by JoAnn Ross
“Dammit, that’s always been the problem with you, Lucky O’Neill.” Kate flared in an uncharacteristic display of temper that had Jude thinking that they’d all become stressed out since Tycoon Mary had blown onto the scene.
“You see everything in terms of black and white,” Kate accused hotly. “You’ve never, in your entire life, been able to see any gray.”
“Now there’s where you’re wrong,” he shot back, his own temper firing. “That’s all I’ve been seeing since I got off the elevator. Along with black and white. All except for this office.”
The fury in his eyes turned uncharacteristically arctic as his gaze skimmed disdainfully around the room that had cost a fortune to redecorate. “I don’t know how anyone could work in here without going snowblind in the first week.”
“White is soothing.” Jude defended her color scheme with a toss of her blond head. Although flames were burning behind her rib cage, she was damned if she’d reach for her Turns and give this man—this common cowboy!—the satisfaction of knowing how badly he was upsetting her.
She folded her arms across the front of her dark gray suit and dug her fingernails into palms that practically itched to smack that accusing look off his handsome face.
“I suppose you’d prefer denim? Perhaps Kate could run out to Ralph Lauren—”
“I don’t know who this guy Ralph Lauren is, but even a dumb country cowboy can realize when he’s just been insulted,” Lucky practically growled, once again reminding Jude of a lion. A mountain lion. Like that huge western cougar she’d seen on the Discovery Channel who’d hide behind a big red boulder and pounce on you, just when you least expected it.
She held her ground even as she envisioned her career going down the drain. “I have to point out, Mr. O’Neill, that you threw the first stone, so to speak, when you cast aspersions on my office.”
“The name’s Lucky,” he reminded her. “We’re not real comfortable with formality in Cremation Creek. And I wasn’t exactly casting aspersions. I only pointed out that your office is white. Real white. But I do apologize if I offended you.”
“Thank you.” The fire behind the wall of her chest went from a three-alarm blaze to a two. “And I apologize for suggesting that there’s anything wrong with denim.”
He nodded. “Apology accepted.”
“Would you care to sit down?” She gestured toward the alabaster-hued leather Italian sofa. “If you’re not ready for lunch, I could have some coffee brought in. Perhaps a few sweet rolls? The deli on the first floor makes the best bagels in town.”
“That’s real considerate of you, ma’am, but I’m not hungry. And, if you don’t mind, after sitting all night on the plane, I’d just as soon stand.”
“Whatever you like.” Jude felt herself beginning to relax. Lucky O’Neill’s temper might have a very short fuse, but at least it seemed to be fast burning. Now that it appeared to have flamed out, she could get back to convincing him to see the light.
“And you’re right, after coming all this way to Manhattan, you’re definitely entitled to an explanation.” Her smile was back—smooth, friendly, and persuasive. “You see, we’d planned this very special issue...”
3
LUCKY DIDN’T SAY a single word during Jude’s careful, lengthy explanation. His expression, which had turned surprisingly inscrutable for a man who earned his living in such a basic manner, didn’t change in any way. Watching him carefully, Jude couldn’t detect even a flicker of emotion. The quiet strength began to make her even more edgy.
“So,” she concluded, “since we were admittedly more than a little desperate, Kate suggested you.”
“To be your cowboy Hunk of the Month?”
“That’s right. Did I mention it’s going to be a collector’s issue?” She knew male models who’d run over their best friends for such an opportunity.
“No, I think I would have caught that.” He rubbed his square jaw.
In spite of the fact that her only interest in Lucky O’Neill was business, Jude knew she was in serious trouble when she started to imagine those dark hands on her body. The thought caused her blood to run so hot she was amazed she didn’t set off the sprinkler system.
It was all the stress she’d been suffering lately, she assured herself. She was merely having a nervous breakdown. The fact that she wanted to drag this hunky cowboy beneath her desk didn’t really have anything to do with Lucky O’Neill at all.
“Does that mean more people will buy it?” he asked finally.
“That’s our hope.” She flashed an encouraging smile. “And, believe me, Lucky, with you on the cover—”
“No way.”
“What?” Jude stared at him in disbelief. Hadn’t he heard a word she’d said?
“Oh, Lucky,” Kate moaned.
Jack didn’t say anything. But he did leave Lucky’s side to put a comforting arm around his wife.
Lucky folded his arms in front of his snap-front shirt. “I said, there’s no way I’m going to take off my clothes for the entertainment of thousands—”
“Millions,” Jude interjected in the interest of full disclosure. “We’ve gone international.”
“I’m not undressing in public. Whenever I take off my clothes in front of a woman, there’s just the two of us in the room. Call me loco, but I’d prefer to keep certain things intimate.”
“But you’re so perfect.”
“I’m just a cowboy. Not some fancy high-priced male model with manicured fingernails and a fiftydollar haircut.”
Jude decided, in the interest of regaining control of this situation, to skip the idea of the manicure. She also refrained from telling him that most of the men she knew paid at least a hundred dollars for a haircut.
“Modeling’s not all that difficult,” she assured him. “We have this marvelous photographer, Zach Newman, we’ve been working with on the centerfolds that—”
“He might be another Emilie Mannion for all I know,” Lucky interrupted. “But he can’t turn me into what I’m not. I could put my boots in the oven, too, but that wouldn’t make them cookies.”
He waded across the snowy carpeting, took hold of his sister’s shoulders and kissed her cheek. “Sorry, Katie-did,” he said, calling her by her childhood nickname. “But this is one mess I can’t bail you out of.”
That stated, he started to leave the room, then, as if remembering his manners, turned and touched his fingers to the brim of his Stetson, just the way Mel Gibson had in Maverick—but with a lot more insolence than respect. “It was real nice meeting you, Miz Lancaster.”
With that obviously blatant lie, he was gone.
“Damn!” Jude slammed her hand down on the glass top of her desk, causing the Waterford vase holding the single lily to tip over. Water spilled, but she was too aggravated to notice.
“Who the hell is Emilie Mannion?” she demanded. Jude thought she knew every photographer in the business.
“I don’t know,” Kate said on a little hitch of breath that suggested this time her tears might be for real
Jack hugged his wife closer. “I could go after him.” As his eyes cut to the open doorway Lucky had just strode through, he looked as if he’d rather crawl naked down Wall Street at high noon. “Try to make him listen to reason.”
“That’s not necessary,” Jude said. “I’ll handle it.” Somehow. “That man is the most perfect, mouthwatering male specimen I’ve seen in all the years I’ve worked at this magazine and I’m not going to let him get away.”
She refused to even consider the fact that she could possibly be harboring personal reasons for wanting to keep Lucky in New York. While there was no denying that sharp, surprising jolt of attraction that had set every atom in her body to spinning dizzily out of control, her response had merely been an attack of lust. A chemical brain bath. Admittedly hotter and more mind-blinding than any she’d ever experienced, but Jude had never been the kind of foolish woman to allow her heart—or her hormones—to overrule her head. So
she wasn’t about to throw away a lifetime of cautious sexual behavior just because Lucky O’Neill was the kind of man who could make any woman drool.
She opened a white-lacquered filing cabinet, retrieved her purse, took out a key on an embossed silver ring and tossed it to Kate. “In case I can’t catch up with him before he leaves for the airport, call American Airlines and get me on whatever flight your brother’s taking back to Montana—”
“Wyoming.”
Jude shrugged off the correction and, as the fire in her gut escalated into a conflagration, she popped two chalky antacids into her mouth. It really didn’t matter where she was headed since Lucky O’Neill was the solution to all her problems. She’d be willing to follow the drop-dead gorgeous cowboy to Timbuktu if that’s what it took.
“Whatever. Book two first-class tickets for Zach and me and move your brother out of coach. You can reach me on my cell phone and let me know what flight we’re booked on. Next, telephone Zach at his studio and tell him to meet me at the departure gate. Instruct him to bring all the equipment he’ll need for an outdoor shoot.”
If they were going to use a real cowboy, it only made sense to photograph him in the great outdoors. Besides, Jude doubted there were any studios in the wilds of Montana that would satisfy the perfectionist photographer.
“Finally, if you wouldn’t mind, please run by my apartment and pack some appropriate casual clothes and underwear and courier them to your brother’s ranch.”
Without giving Kate time to respond, Jude scooped up her briefcase containing her laptop computer and strode purposefully out of her office and down the long hallway. On the trail of Lucky O’Neill.
She had not achieved the status of managing editor of a major magazine by allowing a few roadblocks to get in her way. Okay, she admitted, this was more than a mere roadblock. It was more like a moat filled with editor-eating alligators. She and Tycoon Mary hadn’t hit it off from the start; she had no doubt that the publisher was just waiting for her to fail so she could replace her with that smarmy nephew she’d installed as vice president in charge of marketing.
Well, that wasn’t going to happen, Jude vowed. Lucky O’Neill was going to be her Hunk of the Month. And with the stud-muffin cowboy from Cremation Creek on the cover, sales would skyrocket into the stratosphere, rescuing not only her career, but her hard-won reputation for being on top of the publishing game, just as the legendary John Lancaster had been before her.
Although her father had died last year of a heart attack at a publisher’s conference in California—after hitting his ball into the surf during a golf game at Pebble Beach—Jude continued to feel as if she were being judged by his tremendous success. As if she were in competition with her famous parent. Or at least attempting to live up to his impossibly high standards. John Lancaster had been famous—or infamous, depending on your point of view—for maintaining absolute control over everything in his world.
Of course there had been one thing he couldn’t control, Jude considered, thinking back on that terrible night of her mother’s death. But, as was his way, he hadn’t bothered to dwell on the past; he’d moved on and although there had been times Jude had longed to share her loneliness or night fears, she’d intuitively understood that her father would have only told her to straighten up.
That had been, she remembered, his answer for everything. Straighten up and fly right. How many times had she heard those words directed her way? How many times had she promised to do exactly that? Too many to count.
As she breezed past the receptionist and punched the Down button for the elevator with more force than necessary, Jude remembered another important lesson her father had taught her: Every man has his price.
“If I can’t discover Lucky O’Neill’s,” she muttered as the elevator descended swiftly to the ground floor, “I’ll eat his pretty gray cowboy hat.”
LUCKY WAS ANGRY enough to chew tenpenny nails and spit out bullets. What the hell had gotten into Kate, thinking he’d ever consider having his picture taken buck naked? Well, not exactly naked, he allowed, but those blown-up photographs hanging in the hallway of the Hunk of the Month offices sure hadn’t left all that much to the imagination.
He was still seething when the express elevator reached the lobby. The wedge heels of his boots made a loud clacking on the marble floor as he made a beeline for the revolving door.
“Lucky!” a familiar voice called out. He ignored it.
“Dammit, Lucky O’Neill!” Moving faster than he would have guessed possible in those ridiculous high heels and short tight skirt, Jude somehow managed to slip into the revolving door behind him. “If you’d only listen to reason...”
Her breasts, which had appeared almost nonexistent beneath the severe cut of her suit, were pressed against his back, her belly shoved up against his butt in a way that was just too intimate for comfort in the narrow space.
He shot her a look over his shoulder. “I’ve already heard your pitch, ma’am.”
“You haven’t given me a fair chance.”
His momentary lack of attention made him miss the sidewalk, forcing them to go around again.
“I heard you out fair and square. But I’m not buying.”
Her scent surrounded Lucky in the close space. Unlike the rest of this godforsaken city, she smelled fresh and clean, reminding him of white cotton sheets drying in a sun-warmed summer breeze. The subtle fragrance was a lot different from the sweetly floral perfumes favored by most of the buckle bunnies of his acquaintance.
He escaped the door on the second pass, and waved toward a passing taxi. Confirming his belief that this would go down as one of the most rotten days of his life, the driver ignored him. As did the second.
“You might be an expert at rounding up mavericks on the range, cowboy,” Jude said when the third cab refused to stop, “but you’ve got a lot to learn about city life.”
Before Lucky could inform her that he had neither the need nor the desire to develop urban survival skills, she stepped off the curb with a total lack of regard for life and limb, stuck her fingers into her mouth and let loose with a piercing whistle.
The ear-shattering sound proved immediately effective; a cab pulled over from the far lane, accompanied by a blare of car horns as it screeched to a halt.
“That was a pretty good trick,” he admitted, yanking open the back door before the driver could change his mind. Lucky had always been one to give credit where credit was due.
“If you think that’s something, you should see what I can do on rainy days with an outstretched leg.” She slid past him, climbing into the back seat with a flashy show of leg. “Well?” She glanced up as he was momentarily distracted by her smooth firm thighs. “Are we going or not?”
“What do you mean, we?”
“You’re going back to Montana, right?”
“Wyoming.”
“Wyoming, Montana.” Jude threw up her hands both literally and figuratively. “You and your sister are so damn picky.”
“It’s not picky to be proud of your roots,” Lucky said with a lot more patience than he was feeling. “Montana’s the Big Sky State. Wyoming’s officially the Equality State. Others call it the Cowboy State, but we like to think our sky’s pretty big, too. Where are you from?”
She immediately opted against revealing that her parents had brought their infant girl home to their tenroom apartment on Park Avenue because she feared it would make her sound like a snob at a time when she wanted to win his cooperation. Besides, why should she expect a cowboy to understate the urban island’s rigid social order?
“I’m a native New Yorker. I was born right here in Manhattan.”
“There you go,” he drawled. “So how would you like it if I kept referring to New Jersey as your home?”
“Good point.”
The cabbie turned around. “You two gonna talk all day?” he growled around an unlit cigar. “Or you wanna go somewhere? Like to the National Geography Bee, maybe?”
�
��We’re going to the airport.” Jude didn’t take her eyes from Lucky’s as she answered. “La Guardia or Kennedy?”
“Kennedy.” Since she’d apparently decided to ride along to press her crazy case again, Lucky shrugged and climbed into the cab beside her. “American Airlines. And take the bridge.”
“I truly am sorry about Kate deceiving you that way,” Jude said as the cab pulled into traffic.
Lucky didn’t trust that contrite, dulcet tone for a minute. “Are you saying you didn’t know anything about it?”
“No.”
So much for the apology. Her chin came up a notch in a challenging way that reminded him vaguely of someone. But he couldn’t put his finger on just who.
Whoever it was, it reminded Lucky that he’d always liked a woman with guts, and Jude Lancaster sure seemed to have more than her share. That sharp thrustout chin made him want to kiss her stubbornness away. He really must be going loco, he thought, even imagining locking lips with Kate’s boss. Lucky wondered how long it took for urban pollution to rot a man’s brain.
“I’m merely professing regret about you having been lured here under false pretense.” In a smooth gesture he suspected was meant to undermine his resistance, she placed her hand on his thigh. Her skin was smooth and white, her nails short and unlacquered. “Hunk of the Month magazine will, of course, reimburse all your travel expenses.”
He’d intended to pluck that seductive hand away but, for some reason he wasn’t going to try to figure out, didn’t. “That’s not necessary. O’Neill men always pay our own way.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. If Kate hadn’t fudged the truth in the first place—”
“It was more than fudging. She flat-out lied.” His firm, unbending tone had Jude understanding Kate’s accusation that Lucky O’Neill was a man who viewed the world in simple black-and-white terms.
“That’s a remarkably rigid attitude to have about your own sister.”
“I love Katie to pieces,” Lucky said. “There’s not a thing I wouldn’t do for her. But that doesn’t change the fact that what she did was wrong.”