“So, why did you keep yours?” she asked.
Well, he couldn’t play the family heirloom card since he’d been with Jordan when she’d bought his. She’d been basically near broke at the time and had used her tip money from waitressing to get it. Since she wouldn’t let him pay for it, Dylan had purposely picked out the cheapest one in the store.
“Ditto on it not feeling right to throw it away,” he said. Though he had taken it to the creek a couple of times to do just that. “I guess that’s what people do when they’re really, really pissed off.” Instead, he’d just been really, really hurt.
She looked at him. At the card. And then out at the road. “Maybe I can turn around and we can go back.”
He shook his head. “The road’s narrow, and we’d end up in the ditch. Besides, I think the rain’s letting up a little.”
Mother Nature or whoever was responsible for this monsoon from hell must have wanted to give him a little jab because the rain dumped down on the windshield as if someone had poured a massive bucket of water on them.
“Or not,” he amended.
Jordan groaned again, but this time it wasn’t such an agony groan. It had a touch of sarcastic humor to it.
“So, how many winners have there been?” she asked, plucking the bingo card from his fingers. She was making conversation, that was all. A way to pass the time while the buckets continued.
“Probably too many,” he admitted. Again, it was meant to pass the time. “I’m thinking about offering two drinks to anyone who turns in a blank card.”
“You mean now that you’re celibate,” Jordan said. The sarcasm dripped a little heavier with that comment. “I heard about it from your mom.”
It took Dylan a moment to remember that he’d sent Regina the video of him making that outrageous promise. Except it wasn’t so outrageous. Here it’d been two weeks, and there’d been no sex. A small miracle considering he was right next to Jordan and her invisible clothes.
She looked over the card. And looked. And frowned. And looked some more.
“It’s sleazy and slutty when you’re just reading it like that,” he reminded her. “I mean when the heat’s not there to make it seem like wise choices. Of course, a good kiss can make just about anything feel wise.”
Jordan was smiling and fighting that smile when she looked at him. For a moment, he thought it was just going to stay a glance and that she would go back to studying that blasted card. But the glance turned into eye contact.
Uh-oh.
Not good. Here they were talking about sex bingo cards, heat and kisses with some sleazy and slutty thrown in. That was a bad combination. So was the single word of profanity that Jordan mumbled. No sarcasm, just a crapload of frustration.
“Dylan, we can’t do this,” she added.
That was definitely the right thing to say, and that’s why it surprised him when she leaned in and kissed him. Apparently, they could do this after all. Well, if this involved doing the dumbest thing they could possibly do with their clothes still on.
Jordan didn’t go for a little peck. She went with the happy birthday/Merry Christmas/big-assed lottery win all rolled into one. But then, they’d never been the willy-nilly type of kissers. The first time they’d lip-locked when they were fifteen, it’d been a second-base kind of deal with mouths open and already leaping toward the home run. That’s why he’d kept kissing her and only her for the next five years.
And here he was again.
Dylan could have stopped, of course, if it hadn’t been for that drenching of pleasure he got from the taste of her. Oh, and the touch. Because Jordan immediately slid her cold, wet hand around the back of his neck. The cold, wet part should have been a turnoff, but since the rest of them was cold and wet, it blended right in and somehow stuck out at the same time. Leave it to Jordan to manage both.
She also managed to move closer, leaning over the gearshift to keep on deepening an already-deep kiss. Even though his mind was fuzzy with heat, he still checked to make sure they weren’t going to roll into the creek. Thankfully, the creek was a good quarter of a mile away, but it was possible they could drift in that direction, and neither of them would notice.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she said with her mouth against his.
At least she’d moved on from they couldn’t do this. That had already been proven wrong so she was now going with the obvious. No, they shouldn’t be kissing, and she definitely shouldn’t be dallying with her finger in that spot just below his ear. She knew that was a hot zone for him, but she kept doing it while getting closer.
Since Dylan still had just a thread of common sense left, he remembered the kicked gearshift/creek debacle and decided to do something about that. He pulled Jordan into his lap. No sane man would have done that, which proved just how little that common sense shred was.
Jordan proved it, too, by continuing the kiss and the finger dallying. It was even more potent now because her wet body was pressed against his, and he could feel those nipples that he’d been fantasizing about. It made him crazy. Or crazier than he already was because he sacrificed kissing her tasty devil mouth so he could lower his head and go after her breasts.
She must have approved because she caught onto his hair and pulled him even closer to her.
“I’m not going to be a filled square,” she complained.
Because his head was fuzzy and this body was throbbing, it took him a moment to realize she meant the bingo card. Because, yes indeed, there was a stupid square about making out with him in a thunderstorm.
A square that could now be ticked off.
But Dylan didn’t want any box ticking. He wanted to get Jordan naked and... He stopped and forced himself to think about this. Did he want to have sex with her in this car while they parked on the side of the road?
Yes.
But did that mean he should have sex with her while they were parked on the side of the road?
No.
He repeated that. Sixteen times.
Jordan seemed to be mentally repeating some stuff, too, because she’d stopped kissing him and started staring at him. He couldn’t tell if she was planning to put an end to this or ask him if he had a condom.
He did have not one but two condoms in his wallet. And with her body squished against his, it’d take some pretty interesting maneuvering for him to reach back there and get them. It was possible for at least one of them to get an orgasm during the process. But the sound Dylan heard had him dismissing any condom-retrieving/accidental orgasms that might happen.
Because it was the sound of an approaching car.
He took out the approaching part when he looked out and saw that the vehicle was already there. It’d stopped right next to them. And despite the rain and all the thunderstorm making out that had gone on, the windows weren’t fogged up nearly enough because he had no trouble seeing the driver of the vehicle.
Judge Walter Ray Turley.
Dylan had no trouble spotting the judge’s passengers, either.
Melanie and Theo.
And worse, the eyeballing/scowling trio had no problem seeing Jordan on his lap. Dylan was thinking that this was one particular cat that he wasn’t going to be able to get back in the bag.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DYLAN DOUBTED THE strong smell of horse shit in the air was the cause of the abundance of stink eye he was seeing. Nope. He figured those squinty eyeball gazes were aimed at him.
And Jordan.
He’d been right about not being able to put the making-out cat back in the bag, and it was obvious that everyone attending the Wrangler’s Creek Charity Rodeo had heard of the lip-lock between Jordan and him in the car. Since it’d been a week since that happened, Dylan had hoped that talk about it would have died down by now. The stink eye, though, let him know that it hadn’t.
That particular
facial expression also let him know that the town had sided with Melanie. It didn’t matter that it’d been over between Dylan and her; she was the town’s darling. The woman from the right side of the tracks and suitable for a Granger. No one other than Dylan had ever thought Jordan had been a just-fine fit.
Not even Jordan herself.
That was probably why she’d been keeping her distance from him. He got that. She was in the middle of some messy things in her life what with Corbin, Theo and dealing with whatever else she was going through because of her being taken captive. Dylan had decided since she was keeping her distance that he would give her space, too. After all, he was in the middle of his messy thing as well, and it was best not to add sex with his ex to the mix. Even if he’d thought that had been a fine idea when they’d been kissing.
“Horseys,” Corbin squealed when he saw the broncs.
Just hearing his son’s voice chased away any sourness that Dylan was feeling from the stream of stink eyes. Soon, maybe folks would see him as the kind of guy who carried his little boy on his shoulders to the town’s rodeo, instead of the one still making out in a car on the side of the road.
“Yep, they’re horses,” Dylan confirmed.
However, they were ornery ones that would buck the shit out of anyone who tried to ride them, but he kept that description to himself. Especially since he’d be competing in the saddle bronc competition—as he always did. Ditto for Lucian and any adult male with the surname of Granger. Even the nonadult males now, too, since Roman’s teenage son, Tate, would be riding today.
The rodeo had basically turned into a pissing/testosterone contest to prove... Well, Dylan wasn’t sure exactly what it proved except that his gene pool was stupid enough to climb onto the back of a crazy bronc while people either cheered or jeered for you. Normally, Dylan got cheers, and he’d even won the competition once, but he was betting that wouldn’t be the case this year. Either for the cheers or the win. He hadn’t done even one training ride to help him get ready for the competition since he’d been spending all of his free time with Corbin.
Dylan kept walking, making his way through the stream of people. Once he got away from the corral and pens, he picked up on some smells other than horse and bull shit. Cotton candy and fried stuff. Any and everything got fried at the rodeo—candy bars, cheese, pickles—so it was impossible to escape the smell of hot grease.
He finally spotted someone not in the stink eye mode. Karlee. She was at one of the booths buying a hot dog, but she smiled, went to them and gave Corbin a goose to the stomach.
“I’m hoping you and me can get a good sugar high while we watch your daddy and Uncle Lucian ride,” Karlee told Corbin.
Since Jordan had said she would be the one looking after Corbin during the bronc riding event, Dylan was about to ask Karlee where she was, but he realized she was the woman with her face partially hidden behind a giant cloud of the pink cotton candy. That heap of sugar was almost certainly what enticed Corbin to go straight into Jordan’s arms when she reached for him.
She was also smiling when she took Corbin, but that smile turned to a slightly openmouthed gawk when she looked at Dylan. He was already dressed for the ride in his chaps, boots and leather vest, and he hadn’t forgotten that the getup had always appealed to Jordan. Cowboy eye candy, she called it. She’d liked it even better, though, when once he’d worn the chaps without the jeans.
Or his boxers.
But it was best if he pushed aside that particular memory today. It’d be damn difficult to ride with a hard-on. Not to mention downright embarrassing.
“Garrett and Roman are here,” Karlee said, tipping her head toward the arena fence. Both were geared up just as Dylan was. “And there’s Lucian.”
Yep, it was. Lucian was standing off by himself, staring into the arena the way a general would survey a battlefield right before an attack. He looked ready to launch that attack, too, and unlike Dylan, he’d actually trained for this event.
“Good Lord, is that rivalry still going on between the cousins?” Jordan asked when she saw Lucian aim a snarl at Garrett and Roman. The cousins aimed one right back at him.
“It’s not merely a rivalry,” Dylan explained. “At least not for Lucian anyway. He doesn’t like getting beat by Garrett year after year.” Which reminded him of something. “I heard Garrett hired your brother Mack.”
Karlee nodded, but she definitely didn’t seem enthusiastic about that. Maybe because Mack was a known screwup. Which meant Karlee had called in a favor with Garrett to get him to hire her trouble-making kid brother.
They started moving closer to the arena as Garrett went in to do his ride. Eight seconds might go in a couple of eye blinks, but it’d feel like an eternity once he was on the bronc. Plus, he wouldn’t be just judged solely on the time in the saddle but also on form. Considering this was a Podunk event to raise money for charity, a whole lot of people, including the judges, took it way too seriously.
The person who wasn’t taking it seriously was Corbin. He was doing exactly what a kid should be doing. He was chowing down on the cotton candy while he got lots of attention from not only Jordan and Karlee but also from anyone who happened to walk by him and notice what a cute kid he was. Thankfully, Corbin got smiles instead of stink eye. Corbin was also getting the sugar goo all over Jordan, but she didn’t seem to mind. She laughed when a hunk of it landed on her cheek.
But she stopped in midlaugh.
Dylan turned to see what’d caught her attention, and it was Theo hurrying toward her. Ah, jeez. Not today. But judging from the intense look on the guy’s face, he could be here for another round of convincing Jordan to marry him so they could team up to get custody.
“I didn’t call them,” Theo immediately said to her. “I was getting ready to leave town when I heard they were here. I tried to stop them, but they were hell-bent on seeing you.”
Dylan had no idea who the them and they were or why they were in the hell-bent mode. But he soon saw the pair coming their way. It was a man with a big camera hoisted onto his shoulder, and the other man with him had a microphone. Obviously, they were part of a news crew. Not that unusual since the San Antonio stations often covered the charity rodeo. However, these two weren’t looking at the arena where the reigning bronc riding champion, Garrett, was currently getting bucked on the back of a paint gelding. Nope. They were making a beeline for Jordan.
“Major Rivera,” the guy with the mike said. “How are you coping on the two-month anniversary of your being taken captive?”
Jordan seemed to freeze, and Dylan doubted she was merely surprised by the question or the reporter being there. Something had triggered inside her. Maybe a flood of the memories that had been causing her nightmares.
Dylan stepped to her side, and Karlee reached in and automatically took Corbin from Jordan’s arms. Karlee thankfully moved the boy away from the camera and to the area where Garrett had just finished his ride. According to the announcer, Garrett had lasted the full eight seconds, and that caused the onlookers to burst into cheers and applause.
But Jordan wasn’t cheering or applauding.
She had moved on from the stunned look to swallowing hard. The pink cotton candy looked like some kind of surreal Statue of Liberty torch that she had lifted in her right hand.
“I’m doing fine,” she said when she finally managed to answer the question.
Jordan couldn’t have possibly sounded any less convincing, and even that went down a notch when the reporter took out a folded newspaper from beneath his arm, and he held up the front page for Jordan to see.
Dylan got just a glimpse of the picture on the front page. A glimpse was all he needed because the image was etched in his mind. It was of a haggard-looking Jordan, her torn uniform and smears of grime and possibly blood on her face. Her expression showed the horror of what she’d been through.
Theo was also in
the picture, behind her, his focus straight ahead, and he was no doubt trying to get her out of there. Not just away from wherever she’d been held but also away from the photographer. Theo was attempting to do that now, too. He stepped in front of her, which meant he went in front of Dylan, as well.
“Major Rivera’s just here to enjoy the day,” Theo added to Jordan’s response, “and she wants to thank everyone who prayed for her safe return. She’s recovering and doing well.”
It sounded rehearsed, but it was also obvious that Theo still cared about her. This seemed a little more than just being part of the job.
They were gathering a crowd now, everyone hanging on what was going on instead of watching Lucian, who was about to take the arena. Theo opened his mouth, probably to add more of that rehearsed sound bite, but Jordan eased him aside and stepped between Dylan and him.
“Yes, I am here to enjoy the day in my hometown,” Jordan said, and she seemed much stronger than she had several moments ago. Though Dylan saw her cringe a little when she looked at the photo that the reporter was still holding up.
“And you’re here with Colonel Shaw,” the reporter commented. The guy smiled. “Does that mean there’s something personal going on that your well-wishers would want to know about?”
Well, shit. Talk about putting Jordan on the spot. Even though Dylan knew it had to be hard for her, she put on a smile and patted Theo’s arm.
“Colonel Shaw and I are old friends,” she said. “And I’ll always be grateful to him for rescuing me and my crewmates.”
The cameraman pulled back to get both Theo and Jordan in the shot. Behind him, Dylan could hear a few people mumbling about the start of Lucian’s ride, but he kept his attention on Jordan.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she added to the reporter. “I’ll get back to watching the rodeo.”
Jordan was still smiling when she stepped away, moving toward the arena. Theo stayed behind to continue talking with the reporter, but Dylan went after Jordan. He wasn’t sure she’d want or need him...
Lone Star Blues Page 18
