LITMIR.BIZ

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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.”

      And then he gave Hannah a big grin as he closed Cissy’s door.

      KNOCK YOURSELF OUT, Hannah thought to herself. Play your one-man band in Cissy’s orchestra of admirers. I don’t care.

      She couldn’t waste any time focusing on some ill-tempered male. Besides, Archer was proving to be very adept with card tricks. “Teach me that thing you did with moving the jacks around and pulling out a queen,” she said to him. “It’s a really smooth move.”

      “Only if you’ll teach me how you know which card I pulled from the deck. I can’t figure out how you’re doing it,” Archer said admiringly. “It’s like you’ve got an extra eye or something.”

      Hannah smiled, and shuffled the deck.

      THREE HOURS DOWN the road, Ranger had to admit his plan had totally backfired. He might as well be a professional limo driver for all the attention Hannah paid him. She and Archer laughed like hyenas, and they still hadn’t worn the ink off those stupid cards yet. Well, they’d bent a few, so Hannah had merely reached into her duffel and pulled out a brand-new deck. This had set Ranger’s neck muscles to Too Tight, just like an over-wound machine.

      And then, to make the whole thing more annoying, Archer pulled out dice. The two of them had been clacking and rolling them, and blowing on each other’s hands for luck.

      It was all so disgustingly happy Ranger could only be grateful for the impending darkness. Then they’d have to quit their gaming, he thought with a mental rub of his palms.

      But no. Archer pulled out a flashlight, aimed it at the roof of the truck as he jammed it into the seat to steady it, and they went on giggling like children keeping secrets from their elders.

      Cissy closed her magazine and looked at him with a smile. “We sure do appreciate you taking us this far. I thought for sure we were out of a ride back there at the weigh station.”

      He didn’t want to be reminded of his bad behavior. “Naw,” he said reluctantly. “I just hope you two have thought your new employment out fully. Mason would get all over me if I let either of you get hurt.”

      “We’re not your responsibility, Ranger.”

      “Not technically, I know. But we feel that all of you gals who helped us through the big storm are pretty much our sisters now.”

      “I wasn’t there,” she reminded him.

      “No, but Hannah was. And we know you. So we care about you.”

      She didn’t say anything to that.

      “In a brotherly sort of way, of course,” he hastened to explain. “We care about you like a little sister.”

      It seemed to him that Cissy looked hopeful for a second. Then her impossibly large aquamarine eyes dimmed as she shook her head and re-opened her magazine.

      “You sure have a lot of magazines in your bag,” he pointed out.

      “I’m taking up cooking.” She smiled at his raised brow. “What? Didn’t you think a girl like me would want to cook?”

      He frowned. “What do you mean, a girl like you?”

      She shrugged.

      “Oh, you mean, a gorgeous girl like you!” he said, his tone saying, I just got it. “The kind who’s so nice guys are always fighting to take her out!”

      The most grateful smile he’d ever seen on a woman’s face lit Cissy’s eyes. “You’re okay, Ranger,” she said softly. “If I can help you in any way with your mission, let me know.”

      “My mission?”

      She barely moved her silvery brows to indicate the back seat, where neither Archer nor his partner in gaming was paying them any mind. “My little gamine friend,” she said softly.

      Oh, no. They were not going there. He might have discovered that Cissy had a lot of smarts underneath that sexy platinum hair, but she wasn’t going to start reading his mind. He wasn’t that easy. “She’s not my mission. I’m joining the military to do my duty by my country.”

      She smiled.

      “If they’ll take me,” he amended. “I am a bit older than they like.”

      “Hey, tough guy,” Cissy said, closing her magazine to look at him. “Maybe I should swap seats with her.”

      “I like you right beside me. Don’t even think about it. She’ll just give me a heart attack, I’m sure. Death by arguing or something. Worse, she might insist on driving my truck, and then I’ll have to show my really ornery bachelor side.”

      “As if she hasn’t seen that already. And survived it. Who would have known?”

      “Exactly,” he said with a nod. “Hey, not exactly!”

      Cissy laughed.

      “How did you two get together anyway? I don’t remember the two salons having many cross-street friendships.”

      “I didn’t want to live Marvella’s way anymore. I went to Delilah’s to ask for a job. I met Hannah in the hallway. She’d been crying.”

      “Hannah crying?” Ranger scowled, the thought extremely unsettling. “I find that hard to imagine.”

      “It wasn’t pretty,” Cissy told him. “That cute little face all scrunched up and running mascara. She is not a pretty crier, I warn you. Of course,” Cissy said with a sigh, “she’d been crying over some dopey guy, and that’s probably what made her so pathetic. I mean, what man is worth crying over?”

      “She was crying over a man?” Ranger asked incredulously. “Are you sure?”

      “Oh, positively. She spilled the whole story about him. Boy, he really broke her heart.”

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