THE BEST MAN IN TEXAS Read online

  "We should have done this sixteen years ago," Joe murmured, looking down into the face of a woman he never thought he'd ever be with.

  She shook her head and looked as dazed as he felt. "I would have fallen in love and you would have broken my heart."

  "Or the other way around."

  "You had a different girl every weekend."

  "More gym class lies."

  "As my mother would say, where there's smoke there's fire."

  "And I'd better check the steaks." He was a little shaken by how fast he'd slipped past common sense and into take-this-woman-to-bed mode.

  "You have to take your hands off my shoulders first."

  "Yeah." He looked down at the baby pressed against Delia's breasts and reluctantly released his hold. "With luck she'll sleep for hours."

  "And Hank?"

  "Until morning. Once that kid goes to sleep, that's it."

  "So it's just the two of us."

  "Yes, sweetheart. I thought it was about time." He winked at her, but turned away before he saw her reaction. She was here and, he told himself, that was all that mattered. For now.

  * * *

  "Dinner's ready."

  Delia took one more look at the sleeping baby and tiptoed out of the room. Hank, wearing Scooby-Doo pajamas and sprawled on the living room couch, slept with his face against a stuffed black dog. "What about Hank?"

  Joe found the remote control under another stuffed animal and turned off the cartoon channel. "I'll carry him to bed. The little guy is pretty wiped out."

  "He was so scared last night." He should have had his mother to comfort him instead of the stranger from across the street. Delia wished she had the power to drag Martin back to town so Hank would have a mother again.

  "Yeah, but the chocolate milk got him through today." Joe bent down and scooped Hank into his arms. "Hey, buddy," he said, keeping his voice low. "I'm taking you into your bed now." The little boy didn't stir, which made Joe chuckle. "He sleeps like a Brown, that's for sure."

  She didn't want to know how a Brown slept. She was here for steak and conversation, that's all. She would sip her margarita slowly, she would not let it go to her head, she would behave like a neighbor and not a date.

  He returned to the living room and smiled at her. It was that come-hither smile that must have caused any number of her high school classmates to wiggle out of their underwear and haul J.C. Brown into the back seat of their cars. He was tall and dark and lean, with dark green eyes that looked at her as if she'd already removed her panties and thrown them out the window.

  "I'm starting to wonder how parents ever get any time alone."

  "I don't think they do." She walked toward the kitchen and he followed her.

  "My best friend and his wife have five kids, all little. He said they get a sitter once a week and go off to a motel for a few hours."

  "Really." She'd never had sex in a motel in her entire life. She would have to start making a list of all the things she'd missed doing. "Five children?"

  "Sit down and I'll serve us." He moved the rocking chair away from the table and put it in the corner. The oval table was set with blue checked placemats, matching cloth napkins and white plates. In the middle of the table a vase of daisies sat between the salt and pepper shakers and a bottle of barbecue sauce.

  "I can't believe you did all this."

  He shrugged and held out her chair. "I couldn't take you out anywhere fancy, so this is the next best thing." She watched him place containers of various salads on the table, then cover her plate with a huge steak and a baked potato.

  "Just exactly how big are those cows of yours?" She looked down at the steak and wondered how she would eat half of it, never mind the entire thing. It smelled wonderful, like pepper and onions.

  Joe sat down across from her. "I was trying to impress you."

  "Why?"

  He poured white wine into her glass and his, and set the bottle on the table before he answered. "It's a guy thing."

  "Well, that explains it then." She picked up her fork and knife and cut a piece of meat.

  "I figure this is our first date."

  She almost laughed at the satisfied expression on his face. "You do?"

  "Yep." Joe toasted her with his wineglass. "And it only took sixteen years, two little kids, a sick mother and a runaway sister to make it happen."

  "Don't forget the unfaithful husband." She smiled so he'd know she wasn't suffering from a broken heart.

  "I left him out on purpose," he admitted. "He's worth forgetting, right?"

  "Absolutely." She remembered that she was supposed to be eating dinner and tasted the steak. "Delicious. Tell me about your ranch."

  "It's north of Austin, near Round Rock. I bought the place about six years ago." The pride in his voice was unmistakable. "The barn is new, the house isn't and there's enough land to make a little extra money raising cattle."

  "You said you were a part-time rancher. What do you do the rest of the time?"

  "I teach."

  "You teach," she repeated, uncertain that she had heard him correctly.

  "Yeah." Joe gestured toward the bowls between them. "Don't forget to try the various Pecan Hollow specialties."

  "What do you teach?"

  "History."

  "Where?" There was no way on earth she could picture him teaching history to a group of high school students. Not July's legendary bad boy.

  "At UT."

  "You're a professor at the University of Texas?"

  "Yes, ma'am. You might say I was a late bloomer, but I did end up going to college and I even studied once in a while. I discovered I liked history—American history—and once I got my doctorate, well, I figured I liked the place enough to stay and get a job. Of course, one of the perks is my season football pass."

  "Go Horns."

  "Damn right." That dangerous grin again, the one she'd learned to watch out for, flashed her way before he helped himself to the macaroni salad. Too soon, she reminded herself, to like another man this much after only a few months of her divorce. It was one thing to help out a neighbor. And it had been quite natural to share a couple of kisses with Joe, just to see what it would be like to kiss J.C. Brown and feel like a woman again. But liking him? Now that could be trouble.

  Later, after she'd convinced him to let her help clean up the kitchen, after they'd checked on the sleeping children and before Delia could make her excuses to leave while she still had her clothes on, Joe took her in his arms.

  "There," he said, after the kind of kiss that made a woman gasp for air and wonder if her knees still existed. "I couldn't go without doing that much longer."

  "I haven't had a lot of experience at this sort of thing," Delia stammered when he took her hand and led her down the hall, to the back of the house. "I'm still not the kind of person who takes her clothes off and has sex for fun, so I think you're wasting your time here, you know?"

  "We're going to look at the stars," Joe said. "That's all."

  "Stars?" He led her into a darkroom, but he didn't turn on the light. She saw the outline of a double bed, but Joe opened a sliding glass door and led her into a sunroom. The windows were open, allowing a warm breeze to cool the air.

  "I'll leave the lights off," he said, laughing. "In case you change your mind about the sex." He guided her to a couch padded with thick flowered cushions. "Lean back. Stars, just as I promised."

  Delia kicked off her sandals and scooted into the corner of the lounger, which moved. "Oh, it's a glider. My grandmother used to have one of these on her porch."

  He sat down next to her, which made the glider sway. "Sometimes I sleep out here. Nice, huh?"

  "Very nice." Through the glass panels in the vaulted ceiling, the stars shone in the near-black sky. It was a large room, with a couple of wicker chairs and a round table. In the distance she could see lights from the windows of other Pecan Hollow residents, but in the darkness they seemed miles away, especially since the porch was on the back
of the trailer and away from the main road. "It's so quiet back here."

  "It's the next best thing to taking a girl to a drive-in movie."

  "My mother never let me go." She sighed and leaned back against the cushions. "Do you know any of the constellations?"

  "Nothing but the Big Dipper and even then I'm not too sure about it." He took her hand. "What movie did you want to see?"

  "What movie—oh," she said, as his thumb caressed her palm. "Die Hard."

  "Your mother wouldn't let you see Die Hard?"

  "Not at the drive-in with a boy." She sighed dramatically. "I had a difficult childhood."

  He laughed and put his arm around her. "There. That's what we'd do when the movie started. We'd be in the back seat and I'd have a couple of pillows and a blanket in case you got cold. You'd snuggle against me—yeah, like that—and we'd pretend to watch the movie for a while."

  "So far so good." She tilted her head back against his arm and looked up to the sky. His fingers caressed her bare shoulder, a lovely tickling sensation. She tried not to laugh when Joe leaned closer and nuzzled her ear, but she couldn't help herself.

  "Shhh. You're not supposed to giggle when a guy is putting his best moves on you."

  "Sorry." She took a deep breath and looked up at the sky again. "I thought we were watching the movie. I love Bruce Willis. Now what?"

  "We're going to forget the earlobe kissing and move right to the cheek," he announced. "Brace yourself." His lips feathered a trail along her jaw to the corner of her mouth. "You're supposed to turn your head and make this easier for me."

  "Okay." She did as she was told, but this time she didn't feel like laughing. Her mouth met his in a sweet, tentative kiss that made her feel sixteen again—but only for a moment. Her hands looped around his neck and pulled him closer as he leaned over her, his chest touching her breasts and creating all sorts of havoc in her body. Her tongue mated with his, she breathed with him, held him, wanted him.

  And he knew it, damn the man. Delia sensed his surprise, felt his hand at the nape of her neck holding her to him so she couldn't move away even if she wanted to. He stopped, pulled away, took a breath. Those dark green eyes looked into hers.

  "I guess you don't want to watch Bruce fight the bad guys," he whispered, and the glider rocked softly.

  She shook her head. "I think I know how it's going to turn out."

  "Bruce wins?"

  "Of course. Why are you frowning?"

  "I'd forgotten how small the back seat of a car is." He smiled ruefully. "Come here," he said, and scooped her onto his lap before she could protest.

  "I'm too heavy."

  "You're perfect. And this leaves both of my hands free in case you let me—"

  "Let you what?" It wasn't easy to keep from smiling into his eyes.

  "Is this our first date?"

  "Oh, yes."

  He swore. And shifted her bottom on his lap. Her body, deprived of lovemaking for too many months, was disappointed. Until he took her mouth again. His hands crept to her waist and pulled the hem of her blouse up in one fluid motion.

  "You're very good at this," she said. "The rumors were true."

  "Shhh. You're wrecking my concentration." He dipped his mouth to the base of her throat and ran his hands beneath her shirt and along the bare skin of her back.

  He was wrecking all her vows to stay celibate and sensible. Imagine that, she was making out with J.C. Brown, after all these years.

  "Am I supposed to do anything?" she whispered. "You're supposed to tell me to stop and then we separate for a few minutes while I apologize. But I won't mean it, because—" He moved his hands so that his thumbs touched the sides of her breasts. "Because I got to do this."

  "I think that's a fifth or sixth date kind of thing," she said. "But you're the expert."

  "Let's say we've been dating for three or four months," he murmured. One hand moved slowly along her breasts and found the clasp between them. He unfastened it with a quick motion and smoothed the fabric away from her skin. It was all she could do not to whimper, which wasn't something a thirty-three-year-old divorced woman would do. She was supposed to be experienced, blasé and oh so casual about sex. But Joe's fingers were doing lovely things to her breasts and nipples, and the heat that radiated between his thighs and hers was becoming too much to ignore. Somewhere a car door slammed, voices in the distance bid "good night," a moth banged at the screen above her head. But the porch felt like a million miles away from anyone.

  "Now," he said, his voice rough. "We move to the buttons." He slipped his hands free from her blouse and set to work unbuttoning the front of it until her breasts were exposed to the warm summer night. He eased the blouse from her shoulders and, along with her white bra, tossed it aside. "You can watch the movie if you want."

  "I think," she whispered, looping her arms around his neck, "I'd rather watch you. You're definitely very good at this."

  "You haven't seen anything yet," he growled, making her laugh until the sound caught in her throat. His lips were on her breast, his hands on her back, his hair tickled her skin and she wondered when she could decently remove his shirt and run her palms along his chest. "These movies can last a long time. But we have all night."

  "I'm not spending the night," she whispered. He turned her in his arms and laid her down on her side, wedged against the back cushion. He eased his body alongside of hers and they made the glider move back and forth several times before they were comfortably facing each other, nose to nose. "What are we doing now?"

  "Well, I'm going to do this," he said, running his hand up her skirt and along her thigh. "And try not to fall off the swing."

  "I always knew I was missing out by not going to the drive-in." Her face was very close to his, so she touched his jaw. His mouth descended for yet another long, slow, deep kiss that seemed to go on forever while his hand held her thigh and his body leaned into hers, crotch to tingling crotch.

  "I knew I should have asked you," he murmured, lifting his mouth a fraction from hers. "But I'd have been too scared to do anything but hold your hand." His fingers inched higher, moving her skirt to her waist. "I'd never have thought of doing this," he said, running his index finger along the edge of her bikini underwear.

  She was suddenly very glad she'd worn a skirt. Martin hadn't been much for foreplay, not after the first year of marriage, and she'd never experienced making out on a porch glider. Joe shifted his weight, and his shirt brushed the sensitive skin of her breasts.

  "We're crazy," she murmured.

  "Don't worry," he said, smiling against her mouth. "I won't do anything you don't want me to."

  "That's an old line."

  "And I'm an old—"

  "Joe, is that you?" A woman's voice penetrated the darkness. "Oh, for heaven's sake!"

  "What the hell—" Joe turned his head, lost his balance and fell to the floor. Someone turned the overhead light on, Delia grabbed a pillow to cover her breasts, closed her eyes and groaned.

  "Delia?" A much too familiar male voice shook with shock and disapproval. "What do you think you're doing?"

  She opened her eyes to see Martin, tanned and angry, standing inside the door to the sunporch. A stunning but tired-looking blonde stood next to him, but her gaze was on her brother, who was scrambling to his feet.

  "None of your business," was the only thing she could think of to say to her ex-husband, who hadn't rolled around half-naked with her in quite a few years and—since he'd been on vacation with his new girlfriend—didn't have the right to get stuffy about anyone's sex life.

  "Turn off the light, Martin," the woman, her voice deceptively sweet, ordered.

  "But Julie, that's my—"

  "Now," she demanded, and Martin reached for the light switch and did as he was told. Joe blocked Delia's view when he stood in front of her, but she kept the pillow against her breasts and tried to pull her skirt down.

  "Take your time. We'll be in the living room," Julie said, looking as if s
he wanted to laugh. She grabbed Martin's arm and hauled him back into the house. Joe retrieved her blouse and bra from the floor and handed them to her.

  "I'm sorry about that," he said. "I'd hoped Julie would come home soon, but I never thought I'd be so sorry to see her."

  "That's okay," she said, not meaning it at all. It took three tries to untwist her bra, but she managed to get her clothing on. Embarrassment and haste made her clumsy with the buttons.

  "Here," he said, reaching toward her. "Let me do that." He buttoned her blouse and then held her waist as if she would run away if he let her go. "Stop looking guilty, sweetheart. We weren't doing anything wrong."

  "Of all the people to walk in—" Delia leaned against him, her head on his chest. Hank would think it was Christmas tomorrow morning, little Libby would be in her mother's arms again and Mrs. Brown could get some much-needed rest. But Delia was disappointed.

  "Yeah." He stroked her back. "Come on, I'll walk you home."

  "No." She pulled away from him and slipped her sandals back on her feet. "You stay here and talk to your sister."

  "I wouldn't mind having a few words with Martin, either."

  "Don't waste your breath," she warned. "He only hears what he wants to hear."

  "He's going to hear me," Joe declared, following her to the sliding glass door, left open by the intruders. "Whether he wants to or not." He paused, took her hand to stop her from entering the dark bedroom. "Look, Delia, I'm sorry. About everything. And don't worry, I won't let him hurt you."

  "I won't let him hurt me," she whispered. "I don't need you to protect me from Martin and his moral outrage."

  "Maybe you do." He sounded angry. "I think you do need me, sweetheart, especially now."

  Delia straightened her blouse and smoothed her hair, then headed toward the living room. What she needed was to keep her clothes on.