Tease Me

  on the rough bark for support. Her knees were shaking. Hell, her entire body was shaking.

  Madison rubbed the center of her chest and sucked calming breaths into her lungs. She had no one to turn to. Not Adam—he wouldn’t want to hear her sob story after she’d left him. Not her best friend—that had been Kennedy. Most of her other friends were from work, so she’d hidden her relationship with Adam from them. How scandalized would they be that she’d had an affair with a client? Her parents? They always took Kennedy’s side. She doubted they’d celebrate her role in getting Madison fired, but she knew they’d be upset that she’d been hiding Adam from them as well. And grandma was gone.

  She was going to have to sort out this mess on her own.

  “Madison!” Kennedy called across the yard. “We need to talk this out.”

  “Fuck you,” Madison shouted and pushed off the tree. She could just make out the roofline of her parents’ house up the road. Her parents might be there, but that wasn’t why she started walking in that direction. Ginger was there. Sometimes a girl just needed to ride.

  “What did you say?” Kennedy said incredulously.

  “Fuck you!” she said louder, sending a one-finger salute over her shoulder in case her sister had lost her hearing. They both knew sign language.

  She could hear Kennedy’s gasp of disbelief all the way across the yard. “Really? That’s how you talk to your own sister?”

  “You’re not my sister. My sister isn’t such a raging bitch!”

  Madison kept walking, the heat of the late afternoon bringing a sheen of sweat to her skin.

  “I want to help you make things right.” Kennedy called after her. “I said I was sorry!”

  “And I did not accept your apology!” Madison yelled back. She would probably forgive her sister eventually, but it would not happen today.

  As soon as Madison came in sight of the pasture, her gorgeous sorrel mare released an exuberant whinny and raced for the split rail fence as fast as her hooves could carry her.

  People often confused the Fairbanks twins, but their respective horses never did. Kennedy’s silver gelding, Bullet, lifted his head to see what all the fuss was about, but immediately turned his attention back to dining on blades of grass. Ginger was already dancing sideways along the fence, nodding her big head in greeting.

  Smiling, Madison cut across the ditch beside the gravel road and stretched both arms over the fence to rub Ginger’s neck. The massive animal nuzzled Madison’s shoulder, the horse’s hot breath stirring her hair, and she giggled as it tickled her neck.

  “Do you want to go for a ride, girl?”

  Madison jerked in surprise when Ginger nickered loudly in her ear. She laughed and hugged the horse’s broad neck.

  “Me too,” she said.

  She never felt freer than when she was astride a galloping horse with the ground racing beneath her in a blur and the wind catching her hair. Was that why Adam liked to ride motorcycles?

  She pulled several twigs from Ginger’s mane as she mused about Adam.

  Maybe they really weren’t such different people. Maybe they sought the same comforts but in different ways. She’d love to introduce Adam to her horse. She didn’t know if he’d ever ridden one. Being from a small town outside of Austin, he probably had, but he’d never mentioned it. When she talked about her happy past of barrel racing in rodeos and raising horses on the family farm, he’d always looked so sad. She’d felt he resented her for having a close-knit and loving family, so she tried not to mention them much. She knew his lack of a caring family had damaged him. And, God, if it hurt this much to be betrayed by her sister once, it must have been a living hell for him to be betrayed by both his parents again and again.

  Families were supposed to love and support each other. Parents were supposed to protect their children. Sisters weren’t supposed to rat each other out.

  In retrospect, maybe not talking about her family had done more harm than good. He needed to know all of her just as she needed to know all him. She had been shutting him out—only showing him the pieces of herself that she thought fit him best. Why had it taken a broken heart for her to see that?

  She and Ginger walked the length of the fence, which served as a barrier between horse and rider until they reached the barn. Ginger was waiting in the paddock by the time Madison entered the barn from the opposite side. The half of the massive structure that faced the pasture was open so that the horses could find shelter from storms or the brutal Texas sun. Ginger took a long draw from the water trough while Madison collected her tack.

  Without protest, the horse accepted the bit into her mouth. Madison then pulled the leather over Ginger’s velvety ears and carefully arranged her long reddish forelock so the leather didn’t pull her mane. The horse worried the bar of metal with her tongue. Interesting. Madison wondered what it would taste like and feel like to have a human-sized bit in her mouth. She was sure Adam would be willing to show her if she asked him nicely.

  No, he probably wouldn’t. Not after she had walked out on him. She wouldn’t be surprised if he never wanted to see her again. And she couldn’t blame him. She was the one too cautious or stupid or scared to accept what he offered. What she wanted.

  Fuck.

  She dashed a tear aside and reached for the saddle pad resting on the top bar of the orange metal gate. As she turned, she caught sight of her father coming through the barn door. Her first instinct was to run to him and have him make everything all right, the way he had when she’d been a child. But if she did that, he’d want to know why she was upset. And that would lead to lots of questions, and she just didn’t have it in her to answer them at the moment. She needed to clear her head. When she got back from her ride, she’d sit down with her parents and explain what had been going on in her life for the past year.

  Abandoning the remainder of Ginger’s tack, she clicked her tongue at the horse and gently tugged the reins to draw the animal alongside the gate.

  Her dad waved eagerly and called, “Going for a ride?”

  “Yeah,” she called back, not looking at him. Knowing she’d break if she did. Just seeing his strong profile in that familiar Stetson had her feeling all sorts of little-girly weaknesses. “We won’t be gone long.” To keep him from trying to delay her, she added, “I’ll stop by the house when I get back.”

  She scrambled up the gate and slid her leg up and over Ginger’s bare back before turning the horse toward the pasture.

  “Be careful out there,” her father said.

  “Don’t worry!”

  Ginger trotted out of the barn and sprinted through the pasture with her head and tail held high, as if to brag to the other horses that she was going out with her human and they weren’t invited.

  Madison’s knees clamped into Ginger’s sides as the horse took a sudden turn around Bullet and almost unseated her. Perhaps darting off without a saddle hadn’t been the best idea. It had been months since Madison had ridden a horse, and she couldn’t recall the last time she’d ridden bareback.

  Ginger automatically headed for the gate that led to the back eighty acres of the Fairbanks’ property. The extra pastures were not often used now that her parents had stopped raising cattle and only kept half a dozen horses for recreational use. The expanse of land was now more wilderness than ranch, but she preferred to ride the trails there. The terrain was familiar, and she didn’t have to worry about trespassing on some trigger-happy rancher’s land or worry that any motorized vehicles would make Ginger nervous.

  As Ginger’s steady gait allowed her mind to wander, her thoughts kept returning to one person: Adam. The only thing that was clear to Madison was that she loved him. She couldn’t let him go.

  It boggled her mind how easily he could throw caution aside and fall headlong into forever. She wasn’t half as impulsive as he was. She never would be. She admired him for it and appreciated that quality in him, but when his tendency to jump over barriers before checking if there was a cliff o
n the other side confronted her head on, she panicked. That was what had happened when he’d asked her to marry him. And happened again when he’d asked her to move in with him. She’d panicked. He encouraged her to be more spontaneous—more reckless—but when it came down to action, she was intrinsically cautious. She’d always been that way. She wished he could be more understanding of her hang-ups and not assume that because she didn’t immediately jump aboard his crazy train that it didn’t mean she never wanted to ride his rails. She just needed time to think and since her brain seemed nonfunctional when his sexy self was in her vicinity, that meant she had to do her thinking when she wasn’t around him.

  She spent the entire ride thinking. About her life. Her job situation. Her living situation. She thought about her parents and her sister. But most of the time she thought about Adam. She missed him like crazy already. And she wanted him in her life. She was going to get him back, and she would never let him go. If she’d had her cellphone with her, she’d have called him right then and shared all her thoughts with him. Unfortunately, she’d left it in her purse, which was in the kitchen next to more of those cinnamon rolls.

  That wasn’t so difficult, was it? For once, the voice of reason in her head was her own, and not her sister’s.

  Not difficult exactly, but definitely not easy.

  She turned Ginger and headed back for the barn. Now that she had that bit of crazy sorted out, she could go back to Adam and explain where her heart was. Hopefully, she could fix things between them. He had to take her back, he just had to. She laughed, hearing herself sound like a teenager with her first crush.

  But she was no teenager and Adam was no crush.

  After she called him she would hop on the next flight to New Orleans and see him again before the evening was out. And if she couldn’t get on a plane, she’d drive all night—whatever it took to get back to him as soon as she could. Why had she left him in the first place? Oh yeah, because he loved her enough to marry her.

  “Ginger,” she said, patting the horse’s shoulder, “sometimes I can be completely daft.”

  Ginger bobbed her head, agreeing, and Madison laughed.

  “I’m glad we could have this talk. You’re such a good listener. Ever consider a career as a counselor?”

  Ginger nickered.

  “Gid’yup.” Madison shifted forward to urge Ginger into a gallop. Now that she had a game plan—a rather weak one, but it was a plan—she was eager to execute it and start her forever with Adam. If he wanted a ring on her finger, she’d wear it. If he wanted them to live together, she’d pack her bags. If he wanted her to walk down the aisle—well, she wasn’t quite ready for that step yet, but an extended engagement sounded like a piece of perfect.

  Without warning Ginger stopped short, rearing on her hind legs, forelegs flailing as she screamed in terror. Madison tried to grab for the startled horse’s neck, but she was already flying backwards. A sickening crunch was followed by excruciating pain up her back and into her left shoulder. Her arm crumpled as she instinctively tried to catch her fall. Then her teeth clanked together as the back of her head hit the ground. All the wind left her lungs on impact, and she lay stunned, unable to move or even cry out. She gasped for air, her lungs stinging in protest. She tried to draw a hand to the back of her head, but her arm wouldn’t move. Fuck, she’d fallen off her horse dozens of times training for rodeo. She knew better than to land like that. Ouch. She winced and turned her head, but could see nothing but tall grass through the narrow tunnel of her vision.

  Don’t pass out, she thought as the sound of Ginger’s hoof beats retreated into the distance. They’ll never find you out here. You cannot pass out.

  The sinister rattle of an angry snake alerted her to what had spooked her faithful horse.

  “Adam,” she whispered just before her world went dark.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sitting on a picnic table behind the tour bus, Adam stared into the mouth of his brown bottle and let everything but the chaos in his mind fade into the background. He’d honestly thought Madison gave a shit about him. All she’d really wanted from him was some hard cock and a good time. Just like all the other girls. Why did he even bother?

  Yes, he was still thinking about her. One night completely lacking sleep had not cleared his mind of her. He doubted years of sleepless nights would banish her from his thoughts. But that was what he needed to do—stop thinking about her.

  He took a swig of his beer, wishing he had something stronger—much stronger—to deaden the pain. To make him forget. To make him not care. Caring about someone sucked. He wouldn’t make the mistake of doing it again. He was done with women. And relationships. And all the garbage that went with them. He’d always been a loner and now he was more than ready to return to his norm. Well, most of his norm. He still planned to stay clean and mostly sober.

  The wooden tabletop beside him shifted slightly and a warm, slender arm brushed his. Heart thudding with expectation, he jerked his head up, but it wasn’t her. Madison hadn’t come back. It was that chick Jacob had banged a few nights before, the one who was friends with Gabe’s girl. The one whose room he’d been in the night before. Hell if he could remember her name. He remembered her face, though. She was quite the looker. Not that he cared. He no longer cared about anything, least of all attractive women.

  “Why you out here by yourself?” she asked.

  He shrugged and took another draw of his beer, hoping she’d go away and leave him to wallow in his misery.

  She took the bottle from his hand, took a swig, and returned it to the loose nook between his palms.

  Okay, he was sharing whether he wanted to or not. Why had she come here to bother him? It wasn’t like they had anything in common.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “Just lonely,” she said. “Mel went after Gabe. I should have figured she would.”

  And he cared why?

  “I thought,” she said, staring absently at the space between the table and the white gleam of the bus’s side. “I thought maybe she . . . maybe she could love me. But no, not even her. Why doesn’t anyone love me?”

  Maybe they did have something in common. But he had no idea why the girl thought he would be a good sounding board. Didn’t she realize he was too wrapped up in his own problems to give a fuck about anyone else’s? If he couldn’t easily talk to the woman he loved, why would he even consider talking to this walking train wreck?

  “I’m sure someone loves you,” he said. “What about your parents?”

  She shook her head. “My father loved to rape me and mother loved to neglect me. Does that count?”

  He shook his head slightly. “Parents suck.”

  “Did your father rape you too?”

  He lifted an eyebrow and looked at her. She smiled weakly, and he realized the question was her very inappropriate attempt at a joke. “No. He just turned me into a junkie.”

  Adam tossed back the rest of his beer—finishing it in three long swallows—and hurled the bottle against the bus, satisfied when the brown glass shattered. He wished the rest of what was building inside him could be destroyed so easily.

  “And your mom?” she asked.

  “She left me with him.” And why did this woman care anyway? He hadn’t even been able to help her the night before. He’d been too wrapped up in his own misery to care about hers. Too self-absorbed to remember her name. Fuck, he really was an asshole. No wonder Madison had left him. “I’m sorry, I forgot your name.”

  “Nikki.”

  “That’s right. Are you doing better now?” He still wasn’t sure exactly what had gone down with her, just knew that Gabe and his chick had been worried enough to fly back to New Orleans from Austin in the middle of their romantic weekend. He was pretty sure they’d taken Nikki to the hospital. She was banged up. He saw traces of bruises on her arms. Her throat. Her face.

  She stared down at her knotted hands and shook her head. “I try to be fine, but I’m not.
Not really. I don’t know if I’ll ever be fine. Melanie just makes it easier for me to pretend.”

  He wasn’t sure what she meant by that, so he said nothing.

  She sighed. “Do you ever think everyone would be much better off if you never existed?”

  “Don’t think that way.” He rested a comforting hand against her lower back, and she jerked as if he’d punched her in the face.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’m a little jumpy today. After last night I don’t think I’m up for sex, but I can blow you if you want.”

  He’d had hundreds of women come on to him in his life, but her suggestion shocked him to his core. “I don’t want to have sex with you, Nikki.”

  Her gaze returned to her hands. “Oh. I guess you have a girlfriend or something.”

  “Actually, no. She dumped me.” And seeing as she had yet to text him, much less call, he was certain it was over with Madison. He just hadn’t let the truth sink in yet. He was still planning to go after her in a couple days, but was convinced it would be a fruitless endeavor and he was just setting himself up for more heartache. “But that’s not why I don’t want to.”

  “Oh,” she said, her brow knotted. “Am I too ugly?”

  Adam rubbed a hand over his face. He was too annoyed to offer this damaged young woman the level of care she needed. “Do you really think that your only value lies between your legs?”

  She didn’t answer, just wrapped her arms around herself and tipped her head forward so that her silky brown hair concealed her face. A drop struck her jeans and blossomed into a dark spot on the fabric.

  Shit, he hadn’t meant to make her cry. He didn’t need any further complications at the moment, yet he couldn’t very well walk away from a woman in so much pain.

  “You’re beautiful, Nik. And not just on the outside. Don’t you