Harlequin American Romance May 2014 Bundle: One Night in Texas\The Cowboy's Destiny\A Baby for the Doctor\The Bull Rider's Family (22 page)

“How long did you live with the couple?” Buck asked.

“I was nineteen when Simon died of a heart attack.”

Even though Destiny showed little emotion, he got the feeling Simon’s death had affected her deeply. “I’m sorry.”

“Sylvia sold the house and moved to Florida to live with her sister. She gave me Simon’s truck, his tools and a little money. I advertised on Craigslist and made enough cash towing to pay for an apartment and keep gas in the truck.”

“How did you end up in Lizard Gulch?”

“I’d been searching for a place to set down roots,” she said.

“And when you ran across Lizard Gulch, the town shouted Home Sweet Home?”

“It’s not such a bad place.”

Buck had a hunch Destiny was looking for another Simon to replace the one she’d lost, and there were plenty of geezers in the desert hideaway to fill the role. “How do you get enough tows in this area to stay in business?”

“I answer calls for car accidents between here, Kingman and Flagstaff. I average about three tows per month.”

“How many car repair jobs come along?”

“I’m lucky if I get one every sixty days and those usually come from referrals.”

Destiny’s towing business could bring in a lot more money in Tucson, Yuma or Phoenix. It didn’t make sense for her to live in Lizard Gulch.

“Where are you from?” she asked.

“Ever heard of Stagecoach? It’s southeast of Yuma.”

“Sounds like another little town.”

“It is. My six siblings and I grew up on my grandfather’s pecan farm.”

“You have six siblings?”

“Five brothers and one sister.”

“Wow. You kept your mother busy.”

“Not really. Our grandparents raised us.” He guessed he and Destiny had that in common—depending on old people.

“So you chose rodeo instead of farming?”

“My brother Conway manages the pecan orchard. He and his wife and their twin sons moved into our grandparents’ house. My eldest brother, Johnny, recently married and had a daughter.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Kidding about what?” he asked.

“Your brother...
Johnny Cash?
”

Buck grinned. “My mother named my brothers and me after country-and-western legends.”

Destiny grinned. “Tell me the names.”

“I’m glad we amuse you.”

“C’mon...”

“In order of birth,” he said. “Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson Cash, me, Merle Haggard Cash, Conway Twitty Cash and Porter Wagoner Cash.”

“Wow. You guys must have taken a beating on the playground with those names.”

“I’ve had plenty experience defending my moniker.” He smiled grimly. “Johnny and his wife live on his father-in-law’s ranch, where he’s the foreman. Earlier this summer Will married the woman he got pregnant in high school and met his fourteen-year-old son for the first time.”

“She kept their baby a secret from your brother?” Destiny’s shock appeared genuine. “That’s not nice. Your brother had a right to know he was a father.”

Destiny’s statement made Buck feel all the more guilty that he hadn’t told Will right away about Ryan when he’d found out the truth.

“But I guess he forgave her and they worked things out if they got married,” Destiny said.

“They did. I didn’t go to the wedding.”

“Why not?”

“It’s complicated,” he said.

“You said you have a sister?”

“Dixie. She’s married and had a baby boy named Nathan. She’s a businesswoman like yourself. Runs a gift shop in Yuma and sells soap.”

“What kind of soap?”

“Fancy girl stuff. My grandmother’s relatives were soap makers in France, and Dixie uses the family recipes for her homemade suds.”

“Cool.”

Buck felt bad talking about his family when Destiny didn’t have one of her own. “Do you keep in touch with Sylvia?”

“We call each other once in a while and she sends me a keepsake of Simon’s every now and then. This past Christmas she gave me his military flag.”

“They never had any children of their own?” he asked.

“No. Are you real close to all your brothers?”

“I guess.” Then he’d gone and screwed things up with Will, and now they weren’t talking.

When they arrived in Lizard Gulch, Buck noticed the lights were on in the saloon. “The reception hasn’t died down.”

“Old people never sleep. They’ll party until they run out of liquor.”

She backed his Ford into the repair bay like a pro then hopped out and released the lift. While Buck waited inside the garage for her to park the wrecker behind the building, he examined the collection of auto parts stored on a utility shelf. She had three boxes of hoses and it took thirty minutes to swap out a hose. He’d be back on the road in an hour.

“There’s a chair in the office if you want to wait in there. The TV remote is on the counter.”

He’d rather watch Destiny change his hose. He went into the office and switched on the TV. After fifteen minutes he lost interest in the home improvement show and returned to the bay. Destiny lay on a creeper beneath his truck. “Almost finished?”

The clanking sounds stopped, and she rolled into the open then got to her feet. She avoided making eye contact with him. “You’ve got a bigger problem than a ruptured hose.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You must have driven over some debris, because the axel is broken.”

“What?”

Destiny wiped her hands on a rag. “I don’t have a spare axel. I’ll have to order one.”

“How long will that take?”

“A few days. Maybe a week.”

“I’m stuck here until my truck is fixed?”

She nodded.

“Where am I supposed to stay? The Flamingo isn’t even a motel.”

“Melba has one room she rents to guests.”

“How much does she charge?”

“Fifty dollars a night,” Destiny said.

This was becoming one hell of an expensive breakdown. “I guess I’m staying.”

“I’ll order the part now.” Destiny went into the office and shut the door.

Buck dropped onto the creeper and rolled himself beneath the truck. Sure enough. The damn axel hung crooked. He couldn’t remember hitting anything on the road. He examined the break.

Well...well...well...
The axel wasn’t broken, it had been loosened.

Destiny had stranded Buck in Lizard Gulch on purpose.

Chapter Three

“What are you doing under there?” Destiny’s voice echoed through the garage.

Buck used his feet to move the creeper out from beneath his truck. “I wanted to see the damage.” He studied her face, but her nonchalant expression gave nothing away. She didn’t come across as the kind of girl who’d swindle others, but maybe she was in a bind and needed money.

“I ordered a new axel. It should get here in three to five days,” she said.

Kingman was an hour west of Lizard Gulch. She could drive into town tomorrow, buy the part and install it by noon, then he’d be on his way. Buck considered calling her bluff—mostly because he didn’t want her to believe he was a dunce she could easily dupe—but he held his tongue. He wanted to find out what her game was.

The jilted biker bride with tattoos was a tough cookie, yet whenever she made eye contact with him the vulnerability in her blue gaze tugged at his heart, which confused the hell out of him because she wasn’t his type. He was attracted to the girl-next-door, who in his experience had always been reliable, dedicated and loyal—the exact opposite of his mother, who’d abandoned her children on and off through the years while she chased after her next true love.

“Not much to do in town while I wait for the truck to get fixed.” He scrambled to his feet.

“The Lizard Gulch annual pool party at the Flamingo is tomorrow.” She scuffed the toe of her work boot against the cement floor.

Buck decided to give her one more chance to come clean with him. “Are you sure the axel isn’t just loose?”

“You’re a cowboy not a mechanic.” Her chin jutted. “I know what I’m doing.”

He didn’t doubt that for a minute. “I’ll head over to the motel and see about renting a room.” Neither of them moved, and he swore tiny heat waves wiggled in the air between them. His cell phone beeped with a text message, breaking the spell. “See you tomorrow.” He’d look forward to viewing Destiny in a bikini and discovering if she had more tattoos on her sexy little body.

“Good night.” She went into her office and shut the door behind her.

Buck left the garage and walked down the street. When he passed Lucille’s Smokehouse, the self-appointed sheriff of Lizard Gulch stepped outside.

“Hey, Bernie,” Buck said.

“You get your truck repaired?”

Buck stopped. Destiny’s Harley still sat parked in front of the bar. “Broken axel.”

“Sounds expensive.”

“Destiny had to order a new axel, so I’ll be in town for a few days.” He motioned to the Flamingo. “I was on my way to see about renting a room.”

“Melba’s in the bar. Wait here.” Bernie disappeared inside then a minute later the motel owner appeared.

“Bernie said you need a place to stay while your truck’s being fixed.”

“Destiny said you might have a room to rent.”

“C’mon.” Melba sashayed across the road, the strands of her black wig swinging back and forth across her face. She entered the lobby, and Buck swore he’d stepped into the late 1950s.

“Most people get that look on their face when they come in here,” she said. “My mother put her heart and soul into decorating this place, and I haven’t changed a thing since I took over.”

Green carpet with tiny pink flamingos woven into the design covered the floor. A pair of white bubble chairs sat in a corner next to a modern olive-colored sofa and rectangle coffee table with stick legs on which a large chrome pelican ashtray rested. And there was a no smoking sign above the couch next to a mirror made of overlapping circles.

A vintage solid-state radio took up half the space on the pink laminate check-in counter. A starburst chrome clock that had stopped ticking at three-fifteen who knows how many years ago was mounted to the wall next to the desk. And above his head a large chrome
Sputnik chandelier
hung from the ceiling. Buck opened the guest register and perused the names and dates of past motel guests, noting George and Mildred Hunter from Saint Louis, Missouri, had been the motel’s first customers and had stayed the night of September 5, 1953. The last guest to sign the book had been Howard Nicholson June 12, 2013. Melba held out a pink flamingo-shaped pen. Buck scribbled his name and the date.

“Mr. Nicholson was a reporter for a travel magazine called
Out West,
” Melba said. “He wanted to include the Flamingo in a feature story covering Route 66 motels.” She reached beneath the counter and selected a pink bath towel, washcloth, bar of soap in the shape of a flamingo and small bottle of shampoo. “If you need anything else, let me know.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a razor, would you?”

“I’ll check.” She left the lobby through a back door and reappeared a few minutes later with a lady’s pink disposable razor.

“Thanks,” he said.

She walked out from behind the counter and went to the lobby door.

“Don’t you want my credit card number?” he asked.

She waved him off. “We’ll settle the bill when you leave.”

Trusting woman. He followed Melba along the walkway to the last door. “This is the only room I rent to guests.”

“What about all the other doors we passed?” Buck had counted seven.

“I knocked down the walls between those rooms and made the space my private living quarters.”

“Wait a minute.” Buck blocked Melba’s hand before she slid the key into the lock. “Is this the room where Victor and Antonio died?”

“How’d you hear about that?”

“Destiny told me the story behind the people buried in the cemetery.”

“Don’t worry.” Melba opened the door. “The blood was cleaned up years ago and my parents replaced the carpet and repainted the walls.”

Buck entered, wondering if he was about to embark on a Caribbean adventure. The room had a floor lamp in the shape of a palm tree, flamingo bedspread and matching curtains, bamboo headboard and nightstand and the same green-and-pink flamingo carpet that was in the lobby. He peeked behind the bathroom door—a pink shell-shaped sink, pink toilet and tub with pink-and-white tile.

Melba turned on the air-conditioning unit beneath the window. “If you keep the room at eighty, I’ll give you a break on your bill when you check out.”

Eighty?
“Sure,” he said.

“Lucille’s is the only place that serves food in town—unless you just want to eat pastries.” She went to the door. “The Lizard Gulch pool party and barbecue kicks off at four tomorrow.”

“Destiny mentioned the party. Where’s the pool?”

“Behind the motel.”

“I’ll be there.” He had nothing better to do while he waited to see what Destiny was up to.

After Melba left, Buck stared at the flamingo bedspread, wondering how many people had slept beneath the cover or if it had ever been dry-cleaned in the past two decades. His phone jingled, reminding him that he hadn’t answered the text his sister had sent earlier.

Guess what? Marsha’s teaching physics at the Yuma Junior College and Ryan got accepted into the accelerated program at the high school. Come home. We miss you.

Even though things had worked out between Will and Marsha, that didn’t mean his brother was ready to forgive Buck.

He texted back.

Thanks for the update. Hope little Nate is well.

Buck figured he had two brothers pissed at him now. Will, and Johnny after he’d missed the birth of Johnny’s daughter Addy in June. He left the room and headed back to the garage to fetch his rodeo gear and duffel bag.

One of these days he had to go home—whether he was ready or not.

* * *

D
ESTINY
REMOVED
HER
dinner from the microwave and sat outside on the stoop to eat. From her vantage point above the garage she had a great view of the town and the Flamingo Motel at the opposite end of Gulch Road. Her gaze zeroed in on the room farthest from the main office, and she imagined Buck moving around inside. Was he taking a shower? Or resting on the bed watching TV?

What in the world had gotten into her—loosening the axel on Buck’s truck? Maybe Daryl ditching her at the altar bothered her more than she cared to admit.
No.
She honestly believed he’d done them both a favor by not showing up at the chapel. He’d yet to respond to any of her calls. He might not have his act together, but he wasn’t heartless and eventually he’d show up in town with an apology.

Daryl was the least of her worries. Without health insurance, finding care for her and the baby had been difficult. At least she’d located a women’s clinic in Kingman that had charged her next to nothing for her first prenatal appointment. Afterward, they’d sent her on her way with a free bottle of prenatal vitamins and several pamphlets on nutrition and the stages of the baby’s development, which she was instructed to read before her next appointment.

A movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she squinted into the darkness. The door at the end of the motel opened and Buck emerged. When she’d come across his truck on the side of the road, she’d suddenly forgotten about Daryl, the baby she carried and the town’s problems. And then he’d smiled and her heart had stumbled.

Buck walked across the street to Lucille’s—he probably needed a drink. The first thing she’d learned when she’d moved to this town was that there was never a shortage of alcohol. According to the residents, whiskey cured hundreds of old-age ailments.

Destiny finished her dinner then showered before settling into bed and reading
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen. Melba had loaned her the book, insisting Austen was a highly acclaimed author. Destiny didn’t understand the book at all or any of the behaviors of the Bennett sisters. If it had been left up to her, she’d have told both Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley to kiss her ass then she’d have left town and struck out on her own.

A banging sound in the garage below the apartment interrupted her reading, and she bolted to the window. Buck left the repair bay, his duffel bag in one hand and his saddle propped on his shoulder. She watched him make his way back to the motel, wishing she could go with him.

She wasn’t the kind of girl most boys took home to meet their mothers, and she wasn’t a saint—she’d spent a night or two in motel rooms with men she shouldn’t have—but Buck made her yearn to experience the teenage milestones she’d missed out on. Like a girl’s first crush—that moment when she saw the guy of her dreams and her breath froze in her lungs. And a girl’s first kiss—hers had been from a drunk who’d mistaken her for her mother in the truck stop restroom.

Men had come and gone from her life but never once had any of them, including Daryl, made her yearn for more than what was right in front of her.

She and Daryl had been friends who’d ended up in bed together one night. Even though Daryl had made her feel less alone in the world, hours would pass by when he wouldn’t cross her mind. Unlike Buck, who’d been in her every other thought since she’d first come upon him sprawled inside his truck.

You don’t even know if Buck has a girlfriend or if he’s married.

The cowboy wasn’t wearing a wedding band but that didn’t mean squat. This was all foolishness on her part. Whimsy. She’d be better off reading thrillers than filling her mind with fantasy.

Tomorrow she’d tighten the axel on Buck’s pickup and replace the hose then send him on his way—after the pool party.

Seeing the cowboy without a shirt on would provide her with a lasting memory after he left Lizard Gulch in the dust. To hell with Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley—when she went to sleep at night she’d conjure up an image of Buck and drift off to dreamland.

* * *

B
UCK
WASN
’
T
SURE
what to make of the pool party. An assortment of old women wearing flowered swim caps played in the water surrounded by floating toys and chairs, while the other guests drank margaritas in red Solo cups with tiny umbrellas and flamingo stir sticks. A table in the shade held the leftover casseroles from Destiny’s wedding/mayoral reception the night before, and bottles of beer and water sat on ice in a rusted-out horse trough.

“The cowboy’s here!” Bernie waved from his inflatable dolphin chair floating inside a circle of heads covered with bathing caps. He’d pinned his sheriff’s badge to the front of his John Deere cap and wore a camouflage T-shirt and matching swim trunks along with white tube socks—the old man must be worried about getting his feet sunburned.

Buck searched the AARP crowd but didn’t spot Destiny.

“She’ll be here soon.” Melba stopped at his side. The twinkle in her eye suggested that she was aware of Buck’s interest in the mayor. “I imagine she’s catching up on sleep after going on a call at 3:00 a.m.”

He didn’t like the idea of Destiny alone on a deserted road late at night. There were too many weirdos out during those hours.

“The highway patrol asked her to pick up an abandoned car,” Melba said.

“I didn’t hear the wrecker.” Buck should have heard the tow truck since the town dead-ended at the garage and the only road in and out sat twenty yards from his motel-room door.

“When you get to be my age, you don’t sleep much. I was reading my gossip magazine in the lobby when she drove past. I called her, and she told me where she was going.”

So Melba played the role of mother hen as well as motel manager. She stared at his body. “Don’t you own a pair of swim trunks?”

He chuckled. “I knew I’d forgotten something when I packed for the rodeo.”

“I can help.”

Inside the motel office Melba set a cardboard box filled with mismatched clothing on the counter. “This stuff was left behind by guests. Maybe there’s a swimsuit that’ll fit you.” She left, and Buck rummaged through the clothing, finding a pair of blue trunks with giant yellow pineapples on them. “These might work.” No sense changing in his room. He stepped behind the counter and removed his jeans then yanked on the trunks. The suit was a little snug but covered all the important parts. He’d left his sneakers on the floor of his truck so he searched for a pair of men’s sandals or flip-flops but came up empty-handed. The thermometer hanging in the shade outside the office window read one hundred and two degrees—the asphalt parking lot would fry the soles of his feet if he walked to the pool barefoot.