Page 19 of Texas Hold Em'
Tex rolled his shoulder and his shirt moved up over the bruise.
I wondered what other damage his clothes might be hiding. I’d been lucky to be on the back of the bike, but he would have taken the brunt of the impact.
“Do you think he knows yet?” I asked.
Tex studied me as he took a long pull, held the smoke in his lungs, and released. “Bates?”
I nodded.
He sighed and flicked the rest of his cigarette on the pavement stones before crushing it under the heel of his boot. “Probably. Bates is a clever bastard. He’d have had his boys under orders to report back to him as soon as they put me down. Or put you down,” he added almost apologetically. “I reckon since he never heard from them, he’d have sent out a search party. No doubt the crash scene is already cleaned up and swept under the rug.”
I bit my bottom lip.
“What are you worried about?” Tex filled almost the entire doorframe as he turned to face me. He smelled like sweat, cigarettes, and oil.
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
“My career, okay?” I snapped. “I’m worried about my career. Everyone back in Austin is bound to hear about this now. I have friends there, friends who might come looking for me.”
“Then I suggest you make sure they don’t.”
“And how am I supposed to do that?”
He shrugged. “Sounds like a you problem to me.”
I scowled at him as he brushed past me. The door fell closed. “You know, I don’t think you’re nearly as much of a prick as you want me to think you are.”
He pulled his shirt off over his head, exposing a back full of scars and fresh bruises. “Oh yeah? What makes you think that, princess?”
I marched over to him. “Five minutes ago you genuinely cared if Iwas hurt or not. And now that you know I’m okay, you’re back to your brooding, bitchy, dismissive, asshole self.”
He smirked. “It’s a good thing you’re a Ranger, not a detective.”
“Fuck you.”
His smirk turned into a shit-eating grin, and I wished that devilish smile of his didn’t make my knees weak.
“I’m not excited to pay you a compliment, Hart,” he said as he stepped toward me, swaying with more swagger than any man had any right to possess, “but the way you handled yourself tonight? It was sexy as hell.”
I lifted my chin but dared not break my composure. “Not all women consider being called sexy a compliment.”
“Fine.” He reached out, hooked a thumb in the belt loop of my destroyed jeans, and tugged me toward him. I stumbled ungracefully into his chest. “I take it back then. You were impressive.”
“Better.”
“And a great fucking shot.”
It was my turn to smile. Now he was getting closer to all the right things to say to a girl like me. “Keep going.”
His hand left my belt loops and moved up my stomach. “You’re hell on wheels, aren’t you, Hart?”
Here it was.Finally.
He wasn’t looking at me like I was a cop anymore. He saw something else.Someoneelse.
And I liked it.
