Cowboy in Disguise

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  “Ticklish, are you?”

  He felt her lips on the small of his back. Then the nip of her teeth on his butt.

  He shifted slightly, groaning a little. “Playing with fire, honey.”

  He felt her silent laughter work through him, and then she was slithering again, upward this time, and he was pretty sure his eyes were rolling back in his head at the sensations. She finally stopped sliding again when her breasts reached his shoulder blades and her arms came under his in a backward sort of hug. She kissed the nape of his neck and her breath was warm and sweet against his flesh. “Will you play something for me?”

  He could hardly think straight for the feel of her body plastered against his. He exhaled slowly. Carefully. “Will you let me read one of your sort-of novels?”

  “Touché.” She moved her thigh a few inches along his, then back again. “If you promise not to laugh when you do.”

  “I promise not to laugh.”

  She slid her arms out again from beneath him and started to roll off him but he reached behind and caught her leg again. This time it was her knee.

  “First you can finish having your fun back there,” he said huskily.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said in a prim little voice.

  “Liar.” He laughed softly. “You’re as turned on as I am.” He lifted his head and looked back at her. “How wet are you?”

  Her cheeks were red. The bruised circles under her eyes were almost purple. But her aquamarine eyes met his with that combination of boldness and innocence that was proving to be his undoing.

  “Very,” she said.

  He hardened even more and turned onto his back. “Show me.”

  Her pupils dilated a little. Then she slid her thigh over his and wrapped her hand around him.

  He saw stars.

  Then balancing on her knees, she slowly took him in. To all that heat. To all that sweet, wet heat that encompassed him so flawlessly.

  The moan she gave then was the sweetest note he’d ever heard. It went on and on, singing inside his head, even long after he’d emptied everything that he was inside of her.

  * * *

  The story was about two penguins named Oscar and Aaron and the mischief they got into whenever Mama and Papa Penguin weren’t looking.

  “They’re Toby and Tyler,” he said after he closed the orange-colored binder. “You need to finish this.” He handed it to her. “It’s really sweet.”

  She took the binder and clutched it to her midriff. Her dress was still clanging around inside his dryer and after they’d showered together, she’d pulled on a shirt from his closet. She’d rolled up the too-long sleeves and the tails practically reached her knees.

  As far as Jay was concerned, it would be his favorite way of seeing her dressed from here on out.

  “You’re just saying that because we’ve been playing doctor all afternoon.”

  “I’m saying it because you have a way with words,” he corrected and went to reach for another binder from inside her bag.

  But she pulled it away. “Not so fast, Mr. Cross.” She waved her fingers at the piano behind the couch where they were sitting. “Your turn first.”

  He pulled a face. “I haven’t played in a while.” That much was true.

  “I don’t care.” She dropped her binder in her bag and moved around to sit on the edge of the piano bench. She patted the space beside her. “Make your mama proud.”

  He chuckled, some of the odd tension that had been building inside him beginning to lessen again. He sat down beside her. “Don’t remember ever playing piano wearing nothing but my boxers.”

  Her eyes sparkled. “Is it giving away too much if I admit I’m relieved to hear it?” She tapped two of the keys, discordantly. “Do you need sheet music or something?”

  He shook his head and flexed his fingers comically before settling his index fingers on the keyboard.

  He tapped out a fine rendition of “Chopsticks.”

  She laughed and bumped her shoulder against his. “Even I can play that.”

  The rest of his fingers joined in and “Chopsticks” morphed into the dramatic strains of Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor.

  He made it through the first couple dozen bars, which was a feat in itself since he hadn’t played it since he was a kid.

  But it was enough to leave Arabella staring at him slack-jawed. “That’s not ‘Chopsticks.’”

  “Edvard Grieg.” He gave her a quick kiss and got up from the bench. “Norwegian composer. Only piano concerto he ever wrote. I had to learn it for a recital back in school. I don’t even remember the rest of it.”

  “If you can play like that, why did you ever go into actuarial science?” She followed him into the kitchen.

  “Music might have been my first love, but I was way better at math than I ever was in music theory and it paid for college.” He kissed her nose. “We ate all the fried chicken. All I’ve got in the cupboard are boxes of cereal.” He opened one to show her the truth of it. “And thanks to the workout you’ve put me through, I’m starving.”

  She smirked. “My dress is still in the dryer. So I guess you’re stuck with—” She pulled out the nearest box. “Frosted Fruity Flakes. Seriously?”

  “Don’t make fun. Man’s choice of breakfast cereals is sacred.” He took the box from her and shoved it back on the shelf. “And your dress ought to be dry by now. We can go have dinner at Provisions.” He went through the door that led to a powder room that was so small it always made him feel claustrophobic and into the slightly larger laundry room. When he went back out to her, he was holding her dress. “It’s wrinkled but it’s dry.”

  Even though they’d just spent hours discovering every cell on each other’s bodies, she closed herself in the powder room to change.

  “Not only wrinkled and dry,” she said when she emerged a few minutes later, “but about a size and a half smaller.” She twitched at the hem that was no longer midthigh but a good two inches higher. And while the zipper was done up, the denim hugged her figure in a snug way that it hadn’t before.

  It wasn’t quite indecent, but he didn’t want anyone else seeing her wear it now but him. “I’ll buy you a new dress.”

  She laughed and waved off the offer. “I can buy my own dresses, thank you very much. But,” she said, as she twitched again at the barely-butt-covering hem, “if we’re going to Provisions, I’d better stop off at Brady’s and change first.” She cast him a look. “Not that I’m protesting, but you might need a little more coverage in the clothing department, too.”

  He struck a pose. “Plaid boxers don’t do it?”

  “Anything about you does it for me. But the health code probably says otherwise.” She leaned over to pick up her book bag and showed off a peek of her sunglass-strewn underwear. Then, as if she felt his gaze, she shot him a look over her shoulder and yanked on the hem again.

  He spread his palms. “Only human, honey.”

  Her cheeks colored. Despite her bruised eyes, she was still the prettiest woman he’d ever known. From the outside to the inside, everything about Arabella Fortune was beautiful.

  And now she’d narrowed her eyes to blue slits. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  Like he’d seen his future and didn’t want to face what it would be if it didn’t contain her?

  “Just thinking about the next time Mariana sneaks us in to use the hotel’s hot tub.”

  She made a stern face and pointed her finger at him. “We’re not doing that again. Brady’s already furious with me as it is.” She dropped her hand to delve into her bag again. “But that reminds me. Your shoes are still in my housekeeping cart. And if I don’t set a reminder for myself, I’m going to forget them yet again.” When she pulled her hand back out, she had her cell phone in it. But instead of typing in her little reminder, she j
ust stared at the screen. The color drained from her cheeks, leaving her bruises even more purplish.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She turned the screen to show him. “Fifteen messages. The last time I had fifteen messages, it was after my mom found out Adam had a baby.”

  “Seems like Adam should have been the one getting the messages.”

  She sank onto the arm of the couch as her fingertip began swiping her phone screen. “You don’t understand. Larkin was really sick for a while. Aplastic anemia. He might not have made it if Adam hadn’t been a bone marrow match.” She held the phone to her ear as she listened to a voice message.

  Color reentered her cheeks as fast as it had fled, though, and she hopped off the couch arm. “There’s been a flood at the hotel.”

  He frowned. “From the rain?”

  “I don’t know. I guess?” She was hunting in her bag again. “Where are my keys?”

  “I’ll drive.” He bolted up the stairs and yanked on the first pair of jeans he came to. He pulled on socks and his boots, grabbed a shirt and hustled back down the stairs again. “We’ll run by your brother’s place on the way.”

  They left the barn at a jog, bypassing his grandmother’s house altogether to go straight for the truck. He’d pulled on his shirt by then and she tossed her bag onto the floor, not even noticing this time the way she flashed her sunglass panties at him as she climbed up inside.

  There was never any traffic on the road out to his grandmother’s place, so he pushed the speed without regret. Not even thirty minutes had passed when he pulled up at the curb outside her brother’s house.

  * * *

  Arabella’s heart was hammering as she ran inside. Harper and the boys were sitting in the living room playing Candy Land and she hopped up, scattering the pieces when Arabella rushed inside.

  “Bella! Brady’s been looking—”

  “I know.” She tugged self-consciously at her dress. “I just found out.” She headed up the stairs. “Just going to change,” she called down as she went.

  She replaced her shrunken dress with black leggings and a loose T-shirt, pushed her feet into her tennis shoes and pounded back down the stairs again. Naturally, Harper hadn’t gone to the hotel because she was taking care of the twins.

  “You were with Jay?”

  “Yes.” Arabella reached down and hurriedly provided the hugs that both boys were squawking for. “I just listened to the most recent message. How bad’s the flood?”

  “Really bad. Brady says he’s not sure how much more the hotel can take.”

  Arabella scrubbed her fingers over Murphy’s head when he jumped against her leg, then she hugged Harper as well. “It’s going to be okay. It has to be.”

  She was still repeating those words inside her head when Jay pulled into the hotel parking lot a short while later.

  Unlike the last emergency that had turned out to be a false alarm, there were no fire trucks this time. No police cruisers. No flashing lights, no people swarming around.

  The parking lot was mostly empty, in fact, which for a Saturday evening wasn’t exactly the best thing to see, either.

  Jay parked near the entrance and they started to go inside. But even before they made it to the wide, shallow steps of the entrance, they could see the water flowing over them, pooling at the base and running off to the side in the general direction of the pool.

  “Good grief,” Arabella muttered, stepping more carefully because her tennis shoes were proving to be as useful as water skis. She looked upward. “Do you think it rained here harder than it did out at your place?”

  “It’s possible, I guess.” Jay had closed his hand protectively around her elbow when he’d seen her slip the first time. “Careful.”

  They went up two more steps and when she slid yet again, she muttered an oath and pulled the shoes off altogether. Her bare feet had better traction but when they entered the lobby, the water was even deeper, covering her feet right over her toes. The water was bad enough. But there were brochures and reams of papers floating about in the mess. Flowers from the arrangement that always took center stage in the lobby drifted along with them.

  It seemed like a dozen people were hustling around with big buckets while a dozen more swept at the water with everything from wide brooms to mops to other buckets.

  Nobody was above pitching in. Mariana. Grace Williams. Callum and his brothers. Kane and Brady, who greeted her and Jay’s arrival with a narrow-eyed glare. Even Beulah was there, her sour face tight with concentration as she mopped water into the bucket that Hallie was holding.

  Arabella stopped next to Jason, whose trousers were wet up to his knees while he dragged a trash barrel around in an attempt to capture some of the non-liquid debris. “Here. Let me help.” The poor kid looked about ready to bawl.

  He gladly surrendered the plastic bin.

  “I’m going to check in at security,” Jay said grimly.

  She nodded and watched him work his way through the mess before turning back to the task at hand. “Jason, what happened here?”

  “Sprinkler system went haywire.” He pointed to the ceiling. “Went off out of the clear blue sky and then nobody seemed able to shut it off again.”

  She shook her head, trying to adjust her thinking from a rain flood to a sprinkler system malfunction. “The fire department was just here two days ago because of the alarm going off! Shouldn’t they have noticed then if something was wrong with the system?”

  “There’s no way this was an accident,” Brady said, wielding a push broom nearby to send a wave of water hurtling toward the open front doors.

  Grace Williams had tears in her eyes as she followed behind Brady with a broom of her own.

  Just seeing the woman who was always the epitome of her name in tears was enough to make Arabella feel weepy herself. “What about the guest rooms?” She looked over her shoulder in the general direction of the restaurant. “Roja?”

  “The restaurant’s okay,” Mariana said gruffly. She was out of breath and had wet splotches all over her pants and chef’s coat. “Miracle of miracles.”

  “The guest rooms on the third and fourth floor were spared. But on the second?” Hallie shook her head. She was on her elbows and knees now, wielding a twisted towel like a squeegee to push water ahead of her, aiming, too, for the entrance. “They were evacuated as soon as the sprinklers went off.” Her eyes rested on Arabella’s face for a moment. “Maybe it’s a good thing the vacancies have gotten as high as they have.”

  “What I’d like to know is why the police haven’t been able to figure out who the hell has it in for the hotel.” Beulah dumped a wad of soaking papers into Arabella’s trash bin. “But then that’s the police for you,” she groused and sloshed her way across the lobby again.

  Arabella nudged Mariana toward the leather chairs nearby. “I know they’re wet, but go sit down,” she urged. “Take a breather.”

  The fact that the older woman didn’t argue spoke volumes. Arabella took over the broom that Mariana had been wielding and, leaving the trash bin to Jason once more, added her efforts alongside Grace.

  She knew it was too much to hope that Brady wouldn’t return to the topic of Jay, though she wished he could have waited until they weren’t surrounded by a dozen other people.

  “I’ve been leaving you messages for hours.”

  “My phone was in my bag.” She pushed ahead of him, following her own personal wave of water right outside the doors. She watched the water flow down the terra-cotta steps. “I wasn’t trying to avoid you.”

  “You were with Cross.”

  “All day.” She gave him a tight smile. “So if you’re thinking about trying to lay all this—” she swept out her arm “—at his doorstep, think again.”

  He frowned. “I don’t think Jay did this.”

  “Don’t you? Detective Teas
seems to think he had something to do with the balcony collapse. Are you saying you didn’t know about that?”

  His expression told her well enough that he had. “I’m not saying I agree,” he defended, following her back inside again. “But the guy’s got too many blank spots in his background.”

  “So what if he does? Does anyone’s background hold up perfectly under a microscope? Does yours?” Her annoyance with Brady was well placed in her broad sweeping against the water. No matter how much they pushed out of the building, it still seemed to maintain its depth above her toes. “Why doesn’t the water go down?” Admittedly, she’d only been at it a short while in comparison to everyone else.

  “The worst of it’s been here in the lobby,” Grace said as she wearily pushed her broom past them again. “It was almost ten inches deep before we were able to get the water cut off.”

  “Fire suppression system bypasses the regular water system,” Jay said, reappearing. “Cutting one off doesn’t cut off the other, but in this case, the suppression system’s cutoff was bypassed, too.” He had two long-handled window-washing squeegees in his hand and he gave one to Hallie. “You’re going to ruin your back at that rate.”

  She sat up on her knees, stretching gratefully before pulling herself up to her feet using the squeegee as a crutch. “You’d think I’d still be used to crawling around cleaning under beds and such.”

  “Nothing prepares a person for this,” Arabella said.

  Brady propped his arm on top of his broom. “How did you know the sprinkler system’s cutoff had been tampered with?”

  “Guys in security told me,” Jay said evenly before putting his back into helping sweep the water out of the lobby.

  “I told you I’ve been with him all day,” Arabella muttered through her teeth.

  “Doesn’t mean the damage wasn’t planned another time,” her brother said under his breath.

  She huffed and walked away, moving to the rear of the lobby nearest the elevators. The doors were standing open and she stepped inside the furthest one. Every light on the panel was lit. Lord only knew how badly it would misbehave after this latest calamity.