Cowboy Lessons (Harlequin American Romance)

by Pamela Britton

  She’d been moved by the intensity of that love-making.

  And then he was shifting his weight. Oh, man, she hoped she’d wiped the evidence away.

  He drew back, and Amanda gave him an overbright smile as their gazes made contact again.

  “Are those tears?”

  Dang. Dang. Dang. “No.”

  Amazingly, he started tearing up, too. Her heart came to a screeching halt when she noticed it.

  Oh. My. Gosh.

  She lost her heart right then. Zip. Gone. Bye-bye.

  “You’re crying, too,” she said, lifting a hand to the side of his face, his razor stubble sanding her fingers.

  “Who, me?” he asked as he dipped his head down and took her lips in a kiss as sweet as he was.

  Whoa, Amanda, the man stole your father’s ranch.

  Yeah, but she would bet she could convince him to sell it back to her now.

  Is that why you did it? Is that why you slept with him?

  No, she firmly told herself, opening her mouth to him yet again.

  No. No. No.

  He began to move inside her again. Yes.

  Yes. Yes. Yes.

  And then she forgot everything as they began to kiss and make love again.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sore muscles.

  That was what she felt the next day. As if she’d run up the center aisle of a football stadium twenty times.

  Amanda rolled over, her head coming in contact with something that crinkled in her ear and sounded as if she’d rolled onto a bug, which made her jerk upright, her heart stopping for a moment, only to resume working again with slamming beats.

  A note.

  She’d rolled onto a note.

  That made her eyes narrow a bit because there was only one guess as to whom it was from.

  Mandy,

  Have some work to do in my office. Join me downstairs when you feel like it.

  There was no “love,” no “miss you,” no flirtatious remark about the remarkable night they’d spent. The tears. The sighs. The moans. Nothing.

  What the heck did that mean? And she hated the insecure feeling that rose within her. Sure, she knew it was remnants of her relationship with Jake and what a hoax that had turned out to be, but still…

  Shaking her head, she gathered the covers around her in case Scott should happen to walk in, which was really ridiculous in light of what they’d done together over and over and over again, but there you had it. Modesty prevailed as she headed toward what she hoped was the bathroom.

  Amanda stopped dead in her tracks as she crossed before a wall of windows that revealed a butterfly-blue ocean off in the distance, white waves lining the vast expanse like line-ruled paper. To her left and right, pine trees centered her view, sticking upright like an expensive green frame.

  “Amazing.”

  With a shake of her head, she turned away, her toes wiggling at the decadent feel of the plush white carpet. White. It would last about a half a day on the ranch. And thinking about the ranch she’d grown up in, a house that’d fit in one tiny corner of this mansion, filled her with a sort of trepidation. Just where the heck did she think a relationship with Scott Beringer could end? And why the heck did she suddenly feel the urge to find that pilot of his and ask for a ride home?

  Forty-five minutes later, showered and changed into a freshly laundered dress—did he have a dry cleaner’s on site—Amanda opened the double door of his bedroom suite and paused. In front of her, curled like a giant ponytail, was a sweeping staircase that led downstairs. Windows surrounded her, the ones directly ahead showing her the Bay Area, a hazy brown sky hovering above a concrete sea. To her left and right were rolling hills filled with pine trees.

  “Are you looking for Mister Scott?”

  Amanda jumped, the cold zipper on her dress touching her skin uncomfortably.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Sal stared up at her like a Christmas caroler come a-wassailing.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I’ll take you to him, if you like.”

  “Oh, sure.”

  Her palms had grown damp by the time she came alongside Scott’s butler-employee-whatever he was. “Has anyone told you you look like Mr. Clean? Only with a bit more hair? Well, not a lot more hair, but you know…a bit more.”

  She was doing it, she realized. She was talking a mile a minute, a habit of hers when she was uncomfortable or feeling out of place, which she definitely felt now.

  “Actually, no,” Sal said, cocking a look over his right shoulder. “And I’m rather grateful for that.” He looked ahead again. “Please, follow me.” In two steps he was ahead of her, Amanda thinking his shoulders were so wide, they should have a name written across the top of them, and a giant white number below that.

  She crossed her arms in front of her, realized what she was doing and uncrossed them again. What the heck was with her? She’d spent the whole night with Scott. Why was she so nervous about facing him again?

  Sal led her toward one end of the house, giant bouquets of flowers filling equally massive vases, the blooms filling the air with an almost sickly sweet scent. Lilies. Yuck.

  “Here we are, miss.”

  Miss? Pul-eease, she almost said, but then she was coming to a halt before double-width doors—because, hey, why use single-width doors when you had room for two?—and then Sal was stepping back, revealing what looked like the satellite communications center of a special ops team. TVs filled one whole wall to her right, office equipment such as computers, faxes and printers to her left. Worse, there were three men standing around a gray conference table. Men, not Scott. Scott was behind a desk as big as a flatbed truck, his back to her as he talked on the phone.

  The door closed behind her with a snick. Amanda hadn’t even realized she’d stepped into the room. One of the men looked up, the other two barely gave her a glance.

  “Hi,” Amanda said, feeling really, really…mad. Why the heck didn’t Scott tell her he had people here? She could have at least found something more casual to wear. Maybe. As it was she had to stop herself from fidgeting in an outfit that was very obviously a holdover from the night before and that all but screamed “Last night’s squeeze.”

  “You must be Mandy,” said the one who’d looked up.

  “I am.”

  “Scott said to go ahead and have a seat outside. He’s talking to London right now. We have a new product that just came online and it’s the end of the day there so he’s getting feedback.”

  She nodded as if she’d known nine-o’-clock California time meant end-of-the-day London time.

  “I’ll just be outside, then.” She thumbed over her shoulder as if there might be some kind of confusion as to which outside she meant. Stupid. The man smirked at her, and she could practically hear the words “country bumpkin” as he looked away.

  Did he know who she was? Did the other two men who still hadn’t looked up? Had she been dismissed as Scott Beringer’s “country squeeze.”

  Amanda fumed. Not because of the way those two corporate suits had ignored her. No. She was mad because Scott had ignored her, too. The man hadn’t even looked up, even though her eyes had gone to him once or twice. That burned the most.

  So she waited, her reflection staring back at her as she stood ready to receive the big kahuna. Ridiculous, stupid, dumb thing to do…sleeping with him. What’d she been thinking?

  You wanted to try to get him out of your system.

  Yeah, well, that had worked well. Not.

  “Hi, gorgeous.”

  She jumped, which made her even more angry because she couldn’t believe how tense she was. She whirled on him, noticing how handsome he looked in a brown polo-type shirt that pulled taut against his shoulders and around the wide muscles of his arms and chest.

  “Why the heck didn’t you tell me you had other guests?”

  “Guests?” he asked, his green eyes once again peering at her from behind black-framed glasses. “What guests—Oh, you must m
ean the guys.”

  The guys, she silently mimicked. As if they were a bunch of men who’d come over to watch a football game.

  “They just got here,” Scott said. “I had them come up when I realized I’d be in town for a while.”

  She crossed her arms in front of her, anyway.

  “Hey,” he said softly, “what’s the matter?”

  Everything. “Nothing. I just feel in the way.” Out of place. Out of my depth.

  “You’re not in the way,” Scott said, coming forward to touch her cheek. And that was all he did, touch her. Yet it was as if he’d kissed the back of her neck.

  “I want to go home,” she said firmly. She needed to regroup, needed to think about what had happened between them, or better yet, to get some clue from Scott as to where this would lead.

  Alas, all he said was “Okay.”

  That was it. No “Don’t go.” No “You can’t do that.” No “Can we talk about this?” Nothing. And, Lord help her, it made tears fill her eyes. She looked away before he could see them.

  “I’ll have Charlie take you home.”

  And then what? Are you coming back to the ranch, too? What, Scott? What are you thinking?

  But oddly enough, despite the incredible intimacy they’d shared, she didn’t feel like she could ask him that question.

  “Thanks,” she said instead.

  “You’re welcome.”

  When she found the courage to look up again, he was glancing at his watch. His watch. Play it cool, Amanda. You don’t want him to know that you’re afraid it’s already too late. You don’t want him to know that while last night hadn’t been all that special to him, it certainly had been for her.

  “I’ll see you back at the ranch,” he said.

  “When?” She couldn’t help it…the question thrust itself from her mouth before she could reel it back in like a naughty marlin.

  That was when she noticed that he looked uncomfortable. Or had the look always been there and she just hadn’t noticed?

  “Soon,” he said evasively. “I’ve got some things to wrap up here.”

  “Oh, great, because Stephanie is serious about you riding in that rodeo, so if you’re interested, you better come practice.”

  Oh, man, was that her sounding so grasping?

  “Oh, yeah, right. Sure. Tell Stephanie she can count on me.”

  Tell Stephanie. Not her. “Well then, I’ll see you later.” She took a step toward him. He leaned down and pecked her on the cheek. That was it. No back bending, passionate avowal of love—not that she’d been expecting one. No lip-smacking, earth-shattering kiss. Nothing but a light peck on a cheek she was afraid would quickly be wet with tears.

  And, darn it, but it shocked her how much that stung.

  HE DIDN’T COME BACK to the ranch that day, or the next, or even that week. Oh, he called, but they were stilted, monosyllabic conversations that drove Amanda nuts and made her wonder how the heck she could have so misjudged a man. Granted, it wasn’t as if he’d dumped her. He just made it abundantly clear that he didn’t feel the same thigh-melting urge to be with her as she did him. And when she finally got up the nerve to ask him what was keeping him in town, he replied, “Business.”

  Business.

  Jake had used the same excuse on her once or twice. But it wasn’t until a few weeks after the accident that she realized his “business” was other women. Several of them, in fact. At the time she’d told herself it didn’t matter. Only now did she realize that it had mattered. That deep inside, a part of her fear of getting involved with Scott was being on the receiving end of the “business” excuse again.

  It didn’t help matters that that stupid “Billionaire Bets for a Babe” article got picked up by the AP, appearing in newspapers across the country. It was exactly the sort of publicity she didn’t want. Everyone in town, including the Biddy Brigade, shook their heads at her foolishness in making such a fuss about dating Scott Beringer.

  So when she heard a helicopter’s blades approach the ranch a week later she had to stop herself from running to the front door and racing to his makeshift landing pad. Instead, she finished packing the box she’d stuffed full of her father’s belongings, then forced herself to turn and unfold another box, to tape the flaps closed with the familiar zi-i-ip of the packaging-tape dispenser. To straighten, to look around and observe what she was going to pack next.

  She decided to leave, though she wasn’t sure when exactly she’d decided to do so. It was most likely when she realized that asking to sell the place back to her would feel like selling her services for a favor. But it went further than that. Leaving had to do with pride. With the knowledge that sooner or later they’d have been forced to leave. Unless you had thousands of heads of cattle, ranching barely paid. Truth be told, the writing had been on the wall long before Scott had come along.

  “What’s this?” Scott asked nearly ten excruciating minutes later.

  She straightened, her ponytail landing over her left shoulder, every nerve flexing and then jabbing at her stomach muscles as if his voice were a pack of stick-pins.

  She faced him, striving not to let the hurt and disappointment she felt show on her face as she replied. “What does it look like I’m doing? Packing.” Oh, man, had that been too snappish? Too curt? Could he see the gaping wound he’d caused?

  He came into the house, a duffel bag of clothes slung over one shoulder, a black cowboy hat low over his brow. Back to Scott the rancher. How quaint.

  “But I told your father he could stay.”

  “My father doesn’t accept charity, Scott. I’d have thought you’d have figured that out in the week you were gone.”

  That was definitely snappish.

  “Stop packing,” he said, his Wranglers flexing as he bent to set his bag down.

  “Not my decision to make.”

  “Have you packed?”

  “I sure have,” she said, turning back to her task at hand.

  “Amanda,” he said. “What the heck’s the matter?”

  That did it. She set the pewter figurine she’d been holding down.

  “Nothing’s the matter, Scott. Nothing at all. If you’d called, I would have explained—”

  “I called.”

  “To say hi and not much more.”

  “Like I said, it’s been a busy week.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Are you mad that I didn’t come back to the ranch with you?”

  No she really wasn’t. She’d known who he was before getting involved. Scott Beringer. Tycoon. Businessman. Sure, they’d had one heck of a night together, but she reminded herself that that had been an experiment, nothing more.

  Yeah, right.

  “Why would I be mad about that?” she said. “I told you on our ‘date’ that I didn’t want a relationship with you. Spending the night together didn’t change that.”

  But it did. It did, it did, it did. Couldn’t he sense that? Didn’t he know?

  “I brought you something.”

  She stiffened, something about the way he said the words, something about how he held out a small box that could only contain jewelry—earrings, probably—sent a chill through Amanda.

  “I don’t want it.”

  “Open it before you make that decision.”

  “No.”

  So he opened it for her, a flash of morning sunlight from behind him catching on the diamond earrings and turning them into a quasar of color.

  “Here,” he said.

  “I told you, I don’t want it.”

  “Why not?”

  Because she’d done some research on him while he’d been away. A great deal of research, thanks to the magazine articles Stephanie had clipped and then left for her to read. She’d read about the way Scott lavished gifts on his women. About the way he jetted them across the world at the drop of a hat. Just like he had her. Well, to the San Francisco Bay at least.

  “If I accept those, Scott, I’ll feel…cheap. As if you�
��re paying me or something.” She went back to packing, saying as she bent, “I refuse to feel cheap.”

  “You make it sound as if I’m paying you for sex.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Then there’s nothing to talk about. I wanted it and you wanted it. Looks like we both got what we wanted.”

  “It was more than just mutual satisfaction.”

  Was it? Then why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you tell me that before a week went by?

  “You’re right, it was great,” she said. “But now it’s over.”

  “How can it be over when it’s barely even started?”

  Because she cared for him. All right, so she could admit that. But it was exactly because of that that she knew she had to break it off before things got out of hand. And though her ego felt marginally better that he wasn’t giving her the cold shoulder…she knew that moment wasn’t far down the road.

  “Scott, I like you. You know that. But I’m not willing to commit to anything more than that.”

  “Who said we had to commit?”

  Oh, direct hit. And the funny thing was, she didn’t know until that moment that she’d been hoping he’d tell her she was wrong, that perhaps they could give a relationship a try. Only now she knew he didn’t think of her in that way. He wanted to go to bed with her, and while the thought of sharing another incredible night with him made her body warm as if his fingers were skating along her flesh right now, she wasn’t stupid.

  “You’re right. Who said we had to commit to anything? That’s why I’m hoping we can be friends.”

  “Friends?” he said, running a hand through his hair. And dang it, she remembered what it felt like to touch that hair, too. Remembered what the skin on his cheek felt like against her own cheek. Remembered how hard and yet incredibly soft he could kiss her with those lips of his, lips that frowned now.

  He looked away, shook his head. “I can’t believe this.”

  “What can’t you believe?”

  “Nothing,” he said with another shake.

  He couldn’t believe how it felt to be the one kept at a distance? Was that what he was thinking? Oh, how she was tempted to ask, even as her mind and her heart screamed at her to tell him she was just joking. That she’d take whatever she could get, whatever time he could spare, however he wanted to give it.