Run To You (13 page)

“Not at all.” Stella sat on the bed next to her sister. “You can show me around here, if you’d like.”

Sadie nodded. “This used to be my bedroom.” She ran a hand across the iron frame. “This was Great-Grandmother’s bed, and I spent a lot of time in this room as a kid. A lot of time alone.”

“Didn’t you have friends?” Stella joked.

Sadie nodded. “Sure, but they all lived in town.” She crawled across the bed, laid her head on the pillow, and stretched out her long, tan legs. “Town is a long way if you’re ten and all you have is a Schwinn.”

Stella straightened the covers and put her sunglasses on the nightstand. “What did you do for fun?”

“Sheep.” Sadie yawned. “I raised sheep and cows for 4–H. I couldn’t wait to get out of Lovett. When I turned eighteen, I left and I never really came back.”

Stella spread out next to Sadie. Was she really lying next to her sister? Feeling comfortable enough to confess, “I always thought you must be perfect because our father loved you. I thought living here with him, you must have had the perfect life.”
We think we want what we never had
, Sadie had said.

“No. I loved Daddy, but he didn’t know what to do with me once my mama died. I ran wild until he’d remember that he had a daughter, a
girl
, and then he’d send me to charm school or drag a piano teacher out here or make the Parton sisters teach me how to cook and do laundry.” She rolled her head on the pillow and looked at Stella. “I could shoot and spit straight. Muck out stalls in the morning and serve finger sandwiches and tea on Mama’s Wedgwood that afternoon.” She smiled. “I was really confused about what I wanted to be when I grew up. It took me a long time to figure it out.”

Stella had always thought her sister had her act together. Born knowing her place in the world. “How long?”

Sadie grinned. “Thirty years.”

They had that in common and Stella felt comfortable enough so say, “I always feel like everyone has some sort of plan but me.” But not comfortable enough to tell her about Carlos and Vegas, though. Maybe someday. “I’ve just always worked. If I don’t like the job, I find a different one. I’m twenty-eight. I need a plan. A goal.” Yeah, she needed to figure it out.

“I spent a lot of time and Daddy’s money going to college. I went to four in four different states, and it wasn’t until I was thirty that I figured out I wanted to sell houses. It cost me about a thousand bucks and one hundred and sixty-four hours. I loved it. I loved being top seller at the brokerage and kicking butt on people who thought they were better because they’d been selling longer. Or were older.” She looked up at the ceiling and smiled. “Men.”

Stella laughed. “Male bartenders think they are sooo much better than woman bartenders. The only thing they’re better at is lifting kegs of beer or crates of liquor.”

“You’re a late bloomer like me,” Sadie said through another yawn. “You have a few years to figure out your life.”

Like me
. She’d spent twenty-eight years thinking her sister was smarter, surer, and taller. Well, she clearly was taller but not surer. Were they really alike? It was the old environment versus genetics question. Stella had spent twenty-eight years thinking her sister was one way when she was . . . asleep?

“Sadie?” she whispered. Instead of an answer, Sadie turned on her side and showed Stella the back of her blond head. Stella reached across the pillows and touched her sister’s hair, and the sunny highlights woven throughout. They were both so different. Tall. Short. Light. Dark. Raised in not only different states, but different worlds. Yet . . . they had things in common, too.

Stella pulled her hand away. She never thought she’d meet Sadie and had stopped thinking of her until the night Beau had appeared in Ricky’s parking lot looking like a ninja/spy.

Seven days. She turned onto her back and her eyes slid shut. Seven days ago she’d thought her life had been blown apart, and she supposed it had.

Perhaps for the better. If nothing else, she’d met her sister and a six-foot Marine who made her feel things she’d never felt before. He made her heart feel all warm and her skin all tingly. He made her feel safe and gave her courage when she’d always relied on her own strength.

It wasn’t until she felt a hand on her shoulder, shaking her awake, that she realized she’d fallen asleep.

“Stella, come downstairs and eat something.”

Her eyes fluttered open and for several confused moments, she thought she was in a hotel room with Beau.

“Come downstairs and eat,” Sadie said. “The boys are all here to shoot skeet.”

“Boys?”

“Vince and Blake and Beau.”

She was at the JH with her sister. “What time is it?”

“Three.”

Stella sat up. “In the afternoon?”

Sadie laughed. “You’ve been out for a while. Probably the tequila.”

That and the past seven days, added to the last two nights when she’d slept very little.

Quickly, Stella showered and dressed in the jeans skirt and blue plaid shirt she’d found in New Orleans. She matched them with her blue panties and matching bra and her jeweled flip-flops. She put on some mascara and lipstick, and with her hair still damp, she moved past the old portraits hanging in the hall and down the front stairs to the entrance.

Beau stood in the living room in front of fireplace, and her heart and feet stopped at the sight of him. The light from the antler chandelier shone on his strong profile and blond hair. He stared up at the horse painting and looked so handsome and sure—so
man
—that she couldn’t believe she’d ever found skinny guys with Mohawks and eyeliner in the least attractive. He wore a black T-shirt and beige cargo pants and his big watch around his wrist.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said as she walked into the room. “You left without saying good-bye.”

He looked across his shoulder at her, his gray eyes taking her in from her head to her toes, warming every place they touched. “Sorry.”

“Did you miss me?”

He smiled. “Of course, honey.”

Honey?
He’d never called her honey before. She liked Boots better. “I missed you last night,” she said just above a whisper.

He turned to face her and took her hand into his warm grasp. His deep voice lowered. “What did you miss most?”

“Your mouth sliding south to my—” She stopped as he raised her hand and kissed her knuckles. There was something different about the gray eyes looking back at her. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but his face looked a bit fuller. A scar dented his chin and she pulled her hand away. “You’re not Beau.”

He shook his head. “Blake Junger, and you must be Stella.”

Lord, had she just said something about Beau’s mouth sliding south? To his brother? The resemblance to Beau was spooky and raised the hair on her arms. Like when one of Abuela’s woo-woo predictions came true. “Yes.”

“No wonder he doesn’t want to talk about you.”

Except for the scar and the indefinable something about the eyes, they were a carbon copy from their blond haircuts to the sound of their voices.

“You’re as beautiful as your sister, Sadie.”

“Thank you.” She smiled up at him. “And you’re as handsome as your brother.” Probably more charming, too, but his voice didn’t make her all tingly like Beau.

“Stella,” Beau said to her as he entered the room. “Sadie is looking for you. She made sandwiches.”

She turned toward him and didn’t even try to hide her smile. “I’m starving.”

His gray eyes looked her over much like his brother had, but instead of a little warm feeling, every place his gaze touched caught fire. “I see you’ve met my brother.”

She glanced from one to the other. It was kind of like a science fiction movie about clones. They were even dressed alike. Freaky. “Beau tells me he’s the good twin. Is he?”

“Depends.” Blake shrugged one big shoulder and raised his gaze to his brother. “Good at what?”

The two stared at each other, the loaded question hanging in the air. Neither spoke, and it was as if they had some sort of twin telepathy. The air grew thick with testosterone and Stella joked to break the man-tension, “So, if I hit one of you, does the other feel it?”

They both turned their attention to her. “No,” Beau answered.

“Hold up.” Blake raised a hand, palm out. “We’ve never tested it. Why don’t you go ahead and kick my brother in the balls and if I double over, you know I felt it.”

She expected Beau to say something equally rude. Instead the boys chuckled like Blake was really funny. And Beau thought she had a weird sense of humor?

“Vince said you and Sadie had a few tequila shots last night.” Beau changed the subject from his balls.

“Too many.”

The corners of his lips dipped in an upside-down sympathetic smile and his smooth voice slid down her spine. “Are you hungover, Boots?”

“Not anymore.” Down her spine to the backs of her knees. “Slept it off.”

“Boots?” Blake’s brow wrinkled. “Are you a new recruit?”

“She cycled out,” Beau answered for her.

Stella didn’t know what that meant and didn’t care. Not when she felt all tingly.

“Obviously not.”

Beau’s upside-down smile turned into a real frown. “Let it go.”

Blake shook his head and the tension settled between the two of them again. Only stronger this time. “It wasn’t all business and music.”

Beau pointed at his brother, then to himself. “You and I aren’t going to talk about it.”

“It’s like that?”

Like what? What was it like? Were they speaking in super-secret twin code?

“Yeah,” Beau answered. “It’s like that.”

Chapter Thirteen

“P
ull!”

Stella gave the nylon rope a hard tug and two neon-orange clay pigeons sailed through the air. To her left, Beau raised the barrel of a gun and fired. The shot cracked the air and Stella flinched as a pigeon shattered. In one fluid move, he pulled the pump handle and a spent red shell flew out of the side of the gun. He shot again, and the second pigeon broke apart and fell to the dry ground and prairie grass. Stella flinched once more, but at least she didn’t scream this time.

“Good shot,” Vince congratulated him.

Beau grinned and handed Sadie’s fiancé the gun. “I got a toolbox full of mad skills.”

Yes. Yes he did. Stella could attest to some of those skills.

“You winged it,” Blake said, and raised a can of Lone Star to his lips.

“Mortally wounded counts.”

Stella turned to her job and pulled back the arm of the flinger thing. She bent over to load two orange clay pigeons in the machine, and the shadow from the straw cowboy hat she’d borrowed from Sadie slid down her chin, shading her face from the evening sun. Before they’d all headed out for the skeet field, she’d changed out of her flip-flops and into her old black boots. Sadie had offered her shoes, but Sadie’s feet were a size and a half bigger than Stella’s.

“Pull!”

Stella yanked the rope and looked over at the shooters about twenty feet away. Vince and Blake watched the sky and shattering orange clay while Sadie stood at a table covered in ammo and kept score in a notebook. The evening sun shone on the concho band around Sadie’s cowboy hat and settled in the blond braid hanging down her back.

Sadie had wisely volunteered as scorekeeper rather than participate against three highly competitive special ops warriors.

From behind mirrored sunglasses, she felt Beau watching her. His features were stony, giving nothing away. Since he and Blake had shared some sort of twin telepathy beneath the antler chandelier, he’d grown . . . she didn’t know. Distant, maybe.

They’d all laughed and talked while they’d eaten in the kitchen, but even as Beau joked around, she felt the change. She felt it as they grabbed coolers filled with beer and water and drove the half mile to the skeet field hidden from the view of the house by a windbreak of elm and cottonwood. It felt as if they were nothing more than casual friends. As if they hadn’t kissed and touched each other—all over. As if he hadn’t reached for her hand or held her while she freaked out on the side of a Louisiana highway. As if they hadn’t grown close.

Okay, maybe he didn’t know her favorite color, and maybe she didn’t know his favorite food, but she knew him. She felt connected to him. More connected than she’d ever felt toward another man. She trusted him. Felt like she could sink into him and stay there. The rest was just conversation.

He moved toward her, fluid and smooth, and reached into the cooler on his way.

“You look hot,” he said, and handed her the bottle of water.

“Thank you.” She wished she could see his eyes. See what he was feeling. See if his eyes were a smoldering gray like he was thinking she was sexy hot or just temperature hot.

“It sounds like everything went okay last night.”

She took a drink and lowered the bottle. “What I can recall.”

He reached a hand toward her and brushed a drop of water from her bottom lip.

She felt the brush of his finger in her belly and heart. The heat of his touch made her gasp.

“Stella.” She didn’t need to see his eyes. Want smoldered in the hush of his voice.

“I missed you last night.”

“Shhh.” He softly pressed his finger to her lips. “Not now.” He dropped his hand. “Not here.”

She wanted to ask him why and where and when. She wanted to know when he was leaving Texas. The thought made her feel a little panicky, but he was right. Here and now wasn’t the place.

“Do you have a plan for what’s next?”

“Dinner. Sadie’s cook left something called Texas campfire casserole in the oven.”

“No.” He smiled and shook his head. “Where are you going after Texas?”

With you
. The thought jumped into her head. Unexpected but not shocking. It made no sense but felt logical. Right. She wanted to go wherever he was going. She had money. She could get a job. She swallowed past the lump in her chest. “I’m not sure. Where are you going?”

“Home. I’m thinking of sticking around Nevada for a while. Not travel so much.”

“Why?” She bit her bottom lip.

“Tired of the road.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t realized that she’d hoped to hear an altogether different answer until the clog in her throat made her chest ache. “Oh, yeah.” She bent down and grabbed two orange targets. “You’ve been on the road a long time.” She was falling in love with him. Falling fast with nothing to hang on to because the one stable thing in her life stood before her talking about a life without her.

“You’re up, gyrene,” Vince said.

Beau chuckled and turned away. “What’s the score?”

“You’re still on top. Blake and I are tied.”

Stella watched Beau walk away as she loaded the flinger. Her gaze wandered down the back of his wide neck and shoulders. His big arms strained the soft cotton of his sleeves, and the black T-shirt hugged his back and flat waistline. Her gaze got caught on the back pockets of his cargo pants and the bulge of his wallet. He had a good backside. Hard, smooth, almost as good as his front side.

“I’m heading back to warm up dinner,” Sadie announced, and placed the pen and notebook on the table next to boxes of shotgun shells. “Do you want to come with me and make the salad, Stella?”

Stella turned her attention to her sister. “Sure,” she answered when she would much rather stay and watch Beau’s behind. “What do I have to do?”

“Open a bag of lettuce and dump it in a bowl. With your knife skills, maybe cut up a few veggies.”

“I can manage that.”

“Twenty minutes, Vince,” Sadie warned, and looked at her watch. “Dinner will be ready at seven-thirty.”

“We’ll be there.”

Sadie and Stella walked down the short path overgrown with weeds toward the row of elms and cottonwood. “If I don’t give them a time limit, they’ll be at it all night. Two Navy SEALs against a Marine. No way they’ll let him win.”

Stella and Sadie jumped in Vince’s black truck parked next to the Escalade and headed the half mile to the house. “I can’t imagine Beau losing at anything,” Stella said. “He’s so . . .”

Sadie glanced over and looked at her through gold-tinted sunglasses. “So what?”

“Capable.” She glanced out her window at the barn and the horses in the corral. “He seems so good at everything he does.” Everything from getting her safely out of her apartment in Miami to fooling around in a Dallas hotel.

“How well did you get to know each other?” Sadie asked as she parked the truck by the back of the house.

Stella thought about her answer while the two of them walked the short distance to the back door. She didn’t want to say too much, but she didn’t want to sound like she was hiding something, either. “I like him.” Their boots thumped across the hardwood of the kitchen and Stella tossed her hat on the kitchen table. Her feelings were so new, a tangle of love and uncertainty knotting her stomach, and she didn’t know what to do with them. It was awful and wonderful and terrifying. “He’s a good guy.”

“If he wasn’t, Vince wouldn’t have asked him to do us a favor and find you.”

Her feet slowed as Sadie moved to the oven and turned it on. Stella had forgotten that detail. Beau had been doing a favor by bringing her to Texas. He hadn’t wanted to, but the funny thing was, it didn’t change anything. Didn’t bother her. She’d had to practically force the man into a physical relationship. He’d said he broke his rules with her. He’d mixed business and pleasure, and she knew him well enough to know that
did
bother him.

She made the salad while Sadie buttered several loaves of French bread. She watched the clock on the stove and listened to her sister talk about the pregnant mare in the barn. Maribell was due to give birth any day and Sadie hoped for a black-and-white Tobiano. The unborn foal was the last of Clive’s breeding endeavors. While Sadie talked about their father’s love of paint horses, Stella thought about Beau and wondered how much breaking his rules bothered him and what it meant. She wasn’t sure, and the uncertainty put her on edge.

As Stella cut the last cherry tomato, seven-thirty came and went. She was anxious to see Beau’s face. His unreadable face that told of tight control and holding back, the tempest in his eyes the only sign of his battle with restraint.

“I knew skeet wasn’t a good idea today,” Sadie said as she put the foil-wrapped bread in the oven. “But they all promised they wouldn’t get super competitive.”

Stella cut up a green pepper next, and at seven forty-five the back door opened and Vince stepped inside. “Sorry I’m late.” He smiled all cheery and moved to the sink. “I’m starving.”

Stella and Sadie looked at each other and then at the closed back door.

“Smells good.” He pumped soap into his hands.

“Where are Blake and Beau?” Sadie asked the back of his head.

“Still shooting.”

Stella reached for the towel next to the cutting board and brushed green pepper seeds from her fingers. “Still? It’s getting late.”

“They’ll be at if for a while. Better eat without them.”

Something was definitely up. Vince’s nonchalance was too forced and Beau never passed up a chance to eat. She moved toward the back door to take a look outside.

Vince turned off the water. “You’re not thinking of going out there?” The way he said it sounded more like a statement than a question.

Well, she hadn’t been thinking about it until now. “Yep. Can I borrow your keys, Sadie?”

“Sure.”

“No.” Vince stuck up a wet hand. “That’s not a good idea.”

“Why?” Stella and Sadie asked at the same time.

“They’re working out a few things.”

“What things?” Stella folded her arms beneath her breasts and waited.

“They’re having a discussion.” He reached for a towel on the counter and dried his hands.

Something Beau’s mother said popped into Stella’s brain. Something about ruining Christmas brunch. “Are they discussing Batman and Superman?”

Vince’s eyes cut to her, and for one brief second, his nonchalance slipped and she saw his concern. “Not yet.”

“Great.” She dropped her arms and headed for the door.

“I’ll drive.” Sadie followed close behind.

Vince grabbed the keys. “I’ll drive.”

The few minutes it took to drive the half mile to the skeet field felt more like half an hour. As soon as Stella opened the truck’s door, she heard male voices. Not loud like they were shouting at each other, but very clear.

“I can shoot a round through a fly’s ass at three hundred meters, you shit-for-brains jarhead.”

“Correction, whiskey delta.
Could
shoot. Now you can’t hit an elephant’s ass with an AT4 launcher.”

Stella walked from the crop of trees and her attention immediately landed on the brothers standing about a hundred yards away. They stood practically nose to nose and it was difficult to tell them apart. Thank God they weren’t holding any weapons.

“I’m going to shove that fucking HOG’s tooth up your ass.”

“You’re going to try, pudgy fucker, but that’s all you’re going to do.” Beau planted his hands on his brother’s chest and forced him to take a step back. “You’re drunk and you’ve gone to fat.”

Stella picked up her pace. She sensed rather than saw Sadie and Vince at her side.

Blake shoved back. “And you walk around like you’re better than everyone else. Like your dick is special and you’re saving your hard-ons for some higher purpose. It’s bullshit. You banged Sadie’s sister the first chance—”

Beau slammed his fist into Blake’s jaw. “I told you not to talk about her.”

Blake’s head rocked back and he returned the favor with a right jab. “You say you don’t want to be like Dad. At least he isn’t a hypocrite.”

Stella took off toward Beau but Vince’s strong grasp on her arm swung her around. “Best just to let them go at it until they knock each other out.”

She looked into Vince’s face, then back over her shoulder. He was probably right. “I don’t think so.” She pulled her arm free and ran toward the two pissed-off trained snipers. “What the heck are you two doing?” she shouted as loud as she could.

Beau slammed his fist into his brother’s jaw. Blake grabbed him around his neck and they both went down, sounding a lot like two tree stumps hitting the ground.

“I’m nothing like that son of a bitch.” They wrestled in the dirt and weeds and somehow Beau ended up on top, sitting on Blake’s chest with his brother’s T-shirt wadded up in one fist.

“Stop it!” she yelled as she halted several feet away.

Without taking his eyes from Blake, Beau said through gritted teeth, “Go back to the house, Stella.”

She moved closer. “Only if you come with me.”

“Listen to your little girlfriend, Beau. Run back to the house, you pussy.”

Her fingers felt tingly and she shook her hands. “Don’t make me get physical.”

They both turned their heads and looked at her, ripped shirts and bloodied lips, identical handsome faces, staring at her like
she
was the one who’d lost
her
mind. She pointed at Beau. “Get off your brother.” They both continued to stare at her and she tried not to hyperventilate. “Don’t make me call your mom.”

“What?”

“Did she just say she was calling Mom?”

“Yes I did.” She tried to swallow but her throat was suddenly very dry. “And I will, too.”

“Breathe, Boots.”

She took as deep a breath as possible and blew it out. “I’m sure Naomi will have something to say about you two hitting each other.”

Of all things, Blake smiled. “Your woman is going to tattle?”

Beau of course frowned. “That’s what she says.”

“And for the record, fighting over who is the toughest superhero is so stupid. Everyone knows the Invisible Woman kicks ass.” She didn’t know where that had come from or really even what she was talking about. She’d seen Jessica Alba in
Fantastic Four
, and Invisible Woman was the only superheroine that came to mind. She took a few more breaths and added, “She has super powers, becomes invisible, and has cute gloves.”