by Dawn Atkins
"Changing the oil," he said, holding in his frustration.
"And it's not going well?"
"It's … going … fine," he said, twisting the wrench with each word. The plug remained maddeningly tight. Dammit!
"If that's what fine sounds like, I'd hate to hear you when it's going badly," she said. "I think I heard you swearing from across the highway."
Her good smell wafted to him under the car, making him go all soft inside. He felt her eyes assessing his work. He'd bet she had an opinion she wouldn't hesitate to share.
"You're going to need something to catch the oil."
Yep. Just like he thought. He sighed wearily. The last thing he needed was a flower-scented busybody whose plump toes looked good enough to eat. "I know what I'm doing," he said.
At that instant, the wrench slipped, the plug flipped out and thick oil splashed onto his face. He jerked away, but not before he got a good wallop of gritty oil in his hair, face and mouth and scraped the skin of his knuckles on the undercarriage.
"Phft! Phew!" He spit out oil. "Ow!" He pushed out from under the car and sat up, shaking the wounded hand he would have sucked if his mouth didn't taste like dirt and used motor oil. "Son of a … sailor! Damn, hell, damn!" He spat some more.
"Oh, dear," Lacey said, springing to her feet. "I'll get something." She teetered into the garage and banged around while he wiped the oil from his face with the side of his uninjured hand. The other one throbbed like hell.
"Paper towels," Lacey exclaimed and rushed to him with a roll.
"I'm fine," he said, scrunching his face against her rough scrubbing.
"No, you're not. You're covered in oil." Her gaze fell on his hand. "And you're bleeding. Let me get the first-aid kit from the café." She thrust the wad of paper towels into his good hand and scampered off in her spiky sandals. He couldn't help but appreciate the nice little wiggle in her backside.
While she was gone he pulled off his T-shirt and scrubbed up with industrial soap in the deep enamel sink in the garage. She'd been right about the oil pan. If she hadn't thrown him off with her perfume and her toes, he would have figured it out himself in a second.
At the sound of quick footsteps he looked up to see her running toward him, a bottle of peroxide and a roll of tape clutched in one hand, a streamer of gauze flying behind her, her breasts bouncing nicely. She could sure tighten his bolts in a hurry.
She reached him and stopped abruptly, her eyes wide. "Oh. Well." She seemed awed by his chest, which was strange. He worked out, but he was hardly a bodybuilder.
* * *
No tattoo, Lacey noted, but that was the only thing that disappointed her about the half-naked man before her. He had nice muscles, but not overdone, and a flat stomach. Water beaded on his face and sparkled in straight black chest hair that arrowed to his waistband. The hair on his head was smooth, slick and darkly wet.
This could be the perfect moment, Lacey realized – like the scene in an adventure movie where the heroine patches up the hero's gunshot wound and they fall into each other's arms.
"I'm fine. Really." Max held up his hands to ward off her peroxide-soaked cotton ball.
"We have to prevent infection," she said, trying to make it sound sexy – not easy when his eyes zapped all the moisture from her mouth. Her hand shook as she dabbed the torn skin on the back of his hand.
"Ow! Jeez, that burns!"
"Oh, don't be such a baby!" she snapped before she could catch herself. Insulting his manhood wasn't a great start to a seduction. "Sorry." She gently laid a gauze square over the injury and pulled a strip of white adhesive from the metal ring with her teeth. Except the sticky tape slipped from her fingers and landed outstretched on the back of his forearm. "Oh, dear. Let me…" She tugged gently at the tape.
"Ow! That's hair there," he said.
"Sorry," she said. "This'll hurt for just a second." She bit her lip, held her breath and yanked.
He sucked in a breath.
"Sorry!"
"Just don't say that hurt you more than it did me."
This was definitely not going the way it went in the movies. By now, their eyes should have locked and sexual heat should be rising like steam between them. Instead, she'd ripped a swatch of hair from his forearm and he looked so pained she was sure if he wasn't a gentleman he'd be cursing her.
She finished her nursely duties with care, taping the gauze loosely to his fingers. "There. All better," she said when she'd completed the task. She dragged her eyes from his wound to his face, swallowed and tried to suggest going out for a beer, but the words got stuck. Something about the way his dark eyes dug at her kept her from making a peep.
"Thanks," he said, then gestured at the open hood of the Jeep. "I better get back to this."
He wanted her to leave, but she hadn't asked him out yet. She couldn't leave without making plans. "Just don't forget to put the plug back in the oil pan or the oil will just pour out again," she said, to keep the conversation going.
"For a woman who can't make coffee, you seem to know a hell of a lot about engines," he said irritably.
"I took a class once, for your information – Self-Sufficiency for Women. Was the coffee that bad?"
He looked at her, then sighed. "No. Sorry to be cranky. I just don't need any help, okay?"
Of course. Giving a macho guy advice on car repair was like walking on his masculinity with stiletto heels.
"I guess I just wanted to pay you back for catching my snake for me."
"Right." Their eyes met and held.
She took a deep breath and started. "I was thinking maybe we could … um … go out … for … a beer maybe?"
"Or dinner?" Max said quickly. "How about dinner?"
"Great." There, that wasn't so hard! She'd asked him out. Of course it had taken an oil spill, a hair rip and an ego bruise to do it, but what the heck. She'd done it.
Jackpot. A rush ran through Max. Lacey had just dropped into his palm like a ripe plum. Over dinner was the perfect time to start talking her out of the coffeehouse. He was so good.
"I'll pick you up at seven," he said.
"Great. The trailer on the left is mine," she said, pointing across the highway at two mobile homes beside the café. She gathered her first-aid gear in her arms. "See you," she said and tottered off across the highway, leaving his head full of the scent of summer flowers, his eyes full of the sight of her tight jiggle and his mouth full of … motor oil.
He had a date with Lacey. Fantastic. Except he was afraid his enthusiasm had less to do with his favor to Wade, than it did with the way Lacey's tongue had peeked out from kiss-me-baby lips as her busy fingers worked him over.
The night would be strictly business, he warned himself. He was just doing his duty. Suddenly, he remembered something worrisome. He'd asked Lacey to dinner, but she'd asked him for a beer first. Why? He knew what he wanted from her tonight, but what did she want from him? Company? Maybe. Friendship? Possibly. He sure hoped it wasn't something more. Something hot, sweaty and naked. Because, judging by the way she'd yanked that snake away from him, she could be one stubborn lady. And he might not want to put up much of a fight.
* * *
It took two showers with industrial soap to get the rest of the oil out of his hair and off his face, but Max pulled up in front of Lacey's trailer in Buck's battered pickup right on time. He'd spent an hour scrubbing the truck, too – cleaning out the hay, mud, horsehair and sweat Duck and the ranch hands had ground into the cab.
Lacey waited for him in front of her trailer in a dress so sexy it stopped his heart. A bright red spandex number, tight as an elasticized bandage that barely wrapped up the goods gathered into a deep vee between her firm breasts and barely reached the tops of her thighs, with come-'n'-get-me pumps to match.
In his experience, the tighter the dress and the higher the hem, the more likely the woman meant to sleep with you. It was simple math. With that in mind, in that getup, he half expected her to strip him down in the truck. But why hi
m? And why so fast? She didn't strike him as the type who jumped into the sack on the first date. And she was supposedly engaged. One thing was certain. She'd dressed like that to make a statement. And his body had gotten the message, loud and clear.
He got out of the truck and went to hold her door for her. She sashayed toward him in that tight skirt. "You look nice," he said, understating the case so as not to sound like the big bad wolf drooling over Red Riding Hood's goodies. She was a very sexy package, with a gymnast's body – petite, but built – and streaky blond hair that fell in springy curls to her shoulder. The hair, along with her elf-like features and quick movements, made her seem scattered and childlike, until you got a load of the seriousness and intelligence in her deep green eyes. He was a sucker for those eyes…
He held her small hand as she climbed into the truck, averting his gaze at the moment of inevitable exposure.
"Thanks," she said, once she was seated, her skirt revealing lots of creamy thigh. No nylons. Sheesh. And it looked like … yep, no panty line, either. Everything tightened up downstairs. He tried to think about baseball.
"You look nice, too," she said. "Very … um, western."
"Right." He laughed.
"Sorry. That sounded stupid. I've just never gone out with a cowboy before." The sultry way she spoke and the sparkle in her eyes told him that when she said "gone out with" she meant "had sex with." Uh-oh. Lacey wanted to bag a cowboy. Little did she know he was just a CPA with chafed thighs.
He walked around the truck and climbed into the cab beside her, hoping he could keep things cool.
"This is nice," Lacey said, looking around the truck cab. "It hardly even stinks in here."
"Gee, thanks," he said. So much for his hour of scrubbing.
She waved him away from the nouvelle Southwest cuisine restaurant he'd picked out, insisting on "something more cowboyish," so he backtracked to a place Buck had mentioned as good for beer and burgers, since the Wonder Café's food was so lousy.
Leo's Cowtown had scarred wood walls, sawdust on the floor, air so smoke-thick you could cut it, a jukebox wailing something country and Stetson hats and cowboy boots as far as the eye could see. "This cowboyish enough for you?" he asked.
"If this is where you go," she said. "I want you to be comfortable and all."
Right. She was probably afraid he wouldn't know how to sort out the forks in a place with linen table-cloths. It would have made him laugh, normally, except he was too busy trying not to notice the way male eyes honed in on Lacey as she passed in her tube top of a dress. This was the kind of place where you said things like "Take yer hands off my woman," and got your lights punched out defending her honor. Max didn't blame them for staring, though. With each step, her butt muscles bunched so sexily he felt a dull pain below the belt.
A half-dozen wranglers nursed brews at the bar, their beer guts resting on their thighs. Two more played pool and the booths held more cowboys – none of the urban variety. Other than the three waitresses in short uniforms with frilly blouses, Lacey was the only woman in the place.
They slid into a booth, and Lacey busied herself wiping the beer rings, ketchup and cigarette ashes from the table with a napkin. "So, is this where you guys hang?" she asked eagerly. "After the roundup?"
"S'pose so," he said. Buck kept thanking God it wasn't spring so Max wouldn't be offering up any pie-in-the-sky cost-saving tips on branding and castrating equipment.
"What kin I getcha?" the middle-aged waitress asked in a cigarettes-and-whiskey voice.
"I'm not sure. You order first, Max," Lacey said.
"Shot of Jack Daniels, Bud draft back," he said, keeping with the cowboy theme. "And menus."
"I'll have the same," Lacey piped up.
"You sure?" Max asked. "Boilermakers are intense."
"When in Rome," she answered cheerily.
After the waitress left, Lacey leaned forward, resting her breasts on her folded arms in a way that presented them to crotch-throbbing advantage – perky and swollen as grapefruit with raspberry-bumpy tips. He was dying to touch.
He lifted his gaze to her mouth, which was no less inviting. She had an unconsciously hypnotic way of licking her full lips. Feeling light-headed, Max forced himself to look in her eyes. Not much better. Velvety green with lush brown flecks. He could get lost in those eyes… Vulnerable. Intelligent, and…
…Scared, he finally saw through his sex-charged haze. She wanted to flirt with him, but she was jittery about it. "Relax, Lacey. We're all friends here," he said. "Don't be nervous."
"I'm not nervous," Lacey said. "What makes you think I'm nervous?" The instant the waitress arrived with their boiler-makers, she grabbed the shot and drank it down in one gulp.
"That, for one thing. You aren't required to slam those, you know. It's perfectly acceptable to sip."
"I know … what I'm … doing," she said, her voice husky from the harsh liquor. The waitress came back, patted Lacey's back sympathetically, took their burger orders and departed.
Max tossed back his whiskey shot, hoping to dull his senses to the effect Lacey was having on him. The liquor burned all the way down. He banged on the table and gasped for air.
"That's the spirit!" Lacey said, smiling.
He reminded himself that he'd better get started with his task for the evening. "So, tell me more about this coffeehouse deal," he said.
"Oh, you're not interested in that, are you?" she asked, but she sounded delighted.
"Absolutely," he said, clinking his beer stein with hers. "Tell me everything."
"If you're sure," she said, and then she told him everything. Right down to the fire-sale café chairs, the velvet remnants she'd bought by the pound for decorative swags and the break she'd negotiated on coffee equipment with a company that Wellington partnered with. He kept getting distracted by the way her breasts surged upward as she leaned toward him, and those lips… He'd love a taste.
"So, what do you think?" she asked.
"Huh? Oh." Focus, man. "Sounds kind of risky to me. I mean, sixty percent of restaurants go under in the first year."
"What?" She looked at him like he'd just spoken Swahili.
Oh, right. She was wondering where a cowboy got business stats. "I read that somewhere. I read a lot," he explained. "All those lonely nights in the bunkhouse. Plus, I always keep a book in the ol' saddlebag."
"I see." She gave him a speculative look.
"And anyway, you can get coffee anywhere. Why do you need a house for it?"
Lacey laughed. "You don't go to a coffeehouse just for coffee. You go for the experience, the atmosphere, to see and be seen. Believe me, it's a very popular concept."
He shrugged. "As long as you can bail if things don't work, I guess."
She stopped, her beer stein at her lips. "Bail? Why would I bail?"
"I don't know. I'd just hate to see you lose your shirt, or fail and be disappointed…" His words trailed off.
Her eyes crackled with stubborn fire. "You sound just like my brother."
The waitress arrived and, quick as a whistle, Lacey swept the shot glass off the tray and tossed it back, as if to wash away the thought. "And, believe me, the last thing I need is another brother."
Great. Just when he'd promised Wade he'd be one. "You don't want to down those so close together," Max said.
"I hardly coughed that time." She beamed, blinking water from her eyes.
"I may know nothing about coffeehouses, but I do know about whiskey, Lacey, and believe me, it doesn't taste as smooth coming up as it does going down."
"I'm just relaxing, like you suggested." She grew thoughtful. "I am a little nervous. I mean I don't know you very well."
"Don't worry about me. I don't bite. Or at least not hard enough to leave a mark."
She giggled, a sweet, tinkling sound he wanted to hear more of, even if it had been coaxed out by liquor.
"So, tell me more about this project," he said, wanting to distract her from her nervousness so she wo
uldn't drink herself into a stupor.
For the next hour, he listened to more details about her café transformation, trying to slip in doubts wherever he could. The only problem was that every time he said something negative, she got nervous again and downed more booze. Eventually, her eyelids began to sag and she started to wobble. She was getting schnockered, no question, and it was partly his fault for upsetting her.
"Annnnywayyyyyyy, enough business talk," Lacey said finally, slapping the table for emphasis. "Let's get personal." She leaned across the table, then closed one eye into what was supposed to be a wink, but it came out looking more like a twitch. "I've been going on and on – and on – about me," she said, then hiccupped so loudly heads turned. "Now let's talk about you. Tell me how you got into the cowboy business." She rested her chin on her palm and gave him a bleary stare.
"The cowboy business?" He hadn't worked up a fake job history for the evening, so he'd have to wing it. "I just fell into it." That was true. With a shove from Wade.
She held up her empty shot glass for the waitress to see.
"You don't want to—" Max started to say, but Lacey's look stopped him. Even the burgers hadn't seemed to soak up much of the alcohol. He caught the waitress's eye without Lacey seeing and motioned for her to water down the whiskey.
"So, what do you like about cowboying?" Lacey asked him.
When it's over. "What do I like…?"
"No, wait!" She jiggled appealingly on the bench, waggling her fingers at him. "I'll guess, and you tell me if I'm right."
"Okay," he said slowly. It was as good a plan as any.
"You love being close to the land, right?"
"Yeah." Except when he got thrown on his keister onto it.
"And you hate fences."
Only when he was the one building them. "You've got it," he said.
"You don't feel right unless you're on a horse."
He hadn't felt right since he'd been on a horse. He hoped it all still worked down there. "Mmm," he said, noncommittally.
"And you don't let people get too close. Especially women."
Now they were getting somewhere. Here was the perfect way to ensure this thing between them didn't go anywhere dangerous. Or naked. "You got it. I'm a loner. Absolutely."
