Just Let Go… (7 page)

Hell.

At last, his Mustang stood still, and she was very lucky that he’d avoided a crash.

Furious, Austen jumped out of the car, watching as Dirty Harriet stalked toward him, complete with skin-tight jeans, dark sunglasses and one hand to her gun.

Good God, the woman was smoking—as was her car.

“What the hell did you do?” she yelled, whipping off her glasses and he could see the hurt in her eyes.

“I had nothing to do with it.”

“Bull shit.”

Austen knew this was going nowhere. He had excellent situational evaluation skills. Opting for retreat, he opened his car door and slid behind the wheel. For good measure, he slammed the door. Hard. Wincing at the sound because Shelby had sensitive doors.

“You’re not leaving until this is fixed. You’re not leaving until you tell me exactly what you did,” she warned.

Be the jackass. Embrace the jackass. Austen shifted the Mustang into Reverse. “Watch me.”

She pulled out her Glock and aimed it at his left front tire. Her smile was pure evil.

Scorching heat filled the car, or maybe that was just her fury. “Dammit, Gillian.”

Gillian blew on the black polished barrel. “I’m a good shot, Austen. Don’t tempt me.”

Austen considered driving away, but he could see the determination in her eyes. That, and his death. That, his death and the smell of leaking antifreeze that indicated her car wasn’t going anywhere.

No, Austen didn’t have the will to fight her. Not now, not over this. Not when he deserved it. This Gillian—the pissed off, deadly Gillian—was safe.

Resigned, he turned off the engine, but was smart enough not to leave the safety of the vehicle. “I didn’t do it.”

“Then why are they changing the train route now?”

“It’s Jack Haywood and Carolyn.”

Gillian put her hands on her hips. “Carolyn, the governor’s daughter. The one you’re banging. That Carolyn? Why does she bother her pretty bobble-head with Tin Cup, Texas, population two-thousand, one hundred and forty-seven, a mere speck of flotsam on the political landscape of this fine state?”

Why couldn’t she be stupid?
Austen sighed. “She did it because she thought it would make me happy.”

To be completely fair, Gillian absorbed that fact better than he thought she would. Her face grew calm, nearly peaceful. The angry haze cleared from her eyes and she holstered her weapon.

Austen managed a smile.

Wearing an angelic smile herself, she leaned into the driver’s-side window and it was hell all over again. Her sunflower-yellow hair brushed his arm, her ‘Not in This Lifetime’ perfume teased his nose, and all he could remember was last night’s mouthwatering striptease and the mind-blowing joy of being inside her. Quickly he refocused on the other Gillian. The clothed, uniformed, armed Gillian.

“You’re going to fix this,” she was telling him. “We’re going to make a plan, and you will fix this.”

In spite of his best intentions, his mind was still locked on the imagery of her bare ass in his hands, so her words didn’t compute for an embarrassing few seconds.

Then, he realized what she was insisting. How she was going to drag him into this massive political mess. No way. No how.

“This is not my problem.”

Her eyes grew fierce.

“Do not give me that, Austen Hart. I have let you con me, I have let you screw me, but that was us. This is bigger than that. This is our home. This is our community. This is our town.”

“Your town. Never mine.”

Her eyes softened infinitesimally. “He’s dead.”

Words, nothing more. Austen made his living from words, and he knew that words didn’t do shit. “I. Don’t. Care.”

Then, because she was always the one who could twist him best, Gillian leaned closer, close enough that he could read everything in those sky-blue eyes. The hurt, the pain, but it was the faith in him that was like a dagger to his chest.

“Do it for me,” she pleaded.

If she had still been mad, he could have said no. If she had been the temptress, he could have driven away. But no. Not this. “I’m not making any promises,” he said, needing her to know he was going to disappoint her. Getting that right out in the open.

“I’m not asking for any promises,” said the girl who expected the moon.

“It’s not going to work. When Jack Haywood was born, he came out with a hand on the doc’s wallet, and a direct line to the governor’s mansion. Sometimes his taste in women is a little questionable, but by and large, the man’s a political miracle worker.”

“You could work miracles if you wanted to.” She used her cheerleader’s voice, the one when the team had been down by six touchdowns. The same cheery confidence that made the quarterback throw a little farther, made the fullback run a little harder. In the end, everybody still lost because nobody came back from six touchdowns. Ever.

In Austen’s not so humble opinion, miracles didn’t happy in Tin Cup, Texas, and they sure as hell didn’t happen to men like him. They didn’t even happen to Gillian Wanamaker, no matter how badly she wanted to believe.

On the other hand, Austen was older, wiser, and he knew how to play the game. He knew how to smile with all the confidence of the world’s greatest snake-oil salesman. And Gillian smiled at him in return, buying it hook, line and sinker.

“You want a miracle? You got it,” he said, but there was a twinge in his chest that was fast becoming a pain in the ass. He prayed to God that he wasn’t growing a conscience because it was twenty-eight years too late.

T
HERE WAS AN OMINOUS
hissing sound coming from under the hood, and the engine light was solid red. Car problems? Now? Really?

It wasn’t fair.

From his spiffy, happily running Mustang, Gillian could see the smile on Austen’s face. As if a mere woman was too “fragile” to understand the workings of an engine.

Ha.

Shooting a capable glare in his direction, she shut down the engine, and went to take a look. Competently she opened the hood and immediately spotted the problem. Steam was billowing from the round cap on the big tank. Obviously the tank wasn’t happy. Possibly she should have taken the car in when the warning light had flashed, but she’d been busy, and the light had gone off. It had definitely gone off.

She swiped at a mosquito, snuck a look at Austen who was still sitting comfortably in his own reliable transport. There were three choices: call for help from the station, ask Austen for help or figure this out herself.

How hard could it be?

Remove the cap, relieve the pressure…

“Don’t touch the cap,” Austen warned, appearing next to her, grease rag in hand.

Gillian rolled her eyes. “Do I look stupid?”

He bent over the car and used the rag to twist the cap, his cotton T-shirt clinging to his nicely formed back, not that she was noticing or anything. “You’re leaking anti-freeze. Hose is busted. And you most likely ground out your brakes with that last stop.”

“Oh,” she contributed intelligently. “You think the car will make it back to town?”

His eyes were amused, dammit. “Like this? No.”

“Oh.”

“Give me a second,” he said, and strolled over to his Mustang, buried his head in the trunk.

“If you think that just because I’m letting you fix my car, that I’m also letting you off the hook, then you’ve got another thing coming.”

The man didn’t even look intimidated, strolling back with a battered toolbox in hand. Ungraciously, he dropped it at her feet. “Nope.” While she quietly steamed, he pulled out a run of black rubber hose, and sliced off a section.

Next he replaced the length of hose in her car, twisting, tightening, with nary a word of complaint.

Ten minutes later, the hose was replaced, the radiator was filled with water and he wiped his hands on the rag, staring at her expectantly.

“Don’t think I’m going to thank you for that. I knew what to do.”

He cast a long look at the highway, and she knew if he took off again, this time she wouldn’t stop him.

Instead, he looked at her. “Let’s get back to town.”

“You’re coming with me?” she asked, sounding hopeful, wishing she didn’t.

“That car is a death wish on wheels. As a man with a conscience, I don’t have a choice.”

O
NCE AGAIN IN THE
claustrophobic confines of Tin Cup, Austen insisted that Gillian park the sheriff’s cruiser in the town lot, and exchange it for another vehicle, which he personally inspected before she followed up on an overturned feed truck. While he waited, he checked out the mistreated cruiser, making a mental list of the work that needed to be done. The oil was calcified sludge. The belt was worn to threads, and the front brake pads needed to be replaced.

Not that he was going to do anything about it. He went back to waiting in the air-conditioned comfort of her office, making a list of exactly what parts and work she would need, not that Zeke would try and pull a fast one on the sheriff, but Austen thought he should cover all the bases—just in case Zeke had been corrupted.

After that, he pulled out his phone, sat in her chair and began making calls. He left four messages for Jack and explained to Maggie Patterson that he wasn’t sure he would make Saturday night’s charity dinner.

“But it’s your project,” Maggie cried. “Why don’t you ever go? I know Ed’s not working you that hard.”

“Now, Maggie. You ever seen me dressed up in some monkey suit? Not my style.” As he talked, he frowned at the grease underneath his fingernails and realized he needed to wash his hands before Gillian returned.

“It would mean a lot to Ed,” she was saying. “It would mean a lot to me. It would mean a lot to those boys. You could be a role model for them.” Much like her husband, Maggie would say whatever needed to be said in order to get things done her way. Austen had worked as a lobbyist for Big Ed Patterson’s firm for nine years, and he knew better than most.

“No, ma’am.”

Maggie’s sigh was heavy with disappointment, but Austen wasn’t about to dress up like some shining model of moral virtue. Hell.

After that, he got one text message from Tyler, asking how things were, and Austen scanned the confines of the Tin Cup sheriff’s office, and quickly typed out a reply: “Having a great time. Wish you were here.”

Seeing as Tyler had always believed Austen’s line of hooey that Austen was Tin Cup’s favorite son, the sarcasm would be lost, which always cracked Austen up. Such was the complicated nature of their brotherly relationship. Austen had never believed that people truly wanted to hear the truth. Tyler didn’t understand why people needed to lie. Whatever worked.

Austen tilted back in the chair, felt the loose screw and shook his head at the slapdash way the town was falling apart around him. It took a few minutes of digging to find a screwdriver, but eventually he spied one buried in the metal supply cabinet—with hinges that needed to be oiled. Ten seconds later, the chair was rocking and rolling like God had intended and the metal supply cabinet no longer squeaked.

The clock was ticking on the wall. It was nearly noon, and still no word from Gillian. He stared at his list of repairs, paused, then made up his mind.

Hopefully Zeke still kept the shotgun unloaded. If not, well, Gillian would have to find some other sap to fix her problems. Did he look like Don freaking Quixote?

Not even close. Frankly, he should just call it a day, hop in the Mustang and leave the town eating his dust.

He didn’t.

Instead, he strolled down to Zeke’s old garage, as if he were the favored son. The front door was open, like it always was, and Austen hesitated. The radio was blasting old George Jones, exactly like it always was. He should go inside.

He glanced across the street where the abused sheriff’s car was parked in the lot. In his heart, Austen knew it was inhuman to walk away from a vehicle in such poor shape, so he made his feet move and went inside his place of old employ.

Zeke was in the only bay, hunched over a tire, wearing the usual blue coveralls.

“Hey, Zeke,” Austen called out in greeting, checking the garage for the shotgun, breathing a sigh of relief that the shotgun was gone.

Slowly the old man untwisted himself. His faded grey eyes were a little puffier than the last time Austen had seen him, and a lot less friendly. “Don’t need you here.”

It was nothing more than he deserved, but Austen managed a grin. “I need to buy some parts from you.” He pulled out his wallet. “I got cash.”

Zeke shifted his feet with a creak of bones and spit on the ground. “I don’t take funny money.”

Austen stopped smiling, because it was getting too hard to fake. “Gillian’s car is a wreck. She’s going to be out on the highway, tearing after some trucker who’s texting while he drives, and her engine’s going to blow, or the brakes are going to give, and then where will y’all be? All I need is a set of pads, antifreeze, an alternator belt and some oil. Charge me five times market if it makes you feel better, but don’t hurt her.”

Zeke pulled out his rag, wiped his hands and sighed. “I suppose it won’t hurt.”

“I’m sorry,” Austen told him, not that he wouldn’t do it all over again, but he’d never meant to betray the old man’s trust.

Zeke met his eyes, more forgiving than before. “I would have loaned you the money.”

“I know. I couldn’t ask.”

The man nodded once, signaling an end to the conversation. “All right. Tell me what you need.”

I
T WAS AFTER FIVE O’CLOCK
by the time Gillian dragged herself into the office, the uniform sticking in unfortunate places, and her hair sadly flat. When she walked in, Austen sat at her desk, hair still shower-damp, clothes freshly pressed, marvelously studly looking, and she wanted to cry.

Immediately he got up from the chair, and Gillian collapsed into it, frowning at the unusual lack of flexibility.

“Long day?” he asked in a concerned voice.

“It’s not over yet.”

“Tell me what to do. I can help.”

“You mean that?” she asked, spinning once, noticing the lack of squeaks. Austen watched her with nonchalant eyes.

“Don’t read anything into it. It’s better than sitting around on my ass. Besides, this way I get to leer at yours.” He wiggled his brows, and she sighed because he made it very difficult to hate him, no matter how hard she needed to.

She spun around in her chair again, waiting for the ancient noises, but there were none. Curious, she poked her head underneath, wondering if someone had slipped in a new chair while she wasn’t looking, but it looked the same. Then she looked at Austen, a question in her eyes, but he was all “not going to say a word” and even though she had her suspicions, she chose to keep them to herself. After that, she dragged him downstairs to the jail where he proved quite helpful by convincing the town librarian, Martha Connelly, to drop larceny charges against Bo Brown, who had turned in a library book seventy-two days late.

When she was on the phone explaining to Mayor Parson that yes, she had heard about the revised train route, and yes, she had a bulletproof plan to get the station back, Austen had the presence of mind not to laugh.

He helped her pack up seven chocolate cream pies for the rummage sale, and unlike Mindy, Austen expressed great admiration for the mile-high meringues.

For a man who had only last night been the very picture of poor manners, today, he had moments of heart-touching thoughtfulness, and possible chair-fixing skills.

Austen Hart was one of those long-forgotten puzzles with a few missing pieces hidden under the couch.

At the rummage sale prep, her mother smiled politely at him, and then promptly took Gillian out into the back half of the church.

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Have you heard about the new route,” Gillian replied, keeping her voice discreetly low. “The Trans-Texas route, the one that is
not
passing through Tin Cup?”

Her mother’s mouth quivered in horror, both at the awful news, and also the realization that the town grapevine was running slow. “Is he responsible?”

“How could that be? He was here, Momma,” Gillian patiently explained, even though yes, he was partially responsible. However, in the eyes of both Gillian and the law, it didn’t warrant a full indictment of guilt.

“Then why is he still in town? Is this some wild hair of yours?” her mother asked, as if Gillian had wild hairs every day of the week.

“He’s going to help us. He’s going to get the route back to the way it was.”

Her mother shook her head. “He’s going to make you cry again, that’s what he’s going to do.”

“Impossible. All I need is a couple of hours to see what’s the best plan of action, and then I send him on his way.” She smiled at her mother, an indication of confidence in both her superior problem-solving skills, and also Austen’s miracle-working capabilities, each highly overrated in Gillian’s mind, but the ability to achieve greatness usually started as a mental condition.

“You aren’t going with him to Austin, are you? What about Mindy? Did you forget about the shower? The talk with Mindy?”

Gillian shook her head. “Momma, Momma, Momma. You think I’d skip out on my best friend and my responsibilities here to go gallivanting around the state with some man in a hot car?”

“Only that man,” her mother muttered, folding her arms across her chest.

Gillian wrapped her mother in a quick hug. “Don’t worry about me. I’m too busy to be gallivanting anywhere.” Right then her cell rang and Gillian waved at her mother and left.

A
USTEN
H
ART WAS NOT
the miracle worker she believed. For two hours they argued in his room at the Spotlight Inn, and they were no closer to finding a way to switch the rail route back to its original route via Tin Cup. The man had the power of negative thinking down to a fine art.

“You don’t know politics, Gillian. Your elected officials sell their souls on a daily basis. Haywood took some of the most ornery players in the state economy—the developers, the oil industry and the East Texas legislators—and put them in bed together. Speaking from a purely analytical perspective, it’s brilliant. I’m shocked I didn’t think of it myself.”

He was sprawled in a chair, mainlining coffee, and there was a deviant gleam in his eyes.

“Those are the bad guys, Austen. We’re not supposed to admire them.”

“Occupational hazard,” he told her, looking un-abashed and unashamed. It wasn’t normal for Gillian to be this drawn to a morally flexible personality. After high school, she had stuck to the straight and narrow—mostly. So why this twitchy itch to launch herself at him? Her gaze lingered on the long, lean body, the powerful thighs, the deep dark eyes. And then there was the denim-covered screaming rocket that bulged beneath his fly.

Oh, yeah. Money wasn’t the root of all evil. It was the penis.

Specifically the penis of Austen Hart. The thick, lively, jack-hammering penis of…

Gillian grabbed the complimentary bottled water and chugged. Then she tapped her pen on the empty sheet of paper. “Can we go back to the governor?” she asked. “Obviously, he liked the original plan.”

Austen considered that. “We could try it. He’s going down in the polls, the budget is in trouble, the oil market isn’t roaring back as fast as the industry thinks it should and it’s an election year. Absolutely the perfect time to have the public think that he’ll turn on a dime.”

Gillian was not dissuaded. “What could sway him back?”

At her innocent question, he laughed. “Nothing, unless he died.”