Badass (13 page)

Avery admitted defeat. She would never be able to pull the wool over his eyes. Scootching around, keeping herself covered, she managed to sit up and face him. “Isn’t it obvious?” At his stern look, she let her shoulders slump. “Okay, I’ll tell you. I was trying to convince you that I could be the type of woman you could be attracted to.”

‘Hot damn!’ was his first thought, but then he drug himself back on point, for her sake. “This isn’t you, Avery. You can’t force yourself to be something you’re not.” Isaac was trying to convince himself as well as her.

Avery clutched the blanket closer to her. How could he say that, after what they’d shared? Unless it meant more to her than it did to him. “I think we’re perfect together. I love you, Isaac.” She poured her whole heart into the words – and waited.

Torture, sheer soul-wrenching torture. It felt like he was turning his back on the greatest miracle of his life – but he couldn’t stand to face a future where he was doomed to disappoint, perhaps horrify, this gentle, perfect woman. So, he played his ace. Reaching to the floor, he picked up his vest and took the newspaper article out of his pocket. “Explain this. Is there any chance this was photoshopped?”

“Oh no!” She grabbed the offending piece of paper from his hand. “How did you get a copy of this? It only ran in the Nevada paper.”

Nevada paper? Hell! “Sorry, this is the local rag.”

Avery let out a screech and the sheet dropped without her even noticing. “Holy Crap!” Thoughts of the Women’s Missionary Union and the Deacon Board and the Library Council and the Junior Service League kept running through her mind. “How did this happen?” She fell forward on the bed, hiding her face – not noticing that her heart-shaped rump was turned up right in front of Isaac.

He stared at the temptation in front of him. Lord, how he would love to mold and squeeze that darling ass. His errant dick tented the bedspread and he had the devil of a time trying to arrange the covers to keep them from looking like a Ringling Bros. big top.

“I don’t know baby, but what in the name of goodness were you doing at a Brothel? Was that where you were all the time I was turning the world upside down trying to find you?”

“Yes,” she answered with a muffled voice, her head still buried in the blankets. Then she bounced up, “Why were you turning the world upside down?” Hope lit her eyes.

Squash! “Because, I felt guilty. You disappeared right after I told you Hardbodies was not the best place for you to hang out.”

Hanging her head, Avery confessed. “After you told me that I wasn’t your type. I decided to try and change. I went to the brothel to acquire needed skills and knowledge.”

Isaac jumped up – his pecker trying to be fully involved in the conversation. Grabbing one of the blankets, he wrapped it around his waist. “Do you know how stupid that was? Do you have any idea what could have happened to you? I ought to turn you over my lap and blister your butt!” When another hopeful gleam entered her eyes, he chided. “Stop that! Was this what you meant by the fact that you had been practicing? What did they make you do? Did strange men...?”

Avery stopped him before he stroked. “Isaac, calm down, you look like a thundercloud.” This wasn’t going to plan. “It was all academic – no hands-on contact. I practiced on a sex toy. Several of the girls gave me lessons on how to dress and walk and – well, you saw the dance.”

“Why would you do that?” He knew why, but he needed to hear her say it. More self-torture.

Her voice was small and uncertain. “I went to Shady Lady’s, because I wanted to learn how to please you. And I did, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did.” He couldn’t lie to her about that. “You pleased me more than you’ll ever know. The problem is – that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I want to do things to you that you’ve never dreamed of – that you’d never understand. My taste in sex is not what you deserve. You’re a lady, Avery. And I’m into kink that would scare you to death.”

“Try me,” she challenged him. “I’ll do anything for you.”

“No,” he argued – wishing it could be different. “You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. Do you know what a Dom/sub relationship is?”

She was quiet a moment, as if deep in thought. Then her head popped up and she looked him square in the eye. “Maybe. But, it doesn’t matter. If you like it and want it, then I want it, too.”

“Avery, dammit!” Isaac was feeling things he had no right to feel. “You don’t realize how tempting you are. I like you, I respect you – Lord knows, I want you. Hell, making love with you was beyond paradise. But it’s not going to happen, again, we’re too different.”

She sat there, dead still for a long moment. Admitting defeat was hard, but he couldn’t make it any plainer than that. “Okay, my mistake.” She got up, her heart breaking and started to pick up her clothes to redress. Isaac looked like he had more to say, but she didn’t think she could stand to hear more about how ill suited they were. All she knew was that she had offered herself to him on a silver platter, and he had rejected her gift. “I’ll show myself out.” As she started past him, he grabbed her arm – but both of them were taken by surprise by a loud banging and yelling at the door.

Isaac dropped the blanket and grabbed a towel as he went by the bathroom door. “Hold on! Give me a minute.”

Avery grabbed her clothes and headed to the bathroom – but a very familiar, irate voice stopped her in her tracks. “Where is she, McCoy? There are 30 people out in that bar that say they saw you bring my little girl in here thrown over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes! If you think you’re going to get away besmirching her reputation, I’m here to tell you that you are dead wrong.”

“Daddy?” Not thinking, she trailed into the living room wrapped only in a sheet to see her bald, gesticulating father step right into Isaac’s face and shake his fist, menacingly.

“I blame you for all of this, McCoy! Have you any idea how people are talking? I’ve had dozens of phone calls - even one from the mayor. I may lose my church over this!” His face was so red that Avery was afraid he was having a heart attack.

“Daddy, are you all right? What are you doing here?” At her voice, Abe Sinclair wheeled around, still mad as a bull.

“There you are! Do you realize how big a disappointment to me you are? And look at the way you’re dressed. I don’t have to guess what you’ve been doing.” Turning on Isaac again, he continued his tirade. “Our good name is in shreds. I don’t see how we can hold our head up at the associational meetings. This,” he waved that dreaded newspaper article around, “is being passed around among my friends like communion wafers.”

“Daddy, Isaac had nothing to do with that. Besides, I did nothing wrong. No one laid a hand on me while I was in Vegas.”

“Vegas!” Reverend Sinclair, literally, spat the word. “Can you say the say thing now? Has McCoy laid a hand on you?”

“That’s my business, Papa,” Avery stood as straight and dignified as she could in a taupe-colored, 800-thread count, Egyptian cotton sheet.

“That’s where you’re wrong. This is very much my business. What you do reflects directly on me and on the church.” He wheeled on Isaac, and Isaac – to give him credit – showed the older man only respect.

“I am terribly sorry that this happened, Sir. I wouldn’t have hurt Avery or you for the world.”

Avery began to see where Isaac had been coming from. This is what he had feared. A heavy guilt began to weigh on her heart, not for her circumstances, but for her father and Isaac. She had got them both in trouble. It was time she stepped back and put this into perspective. Avery had no desire to go back to being the boring person she was before, but she could put some distance between herself and these people she loved – for their sakes.

“You’re going to do right by my daughter, McCoy.” Preacher Sinclair glared at them both.

What did he mean by that? Avery began to have a distinctly uneasy feeling.

“Sir, if you’ll give us a minute to get our clothes on, we’ll be glad to sit down with you and have a civil conversation.” He took Avery by the arm. “Come on, let’s get dressed.”

“What did he mean, do right by me?” Avery’s head was spinning.

“I’m not sure,” Isaac did have inkling; and, miraculously, he was having a surprising reaction to what was running through his head. “Just pull on your clothes. No don’t – that will only make things worse.” He snatched the red stripper outfit from her hands. Digging in his chest of drawers, he handed her a t-shirt and a pair of Longhorn lounge pants. “Put these on. They’ll be big, but at least you’ll be covered up.”

She hurriedly pulled on the clothes, “Thanks, and I’m sorry about this. I will get him out of your hair as quick as I can. I’ll just tell him that I’ll go home with him and Mom for a few days. That will pacify him, I hope.” She couldn’t believe she was calmly discussing her father while standing semi-nude with Isaac. Perhaps her mission hadn’t worked out as planned, but there was one thing for certain, her life would never be the same. The old boring, virginal Avery Rose Sinclair was a thing of the past.

Somehow, Isaac didn’t think that was going to cut it. “Don’t worry; everything’s going to be just fine.” Funny, that’s the way he felt. Everything was going to be just fine.

When they were both dressed, Isaac held out his hand. “Shall we face this together, sugar?”

“All right.” She put her hand in his, thinking this would probably be the last chance she got to touch him. “I’m sorry about all of this,” she tried to apologize. “I never meant to cause you trouble, I just wanted a chance to show you how good it could be between us.”

“Avery!” Her father’s shout put an end to her speech. “Coming, Daddy.”

Together, they faced one very out-of-sorts Baptist preacher. “I’m glad to see you two have joined hands – that’s the first think I’ll ask you to do in the wedding ceremony.”

“Wedding!?!” Avery tore her hand from Isaac’s. “Daddy, you can’t be serious?” She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Marrying Isaac was the dearest wish of her heart – but not like this.

“I am dead serious, girl.” Her father looked at her with disdain, as if she was a piece of garbage that had stuck to his shoe. “McCoy, I expect you to marry my daughter as soon as possible. You’ve taken her innocence and led her down the path of sin. The least you can do is give her the McCoy name and a modicum of respectability. Your name isn’t as good as your brothers, but a marriage certificate will go a long way in shutting up the gossips.”

“Now, wait a minute . . .” Avery searched for words to say that would get her father off this absurd idea he had pulled straight from the dark ages. “There’s no way that . . .”

“I think that’s an excellent idea, Pastor.” Isaac was calm, rational and more at peace than he had been in a long time. “It would be an honor for me to marry Avery. You can count this as my formal request for your daughter’s hand in marriage.”

Avery looked at Isaac and then at her father to be sure they hadn’t lost their minds. “There’s no way in hell I am going to marry you, Isaac McCoy.”

“Avery Rose! Such language,” her father sputtered.

A knife blade of uncertainty wounded him. Countless cuts from those who thought they knew better than he, began to bleed afresh. “Why not? Isn’t marriage to me what you were after all along?”

His simplistic take on things hurt her. Avery wasn’t ready to have a rational conversation. She was too shocked and horrified to think straight. No way was she going to let Isaac be forced to marry her. He didn’t want her. And she had no desire to have a husband who wasn’t desperately in love with her. “Not like this, it wasn’t.” She didn’t think she had to say anymore – it was too humiliating to enunciate. What he must think of her? She had to get out of here before she cried in front of them both. “I’m not going to discuss this, anymore, with either of you.”

Turning on her heels, she went back to Isaac’s room to gather her belongings. It only took a second. She couldn’t wait to get out of Hardbodies. It was time she found other things to occupy her mind besides the mindless pursuit of Isaac McCoy. As she passed Isaac and her father on the way out the door - she stopped to put in one last plug for sanity. “Father, I have lived my entire life to please you, and that is over. Isaac, all my life I dreamed that you could love me as much as I love you – but you can’t. Dad, tell Mother I will call. Isaac, I won’t be bothering you again.”

Avery walked away and left the two men in her life standing side-by-side, speechless.

“Don’t worry, sir. I won’t let her leave town.” He walked Avery’s father to his car. “I will handle it. Your daughter will be protected and sheltered by everything the McCoy’s have to offer.”

Abe huffed and puffed just a bit more. He had worked himself into such a lather, expecting Isaac to refuse to do the right thing that it was hard to let all that angst go. “Well, you see that you do. Avery is a good girl and she wouldn’t be in this mess if she hadn’t set her sights on the likes of you.”

Isaac didn’t try to defend himself, there just wasn’t any use. He agreed with the reverend. Who would have ever thought he would be joining forces with Reverend Sinclair for a common cause? Or that said cause would be to bind himself in the bonds of matrimony to the angel of Kerrville County. At the moment, his angel’s halo was slightly tarnished, but he knew better than anyone how truly perfect she was. It had never been Avery’s intention to do anything but win his love, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she might very well have accomplished that feat.

As he stood there, waiting for the rotund reverend to get in his car, Isaac tested his feelings. No remorse, no uncertainty, no hesitation. He smiled. It was as if her father’s demands had freed Isaac to do exactly what he had wanted to do all along. He wanted Avery. Standing in front of Hardbodies, he watched the preacher leave and considered what his next step should be. There were a lot of things to get done – from big to small – but his first order of business was to go and persuade his errant fiancé-to-be to move in with him.

****

“It’s not as bad as you make it out to be,” Harper gazed at Noah McCoy with longing in her eyes. “We could make this work. I won’t go to any of the clubs, if you’ll just work with me. I’ll try to change, but – maybe you could change too. If you would just give me a little of what I need.”