Lyric and Lingerie (The Fort Worth Wranglers Book 1) Read online

  “What are you doing?” She poked her head out from under the dash. Her hand was rubbing her forehead, and he felt a little bad—he hadn’t meant to make her hurt herself.

  “We’ll be in San Angelo in a few minutes. I thought you might want to sit up now.” There was bound to be more traffic, and while he enjoyed her upside-down position, he really didn’t want anyone else to enjoy it.

  “Why? I still haven’t fixed the radio.” She had no idea.

  “Yeah, but we’re coming into a populated area. And—” He nodded toward her bare legs. “—you’re something of a traffic hazard.”

  “How? You’re the one driving.” Really, absolutely no idea.

  “Yeah, but you’re the one with your million-dollar legs on display. Plus, anyone who pulls up next to us will be able to look right up your boxers.” Guarding her body from the public’s prying eyes was getting complicated.

  “That’s ridiculous. No one will even notice what I’m wearing.” She went back to what she was doing.

  He started to argue, but before he could say a word, a truck pulled up next to them at a stoplight. The driver gave two tugs on his horn, and Heath glanced over to see the guy doing exactly what he’d just warned Lyric about.

  “Uhh, it might not bother you, Lyric, but I feel honor bound to tell you that was a honk of appreciation.” He rolled up a little in an effort to obscure the truck driver’s view, but the man was no dummy. He rolled up right along with them.

  Annoyed now, even though he totally got where the guy was coming from, Heath inched up a little more.

  So did the truck driver.

  Damn it, at this rate, they were going to end up in the middle of the intersection long before the light turned green.

  “Lyric.” He lightly smacked her hip for emphasis. “Get up here.”

  She huffed loudly but finally lowered her legs and climbed back up onto the seat. As she ran a hand over her wild blonde hair in an effort to smooth it down, the truck driver honked a second time. When she glanced at him, the perverted bastard smiled and waved.

  Lyric waved back.

  Just then, the light changed, and Heath peeled into the intersection with more force and speed than was strictly necessary. Guarding her body from prying eyes obviously took more than just physical prowess—it took stunt-driving skills. Hmmm … he should probably start thinking about stunt driving or bodyguarding, since the physical therapist was convinced he’d played his last Super Bowl.

  To distract himself from facing his precarious future, he stared at her tanned thighs. “Jesus, Lyric. You can’t go giving every guy in a hundred-mile radius a look at that crazy tattoo of yours.” It came out harsher than he’d have liked.

  She eyed him suspiciously. “And how exactly do you know about my tattoo? It’s way up on my inner thigh.”

  “Which is what I’ve been trying to tell you. I got a glimpse of it back in Austin at the airport, but I’ve spent the last hour and a half with a perfect view of the sucker. You like to work with your legs wide open.” Not that he was complaining—he’d like to work with her legs wide open too.

  Lyric’s mouth dropped practically to her knees at his words, and to be honest, he couldn’t blame her. They’d sounded okay in his head, but now that they were hanging out there, they didn’t sound even close to what he’d meant.

  A little desperate to head off the explosion he could see brewing behind her Fort Worth Wranglers blue eyes, he cast around for something to say that didn’t involve inserting his entire size-fourteen foot into his mouth. Usually, he liked nothing more than to wind her up and wait for her to blow, but not right now. Not when he was about to drop her at the hospital. If he knew Lyric, she’d be ushering him out of San Angelo so fast, Sweet Cherry Cherry’s tires would catch fire. He didn’t want her to do that, didn’t want to leave her angry. Strange as it was, he’d enjoyed the last few hours in this monstrosity of a car—probably way more than he should have.

  Sure, some of that enjoyment had come from his superlative view, but most of it came from just being with Lyric. Trading barbs and smiles and something more. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but that he wasn’t quite ready to let go of either. And he needed something to hold on to right now, because he’d felt strangely disconnected ever since the football he’d been carrying his whole life had been wrenched from his grasp during the final quarter of the Super Bowl.

  “What’s that tattoo of anyway?” he finally asked. “It’s kind of strange looking.” Two triangles connected by their top points, with dots at each of the vertices—kinda like Dilbert’s tie. It seemed an odd choice for an astrophysicist. Shouldn’t she have one of Newton’s laws tattooed somewhere on her body? Then again, who said she didn’t? Maybe he needed a better look at more than just her inner thighs.

  “It’s the constellation Lyra. It’s one of the oldest-named groups of stars in the galaxy.” She looked absently out the window. She was retreating into herself again.

  Oh, right. That made way more sense than Dilbert’s tie. Still.

  “Is it your favorite constellation or something? ’Cuz I kind of think, if I was going for a constellation, I’d choose something more recognizable. Like the Big Dipper—”

  “You mean Ursa Major.”

  He grimaced. “That sounds like a flesh-eating bacteria … but I like the ‘major’ part. ’Cuz if I’m gonna have a tattoo pointing to my ‘major part,’ it had better have ‘major’ in the name, because ‘minor’ I am not.”

  Lyric didn’t even crack a smile, but she did sigh loudly. What was it about women that made it impossible for them to appreciate a good dick joke?

  “Lyra—the lyre—was the instrument played by Orpheus, the son of the god Apollo and the muse Calliope. Orpheus was so adept at the instrument that he lured a beautiful nymph named Eurydice to marry him. They were madly in love until she got bitten by a snake and died a horrible death. Orpheus was so heartbroken that he rejected all women in favor of little boys—”

  “Stop. Please.” Heath swallowed several times. “I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.” He swallowed a couple more times. “Could this story get any worse?”

  She shrugged. “An angry horde of women dismembered Orpheus and threw his body parts in the—”

  “Yes, I can see why you’d pick that constellation over, say, one named after a fluffy bunny who finds true love with a squirrel and they live a long, happy life filled with tens of thousands of bunny-squirrel grandbabies.”

  She blinked. “I’m not aware of a bunny-squirrel constellation. What galaxy is it in?”

  Literal Lyric was hard to crack.

  “Lyra is the root of my name … Lyra—Lyric.”

  He pegged her with a stare. She wasn’t the type to choose a tattoo based on a romantic yet disgusting myth, even if it was her name. She was practical … down to the core. There was a reason she had that tattoo, and it had nothing to do with nymphs or gods or little boys—thank God. His hamburger threatened to come back up on him again just thinking about it. “And?”

  She shifted uncomfortably, like she was trying to decide what she wanted to say. Or, more precisely, how much she wanted to say. As he turned the car onto Knickerbocker Road—the street the hospital was on—he all but saw the wheels turning in her brain. But then she stiffened her shoulders and firmed her mouth.

  Whatever she had to say, she was going for it. “I got it to cover up a scar I’ve got on my inner thigh. I fell on some barbed wire on the ranch when I was little and it made a weird triangle shape. The shape of the tattoo covers the whole thing.”

  Something niggled at the back of his brain as he pulled into the hospital parking lot. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he knew if he waited long enough, it would come to him.

  “That’s cool.” He’d heard worse reasons for getting tattoos. One of his buddies had a particularly ugly one of a worm drinking a bottle of tequila that he’d gotten on a dare in Cancun. “I have a few scars of my own. Some of them are pre
tty ugly—maybe I should think about doing something like that.”

  If he tattooed a football on his knee, would that cover the damage so that no one would notice that it didn’t work anymore?

  Lyric nodded, a little awkwardly, it seemed to him. “Yeah. It didn’t even hurt that much because of the scar tissue.”

  He pulled to a stop in front of the hospital’s front doors. “Do you want me to come in with you?”

  “No. I’ve got it.” She took a deep, bracing breath, reached for her purse, and opened the door. “Well, thanks, Heath. For the ride. I really appreciate it.”

  “It’s not a problem, darlin’.” And it wasn’t. Not when he’d finally gotten to glimpse the girl he used to know. For that, he’d drive a hell of a lot farther than a couple hundred miles. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come in?” He was strangely reluctant to let her go. Even though he knew her family was waiting inside for her, he didn’t want Lyric to have to face whatever was in there alone.

  “I’ve got this.” She smiled at him, and then she was stepping out of the car and slamming the door behind her as she all but raced into the hospital. He should have stopped her then, should have followed her, but something about that scar was still bugging him. He just wished he knew what it was.

  Preoccupied with trying to remember he didn’t know what, he started to pull away from the curb. But the farther he got from the hospital entrance, the harder it was to keep going. Lyric didn’t need him—she’d made that abundantly clear—but he wasn’t sure he could say the same about himself needing her. Being with Lyric, laughing with her, even listening to her ridiculously grim statistics, was the most fun he’d had in a long, long time. Even more, worrying about her had kept his mind off his blown-out knee … and his blown-out future.

  Now that she was gone, those thoughts were starting to crowd back in, making his stomach sink and his head throb. But even more than that, driving away from her now made him realize just how much he’d missed her all these years. And just how much he didn’t want to walk away from her again.

  He might have spent his adolescence in love with Harmony, might have spent the years after she dumped him going from one one-night stand to another, chasing the feeling he’d had with her that one perfect night. But now that he was a grown man, watching the grown-up version of his best friend walk away from him yet again, he couldn’t help wondering if he’d spent all those years worrying about losing the wrong sister. Couldn’t help wondering if he’d spent the better part of his life in love with the wrong woman.

  * * *

  Chapter 9

  * * *

  Lyric tugged at the hem of the gray compression T-shirt Heath had lent her, trying to wriggle one more inch of coverage over her TexAss boxers. The electronic front doors of the San Angelo Community Medical Center shushed open, and a wall of air-conditioned air smacked her in the face.

  She glanced down at her phone. According to the latest text from Harmony, Lyric was to take a right at the gift shop, hang a left at mammography, and follow the signs to ICU. This being San Angelo, the medical center only had two floors, and since the second floor housed mainly doctors’ offices, it didn’t really count.

  Lyric didn’t exactly sprint down the corridor past the gift shop to get to her daddy, but her gait definitely qualified as racewalking. As she reached the double doors for the ICU waiting room, she leaned down, placed her Loubies firmly on the linoleum tile, and slipped her feet into them. When she faced her mother for the first time in too long, at least she would look presentable from the ankles down.

  On the other side of this door was good news or bad, hope or despair, one final good-bye or a decades of hellos. She still wasn’t sure if she was ready to find out which one it was going to be.

  For a moment, she imagined standing here forever, in the limbo of denial, where the glass was always half full.

  But she hadn’t raced all the way here from Hawaii to languish in a hallway forever. It was time to put on her big-girl panties and woman up—and if those panties were men’s boxers, then she’d just have to tug at the hem a little. Rolling her shoulders, she took a deep breath and pushed into hell’s waiting room. The tiny room smelled of rubbing alcohol, apple juice, and expensive perfume.

  She’d definitely found the right spot. Her mother wore Chanel No. 5 like a knight donned his armor.

  Livinia Angleton Wright sat directly across from the double doors, legs crossed at the ankles, black designer silk pantsuit pristine and free of wrinkles, her ash-blonde hair French twisted to within an inch of its life.

  “My dear.” Her mother’s perfectly arched eyebrows flickered—and probably would have bounced off her hairline if the two facelifts and regular Botox injections hadn’t taken away her ability to frown—while her eyes narrowed with the focus of a predator. Her mother was a panther poised to pounce. Too bad the only gazelle in the room was wearing boxer shorts, a man’s T-shirt, and no bra.

  Suddenly, Lyric’s big-girl panties were giving her a wedgie. Desperate for a distraction, she stomped loudly. At least she’d get credit for the shoes.

  Her mother rose with regal superiority. In a swirl of black silk and menacing steps, she crossed the room. All that was missing was the James Earl Jones voice and the black mask and she would be Darth Vader’s evil older sister.

  “You’re finally here.” Her eyes roamed down Lyric’s body. “I’m sure there’s a story that will explain this. But now is not the time.”

  No “I’m so happy to see you” or “thank you for moving heaven and earth to get here.” Then again, what had Lyric expected—Modern Family meets The Brady Bunch? It was a ridiculous thought, considering that growing up, her life had been the Junior League version of Survivor and she’d been voted off the island long ago.

  Despite that, or maybe because of it, she couldn’t help rattling her mother’s cage. “What … no hug?”

  “I don’t want to wrinkle your …” Her mother waggled her index finger up and down Lyric’s figure, and if it was possible, her eyes narrowed even more. It was amazing she could see out of the tiny slits. “Are you pregnant?”

  Lyric glanced down at the compression tee that hugged her chest and then fell loosely down to her hips. It did look a little maternity-esque—good thing it didn’t have Heath’s number on it or the National Enquirer would have a field day.

  For a millisecond, she toyed with the idea of telling her mother that she was pregnant but it wasn’t hers. The only thing that stopped her was the knowledge that her mother wouldn’t get the joke. They’d sucked out her sense of humor in the same liposuction that had shaved two inches off her ass. “Nope, I can’t get pregnant when Mercury is in retrograde.”

  Her mother’s eyebrows flickered again. “Dear, most men really don’t appreciate astronomy humor. Maybe you could work on that.”

  Lyric snorted. Rob the Knob clearly wasn’t the only one to confuse astrology and astronomy.

  “How’s Dad?” Changing the subject seemed in her best interest.

  “Your father will be so glad to see you.” Livinia’s voice was steady, even rehearsed. “When he wakes.”

  “How is he?” If they had been any other family, they would have clasped hands, wept in each other’s arms, and sought solace in the comfort of their loved ones. But Livinia didn’t do solace—she never had. Which was a problem, since Lyric needed comfort … and something to make her smile.

  Closing her eyes, she started to recite a string of prime numbers in order. 2, 3, 5, 7, 11 … Going over the primes had always made her feel a little better, a little more in control, and this time was no exception. By the time she got to 137, at least an artificial sense of comfort had been achieved. Since Heath was probably halfway back to his ranch already, it would have to do. If only she’d taken him up on his offer to come inside with her. He always made her smile.

  “They are going to operate on your father in the morning. Right now, he’s in a drug-induced coma while they see if they can reduce the
size of the blockage with medication. He’s going to be fine.” Her mother nodded to herself like that was that. “He’s going to be fine.”

  The repetition was the first crack in her mother’s perfectly polished exterior.

  “Your sister is in with him.” Livinia glanced at the wall clock above the TV, which was showing SpongeBob behind the wheel of a boat. The sound was muted, thank God. “I’ll let the nurse know that you’re here so you can see him.” She pushed open the door that had foot-tall, teal ICU letters printed on the front.

  See him. Lyric took a step back. She’d spent the last twelve hours getting here, but now that it was time to see her father—her daddy—lying unconscious and helpless in a hospital bed, she just couldn’t do it. The image of her strong, handsome father hooked to a respirator and heart monitor—she couldn’t face it. He was her rock, her hero, and seeing him reduced to mere human frailty played on every child’s deepest, darkest fears.

  A large, warm, reassuring hand touched her shoulder. “I bought you a present at the gift shop.”

  She whirled around to see Heath standing there, a white paper gift bag overstuffed with teal tissue paper in his too-large hand. He hadn’t left her after all.

  The adrenaline, fear, hope, and humiliation she’d been running on until now finally gave way to the reality of her father’s situation. Without analyzing the details or overthinking the outcome, she turned into him, wrapped her arms around him, and rested her head against his chest. She needed a hug, and she needed to give one. A sob came from so deep inside her that tears weren’t possible.

  Heath’s arms came around her as his chin rested on her head and he rocked her back and forth as she quietly and thoroughly fell to pieces. He didn’t patronize her with platitudes or offer kind, empty words; he just held her up, because right now she couldn’t do it on her own. His fingers slid into her hair and massaged her scalp and then combed down her long blonde hair. Over and over—massaging and then combing. The simple pleasure of a comforting touch. She’d missed that … and for the first time, she realized she’d never had it with Rob.