Personal Assets (Texas Nights) (32 page)

Allie shoved open the massive door and said, “Thank you, Mildred.”

Her father’s eyebrows beetled together. “Alice Ann, you can’t come barging into people’s offices. If this is the way you conduct business, then—”

“Honestly, after today, it’s not going to be any of your business how I conduct business.” She placed the briefcase at her feet and leaned on her father’s desk. “I know you don’t have much time for me, so I’ll make this short. Personal Assets will no longer conduct business with Shelbyville Bank and Trust. As of today, my accounts have been transferred to Commerce State Bank. I would say it’s been a pleasure doing business with you. But I won’t, because it hasn’t.” Every muscle in her body was supercharged with power. “You’re an arrogant, controlling old man. I pity you because you’ve lost the two most important people in your life—your wife, and now, your daughter.”

Her father slumped a little in his chair.

Nelson barged in, tie flying over his shoulder. “What is going on here?”

“Nelson.” Allie half turned to him. “You’ve become my father’s babysitter in addition to his butt-kisser?”

At first, his only response was a garbled, “Uh...uh.” Then his manipulative little mind must’ve engaged. “Allie, I’ll escort you to my office and we can continue this conversation about your and the bank’s relationship.”

She thrust out a hand to ward him off. “No way, buster.”

“There’s no need to be so dramatic,” her dad told her.

She held her smile inside. Darn right she was being dramatic. “Fine, we’ll take care of business then. I’d like to pay back my loan.” She lifted the briefcase and slid it onto his desk, displacing his appointment book and sending a paperweight thunking to the carpet.

The locks popped with a satisfying twang, and she opened the lid to display the money.

“But how...?” Nelson stepped closer as if to make sure the bills were real. “You took money from that grease monkey you’ve been seeing, didn’t you?”

“Cameron Wright is more hardworking, more ethical, more caring than you could ever hope to be.” And dear God, she missed him more than she would’ve thought possible and it had been less than a day since she seen him last. She breathed to calm herself and turned back to her father. “Please apply this to my outstanding loan, completing the final transaction between my business and your bank.”

Nelson wrapped his hand, clammy with sweat, around her wrist. “You and I need to—”

“What you need to do is let go of me immediately.” She shook off his grip. “What my father needs is to hear how you planned to
solve
my little money problem.” She outlined Nelson’s proposal.

Tone desperate, Nelson said, “Robert, you have to believe—”

“Bramhall, my daughter can be many things, but she is not a liar.” Her father came around the desk. “We’ll discuss your part in this later.”

Nelson slunk away, presumably to his office.

Allie unloaded the money and placed it on the glossy desk surface, counting out the packets of cash one by one. “Seventy-five.”

“You did it.” Her father stared down at the stacks lined up like soldiers, but the corner of his mouth tilted up slightly. “I really didn’t think you would.”

“You mean you really didn’t
hope
I would. Turns out I’m as resourceful as you are.”

He looked up, and in his eyes was a swirl of pride and admiration tinged with sadness. “Ever since your mom died, you’ve tried to be so independent. I did everything I could to try to raise you the way I thought she would’ve wanted.”

Confusion and tentative hope wrestled inside her, turning her stomach inside out. “And you thought she would want you to manage me? Manipulate me?”

“You were her sweet little girl and then you started this sex-counseling business. Do you really think she would’ve approved of what you’ve decided to do with your life?”

Becoming a business owner, helping women, standing up for her beliefs, growing a solid backbone and falling in love with a good man? Strike that last one because she and Cameron had muddled that up something good. “Yes, I absolutely think she would approve. You’re the one who still seems to have a problem with it.”

“When Nelson came to me, claiming you’d lied on your loan application, I knew he was full of hot air. But I thought you would come to me, ask me for guidance, and then I could persuade you to change your business focus to something more...”

“Conservative? Discreet? Acceptable?”

“I was afraid you were taking a path that would wreck your life just as surely as disease took your mother’s.” His shoulders sagged under his suit coat. “Deep down, I’ll probably always wish you’d chosen a more traditional career, and I’ll never be completely comfortable with you running around town talking about...intimate relationships. But I’d be an idiot not to be proud of how you strapped on your boots and figured out how to wade through the tough times.”

And whatever he was, her dad was no idiot. “I’ve been doing that for a long time now.”

“And I just didn’t want to see it.” His hands lifted like he wanted to reach for her, but he dropped them back to his sides. Did he actually love her? Maybe this was the only way he knew how to show love. Twisted, but understandable. “I don’t know if you’ll ever forgive me.”

Not today. She wasn’t ready yet, but someday. Maybe someday soon.

* * *

Emmalee’s shoulders ached with the weight of the pan in her arms. But a peace offering should probably be a little painful for the one doing the offering. She rang Charlie’s doorbell with her elbow. The pan tipped and slid. She lunged to keep her hands around it. And of course, Charlie opened the door to find her on her knees bobbling the damn tamales she’d stayed awake most of the night making.

“Em?” Oh, Lord, and his eyes were red, as if he’d been up all night indulging in a bender. He stooped to take the pan from her. “I sure wasn’t expecting you today.” The way he said it made her think he hadn’t expected to see her ever again.

“Can I come in?”

“Sure, I was just fixing some supper.”

All she smelled was burnt cardboard. They walked into the kitchen and she realized why. A one-dish frozen dinner, edges blackened and dark smoke seeping out one end, sat on the counter.

“You’re supposed to vent those, you know.”

He winced and set her pan beside his sad meal. “Yeah, sometimes I forget.”

“Lucky for you I brought tamales.” She pulled out plates and forks from the cabinets and drawers she knew almost as well as she knew her own. “Bar or dining room?”

She reached to strip the foil off the pan, but Charlie caught her arm. “Em, I don’t think I can do this. You coming over like everything’s the same as it was last week. Or maybe last month.”

The tamales’ spicy scent settled in her stomach, making it burn. “I thought we could eat first.” A man’s stomach and heart were so close together, and even though she wasn’t ready for marriage, she did want Charlie’s heart. “And then talk afterward.”

“I don’t see as there’s much to discuss.”

“Does this mean we’re not friends anymore?”

Charlie released her, rubbed the back of his head. “You know I’d do anything in the world for you.”

“But?”

“But I can’t pretend I don’t have deeper feelings for you, and to be honest, I think it’s pretty damned cruel of you to come here a day after you rejected me.”

Fine, so they’d have this conversation without the buffer of food. “I didn’t reject
you.
I said no to your marriage proposal.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“I spent a lot of years dependent on one man or another.” She took his hand, so strong and familiar. “You can’t imagine how demeaning that is when it’s your drunk of a husband. Or how humbling when that man is your son. Back in our day, a girl often went straight from her father’s house to her husband’s, and that’s the way it was with me. Brody’s been gone a lot of years now, but for most of those, I was just getting by. I didn’t have the time or the energy to find myself or nurture my feminine power or anything else that was just for me.”

“You deserve the very best in your life.”

She smiled at that. “You’re right, I do.”

“Well, whenever you find that best man, he’s gonna be one lucky sonuva...biscuit.”

“Charlie, you caught me off guard yesterday. You can’t imagine how much fun I’ve had on our dates. I’m not ready to trade that in for ‘Whose turn is it to fold the laundry?’ and ‘When’s the last time the plants were watered?’ Do you understand?”

“I think so.” But his bewildered look said she’d lost him somewhere.

“I want time to grow my baking business, have dinner out with my new girlfriends and go on dates.” She squeezed his hand and looked into his eyes. “With you.”

“Does this mean we’re still together?”

“You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.”

“But you don’t want to get married, right?”

“For now.” She went on tiptoe and kissed him. “Not necessarily forever.”

“Then, Em, it’s time for me to say what I would’ve said yesterday if I weren’t such a bonehead.” Charlie wrapped her in his arms. “I love you and want you in my life whether or not you ever want to get married again.”

“I love you too, Charlie.”

Who needed tamales when they had this?

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Cameron sat alone, watching people two-step around Dirty Harry’s dime-sized dance floor. Surely he wasn’t the only guy in some crapped-out bar, slumped in a vinyl booth coated with I-don’t-wanna-know-what, hoping the drink in front of him could drown what was inside him. He tossed back the murky brown liquid half filling the short glass. It swam down his throat and into his belly, creating explosions of damning fire as it went.

He couldn’t stand the color of bourbon. Couldn’t stand the smell of bourbon. Couldn’t stand the taste of bourbon.

Sitting here with a glass of shitty whiskey might be pitiful but it was better than moping around his house, seeing Allie on his couch, remembering her in his bed. She’d found a way to pay back her loan without his help. But how was he going to keep going without her? He stared into his glass, but the answer didn’t rise out of the bourbon fumes.

He crooked a finger, and a waitress wove her way through the crowd to his table.

“Dolores, what are you doing waiting tables at Harry’s?” She was normally one of two breakfast shift waitresses at the Skillet.

“Restaurant isn’t doing so well these days, but don’t tell Bobby Ray I’m moonlighting, okay?”

“No problem.” He lifted his empty glass. “How about another?”

“Hon, you don’t look so good.” Dolores’s penciled-in brows lowered from under her orange-ish bangs. “Maybe you don’t need another.”

“Darlin’, it’s not a matter of need. It’s a matter of want.” And if he’d wanted someone to worry about him, he’d have gotten his drunk on at his mom’s house. “Believe me, you’ll know when I’ve had enough.” With a bitter laugh, he added for his own benefit, “’Cause I’ll start to look a whole lot like Brody Wright.”

She shook her head but picked up his glass and headed for the bar. What would a woman like Dolores think about accepting help from a man? She was probably smart enough to know the difference between someone who wanted to help because he cared about her and some asshole who only wanted to get into her pants. Why couldn’t the woman he loved get that?

All he’d done since all hell broke loose at the softball field was think about Allie, which told him no amount of bad booze was going to give him what he wanted most, an unoccupied head and heart.

Dolores returned and plunked the same glass in front of him. “Hon, let me know if you need someone to listen.”

“Not right now, but thanks.” He spun the tall shot in slow circles, marking the already stained table with patterns of self-disgust.

The shadows around the booth shifted and he glanced up to tell Dolores he didn’t need anything else. There stood Beck, with his chief deputy’s hat tucked under his arm, and Jamie, dressed in just-pressed chinos and a green silk polo. Damn, if he didn’t love his brother so much, he’d hate the guy for always looking like he’d stepped off some magazine page. Didn’t matter—Jamie could’ve mucked stalls or dug ditches or slopped pigs. He’d still be wrinkle—and sweat-free.

Beck gestured to the seat opposite Cameron. “You mind?”

“Make yourself at home.”

Jamie slid in first, and Beck edged in after, attempting to keep his uniform shirt from touching the table.

Jamie snagged Cameron’s glass. “You look like crap.”

“Get your own goddamned drink,” Cameron snapped and grabbed his bourbon before his brother could apply his lips to the rim.

Jamie shrugged and waved to get Dolores’s attention.

“Well, hello again, cutie.” Dolores cocked one hip. “I swear you three need to come with smellin’ salts. A girl could faint dead away.”

Jamie gifted her with the angelic smile that had always made him a favorite with his teachers. “Dolores, you make me wish I were a single man.”

She giggled, causing her healthy bustline to jiggle. “You’re so full of it.” She swatted Jamie on the head. “Now what can I get’cha?”

“Couple of Buds, tops on.”

She sauntered away, and Jamie sighed. “I love women like that.”

Cameron rotated his glass in slow, attention-riveting circles. “You love women, period.”

“You are so right.”

“Who’s the lucky Barbie these days?” His brother was working his way through Houston’s population of rich, plastic-surgery frequent fliers.

Jamie lifted a shoulder. “Currently in between.”

“Must suck.”

“Yeah, unfortunately, that’s not happening either.”

“What are you still doing in town?”

“Taking care of a little business.” Jamie smiled at Dolores when she delivered the beers and turned back to Cameron. “Wanna talk about why you’re sitting in this crap hole drinking something they probably distill in the men’s room?”

“No.”

“No, they didn’t make that whiskey in a toilet bowl?”

“Don’t care where it’s been. Only where it’s going.” But he didn’t lift it to his lips. He’d yet to take a swallow of the fresh drink.

Beck scooted a cardboard coaster close and rested his elbow on it. God, only Beck. A guy who could handle blood and guts but was afraid he’d get cooties off a bar table. He popped the tops from the beers with a skilled move involving his college class ring. He took a long swallow and thunked the bottle onto the table. He eyed Cameron’s glass. “How many of those’ve you had?”