* * *
BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE went to Honey’s for their Saturday-night entertainment, Violet closed up the Summertime Diner early.
At six, she trudged upstairs to shower and change. Rachel had invited her to dinner.
She didn’t realize until she had put on her favorite dress and reapplied her makeup with extra care that she was primping for the new man in town.
She scowled.
She didn’t care what he thought of her.
She didn’t.
Nonetheless, she checked the dark seams on the backs of her stockings and adjusted one of the clips on her garter belt.
She smoothed the satin of her dark green-and-black polka-dot dress down over her hips and thighs. Large black vintage buttons she’d found on an old sweater held the snug bodice closed. One smaller, matching black button closed each cap sleeve to form a tiny pleat.
Snagging a black shrug from the bed, she put it on while she rushed to the front door of the apartment. She stepped into black suede pumps and glanced into the mirror beside the door, checking that she’d applied her mascara, eyeliner and lipstick perfectly.
She’d started building her style soon after coming to Rodeo to live with her aunt at sixteen.
Aunt Belinda had put her to work in the diner right away, only part-time, but Vy had felt compelled to contribute as much as possible for her aunt’s kindness in taking her in. Every day after school and through every weekend, Vy worked. Trying to keep up with homework as well just about killed her.
Unable to manage both for long, she left high school and went to work for her aunt full-time. Aunt Belinda complained, but it had been Vy’s choice. It had made sense at the time. Now, as an adult, the shame of the lack of her education burned through her.
The side effect of not attending school, however, meant that she’d developed her style in her own unique way.
As a teenager, she’d been crazy about old movies and, without the influence of her peers, had started wearing vintage clothing instead of the latest trends.
After her aunt died and left the diner to her, she’d revamped the menu and the decor to suit her style. Now not one customer or fellow citizen batted an eye at her choice of clothing.
But what did the new man in town think? With his sophisticated manners, he must find her... What was the word? Gauche.
In the car, knowing that she headed to the ranch with a chip on her shoulder, she tried to calm her burgeoning sense of outrage.
Cool your jets, Vy. This is a problem of your making, not his.
Good advice, but she struggled.
By the time she arrived, she was a nervous wreck.
Her partial salvation came in the form of a small ball of energy that rocketed against her legs. Vy picked up Tori and swung her around.
“How’s my favorite girl?”
“Vy, look what I gots on my fingers!”
“Hot-pink! I love it!”
“With sparkles!”
“I can see that.” Vy shot a smile toward the teenager hovering in the background. “Is this your handiwork?”
Chelsea nodded.
“I like it. Great color.”
Chelsea returned her smile.
“Can you bring the two pies I brought into the kitchen? I don’t want to let go of Little Miss Sparkles here.”
She blew raspberries against Tori’s neck, producing giggles galore in both of them.
Chelsea took the pies from the table where Vy had set them. Entering the kitchen, Vy wrapped her free arm around Rachel’s shoulders.
“How are you doing, hon? Can I help you with anything?”
“I’m good,” Rachel said. “Most everything is ready for dinner. What kind of pies did you bring?”
“A lemon meringue and a pumpkin. I had to use canned filling for the latter.”
“Knowing you, you jazzed it up so it’s special.”
“It is,” Vy admitted without a hint of modesty. She knew food well and how to prepare it. Or how to get her staff to make it great.
Chelsea took Tori with her out to the living room. It seemed that, while she might have turned the corner into adolescence, her inner little girl wasn’t quite ready to grow up. She seemed to enjoy Tori’s lively spirit.
Vy leaned on the counter on her elbows while she plopped her chin onto her fists. “So?”
“So what?”
“So how is he doing?”
“Not well at all. Travis passed through a minute ago to head upstairs for his shower. He didn’t look happy. I don’t know what’s going on. I’ll find out later when we have some privacy, after everyone heads to bed.”
For the first time, Vy doubted her wisdom in setting this up. She’d wanted to give the guy his comeuppance, but not at Travis’s expense. “Maybe I shouldn’t have sent him here. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. Tori adores Chelsea. I still say that if a man can raise a daughter that well, he can’t be all bad. I don’t know why he’s here, but I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.”
“But can he even ride a horse?”
“I peeked out back a number of times. He wasn’t doing well, but he managed to stay on the horse.”
Vy laughed.
A noise in the kitchen doorway drew Vy’s attention. She glanced back over her shoulder.
Sam stared at her with hot eyes, at the way her bottom thrust out because she leaned on the counter.
As she straightened, blood rushed up her neck and into her cheeks. Her fingers tingled.
She might be only thirty with a healthy sex drive, but it had been a long time since she’d felt this high a level of sexual awareness and desire. In fact, she couldn’t remember it ever being this strong before.
Except that he didn’t look like a fake cowboy tonight. He looked real sweaty, dusty and dirty, as though he’d just come home after a long trail ride.
His hair lay flattened against his head and his thick socks belling out at the toes gave him a hint of vulnerability. The overall look made him more masculine, exactly what Vy didn’t need him to be.
His jeans, no longer freshly ironed, creased in interesting spots and hugged thighs that were surprisingly well muscled.
If he wasn’t a cowboy, how had he come by his body? He did something physical regularly. What? Gym workouts?
Does it matter, Vy? He’s hot and he’s the last man you need to be attracted to. He’s dangerous to your peace of mind...and to what you thought was your contented libido.
He brushed past her to put an empty beer can into the recycle box, his heat sending out whiffs of hard-earned sweat.
She frowned. She dealt with working men all day long in her diner—ranchers and cowboys.
She hadn’t felt this way about a single one of those men, trapped in the middle of a tug-of-war. At opposite ends were common sense and impractical urges, reason and insanity, objective thought and badly timed, inconvenient lust.
Sam backed out of the room, his easy flattery seeming to have deserted him.
Rattled, Vy went to the fridge to pour herself a glass of iced tea. “Do you want some?” she asked.
When Rachel didn’t respond, Vy turned to find her watching Vy with an odd expression.
“I’ve never seen you look at a man like that before.”
“Like what?”
“Like you want to devour him.”
No. Vy drank down half of the glass of tea.
“Why is this man affecting you so strongly?”
“He isn’t.” Oh, but he was.
Vy watched Rachel try to tamp down her skepticism. “You’ve had a strong reaction to him since he stepped into your diner.”
“How do you know?”
“Have you ever in the past called a local r
ancher to ask them to hire a cowboy you didn’t know? Particularly a phony one?”
When Rachel put it like that, Vy had to laugh and opt for honesty.
“No. I haven’t.”
“So what is it about Sam?”
Vy stared out of the kitchen window above the sink to Travis’s land beyond, not quite taking in the darkening landscape. “I don’t know, Rachel. I can’t figure that out.”
“You always know your own mind, Vy. How unusual for you not to. Maybe that’s what’s really bothering you.”
Vy refused to look at that. Tired on Saturday night, she steered away from introspection. Her head and feet hurt. She took off only one full day a week, Mondays and a half day on Sundays. Tonight she craved peace.
“I’ll go set the table.” She headed for the dining room, away from Rachel’s probing gaze.
When they sat down to dinner, Tori claimed the seat beside her for her new friend, Chelsea.
With Travis at one end and Rachel at the other, Vy had no choice but to take the chair beside Sam.
His scent surrounded her, not cologne but a very subtle and, unless she missed her guess, expensive soap.
She’d never had the chance to flirt with a man like Sam. She’d never been able to dream of a better romantic outcome than her lousy life experience had allowed her.
But then, it hadn’t been this kind of man who’d come sniffing around her mother’s trailer, had it? If it had been, her life might have turned out differently.
But would he have treated her any better than Ray had?
We’ve established for certain that he’s dishonest, remember? He’s every bit as bad as Ray.
No, Vy, stop. That’s an unfair comparison. Sam might be a pretend cowboy but he isn’t Ray.
Her instinct reassured her that he was a better man. Even so, until she learned more about why he pretended to be a cowboy, Vy would not put one ounce of trust in his character.
She turned her attention to the two girls on the other side of the table, Chelsea giggling as though she hadn’t already passed into what looked to be the beginning of a rocky adolescence.
When Sam reached for the salad, his elbow brushed Vy’s arm. Adrenaline shuddered through her. She managed to hold back a gasp, barely.
He held out the bowl to her and she took it, careful to not touch him.
The house was charming and most of the rooms sized generously, but not the dining room. It felt close and hot, even though Vy knew that the actual temperature in the room sat in a comfortable range.
Yet the hot-and-bothered feeling, generated internally by her desire for a man she barely knew, turned her inside out.
Aware of every move Sam made and itchy that she noticed, Vy lashed out. “How did the roundup go today?”
She addressed the question to the table at large, but her glance shot to Sam, making it obvious who she was really asking.
When Sam didn’t respond, Travis said, “Great. It was all great.”
Travis made a good peacekeeper, but recklessness gripped Vy.
“How about you, Sam? How was it for you?”
“You can guess, can’t you?” Sam’s voice came across hard-edged in the softly lit room. “You already know how it went, don’t you?”
The fake smile she offered him obviously made him angry, but he made her aware of longings she couldn’t afford to feel.
“Oh, I can guess, all right, and I’m guessing it wasn’t great at all.”
Both Rachel and Travis frowned. She should keep quiet but forged on.
“I’m guessing you were a failure.”
“Yes, I was,” Sam said, voice sharp enough to cut the steak on his plate. “And that’s exactly the result you hoped for when you sent me here, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she hissed. “You came into our town pretending to be something you aren’t.”
“Vy.” Rachel’s warning tone barely broke through the haze this man evoked in her, anger, desire, anger, desire, with everything muddled inside her.
“With your lily-white cowboy hat and your smooth hands that have never been roughened by a single day’s hard work in your life, why did you come here? To steal from us?” She didn’t know why she was saying such stupid things. They had nothing worth stealing, but she was thrashing around in the confusing darkness of her own emotions. “Did you come here to make fools of us?”
“No!”
“Then why pretend to be something you’re not?”
“I have my reasons, damn it, and they’re none of your business!”
His booming statement echoed through the room, followed by the slide of Travis’s chair across the bare floor as he stood.
“Calm down. Both of you. Right now.”
Vy breathed hard. Her chest hurt. Her right arm ached from holding it close to her body so she wouldn’t touch the man beside her.
Beside her, Sam’s breathing pumped harshly in and out.
A tiny hiccup from the other side of the table caught her attention, Tori starting to cry.
Oh, dear freaking damnation, what had she done?
“Tori, no. Don’t cry. Sweetie, stop. I’m sorry.”
But the floodgates opened and Tori wailed, “Don’t...fight.”
Vy shot out of her seat and rounded the table, pulling Tori into her arms. Taking her to the sofa in the living room, she sat down with her in her lap and rocked her.
Since the day of her birth, Tori had been Vy’s favorite child in town. She loved them all, but Tori had been her best friend’s first. She held a special place in Vy’s heart, and Vy had just hurt her, all because she was a loudmouthed fool.
For ages, she whispered love and pretty sweet nothings to Tori until she calmed.
Chelsea hovered in the arched opening between the dining and living rooms, glancing between her father and Tori, clearly torn and not at all grown-up yet.
Vy nodded to her, set Tori on her feet and nudged her toward the girl.
Chelsea picked her up and deposited her back onto her chair.
Vy hovered in the archway and said, “I’m sorry for ruining your evening. I’ll leave now.”
“Vy, that’s not necessary,” Rachel said, expression stricken.
“Aw, Vy...” Travis took a step toward her.
“No.” Sam stood. “These are your friends. You stay. I’ll go.”
“I said I’m leaving and I’m leaving.” At home, she would pour herself a stiff drink and try to forget this man and her ridiculous, hot, unreasonable reaction to him.
“I insist that you stay.”
“Don’t you dare insist anything. You’re not my boss.” Vy pulled on her coat and picked up her purse.
From the dining room, she heard Rachel start to laugh. “Travis, they’re fighting over who should leave, for Pete’s sake. I swear those two would fight about anything.”
As Vy opened the door to step out, Rachel called, “Vy, thank you for the pies. Sam, I’ll bring a piece to your bedroom when I serve dessert.”
Her wits gone and her equilibrium frayed, Vy drove home exhausted...and all because she’d sat beside a man for dinner.
She’d never been affected like this before. Never.
In the chilly darkness, she analyzed, trying to make sense of her attraction to bring it under control and kill it as ruthlessly as it needed to be excised.
After Ray, she’d kept herself under a strict set of rules about who she dated and how close she would let any man come.
How to understand her reaction to Sam?
Sure, he was good-looking, but so were a lot of the local cowboys. But there just wasn’t a spark with any of them.
Why did Sam ignite not only a spark, but a furiously raging wildfire?
Vy let herself into her apartmen
t and poured that much-needed drink.
Infernal, tempting man.
She took a cooling shower, then crawled under her heavy duvet, shivering.
Sleep eluded her for most of the night and she woke up early for Sunday morning’s breakfast service, crabby and not at all ready for her day.
Chapter Seven
Sam drove into town for breakfast to give himself time alone with his daughter and to give Travis time alone with his family. Somehow it seemed right to give them a few hours of privacy on Sunday morning.
Silent on the drive in, he went over everything that had been said at last night’s dinner table.
“Chelsea?”
“Yeah?” She stared out the window.
“I’m sorry for my behavior last night. It was bad.”
“Why are you so untrusting of these people?”
“It’s that one-dollar lease. It’s the lack of a contract.” He sighed. “It’s my worry for Gramps.”
“Why were you so angry with Vy? You treat Rachel nicely.”
“Violet gets under my skin, I guess.”
“I’ve never seen that before.”
True. He wasn’t that kind of man. He treated people with respect.
Wise enough to know that part of his anger had been fueled by the truth in everything Violet had said, he knew he shouldn’t be here under false circumstances. But in his eyes, family trumped all.
Also, he could admit to himself that his pure unadulterated lust for Violet made him surly.
When he’d walked into the kitchen to the sight of her beautiful—
He couldn’t go there. His desire for her made him behave like an adolescent in his cravings and frustration.
God, he needed to get over himself. He wasn’t a randy teenager.
He laughed.
“What are you laughing about?” Chelsea watched him with a frown.
He glanced at her and at the sunny landscape on the other side of the passenger window. For the next few hours, subterfuge could take a flying leap. He could just spend time with his daughter as himself.
His latent good humor reasserted itself.
His mom used to say he was the most forgiving guy on earth and that it was impossible for him to hold a grudge.
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