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“Uh-huh.” He’d heard that before. “And what are you?”
For a long time she continued to gaze at the courthouse, but he was pretty sure she wasn’t seeing the building. After a while, she shook her head, making her braid swing, then laughed again, though far less convincingly this time. “I’m the screwup. The dumb one, the ditzy one, the one who doesn’t know the meaning of the word commitment.”
His jaw tightening, Brady looked away. His impulse was to disagree with her, to insist that her family didn’t see her in those terms, but he wasn’t sure he would be telling the truth.
Her eyes too bright, she bumped his arm with her shoulder. “Made you uncomfortable, didn’t I?”
“No. I was just thinking that a better label for you is probably the misunderstood one.” And he knew how it felt to be misunderstood.
Without giving her time to respond, he went on. “After the divorce, I wanted to be anywhere but Texas. First I headed out to New Mexico, then into Colorado, and about six years ago I wound up in Buffalo Plains. I got a job, I liked it and was good at it, and I stayed. It only took me eight years to find a place I could stay.”
“Sheesh, I hope I have better luck.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not staying in Beverly Hills. I’m going to sell the house and find someplace where I can belong. What do I need with ten acres of lawn and gardens, seven bedrooms, a dining room that seats thirty, a screening room that seats fifty and two guest houses?”
“That’s not a house. It’s a mansion.”
She shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “I never liked it anyway. Max picked it out, and his interior designer decorated it. All I got to do was live in it.”
“If you didn’t like it, why didn’t you let him have it in the divorce?” He’d been more than happy to walk away from the house he’d built for Sandra. If he’d kept it after the divorce, he would have burned it to the ground, then left the rubble there so he would never forget.
By then the sun had set enough that the streetlights were on. In their artificial glow, he could make out the sheepish expression on her face. “The bimbo wanted it, and I— She’d already taken my husband. There was no way I was going to let her have my house, too.”
“Does the bimbo have a name?” He hadn’t set foot in a movie theater in longer than he could remember, but his satellite system delivered more channels of movies than a reasonable person could watch. Since he spent the bulk of his free time alone, he watched a lot.
“Lilah Grant.”
He gave a low whistle.
“I see you’re familiar with her,” Hallie said, her voice so dry it could suck the humidity out of the air. “She wears a size two—which also happens to be her IQ, by the way—and she’s got less acting talent than that post over there, but she never met a nude scene she didn’t love. And, no, they’re not real. Those are the best triple-D breasts money can buy.”
Earlier he hadn’t been able to imagine the woman a man would pick over Hallie. Even knowing, he couldn’t see it. The starving waif look had never appealed to him, not even with the big boobs. He liked women who looked like women, who had curves where they should, who had a little softness to them.
“So did you know when you married him that he was an idiot, or did you find that out later?”
Pushing away from the wall, she disconnected the camera from the tripod, returned it to its bag, then expertly folded the tripod and slid it through a loop on the bag. When she was done, she faced him. “You’re a nice man, Brady.”
Her words struck that place deep inside him that was always frozen and hard, and made his muscles clench and tighten. “No, Hallie,” he said quietly. “I’m not.”
She shrugged as if his disagreement meant nothing. “You see yourself your way, and I’ll see you my way.” Then… “I guess I’ll head back to the motel.”
She’d gone a few yards before he could bring himself to move. “Hey, where’s your car?”
“Back at the motel. I walked.”
“Let me give you a ride.”
She turned around, her head tilted to one side. “I understand Buffalo Plains is about as safe as a town can get.”
“It is, but there’s no reason to tempt fate.” Which was exactly what he was doing. If he took her back to the motel, would he insist on seeing her to her door? Would he stop there?
He honestly didn’t know.
After a moment’s consideration, she nodded and returned to him. He automatically reached for the camera bag and was surprised by its weight. “What have you got in here?”
“Just the essentials. I’d be happy to take it back if you can’t handle it.”
He scowled at her. “Don’t forget—I’m the one with the gun and the handcuffs.”
“Yeah, and I’m the one whose favorite sister is married to your boss.”
And he kept managing to forget that.
He directed her to his truck around the corner, then put her bag in the back seat. “Have you had dinner?” he asked when he settled in the driver’s seat.
“I had a chili dog at the drive-in across the street from the motel.”
“You like to live dangerously, don’t you?”
“I’ve been doing that ever since I set foot in this town,” she said quietly.
They drove the nine blocks to the motel in silence. How many times had he gone to a motel with a woman he hardly knew? And yet it felt strange this time. Maybe because he already knew to pull around back and park next to the Mercedes.
Or maybe because this time he wanted like hell to go inside with her…but not as much as he wanted to say good-night in the parking lot.
He shut off the engine, and for the space of a few heartbeats, they both sat there. Brady was looking at the window of the room in front of them, and he could tell by nothing more than feeling that she was looking elsewhere, too.
As the cool air inside the SUV was replaced with warmer, damper air, she opened the door. He did the same. She led the way up the stairs, and he followed…but only as far as the top landing. She had covered half the twenty-foot distance to her room before realizing that he’d stopped. Turning back, she smiled uneasily. “Would you like to come in?”
“Very much.”
“But you’re not going to.”
He shook his head.
“Why not?”
Because it would be wrong—more so than the first time, not as much as the second, but still wrong. Because, in spite of her assurances, he wasn’t sure what her expectations were. Hell, he wasn’t sure what his expectations were. Because they were a great match for a one-night stand, but neither of them brought much hope to the success of anything more.
And because he liked her, honestly liked her, and though he didn’t know what he wanted from her, he did know one thing for sure—he didn’t want to hurt her. She’d gotten enough of that for a lifetime.
She smiled faintly. “It’s okay. You don’t have to answer that. I’ve got plenty of answers to choose from.” Coming back, she held out her hand, and he gave her the camera bag. “Thank you for the ride home.”
He nodded, then watched until she’d unlocked her room. “Hallie?”
She glanced at him.
“I’d like to see your pictures sometime.”
“Sure.” Once again she started to go inside, and once again he stopped her.
“You want to have lunch tomorrow?”
“Sure. Should I meet you at the courthouse?”
“That would be good. Around noon?”
“Okay. Good night.” She went inside and closed the door. Even from that distance, he heard the lock click.
As he started down the stairs, he swore silently. He couldn’t believe he’d found himself twenty-five feet from a bed and a beautiful and willing woman, and he was walking away. Sure, it was the safe choice, but how much was he going to hate himself a few hours from now, when he was alone in bed and unable to sleep?
Not as much as if he’d taken advantage of her again.
Hallie Madison was the most wrong person for him in all of Oklahoma. She was vulnerable and lonely and needed more than he’d ever been able to give.
But he wasn’t going to hurt her. He swore to God he wouldn’t.
He just wished he could be as sure that he wasn’t going to get hurt, either.
Hallie loved old furniture—not antiques, necessarily. Just old. Pieces that people had lived with, that showed the marks and scars of use. Anticipating lunch with Brady far more than was safe, she went downtown more than an hour early on Tuesday and spent the time wandering through antique stores on the block across from the courthouse. She’d bought a couple of pitchers in the first store—one glazed green and brown, the other beige and brown. Oklahoma-made, the elderly woman behind the counter had declared, at Frankoma Pottery over to Sapulpa.
Hallie didn’t care where they came from. She liked the lines, the colors, the weight in her hand.
Now, in the third store, she was eyeing an oak dining table. It was wide and long, big enough for six without the leaves, eight or ten with. It looked as solid in its own way as the courthouse did, as if it had already seated generations of hungry farmers and would continue to do so for generations to come. It could become her very own heirloom, passed down through the family for years to come.
Of course, first she would have to have a family, and the odds of that were somewhere between slim and none.
Still, it was a lovely piece, and came with eight equally sturdy ladder-back chairs, and it was such a tremendous change from the elegant and huge table in her dining room at home.
With a sigh, she drummed her fingers on the tabletop.
“Having trouble deciding?” The clerk slid into a chair opposite her. “What’s the drawback? The price? The size? Afraid it won’t fit in your dining room?”
“I don’t actually have a dining room yet. Well, I do, but I’m getting ready to sell that house and everything in it.”
“Someplace around here?”
Hallie shook her head. “In California. Beverly Hills.”
“Oh.” The woman gave her an appraising look, then laughed. “Don’t worry. The price is the same no matter where you come from—well, except maybe Texas. Then we might have to add a surcharge to cover your ego.”
With a laugh, Hallie extended her hand. “I’m Hallie Madison.”
“Stella Clark.” The woman leaned across to shake hands, then sat back again. “Are you just passing through?”
“Not exactly. I’ll be here a few weeks—until my sister comes back from her honeymoon.”
“Oh, you’re Reese’s new sister-in-law. We’re all so happy to see him married. You know, his daddy and mama just got married themselves the week before his wedding.”
“Yes, Neely mentioned that.” Reese’s mother had been the love of Del Barnett’s life, but she’d never stayed around long, and every time she left him, she’d left their son behind, too. Initially, Reese had been disinclined to welcome her into the family—and considering the way she’d abandoned him, who could blame him? But he’d come around before the wedding. Almost getting killed could make a person rethink the grudges he was holding.
“So,” Stella said. “No ring on your finger. Does that mean you’re single, or are you just too liberated to wear one?”
“I’m…single.” Hallie smiled to cover her guilt. It wasn’t exactly a lie. As Brady had pointed out Saturday night, the difference between single and divorced wasn’t enough to count—at least, not always.
“Well, now, we have a fair number of single men in town—some really fine-looking ones. Let me think…”
“I appreciate it,” Hallie said quickly, “but I’m not going to be here long, and I’m really not interested in a relationship.” Except for the one she had going with Brady…sort of.
Rubbing her finger along the grain of the table, she asked, “I don’t suppose you know of any houses for rent around here, do you? Just for a month or two?”
“You staying at your sister’s apartment?”
“No, the motel. I didn’t want…” She shrugged.
Stella grinned. “After my husband died, I lived with my daughter and her husband for a while. Believe me, I understand. A body’s got to have her own space sometimes, and the right to change it even if she doesn’t. Let me see.” Pursing her lips, she tapped one finger against them for a moment. “Of course, there’s the apartments where your sister lives—”
“No vacancies.” Hallie had called that morning, when she’d decided she didn’t want to spend three weeks in a room where she couldn’t walk barefooted for fear of sticking to the carpet.
“Yeah, there usually aren’t. You know, Marlene Tucker’s mother-in-law passed on a few weeks ago. Doctor said she died of heart failure. Well, of course she did! She was a hundred and one years old! Her poor old heart just wore out. Let me call Marlene and see what they’re planning to do with her house.”
While she went to the desk in the back of the shop, Hallie began wandering around. She was looking at some serving platters that matched the pitchers she’d bought when a Greyhound bus pulled to a stop in front of the store and opened its door.
The driver got off first, followed by a passenger. Scowling as if angry with the world, the teenage girl stepped up onto the sidewalk and waited while the driver retrieved her bag from the luggage compartment—one dirty army surplus duffel bag. With a battered backpack slung over one shoulder and the duffel bag leaning against her, she took a long look around.
When she noticed Hallie in the shop window looking at her, she made an obscene gesture. Hallie was tempted to stick out her tongue, poke her thumbs in her ears and waggle her fingers at the girl, but she restrained herself. Barely.
“Lord, would you look at that?” Stella made a clucking sound.
“What about her?”
“That hair. Those clothes. All them earrings.” Then she chuckled. “I forgot I’m talking to Miss Beverly Hills. I bet you see weirdos like that all the time out there in California, don’t you?”
“There are some strange people out there.” She glanced again at the girl, who was walking away. Purple-haired, clothes that were one breath away from indecent, combat boots with a mini-skirt—that was nothing in Los Angeles.
It stood out in Buffalo Plains.
“I talked to Marlene, and she said they haven’t decided what to do with the house yet, but you’d be welcome to rent it for a while. Here’s her number. Give her a call anytime you want to go look at it.”
“Thanks, Stella. Do you happen to know where it is?”
“Oh, it’s easy to find. When you go out of town south on Main, the last street you’ll come to is Cedar, and the Tucker place is the first house on the left after that. It’s white, neat as a button—and, of course, the mailbox out front says Tucker.” With another grin, Stella planted her hands on her hips.
“So…what did you decide about that oak table?”
“Can you hold it for me?”
