Dalton's Undoing

by RaeAnne Thayne

  When at last she came up for air, they were both breathing hard and she wondered if she looked as dazed as he did.

  "Wow," he said, his voice ragged. "That's one hell of a tip just for cleaning off a little battery corrosion."

  She flushed and tried to retreat, but he wouldn't let her, pulling her close until she fitted snugly against him. His heat surrounded her, taking away the chill from the cold garage.

  "I should not have done that," she murmured, though with him so close, crowding out all her good sense, it wasn't easy to hang on to all the reasons why.

  "If you're looking for me to agree with you on that particular point, I'm afraid you're going to be doomed to disappointment."

  What must he think of her? She had been an idiot around him, weak and mercurial, since the day they met. Like now, for instance. She knew she shouldn't be so content in the circle of his arms but she couldn't manage the strength to pull away.

  "I have no willpower where you're concerned. I'm sorry."

  His arms tightened around her. "Sweetheart, you have nothing to apologize about."

  She drew in a deep breath and summoned all her strength so she could force herself to step out of that warm haven. "Yes, I do. I've done nothing but give you mixed signals about what I want since that first day you came to the house with Cole. I tell you I'm not interested, then I attack you like some kind of…of sex-starved divorcée."

  That masculine dimple appeared briefly. "Are you?"

  Yes. Oh, yes, at least where this man was concerned. A few weeks ago she would have laughed at the notion that she could be so hungry. She hadn't had a physical relationship since her divorce, hadn't even considered one until Seth—and hadn't noticed the lack of it.

  She had devoted all her energy and time to her children and her career. No man had even tempted her until Seth blew into her life with his sexy smile and his broad shoulders and those eyes that seemed to see right into her deepest desires.

  Oh, yes. She was starving and he was like a big, gluttonous, delectable feast.

  "You're blushing," he observed.

  She felt herself flush even hotter and didn't know how to respond to his teasing.

  "I'm trying to apologize for the mixed signals. I'm just…I'm not very good at all of this."

  "This?"

  "We have this…thing between us. I don't know what to do with it. I thought keeping a safe distance was the answer, but that obviously isn't working."

  "No?"

  "Even though I know perfectly well you're so bad for me, I can't seem to stop thinking about you."

  At her words, something hot and intense sparked in his eyes. Perhaps she ought not have mentioned that last part, she thought nervously.

  "Why am I so terrible?" he asked. "Because you think the whole town will start a riot if they should find out the elementary school principal might actually want a life?"

  A life was one thing. A torrid affair with the town's hottest bachelor was something else entirely.

  "You're out of my league, Seth. Way, way out of my league. I'm like the water boy on a Pop Warner football team and you're the starting quarterback in the Superbowl."

  "Sorry, but baseball was my game."

  "You know what I mean. I don't even know why you're here. You're a…a player. You're sexy and exciting and gorgeous. And I'm just a boring, dumpy thirty-six-year-old elementary school principal who has slept with exactly one man in my entire life."

  Oh, she shouldn't have said that, either. His gaze sharpened and she could swear he saw right into her soul.

  "Really?" he asked in an interested voice.

  She flushed. "That's beside the point. What I'm trying to say is I can't figure any of this out. What do you want from me, Seth? I know perfectly well I'm not your usual type. I'm not beautiful or sexy or exciting. I've never been the kind of person who's always the life of the party. I'm just an ordinary woman, someone a man like you shouldn't even look twice at."

  He looked astonished at her blunt self-assessment. "How can you say that with a straight face?"

  "Because it's true!"

  "I don't think you know yourself very well," he murmured. "And I'm certain you don't know me."

  She couldn't argue with that. If she knew him, perhaps he wouldn't baffle her so completely.

  "You seem to think I'm some rowdy cowboy with nothing on my mind but carving notches on some imaginary bedpost," he went on. "I'll admit, I have a bit of a reputation. Some of it earned, I'm sorry to say, but most of it exaggerated."

  He was quiet for a moment, and then he gave her a solemn look, more serious than she'd ever seen from him. "But you know, there's more to me than whatever reputation I might have."

  She wrapped her arms around herself, struck by his words. He was right. How unfair had she been to him, to hang everything on some whispered gossip overheard in her office?

  He was more than what people said about him. She only had to look at what he had done for her little family in the last month to see the truth of that.

  He had been wonderful to Cole, patient and kind and understanding when most other men would have ranted and raved and pressed charges, more concerned about the damages to their prize automobile than about a troubled boy.

  And Morgan adored him. He had shown extraordinary gentleness and rare perception to her daughter, and for that she would never be able to thank him enough. If nothing else, he'd shown her daughter it was possible to move past the frustrating limitations of asthma to have a successful, rewarding life as an adult.

  She thought of his steady strength during Morgan's flare-up. They had all been so frightened, but Seth hadn't hesitated for an instant, had stepped into the breach and helped them all find their way through it.

  If she needed further confirmation there were deeper levels to him than the world might see, she only had to look at his relationship with his family. The Daltons were a close and loving group and he seemed crazy about them all.

  He had no problems hugging his mother in public, he plainly adored his niece and nephews, he was passionate about his horses.

  And he had been willing to come out to a cold garage in the middle of a stormy winter night to fix her car so she wouldn't be stranded.

  She hadn't wanted to see all those good things about him, she realized. It was far easier to use his wild reputation as a shield to keep him away—and to keep her heart safe.

  Continuing to focus on that one aspect of him was doing both of them an injustice.

  "I know there's more to you," she finally admitted. "Perhaps that's why I can't stop thinking about you."

  * * *

  At her low words, a soft and tender warmth stole through him and he couldn't seem to stop looking at her in the dim light of the garage.

  How could she actually say she wasn't beautiful? Just now, with her mouth swollen and her eyes still heavy-lidded from their kiss, he had never seen such a stunning sight. She looked rumpled and warm and he wanted her with a ferocity that astonished him.

  For now, he contented himself with simply reaching for her hand. "I don't know if this helps anything," he finally said, "but I can't stop thinking about you, either. This sounds crazy, I know, but somehow I missed you these last few weeks. You told me to back off and I've tried to respect that. But I couldn't get you out of my head."

  Her hand trembled in his. "How could you miss me? You don't even know me. Not really."

  "I don't know the answer to that, I just know it's true. I'd like to know you, Jenny. Just as I'm more than my wild reputation, you're more than the boring, ordinary educator you see in the mirror. I know you are. You're beautiful and smart and funny."

  She looked as if she wanted to protest but he didn't give her the chance. "I think we owe each other the chance to see beyond the surface."

  "Seth—"

  "Have dinner with me. Just one date. That's all I'm asking," he pressed. "One evening without all this tension and conflict that doesn't have to be there. There's this great resta
urant I know in Jackson Hole. Neutral territory. We won't see anybody we know and we can talk and laugh and enjoy each other's company. I'll even promise to keep my hands to myself, if that's what it will take."

  It just might be the toughest promise he ever had to keep, he thought, but he could handle it if it offered him the chance to bust through all her roadblocks.

  She slipped her hand from his and wrapped her arms around herself. His heart sank and he braced himself for one more rejection from her, knowing somehow this one would hurt worse than all the others combined after that tender kiss they had just shared.

  He saw the indecision in her eyes, then her gaze shifted from him to her car for just a moment. He had no idea what she saw there, but when she looked back, he was stunned to see the uncertainty replaced by something soft and warm, something that left him breathless.

  "All right. Yes. I'll go to dinner with you."

  He wasn't at all prepared for the raw emotion that coursed through him at her words—a tangle of joy and relief and elation. It left him more than a little uneasy, but he resolved not to worry about that now.

  * * *

  How had things come to this?

  Ten days later, just a week before Christmas, Jenny pulled out the roast chicken to check it one final time. The skin looked perfect, crisp and golden, and the whole kitchen was redolent with delicious smells—fresh rolls, creamy mashed potatoes and the succulent chicken.

  "Does this look right?" Morgan asked from the kitchen island where she was drizzling chocolate syrup across the cheesecake she'd made earlier in the day.

  "Delicious," she assured her daughter, who unfortunately had inherited her somewhat less-than-gourmet skills in the kitchen.

  "Do you think Seth will like it?"

  "Will like what?" the man in question asked from the doorway and her heart gave its customary foolish little leap.

  She really needed to have a talk with her father about letting Seth into the house without giving her some kind of warning so she could brace herself for his impact on her.

  How was it possible he was more gorgeous every time she saw him? she wondered. Tonight he wore faded jeans, worn boots and a burgundy fisherman's sweater that made her mouth water. Throw in that heartbreaking smile and the sweet little puppy cavorting around his legs and it was no wonder she had no defenses against him.

  She cleared her throat. "Hi," she said.

  His smile widened and she wondered how he could consume every oxygen particle just by walking into a room.

  "Hi." His greeting encompassed both of them, but the light in his eyes was entirely for her, she knew, though she didn't understand it and couldn't quite believe it.

  "What will I like?"

  "Morgan made you a dessert," Jenny said. "She's a little worried you won't like it."

  "You made that?"

  He walked closer, bringing with him the clean, masculine scent of his aftershave. He smelled far better than anything she'd fixed for dinner and all she wanted to do was devour him.

  She forced herself to take several deep, cleansing breaths to calm down as Morgan nodded with a grimace.

  "It's kind of uneven," her daughter admitted. "I was hoping the chocolate syrup would hide it."

  "Are you kidding? It looks like something out of a magazine. I hope nobody else is hungry because I just might have to eat that whole thing all by myself."

  Morgan giggled, her eyes glowing. Jenny knew she must look the same.

  How had things come to this? She had no willpower where the man was concerned.

  What had started out as one simple dinner invitation to one of the more exclusive Jackson Hole restaurants had somehow slid into a regular event in the last ten days.

  She had seen him nearly every day since the night he'd helped with Morgan's flare-up and fixed her car. They had gone to dinner twice in Jackson Hole, had taken the kids to a movie in Idaho Falls one day, had taken a drive to Mesa Falls to watch the spectacular show of water thrusting through ice.

  They'd even gone for a snowy moonlit horseback ride on the ranch—which might have been romantic if they hadn't had both Natalie and Morgan along, chattering all the way.

  It was after that horseback ride two nights before when they'd been sipping hot cocoa by his soaring Christmas tree that she'd taken the huge step of asking him to dinner.

  She hadn't meant to—had actually been working up to telling him she couldn't see him anymore. But the invitation had slipped from her subconscious to her tongue before she knew it.

  She couldn't take it back, especially when he had looked so delighted. It was the first time she had initiated a social encounter between them and she knew he must have realized that fact as well as she did.

  As wonderful as she had to admit these ten days had been, she wasn't quite sure where things stood between them. Despite the wild heat of that night in the garage, they hadn't shared anything like that since. He was true to his word, she had discovered. When he said he would keep his hands to himself, he meant exactly that.

  Though he was attentive and courteous, any physical contact between them was casual—a hand on her arm to help her over an icy patch, fingers casually laced through hers in a darkened theater as they watched a movie, a barely-there good-night kiss when he dropped her off after dinner.

  If he meant to drive her crazy with lust, he was certainly succeeding. She was a quivering mass of hormones when he was around.

  They couldn't keep on like this.

  The thought crawled through her mind again, stark and depressing. Seeing him was accomplishing nothing except giving her this wild hunger for something she knew she couldn't have.

  "Anything I can do?" Seth asked.

  She pushed away the thought for now and mustered a smile. "I think we're there, aren't we, Morgan?"

  Her daughter nodded.

  "We only have to take the food into the dining room."

  "I can't even begin to tell you how delicious everything looks," he murmured, and her whole body seemed to shiver and sigh. He was looking at her and not the dinner she'd spent so much time preparing.

  "Here," she said abruptly, thrusting a dish to him. "You can carry in the bird."

  He grinned as if he knew exactly his effect on her, but took the tray from her and headed out of the kitchen.

  After he left, Jenny turned to find Morgan watching, a curious light in her eyes. Her daughter waited about ten seconds before she spoke in a voice pitched low. "Are you going to marry Seth?"

  The bowl of mashed potatoes slipped from Jenny's suddenly nerveless fingers and she had to scramble to keep them from splattering all over the kitchen floor.

  "No! Wherever did you get that idea?"

  "You like him though, don't you?"

  Heaven spare her from nine-year-old girls who saw entirely too much. "I…yes. Of course I do. But that's a far cry from marrying him, honey. We're only friends."

  Morgan digested that, looking a little disappointed. "I just wanted you to know I wouldn't mind. I don't think Cole would, either. He's a lot nicer when Seth is around."

  "Okay. Um, good to know." This wasn't a conversation she wanted to have right now, with Seth just on the other side of that wall. She could only pray he didn't come back in.

  "Natalie says it's pretty cool having a stepparent. Mrs. Dalton is way nice to her and fixes her hair and everything."

  "You already have someone to fix your hair," she pointed out, hoping to distract her. "Me!"

  "I know. But I don't have someone to teach me how to ride horses or who knows what I feel like when my asthma flares." Morgan was quiet for a moment. "You laugh a lot more when Seth is here. So if you want to marry him, I wouldn't mind."

  Her daughter picked up the cheesecake she put such effort into and carried it out of the kitchen.

  When she left, Jenny pressed a hand to her mouth. Oh, she needed to put a stop to this. She should have realized how Morgan would construe the fragile beginnings of whatever this was with Seth. He was th
e only man she had spent any time with socially since the divorce, so it was logical for Morgan to jump to the wrong conclusion.

  Shaking him loose was going to hurt.

  The knowledge left a cold knot in her stomach. It would hurt, but not as much as they would all hurt if she let things continue as they were.

  He wasn't serious about her. She still didn't know why exactly he seemed to want to spend so much time with her, but she knew he couldn't possibly have anything lasting in mind.

  "Are we eating or are we going to sit here looking at all this pretty food all night?" her father called from the dining room.

  "I'm coming. Sorry."

  She let out a breath, then grabbed the rolls and the salad. Tonight. She had to find some way to tell him this had to be the end of it.

  No matter how much she loved being with him, how the whole world seemed more vivid and wonderful whenever he was near, she had to stop indulging herself before her children opened their hearts and their lives to him any further.

  And before she did the same.

  Chapter Twelve

  Forty-five minutes later, she was no closer to figuring out how she was going to force herself to end something that seemed so perfect—though with each passing moment, she knew she had no choice.

  Seth set down his fork with a sigh of satisfaction. "Ladies, that was just about the best dinner I've had in longer than I can remember. Especially the cheesecake."

  Morgan beamed, clearly smitten. "It's my mom's recipe. I just followed the directions."

  "Even though you had a great recipe to start with, you were the one who did such a good job following it. But kudos to your mom, too."

  "I can't really take credit," Jenny protested. "I always just use the recipe that comes on the cream cheese package—nothing very original, I'm afraid."

  He laughed. "Enough of this humility! Will somebody please accept the compliment?"

  "I will," Cole offered with a grin.

  Everyone laughed, since Cole had had absolutely nothing to do with the cheesecake except eating a hefty slice.