by Becky McGraw
Thank goodness Leigh Ann had bought a few things she found on the sale rack too, that would give her something to wear tonight. She knew she shouldn't buy anything, couldn't really afford to buy anything, but the two last season dresses had been so cheap and cute, she couldn't resist. The mood she was in, she had needed a little splurge.
"That sounds like a fantastic idea," Lou Ellen told her.
Leigh Ann slumped forward, put the keys into the ignition and cranked the truck again. She drove them up and down the strip a few times, then after much discussion, they settled on a hotel near a bar that played loud retro music. The place was hopping, but seemed to have more suits than cowboys inside. They decided that would fit better with Allison's new classic, but sexy look, than a country bar. And the men would be closer to the women's age.
Conveniently, they found a quaint and private boutique hotel within stumbling distance of the bar. Leigh Ann was afraid private might come in handy tonight. A stock broker and a Senator's wife weren't exactly low-profile women. With Allison's newfound confidence, and Lou Ellen's goading, Leigh Ann was afraid things could get out of hand really fast, if she didn't watch out for them.
She did not want to be the cause of any drama in Allison's life, because she had instigated this makeover. That kind of publicity would not be good for the R & R Ranch and her sister would kill her...maybe even lose another job because of her. Leigh Ann was not going to let that happen.
Leigh Ann got out of the truck, they gathered their bags from the back of the truck then went inside to check in. Two hours later, after they had eaten room service hamburgers, drank a bottle of wine, and taken turns in the bathroom they were ready to go out. The wine was Lou Ellen's idea, a pre-party warm up she said, something to loosen Allison up. Leigh Ann had just pretended to sip on her wine, and they had emptied the rest of the bottle. She figured they were plenty loose now.
The edgy excitement buzzing between her two new friends worried her greatly. As the hours had passed, and Allison's confidence grew, it seemed her anger did as well. Lou Ellen seemed determined to feed that anger too, as much as Leigh Ann tried to defuse it.
When Leigh Ann saw the dress that Lou Ellen had helped Allison pick out for their adventure, she knew she was in hot water. It was a low-cut, tight fitting gold dress that was just beyond decent.
The draped material at the top of the dress plunged past Allison's sternum and almost met the slit at the top of her thigh. Considering the plunging back that prevented her wearing a bra, there wasn't enough material in the dress to cover a button, much less Allison's curvy body.
The women must've bought the dress while Leigh Ann wasn't looking, because she had never seen it before, would never have picked it out for Allison herself. That dress said looking for trouble, and Leigh Ann was sure they were about to wade knee deep into it.
But there was no way to say you need to rethink your dress to the formerly insecure woman and not take the wind out of her sails.
"Let's go!" Lou Ellen said with excitement shifting her weight from foot to foot which sent her new black chiffon dress dancing around the top of her thighs.
Leigh Ann hesitated with her hand on the door knob of their room, trying to decide how she could persuade the women this wasn't a good idea after all. Her eyes darted over to Allison and she saw excitement and confidence in her beautiful brown eyes. Lou Ellen had amped up the woman's makeup too for a night time look. Her full red lips framed a gorgeous wide toothed smile, and Leigh Ann could not force herself to dim that smile.
It was too late to stop this runaway train, Leigh Ann was along for the ride whether she wanted to be or not. All she could do was get into the conductor's seat and try to put on the brakes if she could. Fighting the sense of impending doom pressing down on her shoulders, Leigh Ann sucked in a deep breath then twisted the knob.
***
Tuesday morning, Spatula in hand, Wes leaned back against the counter in the kitchen lost in thought. The smoke alarm went off, jarring him away as his eyes flew to the skillet where his burnt offering of a pancake was smoldering. That made him think about the morning Leigh Ann had burned the bacon, and he cursed. Everything reminded him of the damned woman these days, he couldn't get her out of his mind. Her honeysuckle scent was haunting him. Cursing again, he grabbed the pan off of the burner, flipped the pancake then put it back on the heat to burn the other side.
"Hey, daddy! Is that Miss Leigh Ann on TV?" Trey yelled from the living room, where he sat watching TV, waiting on his breakfast. Wes had to get it in gear, or his son was going to miss the bus. But his son's words, had him sprinting to stand behind the sofa where he saw a well-put-together news anchor pursing her mouth after she said, "A stock broker, a Senator's wife and a beauty queen go into a bar...we'll give you the punch line after this commercial break."
Wes's heart kicked and he groaned as he saw them cut to footage of a mob scene near a bar downtown. Three women, one of them Leigh Ann, stood beside uniformed officers, while other officers cuffed several men. Trey definitely didn't need to hear the punch line, or see anymore of this.
With as many times as his son had asked about Leigh Ann in the last twenty-four hours, it was obvious to Wes that he idolized the woman for some reason. Missed her. Wes missed her too, but they would both get over it. Especially now, after seeing what kind of things the woman was capable of, he knew he had made the right decision. To stay away from Leigh Ann Baker.
"No, that's not her..." Wes told his son, as he picked up the remote and flicked off the television "Go upstairs and get your backpack. I burned breakfast, so I'll just give you a pop tart, sport. Hurry, you're gonna miss your bus."
After he shoved a silver packet into his son's hand, he shuffled him out the front door then slammed it. Running back over to the sofa he grabbed the remote then sat and turned it back on, inching up the volume.
His breath caught in his throat when laundry detergent image faded, and the news anchor reappeared. The dark-haired woman practically buzzed with excitement as she shuffled the papers in front of her. Tapping them on the desk, she waited hesitantly, then looked at the man beside her when he segued with a chuckle, "So, Tammy...a stock broker, a Senator's wife and a beauty queen walk into a bar...what happened?"
"Well, Chuck...they start a riot, and three men wind up in police custody. It seems former Miss Texas gave Senator Leland Rook's wife a makeover that drove a few men a little crazy, including her husband..."
"Senator Rooks was there?" Chuck asked with a short bark of laughter.
"Yep," Tammy said with a pop of the last letter. "Three men, including Senator Leland Rooks were arrested last night after a near bar brawl in downtown Amarillo. The police were called to the bar after Senator Rooks shoved one of the men. His wife and her friends showed up at the bar, and seemed to be pretty popular. Witnesses say Senator Rooks was there with another woman, but when his wife showed up, he took issue with her dancing with other men. Miss Texas tried to break up the melee before the police arrived, but one of the men threw a punch that hit her instead of the Senator."
"Ouch, sounds like a scene right out of a melodrama," Chuck inserted.
With entirely too much glee, the woman agreed, "Yeah, it does. I imagine Miss Texas will be sporting a black eye," then chuckled, before adding, "Medics on the scene checked her out, and said she was okay, and thank goodness there were no other injuries reported. I'm sure there will be more to this story though, so we'll keep you updated, as more information becomes available."
"Thanks, Tammy...now for today's weather," Chuck said and glanced to the right, but Wes let out the breath he'd been holding.
"Good, God..." he muttered, then pressed the off button on the remote and threw it down on the coffee table. Worry shot through Wes, and he shoved a hand through his hair. He didn't want to care, or worry about Leigh Ann Baker, but he did.
Those TV people didn't always get things right, and she could be half-dead in the hospital, even though they said she wasn't seriou
sly injured. He had seen her standing beside the police chief himself, didn't see any obvious injuries, but she had been standing sideways, and there had been so much commotion.
Even though he was mad as hell at both Roxanne and her sister, he had to call to settle his mind, and be done with the beauty queen drama. Wes leaned up and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, but before he could dial it rang in his hand. Easing back onto the sofa, he looked at the number, then answered. "Roxanne?"
"Yeah, I need you, Wes...we've got problems over here at the ranch."
He scooted to the edge of the sofa. "What's up?"
"There are news crews everywhere, they were here at the crack of dawn with big ass lights. It spooked two horses in the field, and they busted down the fence," she told him sounding out of breath. "We rounded them up, but they're cut up pretty badly, and scared shitless."
"They need stitches, or is it worse?" he asked shoving up to his feet.
"I think Rambler might need stitches. They're still standing, but I played hell getting them into stalls."
"I'm on my way..." he said then asked the question burning his brain. "How's Leigh Ann?"
"I couldn't give a shit less about Leigh Ann right now...this is all her fault, and I've got bigger fish to fry." The phone disconnected and Wes stared at it a second, before shoving it into his pocket, and heading for the door.
Leigh Ann drove slowly up the drive of the R & R Ranch and wanted to turn right back around. News vehicles lined both sides of the drive, and news crews buzzed around the front yard, and by the barn like ants on an ant pile. After having spent most of the night at the police station explaining what happened at the bar, and the rest of the morning trying to console Allison in the hotel room, Leigh Ann was burnt to a crisp emotionally.
And she had a fricking black eye.
Her fingers found her puffy swollen eye and she patted it lightly, flinching at the soreness. At six o'clock this morning, they had checked out of the hotel and headed back to the ranch, but it looked like the news had beat them to the ranch, before Leigh Ann had time to do damage control with her sister and Terri Rhodes.
That wasn't good news. She imagined both were fit to be tied, and she wasn't looking forward to explaining to them what happened.
"Oh, Lord..." Allison whimpered and slid down in the seat to shield her face.
"I'm sorry, Allison," Leigh Ann repeated for the umpteenth time since they left the jail where her husband was being processed for assault.
"It's not your fault, Leigh Ann, it's mine," Lou Ellen said miserably as she leaned over Allison's shoulders to shield her. The news personnel hadn't noticed them yet, and Leigh Ann was thankful for that, hoping they could sneak by without being noticed.
"It was just a freak thing," Leigh Ann told her. "There was no way we could have known Senator Rooks would be at that bar."
"I knew he was there," Lou Ellen admitted in a soft voice. "I grilled his secretary and she told me that he was having drinks there with a business associate tonight."
Horror gripped her and Leigh Ann wasn't sure she had heard Lou Ellen correctly, so she asked, "You what?"
"I knew he was going to be there," she repeated and Leigh Ann heard Allison wail.
"And you purposely suggested we go there?" Leigh Ann asked amazed.
"I thought it would be a little payback for the way he treats her."
"Payback?" Leigh Ann repeated dumbly, shocked and angry at the lengths this woman was capable of in the name of helping her friend. She'd helped her all right, right into a divorce and onto every television screen in America probably. And she had dragged Leigh Ann there with her.
"He's been cheating on her for years, and it only served him right to see that other men wanted her, that she was with him by choice, not because she couldn't get anyone else."
That runaway train Leigh Ann had gotten onto yesterday had run over her.
She was flattened by Lou Ellen's admission, and the fact that she had only thought her life couldn't get any worse. Leigh Ann shoved the truck into park, then noticed her mother up on the front porch. She was dressed to the nines, holding court with a reporter Leigh Ann recognized from CNN.
That train reversed and backed over her too.
If she got out of the truck and stayed here, her mother would drag her into the foray, she knew that as well as she knew her name. The best thing she could do was get out of Dodge. "Ya'll get out of the truck, I'm leaving," she told the two women with her. She didn't kill the engine, she sat there staring dumbly at the media circus the ranch had become. "If you keep your head down and blend into the crowd, maybe they won't see you and you can sneak inside. My mother has them captive, and she'll probably be a while."
"What about you?" Lou Ellen glanced over her shoulder to ask.
"I'm getting out of here...if I stay I'll only cause more of an uproar," Leigh Ann said. "Tell Terri I'll leave the truck at the bus station."
Lou Ellen reached across Allison to open the door, then both women slid out of the truck then Leigh Ann watched them slink toward the crowd of reporters surrounding her mother. Leigh Ann threw the truck into reverse then looked up into the mirror, and realized she wasn't going anywhere. Her way out was blocked by a big black truck, Wes Jepson's truck. Her heart leapt into her throat, pushed upward by sorrow and regret. God only knew what the man thought about her now. She didn't want to find out, or talk to him, but had no choice if she wanted to get out of here.
Leigh Ann glanced around the truck to find something to disguise herself with so she wouldn't be mobbed. The black shawl that Lou Ellen had worn over her shoulders last night on the floor served that purpose. Wrapping it around her head and shoulders middle eastern style, Leigh Ann rifled through her purse to find her sunglasses. After shoving them onto her nose, she slid out of the truck and skulked along the side of the truck bed toward Wes, who was gathering stuff from the back of his truck.
"Psst...Wes," she whispered looking around to make sure she wasn't overheard.
He glanced up, then back inside the bed of his truck, before his eyes flew to hers again, widened and his eyebrows shot up. "What the hell?"
"I need you to move your truck, so I can leave."
"That isn't happening for a while," he replied with a frustrated breath, as he stuffed supplies into the duffle bag he was loading. Lifting the tailgate, he snapped it shut. "I have horses I need to take care of for your sister."
"But I need to leave, before someone sees me..." she begged. Leigh Ann wasn't above begging, she needed help, and she needed to leave.
His eyes made a scathing pass over her, then disgust curled his lip. ""Well that's too damned bad, it's not always about you, Leigh Ann." Wes's tone told her exactly what he thought of her, and Leigh Ann's heart twisted in her chest.
Her stomach lurched, and she told him softly. "I know that...this is about Roxanne and Terri, not me. I need to leave, before a riot breaks out."
"You're a little late worrying about them, and the riot is already here." With a snort, and a shake of his head, Wes hefted the bag onto his shoulder.
Eyes burning at the truth in his words, Leigh Ann put her hand on his arm to plead again, "Please, help me, Wes."
He looked down at her hand then back into her eyes. His fingers closed over her hand and he shoved it off of his arm. With loathing and finality in his tone, he told her, "Just take your medicine, and find some camera to smile into. Leave me the hell alone, Miss Texas."
A hot tear tracked down her cheek, as Leigh Ann watched Wes walk off, his shoulders stiff and his strides determined. There was no one to rely on, but herself to get out of this mess. She had to get out of here, and there was only one way that was going to happen without someone seeing her leave.
If she had to hitch a ride with the unwilling vet to get away, then that is what she would do. Leigh Ann didn't have a choice. Glancing left to right to make sure she was still unnoticed, Leigh Ann lowered the tailgate of Wes's truck and climbed up. That was tough in th
e tight black dress she had worn last night, even tougher in silver stiletto sandals, but somehow she managed without shining everyone in the vicinity.
Quickly, she scooted to the back of the truck bed, where she found a tarp piled in the corner. Lifting the heavy tarp, she climbed underneath, then curled into a ball making herself as small as possible, so nobody would notice, then pulled it over her head.
Hot and oppressive didn't even begin to describe the air under the tarp. It also smelled like it had been previously used to cover a dead animal or something. Leigh Ann's stomach rolled at the thought. In a few minutes the sun would be overhead, and she knew the heat under the tarp would become unbearable, so she hoped that Wes would hurry up.
How in the hell had her life gone so far down the toilet?
Now she had nobody, not her mother, not her sister and surely not Wes Jepson. Leigh Ann felt confused and alone, but she would figure this out. Figure out where she needed to go, and what she needed to do to stop ruining people's lives, including her own.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Wes pressed his foot down on the accelerator, and the truck jerked then shimmied on the loose gravel of the driveway at the R & R Ranch. A man with a camera who had been about to cross the drive, jumped back behind his van and waved angrily at him.
He should have hit the bastard, Wes thought with a twist of his lips, as he turned the wheel and pulled out onto the paved road. That would have just delayed him getting home to meet the school bus though. And he'd been out at the ranch so long, Trey would be at home alone if he didn't hurry. Wes was not going to call his mother to get Trey. She probably already had enough questions to fill a bucket. There was no way in hell she had missed the broadcasts on television, everyone in the country was probably watching.
How the hell had his peaceful life come to this?
Leigh Ann Baker had dropped into it like a tornado in June and stirred it up, that's how. Razed to the ground the carefully laid foundation he had created for him and his son.
