EARLY SUNDAY AFTERNOONS were usually Margot’s favorite. They were a time for sleeping in, then lounging on the balcony of her condo with a cup of tea while taking in the view of the fruit trees and bricked walkways that decorated her complex. They were full of sunny moments reading the paper, savoring the scones she liked to pick up at the local bakery the night before.
But this Sunday?
Was the polar opposite. And Dani seemed to sense it, too, as she took a seat across from Margot at the hotel’s café, where only a few other customers were talking quietly over late breakfasts.
Luckily, none of them had been at the auction last night, so Margot had been enjoying a little peace while waiting for both Leigh and Dani before they wiled away the hours before the final event—a formal dinner at the hotel.
“Morning, sunshine,” Dani said, plopping into her seat with an impish grin. She looked just as fresh as a rose, her red curls pulled back into a ponytail and a white blouse tied at the waist. A high flush colored her smooth, pale cheeks.
Nice to know that someone in the hotel had enjoyed a good night. “Peppy, aren’t you?”
“I had a great time last night. Why shouldn’t I be full of smiles when I was so highly entertained? If you hadn’t taken off like a shot after the auction—and if you’d returned my calls—we could’ve had a good laugh about things over drinks.”
“I texted you back.” Margot had wanted to be by herself, where she couldn’t see everyone’s amusement as the reunion continued.
Didn’t Dani get it? Clint Barrows had been instrumental in embarrassing her publicly once before and here he was again, bidding on her basket, making sure everyone knew that he was still the fraternity stud and that being slapped back in college wasn’t going to stop him.
The waiter interrupted, and Dani asked for orange juice and fried eggs. Margot, who already had her Earl Grey tea, ordered a fruit bowl. Leigh had asked her to get black-as-night coffee and waffles topped with lots of fresh strawberries.
After the server had left, Margot took up where their conversation stopped. “So last night tickled your funny bone.”
“I wouldn’t put it that way.”
“Good. Because there wasn’t much that was funny about it.”
“Margot.” Dani smiled gently. “It’s not every night that someone pays a thousand smackaroos for one of my best friends. Can’t you see what a compliment that was? As far as I’m concerned, Clint was showing that he values you. It would’ve been more embarrassing if your basket had gone for peanuts.”
Right. A thousand-dollar bid. Margot didn’t want to even consider what kind of indecent proposals Clint Barrows was no doubt thinking he would discover inside her basket.
Perv.
“It wasn’t a compliment,” Margot said, cupping both hands around her mug. “Clint just wanted to show everyone that he’s out to close the deal on that video.”
“But that was years ago.” Dani cleared her throat as the waiter brought her juice. An elderly couple passed their table, and she lowered her voice. “Riley says that Clint doesn’t have anything up his sleeve.”
“Fraternity brothers. They look out for each other...unless they’re Jay Halverson.”
“Who got blackballed, by the way. And Riley wouldn’t lie to me about Clint.”
Dani just sat there for a moment, long enough so that Margot stopped fiddling with her mug and settled back into her seat.
“He says Clint’s changed, and he’s got some very real adult problems to deal with now. For one thing, his two brothers are trying to force him into doing business on his ranch their way.”
A surprising pang hit Margot. Maybe it was because she’d always had a soft spot for underdogs. But...Clint? She’d never seen such an arrogant one, so she doubted her instincts.
“How can his brothers do that if it’s not their ranch?” she asked.
A small smile lit Dani’s face. She obviously thought Margot was interested or something.
“Clint’s father left him the majority percentage of the ranch after he passed away, but they’ve been hinting that, since they own a part of it, they might get legal about the way the ranch is being run.” Dani shrugged. “But I don’t do business, so what do I know?”
Margot hated when Dani got like this—lacking in confidence. “You could’ve had your own business, Dan. Still could.”
Dani didn’t say anything, but she had a faraway look in her eyes.... A hint of something that Margot had never seen there before, as if she was really thinking about what Margot had said for the first time since they’d known each other.
But it disappeared when Leigh arrived, dressed in a fancy, silver-threaded cowgirl shirt that nipped in at the waist, plus jeans and a pair of hand-worked boots. She’d fixed her blond hair into a low braid that hung down her back.
She sat, resting a booted ankle on her knee, stretching her arms as if she’d just rolled out of bed.
“Finally,” Margot said, signaling to the waiter to bring Leigh’s coffee. “Someone who can take the heat off me about last night.”
“Oh, goody,” Leigh said, putting her hands behind her head and closing her eyes. “We have to launch into this first thing.”
Dani brightened up. “No matter how many drinks we plied you with last night, we couldn’t get the truth out of you about your bidder.”
“And why should I start pouring out my soul this morning?” Leigh asked, accepting a mug from the waiter and blowing on her steaming coffee.
As Margot and Dani darted expectant looks at her, Leigh finally rolled her eyes in surrender.
“There’s nothing to report, girls. I don’t know any more information about who won my basket than I did twelve hours ago.”
“Nothing?” Margot asked.
“Nothing. Beth Dahrling said she’d been instructed not to tell me much—just that a secret admirer had asked her to represent him at the auction. Apparently, he’s out of town on business for a while, and that’s why he sent a representative.”
“Aren’t you wary of the situation?” Dani asked, but the rush of excitement in her voice made her a liar.
Margot waggled her eyebrows. “So he’s got to be one of the brothers. I’m going to get on the computer and do some research, narrow it down, come up with an answer.”
“I already did a search,” Dani said. “I haven’t come up with any candidates who can afford to spend five thou on a basket.”
Leigh shrugged. “Don’t bother trying anymore.”
“Is there anyone you’re hoping it is?” Margot asked.
She anticipated what came next: Leigh getting that “who cares?” posture, one arm resting on the back of her chair, the rest of her body just as languid.
“You all know me,” she drawled. “Chubby girls don’t get a lot of action in college, so I didn’t bother with crushes. I didn’t pay much attention to the brothers in that way, and I can’t believe any of them paid much mind to me.”
She was half-right. Leigh had been just as focused as Margot on her studies, doing a lot of side projects like creating campus cookbooks and working on the Cal-U Rodeo Days as one of the student board members each year. But now, after the weight loss and a whole lot of career success, things had to be different for Leigh.
Right?
Margot surveyed her for a second, and Leigh squirmed in her chair.
“Just say it,” she muttered.
“Well, clearly someone paid attention to you,” Margot said.
“Or,” Leigh shot back, “they saw my show on TV and they suddenly got interested. Let’s not make this into some epic love story.”
“I don’t know.” Margot leaned back again. “It’s all so very mysterious and hot. A secret admirer for our Lee-Lee.”
She chuffed. “Don’t you sit there all smug, just like you’re n
ot caught up in as much fallout from the auction.”
Dani interrupted. “You two brought it on yourselves.”
Margot pointed at her. “And who’s the smug one now?”
“I’m not the girl who’s going to be going eighty ways to Ha-cha-cha-ville with my college enemy,” Dani said. “So I do feel pretty smug about my stress-free fiancé at the moment.”
Margot made a point of calmly refreshing her tea with the hot water pot. “I’m not going anywhere with Clint Barrows.”
Leigh stopped drinking her coffee. “Maybe you need a refresher course on what happened last night.”
Ha-ha. “I’m going to get out of this. Just watch me.”
Dani laughed. “How’s that?”
“I’ll just give him back his money.”
Both of her friends sighed, but not before Margot caught them glancing at each other.
“What?” she asked.
Leigh punched her in the arm, kind of hard, too, and Margot pressed a hand to her skin.
“Ouch,” she said. Cowgirl Leigh had always been strong.
“If I’m going through with this basket thing,” she said, “you’d better do it, too.”
“Or what?”
“Or you’ll regret it.”
“Why? Because you’ll call me a chicken for the rest of my life?”
“No,” Leigh said. “Because you’ll be calling yourself a chicken. I know you, Margot—when you were sparring with Clint at that auction, you lit up. You liked it.”
“I was pissed that he would come after me like he did.”
“You were excited.”
Margot opened her mouth to retort, but she didn’t have anything to counter.
Because Leigh was 100 percent on target. Margot had been excited, and she’d been praying for all she was worth that no one would notice.
Especially him.
But it wasn’t as if she was going to let Leigh know that she’d scored a direct hit. Hell, no.
She reached down to her Gucci tote bag and pulled out her iPad, turning it on and changing the subject so thoroughly that both Dani and Leigh laughed under their breaths.
“I’m not going to waste my time talking about him,” Margot said, accessing a file on the screen. “Not when I spent most of the night being gainfully occupied.”
She didn’t add that she hadn’t been able to get to sleep, anyway. Not with Clint Barrows on her mind...and under her skin.
When she showed Dani the wedding-dress pictures that she’d stored in an e-file, her friend went quiet, just as she had the other day after the news about the auction.
“I have a friend,” Margot said, treading lightly now, wondering if Dani would be offended by her wedding-planning initiative once again. “She designs gowns, and she doesn’t cost an arm and a leg because I’m sure I can work a deal with her. I thought you might want to take a peek at her designs.”
Dani didn’t take the iPad. “You know someone who offers discounted wedding venues, too? And cakes? How about massage oils and sex toys, Margot?”
She laughed a little, and Margot took the iPad back. Yep, she’d overstepped, just as she and Leigh had done when they’d set up the auction without Dani’s knowledge in the first place.
As if she realized that she’d caused Margot discomfort, Dani smiled that sunny smile and held out her hand.
“Let’s see what you’ve got,” she said.
As Margot handed over the computer, she caught Leigh’s eye. She winked at her, and Margot returned the gesture.
Wedding dress viewing soon turned into an online search for venues as they ate breakfast, and soon the late-morning crowd had turned into an early-lunch one.
They paid up, then exited the café, catching an elevator to their rooms.
“See you at the dinner tonight?” Leigh asked as the panel dinged at Margot’s floor.
The door opened, and over her shoulder, she said, “Sure. I’ll be the one hiding in the corner.”
“As if,” Dani said, before the doors closed on her and Leigh.
Margot smiled while she walked down the hall toward her room. Yeah, they all knew damned well that she wouldn’t be hiding from anyone, especially Clint. After Margot returned his money, she was planning to dance the night away and show him just who had come out on top in this little power game they were playing.
She rounded a corner, so intent on finding her key card in her tote bag that she didn’t notice that someone was waiting for her.
When that someone took her by the waist and scooped her into the ice-machine alcove, her breath was already halfway out of her lungs.
And when that someone turned out to be Clint Barrows grinning down at her, his light blue eyes full of amusement, Margot lost her breath—and her will—altogether.
* * *
CLINT’S HAND RESTED on her waist while the other tipped up his cowboy hat.
“You sure took your sweet time at breakfast,” he said. “I couldn’t help seeing you and the girls in that café and wondering just when you’d be done.”
Even though he had her cornered near the ice machine, a pulsating wisp of space between their bodies, she didn’t take the escape route.
But maybe that was only because she couldn’t resist the opportunity to sass him.
“Just to be clear,” she said tightly, “I was planning on writing you a check for every cent you spent on that basket.”
“A refund?” He ran his gaze over the dark, long layers of her hair, then up to her face, with those startling pale eyes fringed with sweeping lashes, those red lips...
The words almost snagged in his throat. “I’m not interested in getting my money back.”
Her pupils had gone wide, as if, with every look he smoothed over her, she was forgetting how much she couldn’t stand him. His gut tightened with heat and yearning.
That night, so long ago... Their kisses...
No, he didn’t want a refund. He wanted a replay.
And this time he wanted it all to turn out right, without her burning rubber after she thought he’d humiliated her.
“What makes you think you run the show here?” she asked, her voice softer now. “What makes you think you have any sort of choice about what I do?”
“Darlin’,” he said, “letting me have your basket could be the best choice you’ve ever made.”
He grinned down at her and, for an expanding second, he thought she might close her eyes, invite him to kiss her, tell him that bygones were bygones and...
What?
It wouldn’t go beyond that, but at least he’d go home happy before getting real unhappy with his brothers again.
Before being isolated from what was left of his family.
But she seemed to snap out of it, nudging away from him, taking off just as quickly as she had done all those years ago, except without the slap and the door slamming.
“Margot,” he said, following her out of the small room and into the hallway.
“Don’t ‘Margot’ me when we’ve got nothing to ‘Margot’ about. I forgot my checkbook in my room, but I’m going to write you the fastest check I’ve ever written in my life.”
His steps were twice the length of hers, and in no time, he’d come to the front of his own room, deftly slipping his key card into the reader, then opening his door.
She started to pass him, then paused, obviously unable to stop herself from peering inside.
And why not, when he’d raided that fancy-schmancy store in the downtown village of Avila Grande bright and early, just to create his own version of a basket?
Step one, win her over.
Step two, win her.
He’d been waiting for Margot to finish breakfast to set his intentions into motion. And, after s
lipping one of the desk clerks a hefty tip, he’d even made sure that he transferred to a room on her floor.
He opened the door a little wider, so she could get a better view of the bamboo stand he’d set up near the entrance. The faux candle in it cast a dim, sultry light over the sheer scarves he’d draped over the small dressing screen he’d found in the same shop.
“What the hell is this?” she asked.
He only shrugged. Her question had an edge, but Clint knew an intrigued woman when he heard one, and he stepped aside to let the adventuress see more.
She was the woman who’d taken off to Europe after college to “experience life,” according to her bio in the back of the books he’d also purchased today. The woman who’d pushed her travels further when she’d gone on to write about sexy swims in hidden pools on the paradise roads of Maui and about the most enticing foods to be found in exotic places like Shanghai.
The smart, seductive woman he’d seen in her that night, one who had taken her fantasies and made them realities.
He left the door open as she crossed his threshold and looked around at the dressing screen, then the items he’d arranged near it.
A tray full of truffles and chocolate-drizzled croissants from the bakery downtown.
A basket of bubble bath, lotion and sinuously carved soaps.
A beautiful white slip of a negligee that was as innocent as it was suggestive.
She slid him a look out of the corner of her eye. “Did you go to The Boudoir?”
“I made a stop.” The boutique had been around since their college days, a Cal-U institution. “But I also hit a few other places.”
“Why?”
“Because I went through all those slips of paper you have in that basket.” He pulled one of the scenarios from his back pocket and read it. “‘The Grand Palace in Thailand, home of a king.’ I couldn’t get too fancy at such short notice, though I figured you’d like the truffles at the very least.”
Did she look...touched?
But he wasn’t sure, because her expression went back to normal—amused, cool. Margot.
He said, “You really did word those scenarios carefully, didn’t you?”
She narrowed her gaze at him, but she didn’t go anywhere. He took that as a good sign and allowed the door to ease shut behind him. The soft click of the lock was the only sound besides the thud of his heartbeat.
Lead Me On Page 6