Rules of Protection (Tangled in Texas) (Volume 1) (23 page)

“I wasn’t looking for Felts. Sergio went through there. I followed him to tell him to leave you alone, that you were with me. I wasn’t sure which way he had gone. When I couldn’t find him, I came out and searched for you. But you were gone. Then you flew out those doors a minute later. It was obvious you’d seen something. And, judging by how scared you were, I figured it had to be bad.”

My body shuddered at the memory of Sergio’s blank stare. “I thought you knew…that you worked for…”

“The only thing I knew was that they were searching for you. You were ducking through the crowd, trying to make your way to your friends. I had to get to you before you made it to them, or they would’ve been in danger as well.”

“You should’ve told me…”

“Told you what? That you were the lucky break I’d been hoping for?”

“Lucky? You think it was luck I witnessed a murder?”

“Emily, you saw Felts commit a crime, and I hadn’t been able to pin anything else on him. I hated that you had to see that, but truthfully, it was bittersweet.”

The comment alone polluted and distorted my view of Jake. I had to bite back the words I actually wanted to say. “You should’ve at least told me about your parents and how involved with the case you were.”

“I couldn’t tell you how my parents died. Not in the beginning. I saw the reaction you had when I told you about the other three witnesses. It wasn’t good.” Jake shook his head insistently. “No, I couldn’t take a chance you’d run. I needed your help to bring the murdering bastard to justice. It was my only alternative to killing him.”

My heart felt like he’d taken a shotgun to it and had blown it to smithereens. “So this was a personal crusade?”

“Of course it was,” Jake admitted, guilt-free.

Disbelief clouded my eyes and sent my stomach into a downward spiral. “It…it didn’t have anything to do with protecting me. You weren’t keeping
me
safe, Jake. You were keeping your precious fucking court date.”

“I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t have ulterior motives, Emily. But it had nothing to do with you or this thing between us.”

This
thing
between us? What the hell was that supposed to mean? That it was just sex? He said he didn’t do meaningless sex. Then again, it isn’t like he said he loved me, either.

I became more enraged. “It has everything to do with me! I thought you weren’t telling me about your parents because you didn’t want to hurt me knowing I’d lost mine. It’s why I didn’t push. But that wasn’t it at all, was it, Jake? You kept it from me because you didn’t want to lose your star witness. That’s all you give a damn about.”

“Emily, you’re wrong. This thing. Us. It’s—”

“It’s what?” I asked, needing affirmation that he felt the same way about me.

“I don’t know,” he said in frustration. Jake moved away, infuriating me more.

I was livid he couldn’t elaborate, couldn’t verbalize it. I felt alienated and more alone than I’d ever felt since my parents died. After all, the man I’d fallen in love with wasn’t in love with me. He might have pulled me closer physically, but emotionally he pushed me away.

I couldn’t understand why, after what we had shared. Something was between us, but now, I was no longer sure what. It was like our relationship resembled the cell service out there. A connection was there, but kept getting lost in the trees.

“You fucking coward! That’s fine, then. Chalk it up to one more notch on your belt for all I care. I should give you a standing ovation for the stunning performance you put on yesterday.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit.” He swallowed hard, trying to keep his temper from flaring further. “You know it wasn’t an act,” he said more calmly.

I wanted to believe him, but I couldn’t. Not after he admitted to having ulterior motives and not knowing what to call this thing between us. Dull pain in my fragile heart pulled at me, making me want to spew moisture from my eyes by the bucketful. But I couldn’t let my guard down with him anymore.

Once I was alone, I’d worry about piecing the broken shards back together. For now, I was angry. Mad at him for making me admit I loved him while weakened by the throws of passion. Disgusted with myself for falling in love with him. In fact, I would’ve been happy to stuff all of my unwanted feelings into a trash bag, throw it into the burn pit, and light it with the raging flames blazing inside me.

“What was this, then? You and your friends getting your jollies off on the city slicker who can’t do anything right? Jesus. You brought me out here so I could be the brunt of all of your jokes?” None of what I said was true, but he had hurt me and I wanted to hurt him back in self-defense.

“Emily, stop—”

“Well, I have news for you, Agent Ward, or whatever the hell your name is.” My finger pushed into his chest, my tone all snark. “I’m not the joke here. All of you are. With your neglected lawns that look more like junkyards and your stupid southern accents.”

Jake pushed my finger from his chest. “Emily, you’re starting to try my patience.”

“Well, it’s about damn time! You’re as slow as the rest of them. God knows no one out here has any sense.”

He wasn’t shocked by my outburst, but he was mad. “You can think we’re all small-minded, if you want, but there aren’t any ghettos out here, sweetheart.”

“Only because everyone here already lives in the ghetto.”

Once again, I had lashed out by attacking not only him, but his family and friends. I regretted the words the moment they flew from my lips, but I refused to take them back.

Jake flew into a fit, waving his hands in the air before grabbing his boots and talking with a mock hillbilly accent. “Well, hell, darlin’, I better get goin’ then. My uneducated ass has to drive some cattle to market in the mornin’. Reckon I better get a move on.”

He walked out and slammed the door as I yelled, “By the way, this fake relationship is off!”

Then I crumpled to the floor and burst into tears.

Chapter Twenty

I didn’t have to face Jake again until I went over to the main house during lunchtime. I hoped I’d missed him, but leave it to me to judge something wrong. Like I didn’t do enough of that already?

He had nothing to say. After verbally vomiting on each other earlier in the morning, we couldn’t even stand to look at each other. Still upset over our argument, I would’ve skipped lunch to avoid him if I hadn’t already skipped breakfast.

Hank and Jake had eaten, but were soaking up some air conditioning before venturing back out into the heat. The room was thick with tension, but Hank and Floss ignored it, talking casually about the Trinity River water levels.

It wasn’t what I’d consider riveting conversation, but it held enough interest to keep me entertained without having to speak myself. I grabbed an apple from the bowl on the table and quietly listened to them talk.

We all heard the truck pull up, and Floss peered out the window. “It’s Bobbie Jo and her mother, Connie,” she said, tossing a look my way. “I’ll go meet them downstairs in the driveway.”

Jake didn’t look at me, but wore a smirk. “I’ll go with you.”

I stifled the eye roll and the groan.

“Emily, there’s some chicken salad in the fridge from yesterday,” Floss offered. “Help yourself.”

“That’s okay, Floss. I’m not in the mood for
leftovers
.”

It was my turn to smirk at Jake, though I should’ve known better than to provoke him. It was like tapping the glass on a poisonous snake’s aquarium. No matter how many times he struck at me, he couldn’t get to me as long as the glass barriers were in place. Hank and Floss were obviously the barriers. But I wouldn’t dare taunt a snake on the loose.

“Oh, Lordy, I don’t want to know what that’s all about,” Floss said, heading outside.

Jake gritted his teeth with irritation while Hank grinned.

“Maybe I’ll ask Bobbie Jo if she wants some
leftovers
,” Jake said, to no one in particular. He lifted the brows on his smug face.

Uh-oh. The snake must have freed himself.

“She always liked what I had to offer,” he added. Jake turned to leave, but stopped when an apple pegged him in his back. “Oh, real mature, Emily.”

He picked the apple up off the floor, turned to face me, and saw I was still eating mine. I held my hands up, showing my innocence. He glared at Hank, who shrugged, grinning happily at his good aim.

Jake stared open-mouthed. “Traitor,” he said, spinning on his heels and storming out the door.

Hank and I burst into hysterics. After a moment, I became overly emotional, and my laughing turned more to sobbing. Immediately, Hank pulled his chair over. He didn’t say anything at first, just rubbed my shoulder, allowing me to get a handle on myself.

“I’m sorry,” I said, wiping my eyes with a napkin Hank handed me. “I didn’t mean to get upset.”

“It’s okay, honey. Everyone needs to have a good cry now and then. If I’d known Jake hurt your feelings this much, I’d have thrown the apple harder and aimed for his noggin.”

“It’s not that,” I said, offering a trembling grin. “Jake and I had an argument this morning.”

“So that’s why he’s in such a foul mood today,” Hank said with a chuckle. “Jake’s already hit his thumb with a hammer three times, thrown a shovel across the barn, and said more curse words than I thought he knew. And that was all in the last two hours. You must’ve really gotten under his skin this time,” he said, still hooting.

“Yeah, that’s the problem,” I grumbled. “We keep getting under each other’s skin. I don’t know how the others believed Jake and I are supposed to be a couple.”

“Honey, they all knew you two weren’t a couple.”

“You mean
aren’t
a couple.”

“Now, don’t go telling me what I mean,” Hank said. “I know what I’m saying. I meant
weren’t
. Past tense. You two are practically married now.”

I almost fell out of my chair with laughter. “Hank, I’m going to keep my opinions to myself. I’d hate to insult you by calling you crazy.”

“You can’t see it?” he asked, giving my arm a friendly pat. “That boy is stuck to you like a Band-Aid. He follows you everywhere, even if it’s only with his eyes. That’s devotion…the kind that comes from love. I watch Floss the same way. Especially when that rascal, Slick, comes around. I’ve threatened to blow his head off a time or two the way I caught him looking at my girl.”

I couldn’t help but smile, wondering if Jake really looked at me like that. It had to be wishful thinking on my part. If he watched me at all, it’s because he was anticipating the next stunt I’d pull. It was purely physical attraction for him. No emotional attachment. Like it or not, I had to accept it.

But I appreciated what Hank tried to do. Kind words from an old man trying to make a young girl feel better. Hank was sweet.

“Okay, missy, I’ve got some work to do. I didn’t get much of anything done yesterday.”

“Being lazy, huh?”

“No, ma’am. I came downstairs yesterday to do some work, but ended up running back inside. The cottage was shaking something awful. Damn near thought it was a tornado,” Hank said with a knowing wink.

I was left speechless and blushing. Hank wasn’t sweet. He was perverse.

…

I sat on the back porch with a glass of iced tea, leafing through a magazine I’d found on the coffee table. The magazine was more of a prop, really. My eyes stayed glued on the men the entire time. It was like watching my own personal comedy hour.

The storm that had passed through caused some problems to the roof of the pole barn and it needed repairing. Hank climbed the ladder to assess the damage. Jake yelled for him to get down, saying he was too old to be up there. Hank told him to shut up, which made me laugh. I laughed harder when Jake smashed his finger with a hammer and cursed in tongues I couldn’t translate.

I grinned when Hank jacked up the side of the barn using a car jack and ribbed Jake relentlessly about not doing his share of the workload. Then Hank set me off again when I caught sight of him holding a stud finder to his body and making beeping noises with his mouth.

“The two of them should take their act on the road.”

I turned to see Bobbie Jo coming toward me, which wiped the smile off my face. Floss had invited Bobbie Jo and Connie inside for some tea, which was why I went outside. Bobbie Jo apparently didn’t grasp the meaning of avoidance.

“I came out here to be alone,” I told her, not bothering to watch my tone.

She sat in the chair beside me wearing white drawstring shorts and a peach knit top.

“You
will
be alone if you keep up that attitude,” she said, her tone just as sour as mine, though she smiled as if offering me sugar.

“Where do you get off? You don’t know anything about me.”

“Because you won’t give me a chance,” she said, propping her feet up on the railing like mine. “You weren’t happy about Jake and I going to the barn. I understand why. But I’d like to explain it to you, instead of having you hate me for no reason. If you still want to hate me afterward, then fine.”

Noise from a circular saw caught my attention. Hank worked on the ground cutting boards while Jake straddled the frame of the pole barn’s roof wearing thick leather gloves. Realizing Bobbie Jo and I were on the back porch alone together, he looked worried. As if any minute our claws would come out and a catfight would begin. Too busy watching us to focus, he slipped through the framing, but caught himself. Bobbie Jo and I jumped out of our chairs at the same time. Neither of us relaxed again until he pulled himself back up and we saw he was all right.

“Wave and smile with me,” I said. “That way he’ll know everything is okay. I don’t want him preoccupied while he’s up there. It’s dangerous.”

Bobbie and I both waved with big grins on our faces. The worried look he wore disappeared, replaced by a puzzled one. It made both of us laugh. At least he seemed to pay more attention to what he was doing afterward and less attention to us.

“I helped look for you in the woods,” Bobbie Jo said, surprising me. “It’s one of the reasons I came by. I heard you went through a lot. I wanted to see if you were okay.”

“I’m fine,” I told her, giving her a slight nod. We settled back into our chairs. “By the way, I don’t hate you.”

She lifted her eyebrows slightly. “That’s news to me.”

“It’s about Jake. Nothing personal.”

“I never doubted that for a second,” she said, nodding. “Have you forgotten I dated him? I know how other girls looked at him and how easy it is to get jealous over something trivial.”

“I wouldn’t call sneaking off to the barn with another woman’s man trivial,” I said matter-of-factly. “I took it seriously.”

“That’s the other reason I wanted to talk to you.” Bobbie Jo clasped and unclasped her hands nervously. “I’d found out some unsettling news earlier that day and didn’t want Jake to hear it from anyone else. He’s still one of my best friends. We went to the barn only to keep others from listening in. In this neck of the woods, we have a few busybodies who’d love nothing more than to gossip.”

I bit my lip, not knowing if I should ask or not. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

Bobbie Jo reeled with astonishment. “H-how did you know?”

“Everyone around here drinks like a fish, but I haven’t seen you touch the stuff. There’s something else, but I don’t know if it’s normal for you. Maybe it’s the pregnancy.”

“What’s that?”

“You glow,” I said, making her smile widen. “No, I’m serious. Your skin, your hair, your eyes. It’s like you’re radioactive or something.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said happily.

“You should.” A moment of silence passed while I summoned the courage to ask her another question. “It’s Cowboy’s?”

She sat upright, no longer slouching in her chair. “Are you nuts? Where would you get a stupid idea like that?”

“I thought—”

“Oh, yuck! That would be like doing it with my brother,” Bobbie Jo said, still making a face. “It’s Jeremy’s—you know, your
friend
from the bar. I left before the fight broke out, but I heard all about it the next day.”

Now I made a disgusted face. “Oh God. No wonder why Ox didn’t want me to go over there. He knew Jake would be looking for any reason to get into a fight with Jeremy.” I hated to admit it, but was sure she already knew. “Jake’s very protective of you. I’m surprised he didn’t kill Jeremy. At least now I know it wasn’t because of me.”

“Oh, honey, the bar fight was definitely over you. Jake had already promised me he wouldn’t lay a finger on Jeremy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure he was glad to have a reason to clock him, but it was more about you than me.”

“Great,” I said sarcastically. “That makes me feel better.”

“That’s nothing,” she said. “The others wanted to send a lynch mob over to Jeremy’s house. I had to talk them out of it.” Bobbie Jo leaned back into her chair casually and giggled. “My boys are something else, aren’t they?”

“I know they don’t like him, but did they think you’d stand by and let them kick the crap out of your boyfriend?”

Bobbie Jo laughed again. “Jeremy’s not my boyfriend!”

“Oh God. Please don’t tell me he’s your husband,” I said, remembering how I danced sexily on him in front of the entire bar.

“Nope. Jeremy wants nothing to do with me or the baby.”

I tried to keep my expression casual, but sympathy tugged at my heart for her. It must’ve showed somewhere on my face. Bobbie Jo’s eyes fixated on me as she shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

“Emily, don’t you dare feel sorry for me,” she warned. “This was my fault. Everyone told me to stay away from him, but I didn’t listen. It may not be the ideal circumstances, but I’ve always wanted children. This baby’s a blessing, not a burden.” She waved her hand nonchalantly. “Besides, how many children do you know that get to have four godfathers?”

I hunched my shoulders. “Not many, I guess.”

“None of my boys are happy about it, but I am. That’s all that matters.”

“Do you always refer to the four of them as your boys?”

“Well, yeah,” Bobbie Jo said with a grin. “You’re the first girl who ever wanted me to share, at least on a more permanent basis. Strange thing is, until now, I never wanted to.”

I threw my head back against my chair and sighed. “It’s probably not nearly as permanent as you think.”

“Are you blind, Emily, or just stupid?”

Startled, I pulled my head upright and fastened my eyes to hers. “So much for trying to get along.”

“Jake’s crazy about you. He told me himself. How can you not know that that boy is in love with you?”

I bit into my bottom lip. “He should try telling
me
.”

“Maybe he’s waiting for the right time.”

“He had his chance. I told him I loved him, but he didn’t say anything back.”

We both sagged farther down into our chairs, looking out toward the barn roof at Jake. “Honey, a man who views you as a fling won’t put forth the extra effort to win you over outside the bedroom. I’m speaking from personal experience.”

“Then I guess there’s only one explanation,” I said, looking over to Bobbie Jo. “Men are dumbasses.”

Her eyes lit up as she smiled. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

We chatted for a while longer, while Bobbie Jo told me all about her family and stories about the boys when they were in high school together. She was more likeable than I’d given her credit for. We got along great for the next hour before her mother got ready to leave and called her inside.

As she walked toward the back door, I stopped her. “Hey, Bobbie Jo… I’m sorry about calling you a slut at the bar. And I do want to clear up one last thing about that night. I was wearing underwear.”

“That’s funny…seeing how I
wasn’t
,” she said, giving me a friendly wink before heading through the door.

I smiled to myself.

Yep. Bobbie Jo and I would get along fine.

…

I helped Floss make a pot of beef stew, peeling and cutting carrots and potatoes for her, while she prepared the stew meat. With the ingredients thrown together in her large black boiler, the stew simmered, and Floss whipped up some sweet cornbread. She sent me downstairs to the cottage to tell Jake dinner was almost ready.