Texas Hellion (7 page)

CAMI

How’s a body supposed to think with all that’s been going on? Ever since my little meltdown over a week ago, daddy and momma has been on my tail every second. It was getting so the only peace I got was at bedtime, which probably wasn’t a bad thing since it gave me less time to think.

You’d think my mind would be full of my failed engagement but no; instead it was overrun with Grant and the things we’d done to each other. If I could take my lips off and throw them out with the bath water I would. They plague me, all hours of the day the ghost of his lips on mine make me twitchy and out of sorts, and we’re not going to talk about the soreness that was only just beginning to fade from between my thighs.

I’ve been out of sorts for the past few days not knowing what to do with myself. On the one hand I was more in love with him now if that were possible, and on the other, the jackass hadn’t even been by to see me for crap sake. I was in turns pining after him and feeling sorry for myself, or going around the house on a tear. It was getting so bad that even my maid Cornelia, who was the epitome of decorum, had finally had enough of me and told me to stop being a bitch.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but it’s as if there’s a fever raging inside of me and I have a sneaky feeling that the only one who can put it out is Grant Colfax. And since he’d rejected me so callously by not even sending me flowers after mauling me on his front lawn, it would be a cold day in hell before I ever put myself at his mercy again.

I was dreading the next time we ran into each other, and there will be a next time, how can there not be? The man lives next door and is one of daddy’s nearest and dearest. I’ve given some thought to running away for the summer, but I didn’t want people thinking I was off licking my wounds somewhere, so later for that.

Still, I had to come up with something. It was only a matter of time before someone figured out that I wasn’t hiding out and pining for love of that asshat Joel, and then what? I should’ve known better than to fall into the arms of that snake, I knew only too well his reputation with the opposite sex. I don’t know what possessed me to think that I would be any different. I ought to get my gun and go hunt him down, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, the pig.

“How’re you feeling this morning dear?” I smelt mama’s Chanel number five before her tiny form came waltzing into my sitting room where I was picking over my breakfast tray. Lately all I’ve been able to keep down is a cup of hot cocoa in the mornings and maybe a handful of nuts at lunch. Anything else gets stuck in my gullet and makes me want to puke. Something else Grant has robbed me of, my appetite.

“I told you I’m fine mama, stop fussing. I wish you and daddy would take that trip.” What was the world coming to when a girl like me was contemplating sending her mama and daddy on her wedding trip? It was sad to be sure.

I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of that weasel Joel, he’s been calling and calling, but I have no interest in anything he has to say. Last I heard they’d had to pin the harlot’s elbow back together. Daddy said something about her making waves and threatening a lawsuit but he’d put out that fire, at least I think that’s what he’d said. My mind has been so preoccupied with you know who, that I haven’t been able to hold a decent thought in days.

“Your grandpa’s downstairs chomping at the bit. You need to go down there and let him see that you’re okay before he lights the town on fire.” Poor grandpa, he tends to take any affront to me personally on account of I’m the apple of his eye. It’s a miracle that I’d been able to hold him off this long, but mama had been able to convince him the last few days that I needed my rest. I guess he figured a week was long enough. Had it really been that long?

“I guess I’d better get myself together.” I looked down at the robe that I’d been practically living in for the last little while. It was hard enough getting myself together enough to take a shower farther more getting dressed. I didn’t want to see anyone or do anything except wallow in my own self-pity.

I felt just a little bit guilty that I hadn’t even given my intended a second thought since that night. I was thinking more and more that he and the librarian had saved me from a monumental mistake. I see now that it was foolish to think that marrying someone else would make a difference in the way I felt about that snake Grant. At least I hadn’t heard anything more about his marrying Marcy, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t still true.

Is that why he’d rejected me? It hurt my heart to think so. To think that I’d lost to her, but more that I’d lost him. Don’t be stupid Cami; you never had him in the first place, just because you let him screw your brains out. On that depressing note, I dragged my dying carcass up from the lounger and headed for the en suite. “Tell the old codger I’ll be down in a few.” It was time to wash Grant Colfax out of my hair, or at least give it the old college try.

***

“Is the girl doing okay Brady?”

“As well as can be expected I imagine.”

“How the hell did this happen, and what the hell are you doing about it?”

“What would you like me to do dad? I can’t very well challenge the boy to a duel now can I?”

“There ought to be something to be done. Can’t we get him for breach of contract or something?”

“Dad, Cami doesn’t want that, she just wants the whole mess to go away.”

I heard the harrumph that followed that statement just as I entered the study. My grandpa is one of my absolute favorite people in the world, but he can be a trial. “There you are. What’s this I hear about you shooting and missing? At least one of them should be molting at the undertaker’s.” The old reprobate glared over his half glasses at me.

“Nice to see you too grandpa, fancy seeing me from behind plate glass do you?” I leaned over to kiss his cheek and get one of his hugs that have been making everything right in my world for as long as I can remember. “I’d have got you out of the country before they ever touched a hair on your pretty little head. I can still arrange something…”

“Dad, please don’t encourage my daughter in any illegal activities. You do remember you’re still the county’s sitting judge don’t you?” That brought on another harrumph. “One has nothing to do with the other, this is personal; somebody hurt our little girl we ought to get our pound of flesh.”

“No need grandpa, I’m over it already.” He studied me like a specimen under a microscope. “Boy wasn’t worthy of you in the first place. Now how long you plan on moping around here over the likes of him? Never let it be said that the Sutherlands were brought low by that miscreant and his side piece.”

“Grandpa by any chance have you been smoking or drinking this morning?” I kept my first smile in days under lock and key. He tends to see such things as facetiousness. “A little of both why? I don’t see what that has to do with the price of beans.” Grandpa has what you might call convenient glaucoma. It only surfaces when the need for a good toke hits him, which is about twice or three times a day according to the maid mama and daddy planted in his mansion to spy on him.

The old cuss has had more than his fair share of falls in the past, but he refuses to give up the bench, or his independence, by moving into a home or here on the estate with us. So mama and daddy came up with the next best thing. He’d made a fuss to be sure but they’d stood their ground, and when that didn’t work, they’d sent me in to play on his heartstrings.

“Nothing, you just seem a little more bloodthirsty than usual that’s all.” He badgered me for the next ten minutes to be sure that I wasn’t just paying lip service when I said that I was okay, and then the talk turned to business and I was able to relax with the spotlight off of me.

“I wonder who that could be.” Daddy paced to the study door at the ring of the doorbell. I heard the familiar voice as the butler answered the door. I was trapped, nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. I tried to squelch the butterflies that were running riot in my stomach and to hide the look of horror that I was sure was plastered all over my face.

I wasn’t ready to face him yet. Okay calm down Cami, no one knows but you two and he’d be daft to bring it up in front of daddy. I calmed myself as best I could and braced for my first sight of him since he’d screwed me and disappeared. I ignored the prickling of my skin, and the acceleration of my heart, I was probably just coming down with something, some kind of summer bug.

“Judge Sutherland, Camille.” He greeted us both in that snooty tone of his that made me want to smash his face in. How dare he come here like nothing happened? How dare he look so cool and unaffected when my life had been turned upside down?

“Brady you wanted to see me?” I kept my gaze trained anywhere but on him as he and daddy carried on their conversation. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. It was on one of my perusals around the room that I caught grandpa looking at me squinty eyed. I didn’t like the way he looked from Grant to me and back with a lift of his brow. He opened his mouth to say something but I waylaid the nosy old fart before he could start trouble.

“Grandpa I promised to show you Gigi’s new foal, come along and let’s leave daddy and his little friend to talk.” I hope Grant didn’t miss that slight, the pig. I grabbed grandpa’s arm and practically lifted him from the chair in my haste to get away.

“Girl what in the Sam hill is your hurry?” That hint of laughter in his voice told me he knew damn good and well what my hurry was. I was trying to keep him from making a damn fool of me in front of the stuff shirt. I didn’t look back as we left the room, and didn’t breathe easy again until we were halfway to the stables.

“Ohhhh, so that’s the way the wind blows.” I wonder if I can buy him off? “Grandpa.” I gave him one of my pleading looks that always worked to get me my way in the past. Of course just when I needed it most it was a dud. “Come on, tell me about it girl, sure as spit the others are gonna catch on soon enough if you can’t help mooning over him like that.”

“I did not, you take that back.” How long was he watching me anyway? I made myself busy getting treats for the horses, anything but look at the old meddler, but I’m afraid it was too late. “So he’s the one you want? Why didn’t you just say so?”

“Grandpa.” I sounded like a broken record, but how could I explain this to him so that he would understand? Everyone else thought I was all torn up over Joel, he’s the one I’d been set to marry after all. What will he think of me if he learned the truth? That a few hours after my engagement was destroyed I’d been ready to throw myself at another man?

“It’s complicated.” In the end there was no use hiding it from him. He has always been good at getting me to open up where no one else could. My shoulders slumped in defeat, because I knew better than anyone that this was one prize he couldn’t get for me. I had the past rejection to prove it. I mean why else would he spend a whole afternoon making love to me and then not call or anything, if he wasn’t done with me?

“Aren’t these things always? Complicated I mean. Now why don’t you sit here and tell grandpa all about it?” I wasn’t too surprised when he led us both to bales of hay on the other side of the barn. I was a little mystified when he pulled the joint from his shirt pocket though. “You want some?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s still illegal, in fact I don’t know how you’ve been allowed in a state that’s so prohibitive.” He rolled his eyes as he lit up. “I’ve got my ways, now tell me how you came to be in love with the great Grant Colfax.”

“In love? Now come on grandpa, nobody said anything about being in love.” I started to fidget uncomfortably. I didn’t want him seeing that much; after all, I hadn’t even allowed myself in all these years to think about that. It was one thing to acknowledge a certain liking or attraction for a person, but love? That was taking it a bit too far dammit. At least I’d tried to convince myself of that for years.

“I have eyes don’t I? I can see as well as the next guy, and what I just saw in that room back there is love pure and simple. A heavy dose of lust to be sure, but I know love when I see it.” Good grief. He puffed away on the semi sweet smelling weed hard enough to send smoke fumes in all directions. Even the horses were starting to get restless in their stalls and I wondered fleetingly if it were possible for animals to get high.

“Grandpa listen, there’s no none of that. It was just a look, just a moment of weakness shall we say.” I was hoping to throw him off the scent because apparently he saw more than I was ready for anyone to see, but I should’ve known better. I spent the next half hour trying to convince him that what I felt for Grant was nothing more than the remnants of a schoolgirl crush.

***

By the time we got back to the house he was gone. I felt relieved and disappointed at once as I slipped away to my room after threatening grandpa to silence. I had the feeling that all my explanations were in vain. He was going to believe what he wanted to anyway. “Isn’t it exciting?” Mom came bustling into my room with an armful of clothes.

“Isn’t what exciting?” I turned from the window where I’d been trying to catch a glimpse of the house next door through the trees. I missed him, which made no sense because we were hardly in each other’s company. But ever since that night, I find myself missing him in a most horrendous way.

“The party of course, didn’t your daddy tell you? He has decided that to save face we’re going to have a shindig to end all shindigs. You know your daddy; he weren’t about to let you lick your wounds for too long so this is the next best thing.” I still hadn’t a clue what she was jabbering on about as she flitted around my room like a worker bee. She finally wound down enough to make sense and turned my life upside down. “He what?”