Dead Man's Bluff

by Adriana Law

  Why was he in town? He couldn’t say he was originally from, Boonville Arkansas and his druggie/alcoholic mother rented a small dump not more than fifteen minutes from the ranch. Oh hell. What was he supposed to say? He’d had the perfect answer all planned out, but he could feel the blonde watching him, seizing him up, and it momentarily had him flustered and without words. “I…uh...I thought about stopping by the ranch to see how things are going.”

  “Really? The ranch is up for sale… for real this time.”

  “What do you mean…for real?” At least he had a few working brain cells left.

  Megan waved it off taking a sip of her beer. “I’ll explain later. Are you still interested?”

  He shifted his gaze to the blonde for a second, then back to Megan. Was that sweat he felt forming across his brows. “Yes. I’m still interested.” He had to shout over the music. “It’s really hot in here, don’t you think? I need a cold beer.”

  The blonde glanced over at the waitress having trouble keeping up. “Leslie looks busy. I’ll go get you one from the bar,” she offered, her fingers lightly grazing his arm. His heated gaze dipped down at where she’d touched him and he caught the scent of vanilla. He mumbled a curse as she skimmed by him, way too much of her perky breast rubbing up against him.

  “You’ve never met Emma have you?” Megan asked. He shook his head feeling his face growing warm. “Christopher this Emma. Emma this is Christopher. Now you’ve officially been introduced.”

  “Please, just Chris,” he was saying as Emma smiled and backed her way into the crowd not letting him out of her sight until she disappeared in the direction of the bar.

  As soon as she was gone, and his heartbeat finally slowed he stole a chair from a nearby table setting it beside Megan. He sat down, shoving the sleeves of his sweater up to his elbows in an attempt to cool off. Settling his arms on the table top, he studied the object of his interest. Megan was beautiful girl. She’d changed since the last time he’d seen her. He noticed that right off. Her hair was still a rich mahogany color with highlights that reminded him melting gold, but she wore it shorter now, chin length. It suited the shape or her face. But it was her green eyes and luscious Georgia-peach colored lips that stood out the most. He might enjoy this more than he thought. He offered her his sexiest smile, part two of his plan well underway. “How have you been? It’s been a while.”

  “It has.” She grinned and pointed the neck of her beer bottle in his direction. “I’m real good”

  “Oh, really, and why’s that?”

  “I’m numb. Everything seems so…” she paused, her eyes focused on the ceiling as she thought of the perfect word. “..irrelevant.”

  “Irrelevant?” He offered her a devilish grin leaning closer to her, drowning out the music and noise around them, truly interested in what she had to say. Megan was a smart girl. It was interesting to hear what was going on in her mind when she lowered her walls a little.

  “I think I tend to make things way more difficult than they need to be, know what I mean?”

  He chuckled, “Not really. I can’t really see a pretty girl like you having any difficulties,” he leaned back in his chair allowing his gaze to travel down her short dress showcasing her attractive legs, “…except maybe deciding which high heels to wear, and even then I think you can’t go wrong.”

  Pink splotched her cheeks and she avoided acknowledging his blatant assessment of her body. “Thank you, but trust me…I have a lot more to decide than which shoes to wear.”

  “Like what? Like whether or not you really want that engagement ring on your finger?” Both of their gazes landed on the diamond flashing on her left hand. “Who’s the lucky guy? Please, tell me it’s not the guy I met at the ranch last time? You can do better.”

  “Drew?” she squeaked out. “NO! His name is Conner. You’ve never met him.” She shook her head, her eyes distant as she stared at the Diamond. “It’s definitely not Drew.”

  “Are you trying to convince me…or yourself?” Chris inquired low.

  She was quiet for a moment, deep in thought, and then she snorted, covering her mouth with her right hand. “I’m sorry. It’s just you’re being so serious and I’ve had way too much to drink to be serious. Wow. I actually feel really good right now.” She leaned in, one of her hands settling on his thigh. That luscious mouth of hers pressed to his ear, “Do you mind driving Emma and me back out to the ranch? I don’t think either of us is capable of driving.” She put some space between them. “I could call Drew, but I don’t really want to. You’re welcome to use the spare bedroom. It would probably be good…you know, getting a chance to really check the place out before you decide. Whew, that was a lot.”

  “I don’t mind at all, it will be my pleasure,” he placed a hand on her knee, playfully squeezing. Oh yes, a few more beers and this night would get real interesting.

  But then, Emma happened. The girl was like a tornado ripping through his quiet calm, turning his plans to nothing more than a swirling cloud of ‘irrelevant’ dust. She returned with three bottled beers held snuggly against her chest so she wouldn’t drop them. He immediately reached for one unable to keep his knuckles from brushing the bare flesh there. Any other time and place, without a doubt, he would be using his best pickup lines on Emma. There was something about her that caused an instant reaction in him, a strong one. The timing sucked. Her being there sucked. Her plump lips edged up into a seductive smile as if she knew he was struggling with his control.

  He’d uncapped his beer, tilted his head back, his throat moving as he chugged the much needed alcohol when she pulled on his arm rather forcibly. The action caused him to spill his beer down the front of his sweater and he frowned. Tornado. Dust.

  “Dance with me,” she murmured in his ear, not really giving him the option of saying no before she was hauling him onto the dance floor. She led him through the sprinkling of couples and turned sliding her arms possessively up around his neck. “I like this song.”

  Poison. Every Rose Has Its Thorn was blaring through the speakers. Perfect. Naturally. There couldn’t be a better song for the moment. Her fingers absently played with the length of his hair. His hands rested on the small of her back. She smelled like sugar cookies, and oddly she felt right in his arms. “Does this normally work for you?” he hissed in her ear, rolling a shoulder to indicate he wanted her to stop doing whatever it was she was doing to his hair. It was distracting and caused tingles he wasn’t prepared for. He leaned back slightly, raised a brow and waited for an answer.

  She blinked her wide blue eyes innocently at him, “Does what work?”

  “The aggressive behavior? Aren’t girls supposed to play hard to get?” He held her gaze. This girl knew exactly what she was doing to him and was finding his reaction amusing. She was toying with him.

  “I’m allowed to recognize an attractive guy. You look like too much of a do-gooder to make the first move, so I decided to make it easy for you.”

  A do-gooder was definitely one thing he’d never been called. “What makes you say I’m …” he could barely keep a straight face, “a do-gooder?”

  One of her hands slid from his neck, a fingertip trailing down the column of his throat to the skin revealed. “First, the way you dress. It screams you care about money. Then there is your interest in the ranch that says you’re looking for the whole package: home, wife, kids…boring.” She brought her lips close to his, so close he could feel her warm breath as she spoke, “And your hand hasn’t once moved to my ass. Although the way you’re staring at me, well, that says you want more than boring.”

  He wanted to kiss her, that’s what he wanted, but that wasn’t part of the plan. The light brush of his lips against the corner of her mouth was the most he could manage, for now. He chuckled. “And, what makes you think you’re not boring?”

  Her pretty lips curled wickedly. “Oh, I’m not boring.”

  “Okay, I’ll buy that. You don’t strike me as the boring type,” he conce
ded.

  “So we’ve known each other for fifteen minutes and you already think you know me. What type am I then?”

  “First I’d like to point out…you analyzed me by what I’m wearing. And Type? Baby, you’re the type that gets into an awful lot of trouble.” He answered smugly. Their bodies were as close as two peoples could get out in public without it being sleazy, but they were quickly moving into the danger zone. He’d barely noticed the slow song had changed to a different one. They continued to dance, their bodies moving with familiarity that couples who’d been together for a while had.

  Her lips were so close to his, it was all he could do not to kiss her. He’d never felt such a strong attraction to someone so instantly and it was kind of unnerving. Maybe, she was a test. A test to see if he could stay focused. Pulling his head back, his gaze traveled the perimeter of the dance floor going to the table where he’d left Megan. A guy had already swooped in for the kill: over doing it with the light touches and fake smiles. Chris was moments from ending his slow dance with Emma when he heard a familiar deep chuckle. He turned his head and saw Griffin slow dancing with a girl no more than a couple of feet away. Chris’s body tensed thinking the guy would squeal him out as a fake. But it seemed Griffin was more interested in scowling at Emma over his cute partners shoulder.

  The way Emma was shooting the guy ‘go to hell’ looks it wasn’t too difficult to figure out what was going on. Suddenly, it all made sense, her interest in him. Well hell, she was using him to make another guy jealous. Damn, if that wasn’t a blow to a guy’s ego.

  “What are you grinning about?” Emma asked, her blue eyes narrowing suspiciously on his face.

  He didn’t get a chance to answer, before her hand slipped around to the nape of his neck and she tugged, rather forcibly, his head down to hers. Her warm tongue slid into his mouth and all rationale thoughts dissipated from his brain. She tasted like alcohol, but there was more, something spicy and erotic: cinnamon. No way, he loved the taste of cinnamon, especially on her. His right hand moved up from her lower back to tangle with her blonde curls. Within seconds the kiss changed, became deeper, bruising, all consuming. In that moment, Chris didn’t give a shit about his father, or knocking his spoiled brother down a notch, or about Griffin, or even the whispers and stares they were earning from the nearby couples. All he cared about was the slow hot exploration of her mouth. She made a whimpering sound, and tried to pull away but his hand on the back of her head kept her there. One of her hands moved to his chest, finger nails clawing at the fabric of his sweater, she shoved at him and he finally allowed her break from the kiss.

  She stepped back, blinked rapidly, touching a trembling finger to her swollen lips, and then she turned and walked off, leaving him standing in the middle of the dance floor, confused, her taste and smell forever seared into his memory. ♠

  Fifteen

  Birdie caught a bug going around and was in bed sick. Griffin was MIA. Susan was off visiting a friend, so Drew hung close to the house taking care of Birdie. It wasn’t his idea of an eventful Friday night, but he’d done enough partying and bar hoping to last a life time and he genuinely cared about Birdie.

  With Birdie sleeping for the past couple of hours, Drew paced like an angry parent waiting on a teenager sneaking in way past curfew. He’d did the whole routine: checked the time every couple of minutes, pulled aside a drape praying for headlights in the driveway, double and triple checked for possible messages left on his cell. The first hour he was irritated. The second hour he was cussing mad. At 2 AM he was livid and couldn’t fight the urge to smoke any longer. He’d turned his entire room upside down searching for a smoke finally finding two in a flattened pack under the ever growing pile of dirty laundry in the bottom of his closet.

  Giving his sweat pants a slight tug at the waist where they were starting to sag around his hips he stepped bare foot out onto the front porch and sank down on the top step. His zippo clicked as he raised the flickering flame to the end of the Marlboro wedged between his lips. His nipples hardened in response to the chilling night air against his naked chest. The tip of the cigarette glowed red as he inhaled deep staring up at the black sky. The feeling of the smoke filling his lungs took the edge off.

  He knew he shouldn’t have allowed her to leave in that damn dress. That had been a huge mistake. Taking another pull off the Marlboro he tried to think like Emma. Where would she take Megan? It was like trying to get into one of the seven dwarfs heads: let’s see there was Dopey, Happy, Bashful, Sleepy, Doc, Grumpy…and the last one which reminded him of Emma… Sleazy? Wait. No. That wasn’t right.

  “It’s Sneezy not Sleazy, Moron.”

  Okay, now he was thinking like Emma…where would she go?

  Clyde’s! Emma was officially on his shit list. He leaned a shoulder against the railing, took another hit and exhaled. The wait was going to kill him. His stomach was all queasy from this uneasy feeling he had and the cigarette was only making matter worse. What if he was wrong? What if Megan didn’t love him? One trait he’d definitely inherited from his father was blind arrogance. He’d like to believe if he pursued something hard enough, he could have it.

  He flicked the half-smoked cigarette out into the damp grass, leaned forward shoving his hands into his hair where they stayed until he heard the motor of an approaching car. He glanced up, exhaling all the breath in his lungs as the car turned into the dirt drive to the ranch, headlights glowing in the black.

  As soon as the engine died, he heard Megan’s laughter and a smile crept onto his face. Well, at least she was conscious...and laughing. Coming to his feet, resting a hip against the railing, arms folded over his chest, he waited patiently. He saw Emma first. She slid off her high-heels as if to be quiet, held them in one hand, frowned and turned on the sidewalk glancing back in the direction of the car.

  Uh oh. This couldn’t be good. He unfolded his arms and took hold of hand rail, bracing for the worst. “Just so you know…I had nothing to do with it,” Emma said, once her gaze found him on the steps.

  “Chris…you are hysterical! Please, don’t make me laugh again I have to pee really bad,” Megan announced as she rounded the corner, coming into view pressed up against the guy’s side. The guy had his arm around her waist helping her walk upright, both of them laughing as if they shared an inside joke than no one else thought was funny. He sure as hell didn’t see anything funny. Drew’s gaze traveled from her white, beautiful smile showing in the lights lining the concrete walk, to the male fingers clutching her waist, to her off-balance-seesaw-like-hobble.

  “Why are you only wearing one high heel?” Drew snapped. He clenched his jaw and his flesh felt on fire as a slow burn started to hum inside him. He was five seconds away from beating the shit out of a stupid prick.

  Megan froze mid-sidewalk, her green eyes going wide at him standing there. Her face went pale. She pointed at the shoe in the guy’s hand. “I broke a heel. You remember Chris? He’s interested in buying the ranch.”

  “Doesn’t look like that’s all he’s interested in?” Drew’s tone was venomous.

  “What are you doing still up? I thought you’d be in bed by now.” She was wise to hesitate in her steps towards him. He was a volcano on the verge of erupting. He knew it. She knew it. Even Emma knew it. The only one dumb enough to not realize the foul mood Drew was in was the guy.

  “Thought or hoped?” Drew ground out, his dark gaze locked on the guy who was shadowing her, wearing a smug grin that’s just pissed Drew off even more. He waited until she came close enough, and then his hand shot out going to her upper arm. His intention was to drag her away from Chris, before Drew did something he’d regret, but Chris snatched her from him tucking her behind his back, shielding her with his tense body. “I don’t think you want to go there?” Drew warned through gritted teeth. He motioned with a hand, “Now, move aside. She’s engaged, if you haven’t notice the damn huge rock on her hand.”

  Chris took a step, shoved at Drew’s chest; Dre
w recovered from the shock that this guy was actually going to push him to go there and held his ground like a slab of concrete. Chris sneered, “Not to you, she’s not. I haven’t heard her say she wants to go anywhere with you.”

  Drew vaguely heard Megan and Emma in the back ground, but he was too stoked to care: his heart was pounding, his blood boiling. He could actually feel his body vibrating he was so angry. Both guys locked intense gazes only inches apart. “Last warning, BACK THE FUCK UP!” Drew growled.

  Whack!! Megan screamed! Drew staggered backwards, bent over, clutching at his jaw. She was on him in a second, her hands affectionately rubbing a bicep. She croaked out, “Are you okay?” She aimed a look of contempt in Chris’s direction. “You hit him! You didn’t have to hit him!”

  Drew’s bottom lip already felt like it was the size of a golf ball. It was also numb. He worked his jaw, stood upright and smeared the blood away the heel of his hand, spitting the blood from his mouth onto the ground. “Emma, take her up on the porch! Now! I’m about to beat this MOTHERFUCKERS ASS!”

  “Come on, then,” Chris taunted. “Let’s see your best…If you got any!”

  “No! Drew, look at me…please, just walk away,” Megan pleaded still clutching his arm.

  “Better listen to the girl…” Chris continued to taunt.

  Drew’s muscles tensed under her hand. Oh hell. He really wanted to hit this guy. Bad. His fist was already clenched, ready to deliver. Every instinct he had said to do it. The guy was begging for an ass whooping. It’s what everyone expected him to do, even the guy. Megan blocked his view of Chris, and every time he attempted to glare past her; she followed his gaze, always staying right where all he could focus on was her green eyes. Her words were breathy and she was still having a little trouble keeping her balance, “Please, Drew, let’s just go inside. Okay?”

  He reached out, and cupped a hand to her cheek. She gasped as if he’d caught her off guard. Her eyes fluttered closed. All of his anger diminished. He had nothing to prove to anyone, except her. “Okay,” he answered with as much reluctance as a person can have.