Gator sighed heavily and raked his fingers through his dark hair. Damn, but his head hurt. He probably had the worst hangover of his life. This storm was the last thing he needed. “Now, Reba, don’t put up a fuss,” he said. “When this hurricane hits it’s going to rip this place apart, and you won’t be able to help yourself, much less those animals. Come get in the boat before it fills up with water and sinks.”
“I ain’t goin’, Gator, and that’s final.” Reba marched over to her rocking chair and sat down stiffly. Her look was unyielding.
“Then I’m going to pick you up and haul you out to the boat, chair and all,” he said, his look as ominous as the approaching storm.
Reba gripped the arms of the chair. “And I’ll kick and scream this house down over our heads,” she said.
“Oh, yeah?” Gator planted his hands on his hips and glared at the woman.
She fixed him with a stubborn gaze. “Yeah.”
Michelle looked from one to the other. Watching them interact would have been amusing had the circumstances not been so dire. Her grandmother was a tiny figure compared to Gator’s six-foot-plus frame. The khaki-colored shirt he wore strained against his wide chest, upon which a gold sheriff’s badge had been pinned. His faded jeans molded to his thighs and calves like a leather glove. She saw no sign of a gun, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t armed. He was certainly different from the men she worked with, who wore neat slacks and crisp white lab coats.
Reba gave a harrumph. “You wouldn’t shoot an old lady.”
“Don’t count on it,” he said.
“Let her be,” Michelle said.
One pair of black eyes snapped up in surprise as Michelle closed the distance between herself and Gator. She had never forgotten those onyx eyes. They could pierce a stone wall and turn a woman’s knees to gelatin at the same time.
“You can’t force her to go with you,” Michelle said, “and all the threats in the world aren’t going to change her mind.”
Despite his ever-souring mood, Gator looked amused. “Aw, Reba knows I won’t really shoot her,” he said. “I could just give her a good pistol whipping.”
“I’ll stay with her.”
His look turned to disbelief. Michelle Thurston hadn’t lost her spunk, thank goodness, but what she was suggesting was shear lunacy. “You’re going to ride out the storm with Reba?” he asked.
“We’ve ridden out more than one storm in this old house.”
“Perhaps you haven’t heard how big this thing is,” Gator replied.
“I’ve been listening to weather reports.”
He looked about. “Well, then, I take it you have all the supplies you need?”
Michelle did not respond. She had not brought supplies because she’d had no intention of staying. She had planned to help her grandmother pack a few things and hit the road. “I was in the process of getting things together when you showed up.” Michelle preferred lying to him than appearing foolish. “I’m sure we’ll be fine,” she said. “In the meantime, you’re probably needed in town.”
“Are you trying to get rid of me?” He did not wait for her to reply. “You know, if I weren’t such a nice guy, I could handcuff the two of you and haul you to jail for not following evacuation orders.”
“Really?” Michelle folded her arms in front of her. “And I could probably call this attorney I know and have you kicked out of office.”
“You would do that for me?” Gator asked, sounding delighted. “That’s the best offer I’ve had in a long time.”
“Now, now, children,” Reba admonished gently. “Let’s don’t bicker. We’re just tense because of the storm.” She pulled herself out of her rocker. “Come on in the kitchen, Gator, and let me give you something to eat. You look awful. You must’ve had a late night.”
“Don’t go trying to change the subject on me, Reba.” He followed her into the next room. “But I will take a glass of tomato juice if you have it. And a couple of aspirin,” he added.
Michelle stood there dumbfounded. She followed them and watched from the kitchen door as Gator accepted the aspirin and washed it down with a tall glass of tomato juice.
“I don’t believe this,” she said. “You have a hangover. No wonder your eyes are so bloodshot. You look as though you just crawled out of some woman’s bed. Is that a hickey on your neck, for heaven’s sake?”
“Michelle!” Reba said. “That is no way to treat a guest.”
Gator set his empty glass on the kitchen table and faced Michelle, clearly annoyed. “It’s nobody’s business how I spend my Saturday nights. Now, could we stop harping on my personal life and get the hell out of here? I don’t have all day.”
When Reba spoke, she was adamant. “This is the last time I’m going to tell you, Gator: I ain’t going.”
He regarded the older woman for a moment. “If you won’t think about yourself, think about your granddaughter. Are you willing to put her life in danger as well?”
Reba was clearly shaken at the thought. She had obviously been so wrapped up in saving the lives of her pets that she hadn’t considered Michelle or herself. Her face crumpled and sudden tears filled her eyes. “Then make her go with you, Gator.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Grand,” Michelle said. “I’m not leaving you.” She took one spindly hand in her own. “We’ll be okay,” she told the woman, sounding a lot braver than she felt; but she had to admit, in all honesty, if the tables were turned and someone told her she would have to leave her pets behind, she wouldn’t have been able to do it either.
Gator looked from one woman to the other. It was obvious Michelle was trying to get rid of him. Impatience and anxiety were written all over her pretty face and magnified in those emerald green eyes. Lord, those eyes! He could see forever when he looked into them. And that hair. It was just as he remembered, yellow with just a hint of red, a color that emphasized her rosy, unblemished complexion. He could still remember how silky it felt against his bare chest. Aw, damn, he thought. That was the last thing he needed to think about.
Gator shoved his thoughts aside. He had to concentrate on protecting them. He was the sheriff, it was his duty. It didn’t matter, at least for the time being, that he didn’t want the job, had never wanted the job, for that matter. Until he found somebody capable of taking his place, it was his responsibility. They were his responsibility.
Gator muttered a string of four-letter words under his breath as he considered the situation. He finally gave a huge sigh. “Okay, Reba, we’ll do it your way,” he said. “I don’t suppose you have any extra plywood lying around? Or is that too much to hope for?”
The abrupt change of subject surprised both women. “I reckon there’s some under the house,” Reba said. “No telling how long it has been under there. Why?”
“I’m going to have to board up these windows,” he said, motioning to the large plate-glass windows that dominated the back of the house, “as well as other larger-sized ones, especially on the first floor. A strong wind could shatter the glass or toss something right through it.” He gave an inward sigh. Nothing like waiting till the damn storm was right on your butt to start taking precautions, he thought as he stepped out onto the porch and pulled on his boots and slicker. He looked at Michelle standing in the doorway. “See if you can find me a hammer and nails.”
“You’re staying?” she said in disbelief, knowing he probably had a long list of things to do in town.
“I’m sure as hell not leaving the two of you out here alone,” he said, already heading toward the back steps.
Michelle watched him go. “I should have known something like this was going to happen,” she said to her grandmother. “Better tell me where the hammer is. I don’t think we’re going to get rid of him.”
Gator found the plywood stacked neatly under the back of the house. He muttered another string of curses when he realized he’d have to crawl a good distance to reach it. He grunted in frustration as he dropped to his belly and shimmied bene
ath the house toward the stack of plywood. Why had he let them pin that badge to him in the first place, he asked himself, not for the first time. Hadn’t he paid his dues where hard work was concerned? Lord, he’d sweated in those sugar cane fields for ten years before he’d turned a profit. He’d gone without material things, had learned to live on next to nothing, just to put every dime back into the crop. And it had paid off.
He could afford to live anywhere he desired. He no longer had to deny himself life’s simplest pleasures. He would answer to no one, nor try to prove himself. He could give his mother a better life, pay someone to do the chores she was finding increasingly difficult, and if she became ill he could afford any doctor. He could do for her those things that his father, despite his high opinion of himself, could not have done.
Then a bunch of old fools had gone behind his back and elected him sheriff.
Of course, he would keep the job until he found out who’d beat up his mother, just in case the person had not left town and was only laying low for a while. Once he took care of that piece of business, and he would take care of it, he’d resign and be done with it.
But first he had to get through this emergency. It was a massive bump in the road he hadn’t expected, but despite being irritated as hell, he had to take care of Reba. Not to mention that granddaughter of hers who obviously thought herself too good for the likes of him. The young lady must have a short memory, he thought. There was a time, when, had he put forth a little more effort, he could have had her right where he wanted. He wondered if Michelle had ever stopped long enough to consider it.
Had he gone after her that night … but he hadn’t. At sixteen, she’d been too fresh and too new, a tiny bud about to bloom. She’d made him think of everything that was good and decent, and at eighteen years old he had nothing to offer. She had more living and more learning to do before someone took that from her, and, although someone surely would, he wouldn’t be that person.
Michelle, draped in her raincoat, hurried out back in search of Gator. The rain fell in sheets. The wind slapped her coat against her legs and spit mud onto the slacks of her nurses’ uniform. She cautiously crossed the backyard, trying not to slip in the wet grass. She found Gator sprawled beneath the back of the house. For a moment, all she could do was stare. His slicker had worked its way up around his waist, exposing his jean-clad body from the hips down. And how about those hips, she thought, her gaze fastened to the taut muscles. Her eyes lingered just a moment before moving downward to his lean thighs and calves. And then all at once, those hips started moving, sliding from side to side like a rattlesnake in reverse. There was a loud grunt, and the rest of his body emerged, his big fists gripping several sheets of plywood.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” Gator said, once he’d spied her. “Help me get this plywood out. And when we’re done with this batch, there is more beneath the other side of the house.”
“You don’t have to be mean,” she said. “I’ve done nothing to deserve it.” She set the hammer and box of nails under the house so they wouldn’t get wet. She stooped beside him and pulled the plywood out. It was going to be a long day, she thought.
Several hours later, Michelle and Gator had managed to board up the largest windows on the back of the house, although it was next to impossible to work against the fierce wind. Several times Michelle found herself flattened against the house, unable to move because of the wind’s force, while the screens billowed and strained with each gust. One tore loose and spit rain into her face, almost blinding her. Finally, Gator gripped her around the waist with both arms and literally shoved her toward the back door.
“Go inside,” he yelled, “before the wind picks you up and tosses you into the bayou.”
Michelle didn’t argue. She knew she’d only hinder him further because of her inability to fight the wind. She managed to get the back door open, but another wind gust sent water spraying onto the wood floor and onto Reba, who helped close the door behind Michelle.
“Where’d Gator run off to?” she asked, wringing her frail hands.
“He should be here momentarily,” Michelle said, gasping for breath. “It’s bad out there, Grand. Real bad.” Michelle noticed for the first time that Reba’s hound was standing beside her. “What is Mae West doing out of bed? Shouldn’t she be with her puppies?”
“The wind scared her.” Reba said. “She can’t sit still. And Mister Ed is going bananas.” She motioned toward the parrot, whose claws gripped the side of his cage as he squawked.
“I need all the masking and duct tape you can get your hands on,” Michelle told her grandmother. “While I tape the small windows I want you to look for candles. Oh, and a couple of spare flashlights would help.”
Michelle shrugged out of her raincoat but didn’t bother to get out of her wet uniform. She went right to work, taping windows as fast as she could. Gator came in a few minutes later and assisted. By the time they ran out of tape they’d managed to secure most of the windows on the first floor, as well as the larger ones on the second.
Gator backed away from one of the large plate-glass windows in an upper-story bedroom and surveyed the big X’s they’d made on the glass with masking tape. “I suppose that’s the best we can do on such short notice.”
Michelle saw that he was literally soaked to the skin. His jeans were plastered against his thighs and calves in a way that made her mouth go dry. His shirt was drenched as well and hung open to his waist, exposing his wide chest, where black hair glistened wetly. His thick hair was slicked to his scalp, giving him a rakish appearance. Michelle realized that she didn’t look much better. Her uniform was saturated, and it molded to her body like a second skin. Her nipples, erect from the cold rain and chafing the cotton material of her uniform, were clearly visible as they strained against the wet fabric. She blushed profusely when she caught Gator staring. But if she was uncomfortable before, it was nothing compared to the unease she felt when those hooded black eyes locked with her own.
“We need to get out of these wet things,” she said, crossing her arms in front of her in an attempt to hide herself. She shivered as Gator continued to stare. He still had the power to make her body go berserk when he looked at her that way, she thought. Those glittering black eyes didn’t miss a thing. It was as though he were capable of seeing past flesh and bone to her inner workings, all of which shook at the moment as violently as the tree limbs outside the window. She was certain he knew what that look did to her—what it did to every female, for that matter. He had it down to an art. And if it had had a powerful effect on her at sixteen, it was doubly so now at thirty-two.
“That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day,” Gator said, shrugging out of his shirt. It was cold and felt like wet seaweed against his skin. He mopped his brow and chest with it and ran it across the back of his neck.
Michelle wondered if he had any idea how sensual that simple act was. He was all rippling muscles and taut flesh. Goose pimples stood out on his shoulders and his nipples puckered from the chill in the room. His arms were lean and as brown as the rest of him. The room seemed to shrink in size. Michelle had seen enough male bodies in her job to know that the one before her was one of the best she’d ever laid eyes on.
Gator would have had to be blind not to notice her perusal. The grin he shot her was brazen. “Like what you see, Mic?”
Michelle’s head snapped up with a force that almost sent her reeling. Her face flamed. “I was just … just …”
“Staring?” He looked faintly amused.
He was laughing at her, she thought angrily. She fought the urge to race out of the room. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she said.
“You’ve still got the prettiest green eyes I’ve ever seen. Not to mention the cutest rear end. I’d say you have improved with age.” He slung his damp shirt around his neck and stepped closer. “So you’re a nurse now. I remember the first time you told me you wanted to go into nursing. Do you?”
Michelle fought
the urge to back away from him. To do so would have been cowardly, and she would sooner bite off her tongue than show Gator she was afraid of him. “How can I forget,” she said. “You suggested we play doctor so I could practice on you.”
He chuckled. “But you refused.”
“That’s because I knew what ailed you and didn’t want any part of it.”
“I think you did. Had we been older maybe things would have turned out differently.”
“I see you haven’t lost your arrogance,” she said.
“You’re still crazy about me, aren’t you?”
She almost laughed, because at the moment it was just like old times, with Gator trying his darnedest to get a rise out of her and her tossing his words or innuendos right back in his face. Gator Landry had always been able to make her blush and feel things that other boys couldn’t.
“I was only sixteen years old at the time. I’m twice that age now, and I hope I’ve got twice the sense I had back then when I acted on hormones instead of common sense. Besides, you weren’t the first man to kiss me; nor the last.”
He cocked his head to the side, as though pondering the thought. “Maybe not, but I’ll bet I’m the one you remember best.”
She wished he wouldn’t stand so close. Every nerve in her body was alive with anticipation, and if that anticipation had been sweet at sixteen, it was even more so now that she fully understood where all those feelings and sensations led. She was sensitized to his every move—the way his chest rose and fell, the way his dark lashes fluttered when he blinked, and the way his warm breath felt on her cheek.
“You know we could all die out here, Mic,” he said, his dark gaze resting on her lips. “In about another hour, this storm could blow us clear to kingdom come. What d’you say we give each other a little present?”
Michelle didn’t know if he was serious or not, but her mouth flew open in surprise at his blatant request. Gator took it as an invitation, and his own mouth suddenly opened over hers, capturing it in a warm kiss. His big arms snaked around her waist and pulled her close, so close that she could feel the hard muscles of his thighs pressing against hers, the wall of his chest crushing her breasts.
Welcome to Temptation: A Romantic Comedy Page 2
