“How long will it take to fix?” Gloria asked.
“A couple days at least, depends if I can fix the axle or need to order one.”
Next stop was the Gold Dust Hotel, one of Half Moon’s original buildings, harkening back to the gold and silver rush days. It still had the best food and saloon around, which wasn’t saying all that much.
“Thanks,” Gloria said, hand on the door handle, ready to leave.
“So,” Dillon said, before she could open the door. “You still interested in the job?”
Their gazes met and the shock of her clear blue eyes, made brighter by the sun slanting in through the window, resulted in a tightening in his gut and lower parts. Why did the woman have such a visceral effect on him? He hadn’t felt this way about a woman since... Char.
“I need to think about it.”
“What do you need to think about?” Dillon dug his hands into the wheel of the truck to keep from reaching for a strand of flaming hair that fluttered around her head in the breeze of the open window. Silk. He remembered the texture—couldn’t forget, in fact—it was like fine silk.
She gnawed on the corner of her lower lip. “Nothing.” Her mouth smiled but her eyes didn’t. “My car’s going to be here for a few days at least. I’m not going anywhere soon anyway.” She forced a bigger smile, this time showing some teeth. “We’ve worked things out...between us, right?”
Dillon suppressed the grin that wanted to break free. “This is a business relationship. Nothing more.”
“Good.” She rubbed her palms against the front of her dress pants. “Now that we’ve got that sorted, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t stay.”
“No reason,” Dillon added.
“Okay. Then, I’ll see you later.” She stepped down from the truck. “Oh, and Dillon?” She leaned in through the open window. “I guess I’ll need a ride out to the ranch tomorrow.”
“Sure thing, Red.”
Her eyes flashed, as he knew they would, but she didn’t say anything about his pet name for her. Dillon drove off, giving in to the grin that split his chops.
6
GLORIA WANDERED DOWN the main street of Half Moon Creek looking over her shoulder for cameras and staged gunfights. The place was like a Western movie set. Seriously. It couldn’t be more Old West if it tried. Was it a mistake to take the contract? Maybe. Maybe not. It didn’t really matter now. She was here, she was stuck and she needed the money. End of story. This thing between her and Dillon? It was manageable. She’d gotten Dillon’s word that nothing would happen between them and she could control herself around the man. Hell, she’d even managed to control herself when he’d called her Red.
As she walked, she passed a café, the Bank of Missoula and, across the street, a town hall and square. After walking past a Laundromat and a hardware store, Gloria stopped. She gazed in through the window of a shop called Mesa Verde Furniture, Decor and More. As she entered, a little bell jangled. Standing in the doorway, Gloria gazed around in awe. Here in the middle of nowhere was a beautiful store filled to overflowing with southwestern decor: furniture, rugs, lamps, throws, candles, wall hangings and everything a decorator could want. She wandered toward the back where there were knickknacks. So many things, perfect for furnishing the house.
“Excuse me?” Gloria called as she approached the woman behind the counter who was organizing crystals on a shelf behind her. She wore a full, multicolored broomstick skirt and loose cotton blouse and had gray hair plaited in a braid down her back.
“Oh!” The woman finally turned around, a wide bright smile lighting her weathered face. “I didn’t hear you come in.” She had the most interesting eyes, so light they were probably gray but almost appeared white.
“No problem.” Gloria smiled in reply to the woman’s warm expression.
“What can I do for you?”
Gloria leaned forward and described what she wanted—to be able to rent furniture from the shop in order to stage the ranch house. “If a place is staged well, with the right furnishings, the buyer often asks for furnishings included. So you’d get the rental as well as the sale price. What do you think?”
The woman drummed her fingers on the countertop, but then her face split into a grin. She stuck her hand out. “I think we have a deal, Gloria.”
Shaking her soft hand, Gloria asked, “How did you know my name?”
“Oh, honey, you’re not in Chicago anymore.”
* * *
DILLON MADE HIS way up to the bar. “Hey, Beth,” he said to the woman behind the counter, who was an old schoolmate and happened to be the eldest of Max Ozark’s girls. “Bud, please.” He pointed to his favorite draft pull. As Beth poured, he asked, “Did Lacy lose her tooth yet?”
“Last night.” Beth smiled. “But the little rascal was determined to stay awake for the tooth fairy. So the poor fairy didn’t get a lot of sleep.”
He grinned. “Being a fairy is hard work.”
“You said it.” She slid the cold glass across the bar to him, leaving a wet streak in its wake. “You know what the word is around town these days, don’t you?” She leaned her elbows on the bar, her eye alight with mischief. “Talk is, Char ran off because there was something going on between you and Kenny the whole time.” She covered her mouth to suppress her laughter.
“I was wondering if that was the rumor.”
She shook her head. “Not that anyone cares.”
“Right.”
“Only Reverend Harness.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You could have done worse than Kenny. He was a good guy.”
Dillon picked up the pint. “To Kenny.” He drank deeply.
“To Kenny,” Beth repeated before wiping the moisture off the countertop. “Of course, then there’s Chicago over there.” Using her chin, Beth pointed to a table in the corner where Gloria was sitting, eating what appeared to be a salad and drinking a glass of white wine.
“You have wine?”
“I’m as surprised as you.”
He grinned. The sight was just so...wrong for Prospectors Saloon. Dillon turned back around and rubbed his jaw to keep from laughing.
With her elbows on the bar top, Beth said, “People are wondering about your relationship with her, too. It makes for some interesting speculation.”
“Good Lord.” Dillon tilted his hat back. “People need to get a life around here.”
“Aw, c’mon, Dilly Bar. You know how it is. We need to be entertained. You’re it at the moment. By the time the county fair comes around I’m sure there’ll be something else to talk about. Mickey Donaldson will get drunk and light a fire. Eric and Addie will break up but get back together before it’s all said and done. You know how it goes.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You hungry?”
“Already ate.”
“Singing tonight?”
“Thought I might.”
Beth looked at her watch. “We’ll get started in half an hour. That work?”
He nodded. Picking up his beer, he said, “Guess I’ll go feed the rumor mill.” He ambled across the wide-slat, wooden floor to where Gloria was seated. “Heya.”
“Hi.”
Was it his imagination or was there a pretty pink stain creeping up Red’s chest, continuing up her neck to her cheeks? Damn, he never thought blushing was sexy before.
“May I join you?”
“Sure.” She indicated the empty seat with her salad fork and moved a notebook out of the way so he could set his beer down.
“How’s the salad?”
Crinkling her nose, she said, “A little wilted, to be honest.”
Dillon laughed. “Well, it’s not really the Prospectors’ signature dish.”
“No? What is?”
“You’re in cattle country, darlin’. What do you think?”
Shrugging, she sipped her wine and crinkled her nose after that, too.
“Steak and beer, babe.”
“Of course.” Setting the glass down firmly, Gloria said, “Please don’t call me ‘babe.’” She paused. “Or ‘darling.’”
Lifting his hat off his head, he ran a hand through his hair before replacing it. “Won’t happen again, Red.” He pressed his lips together, waiting for her to say something about Red. She didn’t, though the comment deepened the color in her cheeks.
She straightened her shoulders. “What are you doing here, Dillon?”
“You might have noticed this is one of the few places in town to eat.”
She pointed at his beer. “You’re not eating.”
He lifted his pint to her. “Very astute.” Using his raised glass to point, he indicated the six-foot-by-six-foot raised stage in the opposite corner. “Open mic tonight.”
“You’re singing?”
“Thought I would.”
She blinked rapidly, lifted her wineglass and polished off what was probably a skunky wine, based on the expression she made. “That’s nice.”
Huh. Something had gotten Red riled. What was it?
“So.” She kept her eyes downcast as she moved salad around her plate. “I spoke to Walt. He says he’s got to order parts. Could take a few days.”
Dillon nodded. “That’s what I figured.” He nudged the notebook. “What’s this?”
“My plan of attack.”
“And what might that be?”
“First step is declutter. And with a place the size of that ranch, that’s going to take a lot of work. Part of that is eliminating at least half of the furniture. You’ll have to decide what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of or sell.”
“I’ll probably give away most of it. There’s a Quonset where we can store stuff until I figure that out.”
Gloria watched him closely before turning her attention back to the list in her notebook. “After we’ve cleared the space, we’ll want to paint and fix anything that needs fixing. We also need to refinish the floors and maybe update the kitchen appliances, that kind of stuff.”
Dillon nodded in acceptance while his brain was shouting, Holy shit! That was a ton of work, way more than he’d bargained for. There went his idea of just sticking a for-sale sign up on a fence post and being done with it.
“I did some market comparisons and there seem to be a number of ranches available in this area. If you want to sell, you have to set yourself apart. Attract the right kind of buyer. Max was telling me that you’re interested in the celebrity type.”
“I don’t really care as long as whoever buys it actually runs the place. Max is the one jostling for a celebrity.” Dillon didn’t feel like explaining he wanted something different for Kenny’s ranch than what had happened to his family’s place.
“I’m going to need boxes to pack things. Usually I bring in a Dumpster for all the throwaway. A place like this could use two or three.” She paused to take a long drink of water.
“The dump is twenty miles away—we’ve got trucks to haul stuff. I can get the boys to help.”
“Okay.” Gloria used the menu on the table to fan herself.
“What’s wrong, Red? You hot?” Even though he hadn’t intended for his comment to be sexual, it came out sounding that way and he wasn’t the only one who realized it. Gloria’s already rosy cheeks heated up a notch and Dillon had to squelch the urge to lean over and press a kiss there, tasting her heated skin.
Gloria cleared her throat and said, “I...ah...stopped into a store down the way. Mesa Verde?”
Without skipping a beat, she was all business again. “Oh, yeah?”
“I spoke to the owner.”
“Sage?”
“Yes.”
“What did you talk to her about?” Sage Morningsong was a Half Moon fixture, her great-grandmother heralded from the Crow Nation, her great-grandfather, Charlie Spencer, was one of the founders of Half Moon, though Sage adopted her ancestors’ maternal last name. She and his mother had been close, and to this day, Sage invited him for supper at least once a week. She was an interesting woman with all kinds of weird and wacky stories, and Dillon enjoyed her company. It didn’t hurt that she was a great cook. But, she also had this way about her that made him uneasy, like she knew things she had no business knowing. Not that Sage was a gossip—it was more like she saw more. Sensed more. Knew exactly what was what. What he’d done. Who he was. What he was thinking.
He realized Gloria was still talking, explaining how she wanted to rent furniture to stage the house. It sounded fine by him. He liked the idea of keeping business local and the stuff in Sage’s shop was nice. It’d look good in the house.
“I already picked out a few items. A couple of sofas, some chairs. Some art.”
Tipping his hat at her, he said, “You move fast.”
“If I’m here to do a job, I’m going to do it.”
“Good, and I’ll pick up what I can and take it out tomorrow.”
Gloria folded the paper napkin—as if it was some kind of fancy cloth thing—and stood up. “Guess I’ll head up, then.”
“You’re not going to hang around?”
She sucked a corner of her lip into her mouth. Damn. It was adorable and hot as hell, reminding him of the greedy way she sucked on his lips back in that hotel room in Chicago.
“I’m tired.”
“Right.”
“It’s ten o’clock back home. Time difference.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay, then.”
He stood because that was what you did when a woman was leaving the table, but the gesture seemed to surprise her and she took a step toward him, tilting her head to gaze up into his face. Sweet mercy, the urge to reach for her, to draw her into his arms, was overpowering.
“See you tomorrow,” she whispered.
“Uh-huh.” He removed his hat. “Sleep well, Red.”
* * *
GLORIA DID NOT sleep well. The walls of the old hotel were paper-thin and Dillon’s voice floated up through the night air as if he stood right outside her window serenading her. She could even itemize every song he sang.
“The Thunder Rolls,” by Garth Brooks. “Then,” by Brad Paisley. “Through the Years”... Kenny Rogers.
Only some of her favorite songs by some of her favorite country artists, except sung in Dillon’s deep, rich voice. Her imagination went wild, picturing him propped right beside her in bed, shirtless, muscles rippling as he hugged the guitar, playing it as though it were a woman he was making love to. Yep. Sleep was not in the cards when her mind was so intent on playing out dirty, sexy fantasies featuring Dillon Cross.
She didn’t even have to make shit up. All she had to do was remember because the memories were closer to the surface than she’d like to admit. The taste of Dillon’s mouth, warm and wet. The feel of his short beard against her cheek, against her thighs. His talented hands, sometimes gentle, sometimes rough. Who knew calluses could be the source of such immense pleasure?
She shivered.
“What the hell am I going to do?” she whispered to herself.
Do him, was the answer.
Gloria scooched down beneath the thin sheet. The air in the hotel room was warm—she should probably turn on the air conditioner, except the hum might drown out the sound of Dillon’s voice. She reached a hand beneath the band of her panties and slipped a finger inside.
Wet. Just thinking about him had her drenched.
Oh, this was bad.
Finally, Dillon handed the microphone to someone else, it was a female. Who? The pretty bartender that had made him laugh?
She flipped over in be
d. It was eleven o’clock her time but it didn’t matter. Tired as she was, sleep was a long way off. So, she got up, opened her laptop and created a new file using her 3D interior design software. Work was the only thing that was going to take her mind off Dillon.
7
THE NEXT MORNING Gloria was roused by a ringing telephone beside the bed. It took her a few moments to orientate herself and to figure out where she was.
“Hello?” she said, her voice thick from disuse.
“Heya, Red.”
“Dillon?”
“Yep. You up?”
“Where are you?”
“Downstairs. You ready to go?”
Shit! What time was it? The clock on the bedside table read eight o’clock. That couldn’t be right. “Give me ten minutes.”
“I’ll give you twenty.”
Gloria had the fastest shower of her life and then went through her suitcase to find something suitable. Today was going to be a physical day, moving furniture, cleaning—she needed to wear comfortable clothes. Plus, according to her weather app, it was going to be warm. Yoga pants and a T-shirt would have to do. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and applied her makeup.
She was downstairs with five minutes to spare. That gave her time to grab a coffee and muffin from the restaurant. When she went back out to the lobby, Dillon was there, leaning against the front desk, talking and laughing with the woman who worked there. She looked a lot like the bartender from last night, maybe a few years younger. Pretty in a wholesome girl-next-door sort of way.
When Dillon saw her, he straightened up to his full, ridiculous height and a low, steady throb pounded through her.
“Morning, Red.”
“Dillon.” She nodded at the girl behind the counter who was pretending to be busy with the computer but Gloria had already seen she was playing solitaire.
Dillon held the door for her as they went outside. The back of his truck was piled with furniture, covered in tarps and secured with rope. “Wow. You don’t mess around.”
He opened the truck door for her. God, when was the last time a guy had done that?
Big Sky Seduction Page 6