Some Girls Do (Outback Heat Book 1) (2 page)

It was just a tiny white lie, right? Well, another one. Sort of … Her real name
was
Tracey. It was on her birth certificate for crying out loud. Was it her fault she’d never been called that? And tonight
Lacey
reminded her of all the things she tried desperately not to think about.

Cute
little Lacey the peppy younger sister.

Bright
little Lacey the smart little cookie.

Poor
little Lacey the grieving, hormonal teenager, freaking her brothers out.

Tonight, with this very grown-up man, she wanted to be someone else. She didn’t want to be little Lacey anything.

And besides, they both knew the score here—what did a little truth bending matter? She was over the age of consent and hardly some blushing virgin.

Lacey didn’t ask him his age—she figured it started with a three—because there was just something about the man that drew her. Besides his broad shoulders, blond hair and crooked nose. Something sad and broken in his light blue eyes and
that
she could relate to.

She took another swallow of her beer, conscious of those eyes fixed on the bob of her throat. “So what’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?” she asked.

He raised his gaze to her face and laughed. “I think that’s my line.”

Lacey shrugged. “Told you I was forward. And besides, if you don’t mind me saying, you’re kind of sucking at the pick-up lines.”

“You want a line?” His mouth quirked up at one side. “How about this? You have impressive ball skills.”

Lacey hadn’t been expecting something so blatant and she was stunned for a moment before she laughed. “Play your cards right and I’ll give you a personal demonstration.”

He laughed too and it vibrated through her belly with all the subtlety, finesse and potency of a jackhammer. Lacey squirmed against the stool as heat flooded her abdomen.

She’d
never
been this hot for a guy.

“Seriously,” he said, sobering and his intense blue gaze caught and held hers. “Where’d you learn to shoot a combo?”

The laughter from earlier dried up from the inside out. She shrugged. “A girl with brothers learns a lot of useless things. How to hook a worm and gut a fish … how to make cricket stumps out of just about anything … how to skip stones … light a fire …”

How to
never ever
cry lest they get that stricken helpless look and
send you away
.

“I imagine a girl with brothers would also learn not to let some guy pick her up in a bar,” he murmured.

Hell yeah, she’d learned that one too. It’d been drummed into her—by Ethan particularly—just before he’d driven her two hundred kilometres from the only home she’d ever known to the college they’d insisted she still attend, despite her overwhelming grief.

But they couldn’t have it both ways. They couldn’t send her away and expect her to still live by their rules.

“Hey,” he said as he pushed a stray lock of hair off her forehead with his index finger. “Where’d you go?”

Lacey blinked as his blue eyes searched hers, frightened he could see everything—her hurt, her pain, the nagging homesickness that never seemed to go away.

No
.

She would not think about home tonight. Quickly, she tipped her head back and drained her beer in three swallows. “You want to get out of here?”

Lacey could tell Coop was deciding whether or not to push her further on the subject. When he, too, drained his beer Lacey she almost sagged in relief. “My place is three blocks away.”

She smiled at him. “Perfect.”

*     *     *

He was ushering
her through the entrance doors to his apartment complex ten minutes later. Lacey had no recollection of the trip. Not with his hand in the small of her back, his thumb stroking a lazy pattern through her shirt, streaking heat like a fork of lightning up her spine.

He pushed the lift button and Lacey glanced at him. The urge to kiss him pulsed inside her.

“If you keep looking at me like that,” he said, his voice full of gravel, his gaze firmly fixed on her mouth, “we’re not going to make to the apartment.”

Lacey’s gut clenched as the rumble in his tone abraded the hairs at the back of her neck, rubbed like sandpaper against her nipples and tingled between her thighs. It was only the ding of the lift that saved them from making out on the parquetry floor.

But the second the doors closed and they were alone, he was pushing her against the wall and she was grabbing his shirt and nothing could have stopped her from accepting the full-frontal assault of his mouth as it slammed hot and hard onto hers.

Lacey moaned as his fingers tangled in her hair and his tongue tangoed with hers. He groaned against her mouth and her belly tightened.

Crap, if the man screwed like he kissed she was a goner
.

The lift dinged again and Lacey whimpered as Coop dragged his lips away and pressed his forehead to hers. Their heavy breathing filled the lift as the door slid open. “Don’t plan on getting any sleep tonight.”

*     *     *

A week later
Coop was back at the bar. He told himself he wasn’t there for her, that he was meeting Ethan. But since the woman who’d rocked his world for long sweaty hours last Friday night had done a Cinderella on him and disappeared before morning, he was determined to track her down.

And it wasn’t just the sex. The shadows in her eyes had spoken to him in a way that only a man with shadows of his own understood.

Ethan arrived and they clapped each other on the back as they embraced. When Coop had taken off on his country-wide trek over a year ago he hadn’t figured he’d miss his best bud as much as he had.

“It’s good to have you back, man,” Ethan said as they settled in a booth.

“Couldn’t leave Dad in the lurch,” Coop shrugged. “And it was probably time anyway.”

Coop had healed a lot physically and mentally while he’d been away, but he’d needed that little push to bring him back into the fold. He still wasn’t sure he’d have come back had his father’s heart not decided to turn dicky.

Drifting had started to look more and more attractive.

“How’d his op, go?” Ethan asked.

“Good. Few days yet ’til they release him. Mum wants him to take a few months off.”

“And the garage?”

“I’ll look after it while he’s away.”

Ethan shook his head. “You’re wasting your talent. You could get into private security or become one of those fancy PIs.”

Coop suppressed a snort at Ethan’s grin. Chasing after loan defaulters and cheating husbands? No way. “Tinkering around car engines
is
my talent. My mother reckons I was under a car the second I could crawl.”

“Well your timing couldn’t be more perfect.”

Coop watched as his friend’s face grew serious—its default position. Ethan hadn’t changed much from the solemn recruit he’d met when they’d both been at the academy. A little older now—hell, at thirty-two they both were—but Ethan
looked
it.

He was still the reserved, serious guy he’d always been. The guy who’d had the responsibility of being the man of the house thrust on his shoulders at fifteen when his father, the local police chief, had been killed on the job. And even more thrust on him when he’d become a father himself at the age of twenty-one and given up his dream of a becoming a homicide detective to go back to Jumbuck Springs and do the right thing by Delia and his kid.

“We’ve been worried about Lace and I feel so much better knowing that you’re in the same town.” Ethan took a long pull of his beer. “We didn’t handle it … her, very well. After Mum … She was inconsolable, crying all the time … I think she resents us for making her come here. But she always wanted to go to design college and Mum …”

He paused, raked a hand through his hair. “She made us promise. So we … didn’t take no for an answer.”

Coop could see the internal thinking of a grieving teenage girl were as much a mystery to Ethan as they were to him. “What makes you think she’s resentful?”

“She got drunk at the pub when she was home over the Christmas break. Messy drunk. Made a complete fool of herself.”

Coop laughed. “That’s it? She got drunk? She’s a college kid. They’re put on this earth to drink and make fools of themselves.”

“But she’s …”

“Your sister.”

Ethan shot him a defeated look. “Yes. What if she’s …doing that here? Going out and getting hammered every weekend. What if she’s indulging in
other
risk-taking activities?”

“C’mon man, credit her with more sense,” Coop assured. “She’s a Weston. She’s probably just letting her hair down a little. It’s only been a year.”

Coop remembered that time well. He’d been due to travel to Elizabeth Weston’s funeral but had, rather inconveniently, gotten himself shot. “Give her some time.”

That’s what he’d needed—longer than he’d ever imagined.

“Yeah, I know.” Ethan nodded. “Still, I feel better now you’re back. I know you’ll look out for her.”

If it had been anyone else but Ethan, Coop would have told him to hire a babysitter. But they’d had each other’s backs since they’d been partnered together as newly minted police officers, and cops didn’t let their partners down—present or past. “Of course I will.”

“Thanks man.” Ethan shot him a grateful smile. “So you get laid yet or not?”

Coop laughed. “Actually, I did. Last weekend.” Even just admitting it set his heart pounding.

“Well hallelujah and praise the Lord. I was worried you were becoming a born-again virgin.”

Coop snorted. “Like you get any more action.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “Dating in a small town is like living in a freaking fishbowl. Easier to just not. So … you seeing this woman now?”

Coop shrugged. “I’d like to. I …” he hesitated. “I
really
like her. I think she might be the one.”

Ethan choked on his mouthful of beer. “Jesus, she must have been good. The sex has fried your brain.”

Coop laughed. Maybe it
was
a big call on such short acquaintance but the thought of being with one woman forever wasn’t something that scared Coop, unlike a lot of guys he knew. He’d always figured one day he’d find someone and have the kind of relationship his parents did.

“Here she is,” Ethan announced as he waved at someone approaching from behind and stood. Coop took a couple of fortifying mouthfuls and followed suit.

There was an instant, a flash, as Ethan pulled away from embracing his sister where the hair on the back of Coop’s neck prickled with the same eerie perception he’d had that night he’d walked into the local seven-eleven store after his shift had finished and known something wasn’t right. And then he was looking down into
Tracey’s
face.

A jolt slammed into his gut as if he’d been hit with fifty thousand volts from a taser.
Ethan’s
service-issue taser if he ever found out that Coop had slept with his little sister.

“Lace, I’d like you to meet Coop, my old partner,” Ethan said, oblivious to the cataclysmic turn of events.

Until seconds ago the worst thing that had happened to Coop was being shot by an armed robber. But this was
epically
worse. He’d not only fucked his best friend’s sister six ways to Sunday but she was nineteen years old.

Nine-
freaking-
teen.

In a strange out-of-body way Coop took her in. Gone was the make-up, the big hoop earrings, the form-fitting tank top and the skin-tight jeans. She was in loose, pastel, three-quarter pants and a cute little blouse that buttoned right up to the collar. Gone too was the wild gypsy hair, transformed into a high, girl-next-door ponytail.

She
looked
nineteen.

Even the look of stricken mortification, the flush of embarrassment and the silent entreaty in molasses eyes reminded him of a teenage girl about to be grounded.

Holy mother of God
. He was going to hell.

Lacey recovered first, shrinking internally from the shock of seeing the man she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about all week. “Oh h-hi.”

She stuck out her hand, silently begging Coop to do the same, to keep it together. She’d been annoyed to receive Ethan’s summons. She’d only been back in Brisbane just over a week and the last thing she’d wanted to do was play the adoring little sister when she was still so angry with
all
her brothers for not letting her stay.