And the Winner--Weds!

by Robin Wells

  A wave of warmth rushed through her. Don’t take it personally, she warned herself. Austin was the kind of man who would be concerned about anyone in harm’s way. For some reason, though, the realization didn’t kill the tenderness that was taking root inside of her.

  “I guess it was a pretty foolish stunt,” Frannie conceded.

  “You guess?”

  “Oh, all right,” she said grudgingly. “It was.”

  “No kidding.” Austin’s eyes warmed her as they slid over her face. The hint of a smile curved his lips. “But you know what else it was? One of the kindest, bravest things I’ve ever seen.” He reached out and covered her hand with his. His thumb moved over the tops of her knuckles, leaving a trail of heat that raced straight up her arm into her chest.

  Frannie gazed at Austin, and his gaze held hers, just as surely as his fingers did. Her eyes dropped to his lips. What would it be like to kiss a man like Austin, she wondered. A man so thoughtful and sexy and…

  “Here you go,” the waiter said, interrupting her thoughts as he set down their salads.

  Here I go, all right, Frannie thought grimly. Jumping in too deep, too fast. She had no business letting Austin touch her, physically or emotionally. There was no future in a relationship with a man who was not only out of her league, but not interested in commitment.

  She pulled back her hand, but it was too late. The heat of his touch had already burned its way inside of her.

  The sky was deep blue, almost black, when Austin opened the door from the restaurant for Frannie an hour and a half later.

  “That was delicious,” she said.

  Austin nodded. “The best meal I’ve had in weeks.” The best conversation, too, he thought. They’d talked about music and work and movies, about politics and racing and art. He’d found Frannie bright and witty and amusing. He smiled as she stepped out the door. “The company was good, too.”

  “You’re just saying that because I let you do most of the talking.”

  “Ow!” Austin placed a hand over his heart, as if he’d been shot. “Well, that’s what you get for telling me you wanted to know all about racing.”

  “But I did. And it was fascinating.” She reached out and touched his arm, her lips curved in a smile. “I was teasing you just now.”

  You’ve been teasing me all night, Austin thought. Her whole buttoned-down appearance was a tease. All evening long, he’d been itching to take off her glasses, to loosen her hair, to touch the lovely body he knew was hidden under her bulky sweater. “Do you want to go somewhere else? To a movie, or maybe out for a drink?”

  She shook her head. “I have to be at the bank early in the morning. I’d better be getting back.”

  But Austin didn’t want the evening to end. Not yet. “It’s such a beautiful night. Why don’t we walk down by the lake? I saw a path earlier.”

  “All right.”

  He led her to the edge of the parking lot, where a trail headed through the forest toward the lake. He fell into step beside her. About a hundred yards from the restaurant, the path twisted to follow the shoreline, and the restaurant was obscured by the trees. The sounds of the night enfolded them. A soft breeze rustled the leaves overhead, stirring the water just enough to make little lapping sounds against shore. A bullfrog croaked, and a chorus of crickets sang backup.

  Frannie wrapped her arms around herself and gazed out at the night. “It’s so beautiful here.”

  “Seems like we’re miles away from the rest of the world.”

  Frannie nodded. “It’s so unspoiled. Just think—we’re looking at exactly the same view Indians saw centuries ago.”

  “Not exactly the same,” Austin found himself saying. “Nothing stays the same for long.”

  Frannie looked at him curiously.

  “Everything is always in a state of change.” It was a fact he knew all too well, a fact he’d learned as a boy. And because nothing lasted forever, it was best to not get attached to people or to places or to things. “Better to move on while things are good than to hang around and wait for them to turn sour,” his father used to say. So every few months, Austin would stuff all his belongings into his small, brown duffel bag and leave whatever place had come to feel like home. He used to look out the back window of his father’s old truck and cry as they drove away. By the age of ten, he’d learned it hurt less to never look back.

  “If you mean the seasons, well, yes, of course,” Frannie was saying, “But the basic landscape is the same.”

  “Nah. Even that has changed. I’m sure there have been floods and fires. A bolt of lightning hits a tree, then—zap!” He snapped his fingers. “An entire forest is burned down.”

  “Yes, but given enough time, it grows back just as it was. It won’t be exactly the same—not tree for tree, not exactly identical—but the basic character of the land is the same.”

  Austin looked at Frannie. “Like you, huh?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you’re the same person with the same character, but every time I see you, you look different.”

  Frannie shot him a teasing smile. “That’s because some days I wear an egg beret, and other days my face is green, and sometimes I have raccoon rings around my eyes….”

  “…And sometimes you’re so drop-dead gorgeous you nearly stop my heart.” He turned toward her and lifted her hand. It felt small and warm, and the softness of it wrapped around him like a spell. “I had trouble sleeping last night, and it was all your fault. I just lay there, picturing the way you looked in that red dress.”

  Frannie’s smile faded. She stepped back and pulled away her hand. “Last night wasn’t me.” She made a sweeping gesture toward herself. “This is me.”

  Her mood had abruptly darkened. He tried to lighten things up. “So who was the girl I danced with last night? Your secret twin?”

  Frannie’s spine straightened. Her eyes grew serious, her mouth unsmiling. “That was an illusion my cousins created. They wanted to make me over for the evening and I let them, but this is the real me. This is how I usually am.”

  She sounded so defensive, so prickly. Combative, almost. Austin frowned, wondering what he’d done to cause her reaction.

  “I, uh, get the feeling I said some thing wrong.” He rubbed his chin. “I was just saying you looked great last night. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  She seemed offended nonetheless. “Well, don’t get the idea I’m that way all the time.”

  Austin’s frown deepened, along with his confusion. “What do you mean, ‘that way’? Attractive?”

  Her eyes flashed. Her chin tilted up defiantly. “If your idea of attractive is someone who’s all made up and manicured and teetering around on high heels, well, then, yes, that’s what I mean.”

  What was with her? She acted as if he’d insulted her, when he’d been trying to give her a compliment. “Hey, I don’t think it takes any of that stuff to make a woman attractive.”

  “Hmm.” She arched a disapproving eyebrow. “Well, that figures.”

  What had he done now? He stared at her blankly. “What figures?”

  “That you’d prefer the natural beauty type.”

  He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. He pulled his brow into a hard scowl. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She pulled herself so straight and taut she looked in danger of snapping in two. “Well, you obviously prefer the kind of woman who wakes up in the morning looking fresh as a daisy without so much as brushing her teeth. Believe me, there aren’t very many women who can pull that off.”

  He’d obviously said something to upset her, but he was damned if he knew what it was. The infuriating part was that she seemed determined not to tell him. “What in blue blazes are you talking about?”

  She blew out a huffy breath. “There’s no point in pursuing this conversation. I’d like for you to take me home.” She turned and started up the trail.

  “Sorry. No can do.”

  She w
hipped around and glared at him, her eyebrows high. “You won’t take me home?”

  Austin took two steps forward, stopping just inches from her. “I’m not taking you anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on.”

  “Nothing’s going on!”

  Austin’s frustration had built to the point that by all rights, steam should be shooting from his ears. He stuck his face close to hers and scowled. “Damn straight. And I want to know why not.”

  Now she was staring at him as if he were the one who’d lost his mind. “What do you mean, why not?”

  “I brought you out here to kiss you, and we’re arguing instead. And I want to know why.”

  He wanted to kiss her? The concept made Frannie’s head spin. She realized she was staring at him, slack-jawed, and abruptly closed her mouth. “We’re…we’re not arguing,” she finally stammered.

  “Well, we’re damn sure not kissing!”

  They glared at each other, each breathing hard.

  Austin raised both his hands. “Okay. If you say we’re not arguing, I won’t argue with you about whether or not we’re arguing. But would you mind telling me just what the hell it is we’re supposedly discussing?”

  He wanted to kiss her because he’d liked the way she looked last night, she reminded herself. He was attracted to a bunch of cosmetics, not to her. “Your male chauvinism.”

  Austin’s fingers clenched, then unclenched at his sides. His voice was low and calm, but that probably had something to do with the fact that he was speaking through gritted teeth. “Perhaps it would help if you told me exactly how I’m chauvinistic.”

  “You said I looked beautiful last night.”

  “And that somehow makes me chauvinistic.” He rubbed his head, shaking it at the same time. “Well, at the risk of offending you further, I’ve got to admit, sweetheart, I still don’t know what I did wrong.”

  “Last night was smoke and mirrors. This is me.” Frannie gestured toward herself. “The real me. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but this is what I look like without all the artifice.”

  Comprehension broke over his face. “And you think I was just attracted to the trappings?” His eyes glittered with something far more dangerous than his earlier anger. “Well, now, Frannie girl, you’ve got it all wrong.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Oh, yes, you do.” His voice was low and silky, and it made her breath catch in her throat. He took a step toward her. “Besides, it looks to me like you’ve still got a little artifice going there. “

  Frannie nervously backed up. “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, something artificial seems to be holding your hair back.” He took two steps forward, invading her personal space, then reached behind her head and pulled the clip out of her hair. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders. His fingers sifted through it, arranging it on her shoulders. A shiver of pleasure shot through her. “There. That’s better. Much more natural.”

  He inched even closer, until she could feel his breath on her face. “And about those glasses— I’m sure you weren’t born with them. If you’re going to be without any artifice, we’d better get rid of them, too.” His fingers brushed her temple as he gently removed them. “Hmm. Well, now, look at that.”

  He was so close she could smell the faint scent of his shaving cream. It smelled clean and intoxicatingly masculine. “Look at what?” Her voice was a hoarse whisper.

  “You. Now you look exactly like the woman I fantasized about last night.”

  He’d fantasized about her? Frannie’s heart pounded hard against her ribs as he slid her glasses into his back pocket, then placed both hands on her upper arms. His touch was warm and electric. He shifted closer until his nose was less than an inch from hers and she could see the facets in his blue, blue eyes.

  “Your eyes are incredible,” he murmured. “So beautiful, so talkative. They’re talking to me right now.”

  Frannie swallowed, her mouth dry.

  “Can you see at close range?”

  The ability to speak had deserted her. She nodded, her head bobbing as jerkily as a cork on a fishing line.

  “Good. Because I want you to see how very, very much I want to kiss you. Right now. Just the way you look, at this very moment.”

  His eyes were hot and hungry, and she melted under the warmth of his gaze. Her skin ached to be touched. Her lips ached to be kissed. Her fingers ached to feel his skin. Oh, mercy, she was aching all over. Aching of want, of need, of impatience.

  He moved with exquisite, torturous slowness. Slowly, slowly, his hands slid up her arms, to her shoulders. Slowly, slowly—oh, he was killing her with his slowness!—his face moved nearer, his eyes heavy-lidded but still open, still looking straight into hers. The first brush of his lips on hers was soft, as soft as butter fly wings, a soft taunt of a kiss. He pulled back, still gazing into her eyes, then resettled his lips over hers, deepening and expanding the kiss. When he took her bottom lip into his mouth and softly suckled it, she was shocked to hear a moan escape from her throat, shocked to feel her arms reach up to encircle his neck. And then she was lost, swept up like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz in the tornado, transported to another time and place. The world disappeared, gravity lost its power, and her grip on reality grew weaker and fainter and increasingly insignificant.

  “Wow, Frannie,” Austin murmured some time later. He pulled back and looked at her, his eyes glazed, and his breathing labored. “Where did you learn to kiss like that?”

  “I think you just taught me,” she whispered.

  “Well, then, come back to class.” Lowering his head, he pulled her close and reclaimed her mouth.

  Eight

  The moon shone through the pickup wind shield as Austin drove down the tree-lined road an hour later.

  “It’s hard to tell without my glasses,” Frannie said, “but I think you’re about to drive past the house.”

  Sure enough, the truck’s headlights gleamed on a wooden clap board sign that marked the long drive leading to the Big Sky Bed & Breakfast. Austin braked harder than he’d intended, causing the tires to screech. He glanced over at her and grinned. “Sorry. Guess my mind is still on other things.”

  Like that amazing, incredible kiss.

  Austin had kissed a lot of women, but he’d never felt anything like the high-voltage heat he’d felt with Frannie. It was good thing they hadn’t been standing in water at the time or they probably would have electrocuted each other.

  He’d never gotten so carried away in a public setting that he’d forgotten about time and place and decorum. If another couple hadn’t wandered down the path, he would have made love to Frannie right there in the leaves. As it was, he’d had her sweater halfway off when they were interrupted.

  After the startled couple beat a hasty retreat, Frannie had pulled away, straightened her clothes and asked Austin to take her home. He’d been aching to take her back to his ranch, but he hadn’t wanted to pressure her.

  Hell, who was he kidding? He would have been willing to apply all kinds of pressure if he’d thought it stood half a chance of working, but he’d figured it would do no good. Especially after they got back to the truck when he sat down and heard a loud snap.

  Her eye glasses. In his back pocket. He’d broken them to smithereens.

  “I’m really sorry about breaking your glasses,” he told her now for the umpteenth time as he turned into the driveway of the Big Sky.

  “Don’t worry about it. It was an accident.”

  The pickup reached the end of the long drive. Austin flipped off the engine and turned toward Frannie. A light shone from the porch, dimly illuminating her face. He reached out a hand and sifted it through her hair. It was silky and soft and sweet-scented, and it aroused a fresh burst of desire. “When can I see you again?”

  She brushed a strand of hair out of her face, her eyes downcast. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

  “It’s a great idea.” He reached out and cupped her ch
in, urging her to look at him. “There’s so much chemistry between you and me that we should probably wear rubber gloves when we touch.”

  He was glad to see he’d made her smile. “I know.”

  “So?”

  “So that’s why I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”

  Oh, no. She wasn’t going to start another one of those conversations where he didn’t know what the heck she was talking about, was she? “I’m not following you.”

  “We’re awfully different.”

  “Sure. But in a lot of ways, we’re a lot alike. We’re both loners, we share similar tastes in music and movies, we make each other laugh, and we’re incredibly physically attracted.”

  “We want different things out of life.”

  The only thing I want right now is you. Austin sucked in a deep breath, then let it out. What he was dealing with here was a case of stubbornness. He knew a thing or two about stubbornness. Next to a woman, the most stubborn creature on the planet was a horse, and he’d had plenty of practice with stubborn horses. The best way to deal with a balky horse, he’d learned, was to walk away before the creature dug in its heels. That left the door open to try a different approach at a later date.

  “Well, it’s late. I’d better get you inside. Sit tight and I’ll get the door for you.” He strode around the truck, opened her door and helped her down. “I intend to pay for your eyeglasses,” he said as he walked her to the porch.

  “That’s very kind, but it’s not necessary.”

  “But I want to.”

  Frannie grinned. “I really don’t want to have to explain to my optician how they happened to be in your back pocket.”

  Austin grinned back. “Well, then, let me know how much they cost and I’ll reimburse you.”

  “That’s not necessary.” She hurried up the porch steps and stopped, her hand on the door. “Thanks for dinner. I had a wonderful time.”

  “Me, too.” Austin stepped toward her, intending to give her another kiss.