Reckless Promise (7 page)

Poppy picked at her chocolate éclair.
Eventually the meal ended so she could bolt back to her cabin.
Hiding might not be the P.C. thing to do, but it had to be better
than facing Mac.

But he disappeared as soon as Alice rose from
the table and announced, "The evening walk will leave from the
front steps in fifteen minutes. Of course, those of you who
prefer…" Her gaze shifted to Poppy. "…to stay indoors may do so."
Poppy tried not to cringe when she remembered what she'd been doing
indoors last night. Alice couldn't know about that. She ought to be
giving the evil looks to that brunette, the improbably-named
Brandi, who'd been flirting with every man in the lounge last
night.

Since Mac had gone, Poppy could melt into the
crowd and avoid Alice. She ran to her cabin for a jacket, and just
as she'd hoped, more than a dozen guests had assembled on the front
porch by the time she got back. She smiled at two women sitting on
the steps, but they gave her the suspicious glare she'd learned to
expect from women, so she leaned against the porch rail and looked
across soft green pastures at snow-capped peaks.

The air shimmered with the approaching change
from hot dusty day to starry night. Sage and pine and some
indefinable scent of mountain and crisp magic filled the air. Much
better than staring at glassy-eyed, dead deer all evening.

The group moved off in an untidy gaggle.
Poppy trailed along, feet on autopilot, mind on Mac. Knowing he
wasn't wife-stealing slime both relieved and tortured her. She
would enjoy flinging with him, even though terminal embarrassment
didn't make for like a good start. But she couldn't act her part
for Tom if she were starry-eyed over Mac.

Mac.

She imagined an Mac, an x-rated Mac, pushing
her through the door of her cabin, his wide shoulders all but
blotting out the world. Heat swamped her when she thought about him
backing her up against the wall, his hands hard and sure and
proprietary at her waist, her ribs, covering her breast,
squeezing...

Goodness, the evening had turned hot and she
hadn't even noticed until now. She undid the top two snaps on her
blouse and pulled the material away from her chest to create a
draft. The action didn't cool her thoughts one bit. In her
all-too-vivid imagination, Mac's mouth feathered across hers, a
touch of electricity that set each nerve alight. He trailed kisses
across her cheek, his breath warm in her ear, that deep chocolate
voice...

"You okay?" The deep chocolate voice held
irritation, and the hand on her arm was hard and sure and
concerned. "You stopped, and you're all flushed. You having trouble
with the altitude?" 'Again' hung unspoken on the end of the
sentence.

Someone up there hated her. The amusement she
saw in his eyes sent a fresh wave of embarrassment—and
desire—barreling through her and she knew her face turned more
shades of red than the sunset. "I'm fine. I'm just fine."

The knowing look in his eyes and his little
smile—smirk, really—told her that she would never live down that
one teeny little mistake.

She looked away and discovered that the group
had gotten a hundred feet ahead. She jerked her arm free and bolted
after the others, burrowing into the center of the group. What had
she been thinking to come out here when she should be barricaded in
her cabin, hiding under her quilt, with windows and door
locked?

He scared her half to death. Then, because
she never lied to herself, she admitted that her reaction to him
scared her senseless. The flick of his glance sizzled through her
like touching a live wire, and his smile, that wicked grin that
promised all the sin a woman could want, turned her will power to
jelly.

She darted a surreptitious glance at him. A
single look at that hard, handsome face convinced her, skeptical
scientist though she was, that he had fistfuls of graduate
degrees—all from Bedroom U., and his major had certainly been
women. In comparison, her meager experience in pretending to be a
vamp didn't seem like much. How could she change her
all-too-consuming lust for Mac into the better-be-convincing play
she had to make for Tom?

Especially when that was the last thing in
the world she wanted to do.

* * *

Mac glared after Poppy. Now what? Last night,
they'd generated enough heat to start a new volcano. Tonight, she
treated him like—like—a stalker. An unattractive stalker. Last
night, she'd shut down that hound who'd hit on her fast enough.
Today she flirted with Tom as though he were the last man on earth.
But for all her flirty talk with him, Mac hadn't picked up on any
real interest there.

Color him confused.

He stalked along behind the straggling bunch
of dudes down past the pool and the road that led to the house he
was building around the other side of the hill, across a pasture,
and up a slope. His gaze burned on Poppy's back every step of the
way. In spite of his suspicions and mixed feelings, just watching
her move had him harder than the rocks on either side of the
path.

He caught up in time to see her face light as
she listened to Alice point out a covey of quail scurrying for
home. Poppy looked entranced as Alice identified an early-rising
bat for one of the boys and told a funny story about the fuzzy
colt, one of his best to date, watching them from the next field.
Funny. He'd thought Poppy didn't like the ranch much. Moses had
reported that Tom said on the ride from the airport, she'd stared
out the window at passing scenery as though it were the approach to
Hell.

He watched a little girl tug at Poppy's
sleeve. "How come the baby is brown and the mama is yellow?"

And darned if Poppy didn't give her a
completely understandable, kid level explanation of dominant and
recessive genes. She'd said she knew a lot about genetics, but she
sounded like a genuine expert. Maybe he ought to ask her about the
breedings he had planned for a couple of his mares.

And she had people skills. Alice had warned
him about the honeymoon couple and the way they drifted around
without seeing anyone else. But when Poppy smacked into them, she
worked them like a snake charmer.

"I guess we do look silly," the bride said,
but her misty smile belied the words, and she didn't move the hand
that she'd hooked down the front of her husband's jeans.

"No, you don't look silly," Poppy said. "You
look happy."

"Oh, yeah," murmured the groom. He ran a
finger down his bride's arm, brushing across her breast. Mac
followed Poppy's gaze down to the woman's peaking nipple and
quickly looked up at her face. Her wistful expression set off
alarms. He'd sworn never to commit again and damned if she didn't
look like a woman who wanted commitment.

He snorted. If she was so damned wistful, she
ought to stop chasing married men.

Her questions loosed a flood of wedding
description that lasted all the way to the top of the hill, where
even the honeymooners fell silent under the glory of the sunset.
Poppy stood between him and the color-drenched horizon. When she
took a deep breath, stretching a little, he gulped. So did the man
standing beside her. His wife glared at Poppy, and yanked him
away.

Mac shook his head in disbelief. All she had
to do was breathe and men fell at her feet. Lord knew he had. She
probably had a dozen propositions a day.

She moved up to chat with the glaring wife.
To his surprise, Mrs. Harbottle thawed, and told Poppy that they
lived in Kansas, loved the ranch, and had two teen-agers. The boys
loped by and their mother snagged them for introductions. He
watched Poppy charm Donny and Jim. Of course they were male.

She drew a couple on her other side into the
conversation, and pretty soon everyone had been pulled into a
single, happy group. Sounded like a damned cocktail party. Poppy
eased away and sat on a boulder to watch the color fade from the
sky.

"Nice job," he murmured.

She jumped and turned her head.

He sat so close that if he leaned a couple of
centimeters, he'd be a heartbeat away from kissing her. His breath
came short. "Sorry. I thought you knew I was sharing your
rock."

She shifted away from him. "What do you mean,
nice job?"

"That little girl looked bored to mischief,
Mrs. Harbottle wanted to push you off a cliff; the boys were out of
hand; the honeymooners were about to wander off and get lost as
usual. You tied them all up into a friendly group. Very
smooth."

"You make it sound like I did it on purpose."
She sounded startled.

"Didn't you?"

"No. I just talk to people."

"Yeah. I heard you talking to Tom this
afternoon."

Color rose in her face. That creamy,
translucent skin reflected everything she felt better than a
barometer. "I know. I saw you. But you didn't tell Alice."

"No."

"Why not?"

"This way I have something to hold over you."
He grinned at the flash of temper in her eyes.

"I was going to apologize until you said
that."

"I'm teasing. I wouldn't really blackmail
you."

"And I know that how?"

"You can trust me."

She raised an eyebrow. "Right."

"I mean it. I don't cheat."

"Honest in word, thought, and deed?"

"Yep." He honestly wanted her in his bed, but
maybe he'd better hold off on the word and deed there for a bit.
Until they got better acquainted.

"A Boy Scout?"

"No. 4H Club. I grew up on a ranch. With
people who trusted me." A flush tinged her cheekbones, and he
smiled.

She straightened her shoulders and looked him
straight in the eye. "That's friends. Strangers have to be a little
more wary. I had no way of knowing you and Alice—"

He gave up. "I know. But you could have asked
someone."

"Who?

"Anyone. The other guests. Moses."

"Right. Like I'd do that kind of gossip. And
I certainly wouldn't talk to someone who worked for her." Poppy's
expression combined contempt and impatience. She turned toward the
fading colors on the western horizon.

"Come on, honey, don't go all unfriendly on
me."

"I'm friendly."

He put his arm around her.

She stood. "Not that friendly. I don't make
out with strangers in public." She blushed, probably remembering
last night.

"We could get private." He stood and put his
hands on her shoulders.

She removed his hands and took a step back.
"Or not."

"We could get to be friends."

She shook her head and looked up at him
through lowered lashes. "Define friend. My guess would be that we
use different dictionaries."

"Friends are people who do stuff together.
Fun stuff. I could suggest more than a few fun things we could
do."

Her stern glare reminded him of his nightmare
seventh grade teacher. He shrugged and tried to look innocent.
"Friends are intimate."

"As in sex?" Her mouth twitched in what he
wanted to think was humor, but she stuck her nose in the air. "I
don't think so."

He did. It was exactly what he thought. "You
could change your mind."

She gave him one of those men-are-dogs looks.
"Not in a million years," she said, with enough frost in her voice
to freeze the entire state.

He grinned. She reminded him of a handful of
porcupine, all stabbing quills on the surface, tender and delicious
inside. He knew what hid under that prickly exterior, though. Heat.
All the heat a man could want. He could see it in her eyes.

That did it. One step brought him close
enough for his hands to find her waist and pull her up against him,
all the lush softness he couldn't get out of his mind. In the
almost-dark, the amber of her eyes flared with the same fierce
desire that throbbed through him. The desperate grip of her hands
on his shoulders said she felt the same want, the same need that
consumed him.

He shifted his gaze to her mouth. Her soft,
slightly parted lips lured him like a horse to a bushel of oats. He
forgot Alice and the crowd of guests, forgot that they were
standing on a rock in plain sight of anyone who cared to watch,
forgot his suspicions of her. He brushed his mouth over hers,
needing the taste of her as much as a man in the desert needed
water. Brushed, lingered, sampled, tasted. Couldn't get enough.

He felt her try to hold back, and rubbed one
gentling hand up and down her back. The hint of resistance
dissolved. Her arms locked around his neck and she pressed against
him and kissed him back with all the desperate need he felt for
her.

A patch of grass off to the side of the rocks
beckoned. If he could only figure out how to get them over there...
Tonight he had no interest in leaning up against a rock.

"Hey, you two." Alice's shout hit him like a
bucket of ice water. He looked up and realized that the others were
almost out of sight. He and Poppy stood alone on the rock.
Correction. He stood alone. After one stricken look at him, she had
flung herself off the boulder and bolted after the group.

If he were sensible, he'd figure it was best
that way. Too bad he wasn't sensible.

* * *

Early morning sunlight stabbed through the
window into her eyes. Poppy groaned. Not again. She must be doomed
to start every day here on the ranch with a severe case of the
morning afters.

And last night hadn't even been about
alcohol. Last night had been about responding to Mac like some kind
of wild woman. For heaven's sake, all the man had to do was touch
her and she turned into a sex maniac. If she could only figure a
way to put him on hold...

She curled miserably under the covers and
ignored the laughter and voices and clopping hooves of the morning
ride, going out on schedule. Tom could just live with a little
delay in the great fake-a-seduction scene. She couldn't face Mac
right now.