Reckless in Texas (18 page)

Joe trailed his fingers down her bare arm and wrapped them around her wrist as the band blasted out the opening of the next song. “Time for round two.”

He yanked her off the stool and onto the dance floor and kept her there for every single song. Two-step, swing, the Cotton-Eyed Joe—they did it all. Her feet were screaming for mercy by the time the band polished off a foot-stompin' extended version of a Turnpike Troubadours song.

The lead singer mopped his face with a towel, then said, “Hate to tell ya', folks, but it's time to say good night. Grab your Mr. Right—or Mr. Right Now—and let's slow it on down for the last song.”

Not just any song. The most disgustingly romantic love song Kenny Chesney had ever recorded, and that was saying something. Violet didn't resist as Joe molded her against him, hands on her hips, just enough taller that she could rest her cheek on his shoulder. Finally, he slowed down.
Way
down, the shift and sway of their bodies producing a nearly unbearable friction where they rubbed up against each other. He started to hum along, then sing, his voice low and amazingly good, vibrating against her cheek. She tilted her head back in surprise.

“What?” he asked.

Violet stared at him a beat, then said, “Nothing.”

He reached up to push a strand of damp hair off her forehead. The scratch on his wrist looked sore, puckered, and red. Without thinking, she brushed her lips across it. Joe stumbled slightly, eyes going dark.

“I was just kissing it better,” she said, embarrassed.

His smile came slow, so sweet it made her ache. “Then I expect it'll be healed by morning.”

He slid a hand up to the nape of her neck, tilting her cheek back onto his shoulder. She closed her eyes and let herself be swallowed up by the moment—the two of them alone on the crowded floor with Joe's arms strong around her, the lean grace of his body hard against hers, his fingers stroking circles low on her back and his voice singing softly in her ear, a song about how he could never let her go. The hunger hit her low and hard, an ache so powerful her hands clenched in his shirt.
Her
shirt. His arms tightened in response, and he brushed a kiss across her eyebrow, nearly taking out her knees.

Dear sweet Lord, she wanted him, with an intensity unlike anything she'd ever experienced. And with Beni safely stowed in her mother's camper for the night, there was no reason she couldn't have him.

Joe nosed the pickup into the gap between Violet's trailer and the semi he was calling home and turned off the engine. Violet hopped out of the pickup and met him at the front, letting him catch her wrist and slide his hand down to lace his fingers through hers. He walked her to her door, then leaned against the side of the camper, pulling her into the circle of his arms. The drive home had left him wishing for the old bench-style pickup seats where there was no console to keep her from snuggling. She nestled her face into the crook of his neck.

“Tired?” he asked.

“Mmm. Been a while since I danced holes in my shoes.”

I could rub your feet for you.
And work his way up from there. She shifted, her mouth brushing his skin, and the jolt of lust wiped his mind clean. Sweet Jesus. He had to get her naked. But first, he had to get her inside. She nibbled along his jaw and he nearly groaned out loud. Just one kiss…but her mouth was so soft, so willing, he had to go back for more. His palms flattened, molding her against him so he could feel every inch of her warm flesh through his thin shirt.

He wanted to memorize her taste, the shape of her body, that little catch in her breath when he touched her just right. Something pulled deep inside him—a hard, tight ache that was more than physical: a craving to be a part of all that was Violet. Solid, strong, sure of her place in the world. Working beside her, laughing with her, sliding into her bed and all that heat at the end of the day—a man could get used to that life.

The thought had barely formed when something entirely different flared in his gut. A sharp sizzle, like an emergency flare, warning him of danger ahead. Suddenly, he couldn't breathe, as if his heart had jumped up and crammed itself into the space behind his Adam's apple.

Violet eased out of the kiss, glancing over her shoulder. “What's wrong?”

Joe's gaze fell upon her parents' trailer. Was Iris sitting up, waiting to be sure Violet got home safely? Her dad peering out from one of those darkened windows, watching to see if Joe went inside with Violet? Or, God help him, Beni.
How come you were kissing my Mommy? Did you tuck her in?
Joe's stomach twisted up and wrung itself out like a sponge at the thought of
that
conversation. Dammit to hell. He couldn't do it. He could not drag Violet up those steps if there was the slightest chance any of her family would see and think less of him—or worse, of her. He had an amazing woman in his arms, hot and willing and ten steps from a bed, and he could…not…do it. A howl of frustration welled up, scorching his lungs when he refused to let it loose. He'd survived for thirty years without giving a damn what anyone thought. Why now, for Christ's sake? Why these very temporary people? It made absolutely zero sense.

And none of that mattered, because this inconvenient conscience or sense of propriety or whatever he'd suddenly developed wasn't listening. “Joe?”

He leaned in, groaning as he rested his forehead against hers. “I can't.”

“Can't what?”

“This.” He ran his hands up and down her back, torturing himself with the possibilities. “Your family would know. And everybody else.”

Irritation crackled through the heat in her eyes, like lightning in storm clouds. “If it doesn't bother me, what do you care?”

Hell if he knew, but being able to look Steve and Iris square in the eye in the morning mattered a whole lot, and there wasn't a damn thing he could about it. “I'm sorry. I just…there's something about your parents. Knowing they're right over there, maybe even watching us right now? I'm sorry, but I can't come in.”

She pulled her head back and stared at him with patent disbelief. “You have
got
to be kidding me.”

“I wish I was.” He blew out a long, defeated breath. “I'm sorry. This is not like me.”

She continued to stare at him for what felt like eternity. Then she closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and shook her head. “I do
not
believe this. I finally decide to do whatever the hell I want, and what I want won't let me do him. Honest to God. It's like I'm cursed.”

“It's not you, Violet, it's—”

“You?” She lifted a hand and curled her fingers into a fist and for a second Joe thought she might clock him. “Believe me, I know.”

“I'd better go.” Before he ended up with a black eye. Or worse. He gave her a swift kiss, then pushed her to arms' length, even though the separation was like peeling off a layer of his own skin. “I'll see you bright and early, for the timed-event slack. Sleep tight.”

“Sure. Great.
Whatever.
” She shook off his hands and yanked her door open. The trailer rocked as she stomped up the steps and slammed the door behind her. Joe plastered both hands over his face and rubbed hard. Geezus. What was
wrong
with him?

He jammed his hands in his pockets and strode around the stock pens, into the space behind the bucking chutes. Horses stirred, the orange security lights gleaming like reflected fire in their eyes. He hoisted himself onto the platform on the back of the chutes and let his legs dangle. Untethered. Like he felt. He dug his thumb and forefinger into his temples, which throbbed in time with the rest of his seriously annoyed body. A tiny square of light blinked on in Violet's trailer. The water pump kicked on, a low, gravelly hum. She would be washing her face, brushing her teeth, peeling off her shirt and jeans and pulling on…what?

He touched a finger to the scratch on his wrist.
Kiss it bette
r
.
His own crude joke turned on its head. He felt the brush of her lips and his heart did that thing again, like out on the dance floor, as if it were gasping for air. Or blood. Joe swore. Dirt Eater turned his head and blinked, annoyed at the disturbance.

“Sorry,” Joe muttered.

The bull shook his head, long ears flapping, and slurped his tongue into one nostril, as if expressing his opinion.

The light in Violet's window went dark.
Snap!
The last, tiny link between them was broken, leaving Joe to float away, up and up into a sky that was nothing but a black void beyond the security lights. The sense of weightlessness was so strong he scooted back, away from the edge, until his spine was pressed against the solid steel bars of the bucking chute. He could go back, knock on her door and say he'd changed his mind. Except his damn mind was the whole problem. Since when did it mess with him like this? He dug the phone out of his pocket and checked the time. Ten after two. He punched a button, tipped his head back, and closed his eyes.

“This better be good,” Wyatt snarled.

Joe heard a television in the background, the sound of gunfire and squealing tires. “Why are you awake?”

“Just popped a couple pain pills. I was watching Bruce Willis kill everyone while I waited for them to kick in.”

Uh-oh. “New pain or old?”

“Both. Rowdy did another dead man's flop. I tripped over him and the bull stepped on my sore ankle.”

Joe winced in sympathy. “Bad?”

“Swelled up some. I'll see the doc when I get back to Pendleton if it hasn't settled down.”

Standard cowboy medical protocol. If it wasn't dangling or hemorrhaging, it would keep. “Think you'll be ready by the circuit finals?”

“I'd be ready tomorrow if I had to. And speaking of working together…”

“I haven't decided.” Joe felt himself coming loose again, all the options in front of him, the conflicting needs warring inside of him. “You know George, the pickup man for Flying 5? What's his kid's name?”

“Peter,” Wyatt said, following the change of subject without missing a beat.

Peter. Not Pete or Petey because, as he'd informed them solemnly, that wasn't his name. “You know how before he goes to bed, he makes his dad walk around with him to be sure all the horses are in their pens and the gates are locked? And how when you talk to him, he quotes his dad word for word, even does his voice? Cole Jacobs is just like that.”

Wyatt was silent for a few beats. “Do they know?”

“Violet says he's always been different, but worse since the accident.” Joe assumed Wyatt knew Cole's history. He knew everything else.

“If he doesn't have post-traumatic stress, I'd be amazed. Have you asked him about it?”

“Yeah, 'cuz I've always wanted to have my face smashed.”

Wyatt made one of his thinking noises, taking his time about it. “You could toss some information at Cole on your way out the door—let him do with it what he will.”

No heart-to-heart chat, just a magazine article, or some brochures. Joe could manage that much. “I assume you know just the thing. What's it gonna cost me?”

“What's it worth to you?”

More than he would have expected, and the price wouldn't be that hard to bear. Wyatt's contracts added up to more dollars than Joe could stand to leave on the table. “Three rodeos.”

“Ten.”

“No way. I'd be away from the ranch the whole season.”

“Exactly.” When Joe remained stubbornly silent, Wyatt let loose an aggravated sigh. “Okay, five, but I get to pick 'em.”

A scary proposition, but there were no bad choices in that pile. “Deal.”

“Even if I pick five rodeos within a day's drive of Amarillo?”

Joe stared at Violet's dark trailer, enduring the low, hard ache when he imagined being in there with her. Self-deprivation really,
really
was not like him. He might as well admit it—he was a mess, and would be until he settled things with Dick. But once he got his life settled and was steady on his feet, he'd be able to handle it—handle her and her family—without feeling like he was teetering on the edge of some unknown abyss, in danger of losing his balance. And then, if she'd let him, he could come back for a visit. Or two.

“I could live with that.”

Wyatt let out an amazed whistle. “If I were still a praying man I'd praise the Lord, but I'm not, so I'll be damned instead. I intend to start making calls at daybreak, so don't bother trying to back out.”

“Wouldn't think of it,” Joe said, but the panic was already closing his throat as Wyatt hung up.

Five rodeos. Five more degrees of separation from Dick. How many before he couldn't go back? He sat for a good long while, until fatigue dragged his eyelids to half-mast. Once in his bed, though, sleep only taunted him, letting him doze off, then jolt awake as panic slammed into his chest. What had he done, promising those rodeos to Wyatt? Dick would come unglued when Joe gave him a list of dates he'd be unavailable. Dread washed over him, cold and dark as a winter lake.

He kicked at the thin blanket, the weight of it too much against his sweat-sheened skin. Then he thought about Violet and a whole different kind of panic grabbed him by the throat. If he told her he wanted to come back and see her after he left, she might expect…stuff. Things he wasn't capable of delivering.

His reconstructed knee started to ache from all the dancing and thrashing. Finally, as the eastern sky began to lighten, he broke down and popped a pain pill. Mixed with the exhaustion, it knocked him out cold.

Dance with the devil and what do you get? Shin splints. Violet hobbled of out the arena gate toward the rodeo office muttering silent curses. Every step was like a knife in her arches and shot fire up her legs, despite the fistful of ibuprofen she'd washed down with her half-gallon mug of coffee. And there'd been thousands of steps. Saturday night's performance might've been perfect, but Sunday morning slack was the equivalent of pushing a rope uphill through a patch of prickly pear cactus. No matter how she tried, Violet couldn't get the damn thing moving.

To top it off, her dad was sick. Her mother said it was something he ate and he'd be fine as soon as the medicine took hold. He just didn't dare get too far from the bathroom in the meantime, which left Violet to deal with the stock, the committee, the contestants, the judges, and Cole, and she was not in the mood. Her eyeballs felt like she'd fallen and scraped them on the sidewalk and her head throbbed, each beat of her heart a steel-tipped hammer blow to the inside of her skull.

Imagine how much worse it would've been if Joe had stayed.

Her face burned at the fresh slap of humiliation. The man had kissed her like she was water and he'd been crawling across the desert for a week, and he'd been as turned on as she was. Hard to hide that not-so-small detail when she was plastered up against him. Then
bam!
He pushed her off and walked away. What the
fuck?
Or not, as the case may be.

Violet repeated the curse out loud as she stumbled over a beer bottle tossed in the grass behind the bleachers.
Jerk slob littering assholes.
She'd like to smack them upside the head with their own trash, along with the moron who was supposed to be opening the chute for the timed events. By rule, the job was not supposed to change hands for the entire length of the rodeo, but this gate man had staggered in still drunk from the night before. She'd had a dozen ropers, five committee members, and three judges arguing about who would replace him.

Slack had started eventually—fifteen minutes late—then screeched to halt again when a hinge broke on the chute gate. A local welder was now attempting to repair the damage while agitated ropers paced and bitched about how they had to hurry up and get to the afternoon performance at another rodeo down the road. Well, they'd just have to hold their horses, literally and figuratively. She was doing the best she could, and now that the drunk had staggered away to sleep it off, she was doing it one man short.

And despite what he'd said about seeing her in the morning, Joe had yet to show his face. Figured. Just when she thought she could count on him, he left her wanting in every way possible. She hustled around the back of the stock pens and into the ramshackle rodeo office. Cole was there alone, rooting through a portable file box filled with Iris's paperwork.

“What are you doing?” Violet demanded, jerking the box away from him. “Mom will have your hide if you mess those up.”

Cole swiped a sleeve across his sweaty face. “One of the steers is coughing. Just dusty hay I think, but the judges want him pulled. They need the numbers for the extras to draw a replacement.”

Great. Now the ropers would have something else to bitch about.

“Where's Mom?” Violet asked, flipping through the file box to find the folder with the morning's draw sheets.

“She ran over to check on your dad. And Beni's being a pain, too.”

Of course. With a kid's perfect sense of timing, Beni had been impossible from the moment he popped out of bed. He wanted pancakes. No, waffles. No, French toast. With juice. Or maybe milk. Then he was full after three whole bites. Then he started whining about being bored. He was tired of this game. He wanted his other game, the one she couldn't find. He wanted to be home. He wanted his daddy. Violet would have gladly handed him over except
whoops!,
Delon was probably still handcuffed to a bed in Omaha if Stacy Lyn had had her way with him. Men. Not one of 'em Violet wouldn't trade for a good horse and a foot massage.

She found the team roping draw sheet and held it out to Cole. He lifted his hands, backing away. “You can take it down there.”

“I need to go get Beni.” And grab another handful of ibuprofen while she was at it.

Cole's face went stubborn. “I'm almost twenty minutes late graining the horses.”

Lord knew she didn't dare suggest the horses could wait another ten minutes. Cole already looked like he might hyperventilate. “Get Hank to do it.”

“He took off last night with some girl. Where's Joe?” Cole looked around like maybe Joe was hiding behind one of the dusty cobwebs in the corner of the office.

“Sleeping, I assume.” Violet shoved the draw sheet at Cole. “It'll take you two minutes to drop this down at the roping chutes.”

Cole shook his head. “They'll all start yakking at me and I hate that.”

Violet stomped her foot in sheer frustration, then paid the price as pain shot clear to her hip. “Gawd! You are such a butthead.”

But the words only bounced off Cole's retreating back.

Her mother hustled into the space he'd vacated, Beni in tow. “Did they get the roping chute fixed yet?”

“I'm going to check right now.” She fluttered the piece of paper in her hand. “And take this draw sheet down there, while I'm at it.”

“I want to stay in the trailer and play my big video game,” Beni whined. “It's
boring
in here.”

Violet scooped Beni up to prop him on her hip like when he was a toddler. Sheesh. He must've gained ten pounds in the last month. “How ‘bout you help me take this draw sheet to the roping chutes, then we'll go get a snack. What sounds good?”

“Popcorn!”

At nine-thirty in the morning, when he hadn't finished his breakfast? Oh, what the hell? She'd be Mom of the Year some other day. “Can do.”

She gave him a squeeze and a smacking kiss, then continued on her way, albeit more slowly. Packing the extra weight did nothing for the pain in her shins. Praise the Lord, though, the welder was dragging his equipment out of the arena and they were back in business. At this rate, they might get this slack run off before Joe got around to crawling out of bed.

She gave the draw sheet to the judges and watched to be sure the next few tie-down ropers got out of the box without the chute gate falling off. Then she gathered up Beni and swung by her trailer, where she popped a bag of microwave popcorn, grabbed a Coke—if she was gonna be the worst mom ever, might as well do it right—and deposited him back at the office while she went to see what else had gone to hell in her brief absence.

An eternity later, she trudged back to the office to get her kid, her stomach rumbling. Cowboys strolled past with horses trailing along behind, ropes slung over their saddle horns. Engines rumbled as the slack contestants rolled out and those slated for the afternoon performance began to trickle in. Violet had, at most, an hour to grab lunch and put her feet up before it all started over again.

She rounded the last corner to the office and there was Joe, sitting on a bench outside the rodeo office with…Beni? They were bent over Joe's phone and Beni was showing him something—either the latest version of Angry Birds or another of the porn sites he'd stumbled across despite every parental control she'd put in place on her phone. Lord only knew with Beni. Joe took the phone, poked at the screen a few times, typed something in, then handed it back.

Beni's face lit up. “Whoa. That is
awesome.
”

Then Joe spotted her and sprang to his feet with a tentative smile. “It's educational, I swear.”

He was wearing his cowboy hat, one of those threadbare chopped up T-shirts, wrinkled jeans, and running shoes, and looked as if his night had been even worse than hers. In other words, he was perfect.

Right there, right then, Violet's previously undented heart cracked wide open. She felt it, the same as when she broke her arm. She had that same instant to think,
Oh crap, this is gonna hurt
, and wonder if she could somehow eject from her own body before the pain blinded her. But it was too late. She'd fallen head over heels, and just like when that damn Shetland pony took a hard right and threw her into the fence, this was not going to end well.

Joe wasn't ever going to stay in Texas. Not for her. Not for the world. When his three rodeos were done, he'd hightail it straight back to Oregon and the only true love in his life—that damn High Lonesome Ranch. There was nothing Violet could do or say to stop him. She could only try to limit the damage.