Good Time Girl (16 page)

S
HE WAS ASLEEP
when he finally judged it safe to sneak up the stairs. She lay on her side on top of the covers on the narrow bed, in her ridiculously sexy underwear, with her knees drawn up like a child and her hands tucked under her cheek. The bedside lamp cast exotic shadows over her face, giving her a look of mystery that was excitingly at odds with the prim, little-girl position of her body. The ceiling fan turned lazily overhead, causing just enough air movement to ruffle the edges of her tangled blond mop. She was adorable and sexy and inexplicably dear.

He tiptoed across the room, meaning only to turn out the light she’d left on and kiss her good-night before creeping back down the stairs to his own bed, but her eyelids fluttered open at the butterfly brush of his lips against her cheek.

“Hey, cowboy,” she whispered, and smiled at him.

“Hey, Slim” he said, and nuzzled her nose with his.

Their lips met briefly, parted, then met again and clung. Without breaking the second kiss, he stretched out beside her and took her into his arms. Their loving was sweet and slow and careful, there on the narrow bed in the tiny attic room, both of them more than a little tired and mindful of the need for discretion with a houseful of children sleeping in the rooms below them. There was no frantic writhing or muffled screams or graphic words of lustful encouragement and appreciation. Instead there were soft rustlings, and softer sighs and softly murmured words. When it was over and contentment had mellowed them both and soothed the jagged edges of the day, he turned her onto her side and spooned her from behind, cuddling her close to his heart.

“Did I remember to thank you for dinner?” he whispered into her hair.

“Yes.” She yawned. “I believe you did.”

“I was only teasing you about the chili, you know. I didn’t actually expect you to go ahead and make supper for all those kids.”

“Yes, I know,” she said, which was partially—okay, mostly—why she’d done it. To show him that anything Jo Beth could do, she could do better. Or just as well, anyway.

“Those biscuits were the best I’ve ever tasted. The boys liked them, too. Petie told the Padre he ate ten of them.”

“It weren’t nothin’,” she drawled modestly, feeling the warm glow of his praise wash over her.

She felt his chest move as he chuckled against her back. “You could have knocked me over with a feather when I walked in the kitchen and saw those two huge plates of biscuits setting on the table next to Jo Beth’s chili. I’d never have pegged you as the down-home domestic type if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

“Oh, really?” She felt the warm glow fade a little, wondering if he’d suddenly forgotten all those meals she’d cooked on the road the past couple of weeks. Didn’t that count as domestic? Or were grilled chicken and salads lower on the domesticity scale than chili and cherry pie? “What type do you have me pegged as?”

“Oh—” she felt him skim a hand through her hair, lifting it away from her head and letting it fall back “—one of those pampered trust-fund babies, I guess,” he said, basing his assessment on her effortless high-tone polish even in bright-red boots and skintight jeans, and a vaguely remembered mention of a stock portfolio and household staff. “The kind born with a silver spoon in her mouth, with servants to do the cooking and cleaning. And no need for you to do anything except collect your stock dividends and have a good time.”

The warm glow turned into a cold lump in the middle of her chest. Was that really what he thought of her? That she was some useless parasite who spent her life partying? And wasn’t that
exactly
what she’d intended him to think when she picked him up at Ed Earl’s? That she was a carefree, fast-living, good-time girl? Talk about being hoist on your own petard! She’d played the role so well, he couldn’t see through it to the real her.

“Am I close?” he probed, hoping she’d tell him he was way off base, hoping she would say that the woman who’d scolded them about their lousy eating habits, and did their laundry with hers, and read to them on the road was the real her. That the woman who’d competently and cheerfully made dinner for a dozen hungry boys was who she really was under the high-tone polish and sexy exterior.

That
woman might actually want to stay and make a life with him on the Second Chance; the trust-fund baby would be gone in six weeks, eager to get back to her life of ease and privilege.

Roxanne knew she could tell him he was wrong, of course. Except that he wasn’t, completely. The picture he painted was just true enough—except for the partying part—that she wasn’t able to deny it. “Close enough,” she said, and managed an insouciant little laugh to cover her dismay.

She felt him sigh against her neck, and then, a moment later, he raised himself up on an elbow and leaned over her shoulder. “I’d better get out of here before I fall asleep and blow our cover.” He kissed her cheek and slipped out of bed, heading down the stairs to greet the dawn in his own room.

Roxanne lay there after he had gone, staring at the moonlight shining in through the dormer window, and wondered why her heart felt as if it had already started to crack.

“D
O WE HAVE TO
do this
now?
” Roxanne asked, sounding, even to her own ears, like a whiny little kid. She tried to inject a little adult rationality into her voice. “I mean, really, wouldn’t it be better to wait until he’s out of the hospital?”

She’d already decided—
almost
—that she’d be gone by then. It would be much better to leave now, before the summer was over, rather than drag it out for the remaining few weeks. They could end it on a high note, leaving each other with happy memories of hot sex, good times, and lots of laughter. If she stayed much longer, she had a sneaking suspicion it would end in tears. On her part, anyway. And that would be a damned undignified end to her Wild West adventure.

“A string of visitors all day long can’t be good for a man who’s just had a triple by-pass,” she said. “And I’m sure he’d rather see one of the boys instead of me, anyway.”

“He asked me specifically to bring you in for a visit.”

“He
asked
to see me?”

“Actually, it was more of an order.” Tom slanted a quick glance at her as he maneuvered the pickup into an empty spot in the parking lot. “He said he wants to get a look at you.”

“Get a look at me?” She got a hunted look in her eyes. “Why?”

He grinned evilly, but she was too agitated to notice. “Said he wanted to make sure I hadn’t introduced his boys to some loose woman who’d exert a corrupting influence on their developing psyches.”

“I’d say it’s probably too late to be worried about that, since we’ve already been introduced,” Roxanne said. The words were nonchalant, but her palms were sweating.

She had a pretty good idea of what the Padre would see when he looked at her. Tight jeans, red boots, a snug little eyelet camisole top with too much cleavage showing for the middle of the day, topped by a deliberately tangled mop of flyaway blond hair. And the nails, she thought, catching sight of them as she rubbed her damp palms up and down her jeans-covered thighs. Let’s not forget the man-killer nails. He was going to think she was some kind of Jezebel, for sure.

“You scared?” Tom said.

“Scared? Me?” She lifted her chin. “Of course not.”

But she was. Scared to death. She’d built up an image of him in her mind. This saintly man they all called the Padre. This selfless paragon of virtue who had studied for the priesthood, then gave it up to minister to lost boys instead. She kept picturing someone like the late Spencer Tracy in his priestly garb in the movie
Boys Town
or, even scarier, Charlton Heston in any one of his biblical epics, stern and condemning and regal.

Instead, she found a grizzled old lion of a man in a faded green hospital gown, a little plastic bracelet around his left wrist. His hair was thick and dark, heavily sprinkled with gray. His face was brown and leathered with age, sagging a bit at the jowls, but still strong and craggily handsome in a patriarchal kind of way. He looked a little tired, a little frail, even to someone like Roxanne, who was unfamiliar with his normal appearance. He was leaning back against the sharply elevated head of the hospital bed, drinking a Dr Pepper through a straw, and carrying on a quiet conversation with a very attractive woman sitting in the visitor’s chair in front of the window.

Tom checked in the doorway, as if in surprise, then dropped Roxanne’s hand and hurried forward. “Hello, Mom,” he said, bending down to kiss the woman’s smooth cheek. “I didn’t realize you were in town. How are you?”

Mom? This lovely, soft-eyed woman, who didn’t look more than forty years old, was Tom’s mother? What kind of setup was this? Not only was she going to meet the man who was, to all intents and purposes, her lover’s father, but now she had to face his mother, too? Was she being checked out? Roxanne wondered, resisting the urge to tug the front of her camisole a little higher on her chest. Were they going to gang up and warn her away before she could corrupt their darling boy? She lifted her chin, determined to brazen it out.

And rather enjoying the prospect, too, she realized. She’d never been warned away before. It made her feel like a dangerous woman. She’d never felt like a dangerous woman before. It was kind of exhilarating.

“I had no idea what had happened until Hector called me himself last night,” Tom’s mother was saying plaintively. “I wish someone had thought to let me know sooner.” She looked up at Tom, her expression gently reproachful. “I would have gotten one of other nurses to take my shift at the hospital and come immediately.”

“Now, now, Molly, don’t fret,” soothed the Padre. “There was no need for you to be here any sooner. There was nothing you could have done, except sit around and wait like everyone else. It’s much better that you’re here now, so we can visit. And isn’t it nice that Tom’s brought his new friend so you get a chance to meet her, too?”

He turned suddenly, his gaze pinning Roxanne where she stood, still hovering in the doorway. His eyes were brown and alive and knowing. His teeth, when he smiled at her, were strong and white, more than capable of taking a bite out of anything that got in his way.

“Come on over here, girl,” he said, and held out his hand, motioning her forward with an imperious flick of his fingers, reminding her, suddenly, of Charlton Heston at his most imposing biblical best. This man, too, could have parted the Red Sea with a flick of his hand, even lying on his back in a hospital bed. “Let’s have a look at you.”

Roxanne crossed the room and put her hand in his. His grip was warm and firm. “Well, introduce us,” he said to Tom, without taking his eyes off Roxanne.

She held his gaze steadily, without flinching, the same way she’d held Tom’s at Ed Earl’s in Lubbock. Her chin was elevated, her eyes full of silent challenge and bravado. No way were they going to see her sweat.

The Padre chuckled approvingly.

Tom couldn’t hide the surge of pride he felt. “Mom. Padre. I’d like you both to meet Roxy Archer. Roxy, this is my mother, Molly Steele. And this—” the pride showed through, here, too “—is Hector Menendez. Better known as the Padre.”

“Ms. Steele,” Roxanne said crisply, dipping her head in her best finishing school fashion, as if she were standing there clad in a demure linen shift and graduated pearls instead of blue jeans and dusty red boots. “Mr. Menendez. A pleasure to meet you both.”

“No need to stand on ceremony with me, girl. You can call me Padre like everybody else does around here. Sit yourself down—” he tugged on her hand “—right there on the edge of the bed is fine. You won’t hurt me—and tell us about yourself. Tom, here, has been pretty scant on the details. How’d you two meet?”

Roxanne flicked a glance at Tom, silently asking for directions.

He smiled back blandly, leaving it up to her.

“I picked him up in Ed Earl’s Polynesian Dance Palace in Lubbock after the rodeo,” she said, letting them make of it what they would.

Molly Steele pursed her lips disapprovingly.

The Padre looked as if he were turning over her answer in his mind, reserving judgment until he knew more.

“Anything else you’d like to know?” she said to him, with the air of a smart-ass child pretending to be helpful.

“Well—” his dark eyes twinkled “—what do you do with yourself when you’re not chasing cowboys?”

Tom smothered a laugh.

“Hector, really! What kind of a question is that?” chided Tom’s mother.

“It’s a perfectly legitimate question. I want to know what she does. Girl’s a grown woman. She must have something that keeps her busy. She can’t chase cowboys all day, can she?”

“I’m a teacher,” Roxanne said.

“A
teacher!
” That was Tom, expressing his surprise.

“And for the record,” she said, ignoring him in favor of addressing her remarks to the man in the hospital bed. “I’ve only chased one cowboy.” She paused for effect. “So far,” she said, and batted her lashes flirtatiously, blatantly intimating that she might be persuaded to broaden her horizons for him.

The Padre wheezed out what lately passed for his version of a laugh. “Girl’s a real firecracker,” he said, slapping his knee through the bedclothes. “Just like Rooster said.”

“Where do you teach?” Tom said quietly, drawing her attention back to him.

“St. Catherine’s Academy in Stamford, Connecticut. It’s a fully accredited private school,” she said, in case he doubted it. “Kindergarten through twelfth, both boarders and day students. I teach fifth grade English Lit and Latin.”

“That where you’re from?” the Padre asked. “Connecticut?”

“Born and raised.”

“Got family there?”

“My parents and three brothers. One older and two younger,” she said before he could ask. “A sister-in-law and two nieces, with another on the way.”

“Any beaus?”

“Dozens,” she lied.

“Then what in blazes are you doing down here in Texas?”

“Why, I thought you knew—” she slipped into her cornpone-and-molasses accent “—I’m down here chasin’ cowboys on my summer vacation.” She batted her eyelashes again, tilting her chin down so she could look up at him through her lashes. “You interested, sugar?”