Blackbird Lake (24 page)

She saw men she recognized. Nice men. Men she passed every day on the street, men she spoke to at A Bun in the Oven or whom she ran into on her daily errands in town.

These weren’t strangers for the most part, though perhaps some of the men had come in from neighboring towns. But these were mostly men she knew.

And suddenly she relaxed.

This wasn’t Boston or New York or some seedy bar in a big city. This was Lonesome Way.

It was all going to be okay.

She blanked out as the bidding began, overwhelmed by the volume of the music, the shouting, the cheers.

And then somehow it was over.

“Wash Weston!” the normally genteel, silver-haired Ava called out in a voice that pierced the bedlam.

Wash Weston. She had a date with a widower in his early fifties who owned a prosperous three-thousand-acre wheat farm, and who had once bumped into her as she was coming out of A Bun in the Oven and caused her to drop a banana cream pie, which had splattered across the sidewalk. He’d outbid some cowboys in their twenties and the new doctor at the hospital.

It could have been worse, much worse, but as Carly gave him a wave and a smile and ducked backstage, she couldn’t help but grin at Jake’s notion that he’d have to protect her from some unwanted overtures on the night of her “date.”

Wash Weston with his grave face and slow deliberate walk seemed about as tame a man as you’d find in all of Montana. She doubted he’d try to get her into his bed—but he might just put her to sleep.

The knock on Madison’s door came at midnight, right after she’d stripped off her sweater and jeans and pulled on a comfy pale green sleep tee that reached halfway to her knees.

The knock made her heart skip a beat as she whirled toward the door, fighting panic.

Nobody ever knocked on her door this late.

“Who’s there?”

She tried to sound calm and tough, but her voice seemed shaky to her own ears. At least she got the words out through the thickness in her throat.

“Madison, it’s me. Brady. Open up.”

Brady?
Glancing ruefully down at her tee and her legs, bare from the thighs down, she bit her lip and strode to the door. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you think?”

His Stetson half hid his dark, unreadable eyes, and he straightened from a careless slouch as she stared at him.

“Oh. Right. Of course.” He wanted the money she’d promised him. Vivid color flooded her cheeks. “I’m sorry I
didn’t get a chance to meet you and pay before the auction started, but I had to wait at my grandparents’ house for my grandmother’s birthday gift to be delivered. It took forever. And it didn’t arrive until much later than I expected. It was a piano—from my grandfather—and it took almost an hour for the deliverymen to haul it inside and load her old piano onto the truck—”

“Hold on,” he interrupted. “I’m not here about the money.”

“You’re not? But then…why?”

“Making sure you got home and safely inside, that’s all. I tailed you on my bike.”

Tailed me? On your motorcycle?
Madison blinked, startled. “But I never saw you….”

Brady’s grin gleamed as bright as lightning. It flashed, then was gone. “I stayed back behind a few cars. You still have the feeling someone’s following you? If so, tonight it was me.”

“Well, I haven’t felt anything too weird, not lately….” She paused a moment and gave a wry shrug. “I didn’t notice you following me, so I must not be as alert as I think I am.”

Brady was trying hard not to stare at her lush body, outlined so sensuously in that thin whisper of a tee. It fell to only a couple of inches below her shapely little butt. Unlike the sweatshirts she usually wore, it skimmed close to her body, revealing every sumptuous curve.

His throat went dry. His body felt rock hard. Every-where.

It took effort, but he managed not to gape like a twelve-year-old who’d never seen a girl up close before. He forced himself to look only into her eyes when he answered her.

“Well, that’s what I’m here for. To keep watch. At least until our date. I laid out good money for that date and I don’t want anything getting in the way of it.”

Despite herself, Madison broke into a smile. Brady had followed her home. He was standing here at her door. Was he really here only because he was worried about her?

“Thanks for sticking to our agreement.” She was feeling
her way now. “You want to come in? I’ll get what I owe you—”

“I told you I don’t want your money, Maddy. Never did.”

He sauntered after her into the tiny apartment. His tall, strapping body seemed to fill the small space. He swept off his hat, tossed it on a chair, and glanced around.

“Nice digs. Everything here looks like it belongs to you.” Brady paused to study the living room with its wide, comfortable-looking cream sofa and scattered bright-patterned pillows, then took in a deep rose armchair, bookshelves filled to the brim, and a cream-and-violet-patterned rug on the floor.

The white bookcase overflowed with books, and there were some pretty colored perfume bottles on a distressed wooden dresser that had also been painted white.
Very girly,
he noted. That was funny coming from a girl who wouldn’t wear a dress or a skirt, or much of anything besides those sweats. He wondered suddenly if her bra and panties were as plain and ordinary as her clothes. Because beneath the facade she showed to the world, Madison was anything but dull, anything but ordinary.

Not just because of the vivid beauty she’d possessed since childhood, but because of what shimmered beneath the surface. Everything that fueled the soul and twang of her songs, the layered melodies, the words that hurt and stung and uplifted, bursting like a wound, straight from her heart.

The walls of her tiny apartment were blue, he noticed. The color of a lake. The color of calm.

Her apartment was a studio, and a small one. But everything was tidy, except for a pair of jeans in a heap on the floor. Madison’s prettily made-up bed was in the corner. It had a pale blue coverlet and white-and-yellow-striped throw pillows spilled neatly across it, with a rustic wooden headboard that boasted the carved outline of flowers.

Her guitar was propped against one blue wall, and there was an electric keyboard in a corner. A flute rested across the top of the dresser, too, alongside some textbooks with titles like
Art and Creative Development for K–8 Children
and
Early Childhood Education: Introduction to Music and Movement.

“I’ll get your money.” She had lifted her wallet from her purse and was rummaging through it. Pulling out a check, she thrust it at him. “Here. Thanks for—”

“Forget it, Madison. I won’t take your money.”

Snagging hold of her hand, he closed his fingers around it, just tightly enough to keep the check imprisoned.

“But we had a deal!”

“Truth?” A smile touched Brady’s lips. “I had my fingers crossed. I never cared about the money. I was only trying to help you out—get you down off that stage real quick, like you wanted. It’s no big deal. Just don’t tell anyone. It would damage my sterling reputation as a total jerk.”

“Nobody thinks that,” she said quickly. “And you know I don’t. But I still don’t understand why you won’t take the money.”

“Maybe I just wanted to help an old friend.”

Madison searched his face. “So are you saying we’re friends again, Brady? Really?”

“You want to be friends with me, Madison?”

“I guess I wouldn’t mind.” A saucy little smile curved her lips. Then, suddenly, she yanked her hand free and punched him in the arm. “You jerk! It took you long enough.”

Brady laughed, snagged her hand, crumpled up the check she’d written. “You know Margie Shane got married four years ago. She moved to Big Timber last year, with her husband and two kids.”

“I heard about that. So when I was gone all those years—did you ever get the chance to kiss her? That’s all you used to talk about wanting to do.”

“Sure, I did. When I was a stupid kid. And no, I never kissed Margie. She’s the one that got away.”

“What a shame.” Madison slanted an amused glance up at him. “So I guess you’ll never know what it’s like to kiss the incredibly beautiful, irresistible—let’s see, what other things did you say about her? Gorgeous, hot—”

“I think I’ll live without kissing her,” he drawled. And a
grin lit his face as he took a step toward her. She took a step back, and he advanced one more. Then he yanked Madison close, up against his chest.

“But I’m not at all sure I can live another minute without kissing you.”

Her heart skidded in all different directions as she gazed up into those cool gray eyes and a moment later, she was kissing him.

She had no idea whether she kissed him first, or the other way around.

All she knew was that her arms had slid around his neck and Brady was holding her tightly, so tightly it felt as if he’d never let her go without a crowbar to pry them apart. Their bodies pressed together, fitting perfectly, and Madison had never felt such heat. Such a storm of need.

She’d had two short-term boyfriends before, and she’d lost her virginity with a third one when she was nineteen, but she’d never felt anything rock her the way Brady’s kisses did. He kissed her and kissed her, with a deep hunger that seemed unquenchable. It was as if he was searching somewhere inside her for the very center of her soul. His kiss tasted like moonlight and danger and fire. His tongue explored her mouth as if it was hidden treasure, summoning something deep inside her as he waged a sweet teasing battle that left her utterly defenseless. He smelled of saddle leather and spice.

Brady…

She was actually, finally, kissing Brady….

The room seemed to spin in slow circles as his big hands stroked her breasts and his mouth burned against hers. She was shaking at the intensity as her lips parted and his tongue went on a search-and-engage mission with hers. Her heart raced as Brady’s tongue swept inside, as the taste of him filled her. Her body ached for him in places Madison had never ached before and Brady’s stroking hands knew exactly how to fuel the fire jetting through her.

“Maddy,” he groaned against her lips. She felt his need, his entire body pressing against her. How many times had
she sprawled beside him doing homework, wishing this would happen? She’d only been twelve then and it had never happened, but now it was….

Clinging to him, she traced his lips with her tongue as he eased her backward, back, back, toward her bed. Fire seemed to sear their lips together as they sank down on the comforter and he pulled her onto his lap.

“You’ve been driving me crazy since the moment you followed me into Benson’s Drugstore,” he grated as he drew back for a second, his eyes glinting into hers.

“Good,” she gasped. “I’m…glad.”
Because you’ve been driving me crazy since the moment I met you,
she thought, but she managed to stop herself from saying the words.

She then lost all power to think or to speak as Brady’s cool hands skimmed down her hips, hitched up her T-shirt, found the tiny thong she wore, and, as he kissed her, slipped a finger inside the pale peach silk. “Oh, God, you’ve been driving me crazy ever since you built that treehouse and…Brady…I don’t know why I’m even speaking to you, you were so mean to me….” Another long kiss that made her dizzy. But not dizzy enough to stop telling him everything pent up inside her. “And all because I told Margie—”

“Shhh, baby. I know. I’m sorry about that.” He drew back, a remorseful smile on his face as he stared into her eyes, his body tensed and hard with need. “I was a stupid dumb kid back then,” he muttered in between kisses. He began to slide that thong down her thighs….

And then her cell phone rang.

Madison jumped. Brady froze, then let out a groan.

“It’s…probably my grandfather,” she gasped, still in his lap, staring at him, caught between longing and obligation. She pulled slowly away, then hopped off Brady’s lap, her cheeks burning. “He said he’d call me…after the auction….”

“You mean, you’re going to
talk
to him?
Now?
” Brady looked like a kid who’d just had his new Christmas gift snatched away.

“He’ll keep calling if I don’t. He worries about me. He’s
a sheriff—he imagines all kinds of terrible things if I don’t answer my phone!”

Brady realized the ringing of the phone was coming from the pocket of her jeans. The ones she’d tossed onto the floor before she changed into the tee, which had fallen again now past her hips. He leaned down, snatched up the jeans, yanked out the phone, handed it to her.

“Gramps, hi,” she exclaimed brightly.

He sighed, watching her flushed face, listening half in amusement and half in frustration as he sat there on the edge of Madison’s bed, frowning as she struggled to talk naturally to her grandfather.

The man who’d arrested him for punching out the lights of his deputy.

The man who’d raise holy hell if he knew that his only granddaughter had been about to get naked with a no-good kid from a family of losers. Brady’s father had driven drunk and killed both his wife and himself. Brady’s brother had wasted his own life chasing a dream and finding only injury and frustration and ultimately death beneath the bruising heels of an enraged bull.