Baby, I'm Yours

by Susan Andersen

  He grunted, but placed the heels in her suitcase and closed the case. Surging to his feet, he grabbed her wrist and took off down the highway. “Come on. We’re not missing this bus.”

  Catherine was overheated and cranky by the time they reached the air-conditioned depot. She grabbed the front tail of Sam’s shirt, which he wore outside his jeans to cover the gun he wore in the small of his back, and brought it up to blot the sweat rolling down her throat. He lurched in its wake, hard stomach exposed to the first rib. That brought him to within inches of her, and before he even knew what she was about, she’d plunged her hand with its fistful of shirt down the scooped neck of her stretchy pink minidress. When it emerged again, the tail of his shirt was a damp, wrinkled mess. She held it fastidiously away from her body between the tips of her thumb and index finger and dropped it like a soiled hanky. It fluttered into place against the fly of his jeans.

  “I’m tired of staring out at the scenery all day long,” she said sulkily. Grabbing the hem of her dress, she held it down while she discreetly wriggled in place to get everything seated properly within it. “I want something to read.”

  Sam looked up from a bemused contemplation of his crumpled shirttail. “I doubt they carry Soap Opera Digest, Red.”

  “Oh, very cute. Come on.” She grabbed his raw-boned wrist and dragged him over to the book and magazine rack.

  Sam studied the offerings and picked out a romance with the most lurid cover he’d ever seen. “Here,” he said, holding it out to her. “This should be right up your alley.”

  Catherine flipped the book over and read the back copy. Then she turned to the teaser page inside and read that, too. “Wow. This sounds pretty good.” She held it out to him. “I’ll take it.”

  He looked at the price. “They want seven-fifty for a paperback?” He thrust the book back in the rack. “Pick out something else.” He plucked a True Confessions magazine off the rack and thrust it at her. “Here. How ’bout this?”

  “My God,” she sighed. “You are so cheap. And your taste in reading material is really lowbrow.” Ignoring the magazine he extended to her, she picked up the latest copy of Time. “I’ll take this one.” She sent him a disgusted look. “You oughta approve, McKade, since you’ll get to read the thing when I’m done. Or maybe you’d prefer I pick Playboy.”

  “Hell, yeah. I can read the articles, and you can look at the pictures.”

  “You’re so droll,” she said flatly, and shrugged. “Either way, this should appease your miserly little soul, since you’ll only have to fork over the cash for one magazine.”

  He scowled at her and grabbed the romance back off the shelf. He took it, the magazine she’d selected, their bags, and her up to the counter to pay. When the transaction was complete, he thrust the book into her hands. “Here. Shut up and read.”

  She blinked at him. Something in his expression gave her heart a squeeze. Had her remarks somehow hurt his feelings? But…no, that was a ridiculous idea; he was simply being his usual contrary self. She stole a glance at his heavy black eyebrows, drawn together over his nose, at his golden brown eyes pointedly not looking at her, and at the sullen slant of his mouth. Then she looked down at his big hand, wrapped so tightly around the rolled magazine in his fist that his knuckles stood out white against his tanned skin. Wasn’t he?

  “Thank you for the book,” she heard herself say softly, and had to actually stop herself from reaching out to stroke her fingertips over that clenched fist. Damn! She’d fallen prey to a case of Stockholm Syndrome, she was sure of it. What else could explain this sudden desire to placate her captor?

  Well, this wouldn’t do. She looked around, determined to get herself back on track. What she needed here was a way to create a new ruckus, and more importantly, a likely prospect to help her accomplish her ultimate goal—that of throwing a crimp in Sam’s precious schedule and putting a dent in his much-revered wallet.

  At first the pickings looked mighty slim. Everyone was pretty much minding their own business, and it said something about just how far she’d morally deteriorated in a few short days that that seemed like a bad thing. But then she spotted a young man sitting on a bench across the room, staring with dazed eyes at her breasts, and she perked up, thinking perhaps he had possibility. Testing the theory, she eased her shoulders back a bit, took a deep breath, and watched as his mouth went slack.

  She sighed over the necessity of exploiting this too-lush body once again. Maybe Mama had had a point, after all. Let a woman expose too many curves all at once, and men just seemed to lose all rational thought.

  And surely her willingness to capitalize on the fact was sinful.

  But what could she say—a woman had to do what a woman had to do. And if some poor boob couldn’t see past a pair of breasts or long legs to the intelligence that lay behind it, well…

  She could work with that.

  Sam was determined that today, come hell or high water, Red was not going to get them kicked off the bus. To that end, he kept a covert watch on her every move. For the longest time, that meant watching her read. The moment the bus left the station, she buried her nose in the book he’d bought her and didn’t come up for air for a solid two hours. He had just reached the point of thinking this was possibly the best eight bucks he’d ever spent in his entire lifetime when she made her first move.

  Physically he was at peak frustration level, and when she reached over and skimmed her fingers along his leg, his instinctual reaction was to get her hand off of him, pronto. It was either that or bring those long white fingers up to press over the part of him he’d really like her to touch, and that sure as hell didn’t contribute to his professional image of himself. So he snatched her hand up in his and roughly returned it to her side of the armrest.

  He didn’t know what her game was, but he knew he’d played right into it when he saw her wince as if he’d applied far more pressure than he knew to be the case. Aw, hell. Who’s she playing to now? He glanced around surreptitiously.

  His gaze came to a dead stop at the young man across the aisle. The kid glowered back at him. Shit! Red sure knew how to pick ’em. Probably just young and dumb enough not to think twice about issuing a challenge, the boy was no doubt brimful of testosterone—primed, cocked, and ready to fire away indiscriminately and without a lot of preliminary discussion. Sam allowed his gaze to drift casually past, his mind whirling as he searched for a way to neutralize the situation before it escalated to the point where they got tossed off yet another bus.

  He turned back in time to see Catherine give the young man a brave, slightly trembly smile. Wonderful. In two short moves, she’d convinced the kid she was being abused. You had to give credit where credit was due. The woman had talent.

  He was careful to keep his hands to himself, despite another attempt on Red’s part to provoke him. But when she reached over a third time, he’d had time to think the problem through and covered her hand with his own, rubbing it up and down his thigh. Turning his head, he gave her a sleepy, carnal smile. Catherine’s eyes narrowed and he pantomimed a kiss. He didn’t dare look across the aisle, but hopefully the kid would at least be confused.

  About an hour further into the ride, he saw the young man get up and head for the back of the bus. A moment later, Catherine gave him a nudge.

  “Excuse me,” she murmured. “I need to use the rest room.”

  Without a word, Sam stood up and moved into the aisle, stepping back to allow her room to get by him. He watched as she undulated down the aisle as if her hips were geared by well-oiled ball bearings. She stopped behind the young man, who was waiting his turn for the rest room, and Sam saw the kid turn in response to something she said. He took a deep breath and headed down the aisle after her.

  Coming up behind her, he wrapped his arms around her waist and bent his head to kiss the side of her neck. “Hey darlin’,” he said in a low voice against the warm, fragrant skin there, and snuggled her deeper into his arms. “I’m sorry I was so testy
earlier.” Tightening his grip around her stiffening body, he murmured, “Forgive me? Please, honey. I was frustrated, but I finally figured out that all that touchin’ was just your way of letting me know the penicillin finally cured your little problem.”

  Catherine was looking right into the young man’s face, so she could hardly fail to see the horrified comprehension written there. She felt her face flame and tried to ram her elbow into Sam’s side, but he had her wrapped up too tightly to do any real damage. She skewered her nails into his warm, hairy forearm instead. “You pig!”

  “Aw, darlin’,” he rumbled into the contour of her neck, “don’t be mad at me.” Then he rubbed his smooth-shaven cheek up and down the side of her throat, and Catherine’s stomach began to jump. “I guess I shouldn’t have brought up your condition in public, but it’s been so damn long and when it finally occurred to me what you were trying to tell me, I just got so excited…” His voice trailed off, and she craned her head around in time to see him give her erstwhile helper a man-to-man look. “I sure didn’t mean to be insensitive, but I bet the kid here understands how I coulda been so thoughtless, don’t you, son?”

  “Huh?” The young man’s gaze was stuck on Catherine’s lush curves, but as it sank in he was being addressed, his face flushed a deep red. He jerked his gaze up to Sam’s face. “Oh, uh, yeah, sure.” The rest room became available just then, and he exhaled a lusty sigh of relief. “Um, ’scuse me.” He escaped within, slamming the door behind him with such force it bounced open again before he caught it and carefully pulled it closed.

  “Lunch stop at Arabesque, Wyoming, in forty-five minutes, folks,” the bus driver announced.

  Sam loosened his grip slightly. “You wanna take those claws outta me now, Red?”

  “I don’t think you want to be asking me what I want right this minute, McKade.” She nevertheless retracted her fingernails.

  He flashed her an unholy smile as he set her loose, and, angry as she was, she was hard-pressed not to return it. She was mortified right down to the new paint job on her toenails that there was a person in this world who actually believed Catherine MacPherson had had a sexually transmitted disease. Yet she couldn’t help but feel a sneaking admiration for Sam’s ploy—she would have used it in a nanosecond if she’d thought of it first and the situation had been reversed. There was just something about matching wits with the man that was dangerously exhilarating.

  But that wouldn’t do, and she arranged her features into her sternest teacher’s face. “Enjoy yourself while you can, Bounty Boy,” she advised coolly as she pushed past him to return to her seat. “Because I’m going to have the last laugh.”

  “Oh, you think so, huh?” His amusement was undisguised as he fell into step behind her.

  “There’s no ‘think’ about it, McKade, I know so.” Her payoff was in knowing that when their bus ultimately reached its destination and all their skirmishes were finally at an end, her fingerprints were not going to match up with her sister’s. And big, bad, bounty hunter McKade was going to have to eat crow.

  Or his shorts, just as he’d promised her that first day. She shrugged. Crow, shorts—the point was, she was going to enjoy watching him choke down every single bite.

  12

  “I’M GOING CRAZY in here, Bobby.” Kaylee dropped the motel-room drape over the window she’d been peering out of and turned around to glare at him where he lounged on the bed watching TV. How could he be so relaxed—didn’t he feel the walls closing in around them? She resented everything about him at that moment: his easy attitude, his interest in the television program, his indolent sprawl with ankles crossed, elbows spread wide, and hands cradling his head atop two stacked pillows. Pushing away from the window, she headed for the door. “I’ve gotta get out for a while.”

  That at least got his attention off Wide World of Sports long enough to spare her a look. “Go ahead and go out, then,” he agreed easily, “if you don’t mind blowing the whole element of surprise.”

  “I—” She opened her mouth to protest, to tell him to go to hell, to rail against the unfairness of it all, then snapped it shut without uttering another word. Flouncing over to the bed, she dropped down to sit on the edge and picked up a Vanity Fair magazine. She crossed her legs, jiggled her unfettered foot impatiently, and flipped through several pages of advertisements without finding a single thing to hold her interest. She tossed the magazine aside and swiveled to face him. Taking a deep breath, she eased it out and forced herself to say civilly, “I’ve got a bad case of cabin fever.” The fact of which, after all, was hardly Bobby’s fault.

  He hit the remote control to kill the power on the television and rolled onto his side, propping himself up on one elbow. “I know you do, sugar, and you’ve been a real good sport about it, too. You just have to hang in there a little while longer. We agreed that if people saw you first, there was a real risk they might say something to Catherine in front of the bounty hunter, thinking she was you.”

  “I know.”

  “And that could wreck our only advantage—”

  “‘Which is that of surprise,’” she completed in unison with him. “I know, I know, already!”

  “Well, then?”

  She growled deep in her throat in pure frustration. “I want to do this the right way, Bobby—I do. But I’m jumpin’ outta my skin.”

  “Well, how about if I drop you off at that little beauty parlor on the edge of town—”

  “Town,” she scoffed. “You call this a town? It’s a wide spot in the road that happens to have a café, a general store slash gas station, a tavern, and this crummy roach motel.”

  “Hey, don’t forget the phone booth and the beauty parlor.” He flashed her his patented charmer’s grin, then gave her hip a friendly nudge. “C’mon, baby, it’s a regular boomin’ metropolis—for Wyoming.”

  “For Wyoming—that says it all right there. The entire state probably only has one zip code.”

  “Ah, but we got the town with the beauty parlor. It coulda been worse—we coulda ended up in the one with the McDonald’s instead. And the minute the bus pulls in and your sister’s safely in the café, you can leave this stuffy little room and head over to the Curl Up and Dye. Get your nails done. It’ll be my treat—I’ll even spring for the tip. Whata ya say?”

  Kaylee looked down at her fingernails. “Well, they could stand some attention.”

  “It’s a date then. I’ll even walk you to Curl Up’s door.”

  She expelled a huge sigh. “I remember back in the days when a date meant champagne and salsa dancing ’til dawn, not being walked across a dusty highway to some podunk little beauty parlor for God only knows what kind of nail job.”

  “Hey, they come in all shapes and sizes, baby. And we’re gonna get back to the dinner and dancing kind real soon. The minute we liberate your sister.”

  She gave him a real smile then. “You promise?”

  “That I do.”

  “I can hardly wait.” She looked around the tiny room, with its cramped and tired furnishings, and her smile faded. “What time is it, anyway?”

  “Eleven-forty-five.”

  “Oh, God.” Her sigh of disgust was profoundly felt, a long, gusty breath dredged up from deep in her diaphragm. “That means another loonng fifteen minutes to get through in this crummy little hellhole before the bus is s’posta be here.”

  The next thing she knew, she was being tipped onto her back on the mattress, and Bobby was propped up over her, grinning that devil’s grin. “I know a way to make the time pass by real quick-like,” he said, and lowered his head to nuzzle at her neck.

  Kaylee gave his shoulders a shove. “Quit screwing around, Bobby,” she retorted testily, but the words had no sooner left her mouth when she wondered why she was allowing her bad mood to run away with her good sense. Are you crazy, girl? Isn’t this exactly what you’ve been angling for ever since the moment you first opened your big mouth and laid down that stupid No Touching rule?

&
nbsp; “Is that what you really want, Kaylee—for me to back off?” The words whispered in her ear seemed to echo her own. “Screwing around sounds just like what the doctor ordered to me, but if you say no…” He started to push away, but Kaylee reached up and pulled him back. He growled his approval, and said huskily, “That’s my girl.”

  His mouth, hot and knowledgeable, moved to the angle where her jaw met the hollow beneath her earlobe. He’d propped himself over her with both arms, and he bent his elbows now to bring his chest down to her breasts, brushing it back and forth, back and forth, while that knowing mouth turned Kaylee’s senses into a swirling, mindless cauldron. He spread his thighs around hers and lowered his hips.

  “Oh, God, Bobby.” Reaching down, she filled her hands with his muscular buns and held him to her, rocking up to meet his gentle thrusts. “Oh, God, Bobby, oh…shit!”

  His head jerked up. “What? What?” A flush colored his cheekbones as he stared down at her, and there was confusion in the eyes that burned gas-flame blue with the intensity of his arousal.

  “Shh!” She sucked in her breath and held it in an attempt to hear beyond her own ragged, breathy panting. Yes, there, she heard it again. “The bus,” she moaned. “That’s gotta be the bus. It’s here early.”

  With a whispered curse, Bobby rolled off of her and onto his back. He stared up at the ceiling, while Kaylee scrambled off the bed and crossed to the drawn drapes. She tweaked one aside.

  “Yeah, that’s what it is, all right.” She was quiet for a moment, then suddenly blurted, “There she is, Bobby, there’s Catherine! Wow. She looks really good. She could stand a little more makeup and add a bit of oomph to her hair, but all in all she oughta wear my clothes more often, ’cause…”