Chapter 1 #2
Tonight, she wore a satiny dress the color of Pepto-Bismol and had embellished the artfully arranged hair on the top of her head and spilling down her back with pink glitter butterflies.
Her eyeshadow was pink. Her nails were pink.
And so were her lips. Lips that looked like God had mistakenly flipped them—the top fuller than the bottom.
Which probably explained why they kept popping into his mind.
Oddities had always intrigued him.
Too bad those lips were packaged with such an annoying personality.
“So?” she said with a smirk. “Are you going to tell me all about your wicked ways?”
Dawson pulled his gaze away from her mouth and thought about just walking away. Unfortunately, he couldn’t. Not only was Magnolia his new sister-in-law’s best friend, but she was also the maid of honor. Seeing as how he was the best man, he figured it was his duty to at least answer her.
“I think Arlene already filled you in on all my wicked ways.”
Her leaf-green eyes twinkled. “I think she didn’t even scratch the surface.
Who did you fight in high school and why?
Did you win or did you get a butt kicking?
What made you cuss out your teachers? Were they jerks who deserved it or were you just a hostile kid lashing out at authority?
And how did you start the fire in the bathroom?
Was it accidental or on purpose? Was the fire department called? Did you confess or did someone tattle?”
The barrage of questions left him completely speechless. He’d been around talkative women before. Poppy loved to talk. But with Magnolia it wasn’t the talking as much as the questions . . . and that intense gaze that studied him like she was scrolling his Instagram profile looking for dirt.
Which was why he didn’t have an Instagram account.
Dawson had never liked airing his personal life like sheets on a clothesline. He preferred to stand in the shadows of his much more dynamic family members and let people make their own assumptions about who he was from rumors and hearsay.
Magnolia didn’t seem to want rumors. She wanted the truth from his own mouth.
And his truth was much worse than the rumors.
When he just stood there and refused to answer one question, she released a frustrated huff.
“Did anyone ever tell you that you’re extremely difficult to talk to?
You’ve been in Time To Read at least a dozen times in the last few months and I’ve only gotten two words out of you.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think you didn’t like me. ”
“And you know better?” He hadn’t meant to be so brutal, but damn the woman was annoying.
She blinked and her voice quavered. “So, you . . . don’t like m-m-me?”
Shit. Was she going to cry? If there was one thing that made Dawson freak out, it was tears. Women’s. Men’s. Babies’. If tears showed up, he crumbled like a piece of week-old cornbread.
He jerked off his black Stetson and ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I’m sorry. I just don’t like people asking me a lot of—” He cut off when he noticed the smirk on those upside-down lips and realized he’d been played. His eyes narrowed and she laughed.
“Come on. Quit being so grumpy. Talking to me has to be more fun than hiding in a corner.”
“I wasn’t hiding.”
“Okay. Sulking then. Come on, Dawg, loosen up. I promise I won’t bite .
. . at least not too hard.” She snapped her perfect teeth and an image of her sinking those sharp white incisors into his flesh popped into his head.
The flash of heat that hit him low in the gut surprised him.
But it shouldn’t, considering it had been a while since he’d been with a woman.
A long while.
If they had been anywhere else, he might have considered entertaining himself with her for the evening—California crazy or not. But he’d made a promise to Jaxon to be on his best behavior tonight. He intended to keep that vow. Even if Poppy and Huck hadn’t.
Speaking of which . . .
“I need to go check on my siblings.”
“From what I can tell, they’re just having fun.” She squinted, looking at him through long, dark lashes he figured were as fake as the color of her hair. “Unlike you. You don’t seem to have fun at all. Why is that?”
“Maybe I just don’t want to have fun with you.”
The smirk faded from her mouth as she straightened. “I wasn’t asking you to have fun with me. I prefer nice, sophisticated men to hostile country Thors.”
He laughed and waved a hand at her. “Because you’re so sophisticated.
What’s with the bleach blond hair and all the makeup .
. . and all the pink? I’m not trying to be insulting.
I’m sure every man here thinks you’re sexy as hell and every woman would like to look like you, but I just don’t get it.
What happened to the brown-haired kid who wore Texas Ranger T-shirts and grubby jeans and spent all her time at the baseball diamond? How did she turn into Ditzy Barbie?”
It wasn’t the first time he’d called her that. When he’d caught her letting the air out of Jaxon’s truck tire, he’d used the same nickname. And she’d had the same reaction.
Anger.
But, this time, as quick as that anger flashed, it disappeared to be replaced with a smile. She stepped closer, her seductive perfume surrounding him as her lips parted in a low whisper.
“I’m gonna take that as a compliment because I know all boys lust after Barbie—ditzy or not.”
She was right. Lust was what he felt at the moment.
In her sky-high pink heels, she was only a few inches shorter than him.
All he would have to do to taste that sinfully tempting, upside-down mouth was angle his head and lower his lips.
The only thing that kept him from it was the smug satisfaction on her face as if she knew exactly how her closeness was affecting him.
Women like Magnolia loved using their looks to bring men to their knees. But there was only one woman Dawson had ever groveled for. That woman taught him groveling didn’t get you love.
It just made you look like a fool.
Dawson was done letting a woman make a fool of him.
He stepped back and crossed his arms. “Honey, you’re the last woman I’d lust after.”
The smug look disappeared and anger entered her eyes. He had to admit he liked Pissed-off Barbie better than Cheerful Chatterbox Barbie. There was something about her narrowed eyes and crinkled up nose that made him want to laugh. But laughter came about as easily these days as happiness did.
“I guess the A-Sisters are right. You are the devil’s spawn.” She lifted her chin, whirled on a heel, and marched away.
For a second, he thought about going after her and apologizing. He had been a bit of an asshole. But the semi-erection he still sported made him realize it would be a mistake. He didn’t need to get mixed up with a woman when he wasn’t staying.
Still, he couldn’t help watching the hypnotic sway of her hips as she moved through the crowd. He was imaging how that curvy, satin-covered ass would fit in his hands when the crash of breaking glass and busting wood had his gaze scanning the bar.
He found the cause immediately.
Huck was sprawled on the floor amid the broken remains of a table and busted beer bottles while an angry-looking cowboy the size of a semi-truck stood over him.
Dawson tried to control the anger that rose up in him.
He tried to take a deep breath and remind himself that Huck had a smart mouth and had probably asked for the punch.
But as much as he tried to calm down and reason with himself, nothing could stop his rage from breaking loose when he saw the blood trickling down his baby brother’s chin.
He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t reason.
He couldn’t do anything but focus on the man he was going to beat to a pulp.
He growled low in his throat before he dropped his hat and charged across the room to tackle the sonofabitch.
They fell into a group of bystanders. Women screamed and someone yelled, “fight!” as all hell broke loose.
Dawson didn’t care about anything but making the guy who hit his brother pay.
But he only got in one good punch before the guy lifted Dawson off him like he weighed no more than a bag of feathers and launched him across the room.
As Dawson crashed into a table and upended it, Poppy appeared out of the mayhem and jumped on the guy’s back.
“You, asshole! Don’t you ever throw my brother!”
But Big Cowboy didn’t even seem to notice the woman clinging to his back like a monkey as he lumbered to his feet and headed toward Huck who was just getting to his.
Dawson got there just as the guy lifted his dinner plate-sized fist and pushed Huck out of the way, taking the hit. It was a good one. For a second, Dawson thought he was going down. But then Big Cowboy pulled Poppy off his back and shoved her away.
Seeing his sister land hard on the floor made Dawson forget about pain or anything else but killing the bastard.
He charged, but Big Cowboy was ready this time and easily caught him in a bone-crushing bear hug.
Dawson pummeled the hell out of the guy’s head, but he only squeezed harder.
Just as Dawson started to see spots, Big Cowboy’s arms fell away, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he dropped to the floor like a three-hundred-pound sack of potatoes.
Dawson stared down at his limp body completely confused . . . until he noticed the chunks of amber glass glittering in the man’s hair.
He lifted his gaze.
Magnolia stood there holding a broken beer bottle above her head like a pink Statue of Liberty.