Catching Calhoun (5 page)

But they’d never been told not to come back. Just come back when y’all are more fitting. Jefferson money and Jefferson manpower were usually pretty damn welcome.

Shove off
wasn’t sitting too well in Calhoun’s gut.

He stared at the trailer a few more minutes.

He liked Minnie and Kenny, and truth be told, he hadn’t tried to romance them. They’d romanced
him,
if the story were repeated without bias.

He didn’t figure Barley cared too much for anyone’s bias but his own.

Calhoun slowly smiled, years of Jefferson determination and grit flowing through him.
Shove off
was practically an engraved invitation:
Romance my daughter, please. RSVP in the affirmative.

I’m beggin’ ya.

Olivia had heard every word of the conversation between Last and Calhoun. It scared her. If anything could have shown her that she was in the company of a rogue, Calhoun’s brother showing up was just the thing to splash cold water on her newborn daydreams. Calhoun would not be a good thing for her nor for her children, and as she sat on the bed watching Minnie and Kenny sleep, Olivia knew she couldn’t see him anymore.

No matter how wonderful a kisser he was. Even if he opened up a vista of longing she’d never experienced before. Simply put, Calhoun was a nightmare, not a dream man.

Kenny stirred, his little hand touching the painted mark on his face. Her kids were drawn to men, to the cowboys they knew from growing up in the rodeo circuit. They were innocent, much like Mimi had been running around without her shirt on, bathing in the swimming hole with the Jefferson boys. She’d been
the mischief queen of her merry band of misfits because it was all she’d ever known.

Growing up in the company of men was harmless now, Olivia decided, seeing the parallel between Mimi’s experience and that of her own children. But later, it might not be harmless. They would end up like Olivia, abandoned by the men they’d trusted without the useful and supportive role of female friends in their lives. You couldn’t understand a woman’s world unless you’d been around other women. Mothers, sisters, aunts, friends.

Olivia’s eyes widened. She made a decision.

A woman who didn’t like to be intimate could never expect to keep a man, especially not a macho man like Calhoun. The feeling of scratchy faces, bungling hands and sometimes smelly bodies just wasn’t Olivia’s cup of tea. Oh, the other gals in the rodeo ran after cowboys like they were sweet icing on a cake—but what did they know? They wanted a man.

She didn’t. She’d had one. And though her family had come to her at great cost, they were more than she’d ever expected out of life. Though her father adored the trophies they won and the show business career, Olivia knew that was all glitter and glue. Her
kids
were her dreams realized.

A tapping on her window surprised her. Leaning over Minnie and Kenny, she opened the motor home window. “What are you doing?” she demanded of Calhoun.

“Hoping you’ll give me a chance to explain.”

“Explain what?”

Calhoun grimaced. “About my brother.”

“You don’t owe me an explanation.”

“I do if I ever want to see you again,” he said. “I can tell you got spooked.”

She stared at him through the screen. “Why would you ever want to see me again? Not that we’re seeing each other.”

“Of course we’re not,” Calhoun said, “not through that damn screen anyway. Come out.”

“I will not.”

“Olivia, we’re going to wake the children.”

“No, we’re not, because this conversation is over.” She started to close the window.

“Don’t go,” he said, and she hesitated. “I swear you should ease up on me. I’m not the bad man you think I am.”

Well, he wasn’t a bad man, per se, except maybe for her. Her heart gleefully outwitted the lasso trying to constrain it. “You’re not a bad man. But you’re probably not a good man, either.”

“Well, women don’t like good men. Good men finish last, I always say,” Calhoun said. “Although there are varying degrees of good and bad. You want a man with a little toughness to him, or else you might as well be living with a woman.”

“Precisely what I was thinking,” Olivia said. “I should be learning about life from women.”

Calhoun blinked. “You liked kissing me, Olivia. I know you’re afraid of me, but I am not that scary.
Come out here and let me kiss you again, and I’ll prove it.”

She shook her head. “That’s not what I need. I might look Marvella up. I might quit the rodeo and stay here. Maybe it’s time for our act to come to an end.”

Calhoun drew closer to the screen. “Marvella is not the woman you want to bond with.”

“My father liked her well enough,” Olivia said.

“Well, your father isn’t…never mind,” Calhoun said. “If you come out, I’ll teach you about the stars.”

She was oh so tempted.

“And if you don’t want to learn about the stars, I can teach you about something else. Anything your heart desires to know,” he said, his voice husky.

“Go, Momma,” Minnie said, her eyes open wide and looking up at her.

“Shh,” Olivia said. “Go back to sleep, angel.”

“I can’t. You woke me up with all that whispering. Adults never realize that a child’s ears listen for whispers. We wouldn’t listen if you were talking in normal voices, but when you and Grandpa are whispering, me and Kenny know we better be paying attention.”

Olivia smiled at her daughter. “You can be an angel, but you have your rascal side, too.”

Minnie rolled over, closed her eyes and tucked her hands under her chin. “I come by it honestly, Grandpa says. Go see Calhoun, Momma. He’s not the three-headed rattler you told us the bounty bull was. He’s not mean.”

“True.” Olivia shook her head. She had an example to set for her children, and whispering through a window to a cowboy wasn’t the one she should be setting. “Good night, Calhoun,” she said, closing the window.

She tried not to notice his disappointment.

“Momma,” Minnie said ruefully, rolling back over to look at her. “Why don’t you like him?”

“Oh, sweetie.” Olivia brushed her daughter’s long hair away from her face. “Did you brush your hair today?”

“If I answer honestly, will you answer honestly?” Minnie asked.

Olivia laughed, kissed her daughter’s forehead and rose from the bed. “No. Now good night.”

Minnie rolled back and closed her eyes. “Good night, Momma.”

Olivia turned on the small night-light, overrode the urge to peek out and see if Calhoun was still hanging around and then told herself it didn’t matter.

He’d convinced her that now was not the time for her to dream of settling in one place. Especially not within reach of his easy appeal. Calhoun and his painted women.

Everything inside her was telling her to run this time.

C
ALHOUN STRODE AWAY
from the motor home, wishing Last was around so he could kick him. Everything had been going along just fine, until his
boneheaded brother showed up! All Olivia had needed was an excuse to steer clear of him, and crazy-looking, stubborn Last had given her excuses aplenty.

He might never get his lips locked to hers again. Calhoun found that a depressing thought.

His cell phone rang. “Hello?” he asked.

“Hey,” Archer said. “Last been your way?”

“Yeah,” Calhoun said. “The big plan spoiler.”

“What?”

“Never mind. What’s up?” Calhoun asked, resigned to the occasional hell that his brothers could be.

“Tell Last to get his ass home,” Archer said. “Mason’s in full froth that he just up and left like that.”

“No can do. Boy Wonder is long gone on his Wonderbike.”

“Meaning?”

“He rode out of town on an expensive motorcycle. Was wearing boots that cost a buck’s antlers, and he’s slipped back into goth mode. Attack of Mohawk Man. Earring, too. If I was a betting man, I’d be betting a tattoo parlor was his next stop. But he says he’s not drinking, so I’m trying to be grateful for something.”

Silence met his words.

“Okay,” Archer finally said. “Did he give you a timetable for his return?”

“Nope. Said he had to get away from his life, or some drama like that.”

“Damn it! Mason’s gonna crap.”

Calhoun nodded in sympathy as he ambled into a bar, claiming a bar stool for his own. The bar keeper came over and Calhoun pointed to the hanging sign advertising a beer. A second later, a beer sat in front of him: yellow genie in a bottle. “If only it were so easy,” he murmured.

“What?” Archer asked.

“Never mind.” He took a huge swig. “So, tell Mason he’s gonna be shorthanded awhile, I guess.”

“When are you coming back? Did you ride the bull?”

“Ride would be too optimistic a verb,” Calhoun said. “I would choose
cling.
Did I cling, you ask? No, I clung perhaps three seconds, and then lost my pride somewhere south of Bloodthirsty’s hooves. However, two sweet children saw my shame and came to cheer me up.”

“Last thing I’d want around is rug rats after I’d been thrown,” Archer said dryly. “So, are you coming back?”

“Not tonight. I’m nursing my pride. Because not only did I get thrown, but I got thrown, if you get my drift. Right off my game.”

“Ah. Woman-quest. Good for you. I was worried about you when you said sweet children had comforted you in your moment of shame. Glad to know you’re at least allowing women to speak to you. You’ve been very prickly about the female species lately. We were all starting to wonder.”

“She’s the mother of the two children I mentioned,” Calhoun said on a growl.

“Oh,” Archer said. “Good play.”

“I did not play them. They played me.” Calhoun was getting very ruffled with his brother, and even the yellow genie in a bottle wasn’t helping him relax.

“How’s the art? Still full breasted?”

Calhoun blinked. Olivia wasn’t what he’d call full breasted. Breasts weren’t what made a woman beautiful anyway, but he didn’t expect his brothers to understand his particular appreciation of the female form. When he transferred his visions to canvas, they merely saw breasts. Which was strange, considering the women were completely naked, he mused. Of course, maybe the breasts he painted drew the eye more since he spent so much time laboring over them.

God, he loved breasts, and he had a pretty good notion Olivia’s would suit his artistic desires very well, though a man would have a devil of a time getting that woman’s bra off. He had a better shot at putting a bra on Bloodthirsty. He frowned. How in the hell would he get Olivia’s bra off? An erection grew inside his jeans and he shifted, feeling ornery.

“I might never see the one pair of nipples I believe I was destined to view,” he muttered.

“Hello?” Archer said. “Are we having the same conversation? Because I’m pretty certain I wasn’t participating. Although if we’re talking real life and not still life, I might want to get in on it.”

“You couldn’t handle this crew, trust me.”

Archer laughed. “All right. Listen, you’re going to have to cut your quest short. Mason’s mood is
worse than ever, and when I tell him Last has hit the trail, he’s really going to flip. I don’t want to be the one to give him the worst news. You’re going to have to be here for the family caucus.”

Calhoun frowned. “The caucus to tell him that Last has pulled a ‘Mason’ and run off? I think Mason should recognize that his own reaction to disenfranchisement was the same as Last’s and suck it up. That is to say, he hit the trail first, wearing his tail tight between his back legs. Last’s just following family tradition. And God, we have a lot of family tradition.”

“No,” Archer said. “I meant the caucus to tell him that Mimi’s selling her ranch.”

“What?”
Calhoun sat up straight, tightening his grip on the beer bottle.

“That’s right. Selling out. Gettin’ out while the gettin’s good. Or as good as it’s gonna get anyway.”

“Why?” Life as they’d known it and revered it seemed to suddenly be grinding to a halt. Maybe it had been skidding for a long time, and they’d all simply ignored it, hoping the skid would stop.

“The short answer is, she can’t take care of her property and her sick dad and her baby. Even with the housekeeper helping out. Long answer? That’s a mighty big place for one little lady to manage, and if any of us thought Mimi’s soon-to-be ex-husband was going to be a ranch man, we were destined to be disappointed. He’s a city-slick lawyer, not a cowboy. Not that I’m criticizing…”

“But you are criticizing,” Calhoun said. “Because Brian never did come home to Mimi.”

“I’m merely saying their marriage arrangement didn’t include him living here. And obviously, it didn’t include her living in Austin or Houston.” He sighed. “The final nail was probably Mason’s long trip since he’d been doing most of the work over there after the sheriff took sick. But Mason was gone too long, and Mimi got overwhelmed, I guess. She’s decided to tell everybody in town officially that her father can’t resume his duties, and she’s taking them over. She figures she can do a better job of sheriffing and everything else she’s got to manage from town.”

“Yeah, I’m hearing that,” Calhoun said slowly, “but it sure is hard to swallow.” He felt terribly guilty. Sure, they’d all tried to pick up a little slack at Mimi’s place, but with the brothers marrying one by one and heading off with their new brides, Mason’s absence and Last’s paternity lawsuit, they’d been shorthanded.

He ground his teeth. “I should pack up and come home tonight.”

“Well, normally I would say hell, yeah. But it’s been a long time since I’ve heard you mention a flesh-and-blood woman, Calhoun. And you ain’t talking about painting her, either.”

“I painted her kids’ faces,” Calhoun said gruffly. “I’d like to do a portrait of them. They’re pretty cute for rodeo brats.”

“And so,” Archer said, “maybe you should ease out of there slowly tomorrow. No point in running home. I’m in no hurry to face Mason with Mimi’s news.”

“Don’t suppose she’d tell him herself.”

“Even if she did, she’d still want us around for moral support. You know, something’s not quite right with our Mimi.”

Calhoun swigged from his bottle and waved for another, though at this point, he knew the yellow genie of relaxation was not going to have her way with his tension tonight. “Do you have anything more on that hunch?”

“No. It’s just feels like something’s not right.”

“You felt this while she was unburdening her plans to you?”

“Yeah. It was the strangest thing,” Archer said. “I could tell she really didn’t want to talk to Mason. You don’t think she’s mad at him for being gone so long, do you?”

Who knew what went on in a woman’s brain? They had emotions all over them, even etched into their eyelids, so delicate that a man could pierce their feelings without even meaning to. Calhoun closed his eyes, thinking about Olivia. Olivia was one big emotion. Not in a bad way, of course. But he could tell he’d have to tread carefully with her for a long time, if he had a long time—which he didn’t—and if he was of a mind to romance her.