Nothing But Trouble

by Amy Andrews

  The fiddles were belting out a jaunty polka-style dance as Wade took the last couple of steps. CC spotted him honing in over Don’s shoulder and frowned.

  Wade stopped and tapped Don on the shoulder. “Can I cut in?”

  CC blinked, her mouth parting slightly in surprise. Well, she could take a number. She wasn’t the only one surprised here tonight. He had no idea why he was doing this other than his mother’s insistence. And cock-blocking Arlo.

  Nothing to do with that fucking skirt and those cowgirl boots. Nothing at all.

  Don puffed himself up and patted Wade on the back enthusiastically. “Of course you can, son. Pretty little thing like this doesn’t want to be dancing with an old fogey like me.”

  He chuckled in a fake kind of self-deprecation and, when neither of them jumped into refute his description, he coughed and muttered something about mayoral duties and departed.

  Wade was excruciatingly aware of their stillness as couples all around them jigged along to the upbeat tempo of the music. He held out his hand. “Shall we?”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “You dance?”

  “I can dance.”

  “This kind of dancing?”

  Wade grinned, the itch dissipating at her incredulous expression. “Yes, this kind of dancing. I grew up here, remember? With a Texan mother whose sworn duty it was to raise sons who could do-si-do. I can even line dance, but I will deny that under pain of death if you tell anyone.” He reached for her hand again, but she leaned away slightly.

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, and Wade could see she had some kind of dark liner where her eyelashes met her eyelids. She wasn’t the first woman to kohl up her eyes, but he was pretty sure it was the first time she had. That he’d noticed, anyway.

  “We don’t dance, you and I.”

  Yeah. No shit. “Well I guess there’s a first time for everything.” He waggled his hand at her. “Cut me some slack. My mother seems to think it’s an affront to Texas if I don’t ask you, so…here I am, asking you to dance.”

  “Fine.” She sighed, but a small smile twitched at the corners of her mouth as she took his hand. “I wouldn’t want to insult Texas.”

  Wade’s hand buzzed as CC’s slid into his. He ignored it by holding her at a decent distance and quickly picking up the steps, going through the familiar motions, looking anywhere but down.

  Too soon, though, the song came to an end, and the band struck up a slower, more intimate ballad, and they were left standing awkwardly in the middle of the dance floor as couples melted into each other.

  The guests and the locals seemed to be getting on very well indeed!

  Wade wasn’t sure if this weekend would be a success in regards to the long-term prospects of Credence, but in the short term, he wouldn’t mind betting on a population explosion in nine months’ time.

  He felt a tug on his hand as CC tried to pull away, but for some reason he resisted. “Where are you going?”

  Her gaze didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Song’s over.”

  Her cheeks were flushed, he noted. Maybe it was just from the exertion of the polka and the previous dancing she’d done, but her face looked pretty, all warm and pink, and got him to thinking about other ways he could put color in her cheeks, which led to a startling stirring behind the zipper of his jeans.

  That alone should have warned him to unhand her, but the devil was riding him tonight.

  “One more. For my mother’s sake?” He tipped his chin, and she followed the direction of his gaze. His mother—God bless her—beamed and waved at both of them, and he could have kissed her for her timing because for some reason he couldn’t explain, Wade wanted to pull CC closer, not let her go.

  Something had a hold of him tonight. Maybe it was the music, maybe it was the stars, maybe it was nostalgia for Credence, which filled him everywhere he looked.

  Whatever it was, he was finding it impossible to resist. Finding her impossible to resist.

  “Okay, fine,” she murmured. “One more.”

  Wade grinned and stepped in closer, sliding a hand around CC’s waist, careful to still keep a little distance between them. Her body was warm and pliant beneath his palm, but she shivered. “Cold?” he murmured, his voice suddenly raspy.

  She shook her head, but unconsciously he stepped a little closer, adding some of his body warmth to the heated space between them. All around them people swayed to the music, and they followed suit, not talking for a beat or two, not even looking at each other.

  A strange kind of silence settled over them. The music, the chatter of the crowd around the edges, the movement of the other couples around them faded to black until it felt as if they were dancing alone on the street.

  “So…” She cleared her throat and glanced at him, her chin stuck out in that determined way he knew so well. “Line dancing, huh?”

  His breath caught at the dance of red and yellow and blue in her eyes from the colored lights overhead and the way they bathed the exposed skin of her neck and chest in a muted rainbow of soft light.

  “Yup. I even won a trophy for best junior line dancing boy at the county fair one year.”

  She laughed. “So you’ve always been competitive, then?”

  Wade laughed, too. “That and naturally light on my feet.”

  Someone bumped them from behind, pushing CC against him, and Wade’s hands tightened around her waist to steady her before returning her to her previous position. Or maybe a touch closer. She shivered again, and he realized his fingers were absently stroking her waist, and he swore he heard the rough intake of her breath.

  Or maybe it was his. Did her lungs feel as ineffectual as his all of a sudden?

  It’d been three years since Wade had been so attuned to the internal workings of his body. As an athlete it’d been his job to listen to internal feedback. In retirement that skill had gone by the wayside. But he was listening now. Listening as it hummed with an awareness that was terribly familiar yet utterly foreign.

  Different to the sharpened focus demanded by football. Different, too, to the familiar stir of sexual interest.

  This was much more intense. This was an awareness of his pulse bounding at his wrists, his temple, his abdomen, and his groin. And it wasn’t fast and hectic like it was when he was chasing a touchdown, but slow and thick. Wade was aware of the scorch of air, hot and ragged, in his lungs, the electric tingle in the pads of his fingers where they touched her body, the vibrations along nerve endings that cranked taut every muscle he owned.

  Aware, too, on some level, that she was feeling the same.

  He glanced at the top of her head. The flower in her hair was fake, he realized, glued to a clip, but it was quirky and playful. So not the efficient PA he’d known for five and a half years. But a woman. A sexy, vibrant, flesh-and-blood woman.

  “You’re looking very nice tonight.”

  Wade wasn’t entirely sure where the words had come from. They’d just slipped out of his mouth unfiltered and unchecked.

  She glanced up at him, startled, her lips parted, that slight v between her brows. “Oh…thank you.”

  “I didn’t know you owned a skirt.”

  Wade blinked as more stupid fell from his mouth. Why in hell would he say that? Why? If anything, her v deepened and her mouth closed, her lips pressing together. “Guess there’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, Wade Carter.”

  She dropped her gaze, and Wade frowned at the top of her head. What the hell did that mean? Was she trying to distance herself from their conversation in front of the television last week? Yeah, they hadn’t talked much prior to Credence, but he still knew her, and he’d bet his last cent she didn’t have some closet somewhere full of girly shit. He opened his mouth to say as much, but she got in before him.

  “So today’
s been a roaring success.”

  Her voice was tinged with triumph, but Wade let it slide, concentrating instead on the warm fan of her breath where his open neckline met the first button of his shirt. It was as distracting as her fucking knees, making the air in his lungs hotter.

  “Yes.”

  She gave a half laugh that huffed more air across his skin, drifting to his throat and caressing him there. Sensations prickled at his scalp and his groin, and his hand tightened a little more at her waist.

  “And you thought the sky was going to fall in.”

  Wade gave a soft snort. The way his body was reacting to the tickle of her breath felt pretty fucking apocalyptic. “The weekend’s not over yet.”

  “You haven’t been recognized, have you?”

  “No.”

  She glanced around. “Everybody seems to be enjoying themselves.”

  “Yeah.” Wade’s body, for example, was enjoying itself way too much. He forced himself to look around too, take his mind off every sway of her hips. “It’s nice, actually. Seeing Credence like this.” And it was; it’d been a long time since he’d felt part of the town. “It takes me back to the fourth of July parties when I was a kid. Mom and Dad would bring us into the parade, and then they closed off the street like this, and we’d eat hot dogs and cotton candy and drink soda until we puked.”

  She laughed, and goose bumps feathered up his throat. “That sounds nice.”

  He glanced down at the wistful note in her voice, understanding the origin much better now, but found himself staring at the top of her head again. “Yeah, it was.” He gazed at the criss-cross of lights above him. “You’ve all done a great job with the decorations. The street looks real pretty.”

  She glanced up at him the same time he looked down at her, and their gazes meshed. “Yeah?”

  Her voice was husky and hopeful and burrowed under his ribs quicker than if she’d taken his compliment as a matter of course or shrugged it off. Wade nodded and smiled as his gaze drifted briefly to her mouth before returning. “Yeah.”

  Just like you.

  Why hadn’t he noticed how damn feminine she was before tonight? That under those jeans and ball caps, she was delicate, her features almost feline.

  They were still staring at each other, barely even swaying, when somebody cleared their throat behind him a beat or two later and Wade felt a quick tap on his shoulder.

  Arlo. Wade didn’t even have to turn to know that.

  “Okay, okay, hotshot, unhand that woman. You get to see her every day, and she promised me a dance.”

  Wade didn’t want Arlo to dance with CC, but his brain, suddenly back in control, was telling him to step away. They may be getting friendlier, but CC was still his PA, his employee, and the things he was thinking and feeling were putting him in dangerous territory.

  Arlo taking over was probably for the best.

  “It’s true,” she said, her gaze still holding his. “I did promise him.”

  And then she stepped back, breaking their eye contact, their physical contact. Wade’s hands slipped from her waist, his palms still hot and buzzing from their contact. Arlo nudged him aside, taking his place, and Wade was almost overwhelmed with the urge to tear him away, the pulses at his temples throbbing with a surge of primal testosterone.

  What the fuck was wrong with him tonight?

  Chapter Thirteen

  The night air was cool on her flushed skin as CC made her escape along the deserted Credence main street an hour later. She’d been working hard for a week and had worked like a junkyard dog today. When Ronnie had ordered a yawning CC home to bed, she’d mumbled a vague protest about helping with the cleanup but hadn’t insisted when Ronnie had shaken her head.

  “We have a whole cleanup team, darlin’. You organized them.”

  And CC thanked God she had. Her feet ached from all that dancing in a pair of boots that had arrived special delivery only yesterday. It had seemed like a good idea to get her country on a few days ago when she’d seen them and the skirt on Amazon, but maybe not so much now. Dressing up for a change had been nice, but she was probably going to suffer over it for a few days.

  That’d teach her to be vain.

  And it had been vanity, she realized as she sucked in a lungful of sweet, clean Colorado air. Something about an influx of almost two hundred women had goaded her into it. She wasn’t used to being around a lot of women—she’d grown up with brothers and worked in the hotel industry before becoming a personal assistant.

  All her bosses had been men working in male-oriented industries.

  Hell, the last five years she’d been drowning in men. From Wade’s NFL teammates to executives and agents and advertising people, not to mention the professional hangers-on. And, as Wade’s PA, she’d essentially been an intimate part of that world. Accepted as one of them. Marinating in an ocean of testosterone.

  It was a wonder she hadn’t started to grow hair on her chest.

  So, suddenly being thrust into a bull pen with all those other women had freaked her out a little. But not as freaked out as she was now about Wade.

  About dancing with Wade.

  About how dancing with Wade had made her feel.

  Her cheeks grew hot again just thinking about it. They’d never been that close before. Sure, they had in that impersonal way of people who work together, who passed by each other or handed each other things. Just yesterday she’d stood behind Wade’s chair and leaned over his shoulder as he’d Googled something on his computer. She was pretty sure her chest had probably unintentionally brushed his shoulder blade once or twice.

  Whatever. That wasn’t this. That wasn’t dancing.

  Dancing was intimate. Or it had certainly fucking felt that way.

  Hell, she’d barely been able to breathe as his hand had slid onto her waist and he’d stepped in closer. Her whole body had come alive, aware of Wade as a man. Not her boss. Not Ronnie and Cal’s son. Or Wyatt’s brother. Not a famous Broncos quarterback.

  A man.

  Her heart beat triple time just remembering his touch. Remembering how her skin had felt energized and her nipples had tightened to painful peaks and the band of muscles slung between her hips had heated and liquefied as his fingers had stroked at her waist. And when his gaze had dropped to her mouth, she’d wanted to push up onto her tippy-toes and kiss him—hard.

  Which was all kinds of crazy.

  Maybe if she hadn’t had that dream, if her body hadn’t already made a seismic shift in the way it regarded him, she’d have been oblivious to any undercurrents while they danced. But the dream had happened, and a portal had been opened to another world, and she was very afraid she’d never be able to go back.

  It hadn’t helped that he’d cleaned up well. His sweaty, down-around-the-farm look had been switched up for country-boy-on-the-town casual. His soft jeans clinging to his quads and ass, his checked flannel shirt open at the neck and rolled up to the elbows. And that Stetson, pulled low.

  If she hadn’t known he was a quarterback, she’d have pegged him for some cowboy just ridden into town on his horse. CC had taken one look at him tonight and her ovaries had burst into a rendition of home, home on the range.

  She’d moved on from farmer porn to cowboy porn.

  CC drew in a shaky breath, which seemed loud in the relative quiet broken only by the drift of music fading away behind her. This was a bad time to be getting a case of the hots for her boss. Especially when she knew what he was like with women.

  And why.

  How deeply rooted his mistrust of women was because of Jasmine’s betrayal. How he made the dating rules because he could never truly trust that a woman wanted Wade and not The Catapult.

  She supposed it would have been worse had she developed this exceedingly inconvenient…fascination with him years ago. It would have been untenable for her to co
ntinue in her position, and that would have put her California dream out of reach.

  As it was, she should probably pack her bags and go now. But it was only another couple of months until she left his employ for good anyway and, as she had absolutely no intention of acting on any of her unwanted feelings—that was too weird to even contemplate—it seemed a little extreme.

  Plus she’d told Wade she’d stay. So she’d stay. Professional integrity was important.

  “CC!”

  Wade’s hiss from behind her scared the crap out of CC. She startled and stumbled backward, sprawling into the hedge she’d been passing. She clutched at her chest as her pulse hammered madly at her temples.

  Wade’s low chuckle reached her just before he jogged to her aid. “You’re in the hedge there, CC.”

  The foliage prickled at her arms. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” she hissed as he offered his hand. She refused, too pissed at him to take his help as she disentangled herself from the scratchy, green embrace of the hedge.

  But she’d take anger over the tumult of sensations he’d caused when they’d danced earlier. In fact, anger was a good antidote to those annoyingly unwanted sexy feelings!

  “Sorry, I didn’t want to startle you by suddenly appearing by your side.”

  “How’d that work out for you?” she said waspishly.

  He had the good grace to at least look like he was mostly sorry for alarming her, although she suspected that if they’d been under a streetlamp, she’d also see humor lurking on his features.

  CC straightened her clothes and brushed at some twigs in her hair. The fact he looked so damn well put together when she literally looked liked she’d been fighting with a hedge needled CC even further. His hair, which had been crammed in a hat all night, didn’t appear to have suffered at all, looking gloriously finger-tousled.

  “What do you want?” Surges of adrenaline made most people edgy. They made CC bitchy.

  “Nothing. I just thought I’d walk you home. You shouldn’t be out on the streets at night by yourself.”

  A bubble of laughter rose in CC’s chest as she looked around the deserted town. Past his shoulder she could just see the rainbow flare of lights criss-crossing the street in the distance. “In Credence? At nine-thirty?”