Catch Me a Cowboy (11 page)

Obviously, near brushes with death could really screw up a person’s libido.

She tipped her head and hiked up one eyebrow. “You all through, honey?”

Those chocolate-coated eyes blinked, and his fingers flexed a couple tummy-tingling times before he finally released her.

“Thanks,” she said with an entire piss pot full of sarcasm. Although it didn’t seem to seep into his hillbilly brain. As he rolled to his feet, he winked at her. “Anytime, Ms. Dalton. All you have to do is ask.” Without offering to help her up, he wandered back over to his fishing pole with the muddy shoe attached. “Now if this don’t beat all.” He shook his head and chuckled. “Kenny Gene will never let me live it down when he discovers I caught me a tenny shoe.”

“About that,” Shirlene sat up and finished buttoning her blouse. “Maybe we should just keep what happened out here at Sutter Springs between you and me.”

His gaze shot back to her. “A secret, Ms. Dalton?”

“Exactly, honey.” She got to her feet.

“Well, I’ll sure try.” He scratched his head. “But I’m gonna warn you, secrets ain’t my specialty.”

It didn’t take Shirlene long to herd Sherman back to the Navigator. But the cool blast of the air conditioner didn’t cool her down a lick. It seemed Bubba had started a fire that wasn’t easily put out. By the time she got back on the main highway, her breast still tingled and her panties were still steamed.

Of course, it probably didn’t have as much to do with Bubba as it did with nine months of going without—and if the truth was known, more like a year. Lyle had been so busy the last few months of his life trying to get Dalton Oil back on its feet that he hadn’t had much time for Shirlene or sex. Which explained her volatile reaction to Bubba. She was just coming off a dry spell, was all. She would’ve reacted the same to any man who had saved her from a watery grave.

It was close to sundown when she and Sherman pulled onto Grover Road. Sherman looked about as excited to be back there as Shirlene was. He snorted with disdain as the SUV bounced over every rut and bump.

“This coming from an animal that just ate someone’s leftover, sand-encrusted peanut butter sandwich,” she said.

At the mention of food, he snorted even louder. But before she could soothe him with the promise of Josephine’s tater tots, she noticed the three kids standing by the side of the road. Kids who looked as if they’d just had all their Halloween candy stolen. Dust flew as she pulled to a stop. She barely made it around the front of the Navigator when Jesse met her.

“It’s all your fault!” he screamed as he shoved the baby at her. “We don’t got a mama, and now we don’t got Mia, neither!”

M
IA WASN’T GOING BACK
. She wasn’t. She’d done everything she could to try to keep their ragtag family together, and she couldn’t do any more. It was someone else’s problem now. Maybe the pretty, blond Ms. Dalton. Although the woman hadn’t exactly looked like she liked kids. The entire time she had been at the trailer, she’d looked like she was going to throw up on the stained carpeting. Of course, it wasn’t kids as much as poverty that probably had Ms. Dalton looking that way.

Poverty could do that to a person. Settle in your stomach and make you feel as if you couldn’t keep a thing down. Mia had felt that way ever since she could remember. Nauseous bordering on deathly ill.

She glanced in the rearview mirror of the Impala she’d stolen from “Auntie Barb” and eased her foot off the accelerator. She didn’t like to drive the car, which was why she’d kept it under a tarp and a pile of garbage for most of their stay in Bramble. Even if she and Jesse had switched out license plates, all it would take was a cop pulling her over for her to be sent back to Houston. And
just like she wasn’t going back to Bramble, she was never going back to Houston.

She’d been there and done that. All she had was nineteen more months. Nineteen months before she would turn eighteen and could go where she wanted to go and do what she wanted to do without worrying about Children’s Services breathing down her neck. But for now, she just wanted to drive and try to forget Jesse’s accusing brown eyes. And Brody’s tear-streaked face. And Adeline’s loud screams.

If she could just get far enough away, she could forget. She knew she could.

Unfortunately, in order to get far enough away, she needed gas. She had hoped she would be able to get out of Bramble before she stopped. Now it looked as if she would barely make it to Jones’s Garage. She rolled up to a pump with the car jerking and sputtering.

Stepping out of the car, she reached in her purse and pulled out the brown wallet with the scrolled Ls and Vs. She’d planned on giving the wallet back to Ms. Dalton after Jesse had discovered it on the front steps. She didn’t believe in stealing from complete strangers, just from horrible foster parents who had no business taking in kids. But after buying the groceries that morning, she only had a few dollars left.

She pulled out the gold American Express and stared at the name. Shirlene Grace Dalton. One day, Mia would have an American Express card with her name on it. And when she did, she’d pay back Ms. Dalton every cent she owed her.

Until then, she needed to borrow some.

Except when she slipped the card in the slot it was
denied—as were five others. Had the woman already canceled them? Mia glanced around, waiting for a sting operation to jump out and grab her. But no Feds showed up, just the football hero of Bramble, Texas.

Which was almost worse to a skinny girl with glasses and bad acne.

“Hey, you need some help?” Austin Reeves strutted across the oil-spotted pavement in cowboy boots that were too pointed, and a straw cowboy hat that looked as if it had been put through the spin cycle one too many times.

The purse slipped out of Mia’s hands and spilled out on the concrete. Completely humiliated, she didn’t waste any time shoveling the spilled contents back inside and climbing into the car. But after only one joyous rumble, the engine sputtered and died. A hand thumped on the roof, and Austin leaned down and peered in the window with a cocky grin on his tanned face.

“Did you forget something?”

Mia swallowed hard and tried not to look at the boy who had starred in so many of her daydreams. “Like what?”

“Like gas?”

She blushed to the roots of her hair. “Oh, yeah, I guess I was busy texting and forgot.”

She could feel his eyes staring down at her as if she was the dumbest thing this side of the Mississippi, and she hated people thinking she was dumb. Hated it with a passion.

Tipping her chin up, she turned and looked at him. “Aren’t you that football player who plays for Bramble High—Avery? No, Albert?” She snapped her fingers. “Alvin!”

His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t pull back. Instead he continued to rest his hand on the roof and stare at her. “Austin.”

“Oh, right.” She gave him a closed-mouth smile.

He continued to study her until she thought she might scream. Then finally he stuck his hand in the window. “If you’ll give me your card, I’ll fill her up for you.”

It wasn’t like Mia had much of a choice. Hand him a credit card or sit there like an idiot. She just hoped that he wouldn’t take the time to read the name on the card. Pulling out the wallet, she chose the only card she hadn’t tried and handed it to him. “So what position do you play?” she asked in an attempt to distract him. Everyone in town knew what position Austin Reeves played.

“Quarterback,” he stated as he slipped the card in the slot.

It seemed like a lifetime passed while she waited for authorization. And when the pump beeped its acceptance, Mia finally released her breath as he handed the card back. Although his next words caused her empty stomach to heave.

“I know you.”

She glanced up to find him leaning back against the car, his head cocked toward her.

“You’re Jesse’s sister, Mia.”

She was shocked that such a popular boy would know her name, shocked and embarrassed all at the same time.

“I bought a dirt bike from your brother that kicks ass,” he continued. “He gave me a sweet deal, although his smart mouth is kinda hard to take.”

The mention of Jesse had a lump crawling up the back of her throat. Jesse did have a smart mouth, but it was all
a defense mechanism put in place to hide his tender heart. A heart she’d trampled when she blamed him for Ms. Dalton finding out they lived in the trailer. But it hadn’t been Jesse’s fault. Sooner or later, someone would’ve found out.

Mia just wished it had been later.

She looked out the car’s windshield at the sunset that had exploded across the horizon in deep tangerines and cherry-pink. About now the kids would be eating the boxed macaroni and cheese she’d brought home that day from the Food Mart. Brody would try to whistle through his noodles, and Adeline would get half of hers on the floor. Jesse would’ve burnt the toast again and wasted too much butter, but it wouldn’t matter. She wouldn’t be there to scold him. Or to help him clean up and fix the things he’d found in the dump that day. And she wouldn’t be there to give Brody and Adeline their baths. Or tell them a bedtime story. Or kiss them goodnight.

“Hey,” Austin stood in the window looking down at her. “You okay?”

The lump in her throat that had started out as a pebble seemed to have gotten so big she couldn’t get words past it. Luckily, becoming a mute seemed to work in her favor. Austin shot her one confused and slightly scared look before he quickly finished filling the tank and screwed on the cap. Once it was fueled, the car started right up.

Without any acknowledgment or gratitude, Mia pulled away from the pumps. But when she reached the highway, she couldn’t seem to get her hands to turn the steering wheel in the direction leading north out of Bramble. Nor could she get her foot to press on the accelerator. She just sat there, uncaring that the most popular boy in town still watched her with his crumpled cowboy hat pushed back
on his high forehead. She wasn’t sure how long it was before she pulled out onto the blacktop.

Twilight had barely settled against the heated earth when Mia pulled in behind the Navigator. She climbed out of the car and had only taken two steps when Jesse came flying out of nowhere and flung himself at her.

“I’m sorry, Mia.” He shoved his wet face into her neck. “I won’t ever tell no one nothin’ ever again. And I ain’t gonna disrespect you, and I’ll do my school work and clean up after myself and never sass back—just don’t ever leave us again.” He pulled back, his red hair standing in mussed tufts on the top of his head and his freckled face smudged with dirt. “Okay? Just don’t leave us.”

About then, the front door opened, and Brody came racing down the steps, the naked Barbie held tightly in his hand. He hit her full in the legs and almost toppled her to the ground.

“Mine!” he growled. “Mine!”

The steps creaked, and Mia looked over to see Ms. Dalton standing there holding a sobbing Adeline. The baby held out her hands to Mia and that was the final straw. Tears dripped down Mia’s face like every leaky faucet in the trailer, and her stomach lurched. She figured she would throw up, but instead, she found the strength to utter three words.

“I need help.”

T
HE FIRST THING TO GREET
Shirlene when she stepped inside the First Baptist Church was reverent silence. And being that Shirlene was anything but reverent—or silent—she almost turned right back around. The only thing that stopped her was the image of four sets of heart-wrenching eyes. Still, when Shirlene walked through the doors of the chapel and saw the huge gold cross that hung over the altar, she wondered if a telephone call wouldn’t work just as well. Death by lightning wasn’t exactly the way she wanted to go.

“Shirlene Dalton?”

Her gaze snapped up to the high arched ceiling before she realized it wasn’t God talking but Pastor Robbins. He strode down the aisle dressed in his usual weekday attire of running shoes, board shorts, and a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt. His gaze swept from the top of the Texas Rangers baseball cap pulled over her hair to the toes of the flip-flops she’d borrowed from Mia. His forehead knotted, although she didn’t know if he was more confused by her outfit or by the fact that Shirlene Dalton was
standing in his church. Probably both. Shirlene was pretty darned confused herself.

But being the man of God he was, the pastor recovered quickly. With a teasing grin, he waved the paintbrush he held in one hand. “Please tell me you came to help me touch-up the baseboards.”

Shirlene flashed him a smile. Not the kind she flashed most handsome men. She was a flirt, but she didn’t believe in messing with men who had a direct line to the Almighty.

“If you’d seen my artwork in grade school, Pastor, you wouldn’t be askin’,” she said.

“Well, you couldn’t be any worse than I am. I can’t wait for Mr. Sims to get back from visiting his grandkids in San Antonio. Although when he sees my handyman work, he might just quit altogether.” He shot her a quizzical look. “So is there something I can help you with, Ms. Dalton?”

“Actually I stopped by to ask you some questions,” she said.

Pastor Robbins studied her for only a moment before he nodded and held out a hand. “Why don’t we talk in my office?”