Chasing Trouble (Texas Trouble) (10 page)

"Yeah?" she said going over her apartment in her mind trying to figure out what she could have missed.

"Yeah, you forgot to say hello to me...properly," he told her then took another step toward her. 

Jenny stepped back and her heart flipped a couple of times in her chest when she figured out he was staring at her lips. Tingles
buzzed over her lips and she licked them trying to get herself under control.  He took another step closer and her breathing got shallower .  One more step and he was right in front of her.  He put his hands on her shoulders then ran them down her arms.  Every hair on her arms stood at attention rooted in the goosebumps that covered them.

"Chase, I--" she s
tarted in a shaky voice, but before she could finish telling him it wasn't a good idea, his mouth covered hers and he walked her to the back of the closet and pushed her against the wall.  Moving his hands to her waist, he pulled her tightly to his body. 

The
kiss was drugging, thrilling and reawakened the intense desire he'd inspired in her the other night.  Those teenaged hormones she'd been trying to control all burst into her bloodstream at once causing all kinds of havoc inside of her.  Without permission, her hands moved to his chest then slid upward to loop around his neck, and she kissed him back hotly.

He pulled back and ran his tongue over the seam of her lips and she opened for him, then his tongue
found hers and lazily reintroduced itself.  Leaning into her, he deepened the heady kiss, and his hands moved lower on her hips.  His solid length pressed against her in the perfect place, and her body wanted nothing more than to feel him there again.

The
kiss went on forever then he pulled back to admit in a hot whisper over her lips, "God, I've missed you.  I've been dreaming of doing that for a week."

His lips moved to her throat and
Jenny sucked in a sharp breath, her nipples hardening as he found her pulse point and licked.  She felt his hands glide up to her ribcage, then his thumb flicked over her nipple and Jenny's knees almost gave out. 

"Chase we shouldn't be doing this..." she told him then pushed against his chest, although what she wanted to do was throw him down on the floor of the closet and have her way with him.  They had to keep it professional
, now.  He was her boss, and not a long term kind of man anyway. 

After Beau, that's the only kind of man she
would be looking for, when and if she ever was looking for one, someone who could commit and was looking for the same thing that she was.

Chase Rhodes might
seem like her idea of a dream man, kind, considerate and too good looking for her peace of mind, but he was far from it.  She couldn't let herself forget he was a mama's boy and a player. 

"This isn't a good idea, we need to keep it at friends," she said on a groan as he kissed her collarbone and licked the indention there.

"I have enough friends, I want you Jenny," he said in a sexy rumble over her skin that she felt all the way to her toes.

"You're my boss..." she reminded him.

"You're not on the clock, sugar."

"I'm not on the clock, but if
we don't stop this and we have conflict over an issue, it could cause problems at work.  I don't want to start my new job out like that."

He pushed back from her and put his hands on her shoulders, "
Didn't the other night show you we have chemistry, darlin'?  I don't give a damn if you work for me or not, it will still be there.  Not exploring it would cause more friction, I promise."

He was probably right, but she was of the opinion that office romances
never
worked out well, and from what she knew of him she didn't want to explore that with him anyway.  All it could bring is heartache in the long run, and maybe unemployment.  "I told you I think it would be better if we just stayed friends, Chase."

"Well, I disagree," he said and his hands tightened on her shoulders.

"You'll agree if you want me to go to Amarillo with you.  I'm serious, Chase." she told him, and peeled his fingers off of her shoulders then stepped around him.

He huffed out a breath behind her and she walked out of the closet
then looked up to see the crew had taken the light bulbs from the bedroom fixture too.  Quickly, she walked out of the bedroom before he tried to move in for round two.  That kiss had knocked her socks off, but she couldn't let him see that, or he'd try again and her resolve would melt quicker than butter in a cast iron skillet.

She saw
Terri talking to Joel in the kitchen and headed that way.  They looked to be arguing.  "Hi guys...I'm ready to go when you are," she said in a voice a lot lighter than she felt and they both turned to look at her.

"
Terri is going to Amarillo with us for the weekend, and riding back with me on Sunday," Joel said.  The look on his face said he wasn't too happy with that development, but Terri was smiling from ear to ear.  Jenny thought her friend must not notice how irritated Joel seemed to be, and how it seemed her riding with him was the last thing he wanted.

"Really?" Jenny said and glanced at her friend.  "I thought you had to eat dinner with your parents tomorrow?"  She knew it was a family mandate that
Terri make an appearance at the weekly family gathering, even though half the time they wound up in an argument before dessert.  Jenny had been invited once or twice.  Once had been enough for Jenny, she had skipped dessert and finished off the table wine instead.

"You need help, they need to have their indigestion without me this week.  My brother called off last week, so I have a chip to call in," she told Jenny with a satisfied smirk.

"Your mama is gonna track you down and drag you back to the dinner table," Jenny said with a snort.

"Not if she can't find me...you think I told her where I was going?"

"I really have it handled, Terri..." Jenny said hoping she'd change her mind.

"Bull, you need me, so suck it up buttercup, I'm going with you whether you want me to or not,"
Terri said with determination in her tone and her hands on her curvy hips.

With a huffed sigh, Jenny nodded then said, "Okay, you can ride in the truck with me then and Chase can ride with Joel." 

That really would work out better for her too.  She wouldn't be stuck in the cab of that truck with Chase Rhode's magnetism for five hours.  Joel's down-turned mouth kicked up to a flat line and Jenny figured that was as close to happy as he was going to get. 

She felt a hand at her waist, then the heat of
Chase's body behind her. "What's this?" he asked, his voice rumbling in her hair near her ear.  The vibration and warmth sent tingles sliding along her neck to her breasts.

Involuntarily,
she leaned her body back against his, looking up at him.  "Terri is coming to Amarillo with us to help unpack."

"No, problem, she can ride with Joel," he said and kissed her hair.  Jenny felt blood heat her cheeks and she glanced at
Terri who had a shit-eating grin plastered on her pretty face.  She noticed Joel's lips had drifted downward again and his shoulders tensed up.

"Fine," Joel said tightly then spun on his heel and headed for the front door.  The man still hadn't removed his sunglasses, so she couldn't tell if he was as pissed off as he sounded.

"Really, Chase, she can ride with--"

His arm snaked around her waist and he pulled her back against him then said firmly near her ear, "No, she's riding with Joel, I'm riding with you to help drive...now get Chloe and let's get going." 

There was no room for argument in his tone, and Jenny didn't feel like belaboring the point anyway.  Joel could deal with his own issues, she had enough on her plate.  She pulled away from Chase then walked across the kitchen and picked up the cat carrier. Chloe was curled up in an unhappy ball at the back.  Her cat hated cat carriers almost as much as she hated men.  Being in one usually meant she was going to the vet, and he was a man.

Once she had Chloe on the floorboard of the moving truck, Jenny hopped up in the passenger seat, because Chase insisted on driving.  He stepped up and sat behind the wheel, then reached forward and twisted the key.  The big engine roared to life and he put the truck in gear.  As they pulled out of the driveway, Jenny looked in her side view mirror and mentally said goodbye to her old life
tamping down the fear that she was making a mistake.

Once they hit the main highway, Jenny looked over at him and said, "Chase you know we really don't need
Terri and Joel's help, why did you insist he come?"

"He needed to get away from
Dallas for a little bit," he said and she saw his hands tighten on the steering wheel.

"He doesn't look like he thinks he needs to get away...he looks
angry."  Jenny told him.

"He's pissed off at the world right now...t
hat's why he needs to get away to get his head screwed on right."

"Why's he so upset?" she asked.

Chase huffed out a breath and his jaw worked a couple of times then he finally said, "He found his partner doing his wife on his desk three weeks ago."

"Oh. My. God." Jenny said in shock.

"Yeah, that's evidently what Karen was yelling while Larry nailed her on Joel's desk.  They thought he was out of town, but he came back early."

"Wow, no wonder he's so upset..." Jenny said with a shake of her head.

"Yeah, he lost his wife and his business partner in one fell swoop...that's a lot to digest," Chase said gruffly.  "He's pretty torn up, so I made him come to Amarillo to get his mind off of everything."

"You're a good brother..." Jenny said and
grudgingly added another credit in the plus column of her estimation of Chase Rhodes.

"I don't want him doing something stupid, and if I didn't do something my mama would skin me," he said with a tight smile then glanced over at her and finished, "Don't mention this to my mother if you see her."
 

Yep, definitely a mama's boy, she thought and that check mark in the plus column disappeared.

"She doesn't know?" Jenny asked.

"No, and Joel doesn't want her to know right now.  She'll get in the middle of things and drive him crazier than he already is...not to mention she'd probably
wind up in jail for killing Karen."

Jenny snorted and folded her arms over her chest and told him, "
His wife would deserve it..."

"No shit, but I'm being serious here...my mother has a temper and is pretty damned good with a shotgun.  She was raised on a ranch."

"Really?  She didn't strike me as a...rugged...sort of woman."

"Don't let the big hair and manicure fool you, sugar.  That woman is lethal when she's pissed off.
  She can go from Lady of the Manor to Texas Farm Girl in three seconds flat."

"So Joel had no idea his wife was cheating on him?  How long had it been going on?" Jenny asked curiously.

"He didn't have a clue...that woman had us all fooled.  I think Karen and Larry were together since right after she and Joel got married five years ago.  He finally dragged that out of Larry after he punched him in the face a few times."

"Oh, Lord..." Jenny gasped.

"Yeah, he didn't take it too well when he walked in on them."

"Wow, what a cold-hearted bitch
..." Jenny was amazed at the woman's audacity.  If Joel was anything like Chase, and she'd bet her last dollar he was, he was a kindhearted soul that thought the best of people.  It had to be devastating to him to find his wife with his partner.

"And
Larry is a bastard...he has been Joel's best friend for fifteen years."

Terri
was riding with Joel, and she hoped that her friend didn't make things worse for Chase's brother with her mouth.  Her best friend loved to talk and was very blunt. 

"We probably should switch and have
Terri ride with me when we stop for gas...she's not the most diplomatic person in the world, and she will talk his ears off," Jenny told him with a chuckle.

"Nah, he'll be fine.  If she talks enough, maybe he'll have something else to think about
other than killing his partner and wife."

"What
? Killing Terri instead?" Jenny laughed.

"
He's really a pretty laid back guy and he's usually funny as crap, but right now he doesn't have much to smile about.  Maybe when his divorce is final in a couple of months, he'll feel better.  I don't know what he's going to do about his business though."

"That has to be rough," Jenny said sympathetically.

"Yeah, divorcing your wife and business partner at the same time can't be a cake walk.  I'm worried about him...maybe I can talk him into moving back to Amarillo."

"I thought he doesn't get along with your dad?"

"He doesn't, but he sure doesn't have a lot of options.  Staying in Dallas alone and starting over alone, or joining another firm doesn't sound like something he should attempt in the throes of heartbreak."