Red-Hot Texas Nights (2 page)

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The blaze had subsided into a vibrating warmth that bubbled through her and soothed her insides. The sweet, succulent flavor of strawberries danced on her lips. The rich buzz of alcohol filled her head. Dollar signs danced in front of her eyes.

“I think I might be on to something,” she gasped, taking another sip just to be sure. Another punch of heat, an echoing hum, and a full-blown smile split her lips. “It's definitely good.
Really
good.”

But was it the best?

Drawing a deep, calming breath, she handed over the jar to an eager Ellie. Another quick check of the locks to ease her paranoia, and she started for the back room and the plastic five-gallon tub sitting next to the pile of ingredients she'd assembled for another batch.

Because there was only one way to find out.

 

CHAPTER 2

“This is highly illegal. You know that, right?”

“Depends on how you look at it.” Tyler McCall stood on the rickety front porch and slipped his hand inside the three-inch gap in the weathered screen door. His fingers brushed peeling wood before he finally felt cold metal. He flipped the lock on the inside and the latch groaned.

“I'm looking at breaking and entering,” came the nervous male voice behind Tyler. “And trespassing. And maybe even a destruction-of-property charge because you ran over that cactus when you pulled into the driveway and totally ruined any curb appeal.”

“First off, that prickly pear grows wild and judging by the knee-high grass, I'm banking nobody in this house gives a shit about aesthetics. Number two, I'm not breaking in. This screen was already cut. I'm just making use of a preexisting breach. As for entering, well, that's more of a gray area.” He turned the knob. Joints moaned and the door creaked open. “See? Wide open and welcoming.”

“Is this your house?”

“No.”

“You're sure? You didn't get kicked in the head during your last ride and lose your memory?”

“Hell, no.” There'd been no eating dust during his most recent run. Ball Buster had been one vicious mother of a bull, but Tyler had managed to tighten his grip and hang on anyway to give eight of the best seconds of his entire life. A performance worthy of the highest score of his career, and the very reason he'd inched his way into the top thirty-five in contention for the coveted Professional Bull Riders championship in Vegas in October. Provided he could do a rinse and repeat in Cheyenne in just a few short weeks. Everything hinged on Wyoming. If he busted his ass there, he would slide back down the board and be out of the running, and shit out of luck.

And if he nailed one beauty of a ride?

He'd be set, headed to Vegas, ready for his shot at the big time.

For his chance to finally be something more than the black sheep of the uppity Sawyer clan.

If
he nailed it.

He stiffened against the doubt and focused on the dim interior of the shabby blue house that sat on the outskirts of town near the railroad tracks.

It was the old Grainger place. Once the pride and joy of Ken and Mimi, who'd settled down fifty-plus years ago to raise a family and grow their own vegetables. Ken had keeled over from a heart attack fifteen years ago and Mimi had followed not long after, and so the place had been left in limbo while their three kids fought it out. The winner? Ken Jr., who'd eventually moved to Texas City to work in one of the refineries and left the place to his only son, Kenny Roy.

Kenny Roy was just a few years younger than Tyler and about as useless as a screen door on a submarine.

He'd never held a job. Instead, he scraped by running a little local hooch, betting on football pots, and selling his own homegrown marijuana.

Tyler took a whiff and grimaced. Apparently Kenny Roy wasn't just selling. He was also sampling the goods.

“There's no gray involved,” Duffy West said. Duff was Tyler's oldest friend and his traveling partner. Not that Duff would dare climb onto the back of a bull. He made up half of one of the best calf-roping teams in the state and while he was usually up for whatever trouble Tyler dragged him into, this was different. This didn't involve either of the two B's—buckle bunnies or booze—and so Duff wasn't nearly as pumped.

“It's black and white,” the calf roper went on. “This isn't your house, dude. You don't have a key. Translation? You're breaking in.”

Tyler shrugged and ducked his head inside the now open doorway. “It's not like I'm doing it with malicious intent.”

“So you admit it? You
are
breaking in?”

“I'm not going to steal anything.” He blinked, adjusting his eyes to the dim, musty interior. “I just want to talk to him.”

“So pick up a phone and let's get the hell out of here.”

“I did that already. Twelve times in the past six hours, as a matter of fact.”

“Then take a hint and give up. Cooper obviously doesn't want to talk to you.”

“Maybe he doesn't want to, but he needs to.” That, and Tyler McCall didn't just give up. Not when his father had packed his bags and hauled ass when Tyler had been only twelve and he'd had to step up and take care of his mother and younger brother, and not now when that brother was about to piss away his entire future.

“He's a grown man now,” Duff reminded him. “He can fend for himself.”

“Coop's barely nineteen and, trust me, he doesn't know the first thing about fending for himself. He needs to get his act together. He
will
get it together just as soon as I get ahold of him.”

“And bully him the way you do everyone?”

But Tyler wasn't a bully. He was just a determined sonofabitch. He'd had to be in order to keep what was left of his family together and make a name for himself on the circuit. He sure as hell had no intention of stopping now when everything was on the line.

His brother had a big, fat juicy scholarship waiting on him. A free ride out of the broken-down two-room trailer that held so many crappy memories. A chance to really make something of himself.

Tyler wasn't letting him fuck it up by falling in with the wrong crowd just to make a few quick bucks to satisfy their mother's selfish habits.

That was Tyler's job. He sent home more than enough to pay the bills and buy the groceries. If Ellen McCall didn't know how to budget, well, he'd give her a crash course before he left Rebel.

He wasn't letting his brother throw away his one opportunity just because the woman needed more cigarettes and another bottle of Jack.

“I can't just look the other way when my brother's in trouble,” Tyler told Duffy. “I have to
do
something.”

Silence ticked by before the cowboy let loose an exasperated sigh. “Then what the hell are you waiting for?” Duffy asked behind him. “Just get inside the damn house and let's get this over with.”

“Thanks, buddy.” Tyler grinned. “I owe you.”

“Tell me something I don't already know.”

*   *   *

“So I know I'm usually the queen of bad ideas and it really isn't my place to point fingers,” Ellie said when they pulled into the dirt driveway, “but this is just plain stupid.”

“Don't you think I already know that?” Brandy shoved the car into park and stared through the windshield at the beaten-down house with the overgrown yard. “But I can't get any brewer to take me seriously without an actual sample, and I can't take the first sample because that could be just a fluke. I need another sample that's just as good, if not better, than the first.” And she needed it by the end of next week. In time for her meeting with Mark Edwards, the CEO of Foggy Bottom Distillers and the man who'd been trying to buy the original Texas Thunder recipe from her grandfather before he'd passed away. She'd called Mark about her new and improved version and he'd quickly cleared an hour from his schedule so that they could meet next Friday morning before he left for a distillers' seminar in Kentucky. Followed by a trip to Germany to study brewing techniques and set up a foreign distributor for his company's product list. He would be gone a minimum of two to three months. Maybe longer.

She couldn't wait months to find out if her recipe would even pay off. She needed money now, or at least the promise of it sometime in the near future, and so she had to meet with Mark before he left and present a viable product that was sure to snag his interest.

In order to do that, she had to have another sample as potent as the first by next Friday.

Otherwise, she was screwed.

“My mash will be ready to run next week and I need someone to run it,” Brandy told the woman sitting in the passenger seat of the old Buick.

“So wait until it's ready and just leave it on the porch.” Ellie eyed the bare bulb surrounded by bouncing June bugs. “Kenny Roy will know what to do with it.”

“Maybe so, but I have to talk to him. I need to know that whoever is doing the actual distilling doesn't alter or contaminate it in any way. I need quality control.” And a primo product.

“You really think Kenny Roy is going to let you talk to his connection? Hell, do you think he even knows who's actually running it? These guys are low-key. For all we know, Kenny drops it off to a guy who knows another guy, who knows another guy, and so on, until they get to the guy who actually runs the still.”

“My point exactly. It's passing through too many hands at this point. There needs to be one person overseeing everything at each step.”

“And you think Kenny Roy is your person? The guy who wore Crocs to the last VFW dance?”

She shrugged. “Not everyone likes to dance.”

“Not everyone spends half his time stoned out of his mind to the point that he
can't
dance. Kenny Roy is an idiot. A sky-high idiot.”

“Exactly, which is why I'm going to ask the name of his connection and follow the trail straight to the source.”

“That's an even worse idea than talking to Kenny. You don't know these guys.” Ellie slid Brandy a sideways glance. “What if they're dangerous?”

A question she'd asked herself a thousand times during the drive over. But she'd never been one to back down when she wanted something, and she wanted this.

She needed it.

And she needed it by next Friday.

Brandy shrugged. “They're businessmen and I'm going to make them a business proposition. They let me watch the entire process and I let them have all the spoils with the exception of one jar.” Her gaze met Ellie's. “I need to make sure that I'm really on to something, that the first time wasn't just a fluke, before I take this any farther. If the second batch is just as good as the first, then I'll have something solid to present to the distiller.”

Something that was sure to pay off.

She reached for the door handle.

Ellie's hand stopped her. “I don't know about this.”

“I'll be careful. I promise. Besides, we probably know the guys involved.”

“Even worse. We're not supposed to know who they are.”

“It's a small town. I'm sure everyone knows who they are. We're probably the exception.” Because Brandy had always been the exception. She'd kept her nose clean back in high school, her focus fixated on the future. On perfecting her brownies and her cookies and her cakes. She'd ignored everything else, from the Friday-night parties to the romantic gossip, to who punched who during the occasional lunchroom brawl. She'd never paid attention to the stuff going on around her, or the people.

Not that it had helped.

She'd still managed to snag herself a reputation. One that had started back in the fifth grade when she'd started to develop well before all of the other girls. By the seventh grade, she'd been a full C cup. And by high school? She'd filled out a D and then some.

She'd been every boy's fantasy, and every girl's enemy. The boys had chased after her and while she'd never let any of them catch her, it hadn't mattered. They'd talked anyway. And spread rumors. People believed what they wanted to believe, and they'd wanted desperately to think that curvy, voluptuous Brandy Tucker was handing it out left and right.

The truth—that she'd been a naive virgin—hadn't mattered in the least.

At first she'd tried to convince them otherwise. She'd dressed conservatively and kept the boys at arm's length. All but one.

One handsome, sexy, charming-as-all-get-out cowboy who'd taken her virginity and made her realize that she was every bit the bad girl that everyone thought.

Not that she'd been ready to fly her crazy flag for the entire world to see.

Not then and not now.

She still walked the walk and talked the talk, denying her lustful nature to the world and playing the good girl.

Most of the time.

She tamped down the sudden memory of a hot mouth at her throat and strong hands roaming her body and concentrated on climbing out of the old car that had once belonged to her parents.

Brandy had shared the car with her sisters until her grandpa had passed away. Then Callie had started driving his old truck, Jenna had landed an internship with a local vet that came with a company truck, and Brandy had gotten Bertha all to herself.

She shut the door, gathered her courage, and started past the brand-spanking-new black Chevy pickup truck parked off to the side. Kenny Roy might be an idiot but he was obviously doing something right.

Her gaze slid to the cowboy hat parked on the front dash of the truck and an image hit her. A tall, dark cowboy leaning over her, his hat obliterating the handsome contours of his face, his aqua-blue eyes gleaming in the darkness.

A gaze so pale and translucent that it belonged in a brochure for the Bahamas or some other tropical paradise.

She shook away the memory and kept walking, putting one foot in front of the other so fast it was a wonder she didn't trip. But she wasn't about to let her nerves fail her. She knew Kenny Roy. Knew what he was into.