Blame It on the Cowboy

by Delores Fossen

  But Reese was in the same boat. It was just that her injuries wouldn’t be bruises and crapped pants. He hoped.

  “Pretend to be me,” Logan told his brother. “And tell the Nederlands to back off, that my honor doesn’t need defending. Just use small words so they’ll understand what you’re saying.”

  “You’re sure? You hate it when we’ve played the switch.”

  Yes, he did. Mainly because Lucky had used him to break up with girls, and a couple of times it had involved getting smacked upside the head with things that the girls threw at him.

  “I’m sure,” Logan answered. “The Nederlands are probably drunk enough they won’t notice you’re not me, and we’re dressed almost the same.”

  Helene would notice, though, but maybe she wouldn’t say anything. It did make Logan wonder, though, why she wasn’t out there trying to save her clown lover.

  Logan ended the call, but the second he did, his phone buzzed again. Speak of the devil—it was Helene—and this time he did let the call go to voice mail. It was probably just her asking him to intervene on Greg’s behalf, but Logan had his own intervention right now.

  Vickie came out of the Bluebonnet Inn.

  She must have recognized his truck because she came his way, and Logan stepped out so she’d be sure to spot him.

  “I figured I’d see you again,” Vickie purred, and yeah, it was a purr. She was coming on to him, and for some reason she thought it would work. She moved in much too close. Close enough that she brushed the front of her body over his.

  Logan took her by the shoulders, lifted her and maneuvered her away from him. And he took back his wallet that she’d lifted.

  She smiled, shrugged. “Must be losing my touch with both the wallet and the, well, touching.”

  “I doubt your touch would have ever worked with me.”

  “No? Well, plenty of people say that Reese and I look like sisters.”

  Blind people, maybe, but Logan wasn’t here to exchange pleasantries with this turd. It’d been a long night, and he still needed to talk to Reese.

  “Here’s how this is going to work,” Logan started.

  But he didn’t get to finish because Vickie interrupted him. “You’re going to threaten to put me in jail the way you threatened Chucky. Well, that won’t fly with me. I keep a lawyer on retainer and will be out in minutes.”

  Not in the Spring Hill jail, but she was right—an arrest for trying to steal his wallet wouldn’t get her much time behind bars. He could goad her into slapping him, but it would have the same results. The only thing he could do is take away what power she thought she had.

  “There’s nothing you can tell me that will come between Reese and me.” That possibly wasn’t true.

  “Even Spenser?” And she smiled when she asked that.

  “Even Spenser O’Malley.”

  She flinched, maybe surprised that he knew the man’s full name, or maybe a gnat just flew in her eye.

  “I hired a PI to investigate Reese. And you,” Logan added. “I know everything about both of you.”

  Definitely not a gnat that time. It was a real flinch. “Are you still seeing her because you knocked her up?”

  Logan rolled his eyes. He couldn’t wait for a couple more months to pass, and then people would see that Reese wasn’t showing, and it would put that rumor to rest. Well, they’d see if Reese stayed around, anyway. The jury was still out on whether or not that would happen.

  “It’s none of your business why I’m seeing her,” Logan went on. Good thing, too, since if he couldn’t explain it to himself, he damn sure couldn’t explain it to this piece of navel lint.

  “It’ll be my business when I tell your friends about you seeing a criminal.”

  Now Logan smiled and shrugged. “My friends already know, and just in case you’re going to threaten my business associates next, they know, too. I took Reese to a reception tonight where everyone in town saw us. If there was someone who didn’t know, they will by morning.”

  Of course, Jimena’s tit slip and the clown crap might take top billing. No way could Reese and he match up to that.

  Vickie huffed, glanced around as if trying to figure out what to say to salvage this. “All right. Give me ten grand, and I’ll leave town. You’ll never hear from me again.”

  That didn’t salvage it. And while she might indeed leave, Vickie was crap. She would just keep showing up. And Logan frowned at all the crap references he was making tonight.

  “Listen carefully,” he said, making his voice take on that dangerous edge that he liked to have in situations like these. “I didn’t give Chucky a dime, and I’m not giving you one, either. Leave town before you see a side of me that most people don’t like to see.”

  That was it. The only warning he intended to give her. It might work. Might not. Which meant Logan needed to be prepared for the fallout. Preparing started with seeing Reese. And he knew where she wouldn’t be.

  In her room.

  Nope, she was probably already trying to outrun the stink her mother was using to smell up her life. And his.

  “That’s it?” Vickie howled when he got back in his truck. She called him a name, one that questioned his paternity, sexual habits and the size of his dick. Logan didn’t care how many names she called him if she just left.

  He drove away with her still swearing at him.

  Logan went in the direction of Walter Meekins’s place first. Since Walter had the only taxi in town, Reese might head there, but no, the taxi was parked right out front and had two cats sleeping on it. So, Logan drove toward the bus station, the only other way for Reese to make a getaway.

  Unless she’d called Jimena to pick her up.

  That caused his stomach to churn.

  Jimena hadn’t exactly been in any shape to drive, but that didn’t mean Reese hadn’t arranged to meet her friend at her car. If so, they could be anywhere by now.

  Even though the bus station was only six blocks away from the Bluebonnet Inn, the sidewalks ended after about three of those blocks. And there were ditches. Since there were no streetlights in that section of the road, Reese could twist her ankle. Or get picked up by a serial killer.

  And apparently he was imagining worst-case scenarios now.

  Logan was about to call Reese, but he spotted something just ahead. At first it looked like fireflies, but then he realized it was his headlights catching the sparkles on Reese’s black dress. She had her backpack looped over her shoulder, and yep, she was going straight for the bus station. Except she was limping.

  He pulled off the road in front of her, blocking her path.

  “I’m leaving,” she said, glancing at him.

  “I see that.” He had to step in front of her when she tried to go around his truck. There was no traffic and probably wouldn’t be this time of night, but Logan didn’t want to risk her being hit. “Did you hurt your foot?”

  “No, these heels are hard to walk in.”

  They sure looked it, and coupled with the snug dress, she definitely wasn’t dressed for a trek to the bus stop.

  “My mother’s going to ruin you,” she added, and that’s when the headlights caught something else. The tears in her eyes.

  Hell. She was crying.

  “Your mother will try,” he argued. “But you do know I don’t need protecting, right?”

  Judging from the tears mixed with a huff, Reese didn’t know that. “I can’t let her do this to you.”

  “Leaving won’t help. If she comes after me, she’ll do that whether you’re in town or not. Vickie smells money, and she thinks she can get it from me.”

  A sob left her mouth, and she sagged against him. “God, Logan. I’m so sorry.”

  He knew that, and he was also pissed that Reese felt the need to apologize for s
omething she hadn’t done. Also pissed that she’d tried to limp her way away from town. And from him. He scooped her up in his arms, kissing her to catch the sound of surprise she made, and he carried her back to his truck.

  “At least if I go, you can tell your business associates that you’re no longer seeing me,” she reminded him when he set her on the seat and then followed in behind her.

  Since it appeared that argument might continue, Logan kissed her again. Then he kissed her just because he felt like doing it. The third kiss, though, was all pure lust. That’s because kisses one and two gave him a hard-on.

  “You’re staying,” he told her, but it was possible Reese didn’t hear that because he was still kissing her when he said it. Possible, too, that she didn’t hear it because she really got into the kiss, as well. Not just with her mouth.

  But also with her hands.

  She took hold of him and yanked him to her.

  Logan hadn’t expected the kiss to get this frantic and this deep so fast, but heck, he just went with it. In his way of thinking, Reese and he had been to hell and back today, and they deserved this.

  But the question was, did they deserve it right here, right now?

  Apparently so. Because Reese kissed him as if this were the last kiss she was ever going to get. Not just from him but from anyone. It wasn’t true because Logan intended to do a lot more kissing.

  And that’s what he did.

  Her dress was stretchy and clingy, but thankfully stretchy and clingy worked for what he had in mind. He pushed it up, found only a tiny pair of panties underneath, but even the millimeter of silk fabric was too much. He shoved the panties down, too, and kissed her stomach. The inside of her thigh. He would have sampled the part of her he really wanted to sample if she hadn’t caught onto his hair and yanked him back up.

  “We do this the old-fashioned way,” she insisted.

  That was fine by him except her idea of old-fashioned and his weren’t quite the same. She went after his zipper, and while her frantic hands were giving him some pleasure, there was pain, too. But not enough pain and pleasure to knock the common sense right out of his head.

  They were on the side of the road. In his truck. And while he did have tinted windows, anyone driving by could get a glimpse inside if they looked hard enough.

  Oh, hell.

  She got him unzipped and had him in her mouth before he could stop her.

  Logan cursed, all from pleasure this time, and while he did enjoy her particular version of old-fashioned, he couldn’t see. His eyes had glazed over. Or so he thought. But they were just fogging up the windshield.

  Reese kept him in her mouth long enough to make him want a whole lot more of her. She made a sound of protest when he caught onto her and moved her onto his lap so that her dress was up to her waist and she was straddling him. He made his own sound of protest because this was not the way he wanted to have sex with her. He’d wanted a slower pace. Foreplay.

  A bed.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d had sex in a truck, but the last time had been when he was seventeen. He hadn’t realized then just how dangerous it could be. With the steering wheel in the way, Reese and he were teetering between the bucket seats and the gearshift. It didn’t help that they were both still jockeying for position. That they were both still trying to kiss each other blind. Or that she had her hands in his boxers.

  Or that he had to get a condom out of his wallet.

  Getting the condom on was even more of a challenge. He nearly gave her an orgasm just because the back of his hand was moving against her in the wrong place. Of course, it was the right place if he’d been going for a quick end to this. He wasn’t. Logan wanted to be inside her this time when they finished this insanity they’d started.

  It felt like a juggling act, and when Logan bashed his elbow into the steering wheel, he nearly put this on pause so he could take her back to his place. However, the nearly notion went south when Reese lifted herself and then slid right down onto his erection.

  Yes, the truck was still uncomfortable, but Logan no longer cared.

  He no longer cared that his phone was buzzing, either. Reese started to move, and he caught onto her hips to guide that movement. Not that he had to do much. She’d already found the right pace and angle, and she was working to get him the only thing he wanted right now.

  A mind-blowing climax.

  She got there ahead of him, which was a surprise considering he’d botched everything about this. Well, everything but the pleasure. Hard to botch that when he was with Reese.

  Despite her own orgasm slamming through her, she managed to keep moving her hips. Kept sliding against him to give him exactly what he needed to finish.

  Logan let the mind-blowing take over.

  Reese collapsed against him, and Logan would have been content to sit there for a couple of minutes to let them both come back to earth. No such luck, though. The approaching headlights caught their attention, and then it did more than just that when the car pulled to a stop ahead of Logan’s truck. A car he recognized.

  Della and Stella’s.

  Logan would have rather faced Satan because he wouldn’t have been required to explain anything to him.

  Seeing the car, and the two occupants inside, had both Reese and him scrambling. Reese crawled off his lap and dragged down her dress. Logan stood no chance of zipping up just yet, but he grabbed his cowboy hat and put it over his crotch. Not a second too soon because the car door opened, and Della stepped out.

  “Is everything okay?” she called out. Since she was wearing a party dress, she’d probably come straight from the reception.

  Logan lowered his window a couple of inches. “We’re fine. I just pulled over to answer a text.”

  He’d hoped that would satisfy Della enough to wave and get back in her car. It didn’t. She came walking toward him, and thankfully at the last second Reese noticed her ripped panties on the gear stick. She grabbed them, shoved them beneath the seat.

  “Coming from the reception, are you?” Della asked. She leaned against the door as if this were going to be a long conversation.

  It wouldn’t be. Not with a cowboy hat on his dick.

  Logan nodded. “And now I need to get Reese back to her place.”

  Della smiled, looked at them. Smiled some more. “It’s good to see you two together.”

  Her smile faded, though, and Logan made sure that wasn’t because she’d seen something out of place. Like an open condom wrapper. Logan wasn’t sure exactly where that had landed. But then he realized Della wasn’t looking in the truck itself. She was dodging his gaze.

  “I’m sorry about accidentally inviting Helene to Lucky and Cassie’s party,” Della said. “Cassie said to do a plus-one—”

  “It’s okay, really.” It wasn’t, but at this point Logan would have agreed to a lobotomy to get her out of there. He even moved as if to put the truck into gear.

  “Are you okay with it?” Della asked, talking to Reese now.

  “Yes, of course.” Clearly, she wasn’t, but Reese might have agreed to a joint lobotomy at this rate. “But I need to be getting back now.”

  Della still didn’t move. Nor did she make any indications whatsoever that she had immediate plans to do so.

  “Is there anything I can do for you before we go?” Logan asked, and he did put the truck in gear while keeping his foot on the brake.

  Another smile. “No, but you should probably both put on your seat belts.” With that Della finally headed back toward her car but then stopped. “Oh, and you should probably move that condom wrapper. It’s stuck on your shirt.” She laughed all the way to her car and was still laughing when she got inside.

  At least Della wouldn’t gossip about this to anyone but Stella. Stella, however, would probably let something slip
so by tomorrow it would be all over town that he’d screwed Reese in his truck. But at least there’d be the mention of safe sex, which might finally dispel the pregnancy rumors.

  Reese groaned, and for a moment he thought she was going to cry again. But nope, she laughed, too, and it was a wonderful sound to hear. Not quite as good as her orgasm moan, of course, but it made Logan smile.

  Until his phone buzzed again.

  That’s when he saw he had two missed calls from Lucky. He took this one and put it on speaker so he could start driving back to his loft.

  “Anything wrong?” Lucky asked him right off.

  “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

  “Nope. I just wanted to give you an update and got a little worried when you didn’t answer. Then I got a text from Della, who said she saw your truck on the side of the road—”

  “I’m with Reese,” Logan confessed. The confession would save time because Lucky would know exactly what that meant.

  “Good. Then I won’t keep you. I just wanted to let you know that the switch worked, and the Nederlands let Greg go. We took him to the ER after he changed his pants. You’re not gonna believe this, but Greg had that clown nose fixed like a dildo to the end of his dick.”

  Logan believed it. Tonight, he would believe anything including clown dick dildos. “The doc patched Greg up,” Lucky added, “and we’re all heading out now. See you when I see you.”

  Before Logan could even put his phone away, it buzzed again, and he quickly answered it, figuring there was something his brother had forgotten to tell him. But it wasn’t Lucky.

  “Logan,” the woman said, her voice so breathy that it took him a moment to realize it was Helene.

  He hadn’t meant to groan, but Logan didn’t want to go another round with her tonight.

  “You have to help me,” Helene said. “Please. I need to talk to you right away. Logan, I’m in trouble.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  TROUBLE.

  Even though Logan hadn’t put the call on speaker, the cab of the truck wasn’t that big, and Reese had no problem hearing what Helene had just said to him. Since Reese had started this so-called affair with Logan, she had been waiting for the other shoe to drop.