Personal Assets (Texas Nights) (6 page)

“I’ll probably need a couple of painters eventually.” What he didn’t say was auto painting was a specialized job, not something anybody off the street could excel at, and Cameron planned to offer excellent auto bodywork.

“And did I hear something about you working on classic cars?”

Cameron smiled even though most of his brain power was still working to persuade his dick to chill out. “I plan to restore cars and provide general body repair services for the community. I’m glad to be back in Shelbyville and look forward to your business.”

Battling the need to loosen the already unbuttoned collar of his white dress shirt, he sank back into his seat. Thank Jesus, Mary and Joseph that was over. How was he going to establish himself when he hated this part of doing business?

He glanced to his right and caught Allie’s smile. “What?”

That wasn’t a smile. It was a shit-eating grin. And she was staring at the napkin still tenting over the fly of his gray slacks. “Nothing. Nice promo job.”

No, she wasn’t some Sixth Street party girl, but it was becoming more and more obvious Allie enjoyed pushing the line of propriety. Which could be disastrous for a man trying to earn the community’s respect.

The wooden gavel cracked against the podium, and the room exploded with conversation. People scattered from the tables, but Cameron needed a couple more cool-down minutes.

Allie was already out of her chair, but she leaned back down, showcasing the lacy bra under her blouse. Shit. Scratch two minutes and make it ten.

“Will you be at the garage tonight?” she asked.

He nodded, the extent of his vocabulary while he was ogling those little cupcakes.

“Later then.” Allie strolled out the door, her hips swinging just enough to keep him tuned in to every movement. Right, left, right.

“Should I be offended?”

Busted.
He turned to Allie’s friend. “I was just—”

“I know what you were
just
.” Roxanne winked, reminding him of a kick-ass, take-no-prisoners Tinker Bell. “Don’t be so uptight. Just do her.” And off she went.

Just do her.
Dammit, it wasn’t that straightforward. At least not to him.

“Mr. Wright, could I have a word?”

Dread slid down the back of Cameron’s neck. Robert Shelby. Standing was easy enough now. He got to his feet. “Sir?”

“Welcome home.” Shelby held out his hand, forcing Cameron to take it or look like an asshole. “It’s good to have you back.”

This from the man who almost took his family’s home fifteen years ago. Shelby had way bigger balls than a Ken doll. And they were made of titanium. He was also Allie’s dad, so Cameron shoved aside his lingering bitterness. Holding on to old grudges was pointless. “Thank you.”

“You may not be aware, but the city and Chamber are working hard to encourage more tourism and business relocations to Shelbyville. We’re in a strategic location, but we’ve struggled with attracting industry, so we’re establishing a new economic development committee.”

Sounded reasonable, but what did it have to do with him? He’d already relocated to Shelbyville.

“We need a committee chair and I suggested you. Would you be interested?”

Interested? Hell, he could barely sit through one of these breakfast torture sessions. But if this was what it took to be a part of the business community, how could he say no? “What would it involve?”

“The committee is a combination idea generator and hospitality group and meets every couple of weeks. The group brainstorms ways to bring more business to town and occasionally rubs elbows with prospective businesses. Serving on it would give you direct access to Shelbyville’s most successful entrepreneurs.”

Was this some kind of long-overdue apology? Shelby’s face was smooth and relaxed, not drawn with pity or remorse. He probably didn’t even remember what he’d done all those years ago.

“Sure.” He had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

* * *

Since the Chamber meeting this morning, Allie’d had a heck of a time concentrating on the new workshop outline she was developing. When she told Cameron she’d drop by his garage later, his expression had been pure deer-meet-headlights. Her hope and ego would’ve deflated if she hadn’t already caught sight of what he was hiding under his napkin.

Somehow, she doubted that erection was inspired by the breakfast biscuits.

The man could be persuaded, and she was just the one to do the persuading.

This was going to be more fun than she’d had in...possibly ever. She should start the affair off with a bang. Okay, maybe not a
bang
bang, but something fun and sexy and guaranteed to get his attention.

Tie him to her bedposts and rub him down with Roxanne’s mango massage oil?

Too conservative.

Introduce him to her Promise Keeper XL?

Too forward.

Take him parking?

Just right.

Now she simply had to get him to say yes.

The crystal-shattering shrill of her cell interrupted her happy thoughts. When she dug it from her desk drawer and her father’s private number at the bank flashed on the screen, her jaw spasmed. She’d avoided him this morning, but she couldn’t run forever. It wasn’t adult or professional. Somehow, he reduced her to the approval-seeking eight-year-old girl she’d been when her mom died.

Enough.

She punched the talk button. “Personal Assets. Allie speaking.”

“Alice Ann, I’ve been trying to reach you for several days, and yet you left the meeting this morning before I could speak with you.” His tone was impatient, bordering on condescending. “That’s no way to treat your father. Or your banker.”

So the squirrelly feeling she’d had in her stomach wasn’t a fluke. Whatever he wanted to talk about wasn’t going to make her nearly as happy as her sexy Cameron thoughts.

She rose from her desk chair and sagged into her comfy chair, the one she used during counseling sessions. She’d found it under a pile of broken picture frames at an estate sale, and its faded tapestry always lifted her mood.

Not today.

She twisted her mom’s ring and clenched it inside her fist. Her dad was right. Her mom always taught her it was fine to disagree, but not to be disrespectful. Avoiding her father for this long was veering into disrespectful territory.

“I apologize I missed our original appointment.”

“Come to my office immediately so we can discuss this urgent business.” His computer keyboard clicked along as he spoke. He never simply talked to her without engaging in another activity at the same time. Even when they were face-to-face, her father found it necessary to be busy. Typing an email. Running profit-and-loss figures. Practicing his golf stroke.

She’d waited almost twenty years to be important to him. He could wait another day. Setting terms and boundaries wasn’t disrespectful. It was self-preservation. “I’m about to leave my office for the day and I have a previously scheduled meeting.” At Cameron’s garage.

“We must talk as soon as possible. It’s a matter of the Shelby family name and the bank’s financial security.”

Checking her calendar, she told her father, “I can stop by before lunch Monday.”

“See that you’re in my office at 11:30 a.m. Sharp.” With that, the silence of dead air hovered in her ear.

“Good-bye. Love you too.” How could a man whose only desire was to control her love her back?

She would not cry. She was a grown woman and it was past time she stopped dancing to her father’s demanding tune. Allie carefully laid her phone on the side table, rather than give in to her temptation to hurl it into the trash.

Chapter Five

By the time Allie made it to Cameron’s garage that evening, she had buried the dejection from her dad’s phone call under confidence about tonight’s outcome. Business was for later, Cameron was for now. The garage lights glowed from under a half-open overhead door. She limboed underneath and scanned the bay. Stains, grease and dirt were the major decorative themes. Then again, Cameron worked on cars, not people, and cars cared a heck of a lot less about beautiful surroundings than women did.

Hers and Cameron’s work spaces did have one thing in common, though.

Pictures of naked women.

Although the centerfolds tacked and taped around the garage’s walls were more...hmm...pop culture than the paintings and prints she’d hung at Personal Assets.

She studied Miss January 1989. A crotchless snow bikini. Wow, no wonder the model sported some major THOs.

Too bad it rarely snowed in this part of Texas. She couldn’t add snow play to her Cameron and Allie sexual scenario list.

The deep rumble of a male voice led her toward an ajar door. She edged it open with her toe because Scoot had apparently misplaced his cleaning supplies twenty years ago, and that doorknob might harbor something worse than the restrooms at Dirty Harry’s, a bar on Highway 12 where even the women preferred to use the trees out back in lieu of the restroom.

She opened the door fully, making the door hinges squeal. Cameron swung around to face her, while he listened and occasionally responded into the phone. He was sprawled in a black leather office chair large enough to hold his body with ease. His legs were splayed, highlighting the worn stress point across his fly.

Scenario number seventy-two—she and Cameron utilizing that chair and its many ergonomic positions. She had to starting writing these down or she was going to forget one.

“Mom, gotta go.” He motioned Allie inside. “Got company, but I’ll swing by soon. Love you.”

She could still hear Emmalee asking who her son’s company was when he punched the off button. Thinking back to her conversation with her dad, she decided Cameron’s behavior wasn’t the same as her dad hanging up on her. He’d told his mom he loved her, and he’d meant it.

Allie’s advice to her clients was to never get serious about a man who wasn’t good to his mother. Not that she planned to get serious with Cameron Wright.

“The princess is slumming tonight.” He pointed to a ratty recliner shoved into the corner. “Sorry, but that’s the best seat in the house, unless you want this one.” He started to stand, but Allie waved him back.

“This is fine.” Allie leaned back cautiously. “Just keep an eye on it. I’d like to get out alive.”

“I’ll protect you. Besides, if it held Beck, your hundred and change won’t break it.”

She ran her hands over the cracked arms. “Have you considered that shooting it might be more humane than keeping it alive?”

Those sexy lines appeared at the corners of his eyes when he smiled.

Now that she was here, on his turf, Allie’s stomach jumped as though she’d swallowed a handful of Pop Rocks. She was usually a good conversationalist, but what did a woman say to kick off a so-are-we-going-to-have-sex-or-not conversation? “I admired your artwork on the way in.”

He laughed, a scratchy sound as if he were out of practice. “Left them up to keep me company while I cleaned out the bays. If it makes you feel better, I plan to rip them down before I open for business.”

“I bet they have good personalities and other assets.”

“I figured they would offend someone like you.”

“Someone like me?”

“With this business of yours, don’t you think it demeans women when men ogle pictures of big ti—breasts?”

“I believe ‘To each his own.’ What I don’t like is when women, real women, compare themselves with women who have been sculpted, padded and airbrushed. It gives them the impression they can never measure up. That they—we—have to have a 36D bra size in order to please a man, and more importantly, to please ourselves.” And wasn’t she the pot for wishing she’d worn a padded bra at the ball field?

“Besides, I’d be out of luck if big breasts were required for great sex.” Sure enough, he checked out her chest. It wasn’t impressive, but it was truth in advertising to make sure he understood what he was and was not getting if he went to bed with her. She took a breath. “And speaking of great sex—”

“Ah, are you thirsty? Hungry?” Cameron opened his desk drawers one after another. “I think I have a couple of snacks around here somewhere.” He pawed around and pulled out a wrinkled bag of peanuts.

Was she making him nervous? Surely not. This was a man who’d had the reputation for being great in bed as a teenager, for God’s sake. “No offense, but I’d be afraid to eat anything that came from that desk. Those look like they’ve been around since before the Reagan era.”

“You can’t be distracted by a handful of peanuts?”

“Nope.”

“Coke, Big Red, beer?”

“You know none of that’s what I came for.” She scooted forward in the chair to get closer to him, and if it also kept her from being sucked into the black hole between the seat cushion and chair back, all the better. “Have you thought about my proposal?”

He rubbed his palms back and forth on his chair’s arms. “I never would’ve taken you as the aggressive type.”

After the phone call from her father, she needed some human warmth and compassion more than ever, even if she had to be bold to get it. “Did you know people deprived of regular physical contact and the subsequent release of endorphins are more likely to become ill and depressed?”

“So you’re saying—”

“You’ll ensure my health, happiness and prosperity if you agree to have wild monkey sex with me.”

He steepled his fingers and leaned back in his chair. “That sure seems like a lot of responsibility for a simple roll in the sheets.”

Oh, no, retreat wasn’t an option. Allie hopped to her feet and sidled between the wall and his desk. “The sex I’m thinking about having with you might be uncomplicated, but hot and sweaty’s not always simple to pull off.”

He turned his chair to the side. “So how do we know it would be good hot, sweaty sex?”

“Well, let’s work this like they do at the grocery store.”

“Huh?”

“You know. They pass out those little samples trying to lure you into buying some new brand of dip or a cheesecake your hips don’t need.” She eased between his spread thighs, and forced herself to focus on his face instead of his zipper.

Cameron shook his head, confusion wrinkling his brow.