Tex Times Ten

“Oh,” Cissy said, taking the box and the rose and trying to ignore the fact that she was slightly mollified. “Thank you. I mean, tell Hannah I said thank you, although not for telling you how to breach the tower,” she said, regaining the stiffness in her voice just to let him know he was not forgiven for breaking in. She allowed her gaze to run swiftly over him, drinking him in though she faked disinterest. “Now, could you get off me?”

Tex stared at her, his eyes dark in the lamplight.

Her heart began pounding. If she didn’t know better, she’d think that was lust burning in his gaze. “Here.” She thrust the cake box at him. “Please put that on my dresser over there.”

The second he got up to do it, Cissy leaped out of the bed and grabbed her robe, tossing it on and tying it tight. “I should scream for security.” She frowned as she put the rose in a silver vase that sat on her dresser.

“Do you ever plan on telling Marvella that you’re married?” Tex asked after a long perusal of her silvery satin bathrobe. “Not that it matters or anything, in the overall scenario, but I wondered if you ever planned on telling anyone the truth, besides Hannah.”

“Whose business is it?” Cissy crossed her arms.

“Well, that’s the funny thing,” Tex said, pushing back his cowboy hat as he stared down at her. “I’ve decided to make it mine, Mrs. Kisserton.”

Chapter Two

“Well, that’s the even funnier thing,” Cissy said, fixing a gaze on Tex that seemed angry and amused all at once. God, he loved a woman with attitude. “I got a phone call today from the chief of police in our small town. My husband was sort of…located.”

Tex’s heart slid south. Maybe he’d quit breathing.

Then he told himself to buck up and focus. What did he care that some loser of Cissy’s was still around? “Yeah? So where’s he been?”

She pursed her lips at him in a thoughtful expression, and he had to admit the expression made him thoughtful, too.

“He’s been in a lake, wearing specially fitted diving gear.”

Tex frowned, and Cissy sighed. “He’d been tossed in with chains. Apparently, he’d been shot first, and then the culprits weighted his body so it wouldn’t be found. And not much of it was, I guess. Nothing identifiable without multiple lab tests, anyway.”

“I’m sorry.” His arms hung at his side, feeling useless as oak trees. “Can I do something for you?”

“Like maybe call before you drop in?” Cissy asked. “I generally prefer to have advance notice from visitors.”

He scratched his neck. “Not to be heavy-handed, but you don’t seem all that broken up about being widowed.”

She stared at him. “Tex, my marriage was unusual. It was a marriage of convenience for both of us. I would be a politically appealing wife, and he’d take care of my three younger siblings and their children, and me, and Gran. But that’s not exactly how it all worked out, obviously, or I wouldn’t have signed a contract with Marvella. When I came to Lonely Hearts Station, I hadn’t seen him in two years.” Her whole demeanor said, That’s my story—I don’t care if you like it or not. “The money is good, and my family eats.”

He couldn’t believe his ears. “Your marriage wasn’t real?”

She raised her brows at him. “As real as anyone else’s. Oh, you’re asking the indelicate question.”

He could feel his neck turn red, but yeah, he was all for asking indelicate questions if she’d answer them. Curiosity and burning hope lay deep in his heart. Maybe she hadn’t loved the guy. Maybe she wasn’t in true mourning, which would require him to give her breathing space, for a long time, to put her marriage and her feelings about her husband—

Whoa, Nelly. He stopped his thoughts with a hard jerk. “No,” he said, his voice hard, “I’m not asking any indelicate questions.”

“Really? Because I could have sworn you were—”

“Well, I wasn’t.” But he had been.

Once Hannah had slipped and mentioned that Cissy was married, he’d had to know why Cissy had made love with him in the barn two months ago, an experience he couldn’t get out of his head. It was so unlike him—and his brothers would be amazed if they suspected. “It’s none of my business. Why would I care?”

They stared at each other, belligerence on both their faces. Then Cissy broke eye contact and went to the box he’d brought, lifting the top so she could see inside. “So, did you slither under the door?”

He didn’t bother to answer. Lamplight from the side table backlit her, and he could make out curves under the robe and gown. Not that he hadn’t seen plenty of Cissy’s curves. Anyone who looked at her got an eyeful. Slippery and graceful under the icy satin, those curves made his throat dry out and his heart jump in his chest. A part of his body south of his heart jumped, too, staying in an arrested position, like a freeze-frame of a basketball player going to the hoop.

She stuck a finger into the icing and put it in her mouth, turning to see why he wasn’t answering her question and immediately guessed his thoughts.

He expected her to flush, but she didn’t. She just acted as if she didn’t care.

Which he found vaguely disappointing.

“Back to slithering,” she said.

“I won’t tell you how I got in, but it wasn’t difficult.” Not nearly as difficult as trying to figure out what it was exactly that he felt for Cissy. Obviously, he hadn’t expected to have the urge to toss her in bed and take her as if there was never going to be a tomorrow.

“Oh, come on. Tell me. If you do, I’ll be sure to double-block that entrance,” she said, her tone wheedling, as if she were offering him something he wanted.

She knew very well he wasn’t going to tell her. “Should I say I’m sorry about your husband?” he asked. “Pretend that I have good manners?”

Her aquamarine eyes settled on him. “Are you sorry?”

“Yeah. I get the feeling you’ve been through enough.”

With a sigh, she tucked a strand of silvery hair behind her ear. “I’m just Miss Kisserton. That’s my maiden name. I didn’t use my husband’s name after I came to work for Marvella. I didn’t want any reminders of what kind of life he was living. According to the police, it was high-dollar drugs and glamorous parties. Parties at which I was often the unsuspecting hostess. Believe me, my skin creeps when I think about my own part in what was going on.” She looked at him sadly. “I should have guessed, but I was so busy concentrating on being the perfect wife and hostess that I didn’t pay attention to what now seems obvious.”

He waited, realizing she wanted to talk.

“I feel very guilty about that,” she murmured. “I wish I’d known. I’d never have married him.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I tell myself that.” She replaced the lid and went to sit on the bed. “But it doesn’t help.”

With her guard down, Cissy looked like a young girl. Innocent, fragile and beautiful. The combination packed a powerful punch.

She looked up at him. “I learned my lesson about rescues. There’s no such thing as a handsome prince.”

“I believe you,” he agreed. “I think there’s no such thing as a handsome princess.”

She laughed at him. “Do you need rescuing?”

“Nah. Occasionally my brothers get on my nerves, but I can handle them.” He tore his gaze away from her, telling himself that it would be easy to put the strange, unexpected feelings he was experiencing back inside their long-forgotten hiding place. “And I wouldn’t like a princessy kind of girl, anyway. I like trashy girls.”

Her eyes rolled. “There are plenty on the premises. I’d be happy to find you one to talk to—”

“No, no,” he said hastily. “It’s after hours and you’re off duty as a hostess. I’d better go.”

She nodded at him. “All right.”

He tipped his hat to her.

“I’m very curious to see how you do this,” she said.

“Do what?”

“Leave. Since I have no idea how you got in.”

“Oh.” He grinned. “Okay.”

He unlocked her door, opened it and left.

She jumped off the bed and jerked the door open, pulling him back inside.

“A simple ‘please stay’ is sufficient,” Tex said.

“You can’t let anyone see you!” Cissy said. Then she paused. “Do you want to? Stay?”

“Do dogs have ears?” he demanded.

She locked the door behind him. “I noticed that you were attracted to me, but I felt that was probably your standard reaction to any female in a bathrobe.”

“Very likely,” he agreed, not missing the chance, while they were close, to smell her. Honeysuckle.

“You don’t smell like a bad girl.”

Her eyes widened. “Strange. You smell like a bad boy.”

“And how is that?”

She sniffed him as they stood against the door. “Leather. Aftershave. A beer or two. And…something I can’t quite name.”

Leaning close, she smelled his neck. Her hair feathered against his collarbone and under his chin, and his erection returned full force.

“Sex?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“Don’t mind if I do,” he replied, sweeping her playfully into his arms.

“No,” she said, pushing against his chest until she freed herself. “I think you smell sexy. Maybe manly is the word I’m searching for.”

“I hope that’s a good thing,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it. “If not, we could take a shower together.”

She wrinkled her nose and pulled her hand away.

“I don’t think so. Something tells me water conservation with you would be detrimental to my health.”

For the moment, he forbore further wisecracking, since he was definitely experiencing resistance from her. He decided not to take it personally, considering they were two birds of a feather, and he felt like resisting her, too. “Okay, if I can’t leave the way I came in, how do you expect me to go?”

“I don’t know.” She watched him as he snagged the cake box and sat on her bed. “What are you doing?”

“Eating your un-wedding cake.” He lifted the lid and pulled out a hunting knife from his jacket pocket.

She gasped. He glanced up.

“Overkill, I know. But would you rather I use my fingers?” He cut a neat slice from the cake.

A second later, she joined him on the bed. “You might as well cut me a piece, too. It doesn’t look as if you’re leaving anytime soon.”

“Oh, I’m leaving, all right. I just need a sugar boost before I jump out your window. I’m not a superhero, you know.”

He felt her stare at him in amazement, and he decided he liked having her attention on him like that.

“Can you jump out a second-story window in your condition?” she asked.

He hesitated in the act of handing her a slice of cake. “What condition? I’m in prime physical shape.”

“Well—” She gestured toward his crotch, which was still distended from their close call by the door. When she’d drawn near to smell him, he’d definitely felt the impact.

“Oh, that,” he said nonchalantly. “Don’t you worry about that. Sugar boost’ll take care of that in a flash.”

“Really?”

“Sure.” He bit into the cake. “Eat your un-wedding cake.”

“What is un-wedding cake, anyway?”

“Well, if you learned today that you’re no longer married, I suppose that’s what this should be. We can be sad if you want to be, though,” he offered hastily.

“Oh, no. Please. I wouldn’t think of it.” She tasted her cake, too. “I’m just glad to know that he was finally found. I wouldn’t have felt right remarrying if I’d never learned what happened to him. I have no idea what the marital expiration date is on husbands who disappear. It could be a decade, for all I know.”

“Hey, this is un-wedding cake. Do not sleep with this under your pillow and try to dream of your future husband. Old wives’ tales don’t really work,” he said sternly.

“I’ll probably never get married again, anyway,” she said, finishing off her cake. “I’ve got too many kids to care for.”

“And that’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said, cutting another piece for himself. “How many children do you have? Because I found a picture of you in Hannah’s room, and I think I counted nine. Nine!” He looked at her, his heart in his throat. “Those weren’t your responsibilities, were they?”

She looked at him for a long time, and he didn’t like the depth of her gaze. It told him all he needed to know, and he didn’t need the lie of a sugar boost to ease the strain in his jeans. His pants started fitting better instantly.

“They’re all mine—nephews and nieces,” she said. “There are ten of us. If one doesn’t count Gran. And then there are my missing three siblings, which, if and when they ever come back into the picture, will make fourteen.”

“You support fourteen people.”

“Well, my brother and sisters are missionaries. They’re gone a lot, and they don’t make much. Gran used to be able to work, but now that she’s older, she gets tired more easily.”

“Taking care of nine kids would tire me out.”

“Yes, but we didn’t expect my family to be gone so long. They left for a weekend to take coats and blankets to a sister church in South America.”

To his dismay, her eyes filled with the first tears he’d ever seen her cry. “Wait, wait,” he said. “Don’t do that. They’ll be back, I’m sure.”

“I’m not so certain anymore.” She got up to wash her hands and dry her eyes at the washstand sink in her room. “We haven’t heard from them in almost three years. The government won’t tell us anything. And needless to say, Gran and I do not have enough money to hire an investigator.”

And then he saw her shoulders shaking. Oh, boy. Putting the cake back into the box, he moved it back to the dresser. “Cissy,” he murmured, going to stand behind her. “You’ve got a great ass.”

“What?”

She turned to stare at him, and he prepared to dodge a slap. “It was all I could think of to make you stop crying,” he admitted. “I don’t have much experience with women’s tears.”

She put her hands on her hips. “I wasn’t crying.”

Now who was fibbing? And yet, he understood covering up. “My brothers say I have an intimacy problem,” he offered.

Her eyes widened. “No man admits to something like that.”

“I didn’t say I had one. That’s what they like to accuse me of. It’s not true.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

He frowned at her. There was a real reason he was there—to deliver the cake as Hannah had requested. And then there was the real-real, albeit inadmissible, reason he was there—to see Cissy. But neither of those reasons could be what Cissy had in mind. “What?”

“Because of your intimacy problem.”

“Why would I come here for that? Just saying I had one, which I don’t.”

“Because this salon is the place men like to come to lose their intimacy problems. And a whole host of other problems.”

His jaw sagged. “You’re suggesting that I—”

“Not suggesting. Asking, cowboy. Asking.”

No. The answer was no.

And yet, he had to admit he was pulled to Cissy in a sort of strange, like-what-I-see-but-can’t-touch it way. It was a sexual paradox of sorts.

Which would play into his brothers’ theory.

“I’ve always espoused the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy of life,” he said.

“And yet you’ve asked plenty of questions about my life. My family.”

“Yeah. That’s when I thought you were my kind of girl.”

She stared at him. “And now you think I’m…?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “I guess you’re a good girl. A good girl with issues, but I definitely see why Hannah likes you.”

“And so that crosses me off your short list.”

“I don’t have a list,” he replied.

“But if I were a wild woman, I’d be on it.”

“Well, that, and if you wore interesting lingerie.

I’m going to develop a fetish for interesting lingerie.”

She sighed. “Tex, I think you have an intimacy problem.”

He sighed, too, and laid back across the bed horizontally. She lay next to him, and they both stared lackadaisically at the ceiling, their legs hanging off the bed. “Not if I have a fetish.”

“You don’t, cowboy. You said you’re going to develop one. Like, maybe when you’re forty? Not that any of this matters, since I’m not your kind of girl or anything.”

“And thank heavens for that,” he said. “I do not want to end up like my brothers. Even though they’re happy,” he said expansively, “that is no reason to emulate them.”

“Back to the raffle,” she reminded him. “I think you should do it.”

“Why?”

“It would prove to your brothers that you don’t have any issues,” she pointed out. “You would also prove it to yourself, because on a subconscious level, you could be in denial.” She beamed at her attempt at psychoanalysis. “And it’s for a good cause.”

They turned their heads to look at each other. It was, Tex realized at that moment, too close for comfort. “You may not be a trashy girl,” he said, “but you didn’t slap me when I said you had a great ass.”

“That’s because I felt sorry for you,” she said softly, staring into his eyes. “I knew there had to be a reason you were trying so hard to be something you weren’t.”

He could practically feel his eyes bug from their sockets. “Now comes the enlightenment. What am I not?”

“A badass cowboy.”

“So you’re figuring I’m a pansy.”

“You’re neither. Just right down the middle. A nice guy.”

Just what he’d always wanted. “Maybe you’re not as smart as you think you are.”

She shrugged, a little icily for his taste, especially since she was lying on her back and shouldn’t have been able to get that much movement into a shrug.

“Okay. Let me ask you something. If I was a trashy girl—your favorite kind—would you have tried to hit on me by now? I mean, you’re holding back for some reason. In fact, you’re almost a hypocrite. You tease about kissing me and having sex and say I’ve got a great behind, and it’s clear you like what you see, but then you treat me like a sister.”

“I don’t have sex on the first date,” he said gruffly.

“You did,” she reminded him. “If meeting me in a barn can be called a date.”

“It can’t,” he argued. “That was a first meeting, and I’d definitely never done that before.” He moved his head back to stare at the ceiling. “There are moral imperatives involved.”

She rolled up on her elbow and looked at him quizzically. “Are you quoting someone?”

“No,” he said, not about to admit that some of his brother Bandera’s philosophical ditherings and their father’s teachings had soaked into his skull. “I’m only trying to illustrate that I’m not a loser or an intimacy-phobe. I don’t have to mate like a gorilla.”

“Now that you’ve decided that I’m not a trashy girl.”

Truly, the woman had superior insight. He couldn’t have had sex with her if he wanted to now. Really. She was no different than Annabelle, Katy or Hannah—and look where those girls had led his unsuspecting brothers! “I don’t have to prove anything to my brothers. Or myself. I’ll do the raffle because charity is a good thing.”

“I see.”

Tex’s brows rose. He heard the snarkiness in her tone. Okay, maybe disbelief was more the word. “All right,” he said. “That’s it. Even a gentleman can only take so much—and I’m not even a gentleman. So I’m way past my limit, lady.”

And then he pinned her beneath him.

Chapter Three

Cissy held her breath as the cowboy on top of her lay still. They stared into each other’s eyes as if they had never seen each other before. Cissy’s heart beat slowly, yet very hard, in her throat. “Well, cowboy,” she said, “as you said, this is it.”

“Now or never.”

“Do or die,” she said, loving the feel of Tex’s weight on her. “Here we are, again.”

And yet he remained frozen.

“I promise I don’t bite on the first real kiss,” she teased.

“I do,” Tex said, touching his lips briefly to hers.

“You taste like un-wedding cake.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“It’s maybe the best cake I ever had,” he said, lowering his head so that he could kiss her, and taste her more deeply. She moaned, arching, wanting to be tighter against him as she ran her hands up over his back.

Before she knew what was happening, he pulled away. Her heart plummeted as he got off the bed. “What happened?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said. Everything.

“Did your escape hatch fly open?” she demanded, sitting up on the bed to glare at him.

Tex didn’t like the sound of that. “Meaning?”

“No man leaps away from a woman like his pants are on fire, when a moment before he was sucking at her lips like a drowning man sucks air. Maybe your intimacy issue returned full force.”

He bit the inside of his jaw. His pants were definitely on fire, but he shifted so she couldn’t notice. “I’m trying to be a gentleman. I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

“Oh, please. You think that if you kiss me and like it too much—maybe even make love to me again—you’ll end up at the altar like your brothers. You don’t want to fall in love. Which is perfect as far as I’m concerned, because I’m the last girl who wants to see a wedding ring.”

There went that unattractive prescient side of her. “I could kiss you all day and not fall in love,” he lied, his pride in full force. “Heck, I could kiss twenty girls and not fall in love! Marriage is not a good way for men to live. All that devotion and fidelity stuff is hard on a guy.”

“Guess you won’t have any trouble with that raffle, after all,” Cissy said.

He didn’t like the gleeful smile on her face. “Sounds like the most fun I’ll have all year.”

“I’ll have to come watch.”

That hadn’t entered his thoughts, and he wasn’t certain he was entirely comfortable with Cissy watching women bid on him. “Uh—”

“I could be a mole bidder and drive up your price,” she offered.

Did he hear revenge in her tone? “A mole bidder?”

“You know, every time someone bids, I outbid them, so that they have to bid again. Of course, I have no intention of buying you.”

Trying to ignore her obvious disinterest in him—where was the jealousy, for heaven’s sake?—Tex puffed out his chest. “How much do you figure I’m worth?”

“Ten, twenty bucks?”

His brows shot to his hairline. “Oh, come on. Be real. I’ve still got all my teeth!”

“Well, that does count for something,” she said reluctantly. “How’s your continence?”

“My what?”

“You know. Your…you know.” She gestured to his jeans.

“Oh, my continence!” he exclaimed. “I can go all night.”

“You don’t say.” Her gaze swept his jeans and then lingered a moment more. “And you’ve got a full head of hair,” she said. “I think you’ll fetch about fifty bucks. I’d bid on you,” she said with a sigh, “but I’m financially embarrassed these days, and Lord only knows I wouldn’t know what to do with you if I won you. I suppose I could put you to work in the rose garden out back. I know how much roses appeal to you, those secretive buds of romance.”

Though he knew she was tweaking him, it was getting on his nerves. He’d just kissed her. Darn it, she should be acting more…more, well, appreciative. And interested. After all, he didn’t go around kissing just any girl. In fact, he hadn’t kissed anybody in a long time. Nobody since her.

Maybe that was his problem. He was out of practice. He was taking it all too seriously. “I need a trashy girl to purchase me,” he said.

“Oh, yes, the only type for you.”

“Well, there’re reasons for that.”

She frowned at him. “Thanks for bringing me the cake, Tex. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go to sleep now. I’ve got to work tomorrow.”

He nodded, noting the distance in her tone. “All right, Cissy. I’ll tell Hannah you’re doing fine.”

“You do that,” she said absently, turning away.

And darn it, she didn’t even seem to notice when he raised the window. Glancing at her, he realized her thoughts were somewhere else. She’d pulled some pictures from a drawer in her nightstand, but he couldn’t see what they were. Caught between bravado and bragging, he decided there was no other way to get her attention back on him.