Walk Away Joe (3 page)

“Some favor,” he grumbled darkly, knowing he’d go to the limit not to compromise one of the few friendships he valued. Walking away from Sara Stewart was a case in point. She and her pleading brown eyes had stretched the hell out of that limit tonight.

If it wasn’t for Karla and Lance, he’d turn on his heel, stalk back in there and give the lady what she wanted. Hadn’t
she
come looking for
him?
Hadn’t
she
been the one doing the seducing?

He jammed his hat tighter on his head and swore. She was an adult. She was willing. And, sweet Lord, he wanted her. Even though he’d had little or no contact with her during the seven days since she’d come to Blue Sky, it had been damn hard not to want her. He had eyes. Even from a distance he could see that she was all soft feminine heat and sweet sexy curves. But Karla had warned him to leave her alone, so he had. Until tonight, she’d made it easy. Until tonight, she’d kept to herself.

Until tonight.

He swore again and scowled at the night sky. Tonight never would have happened if it hadn’t been for his kid brother. He sucked in another deep breath as he thought of Tag and his wife, Lana, and the sexual byplay that had shimmered on the air between them at supper. Damn kids. They were barely twenty. Baby Cody was a little over two years old, Lana was pregnant again, and they still didn’t have the sense to keep their hands off each other.

All those hot looks and soft touches passing between them at the supper table tonight had gotten to him. Knowing that the minute Cody was down for the night, they’d headed for their own bed, for anything but sleep, had had Tucker restless and edgy. And wanting. And stalking outside into the moonlight.

All he’d wanted was some fresh air and some distance from Tag and Lana’s casa, where his brother was getting some of what Sara Stewart had just offered him.

A shaft of desire shot straight and sharp to his groin as he remembered how she’d looked when she came to him. She’d been a poor boy’s fantasy, propositioning him by moonglow. A weak man’s downfall, pleading with him by lamplight. Lamplight that had spilled and caressed and shadowed her small, lush curves and pale, flawless skin.

Her thick chestnut hair had tumbled wantonly over soulful brown eyes that were both prideful and needy. Her breasts were small and high, tipped with the prettiest, poutiest nipples. Pressed against his palm, she’d been a quivering, velvet handful. Taken inside his mouth, she’d have been a sweet, delicate mouthful. And he had no doubt that if he’d sank inside her sleek, tight heat, she would have sheathed and clenched and milked his burning flesh until he was drained of everything but ragged breaths and thundering heartbeats.

He scuffed a boot heel against the worn tile floor of the patio and worked his jaw. He still couldn’t believe he’d said no. Still couldn’t believe that the pain she’d been too proud to admit to had touched him. In the dark, in her arms, he’d hurt for her. In the heat, in the moment, he’d cared about her. But the worst part was that as he stood there, watching her strip away her pride along with her clothes, he’d been the one who felt exposed.

In a sharp and unforgiving moment of insight, he’d seen a glimpse of himself in her desperation. He’d seen himself as a man who’d always wanted more and settled for less. He’d seen a man hoping that sex would hide, if not heal, his own hurt.

The self-discovery had hit him like a kick from a rank mount. He was still reeling from the impact. It had scared the hell out of him to see both himself and her motives so clearly. In the moment when she stood before him, naked and needy, pleading and exposed, he’d come close to hating her. Not for what she was doing to herself, but for making him see how shallow his own life had become.

He was thirty-two years old, a busted-up cowboy, with Tag, Lana and little Cody the family he claimed, and a bastard of an old man drifting around Texas that he didn’t. He had a gross of partying buddies and too few good friends. There weren’t enough hours in each day to get his work done or to make up for all the years he’d wasted. If that wasn’t enough to keep him awake at night, he had a mortgage the size of the moon, and the knowledge that his kid brother was counting on him to keep roofs over all their heads.

He didn’t need Sara Stewart to add to an already full plate. He sure as hell didn’t need her messing with his head. If he had taken her tonight, he’d have had nothing to feel guilty about. Women had used him as often as he’d used them. The fact that they could have used each other mutually should have been reason enough to sanction one more go-round.

And yet he’d walked away.

He cursed again under his breath and stalked through the dust to the ranch house. He’d picked a hell of a fine time to recognize that sex was not what either of them really needed.

∙ ∙ ∙

“It’s not gonna work,” Tucker stated flatly and firmly into the phone three hours later.

“What- Who is this?”

Tucker envisioned Karla Griffin all snug and comfy in her bed. Her dark Spanish eyes would be heavy with sleep, her tumble of long black hair tangled and falling over her face. Beside her, Lance would be slowly rousing and wondering what low-life slug was bothering his wife at 3:00 a.m.

“Wake up, Karla,” Tucker ordered without sympathy, taking perverse satisfaction in knowing he wasn’t the only one losing sleep over Sara Stewart. “This is the nursemaid, darlin', and I’m calling to turn in my shingle.”
 

“Tucker?”

“Yeah, it’s Tucker, and you need to listen to me. You’ve got to come and get her.”

“What’s wrong?”
 

Karla was awake now. He could hear the worry that had edged into her soft voice. Good. She ought to be worried.
 

“Tucker... what have you done?”

He muttered an oath. What had
he
done? One of the few noble acts he’d ever committed in his sad, sorry life, that was what he’d done. He’d walked away from a willing woman. Willing, wanton, and as needy for a tumble as any woman he’d ever seen.

He pinched the bridge of his nose to stall the throbbing that had taken up residence there. Shaking off another tug of empathy for the spitfire who’d called him everything but dirt, he focused in on his mission again.

“I haven’t done anything. Yet,” he added in warning. “But she’s going to get exactly what she’s asking for if you don’t get her out of my hair.”

“Problem, Tucker?” This from Lance, who had picked up on the other extension.

Cutting to the meat of the matter was both Lance’s style and his strength. He was the CEO of one of the biggest corporations in Texas, a sucker for his wife, and, due to an ironic twist of fate, Tucker’s friend and business partner in his cutting-horse operation.

“Yeah, I’ve got a problem. One that’s about five foot three inches tall and, judging from an earlier encounter, I’d say about one-ten soaking wet.” He worked to keep a repeat of a vivid, erotic picture of that soaking-wet, naked woman from drifting through his mind again. “And she comes equipped with a bulldogger’s mouth, and all the charm of a cactus.”

“So what I’m hearing,” Lance said, measuring his words, “is that you’ve finally met a woman you can’t handle.” It wasn’t a question. It was an amused and curious commentary.

Tucker rubbed his jaw where her small fist had connected, then gauged the depth of the teeth marks in the fleshy part of his palm. “You think this is funny. Fine. Think what you want. But I don’t deserve this, buddy.”
 

“Maybe not, but she deserves a chance to get herself back together.”

Tucker slumped back in the chair, rubbing the flat of his hand across his bare belly. He stared wearily at the clock on the wall and let out a tired sigh. He had to be in the saddle in three hours.

“Look. I’m sorry for what she’s been through. I’m sorry she’s in bad shape. But she’s not my problem, damnit. I’ve got a ranch to run. I’ve got a dozen competitions to get ready for, that blockhead two-year-old of yours to break, and Jas Carsten’s mare to polish. I can’t do any of it if I’ve got to play watchdog to a problem drinker.”
 

“She’s not a problem drinker, Tucker,” Karla interjected in a bid for understanding. “She just needs rest. She’ll be fine as soon as she starts thinking straight again.”

Tucker knew Sara Stewart’s story. Better than he wanted to, which probably accounted for his actions tonight. She was an uptown girl, born and bred to privilege, like Lance. But she’d wanted to make a difference, so she’d bucked her daddy’s wishes that she marry well to become a nurse instead—which, as far as Tucker was concerned, proved she was not only mule-headed, but stupid.

According to Karla, the years of working ER in a Lambert trauma center had taken their toll. Rather than admit the stress was getting to her and request lighter duty, Sara had thrown herself deeper into the action. It had finally caught up to her. Unable to combat the emotional turmoil building inside her, she’d burned out. She’d turned to booze to help her cope a little too often. This enforced exile to Blue Sky, Tucker’s ranch, was supposed to provide Sara with a time-out, away from the city and the ER.

Well, one thing was for sure, Tucker thought as he looked out the window into the vast and empty night. Blue Sky was away from the city. The cutting-horse ranch was situated on the edge of Nowhere, Texas, close enough to San Antonio to make it possible to stock supplies and far enough to guarantee privacy. Its location gave a man plenty of time to work without distraction. But it gave a woman with a problem too much time to get herself into a whole heap more trouble.

Her little performance tonight was a case in point. With a clear head, that little city girl would never have looked twice at a rounder like him, let alone begged him to take her to bed.

“Look,” he began, feeling his body stir at the memory and needing to squelch it, “I know I owe you—”

“Whoa. You owe me nothing,” Lance stated firmly, cutting him off.

Tucker knew different. He owed Lance big-time. If not for Lance and his financial backing, Blue Sky would still be a distant, impossible dream and Tucker would still be drifting from one dead-end job to another. Plus, his brother would still be working road construction while his wife and baby struggled along without him, waiting to see him on infrequent weekends home.

“You’re working like a dog down there,” Lance continued when Tucker remained silent. “And you’re making my investment pay. This has nothing to do with debt. It has to do with friendship. Sara needs help.”

“Then send her to one of those fancy clinics where she can be pampered and placated and pumped full of TLC,” he grumbled, fighting a persistent empathy for a woman he didn’t even want to like. “She can afford it. Even if she couldn’t, you can. If she’s your friend, you ought to do that for her.”

“It’s because we’re her friends that we brought her to Blue Sky, Tucker.” Karla’s plea dug even deeper than it had when she asked for his help to begin with. He’d always been an easy target for Karla. She knew just how to hit his bull’s-eye. She also knew he was no good, and loved him like a brother in spite of it.

“She just needs some space,” she went on. “A place to sort this out. In her own time. In her own way.”

Tucker clenched his jaw and saw Sara, by moonlight.
Her own way
was going to kill him—or geld him, he thought grimly as her dark eyes and slight, sexy body again came vividly to mind. A few more encounters like tonight’s and he’d meet with a slow and painful end.

“Yeah, well, don’t hold me responsible if she decides to cut and run,” he grumbled, pinning a barrelful of hope on her hightailing it away from Blue Sky because of that little scene they hadn’t quite played out.

“She won’t.” Karla’s voice was soft but full of conviction, gunning down Tucker’s hope like a sharpshooter picking off beer bottles. “She promised me she’d stay put and work on this. She won’t break that promise.

“Tucker,” she added after a long pause. “Please. If she isn’t coming around by next weekend, when we drive down to see her, we’ll take her back home with us. Can you hang on until then?”

In the end, he grumbled and gave in. He always gave in when Karla did the asking.

After hanging up the phone, he walked wearily to the door. Cupping his palm round his neck, he looked outside. A light was burning at the guest house. So. She was still up, too. He rubbed a hand roughly over his bleary eyes and, for a brief, shadowy moment, thought he saw her pace by the window. With a deep, slow breath, he turned away.

When he finally hit the sheets, it was with her haunted eyes on his mind. And with the taste of her on his tongue. The feel of her in his arms.

Her scent still filled his senses. She’d been a sweetly exotic blend of honey and silk and wild Texas sage. And salt, he added with a guilt-ridden sigh. She’d tasted of salt from the tears she hated herself for shedding and that he felt like a heel for bringing on.

Hell. He might not have taken Sara Stewart to her bed tonight, but she sure as hell had managed to find her way into his.

∙ ∙ ∙

Sara glanced at the walk clock then drummed her fingers nervously against her coffee cup. It was 8:07 a.m. Exactly one minute later than the last time she’d looked. She knew where Lambert would be this time of the morning. She knew there was nothing for it but to face him.

In the week she’d been at Blue Sky, she’d more or less figured out the routine. At seven every morning, Tucker’s sister-in-law, Lana, fixed breakfast at the ranch house for anyone who wanted to eat. By that time, Tucker and his brother, Tag, had already done morning chores and started working the horses. After a quick sit-down and a little horseplay with Cody, both went right back to the barns to work until dusk. Much as she wanted to wait until evening to face him, she knew she had to get this over with.

Short on sleep, long on regret, she drained the last of her coffee, rose from the table and tucked her yellow tank top into her jeans. Tugging on her boots and pulling herself together, she headed resolutely out the door. When she thought of the way she’d thrown herself at the no-good cowboy last night, a rolling nausea stopped her before she got through the archway.