Designed for Love (Texas Nights) (17 page)

But before she had a heart-to-heart with Wurzenbach, she had to confront another man. A man she’d believed was her friend.

“Still don’t like it.” There was nothing funny about this situation, but she’d swear Mac’s shoulders expanded by three inches when he spoke those words, and she had to look away to keep from laughing. He might be the baby of his family, but she’d bet anything his sisters had battled an overprotective brother their entire lives.

“Your time is better spent at the shop right now. If you do that, it’ll actually make me feel better. Oh, and if you could take Napoleon, that would be a huge help. Two things, that’s all.”

Before he could protest more, Ashton pressed a quick kiss to his cheek and walked away to find Jessup. From behind her, she thought she heard Mac say, “I’d do any damn thing for you.”

Chapter Sixteen

It took Ashton two minutes to spot Jessup. To his credit, he was waiting for her even though the other university students were slowly making their way out of the area.

Bitter words burned her throat, almost choking her. “You knew.”

He reached out to take her arm, but she sidestepped and sank into a hole left by the lily pad snatcher. Her ankle twisted, but her spine was so straight that she was able to keep her balance. “You knew exactly where you and your classmates were coming on this little field trip, didn’t you?”

His face sober, he inclined his head. “I did.”

“And by your lack of support out there—” she flung a hand toward the rock, “—it’s obvious whose side of this issue you’re on. I thought we were friends. But it’s hard to believe you’re my friend when you think I would do something to destroy such a beautiful area.”

“Not maliciously, no.” He adjusted the perfectly pressed and buttoned placket of his polo. “But you’ve occasionally engaged in activities that are...shall we say...”

“Just spit it out, Jessup.”

“You have a history of acting first and thinking later without considering the consequences, either to yourself or others.”

Body blow. This must be the way a quarterback felt when one of those huge guys on the other team came crashing toward him, then slammed him to the ground. And Ashton didn’t have the benefit of a helmet and pads. But just like a football player, she dragged her sacked ego off the ground and set her shoulders. “Let’s emphasize the word
history.
”

His forehead creased, Jessup sighed. “Entrenched habits can often take a lifetime to break.”

She would have one shitty life if that were the case. “Can’t you see I’m trying here? I’m trying to be a bigger, better—” smarter, “—person.”

“I appreciate that you’re making an effort, but—”

“But you think when effort didn’t get me what I wanted that I was willing to take a shortcut.” No matter how much she wanted to stomp away, she locked her knees to keep herself in place. Because that was exactly the type of Ashton Davenport history he was talking about.

“Your grandmother gave you a huge responsibility.” His light touch on her arm singed her skin, settled like a lump of smoldering coal in her chest.

“One I couldn’t possibly handle without cheating somehow? Without tearing something or someone up? Well, guess what? I’m not the same woman who sued Roxanne Eberly, not the same woman who played at running Davenport Lingerie. And I’m damn well not the woman who ripped out those plants.”

“I should have talked with you before making assumptions—”

“Save your apology. But yes, you should have.” She advanced on him, poked an index finger into his chest, something she’d never done before. “Because giving the benefit of the doubt is part of what makes two people friends.”

* * *

By the time she parked outside Cameron Wright’s garage, Ashton was still muttering to herself under her breath. Yes, she’d asked for Jessup’s advice and insight plenty of times in the past, but now he was making judgments without all the facts. The exact type of judgments she was trying to escape.

Clearly, he thought she was dishonest.

Desperate.

Incompetent.

Yeah, she’d show him incompetent.

She shoved out of her car and strode toward the open bay where a green car was jacked up on a silver lift. Under it, Cameron was twisting something and scowling at it. The music blasting through the garage was so loud, it vibrated the tiny hairs in her ears. She was as much a fan of Pink Floyd as anyone, but at this volume, it might be the last thing she heard.

His back was to her so she called out, “Cameron, I need to talk—”

“Goddamned, sonofabitching, motherfu—”

“Cameron Wright!” she hollered.

That brought him around in a flash. So fast he came close to knocking his head on a tire. “What the he—oh, hey, Ashton.” And wasn’t that wash of color creeping up his throat the cutest thing ever? “Sorry, thought I was alone and—”

She waved away his apology. “I’m in construction now, remember? I’ve heard it all.” She twirled a finger toward the ceiling. “Do you think you could...?”

He rooted around for something in the pocket of his coveralls, and the music softened. He nodded toward the parking lot. “Need some help with your car?”

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that avaricious gleam in his gaze as he eyed her convertible. “If I did, you’d be the first to know. But this is about Lily Lake.”

His sigh was soundless, but she saw his chest rise and fall. “Gimme a sec to get cleaned up.” Definitely disappointment in his voice. Maybe she should plead some rattle or knock just to make him happy. She did have that scratch down the left side, but she couldn’t afford—in either time or cash—for her car to be in the shop.

It took him a full five minutes scrubbing at the sink against the back wall, but his hands were spotless when he led her toward his office. “This is about economic development stuff.” He gestured to a chair so black and deep, it possibly held the universe’s origin.

So she said, “I’m fine standing.”

Cameron propped a hip against his desk. “Shoot.”

“I’m assuming you’ve heard about the ecologist giving us trouble out at the job site.”

His lips quirked into a smile. As nice as it was, it had nothing on Mac’s panty-burner. “Remember how many people live in this town? Pretty sure Gladys Phelps had his license plate number and his family history the minute he crossed the city limit sign.”

“I originally made a deal with him to bring in an expert who could confirm the identity of these plants. In return, we would continue working as long as we didn’t destroy any lilies.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“Well, there’s a problem.” She shifted, the foot-to-foot rocking motion making it clear she’d lost the heel cap on one shoe. “And I need to make sure the economic development committee is aware that I’m handling this situation.”

The phone on Cameron’s desk rang, and he held up a finger. “Gimme a sec.” He tucked it between his chin and shoulder. “Wright...Hey, Charlie, I’m almost finished with the GTO’s exhaust, but I’ve got someone here and...Not calling about the car?”

After that question came a series of grunts, head shakes, and chin rubs. No surprise that Mac thought highly of Cameron. They were cut from the same bolt. Scratchy burlap. When he hung up, he eyed Ashton. “Problem, huh?”

“Word gets around fast.” Something about his grim expression had her bracing her back against the wall. “I just have to find the person who took the plants, get a botanist out here, and we’ll be on track again. If people are willing to help me canvass the town, or maybe if the economic development committee would help me pay for the botanist once I find someone—”

“Kinda doubtful. You had some friend in Houston trying to hook you up with a guy?”

“Yes.”

“Well, apparently, your big-shot botanist is a professor at Southeast State. And the university’s president has already called, talked to Charlie about the conflict of interest between his student group and his faculty member. They’re backing out. And if the university has heard there are problems out this way, it won’t be long before others do too.”

“So what are you saying?”

“As much as you might want this project to be successful, and as much as this town could use an economic boost, we can’t afford the bad press this is stirring up.” Cameron swiped a hand across his forehead, causing a trio of cowlicks to stand at attention. “We were surviving before this. Hell, we’ve drummed more than a little tourism from being the home of an infamous porn queen’s daughter. Maybe not what we
want
to be known for, but notorious is okay. Anti-environment is not okay. Not in this day and age.”

Yeah, retired porn queens had nothing on a bunch of wild lily pads. The sliver of hope Ashton had hung onto melted. Still, she tried to infuse her voice with determination rather than desperation. “All I need is a few people to...”

He pushed off his desk, gave her a pained smile. “You might think about if it’s just time to cut your losses.”

Chapter Seventeen

Letting Napoleon run loose in the shop still made Mac uneasy, but there was no way he would keep the dog cooped up in that pansy-ass little carrier. He could almost forgive the little guy for his initial aggression. If Mac had to ride around in that thing, he’d be picking fights everywhere he went just to prove he still had a set of stones.

“But if you shit on, piss on, or chew up anything, this understanding we have going on is over. Do you hear me?”

Napoleon’s ears flattened to his head. Made him look like that cartoon cat with Antonio Banderas’s voice.

“You’re not fooling me with that sad, innocent act. I’ve seen you in action, remember?”

Sure enough, his ears popped back up, and he cocked his head to one side, lifted his nose. Then he darted toward the makeshift counter where Mac’s lunch was. On his hind legs, he pawed at the wood, looked over his shoulder at Mac.

“So that’s the deal, is it? I scratch your back and you scratch mine?” He strode over, shaking his head at himself. When the hell had he started talking to this dog as if he was a person? He’d been around Ashton too long.

But the feeling that had been knocking around inside his chest since he and Ashton made love last night told him otherwise. The woman might be a little overboard about her dog, but damn, she did it for Mac. She hadn’t whined once when she woke up naked except for his shirt. He had a feeling she would’ve been up for another round of hammock hockey if her damned phone hadn’t buzzed. He liked looking at her when she was primped up and pretty. But when her hair was flat on one side and she had a crease in her cheek from the canvas? That, he loved.

Shit.

He loved looking at her when she looked like that.

That was all.

“She’s not my type,” he told the dog. “Hell, you’re sure not my type.”

Napoleon just scratched harder at the counter.

“It wouldn’t work. She wants to belong here.” And she would, if he had anything to do with it. “I’ve got to go back to Dallas.”

The dog snorted as if to say “Whatever, Romeo, just fork over the fucking Spam.”

“I mean, she’s great.” And the sex, it had been a brain-melting experience. Ashton hadn’t given a crap about how she looked, how much she weighed, or who was watching her. She was there, in the moment. With him. Being real.

Fuck
,
fuck
,
fuck.

Somewhere along the way, he’d forgotten that women, no matter how down-to-earth or sophisticated they were, wanted things. And not just physical things. Emotional things. Messy shit.

He didn’t need those thoughts swirling around in his head when everything else—the project, the shop, his future—was in a mess too.

Rather than torture himself by sinking into all that, Mac dug into his lunch bag and pulled out a can. He opened it, dumped the meat on a paper plate, then sliced it with his pocket knife. He eyed Napoleon. “Sit.”

Amazing how he plopped his furry little ass right onto the ground.

“Down.”

He slid belly down and perched his chin on his paws. Okay, so that was kind of cute.

“Roll over.”

Quick as a flea, Napoleon did a three-sixty and popped to his feet.

“She know you can do all this?”

Pant
,
pant
,
pant.

“You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?”

Woof.

“Look, she’s stressed enough about this whole lily thing. She doesn’t need to know about this canned meat obsession of yours.” Or how Mac was feeding it. Feeding him.

Another head cock.

“So you promise to behave until this project is done and I’m gone, and I’ll keep my mouth shut that you apparently have an Einstein brain.”

Mac looked closer at Napoleon. That might’ve been an eye roll.

“Fine, I’ll provide the contraband. But that’s just between us guys, you got it?”

Napoleon raised his right paw, and before Mac thought it through, he bent down and shook on it.
Jesus.

He tossed a hunk of Spam in the air, and Napoleon caught it with a snap of his teeth. Swallowed without chewing. Mac pitched another one just before the door between his mom’s shop and Ashton’s foyer opened. He ditched the can behind a five-gallon paint can, heard it hit the ground back there with a
ping.

Bedraggled was the only way to describe her. Her hair was flat on both sides now, one heel seemed to be slightly shorter than the other, and her skirt hem had ripped all the way around, leaving the edges frayed and exposing several inches of thigh he’d like to get his hands on again.

Her focus zeroed in on her dog who was rounding the paint can, his tongue working like a belt sander. “What’s he eating?”

Mac had always wanted to be one of those quick-on-his-feet guys.
Think
,
dammit.
“Probably a roach or something?”

“What?” She danced in a circle, staring wide-eyed at the floor. “We have roaches?”

“No, I just meant he probably found a bug or a leaf.”

She squatted down in front of the dog, sniffed around his mouth. “His breath is a little funky.”

“Give him a mint, then.”

She mock-glared up at Mac, but at least she had a semi-smile on her mouth now. She rubbed Napoleon’s ears, then stood to check out the room. “With all this Lily Lake drama, I’ve kept you from finishing your mom’s shop, haven’t I?”

“It’s mostly cosmetic stuff left.” He shuffled around to block her view behind the counter. No doubt that can was empty and licked clean. “The bigger issue is how the search went.”

She breathed deep and wandered to a place on the wall where he’d stripped it down to the studs, pointed to some wood rot. “You call this cosmetic? What if it’s like this everywhere?”

“It’s not. I found that with the good old knock test. Only a couple of places that didn’t sound right.” And Ashton avoiding a discussion didn’t sound right either. “Does this mean you didn’t find anyone willing to confess to stealing your lilies?”

“Not only did I
not
find the water lilies, I’m getting the cold shoulder from the economic development committee and others in town.”

Mac straightened. “Cameron’s giving you a hard time?”

“No. He’s just passing along the word that Southeast’s president refuses to send the botanist my friend in Houston was lining up for me. You know, the premier lily pad guy in the state?”

“We’ll find someone else.”

“We’re running out of time.” She rested her head against a rotted two-by-four which told Mac exactly how defeated she felt.

Her rounded shoulders and curved spine made him want to kick someone’s ass. Instead, he went to her, pulled her away from the wall so her back rested against his chest. Her hair brushed his chin, and he tightened his arms around her. “We’re not beat yet.”

“Even if we had three crews working around the clock, that pavilion wouldn’t be done when we estimated. Wurzenbach has taken too much of our time and resources. You know that as well as I do. Better than I do.”

So much for blowing smoke to make her feel better. She might not believe it of herself, but she had a sharp mind. He turned her in his arms, tipped her face back to study her. “Then let’s explore other options.”

“There are no other options. We were already running down to the wire with the schedule and costs. There’s no extra padding for the next phase.” Yet she’d paid him, which was how he’d bought the last of the tile he needed for this place earlier today. “And there’s no extra in my bank account either.”

She tried to twist away, but he just folded her closer. Let her fight him. Fight herself. Her struggles gradually stopped, but her breath against his chest hitched suspiciously. His sisters had been masters at the cry—bathroom-door-slamming, pillow-sobbing, plate-throwing, hissy-fit-pitching—but slow, defeated tears seeping from under closed lids made him want to drop to his knees and promise anything in the world to stop it. That kind of cry shoved a hand into his chest and tore out his heart.

He stroked a hand down her hair. “Ash, please don’t cry. We can fix this.”

She rubbed her face against his shirt, the movement making the fabric stick to his skin. “I’m not crying.”

“Then you just blew your nose on my favorite shirt? That’s so wrong.”

Her laugh was watery, but her eyes weren’t wet when she pulled away and looked up at him. “I wanted this. Not just for me. I mean, sure I wanted to finally do something worthwhile. But I wanted this for Shelbyville. And now it’s as if I have social leprosy.”

“Some things just weren’t meant to be.”

“Is that what happened to you in Dallas? You just weren’t meant to be a big-shot builder? Yet you’re still trying to get back in that game, right?”

Mac closed his eyes, inhaled. But it did nothing to clear the heat in his lungs. Who was he to tell her she shouldn’t keep trying when fighting had been the only thing on his mind since the day he left Dallas? Because to do otherwise would prove his dad’s death had been in vain.

“I’ve known all along. I knew this was just a waypoint for you. That you’d stick with me long enough to beef up your reputation, then you’d be gone. I can understand why you’d want to distance yourself from the whole thing now. You don’t need this kind of trouble.”

“Ash, I’m sorr—”

“Don’t ever tell me you’re sorry when you don’t mean it.” Her voice was low, but held an edge. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, just point out reality. “I’ve learned it’s okay to want things. But it’s not okay to hurt people to get them. You think you’re hurting me. I’m freaking titanium. It’s not like I haven’t been using you for my own means.”

And didn’t that make him think of the way she’d moved on top of him last night? Her skin warm and pliant. Her laughter low and teasing. Their connection strong and real. That wasn’t using. That was sharing. Last night was the kind of sharing he’d never experienced before.

“In fact, I know this puts a crimp in your plans as well. I know a pavilion and deck aren’t exactly on scale with the mini-mansion developments you used to build. But it would’ve been enough to grab a few people’s interest. And I am sorry that won’t happen. I wanted this to benefit us both.”

Yeah, that made him feel lower than a house inspector as he belly-crawled under a pier-and-beam foundation. “You’re assuming I plan to bolt now that we’ve hit a snag.”

“You can’t afford bad press any more than Shelbyville can. I’m sorry I haven’t finished repaying you yet, but I figured if we made this phase a success, I could get some good—” she laughed, but it wasn’t a nice girl sound, “—press coverage at Allie and Cameron’s wedding. I planned to finish repaying you with any bookings I was able to score off that. Obviously, it’ll take me a little longer to get that to you now—”

He shut her up by pressing his lips to hers, going in fast and deep. She couldn’t say all those self-defeating things with his tongue in her mouth. And he could stop the nagging voice inside his head telling him he shouldn’t give a shit about the money. About going back to Dallas. Especially when it had ultimately saddled him with an assload of misery.

While he’d built those mini-mansions, he’d lived in a three-bedroom condo with the right suburban Richardson address attached to it. Pretty ironic that he was happier living in a tiny trailer in a small town when he’d worked so fucking hard to get out of a small town in the first place.

Mac shoved all that crap from the past aside and concentrated on the woman in his arms. Handfuls of warm skin, silky hair. Just a handful, generally. He slowed the pace, savoring the feel of her relaxing against him. Playing his hands over all those killer curves he now knew intimately. Even as the tension between them faded, his heart rate climbed.

She pulled her lips away from his, just an inch. Enough to whisper, “If you’re just trying to make me feel better—”

Mac grabbed her hips, pulled her into his body. “That feel like pity to you?”

Her gorgeous eyes widened slightly and then turned speculative. “No, now that feels like something I can succeed at.”

“What’s that supposed—”
Zziipp.
With one smooth movement she had his jeans open and was headed to her knees. He grabbed her by the elbow. “Ash, we’re on the freaking town square, if you haven’t noticed. And the shades aren’t—”

She shoved at his hips, forcing him to step back toward the counter or lose his balance. When he was concealed behind the counter from the waist down, she kicked off her shoes, rucked up her skirt, then knelt.

She wasn’t even touching him, and his cock was jumping in anticipation. He reached for his tool belt, but she grabbed his hand, led it to the countertop.

“Leave it.” She reached for his waistband and worked his jeans down. His dick popped free to rub against the leather tool belt now hanging on his bare hips. “You might want to hold on with both hands for this.”

Mac lifted his other hand to the counter even as he laughed. “That’s quite a claim—”

She trailed her tongue up the underside of his cock, slipped her lips over the head, and blew every thought from his mind. Mac gripped the counter edge and spread his legs—as much as his jeans around his thighs would allow—to keep his balance. If he didn’t have a steady foundation, his whole body might collapse.

Her mouth was hot and slick, gliding over him. He leaned against the support behind him to keep from pumping his hips. This was her show. She needed to set the pace, make the rules. He inhaled through his nose, pulled air deep and held it for so long, his lungs felt as if they’d been blowtorched.

She gently scraped her teeth over him from base to tip. His abs clenched, and his balls drew tight.
Crack.
The counter’s edge gave under his grip, and splinters gouged his palms.
Breathe through it.
The edge of pleasure-pain. He threw his head back, set his teeth.

“Mac?”

“Huh?” He didn’t dare open his eyes, look at her down there on her knees between his legs. His dick millimeters from her lips, wet from sucking him.

“You look like you’re in pain.”

“I am.”

Her heated breath caressing his cock moved away, which forced him to unclench his eyelids to find her sitting back on her heels, arms crossed and eyes narrowed. “Maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much if you loosened up a little, stopped worrying so much about offending the poor little rich girl.”