* * *
REX LIVED in one of the few really upscale apartment buildings in the city of Casper, and had furnished his multilevel unit with the kinds of things he saw at the homes of his successful colleagues. The rooms were filled with black leather couches, side tables made of glass and chrome, twisted metal lamps and huge abstract paintings without frames.
Few people ever visited his home, but when Lindsay had seen it a couple of years ago, just after he moved in, she’d grimaced with characteristic frankness.
“You don’t like it?” he’d asked.
“I know it’s all very glamorous and expensive,” she told him, glancing around the living room. “But it looks like...I don’t know, Rex. A movie set or something. Certainly not the kind of cosy place where somebody could curl up on a rainy weekend and read all afternoon.”
“On the rare occasion when I’m home for the weekend, I spend cosy afternoons working in the den,” he told her stiffly, a little stung by her criticism.
Tonight he remembered her words, and examined his costly furnishings with a touch of discontent.
Lindsay was right, there was little comfort in this place for a man who was feeling lonely and out of sorts. Still, it annoyed him that she could always judge him so unerringly, and wasn’t at all reluctant to express her opinions.
But then, Lindsay had always been like that.
He settled on the leather couch and extended his legs, hands behind his head, thinking about their shared childhood.
For the first few years after his arrival at the ranch, Lindsay Duncan had been just like one of the boys. In fact, she could swim faster, shoot straighter and climb trees better than most of them, and even Rex had sometimes been hard-pressed to keep up with her.
But when she was about sixteen, things had begun to change between them. He’d been a year older, and suddenly both of them were conscious of their developing bodies and the powerful new urges they were feeling.
He remembered the first time he’d ever kissed her, under the big willow tree along the banks of the creek. She’d been away at boarding school and had just come home for summer holidays. It had been a shy embrace, awkward and tentative, and their noses had bumped together, making her laugh.
In the intervening years, Rex had held many women, a lot of them lovely, sexy and glamorous. But none of those conquests had ever thrilled him as much as that first kiss so many years ago.
He wondered if Lindsay remembered it, too.
For a long time she’d been treating him with offhand politeness, discussing the business of the ranch when necessary and avoiding any kind of personal conversation. Busy with his own career, Rex had accepted her coolness without comment.
Besides, he’d been working for a long time on divorce and family litigation cases, and after all the things that went on within the privacy of his office, he was in no hurry to tie himself up in any kind of domestic situation. People within a marriage often treated each other with such breathtaking cruelty, it was hard to understand why anybody would risk getting themselves involved in a long-term relationship, let alone a family.
Not that he knew anything much about families, of course.
Frowning, Rex lifted a small leather cushion and turned it idly in his hands, thinking about his own years of abandonment and misery before he was sent to Lost Springs Ranch.
In many ways, young Clint Kraft reminded Rex of himself at that age, an angry and alienated boy without roots of any kind, only scars.
No wonder he’d never been anxious to get himself involved in a permanent relationship. As soon as things got serious with any woman, Rex found a way to extricate himself.
Nowadays he could hardly summon interest in the ritualized dance, the whole process of asking somebody out, searching for things to talk about, moving from lunches to drinks to dinner, all the while judging the right moment to make a sexual advance. Somehow it just didn’t seem worth the trouble. Especially not when his mind seemed to be filled all the time with thoughts of Lindsay Duncan.
Hell, he was practically obsessed with the woman.
Rex leaned back moodily on the couch, still gripping the cushion, wondering how this had happened.
That ridiculous bachelor auction last year had set it off, he realized. It had made him look at her in a different light.
For years they’d been nothing but old friends who had little in common except their mutual concern for the ranch. But after the auction he’d started thinking about the reality of being bought and paid for by Lindsay, of going away for a weekend with her and devoting himself to her pleasure.
Now, even though she’d ridiculed the idea, he could hardly think of anything else.
Images filled his mind, pictures of the two of them walking along a silvered beach in the moonlight, pausing to kiss and caress, then moving on again, arms entwined as the tide crashed around their feet. Or Lindsay lying on a huge bed in some romantic hotel room, smiling with drowsy pleasure as he popped the cork on a champagne bottle.
Rex shifted awkwardly on the couch, hot and rigid with sexual need. Finally he lay full-length, staring at the black metal ceiling fan, then closed his eyes and allowed his fantasy image to grow.
She was wearing a negligee of some filmy white material. It fell open to show her small breasts, her slim boyish body and slender legs. Because they were in love, she trusted him completely and wasn’t shy about revealing her nakedness to him.
Rex carried the two brimming champagne glasses to the bed and set them on the nightstand, then lay next to her. He was naked as well, and her eyes caressed his body, letting him know how much she wanted him.
“Champagne?” he whispered, drawing her into his arms and sliding the silky fabric off her shoulders.
“Maybe later,” she murmured. “Right now there’s something else I’m thirsty for.”
Her mouth roamed over his face and chest, moved lower on his body...
Rex groaned and sat up, then heaved himself to his feet and walked restlessly through the apartment. He switched on a few lights, glanced at the television listings and tossed them aside, brooded for a while over his collection of jazz and blues, but closed the CD cabinet without selecting anything.
He went into the stark white kitchen and got some orange juice, then settled at the counter to drink it, staring moodily at the walls.
He had no idea what Lindsay would be like in bed. Their childhood romance had never progressed beyond a few kisses. In those days he’d been too scared and awkward even to touch her firm young breasts, though he’d spent a whole lot of hours thinking about them.
But he suspected, in spite of her quiet composure, that Lindsay would be a warm, responsive lover. Something smouldered deep in her eyes, a kind of hidden fire that made him shiver whenever he thought of it. And there was her glowing, luminous smile, the sweet tug at the corners of her mouth that hinted at an impish, playful, inventive nature.
Rex thought about her talking with little Danny about human sexuality, and her comment that lovemaking was a lot of fun.
If she’d just loosen up and let herself go, they could have so much pleasure together.
He drained the glass of juice and set it in the dishwasher, then crossed the kitchen and paused by the phone.
Suddenly he was overwhelmed by the desire to call her at home.
No matter that she gave him no encouragement at all, and treated him as if he’d somehow turned out to be a disappointment to her. Forget, too, that Sam had warned him to stop bothering her, or that the two of them had nothing much in common anymore.
At this moment, he needed to talk to her so much that he’d die if he couldn’t hear her voice.
His hands almost shook as he dialed the number from memory, then waited as the phone rang, thinking about the rest of their awkward exchange in her office that afternoon, an
d her demand that he stop teasing her.
But I’m not teasing, sweetheart, Rex thought grimly, waiting for her to answer. I’ve never been more serious in my life.
“Hello?” she said.
Rex’s mouth went dry and he gripped the phone, his heart pounding as if he were sixteen again. Desperately he tried to think of an excuse for calling, something that wouldn’t annoy her.
He pictured her at home, wearing whatever she put on to relax around the house in the evening.
Probably some kind of baggy shorts and T-shirt. She’d be sipping hot tea and listening to classical music, maybe reading, or working on one of the needlepoint designs she liked to do....
“Hello?” she said again. “Hello?”
Rex wanted her so much it was pure agony. He struggled to find his voice, but desire washed over him in a drowning wave. He needed to hold her and run his hands all over her body, reach under that shirt and cup her breasts, nuzzle the warm, silky place on her neck just below her ear....
“Is anybody there? Who is this?” she asked. He could hear the sharp note of fear in her voice, and it made him feel awkward and ashamed.
After waiting so long, there was no way he could speak now, he’d look like a complete fool. But he couldn’t bring himself to hang up, either, and sever the tenuous connection between them.
Not while he hungered for her so fiercely.
“Look, whoever you are, stop calling me,” she said, her voice shaking. “Leave me alone or I’ll call the police!”
She hung up and he stood with the receiver in his hand, frowning.
At last he replaced the phone and wandered back into the living room. Rex settled on the couch, wondering what was happening to him.
How had he become so sexually obsessed that he’d begun making crank phone calls, terrifying this poor woman who was one of his oldest friends? Next thing he’d be driving out there in the darkness of the summer night, going right to her door and making an even bigger fool of himself.
He rolled over and buried his face in the pillow, lying painfully still and waiting for the storm of desire to subside. But he couldn’t get her image out of his mind, or the fear in her voice when she’d terminated that phone call.
Was somebody else harassing Lindsay? If so, who was it?
Maybe that explained her cautious reluctance to get involved with anybody.
Or maybe, he told himself bleakly, it was just Rex Trowbridge she wanted to avoid.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“SO, HOW MANY cases of beans?” Rex asked.
It was Saturday morning, two days before their camping trip, and he pored over a notebook as he lounged on the couch in Lindsay’s office.
Behind the desk, Lindsay nibbled thoughtfully on the end of her pen.
“Well, let’s see. We have eight people altogether, and lots of these boys can eat two cans in the blink of an eye, so let’s say we need a dozen cans a day. That’s about... eight dozen tins.”
“Whew. That’s a whole lot of beans,” Rex said.
Lindsay grinned at his look of alarm. “We’ll be outdoors,” she assured him, “with all kinds of wide-open spaces. It’ll be fine.”
“That’s a good point, but not exactly what I meant.” Rex chuckled, then sobered. “I was thinking more about the weight of the tins. Don’t you think we should be using something else? Maybe packs of freeze-dried food instead of all this tinned stuff?”
She considered and shook her head. “We’ll take some freeze-dried food, but we have six pack animals, almost one for every rider. I don’t think the weight of our supplies is going to be a major consideration. And tinned beans are such a nourishing high-protein food. Besides, the boys love them, even the picky eaters like Tim and Danny.”
“Okay. We’ll put beans on the grocery list and figure out the rest of the food later, before I go back into town and pick up supplies.”
“When are you planning to do that?” Lindsay asked, studying the ranch’s list of available sleeping bags and groundsheets.
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
“But, Rex...that’s Sunday.” She glanced up at him. “Do you think it’s safe to leave our shopping right until the last day? What if the local store doesn’t have everything we need in stock?”
“I was thinking I’d take your list and buy all the supplies in Casper.”
“But we’ll need them here on Sunday so the boys can help load the packs. I want them involved in every aspect of this.”
“Okay,” Rex said. “I’ll get the supplies first thing in the morning and bring them out here before noon. That should give you and the boys plenty of time for the packing.”
“That’s good. Thanks.” She looked through the papers in front of her, searching for an updated count on sleeping bags. “Too bad you don’t have a truck,” she said idly. “Maybe you could borrow one from the ranch tonight when you go home and leave your car here.”
“Do you think I’d look good driving around in a truck, Linnie?”
Something in his voice, an odd note of huskiness, made her glance up at him quickly.
Until now, Lindsay had been pretty successful at putting all his strange teasing and flirtation out of her mind. For the past couple of hours they’d worked on the details of the camping trip as if it were just another administrative problem at the ranch, like so many they’d handled together.
But now, with the sunlight filtering through the drapes and gilding his blunt cheekbones, she felt a return of all the unsettling emotions.
Rex’s face seemed thinner, and he was more tanned than he usually got in the summer when he spent his days stuck in that city office. Even his long body on the couch had a different look, lean and powerful and very masculine.
“It’s got to be the clothes,” she muttered, riffling hastily through stacks of paper.
“Beg your pardon?” He gave her a quick, alert glance. Despite the teasing, his eyes looked tired and darkly shadowed. Apparently Rex hadn’t slept well last night, either.
But he wouldn’t have been lying awake for the same reason she had....
Lindsay clenched her hands nervously into fists, then forced herself to relax and begin itemizing necessary non-edible supplies, like toilet paper and bandages.
“What did you just say about my clothes?” he asked, still watching her closely.
Lindsay felt her cheeks grow warm. “Nothing important. Just that you...you seem to look sort of different these days.” She went on, floundering, “and I thought it must be the jeans and boots. I haven’t seen you dressed like that in a long time, Rex.”
“So you like it?”
“It’s okay,” she said, deliberately noncommittal, and returned to her list of first-aid supplies as if she had nothing else on her mind.
But in truth, this new Rex in his casual cowboy attire was so dangerously attractive, he seemed to fill the room. Lindsay couldn’t find anywhere else to rest her eyes. Worst of all, he clearly sensed her discomfiture and found it amusing.
“Lindsay,” he said at last, his voice soft.
“Yes?” she asked without looking up.
“What kind of sleeping arrangements have you made for this trip?”
She cast him a suspicious glance but he was studying the sheets of paper in his hands, making careful notations in the margins.
“It’s a genuine campout,” she said. “We’ll take groundsheets and bedrolls and sleep under the stars. All the boys are crazy about the idea.”
“No tents?” he asked idly. But Lindsay was well aware that Rex Trowbridge was not the kind of man who asked idle questions.
“I don’t think tents are necessary in August,” she said. “They’d add so much more bulk to our packs, and make it harder to set up camp every night. Besides, that would also keep the boys in
little separate cliques, and I want them all to be together on this trip, sharing the same experience.”
“But you’ll need a tent for yourself,” he said quietly.
“Me?” She stared at him. “Why?”
“Because you’re a girl, Lindsay,” he said with exaggerated patience. “Or have you been too busy these past few years to notice that little detail?”
“That’s no big deal.”
His steady gaze was so disconcerting. Again Lindsay felt her cheeks flare with sudden warmth.
“Look,” she said, “on camping trips we always hang a blanket on sticks at one end of the camp and take turns getting dressed behind it. And, of course, we’ll dig a latrine in the woods at every camping site. That’s all the privacy I’ll need.”
Her companion looked briefly startled, as if he might be contemplating the reality of dressing in the chilly mountain air behind a blanket hung on posts, and using a dirt trench for a bathroom. His face expressed such deep gloom that Lindsay felt a bubble of amusement and a surprising urge to cross the room and give him an impulsive hug.
But her amusement vanished at his next words.
“You’re going to need a tent,” he said with an authoritative edge to his voice that probably worked really well around his office. “The boys can sleep out, and so can I. But I want you, at least, to have some privacy.”
“Why?”
Rex leaned back and set the papers down at his side. He laced his fingers behind his head and stared through the window at the stable, where Clint Kraft’s lanky figure could be seen among a group of horses.
“These kids aren’t little boys, Lindsay,” he said. “And you’re a very pretty lady. Believe me,” he added with a grin, “I can remember what it was like to be fifteen. So I think it will be more comfortable for everybody if you’re sleeping and dressing inside a tent.”
She thought it over, reluctant to give in. “In the past, I’ve always slept out on the ground with the boys and there’s never been a problem.”
“But those are younger boys who go on the little weekend campouts,” Rex pointed out. “And this time we’ll be gone for over a week. Just listen to me, Lindsay, and try not to argue for once in your life. I know what I’m talking about.”
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