A Man of His Word

by Sarah M. Anderson

  He knew better. Compared to this wart with an engineering degree? Dan had no doubt that Rosebud could fit in anywhere from a honky-tonk to the boardroom to one of those garden parties Mom was fond of having in the summer. As he watched the little man get into his sedan, he knew who the real savage was—and it wasn’t the pretty lawyer.

  By the time he found parking lot D, it had taken him almost an hour and a half. Damn GPS, he grumbled to himself as he kept an eye out for an old car and a young woman. He could track the value of the euro versus the yen from up in the saddle, no wires required, but with this GPS, left versus right turns seemed to be beyond the stupid thing. It was almost five o’clock on a Saturday night, and the campus was nearly deserted. There was Rosebud’s old car, parked at the far end of the lot. He didn’t see her—until he pulled into the parking space.

  She was sitting in the driver’s seat, a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel. Her hair was long and loose, and she was wearing a pale green T-shirt that was wonderfully snug. She almost looked like a college student instead of a top-notch legal eagle.

  When she saw him, she hopped out of the car, her eyes darting around. What was she so afraid of? But that thought was arrested by the sight of Rosebud stretching herself out. Dan decided that, no matter what came out of this evening, it was all worth seeing her in that particular pair of jeans, held tight to her hips with a respectable-looking buckle.

  He took it back. College girls never looked as good as she did.

  “Hi,” she said with a careful smile. Her eyes darted up, and her grin grew. “Nice hat.”

  Dan tipped the new beaver-fur felt at her. “Thanks. I’m hoping to keep this one hole-free for at least a few days.”

  She tilted her head to one side, and all that black silk she called hair tipped over her shoulder. His mind immediately pulled up a memory from that first ride in the valley.

  It had to have been her. Sure, he’d heard some clueless idiots in the town outside the reservation claiming that all Indians looked alike, but no one else looked at him like she did. Again, he wondered what the hell her reason was. Most everybody had a reason, after all. His eyes darted down to the passenger seat. He didn’t see any gun-shaped lumps—but there was a lot of glove-box room. “I’m still asking around.” She was less than convincing, almost like she was tired of the lie.

  Dan let it slide. It was Saturday night in what passed as a big town in this state, and he was officially in the company of a beautiful, if slightly dangerous, woman. “You didn’t have to wait in the car. It’s a nice night out.”

  She gave him a look he couldn’t read. “Safer that way. The library’s already closed.” Before he could ask her what that was supposed to mean, she visibly shook herself and favored him with a sweet, almost shy smile. “Thanks for coming.”

  “What’s the problem with your car?”

  The weariness he thought he’d heard in her voice spread to her eyes. “It refused to start. It sounded a little funny on the drive down, but I thought it might at least get me home.”

  After she popped the hood, Dan poked around. He’d taken an engine or two apart in his time, but this thing was a dinosaur. The verdict wasn’t good. He could see one belt in pieces and another that looked like it could go at any time. When he had Rosebud try to turn over the engine, the whole thing clicked. The starter sounded deader than a doornail and he was pretty sure the battery was corroded to the car. “When was the last time you had this thing checked out?”

  She shrugged, but he noticed that she bit her lip. That was her tell. “A few years ago.”

  “Years?” He shook his head at her, and she managed to look sheepish. “You’re probably lucky you got here.”

  She stuck out her chin, a move he recognized as defiance now. But she also stuck her hands into her back pockets, which emphasized her chest. “I’m lucky you were able to come get me.”

  Dan had long prided himself on reading the signals from the opposite sex, and he’d be damned if that particular signal didn’t say “Saturday night on the town.” “I guess we’re both lucky, aren’t we?”

  Her gaze took its time working over him. By the time she got back to his face, he was working with a whole different definition of lucky. “That remains to be seen.” He swore she purred it.

  He might never figure this woman out, but he was going to have a fine time trying. “Did you call a tow truck yet?”

  That was the wrong thing to say. All that goodness she’d been telegraphing his way died. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  She was right back to looking embarrassed, and he hadn’t even kissed her. Yet. “Joe can tow it home for me.”

  “When?” She didn’t answer, which was answer enough. This hunk of steel might be here for days before someone towed it—and chances were it would be towed to the impound lot. He got his cell phone out and punched up an entry. “I’ve got Triple A.”

  “No!” She moved lightning-fast. Before he could react, her hand was on his wrist. “I mean…please.”

  Her touch was light, but she had a hell of a grip. That was not a bad thing. “Give me one good reason.”

  He prayed she couldn’t feel his blood pumping as he looked down into her eyes. Then she batted her eyelashes, and he stopped caring about his pulse. “I haven’t allocated the funds for a situation such as this.”

  Allocated the funds? It took a second for him to translate that statement to English. “You don’t have the money to fix your car?”

  She dropped his wrist like it was a hot potato and backed away from him, looking for all the world like a cornered animal. “No, okay? I don’t have the money.”

  A broken copier. One suit. Handwritten notes. Driving an hour south to do “research.”

  She had no money. Period. A true damsel in distress.

  To hell with this. It only took a second before he knew what he had to do. He began to dial. “Actually, you do.” She spun on her heels, looking all sorts of angry. He held up a hand before she could let loose on him. “I’ve been taking up a lot of your time. My lawyer in Texas charges a hundred and twenty-five dollars an hour for consulting. Figure, what? Six hours a day for five days? That’s about four thousand.”

  Her jaw dropped. “Dollars?”

  “Yup.”

  “I can’t—”

  A voice crackled over the phone. “Yeah, I need a tow to a repair shop.”

  By the time he got off the phone, Rosebud was sitting on the curb, her knees tucked up under her chin. She didn’t look happy about being rescued. Instead, she looked nervous. Trapped.

  Dan sat down next to her. “Will you believe me if I tell you that no one knows I’m here?”

  She shrugged, making sure to keep a solid eight inches between them. “Should I?”

  “You might consider the option, as it happens to be the truth.”

  He caught the corner of her smile in his peripheral vision. Took a lot of work not to stare. “I’m a lawyer, Dan. The truth is highly relative.”

  “I’m more of a black-and-white guy, myself. My mom always said to be up front about the black and white because it makes lyin’ about the gray a hell of a lot easier.” She snorted in what he hoped was appreciation. “The fact of the matter is that I told no one about the kiss. After you left, I checked the kitchen for bugs and came up empty. Today, I took your call outside where no one could hear me, and told no one—not even Maria—who called or where I was going.”

  Her head nodded as she thought about it. Thinking was progress. “So what’s the gray area here?”

  Dan looked out. The summer sun was just scooting behind some of the taller buildings, throwing cozy shadows over the parking lot. “I’m going to be hungry by the time we get out of here. We’re going to stop somewhere and get dinner, and I’m buying.”

  She was on her feet, backing away from him. Cornered, he thought again. “I can’t—”

  He climbed to his feet and took a chance by taking her hand. She didn’t pull away—y
et—but her hand was like a bar of steel. “You can, and you will. The gray area is that I’d like to call it a date—a date between you and me,” he hurried to add when she tried to yank her hand away. This was not going as well as he wanted it to. “I’d like it to stay between you and me. No uncles, no aunts, no corporations, no tribes.”

  “What if I say no?”

  “You wouldn’t be the first.” It had been close to a year since he’d parted ways with his last lady friend. There wasn’t anyone left in Wichita Falls who was interested in him instead of his money. He was usually too busy to try to make the Fort Worth social scene anymore. But he still managed to have a few dates every now and then. She wouldn’t be the first, and she wouldn’t be the last.

  She was chewing on the inside of her lip again. Thinking was definitely progress. “You’ve only got four weeks left. You might get desperate and tell someone.”

  “I might get desperate.” He went for broke. Keeping a tight hold on her hand, he stepped in real close and ran a thumb over her cheek. Her eyes fluttered and, ever so slightly, she leaned into his hand. “But not that kind of desperate.”

  She let him kiss her, let him entwine his fingers with hers, let him pull her into his chest close enough that he could feel her nipples harden under her shirt. He’d give anything to get her out of that shirt so he could see those nipples for himself. God help him, her body was saying yes to a date and maybe a whole lot more. He had no idea what her mouth would say, though, so he hung back. Just a simple kiss, that’s all.

  If only the rest of their situation could be this simple.

  A horn blared behind them, nearly sending them both out of their shoes. “Hey, buddy, you call for a tow?” the driver sneered out the window.

  “Think about the date,” he whispered to her as he let go of her hand.

  “Okay.”

  Eight

  A girl could tell a lot about a man by his vehicle. And according to the license plate, this seemed to be Dan’s actual truck, not some rental. He’d driven all the way up from Texas.

  Rosebud ran her hands over the premium leather of the passenger seat, trying to snoop without it looking like she was snooping. Dan had given her his keys after the tow-truck driver had called her “honey.” It felt weird to just let a man take over for her, but frankly, she’d rather sit in the truck and try to figure out Dan Armstrong than stand next to that driver and wish she had some mace.

  Dan had satellite radio. Of course he did. A man like Dan wouldn’t want to listen to stations with commercial interruptions. She flipped through his preprogrammed channels. Willie’s Place, Outlaw Country—those she expected. Dan probably hired those famous country singers to perform at company picnics or something ludicrous like that. But what came next surprised her—Alt Nation? Lithium? A Phish song filled the cab. She blinked hard in the dim light, but the name on the receiver stayed the same. Unreal. Not the standard cowboy tunes.

  She went back on the dial until she found a Miranda Lambert song, then she looked around. The truck’s interior was spotless—no crumpled-up wrappers or crushed cans underfoot, not even a layer of dust on the burled walnut dash. A shotgun hung on a rack on the rear window, but a quick look told her it either wasn’t loaded or only had one round in the chamber. Did he always have that gun there, or was it just because of her “little” misfire?

  She looked again. Man, it was a piece of work. The walnut stock was polished to a warm gleam, and the silver was inlaid with hunting dogs done in what looked like gold. The trigger looked like real gold, too. She didn’t know much about high-end weapons, but she was willing to bet she could buy a house with the money that gun cost.

  She began to feel a little out of place. Okay, a lot out of place. She’d caught glimpses of this kind of wealth during law school in D.C., but not even her boyfriend James had been this casually comfortable with the finest that money could buy. She was one step above dirt-poor. What the heck did an oil tycoon—because she was starting to realize that’s what Dan was—want with the likes of her?

  She was getting antsy. What was taking so long? She searched for Dan and the tow-truck driver in the rearview mirror. Dang. Dan had a heck of a rear view, all right. He was bent over the front end of her car, looking at the engine. Dan was doing a lot of pointing and the driver was doing a lot of head shaking. She didn’t take all the gesturing as a positive development, which made the pit in her stomach grow a little wider. She had no idea if the hunk of steel was worth fixing, but it was the only car she had—and there was no way in hell she could afford a new one.

  Lord, this seemed like a bad idea. Letting him pay for her tow—and then letting him take her to dinner? On a date? Was Dan one of those guys who thought that dinner and car repairs guaranteed getting lucky?

  She shuddered. She knew he was charming, handsome and under orders to trap her. But even given all that, she still couldn’t help but feel—not think, but really and truly feel— that he was being totally up front with her. She thought back to their phone conversation. He hadn’t said her name, or anything that would point to her. He wanted to ask her out.

  She wanted to go out with him. If only his last name wasn’t Armstrong.

  Oh, what a mess she’d gotten herself into.

  Well, she knew how to test his mettle. She dug out her notes as he got back in the cab.

  “He’s going to give you a call when it’s ready.” He set his hat on the dash and cocked his head to one side, listening to the song “Gunpowder and Lead.” “You tryin’ to tell me something?” he said with a grin as he fired up the truck.

  The engine purred. A slight twinge of jealousy, so small she barely noticed it at all, flittered across Rosebud’s mind. Wouldn’t it be lovely to have a car that just started whenever she wanted it to? “Purely coincidental. And I’m also not a crazy ex-girlfriend.”

  Dan gave her a long look—long enough that Rosebud suddenly felt like she was on the witness stand. “I never did figure you for one.” Then he shot her that confident smile again and began backing up. “I’ll bring you back down, if you want, but it’s going to be a few weeks.”

  “You really don’t have to do that, but I appreciate it.” A few weeks was a long time to be carless, but as long as she didn’t have to leave the rez, she could ride her paint, Scout.

  He shot her a snarky look out of the corner of his eye. “Besides, that’ll give you the chance to do some more research. Where to?”

  Would a date be such a bad thing? Two consenting adults having dinner and maybe another kiss? She had one left—and heaven help her, she hoped it was a good one. She scrambled to think of a place where Dan would be comfortable, but she was coming up blank. She’d hardly been able to afford fine dining when she’d gone to school here, and that had been almost seven years ago.

  “Doesn’t have to be anywhere fancy,” Dan said, doing a pretty good job of interpreting her silence. “Anyplace with steak is fine by me.”

  She remembered Tanner had mentioned Bob’s Roadhouse—he and Tom Yellow Bird used to hang out there back in the day. It must have been good—they’d gone back several times. “I know a place that’s supposed to be good. Take a left here and head for the highway. And actually, I think I found everything I needed this time.”

  “Yeah? Digging up dirt on Cecil?”

  “Nope.” He didn’t see this coming? She couldn’t help but enjoy springing this on him. “You.”

  The truck lurched to a stop at an intersection. Even better than the wobbly chair, she decided. “Me?”

  “You. This was the first chance I’ve had.” The question was, would he own up to any of the stuff she’d found? Or was it all part of that undefined gray area? “You’ve got quite a public record, you know.”

  He sighed in resignation, slouching against his window. “You found the poster, didn’t you?”

  “This poster?” She slid the grainy grayscale poster out of the folder. The crummy printer had made it all but impossible to see what had been as plain
as day on the computer screen—a young boy with a head full of blondish curls smiling up at an oil derrick. “You were literally the face of Armstrong Oil?”

  “Cut me some slack. I was seven, and Dad bought me ice cream for smiling.” His fingers drummed on the steering wheel. “Mint chocolate chip, if I remember correctly. That damn poster floated around for almost ten years. I think every girl I went to high school with had a copy in her locker.” He glanced over at her, the embarrassment making him look even more like the little boy in the picture. “Not worth the ice cream.”

  “Cute wasn’t what you were going for in high school?”

  He was in serious danger of pouting. But instead of looking childish, it illustrated what cute would look like on the man. “I hated it. That’s why I did all the un-cute stuff.”

  “I’ll give you un-cute for being on the honor roll for four years, but the rodeo team?” She clucked at him. Rodeo might not be cute, but she had a feeling that hadn’t mattered to high-school girls. “No football?”

  “Mom wouldn’t let me play football. She was too worried about me getting hurt.”

  “Rodeo was safer than football? Now I’ve heard everything.” The stats from the county fairs had been quite impressive. Dan made the time on broncos, won the steer wrestling and was unbeatable in calf roping. At least he’d earned that buckle the hard way. “Why didn’t you go pro?”

  “I said it was safer. Not safe. Mom rode barrels,” he added by way of explanation. “Besides, didn’t you ever do something a little wild, a little crazy?” His head swiveled to look her full in the eye.

  “Does this count?” she asked, gesturing to the truck.

  “Not yet, it doesn’t.” Even in the dim light of a summer night, she could still see the twinkle in his eye. “Why did you come all the way down here just to dig up that stuff? I would have told you if you’d asked.”