Blaine, Destiny - Roping in Forever [Forever 1] (Siren Publishing Allure) (2 page)

Chapter Two

After following Corbin Cansey to
San Antonio
, Bella McDermott had learned her lesson. She was finally three years past legal—twenty-one—and she went looking for Corbin to tell him the good news, hoping he’d take her virginity as a gift and see to it she became his woman.

Instead, he broke her heart, shattered her expectations, and left her yearning for something so explicit she was certain to die if she never experienced what she watched with her very eyes. She must’ve been out of her mind to think he’d waited for her. No doubt, he still considered her a child, and while she’d been looking forward to her twenty-first birthday, he’d been buying whores and renting dingy motel rooms.

She closed her eyes and saw the illustrations in living color. They rushed through her head like back-to-back clippings from an adult-rated film. Corbin had been so desperate to get laid, he’d had the girl delivered to him right there at Cattle Barn One where anybody at the rodeo could’ve seen them together.

After his last ride, he was in a big hurry to spend time with the rented gal, too. He jumped off his horse, slapped the reins in Travis’s hands, and looped his arm around the whore’s waist, looking about stupid trying to act all comfortable with someone he didn’t know.

They’d hurried off to his truck where he’d gotten the first of many blow jobs. And after they arrived at the motor lodge, Oh God, the things he did to that woman were downright sinful, which should’ve made Bella realize she did not need Corbin Cansey in her life, much less her bed.

Standing in front of the mirror, she glared at the reflection staring back at her. She pushed natural curls over her shoulders and rubbed her flushed cheeks, pinching them in the center.

“I’ve cried all I’m gonna, Corbin Cansey,” she whispered, forcing herself to walk away from the memories of Corbin towering over his whore. Those were images she’d never forget, but the ones that would haunt her forever were much more explicit. She’d watched as Corbin used handcuffs and toys on the woman he’d hired and, good Lord, how he’d teased her.

Bella shook her head. She couldn’t do this to herself anymore. “I’m done this time, Corbin.”

“Well, I sure hope so,” her mother said, taking a sip of her beer as she entered her bedroom. “You’re too good for that cowboy, Bella. You don’t need a man like Corbin. Trust me.”

“Momma, you don’t understand,” Bella said, grabbing a recently pressed apron and sliding her head through the loop at the top. “I’ve loved him since I was fourteen. He promised me—back then, he swore he’d wait for me to grow up.” She didn’t bother telling her mother that when she turned eighteen, she’d searched him out and found him, only to have him turn her away and tell her to come back when she turned twenty-one.

He’d explained how he needed a woman who could keep up with him. His girl, he’d pointed out, would be allowed in the clubs and old enough to order a drink if he decided to take her out on the town. And to think her gullible ass bought that line of bull.

Now she was twenty-one. Hell’s bells and cattle tails—she was no longer a teenager, and she still hadn’t been in Corbin’s arms for longer than a second.

Truth told, Corbin just wasn’t interested. After what she watched, Bella shouldn’t have been. There were plenty of men out there. Bella just needed to find a decent cowboy and pull him out of the barn and into a nearby haystack.

That was the trouble in these parts. Most of the men preferred chasing cows and horses to skirts. Then again, most of the fellows Bella knew assumed a woman’s dress just fell off without much persuasion.

Judy McDermott took another slurp from her bottle. “You think I don’t know something about young love?”

“
Young
love!” Bella bellowed. “Shucks, Momma! By the time Corbin gets around to kissing me, I’ll be an old maid drawing damned social security!”

“Remember who you’re talking to, little lady. I fell in love with your father around the age you first noticed that Cansey boy. It ain’t all storybook romances for women like us, honey.”

Bella grabbed her car keys and kissed her mother’s cheek. “I’ll bring you something to eat after my shift. Maybe then you can sober up and provide a shoulder to lean on instead of staggering around here mourning a man who was never good to you in the first place.”

Bella’s mom looked down at the floor. When she raised her gaze to meet Bella’s, her eyes were moist. “Oh, Momma, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

“Yes, you did, and you’re right. Your daddy never paid me
no mind
when he was livin’, and I’ve mourned him like he was the only man worth lovin’.” She cleared her throat. “You know what? A cheeseburger loaded with onions and a pickle sounds pretty good.”

Bella forced a smile. “I’ll take care of it. See you after four.”

“You pick your chin up off that floor, young lady, ya hear?”

Bella stopped midway down the hall and faced her mother. “I hear ya.”

“These cowboys, Bella, they’re only good for two things.
Lovin
’ a cowboy ain’t what it’s cracked up to be when the sun goes down and the dust he’s kicked up finally settles. When they love ya, they love ya hard, but when they leave? They slip away before you can even beg ’em to stay. Like I said, they’re good for two things—lovin’ and leavin’.”

* * * *

Those words hummed in Bella’s ears when Corbin walked in the diner later that afternoon. He looked like an open invitation to a rough and rowdy time, and Bella wished just once she’d have the opportunity to see if her momma’s words of wisdom were true of all cowboys.

Wearing
Levis
that clung to those muscular legs and showed off plenty in the front, Corbin wore a bright red button-down shirt and was topped off with a black Stetson. As always, Bella’s mouth watered the second she saw him. It was a natural instinct, kind of like her insatiable craving for chocolate.

“Take table four for me, will ya?” she asked
Nancy
, rushing through the galley kitchen. She didn’t hear the other woman’s reply but assumed if she hurried and clocked out for her lunch, she’d make a clean break.

Fiddling with her purse, she fished her keys out of the side pocket and hit the back emergency exit without a second to spare. As luck would have it, she ran smack dab into Travis, Corbin’s sidekick.

“Where are you headed in a hurry, little gal?” he asked, knocking the dust off his cowboy hat.

“Hey, Travis,” she drawled. “I’m taking my lunch. Gotta run over to the bank and cash my check.”

“Right now?”

“Yeah,” she replied, thinking no better time than the present. “I only get thirty minutes.”

“Not long enough,” he said, grinning.

“What do you mean?”

“Corbin came by to talk to you. If you’re running from him, thirty minutes ain’t gonna buy you any time worth havin’ because we ain’t on the clock today.”

“I don’t have anything to say to Corbin,” she snapped, marching toward her car.

“He knows you just had a birthday.”

She stopped as soon as she reached her ’87 Olds. Tossing her purse inside the lowered window, she wheeled around to face him. “My birthday was three months ago, and what does that have to do with anything? I’ve been over the age of eighteen for several years. Most folks considered me an adult after I graduated from high school. Corbin, however, has yet to make the first step in my direction.”

Travis grinned. “Boy says he has a lot on his mind.”

“And that matters to me, why?” Bella asked, placing her hand against the small of her back.

“Ah shit, Bella. Don’t act like that. Corbin has always had his eye on you but he’s just a man. What’d you expect him to do—wait on you to grow up?”

A maroon pickup truck pulled in the parking lot about the time Bella started to answer. There, behind the wheel, was Benson Leary, another eligible
Texas
bachelor, a guy many of the ladies in town couldn’t wait to unzip and ride.

“Hey, Bella, where you headed?” Benson called out, flashing big dimples and pearly whites.

Smiling sweetly at Travis, Bella saw her chance to even old scores. “I gotta go, Travis.” She grabbed her belongings and slammed the car door. Pursuing Benson, she yelled, “Wait up, cowboy. I need a lift to the bank.”

Travis went pale, and Benson lit up the otherwise dull afternoon when he rushed around the cab of his truck and opened the passenger door. Large, calloused hands fell to her waist, and Benson hoisted her up, making sure she was properly assisted. Providing an even better show, Benson helped her fasten the lap-style seat belt as well.

Bella rolled down her window as Travis walked toward her. By that time, Benson was behind the wheel again. “That ain’t your smartest move, girl,” Travis said, frowning.

“And buying whores and opening the motel drapes so the whole world can watch what should’ve been kept private, ain’t the best idea either. You tell Corbin I said hello, ya hear?”

Chapter Three

“She got in that truck with who?” Corbin asked, leaning over the table and glaring at Travis.

“You heard me. Benson rolled in about the time she was fixin’ to leave. Bella hopped right in there like she’d been sitting next to him a lot here lately.”

Corbin scratched his chin. “Well, ain’t she just full of surprises?”

“Yep. But I imagine she’s gonna get what she’s got comin’ to her if she’s messin’ with Benson Leary. You know what the women ’round here say about him, don’t ’cha?”

“You fellows decided on what you want for lunch?”
Nancy
asked, flipping her pen against the order pad and standing over them before Corbin had a chance to probe Travis for more information.

“We’re waiting,” Corbin told her.

Nancy
batted her eyelashes. “Got somebody else joining ya?”

“No,” Corbin snapped. “We’ll be ready by the time Bella gets back.”

“Suit yourself,”
Nancy
said, sashaying away.

Travis chomped on a piece of ice, and from the corner of his mouth, he said, “Benson looked pretty interested in Bella. And back to what I was a’sayin’ about him. If rumors are true and Bella gets in bed with him, she ain’t gonna have anything else to do with the likes of you.” Travis extended his arm and clasped his free hand around his elbow. “Women say he has a bigger one than that rocker Tommy Lee.”

“Benson ain’t got anything Bella wants. That I can promise you.”

“How in the hell would you know? You’re the one who’s been running from that girl since she first made eyes at you.”

“She was fourteen, for God’s sake.”

“Bella looked like she was eighteen back then. I still remember her in those hide tight short-shorts, riding bareback and gripping that old gelding like she was scared to death he was gonna get away from her. Dear God, she was a prize.”

“She was a child!”

“Hell, Corbin. I could look then. I was a kid, too, remember?”

Corbin snarled.

“I seem to recall asking her out for a movie and you beatin’ the
tarnation
right out of me. Taught me a lesson, that’s what ya did and look where it got me. You still ain’t asked her out, and she’s been of age for a right smart while now.”

“I’ve been gettin’ around to it,” Corbin drawled, copping a smile. “She did always look like a picture postcard riding through town on that old plug horse, didn’t she?”

“More like a centerfold.”

“She hasn’t changed much, has she?” Corbin asked, sipping from his straw.

“Maybe not yet,” Travis said, pointing toward the parking lot and acknowledging Bella’s return. “But by the time he’s finished, you can bet on one thing if nothin’ else—her innocence will be gone and that light you see shining in her eyes will be forever lost.”

* * * *

Benson went around front, and Bella entered the diner through the back.
Nancy
met her at the lockers. “Sugar, I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing with Corbin Cansey, but if cat-and-mouse is your thing, we need to have a chat.”

Stuffing her purse on a nearby shelf, Bella turned around. “What do you mean?”

“He’s refusing to let me or anyone else wait on him. He said he’d be ready to order just as soon as you got back. Now, he’s sitting there like a toad on a log telling Travis all the reasons why you couldn’t possibly have an interest in Benson Leary.”

“He is, is he?”

“Sure is. You got him tore up, darlin’, tore the hell up, I’m tellin’ ya.”

Bella felt a sudden sense of satisfaction. “Good, maybe by the time he chokes down his lunch, he’ll know what it feels like to be an outsider looking through a window with his nose mashed against the glass.”

Nancy
shrugged. “I don’t know if I’d push that cowboy’s buttons, Bella. I’ve seen a lot of possessive men in my lifetime, but that one there came here for you. Now I know you’ve had a thing for him and you were hurt when you came back from
San Antonio
, but give the guy a chance. He’s here to make amends. I’d bet all the tips I’ve made today he’s planning on asking you out. A man like Corbin Cansey could show a gal a real fine time.”