KIDNAPPED COWBOY (21 page)

Several muffled giggles sounded behind them.

Caitlin opened her mouth, no doubt fixing to remind him of the no cussing rule and then closed it again with a soft sigh.  She’d obviously realized that rule was null and void this case.

He trudged the rest of the way out of the lake, certain the back of his jeans had to be smoking.  His butt sure as hell was!  He looked up to find Caitlin watching him, her expression one of amusement. 

“Don’t even think about smiling,” he warned.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”  She clapped a hand over her mouth in a poor attempt to conceal the upward tilt of her lips.  The laughter came despite of it.

“Gee, thanks,” he muttered.

“I...I’m sorry,” she said, gasping for air.  “What those boys did was horrible.  Bad.  Bad.  Bad.”

“Caitlin,” he growled. 

“I don’t mean to laugh.  Really, I don’t.”  She let out a rather unladylike snort in her effort to contain herself.  Her gaze traveled downward.  “You just look so funny standing there in your sopping wet clothes.”       

“Is that so?” he said, advancing on her

“Dalton...”  She began backing away, her grin wavering slightly.  “What are you doing?”

He zipped and buttoned his wet jeans as his determined stride ate up the distance between them.  “I’m gonna see how funny you think it is when you’re the one dripping.” 

With a shriek, she turned and took off running.

He chased after her, catching up to her in just a few long, soggy strides.  “Gotcha,” he said, laughing as he scooped her up in his arms.

She pushed at his chest.  “Dalton, you’re getting me wet!”

“Get used to it,” he teased.  “You’re gonna be a lot wetter.”

She was laughing.  “Put me down!”

“Nope.”  He walked out onto the dock.

“You wouldn’t dare!” she exclaimed as they neared the end of the dock.

That’s what she thought.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Caitlin let out an ear-piercing shriek as he dangled her out over the water.

Dalton winced.  “Cripes almighty, Caitlin, are you trying to break my eardrum?”

“If need be!  Now put me down,” she demanded with exaggerated authority.

“If you say so.”  With a grin, he leaned further out over the water.

“Nooo!”

And he thought she was loud before.  Hell, the woman could shatter a wine glass with her shrieks.

She squirmed wildly, clinging to him like a cat that had just been treed by a dog.  “Don’t you dare let go of me!”

He didn’t intend to.  He just wanted to teach her a lesson for laughing at his discomfort.  His teasing grin widened.  “Oh, no, you’re slipping.”

She went into full-blown panic, clamping her arms about his neck in a stranglehold that practically had his eyes popping out of his head.

“Caitlin,” he gasped as he struggled for air, “you’re choking me.” 

“You haven’t seen anything yet, Dalton Barnes.  When we get off of this thing, I’m gonna strangle you!”                                                       

You mean she wasn’t trying to already?

He shifted, adjusting his hold on her.  Light as she was, it still felt as though he had a twenty-foot boa constrictor clamped around his neck.  A not-so-happy one.

He had just started to haul her back in from over the water when his foot slipped, his wet sock skidding out from under him.  “Shit,” he muttered, doing everything he could to regain his footing, but that wasn’t happening.  Instead, both he and Caitlin toppled head first off the dock, hitting the water below with a loud splash.

Dalton surfaced first, dragging in a lungful of air as he looked around the rippling water for Caitlin.

Just then, her head popped out of the water like a bobber on the end of a just-cast fishing line. 

She whirled around in the water to glare at him, her red-gold hair hanging in sagging curls over her face.  “You....you...” she sputtered as she attempted to stay afloat.

“Don’t say it,” he warned as he swam to her.

“Why?” she demanded only to get a mouthful of water.

“Because they might hear you.”

She pushed her wet hair from her face.  “Who?”

He inclined his head in the direction of the grassy bank.

Their audience had grown considerably.  It was no longer just the girls watching his and Caitlin’s not-so-graceful entrance into the water.  Billy, Zach and their groups of prank-playing boys had now joined the other spectators at the water’s edge.

“Give it to him, Miss Myers!” one of the boys called out, cheering her on.

“Let him have it!” Clayton joined in.

It was clear to see whose side they were on.  Dalton merely chuckled.  “Bloodthirsty little things, aren’t they?”

“I should,” she muttered, casting a sidelong glance in his direction as she tread water beside him.  “You deserve it.  But revenge isn’t the answer.”

As if he didn’t feel bad enough for what had happened.  He certainly never meant for her to end up in the lake.  “Look, Caitl—”  Water hit him square in the face, cutting off his words.

She smiled and let her arm sink back into the water.  “Sorry.  Changed my mind about the whole revenge thing.”

He choked on the water she’d sent surging into his face with one well-aimed sweep of her arm.

The edge of the lake sounded like the spectator section of a professional boxing match. 

“Lay him out, Miss Meyers!”

Hmm, now there’s an idea.

“Take him down!” Jimmy shouted from the water’s edge.

Okay, so maybe these kids weren’t so bad after all.  There was definitely something to their suggestions.  Caitlin could “take him down” any time she pleased.

Unable to help himself, Dalton smiled.

Keep it clean, Barnes.
  Dirty-minded men and nosy teens were not a very good combination.

He turned to Caitlin who was still bobbing up and down in the water beside him, a smug grin on her beautiful face.

Reaching up, he pushed the thick, wet hair back from his face and returned her smile.  “Okay, we’re even.”

“Hardly.”  The words were barely out of her mouth before she blasted him with another face full of water. 

Caught off guard again, he sputtered and cursed.

“There,” she said, pert little nose thrust high into the air.  “
Now
we’re even.”

Water ran in rivulets down his face.  “You think?”  He rubbed his chin as if in thought.  “I got you wet once.  You splashed me twice.” His gaze locked with hers.  “That means I owe you.”

“Dalton!”  She dove under the water to avoid any retribution he might throw her way.

Laughing, he waited until she’d resurfaced before saying, “Thanks for saving me the trouble off dunking you.  I’d say that makes us even.”  Not giving her a chance to reply, he turned to the group of grinning onlookers.  “Well?  You kids just gonna stand there watching us all day, or are you coming in?”

“But they’re not wearing their suits,” Leah pointed out.

“So,” he replied.

“You mean we’re allowed to jump in with our clothes on?” one of the girls replied in surprise.

“Without works for me,” Jimmy said, bringing about snickers from the other boys.

Dalton shook his wet head.  “Sorry, pal.  That would fall under rule number—”

“Six,” the kids finished for him in unison.  “No skinny-dipping.”

“Are they fast learners or what?” Caitlin said proudly as she gathered up the long strands of her wet hair.  Giving it a twist, she wrung the excess water from it and then tossed it back over her shoulders.

“They have good teachers.”  He winked at the young counselors and motioned them into the water.

Zach looked at the two of them questioningly.  Then, with a shrug, he laughed, shook his head, and called out to the others, “You heard them.  Let’s go swim!”

The teens whooped and hollered as they kicked off their shoes and stampeded fully clothed into the lake, their expressions priceless.  

Caitlin inched her way back to Dalton.  “Has anyone ever told you, Dalton Barnes, that you are certifiably, undeniably nuts?”

‘About you’
was the first reply to come to mind, but thankfully it remained there.  He chuckled.  “More than once when I was riding the circuit.”

Beads of water glistened at the tips of her thick lashes and on her pouty pink lips as she looked up at him.  He found himself fighting the urge to kiss those liquid drops away one by one.

She laughed.  “I have to admit that doesn’t surprise me in the least.”

“What?” he muttered, his thoughts still caught up on his wanting to kiss her.

“That other people find you a bit on the crazy side, too,” she repeated.  “I’m not surprised.”

His gaze slid from her lips to her wet, clinging shirt.  He knew every inch of the satiny flesh hidden beneath her clothes.  And if they were alone...

Splashing and playful shouts jerked his attention back to the teens around them.  The reason he was in the water in the first place.  Seeing the smile on Caitlin’s face as she watched her kids, made his suffering worth it. 

At that thought, he searched the water, finding Jimmy who was safely out of his reach.  The ornery little shit.

The boy smiled guiltily.  “You still ticked at us for what we done to you?”

Dalton debated his words and then replied, “I won’t lie to you, Jimmy.  When I was racing down that path to cool my butt off in the lake, I was more than a little pi...p.o.’d.” 

Caitlin smiled, clearly appreciating his verbal restraint.

The boy looked down at the water, swirling it about with his hand.  “Can’t say that I blame you.  We used an awful lotta that Icy stuff.”

Dalton fought a frown.  “Tell me about it.  It felt like someone lit fire to my drawers.”  Speaking of which, he wondered how long it would take for his butt to stop feeling like it had a heating pad glued to it. 

“Don’t go getting any ideas,” Caitlin warned Jimmy.  “What you boys did to Mr. Barnes was wrong.  Very wrong.”  Her attempt not to laugh came out in a snort.

“Thanks for the support,” Dalton said before turning his attention back to the boys.  “Not a very smart move.  What if I would’ve had some sorta allergic reaction to that stuff?”

Several of the boys stopped horsing around in the water and hung their heads.  At least they were capable of feeling regret.  If only he and Caitlin could teach them not to do those kinds of things to begin with. 

“Dalton’s right,” she acknowledged, casting an admonishing glance in the boys’ direction.  “Your little prank might have had serious consequences.  That sort of thing will never happen again.  Nothing even anything remotely like it.  Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Miss Myers,” they replied in unison.

“Good.”  Her smile returned.  “Then let’s have some fun.”

The horseplay resumed full force.

Dalton hooked an arm around her waist and swam away from the group, taking her with him as he floated around to the other side of the old wooden dock.

“What are you doing?” she gasped, glancing back over her shoulder.

“Giving us a little more privacy and avoiding all that wild splashing in the process.”  The hand he had around her waist skimmed upward to cup a breast beneath the murky water.

She gasped again.  “What are you doing?”

He moved up against her to whisper in her ear, “I think the teens would refer to it as ‘copping a feel’.”

“Well, stop it,” she whispered back and pushed his hand back down to her waist again.  “They’ll see you.”

He shook his head.  “Not unless they’re wearing scuba gear.  Even if they were, all that splashing about has the lake so stirred up they wouldn’t be able to see a thing.”

“Even so...”

“Stop worrying.  They’re having too much fun to worry about what a couple of ‘old folks’ like us are doing.”

“Speak for yourself.  I’m not old.”

“No, but you’re damn sexy.  So what do you say?  You wanna go under the water and neck for a while?”

She laughed softly and shook her head.  “You are just as ornery as those boys.”

“I try.”

“Something tells me you don’t have to
try
very hard to be that way.”

“Lucky for me, you like a man with a naughty side.”  He nibbled playfully at her ear. 

“Dalton,” she groaned.  “My ear is above the water.”

“Does that mean I’m allowed to nibble lower?”

She pushed away and then turned, swiping a handful of water at him.

“Now you’ve done it,” he said with a grin as he swam after her. 

“Mr. Barnes...” Jimmy called out from the other side of the dock.

Caitlin stopped swimming and held up a hand, stopping his pursuit.

“What?” he asked, drawing her to him.

She pointed toward the other side of the dock.  “You’re being paged.”

As if on cue, several of the teens called out for him again.

“I’m not done with you yet,” he warned before swimming out around the end of the dock to see what the kids wanted.  “Yeah?”

“Sorry to interrupt your make-out session,” Jimmy began.

“You weren’t interrupting anything,” Caitlin cut in as she swam up beside Dalton.  But the deepening color in her cheeks all but gave them away.

“You needed something?” he reminded the boys.

“Yeah,” Jimmy said, his gaze shifting between Dalton and his accomplices.  “We wanna apologize for what we did to you earlier.  It seemed real funny at the time, but Miss Myers is right.  Something bad coulda happened.”

The other boys nodded, appearing sincere in their regret.

He smiled.  “Apology accepted.  I have to admit you boys got me good today.  Something very few of my buddies on the circuit were ever been able to do.”

The teens exchanged grins.

“Just keep one thing in mind,” Dalton added, drawing their attention.  “Pay backs are he—”

“Hello,” Caitlin blurted out, cutting him off.

He turned, expecting a look of admonishment from her for almost cursing again.  Instead, her attention was focused on something beyond the horseplay going on around them.

He followed the direction of her gaze to find Alan Martinson, his brother’s right-hand man, standing a few feet away from the edge of the lake.  Dressed in a gray pinstriped suit with a collar that stood as stiff as Alan himself, he looked completely out of his element standing there.