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“And you. What about you? Who gave you subtlety lessons, because you should really get your money back.”
“Hey, I’m only trying to protect you. From the others.”
Emily managed to crack a smile. “My sister and I come here whenever we want to dance. That’s all.” She wanted to spell it out for him because he didn’t look like the kind of guy who was used to hearing the word no from a woman. “And do you have to look at me like that?”
“Like how?”
“Like I’m a steak and you’re not a vegetarian.” Maybe if he’d stop looking at her like she was a T-bone, she could stop sweating. Already, a trickle had slid down the inside of her thigh straight into her boot.
“True, I’m not a vegetarian. But I don’t bite unless I’ve known you for at least a month.”
Someone get her the smelling salts. “A whole month?”
“Yep,” he said with a grin as the song ended.
The longest dance in history had ended. Time to get Molly home. Besides, if Emily didn’t get out of his arms, the rest of her resolve might weaken. Maybe all she needed was one night with a man like this to help her forget the way Greg had humiliated her, and this guy would do it, no question about it.
Too bad she wasn’t that kind of girl. Rules were in place for a reason. “I need to get my sister and get her home.”
“Are you sure?” He lifted her chin so it was inches away from his lips, and his warm breath reached her.
She wasn’t sure of anything as she stared into those eyes. They were kind eyes, and not the eyes of a man on the prowl, which made him all the more confusing. She could kiss him, if she was a different woman. If she wasn’t Emily Parker, currently researching her family tree, and if she was willing to forget who she was for a second, she could. Maybe. Might even let him kiss her. In another life.
It wasn’t going to happen tonight. Emily pivoted out of his arms and turned in time to see the back of Molly’s head.
Leaving the bar with Thomas.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_1a341f13-531f-5dd0-b866-63f3ef8f09ac)
“MOLLY!” EMILY HEADED after her sister. No way would this happen under her watch. Molly had obviously had too much to drink and ignored her promise. Either that or she’d lost her ever-lovin’ mind.
A man was the last thing Molly needed right now. She used men to distract her from the real work she had to do on herself. Sooner or later Molly would have to face the mess she’d left behind.
Emily stomped through the couples on the dance floor, and they parted like the Red Sea. She thought she heard some of their whispers:
There she goes, and she’s mad. Boy, I tell you, she almost looks like Molly right now.
I mean, there’s no way you can keep it inside for so long. Before you know it, blast, you’ve got a disaster on your hands.
Yes, sir, Emily’s about to let someone have it. Should we go watch?
She threw open the bar’s side door and spied Molly about to get into Thomas’s car. A few quick purpose-filled strides and Emily stood next to Thomas’ old beat-up Ford.
“Where are you going, young lady?” Emily grabbed Molly’s arm.
“She’s going home with me.” Thomas bowed. The smell of tequila nearly knocked Emily off her feet. He sure wasn’t driving her sister, or anyone else.
“No, she’s not. She promised me. Right?” Emily pulled at Molly on one side, and Thomas pulled on the other.
“Sorry, mister, but I have a sister.” Molly swayed a bit to the right, demonstrating her own level of intoxication.
“Why you gotta be such a killjoy?” Thomas tapped Emily’s shoulder hard enough to make her wince. “If you don’t want to have any fun, that’s your business. But don’t ruin it for Molly.”
“You should take your hand off her right now,” a voice said from behind Emily.
Emily turned. All the planes of Stone’s face were set in hard lines, his jaw rock hard. He looked different. Still dangerous, but in a whole other kind of way.
“What did you say, buddy?” Thomas sidled up to Stone, clenching a fist in the air.
“The lady is not going home with you. And you’re not going anywhere until you sleep it off.”
“That’s right. Thank you.” Finally, someone had come to her aid instead of the other way around.
He shot her a hot look she felt down to the heels of her boots. Not to mention how it began to melt her shield.
While she tried to take her focus away from his lips and back to the matter at hand, a flying fist seemed to come out of nowhere and connect with Stone’s jaw.
Stone reacted Ninja-style and had Thomas on his back within moments.
“Cool,” someone said from the back of the crowd. “Did you see that move? I can do that.”
“Emily!” Molly, as if she’d suddenly realized the mess she’d made, reached for her.
Emily pulled Molly to her side as others spilled out from the bar to witness the fight in the parking lot. Except, from the looks of it, there wasn’t much fight left in old Thomas there on the ground, twisting and writhing under Stone’s pin. A fresh pint of guilt seeped through Emily’s veins, knowing Stone had probably taken a hit because she’d distracted him for a moment.
What she should do is stay behind and thank him. Properly. But there were two problems. First, she’d never kissed a man she didn’t know, even if this might be a good time to start. Second, she’d given up men, and this one would be trouble. Trouble rolled into fun with a heaping side of heartache.
Jedd soon joined the fray to help Stone, not that he seemed to need any help and, between the two of them, they had the situation under control. Right now Emily had her own damage control to do and needed to get her sister back home. Her drunk and sad sister, who had fooled Emily into coming here tonight.
“Let’s get out of here.” Emily pulled her sister away from the commotion, throwing one last glance in the direction of her hot hero. His back was turned to her as he restrained Thomas, who was now calling out every expletive Emily had ever heard, and some she hadn’t.
This wasn’t the way she’d envisioned parting tonight, and her chest tightened with the mess she’d left Stone to handle. She should have explained that she couldn’t take it any further with him, not now. Not ever. Casually drop in the fact she didn’t do risky and didn’t do strangers. She didn’t do much of anything, period. Not anymore.
Emily pulled her sister away from the chaos and shoved a sobbing Molly in the front passenger side seat of the Chevy truck.
Good thing Molly was already crying or Emily would have said something to make her. Emily gripped the steering wheel and high-tailed it out of the parking lot, kicking up gravel. She turned left on Monterey Road and headed toward Fortune Ranch.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen,” Molly bawled.
“Look at it this way. Thomas won’t be driving anyone home tonight, which is the way it should be. But I thought we agreed. Why did you do this?”
“I wanted to feel good, even for a little while. Do you know how long it’s been since a man wanted me? I mean, really wanted me. And only me.”
“We’re not going there. You are not going to talk to me about being lonely.”
“I’m sorry. But you know how to be alone, and I don’t. I feel like crap. And I probably look like it, too.” Molly pulled out a tissue from the glove compartment.
“You ought to feel bad. The man took a hit to the jaw, and you don’t even know him.” Neither did she, but after tonight, she almost wished she did.
“I have to apologize to him.” Molly rubbed at her mascara-smeared raccoon eyes.
“Don’t worry yourself too much about it. Something tells me the man can handle himself.” Or had Molly missed those special forces–like skills he’d displayed? Emily didn’t even know what the man did for a living, but she’d bet her family’s ranch it didn’t involve sitting behind a desk.
“Before you say anything, I know I have to start making better choices.” Molly rocked back and forth in her seat.
She sounded so pathetic and broken. Emily wished she understood, but she still wasn’t sure she could put her finger on what exactly had gone wrong. Of course, Molly wasn’t talking about it, either. For the first six months of her daughter Sierra’s life, Molly isolated herself from the rest of her family. The next thing anyone knew, Molly had taken off to Hollywood, leaving Dylan and Sierra behind. To a place so foreign to the Parker family, she might as well have gone to Mars.
“You have to get your mind off men. They’re not going to make anything better for you. Work on yourself first, like I am. Everything else will fall into place then.”
Emily turned her truck at the large sign that welcomed one and all to “Fortune Family Ranch: Events/Weddings/Picnics.” Once a large cattle ranch, present times meant the Parker family had to diversify. Enterprise.
The new family business.
The truck rolled down the long dusty driveway, past the empty lots designated for parking, past the red barn that served as a gift shop and up to the main Victorian house sitting on the hill.
Emily parked and turned in her seat to give Molly her full attention. “Does Dylan know you’re back in town?”
“I hope not. You know how he hates me.”
“He doesn’t hate you. He’s just not happy with you right now. Can you blame him?”
“It’s his fault, anyway. Maybe if he’d come after me.”
“When you didn’t tell anyone where you’d gone? Don’t do this, Molly. It’s not his fault you left.”
Emily should have paid more attention to the situation at the time, and she still blamed herself for that. She should have seen that Molly was in over her head and going under. But a few of the times Emily had wanted to come over and help, Molly claimed the baby was sleeping, or the apartment was a mess or any one of many other excuses why they didn’t want company. The times Emily had managed to make it inside, the small efficiency had looked like a bomb had gone off. Stacks of baby diapers all over the house, clothes strewn in every corner, piles of dirty laundry practically tall enough to be a teepee, other clean clothes folded in the basket, dishes overflowing in the sink.
Molly and Dylan had managed to keep mostly to themselves, and whether it had been intentional or not Emily had never been sure. Dylan’s mother could barely stand Molly, and the unexpected pregnancy hadn’t helped. But Emily didn’t fully understand why Molly would have shut her own family out. Unless it had been because of Dylan, who thought Molly had been spoiled by their father for too long.
And true enough, had he had one look inside, he would have likely hired Molly a cleaning service. Not how Dylan rolled.
“You needed help, and maybe you didn’t know how to ask for it,” Emily said now.
“I know you tried, but Dylan always thought we should do it on our own. And of course, he was never around much to help me.”
“There was no shame in either one of you needing help. You’re both so young.” Emily now wished she’d bulldozed her way in more often. What if Molly had suffered from postpartum depression? Dylan, as a trained EMT, should have seen the signs. But maybe he’d been too close to the situation.
After Molly had gone, Emily tried for a few months to help Dylan with a colicky and often inconsolable Sierra. Eventually, due to logistics and family ties, most of the babysitting shifted to Violet, Dylan’s mother. Dylan stopped calling, and Emily, ashamed of her sister and tired of making excuses for her, stayed away.
“Maybe if he’d loved me more. It felt like the only thing we had in common anymore was Sierra. He barely touched me for six months. Do you know what that’s like?”
Molly didn’t want to go there with Emily right now. Did she know what it was like to have her heart ripped out seam by precious seam? “Does a broken engagement count?”
Molly didn’t look at Emily. “I’m sorry, Em.”
“It’s all right.”
But it wasn’t. Emily had never been engaged before Greg. Greg was reliable, safe, structured. A software engineer. If a girl couldn’t trust a man like Greg, who color-coded his ties, then whom could she trust? No one.
* * *
MAYBE NEXT TIME you’ll stay home.
The night wasn’t over until a cab service took Thomas Aguirre home, black eye covered with a bag of ice from the bar. But the real cherry on top of this sundae had been when Stone looked for the stacked blonde that had caused him his sore jaw and found her nowhere in sight. Not like she owed him a thing, but a simple kiss would have been nice. Maybe even a short “thanks.”
It usually took a woman at least a month to be this kind of trouble to him.
Now he had a bruised lip and sore jaw, thanks to being temporarily distracted by the way she stared into his eyes with a kind of trust that sent lava-level heat running through him. More to the point, the whole thing was his fault for being stupid enough to follow her outside and become mixed up in drama that was clearly none of his damn business. That should teach him.
Jedd brought out a bag of ice. “It’s a good thing we caught Thomas trying to leave with Molly, ’cause he had no business driving.”
“Yeah. Glad I could be of assistance.” Stone took the ice and placed it in on his jaw since he couldn’t put it on his sore ego. He should have seen that flying fist coming. Six months out of the service, and he’d let his guard down.
“I wish I’d been out here sooner.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I hope you don’t blame this on Emily. If you blame anyone, blame Thomas. As for Molly, that girl is hell on wheels. Almost forgot she was back in town.” Jedd fell into step beside Stone, as he headed toward his truck.
“My fault. Shouldn’t have followed Emily outside.”
“But you thought she was in trouble.”
Stone didn’t want to be anyone’s hero, or pretend he’d had anything on his mind other than finishing what he’d started with Emily.
“To tell the truth, I didn’t do enough thinking tonight.” He massaged his jaw and managed to crack a smile.
Jedd laughed. “Yeah, Emily has a way of doing that to a guy.”
Stone looked sideways at Jedd.
“Naw, Emily’s older than me and never gave me a second look. She was going to get married to some guy from Palo Alto. But it didn’t happen.” Jedd lifted a shoulder.
“I don’t need her damn biography. I won’t ever see her again.” He clicked his key fob to unlock the truck.
“If you say so,” Jedd said.
Stone should have followed his first instincts and kept to himself. Probably should have searched harder for an excuse as to why he couldn’t come out with Jedd. “I do. I’m out of here.”
“Thanks for coming out with me. See you Monday, boss—I mean, Stone,” Jedd called out.
Stone threw open the door and climbed in his truck, throwing the ice pack to the side. He’d be sleeping alone tonight and that would be okay. It would have to be. With damage like this in thirty minutes, who knew what she could do with a little more time? He didn’t need the distraction. All he wanted tonight was a warm body under him, and Emily wouldn’t stop there. She wouldn’t stop until she was another in his long list of commitments.
Speaking of commitments...
A few minutes later, he’d pulled into the driveway of James Mcallister’s sorry-looking single family home, shut off the truck and stared at his inheritance. The place needed a new coat of paint. Hell, it needed to be bulldozed down to the ground and started over. He didn’t have the time or inclination to do either. But he, along with his sister, Sarah, was heir to this mess.
Six months ago when he’d separated from the air force, Dad had said, “You didn’t have to come.”
