Unforgettable Heroes Boxed Set

by James, Maddie

  Lillian stared straight ahead as if she hadn’t heard a word. Wes shut up and went back to the bench by the men’s side.

  How could he have gone so wrong? Every instinct he had about women, every experience he’d lived through in picking out what one would like, had gone into finding just the right things for her. The only outfit he’d been the doubtful about was the one she chose first, because that shirt was bright. And clingy.

  He closed his eyes and tried to remember what else they’d had in her size at that sale. Nothing any better than what he’d found. Nothing that his old school librarian would wear, which seemed to be what Lil liked.

  “You ready?”

  He opened his eyes to see her standing over him, arms folded. Nodding, he stood up and started walking. Maybe a little conversation would be good.

  “So what do you think of the rest of your clothes?”

  “Oh, they’re even better.” He winced at the sarcasm directed his way. “Shorts cut so high my butt hangs out… I’ve always wanted a pair of those. And that ruffly top that barely covers my boobs, well, let’s just say it will stay in its current pristine condition as a reminder of our wonderful time together.”

  She might have gone on all day, except that their campsite came into view. Lillian gasped and Wes’s mouth dropped open to see their collapsed tent proudly upright again and the jumble of boxes and their contents that had been sprawled across the picnic table neatly piled underneath. Even more surprising, though, was seeing a man poking at their campfire. He heard the crunch of their tires as they pulled onto the gravel parking space and turned to greet them, a wide smile on his face.

  “Welcome home.” He dropped his poker and strolled over to shake Wes’s hand. “My little girl was telling me you folks had some trouble this morning, so I decided to take a walk down here and see if I could help. Hope you don’t mind my straightening up a bit. I know how hectic things can be until you get settled in.”

  His angular face was as open and friendly as his manner. Wes could have told from either one that this was Mindy’s father. He introduced himself, and they soon learned that their helper’s name was Ray, he hauled logs for a living and he’d only missed one weekend of camping here over the last four summers.

  “So you from around here?”

  Lillian spoke up before Wes could. She had a story ready to go, a simple one they could both remember. She hoped.

  “From Detroit. Newlyweds.” Wes’s warning that Frank might have peppered the campground with spies weighed on her. “Life has been so hectic the last few weeks that we decided to just escape from everything but each other.”

  “So you’re married.” Ray seemed pleased. More pleased than she’d expect a stranger to be. “Didn’t see any rings when I shook your hands, so I kinda wondered. Not that it’s any of my business, of course. It’s just mostly regulars here at this time of year, so you stuck out a little.”

  Lillian managed to keep from giggling. The thought that anyone of sound mind would choose a flimsy nylon tent out in the sticks as the place to carry on a wild affair was ludicrous. After all, that’s what five-star hotels with room service were for.

  Hotels with wide, soft beds and champagne in chilled buckets. Hotels that brought fantastic meals with one telephone call.

  “We eloped.” Wes’s words brought her a moment of panic. He was straying from the script. Something disastrous would come of it. Wes was a man who needed someone to rein him in, whether it was making up a relationship or picking out clothes.

  “Didn’t have time to get rings yet.” He was plunging ahead as if he couldn’t feel the heat of her gaze on him. Lillian stared harder and willed him to shut up.

  Of course, he didn’t. He just kept on talking and talking.

  “That’s pretty romantic,” Ray said.

  “Our lives are pretty crazy. I grabbed Lil and headed to Niagara Falls. Her folks weren’t too happy when they heard the news but we promised ’em they could throw a big party when we got home.”

  “Wes, honey, I don’t think this gentleman cares about the details.” Lillian should have known he wouldn’t take the hint.

  With a wink to Ray, Wes continued.

  “I said to Lil, ‘Babe, let’s find a quiet place and spend some time alone.’ Sometimes she seems more like a stranger than my wife.”

  Ray nodded in sympathy. “Tell me about it. My wife works days, and I work nights so Mindy doesn’t have to go to babysitters. Weekends up here give us time together.”

  “That’s it exactly.” Wes slanted a cocky grin Lillian’s way. “Those little pet names, the funny little things you used to do together, that’s what you lose first. I told Lil, we need to go someplace and get the magic back, so here we are.”

  Somehow, without Lillian noticing, he’d managed to wiggle his chair over to just an arm’s distance from where she stood, her eyes on Ray. She was totally unprepared to be yanked down onto Wes’s lap, his long arms pulling her close as he settled her against him. She stiffened, and then forced herself to relax as Ray studied them. Chances were he was just another camper, yet the seed of suspicion Wes had planted made her wonder if he’d be making a report to Frank.

  She soon realized she was in a dangerous position, snuggled up against Wes like this. She began to feel that same tingling she had every time he’d kissed her, the same insane desire to lose herself in the feel and scent and taste of him. She tried to follow the conversation between Wes and Ray, but her mind was wandering in a totally different direction.

  Seeing that tent neatly erected reminded her of their shared sleeping bag. She’d woken sometime in the middle of the night to the warmth of Wes’s breath against her cheek and his arm wrapped around her middle to trap her against him. Even with all the layers of clothing she’d thought to protect herself with, she could feel the heat of his body and hard muscles of his chest. When he’d thrown his leg across her thigh, his knee rubbing against her in the most intimate of places, she’d almost given in a wild need to wake him and explore those sexual feelings she’d kept tamped down for so long.

  She might have done just that if he hadn’t turned in his sleep to face away from her. The wild fantasies that had begun to build in her slowly faded, and she’d found the strength to wiggle away and push the desire away.

  Those desires were back, and they’d brought reinforcements. She shifted on Wes’s lap, inordinately pleased when his arms tightened around her to keep her from moving. He wasn’t as immune to her as he pretended. All she’d have to do to get him inside that tent and snuggled down inside that big sleeping bag was crook her little finger. She’d never been the kind of woman who used the power of sexual attraction to control men, but it was definitely time to start now. In fact, it might be the only way to keep Wes from blowing this whole thing for her.

  “Fine, then, Ray, we’ll just do that.” The words penetrated into the thick fog around her as Wes slid her from his lap and reached out his hand to shake Ray’s in farewell. He kept her in front of him, like a shield, and she smiled, knowing full well why.

  Wes didn’t say a word until Ray was out of earshot, just stood and watched their new acquaintance walk away. As soon as they were alone again, though, he turned Lillian toward him and kissed her. Hard. His arms held her against the hard evidence of his desire, his mouth possessing hers in the very way she’d been dreaming of only moments earlier. She gave herself up to it, lost in pure sensation, long past the point of wondering why an intelligent, ambitious woman like her had the hots for someone like Wes Hayfield.

  “You’re playing with fire.” The words were a growl against her lips, a brief break before he began a new assault on her senses. His hands spanned her narrow back as he dropped gentle kisses along her jaw and across her eyes before kissing her swollen lips again. She moaned as he kissed her deeper, harder, his hands slipping underneath her snug shirt to caress the soft flesh beneath. She barely noticed when his fingers deftly unhooked the back clasp of her bra, and then moved under the s
atin to cup the fullness of her breasts.

  “We can’t do this,” she gasped, even as her body reacted in ways she’d never felt before.

  “Why not?” His voice was hoarse against her ear. “We’re two consenting adults. Two supposedly married, consenting adults. We might as well enjoy this while it lasts.”

  Enjoy this while it lasts. The words seeped through the senseless stupor into which his lips and hands had put her. The man was a player, taking what he wanted where he could get it and then moving on. She’d met that type before.

  Her brain suggested she stop, but her body wasn’t listening. Tiny quivers of excitement chased down her spine as Wes dropped tiny kisses along her jawline and down her neck, the scent of firewood and soap and Wes himself snaking around her. He had awakened something primal in her, out here away from the veneer of civilization that controlled her life. She wanted him, she needed him, she realized with sudden clarity. In the most primitive way. She wanted him to sweep her up, carry her off into those deep, dark woods behind them and possess her, wordlessly, completely.

  Wes pulled away, stepping back as he struggled to control himself. He could have her, and he knew it. Right now, right here. It was what he’d wanted since he’d kissed her on the plane and realized how easy it would be.

  He wasn’t that kind of a man, though, and she wasn’t the kind of woman to let something like this happen without regrets. Some women were content with one-night stands and summer flings, but Lillian wasn’t one of them. He was as sure of that as he was that he’d hate himself if he took her now.

  “I’m going to make coffee.” He forced himself to walk away, to grab the water jug and walk to the spigot at the edge of the lot. He could feel her eyes following him, sense the confusion that roiled within her. There was no way she could know he was as confused as she was. Lillian was exactly the kind of woman he stayed away from, one with plans and expectations. Yet he couldn’t seem to keep his mind, and now his hands, off her.

  “Wes, we need to…”

  “No, we don’t,” he snapped, filling the pot without looking at her. “We don’t need to talk about what just happened, or what a dog I am for acting on my animal impulses. We’re not going to dissect our feelings, or hold a civilized conversation about how totally inappropriate we are for each other, or have some deep philosophical discussion about hormone-driven mating. Okay?”

  He finally looked at her.

  She was smiling.

  “I was going to say we need to get more firewood.” Her smile had widened to a grin. “Unless you’re afraid that will lead to some deep philosophical discussion.”

  He felt like a fool. Which was something new. Until Lillian Osborne and her damned contract had come into his life, he’d been supremely sure of everyone and everything around him. Now, he wasn’t sure of anything.

  Except that a little space between them couldn’t hurt.

  “I’ll walk down and get a bundle,” he said, giving the fire one last jab with his makeshift poker.

  Lillian held out a twenty-dollar bill. “Get a bunch.” She pushed the bill toward him when he hesitated. “I intend to have a big, scary fire all through the night to keep the creepy crawly things away. I have no intentions of sharing the tent with some wild beast tonight.”

  ****

  Lillian watched him walk away, leaving her to contemplate the fine art of making flame-brewed coffee. And to dissect what just happened between them and how she was ever going to get through another night in a sleeping bag with Wes.

  If she was sure Frank didn’t have spies in this place, she’d find some other place to sleep. Maybe on top of the picnic table. She could layer the tacky wardrobe Wes had chosen for her across her body and keep warm maybe. Wasn’t polyester double knit supposed to be a good insulator?

  She sighed. She still couldn’t believe this was happening to her. She was on the fast track to success, one of Detroit’s up-and-comers. Just six months ago, she’d been profiled in the newspaper’s business section as one of the city’s top thirty entrepreneurs. Yet here she was, attired in a get-up no self-respecting hooker would lower herself to wear, actually anticipating a cup of coffee brewed with as much wood ash as coffee beans.

  Granted, if she and Wes were really newlyweds, this secluded spot would be ideal. Apart from a few noisy campers at the other end of the campground and the fauna of the woods behind them, it was a pretty place. Quiet and serene. Conducive to quiet conversations and the sharing of dreams.

  The sound of a car droned to a stop behind her. She turned to see Wes dragging several tied-up bundles of wood from the back of a truck that had seen better days. He shouted “Thanks!” as the truck drove on, picking up a bundle in each hand.

  “Need any help?” Lillian asked, knowing Wes would say no. He was that kind of a guy. Macho and manly, beholden to no one.

  “Yeah, you could carry some of this stuff.” Disgust colored his words, and she turned with surprise to see him carrying the bundles well away from his sides. Even so, she could see the dark spots where the bark had rubbed his shirt. He sounded cross, which she was sure didn’t bode well for her.

  “Fine.” She strolled over to the car and peered into the trunk. Twenty dollars could buy a lot of firewood, it seemed, so she followed Wes’s example and grabbed two bundles by the rope ties. She lifted them from the ground and groaned.

  “These are heavy!” She struggled awkwardly toward the fire area, where Wes had cut the ties on the first two bundles and begun to stack the wood.

  “Tell me about it. I never would have gotten them here if that guy hadn’t taken pity on me.”

  Lillian managed to manhandle two more bundles into submission, staggering with them to the pile of firewood Wes had started. She made another trip, then another before she realized he seemed quite content to let her do it all alone.

  Like she was about to let that happen. She dropped the bundles she’d just picked up.

  “You carry, I’ll stack.” She moved in front of Wes and began to sort the wood as he had, into kindling, starter wood and big chunks that would burn for hours. Much to her surprise, he let her take over without comment and soon had all the wood moved and had begun stacking again.

  Straightening up to rest her back muscles, Lillian let her eyes feast on the sinewy muscles moving slowly in Wes’s body as he fell into a pattern of picking up wood and laying it back down. There was something to be said about blue-collar guys. She didn’t know a single man who spent his working days in a suit who had muscles like that. Their muscles, those who had them, were created in a gym, according to a careful plan laid out by a personal trainer. Wes, on the other hand, had the kind developed by real work.

  Which surprised her. She had him pegged as a charmer, the kind of guy who could sweet-talk his way out of anything. Or into anything. Like bed. That’s exactly where they’d have ended up a little while ago, on top of that sleeping bag in the tent, if he hadn’t stopped. She supposed she ought to be grateful he’d found some gentlemanly instincts at last, but part of her longed for him to be less of a gentleman and more of a caveman. The longer they were out here together, and the more often the people around them took them for newlyweds, the more she wondered why she’d resisted at all.

  The last thing she needed was the complications of some devoted lover, a guy who saw her as everything he needed to complete his life. But there were times when she felt so alone, eating dinner in a nice restaurant all by herself with couples all around her. She seldom went to movies or the theater anymore, because it was too hard to find a single friend who wanted to go, too. Sometimes it seemed as if the whole world had divided into twos, and she was the odd one out.

  Wes was right about one thing. There was something between them that seemed to grow more volatile all the time. Purely sexual, old-fashioned lust fueled by their isolation and forced intimacy; it was like a gorilla in a ballroom. They were going to have to do something about it.

  Tonight.

  A wave of antici
pation danced along her spine. She’d spent her life so far being a good girl, obeying all the rules, being careful not to let the slightest hint of ill repute become attached to her name. Yet here she was, her eyes fixed on Wes’s strong, wide shoulders and very nice tush, getting ready to have a fling for the very first time in her life.

  After all, who would know if she indulged this crazy fantasy, if she let him make love to her the way she knew he wanted to? She hadn’t known him long, but she was sure Wes wasn’t the kind to brag about his conquests. Back home, he’d go his merry way, and she’d go hers, and their paths would never cross again.

  With a loud thump, Wes put the last piece of firewood on the pile. He stretched, his arms above his head. His back arched as he let out a sigh and wiggled to relax his muscles. Lillian bit her lower lip, her eyes fixed on his taut torso under the T-shirt. Desire balled up inside her at the memory of his arms around her and his lips against hers.

  To hell with prim and proper. That fast, her mind was made up. For the first time in years, she was going to do something without plotting and planning and conducting a feasibility study. Tonight, she’d be the kind of woman who wore hot pink leopard leggings and little bitty tops. Wes’s kind of woman.

  Willing and available.

  Chapter Six

  Wes pulled a hot dog off the metal skewer, deftly filling a soft bun and crisscrossed the round tube of meat with stripes of ketchup and mustard. Handing it to Lillian, he smiled as she took a huge bite and sighed in satisfaction.

  “I never knew anything could taste this good.” She took another big bite and chewed. She swallowed and said, “I can almost forgive your appalling taste in women’s clothes for giving me something this yummy.”

  Wes let her backhanded compliment pass. He wasn’t sure how or when it had happened, but Lillian was different. Had been since their little make-out session this afternoon. She was softer, more accessible. The dragon lady had disappeared, leaving a kinder, gentler Lillian in her wake.