Tempting in Texas

by Delores Fossen

  Cait rolled her eyes because she doubted there was a single curse word that a teenage boy didn’t already know. Still, she’d rein in the cussing even if Marty managed to push her pissed-off buttons.

  Shaw stood and went to the door, and he opened it just as Marty was stepping onto the porch. The stepping, however, froze when he spotted her.

  Marty sighed. “I asked that Leyton and you not be here.”

  “Tough titty,” Cait fired back, and she’d found her mean. All it’d taken was getting a good look at him. “We’re here. Deal with it.”

  Her father sighed again, shook his head in a weary gesture and came in. He glanced at everyone in the room, but his attention settled on her. He didn’t say anything else, but Cait could have sworn that a thousand things passed between them. Hers was mostly anger, but she thought maybe he was doing a Texas-sized nonverbal apology.

  “FYI, I would have come to Leyton and you after I’d talked this over with the others,” Marty finally said. “I just didn’t want to have to deal with any cops just yet.”

  “Then deal with me as your son,” Leyton instructed, and he used his cop’s voice. His cop’s scowl, too.

  It was possible that Leyton’s feelings had been stomped on by Marty not wanting him at this family meeting. Because Leyton was one of Marty’s kids born outside of wedlock, Cait knew he’d always felt a little like an outsider, and she wanted to lash out at Marty just for making Leyton get a fresh reminder of that outsider status again.

  Marty’s next sigh was even longer, and he nodded. “I’m not sure what I want to do is legal.”

  Bingo. Cait had nailed it, and it might improve her mood if she could arrest Marty’s sorry butt. Of course, Leyton might beat her to it.

  “When I left Cait’s the other day, I went back to my tour bus, did a lot of thinking,” Marty said.

  So the note he’d left Adam and her hadn’t been total BS. Well, it still likely was mostly BS because it’d been a ploy for Marty to escape, but if he had indeed squeezed in some thinking, then maybe a shred of what she’d said to him had gotten through.

  “I’ve been trying to come up with a way for me to help take care of Adam while I still work,” Marty went on. “I want to take him on tour with me, but that means taking him out of state as early as tomorrow.”

  Cait felt some of her anger drop down a notch. Actually, most of the anger dropped. Of all the things that she’d thought Marty might say, this definitely hadn’t been one of them.

  “You want to take me on tour?” Adam asked, sounding both shocked and hopeful.

  Of course, everyone in the room except Marty was shocked. No hopeful for Cait, though, because she knew the drill. This could all be lip service from Marty to stop them from being so pissed off at him.

  “I do,” Marty verified. “But I have to be on the tour bus first thing in the morning, and we’re heading to Oklahoma and then Tennessee. We won’t get back until the day of the weddings.”

  Adam slowly got to his feet, and with that hope still in his eyes, he glanced around the room as if looking for any objections. Clearly, he wanted to go, but he probably wasn’t certain enough of his place in the family to jump to agree.

  “I had my lawyer go over Adam’s guardianship paperwork,” Marty continued, “and it says he’s to stay here at the ranch. It doesn’t give me permission to take him with me, and there’s probably not enough time to get the paperwork amended before I have to leave.”

  Cait glanced at Shaw to see if that was indeed what the guardianship papers had said, and he nodded. Well, heck. Maybe this was a first. Marty might have done his homework and had reasons for legal concerns. Any amendments to the paperwork would have to be approved by Adam’s mother, and that would mean a trip to the prison where she was serving out her sentence. That could definitely take more than a day to get done, especially since the paperwork would likely then have to be refiled.

  “I want to make sure this is done right,” Marty said. “I know you have plenty of reasons to believe I’m not capable of doing right, but I am.”

  “The jury’s still out on that,” Cait muttered just as Adam gushed, “I want to go with him.” Yeah, it was definitely a gush, and it was the first time Cait had actually seen the boy happy.

  Happiness that she might have to dash to bits.

  “Even if the paperwork could be amended in time, do you really think it’s a good idea to take a thirteen-year-old boy on a tour bus, what with the crew and the groupies?” Cait asked.

  Marty’s expression told her that he’d expected objections to come from her. “I’ve talked to my crew and told them that they’d have to be on their best behavior and not invite anyone back to the bus. They’re not idiots. Heck, most of them are grandparents now themselves.”

  That still wasn’t a sterling endorsement. Except it’d been years since Cait had heard any gossip or tabloid stories about Marty’s band and crew doing any acting out. No trashed hotel rooms. No wild parties. So maybe age had toned them down.

  “I made it clear,” Marty went on, “that they’d have to give Adam some quiet time so he can get his homework done. And he’d have a computer so he could get all his assignments.”

  The last part was actually the least of Cait’s concerns. From what Shaw had said, Adam was a good student, and he was doing his online classes without any prodding.

  Marty shifted his attention, looking directly at Adam. “I want you with me on this tour so we can get to know each other. I don’t want you to have to chase me down or buy a ticket to one of my concerts just so you can see me.”

  Cait felt the sting of that last remark. The memories of it, too, but thankfully Marty didn’t single her out with a “yeah, I’m talking about you” glance. She didn’t want her siblings or mother to know she’d done such a stupid, pathetic thing.

  “You really want to go with him?” Shaw asked Adam, and before he’d gotten out the last word of his question, the boy did more gushing.

  “Yes. Definitely, yes,” Adam said. “I really, really want this.” He repeated it, adding really a couple more times.

  Shaw paused, nodded, and then he stood. “All right. Let me see if I can get the paperwork amended and then walk it through so we can have it ASAP.”

  “I’ll do it,” Leyton volunteered, also getting to his feet. He turned to Adam. “But if there are any hitches with the tour—any hitches—” he emphasized “—call me, and I’ll come and get you.”

  Any one of them would do that for Adam, and considering this tour was Marty’s, there could be plenty of hitches. After a day or two, Marty might even decide he’d filled his grandfather quota for Adam’s lifetime and send the boy back to the ranch. If so, that’d crush Adam, but it would be the norm for Marty. He was a first-class crusher.

  “I can go with him?” Adam asked, and now the hope was spewing like a geyser off him.

  “You can go as soon as I walk through this paperwork,” Leyton verified.

  That started a chain reaction of hugs. First, Adam hugging Leyton, and then the boy doling out more to everyone else in the room. Especially to Marty. That hug lasted a long time, and Cait hoped that it was genuine happiness she saw in her father’s eyes. Just in case it wasn’t, she gave him one final warning glance. She added a finger slice across the throat in case he hadn’t picked up on her glare.

  “Pack your things and make sure you have all your school assignments,” Marty told Adam when the boy finally pulled back. “If Leyton pulls this off, we’ll be heading out bright and early tomorrow. Our first stop is Tulsa.”

  Even though it would likely only take a couple of minutes for Adam to do the packing and such, the boy hurried toward the stairs to get started. Marty stayed put, and Cait didn’t think it was her imagination that he was waiting for Adam to get out of earshot. And that put a knot in her stomach. If Marty was going to do something to dash Adam’s hopes,
she was pulling out the Mighty Hold hair spray.

  “Why this change of heart?” Cait demanded. “Why’d you decide to finally spend some time with your grandson?”

  Marty muttered something she didn’t catch and shook his head. “Christ, Cait. I’m not made of stone.” He paused, huffed. “Everything you said got to me.”

  It had? Well, color her surprised, too. “That’s a first,” she grumbled, but she regretted the jab when she saw what might be genuine emotions in his eyes. Exactly what emotions, she didn’t know.

  “Adam left me a voice-mail message,” Marty added. “Did he tell you?”

  “Yes. I’m surprised you listened to it.”

  “Well, I did,” he snapped, but then his expression instantly softened. “Hell. Adam was giving me an out. He was putting the blame for this on his own shoulders. He’s a kid, and he was blaming himself because he thought I was mad at him. I wasn’t mad,” Marty added, but then his explanation came to a grinding halt.

  “You were just running,” Cait provided.

  Marty lifted his head, his gaze connecting with hers. “Yeah. It’s my ‘Honey, Darlin’.’”

  Cait was sure she looked confused by that, but she did know that Marty had had a huge hit song with that title. “Running away is like a sappy country-music song?” And she left the snark in it.

  Marty’s half smile had no humor whatsoever in it. “‘Honey, Darlin’’ is what I sing when I’m having a bad night on stage. When my head is pounding and my throat is too raw and when I just need an easy way out. It’s my go-to for putting an end to what’s happening so I can move on.”

  Cait let that run through her mind. “So you can move on to another city, another stage.”

  Marty nodded. “I was doing a ‘Honey, Darlin’’ with Adam,” he admitted. “Hell, with all of you. Going for an easy way out.” He paused again. “But after listening to Adam’s message, I knew at least this once I was going to have to take a stab at ‘Honkytonk Darlin’.’”

  Yet another of Marty’s hits, but Cait thought she understood the point he was trying to make. “It’s a long song with a lot of hard notes,” she provided.

  He pointed his finger at her in a “got it” gesture. “Exactly. I only sing it on nights when I got a lot of feel-good going on.”

  Cait frowned. “And you have a lot of feel-good going on with Adam?”

  “Not really. I’m sort of scared spit-less. I mean, he’s a kid, and...” Marty stopped, stared at her. “And I don’t want to hurt him the way I hurt your siblings and you. Still, I knew from the message he left that I was going to hurt him no matter which way I went. So, I decided it was time to try to do something right even if it’ll be hard.”

  Well, if there was going to be a time for Marty to come to his senses, this would be it. Before he left another generation of Jamesons with his usual baggage. Still, Cait had some reservations.

  “If you screw this up with Adam,” she warned him, “I’ll do everything—and I mean everything—to make your life a living hell. Singing ‘Honkytonk Darlin’’ will be the least of your worries if you hurt him.”

  Marty stared at her a long time. Then nodded. “I’m gonna try to make it work,” he said.

  Not exactly an overly enthusiastic guarantee. But it was better than anything else he’d offered.

  Maybe this change of heart was because Adam was his grandson? Grandparents gushed about their grandkids all the time and wore T-shirts and carried coffee mugs proudly proclaiming their grandparent status. Perhaps because the offspring of their offspring was a way of continuing the family line or getting a second chance to get it right?

  Cait frowned, not sure either of those applied to Marty.

  A lot of things didn’t apply to Marty. He was definitely one of a kind. And while this gesture could turn out to be a good thing, she needed to come up with ways to help Adam if the gesture fell apart.

  “I’m gonna try to make it work,” Marty repeated. “Try to make it work with Avery and Gracie, too.”

  “You’re not going to take toddlers on a tour bus,” Cait objected.

  “No. But I could probably do something. Don’t know what.” Marty looked at her. “Do you?”

  The question was the real deal, asked by a man who didn’t have a clue how to be a grandfather. “I’ll have Austin give you some suggestions.” Because it occurred to her that playing cops and bobbers with Marty might stray into realms where Austin wouldn’t want his girls to stray. Best to let Austin come up with any ideas that Marty might be prone to trying out.

  Marty mumbled a thanks and then cleared his throat before he continued, “And on a totally different subject—last night Sunny and I were talking about the new book we have coming out.”

  Cait had geared up to sling some venom, but that stopped her. Sunny did indeed do the illustrations for Marty’s popular children’s book series Slackers Quackers, but Cait couldn’t imagine what this had to do with Adam. Or maybe it didn’t.

  “Sunny told me what Sunshine was trying to do,” Marty went on. “Sunny wanted me to know in case Sunshine stirred up some bad publicity.”

  Which Sunshine would almost certainly do. Cait relaxed a little but only because this didn’t apply to Adam. However, it did apply to Hayes, his sisters and Em, so it was still important.

  “Sunshine wants to film the weddings,” Shaw supplied. “That’s not going to happen.”

  “No,” Marty agreed. “Hayes told Sunny that Sunshine had called him and asked him to meet her today.”

  Cait hadn’t known about that, but maybe Sunshine thought she could better bargain with Hayes face-to-face.

  And then her father said something else that shocked Cait all the way to the soles of her feet. “I think I can do something about Sunshine,” Marty told her. “In fact, I’m sure I can fix the mess she’s trying to stir up.”

  * * *

  HAYES FIGURED NOTHING good was about to come of this. He watched from the living room window as Cait and Leyton pulled to a stop in front of Em’s house. They were in the cruiser, and this looked like an official visit. There was definitely no “hauling off for sex” gleam in Cait’s eyes.

  He sighed, ready to steel himself up, when his phone dinged with a text. It was from his agent, and Abe was his usual chatty self.

  Need u back here ASAP.

  Hayes frowned, sent back a ?

  Abe immediately answered, BWs want big jaw.

  BW was bigwigs from the studio and network, and big jaw was an important meeting. One they apparently wanted now. Hayes got confirmation of that when Abe texted again.

  NOW, his agent emphasized. Asses on the line.

  Hayes figured it was his own ass in that particular peril, but it could be someone else on the cast or crew. Apparently, he was going to be making a trip to LA. However, he wouldn’t be doing that until he found out what his visitors wanted.

  He opened the door to them, his gaze sliding over Leyton before it settled on Cait. She looked worried, and amazing. Which concerned him more than a little. Because it wasn’t just a punch of lust he felt when he looked at her. He was glad to see her despite this obviously not being a social call.

  “Trouble?” Hayes asked.

  “Maybe a fix to some trouble,” Cait answered. “Marty has a plan to stop Sunshine.”

  If Hayes had been given a multiple-choice test of what she’d been about to say, he would have failed big-time. “What does Marty have to do with Sunshine?” He motioned for them to come in, but they stayed put on the porch.

  “Marty’s worried about Sunny and wants to help,” Leyton explained. He checked his watch. “If it works, Cait and I need to leave now so we can be there to arrest Sunshine. If it works,” Leyton restated. “Cait thought you’d want to be in on that.”

  An arrest? He would have failed that in a multiple choice, too. “I would indeed want t
o see that, but what the heck are you talking about?” Hayes pressed. “What’s Marty’s plan?”

  “We’ll go over that on the way there,” Cait said. “We need to leave now.”

  After Cait also checked the time on her phone, Hayes didn’t hesitate. He was all for anything that stopped Sunshine, even if it was a long shot with a side dish of if it works. He fired off a quick text to Em to let her know that he was leaving, and he headed out with Cait and Leyton.

  “Marty’s at the café at Rustler’s Ridge,” Leyton explained as they got into the cruiser. Leyton and Cait in the front and Hayes in the back. “He got Sunshine to agree to meet him there in about fifteen minutes. So, she’ll see Marty before she’s scheduled to meet with me.”

  Rustler’s Ridge was a guest ranch just outside of Lone Star Ridge. Definitely not a five-star kind of place that his mother would usually haunt. But if Marty had asked her to go, she would have.

  Hayes wasn’t positive, but he believed the pair had landed in bed at least once. Then again, Hayes could say that about most women his mother’s age who’d lived in or around the area. However, that was not why Sunshine would have agreed to meet him. Marty still had cachet in the entertainment business, and Sunshine would see this as an opportunity to use that cachet to get something for herself. Plus, she might believe Marty could get her into the weddings since he was, after all, the father of the grooms.

  “Marty has a cameraman and reporter from San Antonio with him,” Cait went on as Leyton drove to Rustler’s Ridge. “He told Sunshine that he’s being interviewed for one of the big gossip shows about the weddings, and that there’ll be some money in it for her if she participates in the interview. She jumped at the chance.”

  “Of course she did,” Hayes grumbled. Anything that would put her in the limelight. “But I still don’t see how that could lead to an arrest.”

  Cait looked back at him before she answered. “Marty will get Sunshine to sign a consent to being recorded, and the reporter will ask some general questions about the weddings. He’ll keep it short as Marty has instructed him to do. When they’re finished, the cameraman will pretend to turn off the camera and will set it down near Marty and Sunshine. The reporter and cameraman will excuse themselves to get something out of their van. Marty will then try to get Sunshine to admit to extortion. Not skirt around it but full out admit it.”