Читать книгу The Renegade Cowboy Returns - Tina Leonard - Страница 13

Chapter Three

“So,” Gage said, as they seated themselves in a booth at Cactus Max’s. “This looks like a great place for a red herring, don’t you think?”

Chelsea glanced at him with some disdain in her big eyes. Gage grinned, loving yanking her chain.

“Are you trying to be funny?” she asked.

“Not really. Am I?”

“I’m pretty sure you’re not.” She snapped open her menu with some annoyance, and he grinned again. In the corner of the bar-and-grill-style restaurant, three pool tables were in use, the occasional clicking of balls audible over the easy conversation of the diners. About fifty people milled around, enjoying nachos and beer and other cuisine, or watching big-screen TVs that hung from all four corners, the sound muted. In the background, soothing and mellow jazz music played. Gage found himself relaxing, until he saw Chelsea’s gaze fixed on him.

“What?”

She shook her head. “There’s a twenty-ounce steak on the menu.”

“If you can eat it, be my guest.”

“I’ll go with the Southwestern steak wraps.” She closed her menu.

“And some wine?”

“Tea,” she said, eyeing him again. “Thanks.”

He laughed. “You’re not letting your guard down around me, are you?”

“I can’t,” she said. “You got really close to me with a bullet. And do you have a permit for that gun you carry?”

They were interrupted by a dark-haired woman named Blanche cheerfully placing a lighted candle on their table. The flame gave the booth a romantic atmosphere that Gage knew would not help Chelsea relax. Not around him, anyway.

Talk about trust issues. He had a wall to climb with this redhead.

“New to town?” the waitress asked.

“We are,” Gage said. “We’re staying at Dark Diablo.”

“Oh,” Blanche said. “I know you. You’re the ones Jonas said didn’t like each other very much.”

Chelsea’s gaze shot to his, then bounced away. Gage laughed. “We’re working on it, Blanche.”

She smiled at him. “Well, you sure are a good-looking fellow. I like my men rugged. I can’t imagine a lady wouldn’t just go to jelly at the knees for you, honey.”

He figured Blanche was somewhere around sixty years old, and with her infectious smile and dark brown eyes, she’d probably been able to catch whatever kind of man she wanted. “Thanks. I like my ladies round and sweet like you.”

She grinned. “And what about you?” she asked Chelsea, politely trying to include her in the banter.

“I like my wraps rare and my tea cold, please,” she said, and Blanche giggled.

“She’s no fun,” the waitress told Gage.

“She’s fun sometimes,” he responded, teasing both of them. “So, who’s the babe in every corner of this joint?” He gestured to the four large paintings of a busty blonde in different costumes, looking like Marilyn Monroe come to life, only younger and somehow more innocent.

“That,” Blanche said with the gusto of a born storyteller, “is Tempest Thornbury.”

“Is that a stage name?” Chelsea asked.

“Well,” she said, “when you’re born Zola Cupertino, you have to consider alternatives, right?” She jammed her pencil into her abundantly tall and sprayed mass of shining dark hair. “Anyway, Tempest is our big star around these parts. She decided to name herself after our town, and the Thornbury, heck, I don’t know how she came up with that. But she went off and made herself famous on Broadway, and then went overseas to live in a villa in Tuscany.” Blanche shook her head. “They say she’s a recluse now, which is a shame, because she’s all of about twenty-eight. Can sing like a bird and dance like nothing you ever saw before.”

“Why did she become a recluse?” Chelsea asked, and Gage could tell she was fascinated by the story in spite of herself.

“No one knows, exactly. Something about a love story gone wrong, and ghosts in the old family home in Tempest. Not sure how it all fits together. We’ve talked about it many a time in Tempest, but the truth is, when she left here, she changed so much from when she was little Zola that we don’t really know what to think. Her life is very different from ours. You can still see her family home from the country road, you know, but none of us go out there much because of the ghosts.” She smiled at Gage. “So are you having steak wraps, too, or did you just want to sit there and stare at the lady all night?”

Gage snapped his gaze away from Chelsea, realizing he had been staring. “I’ll have the Aztec salad and a margarita, please.”

Both women stared at him.

“Not hungry, Gage? Planning on eating the snake later?” Chelsea asked.

“Snake!” Blanche exclaimed. “Don’t talk about snakes. I can’t stand ’em!”

Chelsea smiled at Gage, enjoying her jest at his expense.

“I might eat the snake,” Gage said, handing the menus to Blanche, “but I’m a vegetarian.”

“Oh,” she said, clearly rattled. “Well, I’ll put your order in. If you two need anything, just give a shout.”

Gage smiled at Chelsea. “Don’t be mad. It really was harmless.”

“Then why did you shoot it? Just to watch me hop around?”

He smiled again. “No. From where I was standing, I didn’t know what kind of snake it was. I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

She looked at him with suspicion. “Why are you so certain it was harmless?”

“Because it was just a—”

“I hope you’re not still talking about snakes,” Blanche said, plopping their drinks on the table. “I’m telling you, I hate nothing as much as I hate them!”

“It’s all right,” Chelsea said, “the only snake around here right now is him.”

“That’s not fair,” Gage said, as Blanche went off in a cloud of disapproval. “I was trying to save you.”

“From a harmless snake?”

“What if it had been a rattler? Would you rather I’d just called out, ‘there’s a snake next to you so be careful’?”

Chelsea’s face reflected a mixture of emotions. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“All right.” He raised his margarita to her and said, “To us being good housemates.”

“I think not.” She didn’t raise her tea glass.

Nodding, Gage glanced around at the life-size posters of Tempest Thornbury. Now that he looked at them more closely he could see that they were actually oil paintings done in careful detail, probably from photos of some of Tempest’s Broadway gigs. “She’s beautiful, huh?”

“Yes. But it’s kind of a sad story, don’t you think?”

He shrugged. “Everybody’s got one, right?”

“Do you?”

“Yeah. But nothing I share with anyone but friends.”

She gave him a wry glance. “Okay.”

“So what’s yours?”

Chelsea shrugged. “It’s not very interesting.”

“Yeah?” Gage watched her sip her tea with pleasure. She made everything look graceful. Even leaping into the creek she’d been graceful. He could watch her for hours, and if she lost her top again, then he could watch her for days, he was pretty sure.

“I’ve taken care of my mother for years. That’s about it.”

“What about Dad?”

She shrugged again. “Died young. Don’t remember him.” She glanced at Tempest’s paintings. “It wouldn’t be so bad to leave your roots and go do something exotic and fabulous, would it?”

“Takes a special breed of person, I’d guess. I’m much more of a homebody than that.”

Chelsea laughed out loud. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out her phone. “I made notes about you, Texas, when I called back to Diablo to find out about you—after the snake incident. According to Sabrina, you’re Jess St. John’s cousin, who is married to Johnny Donovan at Rancho Diablo. You rodeoed most of your life, happiest on the circuit. You’ve never had much of a love life because the road is your life. Apparently, you mentioned once that you’re never in one place for more than two or three nights, so there was never any point in calling a lady back.” Chelsea slid her phone back into her purse. “I’d say you didn’t lack for adventure. In fact, somebody like her,” she said, indicating Tempest, “is probably exactly right for you.”

He shook his head. “You’d be surprised, but life catches up with people.”

Blanche placed their artfully plated food in front of them, and Gage got hungrier just looking at it. “This looks great.”

“You won’t find better in Tempest,” Blanche bragged, “although all the restaurants here are pretty good, I’ll say that. If you’re a foodie, you’ll find you don’t want to stray far from town.”

She went off again, pleased with her story.

“I like Blanche,” Chelsea said. “She’s happy.”

Gage dug into his salad with gusto. “And proud of what she does.”

“So what caught up with you?” Chelsea asked as she bit into her steak and moaned. “I could cut this steak with a spoon, it’s that tender.”

“I’m sure if you placed a call back to the ol’ homestead, you know I wasn’t exactly aware that I had a daughter.”

Chelsea’s eyes grew round. “All I asked was whether you were safe to live with. I didn’t inquire as to your love life.”

Gage grinned. “Not curious at all?”

She didn’t say anything.

“We’ll work on our relationship,” he promised.

“I want to drive by and see the Tempest place,” she said suddenly, catching Gage off guard.

“Ah, the mystery writer’s curiosity at work. Feeling the blockage move?”

She wrinkled her nose. “My creativity isn’t blocked.”

“Jonas says it is. Jonas says you haven’t been able to write in three months. He said—”

“Jonas doesn’t know everything.” Chelsea ate more of her steak wrap, carefully not looking at him.

Obviously, she no more wanted to talk about her problem than he wanted to discuss his. “I’m game for a late-night run to a ghost-infested family home.”

Chelsea’s gaze met his. “Good.”

“Guess ghosts don’t bother you like varmints do?”

“I’ll be fine, thanks.”

He polished off his margarita, thinking that for such a hot night, he was in danger of getting frostbite from his companion.

Maybe she’d warm up to him if they could scare up a ghost or two.

* * *

“IT’S KIND OF A SAD little place for such a lively person,” Chelsea observed, peering at Tempest’s house as Gage stopped his truck in front of the small, two-story white wood structure. Long neglected, the paint flaked and the front porch sagged. Even in the falling darkness, she could see that the roof hadn’t been repaired in years.

If visiting a haunt like this didn’t stir her creativity, maybe nothing would. A shudder ran through her. She’d loved ghost stories as a kid—she’d grown up on them, courtesy of her mother. “I probably learned storytelling at my mother’s knee,” she told Gage. “This house has secrets.”

“Just looks like a deserted old house to me.” He got out of the truck and went up to the porch. “Nothing exciting about a building that needs to be torn down.”

She looked in a dirty window. “You have no romance in your soul.”

“You’re probably right.” He joined her in spying. “Looks like no one’s home, Chelsea, if you’re just dying to take a peek inside.” He pushed the front door open, and pointed to several firecrackers that had been lit and left on the porch, probably by pranksters around Halloween. “Watch where you step.”

She followed him in. “Pee-ew. Doesn’t smell like a place a star grew up in.”

“She was Zola here, remember. Cupertino or something.”

Chelsea looked around at the moldy, sagging furniture. Everything was in a state of decay and disrepair, and she felt sorry that the house had been abandoned. “It looks like she just left everything behind.”

“Nothing here was what she wanted.” Gage kicked something under the sofa.

“What was that?” Chelsea demanded.

“Nothing.”

“It was,” she insisted. “You have to be honest with me.”

“A small mouse,” Gage said. “A little on the decayed side.”

“I’m okay with mice,” Chelsea said, walking past him into the kitchen.

“I don’t know what you think you’re going to find in here, unless it’s your next cliffhanger,” Gage said, batting some cobwebs away from his face. “These spiders are bigger than in Texas. And you know there’s probably scorpions in this place—”

“You know what your problem is,” Chelsea said, looking back at him. “You don’t know how to relax.”

“This is relaxing?” Gage moved a fallen tile away from where she was about to step. “If we want to see rotten, we could do it at Dark Diablo.”

But this was where Tempest had grown up, and from here she’d gone away to seek her fortune. Chelsea could feel the ghosts of disharmony and discontentment shrouding the small house. “Whatever made her leave, it was ugly enough for her to hide herself away once she made her bundle.”

“We don’t know that she made a bundle.”

“She made enough to live in a villa in Tuscany. Blanche said Tempest is still in demand.”

“Yeah,” Gage said, “Blanche was blowing smoke up your skirt. She was giving you the Tempest tale, to make their little town seem a bit more exciting. I bet no one named Tempest ever even lived here.”

“Then who’s that?” Chelsea asked, her scalp tightening just a little.

Gage picked up the picture that lay on the kitchen counter, long forgotten. It was of a small girl with threadbare clothes and spindly arms. He turned the photo over. “Zola, five years old.”

“See? Blanche was telling the truth.”

He set the photo back down in the dust. “Can we go now? I’ve spent quite enough time with Zola Tempest, thanks.”

Chelsea followed him out. “Guess there’s no need to lock the door.”

Gage shook his head as he got into the truck. “Well, hope that helped.”

“Helped what?” She speared him with a look of distaste as he pulled from the drive.

“You know.” He pointed to his head. “With the…storytelling wheels.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Chelsea said, irritated. “Listen, the thing about writer’s block—which I don’t have—is that it’s the Unspeakable Thing That Must Not Be Mentioned.”

“Your own ghost,” Gage said.

She sighed. “If you must.”

He laughed. “And ghost-hunting helps?”

“I do like mysteries and hauntings,” she said stiffly.

“So an exorcism would be like a superboost to your creativity. Or a séance!” He ignored her gasp of outrage. “We could do one, Chelsea. We could get the Callahans out here, and we could sit around and burn candles and wait for Tempest to come screaming out of a closet or something.”

“You are so odd.” Chelsea turned her head, not about to give him the pleasure of knowing that he was getting to her. His needling annoyed her, and he knew it, and he was the kind of man who loved to devil a woman to death, until she finally gave up and gave him what he wanted.

Sex, in most cases. She’d be willing to bet her best pair of heels.

“It’s not going to work,” she told him.

“What isn’t?”

“This pathetic attempt to scare me so badly that I’ll just jump into your arms like a silly, spineless heroine.”

“I’ll have you know that there are lots of silly, spineless heroines who liked my arms just fine.”

“Well, you can keep your stories,” Chelsea said. “Enough with shooting the poor harmless snake and trying to spook me with talk of séances. You’re not fooling me.”

“Good to know,” Gage said, amused, and Chelsea told herself right then and there that if Gage Phillips ever tried to kiss her, she was going to give him the fattest lip of his life. Pow! Right on his too-attractive, laughing, storytelling kisser.

In fact, she hoped he did try to kiss her.

She really did.