Gambling on a Secret (14 page)

“That’s why you drink so much. You blame yourself for what happened.”

He sipped the old coffee. The bitterness in his throat may have been from the brew or the grief, he couldn’t tell. For the first time in days, he craved a shot of whiskey. “Four of my men died that day. How can I not blame myself?”

“Oh, Dylan, I’m so sorry,” she whispered, laying a hand on his cheek.

The soft touch served to remind him how much he wished he could be the man he’d been before his life went to hell. He stood very still and peered down into her eyes. He’d wanted to provide comfort to her, yet she’d ended up comforting him.

“What do you have to be sorry about?” He forced out over the lump in his throat.

Swallowing hard so her delicate throat moved up and down, Charli rested her hand over his rapid heart. “I’m sorry you had to fight. I’m sorry you got hurt. I’m sorry I can’t take away the pain.”

He stepped away from her and toward the door. “I better go take care of those horses.”

He couldn’t bear to look at her and the watery pity he’d surely see in her eyes as he let the rusty old screen door slap closed behind him.

* * * *

A week later, Charli swung the kitchen door open before he had a chance to knock. She had a frustrated twist to her lips and a frantic gleam in her eyes. “I’m glad you’re finally here.”

After Monday’s confessions, they’d spent the following days quietly working together in the storage barn, neither of them mentioning the past again.

Her skimpy satin shorts and tank sent him into a tailspin. “I’m glad you’re glad. What’s going on?”

“I had to turn the water off.” She moved away from the door. “The damned faucet broke off the sink last night.”

Soggy towels of every size and color were scattered over the worn linoleum in front of the kitchen sink.

He put his hat on the hook beside the screen door. “I guess we start with the sink today.”

While she dressed, he ran to town to get the supplies he needed to fix the plumbing. After he returned, they had a quick breakfast of toaster pastries and milk, and then got to work. Dylan hated plumbing, but he could do it, especially when she offered a great distraction leaning over the counter beside him. When he asked her to hand him a wrench, she retrieved it from the toolbox on the floor.

She rested her elbows on the counter and her chin in her hands. “I really didn’t need this. I have a statistics test tomorrow, the last one before the final.”

He turned the wrench a few times on the pipe fitting connecting the base for a new faucet and glanced at her. “When do you do your homework? I never see you with your nose in a book.”

“I do it before I go to bed.”

“When’s that? Sometimes I don’t leave here much before nine. And then Leon always seems to pop in.” He jerked his chin toward the table. “I see he brought you another batch of flowers.”

Charli glared. “So? He’s my friend. He actually helped me understand one of my statistics problems.”

He frowned. She never asked him for help. “He helps you with your homework?”

“Only this one time. I was studying when he came over.”

“You could’ve asked me to help you.”

She couldn’t hide her disbelief. “You know statistics?”

He went back to twisting a wrench around the faucet base. “I’m sure I could’ve figured it out.”

Laughing, she leaned farther over the counter on her arms. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were jealous of Leon.”

He concentrated on the stubborn plumbing and tried hard not to look at the fantastic view the crescent of her blue camouflage tank top provided of her freckled cleavage. “There’s nothing that bast–he has I want.” He looked at her. “I just know what he wants, and I’d hate to see you get hurt.”

“I won’t.” She pointed at the faucet. “Looks like we’re done.”

He removed the wrench and took her cue to drop the subject. He didn’t like how his skin prickled every time he thought of Leon visiting her at night. “Yep. When did this break?”

She started to gather up the tools and put them back in the box. “About midnight when I decided to make a cup of tea. I was getting ready to finish some sociology reading I had to do for tomorrow.”

“What time do you go to bed, if you’re still studying at midnight?”

“I usually go to bed between one and two. That’s why I’m such a bitch in the morning.” She dropped the last tool into the box and wiped her hands on the back of her short denim shorts. Her smile meant to be apologetic, but her eyes twinkled with mischief. “Sorry you see me at my best.”

“Is not getting enough sleep the reason you answer the door half dressed?” The question slipped out of his mouth before he’d thought it through. His brain was stuck on the way she looked with her hands in her back pockets. His childhood fantasy girl, Daisy Duke, had nothing on Charli in short shorts.

The lilt of her laugh sent a sliver of anticipation through him. “I’m not ashamed of my body, Dylan. I’m sorry if the way I dress bothers you.”

Shrugging, he leaned against the counter. “Not at all. I’m an open-minded kinda guy.”

“Good. Because getting up before seven is a real killer for me. Now, go turn on the water. I want some coffee, and I’ll make us a real breakfast.”

* * * *

Dylan sat beside Charli at the large table of his friend’s cabinetry store in Killeen on the third Monday of April. Her calves had been delivered last Wednesday. They were settled, and he didn’t expect any problems. Before he began the remodel of her bathroom, he’d called his cabinetmaking friend and set up an appointment.

Charli pointed to a glossy photo of a custom-made kitchen. “I like this style.”

The father and son team had made cabinets for a combined total of fifty years, and Dylan had hired them to build the kitchen and baths in his house. Normally, he stayed away from things reminding him of his ex-wife, but this kind of craftsmanship was hard to find.

After studying the picture, he couldn’t argue the washed-out white oak in the farmhouse styling would be perfect in her kitchen.

The cabinetmakers scheduled a time to come to the house to get measurements and finalize the deal.

They left the shop and headed to a German pub he had frequented while stationed at Fort Hood. Over their meals of Bratwurst sandwiches and sauerkraut, he couldn’t hold back voicing what had bothered him ever since his cousin started working on the ranch. “Kyle seems interested in you.”

Charli set her sandwich on the plate and wiped her mouth with a paper napkin. The action drew him in like a fly to honey. What wouldn’t he do to feel those lips under his? The possibility sent a jolt straight through him.

“I would never date a man like Kyle McPherson.”

He raised a brow. “Why not? As far as I know, he’s not gay, and the girls in town seem to think he’s good-looking.”

She shrugged and sipped her sweet tea. “I don’t like men my own age.”

A terrible wicked hope burned into his heart. Hell, he was only thirty-six, and that wasn’t ancient. “Okay” was the only response he could muster.

Grinning, she gazed at him with eyes so blue-green they were like the ocean, forbidding and inviting at the same time. “I like older men. I find guys my own age to be complete immature idiots.”

She looked away, leaving him hanging somewhere between drowning in the pools of her eyes and floundering in midair.

He crashed down when he realized he wasn’t the only
older man
in her life. Leon might be forty-two to her twenty-four, but morals didn’t matter to him. Moreover, the lack of financial security and fear of a broken heart didn’t hold that old bastard back. “What about Leon?”

“I appreciate everything he’s done for me.” Charli picked at the sauerkraut on her plate. “I just wish he’d stop bringing me gifts every time he visits. I love the flowers, but I never have anything to repay him with.”

The instant fire climbing his neck had him breathing hard and his gut turning cold. He growled at the image of her and Leon together. “I can tell you what he wants.”

She put her fork on the plate and narrowed her cat-like eyes at him. “You aren’t going to insist he wants my land again, are you?”

He shook his head and unlocked his jaw. Picking up his glass of cola to keep from fisting his hand, he kept his tone as blase as he could. “Not at all. I’d say first he wants you in the sack as naked as the day you were born.”

Her mouth fell open and she spread her hands over the tabletop. “That is the most vulgar thing you’ve ever said to me. Whatever happened to the
officer and a gentleman
attitude among you military types? Because no Texas gentleman would ever speak to a woman that way.”

“First of all, I’m not a ‘military type.’ Second, I never proclaimed to be a gentleman of any kind. I just like the facts straight up. There’s no bullshit to wade through to get to the truth.”

Charli looked out the window beside them and jutted her chin a notch. “Sounds like you’re just a jerk to me.”

“You don’t think it’s true?” After taking a much-needed gulp of his soda, he set the glass down with a thud. “Fine, in nicer language here’s what I think. Leon wants you. He’s wooing you, and you’re falling for his crap hook, line, and sinker. And once you’re reeled in, he’ll take that land and leave you high and dry.”

“I’m not falling for anyone’s ‘crap’ because I’ve sworn off men after my last disastrous relationship.”

What happened to you?

She changed the subject and asked about her bathroom remodel. Good move. He was starting to act like a jealous jackass.

* * * *

Charli heard another curse and cringed as she carried two glasses of sweet tea through her bedroom, heading for her en suite bath. For her to be able to hear it over the humming of fans and Kiss blaring from the speakers of her bedroom stereo, Dylan was incensed.

After fixing the kitchen plumbing three weeks ago, he’d replaced all the plumbing in the house. They’d had to pause in the work to get the calves in and order the new kitchen, but today, they’d started working in the bathroom. The new shower and garden tub had gone in easily enough. The sink plumbing, though, gave him trouble.

On top of it, yesterday’s storms did nothing but increase the humidity level to unbearable, and her air conditioner had broken down during one of the violent thunderstorms.

“Dammit.” A loud thunk sounded followed by “Ouch!” and a string of expletives–some of them German.

“Dylan, are you okay?” She rushed to the door, only to stop dead in the opening. Oh, sweet mercy!
Hot
didn’t begin to describe the shirtless man lying on his back with his head buried in the cabinet. When she’d left him twenty minutes ago to answer the phone, he’d had his t-shirt on.

“Yes,” he snapped. He strained, twisting a wrench on the old metal pipe. “This damned thing is...rusted...tight.”

He let out another curse and more clanging followed. Bands of muscles rippled under the tan skin of his biceps and chest as he worked the wrench on the pipe. The eagle and flag tattooed on his upper arm took flight as he flexed the muscle beneath it.

Her gaze moved over the dark dusting of hair on his chest where he had another tattoo on his left pectoral–a green beret over a sword with some Latin words above it. Before she could figure out what it said, she noticed the jagged, silvery scars. Like some grotesque spider web glistening in the morning dew, they cut across his belly and down his right side to disappear under the edge of the faded Wranglers resting low on his hip.

Her eyes stopped at his belted waistband. The scars weren’t ugly to her, but in that defining moment, she visualized his war injuries. Sadness, and at least a half dozen other emotions she didn’t understand or want to analyze, bombarded her, quickening her heart. However, she couldn’t ignore the instant liquid heat pooling in her belly.

“What did they say?” His muffled voice came from under the sink and drew her back to where his head should have been.

“Ah
...
The repairman can’t come out until tomorrow morning.” Her mouth was dry, and she gulped down some of the tea. The sudden spike in the temperature had nothing to do with her malfunctioning air conditioner.

He moved out from under the sink and looked at her. The fluid motion in which he stood–considering his bum leg–stunned her. He reached for the white t-shirt hanging over the towel rack. “I’m sorry. But it’s hot as hell under there.”

After setting the iced teas on the vanity top, she laid a hand on his arm to stop him. The sensation of his hot, damp skin under her cool palm overwhelmed her.

He turned blazing eyes on her and made no move to don the shirt.

Hadn’t she sworn off men? Hadn’t her life with Ricardo shown her men were nothing but total sadistic assholes? Didn’t she vow she’d never fall for another lying jerk who’d only break her heart when he was tired of her?

Her body betrayed her good sense and her voice came out breathy. “Don’t. It’s a furnace in here. If you’re more comfortable with your shirt off, it’s okay.”

His gray eyes darkened to a shimmery, bluish hue of a summer day. With jerky movements, Dylan opened the bottom of the shirt. “I don’t think either of us would be comfortable if I went shirtless.”