Personal Assets (Texas Nights) (2 page)

Cameron swung between the urge to throw back his head and laugh and the urge to beat his head against her hood and bawl. Neither made much sense, seeing as the headache he’d been courting since 7:00 a.m. was currently drilling a hole the size of Dallas through his left eyeball.

“Allie, you okay?” a boy hollered as he and two friends barreled down the sidewalk on skateboards, jumped over the curb and into the intersection.

Allie’s attention finally shifted from her phone, and she lowered her passenger side window. She scrambled across the console and leaned so far out the window, Cameron couldn’t help but check out the sight of her grade-A ass thrust into the air. If she didn’t watch out, she’d end up lying on the asphalt along with his bumper. Relief and disappointment warred inside him as he ogled the backside of her thin white pants. If she’d worn a skirt today, he would surely know the make, model and color of Allie Shelby’s panties.

“Ben, why are you skateboarding in the road?”

The lead skateboarder hitched up his baggy shorts and pointed toward Cameron. “Um...I’m pretty sure you nailed that guy.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him and plopped back into the driver’s seat. Looking at her heart-shaped face was no real hardship either. Her long lashes were a few shades darker than her hair. Her eyes were light brown at the center and brightened to dark blue at the rims. Those eyes had always struck him as a little unsettling.

His survey caught on her mouth. Yep, God was a woman and Satan was a man. Because a mouth like hers, with full unpainted lips, was certainly made for sin.

Those lips formed a startled O, causing his dick to sit up and take notice. Just perfect. He didn’t have time this morning or room in his life for a distraction. And this woman was a walking, talking Barbie doll of a distraction.

The kid called to Allie, “You gonna be okay for softball practice?”

Her attention swung away again. Did she have any idea they were blocking a four-way stop and traffic was stacking up? “Don’t worry. I’ll bring Popsicles,” she promised.

Apparently not.

A prissy little thing like her on the ball field with a crew of thirteen-year-old boys? That he’d have to see to believe. Standing maybe all of five-three and weighing 110 pounds, Allie didn’t strike him as an athlete. But his brain teased him with the memory of her dexterity as a high school JV cheerleader. Not that he’d paid much attention, but he’d had to kill the time somehow since his brother, Jamie, never made it off the bench during any of those games.

Cameron whipped off his sunglasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. Screw acupressure, he needed drugs. “Princess, do you think you could stop arranging your social life long enough for us to pick up the missing pieces of our cars and exchange insurance cards?”

He sounded like a real asshole, but damn it, he’d planned to be at Scoot’s—now, his—garage fifteen minutes ago. His plan had most definitely not included losing either parts of his beloved car or his mind. Thanks to this woman he was losing both.

She dug around in her purse, flinging out a tube of lipstick and a tampon in her hurry to find something. God, what next? Maybe she had party invitations for all the gawkers. “I’m so sorry. I guess I was a little sidetracked this morning—”

Cameron’s patience went down the crapper. “What the hell were you doing when you plowed into me? Yapping on your phone scheduling your next pedicure?”

The startled, harassed expression on her face flickered to an expression that looked suspiciously like hurt. By the time he checked closer, it was gone, replaced by something flat and disinterested. Staring down from her perch inside the SUV, Allie pointed toward his car. “Is that Big Bertha?”

He had his brother to thank for his Eldorado’s damned nickname, and Allie’s reference to it had his blood cruising even hotter through his veins. He’d forgotten how fast info snaked through a town this size. Cameron’s inarticulate response came out a cross between the hiss of his mother’s teakettle and the grind of a busted transmission.

“I’m sorry,” Allie said. “She looks like she could use a little mouth-to-mouth.”

“If you’d been paying attention to something besides you and your phone, my car wouldn’t need any medical attention.”

Those sexy lips flattened and her focus shifted to her hand, admiring her perfectly polished nails and the big-ass emerald on her ring finger. She was pretty enough to make a dead man look twice, but she had
high maintenance
written all over her in those fancy calligraphy letters. Not his kind of woman. Not anymore.

“Who, me? Be concerned about someone besides myself?” Her words were flippant, but her face remained immobile.

Cameron’s mom had also taught him and Jamie to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. He glanced at Allie’s feet. He wouldn’t make it a quarter mile in those strappy sandals, but he could apologize. “Look, if you’ll agree to pay for the damage, I’ll—”

Her phone blasted a pop tune from some grown-up boy band, and she had the bad manners to answer the damn thing.

“Allie speaking.”

A tinny voice talking a mile a minute came from her phone.

“This isn’t a good time, Mildred. Tell Dad I’ll talk with him later.”

She cut Cameron a quick glance, but he wasn’t going to wait around for her to schedule her post-softball social life. Turning to stalk away, he momentarily forgot that his jeans flaunted a gaping hole.

“Cameron, wait, I—”

“I’ll be in touch, princess.”

Someone gawking from the sidewalk called out, “Why, Cameron, what cute dimples you have in your cheeks.”

Based on Allie’s chuckle behind him, he was pretty sure her attention was fixed on his ass, not on his face. Good, maybe she wouldn’t notice the color in his cheeks matched his BVDs.

* * *

Allie’s cell phone vibrated itself off the passenger seat as she screeched into a parking space in front of the Williams Building, where her business, Personal Assets, was located. Apparently, her response to her father’s administrative assistant hadn’t pleased him. Darn the day he’d purchased his first BlackBerry. Since then, he’d used text messages to summon her at his every whim.

She fished the cell from her floorboard and read through the cracked screen.

You were to come by my office at 8:30 a.m.
Since you failed to arrive at the bank
,
reschedule with Mildred immediately.

Her attempt to text him that she wouldn’t make it was what had caused all her problems this morning in the first place. If she’d paid attention to the road instead of her father’s demand, she could’ve avoided the nerve-racking run-in with Cameron Wright.

Had Cameron’s hair been that dark and unruly in high school? Had his attitude been that dark and surly? Allie patted her still ba-booming heart, and sweat seeped from her palms to her silk shirt. From fear-induced adrenaline or some other emotion?

No time to figure it out. She had clients waiting.

She deleted the message on her phone and headed toward Roxanne’s lingerie store next door. She pushed through the front door, and a disembodied voice floated from behind an antique mahogany counter. “Heard you had a fender bender.”

“There’s no bell on that door. How do you know when someone walks in?”

“I’m sensitive to wind currents.” Roxanne stood, revealing a smile dominating an angular face framed by deep coppery-red hair cut ruthlessly short. On anyone else, the style would have appeared boyish. On Roxanne, the cut screamed sexy and naughty. Darn her. “Trying to get Cameron Wright’s attention?”

“I didn’t have any idea he was back in town. And for Christ’s sake, I drove straight here. How did you hear about an accident that happened seven minutes ago?”

“Nine minutes now, and don’t say ‘for Christ’s sake,’ for Christ’s sake. The Methodist ladies auxiliary might hear you and come running to save your soul. Then they’d buy up all the mango-flavored massage oil, and I can’t afford to run out before the summer wedding season is over.”

Allie pushed her hair back from her face, but the straight platinum strands simply swung forward again and stuck to her lips. “Why do things like this happen to me?”

“Karma?”

“Bad karma.” She thought of Cameron again. Or was it?

Roxanne pointed to the red velvet chaise near the dressing rooms. “Sit down and tell me why rear-ending a man as hot as Cameron Wright is a bad thing.”

Allie recalled the dark intent in his eyes when he’d ripped off his sunglasses and pressed his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. Oh, Lord, the way he’d looked standing in the middle of the street. Short, dark hair spiked up from driving the convertible or maybe from running his fingers through it. The rough stubble on his cheeks. Awareness shimmied up her spine. Wait a minute... “How do you know what he looks like?”

“I make it my business to know these things.” Roxanne waggled her fingers at Allie. “Deets, please.”

She glanced toward the door joining Red Light and her counseling business. “I’m already late for this morning’s session. The ladies are here, aren’t they?”

“They won’t mind waiting two minutes. I bet they’re all inside chattering away about their latest homework assignment.” Roxanne knelt on the floor and pinned the hem of a turquoise harem outfit on a mannequin worthy of wearing it. “I need something to hold me over for an hour, so spill.”

A guy who looked that good wearing a faded Cotton Bowl T-shirt, battered Tony Lama boots and Levi’s with half the butt ripped out should come stamped with a warning label. Any other man would’ve appeared silly stomping across the pavement with his back pocket flapping behind him. Cameron looked dangerous. “You should’ve seen his face, Rox. He was madder than a cat in a bathtub.”

Roxanne glanced up, studied Allie. “Oh my God, he got you hot and bothered.”

“You know, I think he did.” She fanned her face. “The way he yanked open my door like he was going to drag me out of my car and paddle my backside for causing an accident. Neanderthal, sure. But it was also kind of—”

“Panty wetting.”

Allie snorted a laugh, but the sound sputtered to a stop when Emmalee Wright, Cameron’s mother, walked into the store and stopped inside the threshold. She was in her midfifties with a dark bob haircut. The plain beige blouse and pants she wore did little to accentuate her trim figure, as if she were hiding behind her clothes’ blandness.

“Is this where...I mean...I came for...” Emmalee glanced around at racks of barely-there pink panties and black garter belts, but her attention snagged and held on Roxanne’s display case. A good look at the Promise Keeper XL would do that to a woman.

Roxanne hopped to her feet. “If you’re interested in a vibrator, I have a wide selection.”

Emmalee’s cheeks glowed pink, but she didn’t look away from the rainbow of battery-operated devices. “No, that’s not what I...” She slapped a palm to her forehead and breathed deep. “I’m making a complete mess of this. I should leave.”

She grabbed for the door handle, but Allie caught her elbow and led her to the chaise. If ever there was a woman who needed help, it was this one. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard.”

Cameron’s mom collapsed onto the cushions. “About?”

“I hit Cameron with my Escalade this morning.”

Emmalee jumped up again. “Is he hurt? Where is he? I have to get to the hospital.”

“Way to give the woman a heart attack,” Roxanne said.

Guilt layered over Allie’s remorse. She would boycott Mondays as soon as she could get out from under this one. “He’s fine. It was only a fender bender.”

The older woman’s body sagged. “What about BB?”

“She lost a bumper.” Heat crept into Allie’s face. “And maybe some other stuff.”

“Oh, no.”

“I have insurance.”

“Of course you do,” Emmalee said. “Cameron’s just protective of things he cares deeply about. He’ll see this as bad for business.”

“What business?” Roxanne fussed with the mannequin’s sequined bra to best display the plastic cleavage.

“He bought Scooter Kaynes’s old garage and is starting the cleanup today.”

Roxanne smiled. A smile so wide, Allie was surprised to see her lips still clamped around safety pins instead of a dangling mouse tail. “He’s home to stay?”

“I have to admit,” Emmalee said, “his timing could’ve been better.”

Allie waited for Emmalee to expand, but she said nothing else. Emmalee had never been much of a gossip, probably because her family had been the focus of plenty when her sons were younger and her husband had walked out on them.

“Emmalee, I’ll let you get to your shopping,” Allie said. “Sorry to dash off, but I have an appointment.”

Emmalee perked up at Allie’s comment. “You mean a session, right?” She said
session
like the word was magic. Black magic, maybe, but magic nonetheless.

“Yes.”

“Perfect.” Emmalee stood and hitched her purse on her shoulder like she might arm herself for battle. “That’s why I’m here.”

After completing her Ph.D. coursework, Allie had opened a body image and sexuality counseling practice. Not a common service in a smaller town, but with a large university a few miles down the interstate and a location on a thoroughfare between Houston and Dallas, she made do. A few clients were locals, but Emmalee Wright was a surprise.

Allie dug in her tote for a business card and gave it to Emmalee. “I’d be happy to set up a one-on-one consultation with you. Today’s session is with an—” advanced sexuality experimentation group, “—existing counseling group.”

“Oh.” Emmalee’s shoulders drooped, and her purse slid to her elbow. “It was silly of me to stop by. I’m sorry if I wasted your time.”

Alarm shot through Allie. No, no, no. She could not let this woman walk out of here. If she left, Allie would never get her back. “You know what? I bet the group would love another member.” She put her arm around Emmalee’s shoulders and herded her toward Personal Assets, ignoring the woman’s concrete-filled steps. “We’re meeting right through this door.”

Allie glanced back at Roxanne, who winked, shot her with a finger pistol and mouthed, “Good luck.”