“Charlie,” he whispered.
“Yeah?”
He tugged her forward and she followed, still dreaming of more, but then she realized he was leading her toward the dance floor again. “I’ve never seen you dance, Walker.”
He only grinned and swung her into his arms. “It’s not so hard.”
One of his hands curled around hers, and the other curved around the nape of her neck. “Ready?”
Walker stepped her into the flow of dancers. Considering that she’d been dancing at the saloon the night before, she felt oddly stiff as she moved. It was Walker, after all. And she’d spent quite a few hours of her teenage life imagining that he might ask her to dance at homecoming or some other formal. This seemed momentous.
He must have felt her tension, because he whispered, “Relax, Charlie.”
She tried to. She made herself stop thinking. She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t see the horror on his face when he realized his mistake and made an excuse to dance her back to the sidelines. In high school, she’d been an athlete, never a dancer, never the pretty, graceful girl. She’d feared those school dances just as much as she’d hoped for that attention.
But this wasn’t high school, she reminded herself. She was a girl who danced now. She was a girl who faced her fears. And now...
Now she was dancing.
Walker was turning her around the floor as if he had total control of her body. His fingers were a firm brand against the base of her neck and he held her so near his body that she had to follow his movements.
“Wow. You’re a strong lead, Walker.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Really. That’s...” Her surprise melted into a wet, warm mess of thoughts about what he’d be like in bed. His movements were so sure. So strong. Not an ounce of hesitation in his step. He moved her where he wanted her to move and made her feel as if she was gliding gracefully under his hand. They turned round and round the floor. He never let her hesitate.
She wanted him between her legs. She wanted his hand holding her steady for his thrusts instead of his steps.
“God,” she whispered.
“What?” Walker responded. She realized the music had ended and he’d guided her to a stop.
She shook her head as the band took up a slower pace, and Walker’s hand slid down to the small of her back to ease her into a slow dance.
“This is nice,” he said, his mouth close to her ear. “It feels like a date.”
She smiled and realized she wasn’t done teasing him, after all. “A date? That can’t be right.”
“Why?”
“I don’t date cowboys anymore. Not since college.”
“Why not?”
She chuckled and leaned up to brush her mouth along his jaw. “Because, Walker...I have it on good authority that cowboys don’t go down.”
She heard his breath suck in in surprise; then his chest shook on a rumble of laughter. “Who told you that?”
“Some rodeo cowboy I went out with once.”
He shook his head and looked down at her. His hand slid lower on her back until his fingers were resting against the top of her ass. “Darlin’,” he drawled, “you’ve been dating the wrong cowboys.”
She started to laugh, but lust crashed through her at the thought of Walker’s beard brushing her thigh, his tongue sliding along her most sensitive spots. But she was determined to be cool. “You like doing that, Walker?” she murmured, brushing her cheek against his beard, trying to imagine it was her thigh feeling that softness.
“You have no idea how much I like it.”
God. She was wet. Her nipples were hard. She wanted to pull Walker outside into the night, shove him against the barn wall and make him touch her. Make him feel what he’d done to her.
This was ridiculous. This man was a damn menace to society. She couldn’t believe he was allowed to walk around free, spreading his sex charm all over unsuspecting women.
He guided her toward the edge of the dance floor, pulling her through the crowd to a quieter spot near the wall. “You’re such a tease, Charlie. I think you take pride in driving me crazy. I want you. You don’t have to tease me anymore. I give in. I’m fine with any limits you want, just...”
Was that what he thought? That she wanted limits? Ha. Good. Better than him knowing the truth: that she’d do anything to have him right now. Anything.
“Let me come over tomorrow,” he whispered. “Please.”
“Tomorrow?” she croaked. No, she wanted him tonight. She needed him tonight. If he was working late, she’d leave her door unlocked. He could sneak in after midnight. She didn’t care. She’d wait. She’d set her damn alarm. “Not tomorrow,” she said, but her next words were cut off by the sound of Walker’s name. Being said by a woman. Who definitely did not sound pleased.
Walker’s head turned, leaving Charlie blinking in the light his hat had been hiding. “Fuck,” she heard him mutter.
Charlotte eased away from him and immediately spotted the woman she’d seen at the Crooked R with Walker. The blonde stood about ten feet away. Next to her, close to the woman as if they’d been speaking, was Keith Taggert.
Crap.
Charlie and Keith stared at each other in shock. The other woman’s eyes blazed.
Walker was the first to break the spell. He turned back to Charlie, his mouth grim. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s no big deal,” she said.
“I’d better get back to work. Will you be all right?”
“I’m fine.”
He waited until she looked up at him, then nodded. “I’ll talk to you later, then, if you’re sure you’ll be okay.”
He shot the other woman a look that Charlie couldn’t read, then hesitated a moment before moving back toward the heart of the party.
“He worked for us until a few weeks ago,” Charlie heard the woman quietly explaining to Keith. That woman had been his lover...and his boss? Oh. That made his tale of unemployment a little more interesting.
Charlie caught Keith’s gaze and made a little grimace of contrition. She had to remind herself that she hadn’t actually been making out with Walker. She hadn’t been doing all the things she’d been thinking. It might not have been entirely professional to be cozied up to a cowboy, letting him whisper in her ear, but it hadn’t looked quite as bad as it honestly was. Nobody knew what she’d been thinking about. Nobody knew what they’d been planning.
But Keith was frowning at her, not responding with sympathy or understanding. The woman touched his arm, and he jerked back and glanced around the party as if to check on who was watching this awful little scene.
Charlie decided she’d better return to her assigned schmoozing and started to walk away, but Keith took a step toward her. Shit.
“I’m sorry,” she said as soon as he got close. “He’s an old friend. I didn’t mean to embarrass you or—”
“No, it’s fine. I understand.”
“You do?” She’d expected him to engage in an epic freak out as his wife would have.
“Of course. You’re a young, single woman. You should be enjoying yourself.”
“I should? I thought you’d be... I know there’s a lot of talk around, and you gave me a chance. I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate that.”
“Charlotte, I wanted to hire you because I thought you’d gotten a bad deal. You’re a local girl, and when I heard the story, I asked Dawn about you. She told me she’d known you for years, and I figured if you’d been friends with my wife, you were the kind of person who deserved a second chance.”
Charlie knew she was standing there with her mouth open, but she couldn’t make her muscles work. What the hell? Dawn had said over and over that she was the one who’d gotten Charlie hired. That she’d talked her husband into it despite his reservations. She’d made clear that any misstep on Charlie’s part would likely get her fired and Dawn would look like an idiot.
She shook her head. “I thought Dawn was the one w
ho wanted to hire me.”
“Oh, God no. I mean...” He flashed a sheepish smile. “Don’t get me wrong. She likes you, she just had a few reservations about the accusations. But I get you.”
“You do?”
“You’re loyal. That’s an admirable quality and something that’s missing in ambitious people these days.”
“Well...” She supposed maybe she was loyal. But mostly, she’d just been blind in her last job and now she was grateful for this one.
“Look, you popped up on my radar because of the police investigation and all that other nastiness. Sure. But your brother called and suggested I hire you, and I asked Dawn about you and she had such positive memories of your character. Now that you’re here, I agree with both of them. You’re amazing. Professional. Dedicated.”
She nodded dumbly, too stunned to do anything else. Her brother had called to suggest her? Why had he played it down?
Her mind spun. This whole time, Dawn had been pretending it had all been her idea, but the truth was that she’d been dragged into it by Keith and Brad? Dawn had wanted Charlie to feel insecure, as if her position at the company was at Dawn’s whim and could be terminated at any moment. It wasn’t true.
Keith touched her elbow. “Listen, Charlotte. This is just my first resort of many. I’ve got plans for Utah and Colorado, and then Europe. And you’re in on the ground floor. If you put in the hard work, your possibilities are limitless. You can help me plan and roll out each resort. You could end up in Europe if that’s where you want to be. I’m loyal to those who are loyal to me. I want you on my team, all right? So don’t look so nervous.”
The flood of relief that overtook her was so strong she felt embarrassed. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she was relieved for the relatively dim lighting in the barn. Maybe this didn’t have to only be a job she got through. Maybe she could have the future she’d always planned on, despite the awfulness in Tahoe.
She looked away, touching on several people in the crowd before she saw Walker’s ex-boss watching with narrow eyes from a few feet away. Charlie ignored her.
“Thank you,” she said to Keith. “I really appreciate knowing that you believe in me. It means so much.”
“I do believe in you. You’re good at what you do. You work hard. You’re way ahead of schedule. If there’s anything you’re ever worried about, or anything you see that’s worrying you, please come to me. Day or night.”
Oh, that would go over well with Dawn. But Charlie nodded and blinked the moisture from her eyes. “I will.”
“Promise?”
She smiled. Keith had struck her as uptight and boring, but she suddenly wanted to give him a hug. She wasn’t dumb enough to act on it, but she did take his hand and squeeze it. “I promise. Thank you.”
When she walked away from Keith, she took a wide berth around Walker’s ex-employer, but she’d apparently tried to avoid the wrong woman. Only ten steps into the crowd, she walked right into the claws of Dawn. “What the hell was that?” Dawn hissed, digging her fingers into Charlie’s arm to force her to a stop.
“Excuse me?” Charlie tried to yank her arm free, but Dawn refused to let go.
“You are such a little slut. My God. Don’t you have any shame?”
For a moment, Charlie considered one of the many self-defense moves she could use to break Dawn’s hold on her. She wasn’t an expert, but she’d had some basic training. But tempted as she was to use physical force, she didn’t want to draw attention, so she relaxed her arm until it was limp in Dawn’s hand. Dawn’s grip slowly loosened.
“I just had an interesting conversation with your husband.” Charlie twisted her arm free and stepped back a few inches.
“A conversation? Is that what you call it? Practically fucking a big stud in front of him to get his attention?”
“Oh, my God. There’s something seriously wrong with you.”
Dawn’s eyes went so wide that Charlie could see the whites all around her irises. She’d hit a nerve. “Don’t you speak to me that way! Have you forgotten that I am your last resort? Ha. Literally! I brought you into this job. One word to my husband and you’ll be out.”
“That’s funny. Because Keith just told me that he was the one who insisted on hiring me.”
Her crazy eyes blinked. The smirk disappeared. She shook her head. “No. I hired you.”
“Your husband wanted to hire me and he did it even though you objected, and that’s why you’ve been acting this way.”
“That’s not true!”
“It is true. You would have gotten rid of me by now if you could. That’s why I drive you crazy.”
Dawn’s mouth twisted into a growl. Her finger stabbed Charlie’s breastbone. “I was fine with him hiring you until I found out the whole story! What man wouldn’t want to bring in a slut who sleeps her way to the top?”
Charlie opened her mouth, about to tell this woman off once and for all, but this wasn’t the place. If she got into a screaming match with the owner’s wife and was later fired, that would only add another layer of tarnish to her already rough reputation. So she took a deep breath and spoke calmly. “Listen. I promise you that I have no designs on your husband. Not only that, but he’s never been anything but a complete professional with me. I swear.”
“I don’t need you assuring me of my husband’s fidelity!”
“Fine. He checks out my tits whenever he can and drools over my womanly wiles.”
“You... You...”
Alarmed by the fluorescent shade of pink that took over Dawn’s face, Charlie held up her hands. “God, I was just kidding. I don’t have any breasts to check out, in case you haven’t noticed. At least one thing hasn’t changed since high school. Just calm down, Dawn. He’s never said or done one inappropriate thing. He’s not interested.”
“Then why did he want to hire you? And why has he been so...” She waved a frantic hand.
Charlie didn’t want to know what kind of “so” he’d been. That was above her pay grade.
“And when did you get so...” Another frantic hand wave. Her perfect little nose wrinkled.
“When did I get so what?”
“We had the same ideals when we were young. That’s the only reason I agreed he could hire you. I thought maybe you’d retained some redeeming qualities, but I was wrong. You turned out just like all those other girls.”
“I didn’t turn out any way. I just grew up.”
“Badly.”
Charlie threw her hands in the air. “Well, I’m so sorry I’ve ruined everything for you! I know life married to a rich, successful man must be so damn difficult to bear, and now I’m here making it worse because I’m single and I hang out in bars.”
“That is not my issue and you know it.”
“Then what is it?”
“You’re single, and you go to bars, and you sleep around, and you flaunt your ass around like a stray cat in heat and my husband knows you like married men. That’s my issue.”
Instead of fury, weariness washed over Charlie. She wanted to sit this girl down and explain to her that it was the twenty-first century and women could enjoy their lives just as much as men. They could be single and have sex and make money and still be nice, fulfilled, genuine people. But those crazy eyes were not open to seeing sexual equality for women. Not right now. Not in the face of Charlie Allington, husband hunter.
She couldn’t let that stand. “I don’t like married men, Dawn. I had no idea my boss was married. Nobody did. It was a big resort. He kept his private life a secret so he could rotate through all the new cocktail waitresses as they came on board. Obviously, I didn’t know about that part, either. But more important than all of that...if you don’t trust your husband, that has nothing to do with me. Please leave me out of it. I’m begging you.”
“Don’t talk to me about my husband.”
“Fine. I’ll talk about you instead. You can’t spend every single day thinking about him and what he’s doing and how to make him behave
. You think he’s doing that for you?”
“It’s not the same,” she muttered, her eyes searching the crowd behind Charlie.
“Why?”
Her wandering eyes finally found Charlie again. She looked her up and down with disdain. “Do you even remember the things we talked about in school? How we wanted to meet good men and get married and be successful, and not waste our lives screwing around with these stupid boys?”
“Sure, but—”
“Well, I did that, Charlotte. I met a good man. A successful, ambitious man who loved me, and who loved that I had worked hard and stayed focused and saved myself for something special. For him. I supported him. I left college to help him build his business. I had his children and I stayed home every single day until they were in school. I invested myself in this partnership. This is what I’ve chosen to do, so don’t tell me I can’t spend my days worrying about how he is and what he’s doing. That is my job. To make this work. To make sure it doesn’t fail. And I am just as important to our success as any deal he might make or any fortune he might invest.”
Wow. Charlie blinked in shock. “Behind every great man...” she said. Dawn nodded, obviously missing the emphasis Charlie had put on the word “behind.”
“So,” Dawn continued, “don’t waltz in here thinking I missed the boat because I didn’t go off to the big city and drink myself into a stupor so I could lose my virginity to some sweaty stranger. Don’t think I’m missing out just because I’ve never met a guy at a bar or partied in Vegas or...”
Charlie leaned a little closer to Dawn. “Fine. But don’t think I’m evil because I have. If you think being single and slutty is such a shitty life, then why feel threatened by it?”
“I don’t feel threatened,” Dawn said, but she’d gotten distracted again. Her eyes homed in on something like a death ray.
Charlie followed her gaze and was surprised to see Dawn staring at Walker, who was in close conversation with his ex-lover. Shit. Something in Charlie’s chest twisted at the sight. How stupid was that? Walker could talk to whoever he wanted. He wasn’t Charlie’s boyfriend. He never would be.
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