“We wanta stay with you,” Gracie piped in.
Obviously, the girls weren’t happy about seeing their grandmother, but Edith apparently wasn’t happy to see McCall, either.
“Is something wrong?” Edith asked the moment McCall opened the door. “Why isn’t Austin here?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” McCall assured her. “Austin just got tied up with something and asked me to pick up the girls.”
Clearly, Edith didn’t approve of that. “He should have called me. He shouldn’t have bothered you with that.” And she proceeded to help the twins out of their car seats.
“We want the fairy lady to babysit,” Avery grumbled.
“Well, there’s no need. I’m here now.” Edith smiled despite the girls’ mutual groans and grumbles. “Go on inside and put up your backpacks,” Edith instructed. “I’ll be there in a second or two to fix you a snack.”
That was no doubt the woman’s way of letting McCall know that she had some things to say to her in private. Things that McCall didn’t especially want to hear. That’s why McCall didn’t stay put. With Edith right on her heels, she followed the girls inside.
Obviously, Avery and Gracie had a routine because they went straight to their rooms, discarding their backpacks on the floor and kicking off their shoes. The moment they were done with that, they ran into the adjoining bathroom.
“They’ll be fine in there,” Edith assured her. “And this will give us a chance to talk. If we talk fast, that is.”
McCall sighed. “Look, I know you don’t think much of me because of my upbringing, and I know you don’t approve of me seeing Austin—”
“I was wrong,” Edith said, cutting her off. “I didn’t think you’d be right for Austin, but I’ve reconsidered it.”
McCall was stunned to silence and she was betting it wasn’t very often that Edith admitted anything like that. “Why?” McCall asked.
Edith shrugged, her gaze landing on anything but McCall. “I know how your mother pushed you girls into that TV show, and you were too young to do anything about it.”
Pushed was a very polite way of explaining things. Since the show had started when McCall and her sisters were only three, they’d had no say in it. No say in the antics that Sunshine had pulled, either, to boost the ratings and keep the show on the air for over a decade.
“I also know about your foundation,” Edith went on. “From what I’ve heard, it does great work.”
“It does,” McCall assured her. Then she waited for the other shoe to drop. McCall was certain there was a “but” in all this praise and that Edith was about to tell her to get lost.
“Austin is still grieving,” Edith continued. “I don’t want that. I don’t want him grieving for Zoey forever. But I want Zoey’s daughters to have a good home. Zoey reminded me of that when I got a card from her yesterday.”
McCall didn’t ask for details about the card, but she suspected Zoey had left cards for her mom as she’d done for Austin.
“Anyway, you have my blessing to see Austin,” the woman muttered in a barely audible whisper. A whisper that got drowned out when the girls came running out of the bathroom.
“Your blessing?” McCall repeated, stunned. However, she didn’t have time to say more because Avery and Gracie stopped right in front of her.
“Fairy tale rules,” Avery announced, her gaze nailed to McCall. “We want you to fix our snack.”
“And watch a movie with us.” That from Gracie.
McCall didn’t respond because at that exact moment, she heard the footsteps behind them.
Austin was standing there.
And judging from his raised eyebrow, he’d obviously heard what his daughters had said.
“Well,” Edith said, muttering that, too. “I’ll just be going.” She kissed the girls, gave Austin’s arm a squeeze and walked out.
“Daddy!” the girls squealed, apparently already forgetting fairy tale rules. Or not. Avery took her hand and started leading McCall into the kitchen.
“We played fairy tale rules,” Avery babbled to her dad.
“Did you now?” Austin asked, smiling.
“Yep,” Avery verified. She took McCall to the fridge and even opened it for her. “You gotta do stuff in fairy tale rules. I want cheese and grapes, please,” she added to McCall in the same breath.
“I can get that for you,” Austin offered, only to be told, “No,” by both girls.
“We want the fairy lady to do it,” Gracie said in her quiet, shy voice. “It’s my fairy tale rule.”
Austin put his hands on his hips. “The fairy lady might have other things to do.”
“I don’t. No fairy tale chores on my to-do list right now,” McCall assured him, but she hadn’t forgotten that Austin had wanted to talk to her.
And she needed to talk to him.
She had to come clean about why she couldn’t continue to see him. Ironic that she needed to do that on the heels of getting Edith’s seal of approval.
McCall soon learned that snack prep wasn’t a big deal. That’s because Austin or someone had everything already sorted out, cut and washed in plastic storage containers and bags. McCall got out some green grapes that had been halved—probably to prevent choking—some cheese cubes and two small boxes of milk.
Avery, Gracie and, yes, Austin watched as she arranged the food on small plates that she took from the cabinet, and she hoped that Austin didn’t think she was doing this to prove her domestic skills. No need for that even if she hadn’t been on the brink of putting an end to this scalding-hot attraction with him.
Well, the attraction would almost certainly stay. But she had to bow out of his and the girls’ lives.
“I didn’t know Edith was coming over,” Austin said as he helped her carry the plates to the coffee table. He picked up the remote, turned on an animated TV show that he’d recorded. This was obviously the routine because the girls sat on the floor, their attention on the TV while they ate.
“Little pitchers have big ears,” he reminded her. Austin caught on to McCall’s hand and pulled her onto the sofa next to him. “But if we whisper, we might be able to talk.”
McCall considered that a moment. Considered, too, that Austin might not question her too much about this “breakup” if his daughters were right there. When she nodded, he turned up the volume on the TV, which pleased the girls because they clapped and continued to munch on their snacks.
Austin took out his phone and opened it up to a picture. For a moment McCall was about to ask why he’d shown her that, but then it was as if her entire brain screeched to a very noisy halt.
Oh, God.
It was a slightly out of focus picture of her wearing her skimpy waitress outfit when she’d worked at Peekaboo. Whoever had snapped the photo had caught her just as she’d leaned down to put some drinks on a table, and the leaning had caused her to practically spill out of the swatch of a tube top. In the background was a dancer—one in a G-string and pasties—working the pole.
Her gaze flew back to Austin’s, and she expected to see some anger and even confusion on his face. There wasn’t any. But there was something else that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
“How’d you get that?” she asked. There was no need for her to lower her voice because a whisper was the best she could do with what little air she had managed to get into her lungs.
Austin looked her straight in the eyes. “Hayes gave it to me.”
“Hayes?” That didn’t make sense, and it took a while for it to register in what was left of her brain. “How would he have gotten it, and why would he have given it to you?”
“Your brother came by earlier,” Austin explained, “and he messaged me a copy of it then. We had some business to take care of, and he dropped me off here.”
Again, that didn’t make sense, and this time McCall
didn’t even attempt a whisper. Or speech of any kind. She just shook her head and sat there, taking several long moments to rein in all the thoughts flying through her head. She hadn’t seen her brother in several years, and yet he’d come here to give Austin that photo.
Why?
That was something McCall very much wanted to know but first things first. She had to woman-up. “Yes, it’s me. I worked as a waitress in a strip club when I was in college.”
Austin studied her a moment, his expression still giving away nothing, and he nodded. “I remember Em telling my mom that Sunshine and your dad had taken most of the money from the accounts set up for you and your sisters.”
McCall made a soft sound to indicate that was true, but she hated that, even after all this time, it still caused a flood of resentment. Her parents had indeed taken the money, and they’d done it legally because of the way they’d set up the contracts for Little Cowgirls. That meant McCall had had to work her way through college along with taking out some student loans.
“I don’t understand why you have this picture,” she admitted.
Austin gathered in his breath but then hesitated when Gracie looked back at him. He smiled at her and then waited for her to turn back around before he said anything. “A man named Jason Pierce sent Hayes the photo. Pierce lives in San Antonio now but was apparently in the strip club years ago when he sneaked a picture of the stripper.”
Since cameras weren’t allowed in Peekaboo, that explained the odd angle and blurry image. Still, this guy had managed to get her in the shot without McCall even realizing it.
“Pierce kept the picture,” Austin went on, “and when he recently showed it to a girlfriend, she recognized you. She didn’t know you,” he quickly added.
“She recognized me from the TV show,” McCall filled in, and she got a very bad feeling about this. “This Jason Pierce tried to blackmail Hayes?”
Austin nodded. “Hayes thinks Pierce got in touch with him because he figured Hayes would have money to pay him off.”
McCall bit her lip to make sure she didn’t curse because she couldn’t be sure that would come out as a whisper. Damn it. “How much does Pierce want?”
“Ten grand.”
Considering how much Hayes made, or rather how much he was rumored to make, that wasn’t a huge amount to him, but it certainly was to her.
“Hayes also wanted me to go with him to San Antonio so I’d be a witness to what Pierce had to say. And be a witness to him making the payment. That took longer than I thought it would so that’s why I asked you to pick up the girls.”
Again, she had to bite her lip and rein in the anger. “Hayes shouldn’t have paid him a penny. The guy will probably just tap him for more.”
“I don’t think so. Hayes recorded the conversation and said if he came back with another demand or if he published the photo anywhere that he’d turn the recording over to the cops. Then Pierce could be arrested for extortion.”
McCall shook her head, not at all certain that would work, but maybe it would. Still... “How did Hayes know you’d even care about me being in that picture? Why did he come to you and not me?”
“The reporter did an article about Cody Joe and that night you were here,” Austin quickly answered. “Hayes got wind of the story and assumed you and I were together. And as for why he didn’t come to you, he didn’t want you to know. He figured you had enough to handle what with the mess with Cody Joe.”
That eased her anger even more. And upped her frustration. Her brother should have come to her. He shouldn’t have tried to shelter her.
But it didn’t surprise her that he had.
Hayes played up his bad-boy image, but just weeks earlier, he’d run interference for Sunny by helping her get back some items that Sunshine had managed to get her hands on.
“Obviously, I didn’t listen to Hayes about keeping you out of the loop on this,” Austin went on. “It didn’t feel right not letting you know.”
“Thank you for that.” She paused. “I just wish Hayes would have at least come in so I could see him.”
“He said he had to get back to shoot some scenes. Plus, I don’t think he wanted to explain why he was here because he would have had to let you know about the picture and blackmail.”
McCall nodded and glanced at the girls. They were still watching the TV show, but they only had a few more bites to go and they’d be finished with their snacks. Once that was done, they might pay more attention to Austin and her than they were doing right now.
It was time to tell Austin the rest of the truth.
“There’s more,” he said before she could even get started. “Boo saw me buy three boxes of condoms at the Pump and Ride.”
McCall hadn’t thought she could be surprised again so soon. However, she’d obviously been wrong. Her mouth didn’t actually drop open, but it was close.
“Yeah,” he said as if acknowledging her surprise. “FYI, Howie saw me, too. Clearly, the Pump and Ride was a busy place today. I just didn’t want one of them to say anything about it to you and blindside you.”
“Three boxes,” she muttered. “Wow.”
She had to fight a smile, which was crazy, considering there really wasn’t anything to smile about. Still, she felt a little flattered that he thought they were going to be burning up the sheets. Of course, the smile and the flattery didn’t last.
“We’ve both had a past, McCall,” he said. “That picture doesn’t bother me. The fact that you worked at that club doesn’t bother me. What would bother me is if you decided that it or anything else was so bad that you wouldn’t allow yourself to at least see where things were going with us.”
Mercy. That was the right thing to say. Of course, it was also what she wanted to hear. She blamed that on the three boxes of condoms. And the heated look Austin was giving her. She wanted to dive right in, kiss him and put at least one of those condoms to good use.
“In my mind, I’m doing very dirty things to you right now,” he drawled.
McCall smiled. “In my mind, I’m doing those dirty things right back to you.”
The corner of his mouth lifted, and he seemed to be moving in closer. But then he stopped, his gaze turning toward the TV. Or rather toward his daughters.
Avery and Gracie had obviously finished their snacks.
And the girls were staring at Austin and her.
“Fairy tale rules,” Avery said with a sneaky smile on her face. “You gotta kiss our daddy.”
McCall knew she should resist, but Austin was right there. Even knowing it was a mistake that both Austin and she would soon regret, she leaned in and obeyed the rules of the game.
Of course, the kiss was off the charts. It was easy to feel the simmer and flames with Austin. However, it was easy to feel other things, too.
Deeper things.
Like the emotions that tugged at her heart. Maybe it was because she’d had such a crush on him in school, but those old emotions seemed to be playing into this and adding another layer to the heat. Not good. Lust was one thing. But lust with feelings that could turn to something much, much more was bad.
McCall eased back, met his gaze and gave herself a few seconds to savor the sensations. Then she checked to see how the girls were reacting. They were still both staring at Austin and her, and they probably would have launched into another round of fairy tale rules if something on the TV hadn’t snagged their attention. Apparently, seeing their daddy kiss her couldn’t hold a candle to the cartoon ducks who’d started to dance. That got Avery and Gracie up and dancing, too.
“I need to go,” McCall said to Austin. “Would you walk me out?”
Judging from his grin, he thought that was going to lead to more kisses. Sadly, it wouldn’t. But McCall did dance her way to the girls and gave them a goodbye hug before she took Austin by the hand and led him onto the porch.
That put some worry lines on his forehead. “If this is about that picture—”
“It’s more than that,” she interrupted, but McCall had to take a deep breath before she finished. “I’m the owner of the Peekaboo strip club where the picture was taken.”
The moment the last word left her mouth, McCall turned and hurried off the porch and to her car.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“FAIRY TALE RULE,” Avery said, tugging on Austin’s hand. “We getta have ice cream for dinner. And candy. And no vegge-tables. And pizza.”
Austin looked down at her and gave his daughter his best “not a chance” face. He’d already made their dinner—it was sitting in the microwave. Baked chicken with potatoes and carrots. Still, since Cait was babysitting tonight, there was a chance some ice cream and candy would be involved.
“Be good for Aunt Cait, and I’ll take Gracie and you to the Lickety Split tomorrow.” It was the only ice cream parlor in town and the girls’ favorite. He knew that from the way they squealed.
“Take us tonight,” Avery insisted.
Austin shook his head. “I’m going to see McCall. The fairy lady,” he added.
That got a mixed reaction including suggestions from Avery that the fairy lady could go with them for ice cream. Aunt Cait, too. But Austin would have to nix that idea. He needed to talk to McCall, and he didn’t want his girls around for that.
Of course, it was entirely possible that McCall wouldn’t want to talk to him. That was the risk he was taking by just showing up at Em’s. After all, she’d left darn fast a few hours earlier when she’d delivered her bombshell.
I’m the owner of the Peekaboo strip club.
In hindsight, Austin should have called out to her. Or gone after her. But the news had left him stunned just long enough for her to make her speedy exit. It was an exit she obviously intended to stick to, which was likely why she hadn’t responded to the texts he’d sent her.
Chasing Trouble in Texas Page 12
