Vegas Two-Step (21 page)

He nodded. “I figured that out.”

“No, not really. Maybe you can guess what it’s been like for me. I mean, you don’t have to feel sorry for me or anything. I’ve had a pretty happy existence. It’s just I was stuck, you know?”

He nodded again.

“Everybody knows me here. I’m a Tucker and that’s hard. There are expectations—unspoken, but still there. I was raised a certain way by a woman who believed in unwritten rules. She loved me, but expected me to follow the path.” Nellie’s eyes grew misty and she took another sip of her wine.

“Well then, why did you stay in Oak Stand? You could’ve left, gone somewhere else.”

“Well, I did. I had a job in Plano right out of college, an internship with a computer company that needed a computer architect to create databases. Honestly, it’s something I’m pretty good at, but two days before I started, my grandmother had her first stroke.” Nellie paused. He could hear the resignation in her voice as she relived the past. “There wasn’t a choice after that. I had to come home and take care of her.”

He understood. He’d gleaned from others around the town the extent of Nellie’s loyalty to her family. He’d have done the same thing.

“I got a part-time job at the library and fell in love with it. I love to read and to work with children. It just clicked for me. But as far as my social life, well, that kind of fell apart. Wasn’t really anybody here for me. Most of the guys who were decent were already married, and we don’t get a lot of strangers here, as I am sure you found out. But, anyway, I couldn’t leave Grandmother alone in the evening.”

Nellie took the last bite of her chicken. Jack had finished his dinner long ago. His plate was nearly licked clean. She scooted her chair back and scooped up her plate. Reaching across the table, she picked up his plate and disappeared into the kitchen.

She returned with the chocolate cake. “I put some coffee on. Decaf.”

He grinned. “Should have made regular. I plan on being up late tonight.” He reached out and snapped the band of her lacy panties.

She slapped his hand. “Behave.”

Nellie cut a huge piece of cake and set it on a delicate china dessert plate. She passed it to him and then cut an equally huge one for herself. She hopped up, disappeared into the kitchen again, and came back with a tray holding two cups of coffee.

“So, back to my story. When my grandmother passed away, it was weird. I couldn’t seem to shake myself out of that mold I’d created for myself. I knew I was grieving. I loved her and she was all I had. But then I just stopped caring about how I looked, whether I’d get married, or anything. It was like treading water.”

“I know how that feels,” he said, taking a bite of the heavenly cake. Yellow cake, chocolate frosting. His favorite. And it was good.

Nellie looked puzzled.

He smiled. “Until you walked into Agave Blue, I’d been in some sort of funk. Really dissatisfied with my life.”

“You’re kidding,” she said, dipping her finger into the icing and licking it off. “You seemed to have everything a guy could want.”

“I did,” Jack agreed. “But it wasn’t enough. See, it wasn’t about being successful or having women or being in demand. I figured it out. I was lonely.”

“Really?” Nellie looked dumbfounded. “Me, too.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Funny. Who would have thought we were both suffering from the same thing, just in different ways?” She scooped up another dollop of frosting and popped it into her mouth.

“Keep doing that and we won’t make it through this talking thing,” Jack growled, waggling his eyebrows.

She smiled. “If you’re a good boy, later I’ll let you rub it on me then lick it off.”

He clutched his chest and groaned. “You’re killing me, woman.”

“Okay, so I went to Vegas looking for change, a good time, something to kick-start me. I didn’t want to live alone in this big house, all the kids in the neighborhood afraid to come into my yard and step on my tulips. I wanted my own kids, a husband to love. But I knew I had to do something to help myself get that, so I called Kate.”

“Well, she did an amazing job. I got a hard-on the moment I saw you.”

“No, you didn’t,” Nellie said. “You mean the second time you saw me.”

“Touché. The second time. But I have to admit, the first time I saw you, I noticed what kind of person you were.”

She cocked her head.

He sipped the French roast coffee. “You didn’t really spill that wine. The fat guy next to you did. You took the fall. I remember thinking how genuine you were. I distinctly remember telling myself I needed to find a woman like you.”

“You’re joking,” she accused, her eyes dancing, “No way. You didn’t even give me the time of day.”

“Cardinals fan, remember?” he said.

Nellie rolled her eyes and he laughed. “But I did remember you. Plus, things hadn’t gone well that day. I had been scouting for land and couldn’t find what we’d been looking for, my dad had signed the purchase papers on the horse, and I’d had four calls from my attorney about the club sale. I felt like acid was eating through my stomach. Truth was, I was scared shitless. Nothing was coming together and everything felt wrong.”

“It felt right when you saw me?” Nellie looked intense.

“Yeah. It was strange, but it felt like this piece of me that had been floating around somewhere just settled in and clicked. I don’t know what you’d call it, but I just had to try you on.”

She smiled. “That’s a different way of putting it.”

“You were a perfect fit,” he said, his eyes wandering over her lacy bra and bare shoulders before returning to her flushed cheeks. She’d placed the glasses back on, but her green eyes sparkled beneath the thick lenses. There was nothing nerdy about Nellie.

“So it was fate?” she asked.

“Or something like that,” he said, taking another sip of coffee. “I just think we were destined, designed for one another. That’s why I came here. It didn’t even surprise me to find a farm for sale right outside your town.”

Nellie thought about that. “True. You know, old Mrs. Henderson held on to that place for years. I couldn’t believe she’d finally agreed to sell it. Bubba told me her grandson got into some trouble in Dallas and they needed the money it would bring for an attorney. Go figure.”

Jack covered her hand with his. It seemed so delicate in his larger one and he rubbed the pad of his thumb over the smooth back of her hand. “So you found yourself? Figured out who you are?”

Nellie’s lips twitched. “I have many sides to myself, and what I was in Vegas is who I am as much as…uh, it sounds confusing. What I mean is, I don’t have to sacrifice my naughty side so I can cling to what I’ve always been—responsible, practical, able to tell an Eastern bluebird from a Western one.”

He raised his brows. “You can tell bluebirds apart? Hell, I didn’t know there was more than one kind.”

“Yep. And I feed the Eastern ones nearly daily when they’re nesting.” Nellie took a sip of coffee, realizing she enjoyed the dark roast as much as she had the martinis in Vegas. Hey, she was a coffee-drinking, martini-swilling sexually liberated tight-ass. Was there anything wrong with that?

Jack leaned back into his chair and sighed. “So we’ve straightened out the really important stuff, right? We both know where we stand?”

Nellie nodded. Could anyone ever know where she stands? Ever be sure of anything? She wasn’t certain, but she felt where they were heading had to be a good place to plant their feet. And she could wear some sexy-ass shoes to stand in. Just keep her comfy slippers nearby.

Jack smiled as he stood and stretched, arching his back, making it crack like a machine gun. “I think you did throw out my back. You’re gonna have to walk up those stairs this time.”

Nellie crossed her arms and shook her head. “No way. We put the past to bed, but I’m not going back up those stairs with you until we move on to our future.”

“Future? You mean as in—”

“
M-a-r-r-i-a-g-e.
” She ticked each letter off on her fingers. “You may have knocked me up, Jack Darby. I’m a Tucker. We aren’t supposed to have children born on the wrong side of the blanket. Well, except for Aunt Clarice, and we aren’t allowed to talk about her and the fact she was born four months early, weighing a healthy nine pounds even.”

Jack grinned. “Knocked up. Tuckers say that?”

“Well, technically I’m a Hughes. Plus, I, too, was conceived on the wrong side of the blanket, so I guess that’s blown out of the water.” She threw him a mischievous grin. “So are you taking that proposal back? Because there’s lots of frosting on this piece of cake.”

“You’re holding out for a proposal by using frosting as a weapon? You want our kids to know I proposed in my underwear?”

“They’re really cute undies. I love the little penguins on them. They make me feel naughty.” Nellie swirled one finger in the chocolate frosting and then slowly licked it off her finger.

He dropped to one knee. “Okay, I’m easy to convince.”

She pulled her finger out of her mouth. “Really?”

“Really.” Jack reached for her left hand. The one without the chocolate residue. “Nellie Hughes, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

Nellie’s sassiness fled. She sounded like a frog when she croaked, “Truly?”

“Truly. Forever. Always.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and bestowed a soft, sweet kiss atop it.

She slid down to her knees. Right next to the buffet her great-grandfather had purchased for his bride on their wedding day, on the floor her grandfather had salvaged from an old Confederate warship, right next to the seat cushions her grandmother had embroidered with dahlias. Clad only in her underwear, Nellie said, “Yes.”

“Good.” Jack kissed her. Her knees would have turned to jelly but she knelt on them. The kiss was passionate. Sweet. Tender. Full of promise.

“All right, now about that frosting. I’m wanting a little dessert to seal the deal. To celebrate.”

“Okay, but you’ll have to be quick,” she murmured, licking his neck.

“Why?” Jack asked, angling his head so she could reach the tender spot under his earlobe.

“Cardinals.” Nellie nipped his earlobe.

He yelped then swatted her behind. “Do you feed them too?”

Nellie pulled back. “Feed them? I thought we’d watch them.”

Jack fumbled with the dessert plate, pulling it to the edge of the table. He swiped one finger in the icing and lifted it to Nellie’s lips, reaching for her. “I’m not watching birds.”

Nellie halted him with a hard kiss before whispering, “Baseball, dummy. They play the Dodgers at nine.”

Jack’s laughter bubbled as he clamped one hand on her bottom and pulled her hard against him. “Think I’d choose the Cardinals over you?”

“No, ’cause you don’t have to. I’m gonna watch them with you. I read my book.” Her lips hovered over his.

Jack captured her mouth and gave her a deep, toe-curling sexy kiss. “As long as you’re naked and sit in my lap.”

Nellie smiled. “No problem. I’m not Elle, but I
am
the real Nellie.”

VEGAS TWO-STEP

Copyright © 2010 by Amy R. Talley.

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