Texas Twist (Texas Montgomery Mavericks) (6 page)

His reputation with women was nothing like the real man. It didn’t begin to describe the sensations and outright heights he drove her to as he covered her body with his lips, his tongue, his hands. Stroking. Caressing. Kissing. Licking. He never stopped. She could hardly draw a breath.

He drove her to the brink but not beyond. She clutched the sheets, begged him for something, even though she had no idea what she was begging him to do. His first thrust into her had made her gasp. The pain from the foreign intrusion inside her stunned her momentarily. By the fourth, her eyes rolled back in her head in pleasure. When she finally flew over the rim, her body responded with quakes and ripples.

“I love you,” she said. “I’ve loved you forever.”

He didn’t move. Not a thrust. Not a breath. She felt his heart throbbing rapidly against her chest.

He thrust one more time and then pulled out. He kissed her forehead and went into her tiny bathroom.

That might have been her first time, but her dad had been a veterinarian. She’d been raised around animals. Knew all about reproduction. She knew about the male penis be it on a horse, cow or man. She knew about ejaculate and she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Cash Montgomery had not come.

Emotionally crushed, she pulled the sheet up to her chin, He was disappointed. She wasn’t good enough or sexy enough for him. He’d had a lot of women and it was obvious she’d not met his expectations. She wanted to die.

When the bathroom door reopened, he wore a scowl and quickly redressed. Once his jeans were fastened, he pulled the belt out of the loops and placed it on top of her bed.

“I promised you this.”

“No, Cash. You should keep it.”

He shook his head. “No. A promise is a promise.”

He left and she dissolved into tears.

The next time she saw him, he had his left arm around a blonde and his right around a brunette. Both women were well-known and well-used buckle bunnies, women who followed the rodeo for a chance to sleep with a real-live cowboy. He nodded to her and then tightened his hold on his escorts.

For the next month, she saw him with a different woman, or set of women, every time their paths crossed. She cried herself to sleep every night, not having a clue what had gone wrong. Had she been so bad in bed he couldn’t wait to leave?

Her parents kept asking what was wrong. “Nothing,” she said most of the time. Sometimes she threw in, “Just bored,” to keep them off the scent of her misery.

During a late-night discussion and cry session with Leo, she told him everything, except the name of the cowboy. As she told him, it didn’t matter what his name was. She was done with him and with cowboys. It was Leo who convinced her to go to college.

That fall she enrolled in Pepperdine University, figuring she’d see more sand and surfers than cowboys. And she did. But she missed the dirt, the smell of horse and cattle, her tiny trailer. She missed her old life and her parents, but even after she earned a bachelor degree in psychology from Pepperdine, she still didn’t feel prepared for life, and realistically, for a job. So it was on to California State University in Long Beach for a bachelor degree in nursing, intending to continue her education at the graduate level.

Her parents came for her CSU graduation, driving all the way from Wyoming. They toured all over California, up and down the Pacific Coast Highway more times than she could count. With their support, she was ready to take on the world—even a world where Cash Montgomery lived.

And then on a road trip to Northern California, her parents died in a fiery car crash, leaving her alone and devastated.

Her world shattered into a billion tiny shards, and she was still putting the pieces of her life back together today. Who would help her sweep up the rubble if Cash destroyed that fragile world again?

Chapter Five

Cash finished his coffee before heading out to look at the steps, which only confirmed his original opinion. The step didn’t need to be repaired. The entire staircase was falling apart and needed to be replaced.

With Travis scheduled to bring home his wife and babies, Cash hesitated calling, but this place wasn’t his. There was no sense in spending money making repairs if Travis didn’t want him to, so he called. His brother answered on the first ring.

“Cash? Is there a problem?”

Cash bit back the cuss word on the tip of his tongue. That was his older brother’s reaction to all Cash’s calls.
What has little brother done now?

“Nothing major’s wrong,” he said after regaining control of his temper. “I need to do a little work on the back steps. Well, actually, I need to replace the back steps to the porch. They’ve gotten a little soft.”

“Fine. Whatever you need to do,” he said, sounding distracted and winded.

“Great. Didn’t want to make changes without your knowledge.”

Travis huffed into the phone.

“What are you doing?” Cash asked.

“Sorry. Running late. I’m trying to dress and talk to you at the same time. Caroline is really attached to that house. Anything that needs fixing, feel free and send me the bill.”

“Okay, big bro. That’s what I’ll do. See you tonight.”

“Tonight? Right. Family dinner.” The sound of a door slamming resounded through the phone.

“Go bring your family home.”

“I am. Right now. Hey, Cash.”

“What?”

“Can you believe I have two kids? And a wife?”

The bit of anger still inside Cash winked out and he chuckled at the giddy astonishment in his brother’s voice. It’d been a long time since he’d heard his brother sound so happy. No, not happy. More like sky-high elated. He was thrilled for Travis, but privately, maybe he had a blush of envy. His brother had it all. “You’ll be a great dad. See you tonight.”

Cash drove an hour to one of the large chain lumber stores, knowing that nothing would be open in Whispering Springs on a Sunday morning. That was one of the problems with small towns. Inaccessibility to essentials when needed, regardless of what the needed essential might be.

Three hours later, and a couple of hundred dollars poorer, he pulled back up to Singing Springs ranch, the backend of his truck loaded with fresh lumber, screws, a new power saw and a few other odds and ends. Loading the heaving boards had strained his left leg and it had throbbed painfully on the drive back.

As he pulled the wood from the truck, he thought of Paige and how cute she’d looked trying to drive a crooked nail into a board. Good thing she was book-smart. House construction didn’t appear to have been part of her college education.

Of course, he knew all about her college degrees, her grades, her awards. Hell, everybody chasing the white line who’d spent more than five minutes with her parents knew all that. They’d been so proud of her.

Paige was smart and beautiful, a deadly combination. She needed to get out of this backwater town and move to Dallas or Fort Worth or Austin, somewhere more cosmopolitan, to a city where all the smart adults lived. She had nothing tying her to Whispering Springs but a dead-end job at Leo’s Bar and Grill and why she was working there made no sense at all.

He dropped the first board on the ground and remembered kissing Paige when she’d been sixteen. He’d been twenty. Too old and too experienced for someone her age. In fact, the cowboys had called her Doc Ryan’s jail bait.

The kiss at her eighteenth birthday party had zapped him like a stun gun. And even though at eighteen she’d no longer legally qualified as jail bait, he’d still felt too old and way too jaded for someone as sweet as she. He’d backed away, promising her—and himself—that he’d win the silver buckle that night just for her. And he had.

After unloading the lumber, he leaned on the truck’s tailgate to rub his leg. The vision of Paige strutting into the bar on the night of her eighteenth birthday played in his mind. She’d looked older, more mature and definitely twenty-one. If she’d ordered a drink, he’d have taken her home to her parents immediately, but she’d seemed more interested in dancing than drinking, and there was no harm in that.

The other cowboys had all taken a turn with her on the floor, but she’d only accepted fast dances from them. When he’d asked her to dance, a slow country love song had played and she’d allowed him to lead her to the floor.

That had been his first mistake. Fast music that didn’t require that he actually touch her would have been miles safer.

Pulling her softness against him had made him so hard he’d feared zipper tread marks on his dick. When she’d kissed his ear and told him that she wanted to sleep with him, he should have said no. Not that he wasn’t attracted to her and flattered as shit. Hell, what cowboy in his right mind wouldn’t have been. Truth to tell, he’d probably been a little more than simply attracted to her back then. Maybe still was, not that it would do him any good today.

Even back then she’d deserved better than him. Had he not been drinking, his shields to her charms would have fully engaged. Instead, his alcohol-fueled decision-making abilities had thought fucking sounded like a great idea. The way she’d licked his ear and so plainly stated her desires had made him realize that her proposition for sex couldn’t have been her first time.

For a brief moment, he’d wanted to find the bastard who’d taken her virginity and kill him. It was only later that he’d realized who the bastard was he needed to kill, and he’d damned near succeeded in doing just that.

The drive back to the camp ground had given him time to reflect and come to the conclusion that making love to Paige Ryan was a bad idea. Ready to back off with the excuse of too much booze, he’d seen her in the moonlight, her gold hair strands woven in among the red ones, and he’d gone weak in the knees. He’d had trouble drawing breath, much less a voice to beg off. She’d waved and he’d gone like a bull at a red cape.

That first kiss inside her trailer had been his undoing. He’d wanted her for so long, had fantasized about this night, he could barely restrain his primitive urge to take her fast and hard against her door. It had taken an iron will to restrain himself long enough to get her onto her bed.

Her flesh had been soft and sweet. Her moans and sighs had fired up his insides to an inferno. Her fingers grasping her sheets, her arched back pressing into him had almost made him come like a thirteen-year-old boy with a
Playboy
magazine.

But when he’d finally, finally thrust inside, his heart had swelled so large he could barely breathe. She’d been his undoing. She was so tight, a velvet-lined fist grabbing his cock and squeezing it. He’d had to fight his immediate urge to come. It hadn’t taken much to send Paige into an orgasm. He couldn’t remember ever having a partner so responsive to him, so in tune to his touches.

And then she’d told him she loved him.

His heart had almost stopped. He knew his breathing had.

Too young and too sheltered to know what she really felt, she hadn’t begun to experience life outside the rodeo circuit, and no way did their lives reflect the normal world. She deserved more…the big house, the white picket fence, a husband who adored her, the requisite two or three children. He could give her none of these things.

He was too rough for someone as sweet and gentle as Paige. He’d been nothing more than a cowboy who could hold onto a rope and ride an angry bull. She had too much potential to tie herself to someone like that.

In that instant, he’d decided it wouldn’t happen again, they couldn’t happen again, no matter what it took. He’d tried to fake an orgasm, still unsure to this day if she’d bought it. The one thing he had been sure of was he had to get out of there before he whispered those three words back to her, because that would have killed her future, and he wouldn’t do that to her.

Leaving her that night had taken every ounce of steel he could muster. He’d have rather gone to hell than hurt her. In some ways, that wish had come true. Seeing her, pretending to enjoy the company of buckle bunnies day after day had been his own personal hell.

Hating their past, hating that he knew he’d hurt her, he took his anger out on the rotten wood, destroying the treads, the risers and the stringers along the sides until there was nothing left. Then he got to work on a new set of steps.

The saw whined to a stop, the small end of the board dropping to the ground. Tires crunching on the drive gravel echoed around to the back of the house. He heard a car door slam and then gravel crunching again as the car drove away. Cash paused, waiting to see who’d come to check on him. It kind of pissed him off that his family felt like he needed to be looked after.

He grabbed a handful of screws and set to attaching the step to the raiser. No one came around the corner. He paused to listen. A dog’s whimper came from the front of the house. Frowning, he headed in that direction.

In the drive facing the road sat a small brown dog with floppy ears. When Cash stepped onto the gravel, the puppy’s head whipped toward him.

“Hey, buster. Who are you?”

He lowered into a squat, wincing at the pain in his leg, and held out his hand. The puppy cowered, his shoulder hunched up and his head lowered.

Anger ignited into Cash. Some sonofabitch had beaten this puppy and dumped him.

“You’re okay,” he said in a gentle voice. “Come here.” He continued to hold out his hand. The puppy took a couple of steps toward him but it was plain to see the animal was terrified.

Cash stood. The dog shied away.

“It’s okay,” he said again. “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

Approaching the dog with slow, measured steps, he was able to get close enough to touch the puppy’s head. After stroking down the dog’s back a couple of times, the animal appeared to be sufficiently calmed to allow Cash to pick him up. The poor thing shook violently in his arms.

He carried the puppy into the house to the kitchen, filled a bowl with water and watched as the animal lapped as though he were dying of thirst. While standing, the dog held his left rear leg off the ground.

Poor guy was hurt. If he could find the bastards who had hurt this dog and dumped him, Cash would make them feel as miserable as this little guy felt. He needed to get the puppy to a veterinarian to see if that leg was broken. But damn if it wasn’t Sunday.

He called his sister. After all, she had a dog. Maybe she could take this one too.

“Morning, Olivia.”

“Morning, little bro. When you coming to our house for dinner?”

The picture of that satanic baby bull at the entrance to Olivia’s ranch flashed in his mind. God, he hated bulls. He was going to have to deal with Mitch and their joint business one day, but not today.

“I don’t know. Soon. Listen, I need some help. Some bastard dumped a puppy at my front door a little while ago. He looks hurt. Are we still using Mabee as our vet?”

“Yep, but he’s not back yet from his honeymoon. Dr. Brian is covering. It’ll be the end of the week before Mabee is back. Call Dr. Brian. He’ll meet you at the clinic.” She gave him the phone number.

As she predicted, Dr. Brian told Cash to bring the puppy on by and to use the rear door to get in the clinic.

There were times Cash hated being a Montgomery, like when his parents would get anonymous phone calls telling them, “I saw Cash smoking,” or “I saw Cash drinking,” or “Saw Cash drag racing out on Strawberry Hill Road.” But then there were times, like now, when being a Montgomery had its benefits.

A beat-up Ford truck was backed in behind Whispering Springs Animal Hospital. Cash parked and carried the still-shaking dog into the building. Getting the puppy into his truck had been a problem. The poor thing had cried as soon as Cash had set him on the seat. The sorrowful wailing had broken his heart but strengthened his resolve to find this guy a good home. Maybe the vet would know of someone looking.

Dr. Brian was an older man, well past the retirement age. White-haired. Wrinkled face. Thick glasses. But his eyes softened as soon as he saw the pup.

“Thanks for meeting me,” Cash said.

“Glad to, son. At my age, it’s good to have something to do.”

Cash set the shivering puppy on the exam table. “I don’t know anything about him. Some sonofabitch—sorry, Doc—some person dropped him at my house.”

“I agree with you,” the older man said, his eyes taking on a hard stare. “I hate people who dump animals.” He stroked down the dog’s back. “Hey, little guy. What’s going on?” His voice was gentle and calming and the puppy responded to the tone enough that the shaking slowed.

The doctor listened to the dog’s heart, drew blood, took a fecal sample and performed an examination. When he left the room to run the lab tests, Cash picked up the puppy and held him in his lap until the doctor returned.

“Well?” Cash asked.

“All in all, he’s pretty healthy. No heartworms. Heart sounds good.”

“What about his leg? Why is he limping and holding it off the ground?”

“It’s not broken. I think we’re looking at a ligament strain. He’ll be fine in a few days. While you’re here, we should go ahead and do his vaccinations and license.”

“But I can’t keep him,” Cash protested. “Don’t you know anyone who’s looking for a dog?”

The vet shook his head. “Sorry, no. You can take him to the county pound. He might be adopted from there.”

“And if he isn’t?”

Dr. Brian hesitated.

“They’d kill him, right?”

The vet shrugged. “It’s sad, but we have a huge overpopulation of unwanted cats and dogs. There’s only so many that are adopted or can be cared for.”

Cash pulled the dog closer. “I’m not letting some SOB kill this puppy after all he’s been through. Go ahead and give him all the shots. I’ll find him a good home.”

“Okay. I can do that. Does he have a name?”

Cash looked down at the puppy that was looking up at him with large brown eyes. “Buster.”

By the time Cash and Buster got back into his truck, Buster had a new collar, leash, license, rabies tag, puppy chow, bowls, heartworm medicine, a dog crate and an orthopedic dog bed, and Cash was four-hundred dollars poorer.