by Lori Wilde
What the frig? This was lunacy and he wanted no part of it. No part of her.
He dropped his hand and it was all he could do not to back up. Dade never backed down. Ever. Instead, he held her wide-eyed stare, determined not to let it show just how much she disturbed him.
“Natalie,” he murmured like some love-struck fool. “Pretty name.”
“It means born on Christmas Day.”
“Were you? Born on Christmas Day?”
“No.”
“Neither was I.”
Her smile deepened. “Look at that. We have something in common.”
He raked his gaze over her again. That’s the only thing we have in common, babe.
“You looking for a room?” Her lyrical voice stroked him as warm as the arid morning breeze.
“I am.”
“I don’t have one.”
“You were leading me on?”
“I’ll have a room tomorrow, but only for a few days. We’ll fill up after that for the Fourth of July weekend. Will that do?”
“You already rented out Red Daggett’s room then?”
A startled expression skimmed over her face. She hauled in a breath so deep that her chest rose high. He tried not to look at her breasts again, but dammit, he was only human, and she was so delicious that he could eat her up with a spoon. “Where’d you hear about Red?”
“Jasper Grass told me about the vacancy after he gave me Red’s job.”
“Jasper’s already replaced Red?” She frowned, knotted her hands.
“Looks like.”
“So you’re the new bouncer at Chantilly’s?” Her gaze darted to his biceps.
His ego couldn’t help flexing his arm. “Bouncer slash bartender.”
“How nice for you.”
“Any particular reason you’re being catty?”
“You did cause me to take an unexpected mud bath.” She gestured toward the pond, the plastic six-pack ring still clutched in her left hand.
“I thought we’d already moved past that.”
“Because of you, I have to go shower, and my schedule is packed. I really don’t have time for a shower, but clearly I have to make time.”
“And yet you do have time to rescue ducks in distress.”
“I always have time to help those in distress.”
Dade pressed his lips together. I’m in distress. I need rescuing. Where in God’s name did that thought come from? He lowered his eyelids, crossed his arms over his chest. “I apologize for mucking up your day.”
“You’re forgiven,” she relented.
He wanted to ask her a million things. Are you feeling the same way I’m feeling? Does your stomach hurt? Is your chest tight? Does the sun seem incredibly bright? Do you have an irresistible urge to get naked with me?
“So about Red’s room?” he prompted.
“He hasn’t officially vacated it.”
“But he’s gone?”
“He left his things. He never checked out.”
“So he’s missing then?”
She shrugged, but he saw concern on her face. She cared about Red.
“Did you report him missing?”
“How is that any of your business?”
“I need a place to stay.”
“Red always comes back.” She raised her chin. “It would be disloyal of me to give away his room.”
He didn’t push it. Although he’d appreciate the opportunity to stay in Red’s room while he searched for his buddy, he didn’t want to arouse her suspicion. Considering the way he was feeling about her, it was probably better if he didn’t stay here. “Do you know who else in town might be willing to rent out a room?”
“How long do you need it for?”
“Can’t say for sure.”
She made a face, reached up to stroke her chin with her thumb and index finger. Assessing.
“I’ve got a thousand dollars to put down for a deposit and first month’s rent,” he enticed.
“Cash up front?” She looked hungry, but conflicted.
“Cash up front.”
A long moment of silence passed between them. He could see the tension in her body, felt a corresponding tension tighten in his own.
“I have an ethical dilemma,” she said. “I need the money, but what if I rent the room to you and Red comes back?”
“You give me a partial refund and I move out.”
She chewed her bottom lip in a gesture that made him want to nibble that lush piece of flesh too. Hell, he wanted to nibble her from head to toe.
He couldn’t forget why he was here. Red. He had to keep his mind on Red. His buddy was in trouble and needed his help.
Still, he couldn’t stop staring at the mesmerizing mermaid in yellow with a green streamer of seaweed caught in her hair. He stepped closer.
“I don’t know about that.”
“This Red character, he just took off without a word to anyone?”
“That’s right.”
“Did he leave his car behind?”
“He didn’t own a vehicle. He walked everywhere he went or hitchhiked.”
“Hitchhiked?”
“It’s a small town. People don’t mind giving their neighbors a ride.”
“A regular Mayberry, huh?” he drawled, but Dade knew danger resided as easily in a small town as it did in a big metropolis. They didn’t breathe rarefied air in Cupid. Beneath the pretty surface lurked problems and troubles, secrets and lies.
“We look after our own,” she said.
“When was the last time you saw him?” He was pushing it, he knew, walking a thin line, risking giving himself away.
She frowned.
“Trying to gauge when he might come back,” Dade hastened to add.
“Red comes and goes as he pleases, so I can’t be one hundred percent certain, but I think the last time I saw him was the morning of the nineteenth.”
Four days ago. The day before Dade had received the Mayday text. “You didn’t think it strange that he disappeared without a trace?”
“He did that occasionally. Took off without notice.”
“Did?”
“Yes. Several times.”
“You said ‘did.’ In the past tense. Not ‘does.’ ”
“Oh.” Her eyes rounded. “Well, I suppose it’s because this time it feels different.”
“Different how?”
“For one thing, he’s never been gone this long.”
“No?” Dade took a step closer. His gaze trained on the pond weeds clinging to her hair. It distracted him. Apparently, she had no idea it was there. “Did you report his disappearance to law enforcement?”
“I did.”
“What did they say?”
“Red has some mental health issues.”
Dade curled his hands into fists. “If he’s got mental health issues, you’d think that would be a stronger motivation to search for him.”
She studied him a long moment. “Why do you care?”
“If I rent the room, I’d be disappointed if he shows up to boot me out of it.”
“I never said I was going to rent the room to you.”
“You need to make up the income for the boarder you just lost.”
She bit her bottom lip again, those pearly white teeth sinking into the plump pink flesh. He saw the truth in her eyes. She needed every penny she could scrape together. That intrigued him. What was her story?
“I don’t rent long term to just anyone.”
“And yet you took in a mental case.” Sorry, Red. No disrespect.
“I never said he was a mental case.” Natalie drew herself up tall, tossed her head. “He served in the armed forces. He suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. What kind of person would I be if I turned away a former military man who’d suffered the consequences of defending my freedom?”
“A cautious one?”
“I’m not incautious.”
“Is that right?”
“It is.”
She looked perturbed. “Who says I’m single?”
“You don’t wear a ring.”
She tucked her left hand behind her back. “Not wearing a ring doesn’t mean anything. I could be married. I’m plenty old enough to be married and have a passel of kids.”
“But you’re not married. You’re all alone.”
“Just because I’m single doesn’t mean I’m alone by any stretch. I have three—well, two now that Red’s vanished—long-term boarders and a constant turnover of tourists. I have a sister, a maid, a gardener, and a cook. My entire family lives around me—cousins, aunts, uncles. I’m the least alone person you’ll ever meet.”
“Well, imagine that,” he said lightly, feeling that inexplicable tugging in the center of his chest once more.
They were back to square one, not speaking, caught in each other’s eyes.
“So if someone wanted to harm you, they’d have to go through a cadre of friends and relatives.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Who on earth would want to harm me?”
“There’s darkness in this world that you have no idea about.”
“You underestimate me. I have a permit to carry a handgun and I know how to use it.”
Surprised, he arched an eyebrow.
“Rattlesnakes,” she said. “Lots of rattlesnakes in the desert.”
He couldn’t get over this wild attraction beating through him. She was a pretty woman, but what concerned him was the overwhelming pull of attraction that gripped him whenever he looked at her. He hated feeling so out of control. His gaze fixed on the seaweed in her hair again. It was just an excuse to get closer to her, but he couldn’t resist. Dade stepped forward.
She backed up, the pulse at her throat thumping wildly. “What are you doing?”
“You’ve got something . . .” He reached a hand up to touch her hair.
In that second of that touch, his past disappeared. All the things he’d done wrong, all the wrong paths he’d taken suddenly seemed the exact right paths leading him here—to this woman, this place, this moment in time.
Kiss her! his body screamed at him. Kiss her! Kiss her!
Her breath was so shallow that she was scarcely breathing. Their eyes latched together, inseparable, the current between them stronger than electricity. His fingers found the pond weeds and he plucked them from her hair.
“Oh,” she said, sounding disappointed. “There really was something in my hair.”
“You thought I was lying?”
Her cheeks blushed hotly. She looked so damn cute, he wanted to wrap her into his arms and imprint her lips with his. Brand her. Make her his, forever and ever.
It was an unsettling sensation for a man who’d sworn never to settle down, never to stay in one place for long. Shocked by his thoughts and feelings, he turned and flung the weeds into the pond.
When he turned around again, she was assessing him coolly, but he could see her trembling. Had he done that to her?
He should cut his losses here, jump on his Harley, and find somewhere else to stay before he got mired in the quicksand of her eyes.
She nodded.
“I’ll show you the room,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to rent it to you.”
“Thank you.”
“I need to change my clothes first. You can follow me inside the house and wait in the kitchen.”
“All right,” he agreed, feeling so utterly grateful that he was ashamed of himself.
She bent down to pick up her shoes and a plastic leg brace and limped toward the house.
“You’re limping,” he said.
“It’s permanent,” she called curtly over her shoulder without looking back.
He felt a stab directly in the center of his heart, and it was all he could do not to rush ahead, scoop her into his arms, and carry her into the house. Don’t, Vega. Don’t go there. Not even in your mind.
Still, he couldn’t deny that her vulnerability cut through him as sharp as a bayonet. She possessed a gentle beauty, round and soft and kind. A certain tranquillity that said she led an unblemished life in this safe little town surrounded by extended family.
But the limp belied all that.
The limp—and the labored way she toiled up the hill—told him she’d suffered. Continued to suffer. Under those circumstances, how had she managed to hold on to her simple elegance?
In that moment, he felt something totally unexpected.
Jealousy.
He was jealous of the way she’d navigated the pain, and while her body had not come out of it unscathed, she’d kept her soul pure. If he’d thought himself unworthy of her before, in the face of her injury, he knew for certain he wasn’t good enough to wipe the mud from her resilient feet.
Chapter 5
Love at first sight requires a total leap of faith.
—MILLIE GREENWOOD
Natalie couldn’t have felt more exposed if she’d been stripped buck-naked. Dade stared at her brazenly, lustily, audaciously, as if she was naked. His stare set her on fire. No man had ever looked at her in quite the same way.
Her scalp tingled from where Dade’s fingers had skimmed through her hair, and her heart was thumping as loud as an orchestra, a rapidly rising crescendo of saxophones, trumpets, bassoons, and trombones. If he were music, he’d be big band swing—bold, lively, and fast-paced. Looking into his eyes, she had an overwhelming urge to sing, to hop, to dance.
Dance.
He made her want to dance.
She hadn’t danced since ballet class, the year before the plane crash, and she would never dance again. Not with her handicap. She would never foxtrot, jitterbug, or do the Lindy hop, and she felt the loss deep within her bones for something she could not have.
It was crazy, this mixed-up jumble of need, longing, fear, hope, and euphoria.
“May I see the room?” His eyes glittered darkly and he looked dead sexy in the morning light. This man had done his share of living.
She wanted to say no. She should have said no, but two things kept her from it. One, she needed the thousand dollars he promised, and two; she couldn’t seem to make her mouth form the word. She nodded. “This way.”
Her dress was plastered snugly to her body. She turned and, without waiting for him to follow, headed toward the fence separating her yard from the park, moving with precise steps to minimize her limp, fully aware that his intense eyes were gobbling up the sight of her.
She felt him behind her, big and strong. Her pulse skipped through her veins, light and heavy at the same time. She put her tongue to the tip of her upper lip. This is it. Love at first sight. He’s The One.
Calm down, calm down.
He went ahead of her to open the gate. A gentlemanly gesture. Courtly, but at the same time threatening because it was something she could grow very accustomed to. A man looking out for her. This man looking out for her.
She was headed off the deep end.
Truth was, she’d never felt anything like this and he scared the living daylights out of her. Her true love.
Could the legend be true? Did she dare hope it was true? Could she trust it? On the surface, having faith in him was so stupid, but it was too late. No putting that genie back into the bottle. She felt it in every part of her. Magic. Dreams. What if she gave herself over to the fantasy and it turned to dust in her hands? Oh God, what was happening to her?
She stuck her hands in her pockets as she stepped past him with her head down, avoiding his gaze. Her fingers closed over Shot Through the Heart’s soggy letter. Dammit. She’d forgotten the letter was in her pocket.
Dade closed the gate behind them, touched her shoulder. His big hand was unexpectedly warm and comforting. She almost jumped out of her skin.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she mumbled, abandoning her attempt to walk normally and shambled up the path as quickly as she could, her
Keds clutched in the fingers of her right hand, the AFO cradled against her right elbow.
His footsteps echoed behind her, both scary and thrilling at the same time. She was having trouble adjusting to the fact that she was a different Natalie from the one who’d awakened this morning. That Natalie had never felt . . . this . . . this . . .
She had no word for what this was.
Natalie gulped, feeling trapped, challenged, and five hundred other inexplicable things she couldn’t even name. Irritated with herself, she clenched her jaw. She was not normally like this, weak-kneed over a handsome man. Then again, she’d never felt this kind of chemistry. If she had, she’d have surrendered her virginity eons ago.
“Have you had breakfast?” she asked, going all B&B hostess on him. That was the way to handle this situation until she could make sense of her feelings. Keep it strictly professional.
“No.”
The back door flew open at her light touch, swinging inward with a loud creak.
“That latch is suspect,” Dade observed.
“It’s an old house.”
He paused to look at the door. “It has a skeleton key lock.”
“So?” She shrugged.
“This wouldn’t keep out a cat, much less a cat burglar. You need a proper lock on your back door,” he chided.
“We don’t have much crime in Cupid.”
“Everywhere has crime.”
“If there’s something in here that someone wants that badly, they’re welcome to it.”
“What if they want your life?” he asked.
“My, you’re just a little ray of sunshine, aren’t you?”
“I could install a lock for you. Wouldn’t take me long.”
“I’m not worried about it,” she told him, and then called out, “Pearl, we have another guest for breakfast. One who apparently has a thing for locks.”
“Buffet is still out,” Pearl hollered back amid the clanging of pots and pans.
“Just go through there.” Anxious to separate herself from him, Natalie pointed to the door leading into the formal dining room. “Help yourself. I’ll be back in a minute.”
He looked at her with his eyelids at half-mast, a lazy, bedroom expression that constricted her throat. His eyelashes were the color of ink and surprisingly long, softening his devilish eyes. “Don’t rush your shower on my account.”
