Games of the Heart Page 6

  Since he’d got quit of her, he’d taken a number of women to bed but not his bed.

  Except for Vi.

  He hadn’t even invited any of the women he’d seen to his home. Although some of them he’d seen more than once, one he’d dated for five months. And he’d spent the night at their places but none of them he’d let snuggle him while he slept.

  He knew why this was. He was seeking distance. He was keeping them at arm’s length.

  Audrey did a number on his head, striking a blow to his ability to trust. Then came Violet who didn’t mean to strike her blow but she did it all the same. This made him wary. He wasn’t going to get too close. Especially not too close too fast.

  That was the mistake he made with Vi. He ignored the signs and allowed himself to start falling for her too damned soon. He knew he was in a game of hearts, his opponent her now husband and the father of her youngest daughter, Joe Callahan. Fuck, he even knew he had no hope of winning.

  He still went for it anyway.

  But that shit stung, losing her. He had her weeks and Audrey years and losing Vi marked him whereas getting quit of Audrey freed him.

  So he told himself, not again.

  But Dusty was something else. When he woke and found her pressed to him, he didn’t gently roll Dusty away. He left Dusty right where she was.

  The phone stopped ringing and he turned in bed. Then he looked through the room seeing nothing. It was early, the room was dark.

  Then he looked to the alarm clock.

  It was ten after six.

  He reached out an arm and turned on the light, his eyes going to the mirrored doors on the closet opposite the bathroom. The door to the bathroom was open, the room dark, no one inside.

  He looked to the floor and saw his clothes tangled with Dusty’s jeans, tee and panties and the closed pizza box.

  Fuck, it was ten after six. Where was she?

  He pushed up in bed, his eyes going to his nightstand and he saw it. A piece of hotel note paper.

  He reached out an arm and tagged it.

  Bringing it to him, he read:

  Gorgeous,

  Off to procure the food of your people.

  Back soon,

  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

  -D

  He felt his lips curve as he stared at the note.

  The food of his people. He hoped she meant Hilligoss donuts.

  His eyes moved over the note and he felt his face go soft. This was because he knew she probably dashed it off but still, the fucking thing could be framed. Her penmanship was artistic and interesting. But it was the hugs and kisses with her initial that were stunning. The x’s and o’s were done on a slant with a bunch of flourishes that attached them to the elaborately drawn “-D”.

  Staring at the note, he remembered another thing that was Dusty. As a kid, she was always busy. She might hang out in front of the TV but only when people she cared about were hanging out in front of the TV. All other times, she had an abundance of energy and creativity. When she did her chores, she sang and even danced, filling the house with her sweet, pure voice and her exuberant kid happy vibe. She was also often at the kitchen table or on her belly in her bed drawing. Her Mom put these pictures up on the fridge and rightfully bragged about them frequently. Others, Dusty hung on the wall on her side of the bedroom in a way that looked good but appeared haphazard.

  Debbie hated it, thought it looked a mess and bitchily said it was a fire hazard when it wasn’t. But Mike, even as a teenage boy, could look at Dusty’s pictures for hours. They were of everything. Flowers, fantastical shit she imagined in her head, landscapes of their farm, sketches of her family and Mike. The detail, the skill, the imagination, it was captivating.

  He wasn’t surprised she’d chosen to do something artistic for a living.

  He was equally unsurprised she was good at it.

  And he was further unsurprised that people spent a fortune on it.

  The phone ringing again took him out of his thoughts and his eyes went from the note to Dusty’s cell next to his on the nightstand. He threw the note on the nightstand and picked up her phone, thinking, at this hour, it might be a member of her family.

  But on the display there was a picture of a man and it said, “Beau Calling”.

  Mike’s neck got tight as he stared at the display. The man was dark-haired and good-looking. He was wearing a beat up denim shirt and beat up jeans. His hands were shoved in his front pockets, his eyes off to the side and he’d been caught laughing.

  Jesus. What was this guy doing phoning at that hour? In Texas, where the guy undoubtedly lived considering his clothes in the shot, it was even earlier.

  But she’d said she was free and not one thing about Dusty had given Mike the impression she’d lie. In fact, the opposite. He’d never met anyone that was more of a straight shooter.

  And Mike liked that a fuckuva lot.

  The phone stopped ringing and Mike threw it on the nightstand. It wasn’t his place to answer so he didn’t.

  Instead, he threw back the covers, found his boxers and tugged them on. Dusty’s phone beeped with a voicemail while he was pulling on his jeans. He ignored it, went to the bathroom, took care of business, washed his hands, splashed water on his face, wiped it dry and sauntered out.

  When he did and he was nearly back to the bed, the phone was ringing again.

  He stared at the man’s picture on the display, thought of the time and wondered if there was an emergency. He didn’t know if the first call was from this Beau guy but Mike hadn’t been awake for even ten minutes and, if it was, he’d called three times in that time.

  “Fuck,” he muttered, tagged the phone, slid his finger on the screen and put it to his ear. “Hello,” he greeted.

  Silence.

  “Anyone there?” he asked when this silence stretched.

  “Who’s this?” a man’s voice asked back and he sounded ticked.

  Fuck.

  “You called, man, who’re you?” Mike returned.

  “Who I am is the owner of this phone’s man, man,” Beau shot back, definitely ticked. So ticked, he’d gone straight to belligerent.

  But Mike was frozen.

  “Yo! What the fuck?” Beau asked. “Is Dusty there?”

  “No,” Mike forced from between his teeth.

  “Where is she at six twenty in the fuckin’ morning?” he demanded to know.

  Mike didn’t like his tone and he just simply didn’t like the fact he was talking to Dusty’s man, a man she told him she didn’t have, so he didn’t bother to answer.

  Beau didn’t care that Mike didn’t answer.

  “Right, you wanna tell me why it’s twenty after six in the fuckin’ mornin’ and you’re answerin’ my woman’s phone?” Beau kept up his interrogation.

  “No,” Mike ground out.

  “Fuck me,” the man clipped.

  “You got a message or did you call just to swear?” Mike asked.

  “Yeah, I got a message, man. Tell my woman to call me. Immediately. You got that?”

  “Got it,” Mike replied shortly.

  Then he got dead air.

  He stared at the phone. Then he tossed it to the nightstand instead of hurling it across the room.

  Since Audrey, he’d played the field and, taking care around his kids, he’d done this pretty extensively. This was partly due to the fact that Mike was a man. And it was partly due to the fact that the last seven months of his marriage their sex life was non-existent. This was because Mike found he couldn’t stomach fucking a woman who lied to him daily, handed him shit frequently and still had no problem spending his money, as well as money he hadn’t yet earned, freely. It was the last of many times when Audrey turned to him and he felt the nausea roil that he knew he was done. And it was when he set her off him that he told her that, straight out. She had then flown into a rage, screaming and swearing and he knew their kids could hear but, as always with Audrey, he had no choice. No matter how often he told her to s
hut the fuck up or keep her voice down, she ignored him or got louder and her language got fouler.

  At the time, watching her red-faced and infuriated at learning she was bearing the consequences of her own behavior, it became crystal clear Mike’s decision to divorce her ass was the right one.

  He’d spent years doing everything he could to sort their shit. At first, young, stupid and in love with her, he’d knocked himself out to get her everything she wanted. But even when he laid it at her feet, she just wanted more. Then he’d done everything he could think to do to find out what drove her to these needs so he could guide her to understanding them and she could work through them. This didn’t work either. No matter how many talks they had, or, in the end, fights, her behavior didn’t change. Often, she promised it would, swore she’d “do better” and she might, for a week, a month. But then she’d lapse right back into it. At the start, she didn’t hide her spending. In the end, she did. How the fuck she thought he wouldn’t figure it out since he paid their bills, they had a joint account and she didn’t work, he had no clue. She just didn’t.

  The pressure built. For his part, it built along with his frustration at being in debt and having a wife who lied to him consistently. For Audrey’s part, even though she never admitted it, it had to do with feelings of guilt that mingled with anger at herself that she couldn’t control her addiction.

  And since she couldn’t, he got free of her. And, free of her, he enjoyed himself.

  Of all the women he enjoyed himself with, Dusty was the one he’d enjoyed the most. Not only in bed, and she was by far the best he’d had since Audrey, before Audrey and including Audrey, but also out of it. Funny, engaging and open, Dusty let it all hang out. She didn’t hide shit. Not her pain. Not her humor. Not her anger at her sister. Not her thoughts about the world.

  And he liked that. Too much. And with her being Dusty, their history, the special bond that they had when they were younger that seemed to snap right into place and tighten exponentially nearly the instant they were back together, he let himself be reeled in. Just like Vi who had done the same, straight off the bat giving him that open sharing, having the opposite for years with Audrey, he let himself get caught up in it.

  But apparently, unlike Vi, who was going through some serious shit too when he met her, Dusty’s openness was bullshit. She had a night in a hotel room with her family close but her anger at her sister wouldn’t allow her to be with them. He walked right up to her room and gave her an opportunity not to spend that time alone. So she took it and, doing it, used him.

  And Jesus, he hadn’t even been with her an entire fucking day and that shit stung too.

  “Fuck,” he whispered as he heard the lock click on the door.

  He turned and watched her walk in. Her masses of hair was down and tumbling around her shoulders and over her chest. Her face was free of makeup and the pallor he noticed yesterday was gone, her cheeks pink from the cold. She was wearing the black turtleneck from yesterday and the black boots but she’d added the faded jeans. She wasn’t wearing the denim blazer but instead a gray suede jacket that hung long on her hips and had fringe along the arms. Any other woman, fuck, anyone, female or male, wore a suede jacket with fringe, Mike, a small town Indiana man through and through and not a cowboy by a long shot, would find that amusing.

  It looked fucking great on Dusty.

  She had her black also fringed purse dangling from her shoulder, a big, white baker’s box in her hands and balanced visibly precariously on top were two large, white paper cups he knew by their plastic lids and cardboard sleeves were coffee.

  Her eyes hit his, she smiled and said, “Awesome, you’re up.” Then he lost her attention as she moved through the room toward him, eyes on the box she was balancing and she muttered, “Grab the coffees, babe. We do not need tragedy in the form of the genius of Hilligoss consumed without coffee to wash it down.”

  She stopped in front of him, he took the cups and tried to calm his temper. The minute he took them, she moved to the bed, put the box on it and then shrugged her bag off her shoulder, turning and tossing the clearly expensive purse carelessly across the bed to the chair.

  She did this talking.

  “I learned this morning you never lose the sixth sense only those born and raised in The ‘Burg have.” Her gaze came to him and she was grinning, her dark brown eyes dancing as she announced with mock gravity, “The Hilligoss Sense.” She turned away and was shrugging off her coat and ditto with tossing it across the bed to the chair as she continued, “Got there upon opening on a Sunday. Meant I was fifth in line.” She turned back to him, still smiling. “Got my choice of the whole plethora of Hilligoss delights. I bought two dozen. A Hilligoss smorgasbord. Babe, at home, I dream of a white baker’s box filled with Hilligoss goodness. Outside of my family, it’s the best part of coming home.”

  “Beau called.”

  She blinked at his words. Then her eyes moved over his face.

  “Three times,” Mike finished.

  Dusty held his eyes.

  Then, to his surprise, she shifted so her back was to the bed and she flopped right down on it.

  Lifting both her hands to her face, she muttered from behind them, “Fuck. Beau. Clueless. Clue…less! Fuck!”

  “Gave me a message,” Mike carried on, walking the coffees to the nightstand and shoving shit aside to put them there. He straightened and concluded, “Says he wants his woman to call him. Immediately.”

  Her hands went away from her face and just her head bent up so her eyes could find his.

  “He called me his woman?”

  “Yep.”

  “To you?”

  “Yep.”

  “And you’re sure he wasn’t talking about, say, some other woman who is absolutely not me.”

  “Yep.”

  She stared at him.

  Then her head fell back as her hands came down hard, her arms and palms slapping the bedclothes.

  “That fucking fucker!” she snapped to the ceiling.

  Mike stared at her.

  It appeared he’d made another erroneous call about Dusty Holliday.

  Fuck.

  He walked to the bed and entered it, settling on a hip with one hand to her stomach, the other hand in the bed. Looming over her he watched her glare at the ceiling.

  “I take it he’s full of shit,” Mike muttered and just her eyeballs rolled to him.

  “Yeah, Mike, Beau is full…of…shit.” She paused then snapped loudly, “Shit!”

  Then she suddenly knifed up and leaned to the side. Reaching out, she snatched her phone off the nightstand. Then she sat back and Mike fell to a forearm as he watched her finger sliding and jabbing on the screen of her phone.

  She put it to her ear, waited as she crossed her legs then irritably started bouncing a cowboy-booted foot and within seconds began talking.

  Or, more to the point, hissing.

  “Are you fucking nuts?” Pause then, “No, Beau, don’t answer that. I know you are. First, my brother is dead, it isn’t even seven in the morning my time, in Texas it’s earlier and you’re phoning me?” This ended in a question but she didn’t give him time to answer before she continued sarcastically. “You think, maybe, if I’m sleeping, I might want to sleep instead of getting a phone call from my ex-boyfriend who didn’t catch the big, honkin’ clue I shot his way when I kicked his ass out that we…are…over?” Again, she didn’t wait for a reply, she kept going. “And second, we’re over! For the last time stop calling me!”

  Then she took the phone from her ear, jabbed her finger at the screen, hit a button on the side then twisted her torso and tossed it over Mike to the chair. It bounced on her clothes and bag and settled.

  She flopped to her back in front of him again, her body bouncing too before it settled.

  Then she grumbled, “He ruined Hilligoss goodness shared with a hot guy.”

  Mike couldn’t help it. Five minutes before, he was pissed and convinced he’d been played
.

  Right then, he thought she was fucking hilarious.

  So he burst out laughing.

  When he was done and looked down at her, she surprised him again. This was because she no longer appeared pissed, she was grinning.

  “So I take it you and that guy are over,” Mike drawled and then he got to watch as Dusty burst out laughing.

  Fuck, her laughter was as musical as her voice. He’d forgotten that too. Until last night when he got that gift back. And just like everything about her, with maturity, it had gotten a fuckuva lot better.

  He settled his hand on her stomach again, felt it tremble with her laughter and watched her hilarity play out, enjoying every second.

  Still chuckling, her eyes came to him and she confirmed, “Yeah, babe, Beau and me are over.”

  This was good news.

  But what went down that morning was not and he wasn’t thinking about his again jumping to conclusions but Beau whoever-the-fuck acting like a psycho.

  “Do I need to be worried about this?” he asked quietly and, with regret, watched the humor die from her eyes.

  “I wanna say no,” she answered just as quietly. “But, it kills me, this shit this morning, he called yesterday and asked if I wanted him to come up to be with me…I’m not getting a good feeling.”

  Mike wasn’t either.

  She got up on her elbows and gave him her entire focus which included her openness.

  “We were together a while, two and a half years. Part of that, he was moved in with me. It went bad a while ago. I’m not getting any younger, I want kids and in the beginning, it was good. I fought for it. Beau’s clueless and he didn’t. I kicked him out four months ago. That woke his shit up but it was too late. It was just over and I was moving on. I wasn’t going back. I’m not going back. He’s not getting that. He can be stubborn and I know he cares about me so, at first, it was just a nuisance. Now, it’s getting a little crazy.” Her gaze drifted to her phone. “And this morning, whacked.” Her eyes came back to him. “He really told you I was his woman?”

  “Pissed I answered the phone. Didn’t hide it. Told me he was your man and you were his woman. So yeah, he made it clear in a thirty second conversation and he did it three times.”