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Authors: Joanne Kennedy

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BOOK: Tall, Dark and Cowboy
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This was not going well. She might as well go for broke and get it over with.

“Well, not exactly. Not really.” She sucked in a bracing breath of air conditioning and set the babble machine loose again. “I just need a little help.” She glanced around the trailer. “I could work for you, maybe. Help out. And—and the car’s about to die on me, so please don’t say no.”

He shot her a hard, cold look that hit her like a blow to the gut. Her breath stalled in her throat, and she put her fist to her suddenly constricted chest, pulling in a hard-won breath. She’d always been an expert at sugarcoating reality, but in the past month she’d had to face a lot of uncomfortable truths.

And now she had to face the fact that the one man she’d figured she could count on obviously didn’t give a damn.

Panic
attack.
She stared down at the spinning floor, trying to urge some oxygen to her brain, trying to control the fear that bound her chest like a boa constrictor, squeezing out breath and life and logic. She put one hand on the counter and concentrated on inhaling and exhaling, one breath at a time.

You’re okay
, she told herself.
You’re going to be fine. Just fine.

Chapter 4

Chase scowled, stoking his anger and stifling all his other responses to Lacey Bradford. His first reaction had been the same as any man’s would have been. When a woman like Lacey walked into your office and presented you with a smile that knocked your socks off and damn near took your trousers too, you enjoyed the experience. Savored it, even. He’d spent a very stimulating thirty seconds taking in every detail of the new arrival’s appearance, from the sassy flip of her chestnut hair to the sweet pink piggies in her peep-toe shoes.

Then he’d noticed those odd, distinctive eyes—eyes that were almost eerie in their intensity, with pale flecks like floating shards of ice breaking a clear sea of green. The cool hue warred with the warmth of her smile, her long black lashes intensifying the effect. Only one person in the world had eyes like that.

Lacey.
A quick surge of joy had lifted in his heart, sudden and erratic as a meadowlark flitting up from a fence post, but he’d downed it with one quick shot of realism, reminding himself just who this woman was. Who she’d
chosen
to be.

She wasn’t the girl next door anymore. She wasn’t the kind, sweet girl who never let her beauty go to her head, who acted like she was just another teenaged girl and not a goddess who had fallen to earth to boost the testosterone levels of teenaged boys.

She was Mrs. Trent Bradford, country club wife of Conway’s most successful—and dishonest—real estate developer.

No,
she
isn’t
.
She
got
a
divorce. And then she came to you for help.

But what the hell could he do for her that her ex-husband couldn’t? Trent Bradford had the power to make and break lives, and he was more than willing to wield that power. His ex couldn’t possibly need help from a scruffy Tennessee farm boy turned cowboy who had to sell used trucks and tractors to supplement the income from his struggling ranch. A Tennessee farm boy without a Tennessee farm—thanks to Trent Bradford.

Chase knew all about the scheme Lacey had described. It was the reason his father had lost his land.

He remembered the day he left for basic training in Texas. His dad had told him some developer was after him to sell the place. The guy wanted to chop it into little bitty pieces and put in a trailer court.

No
way,
his father had said.
This
place
belonged
to
my
grandfather, and when I’m gone, it’ll belong to you.
He’d laughed and slapped Chase on the shoulder.
Don’t worry, son, it’ll be here waiting for you when you get back.

But Trent’s scheme was dizzyingly effective. While Chase was off serving his country, the government claimed eminent domain. They said they’d paid a fair price for the land, but there was no price that could pay for what Chase had lost. The farm had been his birthright. More importantly, it had been his father’s life.

After the sale, his dad had tried to start over. He’d taken a job at the John Deere dealership in Conway, selling everything from combines to lawn tractors. But the shift from long, orderly days tilling crops and raising livestock to the frantic day-to-day desperation of commission sales took its toll. According to his sister, his dad had slowly faded, lapsing into a depression so gradually that she didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until it was too late.

The supposedly essential turnpike that was going to cut through their old farm was canceled days before he died in the abandoned barn that was once the center of his life. One gunshot to the head. The cops said it was self-inflicted.

Two weeks later, Trent Bradford bought the land for a song. Chase called the cops and begged them to look into his father’s death. They refused.

He called one lawyer, then another. Both declared Trent’s machinations entirely legal. One told him it was the third time Trent had profited from eminent domain.

Chase had never felt so powerless. Trent Bradford had taken his father’s life and his own future, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

Glancing outside, he expected to see a Mercedes or maybe a Beemer parked by the trailer. Instead, he saw a familiar red 1985 Mustang with chipped paint on the hood and a crooked headlight that made the car look like it had a headache.

“That’s your old car.”

Lacey nodded.

“Why are you driving that? Didn’t you have a Mercedes or something?”

“A Beemer.”

She licked her lips and the quick flick of her tongue sent another spasm of desire into the danger zone. He stepped closer to the counter to hide the sudden effect it had on his Wranglers.

“But I figured Wade might be looking for it and the Mustang has been in the garage for years. So I thought it would be safer.”

He felt sorry for her for a second, but then she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. As she lifted her hand, a gold ring bearing a stone the size of a quail egg flashed, sending shards of reflected light dancing over the cheap paneling behind the lobby’s white resin chairs. That ring must have cost dang near as much as his father’s funeral. And she probably had three more just like it.

If she’d asked for less, he might have helped her. If she’d wanted her car fixed, for example, he’d have been glad to crawl under her chassis and twist a few screws.

He swallowed. How could the notion of fixing her car so quickly turn his thoughts to sex? That first moment when she’d walked in the door had sent pleasure rippling through him like wind through a field of wheat. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off that lush body, still toned and athletic as it had been in high school. She’d led the cheers at every football game, leaping high, spinning and twirling, her compact, athletic body so taut and strong, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He wondered if she could still do a split.

He looked her up and down, his eyes chasing the curves that led from her breasts to her buttocks. She needed a place to stay, right? Maybe he should take her home. Help her out.

Help himself.

Then he looked at that ring and remembered all he’d lost—and all she’d gained.

For the past—what was it? Seven years? Eight?—she’d been living off the profits of the wheeling and dealing that had cost his family so much. Eating bonbons, probably, and lunching at the club. Had the theft of his father’s land paid to get those pretty, perfect toes painted? Had it helped her keep her hair perfectly cut, her body toned and firm?

“Sorry,” he said. “You came to the wrong guy.”

She looked wounded. “But Chase, we were friends. I thought…”

“Well, you thought wrong.”

She blinked up at him, and he felt something inside him soften. Damn. He needed to end this. Scare her away so she’d never come back. One more blink of those sea-green eyes and he’d tumble into the same bottomless abyss of heartbreak he’d fallen into when she got married. He’d do something stupid, like help her. Or fall in love with her.

He’d done both a long time ago. Graduation night, she’d celebrated a little too hard by having a lot too much to drink. He’d found her backed against the wall in an empty bedroom with Wade breathing hot whiskey breath in her face and pawing at her skirt.

Chase had rescued her and taken her home, but that had been the end of his heroics. He wasn’t sure any man could have fought the temptation of having her alone in the car in the dark, her eyes bright with promise, her breath sweet with the scent of sloe gin.

Still, he never would have kissed her if she hadn’t seemed to want it as much as he did. She’d hesitated when he pulled the car to a stop outside her father’s house, glanced at him from under her eyelashes, and smiled that smile. He was pretty sure they’d shared equal responsibility for their one heart-stopping, smoldering kiss.

But they obviously hadn’t shared an equal assessment of what the kiss meant.

For him, it was a turning point. He’d graduated from high school just three days earlier, and with that kiss he thought he’d graduated from dreams to reality. Lacey was his. He was stunned, surprised, gobsmacked to hell and back, but he was certain that kiss had sealed them together forever. He’d driven home planning their next date. Their engagement. Their wedding.

She’d gone inside, fallen into bed, and apparently forgotten all about it. He wondered if she remembered even now.

Probably not. The next day, the announcement of her engagement to Trent Bradford had appeared in the paper. She hadn’t just been saying good-bye to high school that night; she’d been kissing her old life good-bye. That’s what she’d been doing with him too—kissing him good-bye.

To her, that kiss had been the end of something—but to him, it was a new beginning, an introduction to adulthood’s inevitable cycle of hope and heartbreak. Years later, when he lost the farm, he’d been better able to deal with the pain because he’d already had to deal with disaster.

“Please, Chase.”

Please.
How could he say no to that?

Easy.
He chased away the memory of that kiss and called up an image that had haunted him for years: the image of his father’s face, gray and sightless in his coffin.

He knew he should be over his family tragedy. It had been six years. How long could you hang on to that kind of anger before it turned you bitter?

But how could you get over the discovery that everything you had was gone? The realization that the future you’d taken for granted had disappeared? And even if you could recover from that, how could you forget the day your father died? Or the way he died, so despondent that he took his own life?

You couldn’t get over that. And even if you could, you shouldn’t. Not unless you were heartless.

Despite the grim memories, he couldn’t stop his eyes from flicking involuntarily from her pleading eyes to her tempting breasts. Why was it so hard to say no to her? If she flashed him that come-hither look one more time, he was going to break down and give her anything she wanted.

He focused carefully on her left ear—though even that made him want to put his finger out and trace the perfect pink spiral that reminded him of the curved heart of a sea shell.

“Forget it, Lacey.” He barely recognized his own voice, bitter and hard. “I’m not some tenth grade loser, panting after your perky little cheerleader ass anymore.” He shifted his gaze to meet her eyes. “Go sell yourself to somebody else.”

Lurching out from behind the counter, he strode into his office and slammed the door. Throwing himself into his rolling desk chair, he let it slide backward and bang the wall. His heart was thumping like a Memphis blues band, and all the blood in his body seemed to have flowed south. What he’d said was true. He wasn’t a tenth grader panting after her perky little ass anymore.

He was a grown man panting after her ass.

He couldn’t believe he’d been so cruel. It had been a reflex—pure self-defense, because seeing Lacey had brought back the fantasy that had haunted him since high school. He’d had a sudden urge to step up to her and cup his hands under that firm, rounded ass, lift her up onto the counter, and flip up her little cheerleader skirt to reveal the panties that flashed the crowd every time she did a high kick. Then he’d…

Then he’d get back to reality and finish his paperwork. Lacey wasn’t wearing her cheerleader uniform; she was dressed like a typical lady who lunched in those stupid pants women wore that didn’t even reach their ankles. And she was what—almost thirty now? She probably couldn’t even do a high kick any more.

Hey, he should check.

No, he shouldn’t. He should hide in the office until she left. If he saw her again, he’d break down and help her. If he helped her, he’d be involved with her—and by extension, he’d be involved with Trent Bradford. He’d lost to the guy twice now—once when Lacey had married the guy, and once when he’d lost the farm. He wasn’t about to let it happen again. Slumping forward, he rested his elbows on his knees and raked his fingers through his hair.

He almost had his life in order. He’d recovered financially and found himself again, buying a played-out piece of land out here in Wyoming and using his ag know-how to bring the range grasses back to life. Now he grazed almost a hundred cattle on the place—not ordinary cattle, but purebred Black Angus that produced more double-A prime steaks per pound than any other breed.

He was making a new start, getting back on his feet. He didn’t need Lacey Bradford to come along and knock them out from under him again.

Chapter 5

Lacey stared at the door to Chase’s office, trying to figure out what had just happened. It was hard to believe that the nicest guy she’d ever known had just called her a prostitute.

She’d always thought Chase liked her, maybe even loved her, though he’d never said anything. She’d just felt it in the way he’d looked at her. She used to catch him watching her back in high school. If he hadn’t been such a nice guy, it would have been creepy.

Well, he wasn’t a nice guy anymore. He was a total stranger. The change in his appearance underlined just how long it had been since they’d seen each other, and the change in his personality clinched it. There was no reason for him to remember her—though he obviously did.

Too bad those memories weren’t a little fonder.

Had she somehow led him on all those years ago? Had he thought they’d wind up together? She’d always tried to include him in conversations when he’d hovered around her like a fruit fly at the banana bowl. She’d always tried to be nice, even though she hadn’t been the least bit interested in harnessing him up with the string of aspiring boyfriends she herded through the halls of her high school every day.

Maybe she should have been.

She caught a quick glimpse of an alternate universe where she’d ended up with Chase instead of Trent. Looking at him now, it wasn’t hard to imagine. Trent hadn’t exactly made her hormones stand up and salute back when she’d said yes to his proposal or anytime after that. But he’d just about overwhelmed her with declarations of passion and with gifts. Lavish, expensive gifts that shut down the little voice inside her that told her he wasn’t what she wanted. Jewelry, clothes—even a car to replace the aging Mustang. When she’d said yes to his proposal, he’d presented her with an engagement ring that sported a diamond almost as big as the cubic zirconium she was wearing now.

And the promises: He’d send her to school. Help her get her license. Use his influence to get her some clients, give her a chance to prove she was more than a pretty face and a bright smile.

She’d always been the golden girl, the town sweetheart. Pretty and rich and perky and bright. Everyone had assumed she’d go on to college, be a success. She’d assumed it too—but when her father died, there was nothing left of her family but a mountain of debt.

Trent had stepped in and saved her. Or so she’d thought.

Maybe Chase was right.

Maybe she really had sold herself.

She scanned the office. The place didn’t look very prosperous, but it was tidy and clean. The floor was cracked brown linoleum, but it was buffed to a shine, and six white plastic patio chairs flanked each side of a low table in the corner. The table held an assortment of manly magazines—
Field
& Stream
,
Guns
& Ammo
, and an issue of
Men’s Health
featuring a shot of a buff model with a sexy toothpaste smile that reminded her of the man who’d just left the room. She wondered if he looked that good with his shirt off.

Well, she obviously wasn’t going to find out.

She stepped back out in the hot sun and surveyed the town from the trailer’s warped top step. A huge dog with a shaggy yellow coat slept in the dust of Main Street just outside Pookie’s Candles. He looked like he hadn’t moved for days. As Lacey watched, a panel van eased around the corner and carefully steered around him, tooting its horn. The dog lifted its head and watched the van disappear down the street, then sighed and settled its chin back onto its paws and closed its eyes.

This town had all the energy of a nursing home on an off-night for bingo.

She climbed into the car and pulled a haphazardly folded map from the center console. Spreading it on the steering wheel, she scanned her options.

If she drove south, she’d hit Cheyenne in about two hundred miles. But that was a cowboy town, and she’d just had all the cowboy she ever wanted to deal with. Denver would be a hundred miles further on, but it would be worth the extra travel to return to civilization.

Besides, Denver was a big city. She’d find a job in Denver.

She hauled her seat belt over her shoulder like she was strapping on a gun for battle, shoved the key in the ignition, and gave it a twist.

Pop. Bang!

The car had backfired before, but this time it sent up an impressive cloud of black oily smoke from the tailpipe. The engine died, and she cranked it again.

Bang!

The car gasped, coughed, and shuddered to life for a quaking, shivering instant before it died again.

“Shoot.” She unstrapped herself and pulled the hood release. Walking to the front of the car, she lifted the hood and propped it open. Then she stared into the engine and willed it to miraculously heal itself.

***

Chase lifted his head at the sound of a sharp report from the front of the trailer. Good. Krystal must have found somebody to test-drive that old Chevy pickup. The thing always started up like it was on its last legs, but once you got it going, it was a monster. Some people were leery of the fireworks, but Chase figured some amateur mechanic would want it for a project.

And if Krystal got somebody into the truck, they’d probably buy it. The woman could sell snow to Eskimos. He didn’t know how she did it.

The explosion sounded again, and he waited for the distinctive growl of the Chevy’s engine—but there was nothing. Hoisting himself out of his chair, he left the office and stepped outside. And was immediately confronted with Lacey’s shapely backside protruding from beneath the hood of her Mustang.

He’d already begun to regret his harsh words, and now he was really sorry. He’d completely underestimated her. It must have been the Mustang that backfired, and now she was going to fix it. He felt a strange stirring at the sight of her bending over the car. There was something about a confident, capable woman taking on a task like that that really turned him on.

It had nothing to do with the way her pants stretched over her ass.

He started to dodge back inside, but she turned and fixed her wide eyes on his face. She didn’t look confident and capable. She looked like she was going to cry.

“It won’t start,” she said. “It blew up, and now it won’t start.”

He walked slowly down the steps and peered under the Mustang’s lifted hood.

What a mess. A grimy, oily, burned-up, steaming mess. The engine was black and greasy where it should have been clean, and it sported a coat of baked-on, crumbling soot where the grease should have been.

“Somebody didn’t take very good care of this thing,” he said.

She nodded, her lips pressed together as if she didn’t dare speak for fear she’d cry. “That was me, I guess. I didn’t think I’d ever need it.”

Yeah, well, he was sensing a pattern here. She hadn’t thought she’d ever need him, either. The Mustang’s neglected engine looked like his heart: a black hole caked with soot and burned beyond recognition.

He glanced under the car and saw just what he’d expected: a spreading pool of oil glossing the hard-packed dirt of the lot.

“It doesn’t look good, but Jeb might be able to fix it.” He pointed toward the Quick Lube. “He’s got a couple of decent mechanics over there.”

“Okay.” She looked from the car to the garage across the alley, then back at Chase. “Could you help me push it?”

“Just leave it.” He shrugged. “Maybe they can get it started long enough to move it.”

“Okay. Sorry it’s—here. I mean, right in front of your place.” She looked at the beat-up muscle car as if she was seeing it for the first time. “I guess it doesn’t look too good.”

He had to smile at the understatement, and she smiled back and met his eyes.

Damn. That was just what he’d sworn he wouldn’t do. Those green eyes hit his like high beams, and he was sure she could see the lingering traces of the long-running fantasies she’d starred in all these years. She stepped toward him, and for half a second, he thought about touching her, maybe kissing her, making all those fantasies come true. She’d let him, he was sure of it. She needed him.

“How long do you think it’ll take them to fix it?” she asked.

“Overnight,” he said. “At least overnight.”

He was inches away now, and incredibly, she was still smiling, those eyes inviting him closer. She’d have to stay, then. Stay the night in Grady. And from the way she was looking at him, she wouldn’t mind staying the night with him.

But it wouldn’t mean a thing to her, not like it would to him. She’d walk away when it was over, just like she had before. He took a quick step back, almost falling in his haste to break the tension simmering between them. He had a good life here—a regular, orderly life. Every day went just like he’d planned it. Nobody could take anything away from him—not his land, not his life, and definitely not his heart. He’d learned about loss from Lacey, and he was never going to go through that again.

“Look, Lacey, you have to go.” He licked his lips. “My—my fiancée will be back any minute.”

“Fiancée?” She looked startled.

He was startled too. He hadn’t meant to say that, but now that he’d ventured into a life of lies, he might as well go for it. He leaned on the railing and lied his heart out. “Yeah. She’s terrific, but she’s the jealous type. So you’d better go.”

“Chase, I’m already here,” said a high, breathy voice. He watched Krystal appear behind the Mustang like a prairie dog popping from its hole.

He almost smacked a hand to his forehead. Krystal must have been watching him, no doubt seeing Lacey as an attractive interloper and guarding her investment. Ever since he’d hired her, Krystal had spent all her time flaunting her curves and flashing him suggestive smiles. It was obvious that while he was interviewing her for the position of sales associate, she’d been interviewing him for the position of sugar daddy.

He’d apparently passed with flying colors. She’d quit her job at the Quick Lube, broken her engagement to the owner, and set her sights on Chase as clearly as if she’d closed one eye, swiveled, and pointed.

He wondered why the notion of a relationship with Krystal made him want to crawl under the counter and hide until she went away. The girl had the body of a Vegas showgirl and the libido of a lioness, licking her lips every time she looked at him. Sure, any relationship between them would be shallow and meaningless, and the woman was clearly only after him for his money—but all his relationships were shallow and meaningless. At least she understood money was all he had to give.

He sure as hell wasn’t about to give anybody his heart. He’d never gotten it back from Lacey Bradford.

“He’s not kidding. I
am
the jealous type.” Krystal narrowed her eyes at Lacey. “If you’re after Chase’s money, you’d better get out of here. It’s mine.” She widened her eyes as she realized what she’d said and had the decency to blush. “I mean,
he’s
mine. I’m his fiancée.” Her voice took on a wondering tone. “He
said
so.”

She turned and gave Chase a luminous smile and a perky Sarah Palin wink. “So what do you want for dinner tonight, honey pie?”

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