Texas Heartthrob

by Jean Brashear

  The old man’s lip curled. “Damn guv’mint got no right to tell folks when to hunt. Anyone with sense knows not to clean out the stock.”

  Liam kept his expression sober with effort. In his part of Texas, there had been modern-day efforts to set up a separate republic to flout federal and state control. He understood the “defend the shores, deliver the mail and stay the hell out of our lives” mentality of those accustomed to self-sustaining existences. It was that way where he’d grown up, and this place was smack in the middle of moonshiner country, another reason for them not to like government. Stills hidden back in steep mountain valleys were an ancient tradition, as was the cat-and-mouse game played with “revenooers,” the federal agents ready to rob moonshiners of both profit and fun. “Won’t get any argument from me.”

  “Hmmph.” But ancient brown eyes sparked.

  Liam strolled back to the shelves indicated and loaded up again on canned meats. This time, when he returned, the remaining room on the counter vanished. He could see the questions in the old man’s eyes cheek-by-jowl with the determination not to ask.

  He had to cough to cover a threatening laugh.

  “I didn’t expect to need my rifle,” he said. L.A. wasn’t exactly replete with hunting opportunities, so his dad kept Liam’s deer rifle and shotgun at home. “If I take a mind to do some hunting—” he slipped back into old ways of speaking with ease, surprised at how welcome it felt after all he’d done to lose his accent “—where would a body find a weapon and ammunition?”

  He spotted the why forming on the old man’s lips, but before he could speak, the screen door creaked and another voice intervened.

  “I got guns I could sell you.” A man near his own age, not quite his height but stocky, his black beard bristling almost as much as his attitude, let the screen door slam behind him. “‘Mornin’, Noah.” He nodded to Liam. “That your car outside?” Greed and contempt shimmered around him thick enough to see.

  Not for the first time, Liam regretted renting a vehicle so noticeable, never imagining he’d be in it more than two or three days, a stranger passing through without making contact. He chose not to answer the swarthy man, instead turning back to Noah. “What about you?”

  The old man’s gaze darted over to the new arrival, something like fear in his eyes. “Frank here, he’s got a better supply, don’t you, Frank?”

  “Depends on who’s askin’. You got a name, boy?”

  Boy. Liam’s humor fled. He knew jerks like this. He’d grown up being picked on by them, bullies who waited until his elder brothers weren’t around before pounding him and Dane—at least, until Dane got big, too, years before Liam.

  Liam had refused to hide behind his brothers. He’d taken his licks and studied his opponents, then used his brains to get the better of them in the end. Not before he’d been bruised and bloodied, of course…but he’d learned.

  And Hollywood was full of insecure types who used power as a mask for their shortcomings. Liam smiled and mentally licked his chops. “Depends on who’s askin’.”

  The stockier man stiffened. Bulk that already showed signs of running to fat nonetheless was a threat Liam could not afford to ignore. “Don’t sell guns to greenhorns.”

  Oh, yeah. There was a fight coming, and Liam realized he was spoiling for it. Maybe pounding the bejesus out of this creep was just the release he needed, since he couldn’t deck reporters and would never take his hand to a woman.

  He smiled sweetly. “I suppose you think you can take me.” He shrugged. “Me being a greenhorn and all.”

  Dark eyes grew wary, but pride overrode. “Know I could.”

  “Now, Frank, me and this fella, we was just talkin’ about huntin’. Reckon he’ll be around for a spell,” Noah interjected.

  Liam glanced at him and could see the old man calculating the bill that would evaporate once Frank bested him, as the old man’s fear showed he believed Frank would.

  “Where you stayin’?” Frank seized the change of topic with a haste that only confirmed Liam’s opinion. This man would fight, no doubt about it, but he preferred it not be with someone his own size.

  Liam spoke to Noah instead. “You got a hammer? Nails?”

  “What for?” Frank demanded.

  Noah simply pointed.

  Liam strolled that way. “I’m helping Raina Donovan for a few days,” he answered.

  Both men went rigid, Noah with the disdain he’d shown her before, but something more was going on with Frank.

  “She’s here?” Frank spat the words, whirling on Noah. “What the hell’s she doin’ back?”

  Noah only shrugged.

  Liam grasped the opportunity. “You know her?”

  Frank’s head whipped around. “Question is, how do you know her?”

  There was something nasty and possessive in Frank’s tone.

  Liam thought about challenging him but decided it was more important to get information—and help for her. “She’s up there in her grandmother’s cabin without enough wood or food to last the winter, and the cabin’s falling down around her ears. Seems to me,” he said, looking at Noah now, “that she could use the help of her neighbors.”

  Frank snorted. “Miss Hoity-toity Bitch won’t stay in that cabin, no way. She couldn’t wait to leave before. Broke up a marriage to grab a man who could give her the luxuries she thought she deserved. Too good for the likes of us.” In his voice, Liam heard a man who had quite likely been jilted.

  But hoity-toity? Broke up a marriage? A woman who required luxuries? Aside from the broken skin of her hands, Liam had seen nothing in Raina Donovan that vaguely resembled the woman Frank described.

  Frank turned to him. “This stuff for her?”

  Liam nodded.

  Frank chuckled, but it was an ugly sound. “That’s rich. You tellin’ me she’s broke?” He laughed again, and Noah joined him.

  Liam thought about Raina’s despair, her struggle with defeat. She’d anticipated that they would feel like this, he saw now. She expected no help from her neighbors, was grimly determined to survive anyhow.

  What had driven her to this juncture? Where was that man who’d given her luxuries?

  Liam wanted to find out, but he refused to expose Raina to any more ridicule. He was sorry he’d invited this much. If he’d known, he would have made that trip down the mountain to get supplies. From now on, he’d do that.

  Instead, he located the hardware section. He selected a twenty-ounce hammer and weighed out five pounds each of sixteen-penny nails for the porch and galvanized roofing nails from buckets lined up on the floor.

  When he returned to the counter, he didn’t try to hide his contempt for their unwillingness to help Raina. “I’m ready to pay.” No matter what mistakes Raina had made, surely she didn’t deserve this.

  Inwardly, he sighed. He sure couldn’t walk away from her now. He’d seen the .22 and the shotgun. He’d hunt her some meat—“Wait. Where’s the salt you use to preserve meat?”

  Noah’s eyebrows rose. “You said you didn’t have anything to hunt with.”

  Liam stood his ground, wondering if their enmity would extend so far as to harm her if they realized how poorly protected she was. Neither weapon was much good for self-defense except at close range. “I never said that. Where’s the salt?”

  “My advice to you is—” Frank began.

  Liam wasn’t grinning now. “When I want your advice, I’ll be sure to ask for it.” He turned back to Noah. “Salt?”

  Grudgingly, Noah pointed to it.

  Liam added it to his bundle, then said nothing else as Noah rang up the total. Liam counted out his bills and pondered the irony that he could buy out this whole town, no doubt, but he was running out of cash. Finding an ATM seemed a whole lot less than likely.

  Neither man lifted a hand to help with his purchases, and that was just fine with Liam. If Raina didn’t need the supplies so much, he’d have turned around and left without any of them.

  When Raina
awoke, he was gone.

  And his quilts covered her now. The poor excuse for a pillow lay beneath her head.

  He’d touched her, and she’d slept through all of it. She almost thought she could feel his warmth.

  For a sinful second, she closed her eyes. Cozy for the first time all night, she pulled the covers tighter and snuggled deeper into the bed.

  And breathed in the scent of him.

  Hal. The name didn’t seem to fit, but people didn’t have a choice in what their parents named them. Her own name was uncommon, though, and she understood the cost of having a name other kids thought was weird.

  He’d been kind, after all, more so than she deserved. More than she wanted. He couldn’t realize how dangerous kindness was, how treacherous and deceptive, how it would weaken her to accept it.

  How much she longed for it, as she craved still the siren song of her sweet little pills.

  Today. This minute. Her teeth ached against the longing for surcease, for blessed relief, and Raina reminded herself that she only had to get through this minute. Just one.

  Then the next. And then one more.

  But she couldn’t think past now, not yet. Though she knew that minutes added up to hours, hours made days, days became weeks, the knowledge didn’t comfort. Only an addict understood that a minute seemed an endless desert, a barren span without respite, time that must be endured.

  Ample for Raina to remember all that she wanted to forget.

  Focus, damn it. She squeezed her eyes shut again. Clamped down. Shut out. Blocked every wayward thought but one.

  Breathe, Raina. Deep and sure. Breathe and relax.

  Picture the meadow, feel the breeze. Lift your face to the sunshine, let it warm your skin.

  In. Out. You can do this. You can.

  Behind her eyelids, Raina was there again, in the meadow just up the mountain, the place she’d been happiest, back when Gran had kept her during one of her mother’s wanderings, a space of days, maybe weeks when Raina was freed from her mother’s demons and had a chance to be only a little girl.

  Gran, can you hear me? I’m here. I’m home. I want to stay.

  But I’m so scared, Gran. I’m not sure there’s enough of you left inside for me to make it. I want your strength, I want your grace. I want to be the woman you believed I could.

  I lost my way. I’m sorry. I never thought I’d be in this place without you. Never again to see your face, to feel your hands on my hair. To lean against you, lay my head in your lap.

  I need the minutes, Gran. I need the peace. Maybe I can’t do this, but I have to try.

  She gripped the rough iron bedstead where she’d spent the only safe nights of her life, and Raina pictured her grandmother sleeping beside her, warm and loving and wise.

  She drew her fingers across the top quilt, a pattern called Grandmother’s Flower Garden. Gran had used old feed sacks and scraps of Mama’s childhood dresses to make it years before Raina was born, stitching the tiny, colorful hexagonal pieces together by hand. Here and there, the fabric had worn thin, the muslin backing aged to dark cream, dappled with an occasional brown spot. Gran’s hands had carried their own marks of time’s passage, of long days spent carving a life out of thin mountain soil and longer nights watching over the sick and injured, fighting for their survival or easing them into the embrace of eternity.

  Comforted by memories of the woman who’d been her true north, Raina slid once again into the silence and, just for an instant, felt the faint stroke of a work-worn hand on her hair.

  A thud outside jerked Raina awake. Full sunlight now blazed through the small window over the bed. A second thud had her on her feet, grabbing the fireplace poker and brandishing it.

  Who was more surprised when the door opened was hard to tell.

  Arms filled with freshly chopped wood, Hal stopped in mid-step and grinned. “Sorry—dropped a couple. Should have made two trips.” His smile widened. “You any good with that thing?”

  The brilliance of white teeth robbed her of thought. “What thing?”

  “Your lethal weapon there.” He nodded toward the poker and continued into the room. “I come in peace, kemo sabe. You can lay down your arms.”

  Gratefully, she lowered the poker. “What are you doing here? You were supposed to be gone.”

  He glanced over his shoulder, one eyebrow lifted. “I was. I bought a hammer and some nails. No fresh lumber, but I found some boards in an outbuilding that appear to be sound.”

  “Why?”

  “To fix this wreck of a porch and steps before you break your neck on them.”

  “You’re supposed to leave. It’s morning.”

  “Yeah, I noticed.” His gaze shifted to the window. “Late morning, actually. Nearly noon.”

  She wanted to brush her teeth, drink some coffee. Attend to other necessities. “You can’t stay.”

  He faced her. They stood less than a foot apart. “I’m offering you help.”

  “I didn’t ask for it.”

  “Maybe not, babe, but you damn sure need it. You’ll never survive the winter without some serious work.”

  “What are you after?”

  Vivid green eyes scanned her from head to toe while Raina resisted the urge to comb fingers through her hair, to straighten the very wrinkled clothes in which she’d slept. If she’d ever felt less attractive in her life, she couldn’t recall it. “Stop that.”

  “What?”

  “Quit looking at me.”

  He grinned. “Why do I make you so nervous?”

  Even white teeth gleamed beneath a dark swashbuckler’s mustache. High cheekbones, square jaw and strong nose, wide, beautiful mouth…this was a man who knew his appeal, who understood how to use it.

  He was too handsome for his own good.

  But his eyes held shadows. Sorrow made a lie of his grin. She didn’t understand the conflict, but something about him had her wishing—

  Nothing. She could want nothing but for him to go.

  “I’m not nervous,” she said. “And I’ll be just fine.”

  “I brought more chocolate.”

  “Why do you care what happens to me?” she demanded. “Why won’t you just drive away?”

  For a second, she could see his own confusion peer from behind the cocky smile. “Beats the hell out of me,” he admitted. “But I’ve already got the nails, and I never leave a job undone.” He headed for the door. “I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee, if you could see fit to make some. I’ll bring in the groceries after I fix that hole. I’m tired of dodging it.” With that, he was gone.

  Raina stared at the spot where he’d just been. Groceries? He wanted coffee? She would march right outside and tell him—

  What? She’d been very clear, and she might as well have saved her breath. The man wasn’t listening.

  He was right about the porch, one of the many items on her list. But he couldn’t simply—

  A nail screamed in protest as a board was pried up, then another. And he was whistling while he worked.

  Raina glanced around her at all that remained to be done. She could use the help, yes, but at what price? What was a man in a luxury car doing replacing boards on her front porch? Where had he come from and where was he headed?

  She jerked the door open. “I’ll fix you something to eat, then you’ll leave before dark, right?”

  He spoke without looking up. “We’ll see.”

  Raina slammed the door.

  Then realized that she had no other path to get to the well or the privy. With as much dignity as she could muster, she grabbed a bucket and stalked past Hal, head held high.

  She had to get out of here, she thought later.

  She couldn’t stand looking at him one more second. He’d shed his shirt in the heat of the day, and his skin, rippling with every move of impressive muscles, glistened with sweat. She’d barricaded herself inside, cleaning with a vengeance, but the interior of the cabin was stifling, so she’d finally opened all the windows an
d the front door to catch the breeze that had kicked up not long ago.

  But he seemed to be everywhere she turned. And she was sick of being inside.

  Would he never leave?

  Raina crossed to the door, intent on asking him exactly that, when she saw him stop at the well, let down the rope, then raise the heavy bucket as though it weighed nothing, take a long drink and upend the rest of the water over his head.

  Liquid sluiced over gleaming flesh. He was, quite simply, gorgeous. Tall, muscled and virile. Every woman’s dream.

  Raina whirled and slammed the door. The last thing she needed in her screwed-up life was a fling with a stranger, no matter how decent he appeared.

  Appearances could be deceiving—hadn’t she learned that the hard way? First her husband, Ben, then Max of the kind blue eyes. Ben had bought himself a raw girl he’d molded into a plastic doll until the life had bled out of her.

  Max, whom she’d met at one of Ben’s rich friends’ parties after Ben had moved her to Baltimore, had supplied her with sympathy and pills she’d eagerly accepted to escape the barren desert her life had become. She’d lost her way, never realizing the slippery slope she was descending down the path to other substances far more deadly—and when she’d gone out of control and Ben had shed himself of an embarrassment, Max had offered a stone-broke, desperate woman a helping hand.

  Not revealing until much later just how she’d have to repay him.

  Gaze darting around the room, Raina seized upon a distraction. Gathering greens and herbs, checking the woods for signs of the largesse Gran had once shown her—that would get her away from Hal and his beautiful body.

  First, though, she’d make him sandwiches and leave them on the porch. He’d expended a lot of energy already today, and she had no idea when—or if—he’d eaten breakfast. He’d fixed the porch and steps, had chopped more wood. His energy was endless, but surely he couldn’t get by on only whatever he’d had that morning.

  Peanut butter and jelly wasn’t much to offer a man who drove a luxury car, but it was the most protein she could provide quickly. She still hadn’t touched the supplies he’d brought inside. When she returned, she’d have to bake more bread; her funds wouldn’t extend to buying from Noah’s store anything she could produce.