Something peculiar is going on here. She tilted her head in confusion. “How did that happen?”
“I don’t know. You tell me since you and dear ol’ Dad were so chummy.”
Chummy? I swear, you are going to pay for that insult. If I were a man, you’d be flattened by now. “That’s not fair.”
He shrugged. “Life’s not fair.”
“Well, I’m not giving you my half of the ranch.”
“Then I’m not giving you a divorce.”
She went wide-eyed at that announcement. “Is that a punishment? Of course it is. Torture by marriage. Hey, I’m kinda liking not being a divorcee. Maybe I won’t give you a divorce. So there.”
Clearly not amused by her rebellion, he came up way too close to her, backing her into the sink. She felt his breath on her mouth. He deliberately invaded her space, trying to intimidate her.
She wasn’t scared of him. She was more scared of herself and the effect he still had on her. And he knew it, too. Dammit.
“Be reasonable,” she said, trying to move away.
He put an arm on either side of her on the sink, bracketing her in. “Reasonable? I’ll give you reasonable. If you want to be half owner of the Triple L, you are going to do half the work. And that means shoveling cow manure, castrating bull calves and all the other necessary jobs that might interfere with your perfect manicure. You are not sitting your pretty little ass out on the veranda while I do all the work.”
This is just great! You couldn’t turn me into a cowgirl if you tried. And broken nails are a killin’ offense, honey. Ha, ha, ha. “Stop being a jerk.”
“I’ve heard you like jerks. Four of them, to be specific.”
She made a conscious effort to restrain herself from belting him. He is just baiting me. He wants me to lose my temper. But, really, he’s been through a lot. Going to prison. Losing his vet license. Losing his dad. Still, Charmaine thought about slapping the louse. Or shaking him silly. Or giving him a talking-to in the blue language she excelled at. But, instead, she did something better. She took him by the ears, pulled on him hard, then kissed him with all the pent-up stress of the past weeks and the hunger of ten long years. She bit his lip, she thrust her tongue inside his mouth, she ground herself against him. They were both moaning. She undulated her hips against him; he pressed his erection against her belly. She’d meant to teach the weasel a lesson, but somehow she was the one learning something.
He finally raised his head and stared at her, dazed for a moment. Then he gave her a little salute and said, “This is war, Charmaine.”
Home on the range…
Two days later, Charmaine was tooling along scenic Highway 90, about to hit Interstate 10. She leaned back in the leather seat of Tante Lulu’s classic blue T-bird convertible, singing “Knock, Knock, Knock” along with Joel Sonnier on the radio.
The raucous tune related the woes of a guy who’d landed in the doghouse again. That was Charmaine. She was in the doghouse of life, so to speak, but she wasn’t going to let that get her down. No way! She was a survivor. Woof, woof!
She’d given her much prized BMW to Luc to sell, hopefully for twenty thousand dollars, which he would use to negotiate a deal with Bucks ‘r Us. She wasn’t foolish enough to think that Bobby Doucet—the slime-ball—would settle for that amount, but Luc planned to negotiate and threaten him into a plan that would stop her interest clock from ticking away and allow her to pay off her loan in a reasonable period of time without any legs being broken or lives lost.
She should have sold the BMW right at the beginning, when she’d first needed the money to cover the stock loss. Or she should have gone to a regular bank and mortgaged her house. But she’d expected to receive a large check from a convention bureau for an event at which she and all her employees had worked. Unfortunately, the convention bureau promoters skipped town without paying any bills. After that, everything went downhill fast. The bayou region was a gossip mill, and Charmaine’s infernal pride had gotten in the way. She hadn’t wanted anyone to be able to say, “That Charmaine! Guess what dumb thing the bimbo did now.”