Dead Man's Bluff (14 page)

“It has.” She grinned and pointed the neck of her beer
bottle in his direction. “I’m real good”

“Oh, really, and why’s that?”

“I’m numb. Everything seems so…” she paused, her eyes
focused on the ceiling as she thought of the perfect word. “..irrelevant.”

“Irrelevant?” He offered her a devilish grin leaning
closer to her, drowning out the music and noise around them, truly interested
in what she had to say. Megan was a smart girl. It was interesting to hear what
was going on in her mind when she lowered her walls a little.  

“I think I tend to make things way more difficult
than they need to be, know what I mean?”

He chuckled, “Not really. I can’t really see a
pretty girl like you having any difficulties,” he leaned back in his chair allowing
his gaze to travel down her short dress showcasing her attractive legs,
“…except maybe deciding which high heels to wear, and even then I think you
can’t go wrong.”

Pink splotched her cheeks and she avoided acknowledging
his blatant assessment of her body. “Thank you, but trust me…I have a lot more
to decide than which shoes to wear.”

“Like what? Like whether or not you really want that
engagement ring on your finger?” Both of their gazes landed on the diamond
flashing on her left hand. “Who’s the lucky guy? Please, tell me it’s not the
guy I met at the ranch last time? You can do better.”

“Drew?” she squeaked out. “NO! His name is Conner.
You’ve never met him.” She shook her head, her eyes distant as she stared at
the Diamond. “It’s definitely not Drew.”

“Are you trying to convince me…or yourself?” Chris
inquired low.

She was quiet for a moment, deep in thought, and
then she snorted, covering her mouth with her right hand. “I’m sorry. It’s just
you’re being so serious and I’ve had way too much to drink to be serious. Wow.
I actually feel really good right now.” She leaned in, one of her hands
settling on his thigh. That luscious mouth of hers pressed to his ear, “Do you
mind driving Emma and me back out to the ranch? I don’t think either of us is
capable of driving.” She put some space between them. “I could call Drew, but I
don’t really want to. You’re welcome to use the spare bedroom. It would
probably be good…you know, getting a chance to really check the place out
before you decide. Whew, that was a lot.”

“I don’t mind at all, it will be my pleasure,” he
placed a hand on her knee, playfully squeezing. Oh yes, a few more beers and
this night would get real interesting.

But then, Emma happened. The girl was like a tornado
ripping through his quiet calm, turning his plans to nothing more than a
swirling cloud of ‘
irrelevant
’ dust. She returned with three bottled
beers held snuggly against her chest so she wouldn’t drop them. He immediately
reached for one unable to keep his knuckles from brushing the bare flesh there.
Any other time and place, without a doubt, he would be using his best pickup
lines on Emma. There was something about her that caused an instant reaction in
him, a strong one. The timing sucked. Her being there sucked. Her plump lips
edged up into a seductive smile as if she knew he was struggling with his
control.

He’d uncapped his beer, tilted his head back, his
throat moving as he chugged the much needed alcohol when she pulled on his arm
rather forcibly.  The action caused him to spill his beer down the front of his
sweater and he frowned. Tornado. Dust.

“Dance with me,” she murmured in his ear, not really
giving him the option of saying no before she was hauling him onto the dance
floor. She led him through the sprinkling of couples and turned sliding her
arms possessively up around his neck. “I like this song.”

Poison. Every Rose Has Its Thorn was blaring through
the speakers. Perfect. Naturally. There couldn’t be a better song for the
moment. Her fingers absently played with the length of his hair. His hands rested
on the small of her back. She smelled like sugar cookies, and oddly she felt right
in his arms. “Does this normally work for you?” he hissed in her ear, rolling a
shoulder to indicate he wanted her to stop doing whatever it was she was doing
to his hair. It was distracting and caused tingles he wasn’t prepared for. He
leaned back slightly, raised a brow and waited for an answer.

She blinked her wide blue eyes innocently at him,
“Does what work?”

“The aggressive behavior? Aren’t girls supposed to
play hard to get?” He held her gaze. This girl knew exactly what she was doing to
him and was finding his reaction amusing. She was toying with him.

“I’m allowed to recognize an attractive guy. You
look like too much of a do-gooder to make the first move, so I decided to make
it easy for you.”

A do-gooder was definitely one thing he’d never been
called. “What makes you say I’m …” he could barely keep a straight face, “a
do-gooder?”

One of her hands slid from his neck, a fingertip
trailing down the column of his throat to the skin revealed. “First, the way
you dress. It screams you care about money. Then there is your interest in the
ranch that says you’re looking for the whole package: home, wife, kids…boring.”
She brought her lips close to his, so close he could feel her warm breath as
she spoke, “And your hand hasn’t once moved to my ass. Although the way you’re
staring at me, well, that says you want more than boring.”

He wanted to kiss her, that’s what he wanted, but
that wasn’t part of the plan. The light brush of his lips against the corner of
her mouth was the most he could manage, for now. He chuckled. “And, what makes
you think you’re not boring?”

Her pretty lips curled wickedly. “Oh, I’m not boring.”

“Okay, I’ll buy that. You don’t strike me as the
boring type,” he conceded.

“So we’ve known each other for fifteen minutes and you
already think you know me. What type am I then?”

“First I’d like to point out…you analyzed me by what
I’m wearing. And Type? Baby, you’re the type that gets into an awful lot of
trouble.” He answered smugly. Their bodies were as close as two peoples could
get out in public without it being sleazy, but they were quickly moving into
the danger zone. He’d barely noticed the slow song had changed to a different
one. They continued to dance, their bodies moving with familiarity that couples
who’d been together for a while had.

Her lips were so close to his, it was all he could
do not to kiss her. He’d never felt such a strong attraction to someone so
instantly and it was kind of unnerving. Maybe, she was a test. A test to see if
he could stay focused. Pulling his head back, his gaze traveled the perimeter
of the dance floor going to the table where he’d left Megan. A guy had already
swooped in for the kill: over doing it with the light touches and fake smiles.  Chris
was moments from ending his slow dance with Emma when he heard a familiar deep
chuckle. He turned his head and saw Griffin slow dancing with a girl no more
than a couple of feet away. Chris’s body tensed thinking the guy would squeal him
out as a fake. But it seemed Griffin was more interested in scowling at Emma
over his cute partners shoulder.

The way Emma was shooting the guy ‘go to hell’ looks
it wasn’t too difficult to figure out what was going on. Suddenly, it all made
sense, her interest in him. Well hell, she was using him to make another guy
jealous. Damn, if that wasn’t a blow to a guy’s ego.

“What are you grinning about?” Emma asked, her blue
eyes narrowing suspiciously on his face.

He didn’t get a chance to answer, before her hand slipped
around to the nape of his neck and she tugged, rather forcibly, his head down
to hers. Her warm tongue slid into his mouth and all rationale thoughts
dissipated from his brain. She tasted like alcohol, but there was more,
something spicy and erotic: cinnamon. No way, he loved the taste of cinnamon,
especially on her. His right hand moved up from her lower back to tangle with
her blonde curls. Within seconds the kiss changed, became deeper, bruising, all
consuming. In that moment, Chris didn’t give a shit about his father, or knocking
his spoiled brother down a notch, or about Griffin, or even the whispers and
stares they were earning from the nearby couples. All he cared about was the slow
hot exploration of her mouth. She made a whimpering sound, and tried to pull
away but his hand on the back of her head kept her there. One of her hands
moved to his chest, finger nails clawing at the fabric of his sweater, she
shoved at him and he finally allowed her break from the kiss.

She stepped back, blinked rapidly, touching a
trembling finger to her swollen lips, and then she turned and walked off,
leaving him standing in the middle of the dance floor, confused, her taste and
smell forever seared into his memory. ♠

Fifteen

Birdie caught a bug going around and was in bed
sick. Griffin was MIA. Susan was off visiting a friend, so Drew hung close to
the house taking care of Birdie. It wasn’t his idea of an eventful Friday
night, but he’d done enough partying and bar hoping to last a life time and he
genuinely cared about Birdie.

With Birdie sleeping for the past couple of hours, Drew
paced like an angry parent waiting on a teenager sneaking in way past curfew.
He’d did the whole routine: checked the time every couple of minutes, pulled
aside a drape praying for headlights in the driveway, double and triple checked
for possible messages left on his cell. The first hour he was irritated. The
second hour he was cussing mad. At 2 AM he was livid and couldn’t fight the
urge to smoke any longer. He’d turned his entire room upside down searching for
a smoke finally finding two in a flattened pack under the ever growing pile of
dirty laundry in the bottom of his closet.

Giving his sweat pants a slight tug at the waist
where they were starting to sag around his hips he stepped bare foot out onto
the front porch and sank down on the top step. His zippo clicked as he raised
the flickering flame to the end of the Marlboro wedged between his lips. His
nipples hardened in response to the chilling night air against his naked chest.
The tip of the cigarette glowed red as he inhaled deep staring up at the black
sky. The feeling of the smoke filling his lungs took the edge off. 

He knew he shouldn’t have allowed her to leave in
that damn dress. That had been a huge mistake. Taking another pull off the
Marlboro he tried to think like Emma. Where would she take Megan? It was like
trying to get into one of the seven dwarfs heads: let’s see there was Dopey,
Happy, Bashful, Sleepy, Doc, Grumpy…and the last one which reminded him of
Emma… Sleazy? Wait. No. That wasn’t right.

“It’s Sneezy not Sleazy, Moron.”

Okay, now he was thinking like Emma…where would she
go?

Clyde’s! Emma was officially on his shit list. He
leaned a shoulder against the railing, took another hit and exhaled. The wait
was going to kill him. His stomach was all queasy from this uneasy feeling he
had and the cigarette was only making matter worse. What if he was wrong? What
if Megan didn’t love him? One trait he’d definitely inherited from his father
was blind arrogance. He’d like to believe if he pursued something hard enough,
he could have it.

He flicked the half-smoked cigarette out into the damp
grass, leaned forward shoving his hands into his hair where they stayed until
he heard the motor of an approaching car. He glanced up, exhaling all the
breath in his lungs as the car turned into the dirt drive to the ranch,
headlights glowing in the black.

As soon as the engine died, he heard Megan’s
laughter and a smile crept onto his face. Well, at least she was
conscious...and laughing. Coming to his feet, resting a hip against the
railing, arms folded over his chest, he waited patiently. He saw Emma first.
She slid off her high-heels as if to be quiet, held them in one hand, frowned
and turned on the sidewalk glancing back in the direction of the car.

Uh oh. This couldn’t be good. He unfolded his arms
and took hold of hand rail, bracing for the worst. “Just so you know…I had
nothing to do with it,” Emma said, once her gaze found him on the steps.

“Chris…you are hysterical! Please, don’t make me
laugh again I have to pee really bad,” Megan announced as she rounded the
corner, coming into view pressed up against the guy’s side. The guy had his arm
around her waist helping her walk upright, both of them laughing as if they
shared an inside joke than no one else thought was funny. He sure as hell
didn’t see anything funny. Drew’s gaze traveled from her white, beautiful smile
showing in the lights lining the concrete walk, to the male fingers clutching
her waist, to her off-balance-seesaw-like-hobble.

“Why are you only wearing one high heel?” Drew
snapped. He clenched his jaw and his flesh felt on fire as a slow burn started to
hum inside him. He was five seconds away from beating the shit out of a stupid
prick.

Megan froze mid-sidewalk, her green eyes going wide
at him standing there. Her face went pale. She pointed at the shoe in the guy’s
hand. “I broke a heel. You remember Chris? He’s interested in buying the
ranch.”

“Doesn’t look like that’s all he’s interested in?”
Drew’s tone was venomous.

“What are you doing still up? I thought you’d be in
bed by now.” She was wise to hesitate in her steps towards him. He was a
volcano on the verge of erupting. He knew it. She knew it. Even Emma knew it.
The only one dumb enough to not realize the foul mood Drew was in was the guy.