by Cindy Gerard
"And why is that do you think?"
Darn the man. He was like a dog worrying a bone. She didn't want to think about why. Just like she didn't want to explore the possibilities Garrett was hinting at. No sir. The notion that Clay James might be attracted to her, arriving on the heels of her own latent but disturbing discovery that she was attracted to him, was just too unsettling to entertain.
"Why can't he let go of the tugging - pigtails - and - putting - frogs - in - my - lunch - bucket syndrome?" she asked, dodging his question with her Freudian tongue in her cheek. "My guess would be immaturity. Maybe a latent case of breast envy.
"No, seriously, think about it," she insisted with a devilish grin and a mental sigh of relief when Garrett's chuckle relayed that he'd given up on getting a straight answer. "Don't you think he was just a little too convincing in those heels tonight? And I wasn't going to say anything, but I noticed he hasn't turned them or the earrings back into wardrobe yet," she added in a confidential aside that broke Garrett up completely.
They were both laughing at the absolute impossibility of superstraight, supermacho Clay James with cross-dressing tendencies, when Clay sidled up beside them, sans Veronica, who Maddie concluded must have been surgically removed from his armpit.
"Care to let me in on your little joke?" he asked with a curious smile.
"No!" they both burst out in unison then dissolved into another fit of laughter at Clay's unwitting expense.
Garrett pinched the tears from his eyes, then shot Maddie a conspiratorial grin. "It's time for me to make a graceless exit. I'm going to find my wife, convince her it's time to go home to bed, then do a little research on that topic we were discussing earlier. And you might give a little thought to what we were talking about, too."
After a meaningful look, he slapped a hand to his brother's back. "See ya around, Banana Boy."
Then he headed across the room, leaving Maddie with a fading grin and Clay with a scowl as he tried to figure out what they'd been talking about.
A few awkward moments of silence passed before Maddie, prompted against her will to consider Garrett's suggestion, gave in to the urge and gave Clay an experimental smile. He looked so thunderstruck that she shook her head and raised her hand to touch his cheek.
It was pure knee-jerk reaction that had him snagging her wrist defensively and stalling it midair.
"Relax, James," she said with a tolerant grin. "I was just going to relieve you of a little rouge. Without the lipstick, it just doesn't work."
Eyes narrowed in distrust, he slowly unclasped his grip, then watched her face while she touched her fingers to his cheek to finish the job she'd started.
She was smiling softly when she swiped her fingers clean of the leftover makeup on the first handy napkin.
Clay was still scowling—and having a hard time figuring out why.
Had to be her smile, he reasoned. The woman was damn cute when she smiled. Cute, hell. She was sexy as sin, he decided as he weighed the unexpected wattage of a response that was foreign to him, unlike most of the single male population of Jackson Hole who knew the charm of Maddie Brannigan's smile all too well.
That nettled. Really nettled, he realized. She always had a smile for everyone but him. For him, she reserved her acid wit and watchdog snarl.
Until now. And now it actually seemed that he was the recipient of that sizzling, sexy grin for a change. As a matter of fact, if the notion hadn't been so ridiculous, he'd think she was diving way beyond the deep waters of tradition and was flirting with him.
He eyed her skeptically. Damn. She was flirting—and Maddie Brannigan was a horrible flirt. Well, actually, she wasn't horrible at all. She was actually pretty good at it. He'd just never expected to be on the receiving end of her multifaceted charms.
Suspicious but intrigued, he narrowed his brows, angled his chin and studied her face. It was, he admitted, a remarkable face. Rich with strength and self-assurance. Rare with an elegance that defied the untamed, gypsy-wild hair that framed it.
Too quickly his body reacted to the lush curve of her lower lip, the feathery little pulse beat fluttering at the hollow of her throat. Too exactly his mind played back to the feel of her wrist beneath his fingers, the touch of her fingertips on his cheek. Her fine bones were delicately structured, her silken skin, warm to the touch, as vital and compelling as the invitation in her melting brown eyes.
Then all too graphically his memory fired, triggering both tactile and vivid reminders of a night, three months past, when he'd wrestled her to the floor and pinned her there with his weight.
They'd been so close he'd been able to see each individual, spiky eyelash, smell the exotic, spicy fragrance of her shampoo, and feel, without a doubt, that she no longer needed help filling out her bra like she had when she was fourteen.
When he'd held himself above her, pressed himself against her, he'd had to draw on every Boy Scout gene in his body to keep from taking her—there. Right there on the floor. The way he'd never dreamed of taking her before.
He'd wanted to. Lord, knew he'd wanted to. And in her eyes he'd seen she wanted it too.
Now, months later, as he stood here trying to get a bead on what her smile was all about, he realized the wanting had never gone away. Not on his part. Evidently, not on hers, either.
Only a fool would take her up on the invitation she offered with her eyes. In fact, it took everything in this fool not to drag her tight against him, lose himself in those liquid depths and devour the lush warmth her wanton little mouth promised.
That mouth. He couldn't take his eyes off it. Couldn't stop himself from leaning toward her. He was lost in contemplating the delicious heat and woman softness of her body, when someone jostled him from behind and forced him to stumble over his better judgment.
With a quick snap of his head he took a mental step backward—then a physical one. He slogged in a deep breath. Let it out. Raked a shaking hand through his hair.
This was all too weird. This was all too strange. Maddie Brannigan hated his guts. And he had a solid dislike for hers. Besides, he had what he wanted in a woman—he had … he had … what the hell was her name?
Veronica! Of course. He had Veronica. He wanted Veronica.
Panicked because he'd just left her, and not only had her name momentarily escaped him but he couldn't get a clear picture of her face in his mind, he did the one thing that felt right. The one thing that felt safe. The one thing that felt sane. He decided to make Mad Dog growl.
"Why, my dear Ms. B.," he drawled, his tone mocking. "That is the sweetest little smile. And just for me?"
He touched an index finger to the corner of her mouth, lingered longer than was wise before dropping his hand and picking up on his mission. "Only one reason I can think of for you to be this mellow. Got yourself sloshed on champagne, didn't you?"
The soft chocolate of her eyes hardened to blackened cinders. Her sexy kitten smile tightened to a guard dog snarl. In the instant before the transformation, however, anger wasn't the first emotion that clouded her face.
An aching disappointment had flickered there. And for that moment, for an eternity, so did something else. A vulnerability as unexpected as it was heartbreaking had surfaced in this woman who showed no fear. And in that moment, he'd felt less of a man.
Both the disappointment and the vulnerability dissipated as quickly as they'd appeared. So quickly, in fact, that he wondered if he'd just imagined them. He would have sworn he'd imagined them, if he hadn't felt the guilt slamming into his gut like a heavyweight's fist.
He'd hurt her. He hadn't meant to. Hadn't known he was capable. Or that he would feel this much remorse because of it.
She didn't waste any time recovering.
"Sloshed?" she repeated in a tone laced with the acid he was comfortable with but which didn't quite conceal the hit he'd given her pride. "Well then, I'll bet that would explain why I'm about to do this."
Her smile was as flat as stale soda as she grabbed a f
ull glass of champagne from a nearby tray. Her intent was as clear as an angel about to ditch her halo when she curled her fingers over his belt buckle, glared into his eyes and emptied the contents of the glass inside the front of his pants.
* * *
Chapter 3
« ^ »
The next morning Maddie bent over her potter's wheel, worked the foot treadle and leveled all of her frustration and humiliation on a poor defenseless mound of clay. It was another Clay that came to mind, though, when she punched it with her fist and set about shaping it the way she wanted. She had almost as much luck with the wet, cold lump as she did keeping her thoughts about the wet warm mouth of the banana boy at bay.
After fifteen minutes of fragmented concentration and no productivity, she gave up. Shoulders slumped, she stared dismally out the back window of her studio and tried to talk last night away.
"It never happened," she told Maxwell, her calico tom-cat who accompanied her to work each day. "I did not stand there at the party like a thirteen-year-old bubblegummer and make moon eyes at Clay James. I did not plant myself smack in front of him and invite him to kiss me. And I absolutely did not buckle like a broken table leg when he read my mind and his devastatingly sensual mouth twisted into a mocking sneer before accusing me of being sloshed."
She stopped, waited, listened for absolution from Maxwell in the ringing silence. The cat just blinked. And, unfortunately, repeating the events aloud only slapped her humiliation right back in her face.
She rolled the stiffness from her shoulders and let out a disgusted breath. What on earth had she been thinking? Maybe Clay was right. Maybe it had been the champagne. At least that would give her an excuse for why she'd actually tried to flirt with him.
Forearms propped heavily on her thighs, she made an absent poke at the clay with the tip of her finger.
"Nice try, Brannigan," she muttered giving up on sympathy from the cat as he curled up in a halo of sunlight spilling across the floor, "but you weren't sloshed, as the man so eloquently put it."
What she'd been was curious. What she'd been was intrigued by Garrett's suggestions, aroused by certain memories—and captivated by a pair of stunning blue eyes, the subtle shift of awareness on his part and the promise of pleasures a man like Clay could incite.
"Nope. Definitely not tipsy," she conceded, shaking her head in disgust. It was worse. She was insane. And the very worst part of that was that he knew it. Just like he knew what she'd been thinking and wanting and wondering about.
"Well, that's what you get for dabbling near the lunatic hinges of animal lust," she muttered, and started pedaling again in earnest. "You set out to satisfy a curiosity, and you ended up with a bruise to your pride roughly the size of the Tetons."
Not exactly a fair trade, but it was the one she'd made and she was stuck with it. Now all she had do was figure out how to live through the construction of her gallery without letting him know how badly his reaction had hurt her.
With a mental kick in the butt, she tucked back into her work—then gave up five minutes later when she pedaled so hard the clay jumped off the wheel and slammed with a smacking thud into the far wall.
Maxwell, so named because he was as faithful as her favorite brand of coffee in waking her up every morning, raised his head, watched the clay slide down the wall, then went back to sleep.
* * *
Across town, in his office at the James Construction Company, Clay stared at a materials list for a late-fall project. The fact that it was close to noon and he'd been scowling over the same page for the past hour didn't do much to improve his mood.
He was still hung up on last night. It had been a first-class disaster that had started with his "Chiquita Banana" performance. Maddie's baptism of his fly at the party afterward should have been the topper. Not so. It was Veronica's not-so-subtle inquiry about where their relationship was headed and her subsequent suggestion that he take his "let's not rush into anything" reply and stuff it, along with his head, into a bucket of horse manure, that finished things off nicely.
One thing about it: he'd sure seen a side of Veronica he'd never seen before. A part of him was relieved to know there was something more substantial than cake recipes behind those limpid blue eyes. Another part, however, was shocked that the substance was so toxic.
Not that he blamed her for getting mad. He'd been sending out some pretty strong signals lately—commitment signals. He wasn't even sure why he suddenly had this panicked urge to back away.
It was confusing as hell. He was ready to settle down. He wanted Veronica to be the one—had been thinking she was the one—that he wanted to settle down with. Yet one smile, one sexy, smoldering, tipsy little smile from the guru of irritation, and he was second-guessing his second guesses.
It had to stop.
For the fourth time that morning he told himself to send Veronica flowers and a note of apology.
For the fourth time he never quite got himself to do it. As a matter of fact, when he really thought about it, he was relatively certain he wouldn't be sending flowers or phone calls or anything else Veronica's way ever again.
The thought should have bothered him more. And it might have if he hadn't finally admitted that, while he liked Veronica well enough, he didn't love her. He'd loved the idea of loving her, of getting married, of starting a family. But the God's honest truth was that he didn't love her and he'd only been fooling himself into thinking that he could. No, he wouldn't be calling Veronica again.
Before he got too philosophical about why he was so willing to let go of a certain, lasting relationship, his mind veered off in another direction. He start thinking about Maddie again and how she'd looked, all soft eyed, and sweetly inviting. And of the look in her eyes when he'd panicked and resorted to his old standby tactic of ticking her off.
He slumped back in his chair and tossed the materials list onto his desk. Cupping his jaw in his palm, he stared into space and pictured Maddie's face when he'd accused her of having too much to drink. The sudden but fleeting pain in her eyes had made a part of him want to punch his own lights out.
He hadn't meant to hurt her. And he sure as hell hadn't planned on losing sleep over the fact that he had. For pity's sake, this was old hat to both of them. This was business as usual. They always went at each other.
But he'd never felt mean before.
He passed a paper clip back and forth between his fingers. And he'd never, ever felt the weight of guilt for causing her pain—no matter how short-lived.
He didn't like it. Not any of it. And he particularly didn't like all the time he was wasting thinking about her.
Shoving out of his chair, he stalked to the window, crossed his arms over his chest and stuffed balled fists under his armpits. Hell, she's the one who should be apologizing. She'd embarrassed the hell out of him with that trick she'd pulled with the champagne. And he was the one who was going to bear the brunt of those damn banana jokes for months to come, too. He didn't dare forget that he had Maddie Brannigan to thank for all of it.
And for his sleepless night and unproductive morning.
And for this sick feeling in his gut every time he flashed on a picture of her face when he'd given her the verbal equivalent of a right hook instead of the kiss they'd both been in danger of taking.
All right. Enough was enough. So he'd hurt her feelings. He still stood by his assessment of why she'd been giving him a taste of the sex kitten instead of the mad dog. If he didn't, then the situation was just that much more untenable.
It was the champagne. The champagne had softened the snapping, pepper brown of her eyes to a rich, liquid chocolate. The champagne had painted the dusky blush on her cheeks. Most notably, however, it was the champagne, not some latent change of heart, that had mellowed her mood beyond grudging tolerance, beyond even a temporary truce, to a misty sort of sexuality. A steamy deviation to flirtation.
Fool woman.
He stalked back to his desk, figuring he'd taken care
of explaining what had motivated her. But he ended up staring into space again trying to sort out where he'd been coming from and why after a lifetime of wanting to shut that smart mouth of hers, all he could think about now—all he could fantasize about—was kissing it.
* * *
Two weeks later on a warm September afternoon, Maddie was itching for a good fight. She knew just the man who could give it to her, too, if she could get him to stand still long enough to let her tie into him.
Construction dust tickled her toes through her sandals as she made her way across the gallery's building site looking for Clay. She found him standing fifteen feet up on a scaffold, stripped to the waist. A healthy layer of dust and perspiration coated the glistening tan of his bare back and showcased an impressive flex of muscle.
There was a certain and substantial pleasure seeing Clay James all hot and sweaty, she decided. Not, she assured herself, because even dirty and sweaty, Clay James was powerfully pleasing to the eye. Not even because she liked the idea of his usual image—pressed jeans, tucked and tidy Western shirt and polished boots—being a little messed and muddied. Looking like this wasn't a break from his routine. Just like Garrett, Clay dug in and worked with his crew. He was a hands-on contractor, at home in a business suit or a layer of construction dust.
She liked seeing him this way today because it meant he was busting his taut little buns just for her. It was strictly a power trip. For the duration of the construction, she called the shots. And she liked that arrangement just fine.
Yet as the sun glinted off the polished bronze of his skin and the steady pounding of his hammer delineated and defined the strength and grace of the muscle beneath, she had to dig deep to remember why a working relationship was the only relationship they could ever have.
It was because she had perspective now, that's why, she told herself as she brushed some sawdust from her ankle-length gray leggings, then arranged her pink middy T-shirt so the boat neck was squared on her shoulders again. It had taken a full fourteen days, but she'd finally managed to put things back into neat little slots after the night of the cast party. The memory of that night remained, a sharp slap of reality right across her face, but she couldn't change what had happened.