The Junkyard Cowboy (Tall, Hot & Texan Book 3) Page 8

  “Oh. No. That was Pete’s.”

  “Right.”

  “I swear.”

  They stood there in that tiny kitchen laughing, and he felt certain the walls hadn’t been this entertained in years. He knew he hadn’t. But damn if he didn’t like her. The easy way she laughed. The unpretentious way she stood there wearing no makeup. The tease in her voice. The smile . . . Dadblast that smile.

  He’d had this with Sheri, hadn’t he? That comfortable place, the playful camaraderie, a breath away from being foreplay. Had they lost it when he shot the kid, or had it died when she became obsessed with her career?

  Jennifer looked up. “I think it’s my turn.”

  “Your turn?” He knew what she meant, but wished he didn’t. “I don’t have any rings stuck on my fingers.” He held out his hands.

  “No. My questions.” Her right eyebrow rose in suspicion. She was on to him.

  He still wasn’t throwing in the towel. “Fine, but you do know it’s three forty-five in the morning?”

  “No.” She looked at the clock. “Crap. How did that happen?”

  “When you drink this late, it’ll get you in trouble.” He grinned.

  A slight, feminine chuckle slipped off her lips, and damn if it wasn’t the prettiest sound he’d heard. In fact, he wanted to hear it close up. Wanted to feel it whisper across his mouth. He wanted. Oh, hell . . . he wanted.

  Wanting was dangerous. “Why don’t we try to get some sleep and pick this up tomorrow?” It was a ploy, a low one, because hell yeah, he hoped she’d forget. Maybe he needed to forget, too. Forget this wanting. Forget how much he liked her. He hadn’t felt this for any of the women he’d been with this last year.

  Jennifer Peterson crossed over some threshold he kept locked. How had she done that? Or was it not all her, but him? Was he ready? Was he finally moving past things?

  He didn’t feel ready. Or maybe he did. Shit, he didn’t even know anymore.

  “Tomorrow.” She met his gaze. “But I have the mind of an elephant.”

  “I’ll consider myself forewarned.” Gathering his glass and her mug, he set them in the sink.

  She turned around, and their eyes held another two or three seconds. He read her nightshirt again. This is my sexy lingerie.

  “Good night.” The words came out with a sweet smile.

  “Good night,” he said, then remembered. Pulling the ring out of his pocket, he said, “Here.” He reached for her hand and put it in her palm.

  And instantly he realized touching her had been a bad move.

  She looked down at the diamond, then up. “Thank you.”

  Her smile had him thinking things he shouldn’t. Like kissing her. Like following her into that bedroom. He inhaled to find resolve, but found her scent instead. Vanilla. Would she taste like that, too?

  “You’re welcome.” His voice rang deeper.

  Standing there, feeling emotional damaged, he watched her start toward the hall. His gaze caught on her every move. The nightshirt could fit three of her. It hung loose, offering not a clue to the feminine body beneath. The most alluring thing about the white cotton tent was the word sexy on the front. And he couldn’t even see that word right now.

  So why did his jeans suddenly feel too tight?

  • • •

  It was after four when Bundy finally found a house with a black Chevy truck. The lights were off. He parked in the gravel drive, rolled his windows down and listened. The night was too quiet. Small-town quiet. Having grown up in one, he hated them. Give him the big city, where he could get lost in the crowd.

  In fact, this might be the last job he took in a small town. He almost felt claustrophobic. People actually made eye contact. He hated that. It was as if they’d remember him. In his line of work, that was dangerous.

  He got his gun from the passenger seat—his second gun—and eased out of the car slowly, hoping the guy didn’t own a dog. Not that a dog could stop him. There wasn’t another house for a mile. That was the good thing about small towns. The man could scream, and no one would hear him. And considering Bundy’s balls still hurt like a mother and one of his loose teeth had fallen out, Bundy planned on making him scream.

  • • •

  Clay swore he’d only been asleep fifteen minutes when he woke up to Devil’s yowling. The dog was a lazy barker and only put out the effort when he deemed it necessary—meaning a squirrel or a possum must be pissing on his front porch.

  Groaning, Clay rolled over. Bad idea. A newly released sofa spring found its way from the inside of the cushion to poke him in the ribs. The jab had just enough oomph to chase away another level of slumber. That’s when he realized something was wrong.

  He opened one eye. First, it wasn’t dark. Sun, morning sun, poured through the window. Second, Devil’s bark came from outside. Pete must have already let the dog out. Third, and this one was bad—something was burning.

  Pushing up on one elbow, he inhaled. Ugg. Burnt eggs.

  He rolled off the sofa, and with a stiffy painfully pressing against the zipper of his jeans, he took off for the kitchen. Reaching into his pants, he readjusted himself. He didn’t normally have this problem because he slept in the nude. Having company nixed the norm.

  Sure as hell, a skillet of eggs was burning on the stove while two pieces of cheese toast burned in the oven. The cook, however, was nowhere to be seen.

  He shut the respective appliances off. Running a hand over his face, he ran water on the scorched eggs. Then he eyed the clock. 7:45. Considering he’d tossed and turned for two hours when he’d finally gone to bed, he was running on two hours of sleep.

  With a headache half brewing, he heard Devil barking again. Deciding his need to piss out-merited Devil’s possible possum problem, he took off for the bathroom.

  Bladder empty, hands washed, he eyed the closed bedroom door where Jennifer slept and pulled on his boots and hurried outside. He didn’t realize how right he’d been about something being wrong until he saw the Sheriff’s car.

  Hearing voices, he walked outside. The sheriff and Pete stood talking on the end of the porch.

  “Something wrong?” He ran a hand through his hair.

  The sheriff looked over at him. “Jacob Brown’s place was broken into last night.”

  “Jacob Brown?” Clay asked.

  “The yellow house off Cranberry Street, with that cottage beside it,” Pete answered. “Our properties meet up. He’s the one I told you was interested in buying some of your land. It’s about a half a mile this side of the junkyard.”

  “Thankfully, he was on the road for work,” the sheriff spoke up. “The man’s gone more than he’s home. But he put in one of those fancy alarms, and I got called out before sunrise. As far as I can see, the place looks more ransacked than robbed. I’m checking with the neighbors just making sure no one else had any problem.”

  “Nothing here,” Clay said. “You think it was just kids?”

  “I don’t know.” The sheriff rubbed his chin. “Frankly, before your call the other night, the biggest issue I’ve had in two years was Erma Landry having one too many mint juleps for lunch and driving into the Post Office. Or Bessie Johnson’s coonhound breaking into her neighbors’ chicken house. We’re kind of a peaceful town.”

  Clay’s antenna shot up. “Are you suggesting they’re connected?”

  “Not suggesting, but you gotta admit it’s a frog’s hair away from being a coincidence.”

  Normally, Clay didn’t believe in coincidences. But it seemed a stretch to tie these two things together. A hit man didn’t go around ransacking random houses. Then again, he’d ransacked Jennifer’s house. That made sense. This didn’t.

  Sense or not, completely ignoring it didn’t feel right either.

  “Smells suspicious,” Pete said, and then . . . “Shit! My eggs!” Pete tore past Clay.

  “Too late,” Clay said. “They’re toast.”

  “My toast,” Pete yelled.

  “Goners,” Cla
y said.

  After a bit of conversation, the sheriff left. Clay called Jake and told him about the break-in. Like him, Jake didn’t see the two things being related, but also like Clay, he didn’t plan to ignore it. “I’ll look into it.”

  Clay wanted to insist on doing that himself, but then who’d look after Jennifer? He wasn’t quite ready to leave Pete in charge.

  A few minutes later, Pete decided to go into town and eat pancakes at the local diner. Clay agreed to feed the horses and cattle even though it was Pete’s day. And he’d do that, right after he snagged a little more sleep. Unfortunately, the sun pouring into the windows and thoughts of last night with his new housemate made more sleep impossible. He crawled off the sofa, into his boots, and made coffee.

  While the go-juice brewed, he whispered for Devil to come with him while he fed the horses. The dog, lying at the bedroom door where Jennifer slept, never lifted his jowls off his front paws.

  “I get it. She’s prettier than I am.” He walked outside. After he spent some time collecting feed, and getting the stalls ready, he debated letting the horses stay out in the pasture for the day. For some reason, Mother Nature had decided to bless this corner of Texas with low humidity and lower temperatures.

  As he walked out of the barn with a bucket of feed for the horses, Bingo, the chestnut mare, came galloping up to the fence. And it wasn’t just for the oats.

  He met her at the fence and dropped the bucket of feed at his boots.

  Bingo leaned her head over the fence, nuzzled her neck between his head and shoulder and made a soft neighing noise. He recalled his mom telling him that was how a horse said “I love you.” His thoughts shot to his mom and to his talk the previous night about her divorce record.

  Five years ago, thinking about it would have pissed him off. After his own divorce, he wondered how many of those breakups had been her fault. If he believed her, even the divorce from his father hadn’t been on her.

  Bingo neighed again. “I love you, too.” He ran his hand down the animal’s neck. “You’re the safe kind of woman, aren’t you?”

  Or the safer kind. He could still remember when he’d been seventeen and Pilgrim, the horse he’d had as a child, had to be put down. Maybe it wasn’t horses or women that were unsafe. It was letting them get under your skin, close to your heart, and falling prey to their smiles.

  A flashback of how it felt to be in the kitchen laughing with his guest filled his mind. Not that his heart was in danger—he barely knew the woman—but it was attraction and respect. Two things found on the roadmap to heartache.

  He raked a hand over his face. But damn, he needed a new map.

  Chapter Eight

  The sound of a shower running in the hotel room next to Bundy’s woke him. He let out a four-letter word. At two-hundred-plus a night, you’d think the five-star hotel could put in a few sound barriers.

  He rolled over and pulled a pillow over his head, but it was too late. The voice in his head had started. Almost every morning, he heard it. It sounded a whole hell of a lot like his old man, too.

  You shouldn’t have done that last night. Shouldn’t have tossed that place. Yeah, it felt good, but at what cost? The guy now knows you are on to him. Then again, you don’t even know if it was his place. You screwed up by not checking for the plate number of the truck at the junkyard.

  Idiot, it might not even have been his house.

  You screwed up. You are a screw-up. A big freaking screw-up!

  He grabbed the pillow and threw it across the room.

  Mornings like this, when the voice’s volume rang high, he wished his dad was still alive. Because he’d love to be able to kill him again.

  But the ball-busting Ted Bundy Senior was dead. The naked ball buster wasn’t. Neither was his mark.

  And the only way to shut the friggin’ voice up was to fix whatever he’d screwed up.

  Yeah, logic told him to get the hell out of there. To leave before his next mistake caught up with him and landed him behind bars again.

  But that would prove his old man right. That he was a screw-up.

  He had to do his job.

  He just needed to stop losing it. To keep his anger in check. Or what had the fancy doctor in prison call it? Fury? No, rage.

  He’d been dubbed a rageaholic. But he’d proved that doctor wrong. Took Bundy three years of never losing it. Three years of taking shit from the other inmates. Three years of faking regret for doing his job and killing some high-profile Houston oil man.

  But it had proven to be the right thing to do.

  He had been deemed rehabilitated. Released. Other than his monthly visits to his parole officer, who was an idiot and believed whatever crap Bundy told him, his life was his own.

  All he had to do was stop making stupid mistakes.

  He could do that.

  He didn’t give a shit what his ol’ man thought.

  Sitting up, he stared at the wall. He needed a plan. His mind raced.

  First, he needed to find out if the house he’d ransacked the night before was the right one. Then he’d make some more trips to Jennifer Peterson’s girlfriends’ houses, and places of businesses. Surely the cop wouldn’t still be playing bodyguard.

  All he needed was ten minutes with one of those gals, and they’d tell him where Jennifer was. He was really good at getting people to talk.

  He didn’t enjoy that part of the job. Hurting people who weren’t his marks, people who hadn’t hurt him. That spoke to his character. He wasn’t like his old man. His daddy had enjoyed hurting people.

  And for everyone his daddy had hurt, himself included, Bundy had made sure the ol’ man suffered for it.

  • • •

  Considering Jennifer hadn’t gone to sleep until after five, waking up was hard to do. Or maybe she just didn’t want to do it because last night, she’d done something she wasn’t extremely proud of.

  The smell of coffee had her sitting up. It might be considered rude to sleep the day away when you were someone’s houseguest.

  Tossing back the covers, she didn’t honestly know what she’d say to Clay, except “I’m sorry.” God help her, but she understood all too well how it felt to feel responsible for something, even when it wasn’t your fault.

  When she’d come to bed last night, all the questions she’d wanted to ask him crawled in bed with her. Who was Clay Connor? Before she considered if it was right or wrong, she’d typed his name into the search engine on her phone to see if she might find some tidbit. Hopefully something slightly boring that would put her to sleep.

  A second after she typed in his name, at least fifteen links came up.

  It wasn’t just a little tidbit. It wasn’t boring. It was heartbreaking.

  Clay and his partner had been investigating a homicide. They’d gone to talk to a suspect, who hadn’t been alone. Three guys came at the officers. Guns were drawn, bullets fired. Clay and his partner both had been hit. Clay had shot back.

  When the smoke cleared, the murder suspect had fled. Clay’s partner was unconscious. One of the shooters was shot but alive. The other wasn’t so lucky.

  Shit hit the fan when they learned the deceased was only fifteen. The bullets they pulled from Clay and his partner had come from the kid’s gun. It had ultimately been deemed a good shoot. That hadn’t stopped the community, or the media, from prosecuting Clay.

  Slipping off the bed, she set the suitcase on the mattress. She found a pair of capris, one pair of jeans, four shirts, some underwear, one pair of shorts and a tank top.

  Wanting to shed the heavy feeling, she decided it should be a shorts-and-tank-top kind of day.

  Dressed, she stepped out of the bedroom and into empty-house silence.

  “Hello.” She heard a stir on the sofa, then a fuzzy snout popped up. The dog stretched his legs and came to stand beside her. She gave him a thata’ boy scrub behind his ears. “Ohh, someone needs a bath.”

  She moved to the window to look for Clay’s truck.
It was there. Then she saw him. He stood by the fence, uh . . . hugging a horse.

  Hmm, she didn’t know horses enjoyed being hugged, but obviously that one did. She’d bet the horse was a girl, because just about any living female wouldn’t turn down a hug from Clay Connors. She recalled how much fun she’d had with him last night, how his touch had brought on temptation.

  That’s when it hit her. She hadn’t felt that in . . . a long time. She tried to remember the last time she’d been excited about Charles touching her.

  A long time ago. Wasn’t that wrong? Had that been why he’d found someone else?

  Did her friends have a point? Did a sustainable relationship need the ooey gooey love to endure?

  The smell of coffee beckoned her away from the uncomfortable reverie and into the kitchen.

  With the pot full, and no signs of dirty mugs in the sink, she poured two cups. Suspecting Clay would take his black, she doused hers with cream, picked them up and walked outside.

  • • •

  Clay heard the door open and close and looked back. Bare skin and a bashful smile filled his vision. His breath caught, his stomach clenched, and his knees weakened. The response reminded him why he’d never believed men were the superior sex.

  The woman had so many curves it could make a man dizzy appreciating them. She stepped up beside him. “I smelled coffee, and it didn’t seem like you’d had any. So . . .” She held out a cup. “I guessed you take it black.”

  “You guessed right.” He accepted the cup. As he sipped, he had to forcibly keep his eyes off her scooped neckline. Not that it was too revealing, but at the higher vantage point, what he could see appealed to him a little too much.

  Bingo had stepped back a few feet when Jennifer approached, but now the horse moved closer. Jennifer took a cautious step back.

  “You don’t like horses?” Clay asked.

  “I haven’t really been around them. I mean, I went riding a couple of times at camp when I was young. But that was a long time ago.” She looked up at him, smile in place.