One of the horsemen said something she couldn’t hear and motioned in her direction. A man broke off from the group, wheeled his horse, and cantered toward her.
It was Pierce, looking like a real cowboy, instead of a Dallas Cowboy. He rode tall in the saddle; wore chaps, straw Stetson, boots, spurs, the works. Her heart swelled, crowded her lungs, making it hard to breathe. Don’t do it. Don’t go there. Do not have those fantasies. Ah, but no one could deny he looked as if he had ridden straight out of a romantic Western movie, and she’d always been a sucker for cowboys.
Her pulse took off at a dead gallop. It was crazy, this … this autonomic response to the sight of him.
He was smiling as he rode up. He adjusted his hat, giving it a rakish tilt that revealed more of his face. His brown eyes twinkled. “Why, look who’s here.”
Lace blew out her breath. Steady, steady. Damn if she was going to let him know how much he’d gotten under her skin. “Morning, Pierce.”
He squinted up at the sun beating down directly overhead. “Might be afternoon by now.”
Her chest grew tighter by the minute. She didn’t know how to start this conversation.
Pierce rested both hands on the horn of the saddle and shifted forward in his seat. The leather made a creaking noise that punctuated the silence.
She didn’t know which was worse, saying something, or sitting here trying to avoid looking into his eyes and not saying anything. “You’re working the cattle,” she said at last.
He cast a glance over his shoulder. Malcolm and the ranch hands had already driven the herd some distance away. “Looks like it.”
“How does that feel?” she surprised herself by asking. “Being back in the saddle again?”
“Feels better than I expected, but it’s not really the saddle I want to be back in.”
“Football. That’s your saddle.”
“That’s where the best of me is.”
“I don’t believe that.”
He looked taken aback. “What do you mean?”
“Are you seriously saying that the best of you is over? You’re just barely thirty. What are you going to do for the next fifty-odd years?”
“My career isn’t over,” he said adamantly. “Not by a long shot. This is …” He waved a hand at his leg. “Very temporary.”
She wasn’t going to point out that he might not be facing reality about his chances of being what he once was on the football field. She’d heard people compare him to Joe Theismann. She’d been raised in West Texas where football trumped everything. She understood how brutal the sport was. Initially, the Dallas Cowboys might cut him some slack, but it was a money game, and if he didn’t soon return to the field at one hundred percent capacity, they’d cut him quicker than she would deadhead a rosebush. Individual roses—even if there was still some bloom left—had to be sacrificed for the health of the plant.
“You’re a big deal,” she said honestly. “I can appreciate why it would be hard to let go of that.”
He cocked his head and shot her a sidelong glance. “You’re confusing me.”
“How’s that?”
“I can’t decide if you’re actually being nice or sarcastic minus the tone.”
She nodded. “I’m stating fact. You are a big deal in this town. You’re a big deal all over Texas. Hell, let’s be honest, you’re a big deal throughout the country. I mean, come on, how many people have ever quarterbacked in the Super Bowl? You’re among the elite of the elite.”
A suspicious expression crossed his face. “I hear kind words coming from your mouth, but I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Let’s have it.”
Lace shrugged, fighting against her pulse that sped up every time she met his eyes. “No dropping shoe.”
“You rode all the way out here to tell me that I’m a big deal? C’mon, let’s have the other shoe.”
Pierce’s stallion walked closer and nuzzled Peony’s neck. Of course Pierce rode a stallion. No mare or gelding for a wild-oats-sowing alpha man. That would be way too tame. Luckily, Peony was not in estrus or there could have been trouble. Lace pulled up on the reins, guided Peony away from his horse.
Undaunted, the stallion approached again and went back to nuzzling Peony.
“Could you handle your steed, please?” she asked.
“He’s got a mind of his own.” Pierce smirked.
“You’re in charge, be in control.”
“You’re the one who rode up here on a mare in heat.”
“She’s not in heat.”
“A mare’s cycle can turn erratic around fall.”
“It’s the second week of August.”
“Autumn is just a few weeks away.”
“If she was in heat, your stallion would be going crazy.”
“You’ve got a point.”
Lace squirmed in the saddle. She was a scientist. This talk of a mare’s reproductive cycle should not be making her uncomfortable, but it was.
“If that’s all you need, I’ve got cattle to drive.” He clicked his tongue, turned his mount back toward the herd.
“Wait.”
He stopped.
She kneed Peony forward until they were side by side with Pierce and his stallion. “You’re right. There’s a shoe. I don’t want there to be a shoe, but there’s a shoe.”
“I’m listening.” He smelled like home. No cologne today, just the honest fragrance of horse and hay and leather, sun-warmed cotton and musky male.
An unexpected gust of wind lifted a strand of her hair and tossed it in her face. She tucked the strand behind one ear. His gaze tracked her movements, fixed for a moment on her ear, and then he gulped visibly. She wasn’t the only one unsettled.
“Ask me, Lace,” he murmured. “Ask for what you need.”
She rolled her eyes. He sounded so damn seductive.
“You do that as a defense mechanism, you know,” he said.
“Do what?”
“Roll your eyes. It gives you away every time. You do it when you feel insecure.”
She put a hand to her forehead. Was she really doing that? Gotta stop the eye rolling.
“Well,” he prompted.
“Here’s the deal,” she said. “I need you.”
A grin split his face and he cupped a hand around the ear closest to her. “Excuse me. I didn’t quite catch that. Did I hear you say that you need me? Why didn’t you say so? Just let me gallop home and get a condom and I’ll be at your service.”
She suppressed a gigantic eye roll. Do not rise to the bait. “Allow me to rephrase. The town of Cupid needs your help.”
“Ah, I’m disappointed. The other phrasing was so much more provocative.”
“Olive Cooksey embezzled five hundred thousand dollars from the town coffers,” she said, and then proceeded to tell him what Carol Ann had revealed to her and Melody’s solution to the problem. “So you see, you’re the only one that can save the town.”
“You mean save the botanical gardens, save you.”
“Not just the gardens, but the library and the—”
“Yeah, yeah, just admit it. You need my celebrity status to save your hide.”
Did he have to look so smug about it? “Yes, yes, fine. The town needs you. Happy now?”
“No.”
“Why aren’t you happy? I stroked your ego. You’re the best thing since sliced bread. Everyone bows down at your feet, yada yada.”
“You might want to take a course in diplomacy before you ask someone to do you a favor the next time.” He loosened the reins and nudged his stallion gently in the flank. The horse took off.
“Wait!” She couldn’t let him get away. She had to smooth this over or good-bye botanical gardens.
He slowed to let her catch up with him. “I’m listening.”
“This is hard for me,” she said. “Can we start over?”
“All right.”
She took a deep breath. “Pierce, would you please headline the fund-raising event to save
the nonessential, but very important, city services from going away?”
He turned his head, met her gaze with those brown eyes flecked with green, looked straight into her.
Her heart thumped, stumbled. “Well?”
“No.”
No? She wasn’t expecting that. “Why not?”
“You didn’t say ‘please,’ ” he said, and rode off again.
“Will you stop doing that!” she hollered, and chased after him. “Stay still.”
He stopped again as if they were playing some odd equestrian version of Mother May I.
Oh, he was enjoying this to no end. She clutched the reins so tightly that Peony halted in mid-step while Pierce spurred his stallion forward again.
“Please, Pierce. I need your help. Please do this for Cupid.”
“Nope,” he called over his shoulder.
“Ah, c’mon!” She hurried to catch up with him at once. Peony snorted as if to say, Make up your mind psycho bitch.
“I’ll only do it if you ask me to please do it for you.”
“Fine, fine.” She huffed.
“And you have to ask without the attitude.”
She smiled forcefully, her jaw aching from gritting her teeth.
“You look like a shark.”
Argh! She relaxed her face into a natural smile. “Pretty please with sugar on top, will you do this favor for me, Pierce. Please will you help me save the botanical gardens? I want you. I need you. I have to have you or my life is over. How’s that?”
He looked at her like she was the most amusing thing this side of Disney World. “Now was that so hard?”
“A root canal without novocaine would have been easier.”
“You still don’t get the whole concept of how to ask for a favor, do you?”
“Good God, are you going to do it or not? If not, then just stop torturing me.”
He canted his head, and as they trotted side by side he gave her a contemplative look so long she started to get itchy.
“Well?” she nudged.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
She let out a whoop. “Thank you! I really do appreciate it.”
“But only under one condition.”
Uh-oh. The torment continued. “What’s that?” she asked warily.
“You agree to be my date to this Labor Day dinner—”
“Seriously?”
“It’s nonnegotiable. I don’t want to have to fend off groupies all day. I need a date. You’re elected.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll be your date, but don’t expect me to enjoy everyone fawning all over His Royal Highness.”
“And—”
“You said one thing. You can’t go adding a stipulation after you said one thing.”
“Then never mind.”
“You like seeing me squirm, don’t you?”
This time when he looked at her, the light in his eyes was wickedly, unabashedly sexual. “You have no idea.”
A shiver of icicles prickled down her back. Her breathing was coming so short and shallow it was a wonder she didn’t hyperventilate.
“What is it? What else do you want? Just know up front that if your request is that I spend the night with you it’s a total deal breaker. You are not the only hotshot football jock in the world.”
“Ah,” he said, “but I’m the only hotshot football jock that you know. Relax, sleeping with me is not the stipulation, although if you’ve got a mind to do that, I’m not the least bit opposed.” He gave her a slow, sexy wink and a smile to match.
Goose bumps spread over her skin and she shivered again. The man knew how to seduce. She’d give him that, but she certainly wouldn’t tell him to his face. “Spit it out. What further suffering do you have up your sleeve for me?”
“Sweetheart,” he drawled, “if you want me to snap this ball, you have to agree to go shopping with me and let me pick out what you’re going to wear.”
Chapter 10
Metamorphosis: transformation of one state to another, as a bud to a bloom.
THE town of Cupid closed nonessential city services a week after the mayor’s announcement that Olive Cooksey had absconded with half a million dollars of the town’s money. Lace had gotten her parents to temporarily hire Shasta and Manuel to work at the Bettingfield Stables, so at least they were going to be taken care of.
Even though Lace had been director of the botanical gardens for only a few months, the grief she felt watching city workers cut off the water and electricity, move the Cupid fountain—which had been the mainstay of the gardens since the 1930s—padlock the front gate and post a “Closed Until Further Notice” sign, was akin to losing a much beloved pet.
Her cousins stood ringed around her, offering support in their own unique ways. Zoey said, “Drinks at Chantilly’s on me when we’re done.” Melody pressed a key to the padlock into her palm and whispered, “I sweet-talked the mayor’s secretary into making a copy for you.” Natalie put a comforting arm around her shoulder. “Dade’s bringing the van and we’re all going to pitch in to help you move the plants.”
“Thanks,” Lace whispered. “You guys are awesome.”
The majority of the plants in the outside gardens were indigenous to the Trans-Pecos so they would survive months without constant attention, although the more assertive species like Cylindropuntia imbricata, the cane cholla, might try to muscle out others, and most of the vegetation would become overgrown and unkempt without Manuel’s artful maintenance.
The inside gardens and the greenhouse plants were another matter. They would all have to be transferred to Lace’s house. Not that she minded having her home crammed with plants, but it was a daunting task, even though she’d already started moving some of the plants. Thank heaven for her family. You couldn’t buy this kind of loyalty and devotion.
If the gardens were closed for only a few weeks, in the grand scheme of things, this was just a minor glitch in the gardens’ history—a juicy story for future generations to tell. But if Melody couldn’t pull off this fund-raising thing …
Heavy pressure weighted Lace’s chest and she blinked against the lump forming in her throat. She was putting all her eggs in a basket named Pierce Hollister.
Lace, her cousins, and Dade spent the next hour loading plants she’d already prepared for shipping into Natalie’s van and Zoey’s Toyota pickup truck. When they’d packed and secured as much as they could into the two vehicles, Lace gave Natalie the key to her house while she stayed behind to wrap and pamper the plants she hadn’t yet had time to prepare for the move.
The greenhouse was eerie in its silence and she was trying to keep her thoughts on wrapping maidenhair ferns in newspaper and off her heavy sense of loss, when there was a rap of knuckles against the greenhouse door.
She glanced up from where she was crouching to see the silhouette of a man in a cowboy hat. Before she could get up to answer the door, it opened and Pierce poked his head inside. “Hello, anybody here?”
Instant perspiration sprouted between her breasts and her lips seemed to have a mind of their own as they curled into a smile. “Pierce, hi!” she said breathlessly.
“Hey.” He stepped into the greenhouse looking sexier than any man had the legal right to look.
Lace got to her feet, dusted her palms against the seat of her jeans. “If you’ve come to tell me that it’s time to pay up on my part of the bargain, you’ve caught me at a bad time.”
“Now that you mention it, we need to set a date for our shopping spree, but that’s not why I’m here.”
She tilted her head and her smile grew. Why did the guy have to be so intriguing? “No?”
“I came to help. Look, sleeves rolled up and everything.” He tugged at the sleeves of his shirt peeled up into cuffs that banded his biceps.
A rush of gratitude blew through her as swift and surprising as a sandstorm on a windless day. She didn’t know why he’d shown up, but she was ridiculously happy that he had. “I don’t … yes, thank you. I apprecia
te an extra pair of hands.”
“What do you need?” he asked, heavy emphasis on the word “need.”
She decided to ignore that part. “We’re down to the more delicate plants that require extra care. They need to be wrapped in newspaper and placed carefully in those packing boxes.”
Pierce rubbed his palms together. “Let’s get to it.”
“This way.” She showed him how to wrap the plants in newspaper and secure them with twine, nestle them in the boxes, and cover them with packing peanuts.
“Assembly line would make this go faster,” he said. “How ’bout you do the wrapping and I’ll do the packing.”
“Sounds fair.” She squatted beside the maidenhair ferns again, finished securing the first one, and passed it on to Pierce. Had any pair of jeans ever fit a butt so perfectly? She rocked back, lost her balance, and ended up sitting on her ass. Seriously, there oughta be a law that a guy who looked like that could not wear tight-fitting jeans.
Pierce turned. “You okay?”
“Fine,” she muttered, and forced her attention back to the ferns. This was what mattered to her, after all. Keeping the plants healthy during this upheaval. Getting things back on track as quickly and easily as possible.
So why was she staring at Mr. Hard Body’s butt again and thinking about that kiss he’d given her in the parking lot? The kiss that had knocked her socks off and put starch in her underwear? Maidenhair ferns, Lace. Adiantum capillus-veneris.
He came back toward her. “This assembly thing doesn’t seem to be working, does it?”
“Huh?”
“You don’t have another plant wrapped for me to pack.”
“Oh.” She shook her head. “No.”
He squatted beside her, started wrapping a fern, his hands moving fast and sure in bold strokes. She watched him, hypnotized. The quick flick of his tanned, muscular wrists, the way his fingers both expertly and gently tucked the paper around the plants as if he’d been doing this his entire life.
“Wow, you’re pretty good at this,” she said. Yes. Stay friendly but cool. That’s the way to play it. “That little fern looks snug and safe.”
“Thanks.” He didn’t look up from his task.
Lori Wilde - [Cupid, Texas 02] Page 13