Celie waited all the next day for the other shoe to drop—for Jace Tucker to show up, for word to drift down about her being jilted, about her bidding on Sloan Gallagher, about what a sorry sad woman she really was.
But she didn't hear a word.
She worked an incredibly long day—starting before eight in the morning and finishing up after eight that night because it was a sea day. The first formal dinner would be held that night, and half the women on the ship wanted their hair fixed. They all talked and chatted and gossiped about everything under the sun.
But she never heard a word about herself.
And she never saw Jace, either.
She could almost have believed she'd dreamed him, but Simone came up to her when she'd been leaving that evening and buttonholed her as she headed for the door. "Zat man—zat cowboy—who come on ze ship, he is your lover?"
"No!"
Simone's very expressive brows did their disbelieving arch. "No? But he say he comes to see you."
"To annoy me." How could she possibly explain the very antagonistic relationship she had with Jace? "I'm sure he was as surprised to see me as I was to see him."
"He did not know you were here?"
Celie wetted her lips. "I … don't know."
"Hmm." Simone tapped a bloodred fingernail thoughtfully on her chin. "We shall see," she said after a moment's consideration. Her gaze leveled on Celie. "You know ze rules."
"Yes."
Simone nodded. "We charm ze guests. We have a drink wiz ze guests. We don't sleep wiz ze guests." She came down on this last with both feet in hobnailed boots.
"Of course not!"
"And you will remember." It wasn't a question. It was an order. As if she needed one.
Remember not to sleep with Jace Tucker? Celie wouldn't have any trouble at all remembering not to do that!
* * *
Four
« ^ »
Jace spent most of the morning in bed, nursing his hangover and resolving, regardless of the provocation, to leave whiskey alone for the rest of the cruise. Hangovers, he discovered, were bad enough on dry land. On a ship, where the floor tipped and swayed, they were close to fatal.
He couldn't manage breakfast. The very thought turned him green. So he turned down Lisa and Deb and Mary Lou's invitation to join them. He didn't even bother to open the door.
"I'm gonna sleep in awhile," he told them as loudly as he dared. A certain decibel level caused his head to threaten to fall off.
"You do that, sugar," one of them called back cheerfully. "We'll stop by later."
Take your time, Jace thought. But he didn't say it. He just carefully—very carefully—rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.
He must have done it because the next thing he knew he was awakened by more knocking on the door.
"Jace? You all right, sugar? Feelin' better now?"
"F-fine," he croaked. "'M fine." He winced and slowly levered himself up. His head hurt, but the horses weren't bucking so hard anymore—and the room wasn't spinning quite so fast. In fact, as he got his bearings, it slowed and stopped.
"Great! You can come to lunch, then."
Lunch? It didn't sound as repulsive as breakfast had. He didn't feel nauseated anymore. His stomach actually rumbled. Slowly he hauled himself to his feet. His brain still felt a little too large for his skull.
"It's what comes of picklin' it," Artie would have said.
Jace didn't want to think about Artie.
"If you don't feel well enough," one of the blondes outside his door called, "we could send for the doctor."
"No! I mean, no. I'm … fine. Like I said."
"So you want to come to lunch? We're going swimming this afternoon. You could come along."
"Er," Jace wasn't sure he was up to swimming. But then, he thought, he had to do something. If he didn't, the whole cruise would be over and he'd have nothing to show for it—not even a tan!
"Yeah. Okay. Gimme twenty minutes. I gotta grab a shower."
It took him half an hour. He showered. He shaved. He studied his sunken bloodshot eyes and told himself to get a grip. He wasn't going to let Celie drive him to drink. He wasn't going to let Celie drive him crazy. He was going to act like a sensible, honest-to-goodness adult.
He could just imagine Artie rolling his eyes.
"Yeah," he said to his reflection in the mirror, "but Artie doesn't have any better ideas."
He went to lunch with Lisa, Mary Lou and Deb. He was a little shaky and a little pasty-faced, and his stomach recoiled at the thought of some of the dishes he was offered. But he did manage to eat a reasonable lunch. And he managed to find his sense of humor and the dregs of his usual charm, and after lunch he went on deck with them to check out the swimming pools, and before long not only were Lisa and Mary Lou and Deb smiling and laughing with him, but half a dozen other women were smiling and laughing and chatting with him, as well.
"We don't often see a cowboy on a cruise," some of them said to him.
And Jace quite frankly said that most cowboys really didn't have time to go on cruises, and when they asked him to explain what it was that cowboys—real cowboys—did all day, he sat down on a deck chair by the pool and held forth.
He talked about rodeo cowboys and then about regular ranch hand cowboys. They listened avidly, as if they were amazed such creatures still existed.
"It's like something out of a movie," one of the women said. "Like Sloan Gallagher's latest."
Jace grinned. "Oh, not really, ma'am. On film Sloan's a little too neat and clean. Not like real life at all."
"You know Sloan in real life?" another woman asked.
And Jace said he did.
"Ohmigod, he knows Sloan Gallagher!"
The cluster of women by then had reached more than a dozen. "Tell us about Sloan," they clamored. "Tell us more about cowboying."
Jace did. He told them his best Sloan Gallagher story—the one where they'd got into a fight as teenagers and he'd broken Sloan's nose. Then, because he played fair, Jace told them about their next battle where Sloan had broken his, as well.
"We sort of declared a truce after that," he said. "An' then he moved away."
"He's from Montana, though, isn't he?" a pert redhead asked.
Jace nodded.
"From that funny little town that had the auction last Valentine's day," a brunette remembered. "Winner?"
"Elmore?" a blonde suggested.
"Elmer," Jace said.
More women joined the crowd. "Tell us about Elmer."
So he told them about Elmer. Most of them knew a little bit. They'd all read articles about it. They had all seen Polly on television.
"The postmistress." They all nodded and beamed, remembering Polly's fifteen minutes of fame. "She was wonderful. So sane. So sensible. So strong. Do you know her?" they demanded.
Jace said he did.
"What's she like?" an older woman asked him. "She married Sloan, didn't she?"
"After her sister won him in the auction!" the redhead said.
"Talk about sibling rivalry! Wonder what her sister thought of that!" The women tittered.
Jace didn't say, You could always ask her.
Celie obviously hadn't claimed the fame of having spent a weekend with Sloan Gallagher. And she wouldn't thank Jace for mentioning it, either. So he answered their questions about Elmer, about Sloan and Polly in general terms, and he didn't mention Celie by name at all.
"It sounds wonderful." Several of them looked dreamy-eyed at the notion of packing up their lives and moving to Elmer.
"Maybe we should have done that instead of having come on the cruise," one mused.
"Maybe you should," Jace said, feeling like a member of the chamber of commerce.
"Maybe we will," said the redhead. "How many unattached cowboys would you say there are?"
Jace's brows lifted. All the women were looking at him expectantly. He scratched his head and tried to tick over all the guys he could think of
. If he counted all the ones who came out of the woodwork to attend Noah and Taggart's bronc and bull-riding school there were quite a few.
When he said so, they crowded in closer. "Bull and bronc riders?" they said eagerly.
"Like you?" asked a woman who had just joined the group.
"I was," he said. "Not anymore. I'm done."
"Aw." Several of them looked sad on his behalf.
"Why are you quitting?" the redhead asked.
"Doc said I oughta find another line of work. Got in a pretty bad wreck at the finals last year. Broke my leg in two places. Got concussed."
The women all winced. One patted his jeans-clad leg gently. "Poor Jace."
"I'm all right now." He wasn't interested in sympathy. "I'm ready to move on, do somethin' else." And if he hadn't been sure of it last January, he was now. He liked being back in Elmer. He just wanted Celie there with him.
"I'm ready to settle down."
Every pair of female eyes widened. Several women's mouths formed small round o's. There were murmurs and mumbles. The women all looked at each other, then every one of them looked at him.
Cripes, didn't they believe him?
Was the whole world made up of Celie O'Meara clones? "I am," Jace insisted. "I'm done travelin'. I'm diggin' in back in Elmer, settlin' down, puttin' down roots."
Still they stared. One or two even blinked their disbelief.
"I want to get married," Jace said firmly.
"Just ask me," one of the women in the back said.
They all laughed.
And Jace laughed, too, albeit a little grimly. "I already got the woman picked out," he told them.
"She works here," Lisa said.
"On this ship," chimed in Mary Lou.
"Who is she?" a chorus demanded.
"Yeah, just tell us and we'll knock her off," said the one in the back.
They all laughed again.
Then the older woman patted his hand. "She's a lucky lady, dear." Jace wondered if she'd like to tell Celie that.
"Have you seen the cowboy?" Celie's first appointment asked her the following morning. It was the second full day of the current cruise and they had docked at Nassau early this morning. Only Celie and Stevie were working in the salon, the rest of the staff taking advantage of a day in port to go ashore, like most of the passengers.
The staff rotated working on-shore days, and since Celie had been in Nassau several times already, she was quite happy to work this shift. She told herself she'd rather be here than out wandering around the straw market or sunning on the beach where she might run into Jace Tucker.
She hadn't seen him since the first night. And even after Simone's little lecture about "not sleeping wiz ze passengers," she had begun to think she'd hallucinated the whole thing.
But now the pixyish redhead whose hair she was shampooing made her stop in her tracks. "Cowboy?" Celie echoed carefully.
"Mmm." It was a very appreciative mmm. "What a hunk. I never thought I'd say it … I'm a city girl myself," the redhead confided, "but he can put his boots under my bed anytime."
"Did he offer?" Celie asked before she could stop herself. "I mean…" she began, but the redhead cut her off.
"Don't I wish." The redhead sighed.
Half an hour later Celie's next appointment asked almost the same question. "Did you meet the cowboy?"
They couldn't all mean the same cowboy, could they?
"The cowboy? Is he a stage act?" There were plenty of entertainers on the ship. They changed periodically and she couldn't keep them all straight. Maybe the cowboy was a new one.
"No." This woman was sixty if she was a day, but her eyes lit up when she spoke. "Not this one. This one is the real thing!"
"The real thing?" Celie echoed, nerves really tingling now as she clipped away on the woman's hair.
"Oh, my, yes. I met him at the swimming pool yesterday afternoon. He was just the cutest thing in his jeans and his boots. And so polite. 'Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am.' Why, he could give lessons in proper behavior."
Give lessons on proper behavior? It couldn't have been Jace.
The next woman who came in had been there, too.
"Oh, yes, he's polite," she agreed. "And gorgeous, to boot. Dark-brown hair. Deep-blue eyes. And he said he knew Sloan Gallagher."
"He did?" Celie almost dropped the scissors.
The woman nodded. "Broke his nose, he said, when they were boys. And then—" she giggled "—he said Sloan turned right around and broke his!"
"Um," Celie said, mind whirling, fingers clenching on the scissors. "Is that … all he said?"
"He said he was settling down."
"What?" The scissors hit the ground with a clatter. "Oh, dear. I'm sorry. I—" Celie bent to pick them up and tried to regain her equilibrium at the same time.
After all, it wasn't entirely news. She'd heard that before—from Jace himself. He'd begun building a house on the ranch he owned with his sister and her husband to settle down in—at least that was what he'd told her months ago.
"Settle down? You?" she'd said snidely. Then she'd asked if he had someone in mind to share it with. She'd been shocked when he'd said yes. But since then he'd shown no signs of settling on one particular woman.
Maybe he wasn't planning on settling down with just one, she thought grimly. Maybe he was planning on settling down with a harem—like the three blondes he'd come to the safety demonstration with!
How very like him, Celie thought later as she scrubbed furiously at the hair of her next client. The woman winced, and Celie, realizing how fiercely her fingers were rubbing, stopped abruptly.
"Sorry," she apologized. "I just … get a little enthusiastic sometimes." All she needed was for the woman to complain to Simone.
"Wouldn't mind him settlin' down with me," that woman said with a smile, "but he says he's got someone in mind."
Celie didn't believe it. Not for a minute. If Jace Tucker had a woman in mind, she'd know it. She'd know her! There weren't that many women in Elmer and the surrounding valley.
If a guy was courting seriously, he'd never be able to keep it a secret.
Jace was just telling them a tale about this "someone" he was serious about, Celie decided, so they wouldn't any get ideas about roping him and tying him down.
What better way to make sure the women he wanted to play with didn't take him seriously than to claim he already had a girlfriend?
The man ought to come with a warning label, she thought: Hankering After This Man Can Be Dangerous To Your Emotional Health.
All day long she was treated to the wonders of Jace Tucker. He was handsome, he was sweet, he was drop-dead gorgeous. He could braid horsehair bridles and play the guitar and he could dance the two-step.
The women seemed to be falling all over themselves talking about how great he was. Even Kelly, who ran the fitness center, came in singing his praises.
"Did you meet the cowboy yet?" she asked Celie, eyes shining. "He came in to use the whirlpool last night to help his leg. Poor guy, he got hurt in a rodeo accident."
Celie grunted. She didn't want to talk about Jace. She didn't want to hear about Jace. She didn't want her mind's eye to even attempt to imagine what Jace Tucker would look like sitting in a whirlpool.
She grunted and turned away, going back to the woman whose hair she was coloring. But the woman had been in the whirlpool with Jace.
He was, she said, "edible."
Celie did not want to think about it.
She didn't want to think about him—but she did. And as she did, she figured out finally why he'd come on the cruise.
It was an ideal place—a perfect place—to meet women.
Cruises attracted women, lots of women. Some married couples came on them. Relatively few single men did. Mostly there were just lots and lots of unattached women. Women looking for a little excitement, a shipboard romance, a one-week fling.
They were like buckle bunnies without the rodeo. Oh, not all of them, to be sure. B
ut enough to keep Jace plenty busy. No wonder he'd booked a cruise. He couldn't rodeo anymore.
What better place for a babe magnet like Jace to have his pick of eager females, make a little whoopee and ride off into the sunset at the end of the week?
Celie, having listened over the past few weeks to more than one woman whose heart had been broken by just such a bounder, was incensed on behalf of all the foolish women he would be deceiving!
What's more, she felt responsible!
If Simone caught her prowling up here, Celie knew she—and her fledgling career as a shipboard hairstylist—would be toast.
Allison, her roommate, had told her to mind her own business. Stevie and Troy had said there was nothing wrong with having a good time with other passengers, for heaven's sake. They were all adults here, weren't they?
They were. But it didn't matter. Celie didn't know why it didn't matter—other than the fact that everyone knew Jace came from Elmer, which put Elmer's reputation on the line!
"What?" Stevie stared at her, disbelieving, when she said that.
"It's true!" Celie exclaimed. Jace Tucker was sullying Elmer's good name. And she was going to do something about it!
When she finished work, she lurked about waiting for the passengers to come back from Nassau, hoping to catch him then and have a word with him. But when she saw him, he was surrounded by a bevy of females. And when he went to the whirlpool, there were so many following him in he looked like the Pied Piper of Hamlin.
Kelly caught a glimpse of her and waved. "He's here!" she hissed in a loud whisper. "Wanta get a look?"
Celie shook her head fiercely. "No, I was just looking for, er, Allison."
She'd ducked back out, fretted and fumed, pacing the halls. Then, when Simone came by and gave her a steely look, she beat a hasty retreat down to the staff quarters. She didn't need Simone getting annoyed with her again.
She went back up at the end of the dinner hours. But Jace hadn't gone to the same place he'd gone last night. He must have gone to one of the buffets. Or maybe, she thought grimly, he was sharing a meal in some woman's room.
She prowled the sports bar and the lounge and didn't find him. She couldn't imagine Jace going to one of the singing and dancing shows that every cruise put on. But, just in case, she checked the crowds pouring out of the theater.
A COWBOY'S PURSUIT Page 6
