Brushing off Crimson Dawn’s stiff apology on the part of her uncle as being completely unnecessary, she squeezed the girl’s shoulder reassuringly.
“Your work is coming along wonderfully. At this rate you’ll be able to start another project well before this term is up.”
Despite the possible repercussions, Annie’s stubborn heart bade her continue. She considered her words carefully, however.
“In case you don’t know it, Crimson, I’ve been expressly forbidden to direct your talents outside of this classroom. Nonetheless, I want you to know that you have been given an incredible gift. However you choose to use it is up to you.”
The knowledge that her teacher was referring not only to the unique stained-glass sculpture that she was in the process of finishing, but also the other artwork she had so shyly shown her earlier caused the girl to smile tremulously.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, not nearly as capable of expressing her feelings with words as with her hands. That Ms. Wainwright’s praise didn’t waver in light of the family feud it was causing at home made her heart swell with appreciation. Shyly she ventured words of advice to the teacher who had such faith in her abilities.
“Don’t let Uncle Johnny buffalo you. He’s really just a big old teddy bear.”
Annie tried not to choke on the image. If the man were any kind of bear, a grizzly was what came to mind. Nevertheless, she offered Crimson an appreciative smile for her concern, all the while offering up a little prayer that this girl’s beloved uncle had gone into early hibernation and that he would stay there until her own limited tenure was over.
A few hours later, after all her students had vacated the art room, Annie became so completely absorbed in her own work that she had no idea she was not alone. It would take something far louder than a man’s studious gaze to disrupt her concentration when she was thus engaged in her work. Even a man whose presence was as disquieting as the one focused so intently upon her at the moment.
“Very nice,” Johnny Lonebear murmured, stepping behind her to see what it was that held her attention so completely.
Startled, Annie almost dropped the sizable piece of glass that she held in her hand. She could have sworn he had deliberately sneaked up on her wearing moccasins rather than the pair of work boots he favored. Strangely enough, his compliment burgeoned inside her like a rare tropical flower blooming in the desert. Though Annie knew he was referring to the intricate pattern laid out upon her workbench, she couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like to hear this man speak in such silky tones about the scent of her perfume or the cut of her hair or the swell of her breasts as he fondled them in both hands.
“I’m happy that it meets with your approval,” she said tersely, hoping to banish such images with uncharacteristic brusqueness.
Ignoring the obvious ploy to send him on his way, Johnny lingered over her design. He ran a lazy finger over the intriguing bumpy texture that was destined to become part of an amethyst horizon representing both nightfall and daybreak. Though Annie thought it would serve him right if the rough edge cut him, she refrained from saying so, hoping that by keeping silent, he would simply take the hint and leave.
He didn’t.
“I’ve received a lot of unsolicited and contradictory advice lately in regard to you,” he told her in a matter-of-fact tone of voice that caught Annie off guard. He leaned his weight on the workbench and gave her what could almost pass as a conciliatory grin.
Annie willed herself not to give in to the temptation of pressing for information that she suspected would only be hurtful.
“Is that so?” she asked as nonchalantly as she could manage over a heartbeat that was galloping out of control.
“My niece insists I should apologize to you,” he explained. “And a certain teacher on my staff whom I greatly respect called me up out of the blue yesterday to scold me on your behalf. But my dear sister is still under the impression that you have snakes in your head and wants me to fire you before you completely ruin her daughter.”
“Snakes in my head?” Annie parroted. Her confusion was reflected in the furrows in her forehead.
“It’s an old Indian expression meaning crazy,” Johnny told her with a crooked grin. His gaze fell upon the array of cutting tools set upon the bench. “Looking at the quality of your work, and word of mouth as to your teaching ability, I’m inclined to agree with Crimson Dawn. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t let her know that, though. Any administrator worth his salt recognizes it’s not good for teenagers to be right too often.”
Annie was as taken aback by his backhanded concession as by the sudden appearance of a wry sense of humor.
“Is that supposed to pass as an apology?” she asked, clearly unsettled by this strange turn of events.
“If you’re waiting for a formal act of contrition, I wouldn’t recommend holding your breath,” he said in a tone that belied the good-natured look in his eyes.
Staring into the dark waters of those eyes was definitely a mistake, Annie realized too late, as she struggled valiantly to fight her way out of their depths like a drowning swimmer paddling for the shore for all she was worth. Although she realized that technique didn’t count for much when survival was at stake, Annie nevertheless attempted some semblance of style.
“Shall we call it a truce, then, Mr. Lonebear?” she queried with one upraised eyebrow.
“For the time being, Miss Wainwright,” he said with a wink that was Annie’s undoing.
In a gesture of peace, he reached for the hand that hung loosely at her side and shook it with all the solemnity of someone entering into a formal agreement.
“And when we’re not in front of any students, you can call me Johnny. All my friends do.”
An all-too-familiar tingling began at Annie’s fingertips, traveled up her arm and raced through her body with all the speed and intensity of a hotwired ignition. In the span of a single second, all her senses roared to life. As disconcerting as the warmth that settled into the pit of her stomach was, for some reason she was reluctant to disengage from the source of that power. The strength in Johnny Lonebear’s hand underscored the sexual promise in those incredible eyes of his. Eyes that spun the world upside down and left Annie feeling as if she had just landed ignominiously on her backside.
Annie drew her gaze away to stare hotly at some offending spot on the floor. Freeing her hand from his grasp, she gestured at her work in progress, hoping to divert attention away from her perplexing physical reaction.
“What do you think?” she asked. “Since I’m planning on dedicating this piece to the school when I’m finished, I’d take any advice you could give me to make it more authentic and meaningful to your students and community.”
Johnny looked so surprised by this announcement that it actually made Annie giggle. The sound was so unexpectedly girlish that it made her blush to hear it. Having had little to chuckle about lately, she decided against apologizing for it.
If he thought her laughter sounded tarnished, Johnny Lonebear refrained from commenting on it. If pressed, he might have admitted that it sounded rather like wind chimes tinkling in an unexpected breeze. A breeze that did absolutely nothing to cool him off but rather served to fan the flicker of interest tickling the inside of his loins.
When he spoke again, he gave absolutely no indication that he was burning up inside. “You might add both a Shoshone and an Arapaho symbol on the sides of the tepee. That way you could unify the predominant tribes on our reservation.”
He saw no need to add that the hope of the government, when they initially placed warring tribes on the same piece of land, was that the natives would kill each other off and go the way of the buffalo, which were so shamelessly slaughtered and left to rot in stinking mounds upon the Great Plains a century ago. Nor did he bother explaining how that travesty had been part of a calculated plan to starve this country’s native population to death. Johnny forced himself to remember the only thing connecting Annie Wainwright
with the sins of her ancestors was her pretty golden hair and fair skin. He knew better than most that any bitter remonstrance against this generation would only add to a hatred that spanned the centuries and turned one man against the other. He hadn’t risked his life upon foreign fields of battle in support of America only to undermine it by wallowing in a past over which he had no control. Not that he advocated sweeping all unpleasant historical facts under the rug, either. Indeed, his sister’s wariness was not completely unfounded.
“Thank you,” Annie said with a grateful smile that pulled him back into the present moment and added yet another piece of dry kindling to a bonfire that was devouring his resolve to stay professionally detached.
“My knowledge of native culture is limited to what I’ve read in books, and I’d rather not rely solely upon that,” she told him honestly.
“Glad to hear it,” he replied dryly.
As far as Johnny was concerned, too many people gleaned everything they would ever know about Native Americans from books written by white men intent on either vilifying or glorifying his culture. Recalling his earlier comment that Annie herself was an outsider and as such was suspect, he appreciated her openness to his suggestion.
“Tell you what,” he said, feeling suddenly charitable and wanting to put the past behind them. “There’s a powwow coming up this weekend at Fort Washakie. I’d be willing to show you around if you’d like to go. Ideas for art abound there.”
He’d be willing to show her around?
Annie wasn’t sure whether to be insulted or flattered by such an offhand invitation. Having made it sound as if he were sacrificing himself on her behalf for the good of the cause, she thought he might as well have offered her the use of a Seeing Eye dog to find her way around the reservation.
Certainly no one could accuse the man of being overly suave. Still, the thought of spending time alone with him outside of a school setting had Annie feeling suddenly flushed. Warning lights went off inside her head as hope warred with fear. Though the idea of attending a powwow as an invited guest appealed to her, Johnny Lonebear’s reputed past was reason enough to give him a wide berth. Not to mention that any fool knew it was risky to become involved with one’s boss outside of the workplace.
Then again, how wise would it be to turn down such an unexpected peace offering?
“Are you by any chance asking me on a date?” she asked, too startled by the possibility of an actual date with him to act coy.
Slow and dangerous, the smile that spread across Johnny’s face was reminiscent of the bad-boy persona that rumor had it once made him a target for every silly little heart romantically inclined to impale itself upon a stake. Somehow the smile managed to give the impression that he was laughing at Annie and with her at the same time. It also made her knees turn as wobbly as the newborn fawn that she had spied with its mother in the meadow behind Jewell’s house this morning. Annie steadied herself by leaning on her workbench in what she hoped came off as an indifferent pose.
“Why don’t we just consider it a homework assignment and let it go at that?” Johnny suggested with a twinkle reflected in the midnight sky of a pair of eyes as completely unfathomable as Annie’s reaction to it.
Three
Annie spent the better part of the next twenty-four hours berating herself for not following up on the offhand remark that the “date” for which she was meticulously preparing was nothing more than a homework assignment. She couldn’t help but wonder exactly whose homework Johnny been referring to. Had he been alluding to her need to familiarize herself with the local culture? Or to the fact that he planned on doing some personal research of his own before reporting back to his sister whether Annie did indeed have snakes in her head and was a danger to the impressionable young minds of this reservation?
Neither scenario appealed to her much.
Furthermore, such contemplation served to make getting ready for what was already destined to be an uncomfortable afternoon all the more difficult. Indeed, Annie had no idea what to wear to a powwow. Neither a true cowgirl nor an Indian, she couldn’t very well bring herself to succumb to the lure of either culture. She could no more envision herself bedecked in Native leather and beads than she could picture herself in Western boots and a mile-high Stetson. Believing it to be hopeless that she could ever blend in at such a local event no matter what she wore, she decided at last to simply go as herself. Since her preferred choice of attire for any given outing was a T-shirt, pair of shorts and tennis shoes, she saw no need to stray from comfort now. Having checked with Jewell beforehand to make sure casual dress was acceptable, she decided a pair of jeans would prove less disrespectful to any participants who might resent her presence at such a traditional, time-honored ceremony.
Annie’s most overt concession to the fluttery feeling that settled into her stomach whenever she thought about the sexy, intimidating man who was due to arrive any minute to pick her up was to pay her hair more attention than usual. Lately she had taken to pulling it back in a practical ponytail that allowed her to meet the world head-on. Today the thought of using her hair as a curtain if necessary—an old trick passed freely among junior high girls—to obscure her face from Johnny Lonebear compelled her to dig out and dust off an old curling iron. After forcing her naturally straight tresses into loose curls that fell about her shoulders, she decided to forgo applying any blush to her cheeks. They were already burning with telltale anticipation.
Laboring under the assumption that it would give Johnny an enormous sense of self-satisfaction to discover just how nervous this impromptu rendezvous with fate was making her, Annie sternly reminded herself that she was no giddy teenager preparing for her first date. The pink-cheeked woman staring at her in the mirror was certainly old enough to know better.
Definitely old enough to separate fantasy from reality.
Fact from fiction.
And lust from love….
Indeed, Annie had no more reason to believe that she and her enigmatic boss would hit it off any better today than at their first volatile encounter than she could expect to be treated as anything but an interloper at the day’s festivities. Johnny Lonebear himself had been eager to spell that particular fact out for her. As a white woman with no obvious ties to the community, her motives were naturally suspect.
The loud knock at her front door did nothing to settle her nerves. Annie jumped at the sound, bumping a bottle of perfume off the bathroom counter in the process.
“Come on in,” she hollered, bending down to retrieve the bottle and using the excuse to spritz her pulse points with its delicate scent.
It had been so long since she had been out on anything resembling a date, even one as unofficial as this one, that she felt thrown off balance by the effort it required. Despite her entreaty, the front door remained stubbornly closed. Hurrying to open it, Annie paused only long enough to fasten a plastic smile to her face.
She swung the door open and felt all the air sucked out of her small abode. The man standing there on her front porch looked so utterly devastating, dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a short-sleeved denim shirt, that Annie could almost hear her smile clattering to the floor. His clean-cut military haircut clashed with the predatory look in those dark-chocolate eyes as they swept over her. A flicker of approval illuminated their depths, causing a feminine shiver to ripple through her.
“You look nice,” Johnny said, his voice sounding far more noncommittal than his heated gaze indicated.
Having momentarily forgotten how to breathe, Annie attempted to resuscitate herself by swallowing a big gulp of fresh air.
“Thanks,” she murmured, thinking there was no need to return the compliment. Nice was such a gross understatement when applied to this striking specimen of manhood. For heaven’s sake, the man practically radiated testosterone.
It was all Annie could do to refrain from taking a giant step backward.
It was all she could do to keep from stepping forward and indulging h
er curiosity by running her hands along the exposed muscles of his arms.
Involuntarily, Annie’s headstrong imagination slipped beneath his shirt, as well, to check out the muscles hidden there. It gave her some measure of comfort to think that, just in case she ended up doing something utterly idiotic like swooning at his feet, this hale fellow would have no trouble carrying her to the couch—or to the bed, for that matter.
Attempting to get her runaway hormones under control, she picked her smile up off the floor and gave her best imitation of someone who had it all together.
“Just let me grab my purse, and we can be on our way.”
She was eager to dispense with the formality of inviting him inside on the pretense of showing him around the house. Johnny Lonebear did not appear to be the kind of man who was into such things as floor plans and decorative touches. As far as houses went, he struck Annie as the type who preferred a canopy of stars overhead to any fashionable cathedral-style ceiling. The very thought conjured up a vision of two sleeping bags zipped together in a remote and romantic setting. Annie hastened to shake her head to clear it of that image, but it was too late to keep that wicked imagination of hers from diving beneath the sleeping bag covers to reveal herself wantonly writhing beneath this powerful, naked man.
Grabbing her purse off a nearby chair as if it were a life preserver, she heard her lips form a bold-faced lie.
“I’m ready if you are,” she said, fighting the urge to run back inside and bolt the door behind her.
Warrior In Her Bed (Silhouette Desire) Page 3