“I’ve been suspended indefinitely,” he said tightly. Those violet eyes turned hard as flint.
“By Dal—By Francesca’s husband.”
He gave a short nod.
“Why?”
“Stuff happens, that’s all.”
When he made no effort to elaborate, she regarded him more closely. “How do I fit into this?”
The arrival of the appetizers gave him an excuse to ignore her. He busied himself with the stuffed jalapeños while she sipped her frozen margarita. A few grains of salt caught on her bottom lip. She flicked them away with the tip of her tongue. “All I have to do is ask Francesca.”
He stared at her bottom lip so long that she was afraid something was wrong. She blotted it with her napkin.
He blinked his eyes. “Francesca has a lot of influence with her husband.”
“And?”
“She’s going to use it to get me back on the tour.”
“I see.” Now she did see. “But only if you agreed to help me.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
There was something missing. Why would Francesca care so much about having Kenny escort her? It made no sense. “What could she have been thinking of? She must have known we’d be oil and water.”
“All her years on that talk show have done something sadistic to her brain. She likes putting unlikely people together, then watching them kill each other so she can feast on the remains.”
That didn’t sound like Francesca. There were definitely a few missing pieces here, but she was unlikely to find out what they were from Kenny.
He gazed at her with displeasure. “You going to eat or just keep licking your lip like that?”
“Licking my lip?”
“I’m not one to cast stones, since I have my own share of bad habits, but you need to leave that bottom lip of yours alone. You’re always nibbling at it or licking it or something. It’s distracting.”
“You know, Kenny, I’m getting more than a little annoyed with your criticism.”
“Uh-huh.” He slid the tortilla chip he’d just loaded up into her mouth.
The salsa was hot and, by the time she’d gotten her breath back, the rest of their food had arrived. While they ate, Kenny entertained her with local lore, and she soon found herself laughing at his stories. He could be a charming companion when he set his mind to it, or perhaps it was simply the glow of her colossal-sized margarita because she found herself enveloped in a fuzzy-headed blur.
She excused herself to go to the loo, and, when she returned, another margarita was waiting for her. This one had a slightly different taste, but was equally delicious. Remembering the needles, she gave herself permission to indulge. Multicolored rainbows began dancing on the stucco walls.
Finally, Kenny pushed away the last bits of his cinnamon-dusted fried ice cream and paid the bill, even though she’d told him the meal was her treat. “It’s getting close to ten,” he said. “We’d better be on our way. That is if you’re still intent on doing this.”
“Oh, yes.” Her voice was a little loud, and she attempted to lower it. “I haven’t changed my mind.” She stood, and the room began to spin.
“Steady, now.” He took her arm and guided her through the restaurant. On their way to the door, he returned the greetings of the fans who wanted to catch his attention.
She expected the fresh air to revive her, but it didn’t, and as the lights of the parking lot spun around her, she tried to make herself care that she’d had far too much to drink. “Kenny, you never told me what you did to get suspended from the tour.”
“That’s because you wouldn’t like the answer.”
She wanted to spread her arms, embrace the night, embrace him. “Tonight there’s nothing I wouldn’t like.”
“All right then . . . among other things, I punched a woman.”
It was the last thing she remembered.
* * *
Emma heard water running and realized the second form students had turned the hose on again outside her cottage. They liked to fill her birdbath, but they didn’t always remember to turn off the spigot. She frowned and tried to shape the words to remind them, but couldn’t manage.
The water stopped running. She settled deeper into her comfortable bed.
“Emma?”
She peeled her eyelids open just enough to see a white ceiling. Too white a ceiling to belong in her dear cottage. And where was the petal-shaped crack over her bed?
“Emma?”
She forced her eyelids the rest of the way open and saw Kenny coming across the carpet toward the bed. What was Kenny doing in her cottage?
He had a towel tucked around his hips, another draped over his shoulders. His hair was wet and mussed.
The world slipped back into place, and she realized she was in his condo. In his bed.
She groaned.
“Rise and shine, Queen Elizabeth.”
“What am I doing here?” she croaked.
“I’ve got a fresh pot of coffee downstairs that I think might appeal to you. You definitely can’t hold your liquor.”
“Please . . .” she managed, as she took in the rumpled bed. “Tell me I don’t owe you thirty dollars.”
“Honey, after what happened last night, I owe you.”
She moaned and buried her face in the pillow.
He chuckled. “You are one wildcat between the sheets, I’ll tell you that.”
She forced herself to look at him, then sagged back into the pillows as she took in the diabolic gleam in his eyes. “Save your energy. Nothing happened.”
“What makes you think that?”
“You’re still standing.”
Another chuckle.
Considering her impaired physical condition, she thought that was a fairly cheeky response, but she felt too dreary to take much satisfaction from it. She eased herself into a sitting position and saw she was wearing a University of Texas T-shirt, her bra, and her underpants. Right now she wouldn’t let herself think about how she’d gotten out of her clothes.
“Do you want me to turn the shower on for you?”
She stumbled toward the bathroom door. “I’ll turn it on for myself. You may fetch my coffee.”
“Yes, Your Ladyship.”
She shut the bathroom door, peeled his T-shirt over her head, let her bra drop, and turned toward the sink.
That was when she screamed.
On the other side of the door, Kenny grinned, then listened as Emma’s scream changed into something close to a sob. His grin grew broader, only to fade into a scowl as he heard feet pounding on the stairs. “Shit.”
The bedroom door shot open, and a gorgeous brunette with inky black hair and a model’s body burst in. “Jeeze, Kenny, did you kill one this time?”
Emma flew out from the bathroom, a large towel wrapped around her body, her eyes the size of a fairly decent water hazard. “What did you do to me!”
“Emma, I’d like you to meet my baby sister, Torie. Torie, this is Lady Emma Wells-Finch.”
As Emma tried to get her mouth to work, Kenny noticed that Torie was outfitted, as usual, in Nieman Marcus’s best, one of those simple little dresses that cost more than the national debt, along with an expensive pair of Italian sandals. A couple of divot-sized diamond studs flashed at her ears, a wedding gift from her last ex-husband.
Her hair was as dark as his and jaw-length, except around her face where it was cut shorter. At twenty-eight, she was tall, lean, green-eyed, and gorgeous. She was also a pain in the ass. Still, he loved her, and he might be the only person in the world who understood how much unhappiness lurked beneath her good ol’ girl bluster.
“Don’t you ever use a doorbell?” he grumbled.
“Why should I when I have a perfectly good key?” She regarded Emma with interest. “Honey, that is one hell of a tattoo you got there.”
Ignoring her, Emma charged toward him, tears glistening in her eyes. “How could you have let this happen?”
He studied the red, white, and blue Lone Star flag that now flew across a good portion of her upper left arm along with a curling banner beneath it that read Kenny.
“Wasn’t much I could do about it. You know how you are when you’ve got your mind set on something.”
“I was drunk.”
“You can say that again.”
“At least it’s not ordinary,” Torie said in an attempt to be kind.
Emma stared at her as Torie extended her hand. “Nice to meet you, Lady Emma. In case you missed the introduction, I’m Torie Traveler. I had a couple of other last names, but I recently got rid of them and went back to the basics. Don’t be offended when I tell you that you have terrible taste in men.” She dropped Emma’s hand and turned on Kenny. “You could have returned at least one of my phone calls, you sonovabitch.”
“Why? You’ll just tell me I have to go to Wynette, and I don’t want to go to Wynette right now.”
“Fine. You can ignore me until the wedding, then.”
“You and Phillip Morris tying the knot?” he asked.
“His name is Phillip Morrison, and you know very well that’s not the wedding I’m talking about.”
“Things between you and Phillip didn’t work out, I take it.”
“He wanted me to stop cussing and give him ten strokes.” She plopped one graceful hand on her hip. “I swear I couldn’t go through the rest of my life watching that golf swing of his without providing some semi-obscene commentary.”
“You broke up with him because you didn’t like his swing?”
“That and the fact that he named his cock.”
“Lots of men do that.”
“Yeah, but do they call it Barbie?”
Kenny sighed. “You’re making this up.”
“I wish I was.”
Emma couldn’t stand it any longer, and she whirled on him. “How did I get this tattoo!”
“You were dead set on it.”
“A flower! I wanted a small flower!”
“Not last night you didn’t. And, honey, you should be thanking me instead of yelling because you also ordered up the Union Jack for your other arm. When I put my foot down about that, we had a rip-snortin’ fight. I finally had to carry you out of the tattoo parlor kicking and screaming. I was afraid to take you back to the hotel, which is why you ended up here.”
Emma sagged down on the side of the bed. “But I only had two margaritas. How could I lose my memory on two drinks?”
“Each one of them packed a pretty good wallop. And you don’t seem to tolerate alcohol too well.”
She buried her head in her hands. “Nothing’s gone right since the moment I met you.”
“Which should pretty much give you a clue how the rest of your relationship’s gonna progress,” Torie said, heading toward the mirror to check her hair. “Kenny has a not-so-secret aversion to intimacy brought on by an unhealthy early relationship with our late, unlamented mother.”
“Will you shut up!”
Torie fluffed her bangs. “He bounces back and forth between bimbos, because they’re safe, and real women with actual brains, because that’s the type he naturally prefers. But the key word here is bounce. He’s pretty much the Bermuda Triangle when it comes to committed relationships. Count yourself lucky if you figure that out early on.”
“Will you get the hell out of here!” He spoke before Emma had a chance to clarify their relationship.
“Not till you promise to come back to Wynette. Daddy’s planning to hold the wedding while you’re on suspension so he can make sure you’ll be there.”
“You just said you and Phillip broke up.”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about! My wedding to that dweeb Dexter O’Conner.”
“When are you going to figure out that they can’t have a wedding without your cooperation?” He whipped the towel from around his neck and tossed it aside.
“That’s easy to say, but Daddy’s putting a lot of pressure on me. He’s given me thirty days to get Dexter’s ring on my finger or he’s canceling my charge cards. Then how am I going to pay my feed bill?”
“He’s bluffing.” Kenny headed into his walk-in closet.
“Not this time.” Her voice grew small and discouraged. “Maybe I should just marry Dexter.” She gave a self-deprecating laugh. “That and getting divorced are about the only things I do really well.”
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Do you think I’d even consider it if I wasn’t desperate?” she retorted angrily. “Those emus are getting bigger all the time, and it costs a fortune to feed them. Daddy’s been complaining about it for a while, but he hasn’t threatened to cut me off until now.”
“If you’d sent those birds to that great big emu pasture in the sky like I told you, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“I couldn’t do that, and you know it!
Emma was temporarily distracted from her own misery. “Emus?”
“They look exactly like ostriches that have been dipped in chimney soot,” Kenny explained. “The most butt-ugly bird you’ve ever seen.”
“They are not!” Torie protested. Then she shrugged. “All right. Maybe they aren’t too attractive, but they’re sweet.”
“And therein lies the problem,” Kenny drawled. “My sister, the genius entrepreneur, got sucked into the emu craze a few years back when people started hearing about how they could make a fortune raising the birds because they didn’t take up much land and there was going to be a huge market for emu products.”
“I needed to be self-supporting so I could get out of my marriage,” Torie interrupted. “And their oil has exceptional healing properties. It’s used to treat injuries in the NFL. Plus, emu meat has more protein, half the calories, and less fat than beef, but it tastes exactly the same.”
“How would you know, since you’ve never eaten a bite of emu in your life?”
“Someday.”
He snorted. “Unfortunately, the emu market has been slow to materialize. Not that it would have made much difference to my sister because the few times she’s had a chance to sell one or two of her birds for meat, she’s refused to do it.”
She turned to Emma. “Whenever I thought about having them slaughtered, my face broke out. I tried to sell breeding pairs, but nobody’s buying these days.”
“Now she’s stuck with feeding a growing herd of emus nobody wants.”
“It’s sort of an existentialist nightmare.” She gave a deep sigh, then the corner of her mouth quirked. “On the other hand, life always has its bright side, and at least I don’t have a tattoo of the Lone Star on my arm.”
Emma glanced down at the horrific tattoo and shuddered. She would have to wear long sleeves for the rest of her life.
Her muzzy head, the trauma of the tattoo, and the sheer force of Torie’s invasion into Kenny’s bedroom had kept her from processing the real content of their conversation, but now she began to absorb it. “Are you saying your father is trying to force you into marrying someone you dislike?”
“Or give up the charge card that’s been paying off my feed bill, not to mention a few other minor necessities like decent clothes and gas money. My daddy and Dexter’s father have me trapped. They can’t come up with any other way to arrange a merger than for Dexter and me to . . . merge.”
“Merger?”
Kenny came out of his closet, still bare-chested, zipping up a pair of chinos. “Our father owns TCS, Traveler Computer Systems. It’s located in Wynette. Dexter’s father owns Com National, his fiercest competitor. Their main plant’s in Austin, but he built a smaller research and development facility in Wynette just to get under my father’s skin. The two companies have been duking it out since the seventies, pretty much using whatever slimeball trick either man could come up with to stay on top of the other. Unfortunately, they got so preoccupied hating each other’s guts that they stopped paying attention to all the young companies nipping at their heels. Now both TCS an
d Com National are in trouble, and the only way they can survive is to merge. If that happens, they’ll be pretty much invincible.”
Emma shook her head. “I still don’t understand what this has to do with Torie. Companies merge all the time without people getting married to accomplish it, especially when their fathers hate each other.”
“Not these two companies,” he said, bringing a light blue denim shirt from the closet. “The men have pulled too many shady deals on each other—not just business stuff, personal as well. Now neither of them trusts the other, but they both want the merger.”
“So they’re making me the sacrificial lamb to hold the whole thing together.” Torie extracted a pack of cigarettes from her purse, only to have Kenny snatch them away and pitch them in the wastebasket.
Emma felt disoriented. Was there an epidemic of marriage-by-blackmail going on in the Western world? How had it happened that she’d managed to meet another woman in a similar situation? It seemed too bizarre to be coincidental, and the image of Francesca Serritella Day Beaudine came into her mind. But that made no sense. Francesca might know about Torie’s dilemma, but she didn’t know about Emma’s own.
She needed to be alone so she could think, and she rose from the side of the bed. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to shower, and then I need to get back to the hotel.”
Half an hour later she emerged from the bedroom and headed downstairs dressed in the short dress she’d worn last night, with Kenny’s T-shirt pulled on top to hide the awful tattoo. The thought of living the rest of her life with a Lone Star flag on her arm was bad enough, but having the word Kenny permanently etched into her skin was unbearable.
Kenny and Torie sat at the kitchen counter sipping coffee and eating donuts. Torie pointed a blue-green fingernail toward the open carton. “You want a donut, Emma? There’s a cream-filled here that your lover boy hasn’t gotten his mitts on yet.”
“He’s not my lover boy, and I think coffee is all I can handle at the moment.”
“If he’s not your lover boy, why were you naked in his bedroom?”
“That was an accident. We’re not sleeping together. He’s my driver.”
“Your driver? Kenny, what’s goin’ on?”