Big Sky Wedding (20 page)

Amy and Brylee, well, they were just plain transparent, it seemed.

Ms. Tattooed Boob, Brylee reflected, seemed to be the predatory type, one of those felinelike females who not only discounted other women as people but wrote off much of the male gender, too. Only the man caught directly in her crosshairs mattered to Sharlene and her ilk.

Harsh,
Brylee scolded herself silently.
You don’t even know this woman.
Reasoning didn’t help, though. The dislike remained, a thing of instinct rather than logic.

Brylee would have chosen to ignore the bimbo altogether, thus returning the favor, but, unfortunately, her stomach gave a long, rumbling growl, audible even over the throb of the jukebox and the shuffling of feet out on the minuscule dance floor.

Mercifully, Amy, Landry and the waitress-in-a-tube didn’t seem to hear, but Zane immediately turned to Brylee, grinned conspiratorially and said, addressing Sharlene, “I think my lady friend here is hungry.”

His
lady friend?
Now
there
was a term straight out of yesteryear.

Catching the way Landry’s brows knitted together in an instant frown, though, Brylee had to wonder if the remark had actually been directed at him, and not at her at all.

The prospect, though insufferably territorial, was unnervingly pleasant, too.

“Okay,” the waitress said, annoyed, her glance slicing to Brylee’s face. “What can I get you, honey?”
A side order of cyanide? A one-way ticket to Taliban headquarters?

Brylee decided she was definitely being bitchy and forced herself to smile as she requested a diet cola—normally, she would have had a beer, but she intended to split at the first opportunity and that might not give the alcohol enough time to wear off—along with two tacos.

“Shredded beef or chicken?” Sharlene snapped. Clearly, doing her job was an imposition now that it appeared Zane wasn’t fixing to ask for her phone number anytime soon.

“Chicken, please,” Brylee said sweetly.
Oh, and you might want to watch it, “honey.” Two can play your game, and cowgirls fight to win.

Zane chuckled under his breath, but Landry was still watching him, and by then the frown had turned to a glare.

Tattoo Girl, aka Sharlene, switched her scowl to Amy and raised one eyebrow in impatient query. Amy, nobody’s pushover, scowled right back. “Same thing,” she said tartly. “Chicken tacos and a diet cola.” A pause, during which Amy’s mouth tightened to a straight line and then softened into a saucy smirk. “And make it snappy, will you—
darlin’?
My friend and I have a big night ahead, and we’re starving.”

Zane smiled again, pretended to peruse the limited menu, a laminated photocopy stained with last week’s chili sauce and something that might have been cheese at one time, and asked for a deluxe burger, a double order of fries and a chocolate milk shake.

The waitress beamed on him like sunshine, as if she’d never in her livelong
life
taken such a brilliantly unique order as that one.

Landry, obviously not happy to be persona non grata, as Brylee and Amy were, said he’d have a draft beer and it would be a marvelous thing if Sharlene refilled the peanut bowl, because they were down to shells and salt grains.

Marvelous?
Brylee was struck by the term. There probably wasn’t another man in the entire county—not a straight one, anyhow—who would have used that word, especially in a place like the Boot Scoot.

Sharlene flounced away, taking her tattoo and her snippy attitude with her, ostensibly to put in their orders at the fry cook’s window, and another look passed between Zane and Landry, cryptic and not all that brotherly, when you thought about it.

Brylee stole a surreptitious glance at her watch, under the table, and suppressed a sigh. Where on earth were her friends, Margie and Francesca and Susie and the others? If only they’d make an appearance, she’d have ample reason to take her tacos and her diet cola, once they were served, that is, and make her escape.

She tried to reason with herself, silently, of course. What
was
the big deal? She’d already been horseback riding with Zane, and he’d be coming to the ranch for supper the very next night. It wasn’t as though their paths hadn’t crossed, and would
continue
to cross, in the foreseeable future.

Brylee was uncharacteristically jittery, sitting so close to Zane, fit to jump right out of her skin, in fact. And the worst thing about that was, she was starting to
enjoy
the vague sense of danger, the intangible force pulsing between his body and hers.

Oddly, the sensations reminded her of her first barrel race, in her first real rodeo, albeit the junior variety, when she was no older than ten. She’d been scared to death and thrilled to the marrow of her bones at one and the same time, anxious in a way that, ironically, made her want to shout for joy, certain she’d burst wide-open if she tried to hold it in.

The food and drinks came, but there was still no sign of her and Amy’s pals.

Brylee began to wonder, as paranoia set in, if this was a setup. Had Margie and the others ever even
intended
to gather at the Boot Scoot for beer, gossip and the best tacos in Montana? Or had Amy pulled off some kind of BFF maneuver aimed at getting Brylee back on the figurative horse that had thrown her?

It was a crazy thought, of course, because Amy couldn’t have known Zane and Landry would be there, for one thing. Still, she
was
acting as though everything was going according to some plan Brylee had never been privy to. She chatted with Landry and he finally quit trying to burn a hole in Zane with his eyeballs, picked up the conversational ball and ran with it. The man could charm the socks off a department store mannequin, Brylee observed to herself. Odd that he did less than zip for her, drop-dead gorgeous as he was, but the needle on her bring-it meter wasn’t even twitching.

She and Zane, neither of them able to get a word in edgewise, began to eat. Then, midway through the meal, Landry asked Amy if she wanted to dance, and she almost tipped over her chair, she was in such a rush to get to her feet.

In seconds, she and Landry were out there on the floor, their food abandoned.

Brylee watched them for a few moments, realizing only when Zane laughed and nudged her upper arm gently that she’d narrowed her eyes to suspicious slits.

“Is he safe?” she asked, completely serious. She was protective of Amy—had been since school-bus days, when her undersize friend had had braces and a lisp and some of the bigger kids had taken to picking on her during the rides to and from town.

“Safe?” Zane echoed, looking mystified.

“Amy’s still half in love with her ex-husband,” Brylee explained earnestly, in a rapid undertone, one word tumbling over the next. “She’s especially vulnerable right now, that’s all, because Bobby is dating a flight attendant from Missoula.”

Zane grinned, setting his burger back in its plastic basket, where it nestled among fries and a few pickle slices. “Landry and I aren’t close,” he said, in that mild, irritatingly sexy way he had, “but I can honestly swear to you that he’s not an ax murderer.”

Brylee picked up her second taco, unwilling to dignify Zane’s remark with a response. She hadn’t
said
his brother was an ax murderer, hadn’t even suggested as much.

Still, stranger things had happened. All a person had to do was watch the ID network on TV for a half hour to get a new insight into deviant behavior.

Zane chuckled again, unwilling, it would seem, to let her off the old hook. “Lady,” he said, in a drawl that raised her body temperature, “you are
something else
in that red dress. Are you planning on wearing it again tomorrow night, when I drop in at your place for supper?”

He just
had
to remind her that they’d be thrown into close proximity again within twenty-four hours, didn’t he?

Brylee was thrilled,
and
infuriated, by the way he’d gotten under her skin, and she did her level best to hide all of that. “Of course I’m not,” she snapped. “I shouldn’t have worn it
tonight,
either.”

“I’m glad you did,” Zane said, in a honeyed, sleepy murmur.

Brylee’s face heated up in an instant, and her heart raced like an overenthusiastic Thoroughbred busting through the starting gate ahead of the gun.

Zane saw his advantage and pressed it; he leaned in a little, dropped his voice to a rumbling, throaty whisper. “That’s your cue to say thank you.”

Brylee pushed her plate away, dizzied by the speed of her thoughts, never mind her heartbeat. Everything inside her seemed to be careening wildly, with no particular destination. This was totally
embarrassing.

“I need some air,” she blurted suddenly, no longer able to keep her cool.

Before Zane could answer, she pushed back her chair, shot to her feet and fled, squeezing between the dancers and the serious drinkers lining the vintage bar, a relic from an old saloon, the Broken Boot, that had burned to the ground sometime around 1910. Her shoes hurt and she kicked them off the moment she was outside, in the parking lot.

The gravel would probably ruin her panty hose but,
oh, well.
She had another pair at home and, anyway, she only wore them at church and the national sales conferences she held for her Décor Galore people once a year.

Brylee breathed deeply for a few moments, drawing in the night air and the sky full of stars. At first, she was afraid she might hyperventilate, with no paper bag in sight, but after a minute or so, she began to calm down.

She did this just in time to see Zane standing beside her, arms folded, head tilted to one side, expression curious—and still amused.

“Are you all right?” he asked, and his tone indicated that he expected her to answer no, if not ask him to call 9-1-1 for an ambulance, though the look on his face belied any such urgency.

He
knew.
He knew she was attracted to him, and fighting against the feeling every inch of the way. Brylee was mortified, and she didn’t know the answer to his question any more than he did.
Was
she all right?

“I don’t know,” she finally admitted, and then—and this was
really
unlike her—she started to cry.

“Hey,” Zane said, his voice husky. He moved closer then, took her in his arms and held her. He smelled of grass and rivers and sunshine, and his chest was warm and hard against the side of Brylee’s face. A flash of pure wanting slashed through her, sundering bone and muscle, lodging in her very soul. His raspy chuckle echoed to her core and melted something there, something hard and chilly and very, very old. “Whatever it is, it can’t be
that
bad.”

Brylee struggled valiantly to regain her self-control—this wasn’t her, she
must
be possessed, or suffering from multiple personality disorder.

“I didn’t expect to see you here!” she sobbed, probably staining his shirt, as well as her face, with liquefied mascara.

Zane hooked a curved index finger under her chin and lifted gently, so she had to look him in the eyes. That impossibly sexy grin played at the corners of his mouth.

“Obviously,” he said. “I must admit, though, that it’s something of a disappointment, given the way you look in that dress. I’d hate to think of you wearing something that hot for anybody else.”

“Don’t say that!” she commanded, after a few inelegant sniffles.

“Why not?” Zane asked reasonably. Here she was, falling apart at the seams, and he seemed to be
enjoying
her meltdown. Adding fuel to the flames, as a matter of fact.

“Because I’m not some
Hollywood
woman, that’s why!” she burst out.

“That’s for sure,” he said, eyes twinkling even more than before.

Brylee stiffened, indignant. “And what is
that
supposed to mean?”

Zane laughed. “It means
this,
” he said, his voice low and gruff.

And then he kissed her.

Thunder clapped and the earth moved and Brylee went from stunned to stun-
gunned,
in two seconds flat. When she should have pushed Zane away, she slid her arms around his neck instead and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him right back.

When she did those things, Zane held her even closer and kissed her even more deeply.

The gears of Brylee’s private universe ground to a stop, then lurched into sudden motion again, and all the stars in that big Montana sky overhead seemed to coalesce into billions of silvery particles, drifting down all around them, but
only
them, like some kind of baptism of angels.

Just when Brylee thought she might actually
drown
in this man—this impossible, unsuitable, infuriating man—he lifted his mouth from hers and made a hoarse sound low in his throat. If he hadn’t been holding Brylee up, one hand on either side of her waist, she was sure her knees would have buckled.

Zane averted his eyes then, apparently fascinated by the beat-up propane tank on the other side of the lot, and his breathing was fast and shallow.

“Okay,” he said, as though something vital had been decided and there would be no turning back.

Brylee was irritated, not so much because he’d kissed her—
twice
—but because she’d let him do it, even
encouraged
him. He was an
actor,
she reminded herself, with belated and bitter practicality, and she, despite her education and her successful business, was still a country girl at heart. Compared to Zane, she was utterly naive.

The sexy Mr. Sutton was not only out of her league, he was a threat to her emotional well-being. He’d already breached barriers even
Hutch
hadn’t been able to get past, hadn’t he?

Brylee remembered her shoes—discarded in the rough gravel—and jammed a foot into one, then the other. “Okay,
what?
” she demanded.

Incredibly, he smiled. Granted, it was a sad smile, not his usual obnoxious and slightly arrogant grin, but that didn’t make her feel one bit better—or
worse,
for that matter.