“Losing your nerve?” she asked sweetly when he still hesitated.
“Not likely. Just figuring out a polite way to tell you to kiss the last of your little Kisses goodbye.”
“Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched,” she warned lightly.
He snorted softly. “Red, the Kisses are in my favor, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Her lashes swept down over her eyes as she pushed her final candy toward the pot. “Would you take an IOU?”
He laughed outright, earning a startled look from her. “What’s the matter?”
“You laughed.”
He felt the tips of his ears heat. “So?”
She smiled without a hint of her usual sass. “So, nothing. You should do it more often.”
“Make me sound like an ogre,” he muttered. “Stop distracting me from the game. You can’t make the bet.”
“You’re not an ogre,” she protested. “Not all the time, anyway. And I’ll bet you breakfast in bed for a week that I can beat your hand.”
That brought to mind a whole host of unsuitable ideas. “Sweetheart, you’d have to get your curvy butt out of bed a whole lot earlier in the morning if you want to give me breakfast in bed before my day starts.”
She brushed her hair away from her face, her expression confident. “Name your pleasure, then. Whatever you say. All or nothing. I’ll bet my hand beats yours.”
He decided that his brain was suffering from a diminishing blood supply. It was the only explanation. He squared his cards and laid them facedown on the table, then slowly picked up one of the candies from the pot. Eyes narrowed, he methodically unwrapped it, then stretched his arm across the table. “Here.”
Confusion drew her eyebrows together.
“Eat it,” he bade her softly.
She lifted her hand to take the candy from his fingers, but he shook his head. “Open your mouth.”
Her eyes met his. Her lips parted, more in surprise than anything, he figured. He slipped the candy inside, his thumb brushing her soft lips. Then waited. And just as he’d suspected, she didn’t do anything. Just let that chocolate soften and melt.
God, he was nuts. A mid-life crisis? No. There wasn’t a single part of his randy body that felt remotely close to mid-life. If anything, he felt like a seventeen-year-old kid, with the hormones to match.
After an eternity, she swallowed, and the tip of her pink little tongue sneaked over her full lower lip, leaving a seductive gleam. “So what’s your pleasure?” she asked again.
“Watching you eat that chocolate,” he admitted gruffly.
Color flooded her cheekbones. Her eyes seemed to grow even more emerald. “That’s no bet,” she said after a moment.
The silence of the motel room twined around them. “We’re playing for kisses,” he finally said.
She moistened her lips again. “What are you saying?”
He shrugged casually, feeling anything but. “You’re a bright woman—”
“Never mind. I get it.”
“So?”
Now it was her thumb that ran methodically over the edge of her cards. “You’re gonna lose.”
Whichever way the cards went, he’d win. Because one way or another he would taste those soft lips again. Poker had never seemed such a dangerous game before.
“Kisses are all we’re playing for, right?”
He was a fool. Not an idiot. “Right.”
She gave a little shake of her head. “Okay. But I’m warning you that there’s no way you can beat my hand. So if you want to back out now, I’ll—”
He laid out his cards. Four majestic kings marching across the table.
She gave a soft sound of disgust. “I don’t believe it!”
“I warned you.”
She tossed her cards onto the table. Three queens slithered across the small mound of candies to lie near his kings. Her eyes wouldn’t meet his as she squared her shoulders and stood up. “Okay.” She marched in front of him and rested her hands on his shoulders. She leaned over him, bringing with her the scent of lemon and chocolate. Then her soft, smooth lips clung to his for an all-too-brief kiss, and she straightened. “There.”
He looped his fingers around her wrist. “Not so fast. Red.” He tugged and she landed on his lap with a surprised oof. The chair creaked ominously beneath their combined weight. He didn’t care. “Seems to me you were more than one kiss behind,” he muttered, before tilting her chin up to his.
Sweet. Just like he’d known. He nibbled. He tasted. He took.
And she gave and gave.
Kisses, he reminded himself with a tiny portion of dwindling sanity. Only kisses. So why was he slipping his hand beneath her shirt, feeling the satiny warm stretch of her back?
“Matthew,” she breathed against his lips. “Oh. my—”
With a sudden crack, the chair collapsed and they landed in a heap on the floor, a tangle of legs and arms and cards and Kisses.
Startled, they stared for a long minute at each other. Then Jaimie giggled. Then laughed. “You should see your face,” she got out between chuckles.
“You should see yours,” he returned. “You hurt?”
Giggles shaking her shoulders, she shook her head. She wriggled around, untangling herself. Matthew dropped his head back on the floor and closed his eyes, thinking about the cooling effects of a six-foot snow drift.
“Matthew, do you hurt somewhere?”
Like you wouldn’t believe. He shook his head and finally closed his hands around her arms, setting her safely to the side. He jackknifed to his feet, keeping his back to her. “I’m fine,” he said, reaching for another beer. But beer wasn’t what he was parched for and he set it back on the table.
“What about the chair?”
He looked back at the destroyed chair, while his common sense came crashing down around his shoulders. “They shouldn’t have furniture that is falling apart.”
“It didn’t collapse until I...well, that is with both of us...mmm.” She fell silent, her giggles finally subsiding.
He thrust his fingers through his hair. “Listen, Jaimie—”
“It’s all right, Matthew. I—”
“No, it’s not all right.” He looked at her, then stooped down to collect the pieces of the chair, which he dumped in the round trash container, leaving the intact seat propped against the wall. “I just don’t want you to misunderstand what, ah, happened here.”
“Matthew, really,” she said brightly. Too brightly. “It’s just the...situation. I know that.” She pushed her hair behind her ears and knelt to scoop up the dozen candies scattered across the floor. “So let’s just chalk it up to Valentine’s Day, and forget it. It’s not as if you...or I...planned to get stuck here, after all.”
Jaimie held her breath and reached a trembling hand for the last candy Kiss. She didn’t dare look up at Matthew. After what seemed an eternity, Matthew took a step away.
“Right,” he said evenly.
Her shoulders nearly sagged with relief. She dropped the candies into the trash, alongside the splintered chair legs and sat back on her heels. Matthew was looking out the window again. Probably praying for morning to come. Soon.
She gathered up the cards and set them on the table. “Well—” she pushed to her feet and brushed her palms down her thighs “—think I’ll get some sleep,” she managed to say cheerfully. “Thanks for the, uh, the game.”
He made a low sound that she didn’t even try to interpret. Despite the soda she’d drunk, her throat was dry, and she went into the bathroom, drinking down two full glasses of water. Then, calling her procrastination for what it was, she squared her shoulders, tugged off her jeans and went back out into the room. Matthew was still standing in the window, for which she was grateful, and she climbed into bed.
She stared for a long while at the box of Cracker Jacks on the nightstand, not twelve inches from her nose.
She hoped morning came soon, too. Because she would never be able to s
leep.
Matthew knew the moment she fell asleep. Not that she started snoring, or anything. One moment she was laying there, as stiff as an iron statue. Unyielding...stiff. The next, she sighed deeply and melted against the mattress.
Still dressed, he lowered himself onto the bed, snapping off the light.
Chalk it up to Valentine’s Day.
He should be glad that she could so easily shrug off what they’d been doing. He should be glad.
Why on God’s green Earth wasn’t he glad?
She shifted and he imagined those long legs stretching beneath the covers that he lay atop. Again she sighed deeply and rolled a little more. Her hair drifted across his shoulder. Resigned to a night of torture, he gave up the fight and slid his arm around her waist. In a movement so natural and trusting that his nerves frayed even more, she slipped back against him, bringing the faint scent of lemon. Her delightfully curvy rear snuggled up against him, separated by his sturdy denim jeans and several blankets. He stifled a groan.
It was going to be a long night.
When he awoke, it was to the hiss of running water.
He looked at the wall that separated the bathroom from the main room. She was in the shower. Just the thought of it had his thoroughly unsatisfied body stirring.
He raked his fingers through his hair, realizing that daylight seeped into the room around the edges of the drapes. He leaned over and peered at his watch on the nightstand. Nearly eight. He was usually up by four. He sat up and grimaced, rubbing his face. Then he stood and grimaced some more at the protest his stiff back made.
He hated motels. Hotels. Inns. He hadn’t ever spent the night in one with a decent bed. He moved over to the drapes, pulling them aside. Bright light seemed to sear into his brain. He swallowed an oath, then squinting, looked out again. At least it had stopped snowing. Pristine snow blanketed the hoods of the cars and trucks parked in the parking lot. As he watched, someone appeared pushing a snow blower along the sidewalk.
He dropped the fabric. They would get home this morning. He slowly worked his head around, then rotated his shoulders. And tonight he’d sleep in his own comfortable bed.
Alone.
He ignored that stray thought. Just as he ignored the tightness of his jeans. In the cold light of day, he realized that last night had been madness. Valentine’s Day madness. He was thirty-nine, for God’s sake. Not some horny seventeen-year-old kid.
Suddenly, above the steady rush of water, he heard her singing. Enthusiastically. And ever-so-slightly off-key, if he was any judge. His jeans grew even tighter.
‘He had to get out of there. He shoved his feet into his boots and his arms into his shirt. Leaving it hanging unbuttoned, he rapped his knuckles on the bathroom door. “Hey songbird—”
The singing abruptly ceased. In his mind he pictured her standing beneath the water, her eyes wide and slightly startled at his knock. Her hair streaming in wet tangles down her slender back... “I’m going for coffee,” he told her, his voice rough. Without waiting for an answer, he walked to the entryway, yanked open the door and stomped downstairs. He’d noticed the coffee setup in the lobby when he’d found Jaimie playing cutout queen with those kids.
He didn’t even much care what the coffee tasted like. As long as it was hot enough to singe his tongue and take his mind off the redhead up in that shower.
He wasn’t the only person seeking a morning jolt. Several people stood around the coffee urn, foam cups in hand, as they stood or sat around the small television in the corner of the room. Matt grabbed himself a cup and joined them, his ears perking up as he realized they were watching the local news.
He grimaced when the story turned to a four-car pileup that had occurred the night before on the highway about twenty miles out of town.
Matthew silently sipped his coffee, his eyes turning to the square coffee table where Jaimie had sat the night before. If they hadn’t stayed in town, he and Jaimie would’ve been traveling right through the area where the accident had occurred.
He noticed a bright red scrap of paper sitting among the magazines on the table and picked it up, while his ears listened to the weather report—more snow—from the television. He held the heart between his thumb and forefinger, easily recognizing Jaimie’s handiwork. And for reasons unknown to him, he neatly folded it in half and stuck it in his back pocket before finishing his cup of coffee and pouring a refill.
The news had turned to entertainment, and Matt turned to head back up to the room, but stopped long enough to pour hot water into a second cup. He grabbed an individually wrapped tea bag and a packet of sweetener. Surely she would be dressed by now.
She was. In fact, Jaimie met him on the stairs, coming down as he was going up. Her hair hung in a slick, wet rope of fire down her back. Water drops spotted her plain white thermal shirt. Like a lover, the shirt hugged her curves snugly, before disappearing beneath the waist of the black jeans she’d picked out the day before. Two steps above him, she halted, her slender fingers curling over the stair rail.
“Morning,” she said breathlessly.
He dragged his eyes up from the twin nubbins taunting him from beneath the white shirt. Didn’t the woman know what a bra was? “Morning.” He thrust the cup of water into her hand. “Here.”
She looked at the water. “Gee, thanks.” Green eyes twinkled down at him from beneath wisps of bangs. “I love hot water in the morning.”
Feeling like an idiot with that paper heart burning a hole in his pocket right through to his rear, something which did not improve his mood, he handed over the tea bag and sweetener. “The coffee was pretty bad. Are you ready to go yet?” He knew he sounded abrupt. He didn’t care.
He saw her cheerful expression tighten. She nodded, taking the packets from him, and flattened herself sideways against the rail as he passed her on his way up. No doubt she was terrified he would throw her over his shoulder and haul her to their room to have his wicked way with her. She caught up to him when he was standing in front of the closed door.
He looked at her. She was definitely ignoring him, taking her time crumpling the tea bag wrapper in her hand and dipping the bag into the hot water. “The key?”
She slowly looked up. “Excuse me?”
“You don’t have the key.” His fingers curled. “You left the room without the key.”
She arched an eyebrow. “So did you, apparently. I assumed you had it.” The tea bag took another dunking. “I’ll go get another one.”
She spun on her heel before he could respond and disappeared, her braid swaying. She returned before five minutes had even passed, a young man hurriedly following her long stride. She stopped beside Matthew and eyed him impassively. The clerk nearly skidded to a halt when he saw Matthew leaning against the wall beside the door.
Not much more than a teenager, Matthew judged, while the kid fumbled with the huge ring of keys he held. Of course, if the kid kept his eyes on the keys and not on Jaimie’s chest, perhaps they would be getting somewhere. Matthew straightened from the wall and stepped an inch closer to the clerk. The kid’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and the keys clattered to the floor.
Jaimie bent and scooped them up, handing them to the boy, an easy smile on her face. The kid practically dropped the keys again, Matthew noted. As soon as Jaimie’s eyes turned to Matthew, though, they cooled. She was perhaps an inch or two taller than the clerk, and over the kid’s head their eyes clashed.
Finally the door opened and the clerk stepped out of the way, nervously nodding at Matthew before taking off.
Jaimie went inside and started gathering together her things while Matthew stood in the doorway. Aware that he was watching her too closely, he turned his attention to buttoning up his flannel shirt. It took him all of two seconds to gather up his wallet and change. And another couple minutes in the bathroom. When he came out, she was still scurrying around the room.
Hooking his coat over his shoulder, he leaned against the wall and settled his hat into place while
she retrieved her socks from beneath the desk. She scooped up the pink thermal shirt she’d worn the day before from the floor where it lay half-buried by the bedspread. Then the T-shirt she’d slept in; the scarf; her gloves; the cards and the beer and soda they hadn’t consumed. At last she straightened, her hands clutching the crumpled edges of the shopping bag together. She’d stuffed everything inside. She picked up her coat and purse. “Ready.”
Finally. He went out into the hall.
“No, wait,” she said just before he shut the door.
“Women,” he grumbled as she slipped in and out again. “What’d you forget?”
“I didn’t forget anything.” Smirking, she held up her hand. His watch dangled from her fingers.
Sass. He took the watch from her and slipped it on. By the time they got back to the ranch his morning would be shot. “Hungry?”
Walking away from him, her braid bobbed. “Starved.”
He caught up with her at the exit, where they took a moment to put on their coats. She was humming under her breath. “Are you always so cheerful in the morning?”
Jaimie didn’t need to look up at him to know his ice-blue eyes would be filled with irritation. That his lips would be firmly set. “Are you always such a grump in the morning?” She flipped her braid out from her collar. “Never mind,” she said as she pushed through the door, gritting her teeth against the cold rush of air that enfolded them. “I already know you’re an equal-opportunity grump. All twenty-four hours of the day are good enough for you,” she said lightly. Her breath puffed around her head, and her boots crunched in the fresh snow as she crossed the sidewalk toward the parking lot. She would act like last night had been nothing more than circumstances as she’d claimed, if it killed her. “Do you want to eat before we drive back, or are you in a hurry?”
When he didn’t answer, she turned around. He was standing at the curb, his expression shadowed by the low hat brim. “Matthew?” He didn’t move, and her feet retraced their steps. “Matthew?”
The Rancher And The Redhead Page 7