He figured he owed it to himself, too, to find out if, as he’d always suspected, she really was the only woman in the world for him. Or if he’d just built up a world-class fantasy about the one girl he’d never had. He could only pray that Trent would never put his loyalty to the test by asking Dillon to walk away from his daughter.
* * *
Despite his late-night wrestling with his conscience, Dillon was up at the crack of dawn the next morning. Even so, Ashley was up ahead of him. He found her at the kitchen table with a half a grapefruit in front of her and a sour expression on her face. He suspected that expression had less to do with the taste of her meal than with its sparseness.
“How about some scrambled eggs?” he asked cheerfully and earned a scowl and a curt refusal.
“Toast, then?”
“No, thank you.”
“If you don’t eat, then I can’t take you with me today,” he said as he whisked three eggs and dumped them into a skillet sizzling with butter.
“Oh?” she said, looking ever-so-slightly intrigued.
“I was thinking of a picnic.”
She sighed. “More food.”
“After a long hike,” he amended. “A very long hike.”
“I suppose that could be fun,” she admitted grudgingly.
“It’s another gorgeous day,” he said. “The rain stopped before dawn.”
“You were awake that early?”
“Just taking advantage of opportunity,” he taunted. “But I’m not taking you, if you’re going to pass out halfway there from lack of food.”
She rolled her eyes, but she accepted the plate of scrambled eggs he held out. And the toast. She did ignore the butter, which he placed prominently in front of her, and the orange marmalade. He chose to let that pass.
He ate his breakfast, then sat back and studied her over the rim of his coffee mug. Eventually she lifted her gaze from her plate and stared at him defiantly.
“Is there something on your mind?” she asked.
“I was just wondering what all those admiring hordes would think if they could see you now.”
Immediately, she touched a self-conscious hand to her casually caught-up hairstyle. “I’m a mess,” she said. “Don’t remind me.”
“You are not a mess,” he contradicted. “You look more natural and more beautiful than you ever have on any magazine cover.”
She stared at him, mouth gaping. “You’re crazy.”
“Nope. I don’t think so. You have color in your cheeks that doesn’t come from any cosmetic I’ve ever seen.”
“Because you’re making me blush.”
“Whatever. And your lips look extraordinarily kissable,” he added, enjoying the way that deepened the pink tone in her cheeks. “As for your hair, no man could resist the urge to tug away that silly ribbon or whatever it is that’s holding it up.”
To prove it, he stood and reached behind her to release waves of blond silk. The wayward curls tumbled past her shoulders. Ashley tried to scoop them back into the careless ponytail, but Dillon prevented it with a touch.
“Don’t. It’s magnificent.”
“It hasn’t been properly styled in days. My stylist would have a heart attack if he saw it.”
He grinned at the complaint. “There are millions of women in the world who’d like their hair to be half so incredible after a few days in the middle of nowhere.”
Her gaze locked with his, and he thought he read complete bafflement in her eyes. That hint of uncertainty startled him. How could Ashley Wilde, admired by millions, be uncertain about anything?
“How do you do that?” she asked.
“What?”
“The impossible. I woke up this morning feeling miserable and dowdy, and with no more than a few glib words, you’ve turned that around.”
“Sweetheart, you couldn’t look dowdy decked out in your grandmother’s worst muslin frock.”
She grinned. “Frock? Dillon, where do you spend your time?”
“I read one of my sister’s historical romances once,” he said, then added quickly, “purely as research, of course. I wanted to be able to carry on a conversation about something that actually mattered to her. At any rate, the heroine was very big on frocks. She had a wardrobe filled with them, as I recall.”
Ashley’s eyes danced with amusement. “And did this research pay off? Did you and your sister have a meaningful conversation as a result?”
“Actually, no. I was too afraid she’d want to talk about the love scenes, and that was definitely not a conversation I intended to have with her.”
“Somehow I can’t imagine you ever being unwilling to discuss sex,” she said.
“Not with my sister. She was a baby at the time.”
“How old?” she asked, laughing, no doubt at his horrified expression.
“Sixteen,” he admitted. “But that was too young for sex.”
“Maybe to do it, but obviously not to read about it,” Ashley said. “Somebody should have discussed it with her.”
“I asked one of my girlfriends to do it. She knew more about sex than any book I ever read.”
“Oh, really?”
She looked so thoroughly indignant that Dillon chuckled. “Jealous, sweetheart?”
“Hardly.”
“It was ten years ago, you know.”
“Whatever you did ten years ago or two days ago is none of my business,” she said stiffly.
“Exactly.”
She peered at him. “But what have you been doing all these years?”
“So much for leaving the past in the past,” he noted. “But I’ll indulge you on this one point. No marriages. No serious long-term relationships.”
“Ah, commitment phobic, then,” she said knowingly.
He stared straight into her eyes and waited a beat before declaring softly, “No, just committed to finding the right person before I jump into anything that’s supposed to last till death do us part.”
He watched as she swallowed hard and tried to tear her gaze away from his face.
“I think maybe we’d better go for that walk,” she said in a voice that sounded slightly breathless.
“Afraid of what’ll happen if we stay here?”
Her chin tilted defiantly. “I am not the least bit afraid of you, Dillon Ford. But I just ate more calories and cholesterol than any human being should consume at daybreak. It’s time to work it off.”
“Have I mentioned that this obsession you have with the fat content of food is a little twisted?” Dillon asked.
“If you read the newspapers or watched TV news, you’d know it’s not possible to be too obsessed with what we eat. Everyone should be concerned about it, not just models.”
“If you declare that we are what we eat, I may have to stuff a rag in your mouth,” he warned.
Apparently he’d managed exactly the dead-serious tone he’d intended, because she was regarding him warily. “You wouldn’t dare,” she said.
“Try me,” he said grimly. “And before you ask, I’m packing our picnic and you’ll eat what I bring, are we clear?”
“Do you have control issues?” she inquired testily.
“If you’re asking if I tend to take charge, then the answer is yes. I find it saves a lot of time.”
“Ever hear of compromise?”
“Sweetheart, when you offer a compromise worth considering, I’ll compromise.”
“How gallant!”
“I do try. Now scoot, so I can get this picnic packed.”
“Afraid I’ll try to sneak in some carrot sticks?”
“No, I just work faster alone.”
“No wonder you’ve never married,” she observed dryly.
Dillon grinned. “Sweetheart, you’ve just hit on the one area where I do believe that two is better than one. We could abandon this hike and I could demonstrate, if you like.”
“Marriage isn’t only about sex,” she reminded him.
“Maybe not,” he agreed rea
dily. “But without it, things would definitely be a whole lot duller.”
Apparently Ashley had no argument for that, because she backed out of the kitchen and retreated to the front porch. That was where he found her when he finished preparing their picnic. She glanced up as he came through the door, two backpacks in hand. She held out her hand for hers, then hefted it gingerly.
“There’s definitely not an entire roast in here, so I suppose I should be grateful.”
“How do you know it’s not in mine?” he taunted.
“Care to trade with me?”
“No way,” he said. “You’re clearly a woman who’s been deprived of chocolate for far too long. I’m not putting these candy bars into your safekeeping.”
She promptly ran her tongue over her lips in an unconscious gesture that had Dillon’s blood pumping like an oil well.
“Ah,” he said. “I see I’ve struck a nerve.”
“You have chocolate in there?” she asked, her gaze pinned on his backpack.
“Several bars,” he confirmed, enjoying the pure greed suddenly shining in her eyes.
“That is a very dangerous admission,” she warned him.
“Oh? You thinking of trying to get them away from me?”
“I’m thinking of killing you for them.”
Dillon’s hoot of laughter carried on the clear morning air. “Sweetheart, I always dreamed of leading you astray. I just never dreamed all it would take was a candy bar.”
Chapter Five
Ashley had never wanted so badly to be led astray in her entire, orderly life.
Forget the chocolate…although she was having a difficult time doing that. It was Dillon who truly tempted her. In fact, he was driving her crazy with his compliments and his seductive looks and his provocative conversation.
She desperately needed what he was offering. She needed to feel desirable, and he accomplished that in spades. In fact, if she didn’t start expending some energy on that promised hike in the next few seconds, she was very likely to tackle him where he stood. Maybe it wouldn’t solve all her self-esteem problems, but it would go a long way toward making her forget them for a short while. Surely she wouldn’t be the first woman to use Dillon as a sex object. She doubted he’d mind at all.
Maybe her on-the-edge hunger was in her eyes or in her tone, because he suddenly set off toward the woods at a brisk, punishing pace. No wonder he’d said a big breakfast was no problem. At the rate he moved, they’d work off the calories in the first half-hour.
Even with her comfortably long strides, she had difficulty keeping up with him. Since the path he chose was straight uphill and she refused to plead for mercy, she was breathless by the time he finally paused for a rest. She quickly accepted the bottled water he offered and drank thirstily.
“Have you ever considered becoming a personal trainer?” she asked. “You set a brutal pace.”
He instantly looked contrite. “Why didn’t you say something? I would have slowed down.”
For some reason, the comment rankled. “I didn’t say I couldn’t keep up,” she retorted.
“Of course not,” he said.
He said it in such a placating, patronizing tone that Ashley had to grit her teeth to keep from cursing. That was exactly the kind of attitude that could rid her of any romantic fantasies about this man.
She sighed at the direction her thoughts had taken only a short time before. What had ever made her think she could put up with a chauvinistic, testosterone-laden male for more than a few hours at a time? Her father was evidence enough that such men were impossible. Dillon, for reasons she had yet to understand, seemed to be one of Trent Wilde’s disciples. Some lessons, at least, he’d learned very well.
Or was he one of those lost causes her father periodically took under his wing? Once again she began to wonder just what had brought this unlikely pair together. And exactly what had Dillon been doing with his life since he scooted out of Riverton in the dark of night years earlier?
Her initial assumption that he was in some kind of desperate trouble was beginning to seem less and less likely. He hadn’t seemed the least bit concerned that they’d been seen at the store. In fact, he’d been less worried about it than she had, which must prove something about him being innocent of any crime.
Whatever he had been doing, though, it must have included rigorous fitness training, she concluded as Dillon practically sprinted off uphill again. Thankful for all those tedious step-aerobics and weight-training classes, she trailed after him, albeit at a more leisurely pace.
“Do you have any idea where you’re going?” she called out eventually as the woods grew denser and she could no longer hear the babbling of the stream that edged her father’s property.
He glanced over his shoulder and grinned. “If where we’re going really matters to you, isn’t that something you should have asked an hour ago?”
“Probably,” she conceded, then persisted, “do you know?”
“Always,” he said. “You’re not scared just because there are no street signs and stoplights, are you?”
“I have to admit, I’d feel better if there was at least some sign of a trail underfoot.”
He winked. “There is. You just have to have a trained eye to spot it.”
Ashley regarded him skeptically. That didn’t sound at all like the boy she’d known, who’d always struck her as someone who’d be more at home in an urban jungle than some dark tangle of weeds, trees and underbrush. She’d always assumed she knew exactly how he spent his spare time back then, but maybe there were aspects of his past not even she knew.
“Did you get some sort of wilderness training I don’t know about?”
“Surely you’re not asking if I was ever a Boy Scout?” he replied, looking as appalled as if she’d suggested he’d secretly taken home economics.
Ashley chuckled. “No, believe me, that thought never once crossed my mind. They would probably have thrown you out by the time you turned twelve.”
“I was ten, actually.”
He said it with a contradictory mix of pride and chagrin. The glint in his eyes suggested pride was winning. He always had seemed to relish his reputation as a bad boy.
“Did you enjoy turning the troop upside down?” she asked.
“Immensely,” he admitted with a grin. “My father was appalled. He thought the troop would straighten me out, give me a sense of direction, teach me some values. Unfortunately, they never gave patches for the sort of things I was interested in.”
“Such as?”
“I’m sure you can imagine.”
“You were interested in girls at the age of ten?” she asked incredulously.
“I think maybe I’ll plead the Fifth on that one.” He eyed her curiously. “So, what were you really asking a minute ago when you mentioned wilderness training?”
“I just thought perhaps you’d been through the Trent Wilde school of wilderness adventures.”
“Uh-oh,” he said, looking fascinated. “You don’t say that fondly.”
“Actually, I missed the worst of it. Daddy wanted sons. He expected sons. Three girls were a surprise, but he remained undaunted,” she said. “He put Dani through his own brand of survival training in the wilds. She hasn’t set foot in the cabin since. She won’t even build a fire in her fireplace. And she absolutely shudders at the mention of rabbit stew and venison steak.”
Dillon laughed. “I’m surprised Trent hasn’t disowned her.”
“Believe me, the thought probably crossed his mind a time or two. On the other hand,” Ashley continued. “Sara loved it so much she ran off and spent days on end hiding out somewhere up here when Daddy threatened to send her off to finishing school. She turned everything he’d taught her against him.”
Dillon’s grin broadened. “He told me about that.”
“He told everyone about it,” Ashley said dryly. “It was hard to tell if he was furious or pleased, but after that, he pretty much gave up. I guess he figured he w
as no match for our individual preferences and stubbornness, or else he just accepted the fact that girls would never love the same things that sons might have.”
“He let you off the hook? That doesn’t sound like him.”
“Actually, by the time he dragged me up here, he just handed me a fishing pole and pointed me in the direction of the stream. He didn’t even complain when I tossed back everything I caught.”
“Oh, but what a disappointment you must have been to him,” Dillon teased.
“It was no laughing matter, I’ll have you know. But that was the least of the ways I disappointed him, actually,” she said with an air of resignation. “My determination to move to New York was the real biggie.”
Dillon’s expression sobered at once. “No, it wasn’t,” he said adamantly. He regarded her curiously. “Don’t you know how proud he is of you? My God, Ashley, he has drawers filled with every magazine you’ve ever appeared in. He has framed pictures on the wall in his office.”
“You’ve been to Three-Stars?” For some reason that startled her even more than his familiarity with the cabin or his apparent understanding of her father’s thoughts about the life she’d chosen.
The cabin was her father’s private sanctuary, but Three-Stars was as public as a governor’s mansion, a place where Trent showed off his wealth and power. That Dillon had been invited there showed a level of acceptance, a certain depth of male bonding and respect between the two men that she hadn’t guessed existed, despite Dillon’s claims that the two were friends.
“It’s not Buckingham Palace, sweetheart. It doesn’t require an invitation from the Queen.”
Naturally, she thought, Dillon had managed to totally misunderstand and find an insult where none had been intended. “You know what I mean,” she said.
“No, I don’t. Your father’s not the snob you seem to think he is. Or is it just that you can’t imagine anyone inviting me into their home?”
Ashley could feel a dull red flush creeping up her neck. “That isn’t what I meant at all. It’s just that I’m still struggling with the idea that you and my father are friends. He’s so…”
“Respectable,” Dillon offered.
She didn’t like the stiff, cool way he said it, but she nodded. “Okay, yes. Trent Wilde is the epitome of respectability.”
The Bridal Path: Ashley Page 5