A Knight In Cowboy Boots Read online

  “Yeah, Russell Maddox owns The Inn,” Peggy said. “He’s old oil money, so that’s where all the oilmen like to stay. Tips are prob’ly good though.”

  “Good to know.” Maddie reluctantly scratched the hotel off her mental list. A few of the oil men she knew from running Hewitt’s oilfield office in Wyoming also had interests in Texas oilfields. If she wanted to settle in Galveston, she had to stay away from places where she might run into them.

  “What about the Gull?” That was her sentimental choice. Vince once told her he always stayed there when he was in Galveston.

  “That’s a nice place. Prob’ly good tips. Mostly boring business types though.”

  Maddie smiled as she smoothed her skirt. An Oceanography major at Texas A&M’s Galveston campus, Peggy was, in all likelihood, doomed to spend her life around even more boring scientific types. But then maybe boring was in the eye of the beholder. As long as Maddie could pay her bills, the customers could be as dull as they wanted.

  Though she’d prefer to hole up with Jesse, she couldn’t do that indefinitely. Maddie’s conscience wouldn’t let her dip any further into what remained of the forty thousand dollars from Laurel’s life insurance, currently sitting in a high-security storage vault with -hour access. Not when Laurel had made such sacrifices to pay the premiums—because that was what a responsible parent did, no matter how much it had stretched Laurel‘s already transparently thin budget. Even if the policy was only twenty thousand—not enough to be confused with winning the lottery—but with a double indemnity clause if she were murdered. No, Maddie vowed she wouldn’t touch any more of it unless it was an emergency. So she had to go to work. And as much as she hated it, that meant leaving Jesse with someone.

  Thank God she’d met Peggy. The girl was such a better alternative to a daycare where too many people—too many strangers—would come and go every day.

  Maddie finished touching up her lipstick, ran a brush through her shoulder-length, chestnut hair one last time, then turned in front of the mirror to make sure everything was tucked in that should be.

  Peggy swung her legs back onto the bed to sit Indian style. Jesse immediately crawled into the nest her crossed legs made. “You know you’re gonna sweat to death in them pantyhose.”

  “You waited until now to tell me that?” It was such a kid sister thing to do, she almost asked Peggy how old her big sister was. “Do you think I could get by without them?”

  “Sure. Your legs aren’t all pasty white like they were when you moved in, so why not?”

  She might be able to get by. Maddie sat on the edge of the bed and stripped off the pantyhose.

  “With legs like yours, why aren’t you wearin’ a shorter skirt?” Peggy asked. “I sure would.”

  “Because I may end up applying for a job at one of these places. Short skirts may help waitresses rake in tips, but they usually bring a bartender nothing but trouble.” Maddie spoke from experience. Bartending was a trade she’d learned before Hewitt Oil hired her.

  She watched Peggy shrug in the mirror. “Well, the top’s nice, the way it’s all drapey. You could still get lucky.”

  Peggy’s tone left no doubt about what she meant by “getting lucky.” With a deliberate effort not to snarl from between clenched teeth, Maddie said, “I’m not looking to get lucky.”

  “You oughta be, honey. Even when we’re just sitting ‘round, havin’ a beer, you’re all tensed up. I catch myself clenching my teeth sometimes, just waitin’ for you to pop like an overfilled balloon. You need to get rid of some of that there tension. Don’t she, Jesse?” She tickled Jesse’s toes with the rabbit’s foot and got a giggle out of him. “See, even Jesse thinks so. Get out there and find you a job, but if some nice looking fella wanders in, let him sweet talk you into kickin’ up your heels.” And then she winked. As though Maddie could miss her meaning.

  She had to fight her resentment of Peggy’s innocent attempt to help her. Maddie had intended to spend the rest of her life with Vince. She didn’t want another man, especially not a one-night stand. In the mirror, she caught her lips tightening into a thin line and forced her jaw and face to relax. Crap. Peggy was right about the tension. She’d have to work on masking that better.

  She reassessed her top in the mirror. The Texas nights were warm enough to justify the spaghetti straps. The cowl neck revealed just a hint of cleavage, but maybe it was too much. How many of Peggy’s not-so-subtle innuendos would she have to endure if she changed it? Too many, Maddie decided. She spritzed herself lightly with Estée Lauder’s Beautiful and looked around for her shoulder bag. “I doubt I’ll see anyone even remotely suitable to ‘kick my heels up’ with. There never is when you’re looking for it.” Not that she was, but she didn’t want Peggy detailing the reason she should be.

  “Well, if you do meet someone, don’t feel like you got to hurry home. I don’t have a class until ten tomorrow.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Appearing to agree would end the conversation quicker than protests. “Where the hell is my purse?”

  Peggy reached over the far edge of the bed, fumbled around for the strap then, grunting with the effort, swung Maddie’s bag up onto the bed. “You got the kitchen sink in there?” she asked, setting it on the bed within Maddie’s reach.

  “No, I carry a cannon,” Maddie answered tartly, knowing Peggy would never guess she was only exaggerating a little.

  Maddie leaned over the bed and kissed Jesse’s plump cheek goodbye. “Be good for Peggy, okay? I love you, Charlie Brown.”

  She paused at the door, the typical quiver deep in her stomach whenever she left Jesse making itself felt. “Be sure to keep the door locked and don’t open it for anyone.”

  Peggy rolled on the bed until her head hung over the edge of the mattress, the ends of her hair sweeping the floor. “Before I met you, I thought only big city folk were this paranoid about their kids, but you can count on me.” Still upside-down, Peggy recited Maddie’s cardinal rule: “No strangers near Jesse.”

  Maddie gave her a tight smile. It was impossible not to trust Peggy. Jesse would be fine. More important, he would be safe. She was able to hold onto that almost to the front door of the building where she saw someone she didn’t know enter without being buzzed in as one of her neighbors went out.

  *

  Thursday night. Maddie figured the bars would be busy enough to judge the type of crowd they attracted but not so busy she couldn’t strike up a conversation with the bartender.

  At the Gull, she studied the autographed photos that lined the top of the mirror behind the bar while she waited for the bartender to get to her. She smiled when she recognized Ty Murray’s face next to Mike Lee’s. Both Texas boys. Both bull riding champions. Maddie took it as a good sign. She could fit in here.

  Vince had liked The Gull enough to stay here when he was in Galveston, so it felt right that she should work here. He would have sat at the bar, as he always did when he was alone. As she was doing now. Maybe he’d sat on the stool next to hers. She watched the bartender mixing drinks. Had he served Vince? If he’d worked there long enough, it was possible, but with the number of people that passed through a hotel, the odds were against him remembering someone who hadn’t stayed there in over a year.

  Though she’d spoken to Vince’s mother several times on the phone, she’d only met one person from Vince’s past—only one person in the whole state of Texas who would recognize her on sight. She wasn’t worried about running into him; he lived hours north of Galveston and didn’t care much for cities.

  “What’ll ya’ have?” the bartender, a nice-looking man with a dark-chocolate complexion, asked.

  She ordered a Snakebite, intending to get him talking while he made it. Instead, he asked to see her ID, jarring her back into the present and reminding her that she wasn’t Maddie Wells anymore, but a stranger named Maddie Grey. She dug into her purse with shaking hands. The Texas drivers license was legitimate, issued by the state DMV—unlike the Colorado licens
e she’d used to get it. Her face flushed hot. Bartenders developed an instinct about IDs. She fully expected him to know she wasn’t who the license said she was.

  Her nerves clattered silently as he checked to verify she was over twenty-one. The tension seemed to disconnect her brain from her tongue. The drink was in front of her and the bartender had moved on to the next customer before the connection was reestablished.

  So instead of chatting up the bartender, Maddie sat at the bar, picking the stir straw from her Snakebite into shreds and thinking about what Peggy had said.

  The tension never really went away. Well, once in a while. When she held Jesse in her arms, watching him suck on his bottle with such determination. Or when some man spoke with exactly the same sort of Texas drawl Vince had had. Those things sometimes lulled the tension away for a few moments, but most of the time, she felt exactly the way Peggy described her—like a balloon about to burst.

  If Peggy could pick up on it, so would other people, and that made her memorable. So maybe Peggy was right about how to get rid of it, too.

  Ugh.

  It wasn’t that she required months of dating before she’d sleep with a man. Hell, she’d have jumped into bed with Vince the first day she met him if she’d had the opportunity. He’d come up from Texas to work for Hewitt Oil, doing his geologist thing he’d called it. When the foreman brought Vince into the office to introduce him around, she’d shaken his hand. The moment their hands touched, an electrical spark jumped the length of her spine. The look in his eyes said he felt it, too.

  If the company hadn’t sent him out to evaluate some land near Casper the same day, one of them would have undoubtedly invited the other out for a drink. Maddie had never doubted where that would have led. Instead, she tried talking herself out of it. What a wasted effort that had been.

  Three days later, he’d walked back in, sat on the corner of her desk, and made small talk while his eyes had challenged her, invited her … consumed her.

  Hewitt’s nephew hadn’t even slowed down as he walked past. “Hey, get a room on your own time. I need to see that report we’re presenting to the board before the end of the day.”

  Vince’s lips had turned up in a secret sort of smile, his head tilting as though to say, “Shall we?”

  Momentarily flustered, Maddie had pulled back, only to invite him for a drink just before quitting time. Within a month, they’d set up housekeeping together.

  What mortal man could compete with that?

  “Gimme two Snakebites, would’ja?”

  Maddie froze as the voice broke into her thoughts. It was as if she’d conjured Vince straight out of her memories. The tone … the drawl … How many times had she heard Vince order his favorite drink for the two of them?

  Maddie’s hands began to tremble. She fantasized sometimes about seeing Vince again—about hearing his voice, touching him even—but she knew the difference between reality and daydreams. To find him standing next to her in a hotel bar in Galveston would be too Twilight Zone.

  Slowly, she lifted her eyes to the mirror over the backbar. She half expected to see Vince’s reflection there. Instead, the mirror gave back the image of a lean man with ragged, dark brown hair that just touched the collar of his faded blue work shirt. His eyes were downcast as he pulled a twenty dollar bill from his wallet.

  When he looked up, eyes the color of melted chocolate met hers in the mirror. Embarrassed to be caught staring, she tightened her fingers around her glass to stop her hands from shaking and turned her head, as though looking at something down the bar.

  “Thanks,” the man said in a long drawl when the bartender put his drinks in front of him. Maddie kept her eyes turned away while he waited for his change, but she watched in the mirror as he carried the drinks back to his table.

  She let her breath out in a long, relieved sigh when she saw his companion was another man. Not that it mattered. She had no reason to care, she assured herself, but her eyes kept returning to the two men. Maddie still didn’t strike up a conversation with the bartender. Neither did she move on to the next hotel on her list.

  The two men looked enough alike to be brothers. They sat slumped in their chairs, their butts on the edge of the seat, one leg bent at a perfect right angle, the ankle of the other leg crossing over at the knee. They watched the crowd, talking softly as though nothing important needed saying. Maddie wondered if they both had that wonderful, thick-as-honey, East Texas drawl.

  Now that she knew she hadn’t stepped into the Twilight Zone, she wanted to hear it again. To bask in it, to close her eyes and pretend. To feed the fantasy, just a little. What was the harm in that? Probably tremendous harm, Maddie thought, but just for a while, she didn’t want to care.

  Absently, she ordered another drink, forgetting about the potency that gave Yukon Jack and Roses Lime the name Snakebite. Pure alcohol, she remembered as the glass touched her lips. She sipped the drink leisurely, savoring the sweet tang of limes on her tongue, all the while watching the two men in the mirror.

  One thing growing up in the hard-drinking state of Wyoming had taught her was how sneaky alcohol could be. How easy it was to feel fully functional on a bar stool only to find herself bouncing off the walls when negotiating the hall to the restroom.

  When her glass was empty, Maddie made a trip to the ladies room. So far so good, but she still resolved to order a water back with her next drink.

  She reached into her bag for her lipstick, only to find a small, flat red and black box. Maddie nearly choked. How in the world … ?

  Peggy.

  She must have dropped the box of condoms in her bag when she’d fished it up from beside the bed. Maddie almost threw them in the trash, but Peggy would think she’d used them. She’d probably want details. Better to give them back with a stern warning. Yeah, like Peggy would listen. She dropped them back into her bag before applying her lipstick.

  When she came out of the ladies room, two empty glasses sat on the table where the men had been. Maddie scanned the room, her heart tightened in her chest. “Oh hell,” she muttered. Maybe another drink wasn’t such a good idea, not if she was going to get depressed over a man she hadn’t even met.

  Damn Peggy for planting ideas in her head. Mooning over strange men, even ones with seductive drawls, wasn’t what she was here for.

  She didn’t have to wonder what Vince would have thought of that. He would have been mad at her for hiding behind his memory. He’d been big on living life to the fullest, on grabbing the good things that came along and riding out the bad.

  Maddie wished she could live that way, but she had serious responsibilities now.

  Which reminded her she still hadn’t accomplished her mission. She liked the atmosphere of this hotel and the clientele was good—a mixture of tourists and out of town businessmen. She should at least talk to the bartender before leaving.

  “One more,” she said, reclaiming her barstool. “With a water back.” The place had thinned out enough to talk with little interruption. If she liked what she heard, she’d ask for the manager’s name. Her lips parted to speak as the bartender set her refill in front of her, but the voice over her shoulder stopped her, setting her heart fluttering.

  “Let me get that there drink for the lady, Pete.” Mr. East Texas Drawl stepped up to the bar. “That is, if the lady don’t mind?”

  She turned her head cautiously, afraid moving too fast would blur her vision.

  Mr. East Texas was watching her, waiting for a cue his offer was welcome.

  Maddie cleared her throat. “Thank you.”

  Oh, crap. She sounded all Marilyn Monroe breathy.

  He handed the bartender a ten. Maddie expected him to pull up the next barstool. Instead, he shoved it over with his foot and leaned one elbow against the bar. “So what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

  Maddie laughed. It should have sounded old, trite, and corny, but nothing said in that drawl could sound anything but enchanting to her. I
f she narrowed her eyes, maybe she could pretend he was Vince. Her laughter lit something deep in Mr. East Texas’s dark eyes. Maddie suddenly felt warm. Sitting-in-front-of-araging-fire-on-a-cold-winter-night warm. The flutter in her heart moved into the pit of her stomach.

  “Don’t tell the bartender, but I’m casing the place to see if I want his job.” Maddie said, keeping her voice conversational. The bartender’s eyebrows rose, but he didn’t comment. He’d no doubt seen this dance often enough.

  “Ah, well. Looking for employment. That’s respectable then.” Mr. East Texas nodded sagely. “Though I gotta admit, I was hoping you was here for less reputable reasons.”

  “You mean like looking for a man to take me away from all this?” Maddie’s open-handed gesture included the entire bar.

  “Even the best watering holes have a long tradition of that sorta thing. Why, my daddy met my mamma in a place a lot like this.”

  Maddie fought to keep a grin from breaking out across her face. How long had it been since she’d engaged in light-hearted banter, never mind flirting? It seemed like eons. “Really?”

  “Well, maybe there wasn’t as much brass and mirrors. Or the selection of beverages this fine establishment has. And there ain’t no straw on the floor nor fiddle player in the corner …” He looked away as though seeking a fiddle player. “And they had dancin’.” His nostrils narrowed with an indrawn breath. His eyes came back to hers. “Damn. A man oughta take a woman dancin’.”

  The flutter in Maddie’s stomach moved lower.

  “What kind of dancing do you do to fiddle music?”

  “The spirited kind.” He let a beat pass before he continued. “But I think you’re the kinda woman a man takes slow dancin’. Someplace where there ain’t much light, so’s nobody’d see when I kissed you.”

  He held her eyes, waiting for her response.

  Someone down the bar hollered for Pete’s attention and he moved away. Their audience gone, Maddie swiveled on her barstool to face him straight on.

  “What if I didn’t want to be kissed?” she asked, knowing her body language sent a completely different message.