Blame It on the Cowboy

by Delores Fossen

  His body rather liked that threat. Thankfully, his face scowled instead, as though trying to discourage a reaction. “I thought maybe you were setting me up. Giving me stolen goods that you could use to blackmail me with later.”

  She looked at him as if he’d sprouted an extra nose. “It belonged to my grandfather.”

  Logan wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “If that’s true, then why the hell would you give it to me?”

  “I thought I was dying, okay!”

  Of all the things that Logan had thought she might say, that wasn’t one of them. As cons went, it was darn original.

  “I had a bucket list,” she added a moment later.

  Logan thought about that a second. “And I was on it?”

  “Not you specifically, but it was always a fantasy of mine to be with a hot Texas cowboy.”

  It was a little disarming, and flattering, to think he’d been her fantasy. Well, if he believed her, that is. He didn’t.

  “If it was so special, why couldn’t you tell me apart from my brother when you got to town?” he asked. “Most people can.”

  “Tequila,” Reese repeated. “Trust me, I can tell you apart now. Lucky actually seems like a nice guy. He smiles. And he doesn’t bark and growl at people.”

  Logan hadn’t put much stock in the flattering fantasy, but that stung a little. Because it was true. Lucky was a nice guy, and everybody, especially women, loved him. Women had come on to Logan before, even while half-drunk in bars, but it was a rare occurrence. For Lucky, it was an hourly thing.

  “I’m the kind of man I need to be to run this business,” Logan said, though he wasn’t sure why he felt the need to explain himself to her.

  “Right. Let me guess. When your folks died, you took it on yourself because you’re the oldest. By two or three minutes at most. Or maybe your father—because you were probably closer to him than your mother—asked you to take care of things. And you did. You’ve devoted your life to taking care of things.”

  Since that was an eerily accurate summary, Logan just shrugged.

  “I’m also guessing that knife you put in your pocket belonged to your father, and you value it so much that you didn’t want to risk me stealing it,” she continued. “Or maybe you just like keeping it close.”

  Both. But Logan didn’t confirm it. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Nothing. But you’re the one who brought up the kind of man you are.”

  So he had. “Well, I know what kind of woman you are. I just don’t know why you felt the need to tick me off your bucket list that night.”

  Reese took a deep breath. “I thought I had an inoperable brain tumor and was supposed to start radiation treatments two days after we met. But it turned out to be a mistake. The hospital mixed up my records with someone else. Shannon Satterfield. She did die, by the way.”

  With any good con, the devil was in the details, and Reese was certainly providing the details. Logan needed to find the devil in them now.

  “So, that’s why I was in that hotel bar,” Reese continued. “And you were there because of Helene.”

  Reese didn’t need any big deduction skills to know that. It was all over town, but no one other than his immediate family had seen exactly what had gone on in Helene’s office. In hindsight, Logan supposed plenty would have found it funny, but Logan didn’t have that kind of fun meter.

  “I’m sorry,” Reese said. “I’ve been cheated on before, and I know it sucks.”

  He was betting she’d never walked in on her boyfriend having sex with a clown.

  She stood, faced him. “Look, just give me back the watch, and I’ll leave town as soon as Maggie’s uterus is well enough for Bert to return to work.”

  Most men would have just given her back the watch then and there and made sure she kept her promise to leave town, but Logan wasn’t most men.

  “Here’s how this will work,” he said. “You’ll do the shifts you promised Bert, then leave. Once you’re out of town, you’ll call me, and I’ll drive to wherever you are and give you the watch. That way, I know you won’t stay here and run a scam.”

  Oh, that did not set well with her. “Fine,” she grumbled, and Reese headed for the door. She made it a whole couple of steps before she whirled back around.

  She was going to kiss him again. Logan just knew it. And all so she could prove some stupid point that didn’t need proving—that they were attracted to each other.

  So, he did something about that.

  He latched onto the back of her neck, hauled her to him and kissed her before she could kiss him. As ideas went, it was a truly bad one. Because he got a jolt of a reminder of her taste. Another jolt that his hard-on could apparently get harder, after all.

  Logan kissed her, deepening it, pressing her against him. And he got another reminder: that he was playing with fire.

  The problem with that was the fire was playing right back.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  LOGAN FORCED HIMSELF to listen to what was going on in the meeting. Like most of his meetings, this one was important, but he just couldn’t seem to process the big picture as he normally could. Too many nonbusiness thoughts.

  Many of those thoughts involved Reese.

  Because it’d been a week since their kissing session in his loft, Logan had figured this fire for her would have cooled. Or at least Maggie would have healed so that Bert could take over his shifts and Reese could leave town. But apparently Maggie had a uterus that didn’t want to cooperate because Reese was still at the Fork and Spoon, and Logan was still trying to get her out of his head.

  “Well?” someone said, and since that seemed to be directed at him, Logan looked up to find everyone staring at him.

  Lucky, Jason, Riley and Greg. It was Jason who’d issued the “Well?” but Logan didn’t have a clue what he was supposed to say. That’s because other than that one word he hadn’t heard the conversation for the last three minutes.

  Possibly five.

  “Say, Greg, could you get us some coffee?” Lucky asked the assistant. “I think we could all use a break.”

  Lucky was clearly looking out for him, probably because he thought Logan was slipping into a depression or something. He wasn’t. But Logan didn’t intend to tell his brother or anyone else that what was slipping was his sanity. Because he was obviously a fool to be spending this much mental energy thinking about a woman like Reese.

  Greg scurried out in that twitchy way he had about him, and that’s when Logan noticed Greg had a big red zipper running down the back of his yellow jacket. Probably some kind of fashion statement, but Logan wasn’t even going to attempt to figure out what that statement was.

  “Doesn’t that guy own any normal clothes?” Jason mumbled.

  “Apparently not,” Logan answered, and his brothers made sounds of agreement.

  “You should get a cowboy in here,” Jason suggested. “At least one to man the front desk.”

  Logan huffed. “I tried that once. Let’s just say I need slightly better people skills than the cowboy I hired. Greg’s good at everything but clothing choices.” He paused. “So, what did I miss?”

  “You signed over your bank account to us,” Riley joked. And he stared at Logan, apparently waiting for some kind of explanation as to why he’d tuned out.

  “Headache,” Logan said, tapping his temple. Not exactly a lie. He’d battled a migraine just the day before, and he still had traces of it.

  Even though he’d never talked about his headaches to anyone but Lucky, Riley and Jason didn’t seem surprised, which meant maybe Logan hadn’t been as good at masking the pain as he’d thought. He certainly hadn’t been good at masking his distraction.

  “What’s the bottom line here?” Logan asked Jason so he could get back on track a
nd finish this.

  To get the blood circulating better, Logan stood from the large oval desk in the meeting room and went to the window. Since this particular room was on the second floor, he had a bird’s-eye view of Main Street. And, if he craned his neck just a little, of the Fork and Spoon. If he craned his neck in the other direction, he could see the Bluebonnet Inn where Reese was staying.

  “Well?” Lucky asked again.

  Apparently, with all that craning, Logan had missed the bottom line.

  “Sorry, Jason, but I think we should put off buying the bulls,” Lucky said, saving Logan’s butt. Logan would thank him for it later. “The price is decent. Not great, mind you. You could do better, but we’re heavily stocked at the moment.”

  Logan nodded and returned to the desk. “Can you hold off another month so we can reassess?” he asked Jason.

  Jason flexed his eyebrows, huffed, signs that he didn’t want to hold off, but he would. Maybe in a month Logan would have his head back on straight. Except he hoped it didn’t take that long.

  Greg came back in, scurrying still. The man moved like a cartoon character who drank an hourly six-pack of Red Bull, and he deposited a tray with coffee on the center of the table.

  “Thanks,” Logan said. “The meeting’s done, but could you arrange a cleaning crew to go to my loft and remove everything but the appliances, my desk and my clothes? I also want them to patch up the holes in the wall.”

  The four men looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. He hadn’t. This was the next step to regaining it.

  “Anything else?” Greg asked.

  “Call Henderson’s and see if they can deliver new furniture as soon as the cleaning crew is done.”

  “Uh, what kind of furniture?” Greg asked.

  Since this had always been Helene’s domain, Logan didn’t have a clue. “You decide.”

  Despite Greg’s questionable taste in clothes, it wouldn’t matter. Henderson’s was the only furniture store in town, and they didn’t have a purple or yellow piece of anything. Whatever Greg picked out would be boring and tasteful.

  Greg jotted that down, hurried out. Riley and Lucky mumbled something about getting back to work, leaving Jason and Logan alone. Jason shut the door.

  “Trying to rid yourself of Helene?” Jason asked.

  “Yes,” he admitted. Rid himself of the pieces of her, anyway, since he’d bashed most of the things she’d put in his loft.

  Like a moth to a flame, Logan went to the window again and started more neck craning. He’d quit asking himself why he was doing it. “Della said Helene had a breakdown.”

  “I heard that,” Jason admitted, then joined Logan at the window. “Do you still love her?”

  “No.” Logan didn’t even have to think about that.

  Jason shook his head, blew out a deep breath. “You two were together a long time. You’re sure you just want to throw that all away?”

  That was possibly the only question that could have pulled Logan’s attention away from the window. His friend, who was about to cross a line he shouldn’t.

  “You think I should forgive her?” Logan asked, already knowing that wasn’t going to happen.

  Jason nodded. “Not for her sake but for yours. Clearing out your loft is a good start. You need to do things like that to get your life back on track. But forgiving Helene is part of that, too.” He paused again. “Did you ever really love her?”

  Yep, that line had just been crossed, and Logan would have told Jason that if he hadn’t looked back out the window and seen something that caught his attention. Reese, coming out of the Bluebonnet Inn. Since it was ten fifteen in the morning, she was no doubt on her way to the café to get ready for the lunch shift.

  Logan was suddenly in the mood for a burger.

  Which he’d resist, of course.

  It was one thing to spy on her, just to make sure she wasn’t up to something, but there was no reason for him to spy on her face-to-face. Or eat what she cooked.

  Reese glanced around, something he’d noticed that she usually did. It was as if she expected someone or something to jump out at her. Probably something she’d learned from her con-artist past. But she didn’t just look around. She also looked up.

  Logan stepped back a little because she glanced up at the McCord building. Not at this particular window exactly. She seemed to be glancing at his loft. Reese might have done that because she expected him to be watching her.

  Which he was.

  He’d warned her that he would be keeping an eye on her. Despite that scalding kiss a week earlier, he had let her know that he still didn’t trust her. That made him seem a little off-balanced because why would he kiss a woman he didn’t trust? The bigger question, though, was why did he want to kiss her again?

  He wouldn’t. No way. And he wanted to believe that.

  Man, did he.

  The best thing would be for Maggie to get better so Bert could return to his regular hours. Then he could give Reese the watch and send her on her way. That was the way to ensure there were no more kisses.

  “Sorry,” Jason said. “I just stepped in shit with that question about Helene. I’ll take it back.”

  Good. Because Logan had no intention of dignifying it with an answer.

  “That’s the new cook at the Fork and Spoon,” Jason remarked. “Have you had one of those lemon thingies she makes?”

  “No.” But Logan was starting to think he was missing out on something amazing since people brought it up all the time.

  “It just sort of melts in your mouth,” Jason went on. “She’s attractive, isn’t she? You know, in a hot unmade-bed kind of way? I know she’s not my usual type, definitely nowhere near your type, either, but I was thinking about asking her out for a drink.”

  Jason was certainly stepping in a lot of shit today, and Logan was about to tell him that it was time for him to leave, but he saw something that grabbed his attention even more than Reese had.

  The man following her.

  The guy appeared to be in his late forties, thinning ginger hair, skinny, with a face like a rooster. He stepped out from the alley by the hardware store and fell in step behind her.

  “You recognize that guy?” Jason asked, following Logan’s gaze.

  “No.”

  Reese kept on walking, but when she reached the Lookie Here Thrift Shop, she must have seen the guy’s reflection in the storefront windows. She stopped, turned and faced him. Judging from her body language, she certainly recognized him. Logan wished he had binoculars because it was hard to see her expression, but he thought he saw her shoulders go stiff.

  So did the man’s.

  They stood there, staring at each other, reminding Logan of two Old West gunslingers about to draw on each other. They stayed that way for several tense moments before the man reached out and slammed Reese against the door of the Lookie Here.

  * * *

  REESE’S HEAD WAS in the clouds. Or rather her eyeballs were on the window of the McCord building, and that’s why she had no idea how long the man had been following her. But after seeing his reflection, she had no doubts that he was indeed following her.

  Chucky Dayton.

  She so didn’t have time for this now. Reese spun around, stopping him in his tracks. He was scowling, but then she’d never seen Chucky without a scowl. She wasn’t sure if his face had frozen that way in some kind of weird tic or if he saved those craggy scowls just for her.

  “Reese.” He said her name as if she were a persistent toenail fungus. “You know how long it took me to find you?”

  “I’m guessing here…but about eight months.”

  Except it wasn’t really a guess. He’d found her in Abilene, threatened her, scowled at her and generally made her life miserable until she’d left. Then again, s
he’d been planning on leaving Abilene that week, anyway. Chucky’s arrival had just sped things up a bit.

  “Eight months, three days,” he corrected as if she’d just made a huge error in her time calculations. “I guess you didn’t think I’d find you.”

  “No. I knew you would. You usually do.” It just surprised her that it always took so long. She only used two names—Reese Stephens and Reese Stephenson. A three-year-old with a couple of minutes of internet access probably could have found her.

  “And I’ll keep on finding you,” Chucky snarled, “until you give me what you owe me.”

  “What my parents owe you,” she reminded him.

  He didn’t listen to that. Chucky never did. And it wasn’t as if she could blame him for being angry.

  Her parents had indeed conned him out of some money. How much exactly she wasn’t sure. The first time Chucky had confronted her five years ago, the amount had been five grand. It had increased each time they met so either Chucky was into embellishment, had a bad memory or he continued to be conned by her mother so the amount was going up.

  “You’re their daughter,” he argued. “And since I can’t find your mother, that means you owe me. I want my eighteen thousand dollars, and I want it now.”

  Reese didn’t have anywhere near that kind of money, especially after those charity donations she’d made, but even if she had the cash, she wouldn’t have given it to Chucky to settle her parents’ debt.

  “You’re not getting a dime from me,” she told him. Maybe she should record that promise because she ended up saying the exact thing to him each time. “I don’t clean up my parents’ messes anymore.”

  Chucky wobbled his head, possibly trying to look indignant. He probably didn’t know it made him look even more like a chicken than usual. “I can make things real bad for you here.”

  And then he made a mistake.

  A big one.

  He caught onto Reese and pushed her against the Lookie Here. Chucky didn’t put much muscle behind it, probably because he didn’t have much of it in his wormy body. But the slight push brought all the memories ramming into her. Just like that, Reese’s breath vanished, and her heart was in her throat.