Beth Ann started the clippers and began to run them over the back of Colt’s neck. “Because she’s moving there? You need to listen when a girl tells you something, Dane Croft. You’re not God’s gift to women.”
Dane frowned at her. “What are you talking about? Why is Miranda moving? She just moved in.”
In the chair, wearing the pink cape, Colt sat stone-faced, watching his reflection in the mirror. His eyes shifted a fraction, and Dane realized that it wasn’t his reflection he was watching—it was the perfect blonde his gaze was focused on. Watching her like an eagle sights prey. He wondered if Beth Ann had any idea that Colt was watching her so carefully.
But he didn’t have time for this shit, and Beth Ann wasn’t volunteering information about Miranda, which was why he was here, not to see Colt staring at the blonde with possessive eyes. “Well? Why is Miranda moving if she just bought a house?”
“Oh, honey,” Beth Ann said in a tone that was a little sorry and a lot mocking. “Bless your heart. She wasn’t moving in, she was moving out. She couldn’t wait to leave this darn town. Been waiting nine years to get out.”
“Nine years? Why?”
“Because of those damn photos—” she snapped, then pursed her glossy lips. “Sorry. Language. But you know what I’m talking about.”
“No,” he gritted. “I don’t.”
She narrowed her blue eyes at him, then moved across the tiny salon to a laptop on a small desk. As she bent over, he watched Colt’s expression narrow a bit more, as if his world had suddenly focused in on a soft pair of h*ps in a jean skirt.
“This,” Beth Ann said, moving to the side and showing him the screen. “This is why she couldn’t wait to leave.”
He moved forward and stared. It was a horrible website, with an ugly background and noisy graphics on it. The URL read “Boobs of Bluebonnet” and he stared at a picture of Miranda’s perky br**sts, that beauty mark under her left one staring back at him. Some a**hole had his hand down her pants and his other underneath her br**sts, as if plumping them for the camera. Even worse, her head was tilted back in ecstasy.
“Who’s the dick?” he growled, the urge to beat the shit out of someone rising. His fists clenched, hard.
Beth Ann frowned at him and scrolled the website down to the next photo. This one clearly showed the face of the man as Miranda knelt before him, with his hand twisted in her hair as if she were about to suck him off. “You are, you stupid fool. And you ruined her life.”
* * *
When they left the salon, Dane sat in the car, numb. Colt drove, every once in a while scratching at his neck for phantom hairs left from the shave.
Dane didn’t know what to think anymore.
Miranda thought he’d ruined her life. She thought he’d taken the photos. Thought he was getting some sort of psycho revenge on her when he’d left all those years ago. Beth Ann had spilled the whole story, though she’d clearly been reluctant to divulge her best friend’s secrets. She was only telling him, she said, what anyone in town would tell him. How Miranda’s mom had had a nervous breakdown and Miranda had had to run the store until she recovered. The rumors. The nickname.
The photos had followed her for the last nine years. And all this time he’d never known. No wonder her mom had freaked when he’d entered the store. No wonder Miranda had taken his picture and said she’d wanted to ruin his life.
Hell, he didn’t blame her. He knew what it was like in small towns, and Bluebonnet was one of the smallest. You knew everyone, and everyone knew everything about you. And everyone knew Miranda’s br**sts intimately.
God, poor Miranda. She’d been so strong to quietly suffer all these years and put up with shit for her mother’s sake. Beth Ann had explained that she’d gotten her master’s from nearby Sam Houston State University and had applied for jobs, eventually landing a plush one at a big corporation in downtown Houston. Beth Ann wouldn’t say where.
He didn’t blame her…and at the same time, he wanted to shake the news out of her.
“Will she be back?” he’d asked, feeling like the world had just fallen out from under his feet.
“Don’t know,” said Beth Ann. “I have her number, but she’s turned her phone off for the move. She said she’d call me in a few weeks, when she’s settled. Wants to get a fresh start first.” Her hurt was obvious, and she gave Dane an accusatory look. She’d been closed out of Miranda’s life, too, and it was no thanks to him. Judging from the look on her face, Beth Ann wouldn’t be forgetting that anytime soon.
He didn’t care. All he could see was Miranda’s tearful face, sobbing as she left the camera with him. Even though she’d wanted revenge…she hadn’t been able to do it.
She’d said she’d fallen in love with him. It was like a knife twisting in his gut. He’d loved her all these years and she’d thought the worst of him.
He thought back—the pictures must have happened at the after-graduation party at Chad’s house. He’d never known there was a camera in the closet—he’d been too caught up in the beautiful girl in his arms and the fact that he was finally, finally getting to touch her. He’d had a call that day from the NHL, and between that and Miranda, he just wasn’t thinking about anything else. His head had been full of hockey hopes and dreams and he’d been cocky and arrogant.
And he hadn’t realized.
Rage pulsed through him and he slammed his fist into the passenger side of the car. “Fuck!”
“Tryin’ to deploy my air bag?” Colt asked casually.
“I want to punch the f**k out of that a**hole who did this to her,” Dane snarled. “I want to slam his face into the ground and make him realize how much he hurt her.”
He’d hurt her…and Dane couldn’t fix it. He wanted to fix it, and didn’t know how.
Colt gave him a long look, and then turned the car back around.
“Where are we going?”
“To the bar. We’re gonna ask some friends how our high school buddies are doing.”
Dane nodded, rubbing his knuckles, contemplating another jab to the panel, or maybe putting his fist through the glass. Her pain ate away at him, gnawed in his belly and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. He’d somehow caused this. Some jackass had ruined her life, and he’d been completely clueless about the entire thing.
Colt glanced over. “Why didn’t you say something? ’Bout you and Miranda?”
His jaw tensed. Dane stared out the window, his mood black. “I was going to tell Grant first. Get the bad shit over with. Then I was going to let you know.”
There was a long moment of silence in the cab. Then Colt spoke again. “You know I don’t care who you’re f**king around with as long you keep it on the DL.”
Unusually chatty for Colt. Dane knew his friend was pissed that he hadn’t been looped in. When he got mad, he got talky. “Yeah, and as soon as Grant finds out I’ve been sleeping with a client, he’ll blow his lid.”
“He’s concerned about the business, that’s all. You planning on f**king all our clients?”
Dane scowled at his friend.
“Exactly my point. So this ain’t a big deal. Just tell the man and be done with it.”
He should have. Of course, now Miranda was gone, and it was too late.
Bluebonnet boasted exactly one place that served alcohol. It was a Tex-Mex restaurant in a converted house, but it had a bar, and that was good enough for most of the residents of Bluebonnet. After hours, the men in town showed up to drink a few beers, watch sports on the TV on the wall, or rack up a few balls in the town’s only pool table.
Dane walked up to the bar, ordered a longneck. He chatted with the bartender for a few minutes. The man—who’d likely been tending the same bar since Dane was last in town nine years ago—was all too eager to hear stories of Dane’s time in the NHL. He told a few stories, had the men at the bar smiling, and then eased into other topics.
“Seems like everyone still lives here in town.”
“Yup. Seems like.”
“Chad Mickleson still live around here?”
“Yup.”
Dane nodded, took a sip of his beer, tried to act casual. He had a guess as to who had taken those pictures, and he wanted to talk to the guy. “You know how I can get ahold of him?”
“Sure do.” He gave vague directions to a nearby car garage and Dane made a mental note to visit there in the morning.
“What about Miranda Hill?” He asked casually, almost afraid of what he’d hear. “You know anything about her?”
“Ol’ boobs? Yeah, She’s legendary around here,” the man said, grinning. “Turned into a hot little librarian. Why? You planning on tapping that?”
“That’s my girlfriend,” he growled.
The conversation ceased.
“You know who took those pictures of her?”
“Well,” the bartender said slowly. “Kinda thought you did.”
Minutes passed like hours, and Dane tossed and turned in his bunk. His own house was a small cabin on the edge of the Daughtry Ranch, and he normally liked it just fine, but tonight it was too quiet. He missed Miranda, her warm breath tickling his chest as she slept, the soft curve of her body against his.
How quickly he’d gotten used to having her in his life. How hollow he felt right now since she’d run away from him. He was filled with the same helpless rage he always felt when thinking about it.
When the sun came up, he was in his jeep and heading to the garage, his mind full of grim determination and Miranda’s sad hopelessness. The directions the bartender had given him were dead on, and he pulled in.
A mechanic came out to greet him, wiping his hands. “Need an oil change?”
“I’m looking for Chad Mickleson,” Dane said. “He work here?”
“Yup, he’s just inside,” the man said, then broke into a wide grin. “Hey, aren’t you—”
Shit. “Yes.”
“I’ll be damned,” the man said, following him in. “Hey, Len! You’ll never guess who just drove up! The local legend himself.”
Dane ignored him, striding into the garage, looking for a face he only vaguely remembered. Sandy brown hair and big eyebrows—that was all he remembered of the guy.
One of the mechanics turned around and boom, there he was. Dane’s hands instantly clenched to fists—if he’d have had his hockey gloves on, he’d have dropped them.
The other man’s eyes lit up. “Holy shit. Dane Croft. How are you, man?”
Dane punched him square in the jaw. The man went down like a light and dropped to the floor of the garage. Someone yelled.
“You and I have a lot of talking to do,” Dane said in a low, dangerous voice. “Now get up.”
SEVENTEEN
One Month Later
Miranda stared at her Outlook calendar in dismay. She clicked on the meeting, then buzzed her secretary. “Shirley, could you come in please?”