He watched her walk away. Hips. Skin. Heat on a hot autumn night.
And Shane kept watching her until he had to shake himself out of it. He shouldn’t be thinking about Nicki Wade.
He shouldn’t be thinking about anything other than every woman in the room who might like to spend some time with an outlaw tonight in a hideaway, where he could forget just about everything else for a few precious hours.
HOW COULD SHANE CARTER just amble back into town and rile her up like this?
God, all Nicki wanted to do was show him he was wrong…and to make him see her.
Every bit of the woman she had become while he’d been away.
She watched how the girls in the room—brides, dark seductresses, even a slave Princess Leia—gravitated toward Shane now. It was just as it’d always been with him—he moved toward the edges of the dance floor but stayed off of it altogether, as if outlaws never danced.
Whatever the case, she didn’t want to stand around until he inevitably changed his mind and scooped a girl into his arms, making his choice for the night. Even picturing him with another woman turned her stomach.
Why, though? What was he to her?
Nicki made her way across the room, to where her ride, Manny, was raiding the buffet table, stacking biscuits, cornbread and cookies into a network of large paper napkins.
“Hey, Manny.”
Her thirtysomething ranch foreman turned around, offering a gap-toothed smile. It complemented his “costume,” which consisted of him sticking some straw into his beat-up Stetson and calling himself a “scarecrow.”
Nicki glanced at his overloaded napkins. “I’m ready to go home whenever you are.”
“Any time,” he said, grabbing another stack of corn bread and piling it on the rest. “Just came here for the grub, anyway.”
“Thanks, Manny.” She would leave a message on Candace’s cell phone to tell her she’d left. Candace had planned to stop drinking after one champagne and drive their pickup home, anyway, so it wasn’t as if Nicki was stranding her.
She could tell that Manny was trying not to check out her costume, but he sure had a bit of a brotherly frown on his face. Any employee on the ranch would probably be doing the same if they saw her, and Nicki just wanted to get out of sight before too many got the opportunity.
Manny fetched a couple of beers from an ice-filled aluminum tub for good measure and stuck them under his armpits before they left the ballroom, going out of the Grand Hotel’s Old West lobby, with its scarred cherry wood furnishings and oil portraits of the town’s founding fathers.
After finding his blue pickup, which featured cloudy areas where the paint had faded, they hopped in. Nicki left that message with Candace on her voice mail, telling her that she would be waiting up with the company of a good book in her room if there was anything exciting to talk about.
Soon enough, she and Manny were at her two-level colonial ranch house that had seen much better days, its white facade in need of paint just as much as Manny’s truck.
Nicki hugged him good-night then got out. The porch protested under her footsteps as he drove away toward the employee cabins.
She went to her second-floor room, realizing that she was tired—too tired to even read or wait up for Candace. Not bothering to turn on the lights before taking off her ankle-high saloon girl boots, she fell forward onto the bed.
Resting her forehead on her arms, she started to chide herself for leaving the party. What she should’ve done was stayed, showing Shane Carter that a mild confrontation with him wouldn’t ruin her night, even if it had.
Damn it—she and those books. She and those dreams. What was it about Shane that had the power to resurrect them tonight? Books were supposed to let her escape, not bring everything into crummy focus.
Her mind couldn’t stop meandering back to Shane in that outlaw outfit, though. To make matters worse, her anger at him boiled her blood even now, heating her up in a way she didn’t want.
Even so, she ached, deep in her belly. She felt the needled pressure of desire between her legs, just from picturing him as that long, tall shadow in the saloon doors, pausing there as he saw his saloon girl waiting by the bar.
Wrong. So wrong to think about him like this.
But the wrongness made her want to do it all the more, and she remembered how he’d looked at her across the room, the first time he’d seen her tonight. How she’d sworn that he’d been stripping off her dress with his gaze, piece by piece.
And then he’d looked again after they’d been talking; slowly, with a languid visual caress that had felt as good as anything physical.
Scorched by the thought, Nicki rolled to her back and raised her arms over her head, holding to the memory of those long glances, feeling them stroke her.
Shane had wanted her, if only for a moment. And in that fleeting time, she hadn’t been that cowgirl next door. She’d been someone entirely different—more powerful, holding the reins.
Nicki stared toward the ceiling; she could see the white expanse of it in the darkness. She should’ve tested Shane, should’ve found out if he would’ve responded to an overture from her. But in her mind…
Well, in her mind she could make sure that he did want her, couldn’t she? In her mind, she could have it any way she wanted it.
Outside, the wind flirted with the shutters and hushed through the half-opened window. She closed her eyes, picturing the outlaw in her head, and her body hummed. As she breathed, her dress whisked against the covers, a soft, sensual sound.
Shane…
No one would know if she touched herself right now, pretending it was him. She was here, alone.
No one would ever know.
She ran one hand down her neck, over a breast, which felt round and ripe under her palm. Sexy under the satin. Tracing the outline of it, she thought of him.
I’m sorry for what I said back at the party, he would tell her if he was here now.
But she would quiet him right up, arching under his hand, just as she was doing now. She would urge him to undo her corset.
Nicki pulled on one of the lacings, trying not to think about the reality, the chances she would be taking by opening herself up and letting an actual man do this.
As she opened the corset, fantasy enveloped her, the air breathing over her exposed skin.
What would he say if he saw her like this?
What would he do?
She pictured Shane’s face with the bandanna covering the lower half of it.
The outlaw. The bad boy who had a chance for redemption…
Feeling free, she slid her hand lower, pushing up her dress and pressing against her sex, pretending it was his hand. She rocked her hips slightly, pressing harder, circling her fingers over her clit.
He was the one stroking her, his face hidden by that bandanna as well as the night that swallowed her room.
Give me everything, he would say in an almost unrecognizable voice.
Nicki pressed harder, faster. Her panties were getting damp now, wetter and wetter as the outlaw made the sexual steam rise inside her, pulsing. Throbbing.
She groaned. “What do you want?”
Her money? Her life?
In her fantasy, he pushed a finger into her, and she bucked. Higher and higher, darker and darker as her fantasy swirled, sucking her in.
I just want you, he would say and, this time, it was Shane’s voice.
Higher, harder…
Nicki came with an inner bang, like a gunshot that echoed and echoed through her, her breathing choppy as she opened her eyes back to the present.
The quiet of the house.
The disturbed covers on her bed.
The moon-shaded corners of her room.
It was a while before she rolled to her stomach again and fell asleep, but when she did, she went back to dreaming of the outlaw and what he would do to her next.
BACK AT THE PARTY, Candace had been shaking her booty on the dance floor, yippy-yo-kay-yayi
ng with every cowboy who was game.
But she hadn’t been so into her fun that she’d completely forgotten about Nicki—especially when her cousin had left the ballroom with Manny the foreman.
Now, as Candace stood in the hallway of the hotel, her cell phone to her ear, she listened to the voice mail.
“Don’t kill me,” Nicki said, “but I’m exhausted, Candy. I had a great time while I was there, but I’m going home. I’ll be waiting up for you in my room with one of those ‘adventurous books’ so you can tell me about your big night. That is, if you even come home. Anyway, we’ll do this again soon—I promise. It’s just that…”
Nicki hadn’t needed to mention the big day tomorrow, because Candace had already guessed that it would be the supposed reason Nicki had left.
But Candace had another theory.
She tucked the phone into a holster that hung from one hip and sauntered to the door of the party, where the band was winding up a Garth Brooks song. As they dove into the last notes and then announced another break, Candace found Shane Carter, standing at a table, the focal point of three giggling women.
The Don Juan of Pine Junction.
Easy guys didn’t interest her, and that’s how most of the men here seemed. Way too easy. So when Candace narrowed her gaze at Shane, it wasn’t because she was zooming in on him for herself.
Earlier, Nicki had been engaged in quite the discussion with him, and it looked as if it hadn’t been a good, flirty chat, either. Nicki had deserted the talk with a crushed look on her face, and it had torn at Candace just as strongly.
All women knew what it was like to be crushed by a crush, and Nicki was more sensitive than most. Beneath all the straight-talk and confidence in her work, Nicki was still finding herself, and it hadn’t been easy while being sheltered by that ranch all these years. Candace had always taken great pleasure in getting Nicki out and about, even as a kid, and she’d seen Nicki blossom when she wasn’t acting like a girl who’d taken on so much responsibility with the ranch much too early.
It broke Candace’s heart to think that Nicki might never get the joy that was to be taken out of life. Even Candace, who’d had her share of hard times lately, knew that there was still fun to be had, even during the worst of it.
Besides, hadn’t Nicki said that she’d be in to using that saloon girl costume?
Candace went to the quiet lobby, asked a desk clerk for a pen and paper, then scribbled.
If you’re up to it, how about coming over at about 10:00 tonight? I’m in my room, on my bed, waiting to see if you’ll be here. Waiting for an outlaw to break out of his cell and be with me, his woman, the saloon girl with the fishnet stockings and garters.
Had she overdone it? It sounded like something from Nicki’s books—novels that Candace had also become addicted to over the years.
Okay, maybe it was over the top, but if a known playboy like Shane was to be lured to Nicki, an invitation would have to have some spice. Sure, Nicki would be in bed reading, as she’d said on her phone message, but if Shane showed up, she could always tell him to get out. Or she could tell him to stay. And, from the way Candace had seen Shane devouring Nicki with his gaze earlier, she had no doubts that he would agree to whatever Nicki decided.
She ended the note by adding the address of the Wade house, mentioning that his saloon girl would be in the first bedroom on the second floor.
Nicki’s room.
One last niggle made Candace hesitate, but she told herself that all Nicki needed was opportunity. Hadn’t she admitted earlier that if the chance came along, she’d hop on it?
Yes, she had. Besides, Nicki needed this—confidence and, more important, some darned fun.
Candace went back to the ballroom, waiting until Shane ambled over to the bar for a drink, then marched right up to him before any other women could waylay him.
“Hi, Shane,” she said, friendly as any old fairy godmother. Or madam.
When he turned around, he didn’t greet her with any kind of playboy’s “how do you do,” as she expected he might. No, at the sight of her, he might’ve even been a little…wary.
“Candace,” he said, offering his hand for a shake. “Nicki’s cousin, right? Haven’t seen you for a good while.”
“I’m on an extended visit.” The circumstances of the visit—getting fired, having trouble getting rehired anywhere—stayed buried in her, deep and low, where embarrassment covered them.
He leaned back against the bar, and she couldn’t help but notice that he was checking out the room.
“Looking for Nicki?” she asked.
“Nope.”
“Well, that’s good, because she left already. I think you ruffled her feathers.”
He frowned. “I didn’t mean to. We had a few words about that corporate guy coming out to her ranch tomorrow, and… Hell, the conversation just didn’t end the way I hoped it would.”
So Candace had been right about them having some sort of tiff.
As he lifted his beer to take a drink, she went for it, tucking the note she’d written into a pocket in his vest.
“If you want to make amends with Nicki, this is how to do it.” She got a little bolder, praying that the end would justify the means. “Nicki’s a pretty shy person. You know that, right?”
“She wasn’t shy while she was putting me in my place.”
“That’s true. When Nicki’s wound up, Nicki’s wound up.” Candace took a breath. Here it went. “Before she left, she was still on fire, and I suggested she put that to good use. That’s when she wrote this.”
He glanced at the paper peeking out of his vest. “Wrote what, exactly?”
He said it as if he were definitely interested. This was totally going to work.
“You’ve got to read it to see,” Candace said, lifting an eyebrow, knowing that she’d done what she could to hook Shane Carter’s attention and make Nicki’s night.
And maybe even her decade.
Candace sauntered away, hoping Shane would read that note soon, then show up at Nicki’s bedroom tonight, giving her the best apology ever.
3
SHANE RETRIEVED the note from his pocket shortly after Candace had gone back to the dance floor, and after he read it, he couldn’t believe it.
Meet Nicki at the Wade house?
Nicki?
After their argument, he wasn’t sure what to think.
Then he remembered how she’d looked at him at first, just as any woman looked at a man. And that costume she was wearing…
Nicki really had grown up.
Had her anger with him only been a prelude to more? He’d known women like that in the past—ones who liked to argue as foreplay.
Maybe Nicki was the same. He had a note right here in his hand to suggest it.
He glanced at his old watch. Twenty minutes till ten, the meeting hour.
Hell, if a woman wanted him to come over, he wasn’t about to say no. First of all, there’d been an undeniable attraction between them from the start, setting off sparks as they’d talked to each other, angry or not. Besides that, he was used to cleansing his mind with sex, and Lord knew he needed to forget about everything that’d been waiting here for him in Pine Junction on the Slanted C.
In the end, an invitation was an invitation, right? Even if it was from the girl next door.
It just went to show that nothing ever stayed the same, so who was he to deny her?
Blanking his mind to any mental arguments, he left the hotel and walked to Main Street, where he’d parked his Dodge truck. The gas lamps lent a timeless atmosphere to the night, along with the Old West facades of Pine Junction—some of which had been used as Hollywood sets, back in the day. Planked sidewalks, saloons and rising hills that led to an abandoned silver mine gave him reason to get in the mood for this outlaw-meets-saloon-girl date.
All the while, he kept thinking of Nicki in that costume, Nicki heating him from boot to hat with just a long look when she first saw him…
Nicki’s surprising invitation.
As he drove to the W+W, the faint moonlight painted the white fences along the dirt road that led to the ranch. When he got there, he parked near a copse of pine trees, far out of the open.
Before leaving the truck, he checked his cell phone. A few minutes to ten. She had to be waiting.
All he kept seeing was Nicki Wade’s light green eyes and how they’d heated him up with the fire in them.
But then his conscience came rushing back. Nicki’s dad, who’d been downright friendly and courteous to Shane when a whole lot of people in Pine Junction hadn’t been, might not have appreciated this. There’d been too many older, well-played daughters around the area for Shane to have been the father favorite. Nicki had been so young that there was no doubt her dad had felt secure in the knowledge that he wouldn’t be dealing with Shane in that way for a good, long while, if ever.
But Nicki was able to make her own decisions now, and she had asked him over.
Another look at the time told Shane that it was ten o’clock on the nose.
He got out of the truck, took care with closing the door, then walked the rest of the way to the house, where the entrance had been left unlocked.
Opening it, he crossed the threshold, into a hallway just off a well-used parlor where the Wades used to greet their guests. He’d been in the room, with its tarnished crystal lamps and old velvet sofas, only a few times, during neighborly parties when he’d been a kid, eager to leave and run around outside where his parents and big brother couldn’t keep an eye on him. Nicki had been much the same—fidgety while the adults had sat around and talked, her ill-fitting dresses always askew before the first hour was up, even though she hadn’t been doing much. Just sitting on a couch had seemed to be enough to put her in a state of dishabille.
She’d been cute, he recalled, but she’d been a sweet kind of cute. The kind that went against the nature of the bachelor he’d eventually become—one who’d seen how miserable his mother had been during marriage and decided that it wasn’t for him.
Second floor, she had written.
He quietly mounted the stairs, freezing every time a creak sounded under his feet. His pulse thumped, competing with the grandfather clock in the parlor. Both sounds seemed to flood the house.
Roped In Page 3