to hear about what a total dud she was. How boring she was. How dowdy she’d become while existing in Oak Stand. How predictable…blah, blah, blah. She knew who she was. And she liked who she was. Well, most of the time.

“Look, Kate. I like my life. Sure, sometimes it bores me. Sometimes I need to feel different—that’s why I came to Vegas for your glam weekend. But I am not you. When I wake up after a night out, I sometimes have regrets.”

Kate flounced toward the chair in the corner of the posh dressing room and plopped down with a flourish. “Okay, listen, Nellie. I get you. I know you were raised to be ashamed of every passionate impulse you have. But I know who you are under all those layers your grandmother wrapped around you. I know the girl who snuck out for the Pearl Jam concert is still in there somewhere.”

Nellie rolled her eyes. “That was you who snuck out. I stayed home and did my math homework, remember?”

“I thought you came with us?”

“No,” Nellie said, shrugging out of her T-shirt and hanging it on the hook.

“Oh, my God! Is that a hickey?”

Nellie’s color went past red and stopped at purple. She shot her friend a murderous do-not-go-there look.

Kate merely smiled. “
Nice!

Nellie chose to ignore Kate’s comment. She had been shocked enough to find the small passion mark on her neck that morning in the hotel mirror. Jack had done an amazing job of getting the syrup off her neck.

Kate tucked the gloating smile away and continued on her original mission. “I remember the first time I saw you, Nellie. Mostly ’cause I really liked how I could see my reflection in your shoes. You had your hair pulled back, a smocked dress with lacy socks and shiny patent leather shoes. You said ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ and that was it. You were like a doll all dressed up. I tried to pinch you to see if you were real.”

“I distinctly remember,” Nellie said, glancing at her friend in the mirror as she shimmied out of the capris she wore. Kate looked as if she was just getting started.

“And when you got dirty, remember how upset you would get? You knew what your grandmother expected. You knew from day one you were a Tucker and that meant something in Oak Stand. You were different.”

Nellie sighed as she pulled on a silky sleeveless sweater dress in a tawny gold. It felt like the touch of a butterfly’s wings. She would definitely purchase it. She caught the price from the dangling tag in the reflection of the mirror. Maybe not.

“Nellie, she made you think you had to be a certain way. That’s probably why you’re a stodgy librarian. She picked the job out for you. It’s genteel. Acceptable.”

Nellie held up one finger. “Now, stop right there.
I
chose to be a librarian. And it’s not stodgy. Being a librarian today is different than it was twenty years ago. We don’t even call ourselves librarians. I am an archive specialist.”

Kate rolled her eyes. “I know. They have computers and little scanner thingies.”

“Yeah, little scanner thingies. That’s the absolute correct term.” Nellie grimaced. “Look, I love my job, Kate. That has nothing to do with being a Tucker or with my grandmother’s expectations about what I was supposed to do with my life. It has to do with me being realistic.”

“Whatever, but still—”

“Grandmother Tucker had her good points.” Nellie didn’t want to endure another tirade about her grandmother. “She raised me the way she was raised. She didn’t know any other way.”

“But that doesn’t mean you have to continue on that path. That very narrow path.”

“Most of the time I like that path, Kate,” Nellie said, stepping into a pair of raw silk pants that complemented the sweater. They looked magnificent on her. She glanced at the price tag. $380.00! No way. For pants?

“See.” Kate motioned to the price tag with disgust. “Just what I’m talking about. You have a buttload of money and won’t spend it. Your grandmother had millions and still saved aluminum foil for a second use.”

Nellie tossed Kate her own look of disgust. “Money is not the issue. Why would anyone pay over three hundred dollars for a pair of pants?”

“Because they make your ass look great,” Kate said.

Nellie rolled her eyes, but still spun around to check out her derriere. Sure enough, her butt did look great. Maybe a splurge? Surely a girl was justified when the pants made her look so tiny, so curvy and so splendid all at the same time?

“Nell, you have a ton of money and insist on living like a pauper.”

“I don’t live like a pauper. I just know the value of money.”

“Sensible,” Kate drawled, as though it was the worst word ever invented.

“Exactly.” Nellie smiled.

“Is that what you were last night, Nellie ‘I’m such a good girl’ Hughes?” Kate pointed to her own neck—the same area where Nellie had her hickey.

Damn, Nellie thought. Why did Kate have to be so perceptive? “I was a good girl.”

“Yeah, right,” Kate snorted, separating the clothes she liked from the ones she wouldn’t be caught dead in.

Jack Darby. Nellie sighed. She loved his magnetic blue eyes and the slight cleft in his chin. Oh, and the way he sipped black coffee and teased her about her empty plate. If only Kate knew her “good girl gone bad” had actually remained good. Well, for the most part anyway.

“I shouldn’t have gone with him,” Nellie muttered, jerking a turtleneck over her head and tossing it on the settee. “It was totally irresponsible. A safety issue.”

“Are you kidding me?” Kate ranted. “Seriously? Isn’t letting loose what you came here for?”

“I came here for a girls’ weekend. Shopping, talking, coffee….” Nellie rolled her hand with each word. Kate frowned and handed her another two-hundred-dollar top.

“That’s
not
what this weekend is about. It’s about losing yourself, finding your inner party girl, playing around, daring yourself to be something other than what you are.”

“So for you that means…what? Doing what you do every weekend?”

“For your information, Miss Smarty-pants, I don’t party every weekend.” Kate crossed her arms and sank back into the antique chair. Nellie grinned at the contrast. MTV meets Victorian charm school. “What I meant is that this weekend we get the chance to be whoever we want to be. Like a free pass.”

“There are no free passes in life.” Nellie pulled a pair of low-slung jeans from the clips on the hanger. They were dark indigo with tan stitching. Very trendy. So unlike her. But Nellie tried them on anyway.

“Spoken like a true Tucker.” Kate pushed bloodred nails through her spiked hair. “Give yourself a break. You’re twenty-nine-years old. Not sixty. You can buy some hot clothes and have a fling with an even hotter guy. I’d kill to be in your shoes right now.”

Nellie glanced down at her old ballet flats. She’d had them since the late eighties and had dragged them out when she heard they were back in style. She arched a newly shaped eyebrow at Kate and drawled, “Really?”

“Well, not those.” Kate glanced down at the old black flats in horror. “I was speaking metaphorically and I was referring to Jack Darby.”

Nellie’s heart pinged at his name.

“Oh, is someone blushing?” Kate teased. “Come on, Nell. Tell me what he was like. I gotta know.”

Nellie caught sight of her face in the mirror. She matched the cranberry blouse. “I don’t kiss and tell.”

“Bullshit!” Kate exclaimed. “Remember that fraternity party? I heard all about Skip Jordan.”

“That was seven years ago, Kate.”

“How big was his—”

“Enough, Kate!” Nellie shrieked, throwing the jeans at her dearest friend. “You are bad.”

“I know.” Kate smiled, deftly catching the expensive denim. “That’s why all the guys like me.”

“And for your information, I enjoyed last night.”

“I bet you did.” Kate gave her a sly smile.

“We didn’t have sex.”

Kate’s eyes bulged. “Why the hell not?”

“Because I wasn’t…I don’t really know. But we just didn’t. Okay?”

She wanted to say she liked Jack, but that sounded so high school. How could she make Kate understand how comfortable she felt with Jack, how natural it felt to ride beside him in his sports car, to sit across from him and cram pancakes in her mouth, to respect the fact he drew a line and didn’t cross it. It made her sound lovesick. “He was a gentleman.”

Kate slapped a hand to her forehead. “Don’t do this, Nell. This isn’t about love. It’s about sex.”

“Love?” Nellie whirled around. “I am not in
love
with Jack Darby. I don’t even know him.”

“Exactly!” Kate pointed a finger at her. “This is about you being something other than who you normally are. This is about being Elle. This is about having mind-blowing sex and letting go of who you think you are supposed to be.”

“Why is everything about sex with you? I
am
letting go. When have I met a guy in a bar and gone off with him?”

“I thought you said you didn’t have sex?” Kate cocked her head. Nellie wanted to kick her, but she didn’t want to split the too-tight pants she’d just pulled on.

“We didn’t!” Nellie yelled.

“But you just said—”

“We. Didn’t. Have. Sex.” Nellie propped her hands on her hips and stared at Kate as if she’d just brought back a torn library book.

A knock sounded on the dressing room door. Both Kate and Nellie jumped. A saleslady called out, “Is everything all right in there?”

Kate and Nellie’s eyes met; they both stifled a giggle.

“No problems,” Kate called out, her violet eyes dancing. “Just trying to decide which outfit will get Nellie laid.”

Nellie clapped a hand over her mouth and shot Kate a dirty look. Silence met Kate’s naughty comment.

Nellie laughed lightly, just in case the saleswoman lingered in the fitting rooms. “You’re a nut.”

Kate gave her the same smile she’d given Nellie countless times throughout their misadventures. It squeezed Nellie’s heart because she loved her wild, crazy and, apparently, nymphomaniac friend.

“Kate, I’m having a good time.” Nellie swept a manicured hand down her trim length. “And this is not the old Nellie. For goodness sake, I ran into Jack Darby at the Dallas airport. He barely looked at me, and I spilled a whole damned glass of chardonnay in his lap. You think I don’t know what this is?”

Kate looked confused. “Huh?”

“Never mind, it’s not important. I get who Jack Darby is. I get who Nellie Hughes is. If I didn’t look so good in these damn jeans and if you hadn’t made me look like a flippin’ Hollywood movie star, he wouldn’t even give me the time of day. So, I don’t have fantasies of love with this man.”

Nellie knew as she made the statement that she was lying through her Crest Whitestrips-whitened teeth. After Jack had dropped her off with a sweet kiss, she’d lain awake reliving their impromptu date. Then when she’d awoken that morning, she’d lolled in the hotel’s colossal tub wondering when he would call or if he even would. She felt like a teenager with her first crush.

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