by Ginna Gray
“Hey, cool. Sure, man.” The prepubescent little yuppies agreed in unison.
Wyatt trotted across the parking lot and dashed across the busy street against the red light.
“There was a woman in here an hour or so ago,” he told the station attendant. “Long, curly red hair, blue eyes, about so tall.” He held his hand out at chest level. “She was driving an RV pulling a trailer. Do you remember her?”
“Yeah, sure. She was a total babe,” the pimply faced teenager behind the counter replied.
Wyatt’s fists clenched, but he resisted the urge to plant one right in the face of Mr. Raging Hormones. “Do you happen to know which way she went?”
“Yeah, dude. She headed out the highway. She asked me about that rodeo poster in the window. Seemed real interested. Soon as she signed her credit card ticket she jumped in her RV and headed toward the fairgrounds.”
Wyatt bit off a curse. What the hell was he supposed to do now?
After recrossing the street he paid the two boys and used the public telephone outside the market to call his office.
“Wyatt, how’re you enjoying the trip,” Eric taunted, when Wyatt’s secretary put the call through.
He gritted his teeth. “Listen, I’m in no mood to—” The squeal of tires distracted him, and he turned around just in time to see Maggie come careening into the parking lot.
“Sorry, Eric, I’ll have to call you back,” he snapped, and slammed down the receiver.
Stepping to the curb, he folded his arms and waited. The lumbering vehicle screeched to a halt in front of him.
“I’m sorry,” Maggie began, the instant he opened the door. “I didn’t mean to go off and leave you. Honestly I didn’t.”
He responded to her chagrined expression with stony silence and began to unload the cart of groceries, setting the sacks just inside the main door of the RV. Maggie scrambled from the driver’s seat and went back into the kitchen to help.
“It’s just that I’m so used to traveling alone.” Meeting him at the open door, she took the next sack from him and put it on the counter, then quickly returned for the next one. “When I saw that advertisement for the rodeo I got so excited I just forgot about you. I was almost to the fairgrounds before I remembered. It wasn’t intentional. I swear it.”
“I suppose that’s something,” he snarled.
“You’re angry.”
The look he shot her as he handed in the last sack was eloquent. Without a word to Maggie, who was watching him anxiously from the open door of the RV, he stalked next door to the clothing store to retrieve his purchases.
Damned right he was angry. And insulted. No woman had ever forgotten him. Maggie was damned hard on a man’s ego.
All the way to the fairgrounds he maintained his miffed silence, but he finally realized he was wasting his time. Holding on to anger against Maggie was futile, since she didn’t even seem to notice that he was still upset. For her the matter was settled; she’d made a mistake and apologized, and now she’d moved on, the gaffe forgotten. Her upbeat, sunny outlook was firmly in place once more.
Throughout the drive she chattered away about the rodeo.
“It’s great, a genuine Western rodeo. I haven’t been to one in years. Oh, they have that big extravaganza in Houston, but it doesn’t have the real Old West flavor like this one. This is cattle country around here. And this rodeo is being held in an open-air fairground, the way they’re supposed to be,” she chattered gaily while he struggled to put away the groceries and his things and still remain upright in the swaying RV. “Oh, and there’s an RV park next to the fairground,” she called over her shoulder. “If there’s space available we’ll park there and stay overnight.”
Her excitement was so great when she found out there were still a few camping spaces available you would have thought she’d won the lottery. The instant she had the RV set up she was raring to go and enjoy the rodeo.
“Don’t you want to eat lunch first? After that pickle and peanut butter sandwich you need some nourishing food.”
“Oh, I’m not hungry.”
“Well, I am. I’m starved.”
“Oh.” Wyatt had never heard one word imbued with so much disappointment, but a second later her face brightened. “Then you go ahead and eat. I’ll just go look the place over, while you have lunch.”
“Maggie, you need to eat. It’s not healthy to skip meals.”
“Oh, pooh. I do it all the time. But if it’ll make you happy, I’ll have a carrot.” She grabbed one from the bunch on the counter, gave it a quick rinse and bounded out the door, ignoring Wyatt’s protests. Shaking his head, he watched her wind her way through the crowd, her bright head swiveling as she tried to take in everything at once. He’d never before met anyone who embraced life with such unbridled enthusiasm.
After satisfying his hunger, Wyatt shaved and changed into a pair of jeans and a Western shirt, then set out to look for Maggie.
He wandered around for a while without spotting her, but he wasn’t concerned. What could happen to her at a country rodeo? Much to his surprise, he enjoyed himself. He walked around the pens and looked over the stock and stopped by the arena and watched the cutting horse competition.
Both his complacency and his good mood went up in smoke when he approached the holding chutes.
He stopped in his tracks and gaped. In one of the chutes, surrounded by adoring cowboys, all of whom were apparently giving her instructions on the fine art of bull riding, Maggie sat astride a wild-eyed, snorting, enraged two-thousand-pound Brahma bull.
For several seconds he could not move or even breathe.
Then, with a roar of rage, he exploded. In three long strides Wyatt reached the chute, grabbed two cowboys by their shirt collars and yanked them off the side of the pen.
“Hey! What the—”
Ignoring the men’s protests, he tossed them aside like sacks of potatoes and leapt up onto the rail in their place and plucked Maggie off the bull.
She shrieked and the cowboys yelled protests, but Wyatt’s fury quickly silenced them all. He set her on her feet with enough force to clack her teeth together, then lit into her with a vengeance.
“What in the bloody hell do you think you’re doing!” he roared. “I leave you to your own devices for half an hour, and this is what you do? Try to ride a damned wild bull! Dammit, woman, do you have a death wish?”
“Hey, now wait a minute, mister. You can’t talk to the little lady thata wa—”
“The hell I can’t. And as for you guys, I can’t believe you would let her do this. You, of all people, know how dangerous this event is, even for an experienced competitor. Look at her, for God’s sake! A puff of wind would blow her away. And you were going to let her go out there on the back of a bull. She could’ve been killed or maimed for life. What the hell is the matter with you?”
“Now, Wyatt—”
“Stay out of this.” He jabbed the air near the end of her nose with his forefinger, and Maggie jumped. “I’ll deal with you later.
“As for the rest of you yahoos, I ought to beat the tar out of all of you. You’re just lucky I got here in time to put a stop to this insanity.”
Embarrassed, all of the cowboys shuffled from one foot to the other and exchanged guilty glances. “We’re sorry, mister. You’re right. We shouldn’t oughta done it,” one young cowboy said, and the others muttered agreement.
“Now wait just a minute.” Maggie stepped up to Wyatt and poked his chest with her forefinger. “Where do you get off, interfering in my life?”
“It’s obvious that somebody has to. Otherwise you’d break your fool neck.”
“Oh, yeah. Well ’tis my neck, and I won’t have you buttin’ your nose into my business.”
“If you’d use a little sense I wouldn’t have to.”
“Nobody tells me what to do.” Maggie bristled, giving his chest another poke.
Wyatt leaned down, fury flashing in his eyes. “It’s high time somebody did. Yo
u don’t seem to have an ounce of caution or common sense.”
“Is that right. Well let me tell you—”
They stood toe to toe and nose to nose, shouting and gesturing wildly, while the cowboys exchanged uneasy glances.
“I was perfectly safe!” Maggie insisted.
“Dammit, woman!” Wyatt roared back. “Don’t you realized you could have gotten yourself killed?”
“Uh, excuse me, mister,” one brave cowboy put in cautiously. “You don’t have to worry about that. We weren’t gonna let her ride ‘im.”
“You weren’t?”
Maggie crossed her arms and stuck her nose in the air. “See. I told you it wasn’t dangerous.”
“Naw. The lady, she wanted to but we couldn’t let her ‘cause it’s against the rules,” the fresh-faced lad explained.
Maggie groaned as Wyatt’s face tightened with renewed fury.
“That cuts it,” he snapped. Too angry to continue the argument, he hefted her over his shoulder and stomped toward their campsite.
“Put me down! Do you hear me, Wyatt Sommersby? Put me down this instant.” Maggie kicked and pounded his back with her fists but he didn’t so much as flinch.
Maggie was no match for him physically, but once he deposited her on the floor of the RV she erupted. “Why you sorry, misbegotten son-of-a-lop-eared-jackass! Who do you think you are?”
“A better question is, what the hell did you think you were doing?”
“Mindin’ me own business. Which is more than can be said of you,” she accused, her brogue growing thicker by the second.
For the next half hour they indulged in a wing-ding of a fight, exchanging shouted insults and accusations. At one point Wyatt tried to ignore her, but she dogged his footsteps from one end of the RV to the other, nipping at him like a terrier. Though her nature was naturally sunny, Maggie’s Irish temper, once aroused, was formidable.
“Listen, you jackass. Get this through that thick head o’ yours. What I do is my business an’ none of yours!”
“Well I’m making it my business,” he shouted back.
“Oh, is that right! Well just take your sorry hide out of here and go back to your safe corporate world where you belong.”
Wyatt stuck his face in hers. “Make me.”
“Ohhh.” At her wits’ end, she doubled up her fists and pummeled his chest.
Wyatt grabbed her hands, but Maggie hauled off and kicked him in the shin.
“All right. That’s it,” he growled and hauled her into his arms and clamped his mouth to hers.
The kiss was no gentle seduction, but hot and open-mouthed and full of fire. Wyatt’s lips rocked over hers, hungrily taking, demanding, giving no quarter.
Maggie drummed her fists against his shoulders, but gradually the flailing blows faltered, then ceased, and the strangled sound of protest emanating from her throat became a soft moan. Her body grew relaxed and pliant and conformed to his. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hung in his arms, limp as a rag doll, her feet dangling a foot off the floor.
The kiss altered with her surrender, grew soft and tender, and so hot Maggie thought her bones would surely melt. She trembled and tightened her arms around his neck.
“Maggie. Oh, God, Maggie,” Wyatt gasped, coming up for air. He strung frantic kisses down her neck, along the tender underside of her jaw.
Eyes closed, Maggie tipped her head back to give him better access. She raked her fingernails over his scalp and clutched his hair with both hands. “Ah, sweet mercy, don’t stop. Don’t stop.”
Neither knew how they got there, but suddenly they were sprawled across the bed. They rolled together, mouths locked, legs intertwined, hands desperately clutching and roaming.
The top two buttons on Maggie’s blouse gave way, and she sighed when his warm hand cupped her breast. His thumb brushed across her nipple, and the sigh became a sharp cry and her back arched off the mattress as pleasure pierced her.
“Aw, Maggie. Sweet Maggie. Do you like that?” he murmured against her ear.
“Yes. Yes!”
The pleasure was so intense the sound did not penetrate at first, but the electronic trill persisted, slowly intruding into the delicious haze. Maggie blinked several times and raised her head off the pillow. “What’s that?”
In the throes of passion, Wyatt barely heard the sound and didn’t care. “Forget it. It’s not important.”
“No, wait. Listen. That’s a ringing.”
“It’s probably outside,” he murmured, nibbling her earlobe. “Or maybe in the next camper.”
“No. No, I don’t think so. It’s in here somewhere.” She cocked her head. “It sounds like a telephone.”
Wyatt stilled and listened. “Ah, hell.”
Maggie’s eyes grew round and her jaw dropped. “It is a telephone!” She socked Wyatt. “You rat! You sneaked a phone in here when I specifically said no phone calls.”
She bounded off the bed and flew through the motor home, opening drawers and cabinets, riffling through them, pawing through the closet. She lifted the cushions on the couch and checked inside the oven and microwave. “Where is it? Where’d you hide it, you sneak?”
“Maggie, sweetheart, it’s not like that, I swear it,” Wyatt pleaded. “I forgot I had it with me. Honest.”
“Ha! I bet!” She spied his briefcase, shoved between the couch and the end of the counter and pounced. “Aha!”
Snatching up the case, she held it to her ear, and let out a triumphant whoop. “I knew it! I knew it! You rotten, lying cheat.”
“Now, Maggie, be reasonable. I wasn’t trying to deceive you. I always carry that phone. Really.”
Ignoring him, she set the case on the table, clicked open the latches and snatched up the chirping cellular telephone.
“Hello?”
Two beats of silence followed. “Maggie? Is that you?”
“Yes, Eric, it’s me.”
“Uh...is Wyatt there?”
“Yes, he’s here, but—”
“Give me that,” Wyatt insisted, but she batted his hand aside and turned away.
“He’s unavailable right now.”
“Maggie! Give me the damned phone.”
He made another grab but she kicked him in the shin.
“Ow! Ow! Ow!” Wyatt hopped on one leg, holding the other one. “That hurt, dammit!”
“What’s going on?”
“Sorry, your brother won’t be available for several days. Maybe weeks, so don’t waste your time calling back. ‘Bye.”
“Why did you do tha— Wait a minute! Where are you going? Dammit, Maggie come back here with that phone!” he yelled, but she was already out the door.
By the time he stepped outside she was halfway across the campground. When Wyatt saw where she was heading he groaned, “Oh, no,” and broke into a run.
He didn’t make it in time. He skidded to a halt beside her as she dropped the cellular telephone into a horse trough.
Wyatt stared through the water at the high-tech instrument resting on the bottom of the trough. “I can’t believe you did that,” he said in a stunned voice, then in a roar. “I can’t believe you did that! Woman, have you lost your mind? That was a state-of-the-art three-hundred-dollar telephone.”
“When we go back to Houston I’ll buy you another one. In the meantime I have peace and quiet. If you can’t live with that, then hit the road.”
She dusted her hands together, smiled sunnily and strolled back toward the RV at a sedate pace. Wyatt fell into step beside her, crackling with fury.
“You keep making that suggestion, but I’m not leaving. And it’s not a matter of not liking peace and quiet. I can live with peace and quiet. I welcome it. It’s you I can’t live with.”
Her grin flashed. “I know. That’s what I’ve been telling you all along.”
Wyatt ground his teeth. She’d tripped him up that time.
He gave her a tight-lipped smile. “I’m confident we can adjust to each other. If a
certain maddening woman would just stop doing reckless things, that is.”
“Well, let that certain woman remind you that you invited yourself along on this trip and that she’ll do as she darn well pleases. What I do and what happens to me is no business of yours.” She climbed the two steps to the trailer, pausing on the top one to toss him a smug look over her shoulder and chuckle. “You’re not my father or my brother or my husband, you know. You’re not even my lover, so back off, Your Nibs.”
With her nose in the air and her laughing mouth curled up at the corners, she sashayed inside with an impudent little twitch of her hips.
Wyatt stared after her. “Not yet,” he growled. “But soon, sweetheart. Soon.”
To give himself time to cool off and rethink his strategy, he went for a walk. The sight of the telephone booth reminded him of Eric’s call. He stopped and stared at it. After two aborted calls, Eric was probably about to have a nervous breakdown trying to figure out what was going on. Wyatt glanced back in the direction of the campground, but he couldn’t see Maggie’s RV.
He hesitated, torn. They had a deal. But dammit, it wasn’t fair of her to expect a man to just dump his business and never even check in to see that everything was all right. That kind of irresponsible behavior might work for a free spirit like her, but a lot of people depended on him. Why, for all he knew, his office could have burned down by now. A call now and then wouldn’t hurt. He wouldn’t do it often.
Coming to a decision, he stomped to the telephone. He fished his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans, pulled out his credit card and inserted it into the slot.
A few seconds later his secretary again put him through to Eric.
“Wyatt, is that you? What the devil is going on? Why wouldn’t Maggie let me talk to you?”
“Part of our deal was I wouldn’t contact the office. She seems to think that I can’t go even a day without involving myself in business.”
Eric chuckled. “Looks like she was right.”
“This doesn’t count,” Wyatt snapped, frowning. “I’m returning your call because I didn’t want you to worry. And I was afraid there might be an emergency.”