“I guess I could do that. So you’re sure this is the woman for you?”
He nodded. “We have really great chemistry.”
15
WHEN CHARLENE LEFT the Steak-n-Bake she found Mason waiting outside for her. It was late afternoon, the sun just an orange glow on the horizon. The restaurant had switched on their outside lights and there was no mistaking the look on Mason’s face. He leaned one hip against her bumper, his arms folded, his gaze bright and twinkling and excited.
“What are you doing here?” she asked after she’d crunched across the gravel parking lot toward him.“Moral support.” He took a long, thorough look at her and appreciation glimmered in his gaze. “You look really great.”
His words sent a zing of electricity up her spine. A feeling that quickly died, buried by the disappointment churning in her chest. Suddenly, she didn’t just want Mason to like the way she looked. She wanted him to like her.
As much as she liked him.
“So how did it go?” He pushed away from the bumper and came up to her.
“You were right. My theory is total bunk.” She tilted her head back and stared up at him. “He told me that he found someone else.”
“Really?” A dark, fierce light gleamed in his eyes in that next instant, as if he wanted to hit someone almost as much as he wanted to pull her into his arms. But then it disappeared and she was left to wonder if she’d only imagined it.
“The hostess with the mostest,” Charlene continued. “She works here. They met when she seated him for some business dinner. Her name’s Veronica and they’ve been seeing each other ever since. They have great chemistry.”
“Veronica? Veronica Miles? Wasn’t she the homecoming queen when we were freshmen?”
“That’s her.” One of the original daring divas. Stewart’s complete opposite, not to mention his senior.
But none of that mattered.
“They have great chemistry.”
“If that don’t beat all.” He shook his head as he reached for her. “Good for him.” Pulling her into his arms, he added, “And even better for me. There’s nothing wrong with two people being physically attracted to each other.”
“I know that.”
“It’s a good start. A damned sight better than most.” Meaning his parents. Meaning that he didn’t put an ounce of importance in common interests or like personalities.
And neither did Charlene.
“You’re right.” Her words widened his smile. “First, it’s physical attraction and before you know it, two people actually like each other.”
“I do like you, Charlene.” He gave her a sweet, lingering kiss that promised many more. “I like you a lot and I think we ought to do something about it.”
“I agree.” She nodded. “We should stop seeing each other.”
“Exactly. We should get married and stop all this beating around the bush…” His voice trailing off as her words registered. “What?”
The word married lingered in her head and tears burned the backs of her eyes. It was hardly the proposal she’d always imagined. At the same time, it sent a rush of joy through her so fierce that it frightened her.
Because she not only liked Mason. She loved him. It made no sense, but she felt it anyway. The attraction. The emotion.
Love.
“I realize my theory isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” she blurted, eager to say something that didn’t involve the word yes! “But couples with common ground do tend to run the greater chance of success. I’ve seen it professionally many times. I just finished a counseling session with the sheriff. He and his wife have been married forever and they’ve been playing golf together just as long. And then there’s your aunt and uncle. They’ve had a long, healthy marriage and conquered their arguing because they rediscovered their own common ground.” She latched on to the notion, desperate to ignore the urge to throw herself into his arms and never let go. She wouldn’t, she couldn’t.
Because while Charlene did, indeed, love Mason, he didn’t love her. He liked her.
He liked an image.
When he looked at her, he didn’t see below the surface. He saw the daring diva he’d spent the past few weeks helping to create.
He liked her, all right. The woman who’d stripped bare on the tailgate of his truck, who’d voiced her fantasies and pranced around in a pair of cowboy boots and nothing else.
An illusion.
While Charlene had done all of those things and truly enjoyed them, it had all been part of a test.
Deep down, she was still the same person he’d spent a lifetime ignoring.
“That’s crap,” he told her, his gaze narrowing.
She pulled her shoulders back and met his stare. “It’s not crap. Your aunt and uncle are proof enough. I really have to go.”
And then she pulled away from him, climbed into her car, started the engine and drove away.
It was for the best, she told herself as she glanced in the rearview mirror. He stood in the parking lot, staring after her, his face a dark mask, and her chest tightened.
She gripped the steering wheel and ignored the urge to turn the car around.
Once he saw through the surface to the real woman beneath, he wouldn’t feel near the attraction he felt for her now. He wouldn’t want her anymore, the relationship would end and she would hurt even more than she did right now.
Mason McGraw was all wrong for her.
She knew that.
At the same time, she couldn’t help but feel that she was walking away from the best thing that had ever happened to her.
SHE WAS CRAZY and he was a damned sight better off without her.
That’s what Mason told himself on the drive back to the Iron Horse. The thing was, he didn’t believe a lick of it by the time he reached the ranch.In the two weeks since Charlene had walked back into his life, he’d been happier than he’d been in a long, long time.
She not only reminded him of all the good things in his past—growing up and cutting loose—but she made him see all the good things he could have.
He wanted to make love to her every night, to fall asleep in her arms and wake up to her every morning.
And she didn’t.
Because they had no common ground. Because they were opposites.
Because she believed that his aunt and uncle had conquered their arguing because they’d rediscovered their own common ground.
Right.
He stormed into the house and ran straight into Rance who stood on the other side of the doorway.
“It’s you,” his brother exclaimed. “You scared the shit out of me. I didn’t expect you back so soon. When I heard the truck, I figured it was Deanie in her Dualie and—hey, where are you going?” he called after Mason who walked past him.
Straight to the den where Eustess and Lurline were busy arguing over the remote control.
The minute they spotted him, the bickering stopped.
“Why, dear, we didn’t hear you come in,” Lurline exclaimed, handing over the remote control to Eustess.
“It’s no wonder with all the fighting goin’ on in here.”
“Why, we weren’t fighting, dear. Not at all. Were we, Eustess?”
The old man spared a glance as he flipped the television channel from Lurline’s favorite soap opera to a reality court show. “You’re darned tootin’.”
“You crazy fool.” Lurline slapped him on the arm and snatched the remote control from him. “That means yes.”
“I mean, you ain’t darned tootin’. Gimme that.”
“See? You’re still arguing.”
“This is just a little disagreement.”
“I know you’re still arguing. It’s impossible not to know it. What I want to know is why Charlene thinks you’ve stopped.”
“Because we told her so.” Lurline drew a deep breath and pushed to her feet. “Dear, we tried to stop. We really did, but the thing is, we like to argue.”
“Come again?”
“That’s right, boy,” Eustess added. “Ain’t much else for us old folks to do. Going at it with your aunt gets my blood pumping and keeps me feeling young.”
“Me, too.” A wistful looked touched Lurline’s face. “We used to do other things that were just as exciting, if you know what I mean.” A blush colored her cheeks. “But then you get old and you can’t do the things you used to. So you find other ways to stay in touch with each other.”
“By arguing?”
“We don’t exactly look at it as arguing. We talk to each other. It gets loud sometimes. And we disagree. But then that’s the fun of it. Ain’t that right, Eustess?”
“You’re darned tootin’.”
“What about you rediscovering common ground? You never had any common ground.”
“Well, we sort of lied about that. We didn’t want you to worry about us anymore and we knew Dr. Singer wouldn’t give us a clean bill of health unless she thought we were communicatin’ again, as she called it. So I sort of told her that Eustess was helping me can pickles. And that we were gardening. And I may have thrown in a little bitty lie about us taking walks together in the morning like we used to do before the kids were born.”
“Uncle Eustess used to feed a ranch full of horses every morning.”
“We know that, but she doesn’t.”
He gave them both a stern look. “She’s about to find out. Come on.”
CHARLENE HAD JUST slathered an acne scrub onto her face when she heard the doorbell ring. She wiped the tears from her eyes—she’d been crying ever since she’d walked into the empty house and straight into her comfort sweats.
But the soft, warm cotton hadn’t made her feel any better. She still felt cold. And alone. And miserable.Even half a box of Happy Camper cookies hadn’t helped. And now she was out, and in desperate need of a fix. She’d left a message for Janice asking for another case.
Unfortunately, she had the feeling that wouldn’t be near enough to help her get over Mason.
“I’m coming,” she called out as she reached the bottom of the staircase. “Thanks so much for coming—” The words caught in the sudden lump in her throat as she found Mason standing on her doorstep, flanked by Eustess and Lurline.
“What are you doing here?”
“Tell her,” Mason instructed.
“We lied,” Lurline blurted. “We’re still fighting. Ain’t that right, Eustess? And forget the darned tootin’. Just say what’s on your mind.”
“Wasn’t my idea to lie. Lurline cooked that up.”
“Why, you old coot. I’m not taking the fall for this all by myself. You’re just as responsible as I am.”
“I ain’t got a deceitful bone in my body.”
“And I ain’t got a gray hair on my head.” Lurline frowned at him before turning to Charlene. “We’re sorry. It’s just that we knew our arguing was bothering Mason, but we couldn’t stop. We tried. So we figured if we convinced you, you would convince him and he would stop worrying over us. But then he heard us at the house.”
“On account of you got a big mouth,” Eustess told his wife.”
“No bigger than yours…” Their voices faded into a string of bickering as Mason stepped forward.
“They lied to you. They’re still arguing.”
“And the pickle canning?”
“Uncle Eustess is allergic to pickles. It was all a lie. They like arguing.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
Mason turned to his aunt and uncle. “Time out,” he said, his voice so loud that it cut them both off midsentence. He gave them another stern look. “Tell her the rest.”
“We never really have done a lot together. But we do talk. Or we used to. Then as we got older, the talks got louder on account of neither of us can hear all that well. And then we sort of started disagreeing a lot. Eustess used to do it to pick at me at first. He knew it got me riled up and he liked to see me like that.”
“Ain’t nothin’ prettier than a woman with a flush to her cheeks,” the old man remarked.
“They like arguing,” Mason told her. “It’s how they stay connected. Excited. It’s their passion. So you see? They aren’t proof of anything, except the older you get, the crazier you get. You and I…we can work.”
She shook her head. “There is no we. There’s you and who you think I am. But the boots and the miniskirts and the hair… That’s not the real me. You don’t know the real me.”
“You mean the real you who walks around in sweats and wears white scrub all over her face?”
The minute he said the words, she had the sudden urge to turn and race back up the stairs, snatch up the nearest miniskirt and wash her face.
She forced her feet to stay rooted to the spot.
“This is me,” she said. “I have really bad skin without this stuff. And I have four pairs of old sweats as ratty and worn as these, and I wear them every night. They’re comfortable. They’re me.”
“They’re sexy.”
“They’re not. I’m not. The woman you went out with wasn’t the real me. I was pretending.”
“Sugar, you weren’t pretending. You were cutting loose, opening up. That was the real you. And so is this. It’s all part of the same package.”
“My favorite part of the rodeo was the funnel cake.”
“I’ve got an affection for funnel cakes, myself. So see, we’re not totally without common ground.”
“It takes more than lust to make a relationship work.”
“I know that. It takes a little bit of everything. A little lust. A little common ground. A lot of love—”
“What did you say?”
He leveled a gaze at her. “That it takes love.”
“I didn’t think you believed in love.”
“I didn’t. Until I met you. You made me feel things…” He shook his head, as if searching for the right words. “Things I’ve never felt before. I wanted to get inside of your sweet body so bad, but along the way, I found myself wanting to get inside your head, as well. I didn’t just want to make love to you. I wanted to talk to you, spend time with you. I like seeing you smile. I love you, Charlene.” His gaze roamed over her face and she saw the glimmer of emotion in his eyes. “I love all of you, though I’d prefer it if you didn’t come to bed every night with all this stuff on your face. Not because you look bad,” he added when she bristled. “But because I like to touch you. You have soft skin.”
“Really?”
“Really. You’re beautiful. You’ve always been beautiful, even in the Hee Haw panties.”
“Even like this?”
“Even like this.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. When he broke away, he had an acne cream mustache.
Oddly enough, it didn’t take away from his good looks. Because Charlene saw past the surface to the man beneath. The man who stared at her with such love and longing in his gaze that her heart swelled.
“I love you,” she told him. “I always have.”
“Good, because I don’t intend to let you go. You’re marrying me, and if you try to run, I’ll hunt you down and hog-tie you.”
She eyed him. “Is that a promise?”
“I thought the daring diva was just an act.”
She shrugged. “It was, but it was also fun. Besides, it was hard enough breaking in those boots. I’m not giving them up after all that work. And I’ve got a few fantasies we still haven’t tried.”
He grinned. “I’ve got a hell of a lot more than a few. Enough to keep us busy for a long, long time.”
“For forever?”
“Forever,” he promised. And then he kissed her.
Epilogue
“HIDE ME,” Rance said as he rushed into the makeshift dressing room set up in the back of the Romeo First Presbyterian Church where Mason and Josh were busy changing into their tuxedos. His heart hammered and he swallowed the sudden rush of panic that rose in him as he slammed the door. “She’s here,” he announced.
“W
ho?” Josh paused tying his tie to glance over his shoulder.“Who? Deanie, that’s who. Deanie Codge. I saw her truck pull up outside.” Rance shook his head, the image of her navy blue 4x4 crawling through the parking lot still vivid in his mind. “I knew she would come running as soon as she caught wind that I was back.”
“You’ve been home for two months,” Mason reminded him as he finished his own tie and reached for his jacket. “The whole town knows you’ve been home since you went to the Fat Cow diner on that chili burger mission. I’d say she caught wind long before now.”
Rance had had the same thought, but obviously he’d been wrong. No way would Deanie have stayed away if she’d known.
The woman didn’t know how to stay away.
“Yeah, well, maybe she’s been busy or sick or maybe she’s just been biding her time. It doesn’t matter. The fact is, she’s here.”
Finally.
The word whispered through his head and he pushed it back out. It wasn’t like he cared that she was here, or that he’d thought for a little while that he might actually be losing his touch when it came to women. Deanie had worshiped him, for Christ’s sake.
And she obviously still did.
“Would you just calm down,” Josh told him as he slipped on his own jacket. “She’s here because the whole damned town is here. Between Holly and Charlene, they’ve invited practically everyone.”
He frowned. “That’s just what she wants everyone to think. She’s obviously got something up her sleeve. She’s trying to catch me off guard. Maybe slip something in my drink when I’m not looking at the reception so she can haul me home and have her way with me.”
Mason grinned. “I think you’ve been spending too much time with Eustess and Lurline. All the arguing is warping your brain.”
Texas Fire Page 17
