Unforgettable (The Dalton Gang #3) (19 page)

Rubbing at the back of his head, Boone couldn’t decide between laughing and groaning and wishing he’d been there to see it all, too. Get a few glasses of wine into Everly, and the woman was saying yes even before he got out his requests. Switch her favorite drink for Faith’s favorite tequila . . . “Give me thirty minutes.”

“She ain’t going anywhere. None of ’em are. I’m thinking of setting up cameras and my own YouTube channel in case they stir. And you can probably make a meal out of the leftover Mexican food in the back room.”

“Thirty, I said.” His stomach grumbling, he slammed down the phone, wishing he could skip the shower, but the dried cow shit soaked through the knees of his jeans made that impossible.

Dax was with Casper at the bookstore by the time Boone arrived. ’Course Dax only had a few blocks to travel, while Boone had a trip—one he’d be making in reverse with Everly. He didn’t want to leave her at her place alone, and he had work in the morning.

Casper had gotten inside by using Clay’s key. The kid did some part-time work for Kendall, leaving Boone to wonder if the boy would be the one to clean up this mess, because wow. Whatever had gone on here, a lot of spleens had been vented. Though what these four women all had to be riled up about . . .

Yeah, that would most likely be men.

He looked down at Everly where she lay on her stomach, stretched out on a sofa, one hand holding an empty glass above her head, one knee tucked close. Her hair spilled across her back, and her shoes that had cost more than he had in the bank were stuck between the sofa’s arm and a cushion. Through it all, she was smiling.

That smiled grabbed his gut and his groin and twisted. “We just gonna stand around until they wake up, or what?”

“Only if you still want to be standing here come lunchtime tomorrow,” Casper said, hunkering next to the lounge where Faith lay passed out and tucking her hair behind her ear.

“What about Kendall?” Dax asked, nodding toward the floor where she and Arwen were spooning like hot lesbians in love. “She’s got an apartment upstairs, I think Arwen said. Should we take her up there, or let her sleep it off here, or what?”

“I’d feel better not leaving her alone,” Boone said. “Even if this is where she lives.”

Casper was nodding as he thought. “We’ve got plenty of room and aspirin at the house. One of you help me get her in the truck, then Clay can help me get her out.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Dax said, squatting to scoop Arwen off the floor. She flopped against him, and he used a knee to adjust her while he found his balance.

Casper took care of Faith, while Boone saw to Kendall, laying her in Casper’s backseat before going back for Everly. He got her into his front seat, then made another trip to the store. Dax returned, too, and looked around the room. “We just gonna leave all this?”

“I’m not stopping to clean,” Boone said, though he did grab the box with the tortilla chips and containers of beans, guacamole, and
queso
.

“Faith can damn well give Clay a bonus to take care of it,” Casper said from the doorway. “Let’s get outta here.”

Nodding, Boone shut off the lights as Casper locked up, heading for his truck and Everly. Before he could climb in, he had to move her out of his seat. And once he was settled, she curled up against him, her head falling back, her eyes fluttering open.

“Hi,” she said, her hand sliding across his chest, her fingers toying with his snaps. “I’ve been waiting for you all my life.”

“That so?” Would’ve been nice to be able to believe her, but he knew well the voice of booze. “Looks to me like you didn’t wait for much of anything tonight.”

“I waited for Faith to come get me from the paper before I started drinking. And I waited for Arwen to bring the nachos and tequila before I started drinking.”

Yeah. Hard to do much drinking without any drink. “So this is Arwen’s fault?”

“Faith brought the blender. Arwen brought the ice. Kendall and I brought a great big margarita thirst. Usually I drink wine. Have I told you how much I love wine?”

“No,” he said, rolling his eyes. “How much do you love wine?”

“I love wine like God loved Abraham. That much, is how much I love it.” She looped her arms around his neck and hung there, swaying, her head coming up long enough for her to say, “But not as much as I love you.”

The fact that she was drunk as a skunk didn’t stop the words from punching a hole in his chest. Her rubbing against him as he drove deepened the hole. The reality that he’d been her first in four years, and she’d been his first with no condom in sixteen, well, he was going to need time to process where exactly the hole was going, because he didn’t like this feeling of falling with no bottom to stop him.

“Where’s your SUV?” he asked, as they left Crow Hill’s city limits to be swallowed up by the wide-open spaces’ pitch-black night.

“It’s at the paper.”

“Faith give you a ride to the bookstore?”

“I walked over. Oh,” she said, popping up. “I saw Les Upton.”

“When did you see Les Upton?” he asked, because he was pretty sure she was mixing up reality with Margaritaville.

“Before I walked over. No. I mean, while I was walking over. He drove by on Main Street. I saw his truck. It said Upton’s Garage on the back window. I wonder if he knows his turn signal is messed up. It’s all fluttery and stuttery, like it can’t decide if it really wants to work or is just playing at it.”

Motherfucker.
That sounded like a pretty damn specific sighting, complete with drunken mechanical commentary. Especially since he’d seen the same truck recently and knew that blinker.

Suddenly he was really glad he was taking her back to the ranch, and that she wasn’t spending the night at home alone, no matter all her lights and her locks meant to keep danger at bay.

TWENTY

“B
OONE?”
E
VERLY SAID,
pushing up onto her elbows in his bed. “What am I doing here?”

From the stuffed side chair where he sat pulling on his boots, he said, “Sleeping off one of the best drunks I’ve ever seen.”

“Feels like one of the worst,” she said, dropping back to the pillows.

“Best. Worst.” He stood, shaking the legs of his jeans into place. “Pretty much the same thing when it comes to a drunk.”

She groaned, pressing the heels of her hands into both eye sockets. “I don’t have your experience, so I’ll have to take your word for it.”

He reached for the glass of water and the two aspirin he’d left for her on the nightstand. Then he sat beside her and propped her up. “Here. These may not help, but they won’t hurt. And finish the water. All of it.”

“I’m not sure I can keep it down,” she said, taking the pills from between his thumb and forefingers, the glass from his hand.

“Then throw it up. There’s always more where that came from.”

He thought she tried to give him an evil eye, but couldn’t tell because her whole face had scrunched up against the sunlight streaming in through his window. It was nearly ten. He’d been up before dawn, leaving her a note before riding out to take care of what chores couldn’t wait till Monday.

Most could, but there was always something pressing. And he’d needed some space to get over the memory of her drunkenly admitting she loved him.

“I’ve gotta be at my folks’ for Sunday supper in a couple of hours. You’re welcome to come along, or you can stay here, or I can drop you by your place. Just let me know.”

“Do you want me to come with you? To Sunday . . . supper?” she asked, and he could almost hear her stomach roiling at the thought of food. “Will Faith be there?”

“I’d love for you to, but maybe another Sunday would be better. And yeah. She will,” he said, taking the empty glass from her hand.

“Another Sunday probably would,” she said, resting her cheek on her updrawn knees, her bra strap falling over her shoulder. “But I don’t have plans for today, and if Faith can be stoically hungover, then so can I.”

“C’mon then.” He stood, tossed back the sheet and blanket, and reached for her hand. “I’ll take you home, help you shower, and if you’re not feeling any better, I’ll head over alone.”

She swallowed, her throat working against the words as much as the water and aspirin as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I don’t like you being alone.”

“I don’t like it either,” he said, giving voice to the truth for the first time. “It’s been nice this last week having you around, having someone to talk to who’s not a cow or a horse or Casper or Dax. Having someone to sleep with, and I don’t just mean the sex.”

“Did you sleep here last night? With me?” she asked, fixing her fallen bra strap. “I’m so embarrassed that I have to ask.”

“I did, but nothing happened. I did have to nudge you over a couple of times.”

“God.” She grimaced, pushing her hair from her face. “Was I touching you again?”

That brought the first smile of the morning to his face. “You were snoring.”

She gasped. “What? I do not snore.”

“Oh, yes. You do. Big time.”

“Now I want to cry,” she said, sniffling. “It’s too soon in this relationship for you to see me at my worst.”

She’d said
relationship
. He wondered if she even realized it, or if it had been a slip. “Hey, first night we spent under the same roof, I was drunk off my ass. Figure it makes us even. Except for the touching part.”

“I still can’t believe I told you about that,” she said, and cringed.

“That you told me, or that you touched me.”

“Told you.”

“So the touching me . . .”

Her gaze came up to meet his, all liquid and sober and soft. “It’s not hard at all to believe I did that.”

Her admission took up all the space between them, growing into something big and living and grabbing him by the throat. He’d been doing fine up till now. He hadn’t thought much at all about getting her home last night, getting her undressed, sleeping with her, breathing her skin and her hair. Or about her tucking her hands between his legs because she’d been cold and said he was warm.

Now all he could think about was getting out of this room before the heat consuming him led to something she wasn’t up for.

“How about you get dressed. Your pants and blouse, all buttons intact, are on the back of the chair here. Your shoes underneath on the floor. I’ll meet you downstairs,” he said, and she nodded. “Good. Do that, and we’ll go.”

For most of the drive from the ranch to Crow Hill, Everly slept, her legs crooked beneath her, the crocheted throw from his bedroom chair covering her, her body curled into his side. He drove with one hand, his other arm draped around her. It was all he could do to keep his eyes on the road and off her, how small she was on the truck seat next to him, how her hair fell like waves of wheat and prairie grass, and smelled like air filled with early morning sun.

Calf nuts on a cracker
. What was he doing, paying attention to the way she smelled, and getting all poetic about it? She was a good time, the best time he’d had in forever, but he’d seen her house, her wardrobe. Her damn buttons and shoes. She belonged on a ranch about as much as he belonged in Austin. And the something that had happened to drive her here still bugged him, especially in light of her calling what they had a relationship. And her drunken admission of love.

She woke as he bumped into her driveway, holding her head and groaning as he fished her keys from her bag. Damn she had a lot of crap in her bag. Why did women need so much crap? He helped her out of the truck, and once he had the kitchen door opened, she wobbled her way up the steps. Then she wobbled her way through the room and out of sight down the hall.

He locked the door behind them, tossed her purse and his hat to the table, and followed, resigned to tucking her in and going to his parents alone. He found her standing and shivering in the middle of the bathroom, as if she didn’t even have it in her to crawl into bed.

“Hey,” he said, coming up behind her and placing his hands on her shoulders. “You need sleep. You can come to my folks for Sunday supper another time.”

“No.” She shook her head, pushed the mess of her hair from her face. “I want to go today. Just give me a minute to remember where I put myself.”

“Then, c’mere,” he said, sitting on the toilet lid and pulling her between his knees. He’d help her out of her clothes and into the tub then see if she still had the stomach for a day with his folks. “Let’s get you in the shower.”

“I can undress myself, you know.”

“I know, but it’s no fun for me that way. And since this is about the only fun I’m going to get for now, just relax. I got this.”

She nodded, a shiver running through her when she did, when she laced her fingers behind her head to let him have his way.

He started with her shoes. He couldn’t recall ever seeing her wear anything but three-inch stilettos, and couldn’t recall seeing anyone else in Crow Hill ever wearing a pair. He liked what they did to her legs. To her ass and her tits. To her height. She never stumbled, and she walked with purpose, and it was hard to imagine her wearing anything else, even here in cow country.

He massaged the soles of her feet as he lowered them to her bath mat, rubbing her ankles, too, then working his way up her calves as he reached for the zipper at her waist and tugged it open, baring the scrap of her thong. He loved the feel of her skin, how smooth it was, and ran his palms over her hips and down her thighs, holding each lower leg in turn while she stepped out of her pants, her hand on his shoulder for balance.

He stood then, his hands between their bodies at the hem of her man’s white dress shirt. Oh, he supposed it was a woman’s shirt, but it looked like it needed a cummerbund and bow tie. She wore it beneath a shorter black vest, and at least that didn’t have any buttons, because the shirt had more than a dozen, placed close together, all too tiny for his fingers to handle with anything resembling dexterity. He knew that because he’d fought only enough of them last night to pull the shirt off over her head.

“I spend all day using my hands,” he said. “Nail guns and fence-wire stretchers and posthole diggers. I saddle my horse, get her bridle on and off without so much as a nip. I vaccinate cattle, treat calves for pinkeye. And I can’t work these buttons worth a damn.”

“I can do it,” she said, covering his hands with hers.

“I know you can. But I want to. Consider it my personal holy grail.” Since his ever getting through a set without giving in to frustration was pretty much impossible. “Though why you have this thing for buttons, I’ll never understand.”

Her grin, for all her feeling like she’d been strapped for twelve hours on the back of a buckin’ bronc, was tender, gentle, as soft as her skin. And then she cupped his cheek with her palm. “You are a sweet man, Boone Mitchell. Why aren’t you settled down with a half dozen little ranchers at your feet and a wife to take care of who treats you like you deserve?”

He frowned as he busied himself up the line of her buttons, wondering if he’d scare her off by admitting that was exactly what he wanted. A family. A brood of his own. His sons and daughters with him on horseback, all of them working the Mitchell spread. A woman at his side, and yeah, in his kitchen. He liked the idea of eating a woman’s cooking, helping her clean up after, tucking in the little ones while she waited in their bed. He wanted a woman to sleep with, to love with, to be his mate and his equal partner.

“Haven’t had the time,” is what he finally said, though that simple excuse encompassed a whole lot of complications he wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about, or could make her understand. Not that she needed to, or would want to, but his life was a hard one, and he didn’t feel right asking a woman to share what he sometimes found too much to take. If that made him sexist, fine, but he couldn’t bring himself to put someone he loved through the same hell that had him thinking of throwing in the towel.

“Time? To do what?” she insisted after letting his comment settle. “Find a woman to court? Do the courting? Does ranching take up that much of your life?”

He grunted. “Enough that I had to bring you home with me last night because I had chores this morning that couldn’t wait.”

“You didn’t have to bring me home with you. I would’ve been fine here alone. You should’ve told Dax or Casper to drop me off. You shouldn’t even have come to town.”

“I didn’t want you to stay alone. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’ve lived here alone for four years. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

He really didn’t have an answer for that, so just continued his way up the row of the tiniest buttons man had ever seen fit to make.

“This is why you’ll make some lucky woman the perfect husband one day.”

He grunted again, wondering if in her head she’d added the words
it just won’t be me
as he finished with the buttons and pushed her blouse off her shoulders, following with her bra. She stood naked, disheveled, still a little bit drunk, and absolutely beautiful. Something sharp hitched in his midsection, like he’d taken a hit steer wrestling, or walked behind the business end of a horse.

Stupid, letting her comment about him being sweet send him off down this road. It was nearing lunch, and he was not missing the day with his family. He’d like Everly to share it with him, but either way, he was done wasting time. He reached into the tub enclosure and turned on the water, adjusting the temperature before switching the flow to the shower head.

Then he leaned against the counter to tug off his boots. The first one hit the tile floor, followed by the second and earning him a wide-eyed look from the woman standing naked, doing nothing else, but giving him hell all the same.

“What’re you doing?” she asked, her gaze drifting to the front of his shirt along with his hands, her whole body flinching when he jerked at the snaps, then dropped the shirt to the floor.

“I’m going to give you a bath,” he said, losing his jeans, shorts, and socks in rapid order, then pulling aside the curtain and gesturing for her to get in.

“You know I feel like crap,” she said, looking much the same, her makeup smeared, dark circles hugging her eyes, her hair a cape of tangles and gorgeous all the same.

“I know,” he said, nudging her to step into the tub, holding her upper arm as she did, as she shivered when the water first hit her back, as she huddled beneath the spray and shook.

“That means no sex,” she told him, her eyes closing as he stepped in, too, pulling the curtain closed, bringing her bare body against his for added warmth.

“This isn’t about sex,” he told her, holding her until she stopped trembling. “Not everything has to be.”

“Then what?”

Did she really think there was only one outcome to their being naked together? “It’s about me taking care of you for once. Just for a little while. Do you think you can let me do that?”

She shook her head against his chest, her hair wet where it fell over his hands on her back, her hands clenched tightly between them. “I can try.”