by Liz Ireland
He nodded. “Among others.”
But Cody Tucker didn’t need gossip to make him look virile. He was sexy without needing any fanfare. In fact, next to his quiet, assured masculinity, all those mooseheads hanging around the Chugalug with their big belt buckles, goat-roper swaggers and endless capacity for whooping loud and guzzling beer looked silly. Real men didn’t need to advertise.
Her blood pressure shot up again. “If Leila needs a scandal to notice you, she’s as blind as a Mexican fruit bat!”
He grinned, and the gleam of those white teeth of his was like a laser beam to her heart. “You never noticed.”
“Yes, I did.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. She’d noticed Cody was good-looking weeks ago; she just hadn’t found him irresistible until right this minute. “I couldn’t very well throw myself at you.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was trying to get you to arrest me!”
His hand worked its way to her elbow, then up to her shoulder. Like a sensual telegraph, the slow caress sent waves of desire right to the most sensitive, feminine part of her.
She was breathing hard just to get enough oxygen. Why was that? She feared it had nothing to do with the altitude.
“And all those Friday nights we spent at the jail?” he asked, his voice deep and husky.
Her mind whirled in confusion. She couldn’t remember where she’d wanted the conversation to lead. All she could think of was kissing that sexy mouth of his. “All those Friday nights you didn’t exactly brim with interest in me, either, you know.”
He fiddled with a curly lock of hair next to her ear. When his thumb brushed her lobe, she shivered. “I didn’t want to insult you again. Remember what happened when I tried to touch you?”
“Mmm…” She was having a very different reaction to his touch now. “It wasn’t exactly flattering that you never wanted to get your nose out of your bee book to look at me, though. And then when we played cards…”
He nuzzled her temple. “What did I do then?”
Good Lord, that felt good! She clamped her jaw to keep from panting. “You played cards.” She gritted the words out. “And nothing else!”
His arms moved to her shoulders, and he pulled her close so they were touching all over beneath their wool cocoon. “What should I have done?”
Did she have to spell it out for him? She’d never seduced a man in her life, but she’d never been this desperate. Unable to find words, she twined her arms around his neck and showed him by planting the most shameless, hungry kiss she’d ever given any man smack on his lips.
But the moment their mouths touched, she realized that he’d yearned for the kiss as much as she had. His warmth completely enveloped her, and he swept his arms around her to hold her more tightly. His mouth was yielding and demanding at the same time, and she tilted her head for better access. The instant his tongue probed hers, she was lost in a frenzy of pure desire.
It was astounding. Bewildering. She wasn’t Pollyanna; she’d kissed men before, if only kissed and nothing else. A dozen men, in fact. But she’d never become so completely absorbed that she lost the ability to think, to reason.
Only with Cody.
He rubbed her back, causing a delicious heat to well inside her. She instinctively moved against him as wave after wave of desire lapped inside her. Their tongues entwined as the storm surged within. She never could have guessed that she would be affected so feverishly by a touching of lips…or that her kiss would have such an effect on someone else.
Cody’s breathing was heavy against her skin, and his firm embrace told her that he didn’t want to stop with a kiss, either. She didn’t know how she knew that. She just did, instinctively. The realization shocked her to her core.
She pushed away, panting.
His blue eyes looked into hers, searing her with desire. “It’s good we didn’t do that in the jailhouse.”
She pressed her hands against his chest, half pushing him away, half reveling in the strength of his muscles beneath her hands. “I’m not so sure,” she replied shakily. “I feel like I need to be locked up for my own safety.”
He chuckled, and the sound of his laughter rumbled down to the marrow of her bones. Wasn’t that what started this madness? His grin, his laugh…his suggestion that they shock her brothers out of their socks. Instead, she’d managed to shock herself. She was lusting after Cody Tucker. It seemed wrong, somehow—like vamping Jiminy Cricket.
“I don’t know about this, Cody. Maybe we’re taking shock treatment a little too far.”
His hands ran up and down her arms in a way that made her think of the good use they could put that inflatable rubber raft to. It would certainly make a better mattress than the cold ground they were sitting on.
He studied her face, then tilted his lips in a smile. “It would only be pretend.”
She’d almost forgotten.
“That’s right.” Before the kiss, they’d been talking about letting her brothers think they’d spent a night in the woods doing the wild thing. It was only her imagination—and that kiss!—that was making the impossible seem so very, very attractive to her.
But it was still impossible. Shy Cody, lawman, with his crush on Leila and his steady job that he would never give up, could never really be interested in Ruby Treadwell, troublemaker and potential Heartbreak Ridge escapee. Even if Cody did harbor unrealistic dreams of sheep ranching, his dreams only took him fifteen miles out of the city limits, while once she broke free, she wanted to go and go and go.
“It’s just the moonlight, isn’t it?” she said. “That’s what’s confusing me.”
He nodded, and for a moment, she saw the same conflicting emotions in his eyes that she felt. “Must be.”
“This playacting we’ve been doing…” She laughed unevenly. “I didn’t know it was so easy to get carried away.”
His smile disappeared. “Me, neither.”
She swallowed, feeling vaguely disappointed with his responses. But what did she expect, for him to come out and confess undying love for her, to tell her that he’d dreamed of kissing her and no one else for lo these many weeks and that he wouldn’t have to pretend to convince her brothers that he had the hots for her?
Yeah, right.
A noise caught her ear, and she straightened. “Did you hear something?”
“It was probably just an animal.”
As if that was supposed to make her feel better! Ruby stiffened and grabbed his arm in a viselike grip. “Where’s that Swiss Army knife?”
“I don’t know how handy it would be at repelling cougars, Ruby.”
Just then the source of the noise appeared, and it became clear that mountain lions weren’t half the threat an angry brother could be. And a pair of angry brothers was even more intimidating!
Both she and Cody jumped to their feet, still wrapped together in their blanket, snug as a sausage.
“What the Sam Hill is going on here?”
Seeing Buck and Farley glowering at Cody made her wince in apprehension. Suddenly all her easy talk about making her brothers think they’d slept together flew right out the window. She’d as soon present two burly, hungry cats with a small flightless bird.
“Absolutely nothing,” she declared.
Cody whirled on her, his eyes round with surprise. “Darling, what are you saying?”
Ruby blinked at him in shock. Darling? Was he nuts?
Buck and Farley took a step closer. “How long have you two been sitting out here?”
“We weren’t sitting,” Ruby said. “We just stopped to rest. You obviously saw our flare.”
Cody pulled her stiff, defensive body firmly against him. “Don’t lie, cupcake,” he pronounced grandly.
Cupcake? Was he trying to cook his own goose? Attempting to slap his arm away, she explained, “We were wandering around lost for what seemed like hours. I’ve got the bruises on my feet to prove it.”
Her brothers’ gazes swept toward her feet but snagged at h
er hip, where the skirt of her dress had hitched embarrassingly high. She self-consciously grabbed the hem and tugged it down.
While she was thus occupied, shy Cody Tucker pulled her to his chest and proclaimed, “We have nothing to be ashamed of, Ruby, not if we love each other!”
Finding herself plastered melodramatically against Cody’s chest would have made her laugh except that there was nothing laughable about Farley’s rigid pro-wrestlerlike stance or the way Buck kept fisting and unfisting his hand. “Cool it, Cody,” she whispered.
“How can I cool it when my desire is still so hot?”
Where was he coming up with this stuff?
She imagined a similar confusion was all that was keeping her brothers from launching themselves at her would-be paramour. But from years of watching them, she could tell when her siblings were reaching their boiling point, and in kitchen terms, the lids were dancing on the pots.
She made a last attempt to sooth them. “Cody’s just clowning you guys. Nothing happened here, absolutely nothing.”
“Oh, yeah?” Farley took a step forward so he was standing toe-to-toe with Cody.
“Then how did your lipstick get smudged?” Buck asked.
Cody, parroting the answer she’d once given Bill, smiled when he answered. “The usual way.”
She gasped, lifting her hands to her lips, and in that moment she knew she looked guilty as sin. When she could still feel the imprint of Cody’s lips on hers, there was no keeping a telltale blush from rising to her cheeks.
“Don’t let them convince you something beautiful was something ugly,” Cody counseled her in his Don Juan voice.
The wary look in his blue eyes as he bent to kiss her made her think he had to sense a little of what was coming. Maybe he intended the gesture to be a farewell kiss. Before his lips could reach hers, however, he was snatched from her arms and knocked out cold.
“HOW’S THE EYE?” Ruby asked.
Cody smiled in greeting, though doing so made him wince. The swelling had gone down days ago, but the bruises remained. It was the first time in his life he’d ever had a shiner. “Okay.”
Ruby frowned as she stepped through the sheriff’s office door and shut it behind her. “It looks purple.”
“That’s good. Yesterday it was blue.”
She shook her head. “You know, I’m beginning to wonder whether beneath that mild-mannered exterior of yours there lurks a stark raving lunatic.”
He laughed. “I promised to help you.”
“I didn’t mean for you to risk your life!”
He sighed. “I thought women always wanted proof that chivalry isn’t dead.”
“Chivalry?” She hooted. “You were trying to convince my brothers that we’d slept together!”
“But for your benefit,” he told her.
“Well, you did a fine job. They now want to know when we’re getting married.”
That was surprising news. “Really? The last thing Farley said to me was, and I quote, ‘Stay the hell away from her.”’
“That’s right. And you’d better stay the hell away, too, unless you plan to come calling with a wedding ring in tow.” She studied his face anxiously. “Isn’t that ridiculous?”
He nodded. “Absolutely.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out, Cody, but thanks for all your help.”
He sent her a mock salute. “At your service, Ruby. I’d do more, if you thought any more would help.”
“Really?”
“Of course.”
Her gaze was doubtful. “You’ve already gone above and beyond the call of duty. And I feel bad for drawing you into my problems, especially with such disastrous results.”
Cody grinned. He didn’t care what kind of pain it cost him. The truth of the matter was, he couldn’t mislead Ruby. “Strange as it seems, I enjoyed myself.”
She tilted her head skeptically.
“I did,” he said. “I’ve had more fun with you these past weeks than…well, than I’ve had since the FFA field trip to the Fort Worth livestock show my senior year.”
She laughed. “Wow, watch out how you sling those compliments around. A girl could start getting ideas.”
“What kind of ideas?”
She half sat on his desk, dangling one shapely leg over the side. “That all that Casanova stuff you were doing the other night wasn’t such a joke after all.”
“Maybe it wasn’t….”
Her brows shot up. “Nobody calls anybody cupcake anymore and means it, Cody!”
He laughed. “Okay, okay. I was improvising.”
When he looked into her twinkling dark eyes, he couldn’t help remembering their kiss. Ruby had been warm and willing in his arms, more tender than any woman he’d ever kissed. What he’d told her brothers about sleeping with her had only been a lie of fact; in his mind, he’d thoroughly imagined how it would feel not to end that kiss but to keep holding Ruby until dawn.
If they’d known, he probably would have received two black eyes.
Though he and Ruby hadn’t mentioned the kiss in the past week, he couldn’t believe she had forgotten it. Tension crackled between them, and she looked anxious. He wondered, suddenly, if there was an ulterior motive to her being here.
“I’m glad you dropped by, Ruby. Friday nights aren’t the same without you around.”
She grinned. “Good to know I’ve left some kind of mark.”
On his heart, he was afraid. “Beekeeping books aren’t holding my interest anymore.”
“Oh, dear. That sounds serious.”
“I guess I’ve become a gin rummy addict.”
Her dark eyes looked at him hopefully. “Would you like to play a game now?”
He didn’t hesitate to pull open the drawer. As he shuffled, a little of the tension between them drained away and the old feeling of companionability returned. He was always a little shocked by how much he enjoyed being around her. But maybe that was because he knew she wouldn’t be around forever, since her life’s mission was to escape Heartbreak Ridge.
In fact, maybe that explained the confusion going on inside him—a desire for the unattainable. Like wanting to be a full-time rancher, in his mind Ruby was something he couldn’t have. A pipe dream.
“What are you planning on doing now that our gambit for your freedom failed, Ruby?” he asked as he dealt.
She tilted her head as she snatched up her cards. “You really want to know?”
“That’s why I asked.”
“Well, now that you mention it, I’ve got a plan C.”
He looked at her puckish face with interest. “And you haven’t told me about it?”
“I wanted to, but I was afraid you wouldn’t like it.”
Uh-oh. His hands froze over the half-dealt hands. “What are you going to do, rob a bank?”
She rolled her eyes and laughed. “It’s nothing illegal.”
He exhaled in relief. “Then why wouldn’t I like it?”
Her face showed hesitation. “Because…it sort of involves you.”
“Me? How?”
“Well…”
“Come on,” he urged, “I told you I’d do more for you if I could.”
She cocked her head to gauge his sincerity. “But did you mean it?”
“Of course!”
She broke into a relieved smile. “Oh, good. ’Cause, frankly, plan C couldn’t work without you, Cody.”
He put the discard pile down with impatience. “For heaven’s sake, spit it out. What’s plan C?”
Her smile disappeared, and she leveled an uneasy gaze on him. “We get married.”
7
SHE’D WORRIED that marriage would be a hard sell, and sure enough, the idea was going down like a skunk at a dog show.
Cody looked like he needed reviving.
“You okay, Cody?”
He swallowed with effort. “Did you say marriage…as in, tying the knot?”
She nodded.
“Real marriage?�
�
“It would be legal—I thought you’d appreciate that part, at least.”
He still looked stunned.
She put on a chipper face, as if she were selling Mary Kay, not matrimony. “In fact, once you hear me out, I think you’ll like several aspects of plan C.”
“I’m listening.”
“Well, for one thing, it was sort of your idea.”
“My idea?”
“You told me that I hadn’t shocked my brothers enough.”
“Before I learned that shocking them just leads to innocent people, like me, getting black eyes!”
“But I think you’re on the right track. I just need to get to the point where my brothers think I’m beyond their control. That’s where marrying you comes in.”
He frowned thoughtfully. “But if you get married here, then you would be stuck in Heartbreak Ridge.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“But you said it would be a real marriage.”
“Only in that we’d have a judge or a preacher or whatever. But we certainly wouldn’t have to…you know…”
“Consummate the relationship?” he asked delicately.
“Right!”
She couldn’t read his reaction to that news. His face was a dazed blank, which wasn’t exactly flattering, considering that she was talking about committing matrimony with the man.
“So what am I supposed to do?” he asked. “Traipse after you for the rest of my life?”
The question confused her for a moment, until she realized she’d left out the most important part. “Oh! It wouldn’t be forever. We’d get divorced right away.”
His brow twitched in surprise. “How soon is right away?”
“How about our honeymoon?”
He laughed. “I get it. Your goal isn’t really to get married, but to be a divorcée.”
She grinned, relieved he was catching on. Her grin faded a bit when she realized how much better he seemed to like plan C after she’d mentioned the divorce.
“Once I’m married, I’ll cease to be my brothers’ responsibility, and after I’m divorced, I doubt they’ll bug me anymore. I’ll be free to go wherever I please.”
His lips twisted into a rueful smile. “And I’ll have had the pleasure of helping you launch your new life.”
