A Man of His Word (12 page)

“W
hat?” she gasped, scooting away from Dan. “What do you mean, no reservoir?”

Mistake,
he thought. He shouldn't have tried to mix business with what had been an unabashed pleasure up to that point. “I'm going to bring my engineer up here in a few weeks.” She stopped scooting, her eyes trained on him with a laserlike focus. At least he had her undivided attention. “I've been studying the plans. We could do a run-of-river dam.”

She sucked in air like it was going out of style. Then she sprang to her feet, hovering between backing up some more and maybe grabbing him by his lapels and shaking him senseless. “
We
could do a
what?
”

“A run-of-river couldn't store electricity for when the river's low, but it wouldn't require a reservoir. The difference is only a few thousand—way less than Cecil's spent on lawyers the last few years.” He stood, but slowly. He didn't want to spook her—any more than he'd already spooked her.

“You—the dam—no?” She spun around, stalked off into the darkness, and was back in the circle of light in a heartbeat. “We?”

As the firelight danced over the flustered planes of her face, his mind flashed back to the sex. She'd lost all control—he'd seen her do it twice now. Her mouth ran a mile a minute when it happened, good or bad. This? This was good. She had one hand over her heart, the other waving in his general direction. Way more than half an hour had passed, and he couldn't wait to get her good and flustered all over again.

“I'm not makin' any promises—I've got to get Jimmy up here to look it over—but it's
possible.
That's all.” He took her hand and pulled her into his arms. Man, she just
fit,
all warm and soft and sweet.

“No flooding?” He could feel her heart racing against his chest.

He shook his head. “I don't trust Cecil's engineering firm any more than I trust Cecil. They've got to have an ulterior motive for pushing the reservoir, but I don't know what it is.”

“Dan—you mean it? No dam?”

“I didn't say that. I said
maybe
no reservoir. Look,” he said, taking her face in his hands. “This is Cecil's deal—but it's still my company, and the
company
has sunk a lot of money into this. I can't afford to walk away from the deal.”

He could see the wheels in her mind spinning. His own wheels were picking up speed. A lot of things had to go right—like wrestling control of this project, and eventually the company, away from Cecil, for starters—but he'd spent his every waking moment for the past few weeks either being near Rosebud or thinking about being near her. She didn't make it easy on him, but somehow, being with her was the kind of difficult that a man could get used to.

She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. The only sound she made was a small squeak.

Not just any woman would consider run-of-river dams foreplay. But if he'd learned anything, it was that Rosebud wasn't just any woman. He tightened his arms around her, enjoying the way she rubbed against him as he leaned down to kiss her. “Yeah, I thought that's what you'd say.”

Her honey sweetness was tempered with chocolate this time, and it only made him want to kiss her more. She ran her hands over his five o'clock shadow as she licked his lips. Oh, yeah, the half hour was up, and so was he. He growled in satisfaction as she ground her hips against him. Already he had her shirt half-off, but he couldn't make the move toward the bed. That damned thing was just too loud.

“I've been dreaming about this,” she said as she whipped his shirt over his head and pushed him back down toward the blanket. The cool night air just made him want to get warm the old-fashioned way.

He dug another condom out of his back pocket before he lost his pants again. Man, but she was fast with those buttons. “Yeah?” Her mouth was running. This was going to be good.

“After that first kiss—you and me—by the river—
dreaming,
” she repeated.

She pushed him down to the ground, and with an agonizingly slow pace, undid her jeans. In the firelight, the peaks of her nipples gleamed like rubbed copper. Her hips swiveled as she worked them free of her jeans, and then she undid her braid. Her hair fell free around her in loose waves. She jutted out that chin and squared her shoulders, showing none of that typical self-consciousness that always had women turning out lights or wrapping up in robes. No, she was a proud Indian princess, and she'd brought the cowboy to his knees.

“Damn, darlin'.” Her mouth might be going, but his was freezing up. All he could do was stare and wait for her.

As she lowered herself onto him, her wetness surrounding
everything he had to offer her, she scraped her breasts over his stubble and groaned.

The sound of her making love to him was enough to send him right over the edge all by itself. The first time he'd been with a woman who liked it loud had been like his very first time all over again. Something about a woman who didn't hold back drove him wild. “You like that?” Because if she was driving him wild, he wanted to make damn sure she came driving with him.

“Oh, yeah.” She arched her back, thrusting those all-natural beauties into his face. Her hair pooled down behind her, covering them both in a blanket of black silk. “So good. So—
Oh!
”

His mouth fastened to her nipple, Dan couldn't help but smile as she bucked so hard he had to grab her around the waist to keep her from falling off him. Holding her to him with one hand, he sucked as hard as he could on one breast and let his fingers do the tugging on the other.

Her hands grabbed his hair and held on. Her nipples were rock hard in his mouth, and each pass of his tongue or his teeth or his stubble—especially his stubble—upped her volume. Finally, Dan couldn't take it anymore. He had to come, and he had to come right now. He grabbed her hips and pumped in as hard and as fast as he could, the sounds of her screaming his name into the wide-open night putting him in a place he'd only just glimpsed before. Her noise—her pleasure—blotted out everything else, even the coppery glow of her skin. All he could see and feel, taste and touch, was the sound of what he was doing to her.

He couldn't remember ever coming as hard as she made him come.

By the time the rest of his senses caught up with him, she had her head buried into the crook of his neck. She was
sort of moaning, sort of whimpering, but the meaning was the same.

“Yeah.” Which was not some of his better pillow talk, but it was all he had left. “Me, too.”

He didn't want to let her go, but the night air came down hard on them now that they weren't actively keeping it away. Moving wasn't easy. He was six kinds of tired, and at least that many kinds of satisfied. By the time he got the fire out, she'd pulled the mattress to the floor and curled up in the bed.

“A woman after my own heart.” Exhaustion clawed at him as he crawled in next to her. Tiffany had never stayed the night—her choice. Staying meant a more permanent thing, she'd told him once, and Dan could never do permanent. She'd been right—then.

Now?

Rosebud snuggled up against his side—she didn't have much of a choice, the bed wasn't that big—and draped a leg over his. Now, this close tangle of legs and arms and skin seemed more permanent than anything he'd ever felt for a woman.

“You never answered the question.” Her voice managed to beat back the sleepy darkness, but just barely.

“What question?”

“What
are
you going to do with me?”

More permanent, he thought, finding her fingers and lacing them with his. Sleep could not be denied much longer, but he didn't want to leave her hanging. “I'm thinking about keeping you.”

 

By the time Sunday rolled around, Dan was doing a lot more thinking. Sure, he'd gone camping plenty of times—but he couldn't remember ever liking it as much as he did with Rosebud around. Maybe it was because he hadn't gone camping since he'd taken control of the petroleum division
ten years ago—it was hard to pitch a tent in a tie. Maybe it was because she liked the stuff he liked—riding the horses after breakfast, taking a skinny dip in the afternoon and cuddling by the campfire at night. Maybe it was because they made sweet, sleepy love in the morning and had screaming hot sex by moonlight. Maybe it was because she couldn't roast a marshmallow if her life depended on it. Whatever it was, by the time they packed up and headed out, he was already figuring out the plans for next weekend.

“We should take a different route,” he said when they got back to where the Bonneau Creek fed into the Dakota.

“Why?” She kept close to him—not close enough to crowd the horses, but close enough that he could still reach out and touch her arm.

“Because—” His brain bit back the words
I might be followed
before they got all the way out.

“Dan,” she said, and he knew by the tone of her voice that he hadn't been fast enough. “
Why
do we need to take a different route?”

At least the weekend had already been great. He wouldn't ruin the whole thing now. “Do you know who Shane Thrasher is?”

“No.” He swore that, even though they were still riding, she froze. “Should I?”

Damn his big mouth. She'd gotten him all relaxed and comfortable, and this was what popped out. “He's Cecil's ‘head of security,'” he said, using air quotes. “And he's half Crow.”

She sucked in air hard, but managed to keep her game face on. He didn't like her game face. He liked her real face. “And he's tailing—you? Me? Us?”

“I'm not sure, but it's possible he's tailing me. I haven't seen any other tracks, so I'm sure he hasn't found our cabin.” Given the way she was getting all splotchy on him over there,
he'd better be damn sure, but he'd checked around the campsite every time they left and every time they came back, and had seen no signs of anyone or thing. No cigarette butts. Not even a questionable hoofprint. “Better safe than sorry, though. I don't want him to find our place.”

They rode north for a little bit before they came to a wide spot in the river. When he turned Smokey into the water, Rosebud finally spoke up. “You're scaring me.”

He shot her a confused look. “It's real shallow here. I've come this way twice. Won't even get your boots wet.”

“That's not what I mean.” She looked over her shoulder, and he saw the fear. “What if…”

“No one saw us. No one will see us,” he promised, suddenly wishing he'd checked a little more thoroughly. All that screaming… “And I won't let anyone scare you. That's a promise, Rosebud.” She gave him a worried smile, one that said she wasn't really convinced. “I mean it. Anyone messes with you, and I'll shoot them myself.”

She took another long look around, but the river valley was the same wild, untouched place it had been before he'd been dumb enough to bring up Thrasher. “That won't be necessary,” she finally said as they crossed the river. “I can take care of myself.”

That all-business tone of voice was what worried him the most. “Will you still come away with me next weekend?”

She looked to the heavens, as if that was where the answer lay. “I shouldn't.” His heart dropped a pained notch or two, but then she sighed and added, “If we leave real early Saturday morning, no one will know where we went.”

“Darlin,' I'll go anywhere, anytime, as long as I'm with you.”

She twisted in the saddle and shot him a look that was a
whole lot of knowing and a little bit of longing. He waited for her to say something, but she didn't.

She just rode away from him. He had to hurry to catch up.

“W
here were you this weekend?” Cecil didn't look like he'd moved from his desk since last Thursday, the last time Dan had seen him.

Dan bristled. For a split second, he felt like a hormonal teenager busted for being out past curfew. “Out.” He didn't owe Cecil anything more than that, but the monosyllabic response caused the man to look up.

“Who with?”

“My horse. I rode down south to check out a few things on the map.” As far as he could tell, there wasn't much down south except scrub grass and a lonely, forgotten cell phone tower. South would be a good direction for Shane Thrasher to go to get lost. Maybe he'd be eaten by a coyote.

Something about Cecil changed. He went from his normal pissed look to something that was supposed to be warm and inviting—if one liked eels. “So,” he said, his tone suddenly all buddy-buddy. “How are things going with that Donnelly woman?”

Dan would rather chew off his own arm in a bear trap than give away anything about his Indian princess. “I don't know what you think I can do with her. She's real easy on the eyes, but she doesn't take anything from anyone—me included. I can't even get her to dinner again. She caught wind of my scheme that first time and won't even look at me. It's like I'm not even there.”

“No progress, huh.” Dan took the mild look of disappointment as a compliment. Cecil was actually buying that load of bull crap. The old man flipped to a calendar and thought. “We've got less than three weeks until that court date. Keep at her, son. Even the toughest nuts can be cracked.”

So help him, the only thing Dan could think of cracking was Cecil, right across the mouth. “Why are we pushing the reservoir? Why aren't we doing a run-of-river?”

“Do you have any idea how much money we've sunk into this?” Cecil slapped his hand on the desk in an unnecessary show of force.

Dan didn't flinch. “
We
didn't.” He kept his voice calm and level—his COO voice, Mom always said. His cut-the-crap voice was how he thought of it. “
You
did.”

For the blink of an eye, Cecil actually looked surprised. But the contempt washed away everything else real quick. “Don't tell me you're listening to that woman. For Christ's sake, she's a lunatic! A raving lunatic who's cost this company millions of dollars!”

“Seems to me you may be the one costing this company millions. I'm going to be bringing some of my people in—
my
engineer,
my
audit team. We're going to need to review
your
books, Cecil.”

Surprise flashed over his face again, but this time he looked more cornered. “I should have known bringing you up here was a mistake. You're too soft for this business. Just
like your mother.” The words weren't even sharp enough to cut, not with the way his voice wavered.

Dan had the old man trapped, and they both knew it. “I'll be sure to mention you to her. She does enjoy hearing what you're up to, being as her vote carries such weight with the board.”

Cecil blanched. “You can audit your ass off, but we're breaking ground in three weeks.”

Nothing but bluster. Chances were decent that Rosebud was going to get her injunction, and Dan needed the stay to get his team organized. He wanted his top guys and gals up here, but they were all hip-deep in various other projects. Three weeks out was the earliest he could pull everyone out of Texas without compromising the other jobs.

And he needed that time to figure out what Cecil was up to. If he couldn't prove that Cecil was doing anything illegal, then the board would have no reason to force the old man out. Dan turned on his heels and headed for his room.

How was he going to get Cecil out of the picture? He needed hard evidence. But what?

Dan was emptying his bag out and rounding up the dirty laundry when it hit him.

Maria.

She was in the kitchen, humming as she rolled tamales. He hadn't checked for bugs since he'd had dinner here with Rosebud, so he made up some lame excuse about wanting to check her tire pressure to get her out of the house.

“Maria,” he asked as he bent over her tires, “who do you work for? Me, or Cecil?”

“Señor Cecil,” she replied after a long minute. “But I would like to work for you.” Her voice was so quiet that he almost couldn't hear it over the faint rush of air that escaped the tire gauge. “You are a better man,
señor.
”

“Well, I'm hiring.” Going through the motions, they moved
around to the other tire. “I'm looking for something. A lockbox that Cecil keeps separate from his other files.”

“I'm not allowed in his office,
señor.
” They moved to the back tires. “What does it look like?”

Dan hid his grin. He was definitely hiring. “It's made of wood—oak, I think—and it looks real old. He had a key with it—small. Silver, I think.” One more tire to go. “It had a file in it that he marked up with a red pen.”

“I have not seen such a thing before.” The tires were done. Maria straightened. “Thank you for checking.” Then, under her breath, she added, “I will look.”

“Yeah, just tell Eduardo to keep an eye on that front one,” he said a little louder than he meant to as they walked back into the house.

The number of Armstrong Holdings employees in South Dakota had just gone up by one.

 

“Rosebud?” Aunt Emily was sitting in her chair, the quilt square spread out before her. “Honey, where have you been?”

“Out.” Which was the lamest of all possible excuses. She'd lived with Aunt Emily for so long that they really didn't have secrets. “I just needed a weekend off. I've been so busy with the dam….”

Aunt Emily looked at her, at her backpack, then back at her before she turned her eyes back to her work. She wasn't buying it, but Rosebud wasn't about to crack. Maybe when she'd been a teenager, she could be intimidated by the knowing silence, but not anymore. She didn't have to explain herself to anyone—one of the fringe benefits of being an adult.

Rosebud set her bag down and began to make a peanut butter sandwich. Food had been secondary this weekend, and even the rumble in her belly was enough to make her smile in contentment.
Dan.
Just thinking his name was enough to make her shiver. Still, the sandwich hit the spot.

Rosebud was rummaging in the fridge to see if they had any apples when Aunt Emily's voice cut through her hazy happiness. “Have you gotten anything out of that Dan Armstrong yet?”

The hackles on the back of her neck shot up. All her training kicked in, and Rosebud went on the offensive before she knew what she was doing. “I don't know what you think I'm going to ‘get' out of him,” she snapped as she slammed the fridge door. “He doesn't know anything about dams, and from what I can tell, Cecil keeps him clueless.” All statements that were true three weeks ago. Now? Everything was different. Which made it official. She was lying to her aunt. Something she had never done before.

And to make things worse, they both knew it. Aunt Emily looked at her with a sense of confused wonder on her face. “He doesn't know anything.”

It should have been a question, but it wasn't. Aunt Emily was just repeating the bald-faced lie as a matter of statement.

Guilt smacked Rosebud upside the head, and for a second, she wanted to tell Aunt Emily about the run-of-river option. Rosebud had done what she was supposed to, after all. She'd gotten into Dan's head, muddled his thinking and made him see her side. Aunt Emily would be proud of her. Except that wasn't why Rosebud was doing it. At this point, the dam was almost secondary. Almost.

Rosebud looked Aunt Emily in the eye. “No.” The lie came easier this time. Part of it was self-preservation. Maybe this thing with Dan was only a weekend thing. Maybe he'd go back to Texas in three weeks. Maybe he'd stay around long enough to see her rez at the bottom of a lake. She didn't want people thinking she'd lost her head and sunk the tribe over a man, over an Armstrong.

Or maybe it would all work out. The chances were slim, but the element of surprise was key. If Cecil got wind of what
Dan and Rosebud were up to, the run-of-river option might fall apart. She'd be lucky if
just
the rez went under. It would all be on her head.

Aunt Emily held her gaze for a year-long moment before the older woman sighed and turned back to her quilting. “Be careful, Rosebud.”

If her hackles stood up any more, they'd rip themselves right off her neck. “What's that supposed to mean? When am I not careful?” Her mind flashed back to the look on Dan's face when he'd told her they should take a different route to the cabin next time. The peanut butter sandwich felt like a lead weight in her belly.

Aunt Emily clucked at her. At least she wasn't staring Rosebud down anymore. “You can't forget who he is. Who you are. Who you represent.” Rosebud thought for a second that Aunt Emily was about to launch into the history of the tribe, just like she did when Rosebud wanted her to wear down an opponent.

For one wonderful weekend, Rosebud had managed to forget exactly who she represented. For two days, there had been no Armstrong Holdings and no Red Creek tribe. For two days, she hadn't felt like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. For two wonderful, freeing days, she'd been happy for the first time in so long…since before Tanner died. She couldn't help it—even now, she wanted nothing more than to go back to where it was just Dan and Rosebud.

And that alone was enough to make her one of “them” instead of one of “us.”

“I know what I'm doing,” she managed to get out. Which was not the same as knowing what she was
supposed
to be doing. But she was damn tired of living her life for someone—everyone—else. Was it too much to ask to do what she wanted for once?

Aunt Emily shook her head in what looked a hell of a lot like disappointment.

Rosebud focused all of her energy on not slamming the door to her room. She knew what she was doing.

Next weekend, she was going to the cabin with Dan.