Montana Actually (5 page)

“Beau, you’re just in time. We need a man’s opinion.” Ellen Hanson, the bottle-blond wife of the owner of the town’s only car dealership, put her hand on his arm in a predatory fashion as he passed by the booth.

“My opinion,” he said carefully, using his breathing to try to avoid a word block, “m-may not suit you.” He gave a practiced smile. One that gave the impression of him being at ease when in reality he’d rather be kicked hard by a goosey and snorting horse than be ambushed by members of the Bear Paw book club. Or for that matter, any of the women’s groups in town. But today it looked like he was shit out of luck.

“Oh, honey,” Ellen cooed, “a cowboy who’s good with his hands has exactly the opinion we’re after.” Her eyes raked his wrangler-clad legs before her gaze settled slightly too long on his groin. “The book we’re reading has a machine in it and we just can’t quite work out how it works. Come sit and explain it to us.”

It was well known that this particular group of six women in their forties had far too much spare time on their hands, and rumors about their antics kept the Bear Paw gossip mill turning. Beau had no interest in being any woman’s boy toy. Hell, he couldn’t even see himself as someone’s boyfriend. He always refused to be drawn into the speculation by his mates that inevitably took place at the tavern after a few beers.

He caught sight of the book—an erotic novel that had taken the world by storm. He immediately knew exactly what sort of a machine he’d be expected to discuss and his chest tightened.
Breathe in, blow out the words.

“I’d like to . . . explain it, but . . .” He hauled in more air, and as he blew it out, he felt his vocal cords relaxing. “I’m expected back at the ranch.”

He disengaged his arm from Ellen’s manicured nails. “Ladies.” Tipping his hat in acknowledgment of the group, he spun on his heel and strode to the counter, ignoring the sighs of disappointment and the naughty giggles that sounded behind him. As relief slid through him that the encounter was over, he hated that he could feel beads of sweat pooling on the back of his neck. Despite years of having almost total control over his stutter, groups of women always took him back in time to his adolescence and threatened to undo all of his hard work.

A woman with long blond hair that was pulled up on top of her head and held in place with what looked like a bamboo skewer was wiping down the counter in wide, slow swipes. Everything about her body said bone-tired, from the lines around her pretty blue eyes to the weary set of her shoulders.

She paused as he approached, stowing the cloth under the counter and wiping her hands on her apron. “What can I get you?”

“Ah . . .” The stalling sound slipped out as he marshaled his words. “Bonnie McCade ordered . . . a cheesecake.”

Her lips, which reminded him of a pink bow on a gift box, curved into a soft smile. “Are you Beau? Katrina’s brother?”

Cousin.
“Yes, ma’am. I am.”

“I’m Shannon. Shannon Bauer.” She extended her hand in greeting.

“Shannon.” He repeated her name to store it and the sound in his mind as he gave her a quick nod. Being very aware that in the past he’d unintentionally crushed women’s hands with his firm grip, he held hers gently. Only her hand didn’t feel petite and vulnerable in his at all. In fact he was surprised at the juxtaposition of rough and smooth against his own work-calloused palm.

She slid her hand out of his as if he’d held on to it for too long and said briskly, “I took over the diner a few weeks ago, and your sister’s been a lifesaver.”

“That sounds . . .”—he concentrated on speaking slowly—“. . . like Katrina.”

Shannon frowned. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

He shrugged. “It is . . . what it is.”

“All I know is I couldn’t do what I do without her working the breakfast shift,” she said, chatting easily. “I’ve been focusing on making the diner a place for groups to meet so I have customers between the main meal times. Even so”—her lipstick-free lips tilted wryly—“I wasn’t totally prepared for the book club’s first meeting here. I’m impressed you got away without even a scratch.”

Her hands were deftly assembling a white box, and he found himself watching the sure and confident movements as her fingers snapped the tabs into the slots. He suddenly realized that she’d stopped talking and he was staring. He rapidly lifted his gaze only to meet questioning eyes as big and as blue as the skies he rode under out on the range.

The zap of sensation that hit his body jolted him so hard it made him feel like he’d been asleep for years. “Excuse me?”

Her head tilted almost imperceptibly toward the booth of women. “Cougars usually eat their prey. In fact, they pretty much devoured poor Todd Lexington. He’s going to have a tough time tonight explaining to his wife how the fire-engine red lipstick got on his collar.”

His brain snagged on the image of red lipstick on her lips and promptly emptied. He swallowed against a throat tight with unfamiliar need, and only years of keeping his emotions and speech under strict control kept him from licking his lips.

Her expression said she expected a quip from him to extend her joke.

Sweat rolled down his spine. “Right. Todd. Yeah.”

She looked at him blankly like so many people did—as if he were missing any semblance of an IQ because he spoke slowly and deliberately. It got to him and he blurted out, “Kn-knowing T-Todd, he’ll s-survive.”
Fuck.
Twelve years of hard work vanquished in a heartbeat. He wanted to smash something. Throw something. He wanted out of here five minutes ago.

—

SHANNON
was having trouble seeing and breathing at the same time. Beau McCade stood at her counter, the perfect specimen of Montana Man—the one every woman east of the Mississippi expected to see when they vacationed in this fine state. From the dusty tips of his work boots and up along his denim-clad legs, he exuded a no-nonsense strength. His black-and-white rock ’n’ roll western shirt stretched across wide shoulders, and he’d rolled the sleeves up to his elbows, exposing forearms with bulging veins. She gripped the pie box hard to prevent her fingers from reaching out and touching him.

He’s out of your league and out of bounds.
Her track record with men was short but not sweet, and definitely not something she was ready to repeat. For five years, she’d chosen not to involve a man in her and Hunter’s life. Right now, her priority was getting Hunter to stay in school so he could have a shot at graduating rather than repeating his mother’s mistakes. Right now, that plan was looking decidedly shaky.

Beau’s black cowboy hat hid most of his hair, but she glimpsed jet-black strands like Katrina’s. Strands that matched the afternoon stubble on his cheeks. His eyes were dark, too—a deep, rich brown like the roasted Puerto Rican coffee beans she used in the store—and their brown depths were hypnotic. She was acutely aware she’d been talking way too much, but between his delectable darkness and his overly short responses to her questions, she’d gotten flustered. Whenever that happened, she gabbed on far too much.

Why had she even mentioned Todd Lexington? When he’d replied, he sounded like he’d been politely holding back from saying, “It’s none of your goddamn business,” and as a result he’d tripped over his words. Now his previous bland expression was stony, as if she’d crossed an invisible social line only known to the folk born and raised in this town.

“So. The. Cake?”

His slow yet staccato delivery hit her like shotgun pellets—each word stinging like crazy.

“Of course. Sorry.” She slid the golden cheesecake she’d made early this morning into the box, closed the lid and slid it across the counter. “That’s eleven dollars.”

He silently slapped some bills down on the counter, tipped his hat, picked up the box and left the diner.

The book club members sighed as the door closed behind him, and Ellen said, “What do you think, Shannon?”

She picked up her cloth and played dumb. “Of what?”

“Cowboy McCade.”

Dream-worthy.
“It’s hard to know. Our conversation was limited to the price of cheesecake.”

Ellen shot her a pitying look. “Honey, it’s not his conversational skills or lack of that interests us.”

Shannon thought about the dark and fascinating bad boys she’d dated in her twenties. Men who’d been big on sex and small on conversation. “Oh, I don’t know. I like a man who can hold up his end of a discussion.”

The other women laughed as if she were missing something fundamental.

“Wait until rodeo season,” Ellen said. “Once you see Beau McCade in chaps, you’ll want to ride him as much as every other woman in town.”

And going on the way Beau had expertly disengaged himself from those women, she assumed most of them had.

K
atrina stuck her carpenter’s pencil behind her ear before releasing the tape measure. It shot back into its casing, and Boy raised his head at the accompanying thwack. “We’re getting there, buddy. Only two doors left.”

Boy’s tail thumped against the carpet.

She’d been at the cottage since one o’clock, and her aim was to have all the doors fitted, the curls of wood shavings vacuumed, and be long gone before Josh even thought about leaving the clinic or the hospital for the day. That was what a good landlord did; fixed problems while the tenant was out so as not to get in the way of their enjoyment of the property.

Don’t kid yourself. You’re so avoiding him.

And she was. She’d come to Bear Paw to save herself from making yet another disastrous mistake, and she’d been very confident of holding true to that course right up until Josh had flirted with her at the diner. The flutters of delight that had eddied what had been a still pool of desire since Brent’s bombshell really scared her.

Weeks ago she’d vowed to herself she was never getting involved with a doctor again, and the raw and painful memories of Brent and to a lesser degree of Andrew should have been enough to make Josh totally resistible and absolutely undesirable. When she added in his pragmatism at being in Bear Paw for utterly selfish reasons rather than altruistic ones,
that
should have deadened any sexual reaction to him at all.

It didn’t with Brent.

It would have if I’d known.

This time she knew up front, but for some unfathomable reason, she couldn’t squash the attraction. It bothered her a lot.

It had taken her almost eight years, but with the culmination of a series of hard-earned lessons capped off with the disaster that was Brent, she’d finally acknowledged that her body had a radar for being aroused by totally inappropriate men. Men who caused her pain and anguish. Men she allowed to draw her into their world only to find that no matter what she did they decided she didn’t fit. Men she should have avoided from the get-go.

Call her a slow learner, but she was officially done making any more stupid mistakes. This time, she wasn’t giving her body a chance to pump heady, exhilarating and addictive shivers through her that made her tumble into bed first and think second. No, this time she was being mature and sensible, and as a result, she was strategizing. It made perfect sense to her that if she was never alone with Josh then she was safe from doing anything dumb that she’d regret. On top of that plan, and to totally safeguard herself from temptation, she’d buy a whizz-bang vibrator that did double duty. An orgasm was an orgasm, right? Surely regular pleasuring of herself would diminish her reaction to Josh.

Masturbating in your childhood room with only thin walls between you and your family? Yeah, like that’s gonna totally work.

The thought curdled her stomach. How had she let her life come to this? It was so far removed from the hopeful vision she’d had at twenty-two when she’d left Bear Paw that it was unrecognizable. As she vigorously gored a rectangle into the wood of the doorjamb with a chisel to create a space for the hinge, she decided that a crash course in meditation might be her best and only option.

Today, she’d swapped her contacts for her glasses because they doubled as eye protection, and she concentrated on preparing the next door for hanging. She quickly found a sort of peace in the rhythm of moving the block plane back and forth while keeping a close eye on her pencil markings.

When she was growing up, she’d spent a lot of time with her dad in his workshop over the long Montana winters, and he’d taught her all sorts of things to do with wood and tools. She’d treasured the one-on-one time with him, not realizing until much later exactly how much useful stuff she’d learned along the way and how self-sufficient it had made her. Back in Philadelphia, she’d rarely had to call the super for anything.

Setting the plane aside, she sanded down the edges before lifting the door off the sawhorse to check it against the doorway. She was about to place it on the wedges when Boy stirred again. A second later, the sound of the front door being slammed shut by the wind made the house tremble. Footsteps immediately followed.

“Yes! Doors.” Josh’s unmistakably deep voice rolled into the room, filled with delight.

Shit.
Her mouth dried as her heart leaped into her throat and she gripped the door tightly. What was he doing here at this time of day? It was barely three o’clock and by rights he should be at the clinic, knee-deep in patients and dealing with the health care needs of Bear Paw.

“Hello?”

She heard him come closer and hoped he was in one of his aloof moods. A standoffish, superior Josh was much easier to resist than the Josh who had a twinkle in those gunmetal eyes and a dancing dimple in his chin. She told herself sternly none of it mattered because they both had their roles to play. She was the landlord, he was the tenant and she had a door to hang. A door that right now made a handy barrier between them but whose weight was making her arms burn.

She glanced down and saw his fashionable black suede shoes complete with a film of Montana dust appear in her line of vision. She adjusted her hands on the door and sucked in a calm breath so when she spoke she wouldn’t sound breathy. “Hi, Josh.”

“Katrina?” His surprise bounced around the room. “You’re fitting the doors? I thought you’d get a handyman to do it.”

“Why pay someone when I know how,” she said as her now burning arms gave out. She half lowered, half dropped the door onto the wedges. The impact knocked them over and the door followed.

Josh yelped in pain as the wood hit his foot.

“Oh God. Sorry.” She hastily adjusted her grip on the door. She was about to lift it when his hands closed over the top of hers, trapping them in place on the door. Traitorous warmth stole through her, turning her legs to molasses.

Suddenly, the door rose, and with it, she was being turned as Josh directed the play. His hands and his strength forced her to just follow. The next minute the door was leaning against the wall and she was caught between the two.

His hands fell away and her legs firmed up. When she ducked out from behind the door, Josh was rubbing his foot against the back of his calf.

She couldn’t believe she’d inadvertently hurt him again, and she immediately went into fix-it mode. “Take off your shoe and I’ll get you some ice to slow any bruising.”

One brow rose sharply. “And risk you causing me more damage? I don’t think so.”

“The ice will help. You know it will.” His grumpy tone steadied all tingles and shimmers, and she walked to the kitchen and pulled open the freezer. As he’d been in town a week and a half, she’d expected it to be full of food, but the only contents were a can of orange juice concentrate, a loaf of bread and, fortunately, a full ice cube container.

She dumped the contents into a cloth and returned to the living room to find Josh sitting on the sofa wriggling his toes. He gave her an accusing look. “Nothing appears to be broken.”

“That’s good. Here you go.” She sat down next to him and handed over the homemade pack.

He grudgingly accepted it from her and rested it on his foot. “What is it with you and inflicting pain?”

Her shoulders rose and fell. “Just lucky, I guess. In my defense, my plan was to be finished and gone way before you got back from work, but you’re early.”

He gave her a long, penetrating look from those rich, expressive eyes. “Are you saying that my getting hurt is my own fault for taking an afternoon off?”

She grinned. “If you say so.”

He blinked as if he hadn’t expected the answer. Slowly, the tension in his face faded and then he laughed. A full, loud belly laugh that rocked his body and shifted his weight.

One minute there was a safe and healthy distance between them, and then the old sofa cushions caved inward, rolling her sideways. Her shoulders bumped into his arm and then she fell across him. Suddenly, she found herself sprawled half on his lap.

“Sorry,” she spluttered as her body squealed in delight. “This sofa is a disaster.” She tried to move but the sucking cushions pinned her against him—a solid wall of muscle radiating heat. Heat that wove through her, taunting her with delicious quivers that danced and swirled before rushing straight to the apex of her thighs.

His laughter moved his body under hers and the hard muscles rubbed against her breasts. Her nipples hardened so fast they ached as they scraped against her bra, seeking to touch him. Wanting to break free of the confines of the fabric and feel him, skin on skin. Sensations hammered her—his heat, the collision of his woodsy cologne mixing with a hint of the freshness of antiseptic, and the wondrous feel of him. Her mind clouded around the edges.

His hand gently cupped the back of her neck, halting her slide across him, and at the same time it made her look up. Up into his handsome face now creased by laughter. Up into eyes full of comedic joy at the ludicrousness of the situation. He met her gaze and a slow, smoldering burn edged out the laughter, turning his eyes the color of silver.

Her body ignited. She recognized that look—primal attraction. Chemical. Sparked by a rush of endorphins and deliciously addictive. She also knew without a single doubt that her expression matched his.

Her fingers spread, pressing against his chest, feeling his heart thundering against them, full of vitality. Calling to her.
I’ve missed this
. Her resolve never again to trust primal attraction tumbled backward, falling fast and far, far away from every decision she’d made about her life since leaving Philadelphia. Since leaving Brent.

His face was now so close to hers that his breath was caressing her skin. All she needed to do was tilt her chin a couple of degrees and her lips would brush his. She already knew his touch and his scent. Now she craved to know his taste.

One tiny kiss and she’d know.

Are you completely self-destructive? Stop it.
Go
now!

The protective scream in her head penetrated the fog that had encased her mind. She moved abruptly, wriggling against him and trying to stand.

“Shit! You’re stabbing me with a screwdriver.” Josh’s hands gripped her and suddenly she was up and on her feet.

Her body wept. Flustered, she stammered out, “I’ll get out of your way before I cause any more damage. There are only two doors left to hang and they’re all trimmed and ready. You fit them and I’ll come by tomorrow when you’re at work to pick up my gear.”

“I don’t fit doors,” he said, his voice sounding both curt and strangled all at the same time.

The relaxed, sexy and laughing man whose desire-filled eyes mere moments ago had beamed “I want you as much as you want me” had vanished. In his place was the tense and detached doctor who was used to ordering staff around.

Irritation at his terse tone prickled along her skin, colliding with her own frustrations at her inability to control her loose libido. She crossed her arms over her aching breasts, which were sobbing at the loss of all that delicious contact with him.

“A bit of manual labor above you, Josh?”

His shoulders squared and he looked affronted. “No. But I’m certain that’s what you want to think.”

His words jabbed at her. Oh God, he was right. She didn’t know what was worse—the fact that he was so accurately insightful or how small it made her feel. She was deliberately picking a fight with him so she could call him arrogant. It was so much safer to feel a heap of righteous indignation about him instead of the jitters that too easily tipped into overwhelming attraction.

An attraction that was so very hard to fight.

He tilted his head as if he’d recognized her acknowledgment that his assessment was correct. “You’re not in my way, and where I come from if you start a job, you finish it. Plus”—he swung his leg up onto the coffee table—“I can’t possibly do it because I have a bruised foot.”

He didn’t add “which is your fault,” but it was clearly implied. A double dose of guilt slugged her. “Fine, I’ll hang the last two doors.”

The tension left his face. “Great.”

As she prepared to fit the door, she could feel his eyes on her. Another flash of heat burst through her, flaming her face and drenching her hands. The screws in her palm slipped to the floor, rolling everywhere. “Crap.”

“I wouldn’t have picked you for being a klutz, but things are adding up. First the paint, then the door and now this.”

I’m only clumsy around you.
She ground her teeth.
“Perhaps if you didn’t watch my every move as if you were expecting me to mess up any moment.”

His expression was all innocence and he opened his hands outward as if he were being wrongly accused. “Hey, I’m just sitting here icing my foot like you told me.”

She mumbled, “Yeah, right,” and collected the screws before starting over. As she turned on the drill, she saw him flinch. Desperate to move the conversation away from her lust-induced lack of coordination she asked, “Does the sound give you goose bumps?”

“I did time in orthopedics.”

She recalled her time in the OR. “I was totally fascinated the first time I saw an orthopedic surgical set up.” She laughed. “It looked just like my father’s workshop with its mallet, screws, saws and bone chisels.” She drilled in the next screw. “Did you decide orthopedics wasn’t for you?”