Shit.
It was probably Cait canceling, and while that would be good in the long run, he really wanted to see her. In fact, it was a want that felt more like an aching need.
Worse, he wasn’t sure that need was all below the belt.
He took out his phone and damn near jumped for joy when it wasn’t Cait’s name on the screen but rather his agent, Abe Simon. The joy went south, though, when he realized this wasn’t one of Abe’s emoji conversations. It contained real words.
OR might get ax, the text said.
OR was Outlaw Rebels, but unless the ax was a typo, the show might be canceled. Hayes hit the button to call Abe rather than text back.
“What the hell?” Hayes asked the moment Abe answered. “Is the show actually being canceled?”
“Might,” Abe corrected. “There’s chatter about it. Will let you know when I know.” And with that minimal bit of info, Abe hung up.
Hayes considered calling him right back, but if Abe knew any more details he would have told him. Abe wasn’t one to sugarcoat anything, either.
Well, hell.
With the rain pattering against the truck, he sat there a moment, trying to let the news sink in and process it. The show had been his life for nearly a decade, and, yeah, there was always talk about wrapping things up so that some of the cast could move on to other projects they wanted to tackle. Hayes didn’t have another project. Didn’t want one. In fact, he hadn’t been sure he’d wanted to continue with Outlaw Rebels. Still, it would feel like a kick to the teeth to have it end with a cancellation.
Well, there went his “glass half-full” mood.
That didn’t stop him from making the drive to Cait’s, but Hayes thought this would put a damper on any notion of him making this more than a dinner date. In other words, no sex for dessert. Because Hadley was right when she said it would matter to Cait. It would. Ditto for Hadley being right about him not being an asshole. Which was exactly what he would be if he pushed things sexually with Cait.
With his resolve bolstered enough that he thought he could make it through this date, he parked in front of her house. Maybe it was another bad omen, but the sky opened up the moment he stepped from the truck. No more soft patter. These were mean kamikaze raindrops that felt like pellets of steel. He hurried to her porch, causing his ribs to start aching again, which in turn only added to his sour mood.
But his mood changed when Cait opened the door.
She was wearing bells. And lots of them.
Some were on a knit cap, while others jangled from the bracelets on her wrists and ankles. There were even dangling bell earrings and a matching necklace. Toe rings, too, which he could easily see because she was barefoot. Cait swiveled her hips, causing the bell-studded belt around her short blue dress to clang with the rest of her accessories.
“It’s an outfit for feeding Slackers, the duck,” she said, smiling and looking at her right foot that she was wiggling to make those bells join in with the others. It was like Santa’s sleigh on steroids.
“Huh?” was the best he could do.
“The bells scare the crap out of Slackers, literally.” She took his arm and led him inside. “I mean, he poops himself and runs and hides while I put the food in his pen. It’s genius. And it was your grandmother’s idea.”
Of course it was. This had Em written all over it, and just like that, he felt a little less sour.
“When did you have to feed Slackers?” he asked. Normally, that was something Em asked him to do. And he had the peck marks on his legs to prove it.
“Earlier today while you were in San Antonio.”
Oh, that. He’d been at his therapy appointment. He hadn’t told his family exactly what kind of doctor he’d been seeing, but since none of them had pushed for info, they had likely figured it out. Soon, he’d need to sit down with them and explain what he was dealing with.
Cait was about to shut the door, but she looked out, scowling just as a bolt of lightning cracked through the already-dark sky.
“You should get inside,” Hayes warned her. “With all that metal on you, you’re an easy target for the next bolt.”
Cait made a sound of agreement and did indeed step back so she could shut the door. She also began to peel off the bells. First the hat, which she dumped into a large wooden bowl that she was obviously using for keys.
“Say, what with this weather, we don’t have to go out to eat,” she said. “Besides, your ribs are hurting you.”
He wasn’t sure how she’d known that, but it was possible he’d grimaced when he’d run in from the rain. No grimace for her when she stripped off the necklace, though he could clearly see the scar left from her stitches. It was still in the pink-healing stage.
“Not hurting,” he corrected. “Just some twinges.”
That was close enough to the truth, anyway. In fact, the pain had already gone away, but that was possibly because he was distracted by the striptease Cait was doing. She wasn’t removing any clothes, but his body was very interested in the way she was now sliding her hand down her ankle and over her foot to remove the bells there.
She didn’t notice that he was noticing. Not at first, anyway. But when she finally lifted her head, she must have seen some heat in his eyes.
“Are you going to say something totally lame about me ringing your bell?” she asked.
He might have if his mouth hadn’t gone dry.
She dropped the gob of bell adornments in the bowl with the hat and belt, but she continued to cast glances at him. Cait was no doubt wondering why he’d lost the capacity for human speech.
“Or were you figuring that polite chitchat was called for and wanted to ask me how things are going with Adam?” she added with plenty of tongue in cheek.
Ironically, he was thinking about her tongue, too. And about her taste. It was hard not to think about having sex with her now that he’d had his hands on her breasts. That was only a second-base kind of move, but touching her that way had made an impact.
“Adam,” he finally managed to say. Hayes gave his head a shake to clear it. “How’s he doing?”
It wasn’t just chitchat, though. He did want to know since he’d been there at the start of this particular drama, and it felt like a personal investment for him.
Cait smiled and motioned for him to follow her into the kitchen. “He’s settling into the ranch in a quiet but not too sulky kind of way. Kinsley’s got some family duty this time since Adam and she are close to the same age. She’s helping him adjust.”
That made sense, and considering that it’d only been a couple of months since Kinsley had ended up at the ranch, she would know all about settling in and adjusting not only in the family but also in the town. Even though Adam might not live at the ranch for long, it was possible he’d want to come back for visits since the Jamesons were his family.
Cait opened the fridge and took out two beers. “But Kinsley says she doesn’t want anyone knowing that she’s an aunt because it makes her feel like an old fart. Of course, I rather quickly pointed out to her that using such an expression does indeed make her an old fart.”
He smiled, had a sip of beer and wondered if he could forget all about logic and what was right and just haul Cait to him and kiss her. The thought had no sooner crossed his mind, though, than the world plunged into darkness. It took Hayes a moment to realize that he hadn’t been struck by some kind of divine protest and that the electricity had simply gone out.
“Crap,” Cait muttered, and he heard her fumbling around in one of the drawers. “There’s no generator,” she said, coming out with a flashlight. “I’ll get some candles.”
Cait fanned the flashlight right into his eyes, temporarily blinding him, and then brushed past him, her hip sliding against his. That caused him to go hard—which he also hoped was temporary. He really didn’t want Cait to see the bul
ge and assume he couldn’t control himself.
Which he clearly couldn’t.
She cursed, using a creative mixture of words, when she banged into the corner of the countertop, but she did indeed come up with some candles and some matches that were in a cabinet next to the fridge. Hayes set his beer aside so he could help her light them. The trio of candles were in glass jars, and the one he lit smelled like vanilla. However, he frowned when he saw the labels on the two that Cait was lighting.
“‘Besties before Testes,’” he read. “‘Asshole Repellent’?”
“Oh, the asshole repellent isn’t for you,” she said, as if everyone had a candle by that name in their house. “Hadley gave them to me for my birthday.”
Yeah, he could see Hadley doing that. He took a sniff of the repellent one. Lemon and vanilla. The other was peppery.
“There,” Cait said when the wicks were all lit. “Dinner by candlelight. Of course, without power I can’t cook anything, but there’s some cold leftover pizza in the fridge.”
She turned to get it before he could give in to that whole kissing impulse. It was just as well. Once his dick softened, maybe he’d be able to think of something other than stuff that would lead to sex.
“Any updates about Sunshine and the crap she’s trying to pull?” Cait asked, her back to him. The candlelight gave him an amazing view when she leaned into the fridge and took out the pizza box.
“She’s still being an asshole.” Which pretty much described his mother not just for this situation but also for everything else she did in life.
Cait made a sound of agreement, got out napkins and sat on one of the bar stools at the counter. “Maybe you could try the candle on her,” she joked. But her expression turned serious when he sank down beside her. “If there’s anything I can do to help, just let me know. I’ve had some experience dealing with an asshole parent.”
She had indeed, and Hayes thought Sunshine and Marty were neck and neck when it came to the “shitty parent” award.
“Thanks,” he said, taking a slice of pepperoni pizza from the box. “I do have something I could maybe hold over her head. When I was a teenager, I set up one of those nanny cams in my room because I thought someone was messing with my stuff while I was at school. I ended up recording Sunshine going down on one of the cameramen.”
He frowned. He hadn’t told this to Hadley when they’d been talking about it earlier, but he’d just blurted it out to Cait. Why? The only reason he could come up with was that apparently dick stirrings made him chatty.
Cait stopped, her teeth clamped around the bite of pizza she’d just taken. “Holy shit.”
That had been his reaction, too, along with a “hell no” or two. “I didn’t actually watch it when I realized what it was. Definitely not something a teenage boy wants to see his mother doing. But I kept it, thinking it could come in handy down the road.”
“And this situation could be down the road.” She finished her bite of pizza, drank some beer. “You can threaten her with it?”
“Yeah, but Sunshine might not see it as a threat. She might think a sex tape will give her the publicity she craves. If she believes releasing it will benefit her, then she might want it bad enough to back off the wedding demand. If so, I might be able to use it as a last resort to bargain with her.”
First, though, he was going to let Ivy’s parents do their thing with the lawyers. If that didn’t work, then he could step in and see how it played out with offering up the recording.
“No wonder you looked so down when you got here,” Cait said. “A sex tape like that will blow up in the tabloids, and that in turn will put you and your sisters back in the spotlight.”
It would indeed. Because fallout on Sunshine was family fallout. He didn’t want to drag Em and his sisters through that, but his mother might not give him a choice. If something was indeed going to be dragged through the mud, he wanted the muddiest mess to get on Sunshine.
Since the candlelight and cold pizza had caused him to confess all, Hayes just kept going. Maybe the old adage of confession being good for the soul was true. “The bad mood was also because I talked to my agent on the way over. Outlaw Rebels might be canceled.”
Cait froze again, but this time the shock had an even bigger side order of concern. She set her pizza back on the top lid of the box so she could slide her hand over his. “I’m so sorry.”
He waited for her questions, asking him how he felt about that possibility, wondering what he would do if the cancellation did indeed happen, but she just sat there, her hand over his and with that look of sympathy in her eyes. Maybe that’s why he kept on talking.
“The cast of Outlaw Rebels is like a family to me,” he went on. “But it’s more than that. The show made me believe I was somebody.”
Shit, that sounded way too deep for cold pizza and Asshole Repellent candle glow. He eased his hand from hers so he could wave that off. “If it’s canceled, there’ll be other roles.”
As if to make a cosmic challenge to that, there was a flash of lightning that lit up the whole kitchen, and it was followed by a loud crack of thunder.
“You were always somebody,” Cait assured him. “But, hey, I get it. You were the odd man out, being the only boy and the oldest at that. For a long time, I was the only girl and the youngest. That plays with the way you feel about yourself.”
Since she hadn’t gone for a joke, Hayes tried one. “Maybe we can find a candle scent for that?”
She smiled, shrugged. “Or maybe we just find a new place when someone takes the old one away.”
Wise words. Serious words. The thing he liked about Cait was that she didn’t make him dig too deep. She could always cheer him up, keep things right at or just below the surface.
Maybe it’s because he was the big brother, but Hayes didn’t like admitting that he could be shaken. He had to stay strong for his sisters. For himself. He didn’t like sliding back into the dark, where he had been shaken to the core.
Where he wasn’t strong.
Where he grieved for a friend and a past that had left him broken. Over the last couple of weeks, he’d repaired some of those breaks, but they were still there. Maybe they always would be, which wasn’t much of a comforting thought.
“When I was a kid,” he continued, “I used to sit at my bedroom window and look out at the sky for airplanes. Then I’d imagine being on them. I didn’t care where they were going. Anywhere but here was where I wanted to be, and I wanted to be doing anything else other than what I was doing.” Hayes looked up and saw that she was staring at him. “Can’t relate to that, huh?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I get that need to escape.” She drew in a deep breath. “But I’m Marty Jameson’s daughter, and that DNA made me want to stay put because here was the one place I knew he wouldn’t be.”
And there it was again. Their common ground with both of them having to deal with a crappy parent.
“Breaks,” he muttered. “You’ve got them, too.”
“Oh, yeah. Marty saw to that.”
He nodded. “But you chose to deal with those breaks here in Lone Star Ridge, where you have daily contact with memories of the old baggage.”
Cait made a sound of agreement. “But daily contact, too, with the people who share the baggage and can help me. When it comes to siblings, ‘misery loves company’ applies, and the effects are like double.”
Hayes smiled when she did, and he let the moment settle with silence between them. The problem with silence, though, was it meant he was looking at her again. Really looking at her. At that smile. At the way the candlelight was flickering on her face. Now it was time to move in for a kiss. But Cait stopped him by speaking before he could put a move on her.
“You’ve got two weeks before the wedding,” she reminded him. “That’s two weeks and one day before you leave.”
“Who s
ays I’m leaving?” he countered, only because he didn’t like being reminded that his time here was indeed short.
She pointed out the window to the sky. “Those airplanes, the ones you used to watch. If you stayed, you’d be back to wishing you were on one of them. Anywhere but here,” she repeated.
He frowned. “I don’t like having my own words foul up any chance I have of kissing you again.”
“It isn’t only a kiss you want, Hayes Dalton,” she scolded, but she was smiling when she said it.
And it was a dazzling smile. One that only made him think of kissing her again. Of course, he only had a one-track mind around Cait. Okay, two tracks. Kisses and sex.
“Yes, I want more,” he verified. He leaned in, but Cait pressed her hand on his chest.
Hell. She was stopping him.
Or not.
“I want more, too,” she admitted. “Not that kind of more,” she clarified when his eyes widened. “No white picket fences for us.”
He couldn’t have made a sound of agreement any faster, but Cait still kept her hand in place, which meant she kept him at bay.
She looked him straight in the eyes. “I’ve decided to see what all the hype is about.”
Now he was back to being confused. “What hype?”
“Duh. About you. According to all those tabloid stories and the opinion of a teenage girl, you’re straight fire. I think I’d like to live out a fantasy by having a one-night stand with Slade Axel McClendon.”
She couldn’t have cooled him down more if she’d doused him with a bucket of ice water. A fantasy? Shit. That’s what his fans and the groupies said to him. Not Cait. She wasn’t the sort to get sucked into the hype.
Was she?
Hell, he hoped not. He stared at her, trying to figure out if this was some kind of test. Like maybe if he tried to jump her right now, she could just say, See, all you want is sex for the next fourteen days?
Tempting in Texas Page 14
