Devil in Texas (Rugged and Risque 1)

“Come with me,” Ginger said as she took Liza’s hand.

They wove their way around display racks and tables until they reached the back of the store. Ginger crossed to the far corner and pulled on a cord hanging from the ceiling. Stairs unfolded and she ascended them, with Liza following close behind. They emerged in a small space with a tall ceiling. The attic. Surrounding them were antique dressers overflowing with lingerie.

Ginger sighed. “See my problem? I ordered all this stuff because sales were so good initially. Now I’ve got, like, thousands of items I can’t unload. Soon, they’ll be totally outdated.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Liza said as she skimmed a hand over a pile of garters. “Thigh-highs and garter belts never go out of style.”

“What am I going to do?”

“Exactly what we said,” Liza reminded her. “If you can’t sell it in your shop, you’ll sell it online.”

“There’s just so much!”

Liza’s gaze landed on the champagne nightgown she owned. The one she’d ruined with cinnamon-scented body oil when she’d rubbed it all over her breasts and had gotten Jack off.

“You have that one already,” Ginger commented.

“Yeah,” Liza said as she lifted it off the rack. “I really liked it.”

Ginger stared at her, her look curious. “Did I miss something?”

“No.” She returned the nightie to its rack.

Ginger said, “You seem a bit distracted.” She sank into a comfy-looking chair in the corner and asked, “Want to talk about it?”

Liza sighed. “It’s complicated.” She laughed at her words. Or rather, Jack’s words. Though he’d said there was nothing complicated about them. And he was right in a lot of respects. The sex certainly hadn’t been complicated. It’d been heavenly. The companionship hadn’t been complicated. It’d been exciting.

So she’d poked and prodded until he’d spilled his and Lydia’s life stories. He’d said they weren’t secrets. She could have asked anyone. But she’d wanted to hear about the past from him.

Then she’d avoided him last night, feeling a little awkward because she’d killed the mood the night before. He hadn’t come looking for her to make amends.

True, he’d been working, so it wasn’t as if he was free to come knocking on her door. Nor had she invited him to.

Had he been waiting for that?

“Damn it,” she mumbled.

To which Ginger replied in a soft voice, “Does this have something to do with Jack?”

Liza’s gaze lifted as she stared at her new friend. She shrugged a shoulder and said, “It has something to do with a lot of things.” She reached for the fold-up chair behind one of the dressers and set it in front of Ginger. “I have a dilemma on my hands.” Settling into the chair, she proceeded to tell Ginger about her life in New York. Something she’d never considered sharing with anyone, but Ginger had shared her vulnerability and Liza felt comfortable reciprocating.

When she reached the part about leaving Manhattan behind for a new life, one she intended to live on her own terms, she said, “I really don’t care what Lydia thinks about me,” because she realized that was true. “I do care what Jess and George and Ruby and you think about me. I care what Jack thinks about me. Five people who haven’t judged me,” she said, feeling the emotion well within her again. “And yet…” She looked away, feeling a little ashamed about what she was about to say. Tears stung her eyes as she turned back to Ginger and said, “I packed my car. Left the key to the cottage under the mat. Debated where to go from here.”

Ginger sat forward in her chair, looking stunned. And hurt. “You’re leaving town? Just like that?”

She nodded. “I was thinking of going to Austin.”

“Liza, no!” Ginger was out of her chair in a heartbeat. She paced the small space between them and asked, “Did something happen between you and Jack?”

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “But I do know that he and Lydia are incredibly close. I could never come between them. I wouldn’t want to!”

“Liza,” she said as she drew up short. “If you haven’t noticed, Jack Wade is a man who does and says whatever he wants. No one tells him how to live his life. Or who to date.”

“But I could complicate things for him. Especially now that he’s running for City Council. If he loses Lydia’s support…”

“He’s got plenty of other supporters, believe me!”

“Ginger, I don’t know anything about the people in this town or what their problems are.”