Playing for Keeps (Texas Scoundrels) (9 page)

When she finished with the coffee maker, she pulled an oversized mug from the cabinet since he didn’t exactly look like the delicate china type. “Do you take anything in it?”

“Black.” He shifted and rubbed at his shadowed jaw. “I really am sorry about the way I treated you last weekend.”
 

She shrugged and moved to the refrigerator where she pulled out the leftover cheesecake Austin had brought home from her dad’s. “Think nothing of it. I don’t.”
 

He pulled out a chair, spun it around and straddled it. A sexy smile flirted around the corners of his mouth. “You’re not a very good liar, Sister.”

She turned her back on a grin that was already becoming familiar to her and opened the silverware drawer. “Yeah, I’m rusty. Not much practice.”
 

What was she doing? Joking with him? He was the enemy and now she was feeding him her sister’s heaven-on-a-plate cheesecake and making coffee for him. If she wasn’t careful, she’d be smiling at the bastard before much longer.

She set a fork and knife on the table beside a desert plate. The coffee maker gurgled in the background as Adele’s husky tones drifted into the room with them. As much as she hated the thought, he
was
Austin’s father. Because of her own misguided sense of righteousness, they were going to become a part of each other's lives. How large a role he planned to play, she didn’t know. But for Austin’s sake, she needed to make the best of a bad situation.
 

Despite herself, she returned that killer grin of his with a shaky-at-best one of her own.
For Austin’s sake
. “The name is Griffen.”

“Call me Jed?”

She pushed her hair behind her ear.
Please don’t let this be a mistake.
“Okay. Jed.”

He rested his arms over the back of the chair and smiled up at her. “We shouldn’t be fighting all the time. I don’t want to take your son away from you.”

She poured herself a glass of merlot before answering him. The man had a point. Instead of pushing away the source of her irritation, she could end up alienating her son.
That
she couldn’t allow to happen. When Jed left, it would be because he’d grown tired of playing daddy, not because she’d driven him away.

She sat at the table, then sliced him a piece of cheesecake. “Then why are you here?” she asked, setting the dessert in front of him.

He spun the chair around. “I needed to get away for a while.”

So he was hiding from something. Things get tough and Maitland cuts and runs. Her confidence in her decision grew and she wondered how long it would take for him to run out on Austin. “And you decided to come to Hart?”
 

“An unconscious decision.”

She didn’t say anything, just sipped her wine as he cleaned his plate in record time. She sliced him another piece and he graced her with that killer grin before devouring the second helping with equal enthusiasm. When he wasn’t drunk or rude, she supposed he really could be considered attractive. On the outside, there was no doubt he was one hot piece of man-flesh. From what she’d heard about him, he was a hot mess. Still, she found it difficult to believe Dani’s words of praise.

He took another drink of his coffee, then looked over his mug at her, his dark brows creasing into a frown. “What?”

“Just trying to see what Dani saw in you,” she said as she set her glass on the table.
 

He chuckled, a low rumbling that sounded warm and friendly. And nice. “Gee, thanks.”

There she went again, smiling back at the bastard. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s just that you’re so different from the man Dani described in her journal. She really loved you.”

A hard look altered his features. Obviously her sister was not a welcome topic. “It was a long time ago.” He carried his dishes to the sink and stood looking out her kitchen window.

“So it was.” She drained her glass and wondered again what someone like him had seen in her sweet, loving sister, and why he clammed up anytime Dani’s name was mentioned?

“I should get out of here,” he said, turning. “Thanks for the coffee and dessert.”

She stood and faced him. “You’re welcome. But you didn’t come here for a late night snack.”

He shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and leaned against the counter. “No.”
 

“Then why?” She tugged her ancient sweater tighter around her. The coldness in Jed’s eyes chilled her. If given the chance to get to know him a little better, would she discover Dani’s interpretation of him was the true man? The thought spooked her for reasons she didn’t fully understand.
 

She really didn’t see her and Maitland ever becoming friends. He was Austin’s natural father and she his adopted mother. They were natural enemies. She was afraid to let him too close, and he’d resent her interference, just as she resented his very presence. They were stuck in a no-win situation regardless of any supposed truce.

“I’m not sure why I stopped by.” He looked around her kitchen, taking in the white curtains, the antique Coca-Cola memorabilia, the shelves cluttered with old tins. When he looked back at her, uncertainty changed his expression. “Austin’s a good kid.”

Why did he have to do this? Why did he suddenly have to look so uncomfortable, so vulnerable, and sound so damned sincere? She preferred his arrogance.
That
she could handle. “You spent five minutes with him.”

He shrugged. “I’m a pretty good judge of character.”

“I didn’t realize you were ever sober long enough to get a lasting impression.” She’d been right, they could only be adversaries where Austin was concerned. They couldn’t be in the same room together for twenty minutes without her biting off his head. She felt like a cornered animal, snapping at anyone who came near her or her young.
 

His eyes narrowed and he took a step toward her. “I’m not the bad guy.”

She held her ground, determined to show him she wasn’t intimidated by him. Here, in her kitchen, he was just a man. No legends allowed.
 

“You are if you’re going to end up hurting Austin. The novelty of having a son will wear off eventually.”

“You think I’m that shallow?” His mouth tightened with disapproval.

She sighed. “Don’t take this personally, but yes, I do.”
 

“You don’t know me.”

She tugged on her sweater again. Nope, she wasn’t intimidated by him. “I know
about
you.”

He advanced another step toward her. “Believe everything you read in the grocery store rags, eh?”
 

She
wasn’t
intimidated. Nope, not really. Still, she backed up anyway. She caught a scent, the same spicy aftershave she’d noticed earlier. God, he smelled good.

“I know you already have a kid you’re paying for and never see,” she said. “Austin doesn’t need your money. In case you’re wondering, I can support my son. I don’t want him hurt.”

“But it’s my fault he got hurt anyway, isn’t it?”

“My expectations were lower than Austin’s.” The flash of anguish in his eyes had her moving away and turning on the tap to rinse the dishes. “Sometimes things don’t work out like we hope they will,” she said, opening the dishwasher.

“Like my being here. That didn’t work out like you hoped, did it?” There was a tightness to his voice and a determination on his face that should have warned her to drop the subject.

Instead, she set the plate in the dishwasher. “Since we’re being honest, no it didn’t.” Fear made her more bold than wise. “I never expected someone like you to care about a boy you fathered fourteen years ago.”

His hands were shoved into the pockets of his jeans, drawing her attention to his long, athletic legs. “You don’t know me.”

“So you’ve said.” She closed the dishwasher. “But I know enough to know I don’t like you very much.”

“Like I said, Sister, you don’t know me.” A smug grin tipped his mouth. “But you will.”

He walked out. But she knew his departure was only temporary.
 

She stayed in the kitchen, wondering why a man she didn’t even know could evoke such intense emotion from her. He’d issued a challenge, and, God help her, for the first time in months, she actually felt alive.

*

Jed headed straight for The Hang Out in search of a bottle of blessed numbness. He was crazy, that was the only logical explanation for the stupid stunt he’d just pulled.
 

What the fuck was he thinking?
 

He wasn’t, that was the problem.

He walked into the bar and stood by the door, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dimness. As soon as he could make out the shape of the long bar, he strode across the smoke-filled room. Other than a couple of older guys at the end, the place was deserted for a Friday night. They looked at him curiously, and he nodded, then pulled up a stool on the opposite end of the bar.

The bartender, a burly, gray-haired guy, with a towel slung over his shoulder, sauntered toward him and placed both hands on the bar. “What’ll it be?”

“Scotch. Double,” Jed ordered. “Straight up.”

“Sorry, buddy. All we serve here is beer.”

“Fuck,” he said under his breath. What the hell kind of bar didn’t serve alcohol? Real alcohol? No wonder the place was practically empty. “Then make it a six pack of Corona. And make sure they’re cold.”

The bartender reached into a cooler and set six tall bottles in front of him. Jed tossed a fifty on the bar and reached for the first beer. He took a long pull, draining over half the bottle.
 

He had no business sticking around this one horse town that didn’t even have a traffic light. He’d finish his beers, then leave. The kid would be disappointed, but, as Griffen had said, he’d get over it. Better to cut out now before the kid started thinking he planned on...what? Being a father to him?
 

He downed the rest of the first bottle and reached for the second. No matter how much or how fast he drank, the beer couldn’t wash down the past that had slammed home when the kid had looked at him with adoration in eyes too much like his own. He flexed his shoulders to shake off the tension. It didn’t work. Nothing could alleviate the edginess he was feeling.
 

The bartender slapped his change on the bar, then reached into a tub of soapy water. “Don’t think I’ve seen you around these parts. Name’s Eldridge,” he said.

Jed stood and gave the guy a hard look. “Well, Eldridge, when this six pack is gone, bring me another. And eighty-six the conversation. I’m not in the mood for chit-chat.”
 

He picked up his beers and moved to a booth in the corner. The place was too quiet for his liking, so he left the bottles on the table and headed for the jukebox. He pushed buttons at random, not really caring what music played, just something to shut out the condescending voice in his head chiding him for his momentary lapse of reason.

Okay, so maybe he did owe it to Dani to get to know his son. He’d already figured out that much. But, now he’d have to deal with Griffen, an over-protective, hot-tempered, long legged, sexy-as-sin beauty who didn’t think very highly of him.
 

Satisfied when an older George Strait tune filled the quiet, he returned to the table and downed the next beer. He hadn’t rubbed up against a woman like Griffen in a long time. She wasn’t impressed by his wealth or his status. Even as a man he didn’t impress her, she’d made that abundantly clear.
 

Not that any of it mattered. Before the sun rose in the morning, he’d be long gone. And Griffen Somerfield with her fiery green eyes and gentle curves would be nothing but another memory washed away by copious quantities of alcohol.

Six

JED SAT ON the edge of the queen-sized bed, his elbows braced on his knees, staring down at the worn beige carpeting of the Lakeside Motel. For the third day in a row, he woke up feeling human. His head didn’t pound, his eyes didn’t burn. Even after the six pack of Corona he’d downed at The Hang Out last night, his mouth didn’t taste like the Mojave Desert. There were no empty bottles of Jim, Jack or José littering the bedside table. No prescription bottles lie within easy reach to alleviate the pain in his shoulder or to help erase a past he’d worked hard to forget. Thanks to Griffen, that past had come back to haunt him, in the eyes of his own son.

He hadn’t thought about Dani in a long time. He’d accepted the fact that she’d left him without a word. No bad reasons, no lame excuses, no false lines about how they should stay friends. No, when Dani Hart had walked out of his life she’d done it with style, practically leaving him at the altar. He’d dealt with it, gone on with his life, but he’d learned never to let anyone that close to him again. He’d had women since. Plenty of them. But nothing serious because he’d made sure he called the shots.

He knew what he wanted to do—contact his lawyer and let him handle the situation. Steve Rafferty would make a formal, albeit quiet, acknowledgment of Austin as a Maitland, all neat and tidy and legal, with a generous monthly child support payment. He’d make sure the kid had all the advantages his money could offer, but that would be the end of his involvement. He wouldn’t make any demands. There would be no legalities to change Austin’s name from Somerfield to Maitland. His acknowledgment of Austin would eliminate a potentially messy paternity battle or a feeding frenzy for the press.