by Leslie Kelly
Wyatt paused at the front door. He'd half-expected her to refuse. He knew Brady would be up soon, and it was seldom Simone wanted to be away from the house when his cousin was in it.
Which was the reason he’d asked her to come with him. They needed to have another talk about Brady.
"How many times have I told you, please just call me Wyatt? Mister makes me sound like I'm ancient."
They soon left the house, driving in silence for a few minutes. Finally, Wyatt asked, "You aren't still upset about the conversation we had a few weeks ago, are you? I've noticed you don't have much to say to me lately."
"No, sir. I know you were just trying to look out for me. As I told you, Mr. Brady has been very kind to me and I wish you would not worry."
"Brady isn't kind to anybody unless there's something in it for him," Wyatt muttered. "Believe me, Simone, I wasn't trying to make you uncomfortable, or give you the impression I don't want you involved with Brady because you work for us. I just don't want you getting in over your head."
"Please don't worry, I am in no danger of that."
Wyatt frowned. Damn Brady! The man had had his eye on Simone since day one. Wyatt had not been too happy when he'd come back from a trip to Arizona a few months earlier and found her already working on the ranch. They needed a new cook, but Wyatt had been planning on hiring someone when we got back. Instead, he'd come home to find Brady had already given Simone the job.
The girl could cook, was honest, and trustworthy. But she was too young, and definitely too pretty, to work in a house full of men. Especially men like his cousin who enjoyed the challenge of innocence. Wyatt had kept an eye on the situation, and even tried to talk to the girl a few weeks before. It obviously hadn't worked. Instead of putting up her guard against Brady, she had become silent and tongue-tied around Wyatt, as though she was suddenly uncomfortable to be in the same room with him. He’d hoped that by bringing it up again, she might open up to him, but obviously that wasn’t going to happen.
"All right, I won't bring it up again," he finally said. "Just be careful, all right?"
On Wednesday morning, Nicole went into town to pick up some groceries. Her dad would be coming home from the hospital that afternoon, and the doctor had given her some very specific instructions for his diet. Nicole had offered to help Maria with some of the cooking and shopping since the woman was worried she might inadvertently make something Josh couldn't have.
Nicole pulled up in front of the town's one shopping center, feeling nostalgic for Tucket's General Store, which had gone out of business when she was a kid. She parked her father's SUV in the nearly empty parking lot and went inside, savoring the store's cool temperature.
"Good morning."
Nicole glanced over and saw Simone standing near the exit with a shopping cart full of bags. The girl was lovely in a white sundress, her dark hair swept back with a matching white headband. Nicole wondered how she managed to look so cool in the unrelenting Florida heat. The temperature hadn't stayed below ninety degrees for one day since Nicole arrived, and she'd begun to wonder if she'd ever be able to get her hair to stop curling wildly against her neck in the heavy humidity.
"Hello to you, too. Shopping for the ranch?"
"Yes, we are," the young woman replied.
"We?"
The electric swish of the door behind her told Nicole that someone else had entered the store. She didn't even have to turn around to know it was Wyatt. She smelled his cologne, and heard the faint tap of his boots on the polished tile floor. Her heart began racing before his first word.
"Hello, Nicole. Adjusting to the Florida heat, I see."
Gritting her teeth, she watched as Wyatt walked by her and glanced into the shopping cart Simone was pushing. She tried not to show how embarrassed she was by her own appearance. Of all times to run into Wyatt and his lovely cook!
Nicole mentally kicked herself for tugging on the old cut-off jean shorts and tight red tank top. She'd found the clothes in her old bedroom dresser drawer and had been so tickled that they actually still fit her after all these years that she'd worn them out of the house without thinking about who she might run into. She kept forgetting what a small town Windover was.
Wyatt didn't try to pretend he wasn't staring at her. He even had the nerve to push his dark sunglasses up with the tip of his index finger, until they rested in the thick brown hair on top of his head, so he could take a better look. His gaze burned a trail from her face all the way down her body, leaving Nicole with the sensation that he'd reached out and touched her with his hand. There wasn't an inch of her that didn't tingle.
"Your taste in clothes has remained impeccable," he said with a wry grin.
She glared at him.
"How are your hip and your leg?"
"Fine, thank you. All recovered."
"And obviously no scar," he said, staring at the top of her thigh which was very visible due to the extremely short cut-offs.
Nicole shifted, trying to step behind a shopping cart, which just made Wyatt grin. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to remain still, as if she wore an elegant dress rather than ragged shorts that were a size too small, two inches too short, and a dozen years too young for her.
"Thanks for coming out to check on Winnie yesterday," Wyatt said. "I got your note and we’ve been following your orders to a T.”
"She's doing very well," Nicole replied. "She'll have some scarring, but the tissue is pink and healthy looking, no sign of infection. You've done a good job taking care of her."
Wyatt nodded acknowledgement, then turned toward Simone. "Are you ready to go?"
Simone nodded, not raising her eyes to meet his. Nicole saw color stain the girl's dusky cheeks. Her crush was painfully obvious. From what Nicole had seen so far, though, Wyatt wasn't doing anything to encourage it. His manner with Simone was polite and respectful, without the flirtatious teasing he so often used to charm women. Obviously he was handling the situation carefully.
Nicole felt a sudden sense of relief. She told herself it was on Maria's behalf.
"So, Dr. Ross, are you planning to come to the summer carnival this weekend?" Simone asked.
"I haven't even thought about that. Do they still have it over by the Grange building on state road 41?"
Wyatt nodded. "And they still have the dance to kick things off Friday night. You remember that dance, don't you, Nick?"
Her eyes met his and Nicole felt a flood of memories rush through her. She couldn't stop her lips from curling into a smile. He answered with an intimate one of his own. She knew he was remembering, as she was.
Brady had dumped her just a few days before the dance. Though she and Wyatt were together, Nicole was too nervous to go out with him in public. It wasn't just Brady's spite she feared. Nicole didn't want the whole town thinking she was a little tramp for switching from one cousin to another in the space of a weekend.
Wyatt didn't care. He knew she had never been serious about Brady, nor he about her. Still, he acceded to her request that they remain out of sight that night. They parked behind the grange building, peeking around the corner at the dozens of couples who arrived. Nicole felt a tinge of sadness seeing the girls in their pretty dresses, especially when she'd glanced down at her own shorts. She wished Wyatt could have seen her in the pale blue slip-dress she'd bought, back when she thought she'd be attending with his cousin.
He didn't let her remain melancholy. When the band started playing, Wyatt took her arm, lifted her up into the flatbed of his pickup truck and asked her to dance. The music drifted outside, riding on the orange-scented evening breeze. They danced and danced and danced. And that night, when the music ended and the laughing voices drifted away, they made love for the first time on a blanket under the stars.
Nicole was lost to where she was, remembering the strength of his arm around her waist, the musky smell of his skin as she pressed her face into his shoulder. If she closed her eyes she thought she could surely still feel the way their
bodies swayed to the soft strains of music, accompanied by the evening sounds of cicadas and the rustling of leaves through the trees.
A voice suddenly intruded, breaking the vision apart.
"Come with me to the dance. We'll actually go inside this time.”
Nicole’s mouth fell open and she stared at Wyatt. To his credit, he didn’t look like he wanted to shove his own fist in his mouth for extending the invitation.
Nor, however, did he repeat it.
She thought about it, knowing what she should say. But not knowing what she would say.
The words were out, hanging between them in the artificially cooled air of the grocery store. His green eyes shone with nothing but warmth, she sensed no payback, no anger, no other motive behind his request. Maybe he’d just been struck with the sweetness of the memories, too.
Maybe he, like her, had been unable to get the thought of what had happened the other day at her father’s place out of his mind.
She shouldn’t. She knew that. But somehow, the shouldn’ts and the don’t-you-dares didn’t seem to matter very much.
"I'd love to."
CHAPTER EIGHT
The drive back to the ranch was a silent one. Wyatt was lost in thought, and Simone didn't try to engage him in conversation. Wyatt imagined Simone was fantasizing that Brady would ask her to go to the dance on the spur of the moment, like Wyatt had just done with Nicole.
He couldn’t stop asking himself how he could have been crazy enough to ask Nicole out. They were years past any hope of a relationship, and, besides, she was involved with someone else, even if she seemed to conveniently forget about her boyfriend when it suited her. He knew he should just find an excuse and back out.
But he didn't want to. Something about being with her just made him feel good. Maybe it was the throwback to his youth when he’d been unencumbered by responsibility, free to be the bad-boy because it was what was expected of him.
Besides that, Nicole Ross still made his blood rush through his veins the way no other woman ever had. They were both adults. Why shouldn't they explore that electricity that so obviously still sparked between them? No way would feelings get involved this time—they were no longer kids, but adults, in full control of their emotions. And hell, maybe sleeping with her would enable him to sleep again at all. Because he sure hadn’t caught many Z’s since their impromptu make-out session in her father’s house.
As he pulled the truck up to the house, Brady walked out the front door, frowning when he saw them together in the truck. Wyatt shook his head in disgust. Just because his cousin was jaded enough to have the hots for a shy girl not long out of high school, he expected Wyatt to be the same way.
"What have you two been up to?" Brady asked, sauntering down the steps. His hair was damp, as if he'd just gotten up and showered, though it was nearly eleven. Typical. But as long as he kept his mouth shut, and stayed out of his way, Wyatt didn’t care that Brady didn’t lift a finger to help on the ranch.
"Simone came into town with me to do some shopping," Wyatt said as he stepped onto the gravel driveway. Simone had already grabbed a few grocery bags from the back of the truck.
"I'm going to bake a cake for the bake sale," Simone explained. "The one being held at the dance this weekend."
Wyatt could hear the expectation in the girl's voice. She obviously hoped Brady would ask her to go with him. His cousin just smiled his lazy smile and ignored her.
"Mr. Wyatt is going to the dance," Simone continued.
Brady raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "You? Since when you do socialize with the old biddies and farmers at the Grange?"
"He is going with Dr. Ross," Simone said. Wyatt frowned in annoyance, wishing she hadn't mentioned it. She was obviously still hinting, but her subtlety went right over Brady's empty head. She scurried past him, carrying the bags of groceries into the house. Wyatt noticed the sardonic smile on his cousin's face.
"You're taking Nicole out? Can't say I blame you. She certainly grew some curves, didn't she?"
Wyatt frowned but willed himself to remain silent and give Brady some more rope...to hang himself.
"Though, I'm surprised that you'd be interested in her. I mean, we all know what a tramp she was. And you've never been one to take someone else's leftovers."
That was rope enough. Wyatt felt his right fist fly out from the side of his body and connect with his cousin's jaw two seconds later. He didn't feel an ounce of regret as the other man flew off his feet and landed on his back in the dry grass near the driveway.
Shock widened Brady’s eyes and he hunched over, circling his middle with his arm. Wyatt knew no-one had ever had the nerve to raise a hand to his cousin, at least not since the last fight he and Wyatt had gotten into, several years before. Wyatt felt quite satisfied at having knocked the other man on his arrogant butt.
"Not another word, Brady. I spared your teeth, I know how you prize those pearly whites. You say another thing about Nicole and you’ll be swallowing a few of them. You got me?"
Brady slowly made his way to his feet. Wyatt could see the indecision in his eyes, as if the other man contemplated charging with a counter attack. If Wyatt had turned his back, he probably would have done it. Face to face though, he knew his cousin would never have the balls.
"Hell, Wyatt, I didn't say anything you haven't heard before. I was just trying to warn you, remind you of how tricky she can be. Look what she tried to do to me, running to Grandpa telling him I got her knocked up when I never even...I mean, we never..."
"Just shut up. I know you never slept with Nicole, even though you don't want to admit it."
"Yeah? What makes you so sure?" Brady asked as a petulant look crossed his face. "I dated her the last summer she came down here, remember?"
Wyatt nodded coldly. "I remember.” Silently he thought But she was a virgin the first time she and I made love...a couple of days after the two of you broke up.
“She was with you, wasn’t she?” Brady suddenly asked. “That summer, it was you she ended up with.”
“Just stay the hell away from her,” Wyatt muttered as he turned to walk away from his cousin.
"Little bitch," Brady muttered. "If she was sleeping with you, why'd she try to trap me with some nonexistent baby?"
Wyatt didn't answer, didn't even slow down. The explanation was too long, and he didn't owe it to Brady, anyway. He'd figured out the answers years ago, and he was the only one to whom they were really important.
Wyatt stalked through the house and went straight up to his own room. Kicking his door shut behind him, he walked to the French doors and stepped out onto the balcony. Memories of lazy midnight swims with Nicole overwhelmed him as he glanced down into the still blue waters of the swimming pool. He couldn't even be in his own home without being overcome by the past.
Not for the first time he wondered what his life might have been if he'd learned about Nicole's pregnancy just a few weeks sooner. Would she be living here with him now, would they be raising their child together? Would it have been a sweet dark-haired girl like her mother, or a rough and tumble boy who'd be about the right age to challenge his father for his independence?
It hurt to think about it. He couldn't stop. How could a series of minor misunderstandings result in such a huge mess?
It had been obvious to Wyatt from the very beginning that his grandfather had made a terrible error when confronted with Nicole Ross' pregnancy. He'd assumed Brady was the father. After all, the two of them had been the ones publicly dating.
Wyatt had been on holiday in Prague with his mother and her husband when his grandfather first started calling. Brady had been the only one to remain behind in England, just as happy to get away from Wyatt as Wyatt had been to escape him. Later, Wyatt could easily imagine Brady's indignant denials as he told his grandfather that he'd never touched Nicole, that she was a slut trying to trap him into marrying her. By the time Wyatt returned to London, and heard of the incident, weeks had passed. Several more days w
ent by while he returned to the states and tracked Nicole to her mother's Baltimore estate. What happened there was something he didn't want to think about.
That was a long time ago. But he couldn't deny the spark of attraction between them hadn't diminished one bit. Part of the problem, he knew, was that he'd allowed himself to believe he'd never again experience as much pleasure as he had with Nicole.
"Nothing could have been that good," he insisted out loud.
He'd been young and inexperienced. That's all it was, emotions wrapped in youthful excitement had combined to give the entire affair the illusion of ecstasy. Just an illusion.
"There's one way to prove it," he murmured, rubbing his jaw with a weary hand.
Maybe the way to extinguish the desire forever would be to give in to it one more time. Maybe the answer to getting Nicole Ross out of his mind was to get her back into his bed.
"Not another word, Nicole, you go to that dance and don't even think about using me as an excuse to back out."
Nicole rolled her eyes and looked up at the fluorescent light on the ceiling of her father's hospital room. He was quite insistent. She wished she hadn't even mentioned that she'd agreed to go to the Orange Blossom dance with Wyatt. Because now that she'd decided to back out, she couldn't even use her father's return home as an excuse. He wouldn't let her.
"Dad, let's just see what happens. We’ll see how you feel."
"I feel fine," he retorted. "Maria will be there if I need her, and you can get out and have some fun. Please, Nicole, it will make me feel less guilty about you having to drop everything and come down here if I can at least feel you're doing a few things to enjoy yourself."
"I'll see to it that she does enjoy herself, Josh."
Nicole glanced up as Wyatt entered the room, looking as devastatingly attractive as ever in khaki slacks and a short-sleeved cotton shirt. He'd obviously heard part of their conversation. She wondered if he'd heard the part where she'd told her father she was planning to back out of their date. If so, he gave no indication.