A warning spark flashed in Dillon’s eyes. “And I am…?”
Ashley wouldn’t have answered that if all the hounds of hell had been nipping at her heels. Dillon’s expression demanded a diplomatic answer, and she couldn’t think of anything remotely tactful. Respectability had never been a word she would have applied to the Dillon of old.
“Trouble?” he suggested, filling in the blank for her. “A grown-up version of a juvenile delinquent? Have I hit it yet or should I keep going?”
Ashley swallowed hard at the sudden anger blazing in his eyes. “The truth is I don’t know you at all,” she admitted softly.
“That’s right, you don’t. So maybe you should reserve judgment on whether or not your father’s a fool for befriending me.”
His anger was palpable and, she felt, unjustified. “I never said that,” she said indignantly.
“Maybe not in those precise words, but the message was clear enough.”
“Or maybe you just have a giant-size chip on your shoulder.”
“If I do, people like you put it there.” With that he whipped off his backpack and dropped it on the ground at her feet. “Enjoy your picnic, sweetheart. Suddenly I’m not very hungry.”
He was gone before Ashley could gather her wits to chase after him. Mouth open, she watched as he vanished into the woods. She had two choices. She could try to catch up to him and apologize or she could retreat and make her way to the cabin, where he was bound to turn up eventually.
She decided on the latter. Maybe it was cowardice or maybe it was just the certain knowledge that Dillon needed time to cool down before he would hear any apology she offered. Obviously, she had inadvertently touched a raw nerve. Perhaps, for all the enjoyment he seemed to take in bucking the establishment, he didn’t like being labeled an outcast, after all.
And the truth was, just as she had admitted to him, she had no idea what kind of man he’d become. All she really knew was that she was deeply attracted to him, no matter what grievous sins he might have committed.
* * *
Dillon couldn’t imagine what had gotten into him back there. Surely after all these years he should have developed a thick skin when it came to disparaging looks or unwarranted comments. Growing up in Riverton, where judgments were quick and lasting, had been good training. And in fact, only a couple of days before he’d exalted at being thought of once again as a rebel, a bad boy or whatever particular label had stuck in Ashley’s head.
Maybe it wasn’t the label so much that bothered him. Maybe it was some subtle difference he’d detected in her attitude.
From the moment of his arrival, there’d been no mistaking the sexual tension blazing between the two of them. She wanted him just as badly as he wanted her.
But just now, as they’d hiked through the woods, she’d hinted that while he might be good enough to sleep with, exciting enough for a quick roll in the sack, he might not be decent enough to be friends with the lofty likes of Trent Wilde.
Ironically, of course, that was far from Trent’s view. And, even more ironically, it hurt worse coming from Ashley, a woman who by her own admission didn’t really know him at all.
The fact that it was based on a misapprehension on her part didn’t seem to matter. She’d judged him and found him wanting based on absolutely nothing but the past, and half of that she only knew because she’d heard it repeated a thousand times.
That told him quite a lot about the woman she was. He’d joked before about her being a snob, but he’d just discovered it was no laughing matter when he was on the receiving end of her unspoken disdain.
Of course, none of that kept him from wanting her. His hunger for her nagged at him like a persistent mosquito and, under the circumstances, was a hundred times more infuriating. How could he want a woman who thought so little of him?
All the way to the cabin, Dillon told himself he ought to cut his losses and find some other place to hide out for the remainder of his self-imposed exile from the L.A. rat race. But he knew he wouldn’t. He had something to prove, to himself, if not to Ashley.
He was going to win her over and he was going to do it on his own terms, without revealing that he was no longer an outsider, but a part of the establishment. Maybe in the process he’d discover why all the success he’d achieved didn’t matter nearly as much as he’d once expected it to.
Or maybe the real truth was that all the respect in the world couldn’t make up for his inability to impress the one woman who’d ever really mattered to him.
* * *
She was gone! Dillon called out to Ashley from the front porch, then again from the living room. She didn’t answer. A search of the cabin turned up no sign of her.
Acid churned in the pit of his stomach. What if she’d simply taken off? What if he never saw her again?
Well, that wouldn’t happen, he vowed. He was no longer an adolescent, forced to leave home in order to have any hope of a future. He had almost unlimited financial resources and a large staff of very savvy private eyes working for him. He could find her even if she never again appeared on the cover of a magazine, even if she took to hiding out in the most remote corner of the earth.
And of course, he had a single ace up his sleeve–her father. Wherever Ashley disappeared to, sooner or later she’d be in touch with Trent. Dillon was confident he could persuade his friend to share that information.
And he would do just that, he promised himself. It wasn’t over between him and Ashley. Not by a long shot.
Just as he was working himself into a genuine frenzy of anticipation over the impending search for the elusive Ashley Wilde, the woman herself turned into the driveway at a speed more suited to a raceway. Gravel flew as she screeched to a halt. Dillon stood on the front porch and watched her approach with a wild mix of relief and irritation that her return mattered so damned much. A few hours earlier he’d been furious with her, insulted by her, and now he was practically jubilant at her return.
It would never do, though, to let her see that he’d been worried for a minute by her absence. He forced himself into a chair, propped his feet on the railing and leaned back as if he couldn’t possibly be any more relaxed or unconcerned. He regretted with all his heart that he didn’t have a beer to sip or a cigarette to smoke.
Fortunately, his sunglasses kept her from spotting the avid way he observed her exit from the car, one exquisite, bare leg after the other. Those shorts she wore ought to be outlawed, he thought, swallowing hard as they inched up her thigh.
As she crossed to the porch, she smiled tentatively. “Cooled off yet?”
Not by a long shot, Dillon thought, though he doubted they meant the same thing. “Some,” he said.
“I’m sorry if I offended you earlier. I didn’t mean to.”
“People never do,” he observed coolly.
Temper flared in her eyes. “I’m not people,” she retorted. “And if you can’t accept a sincere apology when it’s offered, then you’re the one with the real problem.”
“Could be,” he conceded.
That seemed to stop whatever she’d been about to say next. She stared at him warily.
“You’re admitting what happened up there was your fault as much as mine?” she asked.
He shrugged. “More or less.”
Her lips twitched ever so slightly. “Am I to assume that’s as close to an apology as I’m likely to get?”
“You can assume whatever you like, sweetheart. You usually do.”
“Dillon, that is not the way to go about making peace,” she chided. “You’re starting the war all over again.”
“So sorry. I surrender.”
She shook her head. “I doubt that.”
Dillon decided to move on to what he really wanted to know. “Where have you been, anyway?” He actually managed to sound only casually interested, he thought with satisfaction. An observer–or more important, Ashley herself–would never guess how much the answer mattered.
“Did you mis
s me?” she asked.
Okay, so she was onto him. He didn’t have to admit to anything.
“Like a toothache,” he said. “Who wouldn’t miss this scintillating war of words? I asked a simple question. If you don’t want to answer, just say so.”
“I went for a drive. You stalk off in a huff when you’re angry. I drive.”
He found the revelation illuminating. “In that case, it must have been frustrating living in New York all those years. Or did jumping into a taxi work just as well?”
“Very funny.”
“No, seriously, what did you do to relieve stress? As competitive as modeling is, there had to have been a lot of tension.”
“Enough,” she said succinctly. “I meditated.”
“Did it work?”
“Not nearly as well as sparring for an hour with a punching bag.”
Dillon chuckled despite himself. “You boxed?”
Her expression turned sheepish. “Well, I never got into a ring, exactly, but yes. I put a mental image of whoever was driving me nuts onto that bag and slugged away. It was very satisfying. I mentally bloodied the noses of a lot of very important people in the business.”
“I’ll bet. I suppose my face would have been on there this afternoon.”
“Right in the middle of the mental bull’s-eye,” she agreed cheerfully. “But I’m over that now.”
“Must have been some drive.”
She looked straight into his eyes. “Must have been some hike.”
“Touché.”
She settled her tush onto the railing right next to his propped-up feet. “Now that we’ve made peace, let’s start fresh. Let’s pretend we’ve just met for the first time. Why don’t you tell me who Dillon Ford is today? All of the relevant statistics–where you live, what you do, who you date.”
That would be the easy way, but Dillon had never opted for easy in his life. He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think maybe that’s one you should figure out for yourself.”
She regarded him worriedly. “Why? Is there something you’re trying to hide?”
There was no mistaking her meaning or the tiny flicker of unease in her eyes. Dillon gave her a hard stare and asked, “You mean am I wanted for any major crimes?”
She winced at that. Before she could try to wriggle off that particular hook, Dillon took pity on her. As insulting as he found the question, he supposed she had a right to ask, was even smart to ask, for that matter. After all, she was all alone with him here. And though she obviously didn’t feel herself to be in any danger–except perhaps from her hormones–some level of concern was clearly nagging at her.
“No, sweetheart. I will tell you that much. My slate is clean with the law. There won’t be any cops arriving at the front door to interrupt us.”
He watched closely for her reaction to his declaration. She didn’t look either relieved or disappointed. She simply nodded, accepting what he said as truth, apparently.
“I’ll go fix dinner,” she told him, and headed for the door.
“Ashley?” Dillon called after her.
“What?”
“I’m very sorry you felt you had to ask.”
She sighed. “Me, too.”
Chapter Six
Ashley had no idea what to make of Dillon’s odd mood or her own. As relieved as she’d been by his response to her pointed question about whether he was hiding out, she also felt an amazing amount of guilt over having raised the issue at all.
It had been an insulting question. If she’d been on the receiving end of it, she doubted she would still be sharing a house with the person who’d asked.
The possibility that he might yet decide to walk out on her terrified her. She found that she didn’t want to be alone. More, she didn’t want to lose this chance to discover if she and Dillon had anything more in common than mutual lust and old yearnings.
And yet she wouldn’t blame him if he left.
Not that Dillon seemed to be holding her question against her. He’d chatted pleasantly all through dinner, though there was an unmistakable distance between them that had never been there before, not even years ago.
She couldn’t blame him for that, either. She should have trusted her gut feeling that deep down Dillon was honest, kind and caring. Since his unexpected arrival here, when he’d discovered her already occupying the space he’d expected to find empty, he’d been all of those things, in spite of her lack of welcome. Her only excuse for prodding was that she didn’t trust her own judgment about much of anything these days, least of all men.
It didn’t help that Dillon intentionally diverted attention away from himself and focused on her. She supposed she ought to be flattered, but she was so used to men whose monumental egos required they be the center of attention that Dillon’s actions seemed suspect.
Add to that her current low level of self-esteem, which left her convinced no one as sexy as Dillon could possibly be interested in her unless he had an ulterior motive, and she was left struggling with all sorts of doubts and dire warnings.
She finished washing the dishes and stared into the living room where Dillon had gone right after dinner. Despite his all-black attire and too-long hair, he looked perfectly at home. He looked like a man who knew who he was and was thoroughly comfortable with himself and his environment. She found that almost as disconcerting as the way he so easily provoked a sensual response from her body.
He was sitting in one of her father’s overstuffed leather chairs reading some book he’d plucked from the shelves. Given the dull topics of most of those books, she couldn’t imagine what he found so fascinating. As far as she knew, he had no particular interest in either fishing or cattle, but it was evident he was totally absorbed.
As far as she knew… Of course, that was the real crux of the problem. She didn’t know a darn thing, and he didn’t seem inclined to change that.
I think I’ll let you figure that out for yourself. What the devil was that supposed to mean? she wondered irritably.
Suddenly she recalled her own words the night before. She’d been complaining about men never looking beyond her glamorous image, about them never seeing her. Wasn’t that really what Dillon was asking of her? Didn’t he simply want her to get to know him for who he was and not be distracted by her memory of the way he had once been or by whatever it was he did for a living? Good or bad.
She felt like charging into the living room and announcing, “I get it.”
Well, she concluded, there was more than one way to pry information out of someone who’d clammed up. She’d tried the direct approach. Obviously, it was time to use more subtle techniques. She would do as he preferred and gather clues from his behavior and from dropped hints about his life. She simply had to create an environment in which hints were likely to be dropped.
There was no time like the present to start. Studying Dillon promised to be far more intriguing than wrestling with her own problems. He promised to be an incredible diversion. She began by walking into the living room and asking if he wanted to play cards or a game.
“I think there’s a Monopoly set here somewhere,” she added.
She’d discovered in New York and on the road that a rowdy round of Monopoly or any other game often told her a lot about a person’s need to win, his quick-wittedness and his greed. Men who refused to play any game at all were generally too stuffy to bear. She waited anxiously to see which category Dillon fell into.
“How about chess?” he asked, readily putting aside the book. “Your father and I get the board out first thing when we’re here. He told me that you, Sara and Dani all play.”
Ashley grinned. “Who wins when you play Daddy?”
“I do. Why?”
“I just like to know ahead of time if I’m likely to get trounced.”
“Are you a sore loser?”
“Sometimes.”
The somber expression he’d worn all evening gave way to a grin. “Me, too.”
“Then it sh
ould be an interesting evening, shouldn’t it?”
He shot her a wry look. “With you and me in the same room, sweetheart, it couldn’t be anything else,” he said in a way that sent goose bumps chasing down her spine.
“You get the board,” she said in a breathless rush. “I’ll get us something to drink. What would you like? Coffee? Beer? Whiskey?”
“I’m tempted to finish off that bottle of twelve-year-old special-blend Scotch your father brought back from Glasgow and has hidden away, but I think I’ll stick to beer.”
“Afraid he’d check for fingerprints on the bottle?”
“No, sweetheart. I want to keep all my wits about me for the game.” He shot a knowing look at her. “And after.”
Ashley felt her throat close up. Apparently he wasn’t holding a grudge. She practically ran from the room. In the kitchen, she filled a glass with water and drank every cooling drop. She barely resisted the urge to splash some on her overheated face.
When she’d salvaged her composure, she returned to the living room with Dillon’s bottle of beer and her coffee. If he thought he needed his wits about him, she wanted a large dose of caffeine to bolster her own.
Dillon had set up the old board that had belonged to her grandfather. As a child, before this chess set had been moved from Three-Stars to the cabin, she had loved to touch the smooth ivory pieces. When her father had finally agreed to teach her the game, she had felt so grown-up.
“Why the smile?” Dillon asked.
“I was just remembering the first time Daddy played chess with me. I felt as if it were some sort of rite of passage.”
“How old were you?”
“Eight, maybe. Until then I had been so envious of Dani and Sara. Daddy played chess with them practically every evening after dinner. First one and then the other. It never took him long to beat them.”
“I suppose you vowed then and there that you’d be the first one to beat him.”
“Of course.”
“Did you?”
“Just once.” She chuckled at the memory of her father’s expression when she’d suggested the stakes. “We bet my future. If I won, I got to go to New York and he’d stake me for the first year. If I lost, I promised to go off to some suitable college and get some disgustingly practical degree the same way Sara and Dani had.”
The Bridal Path: Ashley Page 6
