Here Comes Trouble (19 page)

He looked over his shoulder and nodded, he was
still smiling, so Terri was relieved.

Jenny leaned around Chase, and she studied
Terri then her brows drew together. "You get dressed quick to come
over here, Terri?"

Terri remembered exactly where she'd gotten
dressed in the dark and blood rushed to her face. "Uh, yeah,
why?"

"The buttons on your shirt don't match up,"
Jenny told her with a grin, then pointed. "And if I'm not mistaken,
your bra strap is hanging out the side there."

Terri groaned and looked down to see that sure
enough, the white strap of her bra was hanging out the armhole of
her shirt. Mortification poured through her and she tucked it
inside. That was what Karen Rhodes had seen too. That was evidently
what had set the woman off, not that Terri cared.

"Anything else I missed?" she asked in a low
voice, not really wanting to know.

"You have something green that looks like
seaweed in your hair, over there."

Terri patted the side of her head until she
found it, and jerked it out, then stuffed it into the pocket of her
jeans. "I'm going to the bathroom and make sure nothing else is
hanging out. I'll see ya'll later," she told them then spun on her
heel almost running to the bathroom down the hall.

After Terri had stormed out of the house, Joel
had a knock down, drag out argument with Karen, then escorted her
to her car and told her to leave. None of his guests had come back
to the living room, but at the level their voices had been raised,
he knew they'd heard everything.

He couldn't believe the woman's nerve showing
up at the ranch, basically begging him to take her back, to give
her a place to stay. Like he'd told her, she needed to work things
out herself, because her problems weren't his anymore. She's the
one that screwed up her life...and his.

Then she turned on the water works, and Joel
knew his goose was cooked.

Before the last tear fell, he'd helped her
bring her suitcase to the empty guest bunkhouse, showed her to a
room, and told her she could stay for a few days. Karen assured him
that she'd be out in under a week.

Terri was going to have a conniption fit, and
he didn't know how he was going to break it to her. She was already
pissed off as it was. Joel was thinking maybe he should just swear
off women all together. Sometimes, they were more trouble than they
were worth.

Just because Joel had caved in and let Karen
stay though, didn't mean that he was softening toward her. Far from
it. He was going to use her presence to speed things along, so he
could get on with his life. It had been a damned year, it was time
to put this crap behind him and move on.

Since he wasn't going on the cattle drive now,
he had a few days to make sure all the loose ends from his marriage
were tied up. The divorce decree, the settlement, and the
dissolution of his partnership with Larry, all of it had dragged on
too long. Tomorrow he was going to get his attorney out to the
ranch, with the paperwork in hand, so he could get her signature on
the settlement once and for all.

Joel had a bad feeling in his gut that Karen's
appearance here tonight wasn't a coincidence. The fact that she and
Larry had broken up wasn't either. Something was going on that
she'd failed to tell him about, and he was going to find out what
it was first thing tomorrow. He knew his ex-wife, Karen would never
have left her meal ticket and cozy nest with Larry, unless
something really bad had happened, or he had given her no choice
and she had a back-up plan.

Karen had strung Joel along for those reasons
for five years. Since he was out of the picture, all she had now
was Larry. Her family lived up on the East Coast and had basically
disowned her when she turned eighteen. If Joel hadn't met her in a
bar in Dallas when she was twenty-one, there was no telling where
she would be today. He knew one thing though, he would be a helluva
lot better off, if he'd never met her.

Those things he'd worry about tomorrow though.
Tonight, he was worried sick about his brother, Jenny and the baby.
If something happened to any of them before Joel made it to the
hospital, he'd never forgive himself. Chase had sounded frantic and
sick when he'd talked to him on the phone earlier. At least Terri
was there now, even if she'd left him high and dry at the ranch
when she squealed out of the driveway in her big red truck, he was
glad she was there to comfort them.

It took him a few minutes, but Joel tracked
down Dylan at the barn and asked him to drive him to the hospital.
It was pretty late, probably near midnight, and the rest of the
cowhands had evidently either turned in, or were still at the
campfire, because Dylan was the only one there.

"Hey, man...can you give me a ride to the
hospital?" Joel asked when he walked up to the stall, where Dylan
was cleaning Diamond's hooves. "I had a few drinks and don't want
to drive."

Dylan gently eased her back leg to the ground
then stood and leaned on her rump. "Yeah, thought you were riding
with Terri?" he asked and shoved his hat back on his
head.

"She left already," Joel replied and he felt
heat rise up his neck.

His cowhand threw back his head and laughed.
"You having woman troubles, man? Looks like you have one too
many...I can take one of 'em off your hands," Dylan offered with a
grin.

"You can have the redhead," Joel told him
gruffly. There was no way he was letting Dylan get within ten feet
of Terri.

"Who the hell is she anyway?" he asked
evenly.

Joel groaned. "You didn't figure that out?
Karen is my ex-wife. That woman is like gum on my shoe, I've been
trying to get rid of her for over a year now."

"Yeah, she said she was your wife when she
showed up...but since you were out with Terri, I thought she was
lying."

"She was lying...we've been divorced for a
year, well separated because she didn't file the damn decree, but
she just won't give it up. I think her life's mission is to make
mine miserable. I'm done with that shit."

"Well, I sure don't want it," Dylan said with
a chuckle. "Let me get my keys."

Thirty minutes later, Dylan dropped him off in
front of the hospital and he hurried inside the front door. The
woman at the admitting desk told him that Jenny was on the third
floor, so he headed toward the elevator. A curvy brunette woman in
a gray skirt and pink sweater set was already standing by the door,
and he didn't pay her much attention, until she turned toward him
then smiled.

Holy shit!
"Shauna?" he said and
grabbed his baby sister's shoulders. "What the hell did you do to
yourself, darlin'?" he asked in awe. He had never seen her look
so...normal.

Always hanging with the artsy crowd in high
school, and thus far in college, which had been long enough for her
to have gotten a master's degree, his baby sister liked to express
her creativity through her outward appearance. Since she didn't
have hot pink, purple or green highlights in her hair, or piercings
in her face, he hadn't recognized her! She wasn't wearing black on
her body or her lips!

Shauna's peach-tinted lips curved up on one
side then she told him, "Since I'm going to be an aunt now, I
thought I'd better set a better example. Being different hasn't
gotten me anywhere but in trouble anyway." She pirouetted then held
out her arms and asked, "What do you think?"

"Who the hell are you and what have you done
with my sister?" he said with a snort.

Her face fell and her eyes filled with
uncertainty. "You don't like it?"

"If you were a normal kind of girl, I'd love
it, you look beautiful," he told her, his eyes moving over her dove
gray skirt, soft pink sweater and shiny single-tone brown hair
brushing her shoulders. He thought about it a minute, trying to
frame what he was going to say, so it didn't come out
wrong.

"You always look beautiful, sugar. You just
don't look like yourself. Don't change for any reason other than
because you want to...I like you either way, and so will the baby.
Babies like bright colors, I hear," Joel teased her with a laugh,
then pulled her to him for a hug. When he set her back from him, he
saw her eyes tear up. Joel groaned and pulled her to him again.
He'd had enough of the female waterworks tonight.

"I love you, Joel," she mumbled into his
chest.

"I love you too, baby girl." And he did, with
all his heart. If there was one thing he did know, he loved his
family, and they loved him. No guessing there, or wondering. Even
his crotchety old dad, who he'd never gotten along with. They just
agreed to disagree on a lot, but he knew Jack Rhodes loved
him.

"You've changed too, you look like a cowboy. I
bet you're driving the women crazy," she pushed back from him and
her face lit with a grin.

"It's the other way around, baby. The women
are driving
me
crazy..."

"Well mama's here, so that's about to get
worse probably," she told him.

Joel groaned and then stepped into the
elevator with his sister when the doors opened. She stood by his
side and put her arm around his waist, and he dropped his arm over
her shoulders.

"I've missed you, punkin'," he told her and
dropped a kiss on her head when the door opened on the third
floor.

He heard a gasp and turned, then heat like
that from a flamethrower hit him from angry green eyes set in a
beautiful heart-shaped face. Her hair was scraped back in a
ponytail now, and her face was free of makeup. Terri looked about
sixteen...an incredibly beautiful sixteen.

Relief that she'd made it to the hospital okay
filled him. He'd been worried she'd have an accident, because she
was so upset when she left the ranch. They needed to talk, but Joel
needed to check on his brother first.

And he was a coward and wanted to postpone
telling her about Karen for a few more minutes. Terri didn't look
like she was much in the mood to talk to him anyway.

All Joel wanted to do at that moment was pull
her to him and kiss away that frown. Seeing her smile at him was
one of the best things in the world.

"Don't you have enough trouble?" Terri asked
him with an angry snort, as she brushed past him and walked into
the elevator, just before it closed.

More trouble than you know, sugar
, he
thought. Because he'd just figured out that it didn't matter if he
wanted to love anyone else again or not...he did...her.

CHAPTER TEN

The door opened on the main floor and Terri
stalked across the shiny tiled floor toward the cafeteria. Seeing
Joel with yet another woman today was the final straw that broke
her back. Jenny had thought at one time her husband Chase was a
player. Well his brother Joel was in a league of his own. And Terri
was not going to be a blip in his little black book.

Those other women could have him. Why she was
so upset, she didn't know, because she'd already decided she wasn't
letting herself get attached to the man.

But hell, just a few hours ago he'd been
making love to her down by the creek, and since then she had seen
him snuggled up with two other women! That had to be a record in
the houndog record book or something. She felt used and sick that
she'd even let herself be tempted to have sex with him again, let
alone actually do it!

Stomping through the door of the cafeteria,
she bumped shoulders with someone and heard a soft curse and turned
to see it was Curly Rhodes. The woman looked a lot calmer than she
had earlier. Good news for Jenny and Chase.

"Oh, sorry, Curly," she said and huffed out a
breath.

"I was just headed back upstairs," Curly said.
"Shauna is here, she just called me. Joel's here too, thank
God!"

Yeah, thank God, Terri thought with a mental
smirk. And he brought the flavor of the hour evidently. As for his
sister, Terri hadn't had the pleasure of meeting her yet, and if
she was anything like her brother, Terri didn't know if she
wanted
to meet her.

With the exception of Jenny, who was now a
Rhodes herself, Terri was in Rhodes overload.

Curly grabbed her arm, and Terri knew she had
no choice but to go back upstairs with the woman to make sure she
didn't stir the pot and get everyone riled up again. Why Terri felt
it was her job to keep the peace she was still trying to figure
out. Jenny was her friend though and she had to try to help her
maintain her sanity until she had the baby. It's just a few more
hours, Terri reminded herself as her feet moved toward the elevator
again, propelled by Curly Rhodes' determined stride.

When she walked back in the room, Terri kept
her eyes on Jenny, because she didn't want to have to look at Joel.
From her peripheral vision though, she saw him standing against the
wall with his arm around the brunette he'd been with in the
elevator.

Standing at the side of the bed talking to
Jenny was a man in a white coat she assumed was Jenny's doctor.
Terri stopped at the foot of the bed to listen. Frustration was
written all over Jenny's face and Terri listened intently trying to
figure out what was going on. After a minute, Terri put the pieces
of the situation together, and understood why her friend was
frustrated.