Almost a Cowboy (17 page)

She leaned in and planted a kiss fully on his mouth just because he was so enamored with his little sister, Aurora. Before Caroline pulled away, he cupped her nape and held her. Up close his eyes were vibrant blue. Tiny silver specks flecked them.

If we have a baby, I want him to have your eyes.

She licked her lips. “You taste good.”

“You taste better.” He purposely raised his fingers to his lips and licked them slowly. Heat spiked in her core as she realized he’d used those fingers to fuck her in the truck.

A shudder ran through her.

Across the way, another cabin door opened and more people spilled into the yard. In the distance more people appeared, some carrying guitars and banjos. One had a bongo drum on a rope around his neck.

Utah and Caroline forgot their foreplay and watched them gather around their neighboring cabin. Then the renter of that cabin waved at Utah and Caroline.

“Join us!”

Utah peered at her from under his hat. “Let’s meet some new friends. I’ve tired of Pete already.”

She burst into another round of hysterical giggles and allowed him to lead her across the grass to the group of women and children and men wearing overalls and dilapidated hats.

“Somehow we’ve driven into a hillbilly hoedown.”

Utah flashed her a smile that curled her toes. “Sounds like a lot of fun.”

“There’s beer in the cooler,” their neighbor said with a wave at the beat-up metal cooler in the middle of their yard.

“Thanks.” Utah thumbed it open, and accepting the hospitality, fished two cans from the ice bath. He passed one to Caroline and then went to take a seat on the edge of the porch with the others.

She drifted close and leaned against him. The music got going, and more people filled the yard. When a little girl with springy brown curls ran up and plopped into Utah’s lap, Caroline jerked in surprise.

But Utah just dipped his head and started talking to her as if they’d known each other their whole lives.

As Caroline followed the conversation about a pet frog belonging to the girl’s brother, she realized something. She didn’t just want to have Utah’s blue-eyed son. She wanted to have his blue-eyed daughter too.

“I’m dragging ass this morning.” Utah scuffed his knuckles over his jaw, and a rasping sound filled the truck cab.

“That’s because we partied late last night.” Caroline had her feet up on the dash and a sweatshirt spread over her legs for warmth. Utah ticked the heater button up a notch.

“I thought I’d fall off the porch laughing when that old guy grabbed you and waltzed you around the yard. You sure looked pretty in those colored party lights they lit with the generator.”

She threw an amused look at him. “Calvin was nice. And he was once a schoolteacher, you know.”

“Really?” He tried to picture the leather-skinned man who looked more like an old-time fur trapper as a teacher.

“Yes.” Caroline sighed and snuggled into Utah’s shirt she was wearing. Goddamn, he loved seeing her in that shirt. He wanted her to adopt it as her nightshirt, to see the bare curve of her ass sticking from under the hem. Then he’d come up behind her and suck on her neck while giving her a proper good morning feel-up.

When she pointed at a sign for Hays, Kansas, he settled his thoughts on rounding up his next sibling instead of commanding Caroline’s body.

“We have to buckle down and find these brothers and sisters of mine.”

“I know. But our little stops along the route are necessary if you ask me. You need some down time between the sharp dips and peaks of this journey.”

Leave it to her to prettify their situation with words. Still, she was right.

He raised his chin toward her laptop bag. “You have the information on Hays?”

She didn’t bother to grab it. Man, she must be tired if she didn’t jump at the chance to do research. From memory, she recited, “Hays Davies. Age twenty-two.”

He waited. Nothing more came forth. “And?”

She flipped hair out of her eyes. “That’s all I can find. That was from a police report.”

“What?” He stared at her until a horn blared. He looked up to see he’d crowded into the turning lane at an intersection.

Caroline sat up and put her feet on the floor, adjusting the sweatshirt over her knees. He made a note to buy her a blanket the next chance he got.

“I’m not sure what he was arrested for, but that information was in a local newspaper.”

He guided the truck into his lane. “So he could be in prison?”

“I don’t think so. If he were, I would have found court dates, lawyers, jury verdicts.”

Utah ran through a dozen different reasons his brother might have been arrested. Hell, the most trouble he, Clinton, and Gunnison had gotten into was with old Mr. Trout, an ornery guy with more ornery bulls. They’d opened Mr. Trout’s gate and watched the cowboy chase running bulls for half the day.

Mr. Trout wouldn’t have discovered them if Gunnison hadn’t peeked his head around a bush. After Mr. Trout got his bulls under control, he’d paid a visit to Hollis Davies. Utah hadn’t been able to sit for a day.

“You think it was drugs?” he blurted.

Caroline eyed him. Seeing he was tense, she laid a hand on his forearm. “Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it. First we have to find him.”

“How do you plan to do that?”

“Courthouse. I’ll go in, flash my journalism badge, and look him up.”

He gaped, a new respect rising for her. “You can do that?”

“You’d be surprised where that badge will get me. People don’t like to let me dig, but they’re afraid if they don’t, it will look as if they’re hiding something. Generally I get what I want.”

A hard expression claimed her pretty features, and a worm of worry slithered through his belly. There were things about her he didn’t know. Some of them he wondered if he should try to learn.

“Who did you need those condoms for?”

She twitched upright and ran a hand through her hair. “Utah.”

“No, really. Who, Caroline?” He sounded as though he were picking a fight. Hell, he was.

“I’m not discussing my love life with you, just like you wouldn’t talk about yours.”

“Because I didn’t have one, goddammit.”

“And I was supposed to be lonely because you were?”

“Did you love him?”

“Who?” Her voice quavered.

“The guy who got to use those fucking condoms. There were only seven in the box.” Irritation flowed through his veins, followed by a shot of adrenaline. He thumped a fist off the wheel.

She scooted closer to the door, and the action wasn’t lost on him. Her ex had laid hands on her?

“Caroline…”

“I’m not discussing this.” Her hard tone was a steel door slamming.

“Because you were in love with someone?”

“Wouldn’t I have refused you that night after my shift at the bar?”

“I dunno. Would you have?”

“You’re damn persuasive with your kisses, Davies, but not so much that I can’t resist them.”

“That so?” He fought the urge to swerve off the road and make her change her mind.

She raked her gaze over his face, landing on his lips. He let her get a good long look. Until another horn blared, that was.

“You’re driving like a maniac,” she said.

“Because you’re driving me wild. I have to know, Caroline. I need to know if you were in love with someone else.”

She turned her face to the window. Her voice, when it came, was barely a whisper. “No.”

Relief puddled in his stomach. “Then those condoms…?”

“I used them, if that’s what you’re asking. But not on anyone special. Now shut up, Utah. You know exactly how to get to me.”

Satisfaction stamped a smile across his face. “Do I?”

She turned her head to glare at him. “Yes, dammit. Now quit looking so smug.”

While he focused on driving more safely, she booted up her laptop and located the document file she’d titled
Hays Davies
.

The small town they were cruising through had clean, pretty streets. One of them probably boasted an Internet café or coffee shop. “Want me to stop and get you some Wi-Fi service?”

“Nah. I’ll do a search through my cell phone. See what I can dig up in the next sixteen miles before we hit Hays.”

He prayed she didn’t find more arrest records. For long minutes, she tapped at the keys, and he let his mind wander. Why had he pushed her? Maybe he was just being a dick, trying to force her to tell him she loved him.

In the past few days he’d attempted to get this information from her by other means. Tender admissions of his own hadn’t worked and neither had patience.

But this love he felt for her was all-encompassing. Over the years it hadn’t died but instead swelled into monster proportions. The idea that she didn’t return this same sentiment was a tight rope around his neck. The hemp prickled his skin.

Picking a fight with her didn’t work, either.
He’d have to find a new way to get the declaration of love.

“Ohhh, look at this.” She turned the cell phone so he could see it, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the road. The traffic was thicker, and he couldn’t risk an accident.

“What does it say?”

“It’s an address just outside of the Hays city limits.”

“His home address?”

“No. A construction crew headquarters. His name is listed among twelve others.”

“Construction.” He pondered the thought of his brother working hard for a living. Seemed right.

“Give me the address. We’ll start there.”

“Not with the courthouse?” She seemed relaxed again. Maybe he was forgiven.

“To be honest, if he has a record, I’m not sure I want to find things out that way.” He extended a hand, and she entwined their fingers.
Mine once again.

“You’re right. Let’s see if we can run him to earth this way.” She raised the phone with the address on the screen.

They finally left the city limits, and he breathed easier.

“You’re really feeling cooped up, aren’t you?”

He sucked in a deep breath at her question. That she’d nailed him so completely shouldn’t come as a surprise, but he hadn’t actually realized the truth until she’d said it.

“I haven’t spent more than a few hours in my truck in years.” The land sprawled before them. No mountains broke the view, but the way the sky kissed the fields felt right. Still, he missed beholding nature in an up-close-and-personal way.

She caressed his knuckles. “I figured.”

They rode for another fifteen minutes before they reached the Hays city limits. Passing an historical marker for Fort Hays and a few small shops stirred thoughts of his father. Had Hollis Davies visited these places with his secret family? Had he held Hays’s hand and taken him for a haircut at the corner barber shop?

“Twenty-two,” he murmured.

Caroline didn’t miss a beat. “He’s young, yes.”

“I was just discovering girls when he was born.”

Her even, white teeth appeared with her smile. His heart surged. “The girls started drooling over you in sixth grade.”

He arched a brow. “Yeah?”

“Not me. Jill and Julie. Remember the twins?”

“Oh yes.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What does that tone mean?”

“What?” He drew his brows together. “Nothin’. I just remember them, that’s all.”

“You never did tell me who your first lay was.”

“That’s an unladylike choice of words.”

“Never claimed to be a lady.”

He pinned her to the seat with his gaze. “You are too.”

“And? Who was it?”

“Didn’t tell anyone then, and I’m not telling now.”

“Hmm. Yet you expected me to give you similar information just a few minutes ago.”

He firmed his lips and refused to answer. She was right, and that irritated the hell out of him. “Let’s just find this brother of mine.”

A wide grin stretched her full lips, which he ignored.

By the time they pulled into the gravel parking lot of the construction company, his annoyance was replaced by a bad case of the jitters.

Backhoes and big trucks were parked around the metal warehouse building. A sign bearing the construction company’s name hung over two enormous garage doors. He parked in front of them.

Cutting the engine, he said to Caroline, “Coming in?”

“Of course.”

“It was Raelene Baughman.”

Confusion moved behind her eyes. “What?”

“My first lay, as you called it. Raelene Baughman.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me. She was three years older than us!”

He bit into his lip to keep the smile off his face. “I know.”

She punched him in the arm hard. “You pig. I can see you’re still pleased with your conquest even now.”

He leaned in and dropped a kiss to the tip of her nose. “Not a bit. That’s pure joy that I’m about to face an angry and shocked sibling. Let’s go.”

As they approached the door, he realized the chances of finding Hays here right now were slim. It was lunchtime in the middle of a work week. He’d probably be on break on some jobsite. But at least Utah could probably coax information out of a co-worker.

Inside, the reek of oil and gasoline assaulted him. He led Caroline through the dim, grimy space. A small office was walled off in one corner of the warehouse. Inside it a mousy woman was hunched over paperwork. She looked up at their entrance and sucked in a breath.

“You’ve gotta be a Davies man.”

He stiffened. Christ…that meant she knew Hays.

And he looks like me.

“I’m his brother.”

“I can see that. Let me get him.” She stood up and went outside, where she hollered his name three times before a man came jogging into view.

Caroline clamped her fingers tighter around Utah’s.

“What’cha need, Sissy?” The deep rumble of his voice shot Utah back in time. If any of them had Hollis’s voice, it was this brother. Hays came up short, and something dark pinched his features.

Davies features. Hollis’s chin. Gunnison’s slightly crooked front tooth. Christ, did none of these kids have a single gene from their mothers?

“Man here to see you,” the woman called Sissy said, looking between them.

Utah met his gaze. Animosity was a wild animal there. “Let’s talk outside.”