Dylan (13 page)

She reveled in his strength, not afraid of it or him. She wanted to make him forget about being careful with her, wanted to feel the power of him unleashed, raw and ready to mate. The man would be like a stallion, wild and free, taking what he could, when he could, and damn the consequences.

***

Dylan felt the sharp, sweet sting of her love bite and felt the blood rush from his head to his boots and back up to flood the part of him that was proud to be a man. Ready, willing, and able to do his part, he moaned when his jeans constricted and cut into his erection.

The need to strip her bare and drive into her until they were both blind clawed at him. He slid his hands up from her backside to the hem of her T-shirt and grabbed ahold of it.

“Hey, Bro, you 'bout ready to—”

Dylan's heart slammed against his ribs, and his breath was roaring like a freight train. Looking down into Ronnie's slumberous green eyes, he knew one night with this woman would never be enough. The lacy, black bra peeking out from beneath the shirt he'd been about to tear off her had him groaning. The overwhelming need to kill the man interrupting him from taking what he wanted from the woman in his arms brought him up short.

“Whoa,” Jesse said, holding up his hands and backing up. “I'll uh… just leave you two alone.”

Dylan swore under his breath, leaned his forehead against Ronnie's, and let her shirt slide back down. “Darlin', it's getting too crowded here. How 'bout if I drive you out to your place where we can be alone?”

Before she could answer he heard Mrs. Beeton calling from the kitchen, “Ronnie, dear, if you're feeling better, you could come to my meeting with me and let Dylan get back to whatever he was doing before we interrupted. Besides,” she said, coming to stand in the doorway, “the poor boy has to eat or he won't have any energy to finish up work here before he goes to your place.”

And damned if that suggestion didn't stir his libido back to full boil. He let his gaze slide from Mrs. Beeton back to the woman in his arms and knew whatever madness had held them both by the throat had passed. The brazen look of desire had disappeared, and in its place was a wariness that he'd seen before.

Damn. He hoped he didn't have to start from scratch with her. She'd been just where he wanted her: hot, pliable, and his for the taking.

“Please,” she rasped. “I… uh… have to go.”

He wanted to keep her here and was about to ask, but the hint of desperation in her eyes stopped him cold. What had happened in her past that she couldn't trust herself to be alone with him and couldn't get away from him fast enough?

Need to be more than just the man who shared her bed until they burned each other out ripped through him, but deep down he was afraid he wouldn't get that chance. “Anything you want, darlin'.” He eased his hold and slipped her out of his arms and onto the sofa. The emptiness had his gut churning, but he'd be damned if he'd let her know. They had a long way to go before they'd be sharing thoughts like that with one another. He hoped he could stand the wait.

“If you don't want to go with Mavis, I can leave now, get a few more shelves and walls put back together at your place and come back here to finish up.”

The indecision in her eyes eased the riotous feeling in his stomach, soothing it. Her eyes told him all he needed to know. She wasn't sure what to do and sure as hell didn't want to leave. He fought the urge to smile. “Let me help you up.” He held his hand out to her and waited.

She looked from his outstretched hand to his face and back again. Her hesitation started to work its way under his skin like a sliver of wood. He shrugged it off but couldn't keep from teasing, “I'm not the one who bites.”

Her eyes changed in hue from soft spring green to emerald bright and from her expression, their color matched her mood. Getting a rise out of this woman was just one of the few pleasures he had in life. That is, until he talked her back into his arms and into bed, his or hers, didn't matter. Hell, they didn't even have to make love in a bed—table's fine.

“Are you coming, Ronnie?”

The woman he wanted, needed—oh hell, he may as well own up to it—craved. The woman he craved let her gaze slide from the top of his head all the way to his toes before she sighed and answered. “Wait up, Mavis.”

“Ronnie, are you sure you don't want to stay here at the Circle G?”

Invisible hands squeezed her heart, the ache so real she rubbed a hand over it. “You know as well as I do that wouldn't be a good idea.”

Mavis laughed as she put the car in reverse and turned around. “Oh, honey, if you don't think being alone with that gorgeous hunk of cowboy is a good idea, you should let me drive you on over to the health center to have your head examined.”

On cue Ronnie's head started to ache with a flicker of pain behind her eyes. “You're supposed to be on my side.”

Mavis pulled up in front of the gate and put it in park; before she got out, she reached over to pat Ronnie's hand where she rested it on the seat between them. “I am. But you're missing the point and the life lesson I learned some twenty years back.”

Her friend slipped out of the car and opened the gate. Instead of offering to help, Ronnie sat there thinking over all that had happened since they'd driven out to the ranch. She needed to talk to someone, but was afraid Mavis would try to push her into Dylan's arms—not that she didn't want to be there, but she wasn't sure that would be wise with the DelVecchio Curse alive and well in Pleasure, Texas. The woman was just as bad as her grandmother!

Mavis got back into the car and drove through the opening, but before she could get back out, Ronnie pushed open the passenger door and did it for her. Drained of energy, it was heavier than she'd thought it'd be. A lot of things out in Texas weren't quite what she'd thought they'd be: her chance at a new life, leaving the old behind, opening her dream store.

“You're awfully quiet.”

She sighed. “I have a lot on my mind.”

Mavis didn't say anymore until they were a mile outside of town. “You know I'm not one to hold back.”

Ronnie turned to look at her friend. “That's one of the things I admire most about you.”

Mavis smiled but didn't take her eyes off the road. “Well, then listen up, because I'm about to give you some of my best advice.”

Despite the urge not to, Ronnie did as she was told. “All right. I'm listening.”

“If you let that man just walk away from you, I'm here to tell you, you'll regret it for the rest of your life. Men like Dylan Garahan are few and far between.”

Playing devil's advocate, Ronnie said, “He's got a younger brother and I heard a rumor that he has four cousins in New York City and four more up in Colorado.”

Mavis shook her head. “Why do you have to be so much like me?”

Ronnie laughed. “Maybe that's the connection I felt the first time I met you over at the Lucky Star.”

Turning left onto North Main Street, Mavis drove past Guilty Pleasures and headed toward town hall, an old weathered building that housed the sheriff's office and jail, along with the rest of the local town offices.

“Who's your meeting with?” Ronnie asked.

“Sheriff McClure.”

Worry filled her. “Are you in trouble, Mavis?”

Mavis shook her head, signaled, and parallel parked the car like a pro.

Impressed, Ronnie admitted, “It always takes at least two or three tries when I try to park on the street like this.”

“I can help you practice if you need me to, dear.”

“What I really need is some advice about the curse,” Ronnie admitted.

“It should be a short meeting,” Mavis said. “If you're up to it, would you go on over to Dawson's and tell Lettie that I'll be over to pick up the order I called in?”

Ronnie nodded. “I'm fine, no problem.” She turned to go, then turned back and called out, “Mavis?”

Her friend paused with her hand on the door handle. “Yes?”

“I'm not trying to ignore your advice, it's just that…”

Mavis nodded. “I know, dear. I'll meet you over at Dawson's.”

Tired and out of sorts, Ronnie walked across the street to one of the earliest establishments in the town of Pleasure: Dawson's General Store. The hardware side was doing a brisk business. Though new in town, she already knew quite a few of the local townspeople; it was only those who owned ranches on the outskirts that she wouldn't recognize by sight, but would by name. Well, except for those three dark-haired, dark-eyed Garahan brothers. The middle brother was hell on her heart. Add that to the worry over the family curse and she had her hands full.

“Hey, Ronnie.”

She smiled at the young man bagging groceries on the food side of Dawson's. “Hey yourself, Shane. I missed you yesterday. How's business?”

He grinned and answered, “Busy for a Tuesday.”

Leaving him to finish packing the order, she headed for the back of the store and the matchbox-sized office Lettie Dawson could be found in at this time of day. The door was open, so Ronnie knocked on the door frame. “Am I interrupting?”

Lettie's head shot up, and for a moment her eyes looked through Ronnie, but then they focused and the woman smiled at her. “Not a bit. How are you doing today? Is Dylan making any progress on your store?”

After the first few weeks living in Pleasure, Ronnie had stopped wondering how everybody kept so well-informed about her personal business and had learned to accept that it was just part of living in a small town. “He's sorted through the mess that I'd tried to organize and is getting ready to rebuild some shelves and walls where the baseball bat they must have bludgeoned it with tore it all apart.”

Lettie stood up and pushed her chair under the battered oak desk that looked old enough to have been there since the store first opened its doors. “Well, that's a start, isn't it?”

Ronnie had to agree that it was.

“Well, then,” Lettie smiled, “what can I do for you?”

“Mavis is over at the town hall—”

“Probably meeting with that handsome sheriff of ours.”

Ronnie had to smile at the way Lettie's face lit up. “Yes, actually, she is.”

“And you're here to pick up her order.”

Ronnie narrowed her gaze at the older woman and asked, “Do you have spies all over town or just a network of informants?”

To her credit, Lettie didn't even miss a beat; she slipped her arm through Ronnie's and pulled her toward the front of the store. “I've got Mavis's order all packed and ready. Since you and she have become such good friends,” Lettie said, “I expect a full report.”

Confused, Ronnie asked, “On what?”

Lettie rolled her eyes at Ronnie. “Don't try to weasel out of telling me. I know she's cooking dinner for that heartbreaker, Zeke Eldridge.”

“And you know that because?”

Lettie put her hands on her hips and frowned. “Zeke is partial to apple-stuffed pork chops, and Mavis bought a couple of pounds of pork chops, thick-sliced, and half a dozen apples. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what she's going to be cooking or for whom.”

Sympathizing with the older woman, Ronnie asked, “Are you sweet on Zeke?”

“I'd have to be dumber than a stump to fall for that slow-walking, sweet-talking Texan, now wouldn't I?”

“How do you know that I'm not fond of pork chops and that Mavis is cooking for me?”

Lettie tilted her head back and laughed a joyful belly laugh. “Because you're spending your nights drooling over that handsome Garahan boy.”

Ronnie bit her tongue to keep from lashing out at the woman. She was just a busybody—good-natured, like their mutual friend, Mavis, but a busybody just the same.

“Cat got your tongue?”

She shook her head and counted to ten before answering. “Dylan isn't spending the night at my place—”

“Well, he was seen arriving at your shop around seven p.m. and didn't leave until one o'clock in the morning.”

Ronnie shook her head. “Your sources can't tell time. He only worked until midnight.”

“And the job's not finished?”

“You're just fishing,” Ronnie realized. “You didn't know for sure how long he was there, did you?”

The innocent look didn't fool Ronnie; she'd seen the same look on her grandmother's face hundreds of times over the years. The dear woman had been interfering in the lives of those she loved, hoping to give Cupid a little help, for as long as she could remember.

“That's neither here nor there,” Lettie said with a frown. “What I need you to find out is whether or not Mavis'll be cooking for Zeke tonight.”

How could she resist that sad look that had darkened Lettie's wide, blue eyes? She was a sucker for that look, having seen it so many mornings in her own mirror. “Before I make any promises, I need to know if Zeke made any to you.”

Lettie turned at the jingling sound of the bells coming from the front of the store.

“Lettie?”

The woman sighed and looked back at her. “No. The scallywag didn't make any promises, he just…”

“Just?” Ronnie prompted, hoping the woman would confide in her. Her own experience with her best friend had broken her heart. While women who were friends could both be smitten with the same man, it was hell on a friendship when one friend started to suspect that the other was avoiding her because she wasn't brave enough to come clean about having an affair with your man. Ronnie kept the lid on her emotions—anguish didn't mix well with the anger she still felt. She really hoped to prevent something similar from happening to these two women. She'd come to know and really like both of them since arriving in town.

“I guess he just lost interest.”

“In a wonderful woman like you?” Ronnie found that hard to believe. The first day she'd driven into Pleasure and decided it was far enough from back East to start rebuilding her life and dealing with the end of her marriage and the betrayal of the two people closest to her, she'd ended up at Dawson's and met Lettie and felt a close kinship.

“You've got a good heart, dear.” Lettie frowned, looking beyond Ronnie, and nodded. “Mavis.”

Ronnie noticed the tension between the friends and shook her head. Instead of the gossip fest that usually started between the women, Mavis sniffed and tilted her chin up, asking, “Is my order ready?”

“Hmmphf. When have I ever not had your darned order ready, Mavis Beeton?”

The friends glared at one another, and Ronnie's heart twisted. She knew what would come next: the friends would start saying things guaranteed to slice at one another and leave wounds that would slowly bleed. She didn't want that for these two women who'd befriended her from the first. She had to do something.

“Would you two behave?”

Both women turned to glare at Ronnie. Good, she had their attention. “And while you two are at it, how about a little honesty? It goes a long way.”

“What are you talking about?” Mavis demanded.

“Honesty? Hah!” Lettie grumbled.

“How long have you two been friends?”

They both crossed their arms and mumbled something she couldn't quite hear. Deciding to ignore the fact that neither one had answered her direct question, she dove in headfirst and said, “If this is about Zeke—”

“Are you cooking for that—” Lettie began.

While Mavis sputtered, “How could you believe that I'd—”

At that moment, Lettie's sister, Pam, walked over from the hardware side of their store. “Oh, would you two grow up,” she said. “Zeke's sweet on Maryanne.”

They both rounded on Pam. “Says who?”

“How do you know?” Ronnie asked.

Pam shook her head and nodded at the angry women. “I wonder if they'd spit and sputter if I tossed a bucket of cold water on them?”

Ronnie smiled but decided the best course of action would be to keep quiet.

Pam looked back at the pair and relented. “Because Sheriff McClure's new deputy was over here buying screening to repair his back door and mentioned that their dispatcher was always late coming back from her lunch break.”

Both women had identical expressions on their faces. Ronnie felt their pain wash over her and wanted to take a piece out of Zeke's hide to even things. “It always starts out that way,” she said. “First lunch, then they're lying to friends and family, breaking shopping dates, and standing you up instead of meeting you for coffee or drinks.” She blinked the moisture from her eyes, not wanting to admit that it was tears filling them. “Then one day you come home and recognize the perfume lingering in your bedroom and know why your best friend couldn't meet you for drinks—she was too busy elsewhere.”

The eerie silence that followed had Ronnie realizing that she'd said way more than she'd intended. “Perfect.”

“Your best friend was having an affair with your husband?” Lettie asked, her voice pitched low, so they wouldn't be overheard.

Ronnie looked from Mavis, who nodded at her, to the Dawson sisters, and back. “My ex-best friend.”

“Why couldn't she keep her lips to herself?” Lettie asked, glaring at Mavis.

“I thought I could change my ex-husband and that once he'd married me, he'd have no reason to stray. But I should have known better. The only person you have the power to change is yourself. Finding out that he'd been sneaking off to meet my best friend was the last straw and my wake-up call that it was time to start a new life over somewhere far away from where I grew up.”

Pam's face fell. “Is he still alive?”

The snort of laughter surprised Ronnie more than the others. “Yeah, or I wouldn't be in Texas.”

Lettie looked at her sister and then Ronnie. “Actually, a lot of people run to Texas to hide,” she said. “It's a big state; a person could hide from the law for a long time.”

Ronnie shook her head at them. “I was tempted to castrate him before I killed him, but decided he wasn't worth doing time for.”

“So what did you do to him?”

Ronnie shrugged. “Actually, nothing. I figured if they wanted to be together so badly, I'd let them. They deserve one another, and I figured I'd be vindicated when it was my best friend's turn to feel what I had felt when I learned there was another woman—because for a man like my ex, there will always be another woman.” She paused then added, “I did tell my cousin, Vito, but made him promise not to do anything unless I ask him to.”