Not That Kind of Girl

by Susan Donovan

  “And Roxanne,” he pointed out.

  His mother gave him a tight smile. “Then there’s that.”

  Eli sighed, watching his breath rise and disappear. He didn’t want Roxanne to change for him or his mother or anyone else in the world. In fact, she didn’t have to change at all. But she’d come to him tired of the fight. She’d said she wanted her dog to be happy and her life to be peaceful. That would require change, and it was Eli’s job to help her get to where she wanted to go.

  He brought the mug to his lips for another sip, feeling the liquid warm his insides all the way down to his toes. He had to admit that Roxanne’s struggle was a fascinating process to observe. She seemed incapable of hiding her internal battle—each twist and turn of thought was written on her face, especially when it came to Eli himself. She was interested. No, she wasn’t. She was willing. She was afraid. She thought she’d be safe with him. No, wait—you never can tell with men.

  It was like watching an emotional wrestling match televised right there in her pretty dark eyes.

  Eli observed the dogs break out into small groups for their morning rounds, Lilith finding a place for herself without even the slightest hint of drama. The dog was already coming into her own. Her owner would have to catch up.

  Eli tapped the toe of his boot onto the porch floor, thinking. The biggest challenge he’d face from here on out would be with himself, he knew. He wanted Roxanne. Bad. And the strength it took for Eli to keep his kisses nonthreatening—and his raging hard-on in check—was nearly superhuman. And as he’d told her up front, he was only a man.

  But if what he said last night was true—if good was only the beginning for them—then he’d have to be patient. He could have her rolling around in his bed with him before lunchtime, if that’s what he wanted. But even if things went smoothly, that first time together would also be their last. Roxie would decide she’d been manipulated—yet again—and Eli would only provide further proof that men were scum and not to be trusted. She’d end up adding Eli to her most reviled list. He might even be named Jerk-of-the-Week!

  He turned just in time to catch it—the instant the night gave way to morning with a flash of light. He looked out at a suddenly altered landscape, aware that this was the way of all things. In an instant, everything could change. It was a thin line that separated one reality from the next.

  It would be that way with Roxanne and him. And then there’d be no turning back.

  As Eli headed down the steps to watch the light spread out over the land, his thoughts floated back to the dream he’d had last night. It was a typical man dream—big on sensation and short on plot. He and Roxie had hiked down from the southern ridge and ended up at Snow Creek hot spring. They got naked and immersed themselves in the water. Eli found a ledge to sit on. Roxie straddled him. He felt as if he’d shatter into a billion shards of pleasure as he pushed up inside her, his hands gripping her water-slick body, his lips and tongue conquering her mouth. He’d woken up then, so frustrated he’d nearly jumped out of his skin.

  Eli took such an enthusiastic gulp of coffee that some of it spilled down the front of his denim jacket. He laughed at his clumsiness, deciding he better take a few minutes to center himself. No woman had ever knocked him off balance from the get-go the way Roxie had. No woman had ever made him feel so alive. It was as wonderful as it was terrifying.

  He’d need to wake her up soon so he could introduce her to the rhythm of life on the ranch. Each day started with an early-morning hike. That was followed by breakfast, for both man and beast, then quiet time for reflection, meditation, or reading—all before he even thought about work. Sondra called it “living on monk time,” but she followed something quite similar at her own place. Eli always believed that if your morning was peaceful—pornographic dreams aside—the rest of the day would flow.

  “It’s beautiful here.”

  Eli swung his head around to see Roxie on the porch, still buried in a quilt. He laughed. “Beautiful in a cold way, right?”

  She nodded. “No kidding. I nearly froze my butt off last night.”

  Eli headed back up the porch toward his houseguest, thinking that particular loss would be a national tragedy. “We have a typical desert climate here—warm during the day and cooler at night.” He stood next to her. “I’ll turn the heat on for you if you’d like.”

  Her dark eyes darted toward him, and he could see that the day’s wrestling tournament was already in full swing in her head. The closer he came, the more she fought with herself. Eli had left a few inches of space between them—for her comfort, not his. He’d rather get inside that quilt with her. Then get horizontal. And naked. He cleared his throat. “Feel free to grab some coffee if you’d like, but you should get dressed. We’re going on a hike.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Now?” She looked around. “But it’s, like, six in the morning.”

  “Yup.” Eli flipped open the flap of his jacket pocket and pulled out one of his short and thin nylon training leashes. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  Roxie’s eyes went huge.

  “You look surprised.”

  “Uh …” Roxie’s eyes darted from the lead to Eli’s face. “For a minute there, I thought the leash was for me.”

  Eli nodded, biting the inside of his mouth to stop from laughing. “Do you need one, Ms. Bloom?”

  She pulled the quilt tighter to her body. “You know what? No. I’m feeling uncharacteristically agreeable today, so I think you can trust me not to wander off.” She gave him a wry smile. “Besides, the last man who tried to keep me on a leash lived to regret it.”

  “So it seems. Now scoot!” Eli located the quilt-covered lump that was probably her lovely bottom and gave it a smack. “We’re on a schedule.”

  * * *

  Roxanne emerged from the guestroom a few minutes later in a sweatshirt and jeans, feeling guilty because she hadn’t paid much attention to Eli’s packing recommendations. Thermal underwear in May? In the desert? She’d thought his suggestions were overkill.

  She heard clanking in the kitchen and wandered toward the noise, but at first she didn’t see Eli. When she rounded the island, she was greeted by a man ass so spectacular that even a pair of ugly Wranglers didn’t diminish the effect. He stood up from his crouch in front of a cabinet and spun around.

  “Hi,” she said.

  His eyes immediately scanned her body from head to toe. He raised his chin and an eyebrow. “What you got on under there?”

  Roxie’s jaw dropped. She immediately felt the heat of anger spread through her, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Wow. Let me guess—you want me to feed your male fantasies and tell you I’m wearing a black demibra and a matching pair of crotchless panties? Is that it? Well, sorry to disappoint.”

  She watched Eli swallow, then nod slowly. He came toward her, his hand outstretched. “Come on, Ms. Bloom,” he said, guiding her at the curve of her lower back and escorting her from the kitchen.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “My bedroom.”

  She twisted away from him, amazed at this sudden personality change. She knew it. The gentleman thing was an act. Roxie panicked, knowing her cell phone didn’t have any reception out here. In a rush of fear, she calculated that no one would ever hear her scream.

  Eli stopped in his tracks. He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets, and Roxie nearly lost her breath at the way they stretched tight over his body. He looked so good she could even forgive the cowboy belt buckle.

  “I asked you what you were wearing because I’d hoped you remembered to bring thermal underwear.” Eli looked down at her with vexation, and it occurred to Roxanne that it was the first time she’d ever seen anything like that in his eyes. He grabbed a bit of sweatshirt at her waist and pulled at it with his finger and thumb. “Obviously not. So let’s get you something warmer to wear.”

  She followed him into the bedroom, ashamed of herself. She didn’t like the fact that she’d auto
matically thought the worst of him, but how could anyone blame her? She had battle scars. She couldn’t just pretend she didn’t.

  Out of the corner of her eye she noted his huge four-poster bed. It was a bit on the rustic side, but the red flannel sheets looked real cozy. There was a big stone fireplace on the other wall, too. She’d never need extra quilts in here.

  Eli opened the double doors to a walk-in closet and pulled out a set of silk long johns, then grabbed a wool sweater, shoving the bundle in her arms. “The sweater’s going to be way too big, even though it shrank in the wash. But it’s better than nothing.” Before he shut the doors he grabbed a knit hat and some gloves and slapped them on top of the clothing pile. After a quick examination of her footwear, he said, “I’ll meet you out front.”

  * * *

  Eli had put all but two of his dogs in the kennel, so it was just five of them, now well into their hike in the hills. Lilith was on the little flimsy leash, the strap of which was draped loosely in Eli’s open hand. He’d been showing her how she was expected to walk—at his side with her nose even with his leg, never edging out in front. Amazingly, Lilith had tried only twice to defy him, and after two gentle tugs on the leash and two of his hissing corrections—along with his usual steady demeanor—the dog was done rebelling.

  Roxie was in awe at the spectacle. She began rubbing her arm reflexively, thinking of all the times Lilith had nearly ripped her shoulder from its socket despite the use of a much thicker leather leash, a heavy-duty choke chain, and a muzzle.

  Eli eventually came to a stop. All three dogs did the same. He unhooked Lilith’s leash, and with a gesture, permitted the dogs to explore. Roxie watched Lilith race down a hill, the look of delight on her face.

  In a way, Roxie was jealous.

  He directed her to follow him farther up the ridge. “We’ll be able to keep an eye on them from up here. Don’t worry.”

  And for the next half hour, as the sun finally started to warm her bones, she listened to Eli chatter away about sagebrush, cedar and aspen, and the two-hundred-million-year-old geological formations of southern Utah. Roxanne had never known a man could get so excited about sandstone and shale.

  “So you majored in geology in college?” She was hoping she could coax out his usually friendly nature. She got nothing but matter-of-fact answers.

  “Zoological anthropology.” He glanced over his shoulder at her and noted her blank stare. “It’s the study of the human being’s place in the animal kingdom, especially in relation to other primates.”

  “So why did you choose to work with dogs?”

  Roxanne was trying to catch up to Eli when he answered. “It was the other way around. Dogs chose me.” He looked over his shoulder again as he said this, and a faint smile widened his lips. Finally, she thought. A smile. She’d gone over an hour without seeing one of Eli’s grins, and she’d felt deprived, and extremely lonely. She exhaled in relief and kept climbing.

  “I’ve had dogs all my life,” he went on, “and I always had a way with them. I had planned to get my doctorate and maybe teach one day, but friends kept asking me to help them with their dogs.” He shrugged. “I began studying canine behavior on my own and it just happened.”

  “So you didn’t mean to be a dog whisperer?”

  “Hell, no,” he said with a laugh, whisking his hat off to run a hand through his hair. He squinted into the wind and replaced his hat.

  Thank God he’s laughing again.

  “Friends and acquaintances started giving me that title. At first it was a kind of joke. Then it snowballed into a career. And here I am.”

  At that moment, Eli reached the top of the ridge, propped a hiking boot on a boulder and a forearm on his knee. He reached for her hand to help her up, and Roxie gasped, not from the exertion as much as the shocking beauty of the view that had just opened up before her. Giant red cathedrals shot up from the earth. Sheer cliffs were topped off with thick evergreen forest. Vast stretches of hills rolled away toward the horizon, dotted with deep canyons as far as the eye could see.

  “Oh, my God,” Roxie whispered, suddenly understanding Eli’s passion for rock. “So this is what you were talking about.”

  When she turned back to Eli, he was studying her like she’d been studying the landscape. Roxie noted how the morning sun formed a halo around his hat, how the wind ruffled the dark blond hair curling below his ear. His dusky green eyes bored into hers. She gasped again—this time because the intensity in his gaze had knocked the wind from her.

  As they studied each other’s faces, a humming energy swirled around them, like a living thing, like the wind, demanding their attention. Roxie blinked, trying to understand what she was seeing. But there was nothing to see. Whatever was happening was happening inside the two of them. It was pure sensation.

  Roxanne tried to hold on to the awareness for as long as possible. It felt so wonderful that she wanted to lock it away so she could remember it for the rest of her life.

  But the moment passed and the intense energy dissipated into the breeze. Eli looked away. When he spoke her name, his normally smooth voice caught in his throat. “Roxanne—”

  “I’m sorry, Eli,” she said, cutting him off. Maybe her timing was rotten. She had no idea. She’d never been all that good with timing—or apologizing from the bottom of her heart, for that matter. “I’m sorry I behaved like that back at the house. Please forgive me.”

  His brows crinkled together under his hat.

  “I don’t want to be that kind of girl anymore,” she said, suddenly needing to sit on the closest boulder. “I don’t want to go through the rest of my life expecting the worst from every man I encounter. I don’t want to be lying in wait for the moment I can say, ‘Aha! See? He’s an asshole, just like I thought!’ God, it’s the most exhausting thing you can imagine.”

  Roxie sighed, closing her eyes and lifting her face to the sun. She realized she was crying only when her tears began to sting from the wind. “But it’s not easy to change who you are.”

  When Roxie opened her eyes, she saw Eli looking down at her with gentle affection. She started to cry in earnest then, which mortified her. How could he be so kind and patient with her when she was such a hard-headed case? How could he look at her like that when she was making a mess of this apology, of their whole first morning in this beautiful place? The same way she’d made a mess of every relationship she’d ever had with a man? Roxie wiped her cheeks with the cuff of Eli’s sweater, figuring she’d take it to the cleaners once they were back in the city.

  He sat down next to her on the rock, his hip touching hers. Eli picked up a pebble from the dust and turned it over in his hand for a long moment, lost in thought. “The anger and distrust is not who you are, Roxie. It’s your defense. It’s your porcupine suit.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Eli laughed loudly, tossing the pebble over the ridge and into the sky. “At the baby shower, Bea told me you were a pussycat in a porcupine suit.”

  Roxie’s mouth fell open, then she snapped it shut. “How thoughtful of her,” she said sarcastically.

  Eli chuckled. “She adores you, Roxie. She sent me out to the barn to go after you, did you know that?”

  Roxie felt her left eyebrow shoot up. “Oh, really?”

  “Yep.” Eli’s eyes were smiling now. “She warned me that you were a little on the complicated side but worth the effort. She told me not to let you get away.”

  Roxie snickered and shook her head. She’d be sure to discuss this with Bea when she got back to town. “That girl sure is funny.”

  “She was right, you know. You are a creampuff inside here.” He touched the sweater just above her left breast. “You are a very good person.”

  “I keep telling myself that, but it’s hard to believe sometimes.”

  “Maybe it’s time you hear it from someone else.”

  When Eli glanced sideways at her, smiled, and pushed up the brim of his hat, Roxie knew she was in trouble. And it was
n’t the shallow-grave kind of trouble anymore. It was heart trouble. She’d just figured out what had happened between them a few moments before, when she’d gasped at the intensity of the moment. She’d been opening the door to her heart—just a crack—and Eli had simply let himself in.

  “… This man will be different. He’ll be strong enough to pry open the door of your heart and brave enough to love everything he finds inside.”

  Eli reached for her hand. “It takes courage to change,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “I have a theory about it. Would you mind if I shared it with you?”

  Roxie smiled at him, thinking that the man’s reservoir of graciousness had to be bottomless. “Please,” she said. “I’d love to hear it.”

  “Okay, then,” he said, his voice soft. “There are basically two ways a person can change. One way is through some kind of awakening, where they slowly begin to see that their life doesn’t work for them anymore, that they’re unhappy, unhealthy, lonely, or a combination of all those things, and they decide to try something new.”

  Roxie nodded.

  “Or, change can come with crisis.” Eli smiled sadly at her. “Something so devastating can happen that it’s impossible to put the pieces of a life back together the way they were.” He gestured toward the dramatic scenery before them. “That’s what happened here over the millennia. Asteroids hit, seas flooded then dried up, volcanoes exploded, giant slabs of ice ripped open the earth—and this was the result.”

  Roxie chuckled. “Sounds like the last year of my life.”

  Eli laughed, then wrapped his strong arm around her shoulder. “Do you know what I think?”

  She shook her head.

  “I think you were already in the process of changing, but the asteroids and explosions and vicious dog charges just helped move things along.”

  Roxie smiled at him. “Yeah, but you forgot the giant slab of an ice-cold ex-boyfriend who ripped my heart open.”