“He works for The Tattler,” Hayes explained. It was one of the tabloids that often dished dirt on him and his family.
Cait nodded. “Leyton will warn the guy not to bother you here at the hospital, but once you’re discharged, he’ll probably try to see you.”
Oh, yeah. He would, and he wouldn’t stop there. Franklin would dig for anything he could find on the triplets’ weddings, too. Even though Little Cowgirls had been off the air for years, news about his sisters could still sell newspapers. It would especially generate sales if the stories had a “soul-sucking, complete violation of privacy” angle to them.
“I’ll give Em and the others a heads-up about this reporter,” Cait went on. “And I can ask folks not to stir up any gossip with him.”
Hayes muttered a thanks, a heartfelt one. However, he could hear the but in her tone. “But?” he spelled out for her.
Sighing, she shook her head. “About that fake story you want me to do... I’m sorry, but I just don’t think I can pull it off.”
“Kiss me and find out,” Hayes challenged before his mind caught up with his mouth.
It was a totally dumbass thing to say, and worse, he’d done it in Slade’s voice. With Slade’s cocky “you’re sure you don’t want to tap this?” smile.
Cait blinked, clearly surprised. Or something. Hayes couldn’t quite figure out her expression or why she swallowed hard. It wasn’t as if she wanted to “tap this.”
Was it?
He was usually pretty good at picking up on cues like that, but the pain meds were clearly dulling his brain. No. Cait had zero tapping ideas when it came to Slade or him. Especially him.
“Everything will be fine without the lies,” Cait said with no confidence whatsoever, and with that, she turned and walked out.
Hayes was about to curse, but he heard a single word come from the other side of the door. A single word from Cait that gave him hope that maybe she was battling the tap after all.
“Shit.”
* * *
“I WANTA PLAY cops and bobbers,” Avery Jameson announced the moment Cait had her strapped into her car seat. Cait’s three-year-old niece proceeded to make loud farting noises to imitate the sound of running footsteps.
“No. Let’s play fairy princess,” her twin sister, Gracie, suggested. No farting sounds for her, but she did start waving her invisible fairy wand around and nearly bopped Cait in the eye.
Cait dodged more eye bops, got Gracie secured in her car seat and climbed behind the wheel of her SUV so she could deal with the second round of family stuff. Her half sister, Kinsley, was riding shotgun with a nearly naked picture of Hayes on her lap. Not a little picture, either.
No siree, Bob.
This was a glossy eight by ten, and the shot had obviously been taken from one of the sets of Outlaw Rebels. Hayes was in a bedroom, his back to the camera, and he was wearing boxers that revealed every curve, dip and nuance of his superior butt. Cait had never thought of butts having nuances, but Hayes’s sure did.
Incredible well-shaped nuances.
“Cops and bobbers,” Avery repeated, more insistent now, as Cait drove away from Austin and McCall’s house.
It was her nieces’ favorite game, a variation of cops and robbers that didn’t include any hints of violence. Mainly it consisted of those farting sounds, a few arm pumps to imitate running and Avery doling out an occasional “Book ’em, Danno.” That was something Avery had gotten from Cait, who loved watching reruns of the old TV show Hawaii Five-0.
Gracie, who had a much quieter nature than her former womb buddy, merely kept twirling the magic fairy wand while Cait started the drive to their preschool. It was something she did as often as possible to give her brother Austin and his fiancée, McCall, a little time to themselves. Ditto for Cait dropping off Kinsley at the high school so that Shaw wouldn’t have to interrupt his busy day to drive her. Since he ran the family’s sprawling ranch, pretty much any time of day interrupted something he had to do.
Normally, though, Cait didn’t have to do the drop-offs while her brain was only partly engaged and while functioning on just a couple of hours of sleep. It’d been two in the morning before she had finally gotten to bed, and heaven knew what time it was before she’d actually managed to sleep. She could blame Hayes and his nuanced butt for that.
Imagine him wanting her to pretend to be his love interest.
But Cait could indeed imagine it. Worse, she could feel it, and even the discomfort from her stitched arm hadn’t been able to tamp down the tingles. Or the ridiculous fantasies of what it would be like to have her hands on that incredible butt of his.
“Well?” Kinsley prompted, drawing Cait’s attention back to her.
Usually her often sullen sister was half-asleep and only communicated with grunts and eye rolls at this early hour. But apparently Kinsley had plenty of verbal stuff to say today. It’d started the moment Cait had picked her up from the ranch where Kinsley had been living since her mother abandoned her. Her father, too, but then Marty Jameson made a habit of abandoning kids. Of course, when it happened as often as it did with Marty, it was more of a way of life than a mere habit.
“Can you please get Hayes to autograph it for me?” Kinsley asked. “Please.”
Her request wasn’t a newsflash since the girl had already repeated it three times. As she’d already done three times, Cait turned the photo facedown. Avery and Gracie likely wouldn’t be able to see it from the back seat, but it was best not to give their nieces that kind of eye candy.
“He’s straight fire,” Kinsley added in a sigh-y voice as she peeked at the picture again.
“Straight fire?” Though Cait had a fairly good idea what Kinsley meant. It was probably on par with Heartthrob Hayes.
“Smokin’,” Kinsley verified. “And it doesn’t matter that he’s like old or anything. He’s still straight fire.”
Thirty-five was indeed old in a teenager’s mind. Once you hit the big 3-0 mark, the younger generations started counting age like dog years. One equaled seven. However, Cait suspected that Hayes was one of those guys who’d keep his smokin’ good looks until he went to the grave.
A thought that gave her more of a mental jolt than it should have.
She remembered the tabloid stories about Hayes maybe trying to off himself. Remembered, too, what Hayes had said about them. There are a lot of stories floating around out there about me. Most are bullshit, but there’s bits of truth in them. If the truth had to do with the grave and Hayes wanting to speed up his trip to that particular destination, then she should do something to try to help him.
But what?
And how could she help without risking a whole bunch of things? Like making it worse. Or the heart ding that Hayes could almost certainly give her.
“Wouldn’t you just gobble him up if you could?” Kinsley went on, going in for another peek of the photo.
That turned Cait’s attention back to her sister and the picture. Cait had no intention of telling the girl that Hayes had already offered her a gobbling opportunity. Well, not an actual one but rather the chance to spend time with him as his pretend girlfriend. A pretense where she would have to be around him and get multiple looks at his face and perhaps even his butt—while covered with his jeans, that is. The pretense would be easy for him. He was an actor, after all. But she didn’t want anything getting past the immune barrier she’d set up for men like Hayes.
Men like her father.
There were a lot of differences between Marty and Hayes. For one thing, Hayes actually had some redeeming qualities, like caring about his family. But there was that pesky similarity of both of them leaving and staying gone. Yes, they both made visits, but this place was no longer home to either of them.
“So, will you get him to autograph the picture?” Kinsley tried again as Cait pulled to a stop in front of the preschool.
“Hayes is kind of messed up right now, what with his injuries. When I saw him in the hospital last night, he looked pretty bad.”
“But maybe he can still sign his name,” Kinsley begged. “Just see if he’ll sign it and maybe write Climb on, babe, and kiss me on it.”
Well, at least Kinsley had suggested babe instead of bitch. So had the network execs, and Cait remembered that in certain TV markets, Hayes had been forced to pull back a notch on the B word and use babe. That tamed down the saying, some, but Cait knew the climbing-on part wasn’t solely an invitation to get on his motorcycle.
“I’ll take some of your babysitting hours,” Kinsley bargained.
Cait certainly hadn’t forgotten about the deal she’d struck with Austin and the twins. Babysitting in exchange for him not worrying their mother with the fact that she was in the ER. That was sort of like what Hayes had done by asking her to tell everyone that he had come back home for her.
Sort of.
Obviously, she’d had a better bargaining chip than Hayes had. Childcare was a premium, especially for the twins, but Cait wasn’t going to cave and press Hayes for a favor. Not when she’d turned down the favor he had asked of her.
“Give Hayes a few days to recover, and we’ll see about getting an autograph,” Cait muttered.
She put a pause on the conversation to take the twins out of her SUV and walk them to the door of the preschool. Avery was still making farting noises, and Gracie was doing more wand waving, but Cait worked in some hugs and kisses.
“Don’t get married today or make any weapons of mass destruction during activity centers,” Cait joked. The girls giggled like loons, though they didn’t have a clue what that last one meant. However, it did earn Cait some hairy eyeball from the teacher’s assistant, Fredricka Myers.
“It helps their vocabularies,” Cait reasoned.
“There are better words, better vocabularies,” Fredricka scolded. Her voice dropped some judgmental octaves to include, “Better choices.”
Cait was reasonably sure the woman had doled out the exact same words of wisdom and identical hairy eyeball when Cait had been in preschool. It wouldn’t make Cait mend her ways, not when she could give the twins a giggling start to their school day.
“So, you’ll ask Hayes to sign the picture tomorrow?” Kinsley asked the moment Cait was back in her SUV.
Cait sighed. Apparently, there would be no giggle start for her. “In a day or two, and I said we’ll see.”
Of course, Kinsley had heard her just fine before, but the girl would probably continue to push this. And Cait would likely end up doing more sighing. Then caving. She just wanted the sting of turning him down to fade a little first before she went to see him and beg him for an autograph. Also, Cait would try to find a different picture, one where Hayes was fully clothed. That way, it wouldn’t earn her any hairy eyeball from Kinsley’s teachers since her sister would very likely take it to school to show it off.
The high school wasn’t far, less than a quarter of a mile from the twins’ preschool, so it didn’t take Cait long to drive there. During the entire ride, though, Kinsley continued to ogle Hayes. Continued to mutter, too, about his extreme hotness.
“Thanks,” Kinsley said when she got out.
“You forgot your picture of Hayes,” Cait pointed out when the girl left it on the seat.
“Oh, I have others. Remember to have him write Kiss me, babe when he signs it.” Kinsley smiled, patted her backpack and headed off toward her friends—who were also gawking at pictures.
Cait was reasonably sure that the photos were also of Hayes. Reasonably sure that the girls were imagining that Hayes would indeed say to them, Climb on—insert the B word of their choice—and kiss me. If she did ask Hayes to do the autograph for Kinsley, she wouldn’t have him include the kiss part, and the B word would definitely be babe. It felt creepy to have her teenage sister lusting over the same guy who was tweaking her own hormones.
With her aunt and sister duties done for the day, Cait headed for work. She wasn’t on the schedule, but there would be paperwork to do. Always was. Plus, she wanted an update on the Crocketts and Shayla. However, she was just pulling into the police station parking lot when her phone rang, and she saw Shaw’s name on the screen. Her first thought was that her brother wanted to discuss the Hayes photo that Kinsley had, but after hearing her brother’s voice, Cait knew this was much more serious than that.
“Cait,” Shaw said. “Sunny’s spotting, and I just brought her to the ER.”
Cait’s stomach twisted and then sank. No. No. No. Not a miscarriage. Sunny had waited years to get pregnant with this baby, and it would break her heart to lose it. Shaw’s, too.
“I’ll head down there now,” Cait said, getting out of her SUV so she could start walking. Or rather running. “What do you need me to do?”
“Em’s here, as well. She was at the house when Sunny told me she was spotting. Em will need some, uh, soothing.”
It sounded as if Shaw also needed some of that soothing, but Cait figured that wouldn’t be in the cards for him. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Cait texted Leyton while she ran. If the rest of the family didn’t already know about Sunny, then he could take care of that. She hit the send button on the text just as she bolted through the ER doors. She didn’t see Shaw, but she immediately spotted Em.
Oh, yes, the woman needed someone to help with settling her down. Em was standing in the center of the waiting room, looking lost and very, very worried.
Em turned, her attention landing on Cait, and while the loss and worry stayed in place, there was also some relief. Cait hadn’t needed a reason to be glad she came, but Em had just given her one.
“Sunny and Shaw are with the doctor now. McCall and Hadley are on the way,” Em said when Cait went to her. There were tears in her eyes. Actual tears. Seeing them was a first for Cait because, unlike the wailing Shayla, Em definitely wasn’t a crier.
Cait looped her arm around Em and had the woman sit. The hard plastic chairs weren’t especially comfortable, but it would get Em off her feet, which were looking as shaky as the rest of her. Thankfully, the waiting room was empty except for them. Cait didn’t want the family to have to deal with gossips on top of the fear they had to be feeling.
“Sunny’s scared,” Em muttered. “Shaw, too. I blame myself for this,” the woman added before Cait could say anything. “I was going over the wedding plans with Sunny, and it’s too much.”
The wedding plans were indeed unwieldy, but Sunny was smart enough not to let something like that get to the “too much” stage. She loved Shaw and wanted to marry him, but Cait had no doubts that both Sunny and Shaw had put this baby, their child, first.
“I’m sure Sunny will be okay,” Cait said, hoping it would soothe.
It didn’t. Em just continued her mutterings while adding some actual hand wringing to her self-battering. “I should have done more of the planning myself. And I shouldn’t have talked to her about Hayes. I know that upset her.”
“Hayes?” Cait questioned.
Em nodded, sped up the hand wringing. “He downplayed his injuries, but I’ve heard talk that it’s much worse than he’s saying.”
Maybe. Probably, Cait silently amended. She was betting he had more than a cracked rib or two. Since agreeing with Em on this would definitely take a bite out of any possible comfort, Cait kept it to herself.
“But did I keep my mouth shut about Hayes?” Em asked, and then she answered her own question. “No, I did not. I hung my wash on somebody else’s line, and now I feel as low as a fat penguin’s butt.”
Sometimes, it took Cait a while to make sense of some of Em’s sayings, but she got these right away. Em hadn’t kept her worry about Hayes to herself. She’d spilled to Sunny.
“Look, I’m not an expert on pregnancy and such,” Cait said, “
but I don’t think worry can bring on this sort of thing.”
Em turned to her, their gazes connecting, and it seemed as if Em were searching for some kind of hope that she could latch on to. But after a moment, there was no latching. Em patted Cait’s hand.
“You’re a good girl,” Em declared. “Thoughtful and kind.”
Uncomfortable with the compliments, Cait added, “Smart-mouthed.”
Em smiled a little. “That, too. Always did appreciate that about you, and I figure it’s why Hayes is smitten with you.”
Smitten?
Smitten!
Cait was too stunned to actually get out the protest, but Em just kept on talking. “I need to tell Hayes about Sunny. But I have to get my head straight first. I don’t want him to see me like this.”
“I agree,” Cait said hastily but still didn’t have time to broach that smitten issue before Em started again.
“It wouldn’t be good for Hayes to see his grandmother so distraught and muddled,” Em said. “But I can’t dawdle on this. I figure I’ve got an hour, maybe less, before somebody tells him that his sister’s in the ER.”
“It’s definitely less,” Cait assured the woman when she saw Hayes come walking up the hall.
He was wearing a green hospital gown, was barefooted and was making a wobbly beeline toward them. The nurse, Sharon Kay Garcia, was right behind him, clearly trying to get him to stop, but he just waved her off.
And he winced.
It was the pained expression of a man with a cracked rib or two. And maybe a lot more injuries than that.
“Where’s Sunny?” Hayes demanded.
Since she doubted the petite Sharon Kay would succeed in stopping Hayes, Cait hurried to him and gently slid her arm around his waist. She didn’t want to take the chance of him falling again.
“The doctor’s with your sister now. Throttle back a notch,” Cait added in a whisper. “Em’s ready to lose it.”
Tempting in Texas Page 5
