Except when it came to me.
I was the pothole Uncle Daryl was always trying to fix.
“Jimmy gave them both a talking to, and we still don’t know if that’ll be enough. We all know what kind of power Daryl has but apparently, Mickey didn’t like what he was saying. Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
I knew exactly what he was asking me, but I didn’t want to go there just yet. Mickey should hear it from me, not Colt or my uncle.
“Do I have to come out and ask straight out? I mean, I know Mickey saw you in Cheyanne a couple summers ago, during his short-lived rodeo days.”
“He may have,” I didn’t know whether I should tell him the truth or not. The folks in Sweet Whiskey would spread the news like a wild fire.
His grin widened. “Now who’s doing the lying?”
“I would never lie to you, Colt Johnson. Never.” I was stalling but not technically lying. Trying to look at this confession from all sides, and none of those sides were very stable.
“Okay. Is Mickey the baby daddy?”
All sorts of other reasons why I shouldn’t tell him swirled around in my head, but I knew the best way to handle this was to rip off the bandage with one fast yank. “Fine… Yes, but I didn’t come back here to get anything from him. I intend to raise Darci on my own. I even got a job yesterday. I just… well… I just needed somewhere to… I lost my job and… I didn’t have… it’s late… it’s so fucking late.”
I couldn’t help it. The tears came pouring out like someone had turned on a spicket. I didn’t know why, exactly. All I knew was that it had been so hard and here he was trying his best to be the good guy. Hell, he even wore a white hat.
“Hey. Hey,” he said, looking all concerned, while he reached out for me. And before I knew it, he had his arms wrapped around me while he rubbed my back, and I ugly cried on his shoulder.
Oh yeah, the back rubbing… it still worked. Before I could think of what to say next, everything went black.
Colt 3
No woman had ever cried in my arms before, at least not like CindyLou had. Sure, there’d been some tears now and then, but this was downright ugly crying. At first, all I could do was hold her, but when she fell asleep on my chest, I didn’t have the heart to wake her. Instead, I shifted my weight and slid down on the extra-wide sofa until I was flat on my back, and she rested alongside me with half her body on top of mine.
Fortunately, I’d grabbed the small colorful pillow before I slid down to cover us with the soft blanket that had been tossed over the sofa’s arm. At some point, I managed to get my boots off and slide my hat down over my face to shield my eyes from that damn porch light that shone like a beacon in the black night.
I didn’t know how long we’d be in this position, but from the way she was breathing, I figured we’d be down for at least a couple hours or more. My initial thought concerned Mickey and what he might think about this situation I’d found myself in. Then I realized it was Mickey I’d been stewing over. He was the whole reason I’d gotten myself into this position in the first place. Yeah, we were best friends, but the man always had female problems ever since we were little kids and Melinda DeLong tossed her entire blue slurpy in his face after he’d tried to see her panties at the county fair over in Cricket, the town I’d grown up in with my parents. I figured his problems stemmed from the relationship he’d had with his own mom, which never existed. She’d died when he was still in diapers. He just never got the lesson on how to act around a girl or how to treat a woman. He grew up rough and wild with a dad who never could settle, drank too much, and didn’t amount to anything but a saddle sore on a hot day.
I must’ve drifted off because when I felt her stir on top of me, I realized someone had turned off the porch light, and my hat had fallen to the floor. When I stretched out to get it, she wrapped her leg around me.
“Don’t go,” she whispered in a deep, sexy voice I hadn’t expected.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, darlin.’ Just getting my hat,” I told her, as I grabbed the stiff rim, then flung it on a chair, and rubbed her back again, hoping she’d fall back to sleep. I couldn’t take it if she started bawling again.
Instead, she moved up and kissed me, right on the lips, like it was as natural as the rain.
Somewhere into the middle of the kiss, I thought about how this might not be the best idea, but when her tongue set fire to mine, I knew it was all over.
Damn if it didn’t feel good to have a woman in my arms again. It had been far too long. I’d given up on meeting the right woman about six months ago, after my last break up. Not that I’d been in love with Brenda. We hadn’t been dating long enough for love to take root, but I thought we were headed in that direction, until she broke it off and moved to Houston.
Then today, she called, begging me to come on over to Houston. Said she had a job set for me at one of the biggest dance halls in all of Texas. The pay was almost double what I was getting at Dirty Coyote. Plus, with the tips, it would be even more. So, yeah, I was tempted and thinking about it gave me a royal headache until this whole thing with Mickey exploded.
And now that I was kissing on CindyLou, moving to Huston to start a new life with Brenda, a woman who broke my heart, seemed like a big mistake.
“Maybe you should go to bed,” I told her once we pulled out of the kiss, and I remembered whose front porch we were kissing on. “Might be the better choice.”
“You’re probably right,” she muttered, then she kissed me again, lips crushing mine. And when her leg slid across my aroused cock, I knew stopping this would be impossible, especially with how soft and warm she felt resting on me. Like she belonged there, like we fit together and fighting it seemed useless.
When she slid her hand over my chest, then down to my swollen cock, I didn’t stop her. Instead, we both quickly shed everything below our waists. I couldn’t get my jeans off, so instead they stayed wrapped around my ankles.
I moved her under me, and when I glided my hand over her round breasts, then down her tummy, and slipped my fingers between her legs, I couldn’t believe how soaking wet she was. Like she’d been having her own personal wet dream and had woken to the reality of it being true.