Texas Outlaws: Billy (12 page)

A rumble worked its way from deep in his chest as he buried himself fast and sure and deep one final time. He bucked, spilling himself while her insides clenched and unclenched around him.

He gathered her close then, holding her tight as his heart threatened to burst from his chest. The water rushed in the background, masking the frantic in and out of his breath as he fought for oxygen. And his sanity.

A losing battle with her so warm and sweet and close.

Losing? Hell, he’d lost the moment he’d first spotted her at the kickoff dance. He’d lost his head.

And his heart.

The realization hit as he drank in another deep breath and tried to think about the rodeo that night and the bull Eli had said he’d drawn. And damned if he could remember exactly which one it was.

Damned if he cared.

Once he’d calmed down long enough to move, he carried her back under the rushing water and out into the waist-deep river. He walked up onto the riverbank and stretched her out on the soft grass. The sunlight spilled over her, bathing her in a warmth that was palpable. Her eyes were closed, her face flushed. Her lips were pink and swollen from his kisses. Her creamy breasts were tight, the nipples a bright rosy pink. A smooth strip of silky hair bisected the vee between legs that were long and slim, her calves shapely, her feet dainty as they rested on the soft green grass.

He’d pictured her like this so many times, so open and naked and
his
. But nothing he’d cooked up in his imagination had been quite as good as the real thing.

This he could touch, smell, feel.

He reached out and traced one nipple.

Her eyelids fluttered open and she smiled up at him. “I think I like this place.”

“Glad to hear it.” He leaned over and dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Really glad to hear it.”

She smiled and the picture she made burned into his memory and made him think that maybe, just maybe, winning the finals wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

This...
This
was what snagging the top prize felt like.

And where he’d recognized before that he felt something different for her, he hadn’t grasped just how different until her lips parted and she smiled at him.

Because this wasn’t just like.

This was the real thing.

Blinding, dazzling, mind-blowing
love
.

Not that it changed anything.

Because while he knew she felt something for him, he also knew that it wasn’t enough to make her stay. While he’d finally accepted that just because he looked like his old man and had a few of his traits, he wasn’t the same rat bastard who’d chosen a life of crime over being a father.

He wasn’t his dad.

Any more than Sabrina was her mom.

The trouble was, she didn’t realize that and there was no guarantee that she ever would.

She was leaving. He knew it. He felt it when she reached up and touched his face, as if memorizing every contour.

And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

18

“B
ILLY
AIN
’
T
HERE
,”
said the old man as he came around the corner of a bull chute at the rodeo grounds later that morning.

It was almost noon on Saturday after the hottest morning of her life.

And the most jarring.

Something had happened between them. Something big.

Billy Chisholm had lost his precious control, and while a small part of her rejoiced, her brain kept telling her that she was in trouble. Big trouble.

Because a small part of her was rejoicing.

Sabrina ignored the strange warmth zipping up and down her spine and concentrated on the old cowboy standing in front of her. “I’m not looking for Billy.” She gave Eli an assessing glance. “I’m looking for you.”

“Me? Hells bells, what do you want with me?”

“I want you to fill out a profile for my website.”

“You might have hypnotized all the other cowboys around here with that nonsense, but I ain’t fallin’ for it. Why, it ain’t natural to meet a woman on a computer. Whatever happened to good, old-fashioned courtin’? Meetin’ at the Piggly Wiggly and gettin’ a whiff of her perfume in the vegetable section? Or watchin’ her smile while we share a banana split at the Dairy Freeze? Or holdin’ her hand while we head for the church picnic? Why, I ain’t had a good mess of potato salad since I don’t know when.”

“You can still do all of that after you fill out a profile. A profile is the first step to meet someone. Then she emails you and you email her and bam, you hit the picnic grounds. Or the Senior Sweetheart Dance,” she added, anxiety racing through her as she glanced at her watch. It was Saturday at noon and she had less than seven hours to find Melba a date. She’d gotten the idea for Eli after paying yet another visit to the senior center and realizing that her choices were severely limited. And then she’d thought of Billy and how much he thought of the old man who’d been like a grandfather to him. And just like that, the idea had popped into her head.

“I ain’t messin’ with no computer.” Eli shook his head. “Can’t stand the thing as it is. I told Pete not to go all electronic out at the ranch, but he didn’t listen. Now every time there’s a lightnin’ storm, I can’t print out an invoice for a decent order of bull semen. Tried writin’ the damned thing, but Pete told me it has to be in the system. System, my ass. It’s bull semen, for heaven’s sake. Nature’s moneymaker. It ain’t natural that we’re all so damned dependent on technology. Why, if a zombie apocalypse wipes us out, we’re all screwed.”

“What did you just say?”

“I said we’re screwed.”

“Before that.”

“Dependent on technology?”

“After that.”

“Zombie apocalypse?”

“Bingo.” While Eli seemed like the last person for Melba, that one statement had zapped a connection between them. Even more, Sabrina had a gut feeling that it would work.

“So forget the computer and just let me set you up on an actual date.”

“I can do that?”

“Sure. I can take care of all the details. I’ve got someone perfect in mind. You can pick her up and take her on a real outing. No pictures or email required.”

“Who are we talking about?”

“Her name is Melba Rose and—”

“No.” He shook his head. “That woman’s got a few screws loose and I ain’t going to be the one what gets stuck with her at the dance. Do you know she cried last year when she didn’t win queen? Broke down and bawled like a baby. No sirree, not me. I ain’t gettin’ stuck with no crying woman.”

“But I have a good source that tells me she’s a shoo-in for queen this year. That means no crying.”

“Are you freakin’ kiddin’ me? The happy cryin’ is even worse than the sad cryin’. Women ’round here freak out for everything. That’s why I been single all these years.”

“Well, if that’s the way you want it.” She shrugged. “But I hear she makes a mean potato salad.”

That seemed to get his attention. “She does?”

“Prize-winning,” Sabrina assured him, barely resisting the urge to cross her fingers. She hated to lie, but she was desperate. At the same time, maybe she wasn’t lying. Maybe Melba did make a mean potato salad. Sabrina grasped at the hope and went in for the kill. “I heard she even took first place over at the Mason County potato festival.”

“Mason County? Whereabouts is that?”

Sabrina wasn’t actually sure since she’d just made it up, but desperate times called for desperate measures. She’d said it, and now it was just a matter of going with the flow and following through. “It’s up around Dallas or Waco or something like that.”

“Mason County, you say?” He seemed to think. “Why, I think I went to a rodeo out there once. They host an annual potato festival, you say?”

“
The
potato festival. The biggest in Texas.”

“And Melba walked away with first place for her potato salad?”

“And her hash browns.”

“You don’t say?”

“Cross my heart.” She tamped down on the guilt that swore she was a terrible person for getting an old man’s hopes up. But then she’d already gotten Melba’s hopes up, too, and she couldn’t very well let the woman show up stag to her big night. Besides, all she had to do was pick up a few pints of potato salad at a nearby barbecue joint and Eli would be a happy camper.

Two birds with one stone.

“So are you in?”

“So long as we eat before the dance. Potato salad
and
hash browns.”

“They’ll be ready and waiting.”

The Piggly Wiggly didn’t have a deli section which meant that Sabrina had all of four hours to make potato salad and hash browns, and deliver them both to Melba’s house before Eli arrived to pick her up at 6:00 p.m.

Worse, she’d never cooked up a batch of potato salad in her life. And the hash browns? A great, big, fat
never
. She had no clue how to do either.

But she knew someone who did.

“Hello?” said a familiar voice after Sabrina hit the call button on her cell phone.

“Mom?”

“Sabrina? Is that you?” Surprise morphed into concern and Sabrina’s chest tightened. It had been so long since her last phone call and she could only imagine the horrifying possibilities that would prompt a phone call running through her mother’s mind. “Is everything all right?”

“Fine. Sort of. I mean, I do have a problem, but nothing bad.”

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I need to make potato salad.”

“Excuse me?”

“And hash browns. And I know you know how to do both, so I thought you might help me out.”

“You’re cooking?”

“Only because of extenuating circumstances,” she blurted, eager to kill the hopeful note in her mother’s voice. “I don’t really
want
to do it, but I promised someone and I need to follow through.” That or she could kiss goodbye any hope that Eli would take Melba to the sweetheart dance.

“Well,” her mother’s voice carried over the line, “I do have a really good recipe.”

But then Sabrina already knew that. Her mother had been the queen of the kitchen, busying herself for hours to avoid the fact that she was waiting for a man who didn’t have the courtesy to even call.

Waiting
.

Or maybe that had just been her way of dealing with the situation. Of trying to hold on when all she really wanted to do was let go.

The thought struck and try as she might, Sabrina couldn’t push it back out. She’d never really talked to her mother about the hows and whys of her relationship with Sabrina’s father. She’d never wanted to. It had been easier to point the finger at someone else than to realize that maybe her father had left because neither one of them had been worth staying for. Not her mother.

And not Sabrina.

Of course, she was all grown up now. Enough to know that her father had been the one at fault. But back then she’d wondered. And worried. And so she’d made up her mind to change. To put as much distance between herself and the woman on the other end of the phone so that she could honestly say she was nothing like Arlene Collins. She’d wanted to be different. To be the sort of woman that a man could love.

A man like Billy.

She nixed the thought and focused on the phone in her hand. “Why didn’t you leave?” she voiced the one question that had haunted her so many nights as an adult.

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t understand. All those years you wasted on a man who didn’t return your feelings. Why?”

“I didn’t waste those years. I spent them raising you, loving you. Maybe I should have left, but I just kept thinking of what my own mother and father always believed—that a child deserved both parents. Good or bad. At least they were there. I just wanted you to have a complete family.”

And there it was. Billy had been right. Her mother hadn’t stayed because she’d been weak. Because she’d feared being alone. Rather, she’d feared disappointing Sabrina.

“Your father wasn’t perfect,” her mother went on. “I knew that when I married him, but he always made so many promises. Boy, the man could talk. Of course, back then I thought it was more than talk. I hoped it was more. And so I gave him a chance. I gave our family a chance.”

“At your own expense. You were miserable.”

“It wasn’t so bad. I had you.” She heard the tears in her mother’s voice and it made her own eyes burn.

“I’m sorry, Mom. Sorry that you tried so hard only to be disappointed.”

“The only disappointment is that you don’t get around to seeing me more. I miss you.”

The words echoed in Sabrina’s ears and filled her with a rush of warmth that pushed away the cold resentment she’d felt for so many years. “I miss you, too, Mom,” she murmured.

“Well, now,” Arlene sniffled as if desperate to hide a rush of emotion, “About that recipe...”

* * *

S
ABRINA
PULLED
TO
A
stop in front of Billy’s cabin a half hour later and sent up a silent thank-you that he wasn’t there. He had a full afternoon before the finals tonight, from meetings with the rodeo commissioner and the board of directors, to a special TV segment featuring the best of the best, which meant he wouldn’t be back until tonight.

Sabrina intended to be long gone by then.

Their time together had ended and while she wasn’t quite finished with her business here in Lost Gun—they still had to pick up five final cowboys to meet their quota and Sabrina needed to match up Sarah—she was finished with Billy.

Tonight was the finals. The end of the road.

She ignored the depressing thought and focused on pulling all of the groceries from the backseat. Inside, she headed for the kitchen and started prepping her potatoes.

“You’re doing what right now?” Livi asked when Sabrina answered her cell a few minutes later.

“I’m helping out a friend.”

“You’re hooking up those old women.”

“No, I’m not.” She was
trying
to hook them up. Big difference. “So where are you?”

“At the saloon. I’m about to pop the top on a bottle of Redneck Rosé.”

“Since when do you drink Redneck Rosé?”

“Since it’s the closest thing they’ve got to a bottle of champagne. I got the last handful of profiles.”

“No way.”

“Way. I spent the morning at the donut shop out near the interstate. You wouldn’t believe the number of men who eat donuts at six a.m.”

“Cowboys?”

“Every single one of them. That hunky booty call of yours sent them over from the rodeo arena.”

“Billy?”

“The one and only. They said he paid them ten bucks each to fill out a profile.”

“He what?”

“He paid them and while that violates our strict policy of not soliciting, it doesn’t count because we weren’t the ones dishing out the cash. So it’s all good.” Her voice rose an excited octave. “We did it, Sabrina. We’re going to get our financing.”

“That’s great.”

So why didn’t it feel great?

The question niggled at her for the rest of the afternoon, along with the fact that Billy had paid a handful of cowboys to help her out.

Because he was anxious to send her on her way?

That’s what she wanted to think, but she couldn’t help but wonder if there was more to it than that.

If maybe, just maybe, he’d done it because he knew how important this was to her.

Because he loved her?

She dismissed the crazy thought.

No way did Billy Chisholm love her. Not that she would recognize the emotion if she saw it coming at her like a freight train. She’d never seen it between her own parents. Never felt it herself.

No, he knew their time together had drawn to a close and he was anxious to send her on her way. Paying off a few cowboys had been the easiest way to do it. Which meant she was going to get a move on, follow the recipes her mother had given her, and get the hell out of his kitchen.

And then in less than twenty-four hours, she was going to leave Lost Gun—and Billy Chisholm—for good.

* * *

“H
E
’
S
GONE
.”
Billy heard Jesse’s voice just outside the closed doorway to the dressing area where he was pulling on his chaps. “You can’t talk to him.”

“But he promised me an interview.”

“About the rodeo,” Jesse said. “You want to talk about our dad and that’s not happening right now.”

“So will you talk to me about Silas?” The familiar voice carried inside and Billy recognized Curt Calhoun, the reporter from the “Where Are They Now?” episode. “You can’t expect people to seriously believe that you guys don’t know anything about the bank heist. You had to see something? Hear something? What about the money? Surely he mentioned the money? Maybe even slipped a little out of the way before the fire? There was an entire ten hours between the robbery and the fire.”

Plenty of time to hightail it out to Big Earl’s, give the old man the money, and head back home to celebrate with too much liquor. Which was exactly what Silas had done.

Or so Jesse believed.

But they’d yet to recover the money. Instead, they’d been digging hole after hole, and Billy was starting to think that maybe, just maybe Big Earl and his great-granddaughter were trying to pull a fast one. A ploy to get money out of Jesse and his brothers.