Chapter Ten #2
“Not a harlot, exactly. I wanted to play a madam. Madams were businesswomen.”
A bright light went on in Beau’s head. “You have control issues.”
The look she gave him continued to reflect her opinion of his intelligence and how sadly it lacked. Since she was a good deal smarter than most people he knew, he tried not to take it too personally.
“Have you ever met someone less in control of her life than me?” she asked.
She was armed and that question was loaded.
He proceeded with caution. “That’s where the issues come in. Burning Scrub has taken control of your life, and you don’t know how to push back.”
“I can think of plenty of ways to push back.” She fired another shot at the stump. “It’s just that none of them are very nice.”
“Nice is for show. As long as you aren’t mean”—and Belle didn’t have a mean bone in her body—“then what’s the big deal? Give me an example of something you’d like to do to get even.”
“I don’t want to get even. I like everyone here.
I just want them to take me seriously for a change.
” More woodchips flew. “I can’t buy vaccines without a second opinion.
I can’t remove a splinter from a little girl’s finger without interference.
Andy Danvers broke his arm. They put the cast on at the hospital in Dillon—all I did was set it—but now it’s my fault that it takes twelve weeks, followed by physiotherapy, for a radius to fully heal. ”
Well. Hadn’t he struck a nerve. “Hypothetically speaking, then—how would you push back?”
“I’d shake up the script. In my version, I escape from my kidnappers myself. I rush back to town, storm in on your card game, accuse Jayce of cheating, then shoot him. We grab his winnings and run off together.”
While he had no problem with her shooting Jayce, there were a few holes in her version of events.
“If the sheriff catches us, wouldn’t you be the one who hangs?
Did they hang women in the Old West? And if you’d just escaped from Indians, why would the saloon be the first place you go?
If you’re a married woman, what’s your connection to me?
How would you know that Jayce was cheating at cards if you only just got there? ”
“They hanged one woman in California for stabbing a man.” She began picking up spent shell casings.
He bent down to help her, digging his fingers into the layer of mulching pine needles to make sure he didn’t miss any.
“I go to the saloon looking for you. You’re a shameless drunk and notorious womanizer, but I’ve fallen for you anyway and we’re having an affair.
My husband finds out about it, so I have no choice but to run off with you or he’ll kill us both.
And it doesn’t matter whether Jayce is cheating at cards—we’re stealing his money to fund our new life. ”
Beau longed to say they should do it, if only to see the look on Jayce’s face when Belle walked in and shot him.
As tempting as it was to encourage her, however, while he’d be leaving Burning Scrub in a few weeks, she had over four years remaining, and she had to live with these people.
There was the client to think of, as well.
Beau was a performer. Fans paid his wages, and he believed in giving them their money’s worth in return.
Belle said some guy from the Middle East had dropped serious money on an immersive Wild West adventure, meaning he likely had high expectations, and he’d been promised a hanging.
“Why don’t you think about it some more,” he suggested.
“Here.” Belle passed him the gun and collapsed on the trunk of a fallen pine. “Go ahead and keep practicing if you want. I’m done.”
He returned the gun to its holster, hung it from a drooping tree limb, then sat on the half-rotten log beside Belle. It was cooler in the woods than in town. More private, too. People came and went from each other’s houses as if they lived in them all.
As for Marlboro Man. He’d worn out his welcome week one and showed no signs of relenting.
Beau’s irritation over Belle’s lack of action in that regard also proved unrelenting.
Their relationship was none of his business.
He understood that. But Belle should really man up.
Stringing the poor guy along because she didn’t know how to let him down easy wasn’t right. He spoke from experience.
“When are you and Jayce breaking up?” he asked.
“I haven’t had a chance yet. You’re always around. And we aren’t a couple.”
Beau didn’t buy it. While it was true he was always around—after all, they were living together—she could have made the time if she’d wanted. She had no trouble telling him what she thought.
Maybe she was having second thoughts about Jayce. Maybe she’d like an honest shot at a relationship with him.
“Maybe you should take him for a test drive and see what you’re missing,” he said, because he knew it would annoy her, and disregarded that it annoyed him almost as much.
Belle got a bit snippy. “You’ve mentioned several times how pretty he is. Take him for a test drive yourself. Maybe that will end your fixation with him. Or maybe it won’t. Maybe he’s more your type than mine.”
She’d have to do better than take aim at his masculinity if she was trying to get under his skin. He worked in the entertainment industry, and he was good with his chosen pronouns.
But she pushed back with him when she refused to push back against anyone else in Burning Scrub. Was it because once he was gone, she’d never see him again, so she didn’t have to care what he thought?
He couldn’t have that.
“Don’t get me wrong. Jayce is one beautiful man. But looks aren’t everything, and he’s dull as dirt. If I were to swing in that direction, Adam is much more my type,” he said thoughtfully. “I’d turn for him.”
Her laugh began low, then sprang from her lips and spilled from her eyes the way sunshine-speckled water flowed over rock. “I can’t unsee that mental picture. The backs of my eyelids are burning.” Tears formed in her eyes to prove it.
Her fingertips touched his cheek, and it shorted the circuits that routed common sense through his brain, sending his thoughts spiraling in multiple directions.
Her eyes darkened, shifting from sunshine to midnight in a way that left him with no confusion at all as to the direction her thoughts had taken.
He didn’t dare move—not even to breathe—because he was that desperate to find out what she’d do next.
She kissed him. At first, it was just a light brushing of lips.
Hers were warm and full, and she tasted of mint.
They both closed their eyes, each lost in the moment, and when she began to withdraw, he pursued her to reclaim her mouth.
A few notes of music nudged into his head, but he was more interested in Belle and the way she melted into his arms, as if that was where she belonged.
The kiss deepened. Hot flares of anticipation erupted, reminding Beau of just how long it had been since he’d wanted a woman. Long before he and Jen split up. Exactly how long had their marriage been over before she gave up and called it quits?
That had his brain circuits back up and running.
What was he doing? What was he trying to accomplish?
He liked their friendship just as it was.
It was easy. It was fun. Two things that had been missing from his life for a very long time.
And he wasn’t about to ruin a good thing. Preemptive measures were called for.
He took hold of her shoulders. Then, he pushed her off the rough length of fallen deadwood.
She yelped and let out a word that didn’t sound right coming from her, but a thick carpet of moss and pine needles cushioned the ground, so she was startled, not hurt.
He tumbled after her, landing with his knees on either side of her hips and his hands braced next to her head.
He kept a good six inches of air between them to avoid full body contact.
There were some things about him and the state he was in that she did not need to know.
He flicked a stray lock of hair off her flushed, pretty face. “While I have your undivided attention,” he said, “I have a problem.”
She patted his arm. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Lots of men suffer from erectile dysfunction. I can prescribe a little blue pill for it.”
“Ha, ha.” That most definitely was not his problem. “It’s my songwriting. I can’t come up with anything new.” The few notes he’d heard now escaped him.
“I see. Your agent was telling the truth. You really do have emotional problems.”
He had to remember to fire Leon when he got home. “I do not have emotional problems. I need inspiration, and right now, you’re all I’ve got.”
“Stop it. The flattery will go to my head.” Belle wriggled a little beneath him, no doubt trying to find a more comfortable position, which wasn’t making him comfortable. At all.
“What, exactly, am I supposed to do?”
“You’re supposed to inspire me.”
“Are you blaming me for your inability to write music?”
“Now you’re getting it,” he said.
She pondered that. “What kind of music are you trying to write?”
“I don’t know. That’s a big part of the problem.” And it was frustrating as hell. “I’ve been singing other people’s songs for the past few years, and I’ve lost my songwriting voice.”
“You’ve performed everything from opera to dead metal—”
“It’s death metal,” he corrected her, amused that he was talking music with a woman who knew nothing about it.
How desperate was he?
She waved off that minor detail. “Whatever. My point is that you love music. Most of it, it would seem, given your background. So why don’t you like country music? What makes it different?”
“Why are you a family practitioner and not a surgeon?” he asked in return.
Her answer was speedier and far more decisive. “My hand isn’t steady enough.”
“Fair,” he conceded. “A surgeon should have a steady hand. Imagine the lawsuits.”
She tapped his chest. “Back to my question. What’s wrong with country music?”
“The themes and lyrics are overdone. The most popular songs—the ones that make the charts—have recycled themes that have been done to death. You can only sing so much about love and life in a small town.” He shuddered. “Don’t get me started on the redneck political undertones, either.”
“I call bull. I think you’ve been pushed in a direction you didn’t choose for yourself, and you don’t like to be pushed, so you’re pushing back.” Calm blue eyes locked on his. “Maybe your voice isn’t lost. Maybe you haven’t found it yet. Maybe you’ve been trying to write the wrong music.”
That couldn’t be it. She didn’t know what—
Something small and fierce landed on him, knocking him sideways. He rolled so that the badger or bear cub or wolverine was pinned underneath him, and he was staring up at the sky, catching his breath and trying to figure out his next move.
“Quick,” he said to Belle. “Grab the gun. It might have rabies. I’ll hold it so you can shoot it.”
Belle tugged at his shoulder, but he wasn’t budging. Set an enraged, rabid wildcat loose? He didn’t think so.
Belle, however, had other ideas. She addressed his feral assailant in a tone gently scolding. “Linda. Do your parents know where you are?”