by Marie Jermy
“We may have to put our plans for the house on hold for a while. He’s not willing to sell his half to me.”
“Yeah, it’s called payback,” Matt chimed in. “For not cleaning the john. But then again, Mona, why change the habit of a lifetime?”
“Oh, is that all.”
Ramona angled a scowl at Matt and then gaped at Samantha. “What do you mean, ‘Oh, is that all’?”
“It’s not the end of the world, Mona. We can always find another house.”
“Yeah, but I wanted this one. Sammy, we both wanted it.”
“Have you talked to him? Told him of our plans? I’m sure—”
“And why would I do that?” Ramona interrupted.
“Because Rex is your partner.”
And indeed, he was. Stephens had actually used the telephone that morning saying that he was in full agreement for Rex to buy his share and for it to happen as soon as possible. However, Ramona hadn’t been able to tell Rex because he’d been out on an emergency callout. By the time he’d returned, she’d already left for the party.
“The man must have brass balls,” Matt again chimed in. “Either that or he’s a glutton for punishment.”
Again, Ramona scowled at him. “Butt out.”
“He doesn’t know, does he?” Samantha asked.
“I haven’t had the chance,” Ramona replied. “He’s been out all day. Anyway, that’s beside the point. I’m not going to tell him about our plans. It’s none of his business.” At the dramatic eye roll, she nudged her sister. “And don’t roll your eyes like that, Sammy. I’m sure you don’t tell Mark everything.”
“And as if by magic, the asshole appears.”
“Man, you can’t even breathe in Rustlers,” Raven said, handing Ramona and Samantha their drinks and pointedly ignoring Matt. “So what have I missed?”
“Not you, that’s for sure.”
For the sake of her sister, Ramona suppressed the giggle at Matt’s continuing sarcasm. She just hoped he was wise enough to know when to stop. She sipped her wine, grimacing at its warmth, and then smiled as her parents joined them. As always, they linked hands and shared a loving look. Suddenly struck with a feeling of loneliness, she gave her father a hug. Why couldn’t all men be as faithful as her father?
“Hey, what was that for?”
She shrugged. “Can’t I give my dad a hug once in a while?”
“Well, sure.” Her father smiled. “When are we going to meet this new man of yours? Rex Latimer, isn’t it?”
Rex wasn’t her man, but at the mention of his name, Ramona felt a prickle of awareness dart down her spine. She turned, searching for Rex. She found him engrossed in conversation with Emily Coy on the other side of the street. Then he looked up, and their gazes tangled. Even from that distance, he swept her breath away with the clear message his toffee-brown eyes relayed.
“Come over here and blow me.”
Her pulse raced. Her heart did, too. But she ignored that. Her heart was not an issue. It wasn’t as though it was going to be broken, or even dented. No, the only issue here was she wanted Rex. She wanted him in her bed. In her mouth. In her pussy. But was it possible to keep business separate from pleasure?
Oh, screw it! After a split-second decision, and because there was only one way to find out, Ramona ditched her philosophy. Tonight, she would blow and jump her partner’s bones, experience sex without the slush and get Rex out of her system once and for all.
Or so she hoped.
But first, something to eat. She needed to keep her strength up. Ramona made toward the tables of food set out outside “Curls & Pearls,” Emily Coy’s hair and beauty salon next to Rustlers, calling over her shoulder, “Dad, Rex is not my new man. He’s my partner at the practice. I’ll just go and grab some food, and then I’ll bring him over.”
* * * *
For the second time in as many seconds, Rex surreptitiously readjusted the crotch of his jeans and smiled at the woman happily chatting before him.
Emma—no, Emily Coy was very pretty, with chin-length curls of rich brown hair and twinkling sky-blue eyes, but his cock was not pointing in her direction. No, it was pointing toward a certain green-eyed sex kitten, who had once again filled his dreams the night before with dewy, hunger-driven, tongue-tangling kisses.
Ramona… Merely thinking her name made him feel warm all over with the type of heat that had nothing to do with the evening’s temperature, but rather the blood roaring through his veins on a direct path to his cock every time he looked at her. Which was often.
Wearing a magenta dress with cap sleeves, the stretchy material hugging her lush curves and a well-rounded ass, the sweetheart neckline showing her plump breasts to maximum effect and the hem sitting a good few inches above the delectable pair of knees, her black strappy sandals adding at least four inches to her height, she was, in a word, breathtakingly beautiful. Okay, two words. He again sought her out and again readjusted his jeans.
“Don’t you think so, Rex?”
Rex wrenched his attention back to Emma—no, Emily. “Yeah, I do,” he replied, hoping his answer was appropriate for whatever the question had been.
Her expression was one of relief. “I’m so glad you agree. And, oh, look, here he comes now. Have fun.”
What the…? Rex scratched his head as Emma—no, Emily!—walked quickly away as if her shoes were on fire. Who was coming? Not him, that was for sure. His cock had suddenly become as soft as butter. One second later, and he had his answer.
“Rex Latimer?” a gruff voice boomed.
He turned and surprisingly found himself having to look up at a lean, deeply tanned man with slicked back dark hair. The Stetson was missing, but even so, the man looked as if he had just stepped off a cowboy film set. And was it a trick of the light, or were the words “pain in the ass” stamped across his forehead?
“Bud Watson.”
Ah, definitely not a trick of the light. Rex shook Watson’s hand and tried his damnedest not to smile at the thought of Ramona kicking Watson’s ass to Helena.
“Yeah, knew it was you. Look like a vet. That Ramona’s all right. More than all right,” he said on what might have been a wishful sigh. “But she’s… Well, you know.”
Huh? What, pray, was a vet supposed to look like? An animal, maybe? Rex didn’t think so, but, and not blowing his own trumpet, he would go as far as to say he was hung like a horse. “No, I don’t know,” he said, feigning a friendly smile. He suspected he was about to take an instant dislike to the man. “Enlighten me.”
“Well, I don’t profess to being a vet, but I know a lot about animals. Particularly horses. I own the stud out ways on Third. One of my mares will be foaling in about a month’s time. I had hoped Greg would buy the new foal, as he did with Bonnie and Clyde, but I suppose with him moving to Florida… Unless, of course, you’re interested?”
“No. About Ramona…?”
“Oh, yes. She’s all right, but she’s not Greg. She’s, um… How can I put this?”
“One of the best veterinarians I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with,” Rex finished for Watson. “And you’re…”
“A pain in the ass,” a soft feminine voice finished for Rex.
“Well, actually I was going to say lucky to have someone as competent as Ramona caring for and treating your fine horses.” Smiling, Rex turned and felt his jaw drop at the woman dressed in jeans and a green and blue plaid shirt taking up position at his side. Older, the chestnut hair lightly threaded with gray, but with the same striking green eyes, Ramona sure hadn’t been kidding when she’d said she looked like her mother.
“Bud, go and bore somebody else.”
To Rex’s amusement, Watson did exactly that. “Mrs. Anderson, a pleasure.” He offered his hand and was surprised at the firm shake.
“Call me Jess. Ramona said she’d introduce us, but my husband, Ross, and I got tired of waiting for her to bring you over. Will you join us?”
He nodded and followed Jess to
where three men and a woman were gathered outside the police station.
“My husband, Ross,” Jess said, gesturing to the eldest of the three men.
Jess’s husband, Ross, was wearing jeans, a standard wardrobe item, or so it seemed in Montana, and his full head of steel-gray hair matched that of the gray of his cotton twill shirt. Again, Rex felt his jaw drop, but managed to pick it up before anybody noticed. He shook Ross’s hand and refrained from commenting on the obvious age difference between husband and wife.
But then again what did it matter that Ross had to be at least eighty, yet Jess didn’t look a day over sixty, maybe even fifty-five? Their linked hands and loving looks portrayed the deep affection they obviously felt for one another and cemented the kind of marriage that he and Stacey never had. He felt quite envious.
“Welcome to Silver Creek, Rex,” Ross said.
“Thank you, sir.” He turned to the woman. Apart from the shoulder-length hair and the more conservative attire of a pale pink 1950’s style dress with buttons down the front and a thin black belt clinched at the waist, and low-heeled black shoes, she was the replica of Ramona. No guesses who she was. But what surprised him? His cock didn’t twitch one iota. “Samantha, nice to meet you.”
She gave him a warm, yet shy smile. “Likewise, Rex.”
Rex felt his own smile slipping and his fingers twitching at the man clad all in denim standing next to her. Introduced as Mark Raven, the only thing he wanted to do was to curl his hand into a fist and punch the sneer from his tanned pretty-boy face. For a man who believed any kind of violence to be socially unacceptable, he found the concept unsettling. He held out and shook hands with the uniformed man with tousled blue-black hair standing just behind Raven. “You must be Matt.”
“I am. And you have my sympathies. Working with Mona is one thing, but having to share the same john as her as well?” He cocked his head toward Samantha. “You should ask her to move in. Unlike Mona, Sammy’s so tidy, it’s a sin.”
Rex didn’t know what to make of Matt. There was a cockiness to him, but it was a good kind of cockiness, like underneath the steel-hard exterior, and despite the gibes, lay a deep respect and love for his sisters. As an only child, he couldn’t relate to that, but he did understand it.
“So, Rex, what part of the Deep South are you from?”
“New Orleans, sir. But I’ve been living in Miami for the last five years,” he replied to Ross’s question. Rex then frowned. “How did you know I was from the Deep South?”
“Always been a vet?”
“Yes, sir.”
“There’s your answer. Apart from the accent, you’ve got the manners of a Southern gentleman. Just like vampire Bill. Without the fangs, of course.”
“Vampire Bill? As in True Blood? You watch that?” Rex asked, taken completely by surprise. If he had been alive, he couldn’t imagine his own father, much less anybody else’s, tuning in to such a bloody, violent, and sexually graphic program.
“Who doesn’t,” Jess said with a decidedly flirtatious wink at her husband.
“I don’t,” Samantha said softly. “All that sex and swearing is completely unnecessary.”
Rex smiled at her. Identical in looks they might be, but he began to suspect Ramona and Samantha had very different personalities and interests. “Ramona’s into science fiction, but I take it you’re not?”
“Heavens, no. I prefer old-fashioned romance.” She wrinkled her pert nose, adding, “Though, thinking about it, there are knights in science fiction, ones with magical swords and who live in mythical lands. So a brave knight on a white horse charging to the rescue of a fair maiden is romantic.”
“And I’m that brave knight,” Raven piped up, a megawatt smile far from gallant plastered over his face.
“Oh, pur-lease. Asshole meet Beretta.”
Detecting the sudden tense air between Raven and Matt, then noticing it extended to Ross, and not wanting to make the situation worse by laughing at Matt’s muttered comment, Rex searched the area for Ramona. She wasn’t hard to miss. His cock instantly stirred. And it had nothing to do with the way she was licking food off her fingers. Well, okay, maybe just a little bit. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go and get something to eat. I missed lunch and my stomach’s beginning to think that my throat’s been cut.”
“I’ll bet food’s not all you wanna eat.”
This time, Raven’s comment, which Rex felt was targeted specifically at Ramona, again made his fingers twitch. But before the temptation manifested further, there was a low chuckle and another utterance from Matt.
“Go ahead. Make my day.”
* * * *
With her third vegetables marinated in tomato and wild herb sauce tortilla wrap going down as equally as well as the first two, Ramona licked her fingers clean—why waste a paper napkin on the remnants of delicious food?—and placed the plate on the table. She attracted the attention of Charlotte Coy, Emily’s mother, who was serving John Stanford. “My compliments to the chef.”
“That would be your father.”
“Mmm, I thought there was something familiar about those wraps.” Fearing a fourth wrap would tempt her, Ramona moved away and propped a hip against the same railing outside Rustlers that Rex had leaned against earlier. Stanford, ever clad in jeans, plaid shirt, and scuffed cowboy boots joined her. “Why aren’t you inside?”
“Because as owner I can do what I want,” he mumbled around a mouthful of food. He swallowed, and his rugged face broke into a grin. “Besides, I have complete faith in my staff not to bail the moment I do. Not that I’m complaining, what with the till ringing every second, but it’s chaos in there.”
“Yeah, Mark said.”
Stanford swiped a napkin across his mouth. “Damn, these are good. Still, a touch of garlic wouldn’t have gone amiss.”
Ramona pulled a face just as a warm, Southern voice drawled in her ear, sending tingles down her spine, “Kick Bud Watson all the way to Helena, hey?”
“John! Get your butt back in here!”
Ramona burst into giggles as Darlene, Rustlers’ longest serving and sassiest waitress appeared and, despite his protests, dragged Stanford back inside the bar. She turned to Rex, noticing for the first time his usually shaven face was rough with stubble. He’d still used his cologne, though. She could smell it. The spicy aroma enveloped her senses, quickened both her pulse and heart rate, and sizzled the air between them. “You liked him?” she asked, wondering if that husky tone had actually come from her.
“Oh, more than life itself.”
“I did warn you.”
“That you did.” Rex gestured to the dance floor. “May I have the honor?”
“Yeah, okay. I’ve just gotta introduce you to my parents first.”
“Already done.”
“What did you think of them?”
“They’re good people. Samantha’s shy. Matt’s sarcastic. And Mark is… Who is Mark again?”
“Interested in dating Sammy. Though he hasn’t asked her out yet. He’s not Matt’s biggest fan.”
“I did notice.”
His hand on her elbow, Ramona allowed Rex to escort her to the dance floor. It was only the merest of touches, but every male cell within that hot body of his made their presence known to her, relaying the message, as his eyes had done earlier, to sample and taste what he had to offer. As she turned and stood before him, she wickedly thought what he would do or say if she dropped to her knees and blew him there and then. “Did Matt warn you off Emily?”
“No, why would he?”
“Let’s just say you were getting very familiar with her.”
“Ah. Keen on her, is he?”
She stepped closer, inhaled an invigorating lungful of his solid masculinity, his heat, his spicy cologne, and smiled up at him. “Actually, as long as they live in the real world, Matt’s keen on anything with tits and an ass.”
* * * *
As soon as Rex took Ramona into his arms, he knew he was in tr
ouble. Her “tits and ass” comment had made him acutely aware of hers. Not that his hand was anywhere near her well-rounded ass, but her breasts, courtesy of her four-inch heels, were fitted rather snugly against his chest. He dared not think about the color of her bra, if she wore one at all. He sucked in a deep breath and stuck his own ass outward, thus preventing another snug fit—that of his stiffening cock to the junction of her thighs.
She was a good dancer, matching his every step and turn, even when the tempo changed to a much slower beat. Great, that was all he needed, music that required a closer and more intimate dancing position. She met and locked her striking emerald eyes with his, and he began to drown. “I consider myself to be the luckiest man in town,” he told her once he remembered how to breathe.
“How so?”
“No disrespect to your sister, but I’m dancing with the loveliest woman ever to grace this earth.”
Ramona beamed and blew him an air kiss. Rex stuck his ass out further, almost pushing Samantha into the band’s two backing singers as she danced by with Raven. “Sorry,” he said to Samantha while glaring at Raven for his lewd smirk.
“No worries. Have you told him yet, Mona?”
“Told me what?” Rex asked Ramona the moment Samantha and Raven were out of earshot. Was it his imagination or were the fingers of her free hand delving under the back of his sweater? No, definitely not as she caressed his spine, up to his neck muscles then down to his waistband. He actually trembled. Not even Stacey had induced that reaction.
“Greg phoned this morning. You wire him the money and you’re my partner. But it does come with one condition…”
“We keep the name ‘Greg Stephens Veterinarian Practice,’” he finished. “Yeah, I thought so. Greg told me he spent many years building his business and procuring its good name. Keeping it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. You?”
“Nope.” Her green gaze sharpened slightly. “Are you gonna sell your half of the house to me?”
“No.”
“Move out?”
“No.”
“Oh.” She bit her lower lip, seemingly discouraged, but then a soft, promising smile played the corners of her mouth. “Why don’t we celebrate? And I’m not talking about toasting with champagne, either. Unless, of course, it involves licking it off me.”
