The Heart Of Texas Read online

  They passed the outside edge of the city and, after fifteen minutes, were at the main Hayes house, home to Gerald and Sandra and their perfect kids. It was quiet and dark. He doubted Jeff was at home: he never was. He assumed Lisa was somewhere in there, probably under the influence, given it was already 9 pm, and the kids were with the nanny in the back wing. He knew his mom was out; it was Foundation night for one of her many charities. Riley wasn't sure why she did so much, unless it was for the kudos, but when it came to those good works, her energy was unflagging. He knew where his dad was; Gerald was inevitably away with his current affair du jour. He didn't hide it. Everyone knew. His mom knew, but as long as she had the name and the prestige and money that went with it, then she was clearly happy to let her husband do what he wanted.

  The car stopped on the circular drive. The chauffeur opened the door and lifted out the two bags, offering a wide smile which Riley didn't return. He just nodded to dismiss him. He was unable to find the words, despite the fact that normally he would spend time to talk, to ask about the daughter who had just left for college. Tonight, well, tonight all he wanted was to move inside, into this mausoleum he called home, and shut his door on the world. He caught Jack's frown, saw him return the chauffeur's smile and gave the man a quiet, "Thanks." He could almost hear the thought, Jeez, Riley, you're a rude entitled asshole.

  * * * *

  Jack followed Riley in the side door. It led into a spacious boot room, immaculate and tidy and nothing like the boot room at the ranch. There were no jackets, no freaking boots, no dirt, nothing to show that anyone actually used the space. He said nothing, just followed in Riley's footsteps to a large hallway. Crystal chandeliers hung from high ceilings, and a marble staircase wound up from the entrance hall to the first landing. It was icy perfection, spotless.

  No letters sat on the hall table, no Quarter Horse News magazines piled haphazardly, no newspapers. Jack sighed inwardly, missing the casual warmth of his own home compared with the stark airless hotel that this was.

  Riley took the stairs three at a time, his long legs eating up the curved steps. Jack followed at a more sedate pace, passing arranged fresh-cut flowers placed just so on a middle step. Riley turned left at the top and strode down a long corridor. He opened a door, turned on the lights, and gestured Jack inside. After Jack walked in, Riley leaned back on the closed door, tired-eyes and frowning, and Jack looked around at the room.

  It was larger than the entire floor he shared with his sister and mom, separated with carefully placed furniture. It looked like a designer's idea of a den. There was a small library area, a huge flat screen TV, large red sofas, and thick red drapes framing floor to ceiling windows. Jack couldn't see anything outside apart from the faint and distant glow of downtown Dallas. It was unnerving that they would be framed outside from the light in the bedroom if anyone cared to look. It was kind of sparse as a living area, white where it wasn't blood-red, empty of anything welcoming. It probably cost a fortune for some decorator to create.

  "I'm guessing this is my home now?" Jack finally said, his drawl more pronounced as the last few days started to catch up with them.

  Riley nodded. "Master bedroom, adjoining bathroom," he recited, waving casually at various doors. "Separate extra bathroom, second bedroom, games room, this room, and that's it." He frowned at Jack's thoughtful grunt. "What?"

  "Which one is the guest room?"

  "That one." Riley indicated a door to the back of the large room, but stopped Jack with a hand on his arm as he started to walk towards it. "We're both in the master," he said simply.

  Jack opened his mouth to argue, noticed the stubborn set of Riley's mouth, and sighed inwardly. Well, it was worth a try.

  "Show me," he said. Riley obediently opened a door and flicked on the light. Then he leaned on the frame, leaving barely enough space for Jack to get by.

  Is the dumbass trying to be irritating, or what? Jack bit back the snide remark that wanted to be said. Maybe Riley was having second thoughts about sharing the room with a gay man? Who was also his husband, even if it was in name only. That was fine by Jack, but he didn't intend to put up with the man being a jerk. He pushed past, maybe a little too close, his thigh brushing against Riley's hard-muscled leg. Jack kept his voice low and growling as he near-whispered the words he knew Riley had to be thinking.

  "How are we gonna cope with being in the same bed with no sex for a whole year?"

  Chapter 12

  "What?" Riley choked. "What the fuck? "

  "I'm guessing you have maids 'n shit that would notice if we were sleeping separately?" Jack drawled, gazing around the spacious bedroom. The bed looked big enough to sleep half a dozen linebackers without them getting too friendly.

  "Yeah," Riley replied sullenly.

  Jack looked from the bed to Riley and back again and did his damnedest to make his smirk as infuriating as possible. "It's a good-sized bed," he pointed out. "No biggie."

  "So the whole, 'How are we gonna manage for a year?’, what was that?" Riley demanded, his hands on his hips and his eyes narrowed. He looked very much like a disrespected parent.

  Jack snorted, a reluctant laugh breaking through his resolve. There was nothing in the contract between them that said he had to play nice in private, and something told him he could get a lot of mileage out of needling his straight husband. He shrugged off his shirt and drew his T-shirt over his head. There were three doors to choose from, and two of them were probably walk-in closets. "Shower, which way?"

  "There." Riley pointed in the general direction of the door off to one side. He looked dumbfounded, but verging on cross, looking everywhere but at Jack's naked chest.

  Jack just had to get in one more jibe. "Tell you what though. Y'all just keep to your side of the bed, Het-boy, and I'll see if I can keep myself from being carried away with lust and maybe try'n keep it in my pants."

  "I…" was all Riley managed, shaking his head vehemently. He was scarlet with embarrassment, and Jack counted it as a win.

  Jack shut the bathroom door behind him before Riley could come up with a coherent answer, smirking at the look in Riley's eyes and at the horrified open-mouthed denial on his lips. Then his smile faded. There was something else in his husband's eyes, and Jack wondered if Riley wasn't quite so conventional in his sexual tastes as he'd thought. There had been heat there, right alongside the confusion.

  Well hell, he thought, examining which dials he needed to turn in Riley's frankly awesome walk-in shower. This is gonna be a long year. I may as well have some fun. For a split second, he wondered if it would backfire on him, then shrugged it away. No. As far as he was concerned, Riley-baiting was the new national sport.

  * * * *

  Riley stared at the bathroom door for a good minute or so, willing his flush away. He wasn't sure what had just happened, but it left him feeling too hot in his own skin. Finally Riley gave himself a mental kick in the ass and dove into the other bathroom for a fast shower. By the time Jack finished in the en suite, Riley was in bed and under the sheet, pretending to be asleep. It was the coward's way out, he acknowledged, feeling the dip in his bed as Jack climbed in.

  He wasn't sure Jack slept, and as it was, Riley guessed he himself had only had an hour at the most. He'd watched the bedside clock move from minute to minute, hour to hour, hearing Jack's even breathing in the darkness of the room. His head was spinning with images of Jack's momma, her quiet grace and her easy acceptance of what Jack had done, despite the concern in blue eyes so like her son's. Then there was Josh and the argument he'd overheard between the two brothers. He had assumed Josh would demand and rant and state exactly what Jack could or couldn't do, the same as Jeff would do to Riley. It had shocked him when Josh pulled Jack in for a hug, called him kid, affection falling from his lips as easy as the shouting only thirty seconds before.

  He thought back to the way Beth had questioned him, all spit and fire as she stood between him and her brother, so slight a stiff wind would probably blow
her over. Are you your daddy's boy? Her question was like a stab in the heart, because, at the end of the day, yes, he was. He was just like his dad, and one day blood would tell. He had looked into Beth's eyes and lied. Faced with this pregnant girl with such a huge battle in front of her, it made him feel lower than a snake. And if Jack ever found out that Riley had put money in place for Beth's care even before he'd said yes? Shit, he was a dead man then, as his proud husband was likely to kill him. Another secret he needed to keep, another worry niggling inside his head.

  And now, as the alarm clock moved round to 6:30 am and Riley moved to slide out of the bed, he wished for more sleep to deal with what he knew he had to face. Silently he padded to the window. The day was new and fresh, the sprinklers on the manicured lawn bordered by white fencing helping to make it so. There were several vehicles parked around the circular walled fountain, among them his black SUV, the only one pointing away from the house and down the avenue approach.

  "Riley?" Jack's voice was tired, thick with sleep and Texas drawl. "S'time?"

  Riley turned to face his husband of less than twenty-four hours, watching him as he rolled on his back and stretched warm limbs against ruby red sheets. He was yawning and rubbing a hand along his stubble-rough jaw.

  "Early," he replied, causing Jack to groan into the soft pillows as he pushed at the restricting covers and bent one leg at the knee.

  "So how is today panning out?" Jack asked, the words who do we have to fool? unspoken.

  Riley grimaced as he watched out of the window. His dad and Jeff were climbing into one of the limos close to the front door, and he followed it with his eyes as it headed down the avenue. He sighed, but then thought that actually, just maybe, breakfast would be easier without them.

  "This morning, my mother and possibly Lisa, Jeff's wife. Maybe Eden, my sister. There's kind of this breakfast thing we do. Normally I'm down with my dad and brother, but they just left." Riley turned back to the window, watching the dust swirling in the wake of the limo, his fingers unconsciously touching the glass.

  * * * *

  The knot of tension in Jack eased slightly. He knew Jeff only by reputation and from watching various TV interviews, and would have thought he was an arrogant asshole even if he wasn't a Hayes. And as for the Hayes patriarch, well, Gerald hated the name of Campbell, had done so since way before Jack had been born. Worse, the man had basically treated his mom like shit at Alan Campbell's funeral. So, yeah, no love lost there either. Jack couldn't understand where the whole we hate the Campbells crap was coming from. Life was too freaking hard and too freaking short to hold on to grudges.

  "So tell me about them and where they stand on the Campbell Hate Scale," Jack prompted. He frowned as Riley momentarily slumped before pulling himself straight and turning back to Jack.

  "The Campbell Hate Scale?" he asked cautiously, but Jack didn't answer. "Well, my mother is kind of…" He paused, looking Jack directly in the eyes. "It's not easy to describe her. I mean her family is old money, goes back generations. She has what she likes to call breeding, and what I like to term snobbery. She's difficult, and she won't like what I've done. She's had me half-married off to various Texas debutantes over the years. She doesn't ever mention your family, leaves that to my father and Jeff, who seem to spend an awful lot of time discussing you, come to think of it. And I don't totally know why. Do you?"

  "Hell, no," Jack snorted. "I have no idea why your dad and brother have such a problem with the Campbells. God knows we're no competition for you guys. Shit, we're not even in the same line of business anymore, and that fucking court case was years ago."

  It must have been obvious to Riley that Jack was about to start on a rant, because he quickly carried on. "Lisa and Jeff have been married about ten years, and I have a nephew and a niece, both of whom have a full-time nanny. Neither of the kids will be at breakfast," Riley added with a small hint of disappointment in his voice that Jack honed in on immediately.

  "That's a shame. I'd a liked to have met them," Jack said, watching as Riley frowned, apparently surprised at his sincerity,

  "Then there's Eden," Riley continued, and paused. "She's probably the only good thing my parents did. I mean, she's a complete airhead, thinks shopping defines her life, but she has a big heart. I kinda keep my eye on her when I can."

  Jack nodded. He knew firsthand what it was to worry for a little sister. The openly affectionate words Riley used to describe his sister, his niece, his nephew, seemed somehow wrong. It jarred with every impression Jack had formed of the Hayes family. Still, that didn't mean Riley's heart wasn't dead inside him. What man, with a sister of his own, would use Beth's health as a bargaining chip in a fake marriage?

  Riley left him to his thoughts, taking clothes into the large bathroom, and exiting fifteen minutes later. Jack came back to the here and now and gave his husband a reluctantly appreciative once-over. Riley was wearing similar clothes as he had on the flight, dark jeans and a dark shirt that pointed up his powerful frame. His blond hair was still damp and pushed off his face, emphasizing his angular cheekbones and eyes in an intriguing combination of greens and browns. He really was a ridiculously good-looking man.

  "All yours," Riley offered, crossing to a large walk-in closet and pulling out a black leather belt. He was keeping his head down, avoiding Jack's eyes.

  "Thanks." Jack climbed out of bed and strolled into the bathroom.

  * * * *

  As soon as the door closed, Riley released the breath he'd been holding. The tension across his shoulders and up the back of his neck was incredible, tight and painful. He moved his head from side to side, trying to release the pressure. This always happened whenever he brought someone to his family, be they friend or lover. This was always how he ended up, stressed and tense, and he threw a prayer to the heavens that his dad and brother would remain absent. He imagined the article on the marriage would appear today in the gossip column, alongside the best picture they had taken at the ceremony that he had anonymously sent. He had organized this marriage as a kick in the face to his dad and relished the moment his dad found out Riley had played him at his own game, but that didn't stop the actual fear he felt at his father's reaction.

  The bathroom door opened, and Jack walked out, a drift of steam behind him, his back, shoulders and chest glistening with water droplets and his hips wrapped in a towel. Casting one glance at Riley, he took off the towel and dried himself, not bothering to cover his nakedness. Then he rummaged in his bags for boxers and his clean jeans. Jack's body was lean and strongly made. His defined muscles were due to hard work, Riley knew, not a gym regimen. Riley couldn't not look. It was impossible to pull his eyes away from the thick half erect dick that hung between his husband's legs. He just stared as Jack pulled on the boxers and jeans, and tried to pretend that his own flesh wasn't swelling as well. Then Jack turned to face Riley with the jeans unfastened and the dark blue cotton of his underwear clear against the open fly.

  "See something you like, Het-boy?" he enquired, quirking an eyebrow and tilting his head to one side.

  God help me, yes! "Fuck you" was all Riley could come up with in the moment. Balling up a sweatshirt, he threw it at Jack, who caught it with ease and unrolled it, looking down at the Dallas Cowboys logo, worn and split after many washes. "Wear that," Riley said. "It's my favorite shirt, and it will give our story more credibility." He waved his hand in a gesture of whatever. Jack pulled his lower lip between his teeth and held up the sweatshirt to inspect it. His expression was doubtful, but eventually he pulled it over his head.

  Riley swallowed. This was getting stupid. He needed to get a handle on these stupid lust-ridden feelings that kept washing over him. Freaking Campbell and his no sex rule was going to kill him by a week from Sunday. I am not gay, I am not gay, I am not gay. I might be a small bit bi, but I am not gay. The sweatshirt was long on Jack and hung way over his belt. But the age of it had thinned the material to the point where it clung to Jack's form, and it didn't help tha
t Jack used his large capable hands to smooth the material down over his flat stomach. I am not gay—

  "Fuck's sake, Campbell, this isn't a live sex show. Let's get a move on," Riley snapped, waiting by the door, arms crossed over his chest, his foot tapping impatiently.

  Jack didn't answer, just followed his new husband to the top of the stairs and then held him back by his sleeve. Irritation had Riley turning sharply, Jack catching him on the turn and pulling him close, leaning up and guiding him in for a kiss.

  "For appearances," he whispered simply just as their lips met, and Jack reached up to tangle a hand in Riley's hair, holding his head still and close. Finally Jack released him, and Riley pulled back so slowly he could feel Jack's breath lingering on his skin. His mouth was tingling from the pressure of the kiss, his blood was heating up, and he knew his mouth was half-open, making him look like a bemused idiot.

  Jack took his hand confidently and moved to take the first step. "C'mon, Het-boy, let's do this thing."

  Chapter 13

  The large breakfast room was empty save for one maid who was dishing hot cooked food into servers, and she said nothing, simply smiling softly and leaving as the two men entered. Jack dropped Riley's hand and moved straight for the bacon and sausage, his eyes widening at the mass of food available. He was used to a big breakfast. His momma was always there with pancakes and bacon, eggs and sausages. He had often been working a good solid three hours before he ate and he needed it. But this —this obscene pile of food— this was kind of odd.

  "I'm guessing y'all have big appetites?" he asked wryly, picking up a plate and piling it high with fried goodness before sitting at the table and trying not to stare at the gilt-edged crockery and sparkling silver cutlery. Riley wasn't far behind him, although he'd added pancakes and also juggled two glasses of orange juice. The maid came back with fresh coffee, and Riley, who had virtually inhaled his breakfast before Jack was even halfway through his, was sitting back and sipping at the fragrant coffee with a look of bliss on his face. This was obviously relaxed Riley at his best, and Jack sought to examine this rare species more closely, watching as suddenly Riley stiffened and paled at a single word.