by Carol Grace
“Close the door,” the old man bellowed. “It's lunchtime.”
Startled, Chloe stepped back. “Was that the bank president?”
“That was him. And I wouldn't advise disturbing him during his lunch hour. Can I help?” he asked, closing the door firmly behind him, and guiding her past the lone teller out into the sunshine.
“I don't think so,” she said. “I'm here to ask about a loan.”
Zeb shook his head. “You've come to the wrong place. Archibald Crane doesn't loan money,” he said with a trace of bitterness. ''At least not to people like us who need it. It's his policy to lend money to people who already have money. I know, because he just turned me down.”
“I don't believe that. The teller said he was not only the president of the bank, but the loan officer as well.”
“And the chairman of the board of trustees, the owner and chief financial officer.”
“Then I'm going to see him. If I have to wait all day.”
'Tell you what I'm going to do,” Zeb said, his mind racing a mile a minute. “While you're waiting, while he's having his lunch, I'm going to buy you lunch and coach you on what to say to Crane.”
“Why would you do that?” she asked, studying him with her dark eyes. “You've done nothing but discourage me from the moment I arrived.”
“I didn't realize how determined you were. How serious. I thought you were just playing around. Now I realize...” What, what did he realize? That he couldn't get her out of his mind. That her red-gold hair held glints of copper in the sun. That her eyes that could be meltingly soft one moment and as deep as dark, bittersweet chocolate the next. That she was blessed, or cursed, with gritty determination and a stubborn chin.
If he hadn't made love to her then things would be different. He could walk away right now and never see her again. But if he hadn't made love to her he wouldn't have known how earthshaking lovemaking could be. But was it a fluke? Was it a once-in-a-lifetime experience that couldn't be, wouldn't be repeated? He was operating on that assumption. If he didn't, he might become obsessed by finding a way to repeat the experience.
He also realized that Chloe was not going quietly. That he couldn't keep her from going to town, and that every time she did, she was in danger of hearing about the dam. Archie would be the first one to tell her. If he didn't stop him.
“Now I realize how determined you are,” he finished.
“I know. You said that,” she said impatiently. “Where are we going to eat?”
A view of the diner at lunchtime flashed through his mind. Packed with people, any one of whom might say something about the dam.
“We're having a picnic,” he announced. Which would be a real challenge, since there was no park in town and no deli where he could buy picnic food.
“I love picnics,” Chloe said an hour later, leaning back against a red sandstone rock in the hills outside of town. She was hungry, ravenous, and salivating as she watched Zeb unwrap huge sandwiches of roast beef, cheese, peppers and lettuce and tomato and hand her one. She didn't know where he'd got them, and she didn't care. She'd gone shopping at the dry-goods store until he picked her up and brought her to this rock garden with its grove of ponderosa pine.
“I knew that,” Zeb said, reaching into his bag to pull out potato chips and sodas and set them on the blanket between them.
“Did you also know I'd be at the bank this morning?” she asked between bites. “Isn't it strange how we're always running into each other?”
“Not that strange. It's a small town.” He took a large bite of his sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. “I'm glad I ran into you. I never got a chance to thank you for last night.”
“Thank me?” Chloe almost choked. He was going to thank her for making love with him. She could feel the heat rise to her head. Her cheeks flamed.
“For helping out with the steak dinners. We never could have done it...” He paused in mid-sentence. “Oh, you thought...” He shot her an almost bashful grin that turned his ears red. “No, that's not what I meant”
Then he stared off into space, making her wonder if he was having as hard a time as she was acting natural after what had happened last night. Maybe he was embarrassed, too. Maybe he was sorry it had happened.
“I don't know what you must have thought of me,” she said, nervously ripping open a package of chips. “I don't usually...I don't ever.”
“I'll tell you what I thought of you,” he said, leaning forward across the blanket to look into her eyes. “I thought you were the most beautiful, the sexiest the sweetest...”
Her gaze locked on his. She wanted to believe him. What woman wouldn't? But maybe he told every woman the same thing. No flowers, no promises, no thank-you notes. Just an overdose of flattery the next day. Well, she could give it as well as take it
“You're a good-looking... I mean, you're pretty sexy yourself,” she said. “I started to say that I don't usually do that kind of thing with a total stranger.”
“Total stranger? Stranger, maybe, but not total. I thought we'd gotten beyond total,” he said with a frown. “Especially after last night.”
Again she blushed as she brushed a pine needle from her lap. “Okay, yes. Whatever we are, we can't be... I mean, we can't do that anymore.”
“Why not?” he asked, so surprised she began to wonder why herself.
“Because I'm on the rebound. After being dumped by my husband, I'm just trying to prove I'm still desirable. It's not fair to you to use you this way.”
“I don't mind,” he said, barely suppressing his smile.
“I'm serious,” she insisted. “And from what you told me about your fiancé, you may be in the same position.”
“After two years? I don't think so.”
Now it was her turn to smile. “You mean you have no doubts about how desirable you are?”
“Well...” He tried to look modest, but she could tell he was having a hard time. He knew damn well how sexy and appealing he was. He also knew why she'd made love to him. Despite what she'd said, it had nothing to do with her insecurity. It had everything to do with him. And the electricity between them. It was new to her, but perhaps he carried it around with him, setting off electrical charges wherever he went, whoever he went with.
“Back to the bank,” she said.
“Already?”
“I mean the subject of the bank. What were you doing there, if I may ask.”
“Same as you. To borrow money,” he said.
“But you must have money. You want to buy my land.”
“Oh, I do. I have money to buy your land. I just don't have money to buy a bull. Which I need very badly.”
“I see,” she said. But she didn't see at all. How much did bulls cost, anyway?
“Now,” he said before she could ask another question. “When you go into the bank, you've got to be prepared. Let me tell you, I know what he's going to say. Let's go over the scenario. I'll be Archie, the bank president, you be you.” Zeb sat up straight as a ramrod in a perfect imitation of the stern banker. “So you want to borrow money from the bank, young lady. What for?”
“For my spa.”
“Spa?” he said gruffly. “What in hell is a spa?”
“A spa is a resort for women, or men, of course,” she said earnestly, “who need a time and a place to rejuvenate themselves. In the country, preferably. Away from the bustle of the city. Where they can get back into shape, physically and mentally.”
“How they going to do that, at that broken-down hot-springs resort?” Zeb asked.
“That's what I need the money for.” She reached into her shoulder bag to pull out her plans and her lists and shoved them in Zeb's direction across the blanket
He studied them briefly. Then he cleared his throat “Road, buildings, power, telephone. Looks like you need a couple million to do all this.”
Her face fell. He could be saying that to discourage her. But he could be right too.
“But...”
&nbs
p; “Here's what I tell folks like you, little lady.”
Chloe grimaced.
“I tell them to start small. Prove to me, and to my board of directors to whom I must account that you can succeed in a small way first before you go for the big bucks.”
“A small way? You mean a small spa?” she asked.
“No, no, no. Something else, that utilizes your natural resources, like, like selling mineral water,” Zeb said.
“From my springs.”
“Exactly.”
“But how, where, what?” she asked. Her mind was spinning. It was quite a jump from a spa to bottling mineral water. Did Zeb know what he was talking about? “First I have no way to haul the water in and out of the resort.”
“There's where you need to ask your neighbors for help. That nice Bowie boy, for example.”
“You mean Sam?” Chloe asked innocently.
“No, I don't mean Sam,” he growled. “I mean the sexy, good-looking one.”
“I guess I haven't met him yet,” she said, wiping her hands with a paper napkin.
He shifted over to her side of the blanket “It's time you got acquainted,” he said, putting one arm around her shoulder. “Ms. Hudson, meet Zebulon Bowie.”
“But Mr. Crane, I already know him,” she protested.
“Not well enough,” he muttered in her ear, then angled her face toward him for a hot possessive kiss.
She took a quick breath. He'd caught her off guard. She didn't expect this. Yet she'd wanted it. Longed for it. With his hungry mouth on hers, her body came to life. Shockingly, vibrantly to life. She ran one hand through his wheat-colored hair, loving the feel of the thick strands against her sensitive fingers.
Loving the earthy smell of him, the sight of his body, all muscle and sinew, packaged in scuffed boots and wrinkled jeans. Oh my, it was happening again. Her heart was beating wildly. If it hadn't been for the rock behind her, she'd be on her back now with him on top of her. The sun was beating down, turning her into a puddle of pure sexual desire. If she didn't break away now they'd end up on his blanket under a dazzling Colorado sky.
With all the self-control she could muster, and with both hands on his shoulders, she pushed him away, jumped to her feet, ran to the nearest pine tree and leaned against it, breathing hard. In a split second, he was there too, bracing his hands against the tree trunk, effectively trapping her. His eyes glittered dangerously. His lips curved in a ruthless, predatory grin. She shivered in the hot summer sunshine.
“Do you want the money or not?” he demanded.
“Yes, yes,” she breathed.
“Then submit to the will of Zebulon Bowie.”
“That cad? Never.”
“Don't ever say never,” he warned, leaning her back into the tree and seizing her mouth in one single take-no-prisoners lunge, plundering deeply, dragging her with him on another wild ride. This time under the sun and not the stars. This time there was nowhere to hide. This time everything was out in the open. There was no escape. No place to go. Not that she wanted to go anywhere. She was already where she wanted to be.
Frantic with need, and tired of games, she knotted her hands around his neck and gave in to her deepest desire. Yes, yes, yes. The words whirled around in her brain. Yes, she wanted the money. But more than that, she wanted him. She wanted him to make love to her. One more time. One last time and then they'd fold up the blanket and go back to the real world.
She should have known there was no world more real than the one they created and no one more real than Zeb Bowie. He was sun and earth and fire and water. He undressed her there under the tree with a gentleness she'd never felt, never known. His fingers moved slowly, deliberately, burning through her clothes wherever, whenever they touched. He worked so slowly her whole body was aching for release by the time he'd unhooked her lace bra and tugged at her bikini underwear.
Standing there in the warm summer sunlight, she should have been too embarrassed to let him stare at her like that, seemingly awestruck, and hear him mutter how lovely she was, and how much he wanted her. Somehow at that moment in time, in that remote rock garden, on top of that mountain, his words and his gaze poured over her like liquid sunshine, making her feel loved and lovely and whole once again.
He kissed her shoulders, he trailed tender kisses down her throat. The peaks of her breasts were taut, so ripe and ready she thought she'd die if he didn't take them into his mouth. When he finally did, gently sucking until she thought she might die of sheer ecstasy, her knees buckled. He caught her around the waist before she sank to the ground.
“Zeb,” she whispered, reaching frantically for his shirt, pulling it loose, letting her palms slide up his chest and tangle in the crisp hair there. “Oh, Zeb,” she sighed. “I know it's wrong, but I want you so much.”
“How could anything that feels this right be wrong?” he asked.
Her answer was to frame his face with her hands, to look into his eyes for reassurance. What she saw was the sky reflected there, and beyond that his soul bared for her to see.
“Do you still think you're using me?” he asked.
“No, yes, maybe. I don't know. If you don't care then I don't care. Are you...are you ever going to take your clothes off?” she asked softly.
“Oh, babe,” he said ripping off his jeans to free his throbbing erection. “See what you do to me?” He groaned and sank down to his knees to worship at her pedestal. With rapt fervor, he trailed kisses up her thighs and he parted the petals at the juncture of her thighs with his tongue and stroked her intimately until she whispered a plea and begged for release.
“I can't...I can't stand,” she said, sinking to her knees next to him until they were chest to chest thigh to thigh. He tilted her head back and plunged his tongue into her mouth, tangling, dueling. The sounds she made in the back of her throat only urged him on. Until his knees, riddled with sharp needles, couldn't take any more. He stood, pulled her up with him, and flung her over his shoulder, one broad hand cupping her firm bare bottom, to the picnic blanket in the full sunshine where he laid her out flat so he could admire her—with his words, with his clever fingers and with his mouth.
“Have I told you how beautiful you are?” he asked in a hushed voice.
She hoped it was a rhetorical question, because she was beyond answering. All she could do was arch her body to give him better access. She wanted to feel him climax inside her, she wanted him to make her whole again. But he wasn't ready. He looked ready, but obviously he wasn't. He wanted to drive her crazy first. Crazy with desire and need.
He worked his way up her body with his mouth, starting with her toes, making them tingle. Making her realize that she had erogenous zones she'd never dreamed of. Her toes, her knees, her inner thighs. And then he was back to those soft, slick petals he'd stroked before. She was only seconds from a climax, milliseconds now before she exploded into a thousand pieces of light “Yes,” she called into the clear mountain air. “Oh, yes.” She sobbed uncontrollably and his arms went around her and he held her as the tears trickled down her face and onto his suntanned shoulders.
When the tears stopped falling, she reached to take his arousal in her hand and stroke it loving the velvet softness of the shaft, loving the power she had to make him come alive. Muttering something desperate, he grasped her hips and let her guide him inside her where he fit as if he belonged there. With deep rhythmic thrusts he brought her to the brink again. Together they rocked into a spiral of ecstasy, higher and higher until they were swept together over the brink into oblivion.
As she lay there, her head pillowed on his shoulder, his arm around her, with the warm sun caressing their bodies, she wished for only one thing. That she had the power to make him love her. Because, God help her, she was afraid...terribly afraid...she was falling in love with him.
Chapter Eight
When Zeb got home after an afternoon of lovemaking beyond his wildest, most incredible dreams, his head was still spinning, his hands still shaking. Hi
s senses were still full of her, the scent of her hair, the silken touch of her skin. He was drained, and at the same time filled to the brim, complete for the first time since...for the first time in his life.
He drove down the potholed road with a helpless smile on his lips and an incredible sense that all was right with the world. Which of course it wasn't. He realized that as he parked in front of the ranch house and it all came back to him. The money, the land, the dam. He'd forgotten everything while in that rock garden. Everything but her. Pleasing her, teasing her, loving her. She made him feel like he could do anything. Be anything. Back at the ranch, he knew he couldn't. Not without her help. He found Sam in the barn feeding the horses. His brother set the bucket of oats on the ground and held out his hands palms up. “Well?”
“There's good news and there's bad news.”
“Gimme the bad first”
“We didn't get the loan.”
Sam's shoulders sagged.
“The good news is, neither did she.”
“She? Who? Never mind, when you say she with that look on your face I know who you mean.”
“What look?” Sam asked, stuffing his hands in his back pockets.
“You know what look. Like the cat that got the cream.”
Zeb felt the heat creep up the back of his neck. He turned to stroke the head of his favorite filly. “Can we talk about the money?”
“Sure that's what's really on your mind?”
“It's always on my mind. Night and day.” He didn't say that there was something else, someone else on his mind night and day. But Sam had a way of knowing these things. “No loan, no land. I ran into Ms. Hudson at the bank and talked her out of asking Archie for a loan to develop her property. If I hadn't he would have told her about the dam, and my name would be mud or worse.”
