up at him from the magazine she was reading, and he gave her a sidelong glance that was empty of the irritation he felt.
Hannah and Archer ignored him.
“Gotcha!” Hannah squealed, moving fast to grab something from Archer’s side of the truck. He moved to elude her and cards went flying over the seat and everywhere else. It was snowing diamonds and hearts, and Ranger’s temper snapped. “I can’t drive if you two are going to keep acting like monkeys in the back seat.”
Archer looked at him. “Cool it, bro. We’re not bothering you.”
Oh, they were bothering him a lot. His gaze met Hannah’s in the mirror. Ever so pointedly, knowing he could do nothing about it, to show her utter disdain for his comment about monkeys, Hannah stuck her tongue out at him.
No one else noticed, but that wasn’t the point. The woman was set on bothering him. She was going to make him pay for his remark about Cissy. He shouldn’t have said it, especially since he’d colored what happened between him and Cissy, but it was too late to take back his exploratory quest into Hannah’s jealousy. Now she was in top wild-filly form.
And that naughty pink tongue drove him nuts.
“I’d offer to drive,” Archer said, his tone not serious at all, “but it’s more fun to sit back here with Hannah. Deal, lady.”
She gave Ranger one last pointed glare in the mirror before the sound of shuffling cards shredded his nerves.
Great. The two of them were having the time of their lives. And he sat up front with Cissy Kisserton, who really hadn’t sucked the lips off his face at all.
Hannah Hotchkiss was just about the most annoying woman he’d ever met!
A burst of laughter erupted from his twin, and Ranger decided enough was enough. “I think I’ll take a break here. Give everybody a chance to stretch.” He pulled the truck alongside a historical marker, well off the highway. The road’s shoulder was thin, and below, a beautiful canyon stretched as far as he could see, dry and majestic and peaceful. Ranger felt his brain start to compress to a normal size. He took a deep breath, determining that he could forgive his twin anything. He smiled at Cissy, who had so far borne her seatmate’s bad temper without complaining.
He could even feel more jovial toward Hannah. “Let’s get a beer out of the back of the truck, and we can all sit back there and munch. We can even play some of those card games you love,” he told Hannah as kindly as he could, in an effort to be forgiving toward her for everything she’d done to him. He could be a good host. He could be fair and even-tempered. “Card games and icy beer sounds like a great combo, doesn’t it?” he asked the group at large as he clambered into the truckbed. “And could you ask for a better view?”
Hannah followed his lead, clearly not certain to what they owed his new, improved mood. He set the cooler in the middle of the truckbed, pulled out beers for everyone, closed the lid and pointed to the faux table top. “Deal,” he told her. “Any game you like.”
“I’m best at strip poker,” she told him.
He choked on his beer. It went down hard on his Adam’s apple, making him mad all over again. “Strip poker! Hannah Hotchkiss, are you trying to drive me insane? Because if you are, you’re…you’re…” He stopped when he saw the incredulous stares on Cissy’s and Archer’s faces. Belatedly, it came to him that she’d been teasing him, getting his goat. Janking his chain—which was a cross between a jerk and a hard yank.
He had to admit she’d janked him pretty good.
Well, he could jank a pretty mean chain himself. “Strip poker? Go right ahead. Deal me in, lady.”
I’ll just love seeing you lose.
Chapter Three
“I don’t think so,” Hannah said narrowly. “I really don’t trust this sudden change in you. I’ll sit in the truck. Thanks for the beer, though.” She hopped into the back seat.
Archer shrugged and joined her. “Guess I’m not in the mood, either. Maybe after a few more hours on the road.”
Cissy grabbed her beer and slid into the front seat. Ranger glared after the three of them. “Now, look,” he said. “All of you are riding in my truck, on my gas money. Archer, you’re a stowaway, and you ladies are hitchhikers. That means I get to call some of the shots.” The good mood he’d tried to work himself into was totally, completely gone.
Archer pushed his hat back. “Okay, boss. What do you want us to do, besides play cards? We’re happy to earn our keep somehow. I’ll chip in the gas money for me and the gals. How’s that?”
Ranger liked that even less. “The gas money isn’t the point.”
“What is, then?” Hannah asked, staring up at him with those ridiculously innocent eyes, and that perky hair just flying away all over her head like it had training in getting his attention.
Like Hannah and her antics with Archer. None of them understood him. Now he knew why Crockett was always moaning that no one appreciated his artistic bent or the beauty in the nudes he painted. He empathized with Bandera, who spouted Whitman like a dervish and claimed his memory-driven talent and Shakespearian oration were underrated by his brothers. He could even see why Tex got so frustrated when his brothers laughed at his buddus interruptus problem—buds that wouldn’t bloom—in their mother’s rose garden.
It hurt to be misunderstood. And he just didn’t want to say out loud what he really felt.
But he was going to have to do it. Somehow.
“I think it would be best if you and Cissy changed places,” he primly told Archer.
“Why?” everyone asked at once.
Irritation spiked his brows. “Because it would just be best for the sake of propriety.”
Archer’s expression said Ranger had lost his case with that one. “You’re beginning to sound like an idiot, bro.”
Hannah blew a huge bubble with pink gum, let it pop and blow back against her lips. How could any woman drink beer and chew bubble gum? It was weird. It was amazing. Disquieting. And it made him think about her pink tongue and her pink lips and her red-tipped dirty-blond hair. And sex.
Sex with…Hannah.
“Have you always had mental problems?” she demanded. “I’ve never heard so much nonsense in my life. How can riding in the back seat have a lack of propriety about it?”
“I can’t see you clearly,” he complained.
“We’re not doing anything exciting,” Hannah told him. “Nothing any more exciting than you and Cissy are doing. Currently.”
Maybe the edge in her voice was only heard by him, but it told him everything he needed to know. She’d been jealous of him and Cissy kissing, and now she was feeding him his own medicine with a large spoon.
Well, two could play at that game. “Never mind,” he said cheerfully. “Miss Cissy, let me help you into the seat. Comfortable? Did I tell you how much I like you in those jeans? No girl wears jeans like you do.”
