The Cowboy Takes a Bride Read online

  Autumn leaves flurried on the breeze, scattered and clattered dryly across the ground. A solitary red oak leaf landed on Joe’s shoulder, adding vibrant weight to his right side. He tilted his head in the same direction, unaware of how the gesture furthered the illusion of lopsidedness. He studied her as if he was trying to guess the contents of a brightly colored envelope addressed to someone else.

  I’m not that much of an enigma. I just know how to put on a good show.

  “Still scared?” he asked, nodding toward where the rat snake had once coiled.

  “Kind of,” she admitted, but only if she looked down. If she kept her gaze on his face, she forgot about the butterflies in her stomach. Forgot about most everything but the expression in his eyes, the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. There was something about the way he looked at her that calmed Mariah, slowed her down, made her feel . . . welcomed.

  She caught a whiff of his fragrance. Delicious. Spicy. All man. She had a sudden urge to lick him to see if he tasted as good as he smelled.

  His smile drew her closer.

  “You are not going to kiss me,” Mariah declared, and leaned forward.

  “Who me?” Joe murmured.

  “We make about as much sense as a pair of three-legged jeans.”

  “Not even that much sense.” His voice went husky.

  “We’re not that stupid.”

  He moved closed. “Too smart to get involved.”

  “We barely know each other.”

  “Even though we’re neighbors.”

  “But only for a couple of months. I’ll be leaving before Christmas.”

  “Hardly worth the effort,” he murmured, his hand on her shoulder.

  “The timing is off.”

  “Yep.”

  “So nothing is happening.” She dared to inch closer.

  “Nada, zip, zero.”

  “Kissing would be disastrous.”

  “Mistake of the highest order.” Joe twirled a lock of her hair around his index finger.

  “I mean it’s not like we can take this anywhere.”

  “Nope.”

  “We’re certainly not going to bed together.”

  “Not even just to sleep.”

  “We’ll forget all about this sexual chemistry.”

  “What sexual chemistry?” His palm cradled the back of her head.

  Get up, move, cool off. Put some distance between you and this so-sexy-he-should-be-outlawed cowboy.

  It sounded good. She should listen to her own advice, but Joe was so damn enticing all she could think about was I wonder what he tastes like.

  Why was she suddenly so hot? Like a Maine lobster in a cooking pot, hot.

  Their noses were almost touching. Their gazes cemented. Her body thermostat was completely out of whack, blazing, boiling, burning. Joe’s pupils dilated, his cheeks pinked. Mariah knew hers did too.

  “You’re going to get up and walk away,” she said. “Like you’d just come across a grizzly bear cub.”

  “I am.”

  He didn’t flinch.

  Neither did she.

  Her bare foot was on his thigh. He was on his knees before her. One of his hands was pressed against the nape of her neck, the other around her ankle.

  Mariah’s nipples hardened. “I thought you were backing off.”

  “I’m gone.”

  “You’re not moving.”

  “I’m vapor.” He stayed put.

  Her breath whistled faintly as it slipped over her teeth. She’d been waiting so long to exhale. “Thanks for the first aid.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “So long.”

  “See ya around.”

  “Bye.”

  The next thing Mariah knew, Joe was pulling her savagely into his arms.

  Chapter Eleven

  There are three ways to argue with a woman. None of them work.

  —Dutch Callahan

  Kissing Mariah felt meant to be. Right there in the pasture just outside the horse paddock, behind her father’s cabin, he cradled either side of her face in his palms and looked deeply into her eyes.

  She didn’t blink. Didn’t glance away.

  In his years as a professional bull rider, Joe had kissed a lot of women, and each had held her own special thrill. Becca had been the best kisser of the bunch, but this kiss, ah, this kiss with Mariah . . . well . . . there was just something about it that transcended any other kiss he’d ever experienced. Something about Mariah that transcended any other woman.

  Even Becca.

  And that thought made Joe feel disloyal and guilty as sin, but it didn’t stop him from following his instincts and he despised himself for his weakness.

  She tasted like honeyed mead, thick and sweet and potent. Kissing her made him think of golden sunsets and sleepy sunrises. Of long, hot, steamy nights.

  Mariah sank against him, her hands knotted into fists at his shoulders, her head tilted back, her mouth slack and willing. Her body language showed her conflict. Closed-off hands, open lips.

  Joe kissed her harder than he should have, branding her mouth with his. Damn, he was lost, and for a man who prided himself on being in control, it unhinged him.

  She chose that moment to dart her sly little tongue between his teeth. Delighted, he laughed out loud and she laughed with him. Mariah. The daughter of his best friend. It was scary, yep, but he wanted more.

  With a start, Joe realized he was ready to heal.

  But Mariah? She was leery of men. Leery of him. If he pushed too hard too soon for more than she was ready to give, the whole thing could blow up in his face. Honestly, he was still pretty damn shaky himself.

  Mariah pulled away and broke the kiss and he didn’t try to stop her. She blinked at him, her full lips still parted. “What,” she whispered, “was that all about?”

  “Impulse.”

  “A bad one!”

  “So the kiss was no good, huh?” he teased.

  Her eyes widened and she drew in a deep breath. “It was way more than good. It was over-the-top awesome. That’s the problem. There’s always a catch when something is too good to be true.”

  “It was special for me too,” he murmured. His hand was on her ankle again, her foot still on his thigh. She was squirming like a trap-snared critter. “So where do we go from here?”

  Mariah held up both palms like a stop sign. “There’s no ‘we.’ There’s you and there’s me, but there is definitely no ‘we’. It was just a kiss. One that shouldn’t have happened. But it did, and the best thing is to put it behind us and forget it ever happened.”

  “Best thing, huh?”

  “Yes.” She tugged her foot from his grasp, hopped off the rock, backed away.

  His gaze drifted to her ankle. To the D etched in Betadine. D for Daniels. He grinned and let his eyes track a path up her compact, curvy figure to her face. A golden spiral of soft curls fell across slender shoulders. In the early morning sunlight, the grass spiked with dew, she looked like a Druid princess rooted in nature. She’d laugh if he told her that. She considered herself thoroughly cosmopolitan.

  He enjoyed looking at her, sheet creases on her cheek, sans makeup and with glasses on.

  “You wear glasses,” he said.

  She snatched them off her face, hid them behind her back.

  “Put them back on. They make you look all smart and scholarly.”

  “They make me look like Harry Potter.”

  “I like them.” He stood up, tried to reach around behind her to go for the glasses.

  She clung to them. “I don’t usually let people see me in them.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “It makes me feel vulnerable.”

  “If it bothers you so much, why don’t you have laser eye surgery?”

  “Too chicken,” she admitted.

  “Fear trumps vanity.”

  “I’m not vain,” she denied.

  “Then put your glasses back on.”

  �
��Okay,” she said, “maybe a little vain.”

  “Here.” He took the glasses from her hand, opened them up, set them gently on her face. “There now.” He brushed a lock of hair from her forehead, felt her shiver beneath his touch. “Isn’t it better to see what you’re looking at?”

  Slowly, she shook her head. She took a step back and then another. “It’s safer when you’re all fuzzy and far away.”

  “Don’t go,” he surprised himself by saying. Without even trying, she’d bewitched him and he had no idea why or how.

  She was already halfway across the distance between the barn and the cabin.

  “You don’t have to run away,” he said. “I won’t kiss you again.” He paused. “Until you ask me to.”

  Soft laughter rolled out of her like music. She sank her hands on her hips, causing her shoulders to open wide and her breasts to lift perkily. “You’ve got a pretty big ego on you, Joe Daniels. To think you have the power to chase me off.”

  The kiss had already inflamed him, but one look at those proud nipples outlined through the material of her shirt sent sizzling heat straight to his groin. Instantly, he hardened. The speed of his body’s reaction to Mariah knocked all rational thought from his brain. In a desperate attempt to hide it from her, he picked up the first aid kit, held it strategically in front of him.

  He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. He traced his gaze over the length of her long neck, wished it was his mouth doing the traveling. Wished he could nibble her sensitive skin, make her moan with pleasure.

  She studied him.

  He held her stare, but it was all he could do not to slink away. She’d turned the tables on him and he felt like a young whippersnapper—randy as hell and out of control. Once upon a time, he’d been a pretty smooth operator. But all that vanished under the intensity of Mariah’s gaze.

  “This could never work.”

  “What?”

  “Us.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not staying in Jubilee.”

  “Right.”

  “So let’s just leave things alone.”

  “Makes perfect sense.” He shook his head, completely disagreeing with his agreement.

  “No sense starting something we can’t finish.”

  “None at all.”

  “No matter how pleasurable it might be.”

  “Don’t even bring it up.”

  “The kiss is forgotten.”

  “What kiss?”

  Mariah took a few steps toward the house, then stopped. “Joe?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “It’s not you. It’s me.”

  “You don’t have to lie.”

  “It’s true though. You’re ready for a fresh start, but I’m not. I want to go back to my old life just as soon as I can. But you’re a good guy. I know that. I can tell by the way everyone in town looks at you, talks about you. There’s someone wonderful out there just waiting for you.”

  “You’re pretty wonderful yourself, Little Bit.” Then before he lost all reason, gave in to his primal urges and kissed her again, Joe turned and walked away.

  Ila woke up with a bad haircut and a man in her bed who was not Joe. At first she panicked, drawing the sheet to her chin, staring up at the ceiling. Wondering how she was going to get out of this. Then she remembered exactly how good Cordy had been in bed. And how unexpectedly well endowed he was. God might have shaved a few inches from his height, but he made up for it in other places.

  She smiled. Just a little bit.

  “Happy?”

  Crap! Cordy was awake, propped up on one elbow staring down at her.

  “You have to go,” she said.

  “How about I make us some breakfast?” He got out of bed as if she hadn’t said anything. “I make a mean omelet and you need to eat. You’re too skinny.”

  “I don’t eat breakfast.”

  Cordy clucked his tongue. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

  She was so busy staring at his exquisite bare butt that the smart retort almost didn’t roll off her tongue. “Tell me, Whiteside, have you ever been mistaken for a Jewish mother?”

  His grin was irritating as sunshine. “If anything about me resembles a Jewish mother, I didn’t do as good a job last night as I thought I did. Move over and let me try again.”

  Ila held up a restraining hand as he made a move to slide in on her side of the bed. “Overachiever.”

  “I would have let you be on top. All you had to do was ask.” He chortled.

  Ila rolled her eyes and sat up, pillow cradled to her chest. “You’ve got to go. You’re simply too damn cheerful.”

  “Another reason we’re perfect for each other.” He leaned over to kiss her cheek. “I’m perky, you’re bleak.”

  Ila got the pillow up just in the nick of time. Holy doughnut, what in the hell had she gotten herself into? “Dial it down a notch, skippy.”

  “I’m making you breakfast while you dial the hairdresser.” He pointed at her head.

  She’d totally forgotten about her desperation haircut. She ran a hand through her hair, gasped. “Oh my God!”

  “Hey, I think you look kinda cute with that punk rocker thing going on, but you might want to get someone to even it up.”

  “This is horrible, this is a nightmare, this is—”

  “Cathartic,” Cordy said, slipping into his jeans and zipping them up. “That was one way to get Joe out of your hair. Get rid of the hair.”

  “Joe isn’t out of my hair,” Ila hollered as he walked out the door. She threw the pillow after him, collapsed back onto the bed. “Just because you and I had sex, don’t start thinking it means anything.”

  Cordy stalked back into the room, his sunbeam face suddenly eclipsed with a cloudy frown. “I’m gonna let that crack about Joe go because I know you’ve been nursing that love a long time and it’s going to take you a while to come to terms that it’s time to let go of your fantasies and accept real life, but there’s one thing I do promise you, Ila Desiree Brackeen.”

  “Yeah?” she said truculently, folded her arms over her chest, glared at him.

  He crawled up on the bed, cradled her chin in his palm, stared her straight in the eyes. “Listen to me and don’t you forget it. Make no mistake. What we did last night means everything. From here on out, I’m your man.”

  For the next week, Mariah kept busy waiting tables at the Silver Horseshoe and tried her best to stay out of Joe’s way. It was easy enough. She worked nights and he spent his days training Miracle for the futurity and running his ranch and he never once set foot inside the bar. At least not during Mariah’s shifts.

  Whenever they passed on the road into town, he’d honk and she’d wave or vice versa, and they’d both paste polite smiles on their faces and quickly drive on. Thankfully, Joe must have solved the problem of Miracle’s Houdini-like skills because the stallion did not return to her barn.

  Unfortunately, Lee Turpin did show up at the Silver Horseshoe. He was there every night, giving Mariah the eye and flirting with her outrageously, but he didn’t touch her again. She owed Joe for that.

  She struggled to stop thinking about Joe, and the kiss they’d shared behind her house, but time and time again, she found her thoughts straying to him. She would be serving a pitcher of beer, see a young man kiss his wife or girlfriend, and her knees would melt as she remembered exactly how Joe’s lips had felt against hers.

  No matter how many times she told herself to stop thinking about him, she couldn’t seem to stop poking at the idea of them doing far more than kissing. Joe’s wicked tongue had roused something disturbingly unpredictable inside her.

  “Can you work Sunday night?” Clover asked her on Friday.

  “We’re closed on Sundays.”

  “To the public yes, but we’ve got a private wedding reception and I want to make sure we have enough waitstaff. It’s a big party. Couple hundred guests. We host a lot of wedding receptions. Thirty or forty a year. The Silver Ho
rseshoe is one of the few places in town that can accommodate big wedding parties.”

  “Oh, okay, sure. I’ll work Sunday.” Better to be working than rambling around the empty cabin alone. Without a television set or the Internet, there wasn’t much to do there anyway. Her cell phone had 3G service, but surfing the Internet on that tiny screen was frustrating. “No problem.”

  But a wedding reception in a roadhouse just felt . . . wrong. It grated against Mariah’s belief that weddings should be magical. Special. Hopefully, a once-in-a-lifetime event. Weddings were about memories. The best possible memories, and they shouldn’t be shortchanged. But here in Jubilee, no one seemed to care about magic unless it was in relationship to a horse.

  On Sunday, she arrived at the Silver Horseshoe to find Clover in the dining room moving tables around with the bartender, Bobby Jim Spears.

  Mariah took in the setting. Neon beer signs on the wall. The stained paisley carpeting. The suede curtains trailing fringe. The saloon-style doors that led into the big room. It was fine for a cowboy nightclub, but for a wedding reception? The decor made her feel sad for the couple.

  “What do you need for me to do?” she asked Clover.

  “Set up the tiered cake tray and put out the Twinkies and Ding Dongs.”

  Mariah blinked, thinking it must be some kind of odd Jubilee code. “I’m not following you.”

  “See those boxes of Twinkies and Ding Dongs stacked up on the bar?”

  “Yes.”

  “The Twinkies are the bride’s cake, the Ding Dongs are the groom’s cake.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “This is Jubilee, not Chicago. People are on a budget. They don’t spend a lot on fluff stuff.”

  Yeah, because they spend all their money on cutting horses. “They could have gotten cakes from Wal-Mart just as cheaply,” she said.

  “These were free. The groom’s mother works at Mrs. Baird’s day-old bakery and they were about to throw them out,” Clover said.