Chase could all but see the numbers ticking across Lucky's forehead as he slowly counted to ten in an effort to control his short temper.
Chase set his elbows on the bar and plowed all ten fingers through his dark hair as he lowered his head.
"You don't deserve that.
Devon sure as hell doesn't." Holding his head
between his hands, he rolled it from side to side. "I'm sorry. Try to forget I said that."
He fully expected his brother to leave. Surprisingly,
Lucky returned to the stool beside him and sat down. "Why don't you tell me what's really bothering you?"
"We need that drilling contract."
""Uh-huh. Besides that. Something's eating at you. Chase. Mother and Devon have noticed it too. Every Sunday when you and
Marcie are at the house, you're as uptight as a man sitting on top of a keg of dynamite.
The fuse is short and it's burning hot. What gives?"
Chase swirled the contents of his glass around several times. "Marcie," he mumbled.
"I figured as much."
His head snapped around, his eyes sharp and demanding. "Why'd you figure that?"
"Marcie's a lot like Devon. She had a life before you came into it. She's been an independent lady for a long time." Lucky tossed back the handful of beer nuts he'd scooped out of the bowl on the bar. "I'm not surprised she found the role of wife uncomfortable. Like a new pair of shoes, it doesn't quite fit her yet."
"What, are you kidding?" Chase grunted scoffingly. "She's so bloody good at being a wife, it's enough to make you sick."
"Huh?"
"Dinner is on the table every night at six sharp. She bakes cookies. God knows when because she's always so busy with other stuff.
The house is as neat as a damn palace. I lose something, she knows right where to find it."
"I'm relieved to hear it's working out so well," Lucky said cheerfully. "As you know, I had doubts that it would. Sounds like y'all are getting along great. What have you got to bellyache about?"
Chase swiveled on his stool to face his brother. Now that the spillway had finally been opened, there was a lot he'd held back that needed to be released.
"She's too perfect." Lucky merely stared at him as though he'd gone daft. "I'll give you an example. She told me that she liked to go through the Sunday paper methodically. Last week I deliberately scattered it all over the living room, reading a section, then dropping it and letting it fall wherever."
"Why?"
"Just to be provoking."
Lucky shook his head with bafflement.
"Why?"
Because I'm horny as hell! Unappeased horniness was a condition he couldn't admit, especially to a younger brother who had come by his nickname because of his uncanny success with women.
"I wanted to see if I could rile her," Chase said.
"Did you?"
"No. She didn't say a thing. Not even a dirty look. She just went around the living room, calmly collecting the newspaper and
restocking it so she could go through it the way she liked to."
"I don't get it. You're complaining about a wife who obviously has the patience of a saint?"
"Have you ever tried living with a saint?
With somebody so bloody perfect? I tell you she's just not normal. Why doesn't she get mad?" He blew out a gust of air. "It's nerve-racking.
I'm always on guard."
"Look, Chase, if that's all—"
"It's not. She sneaks up on me."
Lucky laughed so hard he almost fell off his stool. "Sneaks up on you? You mean like we used to do with Sage? Does Marcie hide in your closet and then when you open the door, she jumps out and hollers boo?"
"Don't be ridiculous."
"Well, what do you mean?"
Chase felt foolish now. He couldn't tell Lucky about the morning he'd been standing at his bathroom sink shaving, when he happened to notice Marcie's reflection in the mirror. He spun around so quickly, he'd nicked his chin with the razor.
"I'm sorry I startled you, Chase. I knocked but I guess you didn't hear me." She had rushed forward and set the stack of fresh towels on the lid of the toilet. "You're bleeding.
Here."
She ripped off a sheet of toilet tissue and pressed it against his bleeding chin… and held it there… for a long time… even though he was standing there buck naked and
growing hard from the delicate touch of her fingertips against his face.
And just about the time the tip of his sex grazed her, she whispered, "How does that feel?"
For several seconds the blood had pounded through the veins in his head. He finally gathered enough wherewithal to mutter, "Better."
He snatched up one of the towels she had carried in and wrapped it around his middle with the haste of Adam, who'd just been caught red-handed committing the original sin.
No, he couldn't tell Lucky that. Lucky would want to know why he hadn't just taken his wife to bed and made love to her until they were senseless. Chase wouldn't.be able to provide an answer, because he wanted to know that himself.
Ignoring his brother's question, he said, "You wouldn't know it to look at her, but she hasn't got a smidgen of modesty. She's brazen. Remember how much stock Grandma used to place on a woman's modesty?" He laughed bitterly. "Good thing she never met Marcie."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Leaning in closer, Lucky peered into Chase's feverish eyes. "You haven't started smoking funny green cigarettes, have you?" Chase gave Lucky's shoulder a shove. Lucky only laughed again.
"You're nuts. Marcie behaves like a lady."
"Not at home she doesn't. At home she parades around naked as a jaybird."
Lucky's interest was piqued. He cocked his head to one side. "Oh, yeah?"
Chase didn't notice that his brother's interest had a teasing quality. He was thinking back to a few days earlier when he had gone into Marcie's room with a shirt that needed a button replaced.
She had answered his decorous knock on her door, "Come in."
He had pushed the door open and walked in, but stumbled on his own two feet when he found himself face-to-face with her pretty, pink nakedness.
He had caught her arranging her hair. Her hands were raised above her head. She stood poised in front of her vanity table, the mirror over it offering him a view of her back so he could see her all over at once.
Her blue eyes challenged him to do something, say something. He wanted to pounce on her and feed on her beautiful flesh, but he wouldn't allow himself to. If she could act so blase about her nudity, then, by all that was holy, so could he.
Pulse thundering, resolutely keeping his eyes on a spot just above her head, he asked, "Do you have a sewing kit?"
"I'll be glad to mend whatever needs it."
"It's just a button. I can do it. Have you got a needle and thread or not?"
"Sure. Right here."
She lowered her arms. Her hair drifted to her smooth, fair shoulders. The small chest where she kept her sewing kit was behind him. She could have gone around him. She could have excused herself and moved him
aside. Instead, she practically walked through him, brushing herself against him. Every cell in his body had become a tongue of flame, licking him into a frenzy of sexual heat.
Just thinking about it now made him yearn to touch her impertinent breasts and stroke her translucent skin and explore the mystery at her beautifully decorated apex.
Lucky waved his hand in front of Chase's face. He drew himself back into the present and querulously growled, "I think she was an old maid for too long. It made her an exhibitionist.
What does it sound like to you?"
"Sounds like a fantasy I read in Playboy once."
"Dammit, Lucky, I'm serious. She's like a nympho or something."
"Damned shame to be married to one, isn't it? I speak from experience you understand."
He winked.
Both Lucky's sarcasm and his gesture escaped
Chase, who was still deep in thought.
"She brushes up against me all the time. Remember the cat we had that rubbed herself against our legs when a torn wasn't around?
Marcie's like that. She can't walk past me without bumping into me. It's like she's in heat."
"Maybe she is."
Lucky's flippant comment goosed Chase out of his erotic trance. "What?"
Lucky vigorously chewed another handful of beer nuts and swallowed. "I said maybe she is. Devon believes that a woman gets preg
nant when she wants to, when she has subconsciously made up her mind to."
"Pregnant?" Chase repeated, looking stunned.
Then he shook his head adamantly. "She's not going to get pregnant. At least she had better not. I don't want anything to do with a baby. I don't even want to talk about one, think about one."
Lucky's grin gradually receded. Uneasily he glanced beyond his brother's shoulder. Instantly his vision cleared. "Speaking of your lady, she's here."
"Huh?"
Chase followed the direction of Lucky's gaze until he sighted Marcie. She was standing just inside the door of the noisy, smoky tavern, surveying the rowdy Friday-night crowd.
When her gaze connected with his, he saw relief break across her features.
As unobtrusively as possible, she wended her way through the largely male crowd until she reached the end of the bar where they were seated. "So you are here." She smiled at Chase breathlessly. "I thought I recognized your truck outside." To his brother she said,
"Hi, Lucky."
"Hi. I don't suppose Devon is with you. The
Place isn't one of her favorite nightspots."
Marcie laughed. "So I've heard. And with good reason. But don't worry. I understand some of the most lasting love affairs have inauspicious origins."
"At least in our case that's true. It started with a fist fight in this hellhole. Look where it got us. Into a marriage made in heaven." He grinned broadly. "Want a drink?"
"No, thank you."
"What are you doing here?"
Chase's abrupt question cut through their lighthearted exchange like a steel rapier. It sounded accusatory and instantly put Marcie on the defensive.
"Remember the couple from Massachusetts?
They're in town today. I was showing them a lake house and had to come by here on my way back to town. As I said, I spotted your pickup outside."
"You were checking up on me," Chase said.
"Can't I be a few minutes late coming home without you hunting me down?"
"Hey, Chase, relax."
He ignored his brother. "Or don't you trust me to stop with just one drink? Did you think I had run off and joined the rodeo circuit again?"
"What the hell are you doing?" Lucky asked through his teeth, intentionally keeping his voice low so that they wouldn't attract attention.
"He's trying to humiliate me," Marcie said candidly. "When all he's actually doing is making himself look foolish."
With that, she turned her back on them.
Proudly, shoulders back, fiery head held high, she moved toward the door.
Before Lucky could speak the admonishment he had ready. Chase turned to him and warned, "Shut up.
I don't need any advice from you." Digging in his jeans pocket for currency, he tossed down enough bills to cover the cost of their drinks and adequately tip the bartender.
He elbowed milling patrons aside as he followed
Marcie's light-capturing hair toward the door. One grinning, boozy face blocked his path and stood his ground firmly even when Chase tried to set him aside.
"Better catch that one, Tyler. She's one classy piece."
"So then Chase snarls something to the effect of, 'That's my wife, you's.o.b.'. Sorry, Deacon.
Then his fist smashes into this guy's face and knocks his nose askew. Another punch landed square on his mouth. His partial plate flew right out. I could see it from where I was standing at the bar. Swear to God—pardon me, Deacon—it did. The teeth got crushed in the stampede. Everybody was trying their damnedest—sorry again, Deacon—to get out of Chase's way. He was like a madman."
After Lucky had finished his account of the fight that had occurred at The Place two nights earlier, everyone in the formal dining room of the Tyler's ranch house was held in speechless suspension for several seconds.
Marcie kept her eyes lowered to her plate, still mortified that she had unwittingly caused a brawl. She now shared Devon's aversion to
The Place.
Apparently Chase was just as uncomfortable with the recounting of the one-sided fight.
He had remained broodily silent, drawing lit
tie valleys through his uneaten mound of mashed potatoes with the tines of his fork.
Laurie, Marcie noticed, was nervously fiddling with the strand of pearls around her neck, possibly because Lucky hadn't censored his language in deference to their additional guest at the midday Sunday meal.
"I wish you boys would stay out of that tavern," Laurie said, finally breaking the awkward silence. "The only good thing that's ever happened there was when Lucky met Devon."
"Thank you, Laurie," Marcie's sister-in-law replied. "Would you like for me to clear the dishes for dessert?"
"That's sweet of you. Is everybody finished?
Jess?"
Jess Sawyer blotted his mouth with the same meticulous precision as he had sweetened his tea, cut his meat, and buttered his roll one bite at a time. He was a small, neat man dressed in a stiff white shirt and a well-pressed brown suit. He had thin brown hair and dull brown eyes. If personalities had colors, his would be brown.
"Everything was delicious, Laurie," he said politely. "Thank you for inviting me."
With Lucky's help, Devon stood and began stacking empty dishes on a tray. When the table was cleared, Devon held the door for
Lucky as he carried the tray into the kitchen.
"We'll bring dessert and coffee in," she said, following her husband out.
"I'm glad I caught you as we left the sanctuary."
Laurie was saying to Mr. Sawyer. "I
hate to think of anyone's eating a meal alone, but I think eating Sunday dinner alone is a sacrilege. Feel welcome to come anytime." she said, smiling at him. "Pat, was the roast beef too well-done for you?"
Pat Bush, a perennial guest at Sunday dinner, shifted in his chair. "It was fine." Glancing across the table toward Mr. Sawyer, he added, "Just like always."
"You didn't eat but one helping."
"My lack of appetite has nothing to do with the food, Laurie. I'm still thinking about that ruckus out at The Place last Friday night." He cast a baleful glance toward Chase.
Devon and Lucky returned, bringing with them a three-layer chocolate cake and coffee with all the fixings. "I'll serve from the sideboard, if that's all right with you, Laurie."
"That will be fine, dear," Laurie told her daughter-in-law.
From her chair Marcie watched Devon slice the first piece of cake and put it on a plate.
Some of the frosting stuck to her fingers. She raised her hand to her mouth to lick it off.
Before she could, Lucky grabbed her hand, poked her finger into his mouth, and sucked it clean.
Marcie's stomach did a flip-flop.