Lone Star Nights (19 page)

His hand going up her top.

Again, it was rough. He had calluses, and they raked across her skin. He shoved down the right cup of her bra before she even realized what he was doing.

Mackenzie stepped back, her breath gusting.

“You're not quitting, are you?” Brody asked. “Because you don't look like a girl who'd quit to me.”

“I don't quit,” she said. In the past that was her answer to anyone who wanted to fight, but Brody must have figured out that she didn't want to fight with him. So what did not quitting mean to him?

Certainly not
that
.

“But maybe we can just kiss,” she whispered.

Mackenzie couldn't see a lot of his face because it was so dark, but Brody still had his hand on her arm, and she felt his muscles tense. Then relax.

“All right. For now, we kiss,” he agreed.

The relief flooded through her, along with a new trickle of heat when his mouth came back to hers. Not so rough this time. It was gentle, and strange. Strange because it made the heat trickle even more than it had when he was being rough. She wasn't sure why that would make a difference. Mackenzie wasn't sure of anything except that she wanted Brody to keep on kissing her.

And he did.

Until there was a bright flash of light. Not from overhead but from outside the barn. At first, she thought Lucky or Cassie had found them, but this wasn't anyone she recognized. It was some bald guy with a camera.

The flash went off again.

This jerk was taking their picture. But why?

“Hey!” Brody warned him. “You stop that now.”

Well, the guy did stop taking their picture. But he didn't stop moving altogether. He took off running, taking the proof of the kiss with him.

Mackenzie held her breath, waiting to see if someone was going to come running out of the house. When that didn't happen, she figured that she'd pushed her luck enough for one night. If Lucky or Cassie caught her out here, they might not let her go to the dance.

On a date, she corrected.

Her first date. And there was no way she wanted to ruin that.

“Gotta go,” she said.

Before he could say something to stop her, Mackenzie brushed a quick kiss on Brody's mouth and slunk back toward the house.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

C
ASSIE
CAME
DOWN
the stairs and immediately had to dodge a cat that zipped past her. The dodging caused her to sidestep, and in turn she tripped over a basket of toy cars. Ethan's “flower boy” offerings no doubt. She hadn't needed another reminder that Claire and Riley's wedding was only three days away, but the stubbed toe now served as notice that the clock was ticking.

Too fast.

Business had made that time jet by even faster. First business on her part—Marla had made a return visit, this time to lament over whether or not her kneecaps were too saggy. A lover—Cassie didn't bother to ask which one—had mentioned it, and it'd sent Marla into a tailspin. Or rather straight to the airport. Cassie had calmed the woman down but then had suggested she might want another therapist. Marla had balked about that for hours until Cassie had suggested Andrew.

Success.

Marla was no longer on Cassie's client list. In fact, her client list was down to just a handful now, even though she did have two television appearances still scheduled for the end of the month. By then, the wedding would be over, the girls would be with Aunt Alice and Lucky's kisses would be a memory.

It was getting harder and harder for Cassie to hang on to those memories. Mainly because Lucky hadn't exactly been around much to remind her.

Or kiss her again.

In fact, it'd been three days since he'd done that.

The business bug had bitten him, too, and he'd been forced to spend time in his San Antonio office to put out whatever kind of fires a rodeo promoter had to put out. Thankfully, Mackenzie had behaved herself even if she'd pretty much stayed in her room. And besides, the time spent not kissing Lucky had given Cassie a chance to hang out with Mia.

Which was both fun and exhausting.

She wasn't sure how parents did that day in and day out, but at least now Cassie knew if she ever had children of her own, she'd be able to handle it without going into panic mode.

That left the letter. Cassie wasn't sure how to deal with her grandmother's letter. Well, one specific part of that letter anyway.

PS. Try to make Lucky understand that his parents' deaths weren't his fault
.

Cassie wasn't sure how Dixie Mae had expected her to fix that since Lucky wouldn't even talk about it. Worse, Cassie wasn't sure she wanted him to talk about it. That was how she'd gotten into trouble with Hannah. She'd encouraged the woman to open some old wounds that had apparently been so deep they'd caused her to kill herself.

Still rubbing her toe, Cassie made her way to the kitchen in the hopes of finding a second cup of coffee. Maybe finding Lucky, too, or the girls. But what she found was Andrew sitting at the table, drinking what appeared to be the last cup of coffee. The pot was empty, and Della was at the counter prepping lunch.

Since Andrew had been making daily appearances at the ranch to counsel the girls, it wasn't much of a surprise to see him. However, the fact that he had an open bottle of whiskey next to his cup gave Cassie a moment's pause.

“Uh, is something wrong?” Cassie asked.

Della glanced at her, giving her what Cassie could only describe as a sympathetic look. “I sent Mia to the sunroom to play with the cats,” Della said. “Mackenzie's with her. I thought it was for the best.” Then she excused herself and left the kitchen. Definitely not a good sign since she'd been in the middle of chopping an onion.

“Sit down,” Andrew said, and it sounded like an order.

For that reason alone Cassie stood, and she huffed. “Look, Andrew, I'm grateful you were there after Hannah died. You kept me from falling apart—”

“You did fall apart,” he argued.

“No. I had panic attacks, and plenty of people have them without having to stay in Sweet Meadows.” It had taken her a while, too long, but now that she'd distanced herself from that place, she knew it hadn't been a good idea. “Being there made me feel as if I needed to be there.”

That probably didn't make sense to him, but she wasn't sure she cared. What she did care about right now was a cup of coffee. The caffeine hit would help her headache so Cassie went to the counter and started a fresh pot. While she was waiting, she decided to wash her hands and finish chopping the onion for Della.

“Is there a reason for all this hostility I'm sensing coming from you?” Andrew asked. This time he sounded like a therapist.
Her
therapist. “Maybe there's something you'd like to tell me? You know, before I find out on my own.”

That didn't sound like a fishing-expedition sort of comment. Of course, Cassie had been chilly to him so maybe he was picking up on the fact that she wanted him to leave Spring Hill.

“I know you're thinking about throwing your career away,” he continued. “But I didn't think you'd trash mine in the process.”

Cassie stopped, turned, and she was certain there was confusion and alarm on her face. On Andrew's face, too, but then she realized her eyes had watered from the onion and she was holding up the knife as if she were the star of a slasher movie. Cassie eased the knife back onto the counter.

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“Don't play games with me.”

She shook her head, causing him to huff. Apparently, he wasn't going to take her head shake as proof that she didn't have a clue what was going on. Then she rubbed her eyes and made the stinging and burning significantly worse.

“Use your words, Andrew,” she snapped. Cassie also snapped a paper towel from the roll, dampened it and pressed it to her eyes.

“I don't need words because these pictures are worth a thousand of them.” And Andrew slapped something on the table. Perhaps something he'd taken from his pocket, but with her having to blink ten times per second, it was hard to tell.

Hard to see what'd gotten him so riled up, too.

Hard to see, period.

Cassie went closer, blinking even more to get her eyes to focus, and she finally saw the photo clearly. At first she wasn't sure what she was actually looking at, and it took her a moment to realize it was Mackenzie and Brody. Kissing in the barn.

Sheez, Louise.

The photo was indeed worth a thousand words, and the word at the top of that list was
grounded
.

Since it was obviously dark in the picture, this meant Mackenzie had no doubt sneaked out to meet Brody. Cassie wasn't sure when the girl had done that, but she hadn't had eyes on her 24/7, mainly because Mackenzie had been so happy lately. Well, if happiness was graded on the Mackenzie scale anyway.

But that was only part of the problem Cassie had with the unauthorized smooching. It was the fact that there was a picture of it. A picture that Mackenzie and Brody clearly hadn't taken because they'd been too busy exploring each other's tonsils.

“Who took that picture?” Cassie demanded.

“The same person who took this one.” Andrew reached into his jacket pocket and extracted another photo.

Not of Mackenzie and Brody this time. Of Lucky and that sleazy woman, Angel, who'd French-kissed him on the porch. Even though Cassie knew nothing had come of it, that Lucky had quickly gotten rid of her, the photo made it look as if they were making out in public.

“Who took these?” she repeated.

Andrew didn't answer that time, either, but he did pull out a third picture. Another one that had been taken in the barn. It was a shot of Lucky and her. Snapped on the day that she was now referring to as the great chaps lapse.

Oh, mercy.

Lucky and she were doing some smooching, too. And he had his hand on her butt while leading her up the ladder to the hayloft.

Cassie groaned, but what she wanted to do was scream her head off. She hadn't caught even a glimpse of anyone taking their picture. Of course, that had been the last thing on her mind. What she'd been focused on was getting that orgasm from Lucky. Besides, the photo of Lucky and her appeared to have been taken with a long-range lens. Ditto for the one of Lucky and Angel. So it was possible that the photographer hadn't even come onto the ranch.

She couldn't say the same for the one of Brody and Mackenzie, though. That one had been taken up close and at night. There was no way they wouldn't have known about it.

Cassie's stomach knotted into a giant ball, and it was churning as if a basketball point guard were dribbling it. That didn't help her breathing, either, and her heart was thudding in her ears.

Breathe
.

She refused to have a panic attack. Cassie tried to put this in perspective. No one was dead or even hurt. Yes, she'd screwed up again, but the damage wasn't anything like it'd been with Hannah.

She hoped.

“What's going on?” Mackenzie asked.

Cassie hadn't heard her, but the girl was right there in the kitchen, and her attention landed on the photos.

“Oh, God.” Mackenzie's hand went flying to her mouth. She shook her head. “Who took that picture?”

That was a really good question, but it wasn't nearly as good as the one Cassie had for her. “What were you doing kissing Brody in the barn?”

And apparently Andrew thought he had the best question of all. “What were you doing kissing Lucky in the barn?” he asked Cassie.

Since Cassie didn't have anything near a good answer, she repeated Mackenzie's question. “Who took those pictures?”

“Theo Kervin, the reporter who's been sniffing around town for a story,” Andrew said, but his huff and glare let her know that his question was still on the table—literally. That was where the picture of Lucky and her kissing still rested.

“Why would some stupid reporter take a picture of me?” Mackenzie asked.

Maybe it was that her eyes were still burning, or because she still had that headache, but it took Cassie several seconds to piece it together. “This Theo Kervin wants to paint me in a bad light because it'll hurt my reputation as a celebrity therapist. It'll be
news
.”

“Bingo,” Andrew confirmed. “I don't know all the details of what will be in the article in the Friday paper, but I know he's mentioning me as your spurned lover. It'll make me look like a fool.”

“Ex-lover,” Cassie corrected, though that was splitting hairs. She knew how tabloid journalism worked, and “ex-lover” wouldn't be nearly as tawdry as having her step out on a distinguished psychologist so she could make out with a cowboy.

All the while she was supposed to be parenting two children in her custody.

All the while one of those girls was making out with a wannabe cowboy.

If Theo had found out about Sweet Meadows, then he could seal the career-ruining deal by just mentioning it. And yes, that would hurt Andrew, too, because it would make it seem as if his lover was a sex-crazed lunatic with no regard whatsoever for the children.

Breathe
.

The reminder wasn't working so Cassie put her head between her knees again. And that's how Lucky found her when he walked into the kitchen.

* * *

L
UCKY
HURRIED
OVER
to Cassie, lifting her head so he could see what was wrong. He saw her red eyes and whirled around to beat the shit out of Andrew for whatever he'd done to make her cry.

But then his attention landed on the photos.

Oh, man.

It felt as if someone had sucker punched him, and he instantly knew. Andrew wasn't the reason for Cassie's tears. He was.

“Theo Kervin took those?” Lucky asked Andrew. “Or did you?” While he was in the Q & A mode, his gaze shot to Mackenzie. “And what the hell were you doing kissing Brody?”

“Uh, kissing him,” Mackenzie answered.

No smart-assery in her tone this time. She gave him a truthful answer that in no way answered his question. But Lucky would deal with her later. For now, he needed to stop Cassie from having a panic attack. However, when Cassie lifted her head again, she didn't seem to be in panic mode but rather anger mode.

“I'm going to sue Theo Kervin,” she insisted.

“They'll be in the morning papers,” Andrew added. “Including the local one here. I tried to stop it, tried to pay off the idiot, but he wouldn't take it.”

Maybe because someone had already paid him—like Mason-Dixon. Of course, Cassie's father was more the type to extort money than to pay it, but if he'd wanted to burn Cassie and Lucky for the cats, then this would have been the way to do it. It wouldn't hurt Lucky's reputation. In fact, it would confirm what most people thought about him anyway, but it would hurt Cassie. Would hurt Mackenzie, too.

First things first, though.

“You're grounded,” Lucky told Mackenzie. “I let the money thing slide with just an apology, but this isn't sliding.”

“Grounded?” she howled as if she'd just been sentenced to be pecked to death by rabid ducks. “This isn't fair.”

“Probably not, but you're not allowed to sneak out of the house and make out with boys. I'm just funny that way.”

Mackenzie flung her hand toward the other pictures. “You made out with Cassie and that skank.”

“Not to the skank. To Angel,” he corrected. “Yeah, to Cassie. But Cassie and I are adults.” Though it hadn't felt like it that day. Lucky could have sworn he'd felt a few raging teenage hormones himself when he'd been with Cassie.

Mackenzie huffed and puffed a few seconds while she stared at Cassie, apparently waiting for a second opinion on the grounding verdict. But Cassie just shook her head. “You're grounded. We'll talk later.”

After more huffing and puffing, Mackenzie spun around to leave. Lucky followed her a few steps to make sure she was actually going upstairs rather than heading out the front door. She not only went upstairs, he heard her slam her bedroom door.