Tex Times Ten by Tina Leonard Read Free Book Online Page B

Marvella’s salon, and they never would. Delilah had been in town first and had done a lot to grow the town. Marvella, to their mind, might bring in much-needed tax dollars, but she was still “new.”
    “Cissy, I hope you’ll take this check in the spiritthat it’s meant,” Delilah said. “I’ve decided that, based on what Tex has told me about your situation, you are the candidate who could benefit the most from this cowboy raffle. I’d like you to accept two thousand dollars.”

Chapter Five
    Cissy sucked in a breath, and Marvella walked away, dragging Ant with her.
    “I hope it will come in handy, if you decide to send someone to look for your family. I’m awfully sorry about what you’re going through.”
    Cissy burst into tears. Tex blinked, not sure what to think about her reaction.
    “Thank you so much,” Cissy said. And then she hugged Delilah.
    Delilah patted her back. “Well, you two go on and enjoy the rest of the day.” And then she and Jerry left.
    Cissy put her face on Tex’s chest and sobbed like crazy. Slowly, he put his hands up to comfort her. “Hey,” he said. “Don’t do that. Last time you got upset, I had to compliment your butt. Who knows what I’ll say this time?”
    “Oh, shut up,” Cissy said. “You set me up for this and you know it.”
    “What?”
    “You know very well that I lied to your brother about which way Bloodthirsty Black cranked. I wantedDelilah’s salon to lose. I cheated. And now Delilah’s giving me money. I feel so bad!”
    “Well, that was very bad of you,” Tex said, thinking it was funny that she’d feel so guilty. After all, Tex had figured out the problem before Laredo got his pride-bearing load kicked clean into the next county. “Very, very bad.”
    But then he stopped himself cold. “But not that bad,” he corrected. Not bad enough to interest him.
    “Pretty bad,” Cissy said, sniveling onto his shirt-front.
    Normally, he wouldn’t want a woman doing that wet-’n’-weepy thing on his shirt, but she felt kind of good tucked up against him. He was going to give her a pass, just this once, on the waterworks. “Nah. Tiny bad.”
    “Very bad!” Cissy exclaimed, annoyed.
    “Just a little wee bit. Barely noticeable bad.”
    Cissy stepped away from him. “Tex, I’m bad! Bad, bad, bad! So bad I don’t think I can accept the money.”
    He pulled her back to him—to comfort her as any gentleman would. “You have to accept the money. How else are we going to get Hawk to South America?”
    She looked up at him. “You did this on purpose.”
    “Well—”
    “You went over there and gave Delilah a sob story so that she’d give me money.”
    “Well—”
    “I can’t accept it, though,” Cissy said definitively.“That would make me really, really bad. Like, trashy bad.”
    He frowned. “I think you’re confused on the meaning of trashy. ”
    “How?”
    “Trashy’s kind of a good thing. For example…” Searching for an example was always difficult where women were concerned. You had to find one that wouldn’t offend, and yet one that illuminated appropriately. With Cissy, he wasn’t sure which way to go.
    “I’ve got one,” she said. “That ice skater who had a competitor whacked on the knee.”
    “No!” She definitely didn’t get that trashy was a sexy thing.
    “Uh, the movie star who stole stuff.”
    “No, no. You’re going about this all wrong. Mae West was trashy. Today’s equivalent would probably be…I don’t know. Girls with a little spice.” He shrugged. “It’s just me, you know. My brothers like the safe ones. I like the unsafe ones. They make me feel edgy.”
    “You are such a sicko that I’m almost attracted to you,” Cissy said. “And that scares me.”
    “Why? I’m just looking for a good time.”
    She rolled her eyes. “I need to confess to Delilah before I accept this money. Your intentions were honorable, but you’ve flushed me out of hiding.”
    “So your terms are confession before