Ranger's Wild Woman
Tina Leonard
Happily ever after meant concussions and busted legs–at least for the Jefferson brothers. But if love meant being cursed with broken body parts, Ranger Jefferson darn sure wanted to keep his bones–and his heart–intact. To his way of thinking, even the military would be safer than snagging a Lonely Hearts lady…. But then Hannah Hotchkiss hopped into his truck with her wild-child smile, thumbing a ride to Mississippi and preoccupying his mind with thoughts of hot kisses. Before he knew it, he was in need of tender loving care, with only one cure–convincing this wandering woman to say, "I do"!
“Hey, Ranger,”
Hannah said, poking her tousled head into the truck to smile at him, that devastating, bright, cute-rocker-girl smile that had caught his attention the first time he’d been to Lonely Hearts Station.
His heart hit his boots.
He didn't like it when she smiled like that. There might be busted parts of his anatomy in his future!
“Listen,” he said, “maybe the Mississippi riverboat isn’t such a good idea for you.”
“Why not?” She opened her eyes, big and innocent, and he gathered himself up to do verbal battle.
“You’re too delicate. Far too innocent,” he said importantly. “It sounds very dangerous to be an unchaperoned female on a boat where men will be carousing and…other things.”
Her stare had a twinkle in it, and the smile she gave him almost melted his heart. “So maybe you should come with me.”
Ranger’s Wild Woman
Tina Leonard
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tina Leonard loves to laugh, which is one of the many reasons she loves writing Harlequin American Romance books. In another lifetime, Tina thought she would be single and an East Coast fashion buyer forever. The unexpected happened when Tina met Tim again after many years—she hadn’t seen him since they’d attended school together from first through eighth grade. They married, and now Tina keeps a close eye on her school-age children’s friends! Lisa and Dean keep their mother busy with soccer, gymnastics and horseback riding. They are proud of their mom’s “kissy books” and eagerly help her any way they can. Tina hopes that readers will enjoy the love of family she writes about in her books. Recently a reviewer wrote, “Leonard has a wonderful sense of the ridiculous,” which Tina loved so much she wants it for her epitaph. Right now, however, she’s focusing on her wonderful life and writing a lot more romance!
There are a lot of folks who keep me inspired, and I’d like to thank them, starting with my grandmother. Love ya, Mimi! Lisa and Dean—Mumzie adores you!
What would I do without my cool editors and the many wonderful folks at Harlequin who keep me working and coherent? Thanks!
Georgia Haynes, wonderful proofreader and brainstormer—yee-haw!
And a special thank-you to the wonderful Scandalous Ladies: Debbie Gilbert, Maria D. Velazquez, Ellen Kennedy, Wendy Crutcher, Debbie Jett aka dj, Debora Hosey, Fatin Soufan and Kendra Patterson. You gals have added so much spice and fun to my life!
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
Prologue
A man wants what he can’t have, not always to his betterment.
—Maverick Jefferson explaining to his young sons why they couldn’t ride Shoeshine Johnson’s legendary red bounty bull, Killer Bee
The beautiful old chapel in Union Junction was filled to standing room only. It seemed that everyone had come to see Sheriff Cannady’s sole child wed. Even Delilah and the ladies of her Lonely Hearts Salon had come to fill in as mother and sisters to Mimi. In fact, they’d pretty much taken over the baking, the decorating and, Mason had heard, the choosing of Mimi’s trousseau.
According to Last—who’d been as thick into the preparations as Delilah’s crew, though that was more the lure of the women than fascination with wedding plans—the wedding-night nightie was a heart attack of epic proportions.
Guaranteed to make a grown man go weak at the knees and rock-hard in the—
Mason forced his thoughts away from the dangerous wedding-night nightie. He shifted uncomfortably in the pew, thinking he’d rather be tied to a stake in the Alaskan wilderness with honey on his toes as a lure for wild animals. Anywhere but here in this flower-filled chapel. But, because of duty, for the sake of years of friendship, and for Mimi, he was here to see her marry another man.
His whole body felt strangely weak, weirdly ill and past the point of medical assistance. He was sweating through his black suit, and so nervous his feet were cold-prickling, as if straight pins were sticking through his shoes. Truth was, he was lucky as all get out that he wasn’t standing up there in the groom’s hot spot. Obviously, Mason was suffering vicarious wedding jitters, no doubt symbiotic, empathetic fear that was surely coursing through Brian O’Flannigan and telepathing to Mason.
How fortunate that I’m sitting here in the front row, the position of family favor, while he’s standing there, about to be yoked.
He resisted the uncharacteristic urge to bite his nails. Crack his knuckles. Or even sigh.
His nine unmarried brothers sat beside him in the pew, their postures as rigid and unmoving as his.
Behind him sat Annabelle and Frisco Joe, as well as Laredo and Katy. The housekeeper, Helga, was baby-sitting Emmie at home.
Ranger had tried to talk to Mason about Mimi, as had Last. In fact, every one of his brothers seemed to think he was playing the coward’s role, that he needed to do something about Mimi’s marriage.
He had no intention of doing a thing. She was doing exactly what she should. Mimi and Mason were best friends, and no third party could ever change that.
Nor would Mason have changed it. One didn’t marry one’s best friend. No point in ruining a wonderful, since-childhood friendship by asking more of it than it ever could be.
Marriage was messy.
Not to mention he had nine younger unmarried brothers to look after. They might not be children, but sometimes they acted like it, and he needed to keep his focus on them. Add to that the fact that the family was now growing, with wives and children, and he had more responsibility than ever.
Matters were fine just the way they were.
And yet, when Mimi floated down the aisle on Sheriff Cannady’s arm, passing by Mason with the sweetest, happiest smile on her face—she smiled right at him—her expression all glowing, it seemed heated pitchforks speared his heart. Pierced it to pieces.
God, she was lovely. More beautiful than he’d ever realized.
Maybe all his brothers were right. Maybe he did have his head lodged firmly in an unmentionable part of his anatomy. He meditated on this as the ceremony progressed, not hearing any of the words being spoken until the minister’s voice rose dramatically, perhaps even pointedly.
“If any person can show just cause that Mimi Cannady should not wed Brian O’Flannigan, speak now or forever hold your peace.”
The chapel was deathly silent, so eerily still that Mason could hear his own heartbeat thud, thud, thud in his ears. His suit went from merely hotter-than-hell to a prison of boiling fire as every eye in the church seemed to pin itself on him. Even Reverend Kendall glanced his way, though surely not with any meaning behind it.
Speak now or forever hold your peace.
He tapped his fingers on his knee.
Say it or forever keep a doofus, Uncle-Mason smile on his face every time he saw Mimi, which would be often, since she’d be living right next door, like always. He’d smile when she became pregnant. Smile when she proudly watched her children take their first steps. Smile when she taught them to ride their ponies. When she had birthday parties for them. When she grew gray and contented with her husband, forty years from today.
Speak now or forever hold your peace!
Mason cleared his throat.
Chapter One
Ranger Jefferson had never seen such a case of pigheadedness in all his life, but Mason won the prize, if there was such a thing. How could Mason have let Mimi get away the way he had?
Too much was happening too fast around the Union Junction Ranch. Even too much for Ranger. Moreover, if he didn’t get away from his twin’s silly e-mail romance with a woman in Australia, he was going to go as cuckoo as a Swiss clock himself.
He couldn’t stand it another moment. Without telling any of his brothers, Ranger had made a decision: It was time to join the military.
Okay, so he was no spring pup at thirty-two. But there were wars being fought all over the world, and the least he could do was volunteer for the National Guard. Maybe more.
He aimed to find out. Throwing his duffel over his shoulder, he headed out the door toward his truck.
“Where are you going?” Helga asked him.
“Shh,” he told her. “It’s a secret.”
“Helga doesn’t like secrets.” She frowned at him, and he smiled back, eager to keep on her good side before she roused Mason. Mason believed Helga was the perfect housekeeper, hired by Mimi Cannady not too long ago, though nothing could be further from the truth. Helga was horrible, and Mimi had enjoyed knowing there was no cute young thing keeping house for Mason.
Of course, Mimi was married now, and that meant the Jefferson brothers could ditch Helga!
Helga’s eyes narrowed on him. “I am making sauerkraut and sausage for dinner. Will you be back?”
Ugh. That decided him. His brothers would have to figure out a way to send the housekeeper packing on their own, if they weren’t all still too stunned that Mason hadn’t managed to belly up some bravery, to throw himself down on his hands and knees and marry the only woman who could ever love the pigheaded man. “I won’t be back, Helga,” he said. “Shh,” he cautioned her again. “Mason needs his rest.”
Well, that was the deciding factor. Helga adored Mason. If Mason needed his sleep, sleep was what he would get.
And Ranger would be long gone, his goodbye note of military aspirations beside Mason’s breakfast dish. Mason wouldn’t like it; he hated the fact that one by one, his brothers were leaving the family ranch, something he’d always feared.
But life had to move on, and no way was Ranger going to end up like his twin, Archer, e-mailing some dopey girl in Australia. Or like Frisco Joe, whose leg had to be broken to get him to marry a wonderful woman. Frisco Joe and Annabelle were expecting a child, a sibling for Emmie. Of course, Annabelle looked real sweet pregnant, but…Ranger certainly didn’t want to end up like Laredo, either, who had to get himself concussed by a bull to make him see the light about Katy Goodnight.
If body parts were going to get busted when it came to women, he darn sure wasn’t going to let it happen to him.
The military would be a whole lot safer.
He hopped in his truck, quietly pulling down the drive and away from the only home he’d ever known. Just a couple hours away from Union Junction was Lonely Hearts Station, and the women of Lonely Hearts Salon. When his older brother, Laredo, had left Union Junction back in March, he’d made the mistake of stopping into the Lonely Hearts Salon to say hello to the women who’d helped the Jefferson brothers and most of Union Junction through a terrible February storm.
Laredo had gotten roped into a rodeo, and then marriage. The concussion had come in between.
Ranger was smarter than that. On his way to the nearest military base, he was going to drive straight through Lonely Hearts Station, Texas, without stopping.
No waving. No hello shouted through the window. Last month, when he’d been helping Laredo learn how to ride the Lonely Hearts Salon’s champion bull, Bloodthirsty Black, he’d met Hannah Hotchkiss, and she’d just about made him think twice about his narrowly divided world. He’d also met Cissy Kisserton, an employee of a rival beauty shop, who’d also made him think twice about life as he knew it. The two women had just about come to blows over him, and he’d liked it!
But…not enough to sacrifice a bone or a body part.
“There’s bad luck in that town,” he said to no one in particular as he sped down the highway, happy to be heading east and away from the ranch. “I’m too cagey to get caught in that heart trap. All that love business is a mess! Lonely Hearts ladies, Never Lonely Cut-n-Gurls—it’s a soap-opera city. I’m passing through there at top speed!”
RANGER’S PLAN WORKED—until he saw the tall blonde waving at him in front of the Never Lonely Cut-n-Gurls Salon. “Dang it!” he muttered. “I almost made it.”
Cissy Kisserton pulled open the truck door and tossed a silver-foil suitcase inside. “Thought I recognized your vehicle, Ranger. How fortunate for me, because I was about to hitch to the nearest highway.”
Ranger couldn’t imagine Cissy having trouble finding a ride. Yet he still didn’t want to be the one to give it to her. She looked devastatingly gorgeous in skin-tight jeans and a cutoff T-shirt—dressed down for traveling and yet still packing dynamite.
“Shew!” he said under his breath. “I don’t know where I’m going,” he told Cissy.
“Neither do I. We’ll get wherever together.”
“But I may be stopping at the military base east of here!”
“Cool,” she said. “I love a man in uniform.”
He frowned at that. “I was planning on traveling alone, actually.” No point in letting this silvery female use her wiles on him—there might be a busted limb in it! This town wasn’t lucky for men.
“Lonely is bad, Ranger. We’ve learned our lesson about anyplace with the word Lonely in it. And we simply can’t let you travel alone.” Cissy tossed another suitcase into the truckbed, this one leopard-printed.
“We?”
“Hey, Ranger,” Hannah Hotchkiss said, poking her tousled head around Cissy to smile at him, that devastatingly bright, cute-rocker-girl smile that had caught his attention the first time he’d been to Lonely Hearts Station. His heart hit his boots. These two women had nearly reinvented the catfight, bringing it to new form over him! Well, maybe not so much in the physical, girls-mudwrestling fantasy he’d had about the two of them, but that was something he would keep to himself. He didn’t want both of them in the truck with him. There might be two busted parts of his anatomy in his future!
Cissy crawled in the front seat, ignoring his frown. Hannah jerked open the door to the extended cab. “Uh, Ranger, did you say you were traveling alone?” Hannah asked.
“Well, I was.”
“Well, you weren’t,” she said, mimicking his tone. “There’s a man in your back seat.”
He whirled around, his jaw dropping when he saw his twin grinning up at him from his napping place in the back. “Archer! What in the hell are you doing?”
“Heretofore, I’ve been listening to you cuss all the way to Lonely Hearts Station,” Archer said with a grin. “But now that we’ve got seatmates, I’d say this trip is going to be a whole lot sweeter!”
Which just showed how little his twin knew.
THEREIN LAY THE RUB, Mason told himself, which was a pretty stupid expression. What rub? he asked himself sourly. What fool had time to sit around and think up such stupid sayings?
The fact was, he was feeling testy, and he knew it, and his brothers knew it, though they hadn’t complained as yet. Actually, they had complained—to each other when they thought he couldn’t hear them. But they had spared him their grousing, and he knew why. Pity. Plain and simple pity, which was worse than if they’d just come right out and chewed his butt.
Mason sighed, pulled his hat down lower, and stared into his coffee cup. At this moment, he was only fit company for his horse, and so the barn was where he sat. And the word of the day was moping. He was moping—couldn’t call it anything else—something he’d always told his brothers they weren’t allowed to do. So he was hiding out here with Samson, because the horse wouldn’t tattle on him and didn’t care anyway as long as his hay was fresh.
“You like having me around, doncha?” he asked Samson softly, running a hand over the horse’s back. “Not like some people I know.”
Mimi. Mimi, Mimi, Mimi. Why did his mind always come back to her?
“And therein lies the rub,” he said to Samson. “Not the kind of rub you like. The kind that really sticks in my craw, that makes my gut churn. I guess,” he murmured on a deep sigh, “I guess I’ll only say this to you once, and to no one else, but seeing Mimi walk down the aisle with Brian tore my heart right out of me. I thought I could handle it. I thought it wouldn’t matter. But, ol’ pal, it mattered. It just about mattered more than anything in my whole life.”
It mattered so much he could barely show his face anywhere. The whole town knew, of course. Everybody had known that he loved Mimi. He just hadn’t known it. He so much hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself.
“And there are reasons for that, but none I’m going into, even with you,” he said with a last gentle rub over Samson’s back. He swiped his coffee cup and headed to the house. There were some things he wasn’t going to think about—some fears not worth mentioning.
THROUGH THE MAIN HOUSE window, Last watched Mason as he left the barn and walked toward home. “Talk about a sore head,” he muttered to Tex. “That one’s a walking case of soreness.”
Tex peered at Mason moving slowly toward the house, his gait not as firm as it once had been. “Why in the hell didn’t he stop her?”
They both knew the “her” was better left unnamed. “Because he couldn’t,” Last said. “Mason couldn’t stop Dad from leaving. He knew some people do what they have to do sometimes, regardless of what other people need or want. And Mimi couldn’t wait around forever. Lord only knows, Mason was never going to marry her. And we all realized that.”
“It would have taken a miracle,” Tex agreed. “I am never falling in love. Never. It’s much easier just to sleep with a woman who only wants sex.” He leered happily until he caught another glimpse of Mason’s face, set in sad lines. “And that’s another thing I can’t figure out. Why didn’t he just sleep with Mimi?”
Last gasped. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Well, hell,” Tex complained. “He wanted her. Even if he acted like he wanted an arm-shave more.”
“Yeah, but she’s like our little sister!”
“But that was the problem,” Tex insisted. “I think he knew his feelings toward her were stronger than that, but he thought that was sacrilegious or something.”
“But he couldn’t have slept with Mimi,” Last argued, still horrified. “That wouldn’t have been right. I mean, Sheriff Cannady’s daughter!”
“Well, then.” Tex returned to the toaster where he discovered he’d burned the bread to a crisp. Smoke came out, and a disgusting odor. “Hell-on-fire,” he complained. “Helga’s gonna kill me. I’ve messed up her domain.”
Last shrugged, watching Mason kick mud off the porch that one of the brothers had scraped from their boots. “If you ask me, life is going to get a lot messier around here, more than any of us would like.”
And it was all Mason’s fault. Unfortunately, as Last and Tex had just discussed, Last really didn’t have an answer for what his big brother, Mason, should have done. All he knew was that whatever needed to be done hadn’t gotten done, and now they were all forced to live with the consequences—except Ranger, who had escaped. Traitor.
“Where’s Archer?” Mason demanded as he walked into the kitchen.
“I ain’t my brother’s keeper,” Tex replied, his voice instantly tense. “Make that plural, just so you’ll know.”
Last stared at Mason. “What do you mean, where’s Archer?”
“His roll-up tent and sleeping bag are missing from the barn storage.”
Last groaned to himself. One more brother on the lam. Whether Mason wanted to admit it to himself or not, he was driving his family away one by one—just as he had Mimi.
And Mason couldn’t stop them from leaving—any more than he could have stopped their father, Maverick, from leaving when Mason was seventeen.
That’s what love did to a man.
“It’s not going to happen to me,” Tex swore quietly, so that no one heard him except Last, who didn’t need to be told what he meant. “Never.”
Last nodded. Maybe it was better if love didn’t hit any more of them. So far, in their family, love was a disastrous affair with biblically epic consequences.
“We’re doomed,” he murmured to himself, seeing the stone-carved expression on Mason’s face.
“Doomed.”
Chapter Two
Hannah Hotchkiss stared at the back of Ranger’s head. She could practically see plumes of fire shooting right out of his Western hat. A man that temperamental ought to be a crime! He should be happy for the chance to sit next to Cissy—seemed like all men dreamed of being near her. But no—just like every other Jefferson male she’d met, Ranger had to be different and alarming and hypnotizingly macho. A sin in boots. She sighed to herself.
“I suppose you’re pretty much bred from the Jefferson stock,” she said to the man sitting next to her, a man who looked just like Ranger, which was startling and unnerving. The basic difference between them was that Ranger wore a brown Western hat, and this man wore a black felt with silver rope braid. The confident Jefferson smile was dashingly displayed, and the dark eyes were roaming her cut-open tennis shoes and funky-punky red-tipped hair with interest—she groaned silently with frustration.
And here she thought she’d been going to Mississippi to get away from memories of Ranger. Oh, no, life was not that simple. She had to discover he had an unnerving double.
The grin on her seatmate’s face widened as he shoved his hat down over his eyes. “I’m going back to sleep,” he said. “Ranger, you old dog.”
In the front seat, Ranger stiffened at his twin’s words. “I don’t know what that means,” he said, his tone annoyed.
Hannah rolled her eyes, but the twin kept his mouth shut. Cissy flipped her silvery hair and peered over the seat at the twin.
“Is he always such a wagon-load of joy?” she asked Ranger.
“It’s a family trait,” Hannah said, matching Ranger’s sourness. “Tall, dark and intimidating.”
“Hey!” Archer shoved the hat back and stared at her. “Don’t lump me in with him. We’re not twins in personality.”
“Don’t insult the driver,” Ranger stated, “or you’ll all find yourselves on the road with your thumbs out. Not much traffic at this hour, I might call to your attention.”
Cissy patted his arm. “We’re not insulting you, are we, Hannah?” she said with a warning glance. “Hannah’s just playing around.”
Hannah shrugged. The difference between her and Cissy was that Cissy came from the get-more-bees-with-honey school and Hannah came from the call-it-as-you-see-it school. The two schools operated so completely differently that it was a wonder she and Cissy had hooked up to get out of Lonely Hearts Station. But necessity made strange bedfellows—or truckmates, anyway—and both of them wanted out, neither of them had a vehicle and each agreed a female traveling alone was a recipe for disaster, never mind which school of thought one had graduated from. So they joined forces, decided to walk or hitch to the bus station—after leaving goodbye notes for Marvella and Delilah, their respective employers—and put themselves on the street with their luggage.
“Just playing around,” Hannah agreed, looking at the back of Ranger’s stubborn head, as Cissy gave her a thorough warning stare. “Don’t take me too seriously, Ranger.”
He snorted. Hannah pulled a baseball cap from her duffel and shoved it on her head, deciding to emulate Archer by closing her eyes. It was going to be a long ride to Mississippi, especially sitting next to the twin of a man she’d kissed and lost a piece of her heart to.
And it wasn’t any easier knowing that Cissy had kissed Ranger, too.
“IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT,” Marvella said to her sister, Delilah, as she held out Cissy’s farewell note. “I hope you’re happy with running off my prize girl.”
“I didn’t run off anyone,” Delilah said with a shrug. “I lost a girl, too.”
“Not like Cissy. Cissy brought in more customers than any other hairstylist I had.”
“And it wasn’t for her ability with hair,” Delilah said. “Not that I’m partial to one of my girls more than another—they’re all daughters to me—but Hannah’s spunk is going to be missed around here. Far as I can see, Cissy wasn’t any more special than Hannah, so quit acting like you lost something more valuable than I did. Anyway, I knew nothing about their plans, as you can see.” She held out the goodbye note from Hannah, but Marvella ignored it.
“I should sue you for lost business.”
Delilah sniffed. “Try it. Then you’ll have to reveal exactly what your business includes, Marvella. Nobody’s quite sure exactly what all’s going on at your salon or why you need a monster-size heated spa.”
“Massages and aromatherapy, just like the big city,” Marvella told her. “Nothing fancy. Just pretty girls and relaxation at the end of a hard day for the menfolk. Don’t make it sound so sinister.”
Delilah had her doubts that it was so innocent, but that wasn’t the point at the moment.
“One of my girls said she saw a truck stop to pick up Cissy and Hannah,” Marvella revealed. “It was too dark to be certain, but Valentine said it looked like Ranger Jefferson’s truck. Now, you can say that’s a coincidence, that there’s a lot of trucks around these parts, but we all had a good look at what the Jefferson boys drove last month. They all flaunt those extended-cab, super-size, my-wheels-are-bigger-than-yours stud machines. And I want you to know two things,” Marvella said flatly. “One: I aim to find my best girl and bring her back. Two: If I find out it was a Jefferson boy behind the wheel of that truck, I’m holding you personally responsible since you brought those boys here in the first place. This town’s not been the same since you went on your little sightseeing junket and came back towing those grateful cowboys. You’ve barely convinced me you weren’t behind this little midnight rendezvous, but I’ll still blame you if Ranger Jefferson snuck off with Cissy.”
“Sister,” Delilah said softly, “I haven’t had much to do with you since you accused me of stealing your husband. Now you’re claiming I had something to do with your best shop girl heading out. Frankly, I’m done talking to you. I can go another twenty or so years before we speak again.”
Delilah closed the door, pulling down the blind. Sighing, she walked into the kitchen where Jerry, her truck driver friend-in-need sat, his face set in sympathetic lines.
“Did you hear that?” Delilah asked.
“Every word.” He patted the chair next to him. “Sit down and let me warm your coffee.”
She did, appreciating his willingness to care for her. “You’re always here for me, Jerry. How lucky I am that you came to my shop instead of Marvella’s.”
“Naw. How lucky I am,” he said, placing the warmed-up coffee cup in front of her. “Aromatherapy gets up my nose.”
Delilah laughed. “You wouldn’t have noticed it with all the girls in skimpy outfits just waiting to fix you up.”
“Nope,” he said, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek. “I got little enough under my cap that I don’t need a cut often, and I can trim my own beard. But the best part of being here is the chocolate chip cookies, and the coffee.” He gave her a twinkling eye as she lifted a brow at him. “Though the company’s what really brings me back every week. Couldn’t find that across the street.”
She smiled at him. “Thank you. I needed to hear you say that.” Glancing at the note in her hand, she said, “So. I’m down a girl. I guess that’s a good thing, considering I had to cut my staff in half two months ago.”
“Heard those gals you had to let go are rocking it in Union Junction. Stopped through there last week to check on them, and every last one of them is happy in the salon they started. And the Jefferson brothers are fixing up the house for them real nice.”
Delilah nodded. “That just leaves me to figure out why Hannah suddenly up and left me. It’s just so unlike her to be ditzy.”
“Think it was the love bug.” Jerry emptied his coffee cup.
“What love bug?”
“The one she caught for Ranger Jefferson when he was here helping Laredo ride Bloodthirsty Black last month.”
“I didn’t know she’d caught a bug,” Delilah said, surprised. “Seemed like she was totally focused on helping Katy metamorphasize into the woman-she-could-be to catch Laredo.”
Jerry shrugged. “And at some point, Ranger got under Hannah’s skin. Only Hannah thought Ranger liked Cissy, so she gave him a wide berth. Hannah’s a firecracker when she’s made up her mind something’s one way or the other.”
“But now Cissy’s gone and Hannah’s gone, so that means they struck out together. I just don’t imagine the two of them would willingly share a truck with Ranger Jefferson. Marvella can’t be right about that.”
The phone rang in the kitchen, and Delilah answered it.
“Hey, Mason. Fine, everything’s fine here.” Her eyes widened as she listened, giving Jerry a stunned glance. “No, Ranger’s not here. Neither is Archer. Haven’t seen either of them. Okay. Will do. See you this weekend.”
She hung up the phone. “Malfunction Junction’s missing two cowboys. Twins. Mason sounded like he was standing in a pot of boiling water.”
Jerry started laughing.
“It’s not funny,” Delilah said, her good mood totally shot. “The four of them’ll not last long in the same truck. It’s a volatile mixture, and I wish Hannah was back here where she belongs before she gets her feelings hurt!”
“DOES DELILAH KNOW you’ve gone?”
Hannah’s eyes met Ranger’s in the rearview mirror of the truck. Dark and expressive eyes. She should have been able to read his thoughts.
It annoyed her that she couldn’t. She’d never carried on a conversation with Ranger from behind, and she couldn’t measure him without being able to see the rest of his face or at least his posture—it was hard enough to feel comfortable around him when she could meet him face forward. Prickling ran down her arms and tingled her neck.
“Hannah,” he said. “Does Delilah—”
“Heard you,” she replied quickly, realizing his tone was telling her a lot, mainly that he thought she was ignoring him. “I left Delilah a note.”
The dark gaze left the road and met hers in the mirror again for the briefest of moments. “Did something happen to make you leave?”
I fell in love with you and had to get away from here knowing you didn’t feel the same about me. And did you have to kiss Cissy?
Dumb question. There wasn’t a man alive who could resist Cissy.
That didn’t mean she had to be Heartbroken Hannah. “Did you leave Mason a note?” she snapped back.
His eyes hooded.
“Then I assume nothing in particular happened to make you leave.” She settled herself in her seat and stared out the window. Beside her, Archer cleared his throat.
“I didn’t leave a note. I signed my name to the pithy message Ranger left beside Mason’s plate,” he offered.
She turned to stare at him, as did Cissy. Archer shrugged. “Seemed like Ranger said everything that needed to be said.”
“I said I was going to join the military,” Ranger stated. “Did you actually read it before you John Hancocked it? Not writing your own note seems rather lazy, by the way, for a man who nearly wore his fingers out hitting the send button to Australia.”
“Easy, bro,” Archer said mildly. “Ye ol’ love life is none of thy concern.”
Hannah shook her head, perplexed. “Besides Mason who works hard, and Frisco Joe who figured it out, and now Laredo, who’s moved to North Carolina to be with Katy like a real man would, are all of you pretty much rascals?”
“And relationship-dysfunctional?” Cissy put in. “It’s almost scary that the two of you could be in the same truck and not know it.”
“How was I to know that my twin was a stowaway?”
Cissy shrugged. “I heard twins had some special extrasensory perception for each other. Y’all seem to be blocking your ESP.”
“Heaven forbid he could have just asked for a ride,” Ranger complained.
“Heaven forbid you could have offered,” Archer rejoined.
“Did I know you’d be up for the military?”
“Did you think to ask?” Archer demanded. “Why did you think you could leave me behind with His Highness the Hardheaded?”
Cissy and Hannah both turned to face Archer again.
“Well, that’s what Mimi calls him,” Archer said sheepishly. “Mason, that is, before she quit hanging around our place.”
“She probably had to leave out of self-defense,” Hannah said. “Your family isn’t exactly easy for a woman to bear.”
In the mirror’s reflection, she saw Ranger’s eyebrows peak over his eyes. “How would you know?”
Caught, because she didn’t want to admit that her feelings had been hurt by Ranger, Hannah said, “Keep your eyes on the road, cowboy. All of us want to reach our varied destinations safe and sound.”
“And I want to talk about your destination,” Ranger stated. “Where exactly are you two going?”
Cissy turned completely to face Hannah. “I don’t know that it’s such a good idea to tell him. They’re just going to say that we don’t know what we’re doing.”
“You said it for me,” Ranger pointed out. “I think it, I know it’s true and now you’ve put it out in the open. We’re all prepared for my reaction, so just say it: What’s your end-of-the-line destination?”
“I called a friend of mine who runs a gambling riverboat in Mississippi,” Hannah said. “Cissy and I are going to be hostesses on the boat. Well, I’m going to be a card dealer. I got Cissy a job as a hostess.”
Both men started laughing, immensely amused by the revelation. “Going to the good ship, Lollipop,” Archer sang, until Hannah’s annoyed expression brought his tune to an end.
Ranger turned the truck at an exit ramp, parking at a truck weigh station and rest area. “Okay,” he said sternly. “All ladies out of my truck. I ain’t taking you any farther than this.”
Cissy hesitated, but Hannah popped right out of the truck. “Fine,” she said. “I can get a better-looking, more polite and chivalrous ride, anyway. One that doesn’t poke his nose in my business and then laugh.”
“Archer laughed, I just—”
“Same thing. All you Jeffersons are alike. It’s your way or the highway. Well, I,” she said with a deliberate glare at Ranger as she tugged her leopard-print duffel from the truck, “don’t even think you’re that hot of a kisser.”
“Huh?” Ranger and Archer said at the same time.
“Now wait a minute—” Ranger began.
“Kisser?” Archer stared at his twin. “Did you kiss her?”
“Technically, it was a peck,” Ranger began.
“He pecked both of us, then,” Cissy inserted. “Only my kiss went beyond the peck category, I feel certain.”
“You kissed her, too? And they’re both riding in the same vehicle with you?” Archer grinned over the seat at his twin. “No wonder the atmosphere in here has been decidedly icy. Brr.”
Hannah didn’t want to hear about the kissing Cissy had gotten from Ranger, but knowing that the man was such a fast-and-loose kisser was the main reason she didn’t want to let her heartstrings get pulled any tighter. Obviously, her kiss hadn’t meant anything to him.
“I knew this was a bad idea. Cissy, I vote we call Jerry. Sooner or later, he’ll be by this way in his rig. We should have done that in the first place, I guess.”
Maybe, but she and Cissy had agreed between themselves that burdening anyone with their departure wasn’t fair. And, frankly, they were afraid they couldn’t say goodbye if they had to face down a couple of salons full of friends. And Cissy would have had to say goodbye to Marvella—no easy thing, considering Marvella would have thrown a fit.
But for Hannah, saying goodbye to Delilah would have been impossible. She couldn’t have said goodbye, and she wouldn’t have. In the end, she would have stayed—always captive to the hope that Ranger would return. Call. Ask her out. Remember their kiss.
Ranger crossed his arms at her, and Hannah felt her heart sink a little deeper in her chest. Did he have to be so handsome, even when he was being so dreadfully bossy? “Go,” she told him. “Head off. Don’t waste my time giving me the omnipotent eye.”
“The omnipotent eye,” Archer mused. “Isn’t that what Helga does to us when we put our boots on the coffee table?”
“Can I speak to you alone for a moment?” Ranger said to Hannah.
“I don’t see why—” she started, but Cissy gave her a shove and Ranger gave her arm a pull and she was heading off toward a picnic table with Ranger before she’d finished her sentence.
“Look,” he said, sitting her down on the plank seat. “Have you thought this through?”
She thought she heard concern in his voice, real concern, and it startled her out of her indignation. “Yes, I have. And you can stop looming over me like you know everything and what I know could fit into a thimble.”
He stared at her. “I’m not looming.”
Okay. So at over six feet he couldn’t exactly help his proportions. She’d wanted to be able to read his posture, and now she certainly could. “So. How long did you think about your road trip?”
“A while.”
“I don’t remember you mentioning it before.”
“We didn’t talk much.”
No, they hadn’t. Mostly, she’d wanted to kiss him. And that peck comment had hurt her feelings, because it had been more than that to her. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going into the military.” He gave her a most belligerent glare, daring her to laugh.
Which she did. “Okay, that’s it,” she said. “Get back behind the wheel and stop harassing me about my spur-of-the-moment plans.”
“Hang on.” He put his boot on the bench beside her and leaned forward. “I’m a man, and you’re a woman.”
She cocked a brow at him. “Continue. So far, you’re astounding me with your powers of observation.”
“What I’m saying is, it’s one thing for me to be heading off into the wild blue yonder. Joining the military is an honorable, responsible way to work through this phase of my life. You, on the other hand, are going off willy-nilly, shady-lady, to get a job as a card dealer in a floating casino. That is not a particularly admirable thing, not that I’m making any judgment calls here.” He held up a hand to ward off her rebuttal. “I just don’t know that it’s safe. And maybe you know that it’s not such a good idea, or you wouldn’t have snuck off like a thief in the night without telling Delilah.”
“You’re big-brothering me, and I don’t like it,” Hannah told him.
“Not exactly that,” he admitted. “Since I kissed you, I feel a bit more responsibility than the average Joe, I guess.”
“You called it a peck,” she reminded him, her indignation clear. “A peck. If you pecked me, what did you do to Cissy?”
“Now, Cissy,” Ranger immediately rejoined, leaning back to grin at her, “that girl can suck the lips off a man’s face. She takes a man’s breath and makes him feel that dying in her arms is a good thing.”
“Really!” Hannah hopped to her feet. “You know what? I’ve had enough of your bellyaching and your grousing. You get us to the state line, and that’ll be just fine, Ranger Jefferson. And you can just let the military have your sorry self. Maybe they can kick some sense into you.”
She headed toward the truck without waiting for him to reply. Ranger stared at her retreating red-tipped blond hair and saucy backside as she flounced off. He raised a brow. “Baby, baby,” he murmured. “I do believe that little gal is jealous.” And then he grinned.
RANGER QUIT GRINNING by the time Archer and Hannah decided they had something in common. Snug as two bugs in the back seat, they taught each other their best tricks at cheating in card games.
It was bad enough, Ranger thought sourly, that his twin was full of bad ideas and tomfoolery. Of course, it was all in the spirit of fun, under the guise of tricks, but he didn’t think it was a good idea for her to know any more tricks than she already did. Her repertoire was astonishing. Where did such a little spitfire learn so many sideways maneuvers?
Worse, he didn’t want Archer teaching her anything, card tricks notwithstanding. And he sure as hell didn’t like the repetitious, nerve-grinding, unnecessary bursts of laughter from the back seat.
Those two were becoming way too close for his comfort. And they were having way too much fun, playing reindeer games in the back seat while he sat up here like a chauffeur. Ranger’s teeth ground together. That’s what it sounded like: reindeer games. Childish. Immature. His twin was leading Hannah astray, and she was going there with a smile on her face.
“Don’t you think the two of you have played enough games?” he demanded. Cissy glanced up at him from the magazine she was reading, and he gave her a sidelong glance that was empty of the irritation he felt.
Hannah and Archer ignored him.
“Gotcha!” Hannah squealed, moving fast to grab something from Archer’s side of the truck. He moved to elude her and cards went flying over the seat and everywhere else. It was snowing diamonds and hearts, and Ranger’s temper snapped. “I can’t drive if you two are going to keep acting like monkeys in the back seat.”
Archer looked at him. “Cool it, bro. We’re not bothering you.”
Oh, they were bothering him a lot. His gaze met Hannah’s in the mirror. Ever so pointedly, knowing he could do nothing about it, to show her utter disdain for his comment about monkeys, Hannah stuck her tongue out at him.
No one else noticed, but that wasn’t the point. The woman was set on bothering him. She was going to make him pay for his remark about Cissy. He shouldn’t have said it, especially since he’d colored what happened between him and Cissy, but it was too late to take back his exploratory quest into Hannah’s jealousy. Now she was in top wild-filly form.
And that naughty pink tongue drove him nuts.
“I’d offer to drive,” Archer said, his tone not serious at all, “but it’s more fun to sit back here with Hannah. Deal, lady.”
She gave Ranger one last pointed glare in the mirror before the sound of shuffling cards shredded his nerves.
Great. The two of them were having the time of their lives. And he sat up front with Cissy Kisserton, who really hadn’t sucked the lips off his face at all.
Hannah Hotchkiss was just about the most annoying woman he’d ever met!
A burst of laughter erupted from his twin, and Ranger decided enough was enough. “I think I’ll take a break here. Give everybody a chance to stretch.” He pulled the truck alongside a historical marker, well off the highway. The road’s shoulder was thin, and below, a beautiful canyon stretched as far as he could see, dry and majestic and peaceful. Ranger felt his brain start to compress to a normal size. He took a deep breath, determining that he could forgive his twin anything. He smiled at Cissy, who had so far borne her seatmate’s bad temper without complaining.
He could even feel more jovial toward Hannah. “Let’s get a beer out of the back of the truck, and we can all sit back there and munch. We can even play some of those card games you love,” he told Hannah as kindly as he could, in an effort to be forgiving toward her for everything she’d done to him. He could be a good host. He could be fair and even-tempered. “Card games and icy beer sounds like a great combo, doesn’t it?” he asked the group at large as he clambered into the truckbed. “And could you ask for a better view?”
Hannah followed his lead, clearly not certain to what they owed his new, improved mood. He set the cooler in the middle of the truckbed, pulled out beers for everyone, closed the lid and pointed to the faux table top. “Deal,” he told her. “Any game you like.”
“I’m best at strip poker,” she told him.
He choked on his beer. It went down hard on his Adam’s apple, making him mad all over again. “Strip poker! Hannah Hotchkiss, are you trying to drive me insane? Because if you are, you’re…you’re…” He stopped when he saw the incredulous stares on Cissy’s and Archer’s faces. Belatedly, it came to him that she’d been teasing him, getting his goat. Janking his chain—which was a cross between a jerk and a hard yank.
He had to admit she’d janked him pretty good.
Well, he could jank a pretty mean chain himself. “Strip poker? Go right ahead. Deal me in, lady.”
I’ll just love seeing you lose.
Chapter Three
“I don’t think so,” Hannah said narrowly. “I really don’t trust this sudden change in you. I’ll sit in the truck. Thanks for the beer, though.” She hopped into the back seat.
Archer shrugged and joined her. “Guess I’m not in the mood, either. Maybe after a few more hours on the road.”
Cissy grabbed her beer and slid into the front seat. Ranger glared after the three of them. “Now, look,” he said. “All of you are riding in my truck, on my gas money. Archer, you’re a stowaway, and you ladies are hitchhikers. That means I get to call some of the shots.” The good mood he’d tried to work himself into was totally, completely gone.
Archer pushed his hat back. “Okay, boss. What do you want us to do, besides play cards? We’re happy to earn our keep somehow. I’ll chip in the gas money for me and the gals. How’s that?”
Ranger liked that even less. “The gas money isn’t the point.”
“What is, then?” Hannah asked, staring up at him with those ridiculously innocent eyes, and that perky hair just flying away all over her head like it had training in getting his attention.
Like Hannah and her antics with Archer. None of them understood him. Now he knew why Crockett was always moaning that no one appreciated his artistic bent or the beauty in the nudes he painted. He empathized with Bandera, who spouted Whitman like a dervish and claimed his memory-driven talent and Shakespearian oration were underrated by his brothers. He could even see why Tex got so frustrated when his brothers laughed at his buddus interruptus problem—buds that wouldn’t bloom—in their mother’s rose garden.
It hurt to be misunderstood. And he just didn’t want to say out loud what he really felt.
But he was going to have to do it. Somehow.
“I think it would be best if you and Cissy changed places,” he primly told Archer.
“Why?” everyone asked at once.
Irritation spiked his brows. “Because it would just be best for the sake of propriety.”
Archer’s expression said Ranger had lost his case with that one. “You’re beginning to sound like an idiot, bro.”
Hannah blew a huge bubble with pink gum, let it pop and blow back against her lips. How could any woman drink beer and chew bubble gum? It was weird. It was amazing. Disquieting. And it made him think about her pink tongue and her pink lips and her red-tipped dirty-blond hair. And sex.
Sex with…Hannah.
“Have you always had mental problems?” she demanded. “I’ve never heard so much nonsense in my life. How can riding in the back seat have a lack of propriety about it?”
“I can’t see you clearly,” he complained.
“We’re not doing anything exciting,” Hannah told him. “Nothing any more exciting than you and Cissy are doing. Currently.”
Maybe the edge in her voice was only heard by him, but it told him everything he needed to know. She’d been jealous of him and Cissy kissing, and now she was feeding him his own medicine with a large spoon.
Well, two could play at that game. “Never mind,” he said cheerfully. “Miss Cissy, let me help you into the seat. Comfortable? Did I tell you how much I like you in those jeans? No girl wears jeans like you do.”
And then he gave Hannah a big grin as he closed Cissy’s door.
KNOCK YOURSELF OUT, Hannah thought to herself. Play your one-man band in Cissy’s orchestra of admirers. I don’t care.
She couldn’t waste any time focusing on some ill-tempered male. Besides, Archer was proving to be very adept with card tricks. “Teach me that thing you did with moving the jacks around and pulling out a queen,” she said to him. “It’s a really smooth move.”
“Only if you’ll teach me how you know which card I pulled from the deck. I can’t figure out how you’re doing it,” Archer said admiringly. “It’s like you’ve got an extra eye or something.”
Hannah smiled, and shuffled the deck.
THREE HOURS DOWN the road, Ranger had to admit his plan had totally backfired. He might as well be a professional limo driver for all the attention Hannah paid him. She and Archer laughed like hyenas, and they still hadn’t worn the ink off those stupid cards yet. Well, they’d bent a few, so Hannah had merely reached into her duffel and pulled out a brand-new deck. This had set Ranger’s neck muscles to Too Tight, just like an over-wound machine.
And then, to make the whole thing more annoying, Archer pulled out dice. The two of them had been clacking and rolling them, and blowing on each other’s hands for luck.
It was all so disgustingly happy Ranger could only be grateful for the impending darkness. Then they’d have to quit their gaming, he thought with a mental rub of his palms.
But no. Archer pulled out a flashlight, aimed it at the roof of the truck as he jammed it into the seat to steady it, and they went on giggling like children keeping secrets from their elders.
Cissy closed her magazine and looked at him with a smile. “We sure do appreciate you taking us this far. I thought for sure we were out of a ride back there at the weigh station.”
He didn’t want to be reminded of his bad behavior. “Naw,” he said reluctantly. “I just hope you two have thought your new employment out fully. Mason would get all over me if I let either of you get hurt.”
“We’re not your responsibility, Ranger.”
“Not technically, I know. But we feel that all of you gals who helped us through the big storm are pretty much our sisters now.”
“I wasn’t there,” she reminded him.
“No, but Hannah was. And we know you. So we care about you.”
She didn’t say anything to that.
“In a brotherly sort of way, of course,” he hastened to explain. “We care about you like a little sister.”
It seemed to him that Cissy looked hopeful for a second. Then her impossibly large aquamarine eyes dimmed as she shook her head and re-opened her magazine.
“You sure have a lot of magazines in your bag,” he pointed out.
“I’m taking up cooking.” She smiled at his raised brow. “What? Didn’t you think a girl like me would want to cook?”
He frowned. “What do you mean, a girl like you?”
She shrugged.
“Oh, you mean, a gorgeous girl like you!” he said, his tone saying, I just got it. “The kind who’s so nice guys are always fighting to take her out!”
The most grateful smile he’d ever seen on a woman’s face lit Cissy’s eyes. “You’re okay, Ranger,” she said softly. “If I can help you in any way with your mission, let me know.”
“My mission?”
She barely moved her silvery brows to indicate the back seat, where neither Archer nor his partner in gaming was paying them any mind. “My little gamine friend,” she said softly.
Oh, no. They were not going there. He might have discovered that Cissy had a lot of smarts underneath that sexy platinum hair, but she wasn’t going to start reading his mind. He wasn’t that easy. “She’s not my mission. I’m joining the military to do my duty by my country.”
She smiled.
“If they’ll take me,” he amended. “I am a bit older than they like.”
“Hey, tough guy,” Cissy said, closing her magazine to look at him. “Maybe I should swap seats with her.”
“I like you right beside me. Don’t even think about it. She’ll just give me a heart attack, I’m sure. Death by arguing or something. Worse, she might insist on driving my truck, and then I’ll have to show my really ornery bachelor side.”
“As if she hasn’t seen that already. And survived it. Who would have known?”
“Exactly,” he said with a nod. “Hey, not exactly!”
Cissy laughed.
“How did you two get together anyway? I don’t remember the two salons having many cross-street friendships.”
“I didn’t want to live Marvella’s way anymore. I went to Delilah’s to ask for a job. I met Hannah in the hallway. She’d been crying.”
“Hannah crying?” Ranger scowled, the thought extremely unsettling. “I find that hard to imagine.”
“It wasn’t pretty,” Cissy told him. “That cute little face all scrunched up and running mascara. She is not a pretty crier, I warn you. Of course,” Cissy said with a sigh, “she’d been crying over some dopey guy, and that’s probably what made her so pathetic. I mean, what man is worth crying over?”
“She was crying over a man?” Ranger asked incredulously. “Are you sure?”
“Oh, positively. She spilled the whole story about him. Boy, he really broke her heart.”
“What a butthead,” Ranger said hotly. “She deserves better than someone who’s careless with her feelings!”
Cissy pulled a file out of her bag and began filing her nails. “I know. That’s precisely what I told her. That’s when she said she was going to Mississippi, and I said I could use a change of scenery, and presto-chango, here we are. Kind of funny how life works, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. All except the crying part.” It really bothered him that some boob had made Hannah cry. He resolved right then and there to be nicer to her. She was such a fragile little thing, always acting tough-enough, like a pullet in a chickenyard, but he knew better now, thanks to Cissy. Hannah was tenderhearted underneath that spicy attitude and paprika-tipped hair. Why, he just wanted to hug her to him and keep her safe and protect her from all the louses on the planet—
Giggles ripped from the back seat, and Hannah squealed as Archer grabbed her, wrestling her like a dogie to the seat. Cards flew, dice rolled, and something that looked like a sandal flew through the air. That was all Ranger’s ping-ponging, bug-eyed vision could see in the rearview mirror.
But whatever was going on back there, his twin and that sweet tenderhearted pullet were having one yahoo of a good time.
“Archer!” Hannah screamed, her voice delighted with laughter. “Stop!”
It was a full-blown ticklefest in the back seat, and from the sound of it, Hannah was on the happily losing end.
In the front seat, Cissy glanced at him without ceasing her filing. “Let me know if I can help you. When you decide to make your move, that is.”
“There’s going to be no move,” Ranger said from between gritted teeth. “At least, not from me.”
Cissy nodded. “Fear of failure?”
“No.” He glared at her. “Fear of the Curse of the Broken Body Parts.”
“Which is?”
“My brother Frisco fell for Annabelle Turnberry. He got a broken leg. Laredo got concussed when he fell for Katy Goodnight. I’ve kissed both of you. That actually puts fear into me. There could be two broken body parts waiting for me. No, it’s not fear of failure that sends me down the road, Cissy. It’s healthy self-respect and self-preservation.”
“You look fine to me so far. One piece, nothing missing. Nothing except a little spine, maybe. Just maybe. A small piece that could be mildly fractured and waiting for repair.”
“Not a durn thing wrong with my spine, thanks.”
“It’s pretty obvious you feel something for her, Ranger,” Cissy said softly.
“I feel protective. I feel brotherly. But nothing romantic, I assure you.”
“Okay. But let me make certain I understand this. You’ll know when love hits you by the amount of pain you suffer? Emotional masochism visited on the body in physical form?”
“To put it in my terms, doctor, if something breaks, I’ll know it’s the real thing.”
The giggling in the back seat subsided for the moment. Ranger decided they’d used up their oxygen share back there.
“Of course it could be your heart that gets broken,” Cissy said absently. “Which would be metaphoric, not a physical manifestation. And what would that tell you?”
“Nothing,” he said as his eyes searched the rearview mirror. He couldn’t see a thing because of the darkness, but that didn’t stop him from trying to see. It had gotten too quiet in the back seat.
“Where are we, anyway?” Cissy asked.
“A few hours east of Lonely Hearts Station, but probably a couple more hours from the state line. Desert.” Ranger peered into the darkness. “The wind has picked up so much it’s blowing sand against the windshield.” Turning on the windshield wipers, he tried to clear the dirty glass.
“Where are we going to sleep?” Hannah suddenly asked, leaning over the seat to eye him.
“Sleep?” Well, that was something he hadn’t thought about. When he’d left this morning, he’d figured on sleeping in his truck. He hadn’t planned on riders. Women. “I don’t think there’s a hotel anywhere around here. We’re pretty far into the desert, I think. There haven’t been any signs for miles.”
The thought of the four of them sleeping in the truck was unappealing, particularly as Archer would no doubt enjoy sleeping with Hannah more than Ranger would enjoy sleeping behind the steering wheel. Once again, Ranger felt an annoying spurt of jealousy heat the top of his head. “I’ll stop here and let you stretch your legs. Archer, if I can borrow my flashlight, I’ll check the map and see where we are.”
Pulling down a deserted lane, Ranger switched off the truck.
“I’m too tired to stretch my legs,” Hannah said. “I could go to sleep this second.”
“Here. Lay your head acqu?.” Archer put a pillow in his lap and pointed for Hannah to lie down.
Ranger didn’t think she would—and then, she did just that. It was as if she never gave a second’s thought to what was lying beneath Archer’s innocent pillow. Ranger’s eyes practically popped from his skull. Glancing at Cissy, he caught her shrug.
“You still seem to be in one piece,” she whispered as Archer sang Hannah a lullaby. “Guess you were right. She means nothing to you.”
“Damn right.” He ripped the map from the glove compartment and stared at it with the flashlight’s dimming beam. “The two of you wore this flashlight out with all your hijinks,” he groused, but no one answered. “Dang, that’s a lot of wind,” he said, glancing up to peer at the window. “I think we’re in a sandstorm.”
“That sucks,” Archer said, his voice sleepy. “I’m hungry.”
“You can reach through the back window and grab something out of the cooler,” Ranger said. “I can’t tell where we are, but it’s nowhere close to civilization, I’m afraid.”
“If you wait a little while, maybe the wind will quit blowing,” Cissy said. “I’ll take a snack, if you don’t mind, Archer.”
To Ranger’s relief, Hannah popped right up and off Archer’s lap. “I’ll get you something, Cissy.” Poking her arm through the window, she pulled back quickly. “Wow! That feels like a thousand needles hitting my arm!”
“Let me do it. I’ve got sleeves.” Archer leaned up and snagged a bag from out of the cooler, shoving the lid back on quickly. “Pretty smooth, huh?” he said to Hannah.
“Yeah. Like you made good grades in Grabbing Stuff from the Truckbed 101.” She peeked into the bag before glancing up at Ranger. “Twizzlers?”
“That’s my kind of snack,” he said. “Twizzlers and beef jerky. Nothing better.”
“And tequila to wash it down,” Archer said, happily examining the contents of a brown bag he pulled from underneath Cissy’s seat. “Safe as a baby in a bank vault.”
“Whatever,” Ranger said sourly. “Grab the plastic cups from underneath my seat and pour, Archer.”
The scent of tequila filled the truck. Archer handed Ranger a plastic cup full of sweet clear liquid. “Driver first, since we’re parked for a while. Good limo-ing, dude.”
Ranger raised his cup. “Here’s to new beginnings. For all of us.”
Archer swiftly poured for the rest of them. They raised their cups and clacked them against each others. The men swallowed their tequila in a gulp, while Cissy and Hannah sipped at theirs more gingerly.
“Now,” Ranger said with a satisfied sigh. “I’m a new man. And I’m ready to beat you at strip poker, Miss Hotchkiss.”
Surprise made Hannah hesitate for only a split second, then she pulled out her cards with a sly smile. “I fancy your shirt, Mr. Jefferson.”
“I fancy yours, as well.” And he fancied her jeans and her bra and her panties off her little body—but that was a fantasy for later. One day when they were alone, and he’d tamed her, and she liked it, and being naked for him was her only desire in life, then he’d win her panties right off her heart-shaped bottom and drink her like this tequila. He poured himself more tequila for bravery.
He was going to make Archer wear a blindfold. And then when Ranger won her shirt, he was going to be the happiest man on earth. The fantasy would start tonight, and it would drift like a fairy tale, page by page, day by day, article of clothing by article of clothing. Oh, yeah.
The tequila was warming him, making him un-wrinkle. He stared at his cards, then at Hannah, who was watching him with a crook in her tricky blond brows. She didn’t look as though her hand of cards was all that swift. Ah! Sweet victory was his! “Pour me another, Archer,” he said with growing confidence. “Tonight is going to be my night!”
Chapter Four
Ranger awakened slowly. He felt odd. His eyes didn’t want to open and his skin seemed strangely cold.
Very cold. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself awake and took stock of his body.
He was wearing nothing but a pair of black boxers.
He was in a jigsaw shape, stretched out in the two front seats, his body wrapped around the armrests and the console. It was the most uncomfortable position he’d ever been in. His body complained, telling him enough was enough.
Uncreaking himself to a sitting position, he looked into the back seat. Archer was in the middle, Hannah and Cissy curled up on either side of him, heads on his shoulders. Archer had an arm around each woman, and they looked warm and toasty as mice in a barn in winter. Completely snug.
They were all fully dressed.
Ranger’s mood, sour yesterday, fermented to acidic. He didn’t remember getting blammo’ed, but clearly he’d been that and lost at strip poker. Even nearly nude, he hadn’t had a woman crawling up next to him. Which wasn’t how his life usually went, and the problem was obviously Archer. It wasn’t enough that his twin had to stow away on Ranger’s mission of finding himself. Archer had to hog the women, too. The women Ranger had kissed.
And they’d deserted him for the comfort of the back seat.
Hannah could at least have pretended that Archer wasn’t the best pillow since goosedown. She’d said she fancied Ranger’s shirt. Well, she was sitting on it, a winner’s taunt. His jeans were under Archer’s boots, and his socks were just plain gone. “Why bother to stop at my shorts?” he groused. “Pity? Don’t like black?”
Turning, Ranger faced the windshield. Sand still flogged the truck, telling him he was in for a good whisking if he stepped outside. But nature was calling, and he probably had enough tequila inside him to blunt the pain. There was no point in getting dressed, he decided. The sand would just lodge in his clothes. Better to get dressed once he was safe inside the truck again. He could dust off his body after he made the world’s quickest pit stop.
Carefully opening the door just far enough for him to slide out, he hopped onto the ground, his bare feet landing onto something possessed of a million sharp needles.
“Yow-ee! Ai-eeee!” Jumping to get away from whatever the hell he’d stepped on, he tumbled downward, hitting rocks and weeds and unidentified things as gravity cruelly grabbed control of his world to dump him at the bottom of an abyss.
He was flat-assed. “I’m dying. I’m dead!” he gasped dramatically to the sky. “Deader than dinosaurs. Damn it, I’ve landed in hell!”
It was dark, it was cold, and it was very, very painful. His mouth and nose were full of sand; his skin was being burned by flying grains of fire. He had to find cover. And there was no way he could get back up to his truck—he’d rolled ass-over-ass forever. Pulling himself to a sitting position, shielding his eyes, Ranger realized he was in front of a stone enclosure. Dragging himself to the stone wall, he dismissed thoughts of bears and snakes. That type of danger was secondary to his bodily anguish. The enclosure turned into a cave, and he gladly fell inside, gasping from pain and fear and overwhelming loss of control.
Ranger knew, as he felt consciousness seep away from him and his breath cut short in his body, somehow, he was dying because of Hannah Hotchkiss.
“I’M DOWN FOUR MEN,” Mason complained to Mimi as he perched uncomfortably in her kitchen. Sheriff Cannady was upstairs napping, Mimi had said, and Brian was running errands. “Frisco Joe, Laredo, Archer and Ranger.”
“I’m sure Brian would be willing to help, when he returns,” Mimi said.
“Can’t do that to a man who’s still honeymooning.” The second he said it, he felt his face flush. Honeymoon and Mimi were two words he really didn’t want connected in his consciousness.
He’d known Brian was gone—he’d seen the sports car leave. Brian was a nice man—under other circumstances Mason might have hired the lawyer himself—but the miserly courage he’d worked up was close to failing him.
It was all he could do to make himself bring over this belated wedding gift. Facing Mimi was pain and pleasure. He was so glad to see her—and he was so ripped inside. She was more beautiful than ever. “Marriage agrees with you,” he said gruffly.
She glanced at him, startled, hesitating as she pulled the tissue from the silver-and-white bag that encased his gift.
A long silence stretched between them as her eyes searched his. Why had he said that? His brothers said she’d always wanted to marry him. Not Brian. Not any man but him. But he hadn’t even been able to comprehend marriage, much less to Mimi. And yet, not to anyone else but Mimi. His comrade-in-clowning. His best friend. His sister.
Marriage? Had she really wanted to marry him? Was she in love with him? He had to know.
And yet, the time to ask had passed. He saw that as her gaze dropped from his. She pulled the silvery tissue from the bag and smiled at his gift. It was a framed picture of her and all twelve Jefferson brothers, taken last summer when everything had still been normal. The men were dressed in jeans, hats and no shirts. Mimi wore jeans, a hat and a blue-and-white-checked blouse tied at her waist. There were six brothers on each side of her, but she was standing next to Mason, his arm around her waist as they all grinned proudly.
“I love it,” she said softly. “Thank you so much.”
“There’s a gift certificate in there to the place where you registered your bridal stuff. I didn’t know what you wanted most.”
His fingers worked the brim of his hat; he couldn’t meet her gaze. He was in hell.
He’d bought the ticket there himself.
“Speaking of honeymoons, I have a huge favor to ask of you.” Mimi sat across from him at the table, her expression worried.
“Shoot.” He could deny her nothing. Now, anyway.
“I know you’re down on hands, but…Brian and I didn’t take a real honeymoon. We got married and decided to plan the other details later.”
He hadn’t realized they hadn’t honeymooned. He’d been too buried in a frozen mask of pain to pay attention. “I knew you got married fast.”
“Yes. Very fast.” She took a deep breath. “I really want this to work out, Mason.”
His heart burned, but of course, she had no idea of his newfound realization of love for her. She knew she’d been his best friend. She would expect to be able to share what was on her mind now.
He’d buck up and offer the shoulder she seemed to need. “I know you want it to work, Mimi. You’d not have married Brian if you hadn’t expected it to be forever.”
She nodded. “I think the best thing we can do for our marriage is to spend time alone together. Brian hasn’t asked me for it, because—” Glancing up at the ceiling, almost as if she could see through to the second floor, she said, “Well, he’s just been so patient with me. But it’s not fair to him.”
Mason was lost, but he nodded to show he was listening.
“I’ve decided we need that honeymoon. So I’ve planned a trip to Hawaii for us.” A shy smile lit her lips. “I’ve even bought a couple of bikinis.”
Fire shot through his entire body. Hell colored his heart. “You’ll be the prettiest honeymooning gal in Hawaii, Mimi,” he forced himself to say.
She reached to put her hand over his. “It’s a lot to ask of you right now, Mason, but could you keep an eye on Dad?”
He started to chuckle and say that it ought to be the other way around. Sheriff Cannady should be keeping the eye on him—but the seriousness in her blue eyes shut his mouth instantly.
“We’ll only be gone a week, and if you could check in on him from time to time—”
Êîíåö îçíàêîìèòåëüíîãî ôðàãìåíòà.
Òåêñò ïðåäîñòàâëåí ÎÎÎ «ËèòÐåñ».
Ïðî÷èòàéòå ýòó êíèãó öåëèêîì, êóïèâ ïîëíóþ ëåãàëüíóþ âåðñèþ (https://www.litres.ru/tina-leonard/ranger-s-wild-woman/) íà ËèòÐåñ.
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