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Cowboy at Midnight
Ann Major
With his prosperous ranch and independence, Steven considers himself a lucky man. He's smart enough to stay far away from love–he's learned it only brings heartache.But then he meets events planner Amy Burke-Sinclair, who has beauty and the brains to match–and is just as cautious as he is. Despite that, she seduces him into a night of passion that leaves him stunned, and ready to admit that perhaps he doesn't have all the answers. When they have to work together on a function honoring patriarch Ryan Fortune, Steven finds himself falling even harder. He soon changes his mind about the benefits of love and commitment…but will Amy change hers?
Praise for Ann Major:
“Engaging characters, stories that thrill and delight, shivering suspense and captivating romance. Want it all? Read Ann Major.”
—Nora Roberts, New York Times bestselling author
“Ann Major delights readers with memorable characters, sparkling dialogue and tension that sizzles.”
—bestselling author Mary Lynn Baxter
“Whenever I pick up a novel by Ann Major, I know I’m guaranteed a heartwarming story.”
—bestselling author Annette Broadrick
“No one provides hotter emotional fireworks than the fiery Ann Major.”
—Romantic Times
“Compelling characters, intense, fast-moving plots and snappy dialogue have made Ann Major’s name synonymous with the best in contemporary romantic fiction.”
—Rendezvous
“Ann Major’s SECRET CHILD sizzles with characters who leap off the page and into your heart… This one’s hot!”
—bestselling author Lisa Jackson
Don’t miss Signature Select’s exciting series:
The Fortunes of Texas: Reunion
Starting in June 2005, get swept up in twelve new stories from your favorite family!
COWBOY AT MIDNIGHT by Ann Major
A BABY CHANGES EVERYTHING by Marie Ferrarella
IN THE ARMS OF THE LAW by Peggy Moreland
LONE STAR RANCHER by Laurie Paige
THE GOOD DOCTOR by Karen Rose Smith
THE DEBUTANTE by Elizabeth Bevarly
KEEPING HER SAFE by Myrna Mackenzie
THE LAW OF ATTRACTION by Kristi Gold
ONCE A REBEL by Sheri WhiteFeather
MILITARY MAN by Marie Ferrarella
FORTUNE’S LEGACY by Maureen Child
THE RECKONING by Christie Ridgway
Cowboy at Midnight
Ann Major
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dear Reader,
I hope you are well.
I had so much fun writing Cowboy at Midnight.
I think the most important skill a human being can have is the ability to grow and change and be flexible. We all start off in the Garden of Eden, or rather childhood, where life seems simple and sometimes miraculously wonderful—at least, if we are born into happy homes.
Then something happens, like a tragedy, that forces us to grow up too suddenly, and we see ourselves and our world in a brand-new light, sometimes a darker light. We can get stuck, not wanting to move on or accept ourselves as adults or forgive ourselves for not living up to some childish, untenable ideal.
Amy, my story’s heroine, lost her dearest friend at an early age and blamed herself. She has punished herself for eight years.
Then she meets Steve, my hero, and falls in love. She can’t let herself have him unless she changes.
I hope you enjoy THE FORTUNES OF TEXAS: REUNION.
Happy reading,
“We must have the courage to allow a little disorder in our lives.”
—Ben Weininger
I dedicate this book to Tara Gavin, Patience Smith, Shannon Godwin, Karen Solem, Nancy Berland, and Dianne Moggy—all brilliant women! I owe you more than I can say! Thank you!
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
Bonus Features
Prologue
Double Crown Ranch
Red Rock, Texas
S omebody was going to die!
Rosita Perez knew this as she threw off her sheets and cotton quilt and sprang out of bed.
The room felt as icy as a meat locker. Even so, her long black hair with its distinctive white streak above her forehead was soaking wet, as was her pillow. Hot flashes, her gringo doctor would say.
Smart gringo doctors thought they knew everything.
Rosita shuddered.
Somebody was going to die. Somebody close at hand.
She was descended from a long line of curanderos. Since birth she’d been cursed, or blessed, with the sight. Like her ancestors, who’d been natural healers, she saw things. She felt things that other people didn’t feel.
Life wasn’t lived on a single plane. Nor was the world and its machinations entirely logical, much as her good-hearted bosses, Ryan and Lily Fortune, might like to think. She’d learned to keep her visions to herself because most people, including her beloved husband, Ruben, didn’t believe her.
She’d had a strange nightmare that was both a riddle and a warning. In her dream a red moon had broken out of fierce, black whirling clouds and had hovered directly over the Double Crown Ranch. When she’d run outside and looked up, the red ball hadn’t been the moon but a gigantic human skull floating above Lily and Ryan Fortune’s ranch house. Rosita had awakened screaming to the skull, “No! Go away!”
Feeling too afraid to risk sleep again, she pulled on her robe and tiptoed out of the bedroom and down the dark hall, taking care not to wake Ruben. Just when she thought she’d made it, she crashed into her enormous bookcase in the hallway that was crammed with books and jars of herbs. Two books tumbled to the floor with loud thumps.
She prayed silently when she heard Ruben’s snoring stop in midbreath. She barely breathed until he flopped his heavy, barrellike body onto his other side and resumed his snoring. Her house was too small, and all the rooms were cluttered, even the hall.
The bed groaned. Only when Ruben continued his roaring for a full minute did she tiptoe toward the front windows of her living room.
The ominous red glow that lit the window shades made her shake even more. Sensing evil, she felt her throat tighten every time she thought about going out on her front porch.
Which was ridiculous. She’d faced cougars and bobcats and convicts on the loose while living alone on ranches. Besides, Ruben was right down the hall.
Despite her misgivings, or maybe because of them, she opened the front door and forced herself to pad bravely out onto the porch of her small house.
The dense night smelled sweetly of juniper and buzzed with the music of millions of cicadas.
Summer smells. Summer sounds. Why did they make her tremble tonight?
“Help!”
She jumped. The plaintive cry had come from nowhere and yet from everywhere. She whirled wildly, sensing a deadly presence. She sucked in a breath and stared at the dark fringe of trees that circled her home like prison walls.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
A bloodred moon the exact shade of the skull in her nightmare hung over the ranch. Circling it was a bright scarlet ring. She stared at the moon, expecting it to turn into a skull.
She kept watching the moon until it vanished behind a black cloud. She wasn’t feeling any easier when a bunch of coyotes began to hoot. Then she heard a man’s eerie laughter from beyond the fringe of juniper long after the coyotes stopped.
“Who’s out there?” she cried.
The cicadas halted their serenade. A thousand eyes seemed to stare at her from the silent wall of dark trees.
Stark fear drained the blood from her face. She felt like a target.
With a muted cry, she raced back inside her living room with its dozens of velvet floral paintings and cozy, overstuffed furniture.
Slamming her door, she flipped on all her lights. Then she stared unseeingly at the sofa piled high with her recent purchases from a flea market—mirrored sunglasses, towel sets, children’s clothes and toys, all in need of sorting. Breathing heavily, she triple-bolted the door and sagged against it.
Maybe the moon hadn’t been a human skull floating above the house, but one thing was for sure—she’d never seen anything like that bloodred moon circled with a ring of fire before. Never in all her sixty-six years.
And that cry for help. And the laughter—that terrible, inhuman laughter coming from the trees…
Someone was out there. Someone with murder in his heart.
Rosita could trace her blood to prehistoric civilizations in Mexico. She knew in her bones that this moon was a sign.
The Fortunes were in trouble—again.
She’d worked for them for a long time. Too long, Ruben said. He wanted her to retire so she could focus on him. “We’ll move away, not too far, but we’ll have a place of our own.”
Ruben had always wanted his own land, but she loved Ryan Fortune and his precious wife, Lily, as if they were members of her own family. She couldn’t leave them. Not now! Not when she knew they needed her more than ever. In the morning she would try to warn them as she cooked them eggs and bacon and tamales and frijoles. They teased her because she cooked frijoles with every meal.
They would probably laugh at her for warning them, too. Ryan and Lily had loved each other since they were kids, but they’d had to wait a lifetime to realize their love. They wanted to be happy, and she wanted that for them, too. Why, then, did her heart feel heavy with the thought that they were doomed? Oh, dear. Maybe when the sun was high in the sky tomorrow she would be able to laugh at her fears and believe all would be well.
She made a fist. “I have to tell them anyway! First thing, when I go to the ranch house!”
When she finally stopped shaking, it was a long time before she felt safe enough to switch off a few of the lights. Even then she was still too nervous to go back to bed or to sort through her flea market purchases, so she curled up in her favorite armchair and clutched the arm-rests as if her life depended on it.
The night seemed endless. If only she could wake Ruben and tell him about the skull and the laughter.
But he would only think her stupid. He would tell her it was nothing and order her to bed. Because he was a man, he thought he knew everything.
“Ya verás. You’ll see, viejo. You’ll see when somebody dies,” she whispered, hugging herself as the shadowy forms of the tall furniture in her living room shaped themselves into snakes and cougars and alligators.
Somebody was going to die!
Soon.
As soon as they reached the Double Crown Ranch, everything would be under control again, and he could focus on his plan to get even with Ryan Fortune.
The man who was driving fought to stay calm. He was as unnerved by his passenger as he was by the automatic with the silencer he’d concealed under his own floor mat, which felt like a lump under his left heel.
He disliked guns, but he liked order. He had to have everything in its exact place. His slacks were all hung together in his closet; his shoes were in shoe racks. The gun was a tool to help restore order. That was all. That was why he’d had plastic surgery, why he’d come to Texas.
Neither moon nor stars lit the wild, desolate ranch land that was owned by the man he was determined to destroy. Except for the twin cones of light arcing every time he struck a pothole or an overlarge rock and except for the interior lights of the big car, the passenger and driver were lost in a strange, pink-tinted, black void that seemed as deep and dark and endless as outer space.
“What the hell are you doing down here in Texas?” his passenger whispered in a low, raw tone from his side of the car.
The driver was tempted to brag about his clever plan. Instead he bit his lips as he whipped down the gravel county road at an even faster speed, sending rocks flying into the dark encroaching walls of cedar and oak. One of his large, perfectly manicured, suntanned hands gripped the steering wheel; the other held a silver flask half filled with vodka. Both fists were white knuckled and shaking.
“You shouldn’t have run out in the middle of those psychological tests,” the passenger said in that cool, kindly voice that sent chills through him.
The hell I need more psychological testing!
“What do you know about it?” the driver muttered, his body rigid. “I’m fine. I’m just fine.”
“Then why’d you come here? Why’d you change your face? If I didn’t know you, I wouldn’t have recognized you.” There was anguish and what sounded like genuine concern in his passenger’s voice.
Not being recognizable was the point, of course. “Like I told you, I was in an accident.”
“Why are you stalking these people?”
The driver forced himself to take a calming breath before he replied. “You think you’re so smart! You always act so nice! What do you know about anything? About me?”
“I have to try to help you—for your own good.”
The driver’s mouth went dry. He could taste his fear.
Yes. His unwanted visitor could ruin everything…if he didn’t tidy things up fast.
When they rumbled over a cattle guard, every bump seemed to trigger an electric current that snapped up and down the driver’s legs and spine. Thoroughly shaken, he could barely control the big car as it raced almost blindly down the narrow road through buttery-thick pockets of Hill Country ground fog before it burst out of the murk into the warm, black night again.
“Slow down,” his passenger ordered. “Are you crazy? You could hit a deer or wrap us around a tree.”
The driver lifted his flask and sipped the burning liquor as his silent brain screamed shrilly. Who do you think you are—giving me orders? You? You! Ever since we were kids? And calling me crazy?
“Sure,” he replied easily as his toe tapped a little harder on the accelerator. “I’ll slow down. Sure I will. Hey, relax. We’re nearly there.”
“You don’t want me here, do you?” came that kindly, superior, all-knowing voice. “I could tell. Your eyes were colder than chips of black marble when you opened your door tonight. But I didn’t come to scare you or hurt you.”
“Scared? Who’s scared? If I seemed upset, maybe you should have called first.”
“Right. Give you time to roll out the welcome mat.” His passenger laughed.
The driver rubbed his brow where the scars from his accident should have been. Then he took another sip from the flask. Not too much. He didn’t want to alarm his passenger by acting any more nervous than he had to. Slowly he dropped his hand back to the seat. He had to focus. He had to concentrate.
“No. You didn’t want me here,” his passenger insisted, again in that hateful, kindly, yet all-knowing tone that the driver loathed.
The moon broke out of the cloud cover, and instantly the driver wished it hadn’t. The bloodred globe was huge and obscene and ringed with flame. Strange-looking, crimson-stained clouds scudded beneath it.
He’d never seen anything like it. Was it even real? Or was it just the mad, blistering fury throbbing in his temples that made it seem so ominous? Was he that charged on adrenaline?
No sooner had it appeared, than the livid moon vanished, leaving the night blacker than pitch again.
His lips felt dry, as did his throat. Every cell in his being screamed with the need to drain the whole damn flask. But he didn’t dare take even the shortest pull. He knew he was close to some fatal edge.
Later he could drink all he wanted.
Later. When it was over. When he felt brave and strong—when he was safe again. Later he would gloat about tonight, about how smart he’d been when he’d played this hand. Later he would review his clever revenge plot, too.
Later, after drinks and sex. Lots of sex with a woman who was good at it. Thinking about sex with her, thinking about what she would do to him with her hands and lips, cooled his temper just enough.
“Of course I want you here,” he lied smoothly, whipping the steering wheel to the right so fast the car skidded and spit gravel. “It’s just that I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“Slow down.” The voice in the shadowy car was razor sharp now.
“All right.” The driver slammed on the brakes, and the car spun crazily in the gravel, throwing them toward the dash, before it stopped.
“Where the hell are we?” his passenger demanded.
“The Double Crown Ranch.”
“I don’t believe you. Where’s the house?”
“Over there.” He pointed. “See the light? Just through the trees.”
The juniper and oak were a solid mass of darkness. Still, a faint glow of silver had been visible seconds before.
“What are you trying to pull this time?”
He dug under the floor mat. Grabbing the big automatic, he pointed it at the other man’s belly. “Shut up and get out of the car!”
“What?”
“Now!”
“I want to talk to Ryan Fortune.”
“All in good time.”
“I came here to help you. I told people where I was going and whom I was coming to see.”
“Sure you did.”
The driver was smiling and yanking out the keys and opening his own door all at the same time. The other man lunged, grabbing the hand that held the gun.
“Bastard!” The driver threw him off and catapulted out of the car onto the sharp, limestone rocks. Vaguely he was aware of cicadas singing in the trees, aware too of the warm, sultry, summer heat.
The other man sprang on top of him and wrapped his wide hands around the wrist that held the gun and squeezed. Still, somehow the driver managed to lift the automatic and smash it onto his assailant’s brow.
The other man collapsed, blood pouring down his face. His body sagged to the ground as limply as a heavy bag of feed.
The driver bent over him. “Always acting nice when all you’ve ever wanted was to destroy me.”
“I…I came here to help you.”
Holding the gun close to his assailant’s head, the driver smiled. “Thanks.” He pulled the trigger. Once. Twice.
And then again, just to make sure. He shot him right between the eyes the last time, eyes that were soft and pleading and almost the same color as his own.
The other man lay where he’d fallen, soundless, still. The driver rolled away from the body to avoid the awful rush of blood that flowed from the back of his head and drenched the hard, dry earth.
Slowly the killer pulled himself to his feet. Funny, how the suffocating night smelled sweet and woodsy again. Funny, how the cicadas never let up. Summer bugs. How he loved summer bugs.
Suddenly he felt light-headed, dizzy. A strange weakness in his muscles made him fall to his knees again. Shock? Revulsion?
In the next moment his stomach heaved, and he threw up all over his expensive shirt and slacks. For a long moment he was too weak to stand.
Visions of the dead man when he’d been a boy bombarded his mind. He remembered the cool, bright day they’d learned to ride bikes together. He never would have gotten the hang of it if the dead man hadn’t encouraged him.
Don’t think about the past.
His mind raced. He had to get out of here.
But the body…
He couldn’t leave the body at the Double Crown Ranch. He had to dump it somewhere.
Where? Where? His mind raced in panic-stricken circles.
He grabbed his flask out of the car and drained the last of the vodka. He threw it down. Then he picked it up and tossed it into the car.
Lake Mondo, he thought dully. Water destroyed evidence. He’d wash himself off there, too, before any body saw him.
His heart was thundering in his chest and throat as he got up, still weaving drunkenly. When he caught his breath, he grabbed the body by the legs and began tugging it over the rocks toward the trunk of his car.
When a band of coyotes began to yelp, the driver laughed out loud along with them, and once he started hooting, he couldn’t stop, even after the coyotes did.
Suddenly he was aware of a listening, knowing presence. He stopped laughing and stared at the dark trees that surrounded him.
If there’d been a light in the trees, it had damn sure gone out now. Whoever or whatever had been there couldn’t have seen much.
He threw the body in the trunk, inspected the ground with a flashlight and then drove off in a hurry, little caring that his tires spun gravel. The stench of fresh vomit was so powerful he had to roll all the windows down to keep from gagging.
There was no one to stop him now. Now he could focus on his clever plan to topple that self-serving, arrogant bastard, Ryan Fortune, who saw himself as the king of Texas.
One
Austin, Texas
W hy do people visit graves when there’s nobody here?
Amy Burke-Sinclair’s long, slim fingers involuntarily knotted around the steering wheel of her Toyota Camry.
Lush green lawns peppered with neat tombstones stretched into the hazy distance as Amy followed the familiar, narrow lane that wound through cedar and oak. At this early hour the sun that could be brutal by midday was no more than a soft orange ball peeping timidly above the horizon, sending long, purple shadows across this perfectly manicured, emerald patch of earth.
Not that its sleeping inhabitants knew or cared.
Not that Lexie cared.
Amy imagined Lexie’s gray face inside her casket and flinched. Again her hands tightened as she fought for some happier image.
She saw Lexie galloping beside her on her colt, Smoky, her red hair flying behind her as she leaned forward. She saw her slow dancing in skintight jeans with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other on the deck of her parents’ lake house that last night.
Amy swallowed a deep, ragged breath. As always, memories of Lexie alive brought even more guilt than thoughts of her in her grave.
Amy hadn’t seen any other cars or even pedestrians in the cemetery. Which was good. She couldn’t have endured another accidental meeting with Robert Vale, Lexie’s father.
Last year they’d come at the same time. He’d seen her and walked over to her car, stiffly handsome in a pressed black suit. He’d smiled, but his silver eyes hadn’t.
“I’m sorry,” she’d said, unable to look at him. “So sorry.”
“The hell you are. I’ll call and tell your mother I saw you here. Then you’ll be sorry.”
“Please…”
Robert Vale had given her a single, killing glance before he’d stridden over to his own car and started it. He’d called her mother, and her mother had called her.
“Why can’t you just do as you’re told?” she’d said. “Just stay away from that grave. How difficult is that?”
“I…I didn’t even get out of my car.”
“That’s something I suppose.”
Rebellion at her mother’s criticism had flared briefly inside Amy. Then her mother had said, “Dear, you’ve got to let this go.”
Eight years. Today all Amy felt was numbness and coldness. She was like a robot instead of grief-stricken as she should be. Never once since the accident had she shed a single tear.
She didn’t think she ever would. It was as if something in her had died that wild night eight years ago. And yet she hadn’t died. Lexie had.
She’d been the lucky one.
When Amy reached the gate to Lexie’s grave, she braked. Rolling down the windows, she gave a long, hollow sigh. Her heart ached. A minute passed before her shaky fingers managed to touch the icy keys. With an effort she forced herself to cut the engine.
Instantly the air felt dense and close. The car’s interior warmed up fast as the awful stillness of the cemetery wrapped around her.
Amy, who was an events planner, had back-to-back meetings all day. The powerful, demanding man whose account she was representing right now had an incredibly active personal life and career. Sometimes she felt as if she was his number-one gopher.
She twisted a strand of her long, blond hair around a fingertip. Being busy and keeping herself surrounded with people were her drugs of choice. Constant work and constant people kept the real demons at bay—at least, most of the time. Her number-one client called her night and day. That was a good thing.
On nights when she hadn’t pushed herself to the point of exhaustion, her demons attacked her full force. Sometimes she saw Lexie’s face in a deep pool of water with her red hair flowing all around her. Sometimes she heard Lexie’s laughter. Sometimes she dreamed she was riding endlessly over dark water, calling Lexie’s name.
As she had so many times in the past, Amy tried to pray. She squeezed her eyes shut, but her heart felt too numb. Instead of forming coherent thoughts, her mind went blank.
“God, please hear my silent cry,” she finally whispered in despair as her hopelessness consumed her.
Opening her eyes, Amy caught the funereal scent of roses. She sighed again and let go of her hair. Eight lush, velvety red blossoms wrapped in pink tissue lay on the leather seat beside her cell phone. The flowers had been expensive. She’d meant to give them to Lexie. This time she’d really meant to get out and walk up to her grave.
She still meant to, only when she leaned across the seat and lifted the bouquet, a thorn pricked her through the tissue paper. Then just as she touched the door handle, her cell phone rang. She picked it up.
She tensed when she read Carole Burke in vivid blue.
Mother.
Amy frowned and set the phone back down. When it finally stopped ringing, she touched the door handle. Again her hand froze, just as it always did, and her throat went tight and scratchy.
Folding her hands in her lap, she just sat there for several more minutes and endured the silence and the heat that intensified the sickly fragrance of the roses, until finally she tossed them onto the backseat. They would wilt and turn black before she noticed them again.
As she started the Camry, she was almost glad about the long, stressful day ahead of her, almost glad she was going out to dinner tonight with Betsy. At least she wouldn’t be home alone on this night of all nights, her thirtieth birthday.
Thirty. She was thirty.
Eight years ago Lexie had given her a wild birthday party on Lake Mondo. Amy hadn’t had another birthday party since. She never even let her parents bake her a cake.
Even so, she had to go out tonight, not to celebrate, but to avoid her mother’s calls, to avoid the empty walls of her apartment and the awful silence, as well. And the dreams. She couldn’t face her dreams.
Thirty. She was thirty.
She was alive…and yet in some ways, she felt less alive than Lexie.
Damn! Steve Fortune knew he wasn’t much of a cook. Hell, he was supposed to be the owner of this establishment, not the cook. Try telling that to Amos, who hadn’t shown up on the busiest night of the week.
Steve’s left forefinger throbbed where he’d just burned it frying hamburger patties. He needed a beer—fast—to soothe his frayed nerves.
It was ladies’ night at the Shiny Pony Bar and Grill on Sixth Street in Austin, Texas, and so, as usual, his trendy bar was jammed with beautiful women seeking cheap booze and the admiration of urban cowboys who showed up to amuse them.
Men like me, he thought cynically. Steve was thirty-six, too old for this sort of mating game. Too smart, too. After all, he was the smart triplet. At least, that’s the story he tried to sell his brothers.
The girls with their long, satiny hair and their slim hips encased in skintight jeans looked young as they stood at the sturdy wooden bar beside all the liquor and fancy glasses that were stacked sky high. Hell, these girls looked way too young and naive for what he had in mind.
Madison.
Why the hell had Madison chosen to show up this morning on Cabot’s arm when they met to sign the formal papers? She’d had that wounded look in her eyes that carved out his heart and made Steve wonder if Cabot was taking care of her.
She’s not your responsibility anymore.
Sucking on his blistered finger, Steve sank into an out-of-the-way booth where he could watch the action in the shadow-filled room charged with an overload of testosterone and estrogen. The dark lighting, high ceilings, huge beams and scuffed, wood floors made for a cozy, casual atmosphere.
He should have fired Amos for being late again. It was the third time in thirty days. But Steve had been desperate to have a night off, so he’d merely nodded when Amos had finally shown up. He’d ripped off his grease-spattered apron and tossed it at the redheaded kid with too many piercings. Then Amos had mouthed the usual apologies for oversleeping again. Hell, Steve was a softie when it came to firing people.
“Don’t make it a habit,” Steve had warned, barely holding on to his temper before he’d slammed out of the swinging doors of his kitchen.
Steve hated calls on his cell at the end of a long day at his ranch to come pinch hit at the Shiny Pony Bar and Grill. He hated being dependent on irresponsible kids like Amos. He wanted out of the restaurant/bar business. The sooner, the better! Not that the Shiny Pony didn’t coin money, but it took management. Hell, he wouldn’t have a ranch if it weren’t for this place. There was big money in a trendy bar, but if Steve wasn’t here all the time, his help got creative. Real creative. Either they didn’t show or cash, booze and food evaporated into thin air.
A vision of Madison—blond, golden with pain-filled eyes—arose before him. God, she’d looked great this morning in that white silk suit with her golden hair swept sleekly back from her thin face.
Steve signaled Jeff, his number-one bartender, for a beer. After a beer, or maybe two, he wanted a woman, preferably a brainless, buxom brunette with a bad-girl body she knew what to do with. Next he wanted to take all his phones off the hook, read his book about ancient Greek wars and get a good night’s sleep, preferably alone, so he’d be fresh for his meeting with the governor tomorrow morning. If that was ruthless, he had his reasons—reason.
Madison.
Not that Steve was in a rush to pick up a bimbo. Truth to tell, such women bored the hell out of him. After all, he was supposed to be the intellectual in his family. The smart triplet. He dreaded the preliminary flirtations and idiotic maneuvers necessary to bed such a woman.
Hey, smart triplet, idiocy and boredom equal self-preservation.
Still wearing his jeans, work boots and sweat-stained Stetson, he leaned back in the tall, dark booth while he grimly eyed the pretty women clustered around little tables and booths. When a beautiful young brunette at the bar, who was braless in a tank top, smiled at him, he frowned until he saw Jeff flying toward his table with a frosty mug of Corona.
“Here you go, boss. Three slices of lime just the way you like it.”
“Thanks.”
Steve squeezed the limes and then took a slow swig of beer. The familiar knots in his muscles meant he was exhausted from a long day at his ranch, followed by his stint of playing stand-in cook after Jeff had called him. After signing papers at his lawyer’s office, where he’d seen Madison, Steve had spent the morning arguing with construction crews about the delays in the restoration of his historical ranch house. At noon his meeting with his architect and contractor had been tense, to say the least.
In less than six months he would be hosting the big, prestigious, annual Hensley-Robinson Awards Banquet because this year the governor had chosen to honor Ryan Fortune, who just happened to be Steve’s good friend, distant cousin and mentor.
His damn house had to be ready. What could he do to make James, his laid-back, good-ol’-boy contractor, who liked to hunt and fish at least once a week and every sunny weekend, understand that?
Then there was Dixon. Dixon was turning into a helluva pest. Steve had wasted the afternoon in the hot sun watching men survey the pastures of his legendary ranch, the Loma Vista, because Dixon, his neighbor to the east, was disputing the one-hundred-year-old fence line between the properties.
Dixon had wanted to buy the ranch himself. He’d given Steve trouble about the title ever since Steve had bought the place from old Mel Foster.
Not that Steve wanted to rehash his day. Hell, he wanted to forget it. He’d intended to celebrate an anniversary of sorts and a victory and then to party with the lady of his choice.
The Shiny Pony Bar and Grill was now his, all his. As of this morning, no more meetings with Larry Cabot, his former partner and former best friend. Betraying best friend, he reminded himself. No more Madison Beck, either. He was done once and for all with her, even if she was his ex-fiancée, whom he’d loved. Hell, she’d broken his heart exactly one year ago to the day.
Would he ever forget standing at the altar, waiting for her, all eyes drilling him while “Here Comes the Bride” was played for the fifth time?
Steve forced a deep breath. Finally he could close the book on the sorry chapter of his life in which Cabot and Madison had starred.
Steve had told everybody who would listen that he resented her for jilting him for Cabot, his former college buddy, who’d been born with more money than God, as had four generations of Cabots before him.
So why did he ache every time he even thought about Madison? Because she was lovely and so vulnerable, he still worried about her. Because she needed to be told and shown constantly that she was beautiful and loved. Cabot was too arrogant to tend to anyone’s needs other than his own.
Steve had wanted to take care of her for the rest of their lives. Her parents had died when she was eight, leaving her to grow up poor and abandoned. Underneath her glamorous facade, she’d been a scared little girl in need of love. He’d been determined to make her feel safe. As it had turned out, money represented real security to her.
Cabot and he had owned a couple of restaurants with bars downtown. Steve had bought out Cabot’s interest in this place while selling him his own interest in the Lonesome Saloon, which, unfortunately, was just across the street. From time to time, he would probably run into Cabot. Only, now they wouldn’t have to speak or work together. He probably wouldn’t see much of Madison anymore.
Even as his heart ached, Steve’s mouth twisted. “Cheers,” he growled in a low voice as his callused hand tightened on the handle of his mug.
“Goodbye, Madison.” With a supreme effort he lifted his mug and willed her to stop haunting him.
One day at a time. One night at a time. That had been his mantra ever since his screwed-up wedding day. His triplet brothers, Miles and Clyde, who ribbed him about everything, still hadn’t dared to even breathe Madison’s name in his presence or mention the wedding. Jack, his older brother, whom Steve had idolized as a child, had suffered too much heartbreak himself to ever embarrass Steve about his.
Steve glanced toward the long-haired brunette at the bar in the tight red tank top. The skinny blond kid who was standing beside her kept edging his drink closer to hers. If Steve wanted her, he’d better get a move on.
To hell with her.
“No woman will ever turn me into a chump like that again,” he vowed aloud, addressing the brunette, who smiled at him and batted her lashes even as she leaned against the kid, nudging his bulging bicep with her breast.
To hell with her. The last thing Steve would ever do was pick a fight with a paying customer over a woman.
Steve glanced away—straight into the haunted eyes of a smoldering golden-haired, golden-skinned babe, who at first glance seemed an exact replica of Madison.
Run!
She stared straight into his eyes and held them and him perfectly still for an endless moment.
His pulse quickened.
No blondes, you fool.
He told himself that smart guys learned from their mistakes.
Smart or not, his blood coursed through him like a molten rush. Blondes, not to mention Madison clones, were no-no’s, and the little voices in his head began shouting all the familiar warnings.
The blonde crossed her long legs and then uncrossed them, very very slowly. Her black spandex skirt was so short, he got a glimpse of matching black lace panties.
Mesmerized, Steve let his gaze crawl up her legs. When she oozed forward on her bar stool, her glossy red smile widened. He could not stop staring at her—at her lips, at her body. He kept hoping against hope she’d shift her position on that damn stool and uncross and cross those gorgeous legs again. He wanted more of those thighs and black lace.
Her companion was a stunning black girl with big hair and skin the color of caramel. A tight red sheath hugged her slim body. Gold bangles gleamed at her throat and ears. When she caught him watching the blonde, she winked sassily and shot him a toothy grin. Then a cowboy came up to her and asked her to dance. She melted into the tall man’s arms, leaving the coast clear for Steve. When she began to undulate on the dance floor, everybody in the bar except Steve watched her.
Through narrowed dark eyes, Steve refocused on the blonde. She was slender, rather than voluptuous, classy looking in spite of her skimpy outfit.
In the right clothes, say a white silk suit like the one Madison had worn this morning, she would fit on his arm anywhere. He could even take her home to meet Mom in Manhattan and the brothers.
Squash that thought.
Her creamy, honey-colored skin—thanks to low-cut black spandex, he could see a lot of that, too—and her rippling yellow hair looked so soft he wanted to wrap her body around his and carry her out to the back alley and take her against a wall caveman style. He wanted to smother his face in her hair and then rip that little nothing of a skirt off and yank down her panties. He wanted to touch her, to kiss her, to taste her—now. He wanted her mouth on his body, kissing him everywhere. He wanted her so badly, he knew he should run.
Why her? Her narrow face wasn’t conventionally pretty. Her mouth was too large, her slender nose too long, her cheekbones too high and pronounced. She was too tall probably and too slim for him, as well. But her big sad eyes that tilted upward at the corners lured him in some unfathomable way.
The voices in his head had given up. As he shoved his Stetson back, Steve’s gaze drifted from the blonde’s mouth to her small, firm breasts, down her waist, down her hips and then lower, skimming the length of her long, tanned legs again. She wore black cowboy boots embroidered with red roses. He knew boots. Hers were custom-made.
She broke the gaze, releasing him. Then she puckered her wet, shiny mouth and slowly bent forward so that her breasts, small as they were, bulged enticingly as she blew out the birthday candle on the tiny chocolate cupcake he hadn’t noticed before in the middle of the little round table.
Hell, was that a tiny tattoo above her left breast?
It sure as hell was. He hated tattoos. So would Mom. So would his triplet brothers.
Forget Mom and Clyde and Miles.
Her black-lashed eyes lifted to his again, and her mouth curved when she realized he was still watching her.
She was something all right. And she knew it. She was good at this. She probably trolled somewhere different every night.
The cowboy to his right was giving her the eye, too. Jealousy washed Steve in a hot green wave. In that black spandex miniskirt and the low-cut black blouse with hunky coral jewelry at her throat and wrists, she was the hottest woman in the bar. If he didn’t go after her, some other guy sure as hell would.
Steve’s hand on his mug froze. Her enormous light-colored eyes were too sweet and sad for words.
She looked lost—just like Madison had this morning. Just like his brother Jack used to after Ann’s death. Suddenly Steve wanted very badly to know why she was hurting. Even though he didn’t want to be involved, he felt connected, which meant he should run. He removed his Stetson, placed it on the table and ran his hands through his short dark-brown hair. Then he took a long pull from his mug.
He wanted her. Only her. Maybe because he couldn’t have Madison. The situation scared the hell out of him. Still, he said the predictable sort of prayer all horny bastards say in bars after a beer or two when they see a pretty woman they want.
Please, make her a nymphomaniac. At least for tonight.
He hoped the Man Upstairs was listening. Tightening his grip on his beer, he shoved back from his table and arose awkwardly.
Time to make his move.
As he swaggered toward her, his boots thudding heavily on the rough wooden boards, he felt like an actor in a bad play. Ever since his fatal wedding day, crowds gave him claustrophobia. The closer he got to her, the more the other people in the bar seemed to stare.
He wasn’t even halfway across the room when the walls started pressing closer and his breathing grew labored. He was gulping for air when another cowboy on the way to the bar shoved him, jarring him back to reality.
The voices in his head began to scream. No blondes, dummy. No blondes.
“Sorry,” the cowboy said with a sheepish grin.
“Sure,” Steve grunted as his throat squeezed shut.
Jeff signaled him.
No way could he talk to the blonde now.
Beyond Jeff, he saw an exit sign. Blindly he veered toward it, stumbled over a chair leg and sent two chairs flying. When he righted them, his legs felt heavier. Every step was impossibly difficult. He felt as if he was slogging through knee-deep mud.
Hell.
“Wait! Your hat!” a velvet voice cried behind him.
He turned and saw the black girl in the red sheath waving his Stetson at him.
To hell with his hat! He’d buy another one.
Then the blonde snatched it out of her friend’s hand and slowly put it on. It was way too big for her, but she looked cuter than hell when she peeped at him from underneath the brim with her huge, lost eyes.
Her mouth curved in a sweet, sad smile that made him want to save her from whatever the hell was bothering her.
Run!
Two
A my felt flushed. Was it the Flirtita, a fruity variation of a Margarita, that she was drinking that was making her feel light-headed and bolder than usual? Or was it the wild drumbeat of the music pulsing inside her like a second heartbeat?
“Wait!” Rasa yelled.
Amy couldn’t believe Rasa. She was too much. When the tall, dark cowboy didn’t answer the impossible girl or turn around, Rasa strolled back to Amy’s table with his hat, her pretty mouth petulant.
“He’s leaving! I can’t believe your hot-to-trot cowboy is galloping for the hills! You’d better get up and take him his hat, baby.”
Amy jumped up and then forced herself to sit back down.
She wanted to run after him.
The evening was definitely out of control, and that scared Amy, who was into control—normally.
“I don’t know what got into me. Coming here…with you…tonight of all nights. And flirting with him. What am I doing here?”
Amy slapped her own cheek so hard it stung. She had to get a grip, if not on Rasa, on herself.
“It’s your birthday. You’re thirty. You’re having a Margarita.”
“A Flirtita,” Amy corrected. “Specialty of the house. And it’s strong. Too strong.”
Or maybe it just seemed strong because she hadn’t had any alcohol for eight years.
“Maybe I’ll try one.” When Rasa held up her hand to signal a waiter, Amy grabbed her wrist and lowered it.
“Oh, no, you don’t.”
“So, what’s wrong with flirting a little when a guy’s that cute?”
I could tell you what’s wrong. If you had my memories, you’d understand.
“You might as well be dead if you don’t live a little,” Rasa said, waving his hat at him again.
Dead.
The charged word echoed in Amy’s bruised heart and soul as she shakily sipped her Flirtita and tried to pretend all she felt was a haughty nonchalance. She wasn’t about to tell Rasa, whom she barely knew, about her visit to the cemetery, which was partly why she felt so crazy and out of control tonight.
When Rasa waved the cowboy hat again, Amy jumped up and grabbed it. “Would you stop?” The room whirled. She had to quit sipping this delicious drink.
The hat was still warm and damp around the headband because he’d worn it and worked in it. She caught the sharp, masculine scent of his cologne. Hardly knowing what she did, Amy flipped the battered hat over and then glanced toward him again. Without even realizing her intention, she put it on her head. When it sank to midbrow, she spun it around on her head, feeling like a kid playing dress-up.
Oh, God, what was she doing? Making a pass at a…stranger? Wearing his hat? She should have known the last place she should have come to was a cowboy bar with posters of cowgirls riding horses on the walls, not to mention Flirtitas. The posters and the sweet fruit drink mixed with vodka had made her feel crazy. All of a sudden she was remembering how it felt to be young and to ride like the wind under a blazing sun. To be happy. To trust in the beauty of life itself. To feel immortal.
Amy’s hand tightened around the stem of her cold, wet glass. She had no right to flirt with anybody ever, even if he was dark and broad-shouldered and the hunkiest guy she’d seen in years.
Flirtita or no Flirtita, hunk or no hunk, she couldn’t lose control. She was damaged and dangerous and therefore determined never to hurt anybody else, not even herself, ever again.
“Look,” she began softly, removing his hat and placing it very firmly on the table. “Rasa, I don’t come to bars. I don’t pick up strange men. Especially not cowboys. I work. That’s all I do.”
“Why not cowboys? You prejudiced or something?”
“No. It’s because—” She looked up into Rasa’s dark, imploring eyes. “Just because.”
“Okay, so you met one bad cowboy.”
“No!” You don’t understand. Again, she felt too near some dangerous edge. Defiantly Amy swirled her Flirtita glass so vigorously the liquid flashed like angry fire.
“Are you going to punish yourself forever?”
“You don’t understand.”
“Betsy has told me a little.”
“Really? Well, she doesn’t know the half of it, okay?”
“Not okay. Baby, he’s still watching you while he talks to that bartender. It’s not too late. Maybe you should go over there and—”
“No.”
“You should definitely lighten up.”
“If I do that, anything could happen.”
“So let it.”
Amy set her glass down by the beige Stetson. He’d looked so handsome in that rumpled hat. So dark and virile and absolutely adorable. Intending to push the hat away, she pulled it toward her and stroked the brim with a trembling fingertip.
“You’re way too serious,” Rasa persisted.
Why should I listen to advice from someone I’ve known all of two hours? Someone who doesn’t have a clue what kind of person I really am?
“You should try to be friendly.” Rasa’s hand squeezed hers gently. “Maybe then you’d meet some interesting people and move on.” Her voice softened. “Betsy says you bury yourself alive.”
“Maybe I don’t want to move on.”
“Or maybe you just need a helping hand.”
Amy yanked her hand free and drained the last of her Flirtita. “Betsy’s a big one to talk.”
“Hey, he just looked at you again.”
Amy didn’t smile or look his way or even look at Rasa, who was staring at her way too intently now. The words dead and bury had Amy too tense and scared to think what she should do. She had to get out of here. She had to get back to her safe, controlled life.
“Rasa, you said one drink and we’d go to dinner.”
“And I haven’t finished my drink.”
“Because you won’t drink it.”
Rasa laughed.
“If only Betsy were here,” Amy said.
“You wouldn’t be here if Betsy were here. You two would be at that boring restaurant she told me about. You’d be taking a rash of heat over the cell phone from your number-one client, and she’d be reading her book.”
“Exactly.”
“Ouch.” Rasa laughed.
Betsy Pinkley, Amy’s best friend, who had mousy brown hair and thick glasses and who was even duller than she was, if that were possible, had ditched her to stay home and read because her allergies had flared up.
Tonight when Amy had dropped by Betsy’s apartment to pick her up, a red-eyed Betsy had been sitting on her couch in her pajamas dabbing tissues at her running eyes and nose.
“It’s the cedar again. I’m too sick to go out,” she’d said miserably. “But not to worry. I didn’t call you because Rasa can go with you instead.”
“Rasa? I don’t know a Rasa.”
“My next-door neighbor’s baby sister.” Betsy had blown her nose messily and then plucked handfuls of tissues from the box beside. “Rasa’s from out of town. Her brother Trell had a date, and she’s dying to see the action on Sixth Street. So I thought since you want to go out and she wants to go out…bingo!”
“I don’t want to go out with just anybody! And not to Sixth Street! I want to have dinner with you. Just you.” Amy’s cell phone rang. When she saw it was her mother, she didn’t answer it.
“Don’t you care that I’m sick at all? I made these special arrangements for you even when my head was killing me.”
“Of course I care. But can’t you pop an allergy pill?”
“Wait until you meet Rasa,” Betsy said.
“I’m leaving.” But just as Amy switched off her cell phone and headed for the door, the bell rang and Rasa burst inside, only to stop and stare at Amy. Rasa wore a revealing, low, tight red sheath and lots of gold bangles while Amy was swathed from head to toe in gray silk.
“Rasa, this is Amy. Amy—”
“Glad to meet you, baby, but, hey… I thought we were gonna have some fun tonight. What’s with the gray shroud?” She turned to Betsy. “How come you didn’t tell me your friend was a nun?”
“What?” Amy said. “Now I’m being stood up and insulted!”
Rasa rolled her almond-shaped eyes. “Hey, sorry. Sometimes I come on a little strong.”
“A little?”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. You’re great looking. The question is—why are you hiding that fact?” Rasa lifted her brows and then walked around Amy, studying her figure closely. “Lucky for you, we’re about the same size. I bought a couple of hot new outfits this afternoon that will do wonders for you.”
“I…I don’t do hot.” Amy felt the blood drain from her face as guilt squeezed her chest in a vise. It had been a long time since she’d worn dramatic clothes to draw attention to herself. Lately, though, she’d been sick of her dull wardrobe. “Truly, all I want is a quiet dinner.”
Instead of listening, Rasa raced outside. Amy heard a car door slam. Then Rasa burst inside again. She was as quick in her movements and thought processes as Lexie had been.
Amy couldn’t help being reminded of Lexie’s laughing face as she’d jumped into the boat that last, fatal night.
Rasa ripped open a paper bag and held up two spandex skirts and blouses the size of postage stamps. “Aren’t they just darling?”
Lexie would have loved them. The old Amy would have loved them.
“Black spandex?” Amy said.
“This new look will do wonders for you.”
“I am not wearing that.”
“Thanks, darlin’, for guarding my hat in this den of iniquity.”
The deep, male drawl cut into Amy’s thoughts, and she jumped, sloshing her Flirtita all over her right hand and his hat.
His quick grin was wolflike. She felt her face flame with unwanted pleasure even before his large hand lifted the damp Stetson from her table and placed it on his head. “Fits me better than it does you,” he drawled softly as he picked up a napkin and handed it to her. “Looks better on you, though, darlin’.”
Hot and cold chills raced through her body as she dabbed at her hand.
He leaned over her shoulder. “Would you like to dance?” he whispered into her ear. His warm breath stirring the golden tendrils against her earlobe sent wild, tingly sensations down her spine as glass and cutlery tinkled somewhere nearby. The heat of her body stirred her, too.
“N-no!”
“All right, then. Just thought I’d ask.” He grinned his big-bad-wolf grin. “See ya ’round.”
He turned, and she found herself gaping with dismay at the breadth of his magnificent, broad shoulders. He was gorgeous. He would ask somebody else. She knew that.
An inexplicable pain knifed her heart. She wouldn’t see him ever again. She’d go back to her safe, controlled, workaholic life.
Amy swallowed the lump in her throat. She had to let him go.
“Would you like to sit down?” Rasa quickly invited, causing Amy’s heart to leap. “My friend here was just saying she could use another Flirtita.”
“I was not!”
“Maybe if she has one, she’ll lighten up and dance with me,” he said.
Amy couldn’t quite suppress her smile.
“She had a tough day,” Rasa said. “Real tough. Her boss is rich and famous and demanding. Not to mention she just turned thirty. She could use some sympathy.”
The cowboy was staring at Amy again. “Thirty? You don’t look twenty.”
“I feel thirty.”
“Bye, you two,” Rasa said, pulling out a chair for him as she winked at Amy. “Have fun! I think I’ll go ask somebody cute to dance while you two get to know each other.”
Burning color washed Amy’s cheeks. “Rasa!”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I understand. I’ll go if you want me to.”
His eyes lingered on her face. They reminded her of warm, rich, dark chocolate, at least in color. At the same time, they were hard and shrewd, wary, too.
He seemed vulnerable and almost shy. Was he from the country, in town for a night of fun? If so, what would be the harm of sharing a drink if it went no further than a little flirting?
“No.” Was that squeaky, very unsexy sound her voice? “Don’t go,” she pleaded.
He turned. “You sure?”
No, I’m not sure. I’m the farthest thing from sure. But she said nothing more, and he sat down and signaled a waiter, who came flying to their table to wait on him. Quickly he ordered another round of drinks. Then he turned his full attention back to her.
Close up he was remarkably good-looking, too good-looking, really. Gorgeous even, if one could call such a big, dark, rough-looking man, gorgeous. His body was tall and lean and hard, and he had those wonderfully wide shoulders. His face, with its masculine, angular planes and chiseled cheekbones, was strong. He had thick, dark brows, a long, straight nose, and a full, sensual mouth. He wore a snowy white western shirt with pearl snap buttons.
“Where do you live?” she said, swallowing to wet the dryness in her throat.
“I have a ranch southwest of here.”
“I wondered if you were a real cowboy.”
“So, the country in me shows.”
“Only a little.” She laughed, and so did he. She’d once had a thing for cowboys.
“I’ve been ranching for ten years—among other things. Too many other things. I’d like to start concentrating on the ranching, but I needed to raise capital from my other ventures to buy land and stock.”
When she finished her Flirtita, he held up his hand, and the bartender brought her another.
“I really shouldn’t.”
“It’s a hot night,” he said. “You feel like dancing with me yet?”
When she gazed at him, his dark face blurred, which meant she’d better dance to burn off that last Flirtita. “Why not?”
He took her hand and led her onto the dance floor. Slowly he folded her into his arms. Then he simply held her against his body for a long time, hesitating, before starting to dance. Still, all too soon they were swaying together to a slow western tune.
She didn’t consider herself a good dancer, and she hadn’t danced in years. He was sure and masterful even though he danced away from the other couples, who glided past them in a circle. As he held her against his powerful chest and they moved together, she forgot her fear of him and her guilt, at least for the moment. Dancing in his arms was like a drug. Soon her spirits rocketed sky-high.
Although they didn’t speak in words, their bodies spoke, and she began to feel more and more at ease with him. Or maybe it was the two Flirtitas. Soon it was as if she’d known him always. Gradually she relaxed, and their bodies became more intimately entwined.
When that song ended, he held her, his heat seeping into her, until the next one, which was a polka, started. Thank God. This time they skipped along expertly with the other dancers until her heart was beating in her throat and her breath began coming faster and faster. He never removed his gaze from her face, nor could she quit looking at him.
They danced to song after song, to waltzes, polkas and two-steps, and each number was more fun than the one before. She felt almost lighthearted. She floated in his arms. When at last the music slowed again, he held her more tightly than before, so tightly that their bodies melted into each other and she felt the hard imprint of his muscular frame molding her softer flesh. He was hot, and his white shirt felt damp. She caught the scent of his spicy aftershave spiked by his own clean scent, which was both musky and pleasantly distinctive.
His holding her with their faces mere inches apart slowly became too erotic to bear.
“You’re a good dancer. You must practice. Do you come here often?” she asked, hoping he’d say no.
But he didn’t. He crushed her tighter. “I came here to meet somebody just for tonight. But this is different. Don’t you know that?” He stroked her throat with a callused thumb, causing a thousand little nerves to tingle delicately.
She gasped.
“You’re different,” he said. “I think you know that I could care about you…too much.”
Hearing the change in his rough voice, Amy glanced up at him. His intense, dark eyes were grave.
“Then you do…come here…often?”
His face was suddenly so serious, her heart ached.
“And do you dance with a different woman every night?”
“If you want to know do I sleep with a lot of different women, just ask me.”
“Well, do you?”
“I said you were different.” His voice had darkened. “I said I could care. I shouldn’t have said that, but I meant it.”
“You told me to ask, but you didn’t answer. Do you sleep around or not? Am I just tonight’s flavor?”
His mouth thinned. He spun her in an intricate turn and then snapped her back into his arms. “If I have in the past, I had my reasons,” he growled.
“A man either has character when it comes to women or he doesn’t,” she said.
“So, things are black-and-white with you, no shades of gray? Good or bad? Evil or virtuous?”
His words sliced her like a knife through soft tissue. She notched her chin up so high, she felt her neck muscles tighten.
“Which are you, then?” he asked. “A saint or a sinner?”
His question stung her like a whip. “You’re evading my question,” she persisted, her tone sharp.” Why is that, I wonder?”
“Maybe because I want you to think well of me.” He dragged her closer and bent his dark head down to hers. “What the hell are you running from?”
“You at the moment.”
“I don’t think so.”
When his mouth was less than an inch from hers, she touched his lips with a fingertip.
He sucked the tip into his mouth and suckled it, sending hot, thrilling shivers through her. “You don’t have to run from me. I won’t hurt you.” His voice was husky and his eyes unfocused as he pulled her against him. “I—”
“Wait. Not so fast,” she whispered huskily. “I want to know more about you first.”
“Okay. So, maybe I’ve had a few women. They were casual affairs.”
“One-night stands?”
“Uncomplicated fun.”
“I learned there’s no such thing.” The weight of her guilt crushed her heart. Why had she said that? Told him anything?
“Really? Then why are you here?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
When he lifted her hair back from her hot face, she tried to stop him. She was a little sensitive about her ears, thinking they stuck out too much. Then his mouth brushed her earlobe, and she felt another unwanted rush of heat fire the length of her spine.
“Are you so different from me? Isn’t this what you came here for?” He kissed her other earlobe.
“This?” she whispered.
“Sex?” he said.
“I for one don’t sleep around,” she said primly, pulling her hair back over her ears. “I don’t go to bars to pick up—”
“You’re here. What did you come here for, if not for this?” His lips nibbled her cheek. “You were giving me a look.”
The warmth he aroused was so delicious, she gasped. “Don’t. I feel faint.”
“Has it been that long?”
“Yes.”
“Or is it just me?”
“Maybe a little of both,” she admitted shyly.
He laughed.
“Don’t get conceited.”
He kissed her throat above the chunky coral necklace, and she shivered when more heated sensations flared in her stomach. Then she hugged herself with her arms.
“You smell good,” he said. “Like flowers.”
“Violets,” she replied. “Soap and perfume. It was a Christmas gift.”
“From a man?”
“From my mother.”
He kissed her again, harder than before, and she felt herself responding. Why shouldn’t she let him kiss her? Was it so wrong? He’d asked her if she was a saint or a sinner. She was definitely the latter. What would he say if she told him that because of her, her best friend had died and that now she lay in a cold, dark grave Amy couldn’t bear to look at?
His mouth made her feel like she was burning up. It wasn’t as if she was a virgin, either—although she was, if not technically, a kind of virgin. What was the modern term for it? A born-again virgin. It had been years since that wild time in her life that had ended in disaster. Years. And yet, in a way, that awful time felt like yesterday.
Because she didn’t want to think about the cemetery or the past, because she wanted to use him to blot it all out, she arched her left eyebrow flirtatiously. “So, what’s your name, cowboy?”
“Steve.” With blunt, expert fingers, he cupped her triangular chin. His warm breath fanned tendrils of her hair against her ear.
She relaxed a little as the western music, which was a mournful lament about lost love and death, ebbed and flowed around them.
“Steve,” she murmured huskily. “Steve. I’ve never known a Steve.”
“What’s yours?”
“Sally, er, Jones.”
“Sally?” He bent to kiss her again, and this time she parted her lips. For a long moment his mouth clung to hers. When he fused his body to hers, her heart clamored for even more.
“Take it home, you two. If it’s that good, save it for the bedroom,” a cowboy quipped as he and his partner glided past them on the dance floor.
“You want to?” Steve asked her. “I’ve got a hotel room.”
“Uncomplicated sex?”
“Maybe, but I wouldn’t have called it that.”
There’s no such thing as uncomplicated sex when two people feel as passionately about each other as we do. Somebody always has an agenda.
“Kiss me first,” she murmured, “and I’ll decide.”
“So this is a test?”
“Of sorts. Scared you won’t pass?” She stared teasingly into his dark eyes. “You are scared, aren’t you? In spite of all your practice with other women?”
“There haven’t been all that many, really,” he muttered, looking slightly offended.
He was a lot more arrogant when he was scared, she thought as he nuzzled the side of her throat with his mouth.
“A test, huh? All or nothing? I like that. So you’re a risk taker.”
“Not a good trait really.” She smiled nervously. “And you could decide you don’t want me.”
“Not a chance, darlin’.” His grip tightened on her. “Not a chance in hell.”
Thrilled beyond measure at the passion in his determined voice, she felt her heart skip lightly and then pound violently even before his mouth, which was gentle and sweet, claimed hers again. His warm lips slanted across hers, lingering softly until she moaned for more, until she clutched his neck, growing feverish with impatience for him to deepen the kiss.
But he didn’t.
“Yes or no?” he whispered on a muted groan, pulling away, nibbling her upper lip before releasing it. “Pass or fail?”
The withdrawal of his mouth touched off a well-spring of hunger in her. Not that she was about to let on.
“You call that a kiss?” she teased, puckering her lips in wanton invitation.
He laughed. “I call it a start of something we can finish later. I like how disappointed you look and sound ’cause I stopped so fast, darlin’. You want more and we both know it.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
He let her go. “Well?” His low voice was gruffer. “Yes or no? Pass or fail?”
She pressed her lips tightly against her teeth. “If I say no, will you just start flirting with some other woman?”
He took her hand and brought it to his lips, turning her palm so that he could press his mouth against her flesh. When he did, his kiss sent flames through her.
“Yes or no?” he growled.
Three
“P ass or fail, huh?” she whispered, toying with him as guitars whined and other couples glided past them. “What if I’m still not sure?”
His face was flushed as he clasped her slender waist tighter. His gaze was as intent as a hungry tiger’s. “Make up your mind, darlin’. Or do you have another test in mind? You want me to pull some other stunt like stripping or something?”
“No!”
His hands moved to a pearl snap on his white shirt. Swaying to the music, he undid it slowly, and she found herself staring at a virile strip of skin. He looked as wild as a pagan warrior. “Want to see more, darlin’?” He lowered his large hands to the next pearl stud.
“Stop.” She covered his hands with her own, inadvertently touching his warm chest. Her fingertips heated instantly, desire flashing through her like quicksilver. Gasping, she would have jumped away if he hadn’t grabbed her and held her close.
“Don’t break both our hearts by saying no,” he murmured.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Your heart wouldn’t break.”
“Darlin’, you misjudge me.”
The bar was filling up fast. Voices and laughter buzzed around them. A dozen couples joined them on the dance floor. She thought of her empty apartment, of going home alone, of her memories attacking her, when she could have this gorgeous man all to herself.
It had been eight years since the accident. Eight long years since she’d slept with anyone. Not that she’d ever even considered bedding any man this fast. She barely knew Steve, and yet she wanted him so badly she hurt.
This couldn’t just be sex, but if it wasn’t, somebody would get hurt. Probably him, because she was damaged.
Lexie was dead, and it was her fault.
If I could cause something that terrible, I don’t deserve him or even a shred of happiness ever again. Guilt crept over her. How could she forget, even for one night, what her careless, wild behavior had cost?
“What are you so afraid of?” he muttered, ripping at the studs so that his shirt came apart and he stood before her with his hard tanned torso partially exposed. “Touch me. Put your hands on me. I need to feel them on my naked skin.”
When still she hesitated, he grabbed her hands and placed them on his chest, on the coarse black hair. Then he began moving them across his hard body until she broke free and clasped him to her around the waist.
He felt as hot as fire, as unyielding as granite.
“I…I don’t think we should,” she whispered softly, barely able to breathe.
“You think too much.”
His voice was anguished rather than angry. She felt his pain. Touching him made her want more, too. Hardly knowing what she was doing, she stood on her tiptoes and moved her arms upward until they circled his neck. With lightning quickness she pulled his face down to hers eagerly and kissed him on the mouth lingeringly. In the next instant he hauled her higher against him, crushing her breasts into his naked chest and her hips against his fully aroused male hardness. If her heart beat wildly against his chest, she felt his pulse thudding even faster than hers.
Somewhere in the depths of her mind, she was aware of his muscles straining on her arms and waist. Then she realized he was half dragging, half carrying her on her tiptoes across the dance floor to the darkest corner in the bar. Once there he pushed her against a wall as if she were no more than a doll and pressed his body into hers.
Again she knew the sweet, dark heat of his mouth as he pleasured her with more kisses, each one more passionate than the last. He was soon rasping deeply between every breath like a hard-run athlete. Nobody had ever kissed her half as greedily. Powerless, she kissed him back, caught in the storm of her own needs. She felt unleashed after years and years of restraint.
Was it him? Was he special? All she knew was that she wanted him. She wanted him so much she couldn’t bear the thought of not having him.
One night. Only one night. A birthday present to myself. Then never again.
With a little moan she parted her lips, and his tongue slid inside. Soon his swollen manhood was a growing pressure against her abdomen. He was huge and tall, and when he held her ever more tightly, she felt her body quiver.
“I want you. I want you more than I ever believed it was possible to want a man.”
And you don’t even know my real name.
His hands moved over her breasts, and she let him touch her wherever he wanted, her breasts, her buttocks, until she lost all sense of place and time.
“I want you,” she repeated.
“You’re so beautiful, darlin’. So damned beautiful.” He rocked his hips into hers. Arching into him, she felt dizzy and on fire, drunk with the need for more of him.
Suddenly, as abruptly as he’d enticed her, he withdrew, pushing her away, spinning on the tall heels of his black boots and stomping five feet away from her. Quickly he buttoned his shirt and stuffed his shirttail into his jeans. He combed back his hair with quick, rough fingers.
“What are you doing?” she whispered, aching for more kisses as she watched his shaking hand sweep rapidly through his dark hair.
“Pass or fail?” he muttered savagely.
“What?”
“We can’t do this here in front of—”
“You’re right, of course,” she agreed, shamed to the core.
“I own this place,” he said.
“You do?”
“All those guys in the white aprons drilling holes in our backs work for me.”
“What?”
“I’m done putting on a show for my employees. Besides, if I kiss you, or even so much as touch you again, I don’t know what I might be capable of.” His dark eyes flashed.
“Then we’d better go,” she said, giggling with delight and excitement.
“Pass or fail?” he muttered brusquely.
“How can you ask a dumb question like that when my heart’s racing?”
“That’s a yes, I take it.”
She laughed. “If you don’t know that by now, you’re not too smart, cowboy. I can barely breathe much less stand.”
She slid up beside him, stood on her tiptoes and grabbed his hat, which she put on her own head. Holding the brim, she raced for the exit sign, laughing at him still.
Rasa yelled, “Way to go, Amy.” But all Amy focused on was Steve’s heavy strides quickening behind her.
She was making a spectacle of herself and of him, and she didn’t care. For the first time in years she felt almost her old, young, carefree self—wild and alive and real, free and young and happy.
She didn’t deserve real happiness. She knew that. Just as she knew it wouldn’t last.
In the morning, this would all be a dream…like it never happened, she promised herself, the demons and Lexie.
She was damaged. The only way to protect her birthday lover would be to leave him.
Outside, hidden in the dark shadows caused by the lush plantings and the wide overhang of the roofline of the Shiny Pony, which was an old Victorian building doing time as a trendy bar, she watched three drunk men shouting at each other in the early-summer heat. She waited until Steve dashed outside and caught up with her.
Sixth Street was iffy at this hour. A woman alone might be okay wandering the streets back to her car. But then again, she might run into an unwanted admirer or several unwanted admirers. Years ago when she and Lexie had sneaked out together to roam the street, they’d been separated. Amy had found herself in a dark alley and had nearly been raped by two young drunks. But Lexie had found them and pounded Amy’s attackers in the head with her bag. When that hadn’t worked, she’d sprayed them with pepper spray, causing them to run.
The memory made Amy wary. A woman had to be careful. She took off his Stetson and handed it to him. Watching her thoughtfully, he took it and placed it on his head.
“Why the frown?” He touched her elbow, and she jumped back.
“What if I’m not ready to go to your hotel room yet? What if I want to talk?”
He sucked in a breath. “Okay. Where?”
With his brilliantly lit eyes on her, she felt self-conscious all over again. “Over there maybe. The Lonesome Saloon.”
Now it was his turn to look wary. His handsome face darkened. “I have a better idea,” he said rather edgily. “I’ll walk you to your car, and I’ll follow you in my truck to the Hyatt. We can have a drink at their bar or walk on the jogging path by Town Lake. Your choice.”
“Are you okay?”
Instead of answering her, he took a long breath, shot her a reassuring smile that didn’t fool her and said, “Where the hell’s your car?”
It was obvious he didn’t want to waste any more time getting to know her. Obvious that all he was after was sex.
Good.
Please, don’t let anybody I know see me with him!
Amy met clients at the Hyatt all the time, so her gaze scanned the people they saw as soon as she emerged from the revolving doors of the Hyatt on Steve’s arm. Every woman they passed stared at Steve and then shot shy, envious smiles at Amy.
He was that good-looking. Not that he seemed to notice their admiring glances. At first Amy felt nervous, but gradually because of the other women, she began to cling a little harder to his arm. After all, at least for tonight, he was hers.
Amy had done quite a few events here. Like a lot of the Austin locals, she particularly loved this hotel. Its bar on the first floor had a Wild West decor, and it dominated the flashy lobby with views of Town Lake. Longhorns and cowboy boots adorned the walls as well as a gun rack filled with real BB guns.
Besides using the hotel as a venue, she sometimes met clients or caterers here after work. The comfortable couches and chairs were oversize and covered in brown-and-white cowhide. They were spaced widely enough apart so that other people couldn’t eavesdrop on her meetings.
Tonight the walls of glass provided a dazzling view of downtown’s glamorous skyline. Steve chose an outside table on the huge patio overlooking the water and “Bat Bridge” and the hike-and-bike trail.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
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