My Give a Damn's Busted (12 page)

“I think so but I’m not complaining. Darlin’, this is a sensation like nothing I’ve ever felt.”

He lowered his face to hers again. “Me too.”

“Is that a snake?” She gasped and pointed before their lips touched.

“Yeah, it’s a big old lazy water moccasin, but he won’t bother us if we leave him alone.”

“Are you sure? He looks pretty wicked.”

“I’m very sure. Look, he’s crawling away in the opposite direction. He’s not interested in us,” Hank assured her.

Larissa smiled and buried her face in his neck, tasting the musty lake water with every kiss. Who would have ever thought that unpurified water could make her senses reel with passion?

His hands slid up her inner thighs. “Your skin is so smooth.”

“It’s the water.”

“No, it’s you. You feel like satin sheets.”

“Who needs a bed with satin sheets when there’s a lake with a soft sandy bottom?”

When he moved on top of her, she groaned and wrapped her arms around him. The slow rhythm in the water was the most sensuous sex she’d ever known. She wished it would last forever, but if it did the whole lake would begin to boil.

“God, this is good,” she murmured.

“Your first skinny-dipping sex?” he asked.

She opened her eyes to find him smiling. “Is it yours?”

He nodded. “But honey, if you are willing, it won’t be my last.”

The rhythm increased and she dug her nails into his back and whispered, “Hank, please, now.”

He collapsed on top of her in the water, weightless with no need to roll to one side. Yes, indeed he would surely like to give that another try. But he couldn’t see making love to another woman in water without seeing Larissa’s sweet face every time he did. And that brought on instant acute stabs of guilt. He should have been up-front and honest with her and their relationship should have never, ever gone this far under the subterfuge.

Larissa felt the afterglow dim. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Not one thing,” he said as he picked her up and carried her out of the water.

She shivered.

He laid her on the quilt and pulled the side around them to form a cocoon. “You feel good in or out of water, sweetheart.”

She ran her fingers over his naked back, letting them trail below his waist to his hips. “So do you.”

He buried his face in the softness of her neck and brushed soft kisses along her cheekbone to her lips where he settled in for long, lingering kisses that had them both panting. She moaned when he made his way down to her toes telling her with every kiss how lovely that part of her body was. By the time he made his way back up she was a quivering mass of pent up emotions ready to explode.

When he finally stretched out on top of her, her mind was void of everything but Hank Wells. If someone had asked her about Hayes Radner she would have asked, “Who?” If they’d asked her directions to the Honky Tonk she would have wondered what they were talking about.

“This feels so right, darlin’,” he whispered as he began a rhythm as slow and sweet as the George Strait song on the CD player.

As luck would have it Strait was singing a soft ballad called “The Man in Love with You,” when they both whispered the other’s name and collapsed in the fiery emotional fireworks show spitting out beautiful colors all around them.

He rolled to one side, taking her with him and burying his face in her still wet hair. “Hot damn!”

“Hell yeah!” she said breathlessly. “I believe act two was as good as the first act.”

“I heard bells and whistles.”

“I saw fire.”

He nuzzled his face deeper into her neck. “Want a beer or a nap?”

She snuggled down into his arms. “Nap, then beer, then round three.”

“Darlin’, after that, round three might have to wait. I’m whupped.”

She shut her eyes and let the tender rainbow called afterglow wrap her up in its warmth as she drifted off to dream of Hank Wells and his sexy eyes.

When she awoke a Texas sunset was flashing its bright colors in the lake water and Hank was laying out a picnic supper on the edge of the quilt that wasn’t covering her naked body.

“Mmmm,” she said sleepily.

“Your clothes are dry and only a little bit stiff from the lake water. I laid them over there beside you but I have no objection if you’d like to eat in the nude,” he said.

“Or take another swim before I put them on?” she said.

Her eyes were still dreamy and flying at half-mast. Her hair went every which way, some in her face, the rest all clumped together in dried straight strands. He’d sucked off every drop of lipstick with his kisses and the rest of her makeup had been washed away when he tossed her out into the water.

“You are beautiful.”

“And you are a wonderful liar. I look like hell but right now I don’t give a damn. I’m hungry and I’m happy.”

“Then bring your happy little hungry naked self over here and have some chicken and potato salad,” he said.

Suddenly she was conscious of being barely covered with the quilt and blushed. She grabbed her clothing, turned her back, and hurriedly dressed. The underpants were still slightly damp as well as the waistband of the jean shorts. She saw dried mud on her toenails and checked her hands before she picked up a dill pickle and a piece of fried chicken.

He handed her a paper plate and a plastic fork. “Oma thinks of everything. There’s even wet wipes if you get greasy fingers.”

“Was she like a mother to you when you visited there?” Larissa wanted the subject to go anywhere but to the sex they’d had.

“No, more like a grandmother. She’s older than Dad by five or six years. She raised her kids on the ranch. Her husband was the foreman for years until he died. Dad was raised up with her kids but he’s older by a dozen years than her two sons.”

“So she’d know all about your mother?”

Hank smiled and shook his head. “I’m not sure anyone would know all about Mother. She’s a powerhouse of a woman. I can’t even begin to imagine her ever married to my dad. He’s so laid-back and calm and she wakes up in a frenzy every morning.”

“What kind of work do you do for her? This is some good food. What’s in this potato salad?”

“You’d have to ask Oma that question. I just eat it. I don’t ask how she makes it. Basically, I’m the make-it-run-smoothly man in the office. If Mother wants something I set the wheels in motion for her to have it.”

“What kind of business is it?”

“That’s hard to say. My grandfather started it as an oil equipment company. Then when the oil boom fizzled he diversified into a dozen other avenues. Tourism is the new thing Mother is into. She sunk a fortune into Texas tourism.”

“I guess she’d probably know Hayes Radner then. He wants to turn Mingus into an amusement park. Maybe I’ll go visit her and she can introduce me to him,” Larissa said.

Hank had to swallow three times before the bite of potato salad would go down. “Better call ahead and make an appointment.”

“Naw, I wouldn’t do that. I’ll just wait until our town meeting. He’ll show up. Egotistical as he is, he won’t be able to stay away. Besides, just look at all the people he can tempt to sell at one time. I’m actually doing the man a big favor by bringing them together in one place. ’Course he doesn’t realize that most of them are not selling. The ones who might are outlying folks who don’t have a single square inch of town property.”

“Did I tell you that I woke up after our nap with round three on my mind?” He had a wicked gleam in his eye.

“Okay, point taken. You are tired of hearing about Hayes Radner. Truth is I’m tired of talking about him. But honey, round three is going to have to wait until later.”

His dark eyebrows shot up. “Why?”

“Because it’s getting dark and all kinds of things come out to bite me in the dark. Like mosquitoes, spiders, and even that ugly snake that almost kept us from making wild passionate love in the water.”

“Does that mean we have to go home after we eat?” he asked.

“It means that we can watch the moon come up and talk all night but I’m not taking off all my clothes to provide a buffet for the bugs and critters.”

He picked up a brownie from a plastic container and held it out for her to have the first bite. “Oma makes them from scratch with real butter and imported vanilla.”

“Mmmm.” Larissa made appreciative noises as she chewed.

“You are like this brownie.”

“Hey, now, I’m brown from my part Cherokee father but I’m not that dark,” she said.

“I’m not talking color. I mean that you are made from scratch. Real ingredients, not fake,” he said. “What is it that song says about being American made? From your sexy brown eyes to your silky hair, you are made from scratch American. It even mentions your tight blue jeans and when it comes to lovin’ if I’m remembering the song right. Oak Ridge Boys, wasn’t it?”

She nodded. “I’d never listened to much country before moving to Mingus. Now I’m their biggest fan.”

“You should be. You run a honky tonk and listen to it six hours a night. What did you listen to?” Maybe that was the chink in her tight fitting armor that would lead him to her secrets.

“Mostly classical,” she said.

“You? Classical?” He gasped then laughed. “You almost had me believing that. I bet you cut your teeth on Loretta Lynn and Waylon Jennings just like I did when I was at the ranch.”

She just smiled.

He scooted next to her and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her down to the wrinkled quilt for a series of long, lingering kisses. “I think maybe you got dressed too soon,” he said.

“Well, we can sure fix that problem, can’t we? But you said you were too tired for act three,” she teased as she nibbled his earlobe.

“I’ll do my best, fair sexy maiden. That little nap and chocolate has revived me,” he whispered in her ear.

“So you think I’m sexy?” she asked breathlessly.

“Darlin’, only a sexy woman could wrangle three acts out of a one act play,” he said.

The third time was slow and easy. The snake was forgotten. The mosquitoes couldn’t penetrate the cocoon of a quilt that was wrapped around them. Time stood still and the moon and stars smiled down on them as they forgot every problem and enjoyed each other’s bodies.

Afterwards Hank held her for a long time and wished again that things were different. Even the sloshing noise of the gentle lake waves blending with the crickets and tree frogs couldn’t completely erase that niggling little voice that kept telling him he was playing with pure fire and about to get burned.

On Monday morning Larissa awoke to lightning jumping through her bedroom window in micro-flashes like an old Brownie camera flashbulb. Thunder rumbling in its wake reminded her of the story her nanny used to tell her about it being nothing but a wagon load of potatoes tumbling out.

“Yeah, right, Jenny Walker.” Larissa covered her head with a pillow and talked to her deceased nanny. “It sounds like the apocalypse, not a ten pound bag of potatoes.”

The rain did not start with a few small drops making pinging noises against the cellar door right outside her bedroom window. It hit with the force of a fireman’s hose and she burrowed down deeper into the bed. She covered her head with a pillow to block the noise and the lightning, but it didn’t work. Light crept in the sides and the thunder was loud enough to wake a deaf person.

She could barely hear the ring tone on her cell phone and it was on the fourth and final rendition of “Redneck Woman” when she reached out and groped toward the nightstand for it.

“Hello,” she grumbled.

“Well aren’t you in a grumpy mood this morning,” her mother said.

“It’s storming and raining and we were going to scrape and paint my house today,” Larissa said without changing her tone.

“Stop whining and go home where you belong or better yet leave the whole mess behind and join me here. You don’t have to paint and scrape a shanty or work at a beer joint, Larissa,” Doreen said.

Larissa threw the pillow to the side and sat up. “I am home. Where are you?”

“No, you are not at home. You will never be at home in that dingy place. You are on another one of your soul-searching larks. Sometimes you remind me so much of your father that it’s scary. He had visions of grandeur too. Only his was stepping up in the world, not down.” Doreen’s tone was icy.

“Maybe that’s because I’ve got half his genes. Where is the worthless sumbitch, by the way?” Larissa asked.

Doreen’s brittle laugh cracked around the edges. “Stop trying to find him, Larissa. He made his choice back before you even knew who he was.”

“Why?” Larissa asked.

“I’ve told you the story so many times it’s worn out. Because he loved the check my father offered him more than he loved either of us. I didn’t call to argue with you, darling. I’ve got to be in Dallas for a charity event the first week in September. Think you could get away for a weekend?”

It was on the tip of Larissa’s tongue to say no but she sighed and said, “It’s a possibility if it’s on a Friday or Saturday night.”

“It is. Saturday night. Think you could get away on Friday and we’ll do some shopping and visiting? I’ll be at the Hyatt Regency while I’m there. I’ll book a room for you. I have to leave on Sunday afternoon but it would be wonderful to have you all to myself for three days.” Doreen’s tone warmed as she made plans.

“That might be doable,” Larissa said. “I’ll have Sharlene trained well enough by then and Luther will be there,” she mused aloud.

“Honey, I don’t care if you hire Mickey Mouse and Minnie to run that horrid place. Just promise me you won’t back out,” Doreen said.

“Mother, it’s not horrid. Come on down here and visit. You might find a place to hang your hat and stop roaming the world.” Larissa yawned.

“I’m bringing someone for you to meet. I’m ready to quit roaming and settle down.”

Larissa threw herself backwards on the bed. “Dear God.”

“You
will
be surprised,” Doreen said.

“I’m sure I will. Can he vote and buy beer?”

“That’s not very nice but the answer is yes to both. And that’s all I’m telling you about him. You can form your own opinion when you see him. He’s asked me to marry him and I’m considering it but I want you to meet him first,” Doreen said.

“Where’d you get him? Club Med? And why does my opinion matter?” Larissa remembered other men her mother had brought home. If any of them proposed Larissa wasn’t privy to the fact. What made this one different?

“You’re not getting another bit of information, darlin’. That way I know you’ll come to Dallas and not make a last-minute excuse. Your curiosity will win the fight. I know you. And you are my daughter so your opinion matters,” Doreen said. “September tenth, Hyatt Regency. I’ll meet you in the lobby at three.”

“I’ll be there. Will Boy Wonder be with you?”

“Depends on when he can fly in. You will definitely meet him at the charity event.”

Larissa rolled her eyes. “I can hardly wait.”

“Don’t be sarcastic,” Doreen snapped.

Larissa threw back the sheet and padded to the door barefoot. “Someone is ringing my doorbell. Please tell me it’s you.”

“Sorry to disappoint. I’ll see you in a few weeks and we’ll be talking in between. Love you, kid,” Doreen said.

“Love you back,” Larissa said as she flipped the phone shut and swung open the door.

“I wasn’t expecting that kind of welcome,” Hank said.

“I wasn’t talking to you. We can’t scrape and paint today,” she said.

He held up a dripping plastic bag in one hand and a movie in the other. “And we can’t do much at the ranch either. Thought maybe we’d watch a movie and have a late lunch together.”

“Well come on in. What’d you bring?” she asked.

He could hardly take his eyes from her standing there in an oversized T-shirt that stopped mid-thigh, her hair tousled, and her brown eyes still droopy with sleep. He did manage to find his voice and say, “An old movie and the stuff to make potato chowder.”

“Did you bring Oma’s recipe?”

“I did. And all the ingredients.”

“Cook or watch the movie first?” She helped him unload the groceries on the kitchen cabinet.

“Cook and watch the movie while we eat,” he said. His hormones threw in a trip to the bedroom in between but he didn’t voice it out loud.

“What do we do first?” she asked.

“How about this?” He slipped his arm around her waist and hugged her tightly to his chest. “Or this?” He tilted her chin up for a long, hard kiss.

“Whew!” She gasped when he released her. “If that’s a start, the finish would probably blow my head off.”

He kissed the top of her head and ran a hand up under the shirt to rub her back. “Want to see?”

“I’ll take a rain check,” she said. “I’m so hungry I’d pass out in the middle of the sex if it’s as hot as your kisses.”

“Okay, then. We start by frying up a pound of bacon. Where’s a skillet?” He stepped back, picked up the package of bacon, and turned the knob on her electric stove.

“That was too easy,” she said.

“I’m willing to wait. You’re like that old commercial for Heinz ketchup. You are worth waiting for,” he said.

She pulled a skillet from the bottom cabinet and set it on the burner. “I’ll throw on some clothes. How’d you get into the house without getting soaked?”

“Umbrella. It’s on the porch.” He peeled bacon off in long strips. “You don’t have to put on clothes for my benefit. I think you look fine just like you are.”

“I think I’ll at least add a pair of shorts to the outfit, just in case Linda and the ladies come by for coffee later. Might take a lot of explaining if I’m running around like this with you in the house.”

He raised a dark eyebrow. “You don’t want anyone to know that we are…”

“Are what?” she asked.

“That we’ve been…”

“Been what?” she asked again.

He chuckled. “Words don’t work, do they? What are we?”

“Two grown consenting adults.”

He popped her on the fanny. “Go put on your shorts and get presentable.”

“Two. Grown. Consenting. Adults.” She said each word distinctly. “That means you don’t tell me what to do.”

He threw up his greasy hands. “Hey, I was teasing. You always grumpy in the morning?”

She shot him a look and shut the door to her bedroom. Yes, she was grumpy. She’d been awakened by her mother. She’d tried to find her father as well as her niche in life for seven years and to be reminded of failure didn’t make her all smiles and giggles. Add to that a kiss that made her knees weak and sent her thoughts plummeting from kitchen to bedroom and romping around in bed for the rest of the day with Hank. Then his complete acceptance to wait and not kiss her a hundred more times before declaring that he couldn’t possibly wait to make love to her. It was enough to make an angel grumpy and Larissa did not have a halo.

Hank whistled while the bacon cooked. So Larissa had a burr in her saddle in the mornings. She could never match his mother in that department. One look from Victoria before mid-morning would scald the paint off a brand new pickup truck. Employees learned quickly to leave her alone until she’d had a pot of coffee and at least four doughnuts. Sugar and caffeine was what kept her fueled and ready to wheel and deal.

Larissa pulled on a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and put on a bra. Maybe later she’d take it off, but right then it seemed like a suit of armor against her own emotions. She brushed her hair, flicked a bit of blush on her cheeks, and added a hint of lip gloss to her full lips.

She opened the door into the kitchen to the smell of coffee and bacon. “I’m sorry I was an old bear. I need coffee and sunshine.”

He handed her a steaming cup of coffee. “This will get you going.”

She took a sip or two then set the cup aside. “I’ll peel potatoes while you do that.”

“Wow! Not even half a cup and you are civil? That wouldn’t even take the evil gleam from my mother’s eyes,” he teased.

“Honey,
you
would take the evil gleam from my mother’s eyes,” she muttered.

He heard every word. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

“It means she’s coming to Dallas in a few weeks for me to meet her new main man,” she said honestly.

Hank laid out the last few pieces of bacon to drain on paper towels. “So she’s not married?”

Larissa giggled. “Not since I was a tiny baby.”

“So what’s the big deal about her bringing a new man?” His attention went on alert as he remembered his mission. For several days he’d forgotten why he was spending so much time in Mingus. While he’d been busy trying to dig up anything and everything on Larissa, he’d started to really like the woman. He didn’t care when it was just heat between them. That could be remedied in a hurry, but now that Larissa was his friend, he’d almost forgotten his original mission. It didn’t matter because friend and lover would come to a screeching halt when she had the meeting at the Honky Tonk and found out that Hank was not on her side of the argument.

Larissa shrugged. “Mother has maintained her beauty. She’s fifty but she looks my age. We easily pass for sisters. Once a lady, not a man, mind you, who’d I’d suspect of flirting, but a woman my age, asked if I was the older sister. She draws young men to her like flies on waffle syrup. The last one was younger than me. He had no idea I was her daughter.”

He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “And this woman lives in Tennessee and works at Loretta Lynn’s dude ranch?”

She laughed. “Mother lives wherever the wind takes her. The part about Loretta Lynn’s ranch was a joke. She wouldn’t mess up her Jimmy Choos by getting out of her limousine at a dude ranch. Not unless she spotted a hunky man, then she’d go to the nearest western wear store and arrive in proper style.”

He filed the information away. He’d been looking in the wrong places. Doreen Morley must be amongst the rich and shameless instead of the poor and shameful. “She must be wealthy for that kind of lifestyle.”

“Wealth is relative. Do you consider yourself wealthy? You’ve sat in Paris cafés and eaten in Italian restaurants. Are you rich? How much water do I put on these potatoes?”

“Barely enough to cover them. Soon as they are cooked we poor it all off and add milk.” He read from the recipe. “While they are boiling, we crumble up all this bacon and chop an onion and the parsley. Is your mother just coming to Dallas to see you? Why doesn’t she come here and stay with you?”

Larissa laughed. “My house wouldn’t hold her luggage. No, seriously, she’s got a charity function of some kind. I expect she’ll spend a few days at the home place up in Perry, Oklahoma, while she’s here. Especially if she wants to impress Boyfriend Number Umpteen.”

“Are you bitter?” He carefully added the name of the town where the home place was located to his list of things to pass on.

She shrugged. “I wasn’t. Indifferent most of my life. Not bitter, though. Mother is charming, fun, and a hoot to be around. We have a great time but she’s my friend, not my mother. My nanny was my mother figure. She died seven years ago. That’s when I decided to find myself.”

“Did you?” he asked.

“Find myself?”

He nodded as he crumbled bacon into a bowl.

“Oh, yeah. I went here and there and even over yonder and Larissa wasn’t there so I really did pull down a map in the library at our house and I really did stick a pin in Mingus, Texas. I thought I’d gone to the end of the world, made a left-hand turn, and felt hell’s scorching fires when I found Mingus. But I found Larissa Morley here. You ever go on a journey hunting yourself?”

He swallowed hard. “I never lost myself.”

“Oh, you are lost, honey. If you are living in two places and one of them has a mother like mine, then you are definitely lost. Try my trick. Get one of those thumbtacks with a big plastic head and blindfold yourself. Turn around three times and stick it in a map. See where it takes you,” she said.

“Maybe I’ll try that sometime. Right now I’m pretty content with where I am.” His heart clinched up. He wasn’t content. He was miserable. Larissa Morley had him twisted around her finger and he dreaded the day she found out that he was working for the other side.

The smell of the onion caused tears to drip from her cheeks. Hank busied himself at the stove so he wouldn’t see her cry. After the meeting concerning the sale of Mingus, which he’d already decided was not about to come to pass, she would really cry and the thought pierced his heart.

“Hey, hey, anybody home?” Linda called from the living room. She, Betty, and Janice paraded into the kitchen. They stopped dead when they saw Hank at the stove and Larissa crying.

She held up the onion and giggled. “Come on in. Hank has the coffee ready. We’re making that damn good potato soup stuff I was telling y’all about. You can eat with us soon as it’s done. Stop giving Hank drop-dead looks, Janice. I’m crying because of the onions.”