Archer,” he said with growing confidence. “Tonight is going to be my night!”
Chapter Four
Ranger awakened slowly. He felt odd. His eyes didn’t want to open and his skin seemed strangely cold.
Very cold. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself awake and took stock of his body.
He was wearing nothing but a pair of black boxers.
He was in a jigsaw shape, stretched out in the two front seats, his body wrapped around the armrests and the console. It was the most uncomfortable position he’d ever been in. His body complained, telling him enough was enough.
Uncreaking himself to a sitting position, he looked into the back seat. Archer was in the middle, Hannah and Cissy curled up on either side of him, heads on his shoulders. Archer had an arm around each woman, and they looked warm and toasty as mice in a barn in winter. Completely snug.
They were all fully dressed.
Ranger’s mood, sour yesterday, fermented to acidic. He didn’t remember getting blammo’ed, but clearly he’d been that and lost at strip poker. Even nearly nude, he hadn’t had a woman crawling up next to him. Which wasn’t how his life usually went, and the problem was obviously Archer. It wasn’t enough that his twin had to stow away on Ranger’s mission of finding himself. Archer had to hog the women, too. The women Ranger had kissed.
And they’d deserted him for the comfort of the back seat.
Hannah could at least have pretended that Archer wasn’t the best pillow since goosedown. She’d said she fancied Ranger’s shirt. Well, she was sitting on it, a winner’s taunt. His jeans were under Archer’s boots, and his socks were just plain gone. “Why bother to stop at my shorts?” he groused. “Pity? Don’t like black?”
Turning, Ranger faced the windshield. Sand still flogged the truck, telling him he was in for a good whisking if he stepped outside. But nature was calling, and he probably had enough tequila inside him to blunt the pain. There was no point in getting dressed, he decided. The sand would just lodge in his clothes. Better to get dressed once he was safe inside the truck again. He could dust off his body after he made the world’s quickest pit stop.
Carefully opening the door just far enough for him to slide out, he hopped onto the ground, his bare feet landing onto something possessed of a million sharp needles.
“Yow-ee! Ai-eeee!” Jumping to get away from whatever the hell he’d stepped on, he tumbled downward, hitting rocks and weeds and unidentified things as gravity cruelly grabbed control of his world to dump him at the bottom of an abyss.
He was flat-assed. “I’m dying. I’m dead!” he gasped dramatically to the sky. “Deader than dinosaurs. Damn it, I’ve landed in hell!”
It was dark, it was cold, and it was very, very painful. His mouth and nose were full of sand; his skin was being burned by flying grains of fire. He had to find cover. And there was no way he could get back up to his truck—he’d rolled ass-over-ass forever. Pulling himself to a sitting position, shielding his eyes, Ranger realized he was in front of a stone enclosure. Dragging himself to the stone wall, he dismissed thoughts of bears and snakes. That type of danger was secondary to his bodily anguish. The enclosure turned into a cave, and he gladly fell inside, gasping from pain and fear and overwhelming loss of control.
Ranger knew, as he felt consciousness seep away from him and his breath cut short in his body, somehow, he was dying because of Hannah Hotchkiss.
“I’M DOWN FOUR MEN,” Mason complained to Mimi as he perched uncomfortably in her kitchen. Sheriff Cannady was upstairs napping, Mimi had said, and Brian was running errands. “Frisco Joe, Laredo, Archer and Ranger.”
“I’m sure Brian would be willing to help, when he returns,” Mimi said.
“Can’t do that to a man who’s still honeymooning.” The second he said it, he felt his face flush. Honeymoon and Mimi were two words he really didn’t want connected in his consciousness.
He’d known Brian was gone—he’d seen the sports car leave. Brian was a nice man—under other circumstances Mason might have hired the lawyer himself—but the miserly courage he’d worked up was close to failing him.
It was all he could do to make himself bring over this belated wedding gift. Facing Mimi was pain and pleasure. He was so glad to see her—and he was so ripped inside. She was more beautiful than ever. “Marriage agrees with you,” he said gruffly.
She glanced at him, startled, hesitating as she pulled the tissue from the silver-and-white bag that encased his gift.
A long silence stretched between them as her eyes searched his. Why had he said that? His brothers said she’d always wanted to marry him. Not Brian. Not any man but him. But he hadn’t even been able to comprehend marriage, much less to Mimi. And yet, not to anyone else but Mimi. His comrade-in-clowning. His best friend. His sister.
Marriage? Had she really wanted to marry him? Was she in love with him? He had to know.
And yet, the time to ask had passed. He saw that as her gaze dropped from his. She pulled the silvery tissue from the bag and smiled at his gift. It was a framed picture of her and all twelve Jefferson brothers, taken last summer when everything had still been normal. The men were dressed in jeans, hats and no shirts. Mimi wore jeans, a hat and a blue-and-white-checked blouse tied at her waist. There were six brothers on each side of her, but she was standing next to Mason, his arm around her waist as they all grinned proudly.
“I love it,” she said softly. “Thank you so much.”
“There’s a gift certificate in there to the place where you registered your bridal stuff. I didn’t know what you wanted most.”
His fingers worked the brim of his hat; he couldn’t meet her gaze. He was in hell.
He’d bought the ticket there himself.
“Speaking of honeymoons, I have a huge favor to ask of you.” Mimi sat across from him at the table, her expression worried.
“Shoot.” He could deny her nothing. Now, anyway.
“I know you’re down on hands, but…Brian and I didn’t take a real honeymoon. We got married and decided to plan the other details later.”
He hadn’t realized they hadn’t honeymooned. He’d been too buried in a frozen mask of pain to pay attention. “I knew you got married fast.”
“Yes. Very fast.” She took a deep breath. “I really want this to work out, Mason.”
His heart burned, but of course, she had no idea of his newfound realization of love for her. She knew she’d been his best friend. She would expect to be able to share what was on her mind now.
He’d buck up and offer the shoulder she seemed to need. “I know you want it to work, Mimi. You’d not have married Brian if you hadn’t expected it to be forever.”
She nodded. “I think the best thing we can do for our marriage is to spend time alone together. Brian hasn’t asked me for it, because—” Glancing up at the ceiling, almost as if she could see through to the second floor, she said, “Well, he’s just been so patient with me.
