Tex Times Ten (11 page)

“So you won’t mind if I live at the riverboat, then, without you. That way I can’t make any slip-ups. And you can go back to the ranch. I know you’re needed there.”

“Is that what you want?”

She shrugged. “There’s no need for you to babysit me. I’ll be a safe, married woman.”

He frowned. “I don’t know. Let’s talk about it later.”

She could tell he was rattled. And grouchy. “Tex, you were not just artificially inseminated with nine children. You don’t have to be their father.”

Flipping the radio on, he said, “I need to think. And I think best if I’m not talking.”

Tex had a long time to think on the way to Hawk’s place. He added up a list of pros and cons in his head. Pluses and minuses to what he was about to do.

None of it was a plus or a minus completely. More like multiplication. Tex times ten.

Gran, for instance. Definitely a family complication. But she had roped him in when she’d treated him as if he was already part of her big, happy, cozy world. The hug had stolen his heart. And, she’d watched him with big eyes that didn’t judge. She accepted him, and that was real new.

Even when he slipped her money that she didn’t want to accept, all he had to do was explain that he had eleven brothers, and that Mason had raised them all. That only now was Tex beginning to appreciate what his brother had gone through to keep them all together and out of foster homes, as the good people of Union Junction had believed was best. Mason had put a very stubborn boot in that idea and kept the siblings together instead. And whether any of them wanted to admit it or not, they were damn glad, and
lucky for it. “I’m marrying Cissy,” he’d told Gran, “and she’s helping me, in a way that matters a lot to me. So I want to help her family. Because I know how hard it is to do it alone.”

Nodding, Gran had taken the money, said thank you and hugged him in that special warm way she had.

So she was more plus than minus. Drat.

Okay. Nine kids, he reminded himself. Nine! Nine ragtag little minuses. Loved and well behaved, of course, but the evidence of living tightly was everywhere, from the patched clothes to the worn rugs. He swallowed. Those nine minuses didn’t know if their parents were ever returning, and he could totally relate to that.

Thing was, it really sucked when a child didn’t know what was going to happen. The worst, though, was when the child woke up one day and knew his dreams were shattered forever. It had made him and his brothers wild and, yes, damn it, somewhat emotionally stunted.

Something inside him wanted better for those kids. He wanted to make their pain go away.

Time to put away the plus-and-minus debate. It obviously wasn’t going to get him anywhere. “Sorry I’m not good company.”

“That’s okay. You’re not here for my entertainment.” She serenely turned the pages of a magazine, reading over recipes. “Do you like homemade chicken pot pie?”

He gulped, the vision of Cissy in stiletto heels and nothing more than a frilly white pinafore tied just
above her ass almost too much to bear. “I never turn down a good meal.”

“Do you ever cook?”

“No. Too busy. Learning to tolerate sauerkraut, though. Helga cooks lots of German food.” He frowned. “But I could go for Japanese, you know. Or Mexican. Or even soul food. Mm-mm! Cajun,” he murmured hungrily. “A housekeeper with a talent for Italian would be awesome. But just when I think we’ve talked Mason into giving Helga up, he waffles. I believe that’s Belgian, not German, by the way, and we don’t get those. We get some potato pancake thing sometimes. He does waffle, though.”

“Why? Does he like her cooking?”

“I don’t know. She takes real good care of him.”

Cissy turned a page. “And you?”

“I won’t let her. Mason’s the needy one.”

Cissy laughed. “No.”

“No, what?”

“No, he’s not. Not like you are. He’s on his own, except for the cooking, which is to be expected. He can’t do it all.”

He could feel his temper gauge rise. “I am not needy.”

“Are you going to want a traditional wife for three months?” she asked, looking up at him at the same time he glanced at her.

He jerked his gaze back to the road. “Uh—” Was she talking about homemade chicken pot pies or sex? No, they’d agreed to one night of real romance, and nothing other than that. So it was the pies. “Are you offering to cook for me?”

“Are you offering to cook for
me?
”

Shaking his head, he said, “Nah. I’ll buy the groceries if you cook the food.”

“You have to eat without complaining. Not like you do for poor Helga.”

“Poor Helga?” He chuckled. “Helga’s strict, believe me.”

“But she takes total care of Mason. So is that what you want from me? Or are we going our separate ways until the divorce?”

He squinted. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. But maybe that’s because it’s hard to envision you in a Helga role. Now, a French maid’s uniform and a pink feather duster—”

She thwapped him with her magazine.

“Ow!” Richly deserved, he’d admit, but his arm was stinging. “Did you have to do that so hard?”

“Yes,” she said, casually returning to the recipe she’d been examining. “That was my version of strict.”

“Hmm.” And yet, he found her sense of pride sexy. There was no surrender in Cissy. Not on the man-woman thing. Some women would give up anything, even their pride, to catch a man. Not her. But, in other ways,
surrender
was such a desirable word. There was sexual surrender—he’d enjoy that. There was—

“I can feel your panic button pushing,” she said, snagging his attention away from surrenders he’d like Cissy to engage in. “You’re thinking about it.”

“About what?”

“Sex. French maid costumes.”

“And the problem with that is…?”

She closed the magazine and picked up another from her big bag. “You want me too much. And you can’t have me. Not the way you’re thinking, anyway. If Last suspects your marriage is only sexual, he’ll know you’re not working on the intimacy thing. And he’ll never get off your case once we divorce. You’ll have accomplished nothing. Remember that. You’re going to have to go deeper in your psyche to satisfy him.”

His jaw sagged as he realized she’d just escaped through a trap door of her own. She had the whole thing figured out, and it didn’t include fantasies of him. “Well, howdy doody,” he said.

“It’s probably a good thing we’re only going to make love once. It’ll make you focus on the matter most important to you, which is rebooting your relationship with your brothers. I think I’ll take a nap,” she said, putting her magazine away and closing her eyes.

He was speechless. No woman had ever said such a thing to him. Cissy had seduced him in a stall and given him her virginity and left her Make My Day panties in the straw. She was gorgeous and he wanted her six ways from Sunday, and they’d tied their marriage to
Once.
One hand in the bag of potato chips. One football game on Sunday.

Only this was far, far worse. He glanced at her in the seat next to him, all long and silver and womanly, and his jeans got so tight he thought he might explode.

He had so many sexual fantasies about her that
once was never going to cut it. But all she’d asked for was one romantic night under the stars. Romantic! He wanted to keep her in a remote cabin for a year and take her until they both fainted from exhaustion. Feast on the meal he’d only heretofore snacked on.

But once more was enough for her? Jeez. A guy could get a complex! “We’re here,” he said, back to grouchy. “And
just
in the nick of time.”

C
ISSY STARED AT THE
embankment. “What are we doing? Why aren’t we going up to his cabin like normal visitors? Hannah said he has a honeymoon cabin up there.”

“Because when I phoned ahead to tell Hawk that we were coming, he said to meet him in the cave. Do you know where that is?”

“I do,” Cissy said, “but I’d prefer not to go there dressed like this.” She indicated her high heels and business-like skirt. Even on the side of a dusty arroyo, she was gorgeous. “You know, the way Ranger got down there was by sudden force. Rolling and cursing, going quickly with the flow of gravity.”

“I prefer a more dignified approach.”

“Hey,” Hawk said, coming into view. “Please do not fall down the way your brother did. I wasn’t sure we were going to get all the cactus needles out of him.”

Hawk shook Tex’s hand and kissed Cissy on the cheek. Then he looked at the two of them speculatively. “So. I like what I see. You two are happy together.”

“Well, we’re necessary to each other,” Cissy said.

“That’s right,” Tex agreed. “Necessary.”

“Okay. Come on.” Hawk laughed, leading them along the road and down a shorter path into the arroyo.

The hidden totems and cave were just as breathtaking as she remembered. “It’s so pretty,” she whispered to Tex. “Your brother found this place. Can you imagine?”

“Rolling down here? No. He’s lucky not to be permanently scrambled.”

Into the cave they went. “This is where I will perform the ceremony,” Hawk said.

“You’re wearing jeans,” Tex pointed out. “And you’re barefoot.”

“Were you expecting a headdress?” Hawk asked with a grin. “Your brother wasn’t worried about me. He just wanted to be married to Hannah, however it happened.”

“Hmm,” Tex said, and Cissy looked at him.

“Did you need something more rigid?” she asked. “I can accept unstructured…for what we’re doing.”

“I guess,” Tex said, and Hawk nodded.

“You’re a man of the soil and think things should be a certain way,” Hawk said. “Very hard to change your mind once it’s set.”

“Whatever,” Tex said. “Let’s just do this.”

“Do you love her?” Hawk asked.

Tex shook his head. “We’re not right for each other.”

“But you love her.”

Cissy stared at Tex, hanging on to his every word.

“Well, I like her. And she’s gorgeous. But we’re not forever, you know what I mean? She thinks that, too.”

“Do you love him?” Hawk asked.

Cissy hesitated. Of course, she had fallen for Tex the first time they’d made love. She’d left Lonely Hearts Station with Hannah to get away from the memory of him, because something about Tex made her evaluate how lonely she was. How much she wanted her life to change. Hannah was running away, and Cissy had wanted to join her, to start life over on a riverboat.

Nothing had gone according to plan.

“Do you love him, Cissy Kisserton?” Hawk repeated.

But Tex was right. They weren’t right for each other. She didn’t want another marriage of convenience, with verbal prenups. “I thought I did once,” she said softly.

Tex turned to stare at her. “You did?”

“But that was a long time ago,” she added. “Now we’re partners.”

Hawk nodded. “There is only one problem in this union. Neither one of you is honest with yourselves. There’s too much pain in your past. You both need time to learn from the pain. However, marriage is a matter of learning together. So this is good. Now I will perform the marriage ceremony.”

And before Cissy knew what was happening, she was wearing a rope ring like Hannah had worn. Tex was wearing one, too. And Hawk’s arms rose up as
he called to the sky. She sneaked a peek at Tex and caught him sneaking a peek at her.

And something between them sparked.

Though they weren’t touching, Cissy would have sworn it was static electricity. The surprised look on Tex’s face told her that he’d felt it, too.

“Now, rub this dirt across each other’s faces,” Hawk instructed, “to complete the marriage ritual.”

Hesitating only a second—had Hannah and Ranger done this?—Cissy dirtied Tex’s face. Efficiently and thoroughly.

And he repaid the action, happily dirtying her face until she realized his hands had slowed as his sweeping motions turned to gentle strokes. Then he was holding her face in one hand.

Hawk disappeared.

The hand holding the dirt emptied so that Tex could hold her face in both hands. And then he kissed her the way she’d never been kissed in her life, gentle and timeless as her heart raced inside her. As if she were a true bride.

“Thank you for marrying me,” Tex said. “I’m honored that you will be my wife, even for three months.”

“Thank you for rescuing me,” she replied. “I’m free now. Really free.”

“I’m the one who’s really free,” Tex said. “And you have no idea how much it’s going to change my life. For the good.”

He buried his hands in her long hair and pulled her to him, his mouth burning against hers before traveling down her throat.

She wanted to tell him, she had to tell him the truth about her feelings, but the way he was kissing her stole her breath and then her courage failed her.

But Hawk had guessed correctly.

T
EX RELUCTANTLY PULLED AWAY
from Cissy as Hawk stepped back into the cave.

“Honeymoon?” Hawk asked, and Tex shook his head.

“We don’t have time,” he said. “We’re staying on the move.”

“Good plan. The first thing I suggest you do,” Hawk said, “is head to the courthouse and take out a marriage license. Then get your blood tests. Three days for legality on blood tests. After we get the go-ahead on those, we do a conventional ceremony that will satisfy those people who might try to claim that a Native American wedding ceremony isn’t legit.”

Tex nodded. “Good plan.”

“Now.” Hawk sat down cross-legged in the dirt and motioned for Cissy to sit on a nearby rock. “You said there was something you wanted to ask of me besides a marriage ritual.”

Tex took a deep breath. “Hawk, we need to hire you. Cissy’s got family that disappeared in South America while on a church mission.”

Cissy dug in her purse. “I have money to pay you. It may not cover all of your expenses, but it’s a start.” Her eyes filled. “You’re my only hope. No one seems to have any information on my family.”

Hawk looked from one of them to the other, not reaching out to take the money she offered.

“There are nine young children who need their parents to come home,” Tex said gravely. “If, God forbid, Cissy’s siblings are not alive, then we need to know that for the children’s sakes. Growing up not knowing what happened to their parents is too much for this family to bear.” His voice turned deep with seriousness. “It’s a lot to ask of you. I’ll go with you if you feel that it’s best. I know you find missing persons. And we need someone who can work from a somewhat cold trail and uncooperative environment.”

Hawk nodded. “I understand. Yes, I have experience in tracking in South America, as well as other continents. Missing persons can turn up any place in the world.” He looked at Cissy. “It could take time,” he warned. “And the end result might not be happy.”