Red-Hot Texas Nights (23 page)

Except that it didn't feel so right.

Because all wasn't right. Not with Tyler's world. He was still waiting on his brother, still as frustrated as she'd been and like it or not, it bothered her. She wanted him to solve his problems, as well. To find his brother and get on with his life. To move on so that she could get back to her own life.

At least that's what she told herself.

If only the notion wasn't so freakin' depressing.

 

CHAPTER 29

It was Friday night and Brandy was on her third drink.

“To new ovens and lots of special orders,” she said, touching the edge of her glass to Ellie's.

“New ovens,” her baking assistant declared. “And hot cowboys. May they rot in hell.”

Okay, so Ellie was on her sixth drink since they'd walked into the small bar where Brandy had had her encounter with bootlegger Gator Hallsey a few nights ago.

Not that she was back for another. All's well that ends well for her moonshine recipe and her newly signed contract with Foggy Bottom Distillers. She and Ellie had needed a place to celebrate, and her assistant had wanted to steer clear of the local honky-tonk and a certain calf roper who'd turned her personal life upside down.

“You think he could just come out and say it—I like you, Ellie. You like me. Let's see where this goes. But no.” The woman downed the drink and signaled the bartender for another. “Instead, we're just creeping around at night. Don't get me wrong, it's fun. But I want more than fun.”

“Since when?” Brandy sipped her drink and shook her head when the bartender offered her another.

“Since always I guess. With him, that is. From the first day, I knew something was off.” Ellie shook her head. “I have shitty luck with men. Seriously, when I finally find a decent one, he's not the least bit interested in sticking around.” She took a sip of drink number seven. “Men suck.”

“Not all men.” What the hell was Brandy saying? Tyler sucked. He really sucked after abandoning her the other night. Royally. “I mean, Reverend Harper is a decent enough guy. And the sheriff? He's a Grade A catch if you ask me. Super nice.”

“I'm not talking about the nice guys. I'm talking the hot guys. Why do they all have to suck?”

“I wish I knew.” She would love to understand what made Tyler McCall tick.

The thing was, she knew. She knew all about his past, about his dad taking off and his mother's emotional abuse. She knew that Rebel, Texas, held nothing but crappy memories for the bull rider and so it made sense that he would want to leave and never come back.

She knew and she understood. She had her own demons to contend with, her own past to outrun. As much as she wanted to brand him a jerk, she couldn't.

She related to Tyler McCall.

She liked him.

“On second thought, maybe I will have another drink.” She signaled the bartender. “Hit me again.”

“Somebody wants to have a good time.”

Or to forget the good times she'd already had. She took a sip of drink number four and let it ease the tightening in her chest.

A feeling that lasted all of five heartbeats, before she turned to see a pair of worn jeans moving toward her. Her gaze slid higher, over trim thighs and a lean waist, to a faded denim shirt covering a broad chest … Speak of the sexy-as-sin devil.

A straw Resistol sat atop Tyler's dark head, tipped forward just enough to cast a slight shadow over the upper part of his face, making his gaze impossible to read in the dim light.

Until he tipped the brim back and stared at her with a hunger that burned so fiercely, she felt the scorch on her face. The neon lights cast colorful shadows across his face, illuminating the stern set to his jaw, the sensuous slant to his lips.

“Isn't it too late to still be looking for Hallsey and your mash?”

“I'm not looking for either. The sheriff found the mash.” She spent the next few minutes filling him in on Betty and Mitchell and Sheriff DeMassi's show of mercy with her sample. News she should have shared earlier with him, but the need to do just that had scared her even more than the thought of him walking away and so she'd kept her mouth shut and her hands off her phone.

“So you did it,” he said, his expression softening into a look of pure excitement. “You sold the recipe.”

She couldn't shake the smile that tugged at her lips. “I sure did.”

“That's great, Brandy. Really great.”

Only it didn't feel so great. Because while things had worked out for her, they still sucked for him and for some reason that knowledge kept her from being really and truly happy.

“Have you heard anything from Cooper?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.” He slid onto the bar stool next to her and signaled the bartender. “Coors Lite.”

A few seconds later, he held up the bottle. “Here's to the future success of Sweet Somethings. May she take the Texas wedding cake business by storm.”

“May she snag her own feature in every major wedding mag in the state,” Brandy added, doing her best to ignore the awareness zipping up and down her spine as she touched her glass to Tyler's.

“And to stupid cowboys who don't know a good thing when it's right in front of them,” Ellie added, holding up her own glass. “Present company excluded,” she went on when Tyler arched an eyebrow. “So, um, where's your buddy tonight?” she prodded in a nonchalant tone, as if the anxious light in her eyes didn't glow as brightly as the neon green Dos Equis sign hanging over the bar.

“He was getting in a little practice at the arena when I left a little while ago.” Tyler chugged another swallow of beer. “He's got one of the local guys filling in for his partner while he polishes up his own technique.”

“That's nice.” Ellie took a swig of her drink and seemed to think. “Actually, that's not so nice. I called him to see if he wanted to hang out, but he didn't call me back. I guess he's not interested.”

“That or he was too busy tying up a calf. When we're practicing, we usually leave our phones on the sidelines.”

“Don't care,” Ellie said, but it was obvious the piece of info had made her think.

“You should try him again,” Tyler said.

“Why? So we can hook up and then he can dump me because he doesn't know a good thing when it bites him in the ass?”

“Or don't,” he added, taking another long pull on his beer. He sat his own phone on the bar and stared at the screen.

“I won't,” Ellie assured them, finishing off her drink. “I think I'm going home,” she announced when she slid the glass back across the bartop. “I've got an early day tomorrow.”

“Me, too—” Brandy started, but Ellie waved her off.

“Don't let me put a damper on the celebration. Keep going. I'll just call a cab.”

Or a cowboy, Brandy thought as she watched her friend disappear outside, her phone in hand.

“You sure she'll be all right?”

“Once your buddy gets here to pick her up, I'm sure she'll be just fine. For a little while. Until he packs up and leaves.”

“Maybe he'll ask her to go with him.”

“And maybe she'll tell him to go to hell. She has a life here. Besides, if he likes her that much, why doesn't he just stay?”

“There's nothing for him here.”

“She's here,” Brandy pointed out, a statement that stirred a long moment of silence while he sipped his beer and she finished off her glass.

“Maybe it's not that simple. He's got a life somewhere else. A good life. A successful one. He can't just give it up.”

“And she can't just give up hers.”

She knew they were talking about Duff and Ellie, but the wealth of meaning behind the words hit her and her stomach hollowed out.

“It's hopeless, right?”

He didn't say anything. Instead, he shook his head, giving her the answer she'd dreaded.

It
was
hopeless, not that she'd ever thought otherwise. She'd known it was doomed from the beginning.

At the same time, when she was with him, so close she could feel the heat from his body, the strength of his determination, she found herself forgetting that all-important fact. She found herself thinking that maybe, just maybe they could work something out. She found herself hoping.

And hope was a bad thing when it came to a man. At least as far as Brandy was concerned.

“I really should get going myself,” she blurted, eager to kill the crazy emotion pushing and pulling at her.

Because that's all it was. Crazy. Ludicrous. Ridiculous.

Brandy Tucker and Tyler McCall? Maybe in an alternate universe. But this was the real world.

Worse, it was Rebel, Texas.

“I'll give you a ride,” he offered.

“That's okay. I'll just call a cab…” The words faded as she turned and caught sight of the man who walked into the bar.

“I can't let you do that—”

“It's Gator,” she blurted, her gaze swiveling from the doorway to Tyler. “He's here.”

*   *   *

Tyler turned in time to see Gator Hallsey stroll into the bar, but it wasn't the sight of the bootlegger that stole the air from his lungs. It was the man hot on his heels.

“Holy hell,” he muttered, staring at Cooper McCall. The young man followed Gator inside, over to the small pool table in the corner.

Tyler's baby brother had changed in the two short years since he'd been a pimple-faced kid. The acne had cleared up and his short hair had grown even longer, to brush the tops of his shoulders. He was the spitting image of the picture that sat on his mother's nightstand of their dad when he was younger.

A carbon copy of the worthless piece of shit who'd ruined all their lives.

And Cooper was walking the same path, making the same mistakes, getting caught in all the same worthless shit.

“Wait,” Brandy called, her soft hand pulling at Tyler's arm, but he'd been waiting for this moment much too long to put on the brakes now.

“Catch a cab,” he growled. He motioned to the bartender. “Get her out of here, understand?”

The man nodded and Tyler shook away the one touch that had helped him through the past few days. And then he made a beeline for his brother.

 

CHAPTER 30

“Where the hell have you been?” Tyler demanded when he reached the pool table.

Cooper glanced up. A flicker of fear gleamed in his gaze and he stiffened. “Tyler,” he murmured. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Looking for you. That's all I've been doing for the past week, which you damn well know.” In the corner of his eye, he saw the bartender usher Brandy outside and relief welled through him for a split second before the seriousness of the situation brought his anxiety level back up to overdrive. “My turn,” he growled. “What the fuck are
you
doing?”

“Playing pool,” offered Gator Hallsey, who came up behind Cooper and put a hand on his shoulder. “Is there a problem here?”

“Damn straight, there's a problem,” Tyler said. “My brother is here when he should be at home getting ready to leave for College Station.”

“About that,” Cooper started. He shook his head. “The thing is,” his gaze met Tyler's, “I'm not going.”

“You damn well are,” Tyler said. “You're going to college and then you're going to get a job and you're going to make something of yourself.”

“I already have a job.”

“Running shine isn't a job. It's a felony. Don't be an asshole, Coop. You can't throw everything away to hang around here. Christ, the whole point of everything is to get out of this shithole. That's what you always wanted.”

“That's what
you
always wanted. I'm doing just fine here.” The eighteen-year-old pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket and set it on the edge of the table. “Leave if you want to, but I'm staying.”

“You heard the man,” Gator said.

“He's not a man. He's a kid,” Tyler started, reaching for Cooper's arm, but Gator was faster. He stepped up, the barrel of a very lethal-looking Glock pointed at Tyler's chest.

“He wants you to leave him alone.”

“He's barely legal,” Tyler said. “He doesn't know what he wants.”

“And you do?” Cooper turned on him. “You don't know me. You haven't known me for a long time because you're not here. You're never here. It's just me and Mom all the time.”

“Coop, I can't—”

“I know, I know. You can't be in two places at one time. You have to ride, but I don't. I don't have to be someplace else. Anyplace else. I can be here. I'm okay with being here. Mom likes me here.”

“She doesn't even know you're here half the time. And the other half, she doesn't care. Don't you get that?”

“Damn straight, I get it. I always did. She doesn't care, but so what? I don't need a nursemaid. I don't need you. I don't need anybody. I'm doing just fine by myself.”

“Really?” He stared at Cooper so hard that his brother actually looked away. But not before Tyler saw the rush of insecurity. The fear.

Because his brother wasn't half as afraid to stay in Rebel as he was to go. To fail.

“I'm not you,” Coop said. “I'm not some big-time rodeo rider. I'm good at math. That's it. And driving. And I like driving a hell of a lot more than I like doing math.”

“What's he talking about?” Gator asked.

“He was offered a scholarship to Texas A and M.” Tyler expected the man to scoff, to start talking about loser geeks and how Cooper was so much better off working for him.

“You're fucking with me, right?” Gator said, his expression unreadable.

“A full ride,” Tyler added. “He's a smart kid. Too smart to be involved with you.”