Tangled Up in Texas

by Delores Fossen

  “Foreplay,” Shaw repeated, no doubt because he’d noticed her attention wandering. But her mind hadn’t wandered that much.

  “Ryan’s sixteen,” she said in as low of a whisper as she could manage. “And I’ve talked safe sex with him.”

  Except she hadn’t. Sunny mentally brought up that earlier conversation and realized she’d been the subject of that, not Ryan.

  “Has he ever been with someone like Kinsley?” Shaw asked.

  “I don’t think so.” And that was the reason she allowed Shaw to take her into the Lickety Split.

  They weren’t alone in there, either. There were at least a dozen customers, but chatter suddenly stopped when the bell over the door jangled as they walked in. Well, audible chatter did anyway. Sunny noticed some behind-the-hand whispers. Diary gossip, no doubt.

  It probably wasn’t a good thing to draw attention to herself, especially since this was like a recon mission to observe the date, but Sunny figured her silence would only stir the gossip pot even more.

  “Did you hear about the new restaurant on the moon?” she said, tossing out the joke that no one had asked for. “It’s got great food but no atmosphere.”

  She didn’t get a cackle like Cherry’s, but there were a few giggles, all coming from the customers over forty who actually remembered her Little Cowgirls role. The four teenagers just looked at her as if she had gone off her meds.

  “Hey, Shaw?” someone called out. Delbert Jenkins, or Jinx as folks called him, who worked at the feed store. “Did your chest hair run into any dew or musky scents today?”

  Now, that got some laughter. Even Reverend Carmichael, who was chowing down on a double-decker hot-fudge sundae dropped his normally pious expression for a giggle. Sunny was about to suggest they find a different place for their covert op, but Shaw silenced Delbert and the snickering with a single-word answer.

  “No.”

  That was all it took to stop the merriment, and people were suddenly interested in eating their treats before Shaw melted them with his withering glare.

  Shaw led her to the back of the shop, where they saw the booth was occupied by two teenagers who were trying to see how much of their tongues they could get into each other’s mouths. The teens stopped and looked up at Shaw with what would have likely been a get-lost protest.

  The money stopped them.

  Shaw took out his wallet, put a handful of twenty-dollar bills on the table and used his thumb in a take-a-hike gesture. The wide-eyed teens turned to each other, an unspoken conversation going on between them. A very short conversation. The girl scooped up the cash, and the pair hightailed it out of there, leaving behind the banana split they’d been sharing.

  Shaw pushed the dish of ice cream to the side, and Sunny and he slid into the seat, with her taking the spot by the wall. If Shaw leaned to his left, he could almost certainly catch a glimpse of the front door. Sunny immediately saw a problem with this plan.

  “Someone will tell Kinsley and Ryan that we’re here,” she pointed out.

  “Maybe. But it’s just as likely folks will stare, whisper and then gossip. There’s a lot of interest in Ryan.”

  Sunny frowned when she turned to him. “What interest?”

  Shaw didn’t have a chance to answer because at that moment the twentysomething waitress in the cotton candy pink uniform came over to take their orders. Sunny didn’t recognize her, but according to her name tag, she was Misty. Based on the way Misty made goo-goo eyes at Shaw when she leaned over to clear away the banana split dish, she knew him plenty well enough and had a thing for him. Based on the way Shaw ignored her, he didn’t even notice. If the man ever figured out how hot he was, he’d have a swollen head the size of Texas.

  Shaw ordered a chocolate malt, something he could obviously nurse if this surveillance went on for a while. Sunny glanced at the menu and ordered something called the Deluxe Bite even though she had no idea what it was since there was no picture or description. It sounded like something she could nibble at while they waited.

  “What interest do people have in Ryan?” Sunny repeated after Misty had walked away. “People don’t think he’s our son, do they?”

  “No,” he quickly assured her. “Apparently, gossips can do simple math. Ryan is sixteen which means he would have been born while you were still living here.” He paused and slid a glance at her. “You really want to hear something that could put you in a bad mood?”

  Sunny frowned. “No. But tell me anyway.”

  He dragged in a long breath. “It’s really more to do with you than Ryan.”

  “Now you have to tell me.” Though, having lived her life in a fishbowl, Sunny didn’t relish the idea of listening to what people were saying. Still, she didn’t want her “celebrity” status to affect Ryan.

  “You want to hear the commitment-phobic theory that claims you get involved with men only so you can be a mother without having to put up with a husband? Or the one that claims you’ve never gotten over me and that you brought Ryan here to show me that I could want kids after all?”

  What a mix of truth and crap. Yes, both of her former fiancés had been fathers, but the first one, Eric, shared custody of his daughter Miranda with his ex-wife. Sunny hadn’t mothered Miranda. All right, she had when Miranda had needed some substitute mothering. The girl had been so hurt by her parents’ divorce and had done plenty of crying on Sunny’s shoulder.

  And as for the second theory, well, that was way off.

  “If I’d felt the need to show you that you might want kids, I would have brought a sweet cuddly baby, not a teenager who’ll soon be heading off to college,” Sunny insisted.

  Though some would argue that it would have been a lot harder to get her hands on a baby than a teenager. Still, it was stupid gossip.

  “If there are naked pictures of me in the sketchbooks you’ll give Sunshine, there’ll be some fuel to the second theory if she makes them public,” Shaw said.

  It took her a second to pick through theory number two to realize he was talking about the claims that she’d never gotten over him. This part might have a smidge of truth.

  And there was still the heat.

  Sunny could swear it was a higher temp now than it had been when she was a teenager. Of course, now she had a better idea of how to put his “inches” to good use. Plus, there was no hormonal teenage angst to get in the way and make her mopey and needy like whenever he didn’t give her just the right look or smile at her way back when. The needy part was apparently still there though.

  She heard the sound of the bell jangling over the front door as it opened. Shaw leaned out a bit and then shook his head, indicating that it wasn’t Ryan and Kinsley.

  “Why don’t we just put ourselves out of misery and have sex?” he asked, confirming for Sunny that he had some neediness of his own.

  She smiled, and leaned in to whisper something naughty in his ear, maybe bite his earlobe, too, but the clatter of dishes interrupted them. Misty—who had ditched her goo-goo eyes to give Sunny some stink-eye—practically dropped the plate of ice cream in front of Sunny.

  Correction: it was a platter, one big enough to have held a Butterball turkey with all the trimmings.

  Every inch of the dish was covered with scoops of ice cream, apparently all the flavors sold in the shop. There were at least thirty of them, and as if that wasn’t enough, there was a thick layer of whipped cream circling the platter. And as if that still wasn’t enough, the cream was topped with chocolate sauce and haphazardly positioned cherries.

  “Enjoy,” Misty said in a tone that suggested she had no such desire for Sunny’s enjoyment.

  Misty then carefully set Shaw’s malt in front of him as if it were a fragile art project being presented by a master sculptor. Served in a tall glass that wasn’t the size of a platter, the thick creamy chocolate had one dollop of whipped cream and a sing
le cherry, stem up, placed in the middle.

  “It’s like that night in the hayloft all over again,” Sunny muttered while she perused her ice-cream choices. She hadn’t actually meant to say that aloud, and she doubted Shaw would get the analogy.

  He did.

  He grinned at her. It was the cocky grin of a man remembering that she thought he was a big boy.

  “Are you actually in any shape for sex?” he asked.

  Sunny knew what he meant. Didn’t think it was a joke, either. He was asking about her recent surgery, and she might have voiced some concern about that particular area if he hadn’t leaned in and kissed her.

  That evaporated any concerns.

  It possibly evaporated her makeup and nail polish, too.

  Oh, the man could kiss, and there was plenty of proof to back up that claim. Like now, it wasn’t deep and sloppy like the one the teenagers had been doing in the booth when Shaw and she had arrived. Nope. This was gentle, just a press of his mouth to hers, and still it packed a heavyweight’s punch.

  She heard herself moan, and there was no mistaking that it was a sound of pleasure. Great day—if she could bottle this, she could make a fortune. However, Sunny was positive she’d want to keep it all for herself.

  Shifting a little in the booth, he slid his hand around the back of her neck, turning and angling her so he could deepen the kiss. Still no sloppiness though. But he did use his tongue. She’d never been quite sure why French-kissing was more intimate than regular kissing. Maybe because it sort of mimicked the sex act.

  Heat and penetration.

  Shaw gave her both, all the while moving her closer to him so that parts of them were touching. Not the parts though. That would have taken some doing since there wasn’t much room to maneuver in the booth. Still, her leg was against his, and her hand found its way to the front of his shirt so her fingers could dally with his chest.

  His hand found its way to her thigh so he could dally there, and Sunny suspected his actions were much more effective than hers. He slid his touch from her knee all the way to her waist. She was mortified that he would do this in public.

  She was also very turned-on.

  She quickly figured out that staying put and kissing wouldn’t tamp down the heat building inside her. And it darn sure wouldn’t satisfy this ache that was starting to spread through her body.

  Because she had no choice and could take no more, Sunny eased back, taking her mouth from his. That created a different kind of ache.

  “Once Kinsley and Ryan are done with their date,” she started, about to suggest that Shaw and she could find their way to a bed. But the shadow looming over them got their attention.

  Misty.

  The waitress had gone well past the stink-eye stage, and she practically slapped a napkin on the table. “For you,” Misty snarled before she turned and walked away.

  Sunny was a little perplexed as to why Misty would have brought them a single napkin, especially since there was a dispenser full of them on the table. Then she saw the writing and realized it was a note. Maybe Misty was passing her number to Shaw.

  But it wasn’t that.

  “We didn’t want to disturb you but wanted you to know that we’ve decided to go to the diner,” the note read, and at the bottom were two signatures.

  Ryan and Kinsley.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE COVERT OPS mission wasn’t over. In fact, Shaw figured it was more important than ever. Because it was possible that in a weird, unintentional way, he and Sunny had given Ryan and Kinsley permission to do the same stupid thing they had just done.

  Kiss in a public place.

  Yeah, talk about being stupid. Shaw had been so caught up in the kiss that he hadn’t noticed the teenagers when they’d come into the Lickety Split and obviously spotted them in the booth.

  Heck, Shaw wasn’t sure he would have noticed a zombie apocalypse after his mouth had discovered that Sunny tasted just as good and right as she had all the other times he’d kissed her. It shouldn’t have felt like a startling revelation, shouldn’t have caused him to go hard, but there it was. His life. His reaction to this woman made him brainless.

  He didn’t mind word of the kiss getting around to the adults—it’d get the suitors off Sunny’s back and uphold his end of the favor-bargain. But that kind of public display of hormones wasn’t a good example for Ryan and Kinsley.

  “There they are,” Sunny whispered. “No hanky-panky.” Like him, Sunny was at the corner of the large front window of the diner, peering in.

  Shaw spotted them, too. Unlike Sunny and him, Kinsley and Ryan sat up front on the red padded stools at the counter—where the other diners and anyone driving by could see them. They each had a menu, likely deciding what to order.

  Judging from their body language, what they weren’t doing was considering hanky or even some panky. Kinsley was nibbling on her bottom lip, and both had tight grips on those plastic-coated menus that were seemingly riveting, considering how quietly and intensively they were studying them. Everything about them screamed first awkward date with the prying eyes of the town looking on.

  Sunny released a long breath and stepped back from the window. “Okay, I feel like an idiot,” she said.

  “I’m right there with you.”

  And it was coming on the heels of him feeling stupid for the public kissing. Worse, it was entirely possible that someone had spied Sunny and him spying on Kinsley and Ryan. That would generate another level of gossip that none of them needed.

  “Come on,” he told her, maneuvering her back toward his truck, which was still in the police department parking lot across the street.

  “Are we going to your place?” she asked.

  The question threw him so much that he practically stumbled. Shaw stopped and stared at her.

  Sunny shrugged, maybe trying to look casual, but he saw some of the same nerves in her body language as he’d seen in Kinsley. Sunny was even doing some bottom lip nibbling. Not on his, as she’d done in the diner. But on her own.

  “I figure everyone will assume that’s where we’re going anyway,” she added.

  Yeah, they would, and while Shaw thought it was a fine idea to take her to his house, he didn’t like that Sunny might be having doubts about it.

  So, that’s why he kissed her.

  Right there on the sidewalk of Main Street.

  He reasoned, with an ample slathering of sarcasm, that anyone who’d missed the display of affection in the Lickety Split could see a repeat performance of it. But the real reason had been so he could feel the heat fire up Sunny again.

  And it worked.

  It worked for him, too, and the kiss was a reminder that idiocy and stupidity were always going to be factors where they were concerned. But this time he wasn’t a twenty-year-old being surprised by a teenage virgin. He was thirty-five and had access to a private bed with good-quality sheets. That’s where Shaw figured they’d land. After all, at their age, a good making out—and with Sunny, it’d be good—would lead to sex.

  Primed and ready for that, Shaw broke the kiss so he could get her across the street and into his truck. He would have kissed her again, but her phone dinged with a text message.

  “From Em,” she said after she’d taken her phone from her purse and looked at the screen. Sunny groaned softly. “She said next time I should order a cone or a malt like you did because the Deluxe Bite’s too much for one person to eat.”

  So, Em had gotten details, probably from Misty, the disgruntled waitress who’d spent the last couple of years sending off “do me” vibes to Shaw. Vibes that he’d had no trouble resisting. Misty wasn’t his type, and the rare occurrences when he’d taken the time for a relationship, he’d looked outside of Lone Star Ridge for it. He hadn’t wanted everyone to know his business.

  Obviously, that had changed with Sunny.r />
  Horniness could apparently lower a man’s standards.

  “‘Thanks for the advice,’” Sunny texted back, saying it aloud as she typed. “‘Are you okay?’”

  Shaw started driving as Sunny waited for a response, knowing that if her grandmother showed any signs of distress he’d be turning around and going to Em’s.

  “‘I’m fine, all excited about never having to see your mom’s hiney again,’” Sunny read when Em’s reply finally came.

  Shaw didn’t think that was lip service, either. Sunshine had made herself so unwelcome that even Em had given up on her.

  “‘I’m heading for bed,’” Sunny continued to read from Em’s text, “‘and I’ll be putting on my earphones to listen to some tunes. So, if you’re late getting in, real late, I won’t hear you. Give Shaw a kiss good-night for me.’”

  That was as good as a hands-on blessing for Sunny to haul him off to bed, but Sunny wasn’t smiling when she answered back, “Will do.” She stared at her phone for several long moments before she put it away.

  “I forgot about...things.” She made a circling motion to the front of her top, and he didn’t think she was referring to her breasts. More like the incision from her surgery and the site of her recent stitches.

  He’d forgotten about...things, too. Well, hell. Being primed and ready to go didn’t make it easy for him to cut through the BS pressure his manhood was adding to this, but Shaw forced himself to remember it now.

  “I’ll turn around,” he said.

  “No.” She blurted that out as if it was the start to an explanation or really big protest, but she clammed up for several seconds. “I want to see your place,” she said. “I want to see if this is a problem.” Sunny made another circling motion with her hand.

  Well, it wouldn’t be a problem for him, but then he was a guy and few things posed obstacles to sex. But Sunny having doubts would certainly do it. It’d be a big-assed obstacle that would stop him in his tracks.