Texas Fandango: Texas Montgomery Mavericks, Book 3 (2 page)

“Haven’t loved it.”

“You mean you hate all the fawning, young coeds cooing over you? Using their flirtations to try to improve their grades?”

He shook his head. “No. That part was pretty great.” He smiled and lust weaved through KC. “I hated the class prep, the tests, all the academic crap I had to deal with.” He wiped at a spill on the bar with his cocktail napkin. “I’d forgotten how much I hated all that tedious work back in my doctoral teaching days. And those female students you were talking about? Flattered, but not interested.”

She took a drink from her beer then licked the foam from her upper lip. “Too young for you?”

He shrugged and took a drink of his beer. “Just not interested.”

“So if you’re unhappy teaching, why are you still at SMU?”

“To kill time while I was waiting on my new position to open.”

“What new position?” KC’s heart dropped to her knees. Crap. He was leaving again before she had the chance to ravish him…or something like that.

“The job is still located at SMU. Are you familiar with TAAP?”

“Not really, so let’s say no.”

“It stands for Texas Association for Archaeological Preservation. I’ve taken the position as president and director. It’ll be a good way to use all my degrees. The board of directors was looking for someone with a law degree given the number of legal entanglements that TAAP finds itself in.”

“Sounds great, except you’re not a lawyer yet. When do you take the bar?”

“Took it two weeks ago. Waiting on the results, which I think we’ll know sometime in September.”

She held up her half-full glass in a salute. “Excellent.”

He clinked her glass and they drank.

“So, why are you in Leo’s? In town to see your family?”

“No. I…” His gaze left her face and moved toward the door. A smile bright enough to light the dim bar bloomed on his face. “Hey!” he called with a wave toward the door.

KC turned to follow Drake’s gaze. A young, tattooed woman hurried toward them. Randomly placed feathers decorated her chopped, inky-black, spiked hair. A short, black leather skirt rode low on her thin hips while a white tank top stretched across a pair of double D’s. Large gold hoops swung from her ears as she glided across the room in three-inch heels. A small gold hoop sparkled from her left eyebrow and a diamond jewel—KC wasn’t sure if it was real or a crystal—winked from her right nostril.

“Magda. So good to see you,” he said with a broad smile and open arms.

The woman slid between his wide-spread arms, hugged him and then stepped back a couple of inches. “Thank you for meeting me.”

“Any time, darlin’.” He pointed his chin toward KC. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

The petite woman turned and extended a hand. “Hi. I’m Magda Hobbs.”

“KC Montgomery.”

Drake draped an arm around Magda’s shoulders and pulled her closer. “Magda and I have been seeing each other for a couple of weeks.”

KC’s heart turned to a lump of clay and dropped to her knees. She hoped her disappointment wasn’t written all over her face. So college-aged females
did
interest him. “Wow. That’s…um…great. How did you meet? Were you one of Drake’s students?”

Magda shifted a couple inches away from Drake’s knees. Her posture was straight and a little rigid but the smile she gave KC was friendly. “My dad works for Mitch Landry. Mitch hired me to keep house.”

KC reined in her shock. “Mitch Landry? You work for Olivia’s Mitch?”

“Yep. Mitch flew up today. Said he has some business here so I hopped on and flew up to see Drake.”

“How…nice.” KC had never been much of a liar, but apparently she was honing her skills today.

Drake’s grin was broad enough to be obnoxious. “I know. Isn’t she the best?”

“Well, I’ll just let you two be alone.” KC moved to slide off the stool.

“Stay,” Drake said as he stood. “We’ll grab a booth.” He snagged his beer off the counter. “Good to see you, KC.”

“You too, Drake. Nice to meet you, Magda,” she lied.

She drained her beer as the man she’d been fantasizing about walked off with another woman.

“Leo,” she called. She held up her empty beer stein. “Diet Coke in a frozen mug, please.”

In a minute, Leo set a frosty mug of ice cold Diet Coke in front of her. “Looks like Doc’s date isn’t going too well.”

“Really?” Her eyebrows rose with the question. “I can’t turn around. It’d be too obvious. What’s happening?”

“Hold on.” Leo walked back to the shelves of liquor built over a wall-sized mirror. He moved three bottles to an upper shelf, leaving a gap on the lower two shelves and giving her a perfect view of Drake and Magda.

Magda sat across from him, her arms stretched across the table holding Drake’s hands. His face was drawn, a deep frown knitted his eyebrows. Magda was doing all the talking, not that KC could hear a word being said.

“That better?” Leo asked as he wiped as a nonexistent spot on the bar.

“Oh yeah. What do you think is going on?”

“I don’t
think,
I know. I’ve watched enough break-ups in here to know he’s getting the boot. You know the lady?”

“Just met her, actually. Name’s Magda Hobbs. Works for Mitch Landry.”

“Interesting lady,” Leo mused. “Doesn’t look like Doc’s kind of woman.”

She studied the couple in the mirror. Leo might be right. The scene being played out in the reflection definitely did look like a guy getting the boot.

Drake’s face had certainly lost that sunny glow. His shoulders slumped. His posture sagged. Every time he opened his mouth to say something, it appeared Magda spoke over him. After about fifteen minutes, Magda slid from the booth, gave him a kiss on the cheek and walked away.

“Give me a beer for Drake,” KC said.

Leo passed over another icy beer mug. KC poked her fingers through the handles of both mugs and headed for the booth where Drake slouched. His head rested against the high back of the booth. His eyes were shut but opened as she neared his booth. She slipped into the side Magda had just vacated.

“You look like you need this,” she said, sliding the beer across the table.

He didn’t say anything but wrapped his hand around the mug.

“She seemed lovely,” KC ventured.

“Don’t,” he snapped. “Just don’t.” He guzzled the beer.

“Want to tell me what happened?”

“No.”

She pursed her lips and nodded. “Okay, then.” She lifted her soft drink to her mouth and took a sip, sucking in a piece of floating frozen Diet Coke.

They sat in silence for a couple of minutes before Drake said, “Fuck.”

“Well,” KC said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “I’ve had better propositions, but…”

He smiled and blew out a loud sigh. “She dumped me.”

“Yeah, I gathered that much. She flew up here just to do that? Why? Has she totally lost her mind?”

His chuckle was music to her ears. “She has some friends in the area she wanted to visit and I guess she thought she could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.” After exhaling a long breath, he continued. “She said we were just too different, that I was too old for her. Said I was a nice guy…” He winced at that comment. “Basically, she liked me but we just didn’t have the right chemistry.” He drained his beer and lifted his glass toward Leo at the bar. “This sucks. Dumped twice within a couple of months.” He shook his head. “At least she did it in person and not by email or text.”

KC’s heart ached for him. On the other hand, maybe this was the opening she needed.

“Maybe they were the wrong women for you,” she said.

He lifted one shoulder and an eyebrow.

Leo set another beer on the table for Drake. “On me. House rules. Man gets dumped in my bar, I buy him a beer.”

“Hey,” KC protested. “What about women getting dumped?”

“Sorry,” Leo replied with a smoldering grin. “Us guys have to stick together.” He walked away as two new patrons took seats at the bar.

“You want to know the real pisser?”

KC crossed her arms on the table’s edge and nodded. “Sure. What’s the pisser?”

Drake pulled an envelope from his front pocket and dropped it on the table. “I’d planned to surprise her with this two-week vacation at the Sand Castle Resort and Spa. And let me tell you, it wasn’t cheap and I really needed the break.”

“So what was your plan for this trip? Sand, sun and sex? Sounds great. Count me in.” Her heart shook against her ribs. Would he take her up on it?

He chuckled. “Actually, sand, sun and surfing. After being a cave dweller to study for the bar for the last couple of months, I need some R&R.” He lifted his beer glass to his luscious lips and took a long swallow. “I’d thought taking Magda for company would be fun.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

KC longed to use her tongue to clean the beer foam off his full lips. Yum.

Then his words broke through her lust haze. Maybe she’d been too subtle or he hadn’t taken her offer seriously. Either way, she decided to give it one more try. She allowed the corners of her lips to turn up and looked at him through lowered lashes. As in poker, she went all in. No mincing of words. “I’m fun. I could use a vacation, not to mention my new bikini is dying to be worn.”

She threw her offer on the table again and mentally crossed her fingers.

His eyes took on the unfocused look of a man deep in thought; someone whose mind wasn’t present in the here and now conversation.

“Thanks,” he said without emotion, “but I don’t want to put you out. I’m sure you have better things to do than keep me company.”

A swell of disappointed nausea whirled in her stomach. At the same time an ember of ire sparked at the pity party he was throwing himself. Worse than the anger and disappointment was her mortification and embarrassment. She could feel the heat rising up her neck. She didn’t, as a habit, throw herself at men. She didn’t have to. She might not be as beautiful as Olivia or as exotic as Magda, but she didn’t have trouble attracting men, or at least she hadn’t until today.

She slid from the booth and started to walk away but then came back to his table. Slapping her hands flat on the shiny wood, she leaned forward. “You know, there are women who value a man like you. You’re smart, funny and a damn fine-looking man. But sometimes you are an idiot, Drake Gentry.”

His surprised expression had her shaking her head. He really had no clue.

She strode to the door without a backward glance.

Chapter Two

Drake scratched the back of his head. What was KC all in a huff about?

Leo began collecting the empty beer mugs off the table.

“Women,” Drake said with a confused frown. “KC just left in a snit and I have no idea what her problem is.”

After a quick glance around his bar and seeing that no patrons were trying to get drinks at the moment, Leo slipped into the booth across from Drake. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. I was telling her about my plan to get away for a couple of weeks of vacation and how Magda had…well…” Heat flared on the back of his neck. How humiliating to admit he’d been dumped.

“I saw, remember?” Leo said. “Your lady friend decided to fish in other waters.”

Drake nodded. “That sounds so much better than she dumped me.” He chuckled. “Anyway, I’ve got airline tickets and reservations for two at this great Caribbean resort and now no one to take. KC offered to go with me but I know how busy she is. I didn’t want to take advantage of her friendship.”

Leo shook his head. “For a smart man, Doc, you sure are clueless sometimes.”

Drake frowned. “What? I was trying to be a nice guy and let her off the hook.”

“KC apparently has a thing for you.”

“No, she doesn’t. I wish, but no. No way. I’d know. I…” His voice faded as he thought about what Leo was saying. Really? KC and him?

He’d known KC Montgomery for years. He’d been attracted to her for what seemed like forever, but life had lobbed obstacles and detours in his way. Any time he thought about calling KC or asking her out, fate would quickly erect a speed bump, effectively stopping him in his tracks. Still, the idea that KC might be interested in him knocked the air from his lungs.

Leo shook his head. “Yeah, she does. She couldn’t take her eyes off you and that very sexy woman. She wants you, Doc.”

Drake sat heavily against the back of the booth. “KC? Attracted to me? Are you nuts?” His denial was weak. He wanted to be wrong. He wanted Leo to tell him how wrong he was.

Leo stood. “I’m not, but you are if you don’t pursue that. She is one hot woman.”

As Leo walked over to a table to check on a couple of customers, Drake reviewed the conversation with KC. She was attracted to him? KC Montgomery. How had he missed that?

He rubbed the back of his neck. The idea was ridiculous. KC was being a good friend, right? She’d always been around. He’d teased her for years by calling her by her full name. She was being nice because she felt sorry for him after Magda walked out. Surely that was what was going on here.