“Please,” she said. “You don’t have to make me feel better.”
“I’m just telling you the truth.”
“And I’m telling you the truth when I say that...”
She trailed off.
“What, Dani?”
She took her hands from Margot’s. “I watch you and Clint. There’s chemistry—don’t deny it. And I wonder why the room doesn’t catch on fire with me and Riley like it does with the two of you.”
Margot flinched. “Clint and I don’t even like each other.”
“Yes, you do. God, you two are hilarious, barely even acknowledging each other when anyone else is around. I mean, really, Margot, nipple tassels and bubble bath?”
She was going to kill Leigh for blabbing.
Dani rolled her eyes. “Just for the record, you guys don’t have to stay away from each other’s rooms this weekend just because you think Riley and I are idiots.”
Well, there it was. Called out.
Margot waited for the world to fall down around her, now that someone had announced the very idea that she’d given in to Clint. But...
The world was still there.
It was everything inside her that was crumbling, and that sensation didn’t necessarily involve Clint, just book contracts and sales and... Oh, a little thing Margot liked to call an ego.
Dani’s gray gaze sparkled now that she’d been successful in changing the subject from her to Margot. “There isn’t any chance that you and Clint can...”
“No.”
“I wasn’t about to say that you should jump all over each other in a bubble bath again. I meant—”
“Definitely no.”
Just the thought of trying to wrangle a stud like Clint into what Dani was referring to—a relationship, of all things—was laugh-inducing.
Yet, oddly, Margot didn’t feel like laughing.
Taken aback by that, she focused on Dani again. “I hope you and Riley work this out. You’re my favorite couple ever, you know.”
“Of course we will.”
“Because,” Margot said, “if anyone in this world would make me want to settle down, it would be a guy like him.”
Damn, that sounded pathetic. Not wanting to settle down. She’d been indepen— No. It went beyond independence. She’d been lonely for most of her life, and she’d started to lose hope, sticking to the patterns that’d been ingrained in her, moving on, moving on, never planting herself in one spot.
And she was tired. Suddenly so tired of it.
Dani was looking at her as if she knew this conversation was about more than her and Riley.
“I know Riley’s a keeper,” she said, “and I’m never letting him go.”
They hugged, but Margot’s own words were the ones that kept ringing through her mind as an image of Clint Barrows floated over her gaze.
If anyone in this world would make me want to settle down...
As she hugged Dani tighter, Margot told herself that there were more appropriate men to settle down with, even if Clint was the one on her mind and in every cell of her body every second, every minute of the day.
9
THAT EVENING, LONG after Clint and Riley had finished putting in a day’s work with the horses and the women had wandered the property to inspect every wedding nook and cranny, Clint settled into the kitchen.
He’d decided to whip up a simple dinner, since Riley had been determined to sit Dani down and have a long talk about what was really going on with her.
He was just putting the main dish in the oven when he heard someone come in the front door.
Margot. It was the way her fashionable boots hit the floor with that easy, swaying stride. Or it could’ve been wishful thinking.
But he was right, and when she strolled into the kitchen, she greeted him while setting her computer pad down on the table.
“Whatever it is you’re cooking smells amazing,” she said.
“Lemon-garlic chicken.”
“Oh.” She laughed. “Good thing Riley is having that up-close-and-personal chat with Dani now and not later.”
The garlic. He got it.
“Where did they end up?” he asked.
“The gazebo, I think. Who knows how long they’ll be, though.”
“Dinner won’t be ready for about forty-five minutes, but they can grab some when they’re ready.”
“You should’ve asked for help.” Margot hovered by his side at the stove, all summer-wind shampoo and skin-fresh heat. “I’m not the world’s greatest cook, but I can be of some use.”
“It’s all under control.” He was talking about the food, because he sure wasn’t anywhere near control. His body felt as if it had a legion of pistons pumping inside him, even though he had nowhere to zoom off to.
Margot gathered some used bowls, transferring them to the sink. She had pulled her dark hair back in a barrette today, and it made the beauty of her face stand out that much more—the high cheekbones, the pale eyes, the feeling that, in spite of her steel spine, she was still a porcelain figurine, delicate and off-limits in so many ways.
As lust—because it was lust, wasn’t it?—swirled inside him, she seemed totally unaware of how she threw him into utter inner chaos.
Not knowing what else to do with himself, Clint got out two wineglasses, then a bottle of chilled chardonnay from the fridge. He poured them each a dose.
“Here’s to your crazy cooking skills, then,” she said as they clinked glasses.
They remained standing by the stove, drinking.
Why was this feeling like a date of sorts?
He could answer that more easily than anything else about them. Dinner was heating up in the oven and they were alone in a house that was silent except for the beat of the grandfather clock in the hallway and the night sounds outside the windows.
Maybe the same date question had entered her mind, too, because she took another belt of wine, as if she needed a buzz to be around him on a personal level.
Click, click, went the clock, chipping away at him.
Finally, he couldn’t stand the tension anymore.
They both started to talk at once, then laughed, and he gestured toward her.
“You first.” Please.
She traced a finger over the ceramic tile of the counter. “I was just going to say that you’re full of surprises. Handy with dinner, a house that’s way neater and cozier than I anticipated...”
“What did you expect—a cave with a fire for roasting the meat I hunt down every day?”
“That’s not too far off the mark.”
“Thanks.”
“No, I didn’t mean for my initial compliment to come out that way.” She set her wine on the counter. “It’s just that I thought your house would be...”
“The ultimate bachelor pad? Nah. Believe it or not, my dad was a neat freak, an army man before my grandpa passed away and left him this ranch. My brothers and I grew up doing hospital corners on the beds and passing muster every Sunday night to get allowance. Dad was fun-loving, though. He and Mom brought that out in each other.”
Margot was watching him closely, a warmth in her gaze, and she seemed to realize it just as he did.
Or had he been mistaken?
Did he even want a warmth to be there?
Clint gazed around the kitchen. “Anyway, it just feels downright disrespectful to not look after what Mom left here after she passed on.”
“I’m sorry to hear that—about losing her, I mean.”
“It happened a long time ago. I was only old enough to remember that she was here one day and not here the next. She was d
riving and they say her tire blew out.”
“Oh, God, that’s awful.”
It really had been and, as he looked over the pinecone clock, the hutch with the desert-patterned plates and the cookie jar with two ceramic bear cubs climbing up the side, he wished she could’ve been here to see how everything had turned out. How he had turned out, loving the home she had loved.
“Dad was the one who kept things as she’d had them,” he said. “And when he willed me the house and the ranch, it didn’t feel right or necessary to change much. Just a few things here and there.”
Even if life had been changing outside the ranch, he’d retained what was familiar and comfortable.
“She had nice taste,” Margot said.
“I hate to think of what my brothers might’ve done with the house. They’re both married, so their wives would’ve probably redecorated.” Clint set down his glass. Wine wasn’t really his thing, anyway. “Dad invested in a lot of property out of state, and that’s where they live, because that’s mostly what he left them. But if you look at my share of the ranch, compared with what my brothers inherited, you’d think I came out on the short end.”
“You didn’t.”
“Not by a long shot.”
She tilted her head, considering him. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that you’ve got a nest that you don’t care to venture from.”
It could be that he did, and hearing Margot say it made him wonder just what her place in Chico looked like.
“I read a couple of your books, you know,” he said.
“You did?”
She flushed, and he quelled the sudden, emphatic blip of pleasure in his chest.
“Yeah,” he said. “And that’s saying something, since I’m not really a bookworm. But I got the impression that you’re a restless traveler, not so much someone who feels at home in all the places you visit. You might rather just stay home.”
Now she looked pissed. Well done, stud.
“That’s not true,” she said. “Home is nice, but it doesn’t...” She swallowed, shrugged. “Challenge me.”
Did she believe what she was saying? It didn’t seem like it.
It seemed that maybe Margot had been looking for a home for a long time, and she hadn’t had one since her sorority days.
“You need a challenge,” he said, testing her.
“Don’t we all?”
It was like a dare that dangled right in front of him. Why was it that she was the only one who made him want to step out of his comfort zone, even for an hour or two?
But the mere thought of going out into Margot’s world discomfited him. He wouldn’t ever fit, just like she would never fit into his.
And that’s why what they’d had last weekend had suited him fine.
He gave her a challenging look right back, and she raised her chin a bit.
“How did you get to be such a traveler, anyway?” he asked.
“It’s in my blood.” She got quiet a moment before going on. “I was the only child of parents who had raging cases of wanderlust. I think I’ve lived in every state of the union. We’d travel out of country, too, when they got the bug.”
“Where are they now?”
She smiled a little, sadly. “Long gone. When I was away at Cal-U, they moved into this crummy casita in a bad part of San Diego. But it was exotic, you know? In a colorful, arty section of town. One night, the place had a gas leak.”
“Wow. I’m sorry.”
“You’d understand how awful it was, as a fellow orphan.”
She’d tried to make the conversation lighter, but when the mood didn’t lift, she wandered away from the oven, out of the kitchen. He followed, leaving his wine behind.
“So what do you do for excitement around here, anyway?” she asked, pausing at the entrance to the family room. “Watch TV? Tip cows?”
It was an obvious change of subject, and he went with it. “Some nights I’ll hang around the hands who stay on the ranch and shoot the breeze with them. Some nights, there’s a bar we like to go to, but it’s the same people all the time.”
“Don’t tell me... You get bored of the same chicks over and over again.”
“What, you think I’ve gone through every single woman in the area?”
“I didn’t say that.”
He leaned against the wall on the opposite side of the door frame. “Ouch. You’re hard on me, Dickens.”
“That’s the price you pay when you’re a stud.”
Silence. Tension.
Awkward.
He was sick of walking on eggshells, though, so he came right out with what they’d been tiptoeing over all weekend.
“There’s one thing I want to know before you go home,” he said, “and that’s why you didn’t just lie to me about what was in your basket. When I overheard you in the bar at the start of the reunion, you said that if someone you didn’t like bought it, you were going to adjust the sexy scenarios you’d made up. You were going to make the dates innocent.”
She did a slow blink, as if he’d crossed some social boundary. But then she smiled, almost to herself.
“I could’ve lied to you,” she said. “I could’ve told you that you were mistaken in what you overheard and that there was nothing sexual in that basket at all. But you wouldn’t have let me get away with that.”
Getting her to admit that she was attracted to him was a real bitch. But, again, it was a challenge.
And challenges always seemed to work with them.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Le Crazy Horse, Paris. How would you have spun that for someone who didn’t know any better?”
“Easy. I would’ve taken him for a horse ride and fixed a French-food picnic for him while regaling him with tales about my time in the City of Light.”
“Not bad. I guess that’s why you write for a living.”
She got the same sad expression on her face that he’d noticed yesterday, and he wanted to ask her why.
But she had already banished the sentiment, as if by pure will alone.
“Just think,” he said, wanting to see her get fired up again. “Brad could’ve had all eighty ways.”
“How about we never bring him up again? From what I heard through the grapevine after the reunion, my ex-boyfriend’s back home, chasing around the wife who left him. If I’d known...”
“You didn’t. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”
So no more Brad. He didn’t like to think about Margot’s initial basket date of choice, anyway.
Clint went into the family room, where he’d stored her basket in a cabinet. He’d thought about displaying it on the fireplace mantel, just to get her goat, but he’d decided against it after they’d somewhat called this truce or whatever it was between them.
But, now, he couldn’t resist.
When he took it out of the cabinet, she groaned.
“Don’t get uppity,” he said, pulling out a slip of paper. “I just want to hear you in action. Besides, I didn’t get to claim more than one scenario.”
“We just had one night, remember? Besides, I wasn’t in the mood.” She swirled her wine in its glass. “But then again, why not? It’s better than TV.”
Somewhat surprised that she’d agreed to go forward, he read the destination.
“This one says ‘Kama Sutra.’ How would you have explained that?”
She sat on the cowhide sofa. “It would’ve been trickier than Le Crazy Horse.”
“The Kama Sutra is a sex book, right?”
“Yes, but it’s also a guide to gracious and virtuous living. It talks about family and love, too, and how to take delight out of all aspects of life. I would’ve prepared some Indian food, talked about deep philosophical stuff with my date and maybe have given him a cha
ste, yet soulful kiss at the end of the evening.”
He chose another slip of paper. “‘Lupanar, Pompeii.’”
She sank back into the cushions. “That’s one of my favorites. Italy’s the best, especially the Roman ruins.”
“Pompeii is where that volcano erupted. But I have no idea what a lupanar is.”
“Well, I could’ve spun that one as the literal translation for lupanar—a ‘den of she-wolves.’ I could’ve centered that basket date on an evening in the woods with a dinner that had lots of sloppy meat and finger foods.”
“But what’s the real definition of the term?”
Margot flashed him a sassy grin. “A brothel. The most famous one in Pompeii. You can still view the erotic paintings on the walls.”
He tucked the paper into his jeans pocket. He could already imagine what Margot would’ve done with this one if he had picked it last weekend.
“The Lupanar isn’t a terribly romantic place,” she said. “It had about ten rooms because it was a bigger brothel than most in Pompeii. Wealthy people didn’t really visit those places, either, because they had mistresses or slave concubines. And the beds? They were mattresses on brick platforms. It was the paintings that interested me.”
She smoothed a stray, dark lock of hair back over her shoulder, a sensual move that dug deep into Clint. Then she set her wine on an end table, relaxing back into the cushions.
Talking about the basket had done something to her, and Clint realized that everything she had written down was as much a fantasy for her as it was for him.
She watched him, and he watched her.
“What’re we going to do about this?” he finally asked.
“I really have no idea.”
But he had one, and it involved turning off the oven in the kitchen and turning on Margot in the bedroom while Riley and Dani were still out of the house.
* * *
WHY AM I DOING THIS? Margot kept asking herself. She’d assuaged her curiosity about Clint already, but here she was, following him out of the living room.
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