Just Shoot Me (Cowboy Way, #1) (19 page)

Tina Montgomery had a life and a big important
job in Dallas. She wasn’t going to give that up for a broken down
cowboy with a needy son. He wasn’t going to ask her to. That’s not
what last night was about anyway. Dean didn’t know exactly what it
was about, but it wasn’t about forever. “I’ll be back in a minute,”
he said gruffly, as he swung the door open.

He turned and laid down on the floor then
reached back with his foot to find the first rung. He scrambled
down the tree to the ground, and took a moment to adjust his jeans,
before he started across the pine needle covered ground. Last night
in the heat of the moment, he hadn’t felt the prickly pine needles
sticking into the soles of his feet. He hadn’t felt much of
anything, except the overwhelming urge to get Tina Montgomery up in
that deer stand and fuck her brains out. This morning, he felt
every step he took, just like he felt the bitterness of the regret
inside his chest.

If they’d met when he was younger, before he
became so jaded. Before Cindy. Maybe Dean’s life would be
different. Tina Montgomery coming along now wasn’t the same. He
wasn’t the same. Last night up in that deer stand he’d forgotten
his problems for a few hours. She’d helped him forget. But when his
feet hit the ground again this morning, they were all still there.
Last night hadn’t solved a damn thing. Dean knew it had just been a
temporary reprieve in his shitty life. A welcome one, but just a
reprieve. Dean still didn’t have a damned clue how he was going to
fix things. Or if he could.

Taking a deep breath, he huffed it out then
picked his way through the trees toward the place they’d made love
the first time last night. Dean looked around under the tree and
found his hat behind some scrub, but didn’t see her skirt, his
boots, or anything else. He mumbled under his breath and turned. A
pair of ripped red panties occluded his view. They smelled just
like Tina Montgomery, and he couldn’t help but take a deep
breath.

“
Looking for these?” Cord said
smugly.

Dean ripped them from his fingers, and shoved
them into the pocket of his jeans. “Where’s her damned skirt?” he
grumbled.

Cord laughed and pulled it from behind his
back to hand it to him.

“
My boots?” Dean
growled.

“
Hope has those in the truck.” Cord
didn’t move to go get them though. His brother stood there with a
wide grin on his face. “Figured you took her to the deer stand. I
made enough damned noise to wake the dead. You should be saying
thank you instead of being an ass. Seems like you should be in a
better mood too, considering.”

“
Would you just go get my damned
boots?”

“
Hope has Tina’s boots too,” Cord
said in a sing song voice, then his eyes laughed as he added, “I’ll
go get them on one condition.”

“
What’s that?” Dean asked clenching
his fists, wanting nothing more at that moment than to plant one in
his brother’s face.

“
You let her climb down that ladder
to get her panties and skirt.”

“
Fuck you,” Dean growled and shoved
him hard. Cord laughed as he stumbled back and put his hand on his
chest.

“
You know I’m just kidding.” Cord’s
face turned serious. “I’m happy for you brother.”

“
Nothing to be happy about. It’s
done,” Dean said through his gritted teeth. “Now, go get my damned
boots before I tell your wife you’re ogling Tina, and she kicks
your ass!”

His brother’s laughter echoed through the
woods, as he walked toward the clearing. A few minutes later, he
returned with Dean’s shirt, and their boots. Cord dug into the
pocket of his jeans and handed Dean a set of keys. “Ya’ll take your
time,” he said with a wink. “Lucky says to take his truck when
you’re ready to come back. He’s riding with us.”

A lightning bolt of desire shot through him,
but Dean caught it and crushed it. He had things to do. “We’ll be
there in a few minutes,” he said as he turned to walk back to the
tree stand.

Two days later, Dean watched out the window of
the ranch house as Tina, Paulo and Belinda loaded up their
equipment into their cars in the rain. The pouring rain. The bottom
had fallen out on their way back from the woods the other morning,
and it hadn’t let up since. There was no way they could take photos
now. He was sure the bluebonnet field on the other side of the lake
was knee deep mud. The lake had probably overflowed too, so they
couldn’t get back there even if a miracle happened and the sun came
out.

Dean knew he should go over there and say
goodbye, but he just couldn’t make himself do it. She was most
likely mad at him anyway. After he dropped Tina off at the
bunkhouse, Dean had been hiding out to avoid her. Being stuck in
the house made that kind of difficult, but she hadn’t come out in
the rain to walk across the yard to the house.

Who the hell knew, maybe she was hiding out
from him too.

The only reason he knew she was leaving this
morning, was because Cord came to eat breakfast with the family,
and he’d mentioned she got called into a meeting with her bosses in
Dallas. He also gave their daddy the check from Texas Tomboy that
Tina had brought with her. Their payment for using the ranch for
the shoot. That money was going to be combined with the auction
money they had to buy spring stock for the ranch. Half a herd was
better than no herd.

Dean didn’t get a check himself, because he
hadn’t done the photo shoot. When he did get one, he wasn’t going
to put it into the herd. He was hiring a fucking attorney to take
care of Cindy. According to his brother, Tina was going to call to
reschedule when the weather got better, but there was a chance she
wouldn’t be coming back out to the ranch for the shoot. Hope would
handle taking the photos with Paulo and Belinda if she was needed
at her office.

Dean could only hope she would be tied up. And
hopefully the weather would get better soon, because if it didn’t
happen soon the money wouldn’t mean shit to him. Jeremy would be
gone. That money was going to be the difference between keeping
Jeremy and losing him to Cindy. Dean felt it in his gut. That fight
was coming, even though he hadn’t been served notice yet. He was
going to be as prepared as he could be, which meant he needed the
money from the photo shoot. Regardless of whether he had to see
Tina again, work with her.

“
Daddy I want to go say goodbye to
Laney and Miss Tina,” Jeremy said with a tug on Dean’s belt. Dean
looked down at him. The kid looked afraid that Dean would say no,
like he expected him to say no. A few days ago, Dean probably would
have said no, or just brushed him off. He didn’t want to go over
there, but he was going to do it. For his son. If he was going to
lose him, Dean was going to make damned sure the kid remembered him
fondly at least.

He ruffled Jeremy’s hair, and his son smiled
up at him. Emotion shot to his throat to form a tight knot. He
cleared it, then said, “Okay, go get your raincoat on.”

Jeremy squealed and turned to run across the
living room, and Dean went to get his slicker out of the closet.
They met in the foyer, then walked out into the rain. When they got
to the bunkhouse, Tina was inside, but Laney was out on the porch.
Dean stopped and pushed Jeremy toward the porch, hoping he would
just say goodbye to the little girl, so they could get back to the
house. If he was lucky, he wouldn’t have to see Tina.

No, if he was lucky she wouldn’t be leaving.
He shoved that thought out of his head and said, “Okay hurry up. We
need to get back to the house and they need to go.”

“
Yes, sir.” Jeremy ran splashing
across the yard to the steps. Dean just stood in the rain, hoping
he would hurry. Before he had to see Tina. Before he had to say
goodbye. Before he had to watch her drive off down that driveway,
and watch her leave him like Cindy had done.

Different situation, different woman, he
reminded himself. But it sure felt the same.

“
Fuck,” he said under his breath,
as he turned and took a couple of steps back toward the house.
Jeremy could just say goodbye then come home.

“
Dean!” Tina called from the porch,
and he stopped. A gust of wind blew rain into his face and he was
glad for it. He tilted his hat lower over his eyes and kicked up
the collar of his slicker before he turned around. His heart did a
loop in his chest when he saw she had changed into those damned
heels of hers again. The ones that made her legs look like
three-quarters of her body length. And a navy blue business suit.
He’d never seen her in business mode before. She didn’t even look
like the same woman. This Tina Montgomery he realized was a million
miles removed from the one he made love to in that deer
stand.

Her smile wobbled and she waved at him. His
heart stuttered in his chest again. There was no way in hell he
could talk to her. He waved back, then spun on his heel and stormed
across the yard. No, he needed just to cut ties and be done with
it. Focus on what he needed to be focusing on. Keeping his son. She
would go back to Dallas and she would carry on. Probably meet some
guy in a matching business suit, and have little boys that wore
polo shirts instead of cowboy boots. That was the life she was
suited for, not trudging through horseshit and mud in her high
heels.

Dean walked through the front door of the
house, right past his daddy, who tried to grab his shoulder in the
foyer to go straight to the liquor cabinet. It was just ten o’clock
in the morning, but he needed a drink. He grabbed the whole fucking
bottle, and a glass then headed to his room.

“
Watch, Jeremy. I don’t feel good,”
he yelled down the hall before he went inside his room and shut the
door.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Tina sat at the long conference table in her
nine o’clock meeting with her bosses, staring out the window over
the President of Texas Tomboy’s shoulder as he talked. She wanted
to focus on what he was saying, it was important she was sure, but
she just couldn’t.

How could she think about anything except the
note she found when she got home yesterday afternoon? Her sister
was gone on the road with a cowboy. She asked her to take care of
Laney, but said she didn’t think she’d be a burden. What the fuck
did her sister think raising a child was, if not a burden? But then
she wouldn’t know that. She had never raised Laney.

Laney had cried herself to sleep last night,
even though Tina tried to convince her niece that her mother was
just taking a vacation. And since she was still on Spring Break
from school, Tina had to leave her with the elderly neighbor this
morning to come to work. Still crying. Totally unacceptable. She
had almost called in sick, but since she got the call from her boss
yesterday, specifically requesting her presence in this meeting,
she had to be here.

Or lose her job.

Then she wouldn’t be able to support her
niece, who might as well be her own daughter.

Tina wanted to strangle her sister.

“
So, of course we’ll need you to
travel if you’re offered the position,” Mr. Jamison
said.

The word travel penetrated the fog around her
brain, and Tina dragged her eyes back to Mr. Jamison. “Travel?” she
repeated dumbly.

“
Weren’t you listening, Miss
Montgomery?” he asked impatiently. She glanced at her manager June,
and received a hot look.

Tina looked back at Mr. Jamison, but panic
grabbed her by the throat and she couldn’t find her voice or words
for a second. It finally broke free. “Um, yes of course, I heard,
Mr. Jamison. Travel?”

“
As our European Marketing Manager,
you’d be required to travel overseas frequently. Do you think that
would be something you could do?”

“
European Marketing Manager? We’re
not in Europe, sir,” Tina repeated, terrified now that she’d missed
something vitally important while she was daydreaming. Texas Tomboy
was a western wear company. That was as American as you could get.
What the hell was he talking about Europe for? Tina pasted on a
smile, and her voice was a little patronizing, because she thought
surely he had made a mistake. “Um, I was developing the Texas
Tomcat menswear line, remember Mr. Jamison?” Texas Tomboy employed
a lot of people, she thought surely he had gotten her confused with
someone else. “I don’t have the photos and presentation together
yet. The weather delayed the shoot, but I’m working on it.” Tina
sat up in her chair and stiffened her shoulders, then said
confidently, “I’ll definitely be ready for our meeting next
Tuesday.”

Tina planned on going back to the ranch this
weekend to do the shoot. Come hell or high water she was going to
get the photos she needed to sell this line. If she was going to
have to take care of Laney, that promotion was more important to
her now than ever. And the check for that photo shoot would also
give Dean Dixon the money to fight his ex-wife to keep his son.
Before she’d left the ranch, Tina had only been able to give them
the check for the location, since the shoot didn’t
happen.

Her manager covered her hand on the table, and
gave it a squeeze. “Mr. Jamison, this is a huge opportunity for
Miss Montgomery. I think she’s a little stunned by the offer. Let
us talk, and she’ll get back to you tomorrow. Would that be
okay?”