Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Quinn didn’t intend to give up the idea of helping Jo create a workable financial plan before he left. But obviously the straightforward approach wasn’t going to work. He’d have to be more devious.
He walked into the bunkhouse to find Benny and Fred playing a game of what Quinn used to call War when he was a kid. It was a simple game, the kind Benny could probably understand, and Quinn thought it was decent of Fred to play it with him.
Fred glanced up. “Hey, Quinn.”
“Hey, Fred.”
“Hi, Mr. Hastings,” Benny said before returning his attention to the game.
Quinn decided not to correct Benny about his name. Instead he faked a huge yawn. Yawns were supposed to be contagious. “Aren’t you guys tired?”
Benny yawned, right on cue. “Guess so. You tired, Fred?”
“Nope.” He glanced at Quinn. “Go on to bed if you want. We’ll be quiet.”
“Okay, believe I will.”
“I’m going to bed, too,” Benny said.
Fred shrugged. “Okay. I’ll play solitaire.”
One down and one to go, Quinn thought as he sat on the bunk assigned to him and pulled off his borrowed boots.
The bunkhouse reminded Quinn of the cabin he’d been assigned to at Camp Washogee twenty years ago.
He experienced no nostalgia — for a kid who hated wiggly things, summer camp had been a nightmare.
The metal beds looked exactly the same as the ones at camp. There were four of them lined up against opposing walls, two on a side. A scarred dresser topped by a mirror was against the end wall between the beds.
A table and four captain’s chairs took up most of the opposite end of the bunkhouse, and a door in the far wall opened into a small bathroom. Nails driven into the walls held jackets, hats, a rope or two and a bridle Fred was repairing in his spare time.
Fred wasn’t working on the bridle at the moment, Quinn noticed as he shucked his pants and shirt and pulled back the blanket on his bed. Fred’s belt was undone, and the guy looked uncomfortable. Emmy Lou obviously knew Fred’s digestive system well.
Quinn’s stomach felt fine, but the rest of him was a little beat-up.
He groaned softly as he climbed into bed.
Between bruises and sore muscles, he could be pretty well crippled by tomorrow, especially considering the activity he had planned for tonight.
He took off his watch and set it on the windowsill next to the bed, where he could see the time by turning his head.
An hour and a half before he was supposed to meet Jo.
His groin tightened. In less than two hours, assuming he could sneak past Fred, he’d have Jo in his arms. He wondered what she’d wear to their rendezvous and if she’d bother with items like underwear.
Underwear could be very erotic, but getting it off might take up valuable time.
Quinn decided he’d rather she didn’t wear any.
Maybe he wouldn’t wear any, either, although you had to be damn careful with the zipper in a case like that.
Too careful, come to think of it. He’d wear his briefs.
Considering how much he wanted Jo, he’d be shaking like a leaf, and sure as the world, he’d get something important caught in the zipper.
Then he wondered if he should wear his hat to the barn.
Of course he didn’t need that Stetson on his head, considering it would be dark and he was planning to climb to the hayloft and make love all night.
But in another way he did need the hat. Wearing it made him feel more like a cowboy, and damned if that didn’t seem to add a certain something to his self-confidence.
He also liked the idea that he’d meet Jo looking like a seasoned ranch hand, a devil-may-care stud of a wrangler.
Maybe he ached all over from today’s activities, maybe he couldn’t sit a horse like a pro or rope a wild bull yet, but he could project the image darn well when he put on that Stetson.
He knew because he’d checked it out in a mirror.
Yeah, he’d wear the hat, maybe even keep it on while he took his other clothes off. He hoped Jo would keep her outfit simple. A pair of pull-on shorts and a T-shirt sounded perfect to him. He could strip those off in no time, leaving Jo lying on the blanket, waiting....
And then Quinn went cold. He had no condoms. He had no reason to expect Jo to be using any form of birth control, and besides, a stud didn’t show up at the appointed place with no protection for his lover.
Dammit, what to do? Benny wouldn’t have any, but Fred.
.. Fred might. But he couldn’t ask. He’d have to snoop, and if he hit pay dirt, he’d have to swipe.
Normally he wasn’t a swiper, but this was an unusual situation.
“You asleep, Mr. Hastings?” Benny whispered from across the room.
“Not yet, Benny.”
“I can’t sleep from thinking about the movie.”
Quinn sighed. “I don’t think there will be a movie, so just relax and go to sleep, okay?”
“I think there will be a movie. And I want to be in it.”
“Benny, I’d give up the idea if I were you. Chances are—”
“Will you promise me, if there is a movie, I’ll get to be in it?”
Quinn hated to make a promise like that to a guy as trusting as Benny. What if the real Brian Hastings showed up some day? What if the damned movie actually got made? Dick and Doobie could go hang, but Quinn didn’t want Benny to be disappointed. “I don’t think I can make that kind of promise.”
“Yes, you can. Jo did.”
“She did?” Quinn thought about that for a minute.
All along he’d been hoping that Hastings would come back and make the movie so Jo would get the money.
Yet he suddenly pictured Hastings hanging out at the Bar None, interacting with Jo and granting her favors like giving Benny a part in the movie.
If Jo was attracted to Quinn, who was a poor woman’s version of Hastings, then she’d probably fall head over heels for the real thing.
Quinn felt a little sick to his stomach imagining Hastings putting the moves on Jo.
With a guy like that, it would probably be an automatic reaction to a beautiful woman.
“So can I be in it?” Benny asked again.
“I guess so,” Quinn replied, feeling depressed. “If there is a movie.”
“There will be,” Benny said with complete confidence.
Quinn grimaced. Damn, he really wanted that movie to be filmed at the Bar None, for Jo’s sake.
Of course he did. This morning she’d insisted that looking at Hastings’ bare butt hadn’t been the reason she’d jumped Quinn’s bones.
Quinn wanted to believe her, but Hastings was America’s sexiest leading man.
People magazine had said so. Quinn wondered why every single thing that would be good for Jo turned out to be the worst thing that could happen to him.
“Night, night.” Benny yawned. “Sleep tight.”
“Thanks, Ben.”
“Don’t let the bugs bite,” Benny added in a sleepy voice.
Quinn stiffened. “What bugs?”
Benny’s reply was barely audible. “Dunno. People just say that.” Soon afterward he began to snore.
Quinn lay rigid as a corpse and tried not to think about wolf spiders as big as his fist creeping under his bed, on his bed. Finally he cleared his throat. “Fred?” he called softly.
“Yeah, Quinn.”
“You get many of those wolf spiders in here?”
Fred chuckled. “Ugly sons of bitches, ain’t they?”
“I guess.”
“That’s how the creek got named, they say. Then the town after that. I picture some old prospector waking up in the middle of the night with one of those suckers sitting right by his nose. Musta scared the crap outta him.”
Quinn swallowed. “Yeah, probably. I bet you don’t see them much anymore, though. Like in the bunkhouse and stuff.”
“Oh, sure, we do. This place was built in nineteen-ten, and it’s not real tight. We get all kinds of critters in here. Last week it was a small rattlesnake.”
“No kidding?” Quinn realized his voice had squeaked and deliberately lowered it. “That’s interesting.”
“You’re turning into a regular chatterbox, aren’t you, Quinn? I thought you said you was real tired.”
“I am. Good night.” Quinn didn’t want to discuss critters with Fred anymore. He lay there wondering what he was doing surrounded by poisonous snakes and ugly bugs. In Manhattan he could swim with the sharks, or face a bear market without blinking. In Manhattan he could be a hero.
But Jo wasn’t in Manhattan. She was in Montana, and so, for the moment, he had to do his best to be a hero in Montana.
He stared at his watch and willed Fred to go to sleep. Not only did he want to slip out of the bunkhouse so he could meet Jo, he also wanted to spend the night somewhere besides a place with cracks big enough to drive a truck through, or at least a herd of wolf spiders.
After what seemed like eternity squared, Fred began to snore in his chair.
Quinn leaned over and checked the floor before swinging his feet down.
He dressed in record time but left his boots off.
He took the blanket off the spare bed and rolled it up before arranging it under his own blanket to approximate the bulk of a person lying in the bed. Then he padded to the dresser.
The top two drawers belonged to Fred. Quinn figured the top drawer was his best bet. He eased it open and felt cautiously among the socks, briefs and T-shirts. Nothing. Finally, in a back corner, his fingers closed over some foil packets.
He counted four. Decided to take two. If and when Fred discovered the loss, he might chalk it up to losing track of his inventory. Feeling like a seventeen-year-old raiding his dad’s supply, Quinn shoved the condoms in his pocket with a little prayer that they were the right size.
There was just enough light from the lamp on the table for him to see a shadowy version of himself in the rippled old mirror over the dresser. He put on his Stetson, gave it a rakish tilt and headed out carrying his boots. He would have given his best Armani suit for a flashlight.