Reckless Promise (5 page)

It had to be the shock of finding herself so
far off the ground that had her breathless. As if he sensed her
distress, he pulled her even closer and it felt so good, so safe,
that she couldn't keep from relaxing against him. She turned her
head, and he was so close that if she leaned just a fraction, her
lips would touch his jaw. He hadn't shaved. Deep in her heart she'd
always been a sucker for the more-than-five-o'clock-shadow look,
however politically incorrect that might be. She swallowed a sigh
and leaned into him.

"That's better," he said, and nudged the
horse into a walk.

"Where are you taking me?" She scarcely
recognized the breathless, brainless voice. "Put me down." Now she
sounded like Helpless Heroine Barbie.

He didn't answer with words. His wicked grin
said it all.

"In your dreams." She answered the unspoken
words and tried to ignore the arousing, earthy scents of warm male
and horse and mountain morning.

"You better believe it."

It didn't sound like he was kidding. He
clearly intended to take up where they'd left off the night before.
She closed her eyes against the ripple of pleasure and tried to
remember why she had to resist. "Put me down."

"I'm taking you up to the lodge. It's
breakfast time."

"You're not going to—"

"Up the front steps and into the dining
room."

"No!" She tried to wriggle free. He tightened
his arm and held her closer. Too late she realized that her
squirming had settled her firmly and intimately against his
impressive erection. She froze.

"What'll you give me?"

Anything you want. She looked up at him. "For
what?"

"To let you down."

Not a darned thing. She was still trying to
shape a coherent sentence when the horse stopped. She tore her gaze
from Mac and looked around. He had ridden right up to the back
porch, guiding the horse close to the stairs.

"Enjoy your breakfast, Poppy," he said, his
voice like sinful velvet, and swung her down so that she dropped
neatly onto the step. "See you later."

She stood right where he'd put her, arms
wrapped around herself as if she were freezing, and watched him jog
the horse back down to the barn. When he'd gone out of sight, she
turned slowly and went up the steps, cold everywhere that Mac's
warmth had touched.

Last night could have been dismissed as an
aberration. This morning was worse. He played with married women.
And cheated on them, too. She couldn't possibly find him attractive
in any way. Right. Everything from her neck up believed that.
Apparently nothing from the neck down did.

"You look cold. Come on in here and git
warmed up."

Startled, she looked up and saw the Hell's
Angel who had driven the departing guests to the airport. He stood
in the kitchen doorway, bigger and bulkier than she remembered.
Even though he wore a white hat, she couldn't believe he was a good
guy.

"Moses, you're scarin' her. Stop!" A blonde
who barely came up to his shoulder whacked him on one beefy arm. He
grinned and bent to kiss her. She patted his cheek and then pushed
him toward the steps.

They looked like a Great Dane and a yapping
Chihuahua, but love glowed between them. Poppy watched with real
envy. Moses touched two fingers to his hat brim and slouched off
toward the barn.

The blonde watched for a moment, a besotted
smile on her tanned-leather face and one hand on her stomach,
before she turned away. "Men! I'll swear—" She herded Poppy through
the door, words pouring out nonstop. "Honey, don't look so scared.
I'm Chickie, the cook, and that monster is my one-and-only,
ever-lovin', legal-type hubby. He ain't gonna hurt you."

She paused for a breath, and Poppy said
quickly, "What does he do besides scare people?"

Chickie grinned. "Don't you worry none about
him, honey. I'd keep him in line if I had to." Even on such short
acquaintance Poppy believed that. "But he's nothin' but a big pussy
cat. Besides the airport run, he's the best wrangler in the
business. Horses love him and kids fight to go on camping trips
with him. He'll have you riding like a pro in no time."

She didn't want riding lessons from Moses.
She could ride perfectly well, thank you. Although she might
pretend she couldn't so she could get riding lessons from Mac. From
Tom
. Riding lessons from Tom would be good. "Mmm," she
said.

"You just git on in there to the dinin' room,
and I'll bring you some breakfast."

Poppy went, thoughts whirling. What she ought
to do was perfectly clear—fix Tom's marriage and get on the next
plane home. What she wanted to do was, unfortunately, even more
clear—get horizontal with Mac.

What she was going to do was up for
grabs.

* * *

Tom came home in the middle of the afternoon,
leading a string of weary, happy riders. Poppy joined a cluster of
other guests strolling down to the corral to watch the return.
Nerves jumped in her stomach. Stage fright. She hoped Mac had
something to do somewhere else. Bad enough to flirt with Tom right
under Alice's nose. Trying to do it with Mac watching would be even
harder. And wondering if Tom knew about Alice and Mac...the
situation sounded just too soap opera.

Mac had already reached the corral, with
Alice of course. He leaned on the fence where Poppy had clung this
morning. Her blood surged at the memory of his wicked smile, the
way he'd swept her up onto his horse, the feel of him.

As soon as he saw her, Mac left Alice with
heart-warming promptness to stand beside her and drop a casual arm
across her shoulders. The look he gave her made her breath catch in
her throat. Nothing casual about that. She looked up at him,
helpless as a car stuck in a traffic jam.

Someone shouted and he looked away. She
glanced up and saw that his face had gone stony. She followed his
gaze and watched him watch Tom lean down to kiss Alice. Watched him
watch Alice soften into the embrace. Watched Tom's expression turn
wary and Mac's mouth flatten into a straight, angry slash.

Mac's feelings for Alice must be very real.
She shuddered. Telling Tom...she didn't think she could tell
Tom.

Mac's arm tightened around her. She started
to melt against him, but reminded herself—wife-stealing slime. She
shook his arm off. He put it back.

At this rate she'd need a scorecard to get
through the first day. Her simple Other Woman job had morphed into
a complicated set of interlocking triangles. Poppy-Tom-Alice now
overlapped Alice-Mac-Poppy and Mac-Alice-Tom. She couldn't tell
real from pretense, and she'd never succeed if she didn't stop
turning into a puddle of lust every time Mac came within five feet
of her.

Tom turned his back on his wife and strode
over to Poppy. "Well, hel-l-lo again," he said with exaggerated
enthusiasm more suitable to a pick-up bar than a family vacation
spot. "Good to see you're still here."

Poppy turned so that Alice could see clearly
but Mac couldn't, and held out her hand. "Hello, Tom Bailey," she
said, her voice husky and suggestive. "Glad to see you again." She
curled her fingers around his hand, making the simple handshake
look like something more, and touched his arm with her free hand,
an instant-seduction move according to Cosmo. At least it should
look like dynamite to someone watching as intently as Alice. Poppy
ducked her head and gave Tom an under-the-lashes look along with a
tiny, secretive smile. A good performance, if she did say so
herself.

She'd kept Mac from seeing, but he'd heard,
of course. He tightened his arm around her.

"In case I forgot yesterday, welcome to The
Montana Blue, Poppy," Tom said, wrapping his free hand around their
clasped hold. "I hope you'll enjoy your stay. I know we're going to
enjoy having you here."

"Thank you, Tom," she said, with just enough
promise in her smile to irritate a jealous wife. She gave him a
last, lingering glance, slipped out from under Mac's arm, and
strolled over to look at one of the horses. It took her a minute to
identify the odd, grating sound as Mac grinding his teeth.

"Hey, buddy," Tom said to Mac. "I didn't know
you were coming. What happened, cops run you out of Denver?"

Mac thumped him on the back. "Can't a guy
come home without it being a federal offense?"

Mac lived here? And 'buddy'? Did that mean
Mac and Tom were friends? Poppy hoped none of her friends ever
looked at her the way Mac had looked at Tom earlier. His eyes had
been cold as a Massachusetts winter.

"It's been a long time," Tom said. "Too long.
Get that company sold and move up here. We need you, man. Absentee
partners don't cut it."

Partners? Tom and Mac were partners? An odd
pain gathered around Poppy's heart. It wouldn't be the first time
in history a man had betrayed his friend and partner, but she
didn't want Mac to be the villain.

"Absentee partners don't cut it in the city,
either, but I've stuck it out for five years," Mac said. He seemed
to catch himself and went on in a friendlier tone. "You'll be happy
to know that we've got a live one. There's a bid for the company on
the table. I should be there negotiating right now."

"Then why—?" Tom began. He snapped his mouth
shut and looked at Alice. Not a friendly look.

"I'll be moving sooner than you think," Mac
said. "Right now, if you keep coming up with guests like that
redhead you were drooling over."

Poppy snorted. What right did he have to
sound angry? As if he hadn't been doing a little drooling himself.
And just listen to the two of them, talking about her as though she
were some bimbo they'd picked up in a bar. But then, she'd been
acting like one.

"Oh, yeah. Poppy." The grin that spread
across Tom's face was a little fatuous, a little libidinous.
Perfect. If he'd been talking to her, she'd have slapped him.

"Hey. You're married. Leave the redheads for
us single guys." The look that accompanied the quip cut like pure,
cold steel, but Tom didn't seem to notice.

"Oh, hell." He took three long strides and
grabbed the bridle of a horse that had gotten loose, its saddle
slipping down its side.

Mac glared after him for a moment before he
went to help.

Tom lifted the saddle to one shoulder and
carried it toward the barn. "I didn't know Mac would be here," he
murmured as he passed Poppy. "Remember you promised secrecy. That
means him especially. Now smile. Alice is watching." He winked, and
she felt glares from Mac and Alice like twin swords.

She laughed up at him. "Remind me to tell you
about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and the three bears," she
purred.

"Did that make sense?" He pushed his hat back
and smiled down at her.

"It will." She turned sideways so Alice could
see, gave Tom a million-watt smile, and sauntered away to pet one
of the horses.

* * *

Alice pulled Mac behind a horse trailer. "Did
you see that?" she hissed. "Did you see? She's nothing but a—"

"Alice, she only flirted with a handsome
cowboy. It didn't mean anything." He tried hard to believe that.
"You're making too much of the whole thing." He really wanted to
believe that Poppy hadn't done anything wrong. But the way Tom had
looked—leered—at Poppy, right in front of his wife, made Mac's
stomach hurt. The leer reminded him of his father. He slammed the
thought away.

"Do you really think I'm imagining
things?"

"Of course you are. Tom wouldn't ever cheat
on you." And Mac would kill the miserable so-and-so if he did. Rage
flickered along his veins, and it had nothing, absolutely nothing,
to do with the picture of Poppy in another man's arms. Speaking of
which, he didn't see her. And where had Tom gone?

They could only have gone into the barn. He
stalked toward the door and saw her leaning back against the side
of a stall. She looked up at Tom and he hoped he only imagined the
same look she'd given him this morning, with wide, starry eyes that
had made him want to kiss her. Tom leaned toward her, just the way
Mac had wanted to. Mac clenched his fists, but instead of
responding, she only stepped aside so Tom could set the saddle on
its rack.

"...later," he heard Tom say, and then Mac's
foot scuffed against a board. Tom looked up. "Hey, Mac. Need
something?"

Yes. Poppy. She smiled at him and he
remembered the feel of her mouth under his and his brain started to
buzz. "Just checking. Ready to go up to the pool?"

"Sure. See you up there, Poppy?"

"All right. As soon as I change."

Mac waited for her to give Tom another one of
those killer smiles and ground his teeth when she obliged. He
watched her leave the barn, trying to believe it had been his
imagination that she was hitting on Tom. But Tom's behavior, that
was something else. And he owed it to Alice to have a few words
with her husband.

He followed Tom out of the barn and grabbed
his shoulder. "I want to talk to you."

"Tom," Alice yelled from the veranda.
"Telephone."

"Later," Tom said, and loped toward the
house.

Mac looked back down the path past the stable
toward the cluster of cabins in time to see Poppy spring up the
stairs to her tiny porch. His anger bled away in appreciation of
her slim rear view. Enough to turn a man's mouth dry at a hundred
yards. His hands prickled with the memory of the way that lovely
rear had filled them the night before.

She turned in the doorway and saw him
watching. Her flirty smile hit him like a bullet before she waved
and disappeared inside.

He stood rooted to the path, riveted by the
fantasy image of her pulling off her shirt while she trotted into
the bedroom. A single yank and the snaps would part all at once. He
really loved western shirts, all those pearly snaps such
halfhearted guardians of the pearly skin underneath. He fantasized
prim, plain white cotton, shook his head, rewound the picture, and
replaced it with scarlet satin.