Lone Star Nights (15 page)

“You gonna ride this bull?” Mia asked Lucky.

“Why don't you ride it?” Brody suggested to Mia before Lucky could answer.

Mia's eyes lit right up at the possibility, but then she looked at Big Sis, Cassie and Lucky to see if it was all right. Cassie turned to him, probably because she didn't have a clue if it was safe or not. It was, for the most part, but Lucky intended to add his own safety precautions.

“Put it on the greenhorn setting,” he instructed Brody, and he helped Mia onto the bull. “To win, you need to stay on it for eight seconds.” Lucky looked at Brody again, a silent warning that she would stay on that long or longer, and he wouldn't do any speeding up or joggling that would make her fall.

“Hold on to the rope,” Lucky instructed, and since this wasn't a competition, he added, “with both hands.”

Lucky stepped back only when he was sure Mia had a good grip, and he stayed close enough to catch her. Brody waited until Lucky gave him a signal before he hit the greenhorn setting. Mia probably would have gotten more movement from a wave in a kiddie swimming pool, but she laughed with each gentle rocking motion.

“One,” Brody counted. And he just kept counting while Mia laughed.

Lucky couldn't help it—he laughed, too. So did Cassie, and she moved beside him, maybe to help in case of a fall, or perhaps just to get closer to that very happy kid. After all the crap they'd been through in the past couple of days, it wouldn't have mattered if Mia had lasted eight seconds or not. It felt as if they'd won. But she did last eight seconds, and at the end of it, she slid off as if she'd been born to do this.

She hadn't been, of course.

No way would Lucky ever let her get on the back of a real bull.

“Now it's your turn,” Brody said, looking at Mackenzie.

It was hard to tell with the makeup, but Lucky thought she might have blushed. “Not me. Cassie.”

Cassie didn't blush, but she looked intimidated. Then she looked down at her skirt. So maybe not intimidation after all, but concern that she was going to pull an “I see London, I see France.”

“Here, use my hat,” Brody said, tugging his off. “Hold it on your lap.”

Lucky didn't know whether to thank the boy or slug him for even thinking about Cassie's underpants.

Hell.

He really did need to rein in some of this jealousy and fatherly twinges. Cassie wasn't his, and he had no right to be jealous. No right to feel fatherly about Mackenzie and Mia.

Cassie got on the bull, placing the hat strategically in front of her pantie region. It was somewhat of a balancing act, but she managed to hold on with both hands while still pinching the hat between her legs.

That lasted about a second.

The moment Brody turned on the bull, he realized his mistake. This wasn't the greenhorn setting. This was more the expert-on-steroids notch, and Cassie let out a shriek as she went flying. Thankfully, she landed on Lucky. Not in his arms, though.

On. Him.

They fell onto the padded mat in the exact position a couple might need to be in to have accidental sex. With the hat no longer in front of her pantie region, that particular part of her landed right against his dick. All in all, it was bittersweet. Bitter because it hurt like hell. Sweet because his dick thought it was about to get some action.

Cassie scrambled to get off him. Lucky scrambled to get his hands on Brody's soon-to-be-broken neck.

“Gosh, I'm real sorry, Mr. Lucky and Miss Cassie. The switch must be messed up or something.”

Lucky stood, met him eye to eye and looked for any sign whatsoever that the faulty switch thing was bullshit. But Brody seemed genuinely shocked and sorry. Especially sorry. Now Brody was blushing. Mackenzie was still blushing, as well. Cassie was flushed, however, and the flush went up a notch when her gaze drifted to his zipper.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Other than perhaps losing any possibility of ever fathering children, I'm fine.”

Brody laughed. Not a good idea. But he must have realized that because he shut up and backed away several inches. Then a few more.

“Why can't you father children?” Mia asked.

That caused some more snickering, and Lucky was on the verge of fighting his own snickers when Mia added some words that nearly stopped his heart.

“You could father us,” Mia said. “And Miss Cassie could mother us. Y'all could do it together.”

It suddenly got quiet. Too quiet. Lucky couldn't be sure, but he thought maybe even the summer breeze had stopped dead in its tracks. Cassie joined in on that quietness, though her mouth was slightly open, as if she were trying to come up with an answer.

“Bull riders like Lucky can't be daddies,” Mackenzie finally told her sister. It was either the wisest assessment on earth or the biggest insult. Lucky wasn't sure which.

Thankfully, he didn't have to decide. Or try to add more to Mackenzie's explanation. That was because he saw Riley and Claire approaching them. Lucky was so glad for the interruption that he had to stop himself from hugging them.

“Bull-riding lessons?” Riley asked, but then his attention dropped to Cassie's pantie zone and Lucky's zipper.

Until then, Lucky hadn't realized he still had his hand on Cassie's hip, and Cassie probably hadn't realized that the side of her skirt was hiked up to her pantie leg. If the kids hadn't been around, it would have looked as if Cassie and he had just had a getting-dirty session.

“Lesson's over,” Lucky explained, and he made the mistake of helping Cassie with her skirt. He just ended up groping her, and by the time she finally had it straight, he was aroused despite his “injury” on the bull mat.

“Ethan!” Mia squealed when she spotted the boy, and they took off chasing each other in circles.

Mackenzie and Brody seized the moment to step away from the adults, but Lucky gave them the eyes-on-you gesture.

“What brings you out here?” Riley asked.

Lucky had no trouble hearing the concern in his brother's voice. Or seeing the concern in Claire's eyes. Damn. Had everyone in his extended gene pool remembered that coming here would be tough for him? Even the bull looked as if it were in on this shit-filled old baggage.

“Doing a favor for Logan and having a picnic,” Lucky answered. “What about you? Why are you out here?”

“Doing a favor for Logan.”

At first Lucky thought that was code for checking on him, but then Riley handed him a piece of paper that he'd taken from his pocket. “Logan thought it best if I delivered the news in person.”

What now? Because if it was good news, a phone call would have worked. Lucky hoped Cassie and he weren't about to be carted off to jail for those cats.

But it wasn't about the cats. Or jail.

“The PI located the girls' aunt,” Logan had written. “Her name is Alice Murdock. She's out of the country on business but will come to Spring Hill next week. She said for us to have the girls' things ready to go, that they'll be leaving with her as soon as she gets here.”

* * *

M
ACKENZIE
STARED
AT
Brody from the back car window as Lucky drove away from the park. Brody waved, gave her the call-me sign, and she smiled.

She made sure no one saw it, though.

She'd also made sure no one saw when Brody had written his number on her right hand. He'd done that when Lucky had been talking to Riley and Claire. At the time Mackenzie had thought it was a lucky break that they hadn't had their nosy eyeballs pinned to her. But Mackenzie should have known her luck sucked and that the only breaks she'd be getting were the ones she'd always had.

Bad ones.

Mackenzie looked at her hand again. At Brody's number. He'd drawn a heart around it. Her first heart. Her first boy's number. And no boy had ever given her the call-me sign. No one, boy or girl, had ever looked at her the way he had. Of course this would happen now, just when she wasn't going to have time to do anything about it.

“Will Aunt Alice be nice?” Mia asked.

Even though Mia used her mousy-whisper voice, Lucky and Cassie must have heard it because Cassie glanced back at them. Lucky glanced in the rearview mirror, his eyes meeting Mackenzie's.

Considering Cassie and he had just gotten the best news of their lives—no sucky luck for them—they weren't acting all happy and everything. Probably because they were still mad about the bull throwing Cassie and her landing real hard on Lucky's privates.

But that hadn't been Brody's fault.

At least Mackenzie didn't think so, but even if it had been, Lucky and Cassie didn't have a right to be mad. They just didn't want her to be happy, that's all. Nobody did.

Of course, maybe they were all mopey because they were going to have to keep playing mommy and daddy for another whole week. They'd made it clear right from the start that they'd wanted to ditch this job, and now they couldn't. Yeah, that had to be it. They weren't happy because they were stuck with Mia and her—her more than Mia—until their aunt showed up.

“Well?” Mia pressed, tugging on Mackenzie's arm. “Will Aunt Alice be nice?”

“How the heck should I know? Neither one of us has met her, have we?”

“No. But you think she'll be nice?”

“Sure.”

Mackenzie didn't think that at all. If the woman was anything like their mom, then she might use stuff, get drunk and sleep around with men. Mia was too little to remember a lot of that, but Mackenzie had no trouble remembering. And her kid sister wasn't going through something like that again. Heck,
she
wasn't going through that again.

Brody was fifteen, two years older than she was, and he had a job. A summer one anyway. Maybe he could lend her some money so she could get Mia out of there. Of course, getting out of there would mean never seeing Brody again. Unless...

Maybe she could talk him into taking Mia and her somewhere?

After all, Brody said he had his learner's permit, so that meant he could probably drive. And he had given her his number. Had smiled at her and talked to her as if she was, well, special. Yeah, that was it.

Brody made her feel special.

So maybe he could keep on making her feel that way by helping her. And soon. Because Mackenzie had to make sure she had Mia far away from Spring Hill before “Aunt Alice” showed up.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I
T
WAS
WRONG
on so many levels to stare at Lucky's crotch, but that's what Cassie found herself doing. Why, she didn't know.

Yes, she did.

It was because of those leather chaps he was wearing. They just sort of framed his crotch and acted like a neon sign that said,
Look here, look here!

So Cassie looked.

At least now her tongue was no longer on the ground, though that's where it'd landed when Lucky had first called out for her to come watch him ride. She had stepped out of the house, expecting to see him in his usual jeans, boots and shirt. But instead, she'd gotten this.

The chaps, leather vest, denim shirt, spurs, gloves and the bull rope he had looped over his shoulder.

Her eyes had instantly gone to his crotch, but her mind had taken an even dirtier side trip. He looked just as ready for some BDSM as he did a bull ride. Not that she was into BDSM, or bull rides, either, for that matter, but it was an interesting image to add to her fantasies.

She only got to enjoy the fantasy a whole couple of seconds, though, before her phone buzzed and Cassie saw Andrew's name on the screen. He'd no doubt finally listened to the voice mail she'd left him.

“Another week?” Andrew snapped, his disapproval coming through loud and clear from the other end of the line.

Even though Cassie couldn't see his face, she figured the disapproval was in his expression, too, and that was why she wouldn't mention that she'd put off telling him for two days that that was how long it would be before the custody issue was resolved. Thankfully, Andrew had been so busy with his therapy sessions that he was conducting online from the Bluebonnet Inn that he hadn't pressed Cassie on nailing down a specific time for them to leave.

Well, they had a specific time now.

A week, or rather only five more days, until Aunt Alice arrived. It was exactly what Lucky and she had been waiting for ever since they'd gotten the girls, but it somehow felt like a hollow victory. Mackenzie was still sullen. Still hurting. Still needed help that she might not get with her aunt. At least Mackenzie was talking to Brody, a lot, and that was better than her moping around the house and labeling everything and everyone as sucky and stupid.

“The aunt might get here sooner,” Cassie continued. “The week was just a general estimate. She was out of the country on business, but when she gets back home, she'll be coming from Phoenix.”

“Well, she must be infirmed or hobbling because it doesn't take that long to get from there to here.”

“No, but I suspect she had some things to take care of first. Like maybe getting the girls' rooms ready and such.”

At least Cassie hoped the woman was making those kinds of plans, and making them in blissful anticipation of getting Mia and Mackenzie.

Because the girls deserved that.

“Certainly
Lucky
can handle those
children
until the aunt arrives,” Andrew insisted. He'd said
children
and Lucky's name as if they'd caused a rash on his tongue.

“Lucky's very busy. He's co-owner of a rodeo promotion business, remember? In fact, he's testing out a new pair of bulls that were delivered to the ranch earlier.”

Something Cassie fully intended to watch.

Lucky probably didn't know that she had seen him ride once before when she'd been visiting her grandmother. He hadn't worn chaps and the vest that day, though. No bull rope, either. Cassie had watched him climb onto that bull and then had held her breath when it'd bucked.

That day, Lucky had won, not the bull.

And Cassie had been forced to admit that she saw in him what other women saw. A great butt. Great face, too. Now here she was watching him again from the barn as he was preparing to ride.

The ranch didn't have an actual setup for bull riding, but several of the hands had helped build a makeshift shoot and gate where the bull was being held back. Cassie didn't have a good view of the bull from where she was standing, but she could see Lucky straddle the top of the fence, looking down at the animal. He was talking to the bull as if getting acquainted with it. Strange, it was like chatting up someone who wanted to sling your internal organs out of your body.

“Are you listening?” Andrew said, snapping her back to reality.

She hadn't heard a word in the past fifteen seconds or so, but Cassie didn't let him know that. “I'm just a little distracted, that's all. I've got a lot on my mind.” And on her eyes. She could feel the adrenaline start to pump through her and figured it was a drop in the bucket compared to what Lucky had to be feeling.

“I know,” Andrew agreed. “It's those
kids
.” That tongue rash sounded as if it had gotten worse. “They're too much for you to handle.”

No, he didn't know. At the moment, it certainly wasn't the kids distracting her. Lucky looked back at her, snaring her gaze, and gave her a smile that could have melted chrome.

This was so stupid. She shouldn't be getting warm in all the wrong places. She was watching him prepare to ride a bull. He wasn't stark naked and—

“I'm canceling my afternoon appointments and coming over there right now,” Andrew insisted.

“No.” Cassie couldn't say that fast enough. It always turned ugly whenever Andrew was around Lucky, and she didn't want to deal with ugly today. “I'm really busy. I wouldn't be able to spend any time with you, and besides, you can't let your clients down like that.”

“Busy with the girls?” he asked, suspicion in his voice.

“Of course. What else?”

It was a lie. Mia was at Claire's having a playdate with Ethan, and Livvy had taken Mackenzie on a shopping trip into San Antonio. For the first time in days Cassie actually had a free afternoon, and here she wanted to spend part of it watching Lucky climb onto the back of an ornery two-thousand-pound Angus bull.

“You sound funny,” Andrew added.

“Do I?” She quickly tried to sound unfunny. “Must be because I'm still distracted. I should go now, but I'll call you later.”

She hung up before he could protest or make any more obvious observations about her sounding funny. Of course she sounded funny. She was lying and breathing hard. Watching Lucky get ready for the ride was better than foreplay.

Cassie groaned.

She'd let that “foreplay” distract her. Instead of agreeing to call Andrew, she should have insisted he leave town. Of course, Cassie had been doing that for two days with no results. Andrew would leave Spring Hill when he got good and ready, and arguing with him about that would only make him dig in his heels more. She owed him, she really did, but Cassie was too drained to deal with Andrew right now.

Not too drained to watch Lucky, though.

He slipped down off the railing, easing onto the bull. Even from where she was standing, she could see the muscles ripple beneath Lucky's shirtsleeve. Normally, Cassie wasn't into muscle rippling, but she apparently was now.

The ranch hand opened the gate, and the bull charged out. Snorting and bucking. Its massive head was down while the animal spun around, trying to hurl off the rider. But Lucky held on. He squeezed his legs around the bull's sides, the chaps reacting to that pressure.

Cassie reacted, too.

And she thought about how it would feel to be that bull right now. Oh, yes, she was worked up all right.

The bull bucked even harder, slinging Lucky around, but Lucky just adjusted, his long, lean body sliding into the bucking moves. His left arm stayed high, dipping and lifting only when his body did. It was like watching some kind of dance. With a guy wearing chaps and spurs.

Cassie completely lost track of time. Eight seconds or an hour could have passed for all she knew, but then Lucky threw his left leg over the bull's head, and he jumped off. Lucky landed on his feet and hurried to get out of the corral before the bull came back at him.

He laughed.

And that's when Cassie realized she was holding her breath. Possibly drooling, as well.

Lucky looked at her again, their gazes connecting and holding for a couple of seconds. Cassie didn't believe in ESP, but something passed between them. He said something to the hands who were still watching the bull, maneuvered off the railing and came toward her. She had another chance to assess that ESP thing, but this time she knew what it was.

A really hot look.

Lucky walked toward her, the spurs jangling and the chaps swaying to give her another
Look here! Look here!
moment. Cassie tried to look unaffected by all of this and failed so badly that she just gave up.

“Yeah,” Lucky said, his voice doused with testosterone. He bit down on the fingertip of his right glove to remove it. Then did the same to the second one. “It has the same effect on me.”

This probably would have been a good time for her to play innocent and say
oh?
or maybe a
huh?
But after watching what he'd done to those gloves, her innocence was shot to Hades.

Lucky kept coming closer, and the moment he reached her, he slid his hand around the back of her neck, hauled her to him and kissed her.

Cassie said
huh
all right, but for a different reason. Because she hadn't been expecting to feel the slam of heat. It was as if that bull had just rammed into her.

Lucky didn't stop with just one bull-walloping kiss, though. He deepened it, pulling her closer and closer until she was plastered right against all that warm leather.

And his erection.

The chaps made it easier to feel that, too.

“Are you always like this after a ride?” she asked.

“Only when I see you afterward,” he answered.

Mercy, that was probably a line he used all the time, but the problem was—it worked. All of it worked, and that's why Cassie melted right into the kiss.

Lucky didn't break the kiss when he pulled her to the side, maybe to get them out of the line of sight of the ranch hands, but it also landed them against the barn wall. She'd never considered barn walls before, but the hard wood had a wonderful effect when Lucky pressed her back against it. All that hardness at her front and back was creating some amazing pressure. Friction, too, when Lucky's body moved against hers.

“What about the ranch hands?' she asked.

“I told them I had to talk to you about the girls. They're so interested in the bulls they won't come in here.”

Cassie tried to make herself remember that Lucky had done this too many times with too many women. That should have put her off, but she was so hot now that she reasoned that all his experience would just make this better.

And worse, of course.

Because they shouldn't be doing this.

She was leaving town soon, and she didn't need to pack a broken heart to take back with her to LA. So the rationalization started. This was just a kissing session. A very good one. But it wouldn't lead to anything more.

That's when she realized she was moving.

Or rather Lucky was moving her. He dropped some kisses on her neck, at the base of her earlobe. Then her ear.

Good grief.

How had she not known before now how sensitive of a spot that was for her? And how had Lucky known that it was?

Soon, those questions and all logical thoughts flew right out of her head.

Lucky led her to a ladder, and Cassie wasn't sure how he managed it, but he continued to kiss her as they made their way up the steps. One rung at a time. With more of those body-melting ear kisses. By the time they reached the top, Cassie was so worked up that she didn't even notice where they were at first.

A hayloft.

That gave her just a moment of hesitation. It was one thing to kiss in the barn. No threat there of having full-blown dirty sex—because in her mind, it would be dirty with Lucky—but here they had privacy. And with privacy came the threat of sex, that broken heart and some serious complications added to her already complicated life.

“Do you take a lot of women up here?” she asked.

He was breathing through his mouth when he eased back and looked her straight in the eyes. “You're the first.”

That was probably more bullshit than was in the bull pen.

Still, Cassie wanted to believe him even if she knew she shouldn't.

“Let's take it one step at a time,” he said. Was his voice always like this? All low and husky. If so, she was surprised he hadn't seduced her whenever he'd said hello. “Just say yes or no. I'll stop at the first no.”

The rules were easy enough. Cassie thought she could manage the breath to give a one-syllable answer. Of course, the rules were tested with Lucky's first move when he gave her another of those ear kisses.

“Yes,” she eked out.

The next kiss landed on her throat. Or at least that's where it started. But with the dexterity of a magician, he opened the buttons on her shirt, and without breaking the next kiss, his mouth went lower, lower.

Until he had her right nipple in his mouth.

“Yes!” she said a little louder and more enthusiastically than she'd intended.

Lucky lingered there a moment, all the while easing her lower until they landed on some hay on the floor.

Heck, she said yes to that, too.

And Cassie kept saying yes when Lucky undid the rest of her buttons, pulled down her bra and kissed the living daylights out of her.

“If you want me to stop,” he reminded her, “just say no.”

No was the last thing she wanted to say, but Cassie had to hang on to what little sense she had left.

“You know we shouldn't have sex,” she said.

He didn't even pause. Lucky just kept trailing kisses lower and lower until he circled her navel with his tongue. “What's your definition of sex?” he asked.

The question seemed like something that would require a lot more functioning brain cells than she had at the moment, but Cassie gave it a try. “The F-word.”