He’d backslid into his earlier days, or so Miss Marshalyn probably thought since he was spending his free time at his old haunt rather than cruising for a potential wife. He didn’t blame her. By all appearances, he looked like a man who no longer gave a shit about anyone or anything.
He ran a hand over his face. A week’s worth of stubble scraped across his palm. Not that he particularly cared about his appearance, but he hated disappointing her.
Try as he might, he couldn’t seem to muster enthusiasm for anything except his work. From sunup to sundown, he busted his ass back at the ranch.
But from sundown to sunup, all he could do was think. Remember.
Christ, he still couldn’t believe it. She’d actually left.
“I’m not selling it to you,” the old woman repeated, pulling him from his thoughts. “I’m giving it to you.”
“I don’t expect—you’re what?” He forgot his next sip of beer and swiveled around in time to see her pull a blue-bound contract from her white patent-leather handbag. She plopped it down on the bar next to him.
“It’s yours. One hundred acres.”
“But I didn’t show up at the party with a serious prospect. Hell, I don’t even have one. And no prospect means no land.”
“My proposition wasn’t really about you finding a wife. All I ever wanted for my own peace of mind was to know that you’ve really grown up. That I don’t have to worry and wonder what’s going to happen to you. I figured that if you had a nice woman beside you, she could look after you the way I have all these years.” She smiled and her eyes brightened with tears. “But you don’t need anyone to look after you. You have grown up. You proved that to me by being honest. You earned that land. It’s yours.”
“I don’t know what to say.” He stared at the deed that now bore his name. His. Free and clear.
Surprisingly it didn’t bring the rush he’d expected. As he stared down at the one and only thing that had motivated him for the past several years—the hunger to have a real home—he realized that his feelings had changed. Because it wasn’t the one and only thing that mattered to him anymore.
Christ, it didn’t matter to him half as much as Maddie and the fact that she’d left him.
“I’m curious,” Miss Marshalyn went on. “Were you just as honest with Maddie?”
He folded the deed and set it back down on the bar top. “What are you talking about?”
“Did you tell her the truth?”
“She already knew that I needed a serious prospect for your party.”
“Not that truth. Did you tell her that you love her?”
“I told her to stay.”
“But did you tell her that you love her?”
He hadn’t. Such a declaration didn’t come easy to a man who’d heard those words so sparingly while growing up.
He loved his brothers and they loved him, but none of them sat around saying it to one another. They just knew because they’d weathered the rough times together. They’d made it through a hellish childhood, and they were still here. Still alive. Still supportive of one another.
But the words had never been necessary.
Until now.
“What if she doesn’t feel the same way?”
“What if she does? You’ll never know if you sit here and keep this bar stool warm. Besides, I’d like to sit down myself and have a farewell drink. Spur and I are leaving first thing in the morning for his ranch and I might not get another chance to say goodbye to my old haunt.”
“Your old haunt?”
“I was young once, too, you know, and this place has been around a heck of a long time.”
He grinned and turned over his seat.
“By the way, Spur is out in the car waiting. Can you tell him to park and come on in? I’m feeling pretty nostalgic tonight. I think I might like a farewell dance to go with my drink.”
Austin kissed her cheek and signaled the bartender to bring her anything she wanted on him. “He better be good to you.”
“Oh, he’ll be good, all right—otherwise I’ll make his life miserable.”
“I heard that.” Spur’s voice sounded behind Austin and he turned to find the old man standing there, his cowboy hat in his hands and car keys in the other.
“Make her happy,” he told the older man.
“Don’t you worry about that. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about women over the past few weeks, it’s this—it’s not only what you do, it’s what you say.”
“Let’s hope so,” Austin said as he stuffed the deed into his pocket and headed for the door.
Because he wasn’t just going to show Maddie how he felt this time, he was going to tell her.
“YOU’RE CRAZY.” Duane leaned on the edge of Maddie’s desk and folded his arms, a frown on his face. “A genius, but still damned certifiable.”
“People change jobs all the time. It doesn’t qualify them for the funny farm.”
“It does if they’ve just gotten a nice, big fat promotion, and a penthouse office complete with a fully stocked minibar.” Duane’s stomach grumbled. “Just think, you’ll never have to fight with the lunchroom candy machine ever again.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you have twisted priorities?”
“My mom, my dad, my sisters, my friends.” He nodded. “Pretty much everyone.”
Maddie upended a desk drawer into one of the boxes she’d brought in that morning. “I’m leaving, Duane, despite the minibar.”
“If it’s about the lab…” His gaze shifted to the far corner and the charred remains of what had once been three storage cabinets. Duane had inadvertently set a small fire while munching peanuts and celebrating with champagne much too close to a hot petri dish. “I take full responsibility and I plan on working overtime every night until all the damage is paid for.”
“Desiree is so excited about The Sex Solution that she couldn’t care less about the lab.” He breathed a sigh of relief and Maddie eyed him. “But don’t get too comfortable. If it happens again, she’s liable to snatch away your promotion and send you down to the mailroom for the next six months.”
“Trust me. I’ve learned my lesson.”
“Where have I heard that before?” She reached for another cardboard box and upended the second drawer.
“You know,” he told her, “marketing is more jazzed about this product than anything V.A.M.P.’s ever done. They say it’s not only a great cosmetic, but it has medicinal qualities. They plan on promoting it as a nonpharmaceutical alternative to aiding a low libido.”
“They can do whatever they want. It’s theirs now.”
“Please don’t go,” Duane finally said after watching her empty drawer number three. “I like working with you. You nag more than my mom, but I need that to keep me in line.” It was the most sensible argument he’d made all day since she’d announced her intentions to leave.
“I’m sure whoever Desiree finds to replace me will nag you accordingly, and if they don’t, just have them give me a call and I’ll set them straight.”
“Where are you going?”
“Home right now.” She finished with the last of the boxes, handed Duane a few while she took some and started for the hallway.
“You know what I mean.”
“When I figure it out, I’ll let you know.” She hugged him, climbed into her car and drove out of the parking garage onto a busy thoroughfare.
The traffic was horrible as usual and she found herself starting and stopping and thinking about Duane’s question.
She knew where she wanted to go. Where she belonged. But that wasn’t a possibility with Austin Jericho only a few miles away. It had been hard enough to leave in the first place. A decision she’d thought and rethought over the past week since returning to Dallas.
Take a chance.
That’s what her heart kept telling her, but her common sense knew better. She’d done the right thing, even if it didn’t feel so right.
It took her forty
-five minutes to make the ten-mile drive to her apartment near the Galleria. After pulling into her parking space, she killed the engine, climbed from behind the wheel and headed for the elevators. She had plenty of time to haul her boxes out of the car tomorrow while she debated what to do next.
After the day she’d had, the only thing on her mind was the extralarge bag of Oreos she’d left sitting on her kitchen counter that morning. A little soothing chocolate and maybe she could actually think.
Of course, she’d scarfed for the past three days and still hadn’t been able to come up with the next step for her life. The Oreos didn’t seem to be working.
But Maddie had few options right now and so she intended to give them another try.
The moment she opened her front door, she tossed her purse and keys onto a nearby table and headed for the kitchen. She’d just popped a cookie into her mouth when she heard the steady stream of the shower coming from the bathroom down the hall.
Fear rushed through her until she noticed the worn straw Resistol sitting on her kitchen table.
It couldn’t be.
That’s what she told herself, but as she walked toward the bathroom, her denial turned to heart-pounding excitement. She passed the familiar brown boots, a faded pair of jeans, a black T-shirt imprinted with the slogan Cowboy Up.
Clouds of steam billowed from the open bathroom doorway, nearly obliterating the pair of white cotton briefs resting in the threshold.
She knew it was him even before she stepped into the misty bathroom and saw the naked man standing in her shower.
She blinked once, twice. But he didn’t disappear. He was still there on the other side of the glass shower door. Still naked. Still Austin.
He rubbed a bar of soap between his hands before running the lather over his chest, his six-pack abs and down over the sprinkle of hair that led to his crotch.
She was riveted by the sight of him for a long, breathless moment before her gaze snapped back up to find him staring straight at her. Desire burned bright, but there was something else, as well.
It couldn’t be.
Denial raged through her, along with a burst of hope that maybe, just maybe, he felt the same way that she did.
There was only one way to find out.
She slid the glass door to the side. Steam rushed out at her.
“I—” She licked her lips. “How did you get in here?”
“I picked up a few tricks in my bad-boy days.”
“What are you doing here?”
A twinkling blue gaze caught and held hers. “Taking a shower.”
“I see that. I mean, why?”
“I needed a shower after the drive I just had. Christ, do you know it took me two hours just to get from one end of this town to the next?”
“The traffic’s pretty bad.”
“It’s terrible. It’s good that I’m a patient man.”
“You? Patient?”
“I must be. I’ve been waiting on you for over twelve years.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I was wrong the other day. I shouldn’t have pulled you into the shower without saying a few things first.”
“Such as?”
“You turn me on, but you do more than that. You make me happy, Maddie. You make me smile. You make me laugh. You make me better.” At her puzzled look, he added, “You were right. I was scared of losing Miss Marshalyn’s land. I even went as far as to take Debbie the kindergarten teacher to the party.” He shook his head. “But I couldn’t go through with it. I couldn’t let Miss Marshalyn think there was even a chance of me having a relationship with Debbie. I told her the truth.”
“You gave up the land.” The realization of what he’d done sent a burst of joy through her.
“You’re the only one I want to have a future with,” he went on. “I love you, Maddie. That’s why I’m here. Why I’m staying here.”
“What about your ranch? Your home?”
He shrugged. “Home is where the heart is, sugar, and my heart’s here with you. If you want it.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than she shrugged out of her jacket, pulled her silk shell over her head and peeled of her skirt. A few seconds later, she threw herself into his arms, kissing him hungrily, drinking in the taste and the scent and the feel of Austin Jericho.
“I really missed you.”
He smiled against her mouth. “Does that mean that you want it? My heart, that is.”
“Yes,” she breathed in between kisses. “I want it more than you can imagine, but not like this.” She shook her head and pulled away. “You can’t stay here.”
He frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We can’t stay here.” She smiled. “I quit my job today. I love making things, but doing it here in Dallas—” she shook her head “—this wasn’t my dream. Sharon was the one who wanted out of Cadillac. When she passed away, I needed to escape so bad and my guilt was so great that I convinced myself that her dreams were my own. They weren’t. I don’t belong here. I don’t want to belong here.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
She nodded. “I want to bake muffins in my dad’s shop. Not that I won’t continue with product development for V.A.M.P. I really like perfecting all of those seductive products, especially with such a good test subject.” She cupped his face. “I want to do contract work for V.A.M.P. on the side and reopen Sweet & Simple.”
“That’s what you really want?”
“Actually, you’re what I really want. Now and forever. And I want to go home. To our home.” And then she did the one thing she’d wanted to do for the past twelve years—since she’d written that silly note—but never had the courage to.
She stared into his eyes and told him the truth. “I love you, Austin Jericho. I always have and I always will.” And then she reached out to show him just how much.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7269-3
THE SEX SOLUTION
Copyright © 2004 by Kimberly Groff.
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The Sex Solution Page 19
