The Bridal Path: Ashley

by Sherryl Woods

  Dillon whistled. “You must have been awfully confident.”

  She shook her head. “No, desperate, really. I knew if I didn’t do something totally outrageous, he’d never believe I was serious about going. He’d bully me until I wound up with a degree in accounting or computer science so I could keep the ranch’s books for him.”

  Dillon shook his head. “You and your sister must be big on outrageous bets.”

  At her quizzical look, he explained, “I heard about Sara betting Jake that she could beat him in bronc riding to win the ranch. Obviously neither of you would flinch at the role of the dice in Vegas, no matter how much you had on the table.”

  Ashley grinned. “If the stakes aren’t big enough, what’s the point? Besides, don’t let Jake kid you. He was betting as much for Sara as he was for the ranch.”

  “Remind me not to gamble on anything major with any of you. So, how long did it take you to win the chess match with your father?”

  “Two days,” she recalled. “We played until after midnight, until Mother insisted we go to bed because I had school in the morning. We finished the next night. He had me checked three or four times, scared the daylights out of me, but I managed to wriggle out and stay in the game. When I finally said checkmate, I’m not sure which of us was more stunned.”

  “What did he say? Do you remember?”

  “Sure. He asked me if I wanted to make it the best two out of three,” she said, laughing. “He never gave up.”

  “But he gave you your stake and let you go without any more arguments, didn’t he?”

  “Without more arguments? You must be kidding. But, yes, he let me go and he financed that first year. He grumbled all the time, though.”

  “Just to keep you on your toes,” Dillon assured her. “He always told me that getting you set up in New York was the best investment he ever made because it had made you happy. He told me that a man’s greatest accomplishment was the happiness of his children. If he achieved that, then he’d done okay.”

  Holding a pawn in his hand to make his first move, Dillon fixed his gaze on her. “Moving to New York, becoming a model has made you happy, hasn’t it?”

  Ashley shrugged and evaded that penetrating stare. “Every job has its ups and downs, but on the whole, yes. I’ve been happy.”

  “How come you can’t look me straight in the eyes when you say that?” he asked.

  She forced her gaze to meet his. “Do I need to say it again to make you happy?”

  He studied her intently for the space of a heartbeat, then shook his head. “No, I’ll accept your earlier statement for now.” He reached across the table and tucked a finger under her chin. “But sooner or later, we’ll get into whatever’s troubling you, sweetheart. Count on it.”

  “Why does it matter to you whether or not I’m content with my career? A few more days, a week and you’ll be gone. I’ll be the last thing on your mind.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, angel. It would take more than a little time and distance for a man to forget you.”

  He sounded so thoroughly, beguilingly sincere that Ashley’s heart began to thump unsteadily. She slowly lifted her gaze and searched his face, looking for some clue that would prove what was really in his heart. His eyes blazed with blatant lust as he deliberately, provocatively locked gazes with her. Her pulse ricocheted wildly.

  “Do you really want to play chess?” he asked quietly.

  The words barely registered. “Hmm?”

  “Are you going to be able to keep your mind on the game?”

  “What game?”

  His lips curved in a lazy, satisfied smile. “Precisely my point.”

  Because she wasn’t crazy about the implication that he could distract her so easily, Ashley forced her attention to the chessboard. The prospect of playing had never struck her as duller, especially with that promising gleam in Dillon’s eyes as competition. Why not just have the fling she so obviously craved and be done with it? It was way past time for her to flirt a bit with danger.

  She looked up until their gazes caught again, then she slowly, deliberately swept her hand across the board, tumbling the chess pieces from their places.

  “I guess the game’s over,” Dillon observed.

  “I don’t know,” Ashley said softly. “It seems to me as if it’s just begun.”

  The taunt was very effective. Dillon stood in such a rush that the small table between them wobbled dangerously. He cast it aside as if it was no more than a troublesome fleck of dust, then reached for her.

  All her doubts about him fled in that instant, lost to a more pressing hunger. Ashley moved into his arms with the inevitability of metal being drawn by a powerful magnet. His mouth settled on hers in a coaxing kiss that stole breath and thought.

  While that first memorable kiss they’d shared a few days before had been greedy and demanding, this kiss was all about persuasion. Sweet and gentle and warm as a summer shower, the kiss teased and taunted until Ashley melted in Dillon’s arms. He could have lured her anywhere with the seductiveness of his lips on hers.

  Instead, though, he seemed content to explore all the possible nuances of kissing. In time, sweet and gentle escalated to dark and mysterious and from there to a passion so all-consuming, so hot that Ashley wondered how she’d ever imagined any other kiss to be anything more than adequate.

  By the time his tongue dipped into her mouth, she was lost. As the swirling heat low in her belly grew more and more demanding, she knew that whatever kind of man Dillon had become, he was quite possibly the only man on earth who could stir the promise of such pleasure.

  His hands slid over her body in light strokes that left behind fire. He tucked her hips more tightly against the cradle of his thighs. Heat flared, so much heat that Ashley thought she would be consumed by it.

  And then something changed. She heard him sigh, felt his hands still where they rested on her hips. When he pulled away, she felt bereft.

  “Dillon,” she pleaded, leaving the rest unspoken. He knew what she wanted, what she so desperately needed. She could read the understanding of it in his hooded gaze, in the smug curve of his lips.

  But even though it was painfully obvious that he wanted the same thing, that his body was as aroused as hers, he merely touched a finger to her lips, skimming the curve in a gesture that made her blood run hot all over again. She could feel the wild tingling all the way to her toes.

  “Dillon,” she cried out again, her voice little more than a ragged whisper.

  “Slow down, sweetheart,” he said, his voice raw with an unmistakable primal need.

  “Why?”

  The question drew a grin. “Because you’d hate me in the morning.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Ashley swore vehemently.

  “Sure you would. Or, if not me, then yourself. When you and I make love…and we will,” he assured her, “it will be because you want me, the real me, not who you think I am. It won’t just be a rebellion.”

  His analysis of her motivations was as effective as being dashed with ice water.

  “I’m not rebelling,” she insisted, despite her own nagging doubts that that was precisely what she was doing. “And if you think that’s what this is about then you don’t know me, either.”

  “Oh, but I do,” he said smugly. “I always have, even way back in high school when you were tempted so badly you ached with it.”

  The arrogant assumption that she’d been panting after him even then infuriated her. Unfortunately, it hit too close to the truth for her to be able to deny it with any sort of conviction, so she kept her mouth clamped tightly shut.

  Instead, she gathered her pride and forced herself to brush a nonchalant kiss across his cheek.

  “Too bad you picked tonight to develop a conscience, Dillon. You don’t know what you’ve missed.”

  “Oh, it’s not over between us, Ashley. You can count on that.”

  She trembled at the promise in his voice, but she managed to escape to her
bedroom before he could see the tears of humiliation and pure frustration that were brimming in her eyes.

  For all Dillon’s taunts and innuendos about the future, she was convinced she knew the real reason he’d stopped his seduction tonight. At some point he’d realized that she was no longer the perfect size six, glamorous beauty who’d once taken the modeling world by storm. The attraction he’d once felt for her had died.

  It didn’t really matter that all the evidence pointed to the contrary. It didn’t matter that she knew with absolute certainty he was every bit as aroused as she was. This didn’t have anything to do with reason or logic or common sense. It had everything to do with self-esteem that was in the toilet and one trusted man’s assurances that she’d lost her glamour and seductiveness.

  Now she had her proof. She’d failed to seduce the only man she’d ever really wanted, and his rejection hurt. It didn’t seem to matter that his motives sounded noble and honest and sincere. It only mattered that Dillon had inadvertently reinforced every negative perception she had of herself.

  She’d thought that brutal meeting with her agent had been the low point of her life, but she’d been mistaken. Tonight had been personal and far more devastating.

  * * *

  Dillon couldn’t believe he had just let Ashley walk out of his arms and out of the room to sleep alone. As she’d said, it was a damnable time to develop a conscience.

  But despite their growing rapport, despite their constant physical awareness, he couldn’t ignore the fact that on some deep level Ashley was struggling with herself about whether she could trust him.

  She was also struggling with other demons that he had yet to put a finger on. For the past few days he’d seen hurt and confusion and doubt in her eyes, and he knew those things had nothing to do with him. Sometimes she looked so lost and shattered he ached to take her into his arms and reassure her. But that would inevitably lead to lovemaking, and until he understood what was going on in her head, how could he risk adding to her pain?

  Was she here to recover from a love affair gone sour? The very idea of her caring that much about another man made his stomach churn. He wanted to believe she had never been as sweetly sensual or as wildly passionate with anyone as she had been in his arms only moments before. He wanted to believe the unmistakable link between them was as rare and unexpected for her as it was for him.

  Not that his motive in pushing her away tonight had been totally altruistic, he admitted reluctantly. He’d meant what he said. She didn’t really know him. She wouldn’t have been making love with him tonight, but with a memory. And in the morning, she would have hated, if not him, then herself for giving in to temptation. And he would have hated himself for giving in to desire only to satisfy an old hunger.

  He knew all about women who were drawn to dangerous men, who craved the excitement, the daring of playing with fire. It was a game with them. They thrilled to the challenge, if not to the specific men who provided it.

  He wanted Ashley to desire him, Dillon Ford, not just the idea of rebelling against propriety as she had when she’d asked him to dance at his prom all those years ago.

  Oh, how sweet that memory was to him, all the same. It had haunted him all these years. He’d never forgotten the feel of her in his arms, the gentle sway of her body into his, the press of her thighs against his.

  Nor had he forgotten how it had felt to know that anything more between them was forbidden, that a girl as good as Ashley was beyond his reach. His pride had taken a beating that night, right along with his libido. Tonight had reminded him a lot of those days, when he’d known he could claim her body, but not her heart.

  Despite his earlier promise to himself to steer clear of Trent’s favorite Scotch, he poured himself a double on the rocks. Sipping it, he tried to block out the burning humiliation he had suffered for himself and Ashley at the crude remarks he’d overheard that long-ago night after the dance had ended.

  One part of him hadn’t given a damn, because he’d glimpsed just a little bit of heaven while holding her. Another part had vowed that the next time he and Ashley Wilde came face-to-face it would be as equals. No one would smirk at finding the two of them together. That promise had driven him all these years.

  Now here they were, face-to-face and practically a whole lot more, and he’d discovered very little had changed. Back then she might not have thought she was slumming when she’d danced with him, as others had so rudely accused, but after tonight he couldn’t help wondering if that was exactly what she thought now. Her doubts were written all over her face every time she looked at him. He suspected once more that she was simply using him as a diversion.

  Ironically, in his unique world of high-tech security and discreet protection services, he was every bit as famous as she was in hers. After all, it had been his company she had sought when she’d been troubled by those threats. He wondered what she would think when she discovered that months ago their paths had almost crossed.

  At any rate, he had every reason to be as proud of his accomplishments as she was of hers. His was just a less public environment. If balance sheets counted for anything, they were equals and then some.

  But confronted with a woman who mattered, he realized that that wasn’t nearly enough. He wanted to see her eyes shining with desire, yes. He also wanted to see respect and trust. He told himself that was all the proof he’d ever need that he’d overcome the past–and then he could put Riverton, Wyoming and Ashley Wilde out of his mind forever.

  Chapter Seven

  When Dillon wandered into the kitchen the following morning wearing a pair of blue jeans and nothing more, he was astounded to find himself facing Mrs. Fawcett’s disapproving scowl. Ashley shot him an amused, if somewhat helpless, look over the brim of her coffee mug. He gathered their uninvited guest had been there for some time.

  Decked out in another of those appallingly ill-fitting hiking outfits, his old high school math teacher faced him with a prim set to her mouth.

  “I might have expected as much,” she said. “I knew when I saw the two of you together the other day that you were up to no good.” She turned to Ashley. “What would your father say if he knew you were up here with him?”

  “I’m not with him, as you put it,” Ashley said, her expression ironic as she met Dillon’s gaze.

  “Don’t split hairs with me,” Mrs. Fawcett scolded. “You know exactly what I mean. You’re both here under the same roof with no one to keep you out of mischief.”

  Dillon had poured himself a cup of coffee and taken his first sip when he decided the lecture had gone far enough. He walked over to the table and drew a chair up until he was knee-to-knee with the older woman.

  To her credit, she didn’t so much as flinch at the deliberately intimidating tactic. Given the difference in their sizes, he assessed her to be one tough cookie. But then, he’d always known that about her. She’d ruled a classroom of unruly teenagers without ever raising her voice.

  “Mrs. Fawcett, with all due respect, what goes on under this roof between Ashley and me is none of your business.”

  Clearly undaunted, she waved a finger under his nose. “Don’t take that tone with me, young man. You tangle with me and you’ll discover the real meaning of trouble.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’re a real fireball,” he concurred, grinning at her indignation. “But I also suspect that at heart you’re a romantic.”

  The woman who hated gossip looked as horrified as if he’d suggested she peeked at the supermarket tabloids. “Why on earth would you think that?”

  He glanced at Ashley and grinned. “I’ll bet you remember, don’t you?”

  Ashley nodded. “The roses,” she said at once.

  Mrs. Fawcett blushed furiously. “What do some old roses have to do with anything?”

  “You tell us,” Dillon teased. “They were on your desk every Monday morning both years I was in your class.”

  “Red,” Ashley recalled. “The most incredible shade of red
I’d ever seen. A whole dozen of them. You were the envy of every girl in class. We always wondered who’d sent them.”

  “Pure teenage foolishness,” Mrs. Fawcett said. “It was my husband, of course. Who else?”

  “How long were you married?” Ashley asked.

  “Thirty years.”

  “And he sent roses all that time?” Dillon asked, his gaze fixed on Ashley. He wondered if she would appreciate a similarly sweet and lavish gesture.

  “He started sending me roses at the beginning of every week when we were courting,” Mrs. Fawcett revealed. “And he kept it up until the day he died.”

  “See,” Dillon said triumphantly. “That just proves my point about you being a romantic.”

  “It proves my husband was a romantic, not me,” she said, but her eyes were a little misty when she said it and there was a little less snap in her voice. “Besides, that was a long time ago and it doesn’t have anything at all to do with the two of you misbehaving.”

  “I can assure you we are not misbehaving,” Dillon said, as Ashley shot another wry look in his direction.

  “As if I’d believe anything you said,” Mrs. Fawcett declared.

  Dillon tried not to take offense at the insult, but it cut just the same. To his surprise, Ashley immediately jumped to his defense.

  “It’s the truth,” she confirmed. “Really, Mrs. Fawcett, Dillon and I mistakenly turned up here at the same time. Rather than one of us being forced to find another place to stay, we decided to share.”

  “Mighty convenient, if you ask me. I recall how the two of you used to look at each other when you thought no one would catch you. Saw that same gleam in your eyes at the store the other day. That kind of spark leads to no good, I can tell you. That’s why I decided it was up to me to make sure everything here is on the up and up, before you do something you’ll regret.”