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  Had he checked in yet? Was there a chance he might hear the music coming from this room and wander in?

  Maybe the college guy next to Lucy picked up on that steamy vibe, because he leaned in close to her, pressing arm against arm. He was wearing too much cologne, like most young males did in some kind of misunderstood mating ritual.

  “You need another drink?” he asked.

  She shook her head, thinking he reminded her of Roy Rogers. An affable smile. Sparkling, squinty eyes.

  But he was no cowboy, she thought, recalling a much more dangerous variation: one who hadn’t really smiled today at the diner.

  One who had lingered in the shadows where he seemed terribly comfortable.

  The music got louder to her, even though no one had turned it up. But it was Led Zeppelin, so she didn’t really mind. What she did mind, however, was Roy Rogers’s hand creeping onto her thigh.

  She stood, backing away from the table. God, what was she doing here with these kids? All of them looked so, so young, and she didn’t belong. Not at this party, not on this trip.

  How could she have thought otherwise?

  “Go on without me,” she said as the crowd protested her leaving.

  “Aw,” another guy said. Earlier, he’d told her he was from the Philippines. “Come on, Lucky! We need more girls for Seven Minutes in Heaven!”

  Was he talking about the game where two people went into a closet or bathroom and locked the door for seven minutes with the lights out? He had to be joking.

  But when Lucy approached Carmen, she saw that her friend, who was drinking from a bottle of soda, was taking the suggestion quite enthusiastically. She and Eddie grinned at each other as he jerked his head toward the bathroom.

  Carmen laughed just as Lucy approached.

  “I’m going to hit the sack,” Lucy said.

  “Already?” Carmen asked.

  “I think I’ve already overstayed.” She leaned over to her friend to whisper, “I won’t expect you back tonight?”

  Carmen shrugged, looking mischievous and hopeful.

  “Okay.” Lucy made a smug face, happy that a post-breakup Carmen was having a good time. Mal could eat it. “Then I’m off.”

  “Wait, let me walk you to the room.”

  Oh, right, like Lucy was going to shatter the clear sexual tension between her friend and the boy toy. Not a chance. Before Carmen had committed to Malcolm in college, she’d always had a wild streak ten miles wide, but she’d never gone all the way with it—just lots of innocuous flirting, really. Yet after she’d settled down with Malcolm, a sedate Carmen had quietly wondered what it would be like to test that streak and, now that she was free, she had all the room in the world to do it.

  Frankly, Carmen deserved a prize for what Mal had done to her.

  “No, stay here,” Lucy said. “We’re just in the next building, and the coffee shop, then the office, are a few doors down from our room. Besides, this place is hardly threatening.”

  “Lucy…”

  “I forbid it, Carm.” She added a wink, but Carmen still seemed doubtful.

  So Lucy turned to Eddie. “Keep her here, okay? I’ll call when I get to my room if it makes a difference.”

  “It does,” Carmen said.

  Eddie grinned, and Lucy could see why Carmen was so taken.

  “Maybe this is a sign that you should just stay,” he said.

  “No, really.” Lucy performed a yawn, and carried it off pretty well, actually. “Lots of driving tomorrow.”

  With a mock punch to Carmen’s arm and a be-careful-you-scamp glance, Lucy made for the door.

  “Call in two minutes?” Carmen asked over the music.

  Lucy took out her cell from her purse, raised her hand to show Carmen that she was ready to phone for help if needed. Then she concentrated on resisting more drunken pleas to stay from the Quarters table. Of course, she buh-byed them, then finished her beer and tossed the bottle into a wastebasket.

  Once outside, she meandered toward her room, breathing in the early night’s air. The party music settled to a punching kick as she got farther away.

  And each kick felt like a new pulse of loneliness.

  She wished she was as spirited as Carmen, wished she felt so good about herself that attracting another man would be effortless.

  She passed the office, the coffee shop. Then, just yards away from her room, something caught her attention.

  It was a stirring in the wind. As if the restaurant’s door had opened and shut.

  But when she turned around, nothing was there except shadows.

  Shadows like the ones that had hidden the cowboy at the diner today.

  Adrenaline was streaming through her now, and she got out the tarnished key, pushing it into the lock, opening her door. Then she dialed Carmen, who answered immediately.

  “You inside?”

  A mere technicality, since Lucy was in the process of shutting the door. “Yes, party animal. Have a good time.”

  “You, too, sleepyhead. See you soon.”

  They disconnected. And…there it was again.

  That slight variation in the air.

  Heart in her throat, Lucy’s eyes focused through the slit in her door to find him yards away, half swallowed by shade and night.

  The cowboy, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets, slim-hipped yet roped with sinew and muscle. His silvered eyes cut through the darkness, aided by a slash of light.

  But instead of being afraid, Lucy’s pulse started to go a little wild.

  3

  JOSHUA HAD NO DAMN idea what he was doing outside the brunette’s room.

  But what was new? He hadn’t possessed an inkling of what was going on inside his own head back at Peggy Sue’s 50’s Diner, either, when she had left him on sexual tenterhooks with her mysterious smile.

  The image of her had lingered all day, even after he’d arrived at the Timberline, where he’d taken dinner at the coffee shop, paid up, then brooded over coffee.

  Thinking of her, wanting her.

  Then, as if he had conjured her right out of his dreams, she’d strolled by the restaurant’s window, her hair in those breezy waves, her lithe figure garbed in a light dress that reminded him of petals under a gold moon. His belly had clutched so hard that he had thought he might collapse into himself from pure agony.

  Damn, all it took to get him going was the mere sight of her. What did this make him? A desperate man?

  Good God, once she saw him, what would she think about him following her from the restaurant and coming to stand near her room?

  Hi, he could say. Fancy accidentally running into you here at the Timberline Inn, where I thought there might be a small chance you’d show up tonight, even though you told me you wouldn’t.

  But then, without another thought, he’d risen from his seat, intent on…

  Doing what? Saying hello? Frightening her half to death by sneaking up behind her while she unlocked her room?

  He’d come within yards of her, hesitating. His basic decency told him to leave the brunette be.

  But his body? It had screamed a different argument, one much more immediate and persuasive.

  As she had unlocked her door and made a short phone call, he’d leaned against the log wall, not wishing to seem a threat, even though he knew he might come off that way. And he wouldn’t blame her if she thought so, either. Maybe he just wasn’t good for anyone: not this brunette, not his neighbor back home…not even himself.

  Then it happened.

  She saw him standing there, and she froze, protected by her door as she peered around it, waiting in tense silence to see what he might do next.

  “Hope I didn’t scare you any,” he said softly, wishing he had just followed his common sense and gone to his own room. Nothing positive could come of this mood he’d been in ever since he’d left Fielding.

  Even so, at the same time, he wished she would open that door a little wider to him.

  She kept
peering through the door’s crack. Then something seemed to switch on inside her, although he couldn’t be sure with just the moonlight as a guide.

  The door opened an inch wider.

  “I was just in the restaurant,” he said, calming his goaded desire. “They serve a hell of a rib-eye steak here. But then you showed up, contrary to my advice.”

  Even yards away, she was too close for him to resist, and it was beyond him to do any backing off anyway. Not here, not now, when the sight of her was so unnerving, setting his flesh to crackling. Charging him up just because of the way she was looking at him.

  He slid his hat off and held it to his chest, standing away from the wall and taking a step closer.

  “Did things go well at your party?” he asked.

  Had she parted her door even wider at his cautious approach? No, he had to be imagining it.

  “It was all right,” she said. “Totally predictable though.”

  “And that’s not what you wanted?”

  He cut himself off before he said too much. If she knew what he wanted, she’d slam that door in his face, leaving him anguished and starved. It’d be another failure to notch into his tarnished lighter case, another reason to feel irrelevant in a world that tended to spit a person out when they weren’t worthy enough.

  God, he needed a win to bolster him after having lost so badly in Fielding. He needed to matter this one time, because maybe it would get him back into sane, working order.

  So he took another step. Then another.

  Now he could hear her breathing: short, choppy. Excited?

  Her reaction weaved through him, tightening his body until it began to throb.

  One more step.

  He was two feet from the door now, and she still hadn’t shut him out. In fact, her eyes had widened even more, and he took that as an opening.

  “I’ve been cautious all night about your warnings,” she said, “so maybe I wasn’t up for all that mingling with people I barely knew.”

  “And now?”

  He smiled—it was easier this time. Besides, he had to let her know that he wasn’t anyone to be afraid of. That he could be deserving of just one night where he could talk to her and maybe begin to feel normal again.

  “Now?” she asked. “You’re still a stranger only a few feet outside my motel door.”

  “I can introduce myself properly. Show you my driver’s license so you’d know my name and address.”

  “And what if I don’t want to know your name?”

  Sassy. She was in control here, wasn’t she? And he’d thought she might be shy. Hell, not this woman.

  But how did she manage to stay so sweet in spite of it all? How did she enthrall him, spreading bursts of yearning like shotgun blasts until they settled in his cock with a painful, building pressure?

  “You don’t have to know my name,” he said, “to come back to the coffee shop with me.”

  Because that was a good start, right? Talking with a woman who didn’t know he’d been beaten and hung out to dry by a neighbor he’d trusted back home. This brunette looked at him as if he had the potential to save a ranch that had been handed down through the family generation after generation, and that mattered to Joshua.

  Mattered a lot.

  Besides, who knew what might happen after a talk in a coffee shop?

  “Do they know your name at the restaurant here?” she asked, opening the door wide enough to lean her head against it.

  A strand in his chest wrapped around its dark self, twining into a rope that creaked with the tension of being pulled and twisted.

  “The waitress and cashier saw my name on my credit card and acted like we were on a first-name basis at the end there,” he said. “And the desk clerk took down all but my last blood pressure reading when I checked into my room. I guess that means they know me as much as I care to introduce myself.”

  Something he said must’ve gotten to her. Because, at that moment, she changed expression, smiling with a confidence that took the oxygen straight out of his lungs.

  Then she opened her door all the way to him.

  MAYBE LUCY WAS CRAZY, but the fact that the motel had the cowboy’s personal information goaded her into taking the next step into a true vacation.

  A fantasy. A flirtation with a stranger.

  A true game changer in a life that sorely needed to be shaken up.

  Would she regret what she was about to do? Or would she, indeed, be able to drive off into the new horizon as a liberated woman?

  But then she took a stand with herself. She’d spent thirty years living carefully, and now it was time to try a place less traveled.

  Throat dry, she swallowed, then went for it, just as she had earlier in the day when she’d changed direction and thrown her plans to the wind.

  “Want to…?” She gestured inside the room, inviting him in.

  He paused, as if surprised, and, for a second, Lucy thought he might refuse her. How mortifying. How expected, too, because women like her didn’t carry through with fantasies like this. Something always thwarted the reality of them.

  But then he moved forward. Once over the threshold, he became a muscled silhouette in the moonlit darkness, and she breathed him in, becoming dizzy with the scent of pungent grass and spirits—the thought of true freedom.

  Just do it, Lucy, she thought, heart pummeling her chest. For the first time in your life, just do what you want and then let it go.

  His shadow reached for the light switch in the dim room, but she stopped him.

  “Don’t.”

  When he paused, she realized that maybe he hadn’t been expecting her to be so forward, even if she had invited him into her room.

  A kiss in the dark, she thought. No names, no faces, just a dream that wouldn’t seem quite real.

  No one would ever know.

  The realization made her feel more powerful than she’d ever thought possible, and it felt…right.

  Swept up by the buzz of her bravery, she pushed her inhibitions away, taking hold of his cowboy hat and tossing it aside.

  He laughed at that, the timbre low, half surprised, half amused.

  She laughed a little, herself. This was her—the woman who had been hiding in a closet stocked with stark uniforms. But she was coming out full force now, grasping his T-shirt, pulling him toward her for the kiss she’d been craving since this afternoon.

  Go, Lucy, go…

  The contact was startling, a break in the straight line of her world. A flare of searing light blinded her and then began to pulsate with the thick tempo of her blood.

  He tasted like coffee, hard alcohol, male. His stubble did burn, just as she’d fantasized, but his lips were full and soft as he responded to her overture with a ragged groan.

  Slipping his hands into her hair, he held her as if he didn’t want her to escape, as if he’d been half hoping this would happen but couldn’t believe it’d come to fruition. And when he slid his tongue into her mouth, taking the kiss to a more sensual level, the ache she’d felt earlier while merely watching him across the diner returned, banging, clenching, piercing her with a stretched longing to be satisfied.

  Satisfied. What would that finally be like?

  She could feel herself getting wet already, even with only a kiss. A rough, tumbled, moist play of lips and tongue. A ravishment that sent all her blood from her head to the sensitive area growing so plump between her legs.

  Coming up for breath, she rubbed her cheek against his, loving the scratch of his skin. She tugged at his longish, dark hair with one hand, running the other over his firm chest.

  Who are you? she wanted to ask, even though she told herself that she didn’t want to know. Not if she wished to cut loose tomorrow. Not if she wanted to prove that she didn’t have to be the one who was always left behind.

  His mouth devoured hers as he guided her backward, toward the wall. Something like panic—no, it was unadulterated joy—seized her.

  It’s actually happening
…A wicked time with a man who won’t be around long enough to leave you.

  They stumbled, bodies plastered together, unwilling to separate even for a moment.

  As they bolted against the wall, the cowboy cushioned the impact with his arms, cradling her. Then, panting against her mouth, he deliberately smoothed his hands downward, mapping every plane: her shoulder blades, her waist, her hipbones.

  Then he came to her ass, and he pushed her forward as he cupped her, kneading her cheeks.

  Lucy swallowed a gasp. His long fingers were so close to her swollen folds that each massage was pure agony. And now…now…Oh.

  He was pressing her against an impressive erection. Unable to help herself, she wiggled against him, wanting as much as she could get.

  This was going to be more than just a kiss or a few copped feels. Hell, yeah, it was.

  Grunting, he coasted his hands lower, until he palmed the back of her thighs. His fingers stayed busy, stroking her sensitized skin.

  “Are you sure…?” he asked, dipping down to kiss her neck.

  Was he asking if she was regretting this? Hardly.

  “Just keep on doing what you’re doing,” she said, short of breath. Short of patience.

  He rose up slightly to look at her face, but she doubted he could see much with the only light coming from a slit of moon glow between the heavy curtains.

  But, still, she could imagine him searching her eyes for a clue as to what she was all about.

  She wished she knew the definitive answer, too.

  Then he did something she didn’t expect: he kissed her again, a gentle touch of his mouth to hers. No rough insistence. No animal passion.

  The switch of pace jarred her and, for the first time, she did feel threatened. This wasn’t what she wanted from a one-night-stand fantasy. It was too intimate, which was ironic considering what had happened so far.

  Out of a sense of personal preservation, Lucy instinctively reached down to feel his crotch. Rigid, big…She wanted him inside her, that’s all. Wanted to know what it would be like to enjoy pure physical pleasure with no momentous expectations attached.

  She rubbed him, and he hitched in a breath, tightening his hold on her thighs.