Flanked (3 page)

Eh, she probably wasn’t a natural redhead anyway. Women dyed their hair all the time, right?

“Yup, I am.” He pivoted toward the kitchen. “Dad! Your date’s here.” Garret moved back from the door. “Come on in. He’ll be here in a sec. I gotta run. Bye.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks. Nice meeting you.” Her auburn eyebrows knit above the blue eyes he refused to admit were pretty. She looked a little flustered as he pushed past her, but he ignored that and strode fast for his truck.

His heart felt heavy with disappointment at his own behavior, but it didn’t make him turn back and try to fix the situation. His mother was probably frowning down at him from heaven. That wasn’t how she’d raised him to act around a guest. Even if that guest was his father’s date, he should know better and act better.

Glancing back, he saw his father kiss the woman’s cheek and then, with an unhappy-looking glance at Garret’s truck in the driveway, pull the door closed.

He drew in a shaky breath and then threw the truck into reverse. He couldn’t get to that bar fast enough. There was a bourbon waiting there with his name on it. He needed it badly right now, for so many reasons.

Luckily the bar was only a few miles down the road. Nice and close. Only a few bucks for a cab ride home. Hell, he’d even walked it once after he’d had a few too many. And tonight it was nice and close for when he had to flee his own home and drown his sorrows in booze. Garret scoped out the parking lot. None of his friends’ trucks were there. Though it was really early and a weekday. They were probably just getting off work. Hopefully they’d stop by on their way home.

He hadn’t kept in touch as much as he should have with his old high school buddies. It was hard with the travel and all. He pushed through the front door of the bar and decided he’d remedy that this trip. No time like the present. A man could never have too many friends—especially when they seemed to be dropping like flies to the love bug.

“Garret James, is that you?” A strangely familiar and sultry voice from his past greeted him before he’d walked halfway across the room.

He squinted into the dimly lit space to see a young woman seated at the bar. “Marci?”

Marci Brown. The one who got away. Actually, more like the one he’d never had. She’d been the cool girl in Garret’s high school graduating class. The head cheerleader who dated the quarterback and had no time for the guys on the high school rodeo team. And that, of course, had included Garret.

“How you doing, honey?” She jumped up and met him halfway across the bar. “I hear you’ve made quite a name for yourself in bull riding.” She reached up and planted a kiss square on his lips. That was sure as hell a surprise.

“Uh, yeah, I guess I kinda have. I’m doing good.” Garret managed to think clearly enough to glance down at her left hand before he got too excited. Chances were she’d married some jock by now.

Hmm. No engagement or wedding ring. Couple that with the kiss on the lips, the friendly greeting and the more than friendly smile and he’d say there were good signs all around.

Marci, the girl who’d starred in his teenage dreams, grabbed his hand and pulled him to the bar.

“What’re you having, honey?”

“Uh, bourbon and cola, please. Thanks.” It seemed he’d have company for his drinking after all. Still in a daze, he sat on the barstool she’d pulled out for him.

He took a sip of the drink the bartender delivered and glanced around the room. He wanted to see who, if anyone, was here to witness his newfound success—minor though it was—with the ungettable girl of his high school years.

No one he knew, in fact hardly anyone at all was here. That figured.

“So tell me, what’s it like to be famous?” She leaned forward and he got a look at a whole lot more of her. Right down her expansive and exposed cleavage.

His throat suddenly dry as the desert, he took another swallow of his drink. “I’m not really famous.”

“Oh, sure you are.” She smiled and played with the stirrer in her drink in a way that had his cock waking. “You’re on television, aren’t you?”

Between her hand and lip action, she might as well have been giving a blowjob to that very lucky straw. That thought had him rising to full tilt.

Garret pushed the blowjob image aside and cleared his throat. “Yeah, I am. Almost every event during the season. It’s good, I guess. I get to travel a lot. And sometimes we get invited to come to really cool places. Like sets of TV shows. Stuff like that.” He shrugged, not sure what to tell her to hold her interest. He wracked his brain for something, anything, to keep this girl looking at him the way she was now. Not that it seemed as if she needed all that much encouragement.

“So what brings you back here?” Marci leaned even closer.

Damn, were those her nipples poking through her shirt like the tips of his .22 caliber bullets? Garret finally remembered to breathe and answer her question. “Uh, I had a break between competitions so I decided to come home and visit my dad.”

She flipped her blond hair over her shoulder and gazed at him like what he’d said was the most interesting thing in the world. “And how long are you here for?”

“Just until Friday.” He noticed he’d made up his mind pretty fast, right here on the bar stool, to extend his stay from Thursday to Friday. Tits could do that to a man. At least really nice ones. Ones that were practically touching his arm now.

“So soon?” She pouted. That dragged his attention back to her lips and thoughts of what they could do wrapped around him.

“I’ll be back again. We have a break coming up soon. I want to come home and do some hunting.” Hunting, yeah, that’s what he wanted to do. Sure.

“Well, there’s no reason why we can’t make the most of tonight, now is there?”

The bartender cocked a brow at the two of them and then continued to wipe down the bar. Garret did his best to ignore him. Bartenders should know when to mind their own business anyway.

Glancing back at Marci, Garret somehow kept his attention off her assets and finally noticed her dazed, heavily lidded blue eyes. “Sure. What did you have in mind?”

She looked a little tipsy. It was pretty early in the day for being drunk. Though maybe she was a lightweight. Some girls got drunk on one drink, or at least pretended that they did.

“Finish your drink and pay the bill.” The tip of Marci’s tongue came out and swept over her lips. “Then come outside with me and I’ll show you.”

Eyes open wide, Garret struggled to down his drink and dig his wallet out of his jeans at the same time. He threw a twenty on the bar and felt to see if the condom was still in the side compartment. It was, judging by the round outline he traced through the leather. Thank God for that.

As Marci neared the exit, Garret glanced at the bartender. “That cover it?”

The man’s brow rose as he nodded. “Yup.”

Not really caring about change or that he’d probably just left a huge tip, Garret followed the sway of Marci’s ass out the door.

She shot him a look over her shoulder when they reached the parking area. “That your truck?”

He followed her gaze and nodded. “Yeah.”

“Then let’s go.” Purse swinging from one hand, Marci sashayed her rounded jean-clad butt around to the passenger side and waited for him to unlock the door, which meant he had to find his keys.

Still not believing his luck, Garret dug into his pocket again to find his key ring. He finally emerged triumphantly with it. With fingers that shook, he pressed the button to unlock the doors and Marci, goddess of Waldon High School, climbed on in.

He scrambled into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. “So, where to?”

“My house.”

“Your house? Uh, the house you grew up in or do you live somewhere else now?”

“My parents’ house where I grew up.” She leaned across the center console and planted a hand on his thigh. “They won’t be home from work for at least two hours.”

Garret swallowed hard. He definitely wouldn’t need the full two hours. Not the way his cock was throbbing already. Feeling like a teenager again, he started the ignition and peeled out of the parking lot. Sometimes living in a small town was a good thing. Such as when it only takes two minutes to get a horny girl back home while her parents were still at work.

It took them no time to get there, thanks to Garret breaking a few of the town’s speeding laws. In the brief time he’d taken to drive the distance, she’d moved her hand up his thigh. She was currently stroking her fingers in between his legs, the back of her hand rubbing against the denim covering his balls with every stroke.

His heart pounding, he was barely able to think by the time he pulled into her driveway and cut the engine. He turned in his seat to look at her.

Her red lips bowed in a smile, making her look every bit as seductive and enticing as a centerfold. “Come on inside.”

A hell of an invitation and he wasn’t about to say no. “All right.”

It was all kind of a blur. Her opening the front door. The tiny dog that rushed him, barking. The ball of fluff wasn’t much taller than his boots so he didn’t worry about it too much. Besides, Marci had his hand and was dragging him down the hallway toward what he could only assume would be her bedroom. Once inside, there was no doubt the room was hers, right down to the pink canopy bed, cheerleading pompoms and old photos and trophies from their school days.

Garret glanced at her. “Haven’t changed things much, have you?”

She didn’t answer, not that it was really a question. Instead, she pushed him backward toward the bed. The bend of his knees connected with the mattress and buckled, and then he was lying flat, staring up at the pink tulle as Marci crawled on top of him. She straddled his legs and began to unbuckle his belt.

Wrapping his hands around her waist, he decided he liked a take-charge kind of girl. He slid his hands upward, beneath her shirt, and cupped the breasts he’d been enjoying the view of since meeting her at the bar. They lay heavy in his hands. God, he loved big tits. As soon as she finished getting his belt open, he’d definitely relieve Marci of her shirt and those nipples would be in his mouth.

“Get your fucking hands off my wife!”

Garret’s heart nearly stopped. The upward motion of his hands on her tits sure as hell did stop as he yanked them back from where he’d snuck beneath her bra.

“What the hell? Wife?” He frowned at Marci.

She shrugged. “I’m kinda married to him.”

Garret dumped her off his lap and scrambled off the far side of the mattress just as Marci’s husband, who was looking larger and madder the closer he got, started toward him. Then Garret took a closer look at his would-be assailant. “Greg?”

“Yeah, I recognize you too. Don’t think I don’t. Garret James, all famous and uppity now, thinking he can swoop back into town and steal other men’s wives. Well, you just remember I was the star quarterback breaking Waldon High records when you were just a geek covered in cow snot.”

Holding his hands up in front of him in what he hoped was a non-confrontational way, Garret shook his head. “I never wanted to steal your wife. She didn’t tell me she was married. I swear. And she’s not wearing a ring.” He looked at Marci now. “You said you lived here at your parents’ house.”

“I do. Now. I moved in last night when I left him.” Marci shot a less-than-loving glance at her red-faced husband.

Shit. This was not good. No man wanted to get caught between a fighting husband and wife.

“Look, I’m sorry. This is just a misunderstanding. You two need to talk things out. I’m just gonna leave you alone.” He eyed the path to the door, wondering if he could make it out of the room before Greg choked him to death.

But one glance at Marci’s husband, now sunken onto the bed, his head bowed and shoulders heaving, had Garret taking a second look. Was he crying? Aw, crap. Now he really needed to get the hell out of here. The minute this guy got his head together and realized Garret had seen him in tears, he’d really want to kill him.

He began backing toward the door when Greg raised his tear-filled gaze to him. “I just try to be a good husband, you know? But nothing’s ever good enough for her. I can’t help it if I only make minimum wage. Try getting a better job around here with just a high school education. It ain’t easy, and all she does is bitch, but does she get a job to help out with the bills? No.”

“Uh, times are bad. I’m sure you both do the best you can.” Garret glanced at Marci and saw her roll her eyes. He hooked a thumb toward the door. “I’m just gonna take off—”

“Garret James, you made it good though, didn’t you? Driving that fancy truck out there in the drive.” Greg’s eyes narrowed.

“Really, the loan on that truck is huge. I don’t even own it. The bank owns it.” Something sounding like a giggle snuck out of Garret’s throat as his adrenaline pulsed.

Good thing his truck was fully insured, because Greg could probably do some kind of damage to it, and it seemed like the truck was what he was focused on at the moment.

The hulking man stood and took a step closer, and Garret realized exactly how much Greg dwarfed his five-foot-nine-and-a-half-inch frame. Being big and tall was not in the rider’s favor when on the back of a bull—during a fight however, it was a different story entirely.

Greg laid one big hand on Garret’s shoulder and he braced himself for a punch, but it didn’t come. Instead, Greg patted him a few times. “I shoulda been nicer to you in high school. I’m sorry I wasn’t.”

“Really. It’s fine. You were fine.” Garret dismissed the apology with a wave of his hand.

“Nope. I was an ass. And I married a bitch. Guess that was my punishment.” Greg dropped his hold and turned back to Marci. “You can stay living here. I don’t care. I’m done.”

He strode out the door with Marci scampering after him. “What do you mean stay here? I’m not moving back in with my parents.”

“Then you shouldn’t have left last night.”

As their raised voices faded down the hall, Garret was left alone in the pink room. He seriously considered crawling out the window before they came back. Instead, he snuck out into the hallway and spotted the kitchen. All the houses on this block were built alike and he’d had a friend who lived in one just like it. There should be a door in that kitchen, a door that led outside to the driveway and freedom. While the unhappily married couple argued in the living room by the front door, the dog barking at them as they yelled at each other, Garret snuck quietly out the back door.