by Robin Wells
And then, of course, there was the memory of that kiss.
He couldn’t remember ever responding so intensely to someone on a first kiss. She hadn’t seemed exactly immune to him, either. There had been more heat in that kiss than in his car’s radiator after fifty laps. Whatever it was that drew people together—chemistry or pheromones or vibrations or whatever—the two of them had it in spades.
He rested his forearms on the green Formica-topped table and watched her take a sip of coffee. Lucky cup, he thought absently. It got to feel the press of her lips.
“How come a great gal like you isn’t spoken for?”
Frannie set down her cup and lifted her shoulders. “Mr. Right just hasn’t come along.”
“Had any close calls with Mr. Wrong?”
“One. When I was in college.”
“What was he like?”
Frannie’s eyes grew somber, but her mouth twisted into a wry smile. “That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether you’re asking what I thought he was like at first, or what I’d found out about him by the time we broke up.”
“I’d like to know both.”
Frannie sighed. “Well, when I met him, I thought he was wonderful. A few months later, I’d learned he was a lower life form than plankton.”
She had a real way with words. Austin grinned. “What happened?”
Frannie toyed with the handle of her coffee cup. “He dumped me for my college roommate.”
Austin shook his head. “What an idiot.”
Frannie raised an eyebrow, her mouth pulled into a small grin that was half amused, half sad. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen my roommate.”
“Yes, I would. I’ve seen you.”
Frannie stared down at her coffee cup, nonplussed. “Well, Ginger transferred to the university the second semester of my junior year. She was the blond, busty, golden-girl type. A dead ringer for Pamela Anderson.”
Austin reached out and covered her hand. The contact of skin on skin caused a rush of heat to shoot up his arm. He saw her eyes grow wide, saw her pupils dilate, and knew she felt it, too. “Well, you’re better than any old dead ringer. You’re one of a kind. A real original. Not a second-hand version of anyone.”
She kept her eyes down, but he saw her swallow, saw the corners of her mouth form a faint smile. He ran his thumb over her knuckles. “So this guy—he really hurt you, huh?” he asked softly.
Frannie shrugged, but her eyes remained downcast. “I’m over it.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Prove it.”
Frannie looked up, her eyes wary. “And just how do you propose I do that?”
“Say you’ll spend Saturday with me.”
“Oh, Austin…”
He leaned forward. “I’m going to be hitting the road Sunday, and I’ll be gone for about three weeks. I have races every weekend, and my sponsors have me booked with appearances in between. Saturday is the only day I’ll have off for nearly a month, and I’d like to spend it with you, at my ranch. We can go horse back riding. I’ll even cook for you.” He squeezed her hand and smiled. “If you say no, I’m going to figure you’re not really over this guy.”
Her eyes were full of reproach. “I don’t have to prove anything to you.”
His hand tightened over hers. “No. But maybe you need to prove something to yourself.”
Frannie’s fingers tensed inside his palm. She looked at him, and he could see the wariness in her eyes. “Austin, I don’t think this is too wise….”
Austin grinned. “I’ve never been accused of being too wise.”
“You and I… We’re complete opposites.”
“Then I guess what they say about opposites attracting is true.”
A waitress in a green-and-white-striped apron appeared at their table with two plates of pancakes. Austin reluctantly turned loose of Frannie’s hand.
Don’t give her a chance to say no, he reminded himself. Instead of pressing the issue, he needed to figure out a way around her resistance.
Nine
Frannie was searching through a file cabinet behind her desk at the bank later that day when she heard a familiar voice. “Hi, Frannie. Ready to go?”
Startled, Frannie straightened and turned to see Austin standing in front of her desk. “Go? Go where?”
His smile warmed the air around her by at least twenty degrees. “On a picnic. I’ve got two boxes of fried chicken in my car, and I’m taking you to the park.”
Frannie shook her head. “I can’t. I’m supposed to have lunch with a customer who wants to discuss investment options. My boss set it up.”
“I know.” Austin’s smiled widened. “Pretty clever on my part, don’t you think?”
She stared at him blankly. “You mean…”
He nodded. “Yep. I’m your client.”
A surge of alarm rushed through Frannie.
“Come on,” Austin urged. “Let’s go. Boss’s orders.”
Frannie frowned. She didn’t like the feeling of being set up. “Austin, this is entirely inappropriate.”
“Now, why is that? I have an account at this bank. Aren’t I entitled to a little personal service?”
“Probably not the kind of service you have in mind. Besides, Mr. Billings is going to expect me to come back with a piece of business.”
“And you will. You can tell him you talked me into investing another hundred grand in C.D.s.”
“I thought you didn’t make safe investments. You said the stock market was a lot more exciting.”
Austin leaned across the desk and gave her a sexy smile. “Frannie, Wall Street doesn’t have anything nearly as exciting as the assets this bank has going for it.”
He was manipulating her, pulling her strings like a puppeteer. And just like a puppet, she was responding. She fought against it. “Now wait just a minute. Just because you’re going to put more money into this bank doesn’t mean I’m going to…to—”
His lazy grin grew wicked and sexy. “To what? Engage in customer relations?”
“Exactly.”
“Ah, Frannie, I’m not asking for anything inappropriate. All I want is a little of your time, and your boss was kind enough to allow me to have it.”
Frannie put her hand on her hip. “Austin, if you’ve already decided to make the investment, then we can do the paperwork right now and forget about lunch.”
“Did I say I’d already made the decision?” His eyes grew round and innocent. “Oh, gee, I’m sorry if I gave that impression. I’m afraid you’ll have to talk me into it. Over lunch.” He flashed a devilish grin.
Frannie felt her resistance crumbling. The more time she spent around Austin, the more it eroded. She would have none left at all if she were exposed to much more of his charm. She decided to play the guilt card. “What I really need to do with my lunch hour is pick out some new glasses.”
“Okay. We’ll take care of that together, then we’ll go on our picnic.”
“That will take too much time.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. Your boss expects it to be a long lunch.”
Frannie tensed. “What, exactly, did you tell him?”
“Just that I trust your judgment and want your financial advice, and that I have a very complicated portfolio to discuss. I told him it might take two or three hours.”
It was useless to fight against his appeal. He was incorrigibly charming, relentlessly persistent. He could charm the raisin out of a cookie—and the heart out of Frannie’s own chest.
Which was exactly why she was worried.
Frannie shot Austin an irritated glare as they left the optical shop. “You knew I didn’t want you to do that.”
“Do what?” Austin flashed that annoyingly innocent look again as he opened the passenger door to his pickup for her.
“Pay for my eye glasses.” She’d practically created a scene, trying to pay for them herself. But Austin had been qu
ick on the draw with his American Express card. The staff had been smitten at having a celebrity in their midst and had been more than happy to let him have his way.
Austin climbed into the driver’s seat, checked the rearview mirror, then carefully pulled the pickup out of the parking spot. “Now, Frannie, I was responsible for breaking your glasses, and I felt really bad about it. You don’t want me to go around lugging a big old load of guilt, do you?”
It was maddening, how impossible he was to argue with. Frannie shook her head and sighed.
“Besides,” Austin said, a mischievous grin curving his lips. “Maybe now you’ll think of me every time you put them on.”
That’s exactly what I’m afraid of, Frannie thought ruefully. Austin was getting too close, too fast. And she was going to end up getting hurt. She twisted around on the leather seat to confront him. “Look, Austin, I don’t like the way you’re trying to take over my life.”
“I’m not trying to take it over.” His mouth was smiling, but his eyes were serious. “I just want to share a little of it with you.”
Of all the things he could have said, why did he have to say that? The one thing she wanted more than anything else was to share her life with someone—someone she could laugh with and confide in, someone to have and to hold and to love. Someone warm and bright and funny. Someone just like Austin.
The thought sent a dart of terror zinging through her. Oh, dear heavens, was she falling in love with him? No. She couldn’t be. She wouldn’t let herself. It would be a terrible mistake. Falling in love with Austin was a guaranteed ticket to a heartache. She was looking for forever, and he wasn’t in the market for commitment.
He’d said he wanted to share a little of her life, Frannie reminded herself. The operative word in the statement was little. A little of her life, for a little while.
To her chagrin, she realized Austin was braking in front of the city park. He killed the engine and grinned over at her. “If you’ll bring the chicken, I’ll get the blanket and drinks out of the back of the truck.”
Before she knew it, he’d led her to a secluded spot by the duck pond. He’d evidently scouted the park before coming to the bank, because he led her without hesitation to a spot too private to be stumbled upon by accident. A thick stand of red cedar shielded the site from the west and north, and a sprawling caragana bush provided privacy to the east. Even the view of the pond was partially blocked by a flowering potentilla shrub.
Frannie helped Austin spread a large blanket on the ground, then sank beside him, gazing out at a narrow stretch of pond, feeling hidden from the world.
“This is a beautiful park,” Austin remarked. “Is the pond natural, or did the city build it?”
“It’s actually an old quarry,” Franny said. “It gets really deep just a few feet from shore.”
“That must be why the water looks so blue.”
Frannie leaned back on her elbows, enjoying the view. Through the yellow-flowered branches, she watched a toddler in a pink jumpsuit giddily throw pieces of bread to three white ducks across the pond. The child looked to be about two years old. Frannie could see the child’s mother sitting on a nearby bench, a newborn baby in her arms, calling encouragement to the child. The woman’s hair was the same shade of deep gold as the little girl’s. Lucky woman, Frannie thought wistfully—two beautiful children. She probably had a husband who adored her, too. That was what Frannie longed for—a family of her own, a life filled with love.
It was not the kind of life she was likely to ever have with Austin.
Why was she having such inappropriate thoughts about Austin? She needed to stop it, and stop it immediately. Frannie sighed.
Austin heard her. “What are you thinking?”
Frannie gazed up at the overhanging branch of a blue spruce and stared through the deep green needles at a deep blue sky. “About what a gorgeous day it is,” she lied.
Austin nodded. “Summers in this part of Montana are about as perfect as weather can get. I’m not a big fan of oppressive heat. I remember a summer in southern Louisiana when I thought I was going to parboil. And I spent more than a few summers in Texas and Oklahoma where I dry-roasted.”
Frannie looked over at him. “You’ve lived a lot of places.”
“More than my share.”
She was curious about his family, curious why he seemed so reluctant to talk about them. “You said the other day that your dad started moving when your mother left.”
“Yeah.” Austin unzipped the padded red cooler and pulled out a soft drink. He popped the top and handed it to Frannie.
Her fingers closed around the cold can. “Where did she go?”
“She took off with another guy.” A pop top hissed as Austin opened another can of soda. He took a long drink. “She’d always had a dream about making it big as a country-western star. She wanted to go to Nashville, and he evidently promised to take her there.”
“So she just up and left you?”
“Yeah.”
Frannie sat stock-still, stunned by the concept. The idea of abandoning a child was as alien to her as the concept of life on Mars. “What was she like?”
Austin shrugged. “My memory of her is kind of hazy. She wasn’t like other kids’ moms. I mean, she didn’t cook or clean, and she wasn’t much on playing with me or taking me places. She didn’t even want me to call her Mom when Dad wasn’t around.”
“Why not?”
“She said it was bad for her image. She wanted me to call her Daisy.” Austin took a long swig of soft drink and leaned back on his elbows. “That was her stage name.”
“Was she talented?”
“Who knows? I thought she was, but I was just a child.” He gazed out at the pond. “I don’t remember hearing people talk too much about her talent, but everyone always raved about her beauty. She had long blond hair and big blue eyes, and she looked like a movie star.”
“What else do you remember about her?”
Austin stretched out his legs. “She loved having an audience. She sang and played guitar in bars every chance she got, whether she got paid or not. She and my father had a lot of arguments over it.”
He picked a rock off the ground beside the blanket and absently turned it in his palm. “My dad was working two jobs, trying to give her all the things she wanted. While he was working, she’d go to the bars. Some nights she’d take me with her. I’d just sit in the corner and pretend I was in visible. I got pretty good at it. Sometimes I believed I really was.”
Austin expertly skimmed the stone on the water, making it skip three times. The toddler across the pond watched with wide-eyed delight.
“Daisy was a big dreamer. She loved to talk about what life would be like when she made it big. She said we’d have a big white-columned house like in Gone With the Wind, and it would have a big swimming pool. She said we’d invite all the neighborhood kids over for swimming parties. We’d serve ice cream and soda pop.” Austin’s mouth twisted into a tight smile. “I used to believe her.”
Frannie’s heart turned in her chest. “Oh, Austin,” she whispered.
“The night she left, she told me she had to go away so she could become a big star. She said she’d come back for me and when she did, we’d live together in that big white-columned house. I clung to her and cried. I told her I didn’t care about the house. I just wanted her.”
He picked up another rock. “She pried my hands from her neck, and she walked away. The man was waiting for her outside. I could hear his car engine running when she opened the door.” A nerve worked in Austin’s cheek. “I remember the way that door sounded when it closed behind her. It made a real empty, hollow sound. It seemed like I could feel it in the pit of my stomach.”
The lump in Frannie’s throat made it hard to speak. “Did you ever see her again?”
Austin shook his head. “We got word less than a year later that she’d died in a car accident.” Austin threw another stone. “Right after that, we moved. And we just
kept moving. Dad never wanted to put down any roots. Said life was easier if you never got too attached to anyone or anything.”
The story explained so much about this man. “Is that what you think, too?” she asked softly.
Austin shrugged. “It sure makes it easier to do what I do for a living.”
“But you’ve bought a ranch. You must want some roots.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve always wanted a place with some permanence, a place I could go back to.” Austin rolled his eyes. “Disgustingly typical, isn’t it? People always want what they’ve never had. In my case, that’s a home.”
And love. It sounded like he’d never had love. Did he want that, too? Frannie gazed at his profile, her heart twisting. If he did, he wasn’t likely to ever admit it, even to himself. His brief experience with love had hurt too much.
“What was your father like?” she asked.
Austin lifted a shoulder. “The tall, silent type. After Mom left, he got to where he hardly spoke at all. He took it hard. He tried to be a good dad, but I don’t think he knew much about raising kids. He did the best he could.”
What a sad, lonely childhood he’d had. Frannie reached out and touched his arm. “Austin, I’m so sorry.”
“Hey, there’s nothing to be sorry about. That was all a long time ago. It’s water under the bridge.”
But Frannie wasn’t so sure. Abandonment by a mother—that wasn’t the kind of thing a person was likely to ever get over. And from what he’d just told her about his father, his dad had been too deeply wounded to take up the slack. She couldn’t imagine the kind of pain Austin must have felt. Must still feel in many ways.
Austin straightened and smiled. “Hey, I’m starved. Let’s dig into that chicken.”
Frannie passed him a box, and the conversation drifted to lighter topics. They were finishing their chicken and discussing a mystery novel they’d both read when a loud splash sounded across the water. Frannie looked through the veil of leaves and flowers to see a flash of pink flailing in the dark water.