Reckless Promise (3 page)

"But all she did was cry. Please, Poppy.
You're my last chance."

She couldn't have turned him down after that
impassioned plea.

This Alice radiated a displeasure that almost
eclipsed her professional hostess charm. And Tom hadn't mentioned
the misery in her eyes, a deep unhappiness that made Poppy want to
offer tea and a shoulder to cry on instead of adding another
problem.

Poppy's guilt couldn't have been more real if
she'd been planning to seduce Alice's husband in fact instead of
appearance.

Well, the sooner she started, the sooner
she'd be done. She smiled innocently and looked toward the barn,
her gaze lingering a careful moment too long on a wrangler leading
a couple of horses into the corral. A cowboy. A real cowboy. She
made a soft sound in her throat that wasn't entirely for Alice's
benefit.

When Alice looked at her, she ran the tip of
her tongue across her lips and let an anticipatory smile curve her
mouth. "It must be an overwhelming job to run this place," she
said, pitching her voice a little lower, a little throatier than
normal. "Surely you don't do it all by yourself?"

Alice's expression chilled a few additional
degrees. "No," she said. "My husband and I run the ranch. He's the
one who drove you in from the airport."

"Oh, yes. Tom," Poppy cooed, amazing herself.
She'd never cooed before in her life.

"He's taken some guests on an overnight
camping trip. They'll be back tomorrow." 'And keep your hands off'
sounded as clearly as if she'd said the words.

That had been almost too easy. She'd
convinced Alice she was an empty-headed twit on the make without
any trouble. Maybe Tom was right—this would all be over soon.

On the other hand, maybe she'd only make
things worse.

The purr of an expensive engine caught her
attention. A sleek black Mercedes bumped across the cattle guard
and pulled up at the main house. Poppy couldn't see Alice's
expression, but the stiff shoulders relaxed and her hands lifted,
reaching for the man who climbed out of the driver's seat. She ran
toward him. "Mac!" Her glad cry floated through the clear air.
"Mac, you came."

At this distance, all Poppy could see was
big. Tall. Broad shouldered and lean-hipped. Dark as sin. If she
believed in Jase's theories about auras, this one would be colored
dangerous. If this man stayed, poor Tom might have a bigger problem
than he realized. She'd have to charm him away from Alice while she
was at it.

The stranger radiated power. If he owned the
place he couldn't appear more in control.

His charcoal suit whispered 'money.' Glossy
black cowboy boots and an outsized silver belt buckle added
'western money.'

Poppy's skin prickled, and her heart began a
slow, thudding beat. He looked—familiar. This was the Prince
Charming, the rogue, the hero who had seduced her in a thousand
exotic, erotic dreams.

What nonsense. As if she could tell anything
about him from this distance.

Alice hurled herself into his arms. He
gathered her close, his dark head bent to her. Poppy stopped,
breath wedged in her chest, and watched. As if she were the one
melting against him, the heat of his embrace surrounded her. The
strength of his arms held her safe—

She sent a last, sour glare at the entwined
silhouette and stamped up the path, heading around the lodge toward
the pool for a few minutes to herself before happy hour. She didn't
do tall, dark, and deceitful. This was
Home on the Range
,
not
Some Enchanted Evening
, no matter what her traitor body
said.

Chapter 2

Mac carried his beer into the Great Room that
stretched across the back of the lodge, thankful to be out of the
tin can plane, out of the city, and back in jeans. Damned good to
be home, with his family, where he belonged.

His gaze wandered around the room, idly
cataloguing the guests. At least a dozen couples lounged in the
chairs and sofas in front of the crackling fire. Just about full
capacity for the ranch. Kids played ping pong, watched TV, and
chased each other across a floor big enough for square dances.

He smiled at the sight of the littlest one,
tagging after a posse of bigger boys, waving a toy pistol almost as
big as he was. Mac wasn't about to get on the marriage-go-round
again, but a family needed kids. Alice and Tom ought to get
busy.

His gaze sharpened on two women sipping wine
at a table in the corner. Alice had followed him to his room and
bent his ear about all the single women in residence while he
unpacked. These two looked like nice, ordinary ladies having a
nice, ordinary, G-rated vacation. Had Alice exaggerated? Or even
lied? No. Alice didn't lie. He looked around for other singles,
skipping over two men who might or might not be a couple.

Ah. This might be Alice's problem. He watched
a brunette barracuda drape herself over the counter that doubled as
a bar in the evening, checking out all the men. A single woman on
the prowl, for sure, but no temptation for Tom there, or for him
either.

He turned, and saw a redhead. This must be
the woman who had Alice in such a tizzy. Alice had fussed, whined,
and complained, finally shouting through the bathroom door over the
noise of his quick shower until he'd promised to keep the woman
away from Tom.

Alice hadn't lied.

Temptation, in spades.

The woman Daddy would have warned him about,
if Daddy had ever bothered.

The woman Mac had waited for.

She stood in the doorway doing nothing more
than looking around the room, but she might as well have been a
Molotov cocktail for the way she blew away his relaxed musings. He
lifted the bottle, urgently needing liquid in a mouth that had gone
drier than Death Valley in high summer.

Thank heavens for his lifetime habit of
protecting his little sister. What if he hadn't come home when she
had called?

From the torch of tousled red curls to the
fringe on her scarlet moccasins, this woman was fire waiting to
take a man to hell in a glorious blaze. What felt like every drop
of blood he owned left his brain to pool lower. A tingle started in
his fingertips. He thought— She took a deep breath and he was
beyond thought in a single heartbeat as the tingle zinged through
his gut, leaving him as aroused as he'd ever been in his life. He
needed to walk across the room and talk to her, but he wasn't sure
he could walk, and he certainly wasn't in any shape to move out of
his shadowed corner.

As soon as he regained some control, he'd be
there beside her, ready to do his duty for his sister. Wasn't
family loyalty a virtue? This time virtue would definitely be its
own reward. He leaned against the wall and surveyed her, from the
thousand-shades-of-red hair down over curves that made his fingers
itch, past the mile of leg that a man would die to feel wrapped
around him. Rescuing his sister had never been this good
before.

He started edging around the room, but before
he reached her, those two single men, the ones who had paid no
attention to the women at the table or the predatory brunette, had
swept her off to play ping pong. He got another beer and drifted
toward that end of the room.

Alice met him halfway. "I see you've noticed
her. Poppy."

"Yeah. Who could miss her?" Poppy. The name
fit. Bright. Beautiful. Probably addictive.

"If you could stop drooling on your boots for
a minute and listen to me..." Alice's hand tightened on his arm in
an unmistakable I-mean-business way.

The glitter of tears in her eyes
short-circuited his impatience. "Alice. Honey." He led her to one
of the benches that ringed the room and pulled her down beside him.
"Don't you think you're overreacting? I'll grant you she's
gorgeous." What an understatement. Repressing the urge to sneak
another look, he swallowed against the dryness in his mouth and
went on. "But she hasn't done anything except play ping pong.
Hardly the behavior of an evil temptress."

"She'll be here for two whole weeks," Alice
wailed.

Alice didn't act like this. Not strong,
I-can-do-it Alice. "There won't be any problem with the redhead."
He put his hands on her shoulders. "Trust me. She won't have time
to bother Tom. I'll take care of her."

Alice relaxed against him. Strange that she
was so worried about Tom and other women all of a sudden. An uneasy
feeling in the pit of his stomach diluted his satisfaction at
fixing her problem. The promise he'd just made might be walking off
a cliff. He sneaked a glance across the room at Poppy again. He'd
take the fall a happy man.

But he could flirt with guests without
getting too close or involving any messy emotions, he reminded
himself. After one more long look at her luscious promise, he
revised that. Not this time. He didn't know a thing about her
except the way she looked, but his attentions weren't going to be
pretense. This time, he wasn't sure he could stay detached.

He didn't care.

* * *

Poppy missed the last serve and set her
paddle on the corner of the table. "You win." She let her new
buddies drag her to the bar in one corner of the room where she
perched on a stool and accepted a soda.

"Wouldn't you like something a little
more...adult?" The voice coming from close behind her held a
leering, suggestive note that raised her hackles and defenses. She
hadn't seen any unattached men in the room except for the two she
was with, and from the way they looked at each other, she'd guess
they weren't exactly unattached. The voice must belong to Alice's
unfortunately gorgeous boy toy, Mac.

Charming him away from Alice lost its appeal
fast, no matter how much he looked like her fantasies. Even if the
picture of him with his arms full of Alice hadn't turned her off,
that lame pick-up line would do it. But if she had to lure him,
she'd better be nice. Swallowing her distaste, she turned to him
with the best smile she could manage.

The smile faded when she got a good look at
him. This wasn't the man Alice had flung herself at. This man, all
sandy hair, drug store cowboy clothes, and wedding ring glinting in
the light, had been sitting on a sofa with his arm around a pretty
blonde when Poppy had come in. Now he leaned back against the bar,
shiny new boots crossed, the whole posture designed to showcase his
package. His bedroom-eyed gaze locked somewhere south of her
chin.

She wanted to smack him, for thinking she'd
be dumb enough to bite on a tired line like that, for pushing in
when she was trying talk with two perfectly nice, perfectly gay—and
after sharing an apartment with Jase, she could tell every
time—men, and for behaving as though this were a meat market. "I'm
sure your wife would love to have a drink," she said, and turned
her back on him.

It wasn't until dinner time that she saw The
Other Man. He'd been sitting back in a dark corner. With Alice, of
course. They came out into the light, and he took a step away from
her.

He turned his head, and his gaze pinned Poppy
like a collected butterfly. His eyes were light gray, pale as
polished silver, fierce and startling in his dark face. Again the
shock of recognition jolted through her, and her heart began to
pound.

She couldn't catch her breath. The wide,
glossy floorboards under her moccasins dissolved into nothing and
left her suspended in space. The echoing dinner gong, the laughter
and voices and footsteps, faded until the only thing in her world
was that sharp gaze, stretching like a fine silver chain between
them, an unseen but unbreakable link.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. When she found the man
she'd waited for all her life, somewhere, someday, he wouldn't be
one who played with married women. But music played in her head,
filling the air with words about never letting him go. He took a
step toward her. She couldn't breathe.

"Mac?" The voice barely penetrated Poppy's
fog, but the woman who came with it did. "Mac, come on. Dinner is
served." Alice put a hand on his arm.

Poppy focused on that intimate, demanding
hand. Alice's gaze followed hers. A faint smile curved her mouth
and she nudged Mac toward Poppy. Poppy couldn't imagine why Alice
would push her illicit lover at another woman. Judging by Poppy's
all-too-physical reaction, it might be better not to stay and find
out. This man couldn't be anything but trouble. Swallowing the
sudden lump in her throat, she turned and fled into the dining room
with its welter of clattering silverware and conversation and
plunked herself down between the two men she'd been talking with
earlier.

Jase had it right: she could act. Her
performance at dinner deserved an Oscar. Her conversation sparkled,
judging by the attention of the people around her. Inside her head,
the dialogue didn't sound at all light, bright, or witty. She spent
the whole meal silently berating herself for getting weak-kneed
over an adulterer.

Mac sat next to Alice, of course. Poppy cut a
tiny, careful bite of steak and shot a glance down the table at
them. He leaned close to say something in Alice's ear. Poppy
pulverized the steak in one bite.

She refused to listen to the violins that
sounded faintly in the back of her mind. Nothing but chemistry.
Pheromones. She knew all about pheromones, even if the scientific
explanation didn't hold a candle to the real thing. The lightning
bolt that had hit her when their gazes locked across the crowded
room couldn't keep her from doing her job. Absolutely not.

Mac leaned closer to Alice.

Poppy gulped a too-large swallow of wine. She
had a job—get Tom his wife back—and she'd do it, no matter what
niggling doubts she had about the happiness of a marriage held
together by jealousy. If her pulse jumped a little when she flirted
with Mac, she would think of it as method acting.