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Authors: KC Klein

Texas Wide Open (20 page)

BOOK: Texas Wide Open
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Nikki put her body between Jett and Cole to prevent any more blows. Maybe Katie was
the only one
not
drinking, because she wouldn’t have stepped between them for all the money in the
world.
Cole stood in front of Nikki, and with his finger angled her face into the light.
A dark bruise showed across her cheekbone. “What happened to you? Who did this?”
Jett jumped to his feet. “If you even ask it, I swear to God, I’ll kill you myself.”
Cole dropped his hand. “No, Jett, you don’t hit women, you just screw them over in
every other way.”
Katie winced. Cole was always an SOB when he drank.
“If you’d given me the chance, I would’ve told you. . . .” Jett’s voice trailed off,
and he glanced at Nikki as if suddenly embarrassed. “I would’ve told you that it wasn’t
like that.”
“Than what’s it like, Jett? Enlighten me, please.”
Jett wiped at his face with the back of his hand and looked at the tile floor. Then
his deep brown eyes found Nikki’s blue ones. “I love her. I’ve loved her for sure
since she was seventeen and probably before that.”
Cole was silenced, along with everyone else.
Nikki wrapped the shirt even tighter around her middle, doubling the fabric over.
“Jett . . . I . . . you said this wasn’t about that. You said this would be no big
deal.”
“I slept with my best friend’s sister. Jeopardized the closest thing I have to a brother.
It’s a big deal, Nik.”
“I can’t do that, Jett. I can’t. . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Jett put up his hand to stop the flow of words. “Don’t. It’s not a big deal.” He stood
and brushed Cole’s shoulder as he walked off.
Katie’s heart broke as she watched Nikki’s face leach of all color and tears fill
her eyes. Cole, apparently still trying to wrap his brain around the fact that his
sister had had sex, cut in to break the awkward moment. “What the heck did you do
to your hair?”
“I think it looks nice.” Katie jumped to Nikki’s defense. “The black with the blond
streaks brings out the blue in her eyes.”
“It’s the way it makes her look all pale and ghostly, like the walking dead, that
brings out her eyes,” Cole grumbled.
And that much was true, except Katie didn’t know if the paleness was because of Nikki’s
new hair, or the fact that she’d just heard Jett’s declaration.
Either way, Cole wasn’t finished. “And really . . . Jett? I think he’s the town’s
version of a male ho.”
Just what every gal wants to hear. But Cole’s lack of tact was legendary.
Nikki ran off with a hand clasped to her mouth. Cole looked to Katie as if seeking
support, but all she could do was shake her head.
Cole shrugged. “What? How did I get to be the bad guy here?”
Katie arched her eyebrows and crossed her arms. “Uh, I don’t know. By being an insensitive
prick?” She rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe this is my wedding night,” she mumbled
and left, leaving Cole alone, standing in the kitchen.
Chapter 20
Katie drove Cole’s truck down the main road while Cole sat reclined in the passenger’s
seat. Nikki was huddled in the back, eyes wide and panic in her pale face. Katie felt
sorry for Nikki. Even though they were nearer in age than she and Cole, she and Nikki
had never been close. There had always been a low-level hostility in Nikki’s attitude
to her. Jealousy? Pride? She wasn’t sure, but their past didn’t stop Katie’s heart
from breaking as she watched Nikki deal with her feelings. Because regardless of what
Nikki had said earlier, there was definitely more going on between her and Jett than
just a one-night stand.
Cole moaned, a bag of mixed veggies that Katie’d snagged from Jett’s fridge over one
eye.
“If you’re going to get sick, make sure you put your head out the window,” she grumbled,
but still let her gaze linger on the man sprawled out beside her. There was a reason
buttons were made to be . . . well, buttoned. Could the man never finish dressing
himself? His shirt was wide open, nicely displaying a tan, broad chest. And his jeans,
riding deliciously low on his hips, had her wondering if he wore anything underneath.
The front tire hit a pothole, and Cole groaned when his head knocked against the glass.
“Hey, careful. You’re supposed to be nice to me. We’re on our honeymoon.”
Refusing to rise to the bait, Katie found the automatic button and rolled down his
window. The fresh air would do him good. He needed to cool off.
On second thought, she needed her window down as well. The wind in her face was a
cheap imitation of a cold shower, but it would keep her eyes open. And after last
night she needed all the help she could get. What had she been thinking? The whole
night seemed surreal, like a really bad weekend in Vegas. She looked down at her fingers
gripping the steering wheel, an engagement ring on her right hand, and a wedding ring
on her left. Christ, what had she gotten herself into?
Hell, what had they all gotten themselves into? With a quick glance in her rearview
mirror, Katie guessed Nikki, who looked like she was going to pass out or cry, was
probably asking herself the exact same question. Men! Could nothing be simple?
Katie pulled into the driveway, the tires crunching over the dirt drive. She’d barely
put the truck into park before Nikki bolted, boots in hand, bare feet barely touching
the ground as she ran into the house. Her heart ached for her, but there was nothing
Katie could do; she had her own mess to deal with.
She stole a glance at her “husband” with a frozen plastic bag over half his face,
and then down at her own nightshirt, no bra. What had happened last night was not
a wedding, and no amount of Cole referencing the “honeymoon” was going to make it
true. She needed to set the record straight. “About this wedding thing,” she said.
“What, trying to back out already?” His voice was muffled behind the plastic bag.
Katie rolled her eyes and sighed. She glanced over at Cole. “What happened last night
wasn’t legal, and it sure wasn’t a wedding.”
Cole groaned as he pulled himself to an upright position. The veggies dropped into
his lap. His eye, already swollen and a tad blue around the corner, gave him the look
of a rebel.
“Nothing a little consummation wouldn’t fix, and in case you are worried”—he gestured
toward his eye—“this doesn’t put me out of commission. I’m still game.”
“If that’s your pickup line, no wonder you’re all hot and bothered to be married,”
she said dryly, but couldn’t help the hint of a smile around her lips.
“I just don’t want it to be said that I don’t take my husbandly duties seriously.”
“Noted.”
Out of the corner of her eye she watched Cole flip down the visor and peer into the
passenger mirror. He tenderly touched his face. “Damn, I never should’ve taught Jett
how to fight.”
“He said he taught you.” She was unable to resist the jab to his male ego.
“He should’ve taught me how to duck.”
Katie laughed, couldn’t help it. The whole situation was crazy, and she was a bit
punchy from lack of sleep.
He flipped up the visor, and gave her his full attention. “I’m just worried that people
are gonna get the wrong idea about us when they see our wedding pictures. It’s a small
town, and you know how fast rumors get around. But I have to warn you, no one will
ever believe that I deserved it.”
Her smile faded at his talk of the wedding.
“Enough, Cole, it’s not funny.” She got out of the truck and slammed the door behind
her, putting an exclamation point on her words.
Cole jumped out to follow her. “Whoa, honey, this might be a work truck, but she still
wants to be treated like a lady.” He patted the hood as if to smooth any hurt feelings.
Cole needed to get serious. Then she stole a glance and gleaned from his expression
that he was serious, but about his truck. She’d had enough. If he wasn’t willing to
talk about it, she didn’t have to wait around.
“Wait, Katie.” Cole caught up to her and snagged her by her back jeans pocket, pulling
her toward him. She turned. Then he slipped two fingers in her belt loop and pulled
her even closer. Her thighs brushed his and her heart sped up a bit. Cole’s hair had
fallen over his eyes, and he shoved it back behind his ear. The gesture had her throat
tightening. She longed to brush his hair out of his eyes herself.
“You need a haircut,” she said softly.
“Yeah.” His eyes grew warm as if he was saying yes to something else altogether.
She took in the dark circles under his eyes and his almost-full beard and couldn’t
help herself, she ran her hand over his whiskers. “And a shave.”
“Yeah,” he whispered again, but then turned his face and laid his lips against her
palm.
Her speeding heart came to a painful stop. She withdrew her hand and shoved it into
her coat pocket. All of a sudden she didn’t want to talk about their sham of a marriage.
“Cole, I need to go. I have to be at the hospital soon.”
She gently tugged on her captured belt loop, but he tightened his hold.
“Katie, I know that last night wasn’t what . . . well, it wasn’t what either of us
expected, but I want you to know I’m happy.”
Shocked, she jerked her head up to meet his gaze. Sure, Cole smiled occasionally and
laughed with his ranch hands, even joked around with Jett. But there was always sadness
in his eyes, a tiredness that bracketed his mouth. “You’re never happy,” she said,
partly as a joke, but there was truth to her words.
“I know,” he laughed. “I have a hangover from hell, my eye hurts like a son of a—,
but I’m happy.” His lopsided grin grew to a full smile, his dimple prominent as ever.
And she smiled back. It was that simple; she was happy when he was happy. “I’ve got
to go.”
“A good-bye kiss?” His voice was so deep she could feel the rumble of it within his
chest.
“What? No!” She turned out of his grasp and started walking back toward her house.
The last thing she needed was to have her senses overpowered by his smell, his taste.
“Dinner?” he shouted behind her.
She kept walking.
“Ah, come on, Katie. Are you gonna say no to your husband on our wedding night?”
She put her hand in the air and wiggled her fingers.
“I’ll pick you up at seven then,” he called after her.
And she knew he was smiling, but she wasn’t about to turn around, afraid he’d see
her own silly grin from ten feet away.
 
 
Nikki had barely kept her emotions under control on the ride home, but now as she
ran up the steps of the front porch, her vision blurred into a watery mess. Inside,
she braced one hand on the wall beside her and waited for the dam to burst. Her heart
thumped in her throat, her stomach felt like a hollowed-out pit. She took in the smashed
tequila bottle, the broken window. But the tears wouldn’t come. The front screen door
slammed behind her, calling her to action. She started running. Through the living
room, down the hall, into her room. Finally—with the bedroom door shut safely behind
her—she let the tears come.
Or was it a scream? She clamped one hand across her mouth to stop one from slipping
out. But she found she couldn’t do that either. Her hand shook as she bit her fingernail.
It wasn’t enough. She bit down on the inside of her cheek instead. The sharpness of
her teeth felt good, refocused her, brought her back from the edge.
Why had Jett said that? Why would he have said such a thing? It wasn’t true, couldn’t
be.
I love her. I’ve loved her for sure since she was seventeen and probably before that.
Nikki leaned her back against her bedroom door and slid down to rest her forehead
against her knees. Why seventeen? But she knew what had happened when she was seventeen.
She knew exactly when Jett had fallen in love with her . . . and exactly when she’d
fallen in love with him.
The night her mother died.
She’d been so alone. She had begged Cole to stay.
Please don’t leave
. But he hadn’t. The electric bill was due, and there’d be no paycheck if he didn’t
go to work. She remembered thinking she was going to drown. But instead of water suffocating
her, it would be the darkness that swallowed her up as she watched Cole’s taillights
disappear down the drive.
She hadn’t wanted to go back inside the house. Inside was her mother. Or her mother’s
body. The bone-thin vessel that wheezed and struggled with each inhalation. The “death
rattle” sound of lungs that had filled up with fluid, vibrating the walls, making
a coward out of her.
Seventeen was too young to have the power over life or death. Too young to bear the
weight alone. So she’d sat on the broken wood steps with a brown bottle of morphine
in one hand, and a fistful of Vicodin in the other.
To this day no one knew how close she’d been to swallowing those white pills and then
chasing them with a bottle of morphine. She knew what would happen. The hospice nurse
had told her what to expect. The morphine would help with any pain, slow the heart
rate, and the respiration, then you would just go to sleep. To Nikki that didn’t seem
like such a bad way to go. Not bad at all compared to how her mother was dying inside.
No one should go like that—swaddled in adult diapers, body raging with fever. And
that thought alone had gotten Nikki to her feet and walking to her mother’s bedside.
To this day she couldn’t remember giving her mother the morphine, but she did remember
the sudden quiet and the empty bottle in her hand. And she remembered exactly what
emotion eased her pounding heart and aching muscles—relief.
Relief and the desperate need to get out of this house, out of this town. And so she
ran. But one could only run if there was someplace to go, and in the middle of the
night, on the edge of town, there was nowhere.
That was the night Jett found her in the barn. One moment she was alone, sobbing in
a corner, and the next he had her on his lap whispering comforting words to her.
And if the shame of speeding up her mother’s death wasn’t enough, then what happened
next would definitely fill her quota.
Jett had been a good kisser even back then. She remembered how his lips were soft
against her wet cheeks. How he stroked her hair and held her tight. How his gentle
words quieted the screaming inside of her. Her desperate need to affirm life made
Nikki ripe for her first make-out session.
They hadn’t had sex.
Thank God.
Jett had pulled back before things had gotten too far. But really, was there anything
worse? Anything worse than having her first orgasm, on the dirt floor of a stable,
before her mother’s body was even cold?
Afterward Jett had whispered some sweet promises in her ear, but she held him to none.
How could she when she couldn’t even look him in the eye? After her mother’s funeral
she had cut Jett cold. Had he been hurt? She hadn’t noticed. She’d been so caught
up in her own pain and embarrassment that there was no room for anyone else.
That had been six years ago, and eventually Jett had wormed his way back into being
her friend. Jett’s easy manner and Nikki’s gift of putting things out of her mind
had them bumping along pretty well.
But now she’d gone and slept with him.
And he’d gone and told her he loved her—always had. Which pushed Nikki right back
to where they’d started. Right back to what she had known even at seventeen. What
everyone in this town knew. Everyone, apparently, except Jett.
It was simple. He deserved better than a poor, desperate girl who had shamed her mother,
and herself. Jett was just too good for her.
 
 
“You used to sleep like that as a child, completely dead to the world. A stampede
couldn’t wake you,” Pa said.
Katie opened her eyes to the harsh yellow of the hospital lights and peeled her face
off the vinyl plastic chair. It took a moment to focus, but finally she could make
out Pa sitting up in bed, with more color in his face than she’d seen since she’d
been back. She rubbed at the stiffness in her neck, but offered her father a warm
smile. “You’re awake. Did you sleep well?”
BOOK: Texas Wide Open
9.18Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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