"I know how it got started." He lowered his voice and said, "Because I wouldn't have sex with you in a hotel room, you came to town and told everyone that I'm gay."
Kate looked around to see if anyone had heard him. They hadn't, but she suspected he wouldn't have cared. "How does it feel to be wrong?" she asked. She didn't wait for an answer and leaned over the table. She lined up a shot and tried to ignore Rob completely.
She made quick work of beating Peirce while his brothers took delight in taunting him because he'd lost to a girl. Peirce's face turned red, and he stomped off to the bar. Before she could really protest, Turtle racked the balls, and Kate resigned herself to playing one more game.
She'd never been the sort of girl to purposely lose at anything-not to perpetrate a hustle or even to make a man feel better about himself.
Turtle took the break and shot at the apex ball. It careened into the cushion, bounced off the two, and fell into the side pocket. Turtle smiled like he'd meant to do it on purpose. Next, he shot the solid orange into the corner pocket. Unfortunately, the cue ball followed it in.
"Are you going to let a girl beat you?" Victor called out to his brother. "You guys are embarrassing the family."
"Shut up, Victor," Tuttle grumbled as Kate placed the white ball behind the head string.
"I've been to Vegas a few times. Are you one of those topless showgirls?" Tuttle asked, then snickered like he was thirteen.
She glanced up at him then shot, knocking in the nine ball, then the fifteen. If he thought talking to her would mess up her concentration, he was wrong. She'd learned to play pool in a house filled with her loud brothers and their friends. "Afraid not."
"Ever work at the Chicken Ranch?" He must have thought he was real funny, because he cracked himself up.
Kate let it pass and dropped the fourteen in the side pocket, followed by the ten.
"Wanna come back to our ranch?"
The eleven and twelve dropped next. "No thanks."
"I could show you the horses. Lots of girls come out to ride the horses."
Somehow, Kate doubted "lots of girls" went anywhere near the Worsley ranch. She moved to the other side of
the table and waited for Rob to take his shot. When he was through, she knocked in the fifteen, then the eight. She placed her hand on the side rail and lined up a bank shot that she'd made a million times in the past. Tonight she missed making it by a fraction.
She raised, took a step backward, and came up against something hard and unmovable. She glanced over her shoulder, past blue flannel, to Rob's chin and mouth. She looked up into his eyes beneath the brim of his hat. The room was cramped, but not that cramped. He was crowding her and purposely annoying her again.
"Could you move?" she asked.
"Yeah, I could." But he didn't. Instead, his big hands grasped the tops of her arms as if he meant to move her away, but he didn't do that either. For half an instant a shocking urge to lean back into his chest popped into her head. To feel the warmth of him up and down her spine. To turn and press her nose into his flannel collar and take a deep breath.
Appalled by her thoughts, she told herself that it had been a long time. A long time since she'd had sex. It wasn't him. Other than the Worsleys, it could have been just about anyone. Well, not Mr. Dean either.
"The Worsley boys are mean little bastards." He leaned forward a little, and the brim of his hat brushed the side of her head. The scent of his warm skin filled her lungs. "Not the kind of guys a girl should show her tattoo."
She turned her head and looked up into the shadow beneath the brim of his hat. "Gee, thanks for the warning. And I was just about to drop my pants, too."
His lips remained in a flat line as he slid his hand up her arm and shoulder. His long, warm fingers brushed her hair from the side of her bare neck.
"What are you doing?"
"Showing the rednecks around here who want to kick my ass that I'm not gay." His breath warmed the shell of her ear, and anyone looking at the two of them might think he was whispering naughty things to her. "I can hold my own against one or two at a time, but a barful might be more than even I can handle." Kate glanced about the room, but it didn't seem like the rednecks were paying Rob much attention. It occurred to her that he might be lying, but she hadn't been at the Buckhorn long enough to be certain.
She returned her gaze to the pool table as Turtle made his shot. "You could use Dixie. I'm sure she's more than willing to be used in that capacity. Or any."
He slid his hand down her arm and placed his palm in the curve of her waist. "You owe me."
She didn't figure she owed him anything, but neither did she want him to get beat up for something she'd inadvertently done. "Don't think for one second that I'm going to let you grope me," she said, relieved that her voice held a conviction she didn't quite feel as strongly as she should.
"Maybe you should define grope." His hand slid across her stomach, warming up her abdomen and stealing her breath before slowly moving back to her waist. "Is that a grope?"
Technically, no. But she felt his touch in places where he wasn't touching her at all. "Not unless you move your hand up."