Vegas Two-Step (18 page)

The book was very subtle. Very Jack.

Made her think about Bubba and his fishing analogy. Definite nibbles.

Time to find out exactly why the hell Jack had come to Oak Stand, Texas. She just wasn’t sure if she needed a knife to cut bait or a net.

Jack grinned, sweat pouring down his face. Damn, but it felt good to work. He hadn’t done so much manual labor since…well, honestly, he didn’t think he’d ever done as much work as he had today. At first, he thought the job would be easy—hell, the barn looked like a good wind could bring it down. But those big beams supporting the rotten timber were a bitch to topple. Last one and the tractor had pushed it down steadily till it fell with an earsplitting crash.

The tractor’s engine died with a belch and a fart.

“’Scuse me,” Bubba said, hopping down. Jack swore he could feel the ground vibrate as the man landed. It was as if another beam had fallen. He and Bubba grabbed the chains lying by the metal gate and latched them to the chain encircling the beam. They’d learned the hard way to place the chain around the beam before they pulled it down. Each beam weighed over 700 pounds. Jack took the other end of the chain and hooked it to the tractor.

Bubba strolled over to the ice chest and brought out a cold beer, popped the tab and took four big gulps. He tossed Jack one of the icy cans.

Man, nothing tasted better than an ice-cold beer after a long day’s work. Of course the day wasn’t over. They still needed to maneuver the last beam over to the pile. He would salvage them for the new barn being raised on the other side of the house. Plus, debris needed to be hauled away.

“With the burn ban in effect, we can’t burn none of this. Gonna have to haul it over to Linden. I got some fellows that can help us out. They’ll work for pretty cheap.”

Jack wiped the sweat dripping in his eyes. His shirt was sopping wet, so he peeled it off and dropped it over the scrawny bush beside the metal corral. “Good. I appreciate your finding some folks for me.”

Bubba nodded. “I’m gonna haul this last beam over to the new site. We need to get started by next Monday.”

Jack nodded and Bubba clambered up the side of the tractor. Jack took another swig of his beer.

“Uh-oh. Here comes Nellie.” Bubba pointed toward a cloud of dust coming up the driveway.

Jack blinked against the setting sun. Sure enough, an ugly silver car bumped up the driveway.

“You’re on your own, bud.” Bubba cranked the old tractor. It burbled and coughed, and finally started crawling. The time-scarred beam bounced behind it.

Nellie.

Well, he’d gotten a reaction. Wonder what she thought about her panties flying over great-granddaddy’s statue? Or the book he’d left her? He knew she’d be unhappy about the thong, but what about the book? He’d find out. No more pleasantries or polite little smiles. It was time to get it on. But not in the way he wanted.

He didn’t bother with his shirt. He was a man who knew how to choose his weapons. Instead he grabbed another beer, popped the top off and waited. Liquid fortification.

He didn’t have to wait long.

Nellie came along the path like an eagle swooping down on a defenseless mouse—direct and with purpose. As best he could tell, she carried the thong, balled up in her hand. Perspiration glistened on her forehead. She skidded to a halt in front of him and launched the scrap of lace his way.

The thong hit him square in the chest and stuck there.

Jack peeled the flimsy fabric off his sweaty chest and dangled it between two fingers. “Guess you got your thong. Sorry it took me so long to get it back to you.”

Jack waited. Damn him. He knew what he was doing to her. She tried to remember what he’d just said. Oh, yeah. The thong. He still held it aloft, looking even naughtier with the wisp of lingerie in his hand.

He cocked his head. “You didn’t want this back?”

She forgot all about how sexy he was. What a smart-ass! “Okay, time to talk. What are you doing here, Jack?”

He tucked the thong into his back pocket and dropped his foot from the rail. “Well, now let’s see. We just knocked this barn down. We’re going to move it—”

“You know damned well I don’t mean out here,” Nellie interrupted, waving one hand around the nearly barren site. “I mean in Oak Stand. Are you playing games with me?”

His aw-shucks smile disappeared. His eyes darkened. “No games, Nellie.”

She propped her hands on her hips. “You invade my town without asking, sit in my pew, run my underwear up the town flagpole and don’t call it ‘playing games’?”

He took a step toward her. “Just wanted to see if the passionate woman I met in Vegas is still under that stiff exterior you’ve built around yourself here. Since you’re here and pissed, I’d say she is.”

She shot him her best go-to-hell look. “Really? And I thought I was just another notch on your bedpost.”

A shutter closed in his eyes, but not before she saw the glimmer of pain.

“Oh, so you’ve figured it all out, have you? Figured me all out too, huh?” he said, a little too flippantly.

“Go back to Vegas and stop playing cowboy.”

His eyes flickered. Was it hurt? She wasn’t sure. The man was probably a crackerjack poker player. He didn’t give much away. “I’m not playing cowboy. I’m building a horse farm, little Miss Tight-Assed Librarian. I’d already been looking in Texas
before
you dumped your drink in my lap. This was happening
before
you tore apart my life with your lies.”

“Tore apart your life? With lies? You must be joking. Everything in Vegas was a lie.”

Jack stared hard. “So that’s what you think?”

Nellie hesitated. She knew what she’d felt when they were together—the actual friendship and the incredible sex were as real as her grandmother’s three-carat diamond ring. “I don’t know what to think.”

They stared at each other.

“Jack, everything I thought about myself…I mean, ugh…I don’t even know what I mean.” She fell silent. She’d never been good in an argument, always thought about what she should have said three days later.

Jack folded his arms. “I’m angry with you, Nellie. You made me hope, made me believe true love was possible. Then you just threw it away. Tossed it out like last week’s garbage. And when I came here, you ignored me.”

“I didn’t ask you to come,” she said. “And I didn’t throw anything away. What we had wasn’t real. You said so yourself. Remember? The first time you saw me, you barely spared me a glance.”

He shook his head, a wry smile touching his lips. “Lady, the real Elle—Elle Macpherson—could have sat down naked in my lap in that airport, and I would have shoved her off to watch a tied game in the ninth.”

He acted like that explained everything. “That’s not true,” said Nellie.

His eyes glittered. “Don’t call me a liar.”

She crossed her arms. “You’re trying to justify the fact you didn’t think I was ‘the one’ the actual first time you saw me. Don’t you think finding your soul mate is more important than a stupid baseball game?”

He lifted one brow but said nothing.

“I felt it.”

“Felt what?” Jack asked.

“Felt that feeling. The first time you touched me. In the airport. It was like sparks shooting up my arm, making my heart feel funny. I couldn’t believe you didn’t feel it too.” She shook her head. God, how stupid that sounded now. Why had she told him?

His eyes softened. “I’m sorry. I honestly don’t remember touching you. My pants were wet, the Cardinals were at bat, and I had an assload of problems on my plate. I wasn’t looking for anything but a base hit from Pujols.”

She rolled her eyes. “But if I had walked into Agave Blue looking like I had in the airport, would you have noticed me?”

He shrugged. “That’s a question I can’t really answer. Why ask it?”

“Because it’s at the heart of the matter.” Nellie couldn’t stop the pain from ripping through her at his words, yet she knew them to be true. Neither of them would ever know the answer to that question.

“I don’t think it’s the heart of the matter. I think my not being interested in you before you had the makeover thing gives you an out, a way to avoid the prospect of a relationship. What are you so scared of?” He let the words fall like books tumbling from a desk, each one smacking her with its own truth.

“Scared? I’m not scared. I’m confused.”

“Yeah, you are. You’re running from me just as hard as you ran that night in Vegas. You’re not fighting. Is what we have just not worth it to you?”

That really slammed into her. He thought she didn’t think him worth fighting for? How had he suddenly turned the tables on her? Why did she now feel everything was her fault?

“Wait a minute. What is ‘it’? Do you even know? Are you talking about love? Or sex? You can’t accuse me of something when I don’t know what you are accusing me of.”

Jack stared off in the distance, his eyes seemingly measuring the horizon. His jaw tightened. “I’m talking about love.”

“Oh, God, Jack. How could that be love—
this
be love—when you don’t even know who I am?” Her heart was breaking into itty-bitty pieces. He couldn’t love someone who wasn’t even a person, who was just a piece of a person. And his words—oh, how she craved them, but they were false. Just like the night of the party. Illusion.

“You are so wrong. I know who you are, Nellie.” Jack smiled. It was a tender smile, one that reached inside her and twisted her heart. “I see straight inside you. Even at the airport, I could tell who you were. I could see the warm woman, the unsure way you moved, the sweetness in your eyes.”

His words trailed off, but his eyes caressed her. Silence yawned between them. She turned away and drew circles in the sand with the toe of her sandal.

“I know who you are,” he said, his voice smooth as river stones. “The problem is you don’t know who you are.”

Nellie felt as if he’d slapped her. Of course she knew who she was; she’d been in this body for thirty years come August twelfth.

“I know who I am,” she sputtered.

He moved forward. She tilted her head back and looked into his eyes. She could see none of the former irritation. Quiet acceptance had taken its place. “Baby, I came here because I believe what we had in Vegas is real. I believe you walked into Agave Blue for a reason, and that reason is me.”

He placed his hands on her shoulders. Nellie could feel moisture gathering in her eyes. “But, Nell, you’ve got to decide who you are and what you really want. I believe inside that luscious body there are two people—sweet, small-town librarian and hot, loving seductress. Baby, those two just need to meet and get to know one another.”

She couldn’t stop the tears. They slid down her cheeks. He wiped them away.

“I’m here to stay, Nellie, but just like that night we met in Vegas, I’m not going to push you to do something you don’t want to do. Where we go from here is up to you.”

“That’s not fair,” Nellie moaned, stepping back and wiping her cheeks. “You turned the tables. Made this my fault. My problem.”

“No, I didn’t.” Jack shook his head, a bemused smile on his face. “I know where I stand. You gotta find out where you stand.”

He leaned forward and brushed a soft kiss on her lips, so light and tender it made her heart hurt.

“I got to get back to work.” Jack yanked his shirt from the bush and pulled it over his head. An ancient-looking USC cap followed. She stood watching, not believing he was ending the conversation, leaving everything up to her.

He headed past her toward the other side of the house. Just before he disappeared over the hill, he turned and patted his back pocket. “Oh, and, Nellie, if you change your mind about the thong, just give me a call. I’m as good at puttin’ them on as I am at takin’ ’em off.”

He threw her a typical Jack Darby devilish grin then strolled out of sight, leaving her standing in front of a huge pile of rotted timber and a couple of rusted-out animal pens. She felt a bit confused. More than slightly dazed.

Not know who she was?

The hell she didn’t.

She stomped up the embankment, trampling the scraggly dry grass, ready to tell Jack just exactly who she was. But then she stopped. Maybe he was right. Maybe she was threatened by his being in Oak Stand, because when she was with Jack she was different. It had been easy to let her “Elle” side free in Vegas. But not here in the town her great-great-grandfather had built.

Was she afraid of that part of herself?

The thought made her knees weak.

“Hey, Nellie, want some tea?” Dawn stood on the front porch holding a glass.

She really just wanted to get in the old Buick and leave. Crazy mixed-up was how she felt, and making small talk with Jack’s sister over a glass of iced tea wasn’t exactly what she needed right now.

Her shoulders sagged. “Yeah, that sounds nice.” She couldn’t help good breeding—things like that never wore off. Plus she’d been rude yesterday at the church. No sense in not rectifying that.

She strolled up the cracked walk and took the frosty glass from Dawn.

And then broke into tears.

“Aw, no. What’s wrong?” Dawn grabbed her arm and pulled her the rest of the way up the creaky stairs. Two Texas Longhorn camping chairs sat on the newly scraped porch. Dawn shoved her into one.

“N-n-nothing,” said Nellie when she could manage. “He said…he said…oh, nothing.”

Nellie couldn’t vocalize just why she was sobbing. Maybe because Jack was right. Or maybe because she was in love. Or maybe because it simply felt good to let it out.

Dawn didn’t say a thing. She sank down into the adjoining chair, scooped up her own tumbler of tea and let Nellie cry.

Finally Nellie subsided into sniffles with an occasional hiccup. She wiped her eyes with the hem of her shirt, not even caring it was the first time she’d worn it, or that the price tag she’d cut off had read $120.00.

“Sometimes there’s nothing like a good cry, huh?” Dawn murmured. “If I don’t do it at least once a month, I break a good piece of china or run someone off the road. It’s like required.”

Nellie managed a laugh. “Yeah, but it sucks when you do it in front of your boyfriend’s sister. Well, except he’s not even my boyfriend. Uh, so stupid.”

“Yep, and being around men makes you stupider.”

Nellie nodded and stared out at the darkening shadows on the lawn. The Bermuda grass showed signs of dying. Huge oak trees lined the driveway to the house, their gnarled branches at once grotesque and elegant. The azalea bushes needed water and the flower beds were so choked with weeds it was hard to tell flower from dandelion. The old Henderson place needed plenty of work.

“You know, when I was little, I hated Jack,” Dawn said, setting her tea in the cup holder of the chair. “He was so stinkin’ cute. Little cherub lips, dark curly hair and those incredible lashes around those baby blues. Everyone thought he was the cutest thing they’d ever seen.” Dawn gave a depreciating laugh. “And I was the opposite.”

Nellie shot her a puzzled look. Where was she going with this?

“I was eleven. You know, braces, those little bumps before breasts, not to mention about thirty pounds overweight. I was plain miserable. So I took it out on cute Jack.”

“Why?” asked Nellie.

“’Cause he got all the attention. All the oohs and aahs. I hated it. Made me feel like crap, so I would pinch him, torment him, push him down when Mom wasn’t looking.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, I’m not proud of it or anything.” She laughed. “Anyway, one day, Jack was out on his trike. We lived on a dairy, you know.”

“You grew up on a dairy? Jack grew up on a dairy?”

Dawn looked startled. “Yeah, a real dairy with cows and everything.”

“Hmm.” Jack milking cows? There had been nothing about rural life in his Vegas bio. Nellie couldn’t imagine using “cow” and “Jack” in the same sentence.

“So, anyway, it had been raining and Jack was racing up and down the driveway on his trike. I’ll never forget it. He was wearing these red boots, probably pretending to be a fireman or something, and mud flew up and splattered his legs and arms. Mom and Dad had left us with Frannie—she helped Mom out. She never really watched us very well, so I could pretty much do what I wanted. Cheryl, our other sister, was always reading. Even at seven, she was a big ol’ nerd. I was bored, so I decided that I would crank up the old tractor and drive it around.”

Nellie could almost see where this was heading but was too enthralled to stop her.

“That old tractor was stubborn as a mule, and I had no business driving it. But I thought I was big enough. I cranked Bertie—that’s what my dad called the tractor—and started windmilling around the property. I remember pretending I was in a convertible going over to meet my boyfriend. Well, I came around the corner, and there was Jack. I didn’t see him until Bertie was on him.”