Harlequin American Romance November 2014 Box Set: The SEAL's Holiday BabiesThe Texan's ChristmasCowboy for HireThe Cowboy's Christmas Gift

by Tina Leonard

  “Hi, Raggedy Ann,” he said, and Jade turned to look at him. He thought she was amazing with her red curls springing out everywhere, completely negating the need for a Raggedy Ann wig. The red-and-white stockings were killer, clinging to dynamite legs Raggedy Ann never dreamed of having in her cloth-stuffed world. He nearly had a coronary over the cute painted freckles speckled across Jade’s nose and cheeks, never mind the white apron over the blue dress, which for some reason made him very horny. He supposed the truth was that everything about Jade caught him between a coronary and an erection, a delicious in-between hell of longing and teeth-grinding lust.

  She gave him a once-over. “What are you dressed up as?”

  He was pretty proud of his efforts, and drew himself up to showcase the black cape, boots and swashbuckling ebony hat he thought he wore so stylishly. “Zorro. You couldn’t tell?”

  “You look silly.” She offered him the tray she held. “Cupcake?”

  “What do you mean, I look silly?” Ty demanded. “Ladies love Zorro. They think he’s a dashing hero. And sexy.”

  “Guy Williams was sexy. Antonio Banderas was a sexy Zorro.” She gave Ty another once-over. “Please take a cupcake so I’ll feel better about deflating your monstrous ego.”

  Ty ignored the cupcake, wishing he could have a kiss instead. “Where did I go wrong?”

  “I don’t have time to tell you all the ways that costume is wrong.” She laughed and started to move away. “Where’s your date?”

  Ah. The little lady was prickly because she was expecting Daisy to land on his arm any moment. He felt better now that he knew her lack of charmed respect for his costume was thanks to jealousy. “Squint’s escorting her.”

  Jade moved away. “By now you have to wonder where you’re going wrong, Ty. When Daisy Donovan throws you over, and you only put on half your mustache, something’s not working for you.”

  She disappeared into the crowd. He felt his upper lip. Frog and Sam banged him on the back. Ty coughed, thinking he could easily survive BUD/S, since he could survive the camaraderie of his so-called friends in BC. “Easy on the lungs and rib cage, fellows.”

  “Where’s your ’stache?” Frog demanded.

  Ty looked at Frog, dressed as a fairly convincing Robin Hood, and Sam, who was masquerading as a pirate. Both of them had their mustaches firmly in place. Ty felt around in his pocket for the left side of his. “Thought I had it on.”

  They smirked. “Smart-asses,” he said, realizing his friends had let him walk out of the bunkhouse missing half his facial prop. “Friends don’t let friends go out missing the most important part of their costume. The mustache is the sex-magnet angle for Zorro.”

  They seemed to think that was hilarious. “Look,” Frog said, “Sam snapped a photo when you weren’t looking. It’s pretty much gone viral on the internet.”

  The photo showed Ty trying to get his hat just right in the mirror, really working hard for Zorro-mysterious, completely missing the fact that one side of his upper lip was traumatically bare. “You guys are such a riot.”

  “Yeah.” Frog wiped tears of laughter from his eyes and put his phone away. “That we are.”

  “So, was Jade bowled over by your sex appeal?” Sam asked, loudly enough that half the county could hear the question, even over the whirring of air keeping the bounce house inflated, and the squeals from delighted kids.

  “Not really,” Ty admitted. “She seemed to be under the impression that I was here with Daisy. Every piece of gossip transmits itself at warp speed in BC, but for some reason not the one bit of info that really mattered reached her ears.” He glared at his buddies. “You two are useless.”

  “You gotta talk your own book, brother,” Frog said. “We can’t do all your heavy lifting for you.”

  “Yeah, don’t expect us to sell the steak if it ain’t sizzling on its own,” Sam said, and they drifted off, vastly amused with themselves.

  Ty sighed and went to man the dunk booth as he’d promised Jade’s mother, Betty, that he would.

  “Don’t you look hot,” Daisy said at his elbow. She was dressed like a princess, of course. What else would anyone have expected? “Hot as a pistol!”

  Ty perked up at the rather corny appreciation of his efforts. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” She traced his upper lip where there should have been a sweet Zorro-inspired clump of faux bristles. “I have my face paints with me, since I’m in charge of face painting. I can fix that in a jiff.”

  He was pretty relieved to hear it, even though he was surprised Daisy had been given any assignment at all, up until the point she began slowly, sensually painting on his upper lip with a brush. A crowd gathered around the princess and Zorro, and he wondered desperately where Squint was.

  Ty could have predicted with the accuracy of seven oracles that Jade would catch him with his chin firmly clutched in Daisy’s, well, clutches, her face inches from his.

  “Well, at least it’s a mustache now,” Jade said, “instead of half a confused black caterpillar.”

  “I think he looks sexy as hell,” Daisy said, and planted one right on his cheek. Ty’s eyes went wide. His body recognized hot sex appeal and his inner guide reacted urgently, screaming Fire! Fire! Danger!

  He leaped away from Daisy, just in time to see Jade heading off toward the ice cream booth her mother ran, a very popular spot surrounded by anxious kids wanting sprinkles on their ice cream and parents wanting hot chocolate.

  “I heard a rumor,” Daisy said, “that Jade Harper made you dump me tonight.”

  “Ah...” Ty tried to glimpse Raggedy Ann’s hot red curls in the crowd near the ice-cream stand. “She didn’t approve,” he said, his brain belatedly registering that he probably should have censored that remark.

  “I see,” Daisy said. She leaned up against his chest. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

  He stared down at the determined, dynamite bundle of feminine firepower his buddy Squint seemed to think he could handle. Hell, no, Squint can’t handle this. I can’t handle this. It would take the real Zorro to tame this tiger.

  “You tell Jade Harper that nobody dumps Daisy Donovan. Nobody that doesn’t end up regretting it. And it goes double for her. She and Suz and Mackenzie Hawthorne aren’t the queen bees of BC, even if they think they are. And for some odd reason, I get distinctly brotherly vibes whenever I’m near you. It’s really tragic. All kinds of man, and something about you makes me want to pat your head like a puppy. I just don’t get it.”

  She sauntered off, sexy in a white Cinderella ball gown that bordered on safe-for-kiddies-and-somehow-unsafe-for-bachelors. Ty wiped his brow under the gallant black Zorro hat.

  “You’re smearing the ’stache,” Squint told him, suddenly appearing through the crowd.

  “Crap!” Ty quit trying to wipe off Daisy’s kiss and the sweat on his brow. “Where the hell have you been? And why haven’t you got a hold on the princess of peril?” He stared at his pal. “And what is that you’re wearing?”

  Squint laughed. “Where the hell I’ve been is helping Justin Morant put up another six tables and accompanying chairs. The Haunted H has a much bigger turnout than expected. They also needed about another six dozen wienies for the wienie roast.”

  “That’s nice. Glad you’re making yourself useful,” Ty growled.

  “Why I’m not holding my hot princess is the simplest part of your question. I believe in keeping the lasso loose, brother. But not too loose. I’ll be catching up with the Cinderella in question momentarily. Believe me, I’ll teach her all about magic pumpkins and wands that do a different kind of magic.”

  “That’s nice,” Ty said, still staring at Squint’s outrageous getup. “Anyway, what the hell are you?”

  “Can’t you tell? I’m you.” He pointed to the camo bandanna, boots, camo pants,
black Kevlar vest and helmet equipped with night-vision goggles. “I’m you going into BUD/S.”

  “That’s so funny I forgot to laugh,” Ty said sourly. “It’s all fine for you to mock my efforts, since you and Frog are already SEALs. I sense a little rivalry, or perhaps the essence floating through that you don’t think I can make it, so mock away. But you’re scaring the kiddies and, I might add, their parents. People are looking at you like sharpshooters, assassins and military-grade security were hired for this shindig,” he said, keeping his voice low. “At least take off the goggles and hide the artillery, okay?”

  “It’s a toy,” Squint said, shifting the long gun on his back, letting the strap hang over his shoulder. “It’s a water cannon, doofus.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Don’t you remember what happened? We don’t want anyone recalling that someone died here at the last haunted house.”

  “He wasn’t shot,” Squint said.

  “We don’t want any dangerous vibes. Go put it in your truck! And find Daisy before she starts any more trouble!”

  “All right, dude. Cálmate. Keep your ’stache on. Damn.” Squint went off, obviously a bit insulted.

  “Hey, mister,” a little boy said. “Are you running the dunking booth?”

  “Yes. No.” Ty grabbed Sam as he meandered by, and shoved him into his place. “The pirate is tending to the water exhibit. Have fun.”

  Ty trotted off to locate Raggedy Ann, finding her spinning cotton candy onto paper cones. “Can we talk?”

  “Talk away. Want some?”

  “Uh, no. Thanks.” He handed the fluffy stick of puffed pink sugar she gave him to the first kid in line. “From Zorro to you, kid.”

  “Thanks, mister!”

  The boy hurried off.

  “That’s not how we make profits here. Weren’t you the one who believed that the haunted house and bachelors were all BC needed to get back in the black?” Jade said.

  He slapped a hundred dollar bill on the wooden ledge of the ice-cream-and-sweets stand. “Can we talk?”

  “We’re talking now,” Jade said, oozing darling and too-sweet-for-tea.

  “I want to talk to you alone.”

  She gazed at him, her green eyes wide. “Will Daisy allow you to? She just came by here with a—”

  “That’s it.” Ty went into the crowd, grabbed Frog, propelled him to the stand. “Robin Hood’s robbing the gremlins and warlocks and giving to the kiddies right here. I mean, the ninjas and pint-size ghosts. Make yourself useful and give these tiny customers a good show,” he told Frog, tugging Jade out from the booth. He pulled her into the bunkhouse a little unceremoniously, but he was running out of days to break through the ice with this little gal. “There are way too many urchins around here. It’s enough to make a single guy nervous as hell.”

  He dropped onto a sofa, pulled off the Zorro hat and the mask and the one side of the mustache that wasn’t painted on. There was just no help for it; he had to do something before he went mad. So he swept Jade into his lap. “Now you listen to me and you listen good. I want nothing to do with Daisy Donovan, and you know it. You’re just having a helluva good time teeing me up about it.”

  “Yes, I am. You deserve every moment of it.”

  He stared into Jade’s dangerously green eyes, which reminded him of a hidden forest, and wished he knew of a forest somewhere to drag her off to. The closest one was near Bridesmaids Creek’s creek, and it was far too cold to drag her there. She didn’t fight—or even move—to get out of his lap, so he decided she liked being with him more than she was saying.

  “You smell good. Like cotton candy.”

  “And peach ice cream and sprinkles and hot cocoa and popcorn. Sexy stuff.” Jade looked at him. “I wasn’t being honest. You’re a really hunky Zorro.”

  He looked at her, suspicious. “Now you tell me.”

  “Couldn’t tell you with Daisy hanging on to your face.”

  That sounded like an opening he couldn’t pass up. “Okay, you hang on to my lips, and I’ll probably get the message.”

  To his astonishment, Jade kissed him, long and slow and sweet, taking a tantalizingly hot tour of his mouth. Ty’s brain blew a short circuit that fried The Plan and all his good sense and intentions in one fiery explosion.

  “Get the message?” she asked, pulling back to study him.

  He certainly had gotten something. “I’m not quite sure. If you do that again, I can probably—”

  She put a finger against his lips. “You’re leaving in, what, eight days? Nine?”

  “Yeah. Wanna give me a private going-away party?” He wrapped his arms around her, mashing her closer to him, sighing against her neck. Wondered if he dared unzip the Raggedy Ann dress. “God, you taste better than cotton candy. Do it again.”

  “My point was, you’re leaving. And according to The Plan I’ve heard so much about, the last thing you need are entanglements and issues back home when you go. That’s straight from the BUD/S training bible, or the code you live by, or something, isn’t it?”

  The heat she was causing by sitting on him was just about unbearable. Even his eyeballs were heating and his brain was smoking, fogging his heretofore perfect reserve around Jade. “I can handle any issue you throw at me, doll face.”

  “How punny of you.”

  “No. You are a doll face, even when you’re not Raggedy Ann. I don’t care what you’re wearing, you make my brain go bye-bye just by looking at you.”

  She stared at him. “What has gotten into you?”

  “You,” he said, thick desire terminating his normal inhibition. “You’re in my blood, and I don’t know why the hell I never realized it before.”

  Those dark green eyes stayed on him. “You know this is a very bad idea,” Jade stated.

  “It may be,” Ty said, “but that’s exactly what makes me so convinced I need to take this walk on the wild side.”

  “So you want to make love to me?”

  He hadn’t gotten that far in his thinking, but as soon as she mentioned it, he went straight up like the pirate sword his buddy had been carting around. “The question is, do you want me to make love to you?”

  She straddled him, kissing him, and the bits of his poor Jade-addled brain hot-wired right into another dimension. All he could think of was that he better kiss the daylights out of her before she changed her mind, before she convinced herself that this really was the bad idea of all bad ideas.

  But she rocked against him instead, and he slipped his hands under the blue dress and white apron, nearly dying at the sweet feel of her butt cheeks in his palms after he’d been surreptitiously lusting after them all this time. Jade moved against his crotch, getting as close as she could, her kisses matching his for urgency and passion. He held her tight, crushing her fanny against him, his tongue sweeping inside her mouth, tasting peppermint and even a little sweet cotton candy. He wanted her more than he wanted his next breath, but no way was he going to do anything to scare her away. Talking about making love and actually doing it—well, a man couldn’t take anything for granted, no matter how much he wanted inside the soft, welcoming heaven he knew Jade would be.

  “Well?” she asked softly.

  “Well what?” He stared, mesmerized and still, into her big eyes, hardly daring to believe that this moment was actually coming true for him. Holding Jade was so much more amazing than his dreams had ever been.

  “Are you going to make love to me or not?”

  He gulped. “What about all that business about me leaving, and The Plan?”

  She began unbuttoning his shirt. “I’m a big girl.”

  Dear God, she was, a big, beautiful girl. Nothing like the playmate with whom he’d roughhoused. “I don’t want to—”

  “Leave me holding the bag?” Jade kissed his mouth, tracing
his lips with her tongue. “Will you quit being a gentleman and act a little more like your costume?”

  He blinked. “Just to clarify—”

  She got up, dragged him to his bedroom. Closed and locked the door. “Listen up, cowboy. You brought your buddies here to settle the ladies. You need to do your part.”

  “That part of The Plan was about bringing eligible, marriage-seeking bachelors to BC.” She had his shirt off now and was working on the bottom half of his costume, and Ty wondered if he could survive for the next six months without this woman.

  “I’m not looking for marriage. I’m not looking for anything but a little dangerous costume sex and maybe some playacting. Can you handle that?”

  “I can sure man up to the occasion.” He caught her hands in his. “And then what?”

  “And then you go off and do your thing, and I do mine.” Jade smiled. “You’ll tell your buddies you nailed Raggedy Ann, and they’ll be totally impressed. I’m just hoping my Zorro fantasy lives up to the real thing.”

  Well, there was a challenge a man just had to accept. Ty slowly unzipped the blue dress, pushed it down over her arms, dropped that and the white apron to the floor, nearly asphyxiated from the desire clogging his throat. She was perfect. Long and lean and tall, just like he’d imagined. Peach-sized breasts, freckles in some spectacularly sexy places and a navel he planned to get very familiar with.

  After he licked every centimeter of that deliciously heart-shaped ass. “Come here, doll face. Zorro’s going to show you exactly why his blade made him a legend.”

  Chapter Five

  Jade was horrified when she awakened in the bunkhouse, realizing that Zorro was gone, and maybe so was her reputation as a Haunted H volunteer. She slipped her costume back on, annoyed that she’d dozed off—but then again, those moments in Ty’s arms had been wonderful. She’d finally managed to seduce Ty Spurlock. How long had she waited for the right moment to kiss that footloose cowboy? Forever. When the opportunity had finally presented itself, no way would she have passed it up, even if she felt silly wearing painted-on freckles. A pass by the mirror showed that the freckles were a thing of the past—Ty had kissed her senseless, every centimeter of her body. A few dot-on lip liner freckles were no match for that man’s roving, heated kisses.