Accidental Hero

by Lauren Nichols

  She had seen raw plumbing, but so far there were no sinks, showers or tubs in the house. Where was he planning to wash?

  Ross grabbed a small duffel bag from behind the front door, then guided her outside to a well-traveled, wooded path behind the house.

  Suddenly, Maggie knew where they were going, and a prickly uneasiness swept through her. She hadn’t made the connection when she’d seen the water shining from the window in the loft. But now she knew. She was all for celebrating life—she really was. But with his reputation, and feeling the way she did tonight, the celebration could easily get out of hand where they were headed. “You don’t really need to wash up.”

  “Yes, I do.” He flashed her a grin. “If I don’t, neither of us will survive the ride back.”

  Maggie nodded her wary assent and continued to walk through the tall grass beside him. She heard the soft rush of water before she saw it, before she smelled its freshness.

  Tall cottonwoods and pines shaded the bubbling creek and the clearing she’d visited thirteen years ago, preventing all but a few stalwart patches of grass from growing in the packed dirt grotto.

  Still holding her hand, Ross guided her to a fallen, peeled log beside the stone fire ring. Without being told, she sat. Several yards away, beckoned the pretty, dammed-up creek bed with its underground hot springs. Full darkness was a good hour off, but a few crickets were already practicing their night songs.

  “Now if you face this way—”

  Startled, Maggie instinctively grabbed his shoulders as Ross half lifted, half spun her on the log to face the other direction.

  “—you won’t get embarrassed.”

  He was going to undress? She leaped up quickly. “Look, maybe I should meet you back at—”

  “—the house?” Ross’s deep laughter mocked her modesty. “Can’t trust yourself not to peek, huh, Maggie?”

  Belligerently, she sat right back down. “Get over yourself. I wouldn’t care if you danced naked through the streets. I was just trying to be a little considerate of your feelings.”

  “Sure you were.” Taking a seat beside her, he pulled off his boots. The socks came off, too, and he rolled them in a ball, then stuffed them into his boots. “Watch these for me?”

  “All right,” she said stiffly, “but I can’t imagine why anyone would want them.”

  Then he dug soap and a towel out of his bag, and with a wink moved toward the creek.

  Maggie’s posture grew even more rigid as she tried to ignore what was happening behind her. But the chirping of the crickets and the rushing sound of the creek couldn’t cover the unnatural metallic noise of his zipper sliding down, or the clink and jangle of his pockets’ contents as he kicked out of his jeans and underwear. At least, she hoped he’d been wearing underwear.

  “Sure you don’t want to join me?” he called. “It’s nice and deep where it’s dredged out—chest high when you sit down.”

  “No, thanks.” Maggie heard the splash of his bare feet as he entered the water, heard his deliberate sigh of pleasure as he settled into the eddy where hot jets turned the gold-and-green creek bed into a natural hot tub.

  Maggie focused on the break in the woods where the dusky, mauve-streaked sky shone through. The surrounding quiet seemed to call for a soft tone from her when she finally spoke. “You have a scar on your side.”

  “My appendectomy?” he called. “You did peek.”

  “I did not!” Maggie replied impatiently. “I’m talking about the one beside your waist. I didn’t know you had an appendectomy scar.”

  His laughter mingled with a few soft splashes. “I don’t.”

  Irked, Maggie whirled around to respond, saw a brief flash of soap and a raised arm, then jerked her head back. She counted to ten—another of her father’s precepts. “Casey told me what happened with the rustlers.”

  “Yeah? Well, you didn’t have to hear it from her. I’m sure the whole juicy story’s right behind your desk in one of Farrell’s filing cabinets.”

  “It is,” Maggie admitted, feeling obligated to be honest with him. “You were right before. I did pull your file.”

  The low sound he made wasn’t damning—but just an acknowledgment of her statement.

  “I always thought—when my family lived here before, that is—that Belle Crawford was a nice woman. I even have a gold cross my dad bought me from her jewelry store.”

  Ross expelled a humorless laugh. “Then the souvenir you got from her is a lot prettier than mine. She was a busy woman. By day, pillar of the community. By night, queen of the cattle rustlers and madam to the girls down at Babylon.”

  Casey had told her about Babylon, too. The private gaming club and brothel in the deep woods outside town had been shut down for quite a while now. But three years ago, Belle’s cronies—the men Ross had owed—had held Casey captive in one of the old pleasure cabins to make sure that Jess wouldn’t turn them in to the sheriff. Luckily, Casey was a fighter, and had escaped before anything could happen to her.

  “Casey said you were shot trying to keep those men from taking her hostage.”

  “Didn’t do much good. I failed.”

  Maggie turned around, no longer uneasy about watching him bathe. “But you tried. You put your own life at risk to save hers.”

  “Yeah, I’m a real saint.” Ross splashed some water on his face and combed his wet hair back with his fingers. Then he grinned and changed the subject. “As long as you’re not doing anything important, want to wash my back?”

  Maggie smiled, beginning to like him—as opposed to just being attracted to him. “No.”

  “My front?”

  Her smile grew and she shook her head. He was cheeky and insolent, and annoyingly happy. But she was starting to see his cocky smiles and teasing repartee as a shield, hiding the man inside that—for some reason—he was afraid to reveal. She’d occasionally glimpsed that man when his guard was down, or when he hadn’t realized she was watching. The vulnerability that he tried so hard to hide was there in the devotion he showed his little niece, in his regret at not being able to save Casey, in the sweetness he showed his aunt Ruby. And whether or not he knew it, his sturdy log home was a monument to his need for something solid in his life. He might be a hormone-happy womanizer, but he did have a depth to him that Maggie wouldn’t have suspected had she not ridden out here with Casey tonight.

  “Coming out.” Ross tossed the soap onto the grassy bank and started to rise. Quickly, Maggie averted her eyes again.

  Just when she’d decided he had some class, he had to do something outrageous again. Although...he had risen out of the water a lot more slowly than he might have.

  By the time he’d toweled off behind a tree, pulled his jeans back on, and walked, barefoot, to the log where Maggie sat, the sun was gone from the sky, and night’s deepening shadows had fallen around them. He grabbed clean socks and a shirt from his bag, rolled his soap, underwear and old socks into the towel, then stuffed the roll into his duffel. When he pulled on his shirt, he left it unbuttoned.

  Ross sat down beside her to pull on his socks. Maggie couldn’t look away from the soft mat of dark brown spanning his well-formed pectoral muscles...the ribbon of hair arrowing down to his navel. The towel-dried hair on his head was still damp, falling in thick strands over his forehead and collar. Maggie’s head felt a little light as she breathed in the masculine smell of his soap, mingling nicely with their woodsy surroundings.

  When he finished yanking on his boots, Ross rolled the sleeves back on his cotton shirt. Most cowboys, even in summer, wore long sleeves to keep from sunburning.

  Finally, he looked at her, and Maggie looked back.

  Suddenly, they were both aware of the heady silence between them, aware that they were alone out here with only the crickets to witness what went on.

  Ross’s gaze ran slowly over her long, loose hair, returned to her eyes, then settled with obvious interest on her mouth. For a moment, he seemed to measure the wisdom of proceeding. />
  Maggie swallowed.

  Then he inched toward her—slowly enough to give her a chance to back away. She didn’t. Maggie’s heart pounded so hard, she half expected it to burst through her chest. She felt her arms go weak, felt her breasts grow heavy. She could smell the lemonade on his breath now, see the day-old stubble shading his firm jaw.

  He kissed her. Softly, sweetly, without touching her anywhere else, only their lips blending. His tongue slid languidly along her closed lips, which she kept sealed. He presented his tongue again.

  Maggie’s stomach was a hard knot behind the zipper of her jeans. Her breath grew shallow. And she wanted...oh, yes, she wanted...

  Ross broke the soft kiss, but didn’t back away. A rustle of night air cooled her lips where his tongue had traced them. “Why are you here with me, Maggie?” he murmured. “You could’ve gone back with Jess and Casey.”

  Maggie didn’t recognize her own trembling voice. “Curiosity. I wanted to see your home.”

  Ross shook his head, then slid his warm, broad hands down her sides to the waistband of her jeans. He spanned her hips, stroked the side seams of her Levis with his fingertips. “I don’t think so,” he whispered, once again parting his lips over hers.

  Ross gathered her close, trapping her arms at her sides. Automatically, Maggie’s hands fumbled up between them to grip his shirt. But it wasn’t shirt that she touched. A tingle swept through her as her fingertips encountered smooth, taut skin and soft chest hair. Maggie drove her fingers into its warmth.

  Ross’s tongue darted and thrust at the seam of her lips, determined to penetrate them, daring her to take it. “Taste me, Maggie,” he rasped, breaking away for a moment. “Let me in.”

  Maggie’s inhibitions sailed away like a hawk on thermals. Mind spinning. dizzily, she opened for him, welcomed him inside, and let his slick tongue and hot mouth take her senses back thirteen years.

  Ross slid one of his hands into her hair, pulling her closer to make the mating of their mouths more intimate. The other hand, Maggie began to realize, was sliding along the curve of her hip, the tips of his strong fingers grazing her left buttock. Prickly gooseflesh danced down her leg, and she didn’t stop him...until his hand slipped under her T-shirt and his thumb started stroking the side of her breast.

  Maggie broke from the kiss and stilled his motion, struggling to bring her rapid breathing under control. She eased his hand from under her shirt, then placed it on his thigh and covered it with her own hand.

  In a heartbeat, he reversed their hands and hers was on the bottom, pressing into his warm thigh.

  “I can’t do this,” she whispered shakily. She tried to pull her hand away, but he held it fast.

  “You’re doing fine.”

  “No, I’m not,” she answered. This time she succeeded in tugging her hand away. “It’ll be dark shortly. If we don’t leave soon, we won’t be able to see where we’re going.”

  “We could feel our way.”

  Maggie stood, her knees threatening to buckle beneath her, the cooling night doing little to allay the heat still suffusing her.

  Ross coaxed her back into his arms.

  “Just one more kiss,” he murmured, his breath warm on her skin as he nuzzled her ear. “Then I’ll take you back to the ranch.” He tipped her chin up, and their eyes met. Even in the fading light, she could see that his were cloudy, uncertain, a question in them Maggie didn’t understand. “Come on,” he whispered, tracing a finger along her lower lip, and setting new fires along her nerve endings. “Just one more, then we’ll go. I promise.”

  Maggie’s heart pounded. She could kiss him one more time—just once more. Kissing on the log had been exciting. But much of the excitement had come from their inability to slide closer to each other, from the shivery straining of their bodies in the twilight secrecy of the woods. And, heaven help her, she wanted that intimacy, had longed for it since that first kiss beside her car. Maggie’s eyelids closed and her lips parted.

  Ross covered her mouth with his, the warnings of the crickets and night calls of a nearby owl going unheeded. Then their hands were moving, examining sloping muscles and gentle curves. When one of Ross’s hands slid to her bottom and pressed her into the hard saddle of his hips, Maggie didn’t pull away. She dragged in thin air as the kiss went on and on, and the primitive pressure of his hips became a sweet ache in hers.

  Gasping, he broke away. “Let’s go back to the house. I keep a sleeping bag in the loft for times when I stay overnight. We’ll be more comfortable there.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Maggie, I want you.”

  “No.”

  “why?”

  Somehow, she found the strength to push out of his arms and back away from him. “Because you want everybody. How many other women have shared your sleeping bag?”

  Ross stared at her for a long moment—a moment in which clear thought made a shaky comeback for both of them, and their labored breathing settled down to a manageable level. Finally, he nodded, and without answering her question or denying the accusation he said, “We’d better go. Jess and Casey are probably wondering what happened to us.”

  No, they weren’t. Maggie thought a few minutes later as she sat glued to the passenger’s door on the silent ride back. Right now, they were probably wrapped in each others’ arms, praying between soft sighs and kisses that their baby would sleep soundly and that Ross wouldn’t return too soon. After three years of marriage, they still had that snap and sizzle between them—the kind of chemistry she hoped to have someday with her own husband.

  Maggie glanced at Ross. His brow was furrowed beneath his Stetson, his chiseled profile faintly lit by the glowing panel on the truck’s dashboard...his thoughts hidden. A flutter of arousal curled through her belly, and Maggie drew a soft breath and turned away—back toward the dark sky and shadowy mountains and rows of barbwire illuminated in the peripheral glow of the headlights.

  Please, she begged the first new stars. Please let the man I’m destined to marry show up before I make the biggest mistake of my life.

  Ross drew a deep breath, breaking into her thoughts. “There was no one but me,” he said.

  “I’m sorry?” she asked, not understanding.

  “In the sleeping bag. There was no one but me.”

  Chapter 6

  Maggie drove home while fighting the deep, gnawing urge to turn around and go straight back to Brokenstraw. Her nerves still vibrated. Her lips still felt the commanding pressure of Ross’s mouth. Her cheeks and chin still tingled from the scrape of his beard.

  What would her father say about such wantonness with a man who was not her husband? Maggie released a burdened breath. The reverend—as her mother used to call him—had sent Maggie a few not-so-subtle looks during the two years she’d dated Todd—but not because Todd wasn’t a supporter of organized religion. Reverend Tom Bristol was a good, gentle man who wasn’t opposed to people cleaving to their own personal beliefs as long as they led decent lives. But he was adamantly opposed to couples having premarital sex—even in relationships where the near certainty of marriage existed.

  Her behavior would have mortified him had he seen her tonight.

  She could almost hear her father’s troubled, but loving voice. “Honey, think about this. You’re a minister’s daughter, and you’re involved with the town hell-raiser—a man who, by his thoughtless actions and frequent liaisons, says he doesn’t believe in rules, and he doesn’t revere women. You are also—unsettling as it is to me—an officer of the law. What sense does it make for you to be with this man? Maggie, if you aren’t careful, this could hurt you spiritually, physically and vocationally.”

  “I know,” she sighed as she parked near a utility shed beside her aunt’s truck, well short of the ranch house with its lighted windows. “I really know, Dad.”

  Clicking on the Ford’s interior light, she glanced into the rearview mirror to check her appearance. What she saw made her groan. How on earth could she walk in
side looking like this? A quick brushing would fix her hair. But her puffy lips and the distinctive red scrapes on her chin and cheeks left little to the imagination. Whisker burn didn’t look like anything else.

  Taking a brush from her purse, she pulled it several times through her hair. Then she snapped off the dome light and got out of the car. Her heart sank when she heard the low murmur of voices coming from the porch.

  Twenty yards ahead, she spotted an expensive-looking vehicle parked close to the house. To Maggie’s chagrin, Trent Campion’s deep voice carried to her over the greetings of her uncle and aunt. “Hi, Maggie.”

  Maggie managed a small smile as she took the path, then climbed the steps, thankful that Lila’s dislike of dive-bombing moths kept the porch light off. Although, now that she looked, she could see a few valiants fluttering near the citronella candles. She stopped short of the candlelight near the porch’s thick support post.

  “Hello, Trent. This is a surprise.”

  “A nice one, I hope.” He seemed unusually pleased as he took in her hair and courteous smile.

  Moe chuckled heartily—one of the few displays of delight Maggie had seen from her uncle since her return from Colorado. “Now that you’re home, Lila and I are gonna stop borin’ this young fella with our stories and go inside.” With Lila’s help and a grunt of exertion, Moe hoisted himself out of a wicker chair, then latched on to his walker. Trent hurried to open the screen door.

  “Why, thank you, Trent,” Lila said, then let Trent help Moe inside while she took a few steps closer to Maggie. Her curious gaze swept Maggie’s face. “There’s still some lemonade over there on the table, honey, and a clean glass on the tray.” She lowered her voice. “Why are you standing way over here? Are you all right?” Lila stared at Maggie a little longer, a little harder. Maggie’s uneasiness with her perusal seemed to prompt Lila to reach for a candle and bring it closer. “Oh, my,” she said softly.