Reckless Promise

by Jenny Andersen

  Last night could have been dismissed as an aberration. This morning was worse. He played with married women. And cheated on them, too. She couldn't possibly find him attractive in any way. Right. Everything from her neck up believed that. Apparently nothing from the neck down did.

  "You look cold. Come on in here and git warmed up."

  Startled, she looked up and saw the Hell's Angel who had driven the departing guests to the airport. He stood in the kitchen doorway, bigger and bulkier than she remembered. Even though he wore a white hat, she couldn't believe he was a good guy.

  "Moses, you're scarin' her. Stop!" A blonde who barely came up to his shoulder whacked him on one beefy arm. He grinned and bent to kiss her. She patted his cheek and then pushed him toward the steps.

  They looked like a Great Dane and a yapping Chihuahua, but love glowed between them. Poppy watched with real envy. Moses touched two fingers to his hat brim and slouched off toward the barn.

  The blonde watched for a moment, a besotted smile on her tanned-leather face and one hand on her stomach, before she turned away. "Men! I'll swear—" She herded Poppy through the door, words pouring out nonstop. "Honey, don't look so scared. I'm Chickie, the cook, and that monster is my one-and-only, ever-lovin', legal-type hubby. He ain't gonna hurt you."

  She paused for a breath, and Poppy said quickly, "What does he do besides scare people?"

  Chickie grinned. "Don't you worry none about him, honey. I'd keep him in line if I had to." Even on such short acquaintance Poppy believed that. "But he's nothin' but a big pussy cat. Besides the airport run, he's the best wrangler in the business. Horses love him and kids fight to go on camping trips with him. He'll have you riding like a pro in no time."

  She didn't want riding lessons from Moses. She could ride perfectly well, thank you. Although she might pretend she couldn't so she could get riding lessons from Mac. From Tom. Riding lessons from Tom would be good. "Mmm," she said.

  "You just git on in there to the dinin' room, and I'll bring you some breakfast."

  Poppy went, thoughts whirling. What she ought to do was perfectly clear—fix Tom's marriage and get on the next plane home. What she wanted to do was, unfortunately, even more clear—get horizontal with Mac.

  What she was going to do was up for grabs.

  * * *

  Tom came home in the middle of the afternoon, leading a string of weary, happy riders. Poppy joined a cluster of other guests strolling down to the corral to watch the return. Nerves jumped in her stomach. Stage fright. She hoped Mac had something to do somewhere else. Bad enough to flirt with Tom right under Alice's nose. Trying to do it with Mac watching would be even harder. And wondering if Tom knew about Alice and Mac...the situation sounded just too soap opera.

  Mac had already reached the corral, with Alice of course. He leaned on the fence where Poppy had clung this morning. Her blood surged at the memory of his wicked smile, the way he'd swept her up onto his horse, the feel of him.

  As soon as he saw her, Mac left Alice with heart-warming promptness to stand beside her and drop a casual arm across her shoulders. The look he gave her made her breath catch in her throat. Nothing casual about that. She looked up at him, helpless as a car stuck in a traffic jam.

  Someone shouted and he looked away. She glanced up and saw that his face had gone stony. She followed his gaze and watched him watch Tom lean down to kiss Alice. Watched him watch Alice soften into the embrace. Watched Tom's expression turn wary and Mac's mouth flatten into a straight, angry slash.

  Mac's feelings for Alice must be very real. She shuddered. Telling Tom...she didn't think she could tell Tom.

  Mac's arm tightened around her. She started to melt against him, but reminded herself—wife-stealing slime. She shook his arm off. He put it back.

  At this rate she'd need a scorecard to get through the first day. Her simple Other Woman job had morphed into a complicated set of interlocking triangles. Poppy-Tom-Alice now overlapped Alice-Mac-Poppy and Mac-Alice-Tom. She couldn't tell real from pretense, and she'd never succeed if she didn't stop turning into a puddle of lust every time Mac came within five feet of her.

  Tom turned his back on his wife and strode over to Poppy. "Well, hel-l-lo again," he said with exaggerated enthusiasm more suitable to a pick-up bar than a family vacation spot. "Good to see you're still here."

  Poppy turned so that Alice could see clearly but Mac couldn't, and held out her hand. "Hello, Tom Bailey," she said, her voice husky and suggestive. "Glad to see you again." She curled her fingers around his hand, making the simple handshake look like something more, and touched his arm with her free hand, an instant-seduction move according to Cosmo. At least it should look like dynamite to someone watching as intently as Alice. Poppy ducked her head and gave Tom an under-the-lashes look along with a tiny, secretive smile. A good performance, if she did say so herself.

  She'd kept Mac from seeing, but he'd heard, of course. He tightened his arm around her.

  "In case I forgot yesterday, welcome to The Montana Blue, Poppy," Tom said, wrapping his free hand around their clasped hold. "I hope you'll enjoy your stay. I know we're going to enjoy having you here."

  "Thank you, Tom," she said, with just enough promise in her smile to irritate a jealous wife. She gave him a last, lingering glance, slipped out from under Mac's arm, and strolled over to look at one of the horses. It took her a minute to identify the odd, grating sound as Mac grinding his teeth.

  "Hey, buddy," Tom said to Mac. "I didn't know you were coming. What happened, cops run you out of Denver?"

  Mac thumped him on the back. "Can't a guy come home without it being a federal offense?"

  Mac lived here? And 'buddy'? Did that mean Mac and Tom were friends? Poppy hoped none of her friends ever looked at her the way Mac had looked at Tom earlier. His eyes had been cold as a Massachusetts winter.

  "It's been a long time," Tom said. "Too long. Get that company sold and move up here. We need you, man. Absentee partners don't cut it."

  Partners? Tom and Mac were partners? An odd pain gathered around Poppy's heart. It wouldn't be the first time in history a man had betrayed his friend and partner, but she didn't want Mac to be the villain.

  "Absentee partners don't cut it in the city, either, but I've stuck it out for five years," Mac said. He seemed to catch himself and went on in a friendlier tone. "You'll be happy to know that we've got a live one. There's a bid for the company on the table. I should be there negotiating right now."

  "Then why—?" Tom began. He snapped his mouth shut and looked at Alice. Not a friendly look.

  "I'll be moving sooner than you think," Mac said. "Right now, if you keep coming up with guests like that redhead you were drooling over."

  Poppy snorted. What right did he have to sound angry? As if he hadn't been doing a little drooling himself. And just listen to the two of them, talking about her as though she were some bimbo they'd picked up in a bar. But then, she'd been acting like one.

  "Oh, yeah. Poppy." The grin that spread across Tom's face was a little fatuous, a little libidinous. Perfect. If he'd been talking to her, she'd have slapped him.

  "Hey. You're married. Leave the redheads for us single guys." The look that accompanied the quip cut like pure, cold steel, but Tom didn't seem to notice.

  "Oh, hell." He took three long strides and grabbed the bridle of a horse that had gotten loose, its saddle slipping down its side.

  Mac glared after him for a moment before he went to help.

  Tom lifted the saddle to one shoulder and carried it toward the barn. "I didn't know Mac would be here," he murmured as he passed Poppy. "Remember you promised secrecy. That means him especially. Now smile. Alice is watching." He winked, and she felt glares from Mac and Alice like twin swords.

  She laughed up at him. "Remind me to tell you about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and the three bears," she purred.

  "Did that make sense?" He pushed his hat back and smiled down at her.

  "It will." She turned
sideways so Alice could see, gave Tom a million-watt smile, and sauntered away to pet one of the horses.

  * * *

  Alice pulled Mac behind a horse trailer. "Did you see that?" she hissed. "Did you see? She's nothing but a—"

  "Alice, she only flirted with a handsome cowboy. It didn't mean anything." He tried hard to believe that. "You're making too much of the whole thing." He really wanted to believe that Poppy hadn't done anything wrong. But the way Tom had looked—leered—at Poppy, right in front of his wife, made Mac's stomach hurt. The leer reminded him of his father. He slammed the thought away.

  "Do you really think I'm imagining things?"

  "Of course you are. Tom wouldn't ever cheat on you." And Mac would kill the miserable so-and-so if he did. Rage flickered along his veins, and it had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with the picture of Poppy in another man's arms. Speaking of which, he didn't see her. And where had Tom gone?

  They could only have gone into the barn. He stalked toward the door and saw her leaning back against the side of a stall. She looked up at Tom and he hoped he only imagined the same look she'd given him this morning, with wide, starry eyes that had made him want to kiss her. Tom leaned toward her, just the way Mac had wanted to. Mac clenched his fists, but instead of responding, she only stepped aside so Tom could set the saddle on its rack.

  "...later," he heard Tom say, and then Mac's foot scuffed against a board. Tom looked up. "Hey, Mac. Need something?"

  Yes. Poppy. She smiled at him and he remembered the feel of her mouth under his and his brain started to buzz. "Just checking. Ready to go up to the pool?"

  "Sure. See you up there, Poppy?"

  "All right. As soon as I change."

  Mac waited for her to give Tom another one of those killer smiles and ground his teeth when she obliged. He watched her leave the barn, trying to believe it had been his imagination that she was hitting on Tom. But Tom's behavior, that was something else. And he owed it to Alice to have a few words with her husband.

  He followed Tom out of the barn and grabbed his shoulder. "I want to talk to you."

  "Tom," Alice yelled from the veranda. "Telephone."

  "Later," Tom said, and loped toward the house.

  Mac looked back down the path past the stable toward the cluster of cabins in time to see Poppy spring up the stairs to her tiny porch. His anger bled away in appreciation of her slim rear view. Enough to turn a man's mouth dry at a hundred yards. His hands prickled with the memory of the way that lovely rear had filled them the night before.

  She turned in the doorway and saw him watching. Her flirty smile hit him like a bullet before she waved and disappeared inside.

  He stood rooted to the path, riveted by the fantasy image of her pulling off her shirt while she trotted into the bedroom. A single yank and the snaps would part all at once. He really loved western shirts, all those pearly snaps such halfhearted guardians of the pearly skin underneath. He fantasized prim, plain white cotton, shook his head, rewound the picture, and replaced it with scarlet satin.

  Tom stepped into the fantasy, that stupid leer back on his face, and Mac clenched his teeth. Enough fantasy. He had to find out what the hell was going on. Tom wasn't going to mess with his sister. Or with his fantasies.

  He wiped Tom out of the picture along with the red satin, and tried black lace. Better. He walked toward the lodge. Slowly. Good thing his feet knew the way, because Poppy filled his brain. She'd be unhooking her bra by now, and stepping out of her panties. He stumbled into the fence that surrounded the pool.

  "Hey, Mac, hurry up," Tom shouted from the pool. "Water polo. We need another player."

  "On my way." Mac strode into the house and down the hall to his room. He had a mission. A promise to keep. If Poppy was really hitting on Tom, he'd stop it if it was the last thing he ever did.

  He hit the pool about five minutes later and really tried to concentrate on the game, but couldn't keep from watching Tom. He looked like the same old brother-in-law Mac had known for five years, not the letch-on-the-prowl he'd seen a few minutes ago.

  Mac had almost succeeded in getting his mind on the game by the time Poppy arrived. When he saw her, the winning goal slammed past him and the game ended, leaving him with nothing to do but stare. Funny, he hadn't had any problems watching the ball instead of the nearly naked brunette posing on one of the loungers. Poppy made her look like the overly made up tramp she was, and the way she scowled at Poppy didn't improve the picture.

  He vaulted out of the pool in one smooth motion and bent to pick up a towel. When he straightened and shook wet hair out of his eyes, he found himself nose to nose—well, collarbone to nose—with Poppy.

  Her hair smelled like hot, spicy sin.

  He closed his eyes and drew in a long breath, then tilted his head just enough to let the flames of her curls brush against his mouth. He felt her heat across the few inches of space between them, and was lost.

  His body reacted as instantaneously, as overwhelmingly, as embarrassingly as if he were eighteen again. In about half a second he'd be poking out of his suit. The only thing he could do was take a giant step backward. He hit the water with a splash and sank to the bottom.

  When he came up for air and climbed out of the pool, she'd moved away. Except that before he even thanked whatever deity looked after crazed, terminally hormone-overloaded, mid-thirties men, he saw her on the other side of the deck. His mind went blank at the sight of her bending over to take a soft drink from the cooler on the ground. Poppy, in a bathing suit that rioted with scarlet and orange and yellow, so that she looked like she'd been gift-wrapped in flame. He dropped to a lounger and draped his towel across his lap.

  "Your tongue's hanging out." Tom sat in the next chair and handed him a beer.

  Mac grabbed the bottle and held it to his temple. Brought it to his mouth and gulped. Took a deep breath and recited a quick multiplication table.

  "She does have that effect, doesn't she?" Tom sounded proprietary.

  Mac wanted to punch the smug grin off his face. "You're married," he reminded Tom again.

  "Married." Tom's gaze lingered on Poppy's lush curves. "Not dead."

  Before Mac could decide which of the unfriendly things in his mind to say first, Poppy sauntered over to them and folded gracefully onto the foot of Tom's lounge chair.

  "Hi," she said. "Mind if I join you?"

  "Not at all." Tom moved over about half an inch to make room for her.

  Mac growled, and shot a glance over his shoulder. Alice wasn't in sight, but the curtain at the kitchen window twitched. Great. Either she would watch Poppy hit on Tom—or vice versa—or else Chickie would relay the play-by-play.

  Poppy gave Tom that megawatt smile, and Mac would almost swear she positioned herself to give Alice a ringside view. Then she stretched. If he were to be fair about it, her suit wasn't all that skimpy. The problem was what it covered. He tilted his beer and took a swig big enough to choke on. Tom pounded him on the back until he stopped coughing.

  She turned to Tom. "Is there a trail ride in the morning?"

  "You bet. Every morning, and once or twice a week, an overnight ride. You interested?"

  "Absolutely. I haven't had a chance to ride in years. I can't wait." Simple enthusiasm bubbled in her words.

  Mac frowned. He didn't sense any attraction there. And for all the flirty smiles, there hadn't been any back there in the barn, either. He didn't understand. All the more reason for him to ride herd on her. Twenty-four/seven, if possible.

  "You come on down to the corral about eight thirty and we'll pick you out a horse," Tom said. "That'll give us about half an hour before the others show up."

  If Mac hadn't been barefoot, he'd have kicked Tom. Poppy might not be a problem, but he was beginning to think that Tom was. They were going to have a little talk. Soon. "Moses assigns horses," he said.

  Her smile dimmed. "Moses? Oh, I don't know..."

  "I'll take care of it." Tom left no doubt about his
intention to do it.

  "I'll be there at eight-thirty," she promised. She did another one of those stretches that turned Mac's mouth to desert. He adjusted his towel and glanced toward the house. The curtain hung straight and undisturbed.

  Poppy asked about the horses, how many they had, where they came from, who trained them. She interspersed the light, impersonal chatter with under-the-lashes glances at Mac that kept him simmering. He wished Tom would leave.

  About the time he thought Tom had grown roots, Alice came out on the patio and called him. Tom rose reluctantly. "Don't forget, eight-thirty." He strode off toward the house.

  Finally. Mac leaned toward her.

  "So, you raise the ranch horses," she said. "I'd like to hear about your breeding program. I've always had an interest in practical genetics."

  "You know anything about horses?" Frustrated lust turned his voice to a growl.

  "No, but I know something about genetics. We'll have to talk about it." She stood and gathered up her towel. "But right now I'd better get in out of the sun."

  "You haven't even been swimming." He got up and she backed away a step. "The water's great."

  She shook her head. "No, I—"

  Alice came out onto the porch. "Mac," she called.

  "Okay, let's go swimming." Poppy pushed Mac into the pool.

  She acted almost as though she didn't want him to be with Alice. But he didn't have time to think about that. He locked his arms around her and took her with him. A man could drown happy this way, with Poppy plastered against him, her legs tangled with his. She broke away and streaked for the shallow end.

  He raced right behind her. She grabbed a big ball and tossed it at him. Treading water, he caught it and threw it back, intending to dive and swim underwater to ambush her. Before he could move, three people had joined the game and there went his chance to get close and physical under cover of the water.

  An eternity later, the game ended, and he had a chance to get within touching distance of her. She twisted to pull one strap away from her shoulder and check for sunburn. "I am getting pink. I'd better get out, too," she said.