The Rancher Gets Hitched & An Affair of Convenience

by Cathie Linz

  HE TOOK HER TO a bowling alley.

  When Cliff opened the door to the moderately busy lanes and escorted Mallory inside, he took a deep breath. Familiar odors of hot grease from the snack bar, sweaty rental shoes and chalk from the battered pool table in the far alcove assaulted his nostrils, bringing on a wave of bittersweet nostalgia. The hum of conversation, the clatter of pins falling, and the rumble of the pin-spotting machines strummed his ears like his favorite song from high school.

  He’d spent many a pleasant hour hanging out here when he was about thirteen. While his mother flipped burgers in the snack bar, he’d become unofficial after school pinspotter for the owner, taking his pay in free games and meals instead of money.

  His mother had hung on to that job for more than a year—one of her longest stints anywhere—and Cliff remembered the place with more fondness than most of the joints she’d slaved in. Besides, Bertie, the alley owner, had taken one look at Felicia Young’s half-wild kid and opened his heart to him. Cliff knew that without Bertie’s intervention he could well have ended up in some street gang instead of an expensive condo.

  Hell, he’d even brought Rebecca Salinger, his first sweetheart in junior high, here on their first date. And snatched a kiss in the hard plastic seats of the next-to-last lane. The distant memory of that innocent embrace evoked a recollection of far more heated kisses with Mallory. This time, he vowed again silently, she’d find satisfaction from more than his kisses.

  “Let’s get you some bowling shoes,” he said, guiding her to the desk. “What size do you wear?”

  “Cliff, I don’t think—”

  “Yo, Cliff! How ya been? Been a while, hasn’t it?” Bertie said. The butterball man’s gap-toothed grin warmed Cliff like a wood fire in winter.

  “Hi, Bertie. Ready to go grunioning again?” On Cliff’s last visit Bertie had closed the lanes early, then he and Cliff had headed for the beaches of La Jolla to watch the grunions do their spawning dance in the moonlight.

  “Maybe. Or maybe you’ve got better company.” Bertie gave Mallory an openly salacious wink. “What size shoe do you take, darlin’?”

  “I’m not—”

  Overriding her protests, Cliff said, “Give her a size seven, I think. And I’ll take elevens.”

  “I’m not—”

  Lowering his head so his mouth was right beside her ear, he whispered, “Sure you are. Remember? When I asked where you wanted to eat you told me to pick someplace I wanted to go. Well, this is it.”

  She turned her head, tickling his chin with a few stray hairs and leaving her cheek only millimeters from his mouth. God, how he wanted to close that distance!

  “You know I didn’t mean—”

  “Bowling? It’ll do you good. Besides, it’s fun, good exercise, and I want to do it.” Deliberately, he closed the span between their flesh until barely a whisper separated them. “Don’t worry. I won’t laugh, no matter how bad you are. All you have to do is give me an adoring smile every time I make a strike.”

  His ploy worked. He saw her competitive spirit surge in the glare she gave him. “I see,” she said ominously. Her lips parted in what probably looked like a smile to anyone watching, but which he knew bore more similarity to the snarling challenge of a lioness.

  Hastily, he drew back his head. Just in case. “Good,” he said and handed her the shoes, then showed her where to choose a ball.

  But it was no accident that he led the way to the battered next-to-last lane hardly anyone used these days. The one directly under the fluorescent tube that for twenty years or more had flickered stubbornly between full illumination and occasional sudden darkness. The lane with the crack in the seat that made only half of it usable, forcing a comfortable squeeze if two people sat in it at the same time.

  It was the perfect spot to ensure an illusion of privacy with the woman he intended to seduce.

  GIVE AN ADORING SMILE? Sure she would, Mallory thought. Right after hell froze over.

  “Didn’t you mention food?” she said as soon as she’d dumped her purse on the appalling flamingopink seat. A few lanes away, balls rumbled down the hardwood floor and pins chattered in defeat. “My stomach’s so hollow I may start chewing on a bowling pin.”

  “Never let it be said that I disappointed a lady. What do you want on your dog?”

  “You’re buying me a whole hot dog? What a prince.”

  “Well,” he rubbed his chin with stone-faced glee, “it’s either that or the chiles rellenos or bean burritos, and I can’t recommend them. They give me gas.”

  Maybe she wasn’t the only person in America who couldn’t eat hot chiles. “All right. I’d like mustard, relish, onions, and cheese.”

  “Onions?”

  Sternly she frowned at his devilishly quirked eyebrow. “Lots of onions,” she repeated firmly.

  “Okay. I guess I’ll have onions, too.” He sent a too-adorable-to-be-true grin her way. “They say it doesn’t matter if both participants eat them.”

  Before she could do more than frown, he left for the snack bar.

  He returned a few minutes later with a tray holding a huge pile of greasy french fries, two wrapped but equally grease-shiny hot dogs with appropriate fixings, and two large beers.

  “You realize there’s enough cholesterol on that plate to clog the Alaskan pipeline?” Despite her words, she reached for her share of his booty.

  “C’mon. How often do you get one of Bertie’s gourmet dogs? One meal won’t hurt. Indulge yourself.” His voice dropped to a tempting snake-in-thegarden murmur. “Sin a little.”

  Surprisingly, the food was good—no, it was scrumptious. If only she could have ignored the heat he radiated as effortlessly as he breathed, she might even have admitted to enjoying the meal.

  She picked up a french fry and had almost popped it into her mouth when Cliff’s hand stopped hers.

  “Hold it a second.”

  Automatically she froze, her lips forming an O around the end of the fry. Before she could ask what the problem was, he lowered his head and sent his tongue on a steam-heated lick across the corner of her mouth and chin. Instantly her thoughts scattered and toppled like all ten pins in a strike.

  He sat back to admire his accomplishment. “There. That’s fine.”

  Though he released her hand, Mallory almost choked before she could get the bite of french fry swallowed. “What was that for?” Not that she cared why, particularly. All she really wanted was to feel his tongue stroking her skin again—and again. Her lousy mood was getting more and more slippery with every moment. Pretty soon, she’d lose her grip on it altogether.

  He cranked up her body temperature another notch or two by retracing his tongue’s path with a gentle finger. “You had a smear of mustard right here.”

  “You ever heard of napkins, Young?”

  “Napkins? Gee, now there’s a concept. I never thought of them.” His smile would definitely have tempted Eve to chop down the Tree of Knowledge. “Besides, they’re no fun.”

  “Is that what we’re here for? Fun?” Even to herself her words sounded wistful.

  “You bet. Didn’t I promise you a night you’d never forget?”

  Mallory glanced around the slightly seedy bowling alley and suddenly saw the humor in the situation. Her lips curved upward in a rueful smile that broke through her grump, melting it and washing it away. She finished her beer with a long swallow. “I think you’ve succeeded. I can honestly say that none of my dates has ever—” the beer she swallowed too hastily made her hiccup “—treated me to a lively evening at a bowling alley.”

  “That’s because they lacked imagination. I, on the other hand, have plenty of creativity. Not to mention inspiration.” Cliff finished his hot dog and took a final gulp of beer before looking at her expectantly. “You ready to let me trounce you bowling?”

  “Look, Cliff, I really don’t want—”

  “That’s what you said about your hot dog, and you liked it, didn’t you?”

 
“Yes, but—”

  “So let’s have some fun.”

  “I told you...” Darn it all, why couldn’t she just enjoy these moments with him? Her problems at work and with the will-o’-the-wisp network career opportunity would still be there tomorrow. Even her headache had temporarily been beaten into submission by the aspirin and her stomach was practically purring in contentment after the deliciously unhealthy meal. Why not seize this evening and wring every bit of pleasure she could from it?

  With a sigh, she stood and picked up her ball. “Okay. We’ll bowl.”

  “Great!”

  She headed for the proper position and gave him her most challenging look. “But I want you to know I intend to beat the socks off you—and I’m keeping score.”

  Just as she stepped forward to roll a practice ball down the lane, she was thrown off stride by his low-voiced Bogie drawl. “Sweetheart, socks are the least of it. You can get anything you want off me—all you have to do is ask.”

  When her ball glided ignominiously straight into the gutter, she glared at him. “That wasn’t fair! You broke my concentration.”

  “All’s fair. Isn’t that what they say?”

  Darn it. There was that devilish-choirboy grin again. If he ever figured out she’d forgive him anything for that smile, she’d be dead meat. So he thought all was fair, did he? Well, he didn’t know who he was daring with that comment. All was fair in love—and war. She barely restrained the impulse to do her best Groucho Marx imitation and assert, “Of course you know this means war.”

  Instead, she deliberately waited until he was preparing to bowl his own practice round. In the middle of his first stride she said in a butter-wouldn’t-melt voice, “Don’t you think that’ll be a bit embarrassing with all these people around? I mean—strip bowling?”

  He didn’t even bother to watch his ball skitter sideways into the gutter. He loomed over her with eyes glittering promises. “Strip bowling?”

  “Wasn’t that what you were proposing?” she asked innocently. “Sure sounded like it to me.”

  After a moment studying her he asked, “What happened to that life-is-real-life-is-earnest lady I walked in here with?”

  She smiled. “I found Ernest—and strangled him.”

  He tugged her out of her seat and into his arms as he roared with laughter. “You constantly surprise me.”

  “Good. So no strip bowling, huh?”

  “Oh, no.” Satisfaction dripped from his voice. “I’d never let a dare like that pass.”

  She looked around the alley. While it wasn’t crowded—no one was closer than five lanes away—the place certainly wasn’t private enough for, well, stripping. “But all these people—we’ll get arrested!”

  “No, we won’t. Not if we do it my way.”

  “Your way?” Her mental alarms shrieked in warning. “What’s your way?” Was she really contemplating agreeing to...?

  He whispered instructions into her ear, sending tropical shivers down her spine. “We’ll do it with our imaginations. With each ball, you get to describe what garment you’ll remove from me if you win that frame—and what will be revealed once you remove it.”

  Her throat tightened into a thick clot of—nerves? No, you dummy, it’s excitement! “Describe?” she managed to utter.

  “In detail. The sound of the garment rustling. How it feels in your hands. Everything you’d experience if you removed it from me yourself. I’m talking color. Texture. Scent. Taste.” His lips captured the lobe of her ear. “Especially taste.”

  Her eyelids drifted downward as rivulets of sensation rushed from her earlobe to the core of her body. It was as if his lips had found her heartstrings and plucked them deliberately. Did she dare agree to his outrageous proposal? Yet did she have the willpower to refuse?

  Gathering her strength of mind, she pulled her head—and vulnerable ears—away from his mouth. “What do I get if I win?”

  “What do you want?”

  You! You! You! Her senses screamed their response. But her mind answered for her with the thing she least wanted to win yet knew she most needed after her exhausting workweek. “An early night—alone?”

  Disappointment dimmed his gaze, but he nodded acceptance of her request.

  “And what will you get if you win?” she asked.

  Darn it. That impish choirboy was back. “Why, Mallory,” he promised, “when I win, I get to go home and do it all over again—in person.”

  5

  SHE SHOULD HAVE WON.

  She would have won—if Cliff hadn’t cheated. By the tenth frame, she’d managed to acquit herself pretty well. Whether through her descriptive talents or her skill at ignoring his, she’d brought her score to within one pin of Cliff’s. He’d already bowled his last ball, ending with what he called a “humiliating” ninety-six score.

  “It’s the worst I’ve bowled since I was in fifth grade,” he complained. “You’re lethal, you know that?”

  She smugly refused to admit that her current score of ninety-five was the highest she’d ever bowled in her life. By luck or the intervention of some guardian angel, she’d actually made a tenth-frame spare, knocking down all ten pins in two attempts. It was only her fourth spare of the game, and she had no idea how she’d accomplished it.

  Of course, it hadn’t been easy. Not when she’d mentally and verbally stripped Cliff of every article of clothing, leaving him dressed only in a pair of tight white undershorts that molded lovingly to his very masculine form. Ten frames: Two shoes. Two socks. A belt. Pants. A watch. A shirt. A T-shirt. The class ring on his finger. Despite their hurried intimacy on Sunday, she simply hadn’t the courage to remove—even in imagination—that final, soft cotton covering. Or to let herself describe the delights hidden beneath it.

  Her scruples certainly hadn’t fazed him. He’d started with her sweater, then her bra. With each following frame, he’d returned to a detailed description of how her breasts swayed and bounced and tasted as he one by one removed her knee-high stockings, shoes, belt, and slacks.

  “You have some fetish about breasts, Young?” she’d finally demanded after missing an easy spare because of his eager description of how her nipples tasted.

  “Never before,” he said, as if seriously considering the matter. “But I think I’m developing one about yours. Did I mention how perfectly they nestle in my palm?”

  She threw up her hands and gave up chastising him.

  In the ninth frame, she thought she’d faint when he deliberately explained how he would unhook her left earring and exactly where he would tuck it. Could she hold it in her navel while she rolled the ball? The image left her breathless, and she plonked the ball awkwardly onto the lane.

  It knocked over nine pins.

  In the tenth frame, he described exactly how he’d rub her breasts against his own bare chest while he used his tongue to undo her right earring. His hands, he said, would be busy rubbing her hips tightly against those straining undershorts. Her mouth would be all over his chest, teasing and licking his nipples while he tugged her ear.

  She was a nervous wreck, but converted a difficult seven-ten split into a impossible spare.

  But that final-frame spare not only brought her to within a pin of his final score; it also gave her an extra ball to roll. If she knocked down more than one pin, she’d win the game. And it had been five or six frames since her last gutter ball.

  “I hope you realize that it’s all over for you, Young,” she taunted as she took her position. “I’m going to beat you pretty handily.”

  “Does this mean you’re not going to jump my bones tonight and insist on doing all those incredibly delightful things you’ve been describing to me? Even though I’ve got you naked?”

  “I’m not naked!”

  “Not yet,” he promised. “But you’ve got another ball to roll, and as far as I can see, there’s only one more thing for me to remove.”

  Unless he meant her nail polish, he could only be talking about her panties.
A hot flush bubbled up her neck at the thought of him actually... No! She had to get her mind back on her bowling. If she didn’t, she’d dump this ball in the gutter and lose. And then he’d...

  Her eyes glazed over as she thought about that possibility. But Cliff’s triumphant chuckle broke through her contemplation.

  “You want to lose to me, don’t you? You want me to put my fingers inside those pale pink panties—”

  “They’re white!” she blurted before she could stop herself.

  “Sorry. I’ve been picturing them as pale pink, almost the color of your skin. But white is good too. There’s a shadow in the front that hints of the curls I’ll find when I use my finger—no, my tongue—to ease the elastic down just a bit.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not how I’ll do it. I’ll come up behind you and press you back against me. You’ll feel how hard I am against your hips. I want in, and you know it. I want in bad.”

  His voice was husky, soft, barely intelligible. Her back was to him, so he couldn’t see the hard points of her breasts revealing how he aroused her. He couldn’t know for sure that he was melting her to jelly with his words.

  “I’ll take my hand and slip it in the front of your panties, so I can play with the curls there. I’ll tug them and caress them carefully. Then I’ll tip my head over your shoulder so I can look down and see my fingers when they delve lower. Lower. Aaah, you’re wet. You want me too, don’t you? You shift your legs just far enough apart to make room for my hand. You’re ready, aren’t you?”

  Frozen, she couldn’t think what to do, couldn’t remember to breathe, couldn’t remember why her right arm felt so heavy. Closing her eyes was another mistake. His seductive voice grabbed every iota of her concentration.

  “Your hips are straining against me, begging for me to finish it. You’re gasping for breath, and your heart is beating so hard you think you’re going to faint. I can feel it under my hand. I’m cupping your breast, pulling gently on your nipple.”

  Desperately, she found the strength to turn her head to look at him. Her vision was fogged but she saw him rise slowly and approach her.