by Taylor Hart
They sat, staring at each other.
She pushed her computer shut and let out a breath, lifting her eyebrows, seeming to consider. “Would works of art be famous if they didn’t have a context? Venus de Milo, the Mona Lisa, all of them have history, a story. That’s what makes them timeless. They add value to our culture because of the lives they lived. When you go to the Sistine Chapel and see Nero’s bathtub, you don’t think that much about the bathtub, but more about the man who owned it. The way the man was small and the tub was huge. The view of himself he had. The material he used to make the bathtub. These all mean something. It means something to the Roman culture.” She shrugged. “Do I find your songs that fascinating, Mr. Waters? I do not. I think—”
“Texas.” He corrected again, interrupting her. He felt a bit bugged at the fact she was making some sense, until she slammed his music. At the moment, she sounded like the prissy princess he had thought she was. Immediately, he felt dismayed to realize he even cared what she thought. And who the heck was Nero? Who cared about his bathtub?
“Yes, of course, Texas,” she said, slowly. “My point is that people are fascinated with their heroes. With the music they like, with—”
“But you don’t like my music.” He hated how much that statement affected him.
A small smile played at her lips, but her face turned red. “It doesn’t matter, Mr. W—Texas. My point is that my job is to help people, your fans. The—”
“The people who like my music,” he said, liking the blush on her cheeks. “Who know at least one of my songs.”
She quit talking, holding his eyes.
Another standoff held between them.
“Do you like my music or not?” He demanded.
Pinching her lips together, she rolled her eyes. “I don’t prefer your music, okay?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Ms. …”
“Wright.”
“Yes, Ms. Wright. I’m thinking you might not be the one for this article.” He threw his hands up in the air dramatically. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to upset your sensibilities by having dinner with you, and I really wouldn’t want to force you to interview a musician who plays music you don’t prefer.” He waited, not giving her a way out of this. She had backed herself into a corner. Montana could find a different reporter. A reporter who worshiped him he decided. Yes, he would prefer that to this.
Her face burned red, then she blinked and stood, gathering up her laptop. “You want me to leave?” She slid her laptop into the bag and took off toward the front door.
It startled him to realize he was shaking. His hand actually had a tremor, and his heart raced. “You catch on quick, princess.”
He heard the door shut and turned to stare out the window.
Montana would not be happy about this.
Trudging out of the kitchen and yanking open the door, he rushed to the studio, needing to play. Needing to forget that woman.
He sat with his guitar for a few moments, trying to focus, then abruptly stood. How would he tell Montana he sent her away the second day?
Pausing, he saw his motorcycle helmet on the couch and made a command decision. He needed to go for a ride.
Chapter 5
Liberty stormed out of the house, her heart racing, feeling like she wanted to just belt the man.
Belt? That was not one of her words. She would never say or think that. She came from civilized society. The other societies she observed and reported on were the ones into crime and killing.
But Texas Waters, she wanted to slap. Wanted to slap the smirk right off his face.
Amazed at herself for wanting to hit him twice in the past two days, she sucked in a long breath. Okay, had she been rude admitting she didn’t know his music? Probably. Was it unprofessional to not be prepared by knowing all his songs. Yes. There was just something about him. Maybe it was his cockiness.
She thought of her mother. The way she wanted Liberty to “get close to him” and “not tell him she was engaged.” What was that about?
Her mind swerved back to Texas. The way he could just dismiss her. That’s what it felt like. She had never liked men who made her feel that way.
Immediately, her mind flashed to Hale. She’d never felt that way about Hale. No, they’d been family friends since they were five, and he’d never disrespected her.
She’d never had the urge to hit him. Hale was civilized. He would never taunt her. Never make her feel … what? He would never use that snide tone and call her princess. The word felt like an insult.
Getting to her car, she climbed in and started it, backing up quickly and driving off faster than normal. The house was out in the country a bit, away from town, but she found herself not taking the turn back to her hotel. Instead, she took the opposite turn that headed toward the ski resort and the Snake River.
A million thoughts flashed through her mind, pre-eminently the one about how her mother was going to love the fact that she could ground her now. Make her cover fluff articles. Liberty wouldn’t be able to maneuver her way into dangerous, foreign countries where she wanted to cover actual news.
She thought of the refugees in Nigeria, Libya, and Italy. Their faces, the ones she focused on continually and whose stories she researched. This conference would matter to them and their lives.
They would suffer if she wasn’t there. She swore. Why had she been so pigheaded about him, his music and this article? It was rash, stupid, and idiotic. She’d just lost her opportunity. Pushing the accelerator, she sped out of town, the resort sign came up quickly. She turned onto the highway toward the resort. How dare he actually taunt her?
He was the unprofessional one!
Hitting the steering wheel, she tried to figure out what to do.
Liberty reluctantly admitted to herself she’d blown it. She had gone in acting superior, thinking she could dictate terms to a guy like Texas. If she had learned anything in her research on him and from listening to his music, it was that he hated being dictated to.
In his music, she'd always noted his contempt for the forced command system. Didn’t one of his songs she’d actually listened to last night, say something about sometimes the one who should be leading was the one on the front lines? Yes.
His face flashed through her mind. There was smugness, but also, there had been something else. He’d been ticked that she didn’t like his music, and it’d shown.
Texas Waters was not a man you messed with. No, he was not from polite society. She thought of Hale or the other men she’d gone to school with who were soft spoken and against military action or serving in wars. Mostly pacifists. Not him.
Texas Waters was ready for a fight, and if the fight was brought to him, he was going to go down swinging. It was strange how butterflies pulsed through her stomach as she thought about the way his blond hair looked highlighted and his blue eyes did not help the butterflies go away. They looked almost innocent on the cover of his album but in person his eyes could rage like any ocean storm.
Instinctively, she was a bit afraid of him.
She wondered about the rumors that he was explosive. She’d watched a clip where he’d pushed a reporter down and thought of other things she’d read about his military experience. Suddenly she wanted to have another chance.
To dive into those deep, blue waters and understand the man who lived in them.
Another round of flutters confirmed she did want to know the man. Wanted to understand him. She knew there was a good article waiting to be written. If she had been patient, she could have been the one to write it. Now it was too late.
Jackson Resort was in front of her, and she decided to pull in and stop. Maybe she would get a bite to eat or hike or do something to get some of her energy out. She took care to park her car very carefully so she wouldn’t dent the rental car doors. She hated things like dents. Hated disorder period. She got out and took her wallet.
Since Texas was obviously casual, she’d worn shorts and a tank top that day to fit
in with him. Obviously, it hadn’t worked. Scouring the shops, she picked a pizza place, feeling a bit daring eating pizza for lunch.
Her mother always insisted she keep track of carbs, and lunches were typically salads. Period. At this moment, she was feeling a bit resentful, which she had started to feel more and more because her mother thought she could control her life—all aspects, personal and professional. So yeah, she would rebel and eat carbs today so she could drown her sorrows because she didn’t know what she would do when her mother called.
After polishing off two pieces of pizza and a salad, she left the restaurant feeling good. Calmer. Granted, a bit too full, but it was just a carb buzz.
Looking around, she realized she hadn’t even taken the time to notice the beauty of Jackson Hole except from a website search perspective. She’d been here three days, and of course, she recognized all the sights around her, but she didn’t really know about them. As she looked around, took a deep breath of mountain air and immediately felt more invigorated. It might be the high from the carbs since she hadn’t had any for days. Or it could have been that she just needed to get away from her life. Either way, she couldn’t see going back to the hotel and staring at her phone, waiting for the call. She decided she would get on the ski lift, ride it to the top, look around, and then come back down. Yes, she would think about her next article.
Nigeria.
Another round of pain immediately filled her chest. She pushed it away and boarded the lift up the mountain, clutching the metal bar. It wasn’t busy, so she really wasn’t paying attention to what was going on around her.
After going about a minute, she heard her name.
The breakdown she was having was interrupted, and she jerked straighter in her seat, still clutching the bar across her lap. She’d gone skiing growing up, so she knew how to board a ski lift, but just now, she felt out of sorts.
“Ms. Wright.” She heard it again and realized it was coming from behind her. Jerking to turn, she saw him.
He was on the lift right behind her. He looked angry and handsome in shorts and a t-shirt. She saw the bicycle attached to the lift. She’d seen signs advertising, “adventure biking” down the mountain where you rented the bike, took it up, and then got to ride it down.
She glared at him. “What?” Her mind was spinning with questions. Why was he here? She didn’t know he biked. This was the problem with her reporter brain. Too often she felt like she couldn't “turn it off.”
His lips turned up. “Hey, princess.”
Ticked off she turned around, stewing over the fact he called her princess again, not to mention the fact he’d recently fired her.
After a few moments she whirled back around with the intent of telling him off, but all of a sudden, the gap between she and the bar seemed too large and she found herself dropping off the lift.
Thankfully, the lift hadn’t gone too high, yet. She skidded, hitting her bum, and found herself sliding down a bit of an overhang and landing hard on her ankle.
Stunned and shocked, she was brought out of her daze as pain and adrenaline simultaneously filled her.
When she looked up, she saw Texas staring at her. Then, he did something she would only imagine happening in a movie … he jumped onto the pole next to the lift and began climbing down to her.
Chapter 6
Honestly, if someone had told Texas he would be shimmying down a pole to be a knight in freaking armor to the prissy, uppity princess—several other descriptive curse words ran through his mind at this moment, he never would have believed it.
It wasn’t that he wanted to do it, but there was no one else around. There were hardly any passengers. He hadn’t even noticed she was in line in front of him until right when she’d gotten on. Then he was being ushered up with the bike strapped in.
Texas admitted to himself as he jumped down from the pole, then scurried down the rough terrain mountain and stumbled down to her, this was in his nature.
At least, that was what his mother had always told him. He was a born hero. Well, he had the hero complex, at least. She had affirmed it to the whole small town he’d grown up in when he’d joined the Army. It didn’t hurt that it was a role he rather liked. He would never admit it, but he enjoyed helping others.
Needless to say, he wasn’t expecting the damsel in distress to tell him to leave.
In a cool, calm, queen voice, she said, “You can go. Please send back others to help me."
Out of breath, he’d taken off his bike helmet and chucked it to the ground. “Are you kidding me, princess?” He gritted his teeth and bit back a few other words.
“I'm fine.” She tried to turn and get up, but once she put weight on her ankle, she immediately collapsed and cried out in pain. “And don’t call me princess.”
He stood there, crossing his arms, feeling the sun beat down on him and getting more and more annoyed by her antics.
She was back down on her butt. “I’m fine,” she said a bit hysterically, breaking the prim proper persona for just a second before glancing up at him and smoothing out her face. “Go. Please.”
The way she said please, with a crack in her voice and a trace of tears, made him let out a breath. “No, I’m not leaving. We gotta get you off the mountain and have that ankle x-rayed.”
She looked up at him defiantly with tears in her eyes and one already streaming down her face. She shook her head, bit her lip, and looked away, putting her hand on her forehead. “I cannot believe this. I can’t … I never should have eaten those carbs.”
Taken aback, and finding her comment a bit funny, he evaluated her. The blonde hair was mussed, and there were black streaks beneath her eyes. “Woman, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but calm yourself. I’m going to inspect your ankle.” Not giving her a chance to tell him to leave again, he closed the space between them, went down on his knees, and gently probed her ankle.
“Ow.” She cried out when he barely touched the swollen part.
Bedside manner wasn’t his thing. He stared into those violet eyes. “Listen, sweetheart, you’re not walking down by yourself, and it’s gonna take a lot longer and a lot more swelling if you make me go down and then bring someone up for you. But I won’t push you. If you don’t want me to carry you down the mountain, I won’t.” It was strange to him that he actually wanted to help her. Especially after her stunts the past couple of days and her blatantly telling him she didn’t like his music.
No one ever said that to him.
Holding his eyes, she sniffed and used the back of a dirty hand to wipe her face, leaving a smudge of dirt. “Fine." She looked away.
Letting out a breath, he bent to pick her up. “Your gratitude overwhelms me. Put your arms around my neck.”
Reluctantly, she put her arms around him.
He took off, just trying to keep his footing on the slanted slope, turning to the side and stair stepping down the mountain. Her grip tightened, and she was flattened against him.
It didn’t help that she was very feminine. Down to the pretty pink flip flops she wore. They fell into silence as he worked his way down. Luckily, they hadn’t been too far up the mountain. Carrying another person, even if she was light as a feather, still took effort.
His mind flashed to carrying his buddy Roscoe out of the war zone. Except his buddy had been heavy. Dead weight.
Dead.
“Are you okay?” she precipitously asked.
He didn’t know what expression had crossed his face, but he didn’t like that she could tell something was wrong. He grunted and started into a jog as the building came into view. “Better than you.”
As they got to the resort, he thought of taking her to the doctor they must have on call.
“Please, just take me to my hotel,” she said quickly, sitting up and loosening her grip around his neck.
“I’m not your butler.” He grunted and thought she was totally the type who would have snubbed a guy like him in high school. Then he grinned. Actual
ly, she still snubbed him. He didn’t know why he found that funny. “You're getting an x-ray.”
She shook her head vehemently. “No. Please. I can’t go to the hospital with you. All the press. All the—” She broke off.
He was already heading to the parking lot. “You’re going to the resort doc. They’ll have an x-ray here.”
“No, I’ve sprained this ankle many times. I’m clumsy sometimes.”
He dismissed this. “You fell off a chair lift.”
“Please, don’t take me anywhere. Just get me to my car.”
He frowned. “Where’s your car?” He would drop her off at the hospital, he’d decided.
She pointed toward the east side of the parking lot, and he vaguely remembered her flashy red Mustang in his driveway.
Getting to the car, she dug into her pocket and handed him the keys. He unlocked it and helped her slide in. He ran around the car and slid into the driver’s side, thinking he’d have to come back for his bike another time.
Getting into the car, he pulled out his phone and typed Jackson hospital in Google maps.
“Please.” She was quiet now. She sighed. “I know I’ll be fine if I stay off it and ice it for a couple of days. I can’t be seen with you.”
"Nope. Don’t you have someone you can call after I drop you at the hospital? I can just drop you off, and the press doesn’t even have to see us together.” This was ridiculous. He wanted to tell her he had plenty of women who actually tried to get seen with him in public. He took off, turning toward the hospital.
“No,” she said, sounding out of sorts. “I don’t have someone who can come. If I call my mother or she sees me at the hospital, she’ll call or come out, and well, I’ve blown this whole interview, haven't I?” She looked out the window. “I can’t face her yet.”
