“You wanna go find some place with coffee?”
“Can’t you just bring us a couple back with you?”
Jake shifted. Just enough, Zach realized, to block Maddie’s view of his face. “I could. But you know me. I’ll get distracted and forget to come back ‘til the coffee’s cold.” Jake’s words offered a light-hearted excuse, but his head tilted toward the door with an unmistakable insistence. “I need a nursemaid.”
Zach looked over his shoulder. “You want coffee?”
“Only if you expect me to move today,” Maddie said.
Zach dressed quickly and grabbed the truck keys. “We won’t be long,” he promised, leaning over the bed to give her a quick kiss.
“Man, you got it bad,” Jake said as they got in the pickup.
Zach shrugged. “I like her.”
He expected his brother to show no mercy about his obvious infatuation with a woman who’d already shot him once. Instead, Jake was silent until they pulled onto the highway.
“She’s gonna run.”
Zach glanced at his brother. Jake faced forward as though he hadn’t said a thing, but his face was deadly serious.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean she’s gonna rabbit on your ass. Her trunk’s packed tighter than a circus clown’s car. If she was planning to climb Everest, she wouldn’t need that much crap.”
Zach took a deep breath. They were just a few minutes from downtown Gladewater, and it took every one of those minutes for him to process what Jake had said.
“I don’t believe it,” Zach said as he parked in front of the first café he came to. Neither of them made any move to get out of the truck.
“Believe it, bro, coz that ain’t all. When we was leaving the hotel last night, something scared the bejesus out of her. I thought she was gonna faint.”
“In the hotel?”
“I think it was the guy checking in. She was sure quick enough to put me between him and her.”
“Dammit!”
“How come you’re acting all surprised? You know she ain’t who she claims to be.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s why I wanted her here this weekend. I figured getting her out of Galveston, I could lean on her, make her tell me what she’s running from.”
Jake snorted. “You were going to ‘lean on her’? Really? ‘Lean on her’?” His tone was incredulous. “What are you? A Mafia enforcer?”
“You know what I mean. So she sees this guy, and now she’s ready to run.”
“You’re not hearing what I just said. She saw this guy last night, just before we left Galveston, but the trunk was already packed. She was gonna jackrabbit ‘fore she ever saw him.”
“And we just left her there alone,” Zach threw open the door of the truck.
“Guess we better hope the coffee’s already made.”
*
On the way back to the hotel, Zach kept trying to think of ways to get Maddie to tell him the deep, dark secrets of her past. He’d been hoping she’d open up as she got to know him better, but that hadn’t happened, and now suddenly, he was out of time. He wasn’t sure she’d answer direct questions, but it was pretty much all he had left.
“You need to get her off by yourselves,” Jake said suddenly. “Take her to check out that bull Sol wants. I’ll babysit. No matter how mad she gets, she ain’t going nowhere without the kid.”
“Smacks a little of kidnapping or something else illegal.”
“She’s living under a fake identity. Ain’t no chance she’ll sic the cops on us.”
“I knew we was making a good investment, sending you off to college.”
Jake just smiled as they pulled into the slot by Maddie’s car. Then he pointed, making sure Zach saw the for sale sign in the window.
They walked in to find Maddie sleeping. She’d laid Jesse down beside her, but the boy had squirmed out from under her arm. He was halfway off the bed, wiggling backwards fast toward the edge. Jake dropped the bag of Danish on the floor to scoop up the runaway child. Maddie didn’t even twitch.
Jake turned his back to the bed. “Might work to hit her when she’s tired,” he mumbled to Zach.
“You stole the thought right out of my head.” Zach sat on the edge of the bed next to Maddie. He popped the lid off the coffee and waved it under her nose.
“Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty.”
Maddie groaned. “I don’t want to.”
“Do it anyway, or you’ll be flashing Jake when I pull the covers off.”
One eye squinted open to confirm Jake was in the room. “Go ahead.” She rolled onto her side, pulling the pillow over her head.
Jake sat down by the table near the window and grinned. “Breakfast and a show. That’s worth driving half the night for.”
Zach rewarded his brother’s enthusiasm with a scowl as he peeled back a corner of the pillow. “C’mon, Maddie. Daylight’s burning.”
“Go away,” Maddie mumbled, pulling the pillow back down. She hung on tight to the corner.
Putting the coffee on the nightstand, Zach knelt beside the bed and slid his hand under the covers.
For a minute, he wasn’t sure his strategy was going to work, she was so still. Then he noticed she was barely breathing. He couldn’t keep the grin off his face. He’d noticed before how her breathing would go shallow when she was focused on something she particularly liked. He slid his finger inside her and brushed her g-spot. Her paralysis broke as she thrust her hips forward, her mound fitting into his cupped palm like it was made just for this.
Her fingers no longer clenched the pillow. He lifted the corner and put his lips next to her ear. “If you have breakfast with us, and if you’re a really good girl, I might just let you play with the artillery.”
“Mmh.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
She rolled onto her back, her legs parted. Zach glanced at Jake, prepared to be embarrassed, but his brother was pretending to study the laminated sheet of hotel rules, Jesse in his lap, gnawing on Jake’s finger.
Zach put his lips back to Maddie’s ear. “You really want me to make you come with Jake watching?”
She went still under his hand.
Knowing he’d already won the round, Zach couldn’t help goading her just a little more. “Hey, I will if you want me to.”
Her eyes still closed, she turned her face toward his. “You don’t play fair.”
Zach smiled. “Sweet Maddie, fair was a casualty in the war between the sexes long before you and me.”
He brushed her g-spot one more time—an implied promise to be redeemed later—as he withdrew his hand. “C’mon. We got coffee and Danish.”
Jake turned his back, pulling a Danish out of the bag as Maddie shrugged into her robe. Zach brushed her loose hair back from her face. Next to the way she looked when she was aroused, this was how he liked her best, with her hair sleep tousled and her face bare of makeup. He was half tempted to shove Jake out the door, throw her back on the bed, and have his way with her. Sipping coffee from her cup, he stomped down on the thought before it could give him a full erection.
*
After a trip to the bathroom, Maddie joined them at the table for breakfast. Even here, Zach held a chair for her. Lord, she was going to miss being treated like a lady.
“I see you decided to sell the Lincoln,” Zach said, sitting down next to her.
“I can’t really afford the way it sucks down gas.”
“That’s a shame,” Jake said. “It’s cherry.”
“I’m hoping that’ll help me sell it.”
“What are you gonna ask for it?”
“I was thinking eight thousand.“
Zach pulled at his Danish. He popped a bite into his mouth, chewing it carefully. “I’ll buy it.”
“What?” Maddie hoped he couldn’t see the panic that welled up in her.
“Why not?”
“But it’s a gas hog! Why would you want it?”
“I like it. It’s a classic and it’s in great shape.”
“Can you at least wait until I find a replacement?”
Zach’s cell phone rang before he had to answer her. His mouth tightened when he heard the voice on the other end.
“Yeah, I’m here … I made my reservations late, so I had to take what I could get. Who all came to the rodeo?”
As the answer came, Zach mouthed names to Jake, who interpreted for Maddie.
“Gideon. He’s between me and Zach. He’s probably acting farrier for the rodeo. Ephram and Levi. They’re both dreaming of making it big on the rodeo circuit. And Daisy—”
“You might want to keep an eye on her,” Zach said. “She—”
Whatever was said, it cut Zach off and his lips pressed even tighter.
“There ain’t no rush. The only appointments he’s got is with the riders.”
“Must be Sol,” Jake said. “He’s after Zach to buy a bull he wants.”
“Why doesn’t he buy it himself?” Maddie asked.
“Don’t work that way. Daddy trusts Zach to build the herd, so Zach does the buying. It’s his call.”
“Well, I ain’t making no offer ‘til I see him rode,” Zach said into the phone. “Or at least attempted … I’ll go look at the rough stock this morning, but I ain’t making no promises. You’ll just have to make do with that.”
“Damn, he’s keen on this bull,” Zach complained to Jake after he hung up.
“You know Sol. When he gets a passion for something, there ain’t no turning him aside.”
“Is he married?” Maddie asked.
“I ain’t sure any woman would have him,” Zach said.
“Why don’t you take Maddie to look at the bulls?” Jake said. “I can watch Jesse for a spell.”
Zach smile wryly at his brother. “Wanna go check out the bulls, Maddie?”
“I’m sure Jake would be more interested than I would,” Maddie said. “And he’d certainly have a more worthwhile opinion than mine.”
“Without getting into the pen with him, which I ain’t about to do, all I could tell you is if the bull looks generally healthy or not, and Zach can do that himself,” Jake said. “Go ahead and go, Maddie. You’ll get to see the underbelly of the rodeo back in the holding pens.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind watching Jesse? If he starts teething again, he could get cranky fast.”
Jake looked down at Jesse. The boy in his lap was chewing on Jake’s finger like it was corn on the cob. “Anything short of him taking a piece outta me I can handle.”
Zach hustled Maddie into getting ready, even acceding to her request to take the Lincoln.
She let him drive, but as she ran a hand across the passenger side dashboard, she said, “I’m really going to miss this car.”
“Then why sell it?”
“I told you, I can’t afford the gas.”
“Well, that there’s the benefit of me buying it. Any time you wanna borrow it, you can.”
Like she was going to let that happen. If her ties to Peggy were too risky to leave the car with her, Zach was infinitely worse.
Maddie noticed several used car lots on the way. She’d been so focused on selling the car to a stranger, she hadn’t even considered a car lot. She’d have to take less and no chance she’d get cash, but that was no longer a primary concern. The most important thing was to leave a cold trail when she got rid of the Lincoln.