A Maverick to [Re] Marry

by Christine Rimmer

  Talk about intimate. “I...”

  He bent a fraction closer. “You...?” It was a taunt. His eyes gleamed, so green and deep.

  She pressed her lips into a thin, hard line. “You’re mocking me.” It came out barely a whisper. She was too breathless to give the words much sound.

  “Yes, I am. And you’re teasing me.”

  “No...”

  “Miss Wainwright.” He made a chiding sound. “Don’t make me call you a liar. Besides, you know what?”

  “What?”

  “If you want to tease me, you go right on ahead. I don’t mind at all.” Derek pulled her closer.

  Really, that shouldn’t have been physically possible. She was already plastered against the front of him.

  But he managed it anyway. He pulled her closer and she felt him even more acutely. Her whole body yearned. Yearned for the innocent passion they’d once shared. And not only that. She yearned for the man he was now, too.

  Somehow, her hands had come to rest against his chest. Beneath his soft cotton shirt, she could feel the sculpted muscles, the fierce beating of his heart.

  Dear God, she had loved him.

  And there was no denying how very much she still wanted him.

  There was just something about him that called to her so deeply. Some impossible power he had that made her burn for him even after all these long years.

  He said a bad word, low, guttural. His head dipped closer...

  And then, at last, his beautiful mouth touched hers.

  Chapter Five

  They were kissing.

  Again.

  After promising each other that wasn’t going to happen.

  Well, it was happening. And it was spectacular.

  With a soft cry, she slid her hands up over those rock-like shoulders. She opened her mouth and he dipped his tongue in. Her grasping fingers threaded up into that sexy, messy hair of his.

  “Amy. Amy,” he said her name twice, breathing it into her mouth as he kissed her, lifting his head a fraction, just long enough to slant his kiss the other way.

  She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t say anything. She was drowning in him, going down for the third time and loving it. She could kiss him forever, on into the next millennium, kiss him and kiss him and never, ever stop.

  But then he stopped.

  Abruptly.

  He took her by the shoulders, ripped his mouth from hers and set her away. “No.” His green eyes were like a stormy sea now.

  She blinked. “No?”

  “We need to stop doing this.”

  Her mind felt so thick and slow. Her body ached to have his arms wrapped around her again. “Doing...?”

  He raked his hand back over his hair, smoothing it. Not that smoothing it did any good. His hair just flopped back over his forehead all over again. “Do I really have to spell it out for you? We’ve got to stop pretending we’re not going to put our hands on each other—and then doing it anyway. It’s messing with my head, you know? Both heads, as a matter of fact.”

  She almost laughed, but slapped her hand over her mouth just in time to stop herself—after which she felt thoroughly foolish. Letting her hand drop to her side, she nodded. “Okay. I get it. I’m... Look, I’m sorry. Okay?”

  He took another step back from her. “I’m not blaming you, not any more than I’m blaming myself. We’re both at fault. It’s...what we do to each other.”

  She sucked in another shaky breath. “Yeah. It’s crazy, huh? I mean, for me it’s still the same. The, um, feeling I have for you. It’s strong.” She could not believe what she was admitting, but at the same time, it felt good, right, to lay it out there the way it really was for her. “Even after everything we went through, after all these years, I still feel it so powerfully for you. I was so scared, that first day, when you came here to the farmhouse. I thought I would shatter into a million pieces just at the sight of you. And I almost did.”

  He looked so young suddenly, his eyes almost hopeful. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You tell me now, Amy Wainwright. Are you with anyone, back there in Boulder?”

  “No, I’m not. I promise you. There’s no one. What about you?”

  A low, rough chuckle escaped him. “Like you even have to ask. It’s Rust Creek Falls. If I had a girl, you’d have heard all about it from at least ten different sources by now.”

  She did laugh then. “Eva, first of all.”

  “You got that right.” His eyes grew serious again and his mouth was a flat line. “You lookin’ for a little summer fun with an old flame, is that it?”

  She wanted to cry suddenly. “Don’t say that. You’re so much more than just an old flame to me.” You’re the father of the child I never had. My husband. For a while.

  He rubbed the back of his neck again. “I don’t know.”

  Could he be any less clear? “You don’t know what?”

  “What you want from me, where you’re going with this.”

  She put her hands out to the sides, palms up. “Where are you going? And why is it that I’m supposed to have all the answers?”

  He didn’t say, You started it. But he was thinking it. She could see it in his eyes, in the hard set to his square jaw. “I want you, too,” he said at last. “It’s strong. Really strong.”

  Her pulse pounded harder. She felt it beating in her neck as a pleasured flush flooded upward over her cheeks. “Well, then...” Seriously? She could not believe what she was about to suggest. “Why don’t we just go with it?” She thought about Eva’s advice Sunday morning. “Just kind of see where it takes us?”

  He wasn’t buying. “What if where it takes us is only back to heartbreak all over again?”

  So much for putting herself out there. “Here we go again. I know that look on your face, Derek Dalton. You’ve suddenly got a fence to fix or a poor, lost calf you need to track down and rescue.”

  “That’s right.” He scooped his hat off the tack hanger and set it on his head. “I should get going.”

  Okay, now he was just plain pissing her off. “All of a sudden, I find I am tempted to start making chicken noises.”

  “You just need to think it over, okay? Think it over, and I will, too. But right now, I really have to go.”

  * * *

  Derek did think it over. All the next day and the day after that.

  Amy was pretty much all he thought about. Those big, honest eyes. The taste of her mouth and her soft, curvy body pressed up tight to his. The lemony smell of her hair. And the brave things she’d said.

  “I still feel it so powerfully for you.”

  “You’re so much more than just an old flame to me.”

  “Why don’t we just go with it? Just kind of see where it takes us?”

  He injured himself twice at the shop, punched a hole in his thumb tooling a set of saddlebags and took a slice out of his index finger cutting leather for another project. Blood all over. What a mess.

  All because he couldn’t keep his mind on the job. It was just like in high school, his brain focused on Amy all the time, the rest of the world receding into the background.

  He knew, over the years, that some people judged him for being one of those guys who played it fast and easy, never sticking with one girl very long.

  But no other girl was Amy. So, what was the point of starting anything too heavy? He kept things casual, moving on whenever a girl acted like she might get serious. He’d never been out to hurt anyone. He just wanted a good time on a Friday night.

  A good time and maybe not to feel so alone for a while.

  Lots of girls felt the same way he had. They weren’t looking to settle down.

  Now, though?

  Well, he was over thirty. A different girl every weekend just kind of made him feel tired. Bailey Stockton might claim to admire him for never settling down, but Bailey was no kid, either. At some point almost every man—and woman, too, he would bet—wanted more than a stranger to take home at
closing time.

  Amy.

  She still cranked his chain in a really big way. But she’d be leaving at the end of the month, going back to her own life. And his life was here.

  It just seemed stupid to get anything going with her, stupid and a clear invitation to heartbreak.

  By Friday, she hadn’t called. What did that mean? She’d found the last few things they needed for the party? Or she’d changed her mind about wanting to “go with it,” to “see where it takes us.”

  Whatever it meant, she hadn’t gotten in touch.

  And he needed to stop thinking about her.

  That made him laugh—and not in a happy way. Stop thinking about her? To stop breathing would be easier.

  “You all right?” Collin asked him Friday evening as they were closing up.

  He gave his friend and business partner a wry grin and held up his bandaged hand—two small bandages, actually. One on his thumb and the other on his cut index finger. “What? All the blood scared you?”

  “You do seem kind of distracted,” Collin said mildly. He clapped Derek on the shoulder. “Why don’t you come on up the mountain with me? Willa’s making pot roast.”

  “’Night!” Ned called as went out the door. “See you guys Monday.”

  Derek waved at Ned and said to Collin, “I hate to pass up the best pot roast in Montana, but I told Luke I’d meet him and the boys for happy hour at the Ace. How about joining us?”

  “Thanks, but I gotta get home.”

  They walked out together, Derek trying not to be jealous of an old friend who used to be considered a world-class heartbreaker, all settled down now with a wife and son he couldn’t wait to get home to.

  * * *

  In the master bathroom upstairs at Sunshine Farm, Eva touched up her blusher and fluffed her blond hair.

  Amy, leaning in the open doorway behind her, asked, “Are you sure about this? The guys might not be too happy about us crashing their happy hour two weeks running.”

  Eva giggled like a schoolgirl and leaned in closer to the mirror to put on her lipstick. “Of course they’ll be happy.” She smoothed on a glossy petal-pink shade. “They’d better be. Because I’m thinking we need to make this a Friday tradition.” Eva had invited half the women in town to join them in crashing the guys’ happy hour. She capped the lipstick. “Now, get over here.” She wiggled her fingers back over her shoulder at Amy, who stepped up beside her. Eva hooked an arm around her waist. They grinned together at their reflections.

  Amy said, “You look amazing.”

  Eva beamed. “And you look just beautiful.”

  Tonight, Amy wore a short red dress with a flirty hem that left her shoulders bare, and her favorite red-tooled cowboy boots. She’d spent way more time on her hair and makeup than a certain obstinate cowboy deserved. But she did have her pride and she liked to look her best. “You ready?” She kept her smile, though every time she thought of Derek, she wanted to pitch a world-class hissy fit.

  Eva glanced at the small clock on the bathroom counter. “Yikes! We’d better get moving. Our girls will wonder what happened to us.”

  * * *

  The Ace’s dirt parking lot was packed. Amy let Eva out under the flickering neon sign at the entrance and drove around for ten minutes until finally an old guy in a battered pickup pulled out and left a free space. She parked and primped a little, and then got out and headed for the front door.

  With every step she took, her hopeless heart knocked harder against her rib cage. Her blood seemed to hum through her veins and her stomach was a big ball of nerves.

  All because he hadn’t called and she hadn’t called and they’d left it all open-ended last Tuesday night—or rather, he had. Telling her to “think it over.”

  Saying he would think it over, too.

  Think it over?

  After she’d gone and put her heart right out there, as good as begging him to be with her for the rest of the month, that was all she got? She’d tried so hard to be honest and forthright with him.

  And in return, he’d said to think about it—oh, and by the way, he had to go.

  Inside the Ace, the music was loud, the dance floor packed. Eva and five other women, friends and family, had joined the group of men at the three large pushed-together tables near the long mahogany bar.

  Derek was there, all right, looking like every cowgirl’s fantasy in a worn plaid shirt and a straw Resistol. The table blocked her view of his long, strong legs clad in denim and his brown cowboy boots, but she knew he would be wearing them, whether he’d spent his day at the saddlery or working cattle on the Circle D.

  A waitress she’d never seen before stood at his shoulder with a tray full of empties. She was really pretty, with a lush, curvy figure and long platinum hair.

  She bent close to Derek and whispered something in his ear. He said something in reply. Really, he wasn’t flirting with her. He didn’t lean close to her and his smile was only casually friendly.

  Amy hated them both anyway. Just on principle. Because he’d told her to “think it over.” And because why did he have to be the guy every pretty woman wanted to get to know a whole lot better?

  The waitress threw back her platinum head and let out a musical laugh as she turned and strutted to the bar.

  Derek spotted Amy then, where she stood watching on the far side of the dance floor. His eyes seemed to burn into hers. He reached out, hooked the seat of an empty chair at the next table over and eased it in between his chair and Bailey’s beside him. Then he patted the seat.

  As if she was going to trot right over there and sit next to him just because he patted a chair.

  Eva caught sight of her. “Amy! There you are!” She waved madly.

  Amy ordered her legs to start moving. She marched straight to Eva, who sat between Luke and Viv Shuster on a long bench seat.

  “Got room for me?” Amy asked.

  “You bet.” Viv scooted closer to her fiancé, Cole Dalton, on her other side. As Eva had explained it to Amy, Cole had come to town last year with his brothers and his dad for a fresh start after the family had lost everything in a tragic fire. The dark-haired cowboy was clearly head-over-heels for the wedding planner. He hooked an arm across Viv’s shoulders and drew her closer still.

  Amy was glad for them. She was glad for all the happy couples in Rust Creek Falls. Too bad love hadn’t worked out so well for her, she thought grumpily as she took the vacant space Viv had left for her. Across the table, she could just feel Derek scowling at her.

  Not that she was going to look at him again. He could just sit there with that empty chair and wait for that waitress to come whisper a few more sweet nothings in his ear for all Amy cared.

  There were pitchers of beer already on the table. Eva grabbed a clean glass and poured one for Amy.

  “Raise your glasses, everyone,” Eva instructed. When the glasses went up, she offered, “To love and happy hour.”

  The toast echoed around the table. Everybody drank and Eva and Luke shared a kiss, after which Luke took her hand and led her out to the dance floor. Everybody else at the table seemed to think that was a great idea. Most of them, including Cole and Viv, got up to dance. Bailey stayed behind. Bella and Hudson Jones, too.

  Across the table, Derek asked, “Dance with me, Amy?”

  She pretended she didn’t hear him. And when a tall, skinny cowboy asked her dance, she got up and two-stepped with him for all she was worth. Not once did she allow herself to glance at the table or look around to see what Derek “The Lady-Killer” Dalton might be doing.

  When the tall cowboy took her back to her seat, she gave him a big smile as he thanked her for the dance. She turned to sit down and her eyes lit on Derek—and that waitress. She was bending close to him as she set a shot glass full of amber liquid in front of him.

  Amy shouldn’t have looked.

  But she did look. And that waitress had some serious cleavage, which she was sticking right in Derek’s face.

&nbs
p; That did it. There was no point in this.

  None at all.

  Amy spoke to Bailey. “I think I’m going to take off. Tell Eva I’m fine. I know she can hitch a ride home with Luke.”

  Bailey opened his mouth to say something, but then seemed to think better of it, whatever it was. He swallowed and nodded. “Sure thing, Amy. Drive safe.”

  “Thanks, Bailey.” She turned and got moving, her cowboy boots tapping the wood floor swift and sharp, as she skirted the dance area on the way to the exit.

  She shoved through to the wide porch in front. Outside, it was still daylight, though the sun had slipped close to the mountains. She ran down the stairs and around to the still-full parking lot.

  Almost at her car, she heard swift footsteps behind her.

  “Come on, Amy.” Derek. He had followed her. “Damn it, wait up!”

  She kept going, down the dirt aisle between the two rows of cars, feeling hurt and frustrated and angry.

  And way too relieved that he’d come after her.

  She reached her Audi and marched to the driver’s door.

  “Amy!”

  “Fine,” she muttered under her breath to no one in particular. Folding her arms hard under her breasts, she leaned back against the side of the car as he turned from the aisle and strode toward her. “What?” she demanded.

  He stopped, whipped off his hat and rubbed the back of his neck. “Look. I got nothing going on with Myra. She flirts. She gets bigger tips that way.”

  “Oh, her name is Myra, is it?”

  “It’s no secret. It’s on her name tag.”

  She almost started in on him about the proximity of Myra’s cleavage to his face. But that would be tacky. “We both know that Myra’s not the issue, okay?”

  “Amy, it doesn’t look to me like anything is ‘okay’ between us right at this moment...” His voice trailed off. She could hear laughter and voices a couple of aisles over—and nearer to where they stood, too—customers on their way in and out of the Ace. “We’re a block and a half from the saddlery. Would you meet me there? We can talk in private.”

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”