Tex Appeal (7 page)

And so Dayne fought down the urge to hold her close and did the last thing she would have expected—he snatched up his clothes, climbed into his truck and left her buck-naked and spread-eagled on her Mustang.

H
E WAS
gone.

The truth echoed in Cheryl’s head as she clambered off the hood and did a frantic search for her clothes. No “Sorry, hon, I’ve got to get back to work.” No lingering kiss. Not even a measly wave goodbye. He’d simply walked away.

And the problem is?

There wasn’t a problem. Tonight had been perfect. He’d been perfect. Hot. Wild. Spontaneous. Her body still shook as she yanked on her clothes and climbed behind the wheel. She should be relieved. Excited. Victorious.

Instead, she had the insane urge to stop at the nearest Quick Stop and pick up a pint of Rocky Road. And maybe a box of Ding Dongs. And a few Snickers bars. And some Oreo cookies.

She definitely needed Oreos right now.

Because the hot, wild, spontaneous sex hadn’t come close to satisfying the need that yawned inside of her.

Crazy. She was one-hundred-percent satisfied. She’d finally succeeded in changing every aspect of her life, both personally and professionally. Soon she would have the sexed-up house of her dreams. Life was complete.

It
was.

At least that’s what she told herself as she hit the city limits and turned down Main Street. The lights still blazed inside To Dye For and she caught a glimpse of Nikki, who stood at the counter and counted out the day’s take. In the waiting area, her fiancé Jake McCann sprawled in a chair next to…Dillon?

She slowed the Mustang and stared as the car crept past the salon. Sure enough, her brother sat next to Nikki’s hunky cowboy. Even more disturbing, her brother
was
a hunky cowboy. He wore faded jeans, a black T-shirt that read Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy, black boots and a black Resistol. His hair had grown out over the past few months and now brushed the back of his collar. He didn’t look brainwashed or sick with any of the number of things her mother had cooked up in her head. Rather, he looked relaxed and confident and happy.

A pang of envy shot through her and she barely ignored the urge to haul the car around, go back and beg his secret.

But she already knew.

He’d chucked everything about his past and truly
had
changed. He wasn’t holding on to a box full of sappy cards or bemoaning a bunch of old cabinets or bitching about shoes that pinched his toes. He was embracing his new lifestyle. No regrets. No looking back. No
holding
back.

Because he truly liked the man he’d become.

Cheryl Anne couldn’t say the same. While there were some things she liked about her new lifestyle—the miniskirts and tank tops, her dog, her own place—there were some things she missed, as well. She missed her old comfortable sneakers and her favorite An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away mug and the occasional dinner with her parents and Dayne.

She missed snuggling with him on the sofa and playing Scrabble together, and watching television.

Because she wasn’t a wild woman or a total scaredy cat. She was a little bit of both.

The realization made her that much more miserable.

Because Dayne wasn’t riding the fence when it came to the old and the new—he’d climbed completely over to the opposite side of the pasture. He’d morphed back into his old self and she could only pray that she managed to lure him back. While there were a lot of things in her life that she was still unsure about, there was one thing she knew with dead certainty—she wanted the night before and the morning after, and she wanted them with Dayne Branson.

The trouble was, after seeing him walk away tonight, she wasn’t so sure he still wanted her.

She tamped down her fears, ignored the lure of the Quick Stop and turned her Mustang around. There was only one way to find out.

“I
WAS WRONG
,” she blurted when he hauled open his front door a half hour later.

His head emerged from the white towel he’d been rubbing his damp hair with. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” She pushed past him and walked into his living room. “I was wrong.” The words tumbled out and kept coming. “Not about our relationship being stale, but about breaking up with you. I shouldn’t have called it quits, but I was so determined to change my life. I was stuck in a rut and I wanted out. I wanted to be different. But the thing is, nothing turned out to be quite what I expected. I wanted a more exciting job, but it’s really just a more embarrassing job that I’m not nearly qualified to do. Even Winona showed me up. I wanted a better wardrobe with my own collection of killer high heels, but it turns out there’s a reason they call them ‘killer’ and I wanted—”

The words died in her throat as she turned. He’d been partially hidden behind the door when he’d first answered her knock. He was completely visible now. Visible and nearly naked, with only a towel slung low on his lean hips and one draped around his neck.

He’d followed her back into the house and stood barely an arm’s length away, so close that she could feel the heat coming off him, smell the enticing aroma of clean soap and virile male that sent a bubble of excitement through her.

“You’re naked.”

“Most people are when they take a shower.”

“Oh.” She took a deep breath as her eyes drank in the sight of him. The white cotton wrapped around him stood in stark contrast to his tanned muscles. Broad shoulders framed a hard, sinewy chest sprinkled with dark hair that tapered to a slim line and disappeared beneath the towel’s edge. The same hair covered the length of his powerful thighs and calves.

While she’d seen him naked plenty of times—less than an hour ago for one—for some reason this moment felt different. Because
he
was different?

As much as the notion turned her on, it also stirred a sense of dread.

“I want things to be the way they were between us,” she told him.

The muscles in his forearms and chest bunched as he balled up the towel he’d been using on his hair and chucked it into a corner. “Stale?”

“Close.” There. She’d said it. Now the ball was in his court.

She waited, but he didn’t say anything. He kept staring at her, into her, and a wave of doubt crashed over her. “That is, if you do,” she rushed on. “Maybe you don’t. Maybe you liked the way things went tonight.”

“Actually, I did.”

Her heart sank and a lump jumped into her throat. “Oh.”

“Up until I had to walk away, that is.”

Her gaze collided with his and the gleam in his aqua-blue eyes made the breath catch in her throat. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

His jaw tightened. “I’m saying…you’re a damned frustrating woman, but I love you anyway. I always have and I always will and don’t
ever
expect me to walk away from you again.” He stepped toward her and before she could absorb what he had said, his lips covered hers. He held her face between his hands, thrust his tongue deep and made love to her with his mouth.

“I guess this means we’re officially back together,” she said when the kiss finally ended.

He grinned down at her, his eyes twinkling with hope and love and promise. “Darlin’, we never really broke up.”

Two days later…Valentine’s Day

“F
ORGET ABOUT
the size of the ship, ladies. If your man is driving a dinghy, a speed boat, a cruise ship—it makes no nevermind.” Winona stood in Cheryl’s brand-new living room, complete with red satin sofa and matching love seat, white faux-fur rug, and several mood lights—brass floor lamps topped with red fringed shades that responded to an automated keypad remote—and wiggled her bony hips in a clockwise motion. “It’s all about the motion in the ocean.”

Several
oohs
and
ahhs
and
yeah, babys
echoed through the group of women that filled the newly furnished room.

Cheryl Anne smiled. She stood in the back of the room near a glass divan topped with various bowls overflowing with snacks. She watched as Winona traded the wiggling for a swinging motion.

“Looks like she doesn’t mind filling in for you,” Dayne said as he came up next to Cheryl Anne. He had Taz in one hand and a box of Oreos in the other. He handed Cheryl the cookies and nuzzled the dog for a few seconds before setting him on the ground. The animal danced a few seconds before taking off for the kitchen. “She looks right at home up there.”

“Let’s hope she feels that way.” Cheryl opened the cookies and dumped them on a platter. “I’m thinking of making the situation permanent.”

“Winona’s a nice old lady—most of the time—but I don’t think this place is big enough for the both of you.”

“I’m not talking about moving her in. I’m talking about handing over my Pleasure Chest.”

He arched an eyebrow at her. “You thinking about going back to your old job?”

“Actually, I was thinking about helping you out at yours. I’ve done quite a bit of research on interior decorating and I was thinking—judging by the looks of things here—that you could use someone on your team with a little taste.”

He wiggled his eyebrows. “I kind of like the mirrors on the bedroom ceiling.”

“So do I. It’s all the fur and velvet that I’m not too keen on.”

“Hey, I did the construction, not the decorating. You can thank the ‘Sex in the Saddle’ people for the rest.”

But Cheryl Anne had already done that. She’d smiled and posed for pictures and acted appropriately wowed at the unveiling that morning. A reaction that hadn’t been that much of a stretch when it came to the kitchen and bathroom. Both were straight out of a dream. It was the living room and bedroom that looked as if they should be featured in an issue of
Hideous Bachelor Cribs.
She’d actually rolled up the faux-fur bedroom rugs as soon as everyone had cleared out and stuffed them in the closet. She planned on passing them to her brother when—if—he stopped avoiding everyone.

She knew something was up with Dillon. Something that went deeper than just a lifestyle change, but she’d yet to figure it out. Oh, well, time would tell. She was here if he needed her. And if he needed her parents, well, they were still camping out in his front yard.

“You
could
use someone on your team,” she pressed. “Wouldn’t it be great to offer a full-service business? Everything from pouring the foundation to actually decorating the finished product?”

He grinned. “I might be willing to work something out.”

“I hear a big
if
coming.”

“All of my people are licensed and trained. You’d have to have some credentials, babe.”

“The junior college offers an Associate’s degree in interior design. I’m registering on Monday. I can work in the office with Margene while I’m going to school. So am I hired?”

“
If
you’d be willing to do one more thing for me.”

“I’m not playing bingo on Valentine’s Day.”

He grinned. “Actually, I was thinking we could play engagement.” His expression faded into a look of serious intent and she noticed the ring box he held in one hand.

Shock bolted through her as the realization of what was happening hit her, followed by a rush of joy so intense that she wondered what alternate universe she’d been living in to ever think she could be happy without this man. “You want to marry me,” she said, the words a breathless whisper.

“You’re now living smack-dab in the lap of lust. Somebody has to keep you out of trouble.”

A smile tugged at her lips. “Or help me get into it.”

He winked. “That, too, sugar.” And then he slid the ring onto her finger and kissed her.

Alison Kent

To Taylor—my born and bred
Texan daughter-in-law.

D
R
. T
ESS
A
UTREY
loved all things new.

The smell of new cars. The fit of new shoes. The dessert cart at a new restaurant. The first notes of a favorite artist’s new song. The tight spine of a new paperback novel.

Then there were the patients new to her psychology practice, their personal issues testing her professional worth and often causing her to examine her own long-held beliefs about life and love, family and friends.

More than anything, however, she loved the new year.

There was something about the idea of a clean slate, a fresh start, another chance to ring in the changes she’d planned but never made during the year she’d just closed the books on. Or the one before that. Or, well, anytime during the last twenty-nine.

So far, 2008 wasn’t going so well.

Her widowed mother—intent on seeing Tess marry into a family of status and means—had gone overboard arranging for eligible bachelors to escort her only child to their social set’s charity functions.

Tess preferred to find her own dates, thank Georgina very much, and if not her own dates, then at least legitimate reasons to turn down the pity invitations her mother was sending her way more and more often these days.

The agreement she’d recently made with the Houston editor of the syndicated singles’ column, “Sex in the Saddle,” to write a piece examining the sex lives of rodeo cowboys and their groupies, was definitely legitimate.

Said editor, Judy Butler, was a very good friend and had suggested Tess tackle the project one night over margaritas, when she’d begged for ideas to get out of a fundraiser her mother was insisting she attend.

What made the piece in the
Houston Dispatch
more than just another psychology column—even though Tess would be in her professional element as she examined the culture of “buckle bunnies”—was the accompanying Valentine’s Day competition being held between the
Dispatch
, the
Austin Herald
and the
San Antonio Star.

The three publications, under the umbrella of their parent company, Deep in the Heart Communications, and the direction of its marketing head Sophie Cameron, were each running a sweepstakes celebrating Valentine’s Day in order to increase readership. And the staff at the paper that received the most entries would win a bonus.

For its prize, the
Houston Dispatch
would be giving away a weekend for two at the Triple RC—a ranch southwest of Houston that supplied stock to event organizers around the country, and was worked by former rodeo cowboys and professional rodeo bullfighters.

Judy had arranged for Tess to go to the Triple RC to interview some of the riders for her “Sex in the Saddle” piece, hoping to stir up interest in the contest—especially among those buckle bunnies who would probably enter multiple times for the chance to be near their heroes.

The research for Tess’s article had the side benefit of eating up any dating time she would have had during the month. She’d spent hours on the phone asking questions of the women to be profiled, as well as putting in a lot of face-to-face time gaining insight into the psyche of the female rodeo groupies.

Now she was on her way to the Triple RC to talk to the rodeo cowboys who were the object of the women’s obsession. Missing the charity benefit and the company of any number of Georgina-approved men couldn’t be helped—though Tess did promise her mother she’d make a donation. Georgina was hardly amused.

With the first round of interviews transcribed on her laptop and very vocal maternal displeasure still echoing in her ears, Tess was more than ready for the four-day weekend at the Triple RC. She’d finally be spending time with those whose experience would tell the other side of the tale.

The cowboys.

Especially…
her
cowboy. The owner.

They’d only talked twice. The first had been a conference call between the two of them and Judy during which the
Houston Dispatch
editor had explained to the owner her sweepstakes idea and her personal knowledge of the Triple RC; being a long time rodeo buff, her husband was familiar with the ranch and its accessibility from the Houston area. He was also a good friend of the owner’s and had been the one to make the request that they offer the getaway package.

Judy had been absent from the second call—and a very good thing she was, because that had been the one during which Tess found herself lured by the anonymity of conversation with a stranger, spilling intimacies she couldn’t bite back, drowning in the words of a man she’d never met but who’d listened, who’d said all the right things, whose voice had vibrated along the curve of her ear and down her neck.

She would have been happy to have him read her a drive-through menu. His voice was deep, steady, firm, as if he was sure of who he was. He didn’t question or think twice about the answers he gave her. He was confident, self-assured and his accent was pure perfect Texan, the drawl Hollywood insisted on borrowing from Alabama absent from his slow easy cadence.

She was from Texas, had been born in Houston in fact, but had never thought much about the cowboy way of life. Oh sure, she went to the rodeo each February, knew how to line dance, had three Country-and-Western stations programmed on her car radio and enjoyed much of the music they played.

Tess also knew how to waltz and tango and, depending on her mood, listened to an eclectic mix of classical, hip-hop and jazz. She drove an Audi. She lived in Houston’s trendy midtown. She wore Nicole Miller and Marc Jacobs. She paid to have her hair straightened when she got tired of her natural curls, and to have the dark-blond strands highlighted more often than that.

Basically, she was a mutt. An incongruous mix of whatever tickled her fancy no matter the cultural significance. The women she’d talked to for her column were very similar except for the fact that they ditched their nine-to-five lives on Friday nights and hit the road for small-town rodeos where they were to bull riders what groupies were to rock stars.

They liked the excitement that zinged through the crowd, the risk and the danger of pitting man against beast, the status of being the one to sexually conquer the same man who’d emerged victorious in the arena. She’d even met a few who went so far as to schedule vacation time to attend the big shows in Houston and Calgary each year.

Most considered snagging themselves a cowboy just a way to have a good time, doing the same thing their counterparts in the city did—only they hunted their prey in the alleys behind the chutes or followed the men to their campers instead of hooking up in a nightclub.

Other women took their pursuit of the night’s heroes a lot more seriously. They knew the names of the athletes, their rank in the standings, their income, even their vital stats. To those women, the conquests represented more…an escape from the drudgery of their day-in and day-out, the fantasy of finding a cowboy to take them away.

But the men of the Triple RC? They were the real deal, no doubt as married to their heritage as Tess’s mother was to hers, filled with society’s pomp and circumstance. They didn’t have jobs they worked five days a week, or careers they left at the office at the end of the day.

They lived and breathed years’ worth of Western tradition, followed in footsteps that had defined the Texas cowboy. Rough and tough they might be, but the thrill of the show that brought the bunnies hopping was a very small part of a much larger existence where no buckles were awarded for a job well done.

And speaking of cowboys and their jobs…Tess slowed her car, raised her hand to shield her eyes hidden behind a big pair of Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses. Then she slowed even more, bringing the car to a complete stop, shifting into Neutral and setting the brake.

There he was. Oh, there he was.

Sliding from the driver’s seat, her heart in her throat, her stomach churning, she stood in the wedge of the open door smack dab in the middle of the ranch’s main road, her hands curled over the frame above the window as she got her first glimpse of man and beast at work.

Her cowboy sat astride a big horse—chestnut, she thought the color was called—his back straight, the reins in one hand, a coil of rope in the other held against his thigh. He used those thighs to move the animal, cutting quickly to one side then back to the other before returning to where the two as a team had begun.

Tess pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head, feeling a smile spread across her face as she listened to his sharp whistles and the sounds—
oh, that voice
—that she guessed equated to words of praise and commands. She found herself captivated by the way the horse paid attention—ears flicking, head bobbing, nostrils flaring—and by the flex of the muscles in its massive hindquarters as it backed across the stretch of ground, snorting and huffing as it did.

The man giving the orders was equally impressive, his shoulders broad, his torso tapered, his biceps tight as he pulled back, left, right on the reins. Though it was late winter with spring hovering on the horizon, the damp fabric of his shirt clung to the small of his back above jeans that rode low on his hips and sat against his flat belly. And then there were those thighs.

She shook her head, slid her sunglasses back into place, and wrapped her tunic-length cardigan more tightly around her body even though she wasn’t particularly chilled. The early February morning was surprisingly bright, the temperature mild. But this was the Texas Gulf Coast; there was no guarantee tomorrow wouldn’t be stormy and dark.

She supposed the cowboy knew that, too, and was taking advantage of the day, though she imagined he spent plenty in the rain doing exactly what he was doing now, putting both himself and the horse through their paces. Whether the horse was his or part of the stock supplied for rodeos, Tess had no way of knowing from here.

What she did know was that
he
was the source of the shivers tickling her skin, and that just wasn’t like her. She was more attracted to a man’s brain than his brawn or the roman numeral after his name, and all she knew of this one was that he looked damn fine on a horse and could turn her to jelly with an almost inaudible word.

Except that wasn’t all she knew, was it?

It took more than powerful thighs and a talented tongue to coax the horse beneath him to obey. He had to use the head on his shoulders in concert with the body which rolled fluidly with the animal’s quick moves.

That’s what Tess was responding to. That package. That combination. The skill he showed off with each order given, with the anticipation of each response.

She looked away, across the pasture that was on the verge of being swept from winter brown to the green of spring, reminding herself that this was work, not pleasure, and that a fling with a cowboy would not be worth what her mother would put her through should she ever bring one home.

And then she looked back, feeling once again in control, more centered, only to find him looking at her, his hat pulled low on his forehead, just not low enough to hide what he was thinking. Silly, the things going through her mind, this intense reaction tightening her skin, tickling the hairs on her arms.

Was this what sent the women she’d interviewed into one cowboy’s bed after another? Was it this physical pleasure as much as the thrill of bringing the arena’s conquering hero to his knees? Even if it wasn’t her thing, she understood the psychology of the latter, the power and confidence such a triumph instilled.

But the former?

Pleasure she could get from a man wearing Armani as easily as from a man in chaps, boots and jeans. For that matter, she had no problem taking care of those needs herself—yet even as she had the thought, she realized that the things his look had her imagining went deeper than sex.

Okay…where had
that
come from? She could relate to being physically itchy; the women she’d talked to held back nothing when describing their sexual encounters—the quickies with boots on in pickups, the blow jobs in country-and-western dance halls, the hands inside clothing in broad daylight offering sexual relief.

But none of those titillating depictions should have done more than temporarily raise her temperature.

They should never have her thinking that this cowboy was looking at her as though she had more to offer him than a stare, or have her wanting to give him—this man she’d never seen before, this man with dark and dreamy bedroom eyes—anything he had on his mind.