Tex Times Ten (10 page)

No way was he touching her now that he realized he had a bona fide good girl on his hands. “Uh—”

She laid fingertips against his lips. “Aren’t you always claiming to like trashy girls? Can’t you give just a little on the trashiness? I can be that, if you’ll let me.”

She was still confused about his definition of
trashy,
but because she’d replaced her fingertips on his mouth with her lips, and was kissing him as if their tongues were doing the slip-’n’-slide and their mouths were suction cups, he lost all of his concentration and slid his arms around her. There was no hiding his full-on arousal now. He wanted her, he wanted her bad, and he wanted her now.

And then she was away from him, her lips miraculously absent from his face where they belonged. “Whew,” he said, “if you were a virgin, where’d you learn to kiss like that?”

She laughed. “If a girl’s going to stay a virgin, then she better be a damn good kisser or she’ll
never
get a date.”

And then she ran her fingers through the ends of his hair just the way he was deciding he liked. With a giggle and a kiss, she’d gone over to the trashy side all on her own. She was tricky. Minx appeal. A little bit bad girl.

That scared him more than anything. Exactly what kind of deal was he getting himself into?

“And then again,” Tex said, “maybe a pretend engagement would suffice. You think?”

She looked at him, and he wondered if he’d ever seen a more beautiful woman. Whether he wanted to be honest with himself or not, Cissy frightened him out of his wits. What he wanted to do was steal her, take her off to a cabin in the woods, make love to her for at least a week and see if he could get her out of his system.

She got up to brush her hair, and everything went to black in his brain.

“I’m thinking it’s got to be marriage.” Her eyes met his in the mirror. “But it’s a pretty big favor, Tex. I’m not so certain that it’s not too much to ask of a friend.”

He swallowed hard. “Well, friends help each other out.” And he meant that. They were going to be nothing but friends, so the parting would be easy. “Where should we do it?”

She turned. “Do what?”

His breath was coming more shallow as he thought
about sex, and marriage, and sex again. “Get married.”

“The courthouse?”

“Too close for comfort. If I’m rescuing you, I plan on getting you far away from Marvella.”

“If you get me to Jellyfish’s riverboat, I can work there,” she pointed out. “I know he would like to have me hostess in his casino again.”

That was true. And Hannah would approve. “Of course, Malfunction Junction would be pretty safe. My brothers wouldn’t put up with anybody coming around trying to make trouble, and Marvella did follow you to Jellyfish’s riverboat.”

“That’s when I was still under contract. We’re going to leave a note saying that the damage is done.”

He grinned at that. “The damage. Yeah. I like that.”

She smiled a bit shyly. “Not that it’s for real or anything, but getting married on the riverboat would be a wedding dream come true for me. It sounds so romantic and peaceful and close to heaven.”

Her eyes softened, and his heart melted. The itch to make her dreams come true was strong. “Then again, there’s got to be a quickie drive-through place somewhere. I know they do them in Nevada. We’d be safe doing that, because Marvella would never think of it, and it’d be fast, like ordering a McDonald’s Happy Meal for the kids, and it’d be unsentimental. Like, over, done, Roger, out.”

Her smile slipped away. “Very efficient and business-like.”

He nodded, telling himself that he was right to
keep their mission from slipping over into romance. It was what they both wanted.

Of course, it stunk to be the horse’s ass instead of the hero.

The phone rang, and Cissy picked it up. “Hello?”

The line disconnected. The phone rang again. She picked it up again. “Hello?”

The line disconnected.

This went on several more times. “I’m getting worried that it might be Gran, and the line isn’t holding,” Cissy said.

“Just a minute. Keep answering.” Tex went out the door stealthily. Watching carefully, he made his way downstairs to where he could see into the lobby. At the receptionist’s desk, Valentine was dialing numbers, listening, then hanging up. Over and over again. He grinned and crept up behind her. “Hey!”

She screamed and dropped the handset.

“Cissy’s not in her room,” he said. “Do you know where she is? I need to thank her for baking me those cookies.”

Valentine’s eyes were huge from her fright. “Cookies?”

“Yeah. Think they had laxatives in them, but I’ve got innards made of leather.” He thumped his stomach. “I think she wanted me to lose,” he said conspiratorially.

“Lose?”

He shrugged. “What do you think?”

She shook her head.

“Well, just goes to show you that some things are not what they seem.” He grinned at her and headed back upstairs with a wink. “Pack up,” he told Cissy
when he was back in her room. “Tell me what you want help with.”

She pulled out her silver-foil luggage, tossing it on the bed. “The phone quit ringing.”

“Yeah, but the whistle is being blown on you, so let’s pack fast.”

Cissy piled clothes and personal things into her bag. She didn’t have a lot in her room, and she was economical with her motions. The last thing she packed was the photo of her family, surrounding it with soft clothes before she zipped the bag. “Why now?”

“Because they’re going to make your life miserable. And I want Marvella to know you left with me. She’ll be a lot less inclined to make trouble for you this time. If she decides to give chase, we’ll already be married. Under the circumstances, I think it’s best if we go hunt up Hawk and have him perform one of those Native American ceremonies he performed on Ranger and Hannah. Worked for them.”

He scribbled a quick note and left it on the mirror.

“What does it say?” Cissy asked.

“‘Dear Marvella, I’m Cissy Jefferson now. Put that in your pipe and smoke it,”’ he read. “This is not going to be a popular manifesto.”

She giggled. “It’s not true yet.”

He grabbed her luggage. “Come on. I can’t quibble semantics. You know my intentions are good.”

They hurried down the stairs and ran past Valentine. Tex gave her a wave. “I found her! Thanks, Valentine!”

Valentine’s jaw dropped. She picked up the phone, punching numbers swiftly. Tex reached over and
took it from her. “Never mind. I’ll tell her myself. Marvella?” he said when she answered. “This is Tex Jefferson. I just wanted to tell you that you’ll never be the woman your sister is. It’s time to accept that fact and move on.” He handed the phone back to Valentine. “You can talk to her now.”

And then he grabbed Cissy’s hand and ran with her to his truck. He opened the door and helped her inside.

“I feel like a runaway bride!”

He laughed and kissed her on the nose. “Let’s go get you married. I want to make certain this thing is all tied up nice and legal for the time we’re going to be together.”

“Remember your promise,” she said. “About the one night of real lovemaking under the stars. Romance. All the honeymoon wonderland that real couples get.”

The grin fled his face. “Escape first, and then details.”

C
ISSY GLANCED OVER AT
T
EX
. He was quiet and had been ever since they’d left Lonely Hearts Station. He’d called Archer once for directions to Hawk’s place, since she couldn’t remember exactly how to get there—Ranger rolling down the embankment wasn’t exactly an address code; there were lots of embankments, after all—and those were the only words Tex had spoken. Of course, he was concentrating on driving fast down the open highway. But there was one thing she hadn’t told him.

“Tex?” she said.

“Yeah?”

He didn’t seem open to light conversation, so she figured it was best to say what was on her mind. “There is one detour we have to make.”

“You need a ladies’?” he asked. “We got enough of a head start on Marvella that I don’t think that’ll be a problem. Just don’t stop to powder your nose, too.”

“No, not that. Tex, before we go to Hawk’s, we need to go to Gran’s.”

For a moment, he didn’t say much. “Well, we’re in a hurry.”

“I know. But while I may be able to pull this trick on Marvella, I can’t marry you without my grandmother meeting you. She wouldn’t understand at all.”

She could almost hear his heart beating.

“All right,” he said slowly. “Detour, it is. Tell me how to get there.”

She told him the directions, and he nodded. But he didn’t say anything else. Her heart sank. She didn’t need his silence to know that he wouldn’t want the complication of meeting her family. It wasn’t Marvella—Gran’s was the last place Marvella would look because she would automatically assume Cissy wouldn’t go someplace so obvious. No, meeting family meant explaining everything to Gran. And while it was easy enough for Tex to marry Cissy knowing they’d soon divorce, she knew it would be hard for him to look her grandmother in the eye and admit that he wouldn’t be Cissy’s husband for very long. And he certainly didn’t want more family issues; he had enough of his own. “Tex,” she said again. “You’ll like Gran.”

“I know I will.”

And that was all he said.

T
OO SOON, THEY WERE AT
Gran’s house, the home where Cissy was raised. Tex would never have imagined the place to be so peaceful and tranquil. It was a tiny house, maybe what one would call “ginger-bread style.” Delicate and fragile. Spring flowers bloomed on the porch in pots, and children’s chalk drawings colored the sidewalk out front. A banner with a ladybug on it hung from a flagpole near the door. An elderly woman came out on the porch and waved at them.

“Gran!” Cissy exclaimed, running up the sidewalk in the high heels, skirt and feminine blouse she’d changed into in the truck. She had wanted to look nice to go home, and he had to admit the effort had paid off spectacularly.

She looked as if she’d been working at an office, and suddenly, Tex realized what Cissy might have been, if life hadn’t thrown her so many curves. The old woman was engulfed in her tall granddaughter’s hug, and all kinds of children came tearing out the screen door to envelop Cissy and Gran in hugs of their own.

It was the kind of reunion Tex and his brothers had always silently dreamed of and knew would never happen for them. There had been no pastel chalk drawings after their parents were gone. And yet, they’d been a family.

A rough one, in contrast to this one.

Cissy couldn’t stop kissing little faces, and slowly Tex got out of his truck. He watched her eat them
up as if she’d never get to hold them long enough, and he began to shake inside. Gran saw him approach, her large aquamarine eyes—just like Cissy’s—watching him with interest.

He felt like a coward.

“Hi, Tex,” she said simply.

“Hi, Gran,” he replied.

And she engulfed him in a hug just like the one she’d given Cissy, only on him her hug ended about chest high.

His nervousness evaporated. In its place, he felt a soothing sense of family. From inside, the scent of cookies wafted onto the spring breeze. He sighed, letting all the warmth of family flow over him.

Something tugged on his jeans pocket, and he glanced down into the face of a sandy-haired child. “Howdy,” he said.

“Who are you?” the child asked. Her siblings and cousins awaited his response, staring at him as if they’d never seen a man.

Or a father figure. “I’m Tex. I’m—” He stopped. He didn’t know what Cissy was going to tell her family.

“You’re a cowboy,” one of the boys said.

“That’s right. I’m a cowboy.”

“Aunt Cissy’s never brought home a cowboy before,” the little boy said.

“She’s never brought home any man,” the eldest girl said, her eyes wide. “Are you going to marry her?”

Tex cleared his throat, looking to
Aunt
Cissy for help. Gran seemed just as interested in the answer as the children.

Cissy smiled at him, her gaze understanding. “Let’s show Mr. Tex inside. We don’t want to overwhelm him immediately.”

Too late. He already was.

A
FTER A LUNCH OF GRILLED
cheese sandwiches—the childrens’ favorite—carrot sticks (run through something that made them wavy), pickles (had to be mini dill sticks) and fruit (strawberries and grapes cleaned by Cissy), Cissy and Tex headed for Hawk’s palace in the wooded hills.

“So,” Cissy said as Tex turned up onto the highway. “Shaking in your boots?”

“Pretty much. Cute kids.”

Yeah, she figured they were pretty scary to him. “Gran liked you.”

“I liked her, too.”

Conversation was not ebbing and flowing. It was coming to a dead stop. “Tex, you don’t have to do this.”

“I’m shaken but not deterred,” he told her. “You just better decide if this is what you want to do.”

Now that they were within a couple of hours of meeting up with Hawk, she had begun to think her situation through more thoroughly. She hadn’t told the children she and Tex were going to get married because she didn’t want them to be disappointed when she and Tex divorced. Gran had been let in on the secret, and she’d given Tex a warm hug and thanked him for helping them.

He’d gruffly replied that it was nothing.

To which Gran had answered that, to her and the children, it was everything.

The spirit in her tone seemed to have surprised Tex. Truthfully, Cissy and Gran were weighed under with too many things they couldn’t handle. They were relieved to have someone provide a way out.

And Gran hadn’t asked why Tex was marrying Cissy for three months, but Cissy had told Gran that he was escaping some family issues. Because of his father’s abandonment, Tex wanted an anchor to help settle him. Marriage would do that.

Wouldn’t it? “Maybe a pretend engagement would be better,” Cissy said. “Then there’s no messy paperwork later. We just say goodbye to each other.” She looked at him, but he was focused on the road.

“I don’t think Hawk performs pretend engagement ceremonies,” he finally said. “It’s best if we cover our bases, and then my family will shut up, and Marvella will give up.”

“Okay,” she said with a sigh. “If you insist.”

“That doesn’t sound very bridelike.”

“I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. And I’m not asking for perfection…” It was hard to say what was bothering her. Leaving the children behind hurt. A second marriage of convenience wasn’t something she was proud of. But then, she wouldn’t have wanted a real marriage—at least not with Tex. She had sensed how awkward he was with her children.

You couldn’t make a man want a ready-made family when he was from a large family that drove him crazy. “After we get married, there’s no rule that we have to stay together every second, is there?”

He glanced at her. “What do you mean?”

“Well, we’re only doing this for surface reasons.”

“Don’t say that! At least never say it around my brothers. That
surface
word will let the secret out of the shade. Don’t say
superficial, temporary, convenience,
or
artificial.
”

“Artificial?”

“I don’t know. I just threw that in there because I was thinking of artificial insemination.”

Her brows rose. “Do you think of that often?”

“I don’t know why it went through my mind. Substitute fake for artificial, and add it to the list.”