by Lori Wilde
Stay, stay, inveigled her mother’s Gypsy blood.
“Durango,” she whispered.
“Angel.”
He reached for her.
She walked toward him.
He wet his lips.
She pursed hers.
He took off her hat.
She looked into his face.
Oh wow, oh boy, oh no.
And Abby just knew he would have kissed her if she hadn’t picked that moment to start sneezing.
3
WHAT IN THE HADES do you think you’re pulling, Creed?
Oh, he knew what he was doing and it wasn’t good. In fact, he had very, very bad intentions.
When Durango had first realized that the sleek-haired brunette on the steps of the Tranquility Spa was none other than Abby Archer, the teenage crush who had busted his heart by siding with their snobby, high-society community against him, his first despicable thought had been—I’ve gotta get even.
His second, more mature thought had been—I’ve gotta let it go.
Ten years had passed. He rarely thought about her anymore and he’d made a great life for himself here in Sedona. And yet a touch of that young rebel remained. A bit of his heart was still hardened against her and the collective of Silverton Heights.
He wasn’t proud of his feelings but neither could he dismiss them. He felt what he felt. Good or bad.
Yet how could he blame her for what had happened? Abby had done what she had to do in order to live with herself. She’d been a suppressed seventeen-year-old girl with a powerful father. She’d had little choice but to accept his edict. Rationally, Durango understood that.
But deep down inside he was still the vulnerable kid who didn’t quite comprehend why he hadn’t been enough for her.
Besides, his real beef had been with her old man.
And his own.
Durango grit his teeth at the memory. Although he had long since gotten over being disowned in favor of his father’s calculating trophy wife, he still couldn’t fathom why Phillip Creed had chosen to believe his stepmother Meredith’s outrageous lie that Durango had attempted to force her to have sex with him, when it had been the other way around.
Meredith had come on to him.
Durango tried telling his father the accusation was a ruse on Meredith’s part because he’d discovered she was hiding illicit business dealings at her company where his father had just bought part interest.
But his father had sunk even lower, allowing Meredith to intimidate him into involving his buddy, Judge Archer, in the private family matter. His father persuaded Abby’s dad to jail him for a week, when in a desperate bid to be heard, Durango had lashed out and vandalized one of Meredith’s warehouses.
The memory of those seven days behind bars would stay with him forever.
Let it go. Water under the bridge. He was happy now and that’s all that mattered.
Then Durango’s third and most compelling thought had been—Damn, but Abby’s hot. I’ve gotta find a way to get her into my bed.
Now, standing here atop Cathedral Rock, gazing into her soulful hazel eyes and lusting after those full cherry-colored lips, he was thinking—You still haven’t found your passion, have you sweetheart?
He could see she was lost and she didn’t even know it. His heart literally ached and his weakness for her bothered the hell out of him.
Why did he still care?
Abby was the same person she’d been a decade ago. As evidenced by the fact she had almost married that candy-assed Ken Rockford. Still kowtowing to her father, still denying her fire, still hiding from her true self.
He’d seen the depth in her from the beginning, even though she’d never seen it in herself.
The first time he laid eyes on Abby, he’d been serving out detention in the library, when she’d ambled through the door wearing a matching sweater set and clutching her books to her chest. Every hair was in place, her skirt ironed, understated makeup, tasteful jewelry. She’d looked like some kind of throwback to the nineteen fifties.
Prim, proper, perfect. All except for those full, sensuous lips and the provocative way her hips rolled when she walked.
Those lips and that walk gave away the inner woman. On the surface she might be calm, controlled and composed but underneath, oh underneath, she was just waiting to spring free.
Fire and ice.
But nothing had changed for her. Abby’s body was ripe with unexplored sexuality, begging for release. He could see it in the way she moistened her lips when he looked at her mouth. He could smell it in the estrogen rising up off her skin. He could hear it in her soft sneeze whenever he stared at her with open desire.
He longed to show her that a life without passion wasn’t worth living. He yearned to teach her how to listen to her own desires and ignore the opinions of others. He hungered to ruffle her cool aplomb and show her exactly what she’d been missing.
“What are you seeking, Abby?” he asked, searching her face.
A part of him truly wanted to help her find herself, but another part of him couldn’t keep from thinking how tasty it would be to pull her down on top of the red sandstone, whisk those fancy white shorts over her womanly hips and show her right then and there what she’d been missing.
His pulse thundered and his abdominal muscles tugged. What was the matter with him? If he’d wanted revenge, he should have taken it ten years ago. Too much time had passed to dredge up ancient history.
“Passion got you scared?” he asked.
“Excuse me?” She blinked.
“You sneezed.”
“So what?”
“You used to start sneezing whenever things got too hot to handle.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that to me?”
“Maybe because it’s true.”
“It’s not true! I have allergies.”
“Yeah, you’re allergic to digging too deep and finding out what’s really going on inside your heart.”
She stared at him. He’d caught her off guard. Good. She needed to be unsettled more often. Just as he was unsettled.
“What are you searching for?” he repeated.
“Um…” She hesitated. “Who says I’m searching for anything?”
“Most people come to Sedona on a quest.”
“I’m simply on vacation.”
“Is that true? Or are you here to lick your wounds after getting dumped at the altar by Ken Rockford?” He really hadn’t meant to get that dig in, it had just slipped out.
Okay, I’m jealous. So sue me.
“I’m not heartbroken over losing Ken, if that’s what you’re asking. In fact, that’s the problem. I can’t seem to feel anything monumental.”
He wanted to ask if Ken had ever made her sneeze. Instead, he said, “I know how to cure your problem.”
“Oh, you do?” She raised one of her cool, perfectly arched eyebrows. How well he remembered that haughty high-society-princess look. It goaded him to take action. “And how is that?”
He meant to tell her she needed to let go and do something reckless for once in her life, but the way she held herself aloof and regal made him itch to bring her down a peg or two.
“Like this.”
Then before he even knew what he was intending to do, Durango yanked her into his arms and captured her lips with a kiss.
He experienced the kiss not just with his mouth and tongue but all the way through to the very center of his body. His gut whirled and his groin tightened and even his frickin’ knees bobbled.
Abby resisted at first, pushing against his chest with the flats of her palms. But then her jaw loosened and her tongue rushed out to meet his. Her hand fluttered upward and she skimmed her cool fingertips over the heated skin of his neck.
She wanted this as much as he did. Even if she couldn’t admit it.
The realization inflamed him.
Durango deepened the kiss, splaying a hand at the small of her back, holding her steady while he poured every drop of concen
tration into kissing her.
God, he’d forgotten how good she tasted. How he’d once dreamed of planting himself between her supple thighs. His old dreams came roaring back to life. Twice as big, twice as potent, twice as hungry.
He was in dangerous territory and he thrilled to it, reveling in the daintiness of her slender arms, the press of her soft breasts against his hard chest.
She pulled back to catch her breath. Her eyes were wide and nervous. Quickly she glanced around.
“Durango,” she gasped, and then held a palm across her mouth and nose to stifle a sneeze.
“There you go, clogging up that passion. Let yourself experience it, Abby, and you’ll stop sneezing.”
“I can’t do that. We shouldn’t do this. What if someone sees us?”
He groaned. How many times had she said that to him? How many times had he held back, respecting her wishes even though he had wanted her so badly he had thought he was going to explode from the pressure.
But they weren’t kids anymore and she was on his turf now.
“To hell with what we shouldn’t do,” he growled, and dragged her back into his arms.
She stiffened and he could feel the conflict waging in her body. Physically she wanted him, but emotionally she was scared of letting herself go, terrified of embracing her sexuality.
He had honored her wishes when they were teenagers, but not now. Not this time. He was going to make her face the situation.
Deny this, Angel.
Lowering his head, Durango captured her luscious lips again. He felt the zap of wildness flowing from the rocks, through his feet, up his body and into hers.
The feminine vortex.
They were fused into a single power source, their passion one with the cosmos. They melded with the environment. Merging, mixing, marrying the earth.
It seemed to Durango as if they were spinning from a dizzying aerial viewpoint. Their kiss captured in the Technicolor red of the soaring pinnacle cliffs and rugged desert landscape.
Overhead, a red-tailed hawk cried “keer, keer.” A spiny lizard skittered nearby. The air smelled of piñon pine, juniper and Abby.
In the nine years he had been guiding Jeep tours through Sedona, Durango had experienced the enigmatic power of the vortices hundreds of times. Sometimes he felt a mild tugging. At other moments it was a strong pull. Sometimes the sensation made him emotional. Sometimes he felt centered and grounded. On occasion he found himself simply overwhelmed by the vastness of the cosmos.
But never had he experienced what he was feeling now.
It was magical. Surreal. Otherworldly.
Native American lore spoke of it. This rush of incredible sensitivity. It was as if a fire hose had been turned on in his heart and he was a channel, a catalyst, a crucible.
The phenomenon was scary as hell because it felt so damned wonderful.
His body burned like a furnace. His skin tingled. Joy bubbled inside him, fizzy as mineral water.
Wow.
He let Abby go and stepped back. He could tell from the bewildered expression in her eyes that she was feeling it too.
Stunned, they simply stared at each other.
“Was that it?” she whispered. “Is that what the vortex feels like?”
He gulped. “Yep. That was the vortex.”
“Oh thank heavens, for a minute there I thought that maybe…” She didn’t finish her sentence. Instead, she raised a quivering hand to tuck a lock of hair behind one ear.
He knew what she thought, because he was thinking the same thing. If simply kissing her in a vortex could cause such a euphoric sensation, what in the hell would happen if they were to make love in one?
SHE HAD TO REGAIN CONTROL of the chaotic emotions jumbling inside her. Simultaneously, Abby felt ecstasy and fear, bliss and dread. But she refused to show Durango her confusion. Her father had trained her well. Never reveal your weakness to your enemies.
And Durango was indeed her enemy, because with just one kiss he threatened to smash to smithereens her carefully ordered world.
Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, whispered her high-spirited Gypsy blood. Maybe your uptight, insular world needs destroying. And hey, maybe you would quit sneezing.
Abby shook her head. She didn’t know if it was the vortex or Durango or a deadly combination of both, but she would not allow herself to disintegrate over one little kiss.
One little kiss? Ha! More like the kiss of the millennium.
Knock it off. Get it together. You’re Judge Archer’s daughter, so act like it.
You’re Cassandra’s daughter, too.
Abby ignored that thought, smoothed the wrinkles from her linen shorts, squared her shoulders and glanced over at Durango.
“I think we should go check on Tess,” she said evenly, and started past him for the trailhead.
Durango reached out and snagged her elbow, stopping Abby in her tracks. “I think we should talk about what just happened.”
“Nothing happened.”
“Dammit, don’t shut me out. Not again.”
“Please remove your hand.” She glowered at him.
He let go and stepped back. “Are you going to be like this for the rest of your life?”
“Be like what?”
Even though his hand was gone, she could still feel the imprint of it on her skin. Already she was feeling that swoopy, looping out-of-kilter sensation in the region of her heart—she used to feel it whenever she was around him and she didn’t like it.
Not one bit.
“Dead to life,” he said.
“I’m not dead to life.” Did he really believe that? “I just don’t choose to put my feelings on parade like some people.”
He reached up to stroke a strand of her hair. “Admit it, Angel. You’re afraid of your passion. Even your nose knows it.”
“Stop calling me Angel.”
“Why? Because it makes you feel something?”
Yes. Precisely.
“Because I’m not that silly little seventeen-year-old who was once so infatuated with you.”
“You weren’t infatuated with me. If you’d really cared about me, you wouldn’t have sided with your father and mine against me when you knew in your heart I shouldn’t have gone to jail.” His tone hardened.
Lovely. Now he was getting angry. She didn’t want to fight with him. There was no point rehashing the past. They’d both made their choices.
“Don’t try to put this all on me. You gave me an ultimatum, Durango, and hey, news flash, you did vandalize your stepmother’s business.”
“And you know why I did it.”
“It was still wrong.”
“That’s the reason I started calling you Angel,” he growled. “Because you’re so damned perfect. You never get mad or hurt or do stupid things like the rest of us.”
“I get hurt plenty. I hurt when you left town and never came back. Just because I couldn’t go with you, it didn’t mean I didn’t want to.”
They stared at each other, the past a shimmery ghost between them. Abby realized what was wrong. They’d had no closure. No true ending to the relationship that had budded hot but never bloomed.
Well then, have a fling with the man. She could just hear Cassandra egging her on. That should give you plenty of closure. And whew! Can he kiss. Do it, Abby, do it. Mend fences.
No. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t.
Why not? Too chicken? Too afraid you can’t handle the likes of Durango Creed?
Argh! Why couldn’t she get her mother’s irreverent voice out of her head?
“We have unfinished business, you and I. That kiss said it all.” Holding her gaze, he leaned in close.
“It was the vortex, remember?” She stiffened and tried to the ignore the distinct tickling sensation between her legs.
“And like I told you, the vortex gives back what you bring to it.”
“What are you insinuating, Durango?” Her heart skipped a beat.
What if? W
hat if? What if?
He reached out and cupped her cheek with his palm. His fingers were warm and strong. How easy it would be to get swept up in the past. “What I’m saying, Angel, if you’re interested, is that I can show you how to unearth your passion.”
Go ahead, say yes. Just have a fling and get Durango out of your system once and for all so you can get on with your life.
She gulped. She was in over her head and drowning in ebony eyes that could send a girl straight to hell.
“What precisely are you suggesting?” she whispered.
“An adventure.” Durango’s smile was wicked to the core. “To broaden your horizons.”
She shifted her weight. She was already getting antsy, wanting to kiss him again.
Could the affair start now, please?
She wanted him so badly she was practically panting. But was this the right thing to do? What if she really was like her mother? What if, once released, there was no putting the genie back in the bottle?
“You’re worried,” Durango said, “that this adventure will change you in some elemental way.”
“Yes.”
“There’s no getting around it. Once you taste the thrill of passion, you can’t go back to being the way you were before.”
She felt as if she were burning up and freezing all at the same time. She wanted him and yet she was terrified of losing herself, of going crazy wild. Her entire identity was tightly entwined with her father, her community and her job. How could she turn her back on all that?
“You’re afraid of being ostracized from the things you care about. Of losing everything comfortable and familiar.” Durango nailed her fears dead on. “The way Cassandra and I both did.”
She nodded, anxiety and desire a snarled web in her throat. She hated rocking the boat. She was known for bending over backward, sacrificing her own wants and needs to keep everyone else happy. Peace at any price. That had been her motto.
“What you don’t understand, Abby, is how much I gained when I left Silverton Heights.”
“What did you gain?” Her heart was thumping, her breathing rangy.
He pressed his mouth against her ear and murmured, “Myself.”
Abby shivered. Was this man the devil, tempting her to break all her own rules? Or was Durango actually her redeemer, offering her a chance at salvation before it was too late?