Hero For the Asking

by Gina Wilkins

  HERO FOR THE ASKING

  Gina Wilkins

  "I'd like to kiss you, Spring."

  Since when had Clay started asking permission? Spring wondered. Then she realized he was awaiting her response. She removed her glasses and leaned toward him.

  Their lips had barely touched before his mouth began moving seductively over hers. After what seemed like a blissful eternity, Clay pulled away, gave a low, husky laugh and hugged her with fervent enthusiasm. "You never stop surprising me, Spring Reed. We're going to be so good together."

  She swallowed hard. "We're...what?"

  Cradling her face in his hands, he smiled meltingly at her and kissed her nose. "When we make love, it's going to be the most exquisite, most erotic, most incredible thing that has ever happened to either of us. I can't wait."

  "I've told you, Clay. We are not going to have an affair."

  Flashing his most charming grin, Clay grabbed the hand that was pushing against his chest and kissed her knuckles. "We're already having an affair Spring...a love affair."

  Gina Wilkins hadn't intended to write the trilogy of the Reed sisters—Summer, Spring and Autumn—when she wrote Summer's story in her first Temptation, Hero in Disguise. But the more "Crazy Clay" McEntire popped up there, the more this talented new writer wondered what would happen if flamboyant Clay fell in love with Summer's older, rather conservative sister, Spring. And so Hero for the Asking, Gina's second Temptation, was born. "Dressing Clay was lots of fun, too," Gina says. Her family and friends chipped in with advice on outrageous outfits, "some too weird even for Clay."

  The story of the third Reed sister, Autumn, will be coming your way in Temptation #204, Hero by Nature, in May.

  Books by Gina Wilkins

  HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

  174-HERO IN DISGUISE

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  supportive friends.

  Published April 1988

  ISBN 0-373-25298-6

  Copyright © 1987 by Gina Wilkins. All rights reserved. Philippine copyright 1987. Australian copyright 1987. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  The Harlequin trademarks, consisting of the words, TEMPTATION, HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION, HARLEQUIN TEMPTATIONS, and the portrayal of a Harlequin, are trademarks of Harlequin Enterprises Limited; the portrayal of a Harlequin is registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office and in the Canada Trade Marks Office.

  Printed in U.S.A.

  Chapter One

  "So what’s this older sister of yours like, Summer? Am I going to fall madly in love with her?"

  Summer Anderson smiled fondly at the lethally handsome blond male who'd thrown himself on the floor at her feet as she rested in an easy chair in her den. She'd found Clay McEntire on her doorstep when she'd returned home from her college class—not an unusual occurrence at her Sausalito house, where her friends often dropped by unexpectedly on Friday evenings. "Not likely," she told him. "I don't think she's your type."

  "Since when do you know my type?" he demanded challengingly, grinning up at her. "So far you've tried to fix me up with about a dozen women, and none of them was my type."

  "I had such hopes for you and Autumn," Summer mourned with a dramatic sigh, her eyes sparkling mischievously beneath her heavy fringe of golden-brown bangs. "You were supposed to meet her at my wedding and be knocked right onto your cute tush."

  "Autumn is certainly a knockout," Clay agreed solemnly. "I liked her very much."

  "You treated her like a kid sister," Summer complained.

  "She is a kid sister."

  Summer sighed gustily. "Mine, not yours, idiot."

  "So tell me about Spring. God, those names. What would your parents have done if they'd had a fourth daughter born in December? Anyway, all I know about Spring is that she's an optometrist and she's a couple of years older than you."

  Summer laughed. "I've always been glad that my parents stopped with three kids. Can you imagine going through life with the name Winter Reed? Sounds like a flavor of LIFE SAVERS. Anyway, about Spring. First off, she's not a couple of years older than I am. She'll be twenty-seven in two months—her birthday's May 14—and I'll be twenty-six in July. She's very fair—blond hair, violet eyes, English-rose complexion. She's taller than I am, five-seven, and slender. Like a model. She takes after our Scandinavian maternal grandmother."

  "Don't any of you sisters look alike?" Clay asked in amusement, remembering Autumn's earthy, auburn-haired, green-eyed beauty. Summer's wholesomely attractive features matched her cheerfully extroverted personality—enormous blue eyes, uptilted nose, golden tan, petite frame. From what Clay had heard of the family, it seemed as if the Reed sisters had inherited entirely different features to match their very individual personalities.

  "Not a bit," Summer replied gaily. "As far as personality goes, Spring is hard to describe. She's a little like my Derek in some ways. Serious on the surface but with a lively sense of humor hidden underneath. Hardworking, ambitious, goal oriented. Punctual, conscientious, responsible."

  Clay chuckled and shook his golden head as he shifted to a more comfortable position on the plush beige carpet of Summer's den. "She's going to hate me, right?"

  "I said she wasn't your type," Summer pointed out. "But, to be perfectly honest with you, I think Spring is bored out of her mind. She's tired of always being responsible and mature, and just itching to do something really crazy for a change. She'd never admit it, of course, but I still believe it's true. I think I'll advise her to have a mad passionate affair while she's visiting me. It would do her a world of good."

  Clay held up both hands in a gesture meant to call attention to himself. "Sounds good to me. Where do I sign up?"

  Summer laughed. "With Spring."

  "I can but try."

  "Don't blame me if you get shot down."

  He looked affronted. "Why? I'm reasonably attractive and definitely available."

  "You're more than reasonably attractive and you know it, you gorgeous hunk," Summer teased. "But let's face it, Clay. Spring is going to take one look at those clothes of yours and shudder. You won't get to say a word."

  "What's wrong with my clothes?" Clay demanded, shoving himself to his feet and looking down at his lean, six-foot-four length. He wore an unbuttoned purple-yellow-and-white-printed cotton shirt over a yellow T-shirt and baggy white pleated pants. A purple print bandana was knotted around his neck. His sockless feet were tied into bright yellow Reeboks with green laces in the left shoe and red in the right. For Clay, he was actually dressed quite conservatively.

  "You don't really want me to answer that."

  "Oh, well." He dismissed her c
riticism with an indolent shrug. "Just remember to tell your lovely sister that I'm willing if she decides to take you up on your advice to have a mad passionate affair. Satisfaction guaranteed."

  "Oh, the ego of the man," Summer murmured, her eyes turned toward the ceiling.

  "Just stating the facts, ma'am," he drawled.

  Summer shook her head sadly. "When it comes right down to it, I'll have to step in and protect her from you, anyway. What I really want is to get her fixed up permanently. You know what they say about us happily married women. We can't stand it until all our friends are suitably wed."

  "You'll just have to limit your matchmaking to your sisters. No woman's going to want to find herself married to me."

  "Now you're going to hide again behind all those poor troubled kids you work with," Summer muttered with an audible sigh of disgust.

  "It's the truth, Summer," Clay protested, more seriously than before. "You know those kids take all my time."

  "Hey, don't I work with the same kids? I give many hours to Halloran House, and I'm planning to work at it full-time when I finish my degree, but that doesn't mean I have to sacrifice time with my husband or the family he and I plan to have. Face it, Clay, your work is a very convenient excuse to keep you from committing yourself. You could make some adjustments if you tried. You just haven't found a woman yet who made you want to compromise."

  "Summer!" a woman's voice called out from the doorway. "Oh, hi, Clay. Is Spring here yet? We can't wait to meet her."

  "No, not yet. She and Derek should be here any minute," Summer answered, rising to greet the couple who'd just entered her den. Derek's sister, Connie, with her bright, improbably red hair and brilliantly toned trendy clothing, made an interesting contrast to the conservatively dressed man at her side, but one had only to look at them to know that Connie Anderson and Joel Tanner were very much in love. The hefty diamond engagement ring on Connie's left hand was further evidence of their commitment.

  Clay watched Summer and Connie with a fond smile. He'd known Summer since she'd moved to San Francisco from Arkansas over two years earlier. He'd met Connie when she and Summer had shared an apartment in San Francisco while both of the attractive young women were unattached and dedicated to serious partying when they weren't working at their mutual place of employment. Clay loved them both but had never considered himself in love with either. He wondered why.

  Even as he joined the conversation around him, he found himself thinking about what Summer had said just before Connie and Joel had entered the room. She'd accused him of using his work with troubled teenagers as an excuse to avoid commitment. He wondered for a moment if she was right, then hastily denied the suggestion to himself. There was no question in his mind that his dedication to the kids was genuine and demanding. He wasn't using that as an excuse...was he?

  Of course, Summer had been right about one thing. He had never found a woman who made him want to try to change the way his life was now. And it wasn't for lack of trying. At thirty-four, almost thirty-five, Clay experienced the usual healthy desires for a wife and family. He loved children, would like to have one or two of his own. Could he make time in his life for a family if he found the right woman?

  "So, Clay, how's it going?"

  Shaking off his atypical self-scrutiny. Clay grinned at Joel and threw an arm across the other man's shoulders. "Joel, my friend, have I mentioned that we're having a fund-raising drive at Halloran House this week?"

  Joel and Clay were almost exactly the same height and age and made a striking picture for the woman who stood in the doorway, looking around in bewilderment. Spring Reed blinked through the glasses perched on her nose at the number of people in the room where she'd expected to find only her sister. Then she stared in feminine appreciation at the two men directly across from her. Both of them were extraordinarily handsome. One was dark-haired, blue-eyed, with a gleam of white teeth beneath a silky dark mustache. But it was the other who made Spring's pulse do an odd little skip and jump.

  He was gorgeous. She could think of no other word for him. Thick, slightly shaggy golden-blond hair, classic features and a smile that could easily grace the cover of a popular magazine—GQ and Esquire came immediately to her mind. The slim but well-developed build of an athlete—baseball, she thought, or perhaps tennis. Then she noted his clothing, her disapproving gaze lingering on his mismatched shoelaces. One of Summer's oddball friends, she thought, almost smiling as she tried to picture her ex-boyfriend Roger in such strange attire. Of course, to Roger, leaving off one's tie was ultracasual.

  California, she thought wryly, acknowledging a faint twinge of culture shock as she looked away from the colorfully dressed man to find her sister talking to a beautiful woman with copper-red hair and a beaming expression. Her brother-in-law, Derek, placed a hand lightly in the middle of Spring's back, as if sensing her sudden attack of shyness, and she gave him a grateful smile.

  An unexpected illness had prevented her from attending her sister's wedding five months earlier, so Spring hadn't met Derek until he'd picked her up at San Francisco International Airport less than an hour before. He had proven to be a little different than what she had expected. The photographs she'd seen had faithfully recorded his almost militarily short tobacco-brown hair, pewter-gray eyes that peered so intensely through dark-rimmed glasses, hard, rugged good looks. But film hadn't been able to capture the almost palpable strength that radiated from Derek Anderson's firm, lean body, nor the hint of the predator beneath the veneer of a civilized businessman.

  Spring had been startled to learn that her free-spirited, nonconformist, twenty-five-year-old sister had married a respectable, seemingly average, thirty-seven-year-old management consultant. Now she suspected that there was more to Derek Anderson than met the eye—something that her perceptive sister must have noticed from the beginning. With Derek close behind her Spring moved to greet her sister, whom she hadn't seen in almost eighteen months.

  Clay felt Spring's eyes on him from the moment she appeared in the doorway. He looked up and froze, forgetting Joel, forgetting his own name. It wasn't that she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, though she was striking. Pretty, he thought. The word fit her perfectly. Silvery-blond hair, fine as swan's down, pinned into a loose knot on the top of her head with soft little tendrils escaping all around. Light-framed glasses perched on a short, straight nose. Through the glasses he could see her eyes—slightly almond shaped, appearing almost purple from where he stood. Her face was delicately rounded, her mouth seductively painted with a color that fell somewhere between pink and coral. A heather-pink suit clung lovingly to her beautiful body.

  Spring, he thought. Yes, the name suited.

  He watched her eyes widen as they met his, pleased to sense an answering attraction there. Then he saw her gaze drop to his clothes. He narrowed his eyes, wondering if he'd imagined a slight curl to her lips.

  Oh, great, Clay thought ruefully, watching Derek leading her across the room to be warmly welcomed by her sister. The most fascinating woman I've seen in ages and she turns out to be a snob. Summer had told him that her sister was rather conservative, but he'd assumed she'd exaggerated. How could free-spirited, warmly accepting Summer be related to a woman who seemed so opposite? He wondered how long it would be until he had the opportunity to confirm his first impression, and found himself hoping he was wrong about Spring.

  Spring extricated herself from her sister's enthusiastic hug and smiled into Summer's eyes. "You look so happy!" she remarked with pleasure. She couldn't remember ever seeing such a look of contentment on Summer's face, though Summer had always been one to relish life. Even before the accident over five years earlier that had left her with a permanent limp from a shattered kneecap, Summer had never looked happier to Spring than she did now. "Marriage definitely agrees with you."

  "Yes, it does," Summer agreed. "Are you surprised?"

  Spring only smiled.

  Summer turned to the attractive redhead standing just beh
ind her. "Spring, I want you to meet Connie."

  Before Spring could do more than exchange greetings with Summer's best friend and former roommate, the gorgeous blond male she'd noticed a few moments earlier stepped close to her side. Too close, she thought, wondering why she was suddenly having trouble with her breathing. She moistened her lower lip as she smiled tentatively at him.

  "So you're Summer's sister," he began in a silky voice, his blue-green eyes glinting with an expression she couldn't begin to read. He offered her his hand and gave her a smile that made her toes curl. "That's a very nice suit you're wearing, but how do you keep from choking with your blouse buttoned up to your throat that way?"

  Summer groaned audibly.

  "I'm Clay McEntire," the man went on, clinging to Spring's hand and ignoring Summer. "Affectionately known to our little circle of friends as 'Crazy Clay.' I can't imagine where they came up with such a nickname, but you know how those things tend to stay with you. Do you have any nicknames?"

  Spring cleared her throat and tugged lightly at her hand, wondering what the man was doing. Why did she have the feeling that he was testing her in some way? What sort of reaction was he hoping to evoke from her? She thought longingly of Little Rock, where people just said "Hello" or "Nice to meet you." She'd just known she'd be out of place in proudly unpredictable California!

  As the others smiled with fond indulgence at Clay, Spring gave him a cool smile and fibbed that it was nice to meet him, deciding to ignore his question about nicknames. She pulled a little harder at her hand, noting that his hold was anything but light. Definitely a tennis grip, she decided, hoping he couldn't feel her rapid pulse in her fingers.

  "Would you like to go outside with me?" Clay offered in a low, suggestive voice. "I could show you the pool."

  "I think I'll wait until later, thank you," Spring answered, wishing again that she was back in Little Rock. Who was this guy, anyway? Her eyes turned toward Summer, pleading for help.