Some Like It Ruthless (A Temporary Engagement)

by Bryce, Megan

He looked up at the ceiling and remembered a man so desperate he’d begged a Caldwell for help. He said, “What about it?”

  Her face remained cool and calm but he heard her take in a deep breath. She said, “I’m interested in that deal now.”

  He smiled, a slow grin that worked its way from slightly amused to full-out entertained. He raised his eyebrows and said, “You want to marry me.”

  “Not particularly. But I need. . . some time.”

  He tapped the desk, his smile fading. “How bad is it?”

  “Bad.” She moved her hands palm out, indicating him and his office. “I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

  He knew how that went. A woman had to be pretty damn desperate to come to a Montgomery for help.

  He swiveled his chair to look out his window, out into the parking lot full of muddy trucks and busy men.

  She said, “I don’t want your money. But I need your name.”

  She laughed bitterly and he couldn’t stop the breath that rushed out. Margaret Caldwell, one of the scions of Dallas, needed him. A no-good Montgomery from the wrong side of the tracks.

  He felt a cold sneer take over his face and knew what he would look like. His bastard of a father had sneered whenever he got the upper hand over someone. Anyone.

  Cole wiped his face clean, and breathed, and continued to watch muddy trucks and muddy men. Too busy to care what image they were presenting.

  Maggie said, “I need the time your name will give me.”

  He swiveled his chair back around to find her eyes closed, her hands folded tight in her lap. He watched until her eyes opened. The color of her eyes changed from cool green to brilliant turquoise, depending on her mood.

  Right now green was winning and it pissed him off. She’d come in here in that skirt and those shoes with clear green eyes.

  He said, “You know what I want in exchange.”

  She looked taken aback, as if surprised that she was still what he wanted. Or maybe she was surprised that a grown man would still be making deals with his Johnson in mind.

  She shook her head, her expression torn between amused and insulted. “No.”

  “Then no deal.”

  She rose. “Good.”

  “You have an interesting way of negotiating.”

  “I’m not negotiating. I’m appeasing my sister.”

  “I thought I was your last option. I can’t imagine you would come beg if you had any other way out.”

  “You aren’t my last option. Just the quickest one. And I don’t remember begging.”

  Cole raised an eyebrow. “And just what are your other options? Street-walking is harder than it looks.”

  One corner of her mouth quirked up. “Not if you get the right clients.”

  He plopped one booted foot onto his knee, hopefully hiding a certain portion of his body and its growing interest in their conversation. He could all too clearly see her cool, calm and in charge.

  He said, “Let me get this straight. You’d rather sleep with anybody who’s got two nickels to rub together than sleep with me?”

  “I’d rather sleep with anything than sleep with you. I don’t really care if it has thumbs to rub those nickels together.”

  He muttered, “Tell me how you really feel, Empress.”

  Her eyes flashed, blue edging into the green, and he nearly crowed with delight. That old spitfire was still in there, ready to take his head off.

  He waited with baited breath to hear her say it. Just one little “don’t call me that” and he would agree to any of her terms. Keep her creditors at bay, play the game with her one more time. He’d even let her keep her dignity, although he might not tell her that just yet. He wouldn’t mind watching her sweat just a little.

  He waited. And he waited.

  They stared at each other, the years too thick between them.

  Maggie clutched her bag in one hand and turned toward the door.

  He said, “That was it? You drive four hours to get here, wait an hour to see me, then spend five minutes trying to talk me into it?”

  She looked back at him. “There’s nothing I’m willing to give you that would make it worth your while. But now I can tell Ginny that you won’t help and we can move on to the next possibility.”

  “If your body’s not for sale, I might be tempted by land.”

  She shook her head. “No. Again.”

  He spread his hands wide. “If you’re going to lose it anyway. . .”

  “Even if I would give it to you, it wouldn’t help. It’s all mortgaged.”

  “All of it?” Her eyes shuttered and he took a deep breath. “Even the ranch house?”

  “All of it.” She said it coldly, as if losing the ranch house wouldn’t rip out her soul, but he knew better. Knew what home and family meant to her.

  “Shit, Maggie.”

  She stood there silently, her back straight, her legs braced as if waiting for an attack from him.

  He said, “For Christ’s sake, sit back down.”

  “Are you going to help us? For nothing in return?”

  “Well. . .”

  She opened the door, stopping when she saw a group of roughnecks pretending to wait for a paycheck so they could check her out.

  She turned around with a genuine smile on her face. “Thanks, Cole. Predictable was just what I needed. I don’t think I could have taken one more surprise from you.”

  He frowned at her and she said, “I hope the vultures make you pay twice what the ranch house is worth.”

  He opened his mouth and she walked out, shutting the door before he could say anything. What would he have said? That he didn’t want the house?

  He’d wanted that house since he was fourteen years old. Since he was old enough to know that he might live in a house bigger than his old apartment building, might have more land, more money than he’d ever dreamed existed, but he didn’t have a family that laughed and played and loved each other.

  He didn’t have friends to make the huge house less empty or to stand next to him in a fight.

  He would roam his father’s acres, none too careful about making sure it actually was his father’s acres, with binoculars glued to his face, watching his new neighbors. Watching what life was like for them.

  And especially watching the Caldwells. Watching Maggie and her sister live in their big, warm house. Watching their father play and laugh and tease with them.

  A man all of Texas feared who let his daughters put a rope around him and lead him around the yard like a pony.

  Watching their mother fussing and grooming and preparing them for life. They’d hated her fussing and he couldn’t help but hate them for having what he so wanted and not realizing their great fortune.

  They’d had everything in life. While he’d had nothing, no one.

  Cole swiveled his chair back around to the window, watching Maggie leave a wake of slack-jawed men behind her. Watched her get into her little coupe, her skirt riding up again, his eyes zeroing in on those straps around her ankles, and thought he’d been just as stupid as those girls.

  He’d had someone once. He’d had someone who stood unflinching next to him when his fists were bloody and bruised. He’d had someone who fussed over him, who tried to knock some sense into him and prepare him for life in shark-infested waters.

  And he’d never realized what he’d had until he’d thrown it away.

  Twenty years ago

  Cole had been too busy looking through his binoculars to hear her footsteps. When she nudged him with her shoe, he jumped and shrieked, spinning on his toes and raising his fists.

  Maggie looked at his raised fists as if she’d never seen one pointed her direction before and said, “My daddy shoots trespassers.”

  Cole puffed out his chest. “This is my land. This is Montgomery land.”

  “It’s Caldwell land.”

  He sneered. “Better check your map, baby.”

  Even at ten-years-old, Maggie knew how to raise an eyebrow just so.
It was nearly as fearsome as a pair of fists. “My daddy says any man calls me baby, I should kick him in the balls.”

  Cole protected himself reflexively. “My daddy says your daddy is a bad loser. Empress.”

  He would just file that no baby rule away for future thought. He wasn’t willing to test it again on Maggie.

  Maggie took a step forward and shoved him. “I told you, don’t call me that.”

  Cole raised his hands to shove Maggie back, then remembered. You didn’t shove a girl. You didn’t hit a girl. You didn’t call a girl baby.

  There wasn’t all these rules in his before-life and it took effort to take a step back. He said, “My daddy says someone shoves you, they better expect a shove back.”

  His father had never said anything like it. If Cole had to guess, his father would say if someone looked like they were going to shove you, you’d better shove first. And Cole had never in his life called Rich Montgomery daddy. But Maggie had a daddy. It only seemed fair that she think he had one too.

  Maggie sniffed. “I guess we’re even then.”

  “How you figure?”

  “I should have kicked you and you should have shoved me.”

  Cole thought about that for a few minutes, then decided Maggie probably knew what she was talking about. Maggie was pretty big on fair.

  He finally nodded. “Even.”

  “Daddy saw the reflection off your binoculars. You’ve got to remember to keep the sun behind you.”

  Cole’s stomach dropped. He didn’t mind running into Maggie when he might or might not be on Montgomery land; he sure as hell did not want to run into her father.

  He nodded again and before he could even think of anything to say she said, “Ginny says Martha says Gayle says she heard her brother talking about a fight Friday after school.”

  “Michael and Jonah.”

  They’d set it up with him like they were scheduling a piano lesson. He’d never get used to the warnings. How stupid do you have to be to tell your prey when you’re going to attack?

  Maggie narrowed her eyes. Cole had known she wouldn’t like it.

  He said, “I’ve told you. Two against is fine. I can take two sissy boys who’ve never been in a real fight before.”

  “It’s not fair,” she said and Cole rolled his eyes.

  “Two of them equals one of me. It’s fair.”

  “What about three?”

  “Depends on the three.” Cole puffed out his chest but it was wasted on her.

  She said, “How will I know if three is too many?”

  Cole had hated the first time Maggie had come to his rescue, especially since it had only been two boys swinging at him like they was swinging blind-folded at a piñata. But since then he’d realized there was an endless wave of them and only one of him.

  Sometimes a man had to take help where he could get it.

  And he knew exactly what his father would say about that.

  But some days, most days, Cole liked Maggie better than his father, and she made a lot of sense when he was nursing a black eye, fat lip, and sore ribs.

  Cole said, “Maybe we need a signal or something. But it can’t be too obvious.”

  “Like you curled up in a ball on the ground?”

  He narrowed his eyes. She was never going to let him forget that.

  He said, “Sometime before that would probably be okay.”

  Maggie smiled, her creepy eyes changing colors.

  They gave her away when he was fighting. She liked watching him fight. Her eyes stayed that creepy greeny-blue for a long time after one of his fights. It didn’t matter if he won or lost. And while he liked it better when he won, losing wasn’t so bad either.

  When he lost, Maggie stepped between him and his enemies. It was hard to feel like a loser when your enemy was the one cowering from a girl.

  A girl with soft hands who rinsed blood away like his housekeeper washed the fine china.

  A girl with soft hands who held an ice pack to his face like she was holding a day-old kitten.

  A girl with soft hands and swirling eyes who should be his greatest enemy and instead was his only friend.

  A girl with soft hands and a sharp voice that told him he was an idiot. Whether he won or lost.

  Cole had never had a mother but he thought Maggie would one day make a pretty good one. Cole thought soft hands and a sharp voice was just what a mother was supposed to be like.

  Two

  Cole sat in the shade watching Maggie swimming back and forth, back and forth. She looked as if the weight of the world rested on her too skinny shoulders. She swam as if all her devils were chasing her.

  He’d been out here for over an hour, waiting for her to get home. The housekeeper had taken one look at him and crossed herself. She’d repeated, “No, no, no, no,” and he’d held up a hand to forestall a complete meltdown.

  “I’ll wait by the pool. Tell Maggie I’m here.”

  The housekeeper had shrieked, “Madre de Dios! She no here!”

  “I’ll wait.”

  He’d half-believed Maggie had been inside the whole time, making him wait just a little bit longer than he’d made her wait. But one glance at her barely-hanging-in-there, faded black Speedo and he’d known Maggie didn’t have a clue he was here.

  As soon as he’d been able to get away from work, he’d taken off after her, thinking he’d catch up to her somewhere on I-20.

  He’d seen her push her fist into her belly before she’d slammed her car door shut and remembered his own ulcer. Seen her drive out of his parking lot in a Hyundai. A Hyundai.

  It was stylish enough that maybe she could pretend she was driving it because she liked it, but he knew better.

  Margaret Caldwell wouldn’t know what a Hyundai was unless she had to.

  He’d remembered the stomach-eating acid of his own bankruptcy. Wide awake nights. The crushing failure. He wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy.

  Which was why he was here.

  He’d give her the time she needed, distract her with a good fight now and again, and redeem himself. She’d had her revenge on him, though she’d clearly not forgiven him. He wasn’t sure she ever would. He wasn’t sure if he wanted her to. But he needed to forgive himself, forgive the stupid shit that he’d been. Make up for hurting the one person who’d made life bearable.

  Cole sat and watched Maggie swim until her strokes slowed, until her arms lost their controlled precision.

  He stood and walked to the edge of the pool.

  She jerked, her head whipping out of the water. She stared at him for a moment, her eyes wide, then she shouted, “Cole!”

  She hit the water with her fist, spraying water onto his pants, and he grinned.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She hit the water again, spraying more water, and he shook his head, reaching for his buckle.

  “If you’re going to get me all wet I might as well jump in and cool off.”

  She watched him slide his zipper down with narrowed eyes. “How long have you been here?”

  He glanced at his watch, then took it off. “About an hour and a half. With not even an offer of a drink.”

  He pulled his shirt over his head, not missing her gaze sliding down his chest.

  She said, “I’m surprised Rosa didn’t offer you the business end of a shotgun.”

  He kicked off his shoes and socks, hooking his thumbs into his jeans. He looked at the house, noticing a crooked blind suddenly straighten.

  “She’s not the same housekeeper who walked in on us, is she?”

  “The same.”

  “Well, that makes a little more sense. I thought she seemed unreasonably unwelcoming.”

  He pushed his jeans down quickly and jumped into the water, the cold soaking into his white briefs.

  Say what you would about breezy boxers, Cole liked the classics.

  When he surfaced, Maggie was heading for the stairs. He swam after her, grabbing her ankle, the smooth skin
sliding against his palm, and pulled her under. He kept a loose grip on her ankle, those damn shoes still swimming in his head, and towed her away from the stairs.

  She kicked against his wrist with her free foot and he grabbed that one as well. He couldn’t help his grin at the thought that he’d gotten his hands on her ankles without going to his knees after all. She twisted under the water, spinning and ripping her ankles out of his hands.

  She burst to the surface, slapping a wave of water into his face when his head followed hers.

  He coughed as another wave caught him in the face and he turned away. “Truce, Maggie!”

  He peeked at her and caught another faceful of water, but not before he saw her mouth fighting a smile.

  He didn’t look at her again, just kept his face turned away and tried to see where she was out of the corner of his eye. “Better?”

  She laughed. “A little.”

  “Can I turn around now?”

  “You can turn around.”

  He started to turn, then stopped. “And you’re not going to try and drown me, right?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  Cole folded his arms. “I want both your hands on the ledge where I can see them.”

  “I want you out of my pool and your pants back on.”

  “I could do that but then I won’t tell you why I’m here.”

  “I know why you’re here.”

  He turned toward her and said, “I doubt you’d be trying to drown me if–” and got a faceful of water.

  He turned his back to her and pointed. “Hands on the ledge!”

  She slowly floated to the edge of the pool, her smile wide enough to see out of the corner of his eye.

  She grabbed the ledge behind her head, still facing him, letting her body float to the surface.

  He turned towards her again, distracted by the sight of those long, long legs floating arm’s length away and missed the glint in her eye.

  She started kicking fiercely, sending a tidal wave of water over his head. He bowed his head, hunching against the onslaught, and hoped she’d stop soon. He needed to remember the water was her home, not his. And like most legendary water-folk, she’d drown him for sport.

  Her kicking legs finally slowed and then stopped, and he took a long, deep breath. “Done now?”