Authors: Patti Berg
That did it. She popped up from the arm of the sofa and faced him almost eye to eye. “Is that what you think of me? Do you think the words sex and showgirl are synonymous?”
“I never gave it any thought until you got all hot and bothered about me rubbing your fingers to get some warmth back into them. Should I let you get frostbite? Was I supposed to let you lie on the ground last night and freeze, or let you walk back to the ranch on a bum ankle?”
“You might have been better off if you had.”
“Yeah, and you would have been dead. Coyotes get hungry this time of year, and they’re always on the lookout for a wounded animal. Mountain lions look, too; and I’ve seen their tracks lately. You couldn’t have outrun either of them.”
“I could outrun you,” she said, realizing the stupidity of her statement, how childish their bickering had become.
“Maybe so,” Mike said, “but I’m not on the chase.”
His eyes were hot. The heat from his body was hotter. He glared down at her and she glared right back. It was an absolutely ridiculous standoff, and she’d been completely responsible for all of it.
She blew out a deep breath, skirted around him, and went to the fireplace, sticking her hands close to the fire in the immense rock hearth. She heard him walk across the room, saw through the corner of her eye that he’d leaned a shoulder against the wall and watched her just as curiously as she’d watched him.
She tilted her head away from the fire and smiled at him. A slight smile, but it was all she had left in her at the moment. The rest of her was consumed by the embarrassment she felt for having thought that he might be on the make. “Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.”
“Anything else you want to unload? I’ve been trained to listen.”
“You weren’t listening a minute ago. You were arguing.”
“I’m human.”
She’d noticed. All too human.
She shrugged out of her coat and tossed it onto the couch, getting ready to explain why she’d come unglued. “Most of the men I meet think sex and showgirl are synonymous. They think I’m an easy lay.” She looked at his face for some sign of shock, for disgust, but saw only more questions. “I’m not,” she tossed out, “just in case you’re curious.”
“I never thought you were.”
He shoved away from the wall, moving close again. Real close. “You sure you want to go out with me to find Satan?”
“I’d rather help you find the mares. As for Satan, you should leave him alone.”
He grinned. “The horse expert returns?”
“I don’t claim to be a horse expert, but I do know wild animals shouldn’t be kept in captivity.”
He shook his head. “I don’t plan to lock him in a cage and put him on display. I plan to breed him.”
“And what are you going to do with him when he’s not providing stud service? Hide him away in some dingy little stall somewhere?”
“It all depends on Satan. If he wants to be difficult, he gets a corral with walls so high he can’t jump over them. If he cooperates, he gets a big pasture to run in.”
“But he wants to run free.”
“We don’t all get what we want.”
Oooh, she wanted to stomp her foot at his pig-headedness. His true colors were shining brightly, flashing control, control, control!
“So—” He boxed her jaw lightly, and the dimple deepened in his whisker-coated cheek. “Maybe you oughta head back home and help bake Valentine’s cookies.”
She knew he was teasing. Still, she felt her fingers digging into her palms as her fists clenched. “I’d rather keep you company, thank you very much.”
“The temperature’s dropped since last night, and I’m going to be riding long and hard.”
“I’m tough.”
His gaze trailed slowly, dangerously, up and down her body. “Your butt’s gonna get sore, your thighs are gonna ache, and you’ll probably eat a lot of dust.”
“And you’re gonna have a thorn in your side, cause I’m going with you come hell or high water.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
He shook his head, then headed for the stairs, ignoring her as if she’d disappeared.
“Excuse me.”
Mike turned around halfway to the second floor. “Yeah?”
“We were having a discussion.”
“I thought it was settled. You’re going whether I want you to or not.”
Hmm, that was an easy win
. “I’ll try not to make your life too miserable.”
“Easier said than done.” He took another step up the stairs but didn’t stop looking at her. “I’ve got to clean up before we go. Make yourself at home, raid the fridge, whatever. You could pack some sandwiches if you want. There aren’t any restaurants where we’re going.”
With that said he disappeared and the room seemed empty with him gone. But at least she could breathe again, and at last the heavy thump of her heart ceased its rapid beat.
When she got keyed up at home she ran five miles, maybe ten. She couldn’t run right now, so she strolled, studying her surroundings, the furniture made of rough-hewn woods and bold western fabrics, furniture that was so like its owner.
She’d expected to see antlers and the heads of wild animals mounted on the mile-high log walls, just as they were at Jack’s and Sam’s. She halfway expected to see a cross somewhere, a few pictures depicting Jesus healing the sick, or at least a copy of Da Vinci’s
Last Supper
—the kind of home decor she’d grown up with.
But there were no crosses in sight, no outward signs of religion at all. Mike’s walls were littered with paintings of the prairies and snowcapped mountains, cowboys and mountain men, and over the fireplace, mounted right above an antique rifle, was a magnificent painting of a dappled gray stallion, its wild black mane whipping in the wind.
Moving toward it, she studied the brush strokes, the thick layers of oil paint making the mane look as if it were flying out of the picture. It was Satan, no doubt about it, right down to the cuts and scrapes on his body and his brave, overly daring eyes.
Her own eyes trailed to the lower right corner of the painting and saw the artist’s name: Jessie Flynn. Mike’s sister? Charity wondered. His mother? Or maybe a male member of his family. Charity didn’t have an artistic background, but she could tell that Jessie Flynn had talent.
She made her way to the kitchen, a cozy place with honey-gold knotty-pine cabinets and hardwood floors strewn with Indian rugs. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d been in a home that felt so comfortable and warm, in spite of being so massive and ... masculine.
Riding to Mike’s place she’d tried conjuring an image of his house. She’d assumed it would be small. An aged cabin with one main floor where the kitchen blended into the living area, and a loft with an unmade double bed. What she’d seen had taken her breath away.
The cabin rambled along a meandering creek, its edges icy with only a trickle of water rolling over the gravel and rocks. A wide deck spread around three sides of the house and a few carved wooden chairs sat beneath the eaves. Two thick-trunked and leafless aspens poked up through one corner of the deck, and it wasn’t hard to imagine a hammock spread between them on a warm summer’s day.
It was all too beautiful.
Like the man himself.
Above her she could hear Mike moving around, heard water running, and suddenly she envisioned him standing naked, the pulsing, steaming water pouring over his black hair, broad shoulders, and rippling bronze muscles. She tried to rid herself of the image, but like the best of dreams, the fantasy took on a life of its own. The shower curtain swept aside and a woman stepped into the tub, her slender fingers sliding over Mike’s back and weaving together behind his neck.
His powerful hands smoothed over the edge of her breasts, along her curvy sides, and cupped her bottom, tugging her hips against his. They danced in the steam, in the hot water, slowly, sensually.
The water in the upstairs bathroom shut off with a loud thunk that echoed through the walls, ripping her from her daydream.
For heaven’s sake
! She had to find something to occupy her mind before Mike came down the stairs and was burned by the flames leaping from her body.
Opening the refrigerator, she grabbed meat, lettuce, mustard and mayo, slapped it between slices of bread, and wrapped half a dozen sandwiches. Next she found herself washing coffee mugs and the pot, picking up wadded pieces of lined yellow paper and tossing them into the trash, then straightening the table—things she rarely did at home.
When she touched Mike’s Bible, she remembered how much she’d enjoyed Bible study classes she’d attended with a few of her high school friends. Her father encouraged it. Actually, he’d insisted she organize a study group. At first she’d balked at the notion, but she’d actually had a good time talking about different chapters and verses when no one was around to preach about the wages of sin or having a good time.
Her spin on the scriptures was a whole lot different from her dad’s. She wondered if it was different from Mike’s.
She couldn’t help but touch the worn pages of his Bible, the one that said it was okay for ministers to think about naked women. Hopefully his Bible also said it was okay for showgirls to lust over naked ministers. She drew her fingers along the curled edges and flipped through the pages, staring at the yellow highlighting on passage after passage.
And then she saw the picture. It was as worn and faded as the Bible, but there was no mistaking the beauty of the woman in the photo. There were no markings on it, no dates, no name. She wondered who she could be and even though she wanted to believe the pretty blonde was a sister or cousin, she had the feeling she was someone much closer. An old girlfriend. A lost love.
She felt a sudden, unexpected pang of jealousy and closed the book, putting the woman from her mind. It was crazy to be jealous of a man she had no intention of getting hooked on. After all, she was leaving in a few days, going back to Las Vegas, to the fife she loved.
How silly she was being.
Pulling out a chair, she sat down to read the words Mike had scribbled on his pad. It was a sermon—a Valentine’s Day message—and it surprised her to see his references to hearts and flowers. She put her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her knuckles, smiling as she read Mike’s words, all so different from her father’s.
“Interesting reading?”
Her gaze shot toward Mike, his cheeks smooth now, his hair damp and combed too neatly in place. She liked it mussed, the wayward locks hanging over his brow and a strange longing came over her to reach up and curl her finger under a thousand strands and coerce them into tumbling across his forehead. He was dressed in jeans that stacked over scuffed black boots, and his glorious chest was hidden beneath a gray flannel shirt.
He looked wonderful leaning against the door-jamb, his heated gaze bearing down on her as it always seemed to do when he was near.
“I like your sermon,” she said, flipping through the pages of his notepad.
“I didn’t think you were into religion and church.”
“It’s preaching I don’t like. You know, the constraints, the demands.”
He whipped a chair out from the table and straddled it, folding his arms on top the back. “I see. Ministers are synonymous with tyrant, dictator, and ... control freak?”
She shrugged. “Deny it if you want.”
“Would denying it do any good? You seem to have your mind made up already.”
Her stare drifted from the yellow writing pad to the veins on the back of his hands, to the jagged scar across the knuckles of his right, to the blunt cut of his fingernails. Slowly she looked straight at him. “My dad’s a minister. He thrived on control and hell-fire-and-brimstone is his middle name.”
“I’m not your dad.”
That was obvious. He wasn’t like any man she knew.
“Aren’t you going to ask if my dad and I get along? Don’t you want to know what it was like growing up in his household or how a minister’s kid could become a showgirl?”
“If you feel the need to tell me, go right ahead.”
Jeez, the man was stubborn!
“Let’s just say things weren’t easy, but I survived.”
“And you became a showgirl to rebel against him?”
“I became a showgirl because I like to sing and dance. In spite of what you might think, I’m not rebellious.”
He hit her with a maddening grin. “So why’d you take off on Satan last night?”
“To prove to you...” That was the wrong thing to say, and the grin on his face was proof that he was getting great pleasure out of her sudden discomfort.
“To prove what to me?”
“You were positive Satan would hurt me, and I wanted to show you that he wouldn’t.”
“But you’re not rebellious?”
“No.”
“Then I’m not a control freak.”
“So you say.”
“Maybe you’ll see me in a different light after we spend a long, hard day together.” He shoved out of the chair and headed to the laundry room. “Come here.”
“Dishing out orders already?”
He peered through the door and grinned. “You don’t give an inch, do you?”