Shine On Oklahoma Read online

  “Maybe she’s staying for the baby,” Rob said, giving him false hope. “The holidays are coming and she and Kiley—they need each other, you know?”

  “If the track is why she came, that’s why she came,” Dax said. “We at least have to consider she might be staying for the right reasons.”

  Rob said, “Are you trying to talk yourself into something here?”

  He was, he realized. He was trying to convince himself that being with Kendra while at the same time trying to find out what she was up to, wasn’t the worst idea in the history of bad ideas. When he knew damn well it was.

  But he had a reason for shining Kendra on a little. He had to protect his mother. He couldn’t let her be prosecuted for his father’s crimes and he had to find out whether Kendra was tangled up with those crimes.

  Maybe he could keep his heart out of it. Maybe…for a little while.

  And then the memory replayed in his mind, of her riding beside him along the tree-lined trail, sunlight dappling her silvery blond hair. She’d smiled over at him, eyes sparkling a reflection of the sheer pleasure she was feeling, and he wondered if he was lying to himself.

  #

  Kendra was not intimidated by the leading ladies of Big Falls. Doc Sophie, cousin to the McIntyre fortune and married to CMA winning singer songwriter Darryl Champlain. Emily, the veterinarian married to Joey and the McIntyre fortune, The Long Branch Saloon, and the adorable “Twig” currently sprouting behind it. And 8 month’s pregnant Allie Wakeland, photographer from a military family who were local heroes. Her brother was serving now. Her brother-in-law had made the ultimate sacrifice a year ago. There was a monument to him in the park.

  Then there was her sister, Kiley, savior of Big Falls, who’d stopped a con man from leaving town with the half mil he’d swindled out of them summer before last. They overlooked the fact that said con man was her dad, and probably didn’t even know that Kendra had helped her pull it off.

  Saved her is more like it. Jack was about to catch on when I pulled Kiley’s ass out of the fire.

  She wasn’t intimidated.

  The hell she wasn’t. They were four Cinderellas and a wicked stepsister. Only not step. Twin. A wicked twinsister.

  They walked through the Mall of Tucker Lake together. Kendra told herself that she was also a highly accomplished woman. She was one of the best cons in the biz. And while she’d taken a break from running games on people, she hadn’t really given it up. She’d been running promotions for small businesses online for the past year. At first, as an assistant to an indie marketer, and then hanging up an online shingle of her own. As it turned out, convincing consumers to buy something was what she’d been doing all her life. Now she was doing it legally. And she was making bank.

  She wasn’t ashamed of either incarnation of her career. Except when it came to Dax.

  Dax. The memory of their morning ride returned like a warmed blanket wrapped all around her. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her. She’d let herself forget how it felt to be that adored by someone.

  He was a good man. Probably the best man she’d ever known.

  Kiley said, “Oh, restrooms!” and pointed as excitedly as if she’d just crossed the Sahara and spotted a lemonade stand.

  “Thank God!” Allie said.

  “Go ahead, we’ll wait.” Emily smiled as she said it.

  Kendra didn’t know whether to run off with the pair of preggos or stay with the saints. Sophie put a hand on her arm and said, “We’ll be right here, Kiley. Take your time.” And she winked.

  “Uh, yeah,” Kendra said with a sideways frown. “We’ll be right here.”

  They wanted to talk to her alone. She braced herself, figuring she was in for it. They were either going to accuse her of something or question her motives, and then she’d have to spend the rest of the day with them pretending it was fine. Would the fun never end?

  Kiley and Allie waddled away to the restrooms.

  Sophie said, “My God, it took her long enough. She must have a bladder like a camel.”

  “I’d have had to go three times by now, when I was carrying Matilda Louise,” Emily put in.

  Kiley looked back over her shoulder before going through the restroom door, gave a wave. Did she look worried? Kendra wondered if she was more concerned about her or about them. Them, she decided. Her sister knew better than to worry about her.

  The door swung closed, and Emily said, “Okay, great. Now we have to talk fast, they won’t give us much time.”

  “About what?” Kendra asked, because the redheaded vet was animated and smiling, not dark and menacing.

  “The baby shower!” She clapped her hands and her grin got wider.

  “We started planning it,” Sophie said. She was classy. Elegant without trying to be. “Being the closest relatives here.”

  “Right,” Emily said. “But now that you’re here, you’re closest. We don’t want to step on your toes.”

  “Not that we’re dumping it on you, either.” Sophie held up both hands. “But you’re her sister. If you want to throw it, then—”

  “Wait, wait.” Kendra gave her head a shake. “You want me to plan a baby shower?”

  They looked at each other, then at her. “Help plan one. You are her sister,” Emily said.

  “Her twin sister,” Sophie added. Like she might’ve forgotten.

  Emily nodded hard. “Vidalia’s helping, too. And Sunny.”

  She was mentally identifying those people in her head. Vidalia was Kiley’s stepmother-in-law. And Sunny, she was the bakery chick, right?

  “They’ll be back any minute.” Emily shot a nervous look at the restroom door. “We want it to be a surprise. Rob doesn’t know, either.”

  “We should meet to go over what we’ve done so far and we can just start from there, with you in the lead,” Sophie said.

  “Oooh-kay. Um, when?”

  “My office tomorrow morning, say eight a.m?” Sophie asked.

  Eight a.m. Why did everyone around here do everything so early?

  “Here they come!” Emily said.

  “Here’s the address.” Emily slipped an appointment card into Kendra’s hand so sneakily she wouldn’t have been surprised if they got busted by a mall cop for a suspected drug deal.

  And then Kiley and Allie were back, smiling and holding their baby bumps.

  “Well, where do you want to shop first?” Sophie asked, rubbing her hands together and looking at the mall map.

  “I’m gonna need nursing bras,” Kiley said.

  Kendra’s jaw literally dropped. “Oh my God, Sis, we have to get you into Victoria’s Secret, STAT. You need something drop-dead sexy to wear after this baby’s born.”

  “As a doctor, I concur,” Sophie said. Then she wiggled the most perfect set of eyebrows Kendra had ever seen. “I might just pick out something for myself, as long as we’re there anyway.”

  “My lingerie closet is looking a little mom-like, now that you mention it,” Emily said.

  Kiley was blushing. “You guys are crazy.”

  Allie rubbed her baby bump and said, “I haven’t felt sexy in so long…” She met Kiley’s eyes, lifted her brows and said, “Well, why not? I could get lucky again someday. You never know.”

  Kiley looked at each of them, and then she grinned that mischievous grin that hadn’t changed since they were kids, spinning in the wildflowers, looking up at the stars. “Let’s do it!”

  #

  When Dax opened the front door, he found a shopping bag tree, with every branch filled. The muffled plea sounded like, “A li’l hep?”

  He started plucking bags, and eventually Kendra sighed and said, “That’s good, that’s good. Thanks.” There were still several clutched in her hands, and dangling from her forearms.

  “You go a little bit crazy today?” He wondered where she was getting her money. The car. Everything. Was she running a con on some poor rich slob and using Big Falls as her headquarters?

  “This is
n’t all me. Kiley’s gal-gang shops like there’s no tomorrow.” She came inside, looked around. “Kiley went home with Sophie. Guess she’s due for an exam.”

  “I know, Rob’s meeting her there. Asked me to wait for you.”

  “So…what do we do with all this?” She lifted her laden arms.

  “Nursery, would be my best guess,” Dax said. He headed through the living room and up the stairs to the bedroom beside Rob and Kiley’s.

  The window was propped open, a fan aimed outward to clear out the smell of the fresh pink paint that had been put on since he’d been in here last. It was a soft, pretty green with a pink stripe a foot wide around the middle. A white crib fit for a princess stood opposite the window.

  He watched Kendra, checking it all out. The bookshelf was already piled with titles. The dresser and changing table were white with rainbows painted on them. Every surface held a toy. There were princess dolls, castles, and unicorns everywhere. Kendra went to the room’s center and stood there, turning in a slow circle. “You…think she went overboard on the princess theme a little bit?” she asked softly.

  “If I did, I would never say so.”

  “Neither would I. Still, it’s awfully… girlie, isn’t it?”

  “A muscle car poster would break it up some,” Dax said.

  Kendra grinned at him. He grinned back and for just a second, he was stuck there, in a bubble of happy with her.

  He cleared his throat, looked away. The bubble popped. He set his bags on the floor near the closet and opened it up. “Lots of hangers in here. Should we?”

  She set her bags down beside his and pawed through a few of them, past frilly pink fluffy things until she finally found what she wanted and yanked out the tiniest pair of denim bib overalls he’d ever seen in his life. “I picked these out because Diana’s got my DNA, too. She’s gonna get dirty, and she’s gonna break things.”

  Hearts, he thought. She was gonna break hearts.

  They hung each little item on a hanger, but didn’t remove any tags.

  “You look all bright and shiny, Kendra. Did you have a good time with the girls?”

  “Sure.” She averted her eyes, focused on folding footie pajamas so tiny he couldn’t believe any human being could fit them. Even a newborn. “I mean, they’re nice people, you know that. It’s no chore being around nice people like that.”

  He must’ve looked at her wrong, because when he did, she added, “For limited periods.”

  “They seemed to like you.” She frowned at him and he nodded at the window. “I saw when they dropped you off. Everyone smiling, waving back all the way down the road.”

  “You saw us pull in and didn’t come help me lug all those bags?”

  “By the time I got the door, you were already there. I was putting some things up in the attic for Rob. Babies take up a lot of room. And you’re changing the subject. They liked you, didn’t they?”

  She took her stack of jammies to the white dresser, opened drawers to see where they belonged. “They only think they like me. I make people think they like me, Dax. I grew up learning how and I don’t think I can even turn it off anymore. I didn’t even try, I swear, they just….”

  “They just liked you.”

  “Apparently, I’m supposed to take over planning the baby shower. Can you even imagine?” She’d found the right drawer, was closing it now.

  He wasn’t sure how to answer the question. “I guess I don’t know enough about baby showers to have an opinion.”

  “It’s a surprise, so don’t say anything to Rob. We’re having a secret meeting tomorrow at the crack of dawn.” She rolled her eyes.

  There was a hint of insecurity in them. He spotted it like a hawk spotting a garter snake from on high. She was trying to hide it, but she was nervous about being around the Brand-McIntyre females.

  “You know you’re just as smart and just as pretty as any of them, don’t you?”

  “Smarter,” she said. “And pretty? Come on, Dax, do you think I give a crap about pretty?” She shrugged. “It’s fine. Like I said, they’re nice. How did your day go?”

  For a second he thought she might really want to know, so he said, “I had a text from my mother. She and the lawyers are coming out here to uh…” he hesitated, but decided to plunge ahead. It felt like the best move. He couldn’t trap her without any bait, anyway. And he thought he needed to. He needed to know for sure what her game was, so he could keep his mother as far away from it as possible. And his heart, he had to protect that too. So he said it. “To discuss my father’s estate.”

  She had opened the little closet and was hanging up baby clothes on the tiniest hangers he’d ever seen. But she stopped in mid-motion and spoke without turning to look at him. “I thought you said he cut you out of his will.”

  “Nope.”

  “So you just told me that, because…what, you figured if I knew you had the track, I’d try to con you out of it?”

  “I don’t have the track. I’ll never have the track. I don’t want it. So while my father didn’t disinherit me, I’m disinheriting myself. Same result.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me that?”

  He shrugged. “I wanted to see if you’d stick around. And I didn’t want to wonder if your reason for staying was to try to convince me to keep it.”

  She sighed, lowered her head, then brought it up again as if something new had occurred to her. “So then you…want me to? Stick around?”

  “Is that not obvious?”

  “No. I figured you were just spying on me for Rob.” She shrugged a shoulder. “And I wouldn’t blame you if you were. Payback’s a bitch.”

  “I am spying on you for Rob. He wants to know why you really came home and whether your father knows about the baby.”

  “I came for family,” she said softly. “And that’s the absolute truth. And no, Jack doesn’t know about the baby, but I’m going to tell him the next time I have the chance to talk to him.”

  “Have the chance to talk to him? That’s a funny way to put it. Where is Jack, these days?”

  She shook her head. “He doesn’t generally give me his itinerary, Dax. I don’t know where he is.”

  “Well, now I know why you’re here and what your father knows. Mission accomplished. I am no longer spying on you for Rob.” Now he was only spying for himself, he thought with a pang of guilt. Impulsively, he moved closer to her, reached out very slowly, and brushed a wisp of hair off her face, tucking it behind her ear. It was a knee-jerk apology. He felt bad leading her on, even though he was pretty sure she was doing the same to him.

  And he was a little bit afraid he was only pretending to be leading her on, trying to fool himself into believing that. And failing.

  She met his eyes, blinked. “You’re way too easy on me.”

  “I can’t seem to help myself.” He leaned closer. Leaned wasn’t the right word. He was pulled, like she was wearing magnets under her skin and he was made of metal. She tipped her chin up just the tiniest bit, just enough to tell him yes, so he kissed her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her tight to him, and he kissed her.

  Everything he’d ever felt for her came flooding back in a rush that suffused him from his head to his toes with warm, red glitter, dusted in cinnamon. It had been there all along. He’d just bagged it up and hoisted it into the attic, out of sight. But then, bam! One kiss. Glitter avalanche.

  It scared him, but his fear was hopelessly buried.

  Her lips were soft, and her mouth was wet and she tasted like jalapenos. He kissed her deeper. Her hands were on his shoulders, but they didn’t twine around his neck the way they used to. She kept moving them down over his arms, then back up and over to his chest, as if she couldn’t make up her mind whether to push him away or pull him closer.

  Eventually, he lifted his head. “I’m going to refuse the inheritance. I want you to know that.”

  “I know,” she said, a little bit breathlessly, and then, “But doesn’t that
mean it’ll go to the SRA?”

  Like a bucket of ice water, those words. He stepped back a little, blinking at her. “Since when do you know so much about Aurora Springs horseracing, Kendra?”

  Her eyes flared, just the tiniest bit. Just enough to make his stomach knot up. She walked away from him, picking up the empty shopping bags all over the floor.

  “Since I started dating the only son of a track owner almost two years ago.” She shrugged and looked him square in the eye. “I was a grifter, Dax. That’s what we do.”

  “Were?”

  She swung away from him angrily, paced hard to the window and leaned on the sill. “I haven’t gamed anyone since…since you.”

  That was a bombshell. If it was true.

  But it couldn’t be true.

  “So then what do you do? You’ve obviously got money. That Vette—”

  “Same thing I always did, just legally now. I do online promotion for little one-and-two woman operations. There are lots of online entrepreneurs these days.”

  He was gaping. He shouldn’t be gaping.

  “It started as a favor for a friend whose indie marketing biz grew faster than she could keep up with, and after six months I was really good at it, and started my own little operation. It just…grew into…something.” She stopped talking, searched his face. “You don’t believe me, do you Dax?”

  “I…no. I don’t. Sorry.”

  “Yeah. I don’t blame you. God, I need a cigarette.” She lowered her butt onto the windowsill. “So you’re seriously just gonna give away something worth millions?” she asked.

  “My mother owns forty-nine percent of the track, you know.”

  Her eyebrows rose, and she did too, right off the windowsill. She stood there blinking at him like she was a kid and he’d just told her Santa wasn’t real.

  “No. I didn’t know that.”

  She lowered her head. Her hair fell like a pale silk curtain around her face. Then she ran her hand over her forehead, pushing all that hair up and catching it behind her head. “I’ve always liked Caroline.” She looked him in the eye, then looked away, shaking her head and letting go of her hair. It fell around her shoulders, over her arms.