Their Ex's Redrock Serial Bundle 1-4 (23 page)

Before Cabe could answer, Rusty added some extra incentive to not use her as his find-a-wife-cheating service. “If you’re not paying to go somewhere, you need to get out of my taxi. I have pressing bills to pay and no time for customers not paying.”

“Fuck,” he cursed, and it was like a roll of thunder.

Rusty got a bit edgy, wondering if he was going to stay a gentleman or explode. Then she remembered that Cabe freely worked with troubled girls and young women, so he probably wasn’t going to haul her out of her taxi and shake the answer out of her.

She smelled his cologne before she knew that he’d leaned up on the back of her seat. Piney sandalwood scents smacked her pretty nicely when his hand thrust forward. Rusty managed to stifle a yelp after she saw the greenbacks in his hand.

“Then, babe”—he said the endearment “babe” very sarcastically—“take me where you took
them
. Here’s the fare, then some.”

The bills tickled her chin and his warm hand was braced on her shoulder while they locked gazes in the mirror. His eyes could lift an entire cheerleading squad’s skirts with their intoxicating and melting brown qualities. She squirmed, definitely not immune to the effect as much as she needed to be. Damn Vega Santos; the woman was an idiot.

“Cabe,” she whispered, pleading with him not to ask her.

“Please,” he whispered back, with a deep voice that melted through her just like his irises did.

“God!” she expelled fiercely, snatching the bills. “I don’t want any trouble!”

His hand cupped her bare shoulder, next to the bright yellow tank top she wore that had “Blondes Can Kiss My Ass” printed across her boobs.

“Cut you loose the second you drop me where they are,” he said, and his tone was so solid she believed him, but then he added, “I’d never let trouble touch you.”

Well, that just wowed through her entire body and made his hand cupping her shoulder feel all kinds of different than some random man’s hand cupping her shoulder into a very hot hunk cupping her very
bare
shoulder.

“Um, thanks,” she whispered, reaching forward to start her taxi.

She had twenty minutes to convince Cabe not to go where he was so determined to go. She chewed on the inside of her lip, wondering how she was going to do it, because she really wanted to help him.

Cabe sat back as the taxi pulled out with his heartbeat still ratcheting, but it wasn’t pounding as much as it had been before Rusty Harper finally agreed to take him to where his wife had gone. His fists clenched at his side and he stuffed them into his pockets as he looked out the window, unseeing. He’d said “them” twice and Rusty had not corrected him once.

But he already fucking knew it, so why was he surprised?
Them.
It meant two. As in his wife and another man. He took a deep breath. He’d been down this road too many times. How much was a man supposed to eat?

“You probably know Finn O’Neil, Cabe?” Rusty asked out of the blue, then she continued right on. “Anyway, I had the biggest, hugest crush on him in high school. The crush to end all crushes, you know.” Cabe heard her gum popping as she paused, then she rattled on with her tale. Her voice was younger and softer sounding than her appearance, which he’d noticed on more than one occasion was all grown woman with a very hot, curvy body.

“God, I wanted him to like me so bad. I was ridiculous trying to get him to notice me. I was never sure if he didn’t have a clue or if he just wasn’t into me.” She guided her taxi around a corner, with her arm up on the back of the seat as she glanced back at him. Her eyes were deep violet with thick black lashes framing them. She’d be surprised what he’d thought of cute little Miss Rusty Jean Harper the first time Tess and Vincent introduced her to him as Tess’ best friend.

“I finally found out that Finn knew about my crush, but he wasn’t into me. It really knocked me low, but then I thought, as only the young can, that maybe he just needed convincing. Surely I could change into that one girl he would lust to have.” They were at a stop sign, and she turned to look back at him again and he noticed the yellow ends on her blue-painted fingernails. Those nails oozed sexiness to his way of thinking, and her mouth saying “lust” just amplified it. “You know lust in a high school, young kids kind of way.”

He pulled down hard on his lips, frowning at her, letting her know he wasn’t interested or fooled in where she was going with her story. Her incredible eyes lowered to look at the shape of his frowning mouth, and he felt that touch of her gaze as if she’d really touched his lips. Why the hell was she looking at his mouth like that?

She cleared her throat, jerked her gaze from his mouth and turned back to the steering wheel. “I spent all junior year trying to get him, until I finally realized—”

Then she stopped talking.

Right in the middle of it.

Silence ...

Cabe realized his hands weren’t clenched into fists in his pockets anymore, and his heart wasn’t hammering. He also got that he was waiting for Rusty to say what the hell it was she’d realized. Because she was being very vulnerable and doing it with nearly a stranger. He cleared his throat, hoping to get her to continue without having to outright ask for it.

More silence.

He noticed out the window they were passing Glory’s Nursery. Again. Little violet eyes was trying to stall. He should have been furious, but out of his mouth came, “Realized what, Rusty?”

He saw her smile in the rearview. Full lips. Gum gone. He knew men over the entire town noticed Rusty Jean’s succulent mouth.

“That I couldn’t make him love me,” she answered with a soft and compassionate voice.

I know that all ready,
he thought as her empathy hit him. He’d told himself that shit a thousand times, but he’d never listened to himself. So why the hell, when a beautiful woman he barely knew said it, it knocked him in the chest like a bag of cement tossed on it? The woman had a way with softly spoken words.

“Then after a few weeks, I realized I didn’t want to
make
him love me, I wanted him
to
love me.”

“Damn,” Cabe muttered, rubbing his jaw, trying to keep his emotions from spilling out.

“Then, after a month, I got the epiphany. And it was a big one, Cabe.”

Cabe realized the taxi was stopped and Rusty was turning back to look at him. Her purple eyes were liquid and he thought she might be close to tears for him. “It was
his
fucking
loss
,” she whispered.

“I know what you’re doing,” he uttered with a rough voice, barely holding on to his emotions.

She turned in the seat more, reaching her body over the back of the seat to put her small, cool hand over the top of his hand, which was resting on his knee. That touch felt like something he never expected. “I know you do, babe.”

Cabe knew he must look fierce, as if he was going to throttle her, and still Rusty braved what she’d said, and she’d braved touching him. So he took a deep breath, lowering his gaze ... and hell, the nicest fucking cleavage he’d ever seen, bar none, was in his sights. Then, because he was crazy and because of his damn cheating wife, who in the past had used every excuse in the book, and then some, not to go to bed with him so he’d been without sex forever ... he got hard. Fucking. Just. Like. That.

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