Lady Be Good (Wynette, Texas #2)(28)

The water stopped running. She settled deeper into her comfortable bed.

“Emma?”

She peeled her eyelids open just enough to see a white ceiling. Too white a ceiling to belong in her dear cottage. And where was the petal-shaped crack over her bed?

“Emma?”

She forced her eyelids the rest of the way open and saw Kenny coming across the carpet toward the bed. What was Kenny doing in her cottage?

He had a towel tucked around his hips, another draped over his shoulders. His hair was wet and mussed.

The world slipped back into place, and she realized she was in his condo. In his bed.

She groaned.

“Rise and shine, Queen Elizabeth.”

“What am I doing here?” she croaked.

“I’ve got a fresh pot of coffee downstairs that I think might appeal to you. You definitely can’t hold your liquor.”

“Please . . .” she managed, as she took in the rumpled bed. “Tell me I don’t owe you thirty dollars.”

“Honey, after what happened last night, I owe you.”

She moaned and buried her face in the pillow.

He chuckled. “You are one wildcat between the sheets, I’ll tell you that.”

She forced herself to look at him, then sagged back into the pillows as she took in the diabolic gleam in his eyes. “Save your energy. Nothing happened.”

“What makes you think that?”

“You’re still standing.”

Another chuckle.

Considering her impaired physical condition, she thought that was a fairly cheeky response, but she felt too dreary to take much satisfaction from it. She eased herself into a sitting position and saw she was wearing a University of Texas T-shirt, her bra, and her underpants. Right now she wouldn’t let herself think about how she’d gotten out of her clothes.

“Do you want me to turn the shower on for you?”

She stumbled toward the bathroom door. “I’ll turn it on for myself. You may fetch my coffee.”

“Yes, Your Ladyship.”

She shut the bathroom door, peeled his T-shirt over her head, let her bra drop, and turned toward the sink.

That was when she screamed.

On the other side of the door, Kenny grinned, then listened as Emma’s scream changed into something close to a sob. His grin grew broader, only to fade into a scowl as he heard feet pounding on the stairs. “Shit.”

The bedroom door shot open, and a gorgeous brunette with inky black hair and a model’s body burst in. “Jeeze, Kenny, did you kill one this time?”

Emma flew out from the bathroom, a large towel wrapped around her body, her eyes the size of a fairly decent water hazard. “What did you do to me!”

“Emma, I’d like you to meet my baby sister, Torie. Torie, this is Lady Emma Wells-Finch.”

As Emma tried to get her mouth to work, Kenny noticed that Torie was outfitted, as usual, in Nieman Marcus’s best, one of those simple little dresses that cost more than the national debt, along with an expensive pair of Italian sandals. A couple of divot-sized diamond studs flashed at her ears, a wedding gift from her last ex-husband.

Her hair was as dark as his and jaw-length, except around her face where it was cut shorter. At twenty-eight, she was tall, lean, green-eyed, and gorgeous. She was also a pain in the ass. Still, he loved her, and he might be the only person in the world who understood how much unhappiness lurked beneath her good ol’ girl bluster.

“Don’t you ever use a doorbell?” he grumbled.

“Why should I when I have a perfectly good key?” She regarded Emma with interest. “Honey, that is one hell of a tattoo you got there.”

Ignoring her, Emma charged toward him, tears glistening in her eyes. “How could you have let this happen?”

He studied the red, white, and blue Lone Star flag that now flew across a good portion of her upper left arm along with a curling banner beneath it that read Kenny.

“Wasn’t much I could do about it. You know how you are when you’ve got your mind set on something.”

“I was drunk.”

“You can say that again.”

“At least it’s not ordinary,” Torie said in an attempt to be kind.

Emma stared at her as Torie extended her hand. “Nice to meet you, Lady Emma. In case you missed the introduction, I’m Torie Traveler. I had a couple of other last names, but I recently got rid of them and went back to the basics. Don’t be offended when I tell you that you have terrible taste in men.” She dropped Emma’s hand and turned on Kenny. “You could have returned at least one of my phone calls, you sonovabitch.”

“Why? You’ll just tell me I have to go to Wynette, and I don’t want to go to Wynette right now.”

“Fine. You can ignore me until the wedding, then.”

“You and Phillip Morris tying the knot?” he asked.

“His name is Phillip Morrison, and you know very well that’s not the wedding I’m talking about.”

“Things between you and Phillip didn’t work out, I take it.”

“He wanted me to stop cussing and give him ten strokes.” She plopped one graceful hand on her hip. “I swear I couldn’t go through the rest of my life watching that golf swing of his without providing some semi-obscene commentary.”