His Southern Temptation Read online

  “Hey.” She leaned into him, so close her breath moved the few strands of hair curling out from under his ball cap. She plucked at the overlarge sweatshirt and sweatpants the sheriff had lent her to wear and racked her brain for something to say that would alleviate the oppressive tension in the room. “You always said you wanted to see me in baggy sweats.”

  He turned quickly, standing up and looming over her, the vehemence in his face catching her off guard. His hands fisted at his sides, white-knuckled, clenching and unclenching in a pulsing rhythm. She’d seen him irritated before, but never this angry. The change was disconcerting.

  “Taylor, do you have any idea how dangerous that was tonight?” He stared at her, blue eyes blazing, and she was too shocked to answer him. “If any of those assholes had gotten their hands on you or had a weapon—”

  His words broke off in a growl as he swiped the ball cap off his head and dragged rough fingers through his hair. His chest heaved and he gulped in ragged breaths in a clear effort to calm himself down and get some control. She let his breathing even out a little more before she reached for him through the bars. He left her hanging.

  “Lucky, I’m fine, and you were there to protect me. I was never worried.”

  “Well, you should have been.”

  “I wasn’t.” Since he refused to touch her, she put her caress in her tone and hoped it calmed him down. “We had a plan and it was working out fine. Hell, even our preparation for what to do if trouble broke out went according to plan. Stop beating yourself up. I’m a grown woman.”

  “Yeah? Well, then you should know better than to take such a crazy risk for nothing.”

  “It wasn’t for nothing. I was trying to help you find Sarah.”

  “How can you be so damn carefree about every single thing?”

  “How can you be so cautious all the time?”

  “Because I’ve learned that actions have consequences and someone always has to pay!”

  She opened her mouth to respond but stopped when the sheriff, Teague and Beck entered the room.

  Teague raked over her appearance, his deep frown causing a groove to form between his eyebrows. Suddenly, she was self-conscious standing there in garish stage makeup and dishwater gray, jail-issued clothing.

  The sheriff stepped forward, pulling the keys from his belt and unlocking their cells, ushering them both out with brisk, impatient movements.

  “You two can go.” Sheriff Burke didn’t look happy about letting them out, and he glared at Lucky over the rim of his reading glasses. “Your story checks out and I appreciate you giving me all the information you gathered.”

  “Thank you, Sheriff,” they answered in unison. Taylor wasn’t sure if either of them could pull off a meek tone very well, but it seemed to pacify him for now.

  “The bald guy, he matches the description of a guy who works for Eddie Wilkes,” Sheriff Burke said. “He’s a silent partner in lots of local businesses and we’re guessing he has an interest in the Gent.”

  “Shit. That’s not good,” Lucky muttered as he rubbed his eyes.

  “Who is Eddie Wilkes?” Teague asked.

  “The closest thing Roanoke has to a mob boss. He’s a legitimate finance guy, owns banks and other things like that, but he also dabbles in drugs, theft, and the skin trade.” Lucky glanced at Taylor, the turn of his mouth becoming more rigid with every passing second. “Not a guy you want to notice you.”

  The sweatshirt did nothing to stop the goose bumps from traveling over Taylor’s skin. She remembered the way the bald guy, Bruce, was looking at her up on stage and she knew what Lucky was thinking. She’d been noticed and tagged by one of Eddie’s goons.

  The sheriff headed to the door, cutting a look between the chastened Lucky and the belligerent Teague. “If you boys are going to fight this out, get it out of my house or I’ll lock you up until the morning shift.”

  With the adult supervision gone, Teague was quick to get to the point, as usual.

  “What the hell was my sister doing at the Jolly Gent in the middle of a raid?”

  Taylor opened her mouth to answer, but she realized the question wasn’t directed at her. It was like she wasn’t even there.

  Teague was openly hostile now, edging into Lucky’s taller frame and deliberately invading his personal space. Beck stood by, watching them closely and placing his keys in his pocket as if he were preparing to keep his hands free—just in case.

  “She was helping me with a case I’m working on for Jack.” Lucky crossed his arms, his expression mulish, his words clipped, and more than matching her brother in aggression.

  “What could my sister possibly do to help you with a case at the Jolly Gent? It’s a men’s strip club the last time I checked. And now she’s on the radar of some southern Tony Soprano wannabe? That’s just fucking perfect.”

  Lucky flicked a glance in her direction, the internal debate about how much he should tell about their activities the past few days battling it out in his eyes. She didn’t think it was any of her brother’s business. In fact, she couldn’t imagine why her brother was here now. Taylor hadn’t called him. Sheriff Burke must have felt she needed big brother to come to the rescue, and she was growing angrier by the second. What she did with her body, in private or in front of an audience, was entirely up to her.

  Teague finally glanced her way and then back at Lucky, dismissing her entirely. She was tired of being ignored. It was time to channel the late, great Patrick Swayze and take “Baby” out of the corner.

  “I was dancing. It was my choice.” She let that float out there for a bit and waited for the explosion she knew was coming.

  Teague closed his eyes for a moment, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose in the exact same way her father did when he was irritated. She could almost see the countdown clock winding down in his head.

  “You were doing what?” His eyes, so much like her own, flashed with the anger he was doing a crappy job of hiding.

  “I was dancing. Working the pole.” She smiled, deliberately picking a bigger fight because now she was just feeling mean. “One of the regular girls is missing and I tried to help find her. I was making progress until one of the customers tried to get a little too friendly tonight.”

  “Too friend—?” Teague choked on his words, his face red and all attempts to keep a lid on his anger vanishing like smoke in the air. He turned and advanced on Lucky, Beck stepping in between the two of them before they made physical contact.

  “Lucky, what the fuck were you thinking to let my sister do something like that?”

  “I was keeping an eye on her.” Lucky glared down at Teague, his body pushing against the hand Beck had on his chest. He was like a junkyard dog on a chain, snarling and spoiling for a fight. “Besides, there’s no telling your sister no when she decides to do something.”

  “Then you should have called me and I would’ve stopped her.”

  “He didn’t let me do anything!” Taylor shouted over the two them, physically inserting herself between the two of them to ensure they listened to her. “You two act like I’m not even here, like I need your permission to make decisions about my own life. This is why I never wanted to come back to this crappy little town.”

  They both looked dazed, as if they were surprised to see her there at all, and she dug her fingers into her palms to keep from knocking sense into both of them.

  “You two need to wake up. I’m a grown-ass woman and I’ve done a good job of taking care of myself for the past seven years without the both of you around to pass judgment on my decisions. You might not like the tattoos or the piercings, but I don’t care.”

  Lucky opened his mouth to say something and she cut him off.

  “Not a damn word, Lucky.” She swallowed hard, the bitterness of her words leaving a rough taste in her mouth. If anyone should have understood her, it was Lucky, but he still treated her like the silly girl who’d followed him around with a stupid crush, and that hurt like hell.


  “You get no say in what I do with my life. You don’t get to waltz in after all these years and act like you’re important enough to factor in my decisions.”

  It was low blow. And now that she’d said it she just wanted to take it back. Yeah, he’d betrayed her when he’d acted like she didn’t matter, but no part of her was doing a happy dance over the look of pure hurt darkening his baby blues to a watery gray.

  Chapter Ten

  “You look like shit.”

  Lucky slid into the booth at the Southern Comfort Diner alongside Beck, tucked his sunglasses into the collar of his shirt, and flipped off Jack across the tabletop for stating the obvious.

  “Bite me, Jack.”

  Lucky caught the eye of his Aunt Dolly, the owner of the diner and Jack’s mom, and signaled for her to bring over his usual breakfast of pancakes, bacon, eggs, home fries, and black coffee. Today he needed the caffeine since he’d lain awake half the night on Beck’s couch, trying not to think about Taylor’s harsh words and Mr. Clean eyeing her across the dance floor. When he’d finally crashed into fitful bouts of dream-filled sleep, the morning alarm had buzzed way too fucking early.

  “So what’s your problem, Mary Sunshine?” Jack smirked over the rim of his coffee cup, his expression one of a man who’d slept soundly next to a warm, willing woman. Being a newlywed had turned his usually taciturn cousin sickeningly cheerful. Lucky was glad he’d left his gun in the truck—in his current mood he just might shoot Jack. He even had the extra bullets he’d taken from Taylor the other night.

  Taylor.

  Holy hell. She made him crazy. One minute all he could think about was tugging on a little nipple ring with his teeth before traveling lower to see if she tasted as good as he remembered. The next he wanted to wring her neck for putting herself in the sights of a goon for one of the local assholes he used to bust as a cop. It had been a long damn night.

  “Here you go, darlin’.” The waitress plunked the plates holding his breakfast on the table in front of him, poured a cup of coffee, and placed the carafe in front of him.

  “Lucky, you okay?” Beck paused from eating and gave him the doctor/patient once-over.

  Screw Beck’s medical degree. He sure as hell wasn’t talking him into another B12 shot. That bitch hurt for a week.

  “I’m fine. I didn’t sleep so well.”

  “Well, you didn’t get laid,” Jack stated with certainty.

  “And you’d know because getting some on a regular basis gives you Magic-8-Ball super powers?” Lucky took a big gulp of coffee. He placed down the cup. “How would you know that?”

  “Because you don’t have the look of a guy who’s missing sleep because he was with a woman all night.”

  “And what does that look like?”

  “It looks like him.” Jack pointed at Beck, who blinked twice before a shit-eating grin split his face. “He either slept with a woman last night or he jumped out of something high and dangerous.”

  “Both, actually.” Beck dropped his napkin on his plate, grabbed his coffee cup, and leaned back in the booth like he owned the place. “I met a woman when I went skydiving yesterday. She was here on one of those post-divorce, find-your-inner-goddess-trips and I spent the night with her. Those rooms at the Bellemeade Inn are really nice.”

  Lucky shoveled his food in faster, barely tasting the eggs or the coffee that washed them down. If they started talking women he’d lose his mind, or at least the part Taylor hadn’t trashed already. She was his weak link, the one who got away but never let go. The crazy part was that they’d never really been together, done the whole relationship thing. They had never been in sync. At first she’d been too young—he’d barely noticed her except to be slightly embarrassed by her hero worship. Then, at the end of his junior year of college, he’d caught sight of Taylor in her skimpy cheerleading uniform on Main Street and rear-ended the local preacher’s wife.

  The joke, it seemed, was on him.

  Gone were the braces and the awkward glances, replaced by womanly curves, tempting smiles, and real possibility. Hiding his attraction nearly killed him at times—raging hormones in his early twenties didn’t help—but you didn’t hit on the little sister of your best friend. Especially when she was an innocent and you…weren’t.

  A year later, hidden deep in the barn during a lake party, he’d finally given in, peeling off her clothes and making love to her with a passion that scared him shitless. It had also knocked some sense into his lust-addled brain. She could do so much better than the reckless, screwed-up second son of a local farmer who was weeks away from Marine boot camp and the dangerous life of a soldier. Taylor was a good girl in the truest sense of the word, and when he’d touched her, the last thing he’d wanted to be was good.

  So he’d left her alone to live her own life. And now he wanted that life to be with him.

  Beck started talking again, interrupting his thoughts. “At least the room was nice until I got a call to come bail this asshole out of jail.”

  “I wasn’t arrested, so there was no bail,” Lucky said.

  “Wait! What?” Jack asked, his coffee mug hitting the table with a thump.

  Lucky explained the events of the night before, only leaving out the part where he groped Taylor in the maintenance closet. Jack’s expression morphed from curious, to mortified, to downright thunderous by the time he explained who Mr. Clean worked for and the look he’d leveled at Taylor.

  Jack was the first to speak. “Holy crap. I had no idea Taylor was even here, much less dancing at the Gent on our case.” He skewered Lucky with a look that demanded an explanation. “How the hell did that happen?”

  “She’s staying at Elliott House…” Lucky mumbled into his coffee cup, “…with me. I told her about the case and she went and got the job all on her own, and I couldn’t talk her out of it. Fast-forward to last night.”

  His announcement was greeted with silence, both men staring at him with a mixture of “this is gonna be good” and “you are so screwed” written on their faces. Jackson and Beck knew his history with Taylor—Teague was clueless, but that was because he still thought his sister was in diapers.

  “So, did you sleep with her yet? Again?” Beck asked.

  “No.” He cleared his throat, hesitant to share details of Taylor even with his best friends. “Not yet.”

  “Why not? She doesn’t want you anymore?” Jack asked.

  Lucky pushed his plate away, his appetite suddenly gone.

  “No, she wants me.” Wanting wasn’t their problem. “She wants us to have a three-week booty call while she’s here packing up.”

  “You should take her up on it. You’re both adults,” Beck said.

  “What about Teague?”

  “What about him? It’s really none of his business.” Beck shrugged. He’d said this several times before, and Lucky could tell he still didn’t understand his hesitation. Once Taylor had hit eighteen, Beck thought the code of brotherhood that made little sisters off-limits was stupid. Lucky believed his opinion would be different if he had a little sister. “You two have been hooking up plenty over the years.”

  “Yeah, but that wasn’t here. Right under his nose.” Lucky knew his logic was flawed, but it did seem different to fool around in Elliott. It was like “Vegas rules” applied to everywhere but here.

  “You could tell him,” Jack said.

  “Oh sure. I can just see me having that conversation. Teague, old buddy, I know you’re already pissed that she was picked up in a raid at a strip club, but I’m going to sleep with your sister, again and repeatedly, in every way possible and then dump her ass when she goes back to Hawaii.” He’d be lucky to get a two-second head start before he beat the shit out of him. “I’ll just pick out my casket now.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend saying it like that, but if you told him you wanted a relationship with her—”

  Lucky cut him off. Usually he gave the best advice, but this time he was wrong. “Jack, she doesn’t want that. Sh
e’s not staying here and she’s not looking for anything permanent.”

  “And you want something permanent? With her, or are you considering the concept in general?” Jack asked.

  “Both. I left the military because I was tired of living by the damn gun every single day. The work I did”—he paused, trying to nonverbally communicate what a bunch of classified documents said he couldn’t tell—“didn’t encourage making plans for a future. You understand?” Both his friends nodded, their expressions serious. He wasn’t sure if Beck really understood, but Jack was aware of the unit he was assigned to and what it meant when he went completely dark for periods of time. “But whenever I did think of a future, Taylor always popped in my mind.”

  The three of them were silent for a few moments, drinking coffee and lost in their own thoughts.

  “I still don’t see the problem.” Beck dug into his pocket for his keys, motioning for Lucky to let him out of the booth, but he stopped when he saw their twin expressions of disbelief. “What? You can’t have sex for the sake of sex?”

  “Not with Taylor,” Lucky said in unison with Jack. Good, at least they were in agreement on that score.

  “Whatever. You want her. She wants you. You want more, with her. Seems simple to me.”

  That was Beck—keep it loose and when things got tough, jump out of an airplane. His friend sighed, frustration oozing out of every word.

  Beck shook his head. “Don’t you get it? Sleep with her, remind of her of how good you are together. You’ve got three weeks to convince her there’s more between you and why it’s worth staying in Elliott. Everyone’s a little more receptive after a couple of orgasms.”

  Jack spit coffee across the table. “Seriously, how do you get so many women?”

  “I’m a doctor and I’m hot. Or at least that’s what I’ve been told.” Beck waggled his eyebrows and dodged the napkin Jack threw in his direction. “We already know she’s into you, Lucky. Just show her the best reasons to stay in Elliott and you’re golden.”