by Lisa Jackson
“What’s doing?”
Brian grinned, as if he read the caution in Dallas’s eyes. He straightened and held out his hands, surrendering to his half brother’s suspicion. “Don’t worry, I haven’t gone through the money yet. I just came by to say I’m shipping out. On my way back to school.”
About time. “That’s good.”
“Right, and I probably won’t see you until Christmas. You’ll come to Mom’s?”
“I’ll see. Christmas is a long way off.”
“She’d be disappointed if you didn’t come.”
Well, maybe. From Brian’s point of view, their mother loved Dallas as much as she did her other children. But Dallas remembered a time when, after the divorce from his father and her remarriage, Eugena O’Rourke McGee had been so involved with raising a daughter and the twins that she hadn’t so much as smiled at him. She’d been tired most of the time from chasing the younger kids.
Dallas, a reminder of her marriage to a military doctor who had never been able to show any emotion, was, for the most part, left on his own. He’d been enrolled in boarding school while his parents were married, and his status didn’t change when his mother remarried, even though none of her other children had ever stepped foot in a school away from home until college. Joanna, Brian and Brenda had been raised at home.
Yes, there was the possibility that his mother might miss Dallas at Christmas, but not for the reasons Brian expected. In her later years, she’d developed a fondness for her firstborn, probably born of guilt, but never had Eugena given him the love she’d lavished on her younger children.
Dallas was no longer bitter about that particular lack of love; he just didn’t dwell on it.
“Ahh, come one, it’ll be fun. And Joanna and Brenda will kill ya if ya don’t show up.”
That much was true. For all the love he hadn’t received from his mother, his sisters had adored him. “I’ll think about it.”
“See that you do. Well, I’m outta here.” Bending down, Brian slung the strap of his duffle over his shoulder and offered his brother one of his killer smiles. “Thanks a lot. For everything. And, oh—did you manage to go on the raft ride?”
Dallas grinned. “An experience of a lifetime.”
“What did you think of the lady?”
“She’s something else.”
“I’ll say.” Brian’s grin turned into a leer. “Strong little bugger. And great legs! Boy, I bet she’s a tiger…” His voice faded away when he caught the set of his brother’s jaw. “So you noticed?”
“Just that I already knew her.”
“A nice piece.” When Dallas’s lips thinned, Brian laughed. “Of work. Hey! What did you think I meant?” He glanced down at his brother’s hands and grinned even more broadly. Dallas realized that he’d instinctively clenched his fists. “Hey, bro’, is there something you’re not tellin’ me?”
Dallas forced himself to relax. This was just Brian going into his macho-man routine. “Nothing. Just that I already know her.”
“And you’ve got the hots for her.”
Dallas didn’t reply, but just glared at his half brother, wondering if they had anything in common at all.
“Well, go for it, man! I don’t blame you. The lady’s nice…real nice.”
“What do you mean, ‘go for it’?”
“Ask her out, spend some time with her, get to know her. For crying out loud, here you are and—pardon me for pointing it out—in the middle of no-friggin’-where, and a woman like that falls into your lap. Take a chance, man. I know you got burned by Jennifer the Jezebel, but not all women are Wicked Witches of the West.”
“I should take advice on my love life from you?” Dallas asked, slightly amused.
“Well, you’d better take it from somebody, ’cause the way I see it, your ‘love life,’ as you so optimistically call it, doesn’t exist.”
Dallas wanted to smack the smug smile off the younger man’s face, but, for once in his life, Brian was right. Instead, Dallas stuck out his arm and shook his brother’s hand. “Thanks for the advice.”
“Don’t thank me. Just do something, man.”
“I could give you the same words of wisdom.”
Brian’s grin was positively wicked. “Not about my love life, you couldn’t.” With a cocksure grin, he strolled over to his car and yanked open the door. Throwing his bag into the back seat, he crawled into the interior, started the engine of the old Pontiac Firebird and took off in a cloud of exhaust that slowly dissipated in the clear mountain air.
Brian’s advice hung like a pall over Dallas as he drove to his condominium. This morning he’d wanted to drive Chandra from his life forever. Then he’d seen her in the hospital and could hardly keep his hands off her. No, he’d better face facts, at least for the present. Brian was right; he should kick up his heels a little. He didn’t have to fall in love.
That thought hit him like a bucket of ice water. In love?
I guess I’m in the market for a husband.
Her words ricocheted through his mind. Had she been joking, or had she been hinting? “Quit this, O’Rourke, before you make yourself crazy.”
But forget her he couldn’t, and before he knew it, he was making plans to see her again. As soon as he walked into his home, he dropped his mail, unopened, on the table, then picked up the phone book. He punched out the number of Wild West Expeditions. Chandra answered, and he couldn’t stop the tug of the muscles near the corners of his mouth.
“I thought we should get together after work,” he said, feeling the part of a fool, like some creepy lounge lizard. God, he was just no good at this.
“Why?”
“We left on the wrong note. How about I take you to dinner?”
A pause. A thousand heartbeats seemed to pass. “Dinner?” she finally said. “I don’t know….”
“Neither do I, but I’ve been thinking and…” He let out his breath slowly, then decided honesty was the best policy. “Well, I’d like to see you again.”
“Even though I’m only interested in a husband or, more precisely, a father for my yet-unadopted child.”
There it was—that biting sarcasm that he found so fascinating. No wimp, Ms. Hill. “Even though,” he said, smiling despite himself. “Dress up. I’ve got a surprise for you. I’ll pick you up at your place at six-thirty.”
“What if I already have plans?” she asked, obviously flirting with him a little. It occurred to him that she was as nervous about this as was he.
“Cancel them.” He hung up, feeling a little like a jerk, but looking forward to the evening ahead. This morning he’d tried to drive her from his mind, but now, damn it all to hell, he was going to fulfill a few of his fantasies with the gorgeous Ms. Hill.
After all, it was just a date, not a lifetime commitment.
CHAPTER TEN
A DATE? SHE COULDN’T believe it. Yet here she was, pawing through her closet of work shirts, jeans and a few old dresses trying to come up with an outfit for Dallas’s surprise.
And her heart was pounding as if she were a schoolgirl. Take it easy, Chandra, she told herself, knowing that Dallas’s mood could change as rapidly as the weather in these mountains.
She settled for a rose-colored skirt and a scooped-neck blouse, and was just brushing her hair when Sam, ever vigilant, began to growl. “Jealous?” Chandra teased, her heart surprisingly light as she patted the dog on his head, and was rewarded with a sloppy lick of his tongue.
Dallas stood on the doorstep, balancing two grocery sacks. “Wait a minute—I thought we were going out,” she said as she opened the door and he stepped inside.
“We are.” He placed the brown paper bags on the kitchen counter. “Got a picnic basket?”
“You’re kidding, right?” she asked, but caught the glint of devilish mischief in his eyes. This was the serious Dr. O’Rourke—this man who seemed hell-bent to confuse her? It seemed that he enjoyed keeping her equilibrium off-balance.
“Someone told me
I wasn’t spontaneous enough, that I needed to get out of my rut,” he said with a shrug. “So—the basket?”
“Right. A picnic basket.” Wondering what he was up to, she rummaged in the closet under the stairs and came up with a wicker basket covered with dust. She blew across the top and dust motes swirled in a cloud. “Doesn’t get much use,” she explained, finding a cloth and wiping the woven wicker clean.
“I thought we’d take a ride into the hills.”
“Like this?” She eyed his slacks and crisp shirt. “Are you crazy?”
“Just spontaneous.”
“Yeah, right,” she replied, but wiped out the interior of the basket and lined it with a blanket. Dallas reached into his grocery bag and filled the basket with smaller sacks, a bottle of wine, glasses and a corkscrew. “Did you bring the horses, too, or is that what I’m supposed to provide?”
“The horses and the destination.”
“Oh, I get it—you’re counting on me to provide you with a free trail ride, is that it?” she teased, feeling her spirits lifting along with the corners of her mouth.
He laughed and the sound filled the cabin, bouncing off the rafters as he snapped the lid of the basket shut. Approaching her slowly, he held her gaze with his. “Are you going to fight me all the way on this?”
“I don’t have a side saddle.” Oh, Lord, he was so close she could see a small scar near his hairline, obviously old and faded with the passage of time from ruffian boy to man. She had to elevate her chin a fraction to meet his gaze, and her throat caught at the depth of blue in his eyes.
“Improvise,” he suggested, his breath tickling her scalp.
“I could change—”
“And leave me overdressed? No way!” His gaze lowered, past her lips and chin, along the column of her throat, to the scooped neck of her blouse and the beginning of the hollow between her breasts, just barely visible. “Besides, you look—” He broke off, his Adam’s apple working in his throat. Reaching forward, he touched a strand of her hair and wound its golden length around one finger.
The moment, only seconds, seemed to stretch a lifetime, and as he laid her curl back against her cheek, his finger grazing her skin, her diaphragm pressed so hard against her lungs, she had trouble breathing.
“I think we should go,” she said, stepping back from him and feeling clumsy and embarrassed and totally unbalanced. Just being close to him caused her to lose her cool facade. This one enigmatic man had managed, in the span of one week, to create havoc with her emotions. “I—I’ll saddle up.”
“I’ll saddle up. You bring the basket.” He swung out the door, and Sam, with one look over his shoulder, trotted after him.
“I’m going to change your name to Judas,” Chandra warned, swinging the basket from the table and following man and dog to the barn. She was struck by the natural way Dallas strode across the yard, as if he belonged here. Sunlight gleamed in his dark hair and warmed her crown. His dress clothes seemed appropriate somehow, though she could just as easily envision him in faded jeans, a work shirt open and flapping in the breeze as he chopped firewood. And Sam, the turncoat, padded happily behind him, tongue lolling, tail moving slowly with his gait.
Within minutes, Dallas had saddled Max and Brandy, and they were riding along a dusty trail. Chandra had hiked her skirt around her thighs and felt absolutely ridiculous as well as positively euphoric. The sky was a clear cobalt blue, and two hawks circled lazily overhead.
The mountain air was clean, the horses’ hooves thudding softly, stirring dust, causing creatures in the brush to scurry through the undergrowth. Once in a while, Sam gave chase, startling the horses as he dashed by, barking wildly at some unseen prey.
After nearly an hour of riding through the forest, the trail forked, and Chandra veered sharply to the right, back-trailing downhill.
“You sure you know where you’re going?” Dallas asked.
“Positive.” She nudged Brandy in the sides as the pines and blue spruce gave way to a meadow. The game little mare sprinted forward, ears pricked, nostrils flared, her hooves pounding across the field of dry grass and wildflowers in shades of pink, blue and lavender.
Chandra’s skirt billowed behind her, and her bare legs held fast to Brandy’s sides. Wind streamed through Chandra’s hair, and she laughed as she heard Max close to Brandy’s heels, his galloping hooves loud against the dry ground.
“Come on, Brandy,” Chandra said, leaning over the little mare’s shoulders and watching the horse’s ears flatten against her head. She picked up speed, but it was too late. Max, black legs flashing in the sun, raced past. Dallas rode low in the saddle, his shoulders hunched forward, the picnic basket propped between the saddle and his chest.
“We should’ve beaten them,” Chandra told the mare as she pulled up. Both horses were sweating and blowing hard. Chandra, too, was having trouble breathing, but Sam wasn’t even winded. He saw a squirrel, streaked off across the meadow and splashed through the creek that zigzagged through the grass. Spring water gurgled and rushed over rocks, and the big gold dog bounded through the stream before disappearing into the woods.
“Should we worry about him?” Dallas asked, swinging off Max at a bend in the creek where the water pooled and reflected the intense blue of the sky.
“He’ll be back. He’s used to it.” Chandra hopped to the ground and felt the tickle of grass against her bare ankles. “That’s how I found him, you know. He crawled into the yard, ripped from stem to stern by something—bear, raccoon, possum or something else, I suppose—and I had to sew him up. I’ve had him ever since.”
Dallas’s eyes narrowed on the forest into which the dog, joyfully yelping and giving chase, had disappeared. “Hasn’t learned much.”
“He’ll be all right,” Chandra replied.
While the horses grazed near the stream, Dallas and Chandra unfolded the blanket in the shade of a pine tree. He uncorked the wine and poured them each a glass of Chablis. “What are we drinking to?” she asked, and his blue eyes deepened to a mysterious hue.
“How about to us?”
She laughed, tucking her legs beneath her as she sat on the edge of the blanket, her skirt folded over her knees. He wasn’t serious. This was all a lark, a fantasy. “Us? I thought there wasn’t any us—that you couldn’t get involved or muck up your life with a woman.” She took a long swallow of wine and watched the play of emotions across his face.
His jaw slid to one side, and his hair was rumpled by the breeze that blew from the west. “I didn’t want any complications.”
“Didn’t…?”
“Still don’t,” he admitted, lying on the blanket and leaning back on one elbow while he sipped from his glass. “But sometimes things change. And what you don’t want changes with it.” He plucked a dry blade of grass and chewed on it. “From the minute I saw you in the emergency room, I knew you were going to be trouble—big trouble.” He squinted as a pheasant, wings beating frantically, rose from the grass as Sam leapt and barked in the frightened bird’s wake. “And I thought the only reasonable thing to do, the only sane path to take, was to avoid you.”
She smiled. For the first time since she’d met him, she felt that Dallas was being honest with her. His eyebrows were pinched together, and his lips, moving on the straw, pursed hard, as if he were angry with himself.
“So…” she prodded.
“So I did. And then my brother gave me that damned coupon.”
“But you still weren’t convinced that I wasn’t trouble,” she said.
“Hell, no. Then I knew you were more trouble than I’d even imagined.” He laughed again and took a long swallow of his wine. “And that’s when things got really out of hand.” He looked at her directly then, his gaze holding hers. “I couldn’t keep my hands off you, and that’s not the way it usually is with me. In fact,” he admitted, glancing away, as if the admission were embarrassing, “I was starting to become obsessed.”
“With…?” she asked warily.
&nb
sp; “You.” A muscle in his jaw convulsed, and Chandra realized just how difficult it was for him to bare his soul. They weren’t so different, she decided; they both bore wounds that wouldn’t heal. “Anyway, I wasn’t sleeping at night, and I couldn’t think of anything but you. Making love to you.”
Chandra nearly dropped her glass. Her hands began to sweat, and she took a long swallow of wine to avoid those blue, blue eyes.
“So that’s when I decided never to see you again.”
She glanced up sharply. “But you’re here—”
“Believe it or not, I ran into Brian and he told me I was crazy to keep avoiding you. He told me I should loosen up, enjoy life, take a chance or two….” Dallas lifted a shoulder and beneath the crisp white fabric, his muscles moved fluidly.
A tight knot formed in the pit of Chandra’s stomach. He reached over and refilled her glass before adding more wine to his own.
“So, for the first time in my life, I took Brian’s advice. Believe me, it wasn’t easy.” He studied the label for a second before propping the bottle against the inside of the wicker basket.
Chandra felt as if time were suspended between them. Surely she could think of something clever to say, something that would lighten the mood. But all words escaped her, and she could feel his gaze moving slowly over her, caressing her, causing her skin to tingle under his silent appraisal. “So what is this?” she finally asked, her voice as soft as the wind in the pines. “A seduction?”
“If you want it to be.”
“No!” she said quickly, breathlessly. She’d thought of making love to him. But it was one thing to fantasize, another to actually do it. She gulped her wine and glanced his way, hoping that she could see some indication that he was joking, but not a glimmer of humor sparked in his eyes.
“Afraid?”
“Look, Dallas. Maybe you can make all sorts of plans—you know, buy the wine, pick out the right cheese and bread, and just…just map out some way for us to get together. But it doesn’t work that way with me. I can’t just drink a little wine and say, ‘what the hell,’ and start stripping off my clothes. It’s just not me….” Slowly, she climbed to her feet and dusted her hands. “This isn’t going to work.” She whistled to the horses, and while Brandy ignored her and continued to pluck grass, Max responded.
