His carefree comment seemed to take the steam out of her argument—and Lord knew it looked as if she was ready for one. It didn’t take a college graduate to know that this was her way of distancing herself.
She let the nightshirt fall to the bed. “I don’t know. I’m just... It was fun, okay? It was a nice night. Let’s not ruin it by analyzing it.”
“Nice and fun. I guess that’s one way of putting it.” Mind-blowing, earth-moving... Those were other ways.
“You’re no stranger to fun,” she said.
“No, I’m not.” He moved away from the dresser, his body drawn toward her. “I’m just wondering why it’d be a bad idea for us to have fun all night. After all, I didn’t see any limitations on how many trips I’d get when I bought the basket.”
“It was a one-time thing.”
He decided to play this from a different angle. “You’re right. It was nice and fun. I’m sure we can be adults about this and we won’t get awkward when we see each other again.”
She frowned. “We’re seeing each other again?”
“You didn’t think I’d skip Dani and Riley’s wedding, did you?”
“It’s entirely possible to avoid people at weddings.”
“Well, I hear you’re pretty involved with the planning, and since Dani and Riley are thinking about getting married on my ranch...”
Her eyes widened. “What’re you talking about?”
He didn’t need to tell her that it was only an idea that he’d floated by Riley this afternoon. “I offered up my ranch for the wedding. It’s something that might put us in some amount of proximity, Margot.”
Even when she doubled her frown, she was the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen.
“Oh, come on,” he said. “Don’t tell me you’ll be able to resist checking my place out with Dani and hanging around to offer decorating tips. I know she’ll ask you and Leigh to do that, since you’re the Three Musketeers.”
“You did this on purpose, didn’t you?”
“Strategized to have the wedding on my property just so I could see you again?” He shrugged. “I only made a kind gesture to one of my good friends.”
“Don’t twist my words.”
“Okay.” He comfortably crossed his arms over his chest. “I take it back—you didn’t mean that I wanted to somehow lure you to my ranch so we could have more fun times together. But now that I think about it, that is a real good plan.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I thought you said I was easy.” He grinned.
Clearly, there wouldn’t be any more going around the girl tonight—not with the mood she was in. But, even if Clint had to wear bath-soaked jeans back to his room, he’d gotten what he’d wanted from her, wasn’t that right?
So why did he feel so...empty?
Before she could launch into a real argument, he sauntered back to the bathroom, managed to get into his wet clothes, picked up his boots and went to the door.
“Night, Margot,” he said, tipping his hat to her. “I’ll be seeing you.”
“Don’t count your weddings before they hatch.”
Although it didn’t sound like an endearment, he took it as one as he opened the door and risked a glance behind him, finding her watching him with a glimmer in her eye that told him she just might be looking forward to seeing him again, no matter what she said.
* * *
THE ROAD AHEAD of Dani and Riley stretched well into the darkness, illuminated by the headlights of his truck.
Dani, who was full from the subpar hotel banquet food, as well as all the socializing from the reunion, was just drifting off to sleep with Riley at the wheel when her phone played an ancient song from the ’80s.
“Girls Like Me.” Margot’s ringtone.
Dani hopped on it, automatically pressing the speakerphone button. “You still back at the hotel?”
“I told you at the dinner that I decided to stay an extra night.”
Funny thing. Riley had said that Clint was staying over, too.
She exchanged a glance with him, and he cracked a grin, his hand resting comfortably on the steering wheel as they zoomed along.
“Am I on speakerphone?” Margot asked.
“Nope.”
Dani made a face at Riley, who put a finger to his lips. She shook her head, telling him that she was going to take this one in private.
After she pressed the button and put the phone to her ear, she asked, “So...anything going on in the hotel?”
“Nothing major.”
Dani had known Margot a long time, and she could pinpoint when her friend was dancing around something.
“Did you and anyone...?” she started to ask.
“Hell, no.”
Dani smiled, because Margot was protesting too much. Riley grinned as he guessed Margot’s answer.
Maybe someday she would spill the beans about Clint, but it wouldn’t be tonight.
“What I’m calling about,” Margot said, “is a rumor I heard. Are you and Riley thinking about having your wedding on Clint Barrows’s ranch?”
Dani mouthed to Riley, “Ranch,” then answered. “He mentioned it to me today, and I think it’s a fantastic idea.”
She thought she heard Margot mutter, “Crap.”
“Riley’s seen Clint’s spread,” Dani said, “but I’d like it if you and Leigh would check his place out with me. I need people who can look at it with wedding bells in mind.”
Truthfully, Dani liked Clint. He put a light in Margot’s eyes. He’d always made Margot act a little differently when he was in the room, not that she would ever cop to that.
“Are you sure about having Leigh and me out there with you for a look-see?” Margot asked. “We don’t want to interfere....”
“Haven’t you been doing that all along?”
Margot laughed. “All right. You’ve got me.”
“I’ve got you for a visit to the ranch? If you’re not busy, Riley and I were talking about this weekend.”
Dani could just picture Margot softly banging her head against a wall.
“There’s really no other place on earth you can have a wedding?” Margot asked.
“The price is right, baby. Plus, it sounds beautiful at Clint’s place, and there’s enough room to accommodate everyone we want to invite.”
A pause crackled over the connection, and if that wasn’t enough to convince Dani that something had gone on with Margot and Clint this weekend, nothing ever would.
“Dani,” Margot said. “You know I’d do anything for you.”
“Even this?”
“Even this. I mean, what’s the big deal, anyway, right? I had to see Clint Barrows this weekend and I got through it. I can do it again.”
If that’s how you want it, Margot. “I’m sure you can.”
Margot blew out a breath. It was the closest she would ever come to an admission.
After they said their goodbyes and hung up, Dani rested her head against the seat.
“So?” Riley asked.
So what should she say? She’d just been thinking about all Margot’s adventures, and how she and Clint might’ve had a real good one tonight.
Why hadn’t she ever been able to have an adventure?
Because I’m too boring, Dani thought. Too...me. Always needing someone else—sorority sisters, a perpetual fiancé—and never a woman who sought out excitement on her own. Even sex with Riley was tender, sweet. But there’d never been adventures.
Maybe that was because Dani had always been afraid of feeling too much, like her mom had felt for her dad before he’d stepped out on her and they’d split up, becoming shells of their old selves.
She finally answered Riley’s question. “I definitely thin
k they had a moment.”
“Clint and Margot?”
“It had to happen sometime this weekend.”
She thought of what Margot might do if she were in a car with Clint, how they probably wouldn’t be able to keep their hands off each other.
Adventures.
Why not her?
Slowly, she reached over to Riley, traced a finger over the side of his leg.
He smiled down at her, apparently expecting nothing more than a simple touch that said “I love you.”
Something bent inside of her, like it was turning around, and she slid her hand up to the top of his thigh, toward his penis.
No. His cock.
The car jerked toward the side of the road.
“Jeez, Dani,” he said, chuckling and righting the wheel.
She liked his shock, so she did it again, running her fingers over the bulge in his jeans, squeezing gently.
This time, he took her hand in one of his, brought it up to his mouth, kissed the back of it.
Her heart contracted, even though she knew that he hadn’t exactly rejected her. He was just Riley and she was just Dani, and they had been best friends who’d turned to lovers.
That was the only time they’d surprised each other.
As Riley held her hand to his heart, his eyes on the straight road ahead, Dani thought about how Margot and Leigh had tried to raise money for her wedding, how everyone still saw her as that steady, dependable, romantic sorority sister nicknamed “Hearts.”
Maybe it was high time for some surprises.
8
A WEEK HAD never passed more slowly for Clint, but when Margot’s trendy Prius finally pulled into the long graveled driveway that led to his ranch house near Visalia, about a half hour away from Cal-U, he somehow stayed cool.
Dani, who’d been sitting next to him on the living room’s cowhide sofa, popped out of her seat when she saw Margot through the window. She touched her hair self-consciously, probably because she’d gotten most of it chopped off this week in what she’d called a “modern bob,” which basically meant that one side of her red curls now came to her chin while the other was a little longer.
“Finally!” she said, taking off in the direction of the front door.
From the chair next to Clint, Riley got up, too. As he watched Dani disappear from the room, he wore a look that was part affection, part puzzlement.
“Still getting used to the new fiancée?” Clint asked.
Riley sighed, then shrugged while ambling in the direction of the entryway. “Even if she got a haircut on a whim, she’s still my Dani.”
When Clint glanced out the window again, he saw Margot getting out of her car and embracing Dani. His heartbeat did a strange jig in his chest, and he wondered why he was feeling something there when it should’ve been limited to his nethers.
He’d sincerely missed her, he thought. And in spite of all the work he’d been faced with after leaving the cutting horse operation during the reunion, he’d actually felt kind of bored without her around.
But it was just because of the sex.
Only the sex.
He walked to his foyer, then exited onto the porch with its hickory-wood chairs and tables and gliding swing, then down the few steps to the stone-lined entry path that led to the parked vehicles.
“Let me take a look at you,” Margot was saying, holding Dani away from her as Riley lingered nearby.
Lightheartedly, Dani primped for her, showing off that stylish new hairdo.
Margot’s smile was a million watts. “You look amazing!”
Clint couldn’t stop gazing at her as something in his chest flared. Rays of energy beamed everywhere in him.
Weird.
As Margot linked arms with Dani, she sent a subtle wink at Riley, who ran a hand through his dark hair and returned the grin.
Finally, Margot glanced at Clint, and he casually nodded in greeting, as if his world wasn’t being shaken.
“Good to see you, Margot,” he said. How about that. He didn’t sound affected by her at all.
But from the way she gave him a too-polite smile, he suspected that she was still in argument-mode from last weekend, when she’d pretty much told him that the sex had been good, but bye-bye.
“Good to see you, too,” she said. “Thanks for having us here.”
Riley cleared his throat, snagging everyone’s attention. “Looks like it’s just the four of us, then.”
Margot seemed relieved to break gazes with Clint. “Leigh told you she has reshoots for one of her cooking episodes?”
Riley and Dani nodded as Clint said, “Did she ever hear anything about the secret admirer who won her basket?”
Margot’s gaze widened ever so slightly, as if baskets were the last thing she wanted to be talking about with him around.
Dani answered for her. “The only thing Leigh found out was that he should be back in the country by the end of the month, and he’ll be contacting her then.”
“Out of the country?” Clint wondered which fraternity brother did all that traveling, plus had a lot of play money. He couldn’t come up with a name offhand. “I guess he’s a jet-setter, just like Margot.”
It was as if, once again, he’d said something that didn’t sit right with her, because her smile didn’t reach her eyes.
“I’m just a writer who likes doing what she does. That’s all.”
Why did she seem a little...sad?
Dani started pulling her away from the car. “Clint promised us a beautiful sunset, so you’re just in time to see it at the gazebo where Riley and I could take our vows. You ready for a tour?”
“Show me the way.”
The women took off, leaving Riley and Clint to walk after them. Clint didn’t object, because it gave him ample opportunity to enjoy the way Margot’s rear filled the back of her dark knit dress.
What kind of panties was she wearing today? Lace?
Nothing at all?
As they passed the cottages where the original owners had lived before the main house was built, Dani pointed to the west. The tops of the ranch hands’ bunkhouses met the horizon off in the distance.
“The working part of the ranch is over that way,” Clint said. “Near enough so that your wedding guests could go for a horseback ride if they want, but far enough so this living area doesn’t have too much of that ranch...”
“Aroma?” Margot asked.
“Exactly.”
Dani was a small-town girl, but she hadn’t grown up on a farm or ranch like most Phi Rho Mu members had. She was a bit of an outsider, and that’s probably why she got along with the biggest outsider of them all—Margot.
And that’s why Clint had been so attracted to her, he thought. Because she’d always been different. Challenging.
His blood pumped as he watched the breeze toy with the layers of Margot’s long hair, but then, when he thought about how she’d just about vowed they’d never get together again, his pulse mellowed.
Strangest of all, his heart actually felt heavy.
It didn’t take long to get to the gazebo, which was surrounded by autumn-hued bushes with anemic leaves. Margot immediately went to them.
Dani said, “Clint told us we could plant flowers for the late spring. Since we’re having a bigger wedding now, we decided to move the date back.”
“That’ll be gorgeous.” While Margot surveyed the rectangular pine gazebo, that sad smile Clint had noticed earlier tipped the corners of her mouth. “This is absol
utely perfect, Dani.”
“I think so, too.”
As they stood there, still linking arms, Clint had another rogue thought: yes, this was somehow near to perfect, seeing Margot on his property, in front of the gazebo where his parents had gotten married.
While he tried to figure himself out, Margot climbed the steps to the gazebo’s spacious floor.
“Are you going to use the catering company you work for?” she asked. “Aren’t they too far away to be convenient?”
Dani glanced at the group, seeming anxious about what she was going to say next. She walked over to Riley, touching his arm. “So...about the catering. I won’t be using my company because... Well, I’ve actually been thinking...” Now she looked up at Riley. “I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be working with them.”
When Riley glanced down at her, it was obvious this was the first time he was hearing this.
Margot piped up. “Come again?”
Dani tucked a strand of her new, bobbed hair behind an ear and smiled at Riley. “I’ve been thinking about quitting.” She added in a lowered voice to Riley, “It’s been on my mind, hon.”
Silence flapped in the air until Riley turned around, shaking his head as he walked away. Dani offered an apologetic glance to Margot and Clint before she went after him.
That left the two of them standing there, awkward as hell.
Clint spoke. “Who knew those two were capable of a disagreement?”
“The hard feelings won’t last long. Riley and Dani are one of those couples who don’t really have problems.”
Not problems you can see clearly, anyway.
That part of it went unspoken between them.
As they waited, all but shuffling their boots, Margot got that sad distance in her eyes again, as if she couldn’t help keeping her mind off what was troubling her.
Then she sighed. “I suppose I should get settled.”
“Right.” It wasn’t as if they were friends and he could ask her what was wrong.
So he led her back to the ranch house, a canyon of tension between them.
* * *
IT’D BEEN A semi-awkward dinner, with Riley as unreadable as a closed book and Dani filling the silence by chatting away about her future plans for her own catering company.
Lead Me On Page 10