My Hero (20 page)

Shit.

It had been so long since he'd had sex that he'd not only forgotten how to fucking do it, but he'd forgotten the necessary precautions that accompanied the act. He could almost hear a little
pfft
right now, the sound of his plans for tonight going up in smoke. Unless…

He looked the length of the table again where Baldy and Curly had their heads together like two goofy conspirators planning to assassinate Mickey Mouse. Was she on the pill? Was there room enough in that little purse she carried for a diaphragm? Or did Miss Holly Hicks, like so many savvy women these days, carry her own selection of brightly colored, fancifully named square packets? What was it Diana had handed him the night he met her on the plane? Some damned French thing labeled Etna or Vesuvius or something.

Somehow he couldn't picture Holly with a Parisian rubber in her purse, or even a diaphragm, for that matter. This woman wasn't a huntress like his so aptly named about-to-be-ex-wife.

Then, while he was contemplating his pitiful, and now postponed, sex life, Cal suddenly felt a bare foot inching suggestively up his calf. Whoa. What the…?

It would've been nice to think the sensuous foot belonged to Holly, but she would have to be a minimum of sixteen feet tall to have legs long enough to go the distance under this table. Since that was out of the question, highly trained investigator that he was, he took a sip of his beer and gazed casually around his end of the table at the wives of his buddies who were sitting within “playing footsie” distance.

Kathy Brueckner, on his right, was turned away from him, deep in conversation with a waitress. As near as Cal could tell, they were debating the merits of Monterey Jack cheese versus Colby. On his left, Marv Preston's wife, Janiece, a pretty blonde no bigger than the minute hand on a watch, was searching through her handbag just then as if her life depended on finding whatever it was she was looking for. That left only sloe-eyed, big-haired, sequin-and-spandexed Sandy Carter, who was sitting directly across from him.

The exploratory tootsie was approaching his knee as he slowly settled his gaze on Mrs. Bertram “Bud” Carter. Her foot held still, but her brown eyes widened perceptibly while her tongue made a wet pass across her lower lip. Oh, brother.

How long had she and Bud been married? Twenty years at least. Cal had been an usher at their wedding that summer. Jesus, he remembered how hung over he was from the rehearsal dinner. Who the hell knew what made a woman like Sandy run her foot up a guy's leg? Maybe Bud wasn't paying enough attention to her. Maybe she was hitting some kind of mid-life deal, like Ruth, and instead of opting for a restaurant, Sandy was looking for a tryst in a turquoise convertible. Whatever.

It just struck him as sad right then, and not that he was a white knight by any stretch of the imagination, but he didn't want Sandy leaving here tonight feeling lousy about herself. He knew all about feeling lousy. And he'd recently begun to know more than he ever wanted to know about rejection.

“Hey, Sandy,” he said, his voice low and not meant to be heard by anyone else. “Is that you in search of a foot rub, dar-lin'?”

“Could be,” she said.

Her toes edged inside his knee now, and Cal would've been a liar if he said it wasn't a turn on. He just wished the foot were attached to somebody else's leg.

“Care to do anything about it?” she asked.

After another sip of beer, he put his glass down and then reached under the table with both hands to plant his thumbs firmly against the sole of her stockinged foot. “How's that?” he asked, pressing hard.

Her thick eyelashes fluttered and Cal could see the moan she was having a tough time stifling. “Oh, God. That's wonderful,” she murmured. “Don't stop.”

He slid his hands up to her ankle, then dragged his fingers back, pressing hard into the fleshy part of her instep while he watched her head arc back a couple of inches and her dark brown eyes sink closed. “You look just as pretty as you did on your wedding day, Mrs. Carter,” he said, keeping his voice low, continuing the massage.

“You're full of shit, Cal.” She smiled as she said it.

“No, I mean it. You've still got world-class ankles, too, Sandy. You always did. Hell, I could do this all night. Except…”

Her shuttered eyes opened a crack. “Except what?”

With a tilt of his head, Cal gestured down the table. “Except that little strawberry blonde down there would probably kill me if she suspected I found anybody sexy but her. She's a lot stronger than she looks. And as I recall, Bud used to have a lethal left hook.”

A small sigh of acknowledgment broke from her pink glossy lips. “You're saying we're just too old and scared to fool around, huh?”

“Well, I don't know about you, darlin', but I'm feeling every minute of my age these days.” He grinned. “I kinda wish we'd both thought about playing footsie eight or ten years ago.”

Sandy—Mrs. Bertram “Bud” Carter of twenty years, with probably twenty or thirty more to go in that role—fully opened her eyes now in order to roll them heavenward. “You really are full of shit, Cal. You know that?”

He shrugged. He knew it, but he was hoping Sandy wouldn't figure it out.

She gave a conclusive little sigh then as she pulled her foot from his hands. “You're a good man, Cal Griffin, and that strawberry blonde is one lucky little girl.”

They both turned their gazes to the opposite end of the table where the lights were nearly dazzling on Bobby's skull as he stood behind Holly's chair, helping her up, and then ushering her toward the dance floor. Holly pitched Cal a woeful little “Mayday” look over her shoulder.

“Cripes,” Sandy said with some disgust. “There goes Bobby again, trying to prove he can do the tango. He watched that movie with Al Pacino too many times.”

By now, Kathy had turned back from her conversation with the waitress and she took a bit of umbrage at the remark about her husband. “He's not
that
bad, Sandy. Besides, I think it's kind of cute.” Chuckling, she nudged Cal's arm. “Still, your date probably wouldn't mind being rescued before ol' Al tangos all over her poor feet.”

“That's not such a bad idea,” he said, already shoving his chair back. “Excuse me, ladies.”

“Ouch.” Dammit. Holly hadn't meant to yelp. Not out loud anyway. Bobby Brueckner was so utterly serious about the tango, but the banker-slash-hoofer had just clipped her little toe for a third time, and they'd only been on the dance floor a minute or two.

“Sorry about that,” he mumbled, sounding less than sincere, as if it were
her
fault for being clumsy and getting in his way.

“That's okay.” Holly stiffened her right arm just a bit so they weren't quite so close. Actually, his beer gut was already doing a fairly good job of separating them. Maybe he just had incredibly big feet. She was beginning to wonder if the VIP Channel had made any provisions for hazardous duty pay. God. She'd been a participant in a hostage drama this morning, and now she was about to have a toe amputated or be trampled to death in a crummy Texas roadhouse.

When Bobby abruptly reversed direction, he got her big toe—eee-oww!—and she didn't say a word when he made a condescending cluck of his tongue instead of offering abject apologies. Okay. So she wasn't Ginger Rogers or Jennifer Grey. But Bobby wasn't exactly Fred Astaire, and he sure as hell wasn't Patrick Swayze.

“My turn, Bobby.”

Cal's voice, as it drifted over the banker's shoulder, sounded like the music of the angels in concert with guitars and blaring trumpets and insistent maracas.
Gracias a Dios. Mil gracias.
A thousand thanks. More. A million.

Bobby's intense grip on her hand evaporated, and the next thing Holly knew she was being enfolded in Cal's arms. It felt a little like going from a bed of nails to the all-encompassing warmth of a duvet. Being in his arms felt so right. Just perfect.

The hand at her back pulled her close while his left wrist curled her hand against his solid chest. “This is purely a rescue operation, babe,” he murmured at her ear. “I don't dance. Not anymore.”

“Feels like dancing to me,” she said, surprised at the sultriness of her own voice. The words came out as purring rather than speech. “Feels good.”

He tilted back a few inches to focus his blue, blue eyes on her face. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Holly couldn't suppress a smile that felt absurdly contented, ludicrously smitten. She didn't even want to fight her feelings at the moment.

Cal's smile was fairly smitten, too. “What do you say we ease on over to the far side of the dance floor, and then make a break for the back door?”

Holly laughed. “You lead. I'll follow.”

Making their way across the crowded dance floor turned out to be easier said than done. It seemed that Bobby wasn't the only local aficionado of the tango. They were thumped and bumped from all sides as they moved in the general direction of the kitchen and the back door. Holly didn't especially mind the jostling, though, because every thump and bump seated her more firmly in Cal's arms, against his warm, solid form. Right that moment she would've followed him anywhere—out the back door, across the border, to the moon.

Up until nine months ago, Cal had been, among other things, a professional people mover and crowd threader, using his own weight and forward progress to shift others off balance and out of his way. A human bulldozer with badge and gun. Christ, now he felt like a rat in a maze just trying to reach the edge of the dance floor. As a dancer, he'd never been any great shakes, but he knew how to hold a woman, and judging from the renewed glaze in Holly's expression, he'd succeeded admirably.

Now what?

With his arm around her shoulders, he guided Holly off the dance floor and down the narrow corridor that led past the pay phone and the rest rooms, both of them labeled in Spanish. It took Cal a long moment to distinguish
Chicos
from
Chicas.

“I'll be right out,” he told Holly even as he was pushing the door and congratulating himself on solving the problem about protection. He'd never been in a Texas roadhouse that didn't have a condom dispenser in the men's room. It was standard equipment.

He stepped inside, only to be greeted by the intense odor of pine and the sight of about half a mile of wide shoulders, all in assorted plaids, lined up at the urinals.

The guy on the far right zipped up and swung around. It was Sandy Carter's husband, Bud. “Hey, Cal,” he said, ambling toward the sink.

“Hey, Bud.”

Damn. Cal glanced at the dark green dispenser on the far wall and wondered why he'd assumed he'd be alone for this little transaction. He didn't give a rat's ass about his own reputation, but he'd be damned if he'd let everyone within a forty-mile radius know he was making it with the little producer from New York. Instead of heading for the rubber machine, he went to the sink and washed his hands, just so he didn't look like a total jerk.

“So they're doing a TV show about you, huh?” Bud asked from the adjacent sink, glancing at him in the mirror.

“Yeah.”

“That's really something, man. Who would've thought it back when we were kids?”

“Yeah. Who would've thought it,” Cal echoed. He shut off the faucet and snapped a paper towel from the holder. “See you around, Bud.”

Out in the dim hallway, Cal didn't see Holly at first, so he thought maybe she'd decided to use the
Chicas.
He leaned a shoulder against the wall, waiting. He could detour a few miles north on the way home. Holly'd never know the difference. He could stop at a drug store, be in and out in a minute, with no one the wiser.

Then what?

Hell.

Then
where?

They couldn't very well go back to Ruth and Dooley's, could they? If Ruthie caught them…All of a sudden Cal felt like a furtive teenager, looking for a place, any place, to lay his lady. He cursed himself for choosing the T-bird with its bucket seats when he could have had a big '68 Caddy for the same price. Of course, six months ago, when he'd bought the car, sex had been the last thing on his mind. But now…

Just then, over the guitars and trumpets on the bandstand, he heard a familiar female voice. A familiar,
strident
female voice. More Brooklyn than Brownsville.

“You
and
the horse you rode in on, asshole.”

Cal glanced to his left. Holly hadn't been in the ladies' room after all, but standing only a short distance away, wedged between Tucker Bascom and the wall.

Well, hell. The last thing he wanted to do tonight was confront some half-drunk, bow-legged Romeo who couldn't take no for an answer, so Cal stifled his natural instinct to intervene. Besides, the little chili pepper seemed to be handling herself just fine.

“Aw, c'mon, Tiffany,” Tucker moaned.

“Get
away
from me.” Holly, only an inch or two above five feet, reached up with both her hands and gave the six-foot, three-inch, inebriated cowboy a shove that sent him pinwheeling backward across the corridor and into the opposite wall.

Cal wasn't one to ignore an opportunity to avoid trouble. He levered off his square foot of wall and reached for Holly's hand.

“Come on, Champ. Let's get outta here.”

“I thought you had a thing for rescuing damsels in distress,” Holly said, sliding into the T-bird's passenger seat.

“You were doing just fine without me.”

Cal laughed as he closed her door and then walked around the front of the car. Holly could have sworn she saw moonlight glinting off his smile. That wasn't possible, was it? Stuff like that only happened in TV commercials. She rubbed her eyes.

“Tired?” Cal asked, settling behind the wheel.

“A little.” She wasn't, not really, but he'd asked the question in a certain hopeful tone, as if he might be looking for an excuse to end the evening. “Are you?”

“Nah. I just thought…”

Before he could finish, the back door of El Mariachi shot open, slammed hard against the metal siding on the rear wall, and Tucker Bascom stumbled out.

“I want to talk to you, Griffin,” he called, pointing across the gravel parking lot. “Wait up.”