B00DVWSNZ8 EBOK (9 page)

They rode in silence for what seemed like a long while, both sipping their coffee and staring at the ribbon of highway stretching before them. The early morning's blackness began to fade to gray, and she couldn't keep from sneaking glances at his strong profile and golden
-brown hair. It was sun streaked and had a slight curl. It looked soft and thick. Without oil. The color reminded her of Jason Weatherby's, but that was where the resemblance ended.

Brady Fallon had the same suntanned, lean and rangy look the Circle C's ranch hands had, a look that came from years of physically demanding outdoor work. It was a look that had been familiar
to her all of her life, and until this moment, she had been unaware of just how appealing she found it. Was that the mysterious lure that caused her to behave in an impulsive manner of character for her?

His strong-looking body sat relaxed, one large hand on the steering wheel. His hands and fingers were scarred, like those of most of the working cowboys she knew. His fingers were freshly nicked and cut from yesterday's demolition work. A Band-Aid was wrapped around his left forefinger.

Looking for something, anything, that might lead to conversation, she said, "I checked the distance on MapQuest."

"Two hundred and
sixty miles to Stephenville," he replied, his eyes fixed on the highway. "Durham's place, where I was living, is twenty miles on farther south, between Stephenville and Hico."

"Ah." She nodded once. More silence. She searched for more to talk about. "Daddy said you graduated from Tarleton."

"Yep."

Surely he knew Tarleton was a part of the Texas A&M system. "I went to A&M down in Bryan. So in a way, we're brother and sister. Schoolwise, you know."

"I guess so."

"I got the impression you're from Fort Worth."

"Nope."

"But you had on that TCU cap. And your license plate said 'Cowtown Chevrolet.'"

"I lived in Fort Worth a long time."

"But you didn't go to college there....
Fort Worth has half a dozen colleges. Why did you go to Stephenville?"

"I'm not from Fort Worth. And I didn't live in Fort Worth back then. I lived in Stephenville."

"Oh. I just assumed...So are you
from
Stephenville then?"

He angled a glance in her direction. Though the morning light was creeping over the horizon, the pickup's cab was dim. Still, she could see a hint of a smile tweak the corners of his mouth. "You're just plumb nosy, aren't you?"

"No, I'm really not. I'm just making conversation. It’s a simple question."

"I
was born in Stephenville. I grew up there. I didn't move to Fort Worth 'til I got out of school. That answer your question?"

"Ah." She nodded. "Can I ask you something else? And I'm not being nosy," she added quickly.

The corners of his mouth lifted into a full grin. "Long as it's not personal."

Unable to tell if the remark was a joke, she blurted a laugh. "Well, I suppose it's sort of personal. What kind of conversation between two people isn't personal? Why did you agree to let me go with you today?"

"Damned if I know. All night long, I wished I hadn't"

Did that mean he had spent a sleepless night, too? And had he spent some time thinking about her? She let out a tiny huff. "Gee, thanks."

"It has nothing to do with you personally. I just think this could cause me trouble I don't need."

"As you said yesterday, I'm grown and so are you. I suppose we can do what we want to."

"Nothing's ever that simple."

She, of all people, knew that to be true. "Jake said you're divorced."

"Yep."

"Do you have kids?"

"Yep."

She waited, but he offered no more. "They, uh, live with your ex-wife?"

"Yep."

She waited again for him to say more, but he didn't. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had to ask a man so many pertinent and leading questions to get him to talk about himself. Brady Fallon had sidestepped almost every one of them.

And they still had more than a hundred miles to go.

Just shut up
, Jude.
She stared out the side window, pondering again why she was doing this. Lack of sleep began to catch up with her and her eyelids grew heavy. Soon she nodded off to sleep.

Chapter 8

Brady still couldn't believe J. D. Strayhorn's daughter was riding to Stephenville with him to help do grunge work. Agreeing to let her accompany him today had kept him awake half the night. What had he been thinking?

When it came to women, he had done some dumb things, but what he was doing
right now just might be the dumbest yet. Why hadn't he made himself say "no, thanks" when she volunteered to help?

He glanced across the cab at the passenger seat
. Her head leaned against the headrest as she slept. Her scent, something soft and flowery, drifted to him. He had noticed it yesterday morning, too.

Thank God she had
gone to sleep. He needed to escape her questions and think. But he wasn't thinking very well because he kept sneaking glances at her from the corner of his eye—at the shape of her breasts in a body-hugging top peeking from behind a denim jacket and gently rising and falling with deep breathing. With her hair pulled back in a braid, he could see her delicate profile and skin so smooth it didn't have as much as a freckle, though it was a tinge pink from yesterday's sun.

Her dark, thick eyelashes lay against her cheek like little brushes and he thought about how, a long time ago, before everything went sour, he used to kiss Marvalee awake, starting with her eyelids.

But it was Judith Ann Strayhorn's lips, now slightly parted and vulnerable in sleep, that got to him. The color of ripe berries. And probably tasted just as sweet.

Yesterday, with a tight little top with skinny straps and tight jeans fitting her firm bottom like a coat of paint, she had distracted him.
The shirt he had given her to wear—several sizes too big for her—had hidden all of that, but too late. It had already been imprinted on his brain.

Of all of the obvious lures, he had to acknowledge, none of them were what had persuaded him to allow her to come along with him. What had kept him from saying "no, thanks" was more mysterious. She had touched an instinct buried so deep within him, he couldn't even identify it. It was something he couldn't define and wasn't sure he wanted to.

Hands off, dumb-ass
, he told himself.

And he intended to heed that warning, though she was a damned tempting woman.

The next question, then, was what the hell would he do with her tonight? At his trailer house, unless he gave her his bed, there was no place for her to sleep.

Oh, he knew what he would like to do, what any normal, red-blooded male would like to do with a woman who looked like her. But that was neither possible nor sane.

What did she want from him? And what was she up to? She had to want something and had to be up to something. But what could somebody like him ever have that somebody like her would want or need? He hoped to hell she wasn't looking for some damn boy toy.

Nah. Don't be dumber than you
’ve already been.
Hell, with her looks and connections, she didn’t need a boy toy. She probably had a string of rich dudes chasing her.

He was still blown away by the fact that he had known her when she was a little girl, younger than his son's age now. Other than a thick mop of sun-bleached reddish hair that had always been a tangle, he recalled no resemblance to the woman she had become.

His thoughts turned to the work she had done yesterday stacking boards. Busywork. Any average twelve-year-old could have done it, but she had tackled it as if the next sunrise depended on the job she did. She had shown herself to be a good hand, had kept up with him all day without complaint. In his way of thinking, that made her a hell of a fine sport.

An image of her at the end of yesterday filtered through his anxiety. When he had said, Let's wrap it up, she had looked up at him with straggly hair, a dirty face and a wide, white-toothed smile.
We got a lot done, didn't we?
she had said, as if she were bursting with pride.

Her face had been red and sweaty, her eye makeup smeared and her lipstick gone, but he had thought in that moment she might be the most beautiful woman he had ever been close to. And he had known some fine-looking women, too, had been married to one. Weird to be thinking thoughts like that about a woman
with whom he feared being seen.

He couldn't figure any of it out.

For all of his confusion, one thing was for sure. He had to take damn good care of her. If something happened to her while she was in his care,  J. D. Strayhorn could and would have him horsewhipped, tarred and feathered, then lynched.

"Oh, my gosh," she said, her voice startling him. He swung a glance her way in time to see her yawn and squint against the morning sun. "I fell asleep. This looks like the
Interstate."

He forced a smile that probably looked as pitiful as it felt. "
We just passed Abilene. Good nap?"

"I didn't get much sleep last night." She yawned again and lifted her arms in a stretch, shoulders back, breasts thrust forward, nipples raised, their shape showing through her clingy shirt.

And just like that, something caught in his gut. The intimacy of seeing her wake up curled low in his belly and a hundred carnal images sprang into his mind.

"Where are we?" she asked, rubbing her eyes with her fingertips.

He cleared his throat, striving for a normal voice. "Not too far from the exit."

"Gosh, we're almost there? I slept a long time."

She leaned forward and shrugged out of her jacket, a movement that emphasized her flat stomach and the graceful arc of her hip. He cleared his throat again and willed the devil in his pants to cool it.

"Wanna get something to eat?" he asked. "I didn't
eat breakfast and I'll bet you didn't, either."

"That'd be great. You're right. I missed breakfast.
I should’ve gone to the cookhouse and eaten breakfast with the hands, but I didn’t want to be late."

Eaten with the
ranch hands? Whoa!
Brady couldn’t imagine her doing that. "There's a McDonald's at this next exit. We'll stop." He slowed, made the exit and pulled into the lane leading to the drive-through window.

"We aren't going to get out?" she asked. "To stretch our legs?"

Going inside to eat would take at least thirty minutes. If she weren't with him, he would grab something and eat it on the road. "Don't have time."

"But they probably have a restroom inside."

He did a mental eye roll. Women bladders. They must be the size of a robin's. "I'll park over there," he said, nodding toward a row of parking places. "You can run inside."

At the order intercom, he gave her a questioning look, waiting for her to make a selection. She peered past him at the menu on the board. "Uh... hmm, let me see.... Well... okay, I'll have an egg, sausage and cheese biscuit."

He stared at her a few seconds. There just weren't that many choices. “Just one?”

“That isn’t enough? What are
you
having?”

“I’m having two.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll have two, too.” She smiled.

“
Something tells me you don’t often eat at fast food joints.” He placed an order for four of the same and added a cup of milk.

He gave her the questioning look again.

"Yes, milk will be fine. You drink a lot of milk, don't you?"

"It's good for you."

He added another cup of milk to the order and asked for extra napkins. He didn't want grease on his truck's upholstery.

"
You’re right. I don't eat at McDonald's very often," she said. "Even when I was in college, I didn’t. It's cheap, isn't it?" She reached back for her purse.

Did she think he expected her to pay for their breakfast? He put a hand out and stopped her. "
Darlin’, if I ask if you wanna eat, I'll pay."

She shook her head and opened her purse. "It's no big deal."

He might be damn near broke, but no way was he going to let her buy him food. "It is to me."

"But I always pay.
And I don’t mind. I do it without even thinking about it."

"Maybe you ought to start thinking about it," he told her. "Put your purse away."

She shrugged, her lips twisting into a scowl, but she returned her purse to the backseat.

After they received their order, he pulled into a parking spot. She grabbed her purse and scooted out. As soon as she closed the door, he straightened his legs and adjusted himself in his jeans, hoping no one could see him
.
Damn
. He spent a few seconds trying to remember how long it had been since he’d had roll in the hay.

The food
order had been delivered by the time she got back. He pawed through the sack and distributed the food and napkins. As they ate, he asked, "What'd you tell J.D.?"

"That I was going to Fort Worth with my girlfriend Suzanne."

He couldn't keep from laughing at the absurdity of what they were doing.

"Don't make fun of me," she said.

"I'm laughing at myself, too. You have to admit it's pretty dumb sneaking around like we're kids doing something wrong. I’m well past thirty years old and like you said yesterday, you’re nearly thirty yourself. It hasn't been necessary for me to lie to a man about my activities in a helluva long time."

She looked down, intently studying the layers of her sandwich as if she might find enlightenment among them.

"I'm sure. It's unusual for me, too, and it bothers me to do it. I can't explain it. I've never had to lie to Daddy about anything I've done, even when I was a kid.” She looked up and her big whiskey-colored eyes met his. “I probably would’ve told him about this trip if you hadn't asked me not to."

H
e fixed a truth-demanding look directly into those eyes. "I know why I wanted you not to tell him. But it’s not clear why you didn't."

She turned her head and faced the windshield. "I guess it's because..." She appeared to be searching for the right words. Maybe she was weighing her loyalties. "Never mind," she said and took another bite of her sandwich.

"Say what you were going to say."

She hesitated a few more beats. "Okay, then, I will. Were you aware that after your uncle died, my grandfather tried to buy the 6-0 from your aunt?"

Well, that was a gear-grinding switch, but she must be headed somewhere with the remark. His whole family had been aware of Old Man Strayhorn's offer to buy the 6-0 after his uncle Harry's death. His mother had tried to talk her sister into selling to him, which had resulted in another big, loud argument between the two women, who had never gotten along well. "Yep."

"But your aunt wouldn't sell to him. Why wouldn't she? I know Grandpa would have paid her a fair price. Did she not need the money?"

"I don't know. I wasn't in that loop. I'm sure she could've used the money. But you see, Aunt Margie was always an ornery ol' gal with her own ideas, especially when somebody pushed her. Guess your granddad must have pushed her a little too hard."

"But if she needed the money..."

"There was more to it than money, darlin'. Aunt Margie had ideals. She said it wasn't right that Strayhorns get to own all the land. She believed they already had enough."

Brady had let slip more words about his family than he intended to. "But all of that was years ago," he added, hoping to kill the discussion. "What's it got to do with you and your being here with me today? Are you trying to tell me your granddad's about to make me an offer I can't refuse?"

"No. I told you yesterday. I just think you need help. And I don't know why I brought up Grandpa. I just wondered if you knew he had once tried to buy your land."

As
fibs went, that one was leakier than a rusted bucket. If somebody were holding a gun to his head, Brady couldn't have stopped himself from busting out laughing. "Not only are you fibbing to your daddy, darlin'. Now I think you're lying to me."

"Look, can you stop trying to attach motives to me that aren't there? It's starting to be annoying. If you didn't want to put up with me, you shouldn't have said I could come with you."

"You're right." He wadded his breakfast trash into a ball and stuffed it into the McDonald's bag. "I'll keep my mouth shut 'til you're ready to tell me what your granddad's really up to."

He laid the sack of trash on the console for later disposal and reached for the ignition, but before he cranked the engine, she said, "Wait. I have an orange. Would you like half?"

"Sure. You can peel it while we're on the road."

"
You must be the same age as Jake," she said.

"Nope. Younger than Jake. Just turned thirty-four."

Well, at least he cleared up that question
, Jude thought. He backed out of the parking space and they were on the move again. As they merged onto the interstate, Jude peeled the orange and handed him slices. She hadn't intended to eat it riding up the road, but she didn't complain.

Soon
, they veered onto another exit ramp off the interstate and sped down a state highway, passing through a different landscape—open green pastures dotted with large old oak trees and cedar brakes, all indicative of a moister climate. "I've never been on this road," she said. "This is pretty country, but the bluestem grass in West Texas is better feed than the coastal. It has more nutrients."