Of course, Hayes looked ready to lose it, too.
“He should be back in his room,” Sharon Kay insisted. She also lowered her voice. “He’s not wearing underwear, and the back of the gown is open.”
Judging from the way Hayes scowled at the nurse, he wasn’t going to add that to his worry plate.
“His butt’s not much of a mystery,” Cait reminded Sharon Kay. “Anyone who watches Outlaw Rebels on a regular basis has seen it multiple times.” Still, Cait reached behind him and pinched the gown closed.
Hayes didn’t scowl at her, but Cait thought he was attempting a frown. It came out as a grimace. One that vanished the moment Em joined them. Now he tried to give his grandmother some facial reassurance, but he failed big-time.
“You need to get back in bed,” Em insisted. “We’re already worried enough about you.”
And there it was. The words that no doubt any member of Hayes’s family could have said to him. Already worried enough about you. Words that would hopefully give him enough of a guilt trip to make him get off his feet and not risk another head-bashing concussion.
But Hayes stayed put.
No budging, not an inch.
Maybe it was the avalanche of emotions whirling in the room or that devastated look on Em’s face. Heck, maybe it had something to do with the fact that Cait had her hand on Hayes’s butt cheek while she stopped him from providing a derriere peep show to anyone who walked by. Whatever the reason, Cait heard herself say something she hadn’t planned to say.
A lie.
“There’s no need for any of you to worry about Hayes,” Cait assured Em, and she just kept on lying. “He’s really not hurt that bad.”
Em shook her head and whispered, “But those stories in the tabloids—”
“Are not true,” Cait interrupted. She didn’t even pause to draw in what would be her next lying breath before she continued, “Hayes didn’t come to Lone Star Ridge because he was having trouble. He came here to assure you that he was okay and so he could see his family. And me.”
It seemed as if everything suddenly got very quiet. Maybe time even stopped, and Cait braced herself for a lightning bolt to strike her and set her lying pants on fire.
However, she got a bolt of a different kind.
“Yes, that’s exactly why I came back,” Hayes said, and then he added with a wink, “Climb on, babe, and kiss me.”
CHAPTER FIVE
HAYES WASN’T SURE he’d ever seen someone’s lips go so stiff while still managing to gape. But that was exactly the right description for Cait’s mouth. Stiff, unyielding and gaping, probably because there was a boatload of surprise playing into this. She clearly hadn’t expected him to hit her with his trademark come-on.
Then again, he hadn’t expected to say it, either.
Once he’d realized that Cait was offering him a lifeline to ease his grandmother’s worrying quota, he had thought maybe to give her a knowing wink, something that would clue Em into the fact that he was flirting with his love interest. However, the kiss demand was overkill. Especially adding that babe to it.
Shit on a stick, he hated that line, hated that the writers tried to work it into as many episodes as possible. And here he’d used it on Cait, the woman who was doing him a big-assed favor. Not just by covering said ass—literally—but by helping him out with his family.
Since he’d already committed himself, Hayes leaned in and dropped a kiss on her still-gaping mouth. It barely qualified as a kiss, but Hayes then had to pretend to himself that it didn’t pack a wallop.
He wasn’t in the wallop market right now.
All he wanted was his family to stop worrying about him and for Sunny to be okay. He couldn’t do much about the latter, but being with Cait would fix the worry. Well, hopefully it would. Hopefully, the walloping would stop, too, so that he could do this facade without risking a hard-on.
He pulled back from the kiss, expecting to see shock and maybe some anger in Cait’s mist-gray eyes. Nope. Neither of those things. Instead, she looked a little unsteady.
Aroused, maybe?
But he had to be wrong about that. Yeah, she’d agreed to this ruse, but that didn’t mean she was going to sink into a heat pit from their kisses. Especially one that started with a lame line like kiss me, babe.
Em cleared her throat, and while he was pleased that his grandmother no longer seemed concerned to the bone, Em also didn’t look convinced that the kiss had been the real deal. Not yet, anyway. Hayes had faith in his acting skills and believed that he would soon have Em taking him off her “people to worry about” list.
The doors to the ER opened, and he saw McCall, Austin, Hadley and Leyton come rushing in. The troops had arrived, and Em went to them, no doubt to fill them in on what was happening. That gave Hayes a moment alone with Cait. Well, kind of alone. The nurse was still hovering behind him, where he hoped she would stay put instead of trying to get him back to his room.
“Thank you for doing that,” Hayes whispered to Cait.
She blinked hard a couple of times, maybe in an attempt to focus. “Sure.” She opened her mouth as if she might say more, possibly to take back her offer, but Cait just repeated her “Sure” and looked away when his sisters and their fiancés came toward them.
He got hugs from McCall and Hadley—gentle ones, thank God—and Hadley gave him a little smirk when she glanced behind and saw that Cait was holding his gown. If this situation hadn’t been so damn scary, with Sunny in distress, she likely would have made a joke, something along the lines of him showing his ass again. But there were no jokes today. However, both his sisters and Cait’s brothers did notice that Cait and he were standing hip to hip and that Cait had her arm around him.
And that brought Hayes to a part of the plan he hadn’t considered.
His sisters would be fully on board with him making a play for Cait, but her brothers might not approve. Like most good brothers, they wanted their sister to be happy. That translated to Cait not getting involved with the likes of him. The Jameson men especially wouldn’t approve once Hayes got his act together and left town again. But that was a dragon he’d have to wait to slay another time because the door to the examining room opened.
Dr. Mendoza, who’d been in Lone Star Ridge for as long as Hayes could remember, approached the family and eyed the large gathering not with surprise but resignation.
“Sunny gave me permission to tell you that she should be fine,” the doctor explained right off.
No one made any sighs of relief. Hayes especially didn’t. That’s because it was possible that Sunny had told Dr. Mendoza to say that to tone down the family worrying. Of course, maybe Hayes thought that because it was exactly what he was doing.
“And what about the baby?” McCall asked.
“He or she should be fine, too,” Dr. Mendoza assured her. “Sunny’s not having contractions, and light spotting often happens in the first trimester.”
“So, it’s not a miscarriage,” Hadley murmured, and now there were some relief-generated sighs.
The doctor shook his head. “For now, she’s okay, and I want to keep it that way. She’ll be on bed rest for a couple of days.”
Since Hayes made a living at bullshitting people, he watched the doctor carefully to see if there were any telltale BS signs that he was sugarcoating any of this. He wasn’t. And Hayes finally released the breath that had been backed up in his lungs.
“The best thing y’all can do for Sunny is go home and maybe fix some meals so she won’t have to worry about that,” the doctor added a moment later. “Keep the visits to a minimum, though, because she really does need plenty of rest.”
“So, we can take Sunny home?” Em asked.
The doctor nodded. “But if she starts cramping, Shaw has instructions to bring her back ASAP.” He started to leave, but he stopped when he spotted Hayes. “You sh
ould be in bed.”
“That’s what I told him.” Sharon Kay spoke up.
“Listen to the nurse,” Dr. Mendoza warned him and walked away.
Sharon Kay tried to take hold of Hayes again, but Cait stepped in and moved closer to him. “I’ll make sure he gets back to his room,” she tried to convince the nurse.
There must have been something in Cait’s maneuver that garnered the attention of not only his siblings but also Sharon Kay. Many eyebrows lifted. Many puzzled looks and unspoken questions followed. She suspected her brothers did some unspoken questioning of her sanity, as well.
“Hayes came back to town to court Cait,” Em volunteered, raising her own eyebrow.
Clearly, that was a surprise to, oh, everyone. Even Sharon Kay. Hayes got the feeling that there would have been some laughter over the absurdity of it had the surprise not turned to shock.
“Yes, that’s why I came back,” Hayes confirmed because the situation seemed to call for him saying something. Of course, that something should have been a whole lot better and without a hint of Climb on, babe.
“You should probably know, though,” Cait said, sliding glances at both Em and him, “that Hayes and I won’t be getting together. I mean, he did come back to see if there could ever be something between us, but I’m not interested in Hayes that way. Actually, I don’t think he’s truly interested in me, either, but I’m sort of the one who got away.” She lifted her chin. “I’ll have no trouble resisting him.”
That was a good spin on things. One that he wished he’d thought of. It would cut down on the lies that Cait would have to tell. He could make advances, along with stupid requests for her to kiss him and such, and she could continue to look at him as if he were a severe case of jock itch. That wouldn’t be a warm fuzzy stroke to his ego, but his ego was plenty big enough to come out unscathed.
He hoped.
The bottom line was this would be a much smoother way to go about this. Smooth and as slick as spit.
“Not getting together,” Leyton repeated, staring at his sister.
“Not interested in Hayes that way,” Austin piped in, giving Cait a hard stare, too.
“I’ll have no trouble resisting him.” Em, that time. “We’ll be real careful of the piles of malarkey you’re splatting around.”
Well, hell.
Maybe this wasn’t going to be slick as spit after all.
* * *
THE MOMENT CAIT got into her SUV she spotted the gun. Not a real one that most cops carried. This one was neon yellow plastic and fired out sponge darts. Obviously, this was some kind of joke that’d stemmed from her not being armed during the altercation with the Crocketts.
She glanced around and spotted Willy and the other deputy, Clara Rodriguez, peering out the window of the police station. Since they were giggling like toddlers on a sugar high, Cait surmised they were the culprits. It was indeed a fine joke—by their toddler-ish standards, anyway—but the joke was on them since Cait would fire it at them first chance she got. Which wouldn’t happen for an hour or two because she had a two-prong chore to do.
Picking up Hayes from the hospital and, now that he was being released, driving him to Em’s.
Hayes didn’t know she would be doing this particular chauffeur duty. Not yet. Cait had only found out a few minutes earlier herself. It’d been a series of events that led her to be chosen as the main candidate for this, but Cait suspected there was more to the “series of events” than met the eye. There was perhaps some matchmaking going on. Hopefully, not any from the fates or destiny, though. Cait didn’t want any cosmic crap interfering and pushing her toward Hayes.
That’s why she’d avoided him for the past two days.
Of course, it was easy to avoid a man who was hospitalized, but she hadn’t been able to escape the chatter about him going on in town. The chatter about her, too. And she especially hadn’t dodged the yakking about Hayes trying to hook up with her. Cait wasn’t sure who the source of that information had been, but she suspected it was the nurse, Sharon Kay. The woman probably hadn’t revealed anything covered by privacy laws, but she’d likely blabbed about the personal stuff. Hayes’s declaration, aka the lie, of returning to town to be with her was definitely blabber-worthy.
Cait tossed the dart gun onto the passenger seat and drove up the street to the hospital. She parked and was walking toward the main doors when she saw Hayes coming out. He was in a wheelchair, a nurse right behind him. Hospital rules, no doubt, but the rules apparently ended the moment he was outside. Gripping a little white bag, he immediately got out of the chair and glanced around the parking lot, probably looking for Hadley, who was supposed to be picking him up.
His gaze landed on Cait.
His face was more yellowy green today than the purplish red that it’d been when she’d seen him two nights ago. He was healing and had obviously mended enough to warrant his release. But there was none of his usual swagger or spring in his step when he made his way to her SUV. It was sort of a slow limping lumber, and he was obviously still in some pain. Cursing softly, Cait hurried to him.
“You volunteered to pick me up?” he asked.
“Sort of.” She slipped her arm around his waist, taking some of his weight. “The twins have fevers, so Austin and McCall are taking them to their pediatrician. Shaw’s with Sunny, making sure she stays in bed. And Hadley and Em got delayed in San Antonio with some wedding stuff, so Em called and asked me to come.”
“Thanks,” he muttered, “but if it’s any trouble, I could get one of the nurses to drive me.”
There would have certainly been volunteers coming out of the woodwork, but Cait suspected asking for favors like that came with a price tag. Those volunteers would then want to spend some time with him. And that was “time” with a side order of sex. A mere look from a hot guy like Hayes could be taken as an invitation for a whole lot more.
“It’s no trouble,” she assured him.
Well, not the kind of trouble he meant. This was her short shift at work, so even though it was noon, she was already done for the day. But there was the possibility for trouble of a different sort. After all, she had her arm around him again and was hip to hip with him. And, yes, the blasted tingles started.
“By the way, I’m to tell you that Leyton arranged to have someone take your motorcycle to Em’s, but it’ll need fixing. If you’re interested, Barney Darnell has a repair shop at the end of Main Street.”
“Thanks. I’ll give him a call.”
“The other thing I’m to tell you,” she went on, “is that Shayla’s mom talked to Leyton. She said that Shayla’s back in a mental health facility in California.” Cait hoped the woman got the help she needed and stayed out of Texas.
Because of Hayes’s obvious aches and pains, Cait couldn’t actually hurry the walk to her SUV, but she got him there as fast as their turtle-speed pace allowed. She opened the passenger door and froze. There was an assortment of things on the seat that she wished she’d taken the time to put away. Plastic handcuffs for the cops-and-bobbers game she played with Avery and Gracie. A sparkly fairy wand—also for games with them. On top of those was the sponge-dart gun. But the most visible thing by far on the seat was the photo.
The one of Hayes.
“Uh, my sister left that with me,” Cait quickly explained, scooping it up and putting it and the other things on the dash. She made sure the photo went facedown and that the other stuff got piled on top of it. “She wanted me to get you to sign it.”
The corner of his mouth lifted in that “panty melting” smile that was just as much of a trademark as the line that Kinsley had wanted in the autograph. Of course, all this body-to-body contact was trademark, too, and Cait got a multiple dose of it when she helped him into the seat. His arm grazed her breasts, and mercy, did her nipples notice it.
And they responded.
The li
ttle traitors puckered and tightened with arousal, which sent a stupid signal to the rest of her that it was a really good idea for Hayes to be touching her like this. It wasn’t. No good could come from aroused nipples and the needy warmth that spread through her.
She could have sworn that Hayes noticed the whole arousal thing, too, because he flashed another of those smiles, followed by the heavily-lidded eye contact when he finally got in the seat and his gaze connected with hers.
“Why don’t you like me?” he asked. He took the photo of himself that she’d tried to bury on the dash, fished around in her glove compartment and came up with a pen that he used to sign the picture before he slid it back where it had been.
The autograph didn’t surprise her. He was probably used to doing things like that, but the direct question wasn’t something she’d expected. Especially considering that his gaze then dropped to the front of her shirt, where he could see all that ridiculous nipple puckering going on. She looked like she was prepping to win a wet T-shirt contest.
“You mean, why don’t I fawn over you like other women?” she grumbled. Cait shut the door, not as hard as she wanted, though, and she walked away to get back behind the wheel.
“Fawn over?” he questioned. “What the heck does that mean?”
When he winced as he was putting on his seat belt, she sighed and helped him with that, too. She wasn’t trying to get back at him—probably not, anyway—but her forearm slid across the front of his jeans. And, yeah, she got a little satisfaction at feeling some nudges and twinges in that area.
“Fawn over,” she repeated. Best to get her mind back on the conversation rather than the very vivid images she was getting of what had nudged and twinged. “It means getting all tongue-tied and eye fluttery. It’s the same reaction that many women have for my dad.”
Cait really hadn’t intended to tack on that last bit. It’d just come sliding right out of her mouth, complete with the venomous tone she usually had whenever she mentioned her father.
Tempting in Texas Page 6
