Reckless Promise

by Jenny Andersen

  Never one to waste an opportunity, he put a couple of fingers on her back and pressed lightly. "You're right," he said. "A little pink, but not too bad." He smoothed his hand down her back, surprised the film of water didn't turn to steam from the intensity of his thoughts. "Not too bad at all."

  "Sun screen." She drifted away toward the steps.

  He watched with appreciation the unveiling of the curvy, scarlet-clad rear and the world-class legs. Maybe she'd like him to go back to her cabin and put some lotion on her back.

  He hurried out of the pool to join her. Tom had come back out and stood talking to her. He arrived just in time to hear "...get together."

  Tom looked up. "Oh, Mac. Alice wants you in the office."

  Damn.

  "See you later." Poppy moved off toward her cabin.

  Mac went inside, cursing his sister's rotten timing. The minute he set foot through the office door, she grabbed his arm.

  "What's up?" he asked.

  "I want to talk to you."

  "I got that." He sighed. "Now what?"

  "What happened out by the pool?"

  "She asked about riding tomorrow."

  "That's all?"

  "That's all."

  "But she sat so close to him she might as well have been in his lap. And she probably wouldn't say anything with you there. And—"

  "Alice—"

  She covered his mouth with one hand. "I know." She sighed. "Am I making a mountain out of a mole hill?"

  "Yes." He patted her shoulder and hoped he hadn't lied. The way Tom had looked at Poppy at that first meeting flicked across his mind, but he ignored it and gave Alice a hug. "Okay now?"

  She nodded. "Okay. Back to work."

  He watched her walk down the hall. He'd never seen Tom interested in another woman before. And he couldn't figure Poppy out at all. One minute she acted pure bimbo, seduction on the hoof, and the next, an intelligent and captivating woman.

  Whatever she was, Tom represented a problem. Time for that talk. By the time he'd looked everywhere in the house, his temper simmered close to full boil. Tom had slipped out of the house, almost as though he knew Mac wanted him. Mac stamped out onto the front porch and stood for a minute to cool off, soaking in the view of sky and mountain, pastures with sleek horses. His horses.

  His sister's marital mess.

  So he went looking for Tom. Not at the corral. Or inside the barn. Moses glanced up from mending a stirrup.

  "Seen Tom?" Mac asked.

  "Nope. Popular guy, though."

  "How's that?"

  "That redhead come pokin' through here. Didn't say what she wanted, but it sure wasn't me."

  Mac glared at him, but Moses bent over his work, oblivious, and Mac stalked back outside. He headed back up toward the house, cutting through the row of guest cabins.

  And there Tom stood. Leaning against the door of Poppy's cabin, clearly on his way out and so involved in the conversation that he didn't notice Mac.

  Poppy said something, urgent but too low for Mac to hear.

  Tom laughed. "Mac!" He slapped his knee. "You thought Mac and Alice—" The words were lost in gales of laughter.

  She scowled.

  "Poppy," Tom said when he could talk again. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have laughed, but that's so ridiculous—"

  "You didn't see them," she snapped. "And isn't the husband always the last to know?"

  "You don't understand. I'm sure it wasn't easy for you to tell me." She opened her mouth and Tom held up a hand. "Mac is Alice's brother."

  She looked up and saw Mac. Saw that he had heard. Saw the fury he couldn't control when he realized what she'd thought. She flushed scarlet.

  His flash of anger dwindled to wicked humor. She'd pay for misjudging him that badly.

  Chapter 4

  Mac stood in the office doorway and watched Tom sort papers. "Brad's coming up the road. Want to bet he's looking to get his job back?"

  Tom looked up. "No bet. Of course he is. Nobody else will hire him."

  "We going to take him back?"

  "I don’t think we have a choice. He's a sleazeball, but every other hand in the county has already hired on somewhere. The other men are going to bail if we don't get more help."

  Mac shrugged. "Maybe Moses can work him hard enough to keep him out of trouble."

  "Just as long as he stays away from the guests. And Alice."

  And Poppy.

  * * *

  Poppy pulled the pillow over her head and stifled a moan. She'd have to stay in this cabin for the rest of her life. Not only would Tom tell Alice about her stupid conclusion-jumping, but facing Mac would be clear off the scale of embarrassing.

  No way could she face going to dinner. Never eating again would be a small price to pay for not having to face the ridicule.

  The dinner gong sounded loud and clear, even through a layer of feathers. She wasn't going. Except that Tom's whole reason for being in her cabin had been to outline a plan for the dinner hour. And she had agreed, and he counted on her.

  With a sigh, she tossed the pillow aside and got up, cursing her inconvenient conscience. A flick of the brush through her hair got her as ready as she'd ever be for the showdown at the OK dinner table.

  Tom wasn't there. She looked around the room again. No Tom. If he expected her to carry on with his stupid plan, he could at least be here to play his part. She turned to escape back to her cabin.

  "Looking for someone?" Mac loomed in front of her, big and tall and solid, and completely blocking her way. "Tom and Moses aren't back from town yet."

  His wicked, teasing smile sent desire flushing through her. "Thanks," she mumbled, and bolted into the dining room before he said anything designed to rub her nose in her silly mistake. She took a chair as far from his end of the table as possible, and barricaded herself in the middle of a jovial family, where she concentrated on the difficult task of getting small bites of food from plate to mouth.

  If her performance the night before had been Oscar quality, tonight's wouldn't have gotten her understudy in a high school play. It took all her concentration to keep from looking at Mac. The minute she relaxed, her gaze headed his way like a student bound for the door after finals.

  After several centuries of stilted conversation and food she didn't taste, Alice's question, "Everyone ready for dessert?" came as a relief. Alice smiled at everyone, but her glance passed over Poppy, as usual. Just as if she didn't know about the humiliating mistake.

  Poppy picked at her chocolate éclair. Eventually the meal ended so she could bolt back to her cabin. Hiding might not be the P.C. thing to do, but it had to be better than facing Mac.

  But he disappeared as soon as Alice rose from the table and announced, "The evening walk will leave from the front steps in fifteen minutes. Of course, those of you who prefer…" Her gaze shifted to Poppy. "…to stay indoors may do so." Poppy tried not to cringe when she remembered what she'd been doing indoors last night. Alice couldn't know about that. She ought to be giving the evil looks to that brunette, the improbably-named Brandi, who'd been flirting with every man in the lounge last night.

  Since Mac had gone, Poppy could melt into the crowd and avoid Alice. She ran to her cabin for a jacket, and just as she'd hoped, more than a dozen guests had assembled on the front porch by the time she got back. She smiled at two women sitting on the steps, but they gave her the suspicious glare she'd learned to expect from women, so she leaned against the porch rail and looked across soft green pastures at snow-capped peaks.

  The air shimmered with the approaching change from hot dusty day to starry night. Sage and pine and some indefinable scent of mountain and crisp magic filled the air. Much better than staring at glassy-eyed, dead deer all evening.

  The group moved off in an untidy gaggle. Poppy trailed along, feet on autopilot, mind on Mac. Knowing he wasn't wife-stealing slime both relieved and tortured her. She would enjoy flinging with him, even though terminal embarrassment didn't make for like a good
start. But she couldn't act her part for Tom if she were starry-eyed over Mac.

  Mac.

  She imagined an Mac, an x-rated Mac, pushing her through the door of her cabin, his wide shoulders all but blotting out the world. Heat swamped her when she thought about him backing her up against the wall, his hands hard and sure and proprietary at her waist, her ribs, covering her breast, squeezing...

  Goodness, the evening had turned hot and she hadn't even noticed until now. She undid the top two snaps on her blouse and pulled the material away from her chest to create a draft. The action didn't cool her thoughts one bit. In her all-too-vivid imagination, Mac's mouth feathered across hers, a touch of electricity that set each nerve alight. He trailed kisses across her cheek, his breath warm in her ear, that deep chocolate voice...

  "You okay?" The deep chocolate voice held irritation, and the hand on her arm was hard and sure and concerned. "You stopped, and you're all flushed. You having trouble with the altitude?" 'Again' hung unspoken on the end of the sentence.

  Someone up there hated her. The amusement she saw in his eyes sent a fresh wave of embarrassment—and desire—barreling through her and she knew her face turned more shades of red than the sunset. "I'm fine. I'm just fine."

  The knowing look in his eyes and his little smile—smirk, really—told her that she would never live down that one teeny little mistake.

  She looked away and discovered that the group had gotten a hundred feet ahead. She jerked her arm free and bolted after the others, burrowing into the center of the group. What had she been thinking to come out here when she should be barricaded in her cabin, hiding under her quilt, with windows and door locked?

  He scared her half to death. Then, because she never lied to herself, she admitted that her reaction to him scared her senseless. The flick of his glance sizzled through her like touching a live wire, and his smile, that wicked grin that promised all the sin a woman could want, turned her will power to jelly.

  She darted a surreptitious glance at him. A single look at that hard, handsome face convinced her, skeptical scientist though she was, that he had fistfuls of graduate degrees—all from Bedroom U., and his major had certainly been women. In comparison, her meager experience in pretending to be a vamp didn't seem like much. How could she change her all-too-consuming lust for Mac into the better-be-convincing play she had to make for Tom?

  Especially when that was the last thing in the world she wanted to do.

  * * *

  Mac glared after Poppy. Now what? Last night, they'd generated enough heat to start a new volcano. Tonight, she treated him like—like—a stalker. An unattractive stalker. Last night, she'd shut down that hound who'd hit on her fast enough. Today she flirted with Tom as though he were the last man on earth. But for all her flirty talk with him, Mac hadn't picked up on any real interest there.

  Color him confused.

  He stalked along behind the straggling bunch of dudes down past the pool and the road that led to the house he was building around the other side of the hill, across a pasture, and up a slope. His gaze burned on Poppy's back every step of the way. In spite of his suspicions and mixed feelings, just watching her move had him harder than the rocks on either side of the path.

  He caught up in time to see her face light as she listened to Alice point out a covey of quail scurrying for home. Poppy looked entranced as Alice identified an early-rising bat for one of the boys and told a funny story about the fuzzy colt, one of his best to date, watching them from the next field. Funny. He'd thought Poppy didn't like the ranch much. Moses had reported that Tom said on the ride from the airport, she'd stared out the window at passing scenery as though it were the approach to Hell.

  He watched a little girl tug at Poppy's sleeve. "How come the baby is brown and the mama is yellow?"

  And darned if Poppy didn't give her a completely understandable, kid level explanation of dominant and recessive genes. She'd said she knew a lot about genetics, but she sounded like a genuine expert. Maybe he ought to ask her about the breedings he had planned for a couple of his mares.

  And she had people skills. Alice had warned him about the honeymoon couple and the way they drifted around without seeing anyone else. But when Poppy smacked into them, she worked them like a snake charmer.

  "I guess we do look silly," the bride said, but her misty smile belied the words, and she didn't move the hand that she'd hooked down the front of her husband's jeans.

  "No, you don't look silly," Poppy said. "You look happy."

  "Oh, yeah," murmured the groom. He ran a finger down his bride's arm, brushing across her breast. Mac followed Poppy's gaze down to the woman's peaking nipple and quickly looked up at her face. Her wistful expression set off alarms. He'd sworn never to commit again and damned if she didn't look like a woman who wanted commitment.

  He snorted. If she was so damned wistful, she ought to stop chasing married men.

  Her questions loosed a flood of wedding description that lasted all the way to the top of the hill, where even the honeymooners fell silent under the glory of the sunset. Poppy stood between him and the color-drenched horizon. When she took a deep breath, stretching a little, he gulped. So did the man standing beside her. His wife glared at Poppy, and yanked him away.

  Mac shook his head in disbelief. All she had to do was breathe and men fell at her feet. Lord knew he had. She probably had a dozen propositions a day.

  She moved up to chat with the glaring wife. To his surprise, Mrs. Harbottle thawed, and told Poppy that they lived in Kansas, loved the ranch, and had two teen-agers. The boys loped by and their mother snagged them for introductions. He watched Poppy charm Donny and Jim. Of course they were male.

  She drew a couple on her other side into the conversation, and pretty soon everyone had been pulled into a single, happy group. Sounded like a damned cocktail party. Poppy eased away and sat on a boulder to watch the color fade from the sky.

  "Nice job," he murmured.

  She jumped and turned her head.

  He sat so close that if he leaned a couple of centimeters, he'd be a heartbeat away from kissing her. His breath came short. "Sorry. I thought you knew I was sharing your rock."

  She shifted away from him. "What do you mean, nice job?"

  "That little girl looked bored to mischief, Mrs. Harbottle wanted to push you off a cliff; the boys were out of hand; the honeymooners were about to wander off and get lost as usual. You tied them all up into a friendly group. Very smooth."

  "You make it sound like I did it on purpose." She sounded startled.

  "Didn't you?"

  "No. I just talk to people."

  "Yeah. I heard you talking to Tom this afternoon."

  Color rose in her face. That creamy, translucent skin reflected everything she felt better than a barometer. "I know. I saw you. But you didn't tell Alice."

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "This way I have something to hold over you." He grinned at the flash of temper in her eyes.

  "I was going to apologize until you said that."

  "I'm teasing. I wouldn't really blackmail you."

  "And I know that how?"

  "You can trust me."

  She raised an eyebrow. "Right."

  "I mean it. I don't cheat."

  "Honest in word, thought, and deed?"

  "Yep." He honestly wanted her in his bed, but maybe he'd better hold off on the word and deed there for a bit. Until they got better acquainted.

  "A Boy Scout?"

  "No. 4H Club. I grew up on a ranch. With people who trusted me." A flush tinged her cheekbones, and he smiled.

  She straightened her shoulders and looked him straight in the eye. "That's friends. Strangers have to be a little more wary. I had no way of knowing you and Alice—"

  He gave up. "I know. But you could have asked someone."

  "Who?

  "Anyone. The other guests. Moses."

  "Right. Like I'd do that kind of gossip. And I certainly wouldn't
talk to someone who worked for her." Poppy's expression combined contempt and impatience. She turned toward the fading colors on the western horizon.

  "Come on, honey, don't go all unfriendly on me."

  "I'm friendly."

  He put his arm around her.

  She stood. "Not that friendly. I don't make out with strangers in public." She blushed, probably remembering last night.

  "We could get private." He stood and put his hands on her shoulders.

  She removed his hands and took a step back. "Or not."

  "We could get to be friends."

  She shook her head and looked up at him through lowered lashes. "Define friend. My guess would be that we use different dictionaries."

  "Friends are people who do stuff together. Fun stuff. I could suggest more than a few fun things we could do."

  Her stern glare reminded him of his nightmare seventh grade teacher. He shrugged and tried to look innocent. "Friends are intimate."

  "As in sex?" Her mouth twitched in what he wanted to think was humor, but she stuck her nose in the air. "I don't think so."

  He did. It was exactly what he thought. "You could change your mind."

  She gave him one of those men-are-dogs looks. "Not in a million years," she said, with enough frost in her voice to freeze the entire state.

  He grinned. She reminded him of a handful of porcupine, all stabbing quills on the surface, tender and delicious inside. He knew what hid under that prickly exterior, though. Heat. All the heat a man could want. He could see it in her eyes.

  That did it. One step brought him close enough for his hands to find her waist and pull her up against him, all the lush softness he couldn't get out of his mind. In the almost-dark, the amber of her eyes flared with the same fierce desire that throbbed through him. The desperate grip of her hands on his shoulders said she felt the same want, the same need that consumed him.

  He shifted his gaze to her mouth. Her soft, slightly parted lips lured him like a horse to a bushel of oats. He forgot Alice and the crowd of guests, forgot that they were standing on a rock in plain sight of anyone who cared to watch, forgot his suspicions of her. He brushed his mouth over hers, needing the taste of her as much as a man in the desert needed water. Brushed, lingered, sampled, tasted. Couldn't get enough.