“It will if you do it right. Do you know how to swing a sledge? I’ve been doing it since I was fifteen. Do you need a lesson?”
Jeb stripped his shirt, muttering under his breath. “I don’t need a lesson in swinging a sledge.”
Kate swallowed a smile when he ripped the buttons open on his uniform and stood in his T-shirt. Men were so easy.
She set the hammer on the ground at his feet and stepped a safe distance away. Jeb picked up the hammer and brought it down on a thick slab of concrete. He adjusted his grip. He adjusted his stance, looking for a rhythm.
Each stroke of the hammer was a shot to her head but Kate pushed it away. Pain was temporary. “Smooth, easy, downward. There ya go.” She eased him into conversation to help focus his thoughts. “How come you and Butch call each other Clyde? Was Clyde a favorite uncle or something?”
Jeb found a rhythm that suited him and started talking in small bursts between each fall of the hammer. “Trudy’s family owns the farm next to ours. Her old man had an ass, Clyde, which was as mean and stubborn as he was. If you came to close to him, he’d bite and kick.”
“Her father or the ass?”
“Both, but I was talking about the ass.”
“I only have experience with the two-legged kind of ass. Is that normal for the four-legged kind?”
“Clyde was the most unreasonable animal I’ve ever met.” Jeb fell into a steady rhythm. “Mama hated it. She would chase it away from her garden. Sometimes with a shotgun.”
“She shot it?” Kate asked in both surprise and admiration. She noticed Jeb start to sweat, and the knot between his brows loosened, the set of his mouth eased.
“No. Wanted to, no doubt. One day, Butch and I were arguing, the way brothers do. She got a hold of us and said if we were going to act like Clyde, she was going to treat us like Clyde, and she tossed us out of the house. We started calling each other Clyde while we rolled on the ground, fighting over whose fault the whole thing was.”
Kate wanted to crawl into a bottle of codeine, close her eyes, and just float. Instead, she kept her gaze on Jeb. “That’s it, Clyde. You found the rhythm. You got it. Now talk to me.”
Jeb heaved and smashed. “Angie’s car was spotted in an abandoned lot outside of town.” Heave, smash. “It was unlocked, no damage.” Heave, smash. “Her phone was wedged between the driver’s seat and the center console.” Heave, smash.
“Her purse?”
Heave, smash. “Haven’t found it.” Heave, smash. “Yet.”
Kate watched the weight of blinding fury that came with hostility fade as the confident, hard-ass she knew to be Jebediah McCormick re-emerged. She saw it in his eyes, heard it in the challenge of the word “yet.”
Heave, smash. “She called Butch’s house Sunday night. Nine forty-eight. The call lasted two minutes and six seconds.”
Kate shook her head. “That’s not right, Jeb. The phone didn’t ring. I didn’t go to bed until ten. I was with Butch, listening to him play until then. The phone didn’t ring.”
Heave, smash. “Are you sure you just didn’t hear it?”
“That’s possible, but I absolutely know neither of us answered it, even if it did ring.”
Heave, smash. “Butch called her at eight thirty-three Monday morning. This time the call was shorter. Just a minute and a half.”
“Somebody called her Monday morning. I wouldn’t assume it was Butch. All he wanted to do was go back to bed after dropping me at work.”
Heave, smash. “Somebody called her.”
“That somebody wasn’t there when he got home from dropping me off at the job site. He would have told you.”
Heave, smash. “Somebody came in after he was home.”
Kate furrowed her brow. “That’s scary. He’s upstairs asleep, and someone is creeping through his house. Maybe they didn’t know he was home.”
Heave, smash. “His truck was in the garage.”
“What if he woke up?”
Heave, smash. “Either they would have hurt him, or—”
“He knows them,” they said in unison.
Jeb dropped the hammer and picked up his shirt. “Damn it. Damn it. I need to get into the house.”
“Come back to the trailer, I’ll get you a towel. Butch is in Nashville today, so the house is empty.”
Jeb quickly lifted the hammer to his shoulder when Kate would have picked it up. He put it back in the tool shed and walked with her back to her office. There, she dug into a black gym bag and tossed him a thick towel. He wiped the sweat from his face and neck. “I have to think this through. I have to do it right, or I’ll make it worse.”
“I want to help but don’t know the rules. Tell me what to do…or what not to do.” As she stood from bending over, her office spun in time with the pounding of her head.
“I’m going to need to go through the house and figure out who’s been there.” Jeb shrugged on his shirt, quickly buttoning it.
“Besides you, me, Tom, and your parents?”
“Yeah.” Jeb pulled his shirt back on. “It’s been Grand Central Station lately. You all right?”
“My head is killing me. Is it okay if I go back to the house with you? I need to lie down. I won’t touch anything.”
“I’m glad you’re taking care of yourself.” Jeb handed her the safety glasses. “I was going say you look like shit, but I didn’t think you’d take too kindly to it.”
Kate tossed the glasses on her desk, powered down her computer, and texted Tom her plans. A nap, just an hour, and she’d be back on her feet. “I take great care of myself whenever the men in my life stay out of the way.”
Butch took the back roads out of Nashville. His stomach had turned through the entire meeting. He’d sat opposite Fawn, faced off against a woman he once thought he loved. The dispassion with which they discussed the details—sometimes intimate details—of their short life together sickened him. Butch said little throughout the meeting, letting Finch do the talking. Fawn, on the other hand, alternately spewed venom and nonsense while her attorney, present on speakerphone, failed to contain the damage. Finch made mincemeat out of Fawn Jordan. Being right, having the moral upper hand, should have made Butch feel good. But it didn’t.
Butch saw shadows of the girl he married in the woman sitting across from him in her designer dress and camera-ready hair. She wasn’t as innocent as she had been, but she was still in over her head. Butch didn’t want blood. He just wanted out.
The powerful engine of the truck vibrated under his feet as Butch raced through the back roads. He’d taken the long way home, needing the quiet and the sweet country air just to be able to breathe. How had he been able to breathe in Los Angeles for those few years? Well, he hadn’t really. He spent more time in his cabin in the mountains than he had at their home. He could breathe there. He needed more than concrete and steel.
Butch turned onto his road. Jeb waited at the stop sign, and Butch pulled up next to his brother. “What are you doing out this way?”
“Driving your Kate around. That is one helluva woman you’ve got there. I wouldn’t do anything stupid when you get home.”
Butch noticed a change in Jeb’s attitude toward Kate. The chronic distrust in his voice had changed to something that sounded like respect. When had that happened? Why was Jeb driving Kate anywhere? “What’s going on?”
“I’m going to get Mama and Dad. We’ll be back with dinner shortly.”
Butch drove the quarter mile to the house, puzzling out what happened while he’d been in Nashville. With a half-smile teasing his mouth, he realized anything could have happened. Damn near anything. “What’re you up to, Katie?” He never wondered what any of his wives were doing when he was away from home. He always knew. Angie was about her crusades, Tessa “created,” and Fawn spent money and networked. Katie? Lord only knew what she was doing.
Well, maybe not the Lord.
Butch pulled up the drive and watched the redhead pace the length of the porch in long
, thundering strides. She pushed at the flaming hair that swirled around her in matted disarray. Everything about her stance, everything about her movement, said if she came after you, she was bringing the fires of hell with her.
Butch left the truck in the driveway and walked toward her. He didn’t notice his stomach had stopped turning. He didn’t notice he felt like he was home. He only noticed the woman with the clear blue eyes locked on his.
Kate threw her hands in the air and shouted to him. “The world is full of idiots.”
Butch stood at the base of the porch, putting his eyes on level with her chest. “I believe I can agree with you on that.”
She planted her boots squarely in front of him. “You have your stupid idiots, your dumb-ass idiots, and your garden-variety idiots. I just got a call from Tom that a stupid idiot decided the site was a NASCAR test track and tried to lay down some rubber. The stupid idiot lost control and nearly put the car in a twenty-foot pit. That’s one less stupid idiot I have to pay. Before that, a dumb-ass idiot nearly fried himself by not cutting the power to the circuit he was tapping. Let workman’s comp pay for that one. And then we have your garden-variety idiots.”
Butch scratched his head, hiding his grin. “I’m not your garden-variety idiot, am I?”
She narrowed her eyes challengingly. “Did you agree to anything today without your shark?”
He laid his right hand over his heart. “No, ma’am. My shark did all the talking.”
Kate nodded sharply and then restarted the rant. “Then you’re not a garden-variety idiot, or at least you’re a smart enough idiot not to admit it. The thing about idiocy? You can’t do anything about it. You can’t beat it out of a man. You can’t cure it. There’s no shot for it, no pills to pop, no surgery to take that part out. Oh, sure, once in a while you can get lucky and vote it out of office, but usually you’re just hosed until it dies.”
Butch barked out a belly full of laughter, mounted the two steps to the porch, and wrapped his arms around her.
She leaned away from him, a stern look in her eyes. “Glad you find this so amusing. I was gone thirty minutes, just thirty minutes, and a plague of idiocy breaks out on my site.” With a long sigh, she leaned her weight against him. “Screw it. Tom and Waters can deal with it.”
Butch loved the feeling of her revved body going soft against his. There was so much strength in this little package, so much fire and passion. He would never tire of coming home to her adventures.
Kate drew circles on his back. “How did your thing go?”
“Don’t want to talk about it,” he said in her hair.
“That bad?”
“I just want that part of the day to be over. I want the good part to start.” He swayed gently. “You’re home early.”
“My head hurt. It was getting better until—” She stiffened. “What are you doing?”
Butch pulled her hair back, kissed her neck. “Dancing with you.”
Kate pushed against his chest. “Well stop. I don’t know how to dance.”
The order made him smile. He tightened his arms, in case she decided to make a break for it. “Sure you do. You danced with me at the Sly Dog.”
“No, I didn’t. I just stood there. You danced.” She pushed at his arms, but he didn’t let her retreat.
“All you have to do is relax, like you were.” Butch began singing in her ear. It was an old standard, one even she knew.
“Love me tender, love me sweet, never let me go. You have made my life complete and I love you so.” He hummed a little, feeling those words resonating in his soul. He wanted to tell her but feared his feelings would scare her. Still, he wanted her to know what she meant to him, hoped she felt the same. He tightened his arms around her.
Kate held on to him and followed his lead. The man had a way of taking her off her game like no other. Here she was, ready to take a broadsword to the idiots of the world, and he had her dancing on the porch. Then his words touched her. Like little threads of magic, the words he sang wound through her head and her heart and her soul, making her feel alive in a way she never had. She closed her eyes, holding those words to her heart. Words spoken by a man of her dreams. Could he ever really mean them for her? Did she want him to? A man like Butch would change her life. Did she want that?
He chased the last rational thought from her head when he bent down and kissed her. Instinct and need rose and Kate met his kiss with equaled passion. At that moment, the world fell away. Sensation painted her world in scarlet red. Against that back drop, she saw only Butch. Her body heated, consumed by the flames he fanned in her. Butch ended the kiss and looked into her eyes. She saw his worry there, reminding her of the day he’d had. Tonight, he wouldn’t worry about a thing. “Come inside. Let me take care of you. I’ll make some dinner, and we can spend the evening pretending the idiots of the world don’t exist.”
Butch kissed the tip of her nose. “Making dinner is not taking care of me. That’s adding insult to injury.”
Kate tickled him, and he jumped away. “I meant I would heat up leftovers, not actually cook. Jeez. Have a little faith.” She took his hand and led him into the house.
“Jeb said he was coming back with my folks and dinner.”
Kate stopped abruptly just inside the door. She had forgotten. Butch had kissed away her good sense. When Jeb came back, Butch would have a new mess to deal with.
“You’re not afraid of my mama, are you?” Butch asked, misunderstanding her reluctance.
“Hmm? No. I’m impressed she’s willing to come back after last night. I don’t think I’m ever going to be on her favorite list, but I’m not afraid of her. Why don’t you play piano until they get here? I could probably make a salad or something to go with whatever they bring.”
Kate steered Butch to his piano, and once she got him to sit, his hands moved of their own accord. She stood behind him and watched. His fingers swept strong and sure across the keys with remarkable speed. Quick, powerful music. The sharp movement of the white keys reminded her of watching a hail storm and ice hitting the ground with enough energy to bounce up and strike again.
Gradually, his head bowed as if weary. The tone changed, the rhythm slowed, the pitch raised, and he cried. Not from his eyes; that would have been easier to take. But from his heart, from his soul. He wept, and it broke her heart.
Kate brushed away her own real tears. “Enough.” She stomped her foot hard enough to make Butch jump. “We are not going to let them do this to you.” She climbed on the bench and straddled his lap while the piano bellowed in dissonance. “This is not who you are.” She said the words that came from her heart. “You are not going to let your ex and her lawyers make you feel you are anything less than extraordinary. Let them take their money and their pound of flesh, but don’t you dare let them touch your heart and soul. I’ve been around a lot of people, a lot of good people, and you’re one of the best. Look through my eyes, and see what I see.”
Kate pulled his head to hers and opened herself to him. She kissed him as she had never kissed another man. For keeps.
After a moment of surprise, Butch kissed her back. “Be with me. Make me feel alive.” He bent her over the piano keys and while the strings rang out, he loved her. His hands tugged her black shirt from her jeans and found the soft, hot skin beneath. While she clung to his shoulders, his hands raced up and down her ribs, feeling every line of her tucked-in waist and firm muscles. With each touch, her heart raced. Her breasts heaved against his chest, begging for his attention. Her back arched, inviting him to taste.
He worked his way from her mouth to her chin to her sensitive throat. His hands spanned her waist, his thumbs tracing the arch of her ribs. Her stomach fluttered beneath his hands. She rocked her hips against his. Closer. She wanted to be closer.
A muffled cough broke through the heat. “Clyde, I’ve heard of piano for four hands, but that’s an unusual style you two have.”
Kate jumped, her elbows crashing down on the piano. Ru
nning was her first instinct, but Butch held her in place. His forehead to hers. Their breath mutually ragged.
Butch’s fingers dug into her hips, holding her as he looked over his shoulder to his brother. “Clyde, can you just get lost for a few more minutes?”
Jeb stood in the doorway, the screen door closed tight against his back. “Clyde, I could, but I don’t think Mama’s gonna accommodate you, and I’m sure whatever you could do in a few minutes would not impress your lady.”
The screen door opened with a sharp tsk from Emily McCormick. “This chicken needs to go in the oven. John, did you bring the applesauce? Jebediah, why are you blocking the door?”
Kate jumped from Butch’s lap, trading grace for speed. Facing the wall, she tugged down her shirt and re-tucked it. Presentable, she turned and faced the parents of the man she had come to realize she was falling for. “Hi, Emily, John.”
“Hello, dear. Is that cousin of yours home? I made fried chicken. He’s not going to want to miss out on it.” Emily walked through to the kitchen, her voice trailing behind her.
Butch called after his mother. “You just made me fried chicken last weekend. Are you trying to make me fat? You know I pay a trainer a lot of money to keep me lean.”
Emily’s voice carried to the living room. “I don’t know why you pay them all that money. You look fine just the way you are.”
Jeb leaned against the doorway, looking between the kitchen and his brother, the devil in his eyes. “I keep telling him honest work would do more for his body and his soul than some high-priced trainer.”
Emily poked her head out of the kitchen. “When was the last time you went to church, Butch?”
“My soul’s just fine, Mama.” Butch narrowed his eyes at Jeb’s silent laughter. “Stop trying to get me in trouble.”
“You and I are going to have a talk,” Emily said to Butch, then she turned to Kate. “Is Tom on his way home?”
“Calling now.” Kate pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed. “Emily wants you to come home for dinner. I’m pretty sure no one’s eating until you’re here.”
Butch bent close to the phone. “Family rules, Tom. Get home now.”
Lost in Tennessee Page 13
