Cowboy Take Me Away (18 page)

“Will you
stop
?” she said.

“Do you always have to be doing something? How about just relaxing once in a while?”

“Not when I have things to do.”

“You always think you have things to do. I bet you can’t be still for five minutes.”

“Of course I can.”

“Five minutes. I’m timing you.” He grabbed his phone.

“That’s dumb.”

“If you get up, I’m dragging you right back down again, and the clock starts over.”

He fiddled with an app on his phone, then set it down on the coffee table. Shannon glanced over to see it counting down the seconds.

“This is dumb,” she said.

“You’ve been warned.” He turned off the television.

“What about your baseball game?” Shannon asked.

“I won’t miss much in five minutes.”

Then he reached up and flipped the three-way switch on the lamp until it was at its lowest setting. Without the flickering light from the TV, fifty watts barely lit the room.

“Okay,” Shannon said. “I see where this is going.”

“Going?”

“Oh, come on, Luke! How dumb do you think I am?”

“Shannon, if I wanted to seduce you, you’d be half naked by now.”

“Well, you’re full of yourself, aren’t you?”

“Just relax, will you?”

He settled back on the sofa and continued to stare at her. Her antennae went up, looking for the slightest hint of manipulation, for an ulterior motive hiding behind those devious
I’m only thinking of you
messages. As the seconds ticked away, she tapped her fingertips impatiently on her knee. Luke put his hand on top of hers to still it. She pulled away and folded her arms.

“You need to lighten up about the animal adoptions,” he said.

“I already said you were right about Tasha and Ginger.”

“I’m talking about all of them. You’re never going to find them perfect homes. Pretty good homes are better than none at all.”

A twinge of annoyance bubbled up inside her, but something about the quiet of the room and the softness of his voice calmed the irritation she felt. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling tension slip away. Slowly she unfolded her arms and let her hands rest on her thighs. Next to the fireplace, Goliath had stretched out on his blanket, his chin on his paws, the dim light melting his brindle coat into a deep copper.

Luke said nothing. He just sat there watching at her. He was like an armchair hypnotist, coaxing her into the depths of relaxation whether she intended to be there or not. And with it came a dose of self-realization she hadn’t expected.

“I’m sorry I got so angry about Tasha and Ginger,” she murmured.

She waited for Luke to respond, but he was silent.

“It’s just that some of the animals have had such a hard time of it. I just can’t stand the thought of sending any of them into a bad situation all over again.”

“I understand that,” Luke said. “But you have to think of yourself, too. You can’t let the shelter make you crazy. That’s not good for you, and it’s not good for the animals, either.”

“It’s just that there’s so much to do. Always. It never ends.”

“I’m here to help you,” he said quietly. “But you have to let me.”

“I thought you were just here to put in your time and then hit the road.”

“Yeah. About that.” He lifted his elbow, resting it on the back of the sofa as he turned to face her. “Turns out maybe I’d like to do a little more.”

He spoke with total sincerity. Nothing more should have passed through her mind than that. But lately even the most benign comment from Luke sounded sexy to her. Whenever she was around him, some raw, earthy thing beat on her from the inside, demanding to be released. It felt exciting and dangerous all at the same time, like the intoxicating rush of driving a hundred miles an hour. And the way he was looking at her now…there was no denying it. It
was
sexy. Her mind started humming with erotic thoughts, and soon she was about as far from relaxed as she could possibly get.

All at once Luke’s phone alarm went off. Shannon jerked with surprise, as if she’d been awakened from a dream. Luke silenced it. When he looked back, self-consciousness overtook her. She rose from the sofa.

“Five minutes is up,” she said, scooping up the remote and handing it to him. “Watch the rest of your game.” But before she could get up, Luke grabbed her by the arm.

“Why don’t you relax a little longer?” he said, tossing the remote aside.

“I told you I have things to do.”

“So do I.” His grip on her arm softened, and he stroked his thumb over it. “But what I’d like to do we can do together.”

Shannon swallowed hard. “You said you weren’t out to seduce me.”

“I lied.”

“You lied about wanting a TV, too. Do you do that a lot?”

“Only when the truth doesn’t get me what I want.”

“No. We’re not going there.”

“Like I told you before,” Luke said, “this doesn’t have to be a big deal. We can keep things real casual, and everything will work out just fine.”

At least he was being truthful about that. He wanted no-strings-attached sex. But the feelings she was starting to have for him scared the hell out of her for exactly that reason. Because there
was
no future.

“I’m not into casual sex,” she said.

“Then why are you breathing faster?”

“I’m not.”

“And your pupils are the size of quarters.” He trailed his fingertips along her arm. “And would you look at these goose bumps?”

She yanked her arm away. “Will you
stop
?”

“Shannon? When’s the last time you did something just because it feels good?”

Never. Or if she had, she didn’t remember it. And if he thought she was any other way, he clearly didn’t know her very well.

“I’ll tell you what would feel good,” she said, rising from the sofa. “For you to watch your ball game and me to do something else.”

Anything else. Anything that put her somewhere Luke wasn’t so she could catch her breath. Walking the opposite way around the coffee table to keep him from reaching out for her again, she went into the kitchen, feeling a rush of heat from head to toe. She turned a circle, looking for something to do, anything to release the pent-up energy she suddenly felt. Finally she zeroed in on her dishwasher. She opened the door and started pulling out clean dishes. She put them away with soft clinks and clatters, only to realize she heard nothing from the living room. No blaring baseball announcer. No too-loud commercial.

She stopped. Listened.

Nothing.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Luke standing at the kitchen door. Judging from the look on his face, he wasn’t through with her yet. She drew in a silent breath of resolve, but temptation washed over her like a tidal wave.

She turned back around and stuck a few bowls into an upper cabinet, then reached back into the dishwasher, her heart beating wildly. “There’s beer in the fridge if you want it,” she said. “Maybe Bud, maybe Miller. I’m not sure. I know you said you like dark beer, but…”

His stocking feet made no noise on the tile floor, but she sensed him moving up behind her. It was as if the air between them compressed with every step he took. Staring straight ahead, she held a coffee cup in one hand and a plate in the other, but suddenly her brain wouldn’t tell her what to do with them.

Luke reached around her, one hand on each side, and took the dishes. He set them down carefully. Then he placed his hands on the counter, one beside each of her hips, trapping her there, the front of his body pressing lightly against the back of hers. Her blood coursed wildly through her veins, echoed inside her ears, making her shiver with the kind of sexual awareness that lit her on fire.

“Luke…”

She meant to say
don’t you dare, think again, I told you no already
, but then he touched his lips to her neck in a gentle kiss. Did he remember how he’d once kissed her in precisely that spot? Was that why he was doing it again?

When memories came flooding back of that one night they’d been together, any objections she might have had went right out the window. He caressed her thigh with one hand, moving the other one to her abdomen, splaying his fingers and pulling her back against him as his lips brushed her ear. When she felt how hard he was already, every nerve in her body pulsed with excitement.

Then he slid his other hand beneath her shirt. He found the front clasp of her bra and flicked it open, and she gasped softly as the cups fell away. He skimmed his hand beneath her bra, lifting and squeezing one breast, humming his approval against her ear. He plucked and pulled at her nipples, and the pleasure of it was so intense she tried to squirm from beneath his hand because it was too much,
too much
, at the same time it wasn’t nearly enough.

Minutes could have passed. Hours. She didn’t know. But through it all, he wouldn’t let her move more than a few inches in any direction. Between her legs…God, she felt so hot, so swollen. Seconds later, as if he’d read her mind, he moved his hand to stroke her there, but it only made her frustration worse. Even through her jeans, the pressure built. The pleasure escalated. If only she could get these damned jeans
off
!

“Please, Luke,” she breathed, “let me go.”

“Not yet.”

“
Please.
I need—”

“I know what you need.”

“But—”

“This is one of those times I told you about,” he said, his hot breath scorching her neck.

“What times?”

“When I’m the boss.”

She tried to turn around, but he was relentless, holding her firmly as he teased and tormented her. She wanted him.
Needed
him. But he still wouldn’t listen. Wouldn’t release her. Instead he seemed hell-bent on pushing her over the brink right there in her kitchen, standing up, still wearing most of her clothes. Good God, what was he
doing
to her?

Suddenly he spun her around. Before she knew it, he’d swept her up in those rock-solid arms and was heading to her bedroom. She’d never been one of those tiny women any man could pick up, but Luke lifted her as if she weighed less than nothing.

He nudged the door open and lay her on her bed. Before she could even get her bearings, he fell onto the bed beside her. She circled her arms around his neck, and he kissed her long and hard and deep, his hands moving everywhere at once.

Suddenly he pulled away. Stood up. She felt a stab of dismay, only to have him reach down, unbutton her jeans, rip the zipper open, and tuck his fingers into the waistband to pull them off.
Oh, thank God. Finally, finally, finally.

And his jeans would be next.

But before he could get her jeans off, she heard a knock at her front door. She sat up suddenly and looked toward the living room.

“No,” Luke said, pointing at her. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“But—”

He put a knee on the bed and pushed her to her back again, falling alongside her. She tried to argue, but he kissed the words right out of her.

Yes. You’re so right. Don’t know who it is. Don’t care. They’ll go away.

Another knock.
Damn it.

“The door,” she said against his lips.

“To hell with the door,” Luke said, and dove in again.

But the knocking continued. Then she heard a voice from the hall outside her apartment.
“Shannon!”

Shannon ripped her mouth away from Luke’s and sat bolt upright again.

“What?” Luke said.

“It’s my mother!”

A
s Shannon scrambled to sit up, Luke sat back with a sigh.
Thanks a bunch, Loucinda. Your timing is just perfect.

Shannon reached beneath her shirt to refasten her bra. She yanked her shirt down and ran her hands through her hair.

“What are you doing?” Luke asked.

“She can’t see me like this.”

“You’re answering the door?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because she knows I’m here. My truck is out front.”

“Sooner or later she’ll have to go away.”

“You don’t know my mother. She never just goes away.”

Shannon rose from the bed. On her way to the living room, she stopped at her bedroom door for a few seconds and looked back, her eyes telegraphing a nervous command Luke read instantly.
Don’t you dare let my mother see you here!

As she hurried to the living room, he felt a stab of anger. He’d been in a situation a whole lot like this before. He hadn’t liked it then, and he sure as hell didn’t like it now. And he’d be damned if he’d sit in this bedroom and be Shannon’s dirty little secret all over again.

He rose from the bed and walked to the doorway leading to the living room, his steps slow and deliberate. He folded his arms and leaned against the door frame, watching as Shannon faced her front door, running her hand through her hair one last time. Then she opened it.

“Hi, Mom,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“I was beginning to think you weren’t home,” Loucinda said as she swept into Shannon’s apartment, a fluffy little Pomeranian pattering along at her feet. “But I saw your truck out front. What took you so long to answer the door?”

Luke felt an instantaneous sense of loathing. Loucinda North was representative of everybody in this town he’d hated as a kid, full of entitlement and overflowing with disdain for those she deemed less worthy than herself. And it was clear nothing had changed in that regard. Her holier-than-thou attitude still emanated from her like radiation from a nuclear blast.

“I was…unloading my dishwasher.”

“Didn’t you hear the door?”

“Yes, but I had my hands full.”

Just then the dog caught sight of Luke. She let out a little yap. Loucinda turned, her gaze falling on Luke, and the temperature in the room instantly dropped ten degrees.

“Hello, Mrs. North,” he said.

Shannon whipped around, her eyes dropping closed with dismay when she realized he was standing there.

Loucinda stared at Luke for the count of three, with an expression that could have frozen a sun-baked Texas prairie. Then she looked at Shannon, whose cheeks were flushed with a just-kissed look even the most oblivious person could have read at twenty paces.

“I don’t understand,” Loucinda said.

Shannon opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

“Why in the world is that man…?”

Loucinda stopped short, drawing herself up into a tall, upright pillar of judgmental attitude.

“We’ll talk another time,” she told Shannon.

With that, she opened the door, walked out of the apartment, and closed the door behind her.

Then, silence.

Shannon spun on Luke, speaking in a harsh whisper. “Did you have to do that?”

“Do what? Say hi to Mom?”

“Yes!” Shannon said, striding toward him. “You could have stayed in the bedroom!”

“Yeah, I could have. But look at all the fun I would have missed.”

“Fun? You call that
fun
?”

“I bet if it had been Russell Morgensen coming out of your bedroom, she’d have been thrilled.”

When Shannon didn’t respond, Luke knew just how true that was. He kept his face impassive, but his stomach felt as if a lariat was coiled tightly around it. He told himself he didn’t give a damn what Loucinda North thought. But the moment she looked at him as if he’d committed murder just by being there, all those old feelings of inferiority came rushing back.

He sat down on the sofa and reached for his boots.

“Where are you going?” Shannon asked.

“I’ve had enough for one night.”

Shannon let out a breath and sat down on the sofa beside him. “I’m sorry, Luke. Really. I’m sorry. It’s just—” She floundered around, searching for words. “It’s just that my mother is so
judgmental
.”

“I didn’t hear you telling her that.”

“Are you kidding? That’s a can of worms nobody in his right mind would open up. If you’d grown up the way I did, you’d understand.”

“Oh, yeah. I bet that was awful.” He yanked on one of his boots. “Am I still that despicable?”

“Of course not!”

“According to your mother, I am.”

Shannon sighed. “She’s still seeing the kid you used to be, that’s all.”

That was all? Luke shook his head. That was
everything
. It meant there was no such thing as redemption, and that a grudge was something to hang on to through eternity.

“You’re angry,” Shannon said.

“Nope. Not angry. Just fed up.”

“This isn’t just about tonight, is it?”

“What are you talking about?”

“This is also about what happened when we were kids.”

Luke’s heart thumped harder. He stared down at his other boot as he pulled it on. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That night in the hayloft.”

Luke’s stomach twisted with the memory. He didn’t want to talk about that. He still remembered the anguish he’d felt when she’d left that hayloft, making the heavenly feelings he’d had only moments before go straight to hell.

“You were angry that I didn’t want anybody to know what had happened between us,” Shannon said.

“Let me tell you something,” Luke said. “There were two kinds of girls in this town. Half of them didn’t want anybody to know they’d been with me, and the other half couldn’t wait to tell everyone they knew. I didn’t give a damn either way.”

“But you left town the next day, so I thought—”

“I was leaving town anyway.”

“You never told me that.”

“Back then I didn’t feel the need to tell anyone much of anything.”

“I’ve always felt guilty about that night. I thought I hurt you.”

“Hurt me?” Luke said. “Considering where I came from, I was pretty much immune to hurt.”

“Okay, then. How about how you hurt me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you have any idea how I felt when I found out you were gone?”

Luke looked away. What else could he possibly have done but leave? No way on this earth could he have faced Shannon the next day, only to have her do exactly what she’d done tonight.
I love having sex with you,
she would have said,
but of course we have to keep it a secret. You understand.
If he’d stuck around to hear those words pass her lips, he’d have died all over again.

“Considering how you acted that night,” he said, “I think you were probably pretty relieved.”

“No,” she said quietly. “I wasn’t relieved. I missed you, Luke.”

He remembered how he’d hit the highway with everything he owned in the world stuffed into his wreck of a Mustang, telling himself over and over that he didn’t care about Shannon, didn’t love her, didn’t want to ever see her again. And he remembered with equal clarity how hard it had been to drive with tears filling his eyes.

Shannon tilted her head, her eyes narrowing as she looked at him, as if she was searching for something deep inside him she couldn’t quite locate. “You may not believe this,” she said, “but I cared about you.”

Luke felt a swell of emotion coming from that place she was looking for. But he’d never let her find it. Never again. He intended to keep it locked away until the world turned to dust.

“Cared about me?” He made a scoffing noise. “There was only one reason you liked being around me. Because you were so repressed you could barely breathe, and you were dying to take a walk on the wild side. Being with me was your way of telling the world to fuck off.”

“So you think that was the only reason I was with you that night?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“So why were you with me?”

“I hate to burst your bubble, but I was there to get laid. And that’s all there was to it.”

He could tell he’d scored a direct hit, but she’d just have to live with it. He stood up and walked to the door.

Shannon rose from the sofa. “And all this time I thought I’d broken your heart.”

He put his hand on the doorknob and turned back. “Sweetheart, I don’t have a heart to break.”

With that he opened the door and left her apartment. He strode to his truck, trying to brush off what had happened, but all kinds of emotions took over. He was surprised Shannon had even brought up what had happened that night in the hayloft. He figured it had meant so little to her that the memory of it would be all but gone by now.

I cared about you.

He didn’t buy that. If she’d cared so much about him, she wouldn’t have acted as if she’d committed a sin by being with him. She cared far more about what her mother thought than about how he felt.

Then
and
now.

As he got into his truck, humiliation took over. Acceptance from people like Loucinda North had always felt like a hurdle he would never be able to clear, no matter how tall he grew or how high he learned to jump.

He started his truck and drove down Calico Court, telling himself it didn’t matter, that he’d grown past all this.

So why was it still eating away at him?

Luke thought about going back to the shelter, but just driving through the front gate would dredge up memories he didn’t want to deal with. Instead he headed for City Limits.

A few minutes later, he parked his truck in the gravel lot out front. He went inside to find the crowd sparse, with the only noise coming from the last inning of the Rangers game playing on the television over the bar.

The woman behind the bar approached him. According to one of the women he’d danced with the other night, she owned the place. She had long, curly blond hair, with intense green eyes and a body that would get any man’s attention. But she gave off a
don’t mess with me
vibe Luke recognized at ten paces. He had no doubt that any man who tried to get up close and personal with her had better mind his manners or he’d find himself flat on his back before he knew what hit him.

She introduced herself as Terri and asked Luke what he was drinking. He ordered a Guinness. She popped the cap and set it down in front of him.

“You’re Luke Dawson,” she said.

“That’s right. I’d ask you how you know that, but this is Rainbow Valley. Everybody knows everything.”

“You’re working for Shannon.”

Luke nodded. He’d seen Terri talking to Shannon and her friends the night he’d been there. Unfortunately, just hearing Shannon’s name made him want to drink until he forgot everything that had happened tonight, but he wasn’t sure Terri had enough beer in the place to accomplish that.

Terri looked back at the television. “I’m afraid the Rangers aren’t going to pull it out.”

Luke hadn’t noticed. He was too busy playing what had happened at Shannon’s apartment over and over in his mind. During the next commercial, Terri folded her arms and leaned one hip against the bar.

“Heard you used to be a real bad boy around here.”

Luke laughed humorlessly, thinking there wasn’t anywhere else in the world where that mattered except in this town. “Yeah, I was a regular juvenile delinquent.”

“Not that I hold it against you. I used to be a little wild myself before I came to live here.”

“Yeah? Which town did you tear up?”

“Past history,” Terri said. “I’d just as soon keep the details to myself now that I’m living here in Disney World.”

Luke nodded. He didn’t blame her. He’d caused plenty of havoc in Rainbow Valley. If he could find a way to make people forget everything that had happened back then, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

He took a long drink of his beer and watched the Rangers struggle through the top of the ninth, but he was having a hard time paying attention to the game. He was starting to reconsider the way he’d behaved tonight, coming out of that bedroom and flaunting his presence in front of Shannon’s mother like some angry kid who needed to push people’s buttons. What had he gained by doing that? The satisfaction of making Loucinda North’s jaw drop?

“Speaking of kids,” Terri said, “did you see the Pic ’N Go?”

“What about it?”

“Somebody nailed it. Nice graffiti job. No gang signs, but plenty of dirty words. Poor Myrna must have had a heart attack when she saw it.”

Luke shook his head. Myrna had more than she could deal with already. The last thing she needed was to have the side of her building look like a New York subway station.

“Does the sheriff know who did it?” Luke asked.

“I imagine he’ll round up the usual suspects.”

The usual suspects.
Luke had definitely been one of those. If a leaf so much as fell off a tree unexpectedly, he got blamed. That had infuriated him back then. But the rationality of adulthood had taught him that a person was judged by his actions, and his actions had been worse than most.

Luke downed the last of his beer, then set the bottle on the bar. “Do you ever think about the stuff you did when you were a kid?”

“What do you mean?” Terri asked.

“Have you ever wondered what the hell you were thinking?”

Terri shrugged. “Kids do shit. That’s just the way it is.”

“Not all kids.”

“Nope. Just the ones with nobody to teach them any better.”

Was that why he’d done the things he had? Because nobody was around to teach him any better? If so, what was his excuse for what he’d done tonight?

If he’d been smart enough to stay put in Shannon’s bedroom, they’d be in bed right now taking each other to heaven. Instead he was sitting on a barstool in a deserted honkey tonk, drinking his troubles away, and Shannon was going to have to deal with her mother. Why the hell had he done that to her? Because of some eleven-year-old hurt he couldn’t get over?

He watched the rest of the game. After the Rangers lost, he tossed a few bills on the bar, said good-bye to Terri, and left the building. By the time he got into his truck to head back to the shelter, darkness had settled over the highway. A few minutes later, he approached the Pic ’N Go, its lights shining brightly through the night. He wheeled into the parking lot, where he brought his truck to a halt and stared at the wall that faced the highway.