Tempting in Texas

by Delores Fossen

  Mandy sighed as if it would be a severe strain on her professionalism to reveal what would no doubt be general info or an outright guess to someone who had a genuine need to know.

  “Well, Hayes is obviously banged up and could have internal injuries,” Mandy finally answered. “The doctor might admit him to the hospital.”

  “No. The doctor won’t,” Hayes argued. He needed to take care of some family business and then be on his way. Exactly where on his way was, he didn’t know yet, but it wasn’t here in Lone Star Ridge.

  Cait made a “we’ll see about that” sound to his insistence that he wouldn’t be admitted to the hospital. “Call me when you know his condition,” Cait added to the nurse. “I’ll get our reckless-driving suspect to the police station.”

  “Hold your horses,” Mandy snapped. “You didn’t get your tetanus shot, and I have it ready.” She turned to wash her hands in a small sink.

  “I can get that some other time,” Cait said, but her cop’s voice was gone. She looked a little panicked.

  Hayes mimicked Cait’s “we’ll see about that” sound, causing her to toss him a glare. Mandy was fast, though. By the time Cait had finished the glare, the nurse had swabbed her arm and poked Cait with the syringe.

  Cait closed her eyes, and he was pretty sure she was fighting to stay calm. Clearly, she had some kind of shot phobia, but Hayes had to hand it to her. She quickly braced herself and mumbled something about getting two red suckers.

  “Say, why were you in the ER, anyway?” Hayes asked, glancing at Cait.

  “Long story,” Cait said just as Mandy volunteered, “Cait had a run-in with a meat thermometer.”

  Hayes stared at Cait, waiting for her to explain, but she merely grumbled “Long story” again before she turned and marched away. She snagged Shayla by the arm before heading to the ER doors.

  “Should you go with Cait to help her?” Hayes asked Shaw when the man made his way back to the examining area.

  “I could if I wanted Cait to get pissed off at me. She can handle herself,” Shaw added in a mumble, but he cast a glance back over his shoulder as if checking on his little sister.

  Hayes was a big brother, too, so he understood some of the dynamics going on and that Cait likely didn’t want her siblings interfering. From what Hayes had heard, though, the Jamesons were more or less a tight family, with the exception of their patriarch, Marty Jameson.

  Marty was basically a screwup.

  The man had fathered many kids without actually fathering any of them. Over the years, some of Marty’s offspring had shown up in Lone Star Ridge, and Cait and her other siblings—their mom, too—had done their best to do right by them. The Jamesons didn’t shirk responsibility and were the backbone of Lone Star Ridge. Hayes wasn’t sure how his family, the Daltons, fit in, but he seriously doubted anyone had ever thought of them as backbones.

  More like bohemians, misfits.

  Possibly even degenerates.

  Part of that was his fault. He wasn’t exactly the darlin’ of the town and had caused, and finished, his own share of troubles. But the bohemians label had started before that, when he was just a kid. That’s when his triplet sisters had become the stars of the reality TV show Little Cowgirls. It’d stayed on the air for over a decade and had been filmed right here in Lone Star Ridge.

  The show had managed to capture way too many miserable and embarrassing moments in his sisters’ lives before Little Cowgirls had been canceled when the triplets were fifteen.

  Hayes had escaped some of that misery and embarrassment just by being antisocial and leaving when he turned eighteen, but his sisters were still paying for their fame with plenty of emotional baggage. Bad memories could be a bitch, and he was certain Sunny, McCall and Hadley felt that particular bitch breathing down their backs way too often.

  That reminder led Hayes to another one. Sunny was pregnant, and Shaw should be with her.

  “You should go home to Sunny,” Hayes told Shaw. “Let her know I’m okay.”

  Shaw’s eyebrow lifted. “Uh, are you okay?”

  “Okay enough.” And that was possibly the truth. “After the doctor examines me, I’ll get cleaned up and...” He checked the time and frowned. It was nearly 10:00 p.m. He’d been about to say that he would go see Sunny and the others, but it’d likely be late by the time he finished up here.

  “Tell Sunny I’ll see her tomorrow,” Hayes amended. He was about to add that he’d get a room at the inn rather than disturb anyone in his family for a place to crash, but Hayes saw the derailment of that idea come walking through the ER doors.

  Granny Em.

  Hayes could count on one hand the number of people he loved, and his grandmother was one of them, so it was hard not to smile when he saw her. Of course, the smiling caused his jaw to hurt like hell, but it was worth it because his smile caused her face to light up like Christmas morning.

  Em definitely didn’t move like a woman in her seventies. Or dress like one. She was wearing a pair of rhinestone jeans and a red top that she’d tied at the waist. Her long gray hair fell loose and a little wild on her shoulders. What was out of the ordinary for her was the ruby-and-diamond ring that Hayes spotted even from a distance.

  An engagement ring.

  Yep, at an age where most folks’ lives were winding down, Em had agreed to marry her childhood sweetheart, Tony Corbin. Hayes had yet to meet the man and he’d heard good things about Tony from his sisters, but Hayes doubted Tony was good enough for his grandmother. Of course, no man ever would be.

  “Told you Hayes was here,” the coughing woman in the waiting area muttered to Em.

  Hayes remembered that the woman’s name was Anita Parker. Remembered, too, that she was one of the unofficial town criers who kept everyone informed whether they wanted to be or not.

  Well, that explained how his grandmother had found out, and if Em knew, then maybe his sisters did, too. He’d really hoped not to have a family reunion tonight, but perhaps Anita didn’t have his sisters’ phone numbers.

  Em gave Hayes the once-over as she went to him, and studying his face, she finally brushed a kiss on his right cheekbone. Maybe because it was one of the few bruise-free spots.

  “Got banged up, I see,” she said. She smelled like vanilla and strong coffee. “You won’t get any free passes from the ladies with the way you look right now.”

  He knew what passes she was referring to. Even though he’d had nothing to do with the DNA stew that had created his looks, those looks had earned him plenty of attention, aka free passes. It had also gotten him a stalker or two, aka Shayla.

  “Are you hurt bad?” Em asked. As if he were five again, she eased his hair away from his face.

  “No. I’m fine, really.”

  “That’s to be determined,” Mandy argued, glancing at Shaw and Em. “The doctor will be here in a few minutes, and y’all will have to step out while he does the exam.”

  “I should be going anyway,” Shaw said. He reached out as if to give Hayes a pat on the back but then pulled back his hand when he no doubt remembered the injuries. “I’ll see if I can talk Sunny and her sisters into staying put.”

  Hayes thanked him, but Em didn’t say anything until Shaw and Mandy had stepped away. “You gonna tell me why you’re home?” Em asked. “Are you here for the wedding, or is something else going on?”

  Home. That wasn’t the right label for Lone Star Ridge. It’d been the place where he was raised. The place he’d left. But then so had his sisters, and one by one they had all come back. He wouldn’t do that.

  Or rather he couldn’t.

  “I needed to talk to you,” Hayes said. He didn’t want to get into all of this here, but the clock was ticking, and he didn’t want Em to be blindsided by this.

  “All right,” Em said, and judging from her tone, she already knew something was wrong. Of course, hi
s being here had already confirmed that.

  Hayes gathered his breath. “If it hasn’t hit the tabloids already, it will soon. There’ll be stories that say I got fired from Outlaw Rebels. I wasn’t, but I am taking a break from the show.”

  It cut that the break hadn’t been his decision. Though Hayes couldn’t help but think that the cut should have felt much deeper and that he shouldn’t be feeling any relief.

  But he did.

  He just didn’t have the juice to pour himself into make-believe right now. Even if that make-believe was his life.

  Hayes had to do another round of breath gathering to say the rest of what he had to tell Em. “There’s more,” he went on. “And it’s not good. Some of those tabloid stories will say I tried to kill myself.”

  He saw the shock on Em’s face, followed by exactly what he knew would be in her eyes. The worry that only a grandmother could have for a child she loved. With some wincing and with his eyes watering from the pain, Hayes managed to stand so he could pull her into his arms and give her all the reassurance he could.

  Which might not be much.

  But he didn’t manage even a smidge of reassurance because the room started to spin. Not a little spin, either. This was an F5-tornado kind of whirl. Worse, the bones in his legs dissolved.

  The last thing Hayes saw before he lost consciousness was the hard linoleum floor that he was about to hit.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THERE WERE TIMES Cait loved her job and thought there was nothing else in the solar system that she’d rather do. Tonight wasn’t one of those times.

  She wanted to throttle several people, and at the top of that throttling list was Shayla, who hadn’t stopped crying or whining since Cait had brought her to the police station and booked her. However, Wilma and Harvey Crockett weren’t far behind the whimpering soul-mate wannabe in Cait’s strong throttling urge. The couple had continued their argument and sniping at each other even after Leyton had put them behind bars.

  Unfortunately, the feuding husband and wife were behind those bars together.

  The police station only had one holding cell, and months would go by without a need for it to be used. Cait couldn’t recall another time when she’d wished they had more places to lock people up, but tonight she also wished she could shut each of their three prisoners up and put them far, far away from her where she was trying to do reports. Because of the lack of cell space, though, Shayla had been relegated to sitting in the chair next to Cait’s desk.

  “You’re so ugly you have to slap your feet to get them to go to bed with you,” Wilma spit out. The insult, as all her others had been tonight, was aimed at her husband, and it appeared to have been taken from the pages of a very corny joke book.

  Harvey came back with his own unique insult by imitating a loud braying donkey. The sound before that had been a crowing rooster, so obviously the man had a repertoire of farm-animal noises that he considered good retorts for Wilma’s corny scorn.

  Cait could only hope that laryngitis or exhaustion would soon set in because those would probably be the only things that would shut them up. In Shayla’s case, dehydration might do the trick to get her to stop crying.

  At least there was a silver lining as far as Shayla was concerned. Cait had gotten through to her mother. Frances Weston did indeed have that snobby vibe that Hayes had warned Cait about, but she’d also had what appeared to be genuine concern for her daughter.

  That concern had climbed several rungs on the motherly ladder when Cait had mentioned that Hayes and Shayla might be renewing things. She’d purposely made things sound vague but also lascivious. It was more than enough to spur Frances and her snobbery to action. The woman was sending an attorney from San Antonio who would do whatever legal wrangling was necessary to get Shayla back to California and into treatment ASAP for her mental health issues.

  Cait couldn’t see the charges being dropped, considering Shayla could have killed Hayes, but Cait intended to cooperate with any lawyer who could spare her the sound of more wailing and whining.

  It was too bad there were no such silver linings for the Crocketts. Even though they had apologized to her for the meat-thermometer incident, both had refused to call a lawyer and had insisted they wait in jail—together—until there could be a bond hearing. Cait was sure Leyton was working hard to arrange that, but ASAP wouldn’t be nearly soon enough. Heck, the next fifteen seconds wouldn’t be soon enough.

  At least Cait hadn’t had to sit through all of this in what was left of her favorite shirt. She’d thankfully had a change of clothes in her locker and made use of them. Made use, too, of some over-the-counter pain meds that she’d snagged from Leyton’s desk. The stitches on her arm were now causing a constant dull throb. Ditto for her headache. And she was counting the minutes before she could down another dose.

  “I need to see Hayes,” Shayla said to absolutely no one, but she continued to prattle out such things while sopping at snot and tears. The woman had already gone through all the tissues that Cait had been able to round up and was now on her second roll of toilet paper.

  Cait glanced through the open door of her brother’s office and saw that Leyton was diligently working on paperwork. Unlike her, he seemed so focused, and it took her a moment to spot the earplugs he was using. Wise choice for maintaining sanity, but then he missed Wilma’s “clever” next round.

  “If all your brains were dynamite, you still wouldn’t be able to blow your own nose.”

  The woman sure managed to come up with some gems worthy of needlepoint pillows. Harvey responded with a sound that a constipated mule might make.

  Since there was no telling how long it would take for Shayla’s lawyer to arrive, Cait decided to throw in the towel. She’d been on shift for going on fifteen hours now, and she could call in the night deputy, Willy Jenkinson. Maybe then Leyton would leave, too, because he’d put in as many hours as she had.

  They didn’t always have the office manned this late but instead had the calls filtered through a dispatch operator. But with both Shayla and the Crocketts in custody, someone would need to be in the building.

  Cait’s phone rang, cutting through the sobs and animal sounds, and she went a little stiff when she saw Sunny’s name on the screen. It was late, nearly midnight, and Cait seriously doubted this was a social call from her soon-to-be sister-in-law.

  “Sunny,” Cait answered, getting up from her desk. Even though it wouldn’t give her much privacy from Shayla, she went to the other side of the room. “Is everything okay?”

  “No. But it’s not the baby,” Sunny quickly added. “It’s Hayes. He passed out, hit his head and had to be admitted to the hospital.”

  Well, crap. “How bad is it?”

  “I’m not sure. Hayes says he’s fine, and he’s clamoring to be released. He also asked to speak to you.”

  “Me?” Cait questioned, but then she realized that Hayes probably wanted an update on Shayla. He clearly had enough worries without wondering if a stalker was going to show up in his hospital room.

  “I just left the hospital and am heading home,” Sunny went on. “Em’s with Hayes, but I told him I’d call and find out if you could go see him. He said to tell you that he’s in room 102.”

  Cait glanced around just as Shayla made another snotty plea to see Hayes and the Crocketts went another round. “Sure. I can walk down there now. I need to get Hayes’s statement anyway.”

  Though Cait was pretty sure his statement could wait until morning, it would still get her out of the police station. But maybe this was a case of frying pan/fire. After all, she had felt that old nudge of heat when she’d seen Hayes earlier. Heat despite them both being injured and him looking like hell.

  However, beneath the hellish look, he was still Heartthrob Hayes.

  A heartthrob who thankfully didn’t want to use and discard her as he had so many other women.
That was the good news that might keep her out of the fire below the frying pan. The only thing she had to do was what she had always done—keep her tingly parts in check whenever she was around him.

  She called Willy and got his assurance that he’d come right in, so Cait stepped into the doorway of Leyton’s office. She motioned for him to take out his earphones.

  “Sunny called and said Hayes passed out and had to be admitted to the hospital,” she relayed in a soft enough voice that Shayla hopefully wouldn’t hear. Cait didn’t want the woman trying to tag along with her when she left.

  Leyton nodded. “Yeah, Hadley texted me.”

  Hadley, his fiancée and one of Hayes’s triplet sisters. “She’s at the hospital, too?”

  “Was,” Leyton corrected. “So was McCall.” The other sister. So, Hayes had had all of his siblings there with him. “Hayes ordered them all to go home.”

  Cait was betting some fast-talking had gone into convincing them to leave. Or maybe he’d just played the Em card and reminded his sisters that their grandmother would go if they did.

  “Hayes wants to see me,” Cait went on. “I think he wants to tell me about the accident. Willy will be here in a few minutes.”

  Leyton looked at her, then at Shayla, then rolled his eyes when he heard the next round from the Crocketts. Apparently, Wilma had run out of the longer insults and was now just repeating “Your mama.” Harvey oinked, but it was softer than some of his other comebacks. So maybe that meant things were winding down and they would soon fall asleep.

  “Go on home after you’re finished at the hospital,” Leyton finally said. “I’ll keep an eye on our stalker until Willy gets here. Once her lawyer shows up, I’ll see what I can work out with him.”

  Cait glanced back at Shayla. The woman appeared to be winding down, as well. She’d put her head on Cait’s desk and was using the roll of toilet paper as a makeshift pillow.

  “Don’t stay here all night,” Cait told her brother. And because she suspected that’s exactly what he would do, she added, “Hadley might be upset about her brother and probably wants you home with her.”