Going Cowboy Crazy (8 page)

“What
I
did with your car? How could I do anything with your car when I was making out with you at Sutter Springs?”

Her face flushed a cute shade of red. “I know where you were, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t responsible for my car missing.”

She was probably right. In a roundabout way, he was responsible. Years ago, he should’ve let everyone know he wasn’t interested in Hope, instead of going along with the entire jilted boyfriend scenario. He just hadn’t wanted to crush their dream that someday the homecoming queen would return to the football hero and they’d live happily ever after.

That and the fact that being thought of as Hope’s man worked out pretty well for him. He got to enjoy his freedom and not worry about matchmaking mamas and overzealous women whose biological clocks were ticking. All the women who spent time with him knew it wasn’t forever.

Not when he was saving forever for Hope.

It had seemed like only a little white lie.

Until now.

Now someone else was involved. An innocent victim who didn’t deserve to be caught in the sticky web he’d helped weave. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see a way out of it. Years of lying made for a pretty tangled mess. Especially
when the mess included the stubborn people of Bramble. People who had spent their lifetimes believing what they wanted to, rather than the truth. Still, it was his responsibility to set them straight, and he planned to.

First thing in the morning.

“Look, darlin’, your car’s been towed, and there’s no way you can get it back until the morning.”

“Towed? But why would—” She blinked, and her hand slipped from his arm. “Because I was drinking?”

Relief washed over him. “Exactly. We have real strict drinking laws here in Texas.”

She nodded, but still looked adorably confused. “Then I guess I’ll need to get a hotel room for the night.”

“I’m afraid there aren’t any in Bramble.”

“No hotels?”

He shook his head, feeling almost as good as he had when an unexpected ice storm canceled all his high school classes on the first day of finals. He didn’t try to figure out why he suddenly felt so damned happy. Happiness was something to enjoy, not analyze.

With a smile tugging at his lips, he popped the truck in gear and made a big circle in the empty lot before he drove off the curb. Faith’s body jostled back against the seat, and he glanced down at the jiggling dollops of her breasts.

His smile deepened.

“But where are you taking me?” she asked.

“With me, darlin’. You’re coming with me.”

F
AITH WOKE WITH A START AND STARED
in confusion at the dingy sheet that was thumbtacked over the small window. She would’ve remained confused for at least a few seconds more if a sloppy wet tongue hadn’t slid from her chin up to her forehead.

“Yuck!” She sat up and wiped the back of her hand across her face.

“Now, sugar pie.” A honey-drizzled voice came from the doorway. “He’s just kissin’ you good mornin’.”

Her gaze snapped up, and her breath caught.

Slate stood in the doorway dressed in nothing but a pair of faded jeans with a frayed hole in one knee and what looked like blue paint on the other. The loose waistband rode low on his lean hips, displaying a curved line of pale skin that made her heart trip faster. His body didn’t have the bulging muscles of the bodybuilders who worked themselves into a sweaty lather at her gym. Just smooth, defined hills and lean valleys that flexed and released as he moved around the bed.

“Good mornin’.” He leaned down, and his lips did a
lazy sweep over hers. He pulled back and sent her a dazzling smile, his hair sleep-tousled and his eyes drowsy.

Everything inside her melted, completely obliterating the valid excuses she’d spent most the night coming up with. It wasn’t the long trip, the pain of losing her mother, the stress of trying to locate her sister, or the three shots of tequila that had turned her from an introverted prude to an immoral slut.

It was this man.

This golden-haired redneck with his smooth southern drawl and devilish grin that had kept her up for most of the night fighting against the strong desire to strip naked and join him on the tiny plaid couch he’d too readily occupied. She’d won the battle. Except staring at the tempting piece of manhood before her, she didn’t feel like much of a winner. In fact, she felt like The Biggest Loser—starved and deprived.

“Don’t tell me, you’ve got laryngitis again, darlin’.” His gaze sizzled its way down the T-shirt he’d loaned her and stopped at the words written across the front. And since it was his T-shirt she figured it wasn’t the phrase
Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me
that caught his attention.

Faith tried to pull the sheet up over her breasts, but it was tucked under her leg. She tugged, and the 10-count fabric ripped.

Horrified, she stared down at the long tear. “Oh! I’m so sorry!”

Slate stared, too, but not at the ripped material as much as the bare leg it exposed. “No harm, no foul, darlin’. Bubba needed new sheets anyway.”

“Bubba?” She slipped her leg farther under the sheet. “These aren’t your sheets?”

His hot eyes followed the line of her leg beneath the thin material. “Nope.”

She glanced around the room, its only furniture the sagging mattress and a scarred chest of drawers with the bottom drawer missing. “Just what do they pay a high school coach?”

“Not nearly enough, sweetheart.” His gaze drifted up to the valley between her legs. “Not nearly enough.”

Faith’s breath caught as he lifted his head, and she stared into twin pools of heat. But before she could turn into the immoral slut, Buster bumped against Slate’s leg and whined pitifully.

“You just went out, boy,” Slate said, his eyes never leaving Faith. But the whining grew louder until he was forced to acknowledge the dog. “All right, all right.” He moved toward the door in a wondrous display of lean back muscles. Glancing over one smooth, tanned shoulder, he sent her a sexy wink. “Don’t go anywhere, darlin’. I’ll be right back.”

Once he was gone, Faith scrambled off the bed and headed for the tiny bathroom. The room was smaller than an airplane’s and twice as cluttered. The edge of the sink was crammed with a can of shaving cream, a razor, a bar of Dial soap, a cup with a toothbrush and toothpaste, a bottle of Tums, a bottle of aspirin, and a half-empty bottle of Pepto-Bismol. There were rolls of toilet paper stacked on the back of the toilet and at least three towels stuffed on the rack. Towels that looked like they belonged in the garage.

Of course, Slate didn’t have a garage. Or a carport. Or even a driveway.

Slate had a dirt lot.

And on the dirt lot, he had a trailer. Not a double-wide, more of a twin-wide that wasn’t much bigger than a motor home without the motor. It did have tires. Last night, she’d counted at least two on the roof. It also had two bedrooms, although the other one was filled with boxes, fishing equipment, and more guns.

She used the toilet she’d cleaned with her disinfectant wipes the night before—along with the sink, floor, and doorknob—then washed her hands. On the second lather, she glanced at her reflection in the tiny mirror and groaned at her bedraggled appearance. In the sunlight that poured through a large hole beneath the shower window, she looked like something a cat would refuse to drag in. Of course, there was no help for it now. All her hairstyling products and makeup were locked in the trunk of her car.

She grabbed the toothpaste and squirted some out on her finger. She still couldn’t understand how a sheriff could get away with towing a car without a sobriety test, but she figured small towns were different from big cities. Besides, the man had probably done her a favor. If a cop had stopped her on the highway, not only would her car have been towed, but she probably would’ve spent the night in jail.

Instead of with a red-hot redneck.

Not that she ever got the chance to see how hot her redneck was. But regret was something she’d have to live with. Her life was complicated enough without adding a man to the mix. A man who belonged in her world about as much as she belonged in his. No, the sooner she got her car and got out of there, the better. Every second she stayed with the man, self-restraint seemed more and more overrated.

Especially when she pulled open the door to Slate’s bare chest. She took a step back until her legs came in contact with the cool plastic of the toilet.

With his hands on either side of the door frame, he leaned in and brushed a kiss over her lips. “Mmmm, minty fresh.”

Closing her eyes to block out the steamy image of bulging biceps and smooth, hard chest, she tried to sound like a tough, determined woman instead of the quivering, needy wimp she was. “I need to go.”

Slate’s breath ruffled the hair on her forehead. “Later.” He kissed her again, but with sheer determination, she held her lips firm. After a few seconds of some very skillful attempts to get them open, he pulled back and heaved a sigh.

“Fine. I’ll see if I can find your damned car.” Slate picked her up and set her out of the way.

“Find my car? What do you mean, find my car? I thought you said the sheriff had impounded it because I had too much to drink.”

“That’s right.” He leaned over to turn on the shower, his tight buns flexing beneath the soft denim. “But Sheriff Winslow is an absentminded old guy and sometimes he forgets where he puts things.”

“Forgets where he puts things? A car?”

“Cars. Trucks. You name it.” Slate glanced over his shoulder. “You mind closing the door, honey? I don’t want to catch a draft.”

She wanted to point out that the draft wasn’t coming from the open door as much as the hole in the wall, but she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. He couldn’t help it if the economics of the town were so bad that their football coach’s income was below poverty level.

She walked out and pulled the door closed behind her.

There were still a lot of questions she wanted to ask—mainly how a man who had trouble remembering things could get elected sheriff—but she figured she would have plenty of time to get answers on the way back to town. Besides, she could think a lot clearer after Slate was fully dressed.

“Faith, darlin’.” He didn’t even have to yell to be heard through the paper-thin wood of the door.

“Yes,” she called back.

“Could you come here for a minute?”

She cracked open the door and peeked in. “What?”

He looked back at her from around the edge of the shower curtain, his thick blond hair plastered to his head and the corners of his eyes crinkled. “I didn’t mean for you to leave.”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

His brows lifted. “I thought you might want to take a shower.”

Her face heated up. “With you?”

“Considering we only have about two more minutes of hot water, I’d say it’s now or never.”

All the moisture left her mouth. “I can’t fit in there with you.”

“You’re probably right.” He jerked back the curtain to reveal a thin stream of water trickling down miles of hard, luscious flesh. Hard, luscious flesh that was just as impressive as a monster truck. “But I think we should give it a try.”

She stared for a second, or maybe more like thirty, before she pulled her head back and jerked the door closed. Then she stared at the door for a good five minutes
more as her immoral slut struggled to get out. But the introverted prude won out and she walked back to the bedroom to get dressed.

Unfortunately, the image of his naked splendor was burned into the back of her brain and remained there all the way into Bramble.

“You okay, darlin’?” he asked as they passed the
WELCOME TO BRAMBLE
sign. “You look almost as green around the gills as Buster.”

At the mention of the dog, she finally looked over at Slate—something she’d been avoiding even after he was completely dressed. “I’m so sorry about Buster. I didn’t realize the disinfectant wipes would make him sick.”

“He’ll live. But that has to be the worst case of the runs I’ve ever seen.”

“Do you think he’ll be okay? Maybe we shouldn’t have left him.” She looked out the back window. “What if he gets dehydrated?”

“With all the bowls of water you put out, I don’t see that happening. Besides, he’s a dog.”

She tried to relax back against the seat, but it wasn’t easy. She couldn’t live with herself if she was somehow responsible for another animal’s demise. Her rabbit Powder Puff’s had been devastating enough.

“Hey.”

Faith looked over into a pair of twinkling hazel eyes.

Slate reached over and smoothed a strand of hair off her cheek. “Old Buster will be just fine. He has a stomach of steel.”

His kind words coupled with the warmth of his fingers made her feel all tingly inside. It wasn’t a sexual feeling as much as a feeling of connection. The feeling that
someone on the face of the earth cared about her. Even if it was only for a moment. This feeling bothered her much more than her sexual ones had, and she turned away and tried to change the subject.

“So how are you going to find my car if the sheriff doesn’t remember where he put it?”