Each sensation heightened her awareness of the man who held her. Every move, every breath added to the sexual desire spinning out of control. Yet it wasn’t until the song ended and they were walking off the tiny dance floor that Chloe plunged from desire into shock.
Mase put his hand at the small of her back to guide her to the table. His touch was light, the gesture courteous... and electrifying!
The instant she felt the press of his fingers, Chloe stopped in her tracks. Her spine tingled. Shivers raced through her whole body. After the intimacy of the dance, she didn’t know why this casual contact should stun her, but it did. It also kicked the door that had closed in her mind open another few inches. The haze clouding her mind swirled, shifted, settled.
He’d touched her like this before! She was sure of it! With this same careful control. This same deliberate casualness.
“Chloe?”
Mase’s deep voice spun her around. Her breath came fast and hard. She stared up at him, willing the mists to part just a little more. When they didn’t, she gave a groan of sheer frustration.
“Chloe, what is it? Are you all right?”
She brushed aside his sharp concern. She had to know, had to understand what had just happened.
“You’re staying here, aren’t you?”
His eyes narrowed. “I have a room upstairs.”
“Take me upstairs.”
His hesitation stretched almost to infinity. Finally he shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“If I take you upstairs, I’m not promising I’ll keep my hands off you.”
The growled warning sent shock spilling through her. Shock, and a hot, sweet desire that prickled her skin from her nose to her knees.
“I...I need to talk to you,” she gasped. “Just talk.”
“I’m still not making any promises. I want you, Chloe. I have for a long time.”
How long? she wondered wildly. Days? Weeks? Years? Oh, God, why couldn’t she remember? Why couldn’t she kick that damned door all the way open?
She would, she vowed fiercely. She would!
“All right. Maybe going up to your room isn’t such a good idea. Why don’t you go back to the store with me? We can talk there.”
Seven
Calling himself ten kinds of a fool for not sweeping Chloe up the stairs and into his bed, Mase growled his assent.
“All right. I’ll tell Mayor Dobbins to throw another rib-eye on for Hannah, then we’ll go up to the store.”
“She doesn’t want anything. As she put it, she’s feeling too pesky to eat.”
“Fine. Get your coat while I settle the bill.”
“I’ll pay for my din—”
“Get your coat.”
The whiplike command brought her chin up. “I’ll pay for my dinner, Chandler. Yours, too, as a belated thank-you for helping me with the customer database and the inventory.”
The militant glint in her eyes warned Mase not to argue further. Muttering a curse, he dragged a hand through his hair and accepted her offer with something less than graciousness.
“I’ll wait for you outside.”
He strode to the exit, battling the heat that had seared him when he’d held her during that dance...and the even fiercer fire that had leaped into his belly when she’d invited herself upstairs. He had to douse those fires, had to cool off before he spooked her or, worse, sent her retreating even further behind the barriers.
The cold night air helped considerably. So did the long strides he took up and down the street. By the time Chloe emerged from the café, he’d regained at least an outward semblance of control.
They made the short ride to the store in silence. The bell tinkled as they stepped into its fragrant warmth. A quick sweep of the store showed it empty of customers and, thank goodness, any and all lovesick vets or postal workers or ranch hands.
Shedding her bright orange jacket, Chloe headed for the back room. “I’ll check on Hannah. Make yourself comfortable.”
Right. Comfortable.
Mase ignored the rocking chairs pulled up to the potbellied stove and prowled the few feet of open space in front of the counter. After his crack about wanting her, she was going to want answers. He’d better come up with some, fast.
He paced, framing his responses. The floorboards creaked under his boots. Muffled voices carried from the distant living quarters. Mase catalogued Hannah’s gruff tones. The note of polite inquiry in Chloe’s. Another feminine voice he didn’t recognize.
Although...
He stopped, frowning, as the voice tugged at his mind. Before he could place it, Chloe returned.
“Does Hannah have company?”
“An old friend stopped by.”
“Anyone you know?”
Her shimmering violet eyes darkened. “No.”
The single syllable carried an aching frustration that cut through Mase like a jagged blade. He braced himself, guessing that the worst was yet to come.
He was right.
Dragging in a deep breath, Chloe plunged right to the heart of the matter. “I felt something, back there at the café. When we were walking to the table and you put your hand on my back, I had the oddest sense that you’d done it before. Many times. You have, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Who are you? How did we know each other?”
The tendons in Mase’s neck corded. He’d waited for this moment for days. Slowly, carefully, he closed the distance between them.
“I’m your fiancé.”
“We...we were engaged?”
His jaw worked. “We’re still engaged.”
“But how...? Why...?”
She stumbled to a stop. Mase’s heart jackhammered against his ribs. The hands fisted at his sides felt clammy. Don’t push her, he warned himself savagely. Let her take one step at a time. One question at a time.
Finally she sorted through the thousands that had to be tumbling through her mind and cut to the core.
“Who am I?”
“Your name is Chloe Fortune.”
“Chloe Fortune.”
She tested the name, repeating it again, then again. Taut as strung wire, Mase waited for a flicker of recognition, of awareness, of relief. All he saw in her face was a bleak despair that tore at his soul.
“Do I . . .” She fought for each strangled word. “Do I have a family?”
“You have a father and two brothers. Plus several dozen assorted aunts, uncles and cousins back in Minneapolis.”
“Minneapolis? Is that where I...where we lived?”
Mase had never really believed the old cliché about a heart breaking. The brutal knowledge that Chloe didn’t remember anything of her former life...or of him...was fast making a believer out of him.
Mindful of the neurologist’s advice, he gritted his teeth and waited for her to take the next step. At the least, he expected her to demand details of her family and her former life. At the worst, he feared she’d allow the panic he saw in her face drive her further back into the shadows.
She did neither. Instead, she closed her eyes. Breathing hard, she battled her panic with a raw courage that made Mase’s chest ache. When she opened them again, he had to forcibly restrain himself from reaching for her.
“Do you recall anything from before you arrived in Crockett?” he asked gently.
“I remember a long, dark stretch of road. I remember flashes of an accident. I remember going to a doctor.” She lifted a trembling hand to rub her temple. “Sometimes...”
His pulse jumped. “Sometimes?”
“Sometimes I almost remember why I was on that road.”
Mase wanted to tell her. He had the story all ready. But the delicate balance of truth and fiction he’d created to explain the scene she’d witnessed in his office stuck in his throat. He couldn’t lie to her. Not now. Not when she was so exposed and vulnerable.
“I feel as though a door has closed on my mind,”
she admitted, her voice raw with frustration. “The damned thing opens an inch or two, then slams shut.
“It’ll open the rest of the way, Chloe. Give yourself time.”
To his astonishment, she managed a ragged chuckle. “That’s what Hannah says. South Dakota may be knee-deep in snow before I finally kick it all the way open.”
“It doesn’t matter how deep the snow is,” he told her. “I came to Crockett to take you home. I’m staying right here until you’re ready to make the journey.”
The soft promise brought her hand down and her head up. “I’m not ready yet, Mase. I don’t want to go home until I know why I ran away from it. And from you.”
Mase was still digesting that when she rocked him back on his heels. Reaching up, she framed his face with her palms.
“I do know one thing, though. I wasn’t running from this.” Stretching up on tiptoe, she brushed her lips across his.
“Chloe...”
“Or this.”
Tilting her head, she fitted her mouth to his. Mase let her taste. Touch. Test. All the while his-fists were clenched so tight he thought his knuckles would pop.
“I didn’t run away from this,” she murmured against his mouth. “Did I, Mase? Did I?”
Chloe had her answer even before he growled a negative and slid a hand in her hair to anchor her head for the kiss she demanded. Whatever else had driven her away, it wasn’t the hard crush of Mase Chandler’s mouth on hers. Or the flex of his muscles as he wrapped an arm around her waist and drew her into his heat. His strength didn’t cage her. His hunger didn’t frighten her.
If anything, it fed her own.
Determined to crack the door open another inch or two, she wrapped her arms around his neck. Her mouth ground into his. Her breasts flattened against his chest. He matched her, move for move, his legs widening, his hand burrowing deeper into her hair. She felt him harden against her hip, felt the wild slam of his heart against hers.
Without quite knowing when or how it happened, Chloe lost control of the kiss and of the situation. Her senses rocketed toward maximum overload. She breathed Mase, tasted him, touched him at every contact point from knee to nose. Her blood pounded so hard and so fast that she barely heard the tap of footsteps behind her.
Mase heard them, though. His body wire tight, he lifted his head.
“Excuse me,” a feminine voice offered in apology. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
Dragging in great gulps of air and regret, Chloe stepped out of his arms. With one hand on the counter to steady herself, she turned to Hannah’s friend. Taller and more willowy than the shopkeeper, the woman wore scuffed boots, well-washed jeans, a bulky sheepskin vest and a narrow-brimmed felt hat pulled low on her forehead. On most of the ranchers in the area, the outfit looked functional. On her, it looked elegant.
“You’re not disturbing us.” The monumental lie almost choked Chloe. “Did you, uh, want something?”
With a look that combined lively interest and intense speculation, she shook her head. “No, not really. Hannah was feeling a little fretful, so I thought I’d better leave. You two just go back to what you were doing.”
She strode toward the door, her boots ringing on the boards. Mase watched the older woman until the door closed. When he turned back to Chloe, she saw her own frustration reflected in his eyes.
The interruption had come just in time for both of them, Chloe knew. Another few moments and she would have been yanking at the buttons on his shirt or grabbing for his belt buckle. She needed to back off, now! She needed to let the heat still scorching her skin cool. She needed to digest what Mase had told her and decide what questions she wanted answers for next.
Knowing what she needed to do was a whole lot easier than doing it, however. Her throat aching, she tried for a smile.
“I’d better go help Hannah get ready for bed.”
He nodded.
“Can we continue this...this discussion tomorrow? I want to know more, Mase. About us. About my family. I’ll get someone to stay with Hannah tomorrow afternoon. Maybe we could go for a walk or drive up to the lake.”
He lifted a hand and brushed the back of it down her cheek. “After tonight, I don’t guarantee you’ll be any safer at the lake than in the privacy of my room, Chloe.”
She swiped her tongue along suddenly dry lips. “I’ll take my chances.”
Fierce satisfaction leaped into his face. He kissed her again, hard and long, then left her with a promise.
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
The bell above the door jangled as he left. Before the last echoes died away, Chloe was already regretting his departure.
As Mase had expected, the pseudo-rancher was waiting for him outside the store. Boots crossed at the ankle, hands tucked in the pockets of her sheepskin vest, she leaned against the cab of a pickup. Her breath steamed on the chill night air. Under the brim of her low-riding hat, her face was shadowed.
“Hello, Kate.”
Kate Fortune’s rich chuckle drifted on the night air. “Hello, Mase. For a moment there, I wasn’t sure you’d recognized me.”
“For a moment there, I didn’t.”
The laughter faded from her voice. “Chloe certainly didn’t. I was devastated when she walked in and gave me the same polite nod she’d give a stranger.”
“I’ve been on the receiving end of a few of those polite nods myself this past week.”
“Is that right?” She lifted an eyebrow. “It looked like you were on the receiving end of more than that a few moments ago.”
“We’re making progress,” he replied with some understatement.
“Maybe if you’d made that kind of progress during your engagement,” Kate tossed back tartly, “my great-niece wouldn’t have run away.”
Mase grimaced. “I’ve been telling myself the same thing.”
Kate pushed away from the truck. Her face, still unlined and beautifully boned, wore a troubled frown. Reaching out, she clasped both of his hands in hers.
“How is she, Mase? Really?”
His fingers curled over hers. In the years Mase had known Chloe’s great-aunt, he’d come to respect her for her business acumen. He’d also shaken his head in awe at her more remarkable exploits, admired her thoroughbred beauty and cherished her for the love she lavished on her sprawling family.
“I think she’s starting to recover, Kate. Memories are tugging at her, although she can’t seem to pull them out of the haze in her mind yet.”
“Emmet will be glad to hear that! He’s stewing himself into an early grave over Chloe’s long absence.”
“I’ve been giving him nightly progress reports. He didn’t tell me you were coming out to South Dakota.”
“He didn’t know,” Kate replied with a twinkle. “I don’t coordinate my activities with my sons or nephews, only with Sterling...and then I usually wait until it’s too late for him to protest.”
Mase hid a grin. Long-suffering Sterling Foster had loved Kate for years with all the passion of his quiet, conservative, Ivy-league heart. Only after Kate’s supposed death in a plane crash and the stealthy investigation to find her killer, had the attorney come out and declared his love.
Theirs was, the Fortunes all declared, the perfect match. Stodgy, steady Sterling and beautiful, adventurous Kate. One soared with the eagles. The other gave her the stable platform she needed to take off from.
Not unlike his match with Chloe, Mase reflected wryly. In the eyes of the Fortunes, he was the solid, steady and reliable one in their relationship. Only his fiancée had gained a fleeting glimpse into his other life...a glimpse they were both paying for now.
“I’d better get back to Rapid City,” Kate said a few moments later. “I left the crew standing by at the plane.”
Mase opened the door to the pickup for her, then leaned down to catch her soft question. “When are you two coming home?”
“Whenever Chloe’s ready.”
Sighing, Kate nodded.
Ha
nds shoved deep in his pockets, Mase watched the pickup’s taillights bounce down Crockett’s main street before disappearing at the turnoff for the state road.
Strange. He’d arrived in town less than a week ago, determined to reclaim his fiancée and take her back to Minneapolis. He still wanted to reclaim Chloe. His hunger for her mounted every day and had come close to bursting its bounds tonight. But she was a different person here. He was different. Stripped of their past by Chloe’s amnesia, they were getting to know each other all over again. Discovering their likes and dislikes. Peeling away the complications engendered by their phony engagement.
And tomorrow, Mase thought with a sudden lurch in his stomach, they’d peel away more than complications. The mere thought of a few hours alone with Chloe had him hard again. Grimacing at the now-familiar ache in his groin, he climbed into the Blazer. The cold night air whipped through his opened window as he drove the short distance to the café/hotel/town offices.
Tomorrow, he promised the stars and himself. Tomorrow.
Tomorrow, Chloe thought as she helped Hannah get settled for the night. Tomorrow.
She’d learn more about herself. About her family. About Mase. She’d touch him again. Taste him. Anticipation curled her toes. A hunger she didn’t even try to deny licked at her veins.
It was still with her when she went back to close up the store. With brisk efficiency, she emptied the cash drawer and tallied the receipts in the log Hannah kept for that purpose. Rubber-banding the receipts to the log, she set them aside to take to Hannah and went to turn out the porch lights and lock the front door.
She’d just reached for the latch when a face suddenly loomed in the glass. Her heart almost jumped out of her chest. Gasping, she jerked back.
The stranger on the other side of the glass peered at her for a moment, then reached for the door latch. The bell jangled discordantly as he stepped inside.
“Evening, ma’am.” He tipped two fingers to the ball cap that covered his scraggly gray hair. “Sorry if I startled you.”
Undercover Groom Page 8