by Tina Leonard
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I turned out fine, didn’t I?”
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “You paint gorgeous naked women. On the one hand, I admire it, and on the other hand, it scares me.”
He smiled. “I sold about six of those paintings today, and I definitely made enough money to buy you a beer. How about it?”
Instantly, she shook her head. “No, thanks, but congratulations, just the same. Does that include the naked saddle Minnie was so fascinated by?”
She was amazed to see Calhoun look uncomfortable.
“You know, that was a wholly inappropriate remark Minnie and Kenny shouldn’t have heard. I’m sorry about that, Olivia. I didn’t know the old coot was going to say what he did, and I didn’t realize your kids were hiding out behind the easels.”
“They hear plenty in the rodeo and they know how to handle it. I’m not worried about them. So, was the saddle an extra sale?”
He blew out a breath. “Yes. And she’s supposed to look like Marilyn Monroe.” His expression was sheepish. “I’m sort of known for painting breasts.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, but at the same time, she was pretty proud of her B cups. Okay, so they weren’t grandiose, but she filled out her rodeo blouses just fine.
“Big or small, it doesn’t matter to me,” Calhoun said, waving his hand to show he didn’t have a preference. “It’s the shading and shape, the slope of the breast, that draws my artistic passion.”
“I assume you just like women a lot—and have known quite a variety of them, judging by your work.” She looked at him straight on. “My guess is that you’re something of a womanizer.”
“Absolutely not,” he said. “Although, I do like the companionship of women. At my ranch, women are quite the…uh, topic of reverence. We really respect ’em.”
“Really?” She wondered if he was telling the truth or trying to impress her. “You had sisters?”
“Um, no.”
“Ah. Your mother taught you to respect women.”
“Not exactly. I mean, she would have, but she wasn’t around long enough to complete the lessons in our teen years. We had Mimi,” Calhoun said, frowning. “Our next-door neighbor, but she was such a hellion growing up we thought she was one of us until she sprouted breasts. Sheriff, her father, made her quit swimming with us without her shirt on. I can’t tell you how mad she was that she could no longer swim in her jean cutoffs like we did.
“I can’t say Mimi taught us to respect women, because we treated her like a brother.” He scratched his head under his hat.
“Poor Mimi,” Olivia said, “whoever she is.”
“So,” Calhoun said brightly, “we learned to appreciate women ourselves.”
“Ourselves?”
“Me and my eleven brothers.”
Olivia hesitated. “You live, basically, in a huge bachelor pad of twelve males. No discipline. No female presence to provide sanity.”
“Maybe that’s why I like breasts so much,” Calhoun said thoughtfully. “We had bare, flat chests, lots of testosterone and no female influence. Except Mimi, and she doesn’t count because—”
“She was one of you. Until she changed. I got it.”
“Actually, she was still one of us, even then. We just felt sorry for her because she had to wear a shirt over her cutoffs.”
“Couldn’t she wear a bathing suit?”
Calhoun turned to stare at her. “Oh, no, we would really have freaked out if she’d looked that different from us. Mimi was like our brother, the thirteenth man, the thinker of the group, if you will. Sheriff let her run wild as a March hare, and we got into all our best trouble when Mimi was around.”
Olivia sighed. “So, back to the bachelor pad with twelve males. I guess there’s plenty of Playboy magazines lying around.”
He snapped his fingers. “That’s how I learned I loved breasts!”
She gave him a wry look. “Calhoun, you’re a different breed than I’ve met before.”
“But so harmless,” he said. “I am probably the easiest, most harmless man you’ll ever meet.”
She was about to express some doubt on that when a motorcycle pulled up in front of them. When the rider took off his helmet, a Mohawk was revealed, as well as a jet-black cross earring that made a statement that was anything but religious. And he wore decorated, expensive boots to make a man proud.
“Hey, Calhoun.”
Calhoun shot to his feet. “Last! What are you doing here? And on this motorcycle?”
“She’s all mine,” Last said, “and I’m in love. She’s got all the right moves, and she’s built to please.”
Calhoun started to inspect the motorcycle, then straightened. “Last, this is Olivia Spinlove. Olivia, the youngest of the Jefferson tribe, Last. How’d you find me?”
“I asked some cowboys. They said you’d probably be here. Sparking.”
“I am not sparking,” Calhoun said with an embarrassed glance at Olivia. “We’re just having a friendly chat.”
“Cool. All right. I just dropped by to say hello before I leave town.”
“Wait.” Calhoun glanced at Olivia, a quick check to see if she was listening, which she was—with interest. “Leave town?”
“Yeah.” Last grinned. “I got a haircut so my head won’t get hot under a helmet, bought me a baby of a bike, and now I’m off to see the country. Which I’ve never done much of before. I need to get out of town bad.”
“Hang on a minute. This means you haven’t told Mason yet about…” He sent a furtive glance Olivia’s way.
“I’ll tell him when I get back,” Last said.
“Last.” Calhoun sighed, taking a moment to formulate his thoughts. “I think you should head on back and tell Mason the truth. To his face, because you know he’s going to find out in your absence. Avoiding the conversation may be tempting, but I vote for the up-front approach. And, you know he hates motorcycles. For him, it’s trucks only. Anything with two wheels is basically a vanity item, and the ranch doesn’t need the expense of vanity.” He gave his brother a narrow stare. “What I’m basically saying here, bro, is that you’re going down the path of disaster, where Mason is concerned, but there’s still time to turn back.”
Last shook his head. “Calhoun, you don’t understand. If you were in my boots, you’d know that my life’s about useless right now, anyway.”
“That doesn’t mean you should ride off and leave your responsibilities behind. That won’t up your useful quotient.”
Last’s eyes turned hard. “Man, you have no idea how tough it is knowing that Valentine’s on the ranch every day. I never know when I might see her, and I don’t want to. So I live daily running away from my mistake. We get along fine, and when the baby arrives this month, I’m sure I’ll love it. But Navarro should never have brought her to the ranch. Nobody was thinking about how I might feel about it. The part that really pisses me off is that you all had your wild nights, and days, and women you never saw again. But me,” Last said bitterly, “I had a night I barely remember and an endless hangover—fatherhood.” He put his helmet back on. “Sure, I wanted kids around the ranch. I wanted some of my brothers to start families. But I didn’t want to be a father.”
Calhoun heard a door close behind him. Olivia had retreated. He couldn’t blame her. “I thought you got past the weird phase with the funky hair and the earring. The binge drinking.”
“I’m not drinking. I’m just going to see the world while I still can,” Last said, his voice determined.
Calhoun sighed. “Do what you have to do, I guess. Did you even tell anyone you were leaving?”
“I told you.” Last revved the motorcycle. “It seemed fitting, since you were in Lonely Hearts Station, where my sin was born. But you know,” Last said, his tone angry now, “you’ll have your fun here and it will stay here. It won’t come to live with you at the ranch, staring you in the face. You’ll love it and leave it, and your sin will be the cost of
a condom. Cheapest fun on the planet.”
He saluted Calhoun sardonically with two fingers and rode away. Calhoun stared after his youngest brother, his heart sad for the family philosopher. So much had changed. Gone were the rose-colored glasses they’d always teased their youngest brother about—Calhoun felt as if his own innocence had slipped away, as well.
He turned to stare at the trailer door that Olivia had escaped through. Gone like the wind, one might say, if one was in the mood to utilize titles from bygone eras to describe a relationship that was obviously never going to be. Shaking his head, he strode away.
He couldn’t blame Olivia Spinlove for not wanting any part of him or Malfunction Junction. She had enough malfunction on her hands, and truthfully, he admired her for shutting the door on the possibility of more.
BARLEY SPINLOVE waited until he was certain his daughter was through listening at the window. He watched her disappear down the hall and heard her get into bed with her children.
All right. So wearing clown makeup wasn’t the way he wanted to have this conversation, but he didn’t have the reputation of meanness for nothing. A man had to protect his family. And Calhoun Jefferson was trouble. The Jeffersons were infamous in the rodeo world. Their reputations stretched for miles and stank like unwashed hounds. He hadn’t minded a bit of conversation between Calhoun and Olivia—she could take care of herself.
But his tiny window had been open at his end of the motor home—and he, too, had heard every word of the Jefferson conversation. Best he put in a few words of his own.
Quietly, he opened the door and headed after the departing cowboy. “You,” he said.
Calhoun turned around.
Barley came to a stop in front of him, a good foot shorter in stature, but making up for it with attitude. “I want you to shove off. Olivia doesn’t need you hanging around. Nothing good can come from a Jefferson wolf hanging around my lamb.”
Calhoun stared at the robust, frowning clown in front of him. “I mean Olivia no harm.”
“I’m not interested in your sales shtick. I know who you are, and I know where you’ll end up, in a darkened corner somewhere or a cheap hotel with my daughter, sweet-talking her into believing you’re different from your brothers. Olivia’s got good sense, and I’m sure she recognizes by now that the Jefferson men are light on commitment and long on baloney, but her heart’s been busted before. It ain’t gonna happen again. And especially not to those kids. As I oughta know, sparkly face paint wears off, cowboy. You can quit wooing those kids to get to their mother. It just ain’t gonna happen while I’m alive.” He gave Calhoun a belligerent stare.
Calhoun shook his head. “That’s not the way I meant it.”
“It don’t matter,” Barley said. “I say shove off, I mean shove off, and it’d be best if you recalled that.”
The clown walked away. Calhoun scratched his head, watching the man’s angry, stiff stride. He could certainly understand Barley’s protective stance, and he could see where he got his reputation.
“On the other hand,” Calhoun murmured, “I’ve never been told to shove off before.”
Generally, fathers were happy to have the Jeffersons come a’ courtin’, as they called it. The Jeffersons had a reputation for being wild, but they also had a huge ranch. A lot of money. A rep for playing hard, working hard. No one had ever thrown them out of anywhere, except maybe from a bar or two when the owner thought the brothers as a whole were too rowdy.
But they’d never been told not to come back. Just come back when y’all are more fitting. Jefferson money and Jefferson manpower were usually pretty damn welcome.
Shove off wasn’t sitting too well in Calhoun’s gut.
He stared at the trailer a few more minutes.
He liked Minnie and Kenny, and truth be told, he hadn’t tried to romance them. They’d romanced him, if the story were repeated without bias.
He didn’t figure Barley cared too much for anyone’s bias but his own.
Calhoun slowly smiled, years of Jefferson determination and grit flowing through him. Shove off was practically an engraved invitation: Romance my daughter, please. RSVP in the affirmative.
I’m beggin’ ya.
Chapter Five
Olivia had heard every word of the conversation between Last and Calhoun. It scared her. If anything could have shown her that she was in the company of a rogue, Calhoun’s brother showing up was just the thing to splash cold water on her newborn daydreams. Calhoun would not be a good thing for her nor for her children, and as she sat on the bed watching Minnie and Kenny sleep, Olivia knew she couldn’t see him anymore.
No matter how wonderful a kisser he was. Even if he opened up a vista of longing she’d never experienced before. Simply put, Calhoun was a nightmare, not a dream man.
Kenny stirred, his little hand touching the painted mark on his face. Her kids were drawn to men, to the cowboys they knew from growing up in the rodeo circuit. They were innocent, much like Mimi had been running around without her shirt on, bathing in the swimming hole with the Jefferson boys. She’d been the mischief queen of her merry band of misfits because it was all she’d ever known.
Growing up in the company of men was harmless now, Olivia decided, seeing the parallel between Mimi’s experience and that of her own children. But later, it might not be harmless. They would end up like Olivia, abandoned by the men they’d trusted without the useful and supportive role of female friends in their lives. You couldn’t understand a woman’s world unless you’d been around other women. Mothers, sisters, aunts, friends.
Olivia’s eyes widened. She made a decision.
A woman who didn’t like to be intimate could never expect to keep a man, especially not a macho man like Calhoun. The feeling of scratchy faces, bungling hands and sometimes smelly bodies just wasn’t Olivia’s cup of tea. Oh, the other gals in the rodeo ran after cowboys like they were sweet icing on a cake—but what did they know? They wanted a man.
She didn’t. She’d had one. And though her family had come to her at great cost, they were more than she’d ever expected out of life. Though her father adored the trophies they won and the show business career, Olivia knew that was all glitter and glue. Her kids were her dreams realized.
A tapping on her window surprised her. Leaning over Minnie and Kenny, she opened the motor home window. “What are you doing?” she demanded of Calhoun.
“Hoping you’ll give me a chance to explain.”
“Explain what?”
Calhoun grimaced. “About my brother.”
“You don’t owe me an explanation.”
“I do if I ever want to see you again,” he said. “I can tell you got spooked.”
She stared at him through the screen. “Why would you ever want to see me again? Not that we’re seeing each other.”
“Of course we’re not,” Calhoun said, “not through that damn screen anyway. Come out.”
“I will not.”
“Olivia, we’re going to wake the children.”
“No, we’re not, because this conversation is over.” She started to close the window.
“Don’t go,” he said, and she hesitated. “I swear you should ease up on me. I’m not the bad man you think I am.”
Well, he wasn’t a bad man, per se, except maybe for her. Her heart gleefully outwitted the lasso trying to constrain it. “You’re not a bad man. But you’re probably not a good man, either.”
“Well, women don’t like good men. Good men finish last, I always say,” Calhoun said. “Although there are varying degrees of good and bad. You want a man with a little toughness to him, or else you might as well be living with a woman.”
“Precisely what I was thinking,” Olivia said. “I should be learning about life from women.”
Calhoun blinked. “You liked kissing me, Olivia. I know you’re afraid of me, but I am not that scary. Come out here and let me kiss you again, and I’ll prove it.”
She shook her head. “That’s not what I
need. I might look Marvella up. I might quit the rodeo and stay here. Maybe it’s time for our act to come to an end.”
Calhoun drew closer to the screen. “Marvella is not the woman you want to bond with.”
“My father liked her well enough,” Olivia said.
“Well, your father isn’t…never mind,” Calhoun said. “If you come out, I’ll teach you about the stars.”
She was oh so tempted.
“And if you don’t want to learn about the stars, I can teach you about something else. Anything your heart desires to know,” he said, his voice husky.
“Go, Momma,” Minnie said, her eyes open wide and looking up at her.
“Shh,” Olivia said. “Go back to sleep, angel.”
“I can’t. You woke me up with all that whispering. Adults never realize that a child’s ears listen for whispers. We wouldn’t listen if you were talking in normal voices, but when you and Grandpa are whispering, me and Kenny know we better be paying attention.”
Olivia smiled at her daughter. “You can be an angel, but you have your rascal side, too.”
Minnie rolled over, closed her eyes and tucked her hands under her chin. “I come by it honestly, Grandpa says. Go see Calhoun, Momma. He’s not the three-headed rattler you told us the bounty bull was. He’s not mean.”
“True.” Olivia shook her head. She had an example to set for her children, and whispering through a window to a cowboy wasn’t the one she should be setting. “Good night, Calhoun,” she said, closing the window.
She tried not to notice his disappointment.
“Momma,” Minnie said ruefully, rolling back over to look at her. “Why don’t you like him?”
“Oh, sweetie.” Olivia brushed her daughter’s long hair away from her face. “Did you brush your hair today?”
“If I answer honestly, will you answer honestly?” Minnie asked.
Olivia laughed, kissed her daughter’s forehead and rose from the bed. “No. Now good night.”
Minnie rolled back and closed her eyes. “Good night, Momma.”
Olivia turned on the small night-light, overrode the urge to peek out and see if Calhoun was still hanging around and then told herself it didn’t matter.
