Texas Fever Read online

  He grabbed his drill and bolted the new transmission into position. It was his last major fix before moving on to the bodywork, and at the pace he was going, he would be finished with the restoration in no time.

  He finished with the last bolt and pushed and pulled to make sure the connection was secure. He leaned back and wiped a hand over his sweaty brow. It was the dead of night and the temperature had dropped a few degrees, but not nearly enough to cool the heat swamping his senses. The extra shop lights he’d set up off to the side pushed back the darkness and made the barn that much hotter.

  Grabbing a nearby glass of watered-down iced tea, he downed half the contents. The liquid cooled his throat and the caffeine sent a jolt to his brain.

  Not that he needed it. It was well after midnight and he was still wide-awake.

  He couldn’t blame Uncle Eustace and Aunt Lurline. While they fought about everything from how he liked his eggs in the morning, to who she thought was more handsome—David Letterman or Conan O’Brien—Josh had started tuning them out days ago. He was either too busy to let the bickering get to him—he spent his mornings on the back of a horse, overseeing the various activities on the ranch, his afternoons in front of a computer screen working on the financial end of the Iron Horse—or too preoccupied thinking about Holly.

  It was the thinking that drove him out to the barn and under the hood of the GTO. Only when he picked up a tool and focused his attention on the engine could he forget the fact that her scent seemed to linger longer than any other woman’s, and her voice still echoed in his ears and her image stayed vivid in his head long after it should have faded.

  He was definitely losing it. But at least he had the GTO to keep him just this side of a straitjacket and save him from his damnable thoughts.

  Just the way he’d had old Mr. Baines and his crop duster to salvage his sanity so long ago when his parents had died and his grandfather had pushed him away.

  I guess we all gravitate toward the familiar.

  She’d been right, all right.

  While crop dusting had been a world away from hauling ass down Main Street in a souped-up muscle car, the rush had been the same. He’d felt free and in control and lost in the moment. When he’d climbed into the copilot’s seat of the crop duster, there’d been no worries, no fear, no regret. It had been the only time he didn’t think about his past and the night he’d lied to his mother.

  And so he walked out to the barn night after night, so that he wouldn’t have to think now. Not about Holly or the fact that while he’d managed to piece most of the ranch back together, the Iron Horse would never be completely whole without those last twenty-five acres that Holly still refused to sell him.

  Close, but not quite there.

  That’s what ate at his gut so damned often now and made him feel even more unsettled. Restless. Incomplete.

  The missing land.

  That’s what Josh told himself. He just wasn’t so sure he believed it anymore.

  “I FEEL A LITTLE funny about this.” Holly eyeballed the bread sticks piled on her plate. It was Monday night and she had accompanied Sue to the Elk’s monthly spaghetti dinner.

  “Now, but once the ladies’ bible study lets out and this place really fills up, you’ll be thanking me.” Sue retrieved another fresh-baked goody and topped off Holly’s pile before filling her own plate. “I’m telling you, these things are like gold. It’s Irma Bushnell’s special recipe—she’s married to Sonny who’s the Elk in charge of activities. The woman’s been an annual Romeo Bake-Off champion at least a dozen times.” Sue took a bite and closed her eyes in ecstasy. “She’s got a gift,” she declared after savoring her mouthful.“It’s the flour,” Holly said after she’d eaten a few bites of her own. “She goes strictly for the baking flour and does extracareful sifting.” When Sue raised her eyebrows, Holly added, “That’s what gives them the melt-in-your-mouth texture.”

  “You’re good.”

  Holly grinned. “So are these.” She turned back to the buffet. “Should we stockpile the meatballs, too?” Sue stopped her just shy of the serving tongs and shook her head.

  “Francis Marbury does the meatballs,” Sue said.

  “And?”

  “Francis Marbury, as in Marbury Grain and Feed.”

  “And?”

  “Word has it that Marbury Grain and Feed places the biggest Purina Dog Chow order in the county.”

  “So?”

  Sue shrugged. “All’s I’m saying is that it’s mighty suspicious. And speaking of suspicious, I still can’t believe that Paul actually caught fire and melted.”

  “We shouldn’t have left the box so close to the oven.” Holly averted her gaze and stepped toward the mountain of noodles.

  “But he was on the opposite side of the room.”

  “It’s a commercial oven. It gets really hot. And with this heat wave…I’ve felt like melting myself a time or two.”

  “But he was supposed to be antiflammable.”

  “Maybe he had a defect.” Before Sue could think on the subject, Holly rushed on, “At least the company is making good on their guarantee and sending you a brand-new doll.”

  “But shouldn’t I have to send back the damaged one so they can test it and figure out what went wrong?”

  “Ordinarily, but it went up in flames so fast that the only thing left were a few metal pieces which were little more than junk.” Or at least that’s what Holly figured would be left if Paul had actually met his maker rather than the inside of her attic where she’d hidden him away after recipe number six. She couldn’t very well let Sue ship back used goods and so she’d stashed Paul, invented the oven story and ordered Sue a brand-new doll. “I can’t wait to see the cowboy doll. You say he actually looks like Bert Wayne?”

  “Sort of, but he’s not nearly as handsome. Bert has these incredible eyes…”

  The mention of Sue’s ex effectively changed the topic until Sue spotted the man himself and headed across the room to flaunt her new makeover. Meanwhile, Holly made her way over to a small table. It was early, but there were already a lot of people. Apparently, Sue had been right about the breadsticks because she saw several other people with their plates piled high. She was just about to eat one herself when she heard a voice behind her.

  “You must be new to town.”

  She turned to see a man with dark hair and a wide smile standing behind her. He looked to be about her age, his eyes a deep, warm brown that crinkled when he smiled.

  “As a matter of fact, I am.”

  His smile widened. “Dime Jackson’s the name.” He held out his hand and she hesitated.

  Hello? The guy wants to shake your hand, not toss you over his shoulder and carry you to bed. And even if he did want to carry you to bed, what’s so wrong with that?

  She thought of Josh and their last encounter. And the fact that they were going to have two more—provided she could figure out the house special. She wasn’t the type of woman to juggle two men at one time.

  You don’t have to juggle. Just keep your eyes open for future prospects. Relax. Open up. Make friends.

  Holly smiled and placed her hand in his.

  “…SO I TRIED my jumper cables, but the blasted things didn’t do nothin’ but scare the living daylights out of me.” Davy Crockett Buckhorn took a sip of his iced tea and leaned back in his chair. At ninety-two, he was the oldest of the four brothers sitting around the small card table and the oldest official Elk in the entire county. An honor once held by Josh’s grandfather who’d been ninety-three when he’d passed away last year.

  “Why, I nearly peed myself when the jolt hit me,” he went on. “There was this zap, and bam, I was seeing Jesus. It was one of them near-death experiences like they talk about on the TV.”“It’s the cotton pickin’ truth and nothin’but the truth,” said the man to Davy’s right. Jim Bowie Buckhorn had just turned ninety, which made him the second oldest of the bunch.

  “You can say that again.”

 
“Damn straight.”

  The comments came from the other two men at the table. Sam Houston Buckhorn was eighty-seven and his baby brother, Stephen Austin, was eighty-four.

  While all four men were too old to do little more than sip tea and gossip, they’d been the county’s biggest hell-raisers back in the day, and his grandfather’s closest friends. Permanent fixtures at the Iron Horse when Josh had been growing up. Always sitting out on the porch, playing dominoes or cards or just shooting the shit till daybreak.

  Josh had always been right in the middle of it all. He’d been just a kid, maybe six years old when he’d left his brothers sound asleep and tiptoed down the stairs on a Friday night to ease open the front door and listen in on the men’s good time. He’d been eight when his gramps had first caught a glimpse of him and asked him to fetch a plate of sandwiches from the kitchen. He’d brought out the platter and stuck around to nibble corn nuts and watch. For the next five years, he’d thrived on the wild stories they’d told and watched in awe as they’d played high-stakes poker. He’d learned the difference between a flush and a full house, heard the first of many dirty jokes and discovered the various pleasures to be had with a woman.

  Any and every woman.

  At the time, he hadn’t really thought about the right and wrong of everything he’d heard—each member of the group had been married. Josh had been young. Impressionable. A full-blooded McGraw. And so the men’s lives had sounded so exciting that he’d simply lived for the day when he could join in and tell some stories of his own. Until he’d turned sixteen. He’d changed his mind then, but it had been too late.

  He’d already turned into one of them and he’d proven it the night of his mother’s death when he’d covered for his father.

  Surprisingly, the thought didn’t leave near the bad taste in his mouth that it usually did. He still felt the tightness in his throat and the pain in his chest, but it seemed softer. As if it had faded, just like the men in front of him.

  Josh turned his attention to Davy. Gone was the loud, obnoxious flirt who’d once bragged that he’d taken on four women at the same time. In his place sat an old, hunched-over man who could barely get his twisted fingers around the tea glass because of the rheumatoid arthritis that had devastated his body.

  “So’s then I tried to check the fan belt. But my screwdriver kept slipping and I stabbed the dad-burned oil pan and gave it a good dent. Damned old hands. Getting old is hell.”

  “It’s worse than hell. It’s like never-ending Sunday dinner with your momma-in-law,” Jim added.

  “You can say that again,” Sam chimed in.

  “Damn straight,” said Stephen.

  Davy shook his snow-white head. “I finally worked the fan belt off and replaced it, but she still wouldn’t even turn over, so’s I had no choice but to call a wrecker and have her hauled over to Shake McCauley’s for a look-see. If anybody can fix it, I figure it’ll be Shake. Shake’s about the best mechanic in town.”

  “Forget the town. Shake’s the best in the whole danged county.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “Damn straight.”

  The band launched into a familiar Toby Keith song and the dance floor filled with people. Josh’s gaze shifted to Holly in time to see her shake hands with Dime Jackson.

  “Isn’t Shake the only mechanic in town?” Josh asked, forcing his gaze back to the old men. It wasn’t like Josh had any real claim on Holly.

  Sure, they were having sex, but that was purely physical. It wasn’t as if he cared whether or not she talked to other men.

  “Been the only one around here who can crawl an engine since your daddy passed on way back when. Your grandpa knew his stuff, but he couldn’t get around too well these last years on account of his bad knees. And then he had the tremors ’cause of all that high blood pressure. So Shake’s all we got, and that ain’t sayin’much considerin’ he spent five hours under the hood of my old Lincoln and he still couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Josh saw Dime smile at Holly, and she smiled at him, and something twisted in Josh’s gut. His mind rushed back to last Saturday night. He’d felt the same stab of jealousy when he’d seen her with the doll, but it had been nothing compared to the slicing and dicing he felt right now.

  His mouth drew into a thin line as he shifted his attention back to the old men.

  Okay, so he cared.

  She was a beautiful woman and she had a good heart. He admired her determination to make a new life and the strength it took to hold her own while the town treated her like an outsider.

  Hell, he actually liked her.

  While their relationship might be purely business, and very temporary, he wanted exclusives with her for the time being.

  “So where’s the Lincoln now?” Josh asked.

  “Had it towed back to my place. I ordered me some of them Time Life books off the TV. The ones that give you step-by-step instructions on how to fix stuff. I figure I’ll read up and fix it myself. I was wonderin’ if I could borrow your daddy’s old tools. Never was into cars myself and so I don’t have a very good collection.”

  “Sure.” Josh eyeballed Dime who left Holly to climb onto the stage and make a song dedication to the new lady in town. The band struck up an old Hank Williams tune and Josh frowned.

  “…used to know my way around an engine pretty well in my day, if I do say so myself. I know I can fix whatever ails her if I can just get a good look-see.”

  Josh’s gaze went to Jim and his thick bifocals before dropping to the twisted hand resting on his knee. “How about if I drop by the house and help you take a look?”

  “I thought you gave up car engines for that fancy-pants flying?”

  “I do charter flights. Very few passengers and no crew. When things go wrong, I fix it myself. I still know my way around an engine. You fellas take care,” Josh said as he started to turn.

  “You ain’t gonna play dominoes with us?” Davy asked.

  “Not tonight.” Tonight, Josh was playing with someone else.

  And the game started now.

  “HE’S NOT YOUR TYPE.” Josh’s deep, husky words slid into Holly’s ears and prickled the hair on the nape of her neck. Awareness raced up her spine and kick-started her heartbeat.

  Not here, a voice whispered. Not now. Not him.“I don’t know about that. I could get used to a man singing me songs.”

  “If the man could sing.”

  Dime Jackson hit a high note and she tried not to cringe. “It’s still sweet.”

  “Too sweet,” Josh said, his warmth cradling her back. He didn’t actually touch her, but it didn’t matter. He stood so close she could smell the clean scent of his aftershave.

  “Sweet can be good.”

  “Sweet doesn’t make you catch your breath.” He leaned in closer and she felt his lips graze her temple. “It doesn’t make your stomach do flips, and it doesn’t make your skin hot and tight. It doesn’t turn you on.”

  “Maybe I’m after more than a quick turn-on. Maybe I want something solid and lasting and long-term.” She smiled, determined to focus on the thought rather than the awful voice blasting from the speakers.

  “All the more reason to avoid sweet,” Josh said after a few hair-raising lyrics. “Sweet equals damned frustrating when you’re talking long-term.”

  She started to argue, but then she had a sudden glimpse of herself as an old woman sitting in the Elk’s Lodge, listening to Dime butcher “Walking the Floor Over You” for the thousandth time.

  Her smile disappeared and her gaze shifted around the room.

  “What about him?” She pointed to a nice-looking cowboy standing at the punch bowl. He ladled a cup and handed it to an elderly woman standing nearby. “He seems nice. Nice is always good when you’re talking long-term.”

  “If you’re his mother.”

  “That’s his mother?” She watched as he helped the woman to a nearby table and steered her into a
seat, before turning to fetch a plate of spaghetti.

  “And his date.”

  A momma’s boy she didn’t need.

  “How about him?” She pointed to the blond cowboy who toted a large pan of lasagna. He nodded to several people as he headed for the buffet and added the steaming pan to the long table. “He’s good-looking. He’s got a great smile. He’s obviously not afraid to help out in the kitchen. That definitely says hot prospect.”

  “Seems like you’re not the only person who thinks so.” Josh pointed to the large man sitting behind the ticket counter. The ticket guy glanced over at the spaghetti-toting cowboy and winked. Mr. Hot Prospect winked back before turning to saunter toward the kitchen.

  A surge of relief went through her and she stiffened.

  Hello? You’re supposed to be disappointed when an attractive prospect gets eliminated.

  She knew that, but with Josh standing so close and her heartbeat thundering so loudly in her ears, she was hard-pressed to remember the ingredients to her prizewinning Cherry Body Bon Bons, much less her vow to find Mr. Long-Term. At the moment, it was Mr. Short-Term who seemed much more interesting.

  She drew a shaky breath, gathered her control and directed her attention across the room. “How about that one?” She pointed to a distinguished-looking man wearing a silver-belly Stetson, a starched white shirt and crisp jeans. A few silvery strands threaded through his dark hair. “He looks like a younger version of Sean Connery.”

  “Thanks to a bottle of Clairol. He’s this close to ordering off the senior citizen’s menu over at Waffle World.”

  “Older men are distinguished.”

  “At first, but then the arthritis gets the best of them and before you know it, you’re ordering Ben-Gay by the case. He’s definitely too old for you.”