“Holy shit.” Just out of habit, he turned to look at the person beside him. “Did you see that?”
“I’ve seen it before,” Hailey grumbled. “The idiot lives, you’ll see him running up the bank in a moment. Yeah, right there.”
Kyle watched as the footage turned to a short foot chase that ended abruptly in a replay of the flying vehicle. “I bet they beat the crap out of that boy.”
“Probably.”
“Damn, if that ain’t a Dukes of Hazard moment if I ever seen one.” Kyle turned to grin at Hailey, who looked just a tad bit less pissed. “Hey, you ever get up any speed coming down Elm Lane and hit those train tracks?”
“Perhaps a few times, but I'm not going to break an axel just for a two-second rush.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He asked it, but he couldn’t hold a straight face as he did.
“Don’t even give me that look. Everybody knows what you did to Jimmy Harton’s Alfa Romeo playing good ol’ boy, and what made you think you do that with such a delicate car, I don’t know.”
“I was sixteen, Hailey.”
“I was fifteen, and I knew it was dumb when I heard the story.” That came back with the clear intention of just giving him grief. The hard edge of anger had worn down on her tone, and Hailey even leaned forward to help herself to his pizza. He took that as a good beginning and celebrated with his own slice.
“Yeah, well, just because something is dumb doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.” Kyle settled back against the couch slowly, waiting to see if she'd snap at him for moving ever so slightly closer.
“Spoken like a true man,” Hailey snorted.
Perhaps, but this man had gotten within an inch of his princess. That made him the smartest man in town by Kyle’s reckoning
Chapter 5
Thursday, May 1st
“You going to stare at that man all night long?”
Rachel’s pointed question drew Hailey’s glower from Kyle’s back toward her friend. Almost five weeks, that’s how long she suffered. First pizza, then Chinese, take-out barbeque, fast food, sandwiches, night after night of food, conversation, working side by side out in her garage, it seemed every time she turned around, there he was.
They laughed, they argued, they just talked, and what the hell did that build into? What she really wanted to know was how a man worked so hard for so many hours and still managed to smell good enough to lick. Hailey could have sworn that Kyle went out of his way to make being sweaty and greasy too damn sexy.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Rachel’s tart response had Hailey realizing her friends had been waiting for an answer.
“Leave her alone.” Heather waved her beer at Rachel. “Kyle’s good to look at.”
“But he ain’t looking back,” Rachel retorted. “And there is a point when a look goes from interested to pathetic. Now wipe the drool off your chin, Hailey, and focus. I got a real problem here.”
“I’m paying attention.” To the tight ass leaning over the pool table behind Rachel’s shoulder.
That’s how bad it had gotten. She couldn’t even blink and not look at him. Thankfully, she hadn’t started panting, but Hailey wanted to. She wanted that and a whole lot of other dirty, little wicked things. The tempting ideas and luring fantasies nearly became obsessions, which is just why she ducked out of work for a girl’s night.
She should have known the bastard would show up. He said it himself that first night. Kyle wanted her, he was coming after her, and he didn’t intend to give her any room to hide.
“Hello?” A hand waving in front of her face played peek-a-boo with the image of Kyle and his buddies gathered around the pool table. “Earth to Hailey.”
“I’m sorry.” Hailey blinked, smothering down the heat of those unwelcomed thoughts to offer Rachel up a small smile. “You were saying?”
“Oh, no.” Rachel shook her head. “You’re not getting off that easy. Say it again, and try a little sincerity.”
Sucking up a breath to bring her straight up in her seat, Hailey met Rachel’s gaze. “I’m sorry, Rachel.”
“No, you’re not.” Rachel sighed and glanced back over at the men. “But I forgive you none the less. I know that puppy-eyed disease anywhere.”
“Don’t start with me, Rachel,” Hailey warned her. Not in the mood to take the teasing she probably deserved.
“You got it bad.” Rachel leaned in to emphasize just how bad Hailey apparently had it.
“I do not.”
“So bad,” Heather echoed.
“I do not.”
“You’re a stone’s throw away from being like Marie down at the grocery store.” Rachel’s gaze cut to Heather. Both women gave a dramatic sigh as they fell back, speaking in unison.
“Oh, Kyle.”
“Oh.” Hailey’s head hit the table as she tried to hide from the truth. “I don’t want to have it this bad. Not if he doesn’t have it this bad.”
“Oh, honey, he does.” Heather patted her on the back. “It’s just he’s a Cattleman. Their whole thing is to control their wants.”
Rolling her chin to the side, she gave Heather a one-eyed glare. “That really doesn’t help.”
“Nothing helps,” Rachel groused. “Take it from me, Hailey, resist.”
“Rachel.” Heather added a look to that tone that left no doubt who the mother at the table was.
“I’m just saying we’re fighting a war here. Look at me,” Rachel gestured to herself, “I’m trying to establish my career as creditable reporter, and I have a man at home who thinks the most dangerous thing I should do with my life is bake cookies.
“You see it’s all my fault. I didn’t run the bonfire story, and now he and Adam think they can just boss me all around. Well, I don’t think so. I’m getting smart, and I’m not telling those bullies nothing about my next project.”
Between ogling and brooding, Hailey managed to catch enough of Rachel’s complaining to know what that meant. Smirking, she sat slowly back in her chair. “And just how long do you think you can hide your investigation into a prostitution ring? Hmm?”
“Long enough to get my story,” Rachel shot back with no obvious concern. “Besides I have a little help.”
“Kitty Anne isn’t going to save you from Killian and Adam,” Rachel snorted.
“I’m not talking about Kitty Anne.” Rachel smiled so smugly even Hailey tensed and she didn’t know what the hell for. Hailey just followed Heather’s lead as she straightened up in her seat.
Tapping Hailey on the shoulder, Heather nodded at Rachel. “What do you think Killian and Adam are going to do to her when that story hits the paper?”
“I don’t know.” Hailey shook her head, going along with the game. “But I’m thinking we’re not going to be seeing much of her after.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean Killian and Adam are cops, Rachel.” Hailey grinned, unable to help the mirth that bubbled up. “I’m thinking you’re going to be wearing metal cuffs once they find out about your little project.”
“And that’s my point,” Rachel shot back. “What am I supposed to do? Just give over because they’re bigger and stronger?”
“And there are two of them,” Hailey tacked on. “At least I only have to deal with one.”
She must have made a joke because both of Hailey’s friends laughed at her response. Rachel’s mouth crested on the edge of words, but they got cut off by the wild catcalls and howls as a group of boys who barely looked legal enough to drink fell in through the Riley’s front door.
Appearing already drunk, they piled in. Seven…eight…nine of them, and that was enough to make Hailey tense, right along with the other two women at the table. In that instant, Riley’s went from the quiet comfort almost reminiscent of a library to the chaotic whirl of a near frat party.
“Well, ladies,” Heather sighed. “I think that’s the end of the night.”
It would be best to go now before those guys noticed their tabl
e was the only one without a man in sight. Not to mention the dark looks the established locals lingering in the corners started to cast the interlopers’ way. Hailey knew the smell of a bar fight coming. Like rain, it sweetened the air before it tightened down into violence. That made retreat prudent. Only one obstacle remained. It was Wednesday night, and Riley only paid waitresses for the weekends.
“So, who’s going to wade in to the bar to pay?” Hailey had a sick feeling her name would be the answer of the question she put forth to the group.
All three women eyed the men who banded around it. None of them volunteered. Instead, Rachel threw Hailey under the bus she saw coming a mile away. “Let Hailey do it.”
“Me?” Hailey shot Rachel a look as if she’d lost her mind. “Why me?”
“Because you got protection.”
“And how’s that?”
“Kyle’s watching you now.”
That had her gaze snapping back to the pool tables stretched out along the opposite side of the bar. Sure enough, Kyle’s eyes locked in on hers, and even over the distance she could read the silent warning. He didn’t want her going near those men. Finally, after five weeks, he was the one looking itchy.
“All right, I’ll settle up the bill.”
She might have been talking to Rachel, but her gaze never left Kyle’s. In that instant when she shoved away from her chair, he straightened off the wall. Kyle shook his head at her as she started to move toward the bar. Hailey rewarded him by sticking her tongue out.
“Hey, darlin’. Is that invitation?” Before Hailey could fend him off, one of the drunk interlopers swept her up in a foul embrace.
* * * *
“You didn’t have to hit him, you know. I could have hit him.”
“Yeah, princess, but it wouldn’t have hurt him, and that’s what counts.”
That drunken slur ended with a yelp as Hailey reached across the seat to give Kyle the pinch he deserved for pissing her off so royally tonight. “Did that hurt?”
Whimpering back into the corner of the Chevy’s long bench seat, Kyle gripped his arm and pouted. “You’re mean, Hailey Mathews. Just mean.”
“And you’re an ass,” she shot back without any heat. How could she take him seriously?
He’d just thrown down like an eighteen-year-old only to come up grinning like a drunk fool. Not that she believed his inebriated act for a minute, but she went along with it. Given he’d put some effort into the charade and even conned Killian into lying for him, Hailey thought the least she could do was play her part.
Besides, she suspected she knew how this play ended. He’d need help inside, probably try to sweet talk her into helping him all the way to his bed. Then, he’d strike. The very idea of which thrilled her.
“I am not.” Kyle labored back into a proper sitting position with overly dramatic indignation. “I haven’t had an ass since I was eighteen, and I’m now thirty-one. That’s ten years that I have been officially assless.”
With a sudden lift and turn, he presented his very hard rear up for inspection. “See, ain’t nothing there.”
Now that was a lie, not that Hailey looked. Not that she had to. She had years of staring to go by. “Oh, sit down, you damn drunk.”
“That’s your problem, Hailey.” Kyle plopped back down on the seat. “You don’t drink enough.”
“Oh, yeah. I should aspire to be a bar-brawling alcoholic such as yourself.”
“Well, at least if you were drunk I’d have some grease when it came conning you out of those clothes.”
Hailey’s heart almost stopped with that silky purr. He couldn’t be more direct than that. The threat, or promise, put images in her head that held her response locked deep in her throat. All sound stayed there as the minutes ticked by and Kyle remained quietly in his seat.
It seemed like she almost escaped the moment when he grinned out a loaded question at her. “You know what I got?”
“VD?” That instant retort broke the tension.
“Ha. Ha. Ha. Ain’t you just a stand up comedian.”
Hailey rolled her eyes at the insult in his tone. “I ain’t the one who belongs to the sex club.”
“I don’t belong to any sex club.”
How he managed to pull off that bold-faced lie with sincerity amazed Hailey. “Kyle, I saw you there. Remember the night of the orgy?”
“Oh, yeah.” Back to happy for all the wrong reasons, he tried to purr, but it came out a little comical sounding. “And just what were you doing at an orgy, Little Miss Hailey?”
“Don’t touch me.” She smacked the hand he snaked her way with that lewd suggestion. “And I think you know what I was doing there. I was just there helping Patton piss off the Davis brothers.”
“Oh, yeah.” Kyle clearly savored the memory. “You know, Hailey, I don’t think any woman ever actually pulled a fast one on Cole until you and Patton got him that night.”
“I guess I should be proud then, huh?”
“Or worried.”
Hailey didn’t like the sound of that, nor how much Kyle enjoyed saying it. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
He made a lie out of that answer with just a look. Sending sparkles of something very dangerous dancing up her spine, his grin certainly didn’t say “nothing.” She shook them away by bringing Kyle’s truck to another hard stop. This time in a driveway, his drive way.
Whatever he meant, he hadn’t been warning her of what came next because Cole’s truck didn’t clog the driveway. Apparently, whatever Kyle’s plans, they didn’t include his best friend. That should have assured her, but for that good ol’ boy grin, she still didn’t trust him.
Keeping a stern eye on him, she leaned slowly across his lap for his door handle. Kyle got the message and held his hands up in surrender even as his lips quivered with laughter. They straightened right back out once she managed to shove his door open.
“Get out.”
“Aren’t you going to help me to the door?”
“No.” Hailey snorted. “And I ain’t gonna help you take your pants off, either. Now get out.”
“It’s my truck.” Kyle sounded like he just figured that fact out.
“Yeah, and you can walk back to the bar to pick it up in the morning.” Because that was the price he paid for this show.
“Mean,” Kyle pouted. “And after all I’ve done for—”
His complaint got cut off as he whooshed out of sight, disappearing over the edge of the seat. Having already started to swing his legs out the door, Kyle fell out of the truck, banged his way down to the cement drive. Hailey closed her eyes and let her head hit the steering wheel.
“Ow.”
It became almost painful in that moment to fight back the laughter. The dumbass. Kyle really would go to any length to win. For some strange reason, the idea that she was his prize warmed her in ways she would prefer to ignore.
“Hailey?”
Kicking the foot brake down, ripping the key out of its socket, slamming the truck door with more force than necessary, Hailey didn’t have to act hard to pull off an air of high indignation. Stomping around the front of the truck, she towered over him, refusing to show any sympathy at all for his little boy, boo-boo expression.
“I knew you’d come.”
“Oh, stuff it,” Hailey shot back as she latched on to the hand he offered her. Yanking on his arm, Hailey couldn’t have lifted Kyle if he hadn’t helped by shoving upward. Ungracefully, Kyle managed to make it back onto his feet, what little use they provided him. Hailey bore most of his weight over her shoulders as he leaned into her and slurred.
“I take back what I said about you being mean.”
That’s because he hadn’t gotten her to the edge of his bed. It just seemed a miracle that he suddenly needed her help when he managed to tackle the jerk who kissed her with the lethal agility of a sober man.
“You smell nice.”
So did he. Just like that he had her thinking
about how even the slight tang of alcohol only added to the spicy aroma of man. Drunk or not, ass or assless, the one thing Kyle would be to the day he died was tempting. With that romp of dark hair and those sparkling eyes matched up with his square chin and big grin, he had that fallen-from-Heaven thing going on.
“And you have the prettiest hair I ever did see.” Kyle managed to tangle a finger in one of her curls, pulling on it when she about slammed him into the exterior wall. “Just as soft as silk.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
Hailey clenched against the internal melting that always happened when he got too close. As sweet as he was being now, it became a struggle to hold back the tide, but she managed. They wouldn’t be playing along to his script where he lured her in with all the sweet compliments before he got his ropes out.
She let that message roll with a jerk of her head, pulling free of his touch. “I know I’m pretty when you’re drunk. Now which key is the magic one?”
His glazed-over gaze didn’t focus on the shiny set of keys she clinked in front of him. Instead, he gave her a sickeningly sweet look. “You always been pretty, Hailey.”
“And you’ve always been a good liar.”
No denial, his grin just widened. “Yeah, but there are some things a man just can’t bluff through. Not like a woman.”
Unable to control the twitch in her lips, Hailey managed to bite back her snort of laughter. “You have a lot of women bluff through it with you Kyle?”
“If I say no, you’ll think I’m just too dumb to know better.” Yes, she would. “Real question is would you try to bluff it?”
Before she could answer that idiotic question, Kyle’s grin twisted slightly as his gaze did a lazy once over of her. “Not that you’d have to. The real question is could you hold it back.”
With a pointed roll of her eyes that hid the heat warming up through her veins at the suggestion in his tone, Hailey jangled the ring in her fingers. “Focus on the keys, Kyle.”
Hailey's Game Page 5
