by Liz Talley
Nellie rolled her eyes. “That was you who snuck out. I stayed home and did my math homework, remember?”
“I thought you came with us?”
“No,” Nellie said, shrugging out of her T-shirt and hanging it on the hook.
“Oh, my God! Is that a hickey?”
Nellie’s color went past red and stopped at purple. She shot her friend a murderous do-not-go-there look.
Kate merely smiled. “Nice!”
Nellie chose to ignore Kate’s comment. She had been shocked enough to find the small passion mark on her neck that morning in the hotel mirror. Jack had done an amazing job of getting the syrup off her neck.
Kate tucked the gloating smile away and continued on her original mission. “I remember the first time I saw you, Nellie. Mostly ’cause I really liked how I could see my reflection in your shoes. You had your hair pulled back, a smocked dress with lacy socks and shiny patent leather shoes. You said ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ and that was it. You were like a doll all dressed up. I tried to pinch you to see if you were real.”
“I distinctly remember,” Nellie said, glancing at her friend in the mirror as she shimmied out of the capris she wore. Kate looked as if she was just getting started.
“And when you got dirty, remember how upset you would get? You knew what your grandmother expected. You knew from day one you were a Tucker and that meant something in Oak Stand. You were different.”
Nellie sighed as she pulled on a silky sleeveless sweater dress in a tawny gold. It felt like the touch of a butterfly’s wings. She would definitely purchase it. She caught the price from the dangling tag in the reflection of the mirror. Maybe not.
“Nellie, she made you think you had to be a certain way. That’s probably why you’re a stodgy librarian. She picked the job out for you. It’s genteel. Acceptable.”
Nellie held up one finger. “Now, stop right there. I chose to be a librarian. And it’s not stodgy. Being a librarian today is different than it was twenty years ago. We don’t even call ourselves librarians. I am an archive specialist.”
Kate rolled her eyes. “I know. They have computers and little scanner thingies.”
“Yeah, little scanner thingies. That’s the absolute correct term.” Nellie grimaced. “Look, I love my job, Kate. That has nothing to do with being a Tucker or with my grandmother’s expectations about what I was supposed to do with my life. It has to do with me being realistic.”
“Whatever, but still—”
“Grandmother Tucker had her good points.” Nellie didn’t want to endure another tirade about her grandmother. “She raised me the way she was raised. She didn’t know any other way.”
“But that doesn’t mean you have to continue on that path. That very narrow path.”
“Most of the time I like that path, Kate,” Nellie said, stepping into a pair of raw silk pants that complemented the sweater. They looked magnificent on her. She glanced at the price tag. $380.00! No way. For pants?
“See.” Kate motioned to the price tag with disgust. “Just what I’m talking about. You have a buttload of money and won’t spend it. Your grandmother had millions and still saved aluminum foil for a second use.”
Nellie tossed Kate her own look of disgust. “Money is not the issue. Why would anyone pay over three hundred dollars for a pair of pants?”
“Because they make your ass look great,” Kate said.
Nellie rolled her eyes, but still spun around to check out her derriere. Sure enough, her butt did look great. Maybe a splurge? Surely a girl was justified when the pants made her look so tiny, so curvy and so splendid all at the same time?
“Nell, you have a ton of money and insist on living like a pauper.”
“I don’t live like a pauper. I just know the value of money.”
“Sensible,” Kate drawled, as though it was the worst word ever invented.
“Exactly.” Nellie smiled.
“Is that what you were last night, Nellie ‘I’m such a good girl’ Hughes?” Kate pointed to her own neck—the same area where Nellie had her hickey.
Damn, Nellie thought. Why did Kate have to be so perceptive? “I was a good girl.”
“Yeah, right,” Kate snorted, separating the clothes she liked from the ones she wouldn’t be caught dead in.
Jack Darby. Nellie sighed. She loved his magnetic blue eyes and the slight cleft in his chin. Oh, and the way he sipped black coffee and teased her about her empty plate. If only Kate knew her “good girl gone bad” had actually remained good. Well, for the most part anyway.
“I shouldn’t have gone with him,” Nellie muttered, jerking a turtleneck over her head and tossing it on the settee. “It was totally irresponsible. A safety issue.”
“Are you kidding me?” Kate ranted. “Seriously? Isn’t letting loose what you came here for?”
“I came here for a girls’ weekend. Shopping, talking, coffee….” Nellie rolled her hand with each word. Kate frowned and handed her another two-hundred-dollar top.
“That’s not what this weekend is about. It’s about losing yourself, finding your inner party girl, playing around, daring yourself to be something other than what you are.”
“So for you that means…what? Doing what you do every weekend?”
“For your information, Miss Smarty-pants, I don’t party every weekend.” Kate crossed her arms and sank back into the antique chair. Nellie grinned at the contrast. MTV meets Victorian charm school. “What I meant is that this weekend we get the chance to be whoever we want to be. Like a free pass.”
“There are no free passes in life.” Nellie pulled a pair of low-slung jeans from the clips on the hanger. They were dark indigo with tan stitching. Very trendy. So unlike her. But Nellie tried them on anyway.
“Spoken like a true Tucker.” Kate pushed bloodred nails through her spiked hair. “Give yourself a break. You’re twenty-nine-years old. Not sixty. You can buy some hot clothes and have a fling with an even hotter guy. I’d kill to be in your shoes right now.”
Nellie glanced down at her old ballet flats. She’d had them since the late eighties and had dragged them out when she heard they were back in style. She arched a newly shaped eyebrow at Kate and drawled, “Really?”
“Well, not those.” Kate glanced down at the old black flats in horror. “I was speaking metaphorically and I was referring to Jack Darby.”
Nellie’s heart pinged at his name.
“Oh, is someone blushing?” Kate teased. “Come on, Nell. Tell me what he was like. I gotta know.”
Nellie caught sight of her face in the mirror. She matched the cranberry blouse. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
“Bullshit!” Kate exclaimed. “Remember that fraternity party? I heard all about Skip Jordan.”
“That was seven years ago, Kate.”
“How big was his—”
“Enough, Kate!” Nellie shrieked, throwing the jeans at her dearest friend. “You are bad.”
“I know.” Kate smiled, deftly catching the expensive denim. “That’s why all the guys like me.”
“And for your information, I enjoyed last night.”
“I bet you did.” Kate gave her a sly smile.
“We didn’t have sex.”
Kate’s eyes bulged. “Why the hell not?”
“Because I wasn’t…I don’t really know. But we just didn’t. Okay?”
She wanted to say she liked Jack, but that sounded so high school. How could she make Kate understand how comfortable she felt with Jack, how natural it felt to ride beside him in his sports car, to sit across from him and cram pancakes in her mouth, to respect the fact he drew a line and didn’t cross it. It made her sound lovesick. “He was a gentleman.”
Kate slapped a hand to her forehead. “Don’t do this, Nell. This isn’t about love. It’s about sex.”
“Love?” Nellie whirled around. “I am not in love with Jack Darby. I don’t even know him.”
“Exactly!” Kate pointed a fi
nger at her. “This is about you being something other than who you normally are. This is about being Elle. This is about having mind-blowing sex and letting go of who you think you are supposed to be.”
“Why is everything about sex with you? I am letting go. When have I met a guy in a bar and gone off with him?”
“I thought you said you didn’t have sex?” Kate cocked her head. Nellie wanted to kick her, but she didn’t want to split the too-tight pants she’d just pulled on.
“We didn’t!” Nellie yelled.
“But you just said—”
“We. Didn’t. Have. Sex.” Nellie propped her hands on her hips and stared at Kate as if she’d just brought back a torn library book.
A knock sounded on the dressing room door. Both Kate and Nellie jumped. A saleslady called out, “Is everything all right in there?”
Kate and Nellie’s eyes met; they both stifled a giggle.
“No problems,” Kate called out, her violet eyes dancing. “Just trying to decide which outfit will get Nellie laid.”
Nellie clapped a hand over her mouth and shot Kate a dirty look. Silence met Kate’s naughty comment.
Nellie laughed lightly, just in case the saleswoman lingered in the fitting rooms. “You’re a nut.”
Kate gave her the same smile she’d given Nellie countless times throughout their misadventures. It squeezed Nellie’s heart because she loved her wild, crazy and, apparently, nymphomaniac friend.
“Kate, I’m having a good time.” Nellie swept a manicured hand down her trim length. “And this is not the old Nellie. For goodness sake, I ran into Jack Darby at the Dallas airport. He barely looked at me, and I spilled a whole damned glass of chardonnay in his lap. You think I don’t know what this is?”
Kate looked confused. “Huh?”
“Never mind, it’s not important. I get who Jack Darby is. I get who Nellie Hughes is. If I didn’t look so good in these damn jeans and if you hadn’t made me look like a flippin’ Hollywood movie star, he wouldn’t even give me the time of day. So, I don’t have fantasies of love with this man.”
Nellie knew as she made the statement that she was lying through her Crest Whitestrips-whitened teeth. After Jack had dropped her off with a sweet kiss, she’d lain awake reliving their impromptu date. Then when she’d awoken that morning, she’d lolled in the hotel’s colossal tub wondering when he would call or if he even would. She felt like a teenager with her first crush.
So? She was a liar. And, so, her heart galloped when she thought about Jack. Big deal. It wasn’t going anywhere. She was here for a few more days. She’d given him her number thinking it would be fun seeing him again. Fun to hang out with him, laugh with him, kiss him. He embodied every man she’d ever dreamed up in Oak Stand while lying in her lonely bed in the wee small hours of the morning. Why shouldn’t she embrace the opportunity to be with a guy like him? For even a short time?
It would be a weekend romance she’d always remember. After all, what would it hurt? She would deal with any letdown when she got back to Oak Stand. When she went back to being the real Nellie Hughes. For a few more days she would take her friend’s advice and play the consummate, sophisticated Texas party girl Elle Hughes.
A knock on the dressing room door interrupted Nellie’s mental pep talk. The door opened a crack and in swung a sexy blue strapless dress.
“May I suggest this for procuring his interest? I’ve been told it inspires ‘getting laid.’” The saleslady’s twinkling brown eyes appeared over the top of the dress. She swayed the garment back and forth like a Delhi street vendor tempting tourists with his wares.
Nellie laughed while Kate pulled a credit card from Nellie’s purse and held it up. “I assume we’re gonna need this?”
The saleslady’s eyes glossed over. “Oh, yeah.”
JACK DARBY TAPPED his pen against the ink blotter on his massive walnut desk and glanced back out the squeaky clean window for the umpteenth time that day. He felt antsy and he couldn’t focus on the work he needed to be doing. Elle Hughes kept intruding with her flashing green eyes and generous lips. He couldn’t stop thinking about the sweetness of her neck or the way her cold hand had pressed to his as they sprinted to the car like love-struck teenagers.
He rolled her name on his tongue, saying it out loud.“Elle Hughes.”
“Huh?”
Jack ripped himself from his vivid daydream of Miss Hughes’s lips beneath his own and looked up at his business partner, Dave O’Shea. Dave had just popped his balding head into Jack’s office.
“Uh, nothing,” Jack muttered, picking up the contracts from his desk, stacking them together and shoving them into a thick file folder. “I can’t really get to these today, Dave. I have to talk to Rudy about a few clauses before I sign.”
“You gotta problem with ’em, Jack?” Dave’s bulldozer frame filled the doorway as he shifted from one motorcycle boot to the other. For a big mountain of a guy, he looked nervous.
“No, no. Just some personal stuff on my plate. Don’t worry. We’ve finally got the numbers right on this. I’ll have them complete before next week.” Jack hated putting the deal off, but it was important and needed his full attention. At the moment, he couldn’t give that. Why, he had no clue, but he was pretty sure it had to do with a certain sassy Texas beauty and her mysterious effect on him, which was crazy. A woman had never caused him to lose focus on a business deal.
The intercom on his desk buzzed and his secretary droned, “Jack, your father’s on line one.”
Jack shrugged at Dave. “Got to take this.”
Dave threw Jack his own shrug and shuffled back out the door. “Let’s get going, Jack. I’ve been patient, dude, but I’m starting to run low on the stuff. Sign the damned papers already.”
Jack released a pent-up breath, not really wanting to talk to his father, but grateful for the call so he could get rid of Dave. Selling his business to O’Shea made him feel queasy.
Not because Dave wasn’t good. The hulking man had a shrewd business mind lurking beneath his construction worker demeanor. But Trojan Works, Inc. had been Jack’s baby since its conception. He would still own stock in the company, but not the majority. And he would no longer run the nightclubs. The idea of not being in the clubs, especially Agave Blue, made him twitchy. A little scared.
Agave was his identity.
Jack jerked the phone to his ear and pressed the blinking button. “Hey, Dad.”
“I just got the new horse, and by God, he is a big son of a bitch!”
Jack smiled at his father’s enthusiasm. “Everything go all right?”
Tom Darby launched into details of the horse’s ride from California, giving Jack no room for any other questions about the stallion they’d just purchased from a top-notch breeder. The mustang, a proven producer of strong broncs, would serve as the stud for their horse-breeding business. Despite the fact that his father was talking about their newest venture, Jack couldn’t stop the visions of Elle from invading his thoughts.
“So what do you think?” His father sounded impatient.
“Huh?” Jack asked, ripping himself away from memories of last night.
“I said, what do you think?” Tom Darby growled, obviously perturbed at his son’s lack of attention.
“About what?” Jack kicked his chair away from the desk and stared out at the world churning beneath him.
“Why the hell weren’t you listening in the first place? This is important, son. I am too old to do this by myself. You said you’d do this with me. I need you, Jack.”
Jack closed his eyes. “I know, Dad. I’m in this thing. Didn’t I just spend three days in Texas scouting out locations? But I have a lot on my mind with this buyout.”
The line grew quiet. Jack could almost hear his father chewing on his thoughts, measuring his words, trying to rein in his excitement over the horse and be a supportive father at the same time. “Understandable, son.”
“Listen, I’ll try to get out next weekend to take a look a
t the stallion. I’ve been reading a couple of articles on breeding techniques we may want to try. By the way, have you broken the news to Mom?”
The line was silent again.
“Dad?”
“We’ve discussed it. As much as she wants to see her grandbabies, she can’t tolerate the thought of leaving the dairy.”
Jack could hear the frustration in his father’s voice. Tom had given up his career in the rodeo for the sweet Lila and her family dairy with the promise that one day he could pursue his dream of raising broncs. His mom just hadn’t realized her sixty-three-year-old husband would remember the promise or that it would involve moving to Texas, where her husband had been raised and where, ironically, both her daughters lived. Lila could be a mule.
“Don’t worry,” Tom said. “And your mother’ll be looking forward to seeing you. It’s been a couple of months and it’ll give Lila an excuse to try some of those new recipes she’s been downloading off the computer. I can hardly find the keyboard under all these papers she’s been printing.”
Jack hung up and rubbed his churning gut. God, what had he gotten himself into? Breeding tough-ass rodeo broncs?
Why had he agreed to do this?
He was Jack Darby.
Love-’em-and-leave-’em Jack.
Bright-lights, big-city Jack.
Wonder-boy-of-the-strip Jack.
Not shoveling-horseshit Jack.
Hell, he’d only been to a rodeo once. He spun his chair around and faced the huge window. Cars were crawling down Flamingo Road, little beetles going to battle, streaming toward the setting sun like sacrificial soldiers.
Jack rubbed his hand over his face, allowing a heavy sigh to erupt. He just wasn’t himself. Wasn’t that devil-may-care playboy with the killer smile and Midas touch. And he hadn’t been that man in several months.
It wasn’t just that he had agreed to go into partnership with his old man. He could have done that without too much risk and still pacified his father. Jack had the capital; he could have easily been a silent partner. But when his father put all the figures together and asked, “Will you do this with me?” Jack found himself nodding.
