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  Life is unfair, and Carolyn’s a bitch. Like this trip couldn’t have waited for a few days? But when her boss got an idea, she didn’t let anything get in the way. What made it worse was that it was Darcy’s own fault. She’d been standing next to Carolyn when her boss opened the renewal notice for their suite of offices in San Francisco. Darcy was afraid the woman was going to have a heart attack when she saw the amount of the rent increase. She remembered the tirade.

  “I hate this fucking city,” Carolyn yelled. She threw the contract across the room. “It’s always cold and raining. Traffic sucks, and you can’t walk down the street without someone accosting you for a handout.”

  “But the seafood’s good,” Darcy said, hoping to derail Carolyn’s rant.

  Carolyn was not amused, and she glared at her underling for daring to disrupt her fit.

  Darcy stood there, outwardly calm. “We could always relocate the office,” she said reasonably. She knew that Carolyn had lucked into the current lease. The space had been undervalued, and Carolyn was shrewd enough to sign a long-term agreement. But that was five years ago, and the new owners of the building weren’t so gullible.

  “We could move fairly easily. Most of our business is online now, so all we need is Internet access. It would also solve some of our space issues.”

  Of course, I meant move to a different building, not all the way to fucking Texas. If only I’d explained to her that at the current rates, we weren’t actually being cheated. But, no, I always have to find a solution, make things work. Why did I open my big mouth?

  Darcy took another sip of her drink and noticed that Charlotte was heading out to the dance floor with the UPS woman. At least she’s attractive. Darcy viciously squelched that thought. They didn’t have time to dally with the locals. They were here to do a job and then get back home as quickly as possible. She suddenly felt the effects of her drink. God, I hope they have indoor plumbing.

  Darcy made her way to the back of the bar and joined the line for the restroom. It looked like she had a few minutes to wait, so she leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. Maybe going out drinking wasn’t such a great idea after traveling all day.

  She must have dozed off because the next thing she knew, someone was poking her on the shoulder and telling her it was her turn. She mumbled her thanks and headed into the available stall. She looked around. At least the place is clean.

  Darcy was washing her hands when Charlotte came into the restroom.

  “Hiya, I’ve been looking for you,” Charlotte said playfully. She was obviously having fun.

  “Have you been drinking something alcoholic?” Darcy asked suspiciously.

  Charlotte shook her head. “Nope.”

  Darcy looked askance at her friend’s bubbly tone. “Well someone’s in a good mood. You must be making progress with Ms. Wedeliverontime,” she said dryly.

  Charlotte giggled. “I’m having a great time. Her name is Jane Bennett, Darce. And she’s wonderful. She’s beautiful, and she’s funny, and I want you to come meet her.”

  “Charlotte,” Darcy said reluctantly. “I don’t want to meet her. I don’t want to meet anybody in this hick town. I want to do what we’re here to do and go back to civilization.”

  Charlotte appeared unfazed by Darcy’s attitude. “No, I want you to come meet her,” she insisted. “If it makes you feel any better you can think of it as work. You can pump her for information about the area.”

  Darcy sneered. “I know that’s not the kind of pumping you’re interested in, so how about I go back to the hotel, and you stay here and enjoy your time among the local bumpkins.” She checked her makeup in the mirror. “But if you hear any banjos, get the hell out of here.”

  Charlotte smirked but held her ground. “You can go back to the hotel but come meet everyone first. Jane swears you’ll like her friend Elizabeth.”

  “Is she the nurse or the weird cowboy?” Darcy knew she’d give in to Charlotte’s request eventually. She usually did. But she didn’t want to make it easy on her.

  “She’s the cowboy. She’s Doc Holliday actually.”

  Darcy groaned. “Of course she is. She’s also more butch than my brother. You know I don’t like butch women,” Darcy said with dismay.

  “First, your brother’s not exactly the Marlboro man. And second, she’s wearing a costume, for Christ’s sake,” Charlotte said with exasperation.

  “That swagger’s not a costume, and I’m not sure the stubble was painted on,” Darcy mumbled petulantly.

  “Since when are you afraid of a little swagger?” Charlotte challenged. “So you’ll come play nice?”

  “Butches and punsters, and bumpkins, oh my!” Darcy’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

  Charlotte glared at her until Darcy caved.

  With a longsuffering sigh, she gave in and agreed to go play nice with the locals. “But you so owe me,” she warned as they turned toward the door. Neither one of them noticed the cowboy coming out of the stall behind them as they exited the bathroom.

  Elizabeth walked over to the sink and peered into the mirror. It had taken her 20 minutes to apply the stubble. She’d never had a deft hand with makeup, even the theatrical kind. She was pretty proud of her costume. She’d had to order the shirt and lei online because the only party store in town had closed years ago, and she didn’t want to drive in to Dallas on one of her rare days off. She chuckled and washed her hands. Then, she pulled her hat down low on her forehead and hitched up her pants. She dug in her pocket for a pack of gum. She stuck a piece in her mouth and chewed for a moment. A deep breath later, she headed out the door. Time for some fun.

  Chapter Four

  Elizabeth approached her table slowly. The group had grown. Sherry and Rachel had finally shown up, and it looked like they’d brought a few friends. At least she assumed that was Sherry and Rachel. It was hard to tell through the rubber Zombie masks. They were the scariest folks in the place, except for the guy dressed as the governor. Charlotte and Jane had just finished introducing everyone when Elizabeth sauntered up.

  “Evenin’ ladies,” Elizabeth drawled, pitching her voice low. Her accent was twice as thick as usual, and she tipped her hat.

  Jane’s eyes widened a bit. Something was up. She shot Elizabeth a warning glance and persevered. “Charlotte, Darcy, this is my friend Elizabeth.”

  Charlotte smiled warmly and held out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  Elizabeth took her hand and kissed it with exaggerated gallantry. Turning to Darcy, she tipped her hat and said, “Ma’am,” in a drawl as thick and as slow as molasses. It was the best imitation of John Wayne Elizabeth could manage, and she silently thanked her dad for his obsession with Westerns.

  Darcy, sure she was being mocked, managed to choke out a “nice to meet you.” Only Jane and Charlotte were oblivious to the awkwardness. Suddenly remembering her manners, Jane invited the newcomers to join them while they waited for the costume contest to begin. Without even looking at Darcy, Charlotte accepted. The next few minutes were spent rearranging two tables to accommodate the growing group.

  Jane and Charlotte sat down next to each other. Lydia rushed to claim the spot next to Darcy. Elizabeth and the others sat down on the opposite side of the table and turned their chairs around so they could see the small area that was slowly being transformed into a stage. “It’s a costume slash talent show,” Jane explained.

  “Really? How delightful,” Darcy said, although her slightly sneering tone suggested otherwise. She was ready to go back to the hotel now, but she couldn’t catch Charlotte’s eye. Darcy suspected Charlotte was deliberately avoiding her. If she hadn’t been in such a bad mood, she would have admitted that Jane was a fine looking woman and her friend could do worse than spend an evening in her company. But Darcy was in a bad mood and didn’t seem to care if everyone knew it.

  Undaunted by Darcy’s ill humor, Lydia scooted a little closer. “So what brings you two to Longborn? Business? Or pleasure?” She drew
out the word pleasure, and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Lydia was on the make.

  Darcy rolled her eyes. Great. Horny locals. That’s just what I need. But before she could respond, Elizabeth jumped in.

  “Now Lydia, give the girl a fighting chance before you pull out your,” she hesitated, then added with a telling glance at Lydia’s impressive cleavage, “significant charms.”

  “We’re here on business,” Darcy interjected. “Just business.” She pointedly removed Lydia’s hand from its newfound resting place on her thigh.

  “And what kind of business would big city folk like you have in Longborn?” Elizabeth was honestly curious.

  Darcy glanced over at the cowboy. Is she chewing tobacco? “We’re looking for a place to relocate our business headquarters. Real estate prices in California are becoming prohibitive, and because most of our business is conducted online, we can actually locate anywhere. Plus, our boss has this idea to build a small resort here.”

  “But why Longborn?”

  Because our boss is a crazy bitch from this part of Texas, Darcy thought, but instead she said, “Our research department looked at several criteria – cost of living, potential workforce, quality of life.” Darcy leaned forward, suddenly alert. She might not agree with Carolyn’s decision, but she would support it aggressively if she had to. She didn’t get to be the VP of Development by being disloyal.

  “Quality of life?” Elizabeth scoffed. She arched an eyebrow, obviously dubious of Darcy’s reasoning. She leaned forward in her chair. “You mean the good schools, low traffic, and reasonable housing? All the things that will disappear as outsiders like you start moving in?”

  “Yes, the outsiders offering job opportunities and decent wages. Not to mention, the bump to the tax base and local economy,” Darcy shot back. “The kinds of things that will allow people to keep living in places like this.”

  “Hey, that’s my favorite song,” Charlotte interrupted with a nervous smile. “Let’s dance.” She jumped up and pulled Jane out of her seat before anyone could object.

  The other couples at the table followed Jane and Charlotte out to the dance floor. Darcy, left alone with Lydia and Elizabeth, was more than ready to make her escape. She reached for her drink. No sense wasting good liquor.

  Elizabeth watched Darcy practically gulp her drink. “Would you like to dance?” she asked Darcy, her tone somewhat reluctant.

  Darcy looked over at the irritating woman in the cowboy hat. “No, thank you.” I just want to finish my drink and get the hell out of here.

  “Not many women turn down a chance to dance with Elizabeth,” Lydia said. “Her dance card’s always full. As is her bed,” she mumbled just loud enough to be heard.

  “I’m not much of a dancer,” Darcy explained.

  Elizabeth accepted the rejection with good grace.

  “The costume contest is going to start soon,” Lydia announced to no one in particular. “I’m going to run to the little nurses room.” She squeezed Darcy’s shoulder possessively. “Don’t run off while I’m gone,” she said with a flirtatious smile.

  Elizabeth slid into the now empty chair next to Darcy. “You’ll have to forgive Lydia, she’s a little drunk, but she’s harmless.”

  “I’m an adult. I can take care of myself,” Darcy replied stiffly.

  “I don’t doubt that for a minute,” Elizabeth said with a deep laugh. She leaned close to Darcy and put her arm on the back of her chair. “You strike me as an extremely capable woman.”

  “You flatter me.” Darcy’s tone indicated just the opposite. Darcy took the last sip of her drink and wondered why Elizabeth felt it necessary to sit so close to her.

  “Well, I’m trying,” said Elizabeth. “But you don’t make it easy.” She smiled to take the sting out of the words.

  Darcy wasn’t about to take the bait. “If you’re such a Casanova, why are you sitting here at the table alone with a complete stranger? Why aren’t you out there dancing?”

  Elizabeth leaned in, and, for a second, Darcy thought she was going to kiss her. She wasn’t sure if the tingle she felt was from excitement or irritation. She was so out of practice it was getting hard to tell the difference. That thought, more than anything, made her lean towards Elizabeth in return.

  “You may have noticed that Longborn is a very small town,” Elizabeth said in a hushed tone. Darcy could swear Elizabeth’s lips brushed her ear as she added, “And I’ve slept with all the eligible women ‘round these parts. Now I’m reduced to seducing the occasional stranger that wanders through town.”

  Darcy suppressed a shudder and told herself it was a purely involuntary response brought on by warm breath flowing across sensitive skin. She pulled away from Elizabeth and sat up stiffly. She waved vaguely in the direction of the dance floor. “You’ve slept with all these women?”

  Elizabeth leaned away. “I said all the eligible women. I grew up with most of these girls, and they’re too much like sisters to be appropriate dating material.” She glanced toward the dance floor. “I’ve known most of them since I was born. Some of them even longer, and it’s hard to date someone you’ve seen eating paste or going through puberty.”

  Darcy conceded the point with a nod. She looked around the room. “What about the bartender? You can’t have seen her eat paste?”

  Elizabeth glanced toward the bar.

  For just an instant, Darcy thought she looked sad. Darcy decided it was a trick of the light because the troubled expression was quickly replaced by Elizabeth’s seemingly perpetual smirk. “Sasha might be the reason I’m a lesbian.”

  Darcy was intrigued, in spite of herself. “Really? How so?”

  “I saw Sasha and my cousin Carol making out in the hayloft of my grandfather’s barn. I’d gone up there to escape a childhood torment and…”

  Darcy interrupted. “Wait, what torment?” She was almost afraid to ask, but her curiosity got the better of her.

  “That was an awful summer. It was the summer my Aunt Shirley was practicing for her cosmetology license. She was giving all the girl cousins home perms. Whether they wanted them or not. It was horrible. And to make things worse, she never did get her license. She moved on to selling makeup, but by then, the damage had been done.”

  Darcy raised an eyebrow at the hyperbole. To be fair, she’d never been subjected to a home perm. She had always had access to her mother’s stylist, Andre, and he was a genius. He was also the only man to whom her mother had ever been faithful. Darcy sighed, suddenly tired, and she tried to remember the point of the conversation.

  “So, back to the bartender.”

  “Right, so there I was, hiding in the hayloft, when Sasha and my cousin Carol came in the barn. There aren’t a lot of places for privacy in a small town or a large family,” Elizabeth explained. “At first, I was going to say hello, but then things suddenly got interesting. It sort of explained a few things for me.”

  “So you watched them make out?” Darcy was more than a bit horrified.

  “It was hard not to,” Elizabeth said with no trace of shame. “But, just when things were getting good, I sneezed. I thought Sasha was going to kill me. She said she would if I told anyone. Not that I was really afraid she’d do that.” Elizabeth paused. “But I never told anyone. Carol looked so scared … and my cousin wasn’t afraid of anything, not even rattlesnakes. So I knew that this was something that could hurt them. Turns out, I was right.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t know what all happened. The adults in the family were uncharacteristically tight lipped about the incident. But a few weeks later, Sasha left town. She joined the Army, and we didn’t see or hear from her until a year or so ago when she came back and opened the bar.”

  “What happened to your cousin?”

  “She went back to dating the captain of the football team and pretending to be straight. After graduation, she moved away for college. She hasn’t been home since.” Elizabeth took a sip of her drink and continued. She poi
nted at the dance floor.

  “Lydia and Sherry are third cousins, and Jane, while no relation, is practically my sister. We all went to school together. And Bible camp and summer camp and any other kind of camp there was. It’s all very emotionally incestuous,” she said. She smiled predatorily. “Which brings me back to seducing passing strangers.”

  “Charlotte seems to be quite taken with your friend, and I’m certainly not interested, so I guess you are out of luck tonight,” Darcy said, trying not to sound too prim. To her surprise, Elizabeth laughed.

  “I figured,” she said. “I could tell when you walked in that you weren’t that kind of woman.”

  “And what kind of woman is that?” Darcy asked. Suddenly, she had no trouble distinguishing irritation from arousal.

  Elizabeth waved her hands in the signal to unwad your panties. “I just meant that you don’t strike me as the kind of woman who mixes business with pleasure. For the record, it wasn’t an insult. I admire women who can maintain that division. God knows it’s something I’ve struggled with.”

  Darcy blushed as a particularly vivid memory of a noontime tryst with her ex flashed through her mind. She had to get rid of the sofa in her office after they broke up. She couldn’t bear to look at it. To her chagrin, Elizabeth noticed the blush.

  “Well, well, well, perhaps I’ve misjudged you,” Elizabeth said. “Care to share?”

  “No, not really,” Darcy said, blushing even more.

  “You’re no fun,” Elizabeth said with an exaggerated pout.

  “So I’ve been told,” Darcy said, her tone suddenly as cold as ice. “And as fun as this has been, I think I’m going to head back to my hotel. If you’ll excuse me,” she said in a voice that brooked no argument.

  Elizabeth nodded, gracious in defeat in defeat. She moved her chair out of the way so Darcy could depart.

  Darcy wasted no time. She detoured to the dance floor to tell Charlotte she was leaving. Jane politely excused herself so the two friends could talk.