Texas! Lucky (9 page)

Chapter 6

S
usan Young descended the stairs slowly, looking wounded, her mouth sulky. From her appearance, Lucky guessed that she had been crying most of the day, or at least wanted him to think so. Her eyes were watery and red. The tip of her nose had been rubbed raw by tissues. Her complexion was splotchy.

In lieu of hello she said, "Mama advised me not to speak to you." She halted on the third stair from the bottom.

Seeing a potential way out of this unwelcome encounter, Lucky asked solicitously, "Would another time be better?"

"No, it would not!" she replied tartly. "We've got a lot to talk about, Mr. Tyler."

Drat, he thought.

She descended the last three steps and swept past him into the formal living room. It smelled sickeningly of furniture polish. Afternoon sunlight was shining through the windows, dappling the pale blue carpet with patterns of light and shadow. It was a gorgeous day. Lucky wished he were outside enjoying it. He wished he were anywhere but where he was—in the Youngs' formidable living room being subjected to Susan's hurt, chastising glare.

"Well?" she demanded imperiously the moment she had closed the double doors.

"What can I say? I did something terribly stupid, and got caught."

His demeanor was self-deprecating. He'd learned early on that the only way to handle a woman scorned was to assume all the blame and be as honest as was prudent. There had been those occasions, however, when honesty had been suspended because either castration or his life were at stake. He didn't think Susan's wrath had reached that level of danger … yet.

Looking properly contrite, he said, "Can you forgive me for standing you up last night, Susan?"

"Of course I can forgive you for that, although it was a tacky thing to do."

"It certainly was. I owe your parents an apology for it, too."

"We held up dinner for an hour and a half waiting on you. We didn't eat until nine."

That would have been about the time Dovey was blowing on his knife wound, cooling his flesh, and inflaming his passions with her soft breath. Damn, it had felt delicious, stirring his body hair, fanning his skin.

"I have no excuse for what I did."

The apologetic words were beginning to stick in his craw. If not for her father's position at the bank, he'd tell this spoiled brat that he wasn't accountable to her for whom he slept with, and that would be the last she'd see of him.

He was anxious to begin his search for Dovey, and was only going through the motions of stroking Susan because it was politic to do so. He hadn't needed Chase to spell that out to him. However, he rued the day he'd asked Susan for that first date several months ago. He wanted to lash out, reminding her that he'd made her no promises, certainly had made no commitments, and that whoever he slept with, whether it be one woman or a dozen, was no business of hers. Only a reminder of the loan payment coming due forced him to squelch his mounting temper.

Hoping that she wouldn't catch the hopefulness in his voice, he said, "You'd be better off refusing to see me again."

She gazed thoughtfully at the floor for a moment, then raised her shimmering eyes to his. "I've got a more forgiving spirit than that."

Damn! Women loved to be forgiving. It vested them with enormous power over the forgiven. They thrived on the poor sucker's guilt like carrion birds on a carcass, picking it clean.

"I can forgive you for skipping dinner with us," she said. "I can even overlook your engaging in a barroom brawl, because I know you have a volatile nature. I'll admit that's part of the attraction you hold over me.

"What I'm finding very difficult to forgive…" Here, her lower lip began to quiver and her voice became tremulous. "You've humiliated me in front of the whole town. They say you couldn't be located when the fire broke out last night because you were with a whore."

"She wasn't a whore." The application of that word to Dovey made him so angry that he was startled by the intensity of his emotion.

"Then who was she?"

"A stranger. I never saw her before last night, but she wasn't a whore." Susan was watching him shrewdly. He softened his tone. "Look, Susan, I didn't set out to sleep with anybody last night. It just sorta happened." That was the truth. He hadn't wormed his way into Dovey's motel room with the intention of making love to her. He'd only wanted to provoke her as badly as he'd been provoked, get his apology, and then leave.

It wasn't entirely his fault that it hadn't quite worked out that way. He'd been half-asleep when he reached for her. She'd been fragrant and warm and soft and compliant. Her damp lips had been mobile beneath his, her body responsive. He couldn't be blamed for how naturally his body had responded to the sexy stimuli. Of course, it had been conditioned to respond.

"…understand. You left here yesterday aroused. Right?"

He blinked to clear his vision, and tried to grasp what Susan had been saying. "Uh, right."

She approached him, gazing up at him through spiky, wet lashes. Her mouth looked vulnerable. But for all her tears and sniveling, Lucky knew she was about as helpless as a barracuda.

"So you took your lust for me and spent it on a willing woman," she whispered, laying her hands on his chest. "I guess I should be flattered, though I'm still very hurt. The thought of you in bed with another woman makes me just want to die."

She looked closer to killing than dying. Her eyes, no longer bright with tears, were alight with malice. "But I can understand how when a man gets so aroused, he's got to do something about it or explode."

She came up on tiptoes and brushed a kiss across his lips. "I know the feeling, Lucky. Don't you think I want you, too? Don't you know that the only reason I'm saving myself is so our wedding night will be special? Don't you know how badly I want to make love to you right now?"

True, he had been mildly aroused when he left Susan after lunch the day before, but he had got hotter than that watching certain commercials on TV. His arousal then had been like a mild head cold when compared to the feverish delirium he'd experienced when he'd entered Dovey's giving body.

"Look, Susan," he said irritably, "all this talk about weddings—"

She laid her fingers against his lips. "Shh. I know we can't make an announcement until you get out of the mess you're in. Poor baby." She reached up with the intention of running her fingers through his hair. He snapped his head back and caught her hand before she could touch him.

"Announcement?"

"The announcement of our engagement, silly," she said, playfully tapping his chest. "And just so we can get this misunderstanding about the fire settled quickly, and to prove how much I love you, I'll say that you spent last night with me."

"What?"

"It's all over town that you woke up alone this morning and can't produce your alibi. So I'll say that I was with you. Mama and Daddy will have a fit, of course, but they'll accept our sleeping together as inevitable if I have an engagement ring on my finger. They'll be so happy we're finally making it official, they'll overlook our one night of sin."

She was either downright conniving or entertaining delusions. Either way, she was dangerous and had to be handled with kid gloves.

"What makes you think anyone will believe you if you come forward now and say I was with you last night?"

"I'll say that, at first, you wouldn't let me be your alibi because of what it would mean to my reputation. I insisted until you capitulated."

"Looks like you've got it figured from every angle."

"Ever since I heard you couldn't produce that woman, it's all I've thought about. I'll say I sneaked out after Mama and Daddy had gone to bed. Actually I did go out last night."

"What for?"

"I was so upset, I drove around looking for you, searching for your car at all the places you usually go. When I didn't find you, I came home. My parents never knew I went out. I could say that we met and spent the night together, passionately making love." She gave him an impish grin. "Which isn't a bad idea."

"That's not how you felt about it yesterday," he reminded her.

"A girl can change her mind."

She was as easy to see through as the Waterford vase on the mantel. She had turned him down yesterday, so he had slaked his lust with someone else. That was untenable to a conceited woman like Susan, especially when everybody in town knew about it. She had devised a way to save face and, at the same time, lasso him for good. Even though her lie would clear him, it was self-serving.

"You'd be willing to lie to save my hide? You'd do that for me?"

"And for me," she admitted. "I want you, Lucky Tyler. And I mean to have you, no matter what it takes."

Whether I want you or not, he thought.

"I'll call Sheriff Bush right now," she said suddenly, turning toward the phone. Lucky's arm shot out. He caught her hand.

"I can't let you do it, Susan."

Her bright smile dimmed. "Why not?"

"You could get in a lot of trouble by lying to federal investigators. I can't let you do that for me."

"I want to."

"And I appreciate it," he said with what he hoped sounded like sincerity. He could see, however, that she wasn't convinced. "Let me think about it. You know, Susan, perjury is a serious offense. I need to think it through before letting you do it."

Her smile returned, but there was a definite edge to her voice when she said, "Don't mull it over too long. I'm not sure how long my offer will stand."

What a conniving little bitch, he thought. Forcing himself to smile, he said, "You're something, you know that? When I first met you, I had no idea there was so much complexity beneath the surface."

"Whatever I want I go after. It's as simple as that."

God help the man she got her hooks into. Lucky silently vowed then and there that it wasn't going to be him. "Well, I've got a lot of thinking to do, Susan, so I'd better be going."

"Must you?" she whined.

"I must."

"Take this with you." She looped her arms around his neck, pulled his head down, and ground a wet, suggestive kiss upon his mouth. When she eventually pulled back, she whispered, "Maybe that'll make you think twice before going to another woman."