Welcome to Paradise (10 page)

“That's too bad,” Zeb said, watching his brother adjust the height of the grill. “Fighting with siblings helps you get along in the real world.”

“Yes, I can see what I've missed out on,” she said with a touch of sarcasm.

“Maybe we could adopt her,” Sam suggested. “Isn't she just the kind of little sister you've always wanted?” He put one arm around Chloe, leaving dark smudge marks on her shirt.

“Great That's all we need is another mouth to feed. You adopt her, I'm going out in front to set up tables.” And Zeb stomped through the kitchen and out into the bar.

“Don't mind him,” Sam said going back to the grill. “He's not a bad guy really. I wouldn't tell him this, but he's actually protected me on more than one occasion. We've been in some tough spots together. On the ranch. In town. He yells and shouts, but underneath he's calm. Never really loses his cool. Right now he's a tad worried. Got a lot on his mind.”

“One hundred steaks doesn't seem like that much to worry about,” Chloe said.

“Other things too,” Sam said. “Like money.”

“Money? He offered to buy my property from me. He must have money.”

“Oh, right. He'd, I mean we'd borrow the money from the bank.”

“But why do you want the property?” Finally a chance to get a straight answer. Zeb's brother might be more forthcoming than he was. But then anybody might be more forthcoming than Zeb Bowie.

“Why?” Sam frowned. “Well, that's obvious, isn't it?”

“No, it isn't I don't get it A run-down hot-springs resort?”

“Why do you want it?” Sam asked.

“Because, because...it's complicated. Because it belonged to my great-grandfather, it's a part of my past. And because it's going to be my future.”

“Your future?” he asked. “Your future what?”

“You won't laugh?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“He didn't tell you?”

“No.”

“I'm going to turn it into a health spa.” Chloe held her breath. If anyone else laughed at her idea she didn't think she could take it. It was hard enough keeping the faith when she looked around at that old swimming pool and the decrepit cabins, but to have another Bowie brother laugh at her dream would be the last straw.

He didn't laugh. He just nodded. “That's an interesting idea,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said with a sigh of relief. Before he could ask any questions like, 'How are you going to do that?' she went back to the kitchen to check on the potatoes.

Where she ran into Zeb. Literally ran into him, and had the breath knocked out of her. She bounced off his broad chest and washboard stomach, staggered backwards and leaned against the counter, breathing hard, studying the rugged man who never lost his cool, and had a lot on his mind.

The kitchen was hot. The potatoes were roasting. Chloe couldn't have been any warmer if she'd been roasting right along with them. Not only that but there was no air in there. No air for her to breathe. Her breasts were so full, so heavy with desire. Where did this come from, this sudden flood of sexual desire in the middle of a small kitchen?

It wasn't the oven heating her up. It was his steady gaze and the touch of his work-roughened hands that made her cheeks flame and her body throb with longing. Wasn't it obvious, he wanted to know. Yes, it was obvious he was there to drive her crazy with unfulfilled desire. Not that it could ever be fulfilled. Not with a playboy like him.

She stepped back. “No problem. Everything's washable,” she said a trifle unsteadily. “The shirt...me.”

“I'll help you wash up,” he said with a gleam in his eye. “The shirt...you.”

Help her wash up? She could just imagine his wet, soapy hands cupping her heavy breasts, then moving to her sensitive nipples. She stifled a moan in the back of her throat. They were in the commercial kitchen of the town bar and she was fantasizing about making love to a notorious ladies' man. What had happened to the crisp, efficient nurse who had everything, including herself, under control?

“That...that won't be necessary,” she said straightening her shoulders, and rubbing her hands on her jeans. “Well, everything's under control here,” she lied, trying to stop her hands from shaking and her knees from wobbling. “What else can we do?”

“I can think of a lot of things,” he said, a devilish, sexy grin creasing his face. “But they'll have to wait till after dinner.”

After she and Barney had served one-hundred-plus sizzling steaks, each flanked by a fluffy baked potato and a crisp salad, Chloe sank into a chair in the corner of the crowded bar to listen to the three-piece blues band Barney had hired. Which was a mistake. The plaintive lyrics of “Blues, Leave Me Alone” went straight to her heart, reminding her that love doesn't last. The moody bass guitar reverberated through her, making her remember how it felt to be lost and alone and betrayed. She was too tired to eat, too tired to think. All she could do was feel. And what she felt was sad and blue. Just as well she couldn't think, because if she could, she might think about Zeb Bowie and the promise of seduction in his brilliant blue eyes.

If he came on to her now, when she was so tired, so defenseless, filled not with food, but with longing for something she couldn't have, she didn't know how she'd resist. On top of everything else, there was the music. Sad songs full of melancholy, of tears and parting. Enough to break down the defenses of a tower of strength—which she certainly was not

She reminded herself that Zeb wasn't going to come on to her. There were plenty of attractive women in the bar at this moment she noted and some of them were probably his girlfriends, past present or future.

What if she slipped out now, got into her car and headed for home? No one would miss her. Or would they? It was clear Barney and the Bowies were overwhelmed by their success. So overwhelmed they didn't have enough help either to serve the dinner or clean up afterward. They might be counting on her. They certainly needed her.

She started to stand, then felt a large, firm hand on her shoulder, pushing her back down in her chair. Zeb eased himself into the chair next to hers.

“Enjoying the music?” he said under his breath so as not to disturb the trio. He was so close she could feel his warm breath against her ear. His shoulder was pressed against hers. Her bones seemed to have turned to jelly. She might not be able to get up and go anywhere. Any time.

“I'll walk you to your car,” he said as he guided her out the front door, still holding her hand tightly. “You know,” he said as they walked down the quiet street past stores long since shut down for the night, “we could pick you up at the Paradise Springs entrance where you park your car and give you a ride to your property line. Save you a long walk in.”

“No thanks,” she said, picturing sharing the front seat with his date for the evening. “I'll enjoy a little hike this time of night.” A hike in the dark, where roots and branches reached out to snare her ankle or hit her on the head. Where wild bears hid behind trees just waiting to pounce on her. Sure she would. But all that was better than blues before sunrise. “You're not going home alone, are you?” she asked pointedly.

She turned the key in the ignition. She didn't want to prolong this goodbye, didn't want him elaborating on his previous suggestion—that he could think of a lot of things they could do. So could she. She had to get out of there before he said something, did something and she found herself saying something or doing something she'd be sorry for later.

She pulled away in her car while he was still talking. When she glanced in her rearview mirror, she saw him standing in the middle of Main Street with his arms across his chest watching her leave town. Maybe no one had ever left him in the middle of a sentence like that If not, it was about time somebody did.

“What did she say when you asked her?” Sam asked as they drove down the highway on their way home.

“Said she'd enjoy a hike. Said if her grandpa could walk that trail, then so could she.”

“Got a lot of spunk,” Sam remarked.

“Yeah. Like her grandpa,” Zeb said.

“Anything going on between you two?” Sam asked.

“Absolutely not. Wouldn't be right,” Zeb said.

“Wouldn't be fair,” Sam added. “So you wouldn't mind if I...?”

“Try it and I'll break your face in half.”

“That's what I thought,” Sam said with a knowing smirk.

“Let me off at the Paradise Springs entrance,” Zeb said.

Sam gave him an inquisitive look, but he didn't say anything. Good thing he didn't ask any questions, because Zeb didn't have any answers. He just knew he had to catch up with Chloe. There was unfinished business between them. For one thing, he hadn't thanked her properly for all the work she'd done that night.

All the while she'd been frantically busy barbecuing steaks, he couldn't shake the image of her in the kitchen, her heat-flushed face, her luminous eyes, the way she held her breath when he caressed her breasts, the way they seemed to swell to fit his hands. Just thinking about her now made him go rigid with need.

“Can't you drive any faster?” he demanded through clenched teeth.

“I'm going sixty-five,” Sam said mildly with a quick glance at his brother. “How're you gonna catch her anyway? She's miles ahead of us. Probably halfway home by now.”

“Let me worry about that,” Zeb said.

Ten minutes later Sam let Zeb out at the trailhead. He glanced over his shoulder to watch the lights of the truck disappear in the darkness. And instantly regretted this stupid, ill-conceived plan. He didn't even have a flashlight. He was a fool. He'd been even more of a fool to think he could put Chloe out of his mind by staying away from Paradise Springs these past few days. He ran into her in the diner and bang, she wove her spell around him just like she had the first day she arrived.

That's what it was, it was a magic spell. Because no ordinary woman had this kind of power over him. Not even Joanne. He didn't like it. Not one bit. He was going to exorcise that spell tonight, or he'd turn in his membership card to the Bowie Brothers Wild Man Club. The Bowie Brothers never let a woman have the last word. Never let them have the upper hand.

So what was he doing, pursuing a woman down a dark, overgrown trail in the middle of the night, he asked himself as he recklessly splashed through a small stream. Usually they pursued him. But where the hell was she?

“Chloe,” he shouted. “Chloe, stop. Wait for me.”

No answer. The forest was still except for the hooting of an owl, the occasional sound of a deer or a raccoon crashing through the brush. Or could it be a woman crashing through the brush, a woman who didn't want to see him or talk to him? She was so damned stubborn. Who knew what she wanted or why she wanted it? Sometimes she seemed responsive to his advances, other times she brushed him off like an annoying deer tick.

“Chloe,” he yelled. “Where are you?”

He thought he heard a voice. He plunged forward, the branches tearing at his clothes. His eyes were finally accustomed to the dark, but in his haste he still stumbled and tripped on fallen limbs and unexpected rocks.

It was a voice. It was her voice. Very small and far away. But it kept him going. Until he found her sitting on a boulder on the side of the trail, calmly watching him frantically climb up to join her. As if she knew he'd come. As if this was some midsummer picnic instead of a late-night chase through the darkness.

Instead of throwing her arms around him and heaving a sigh of relief at being rescued, she surveyed him coolly. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I was worried about you. I told you I wanted to walk you home.”

She hopped off the boulder and continued the upward climb to the springs. “You also told me you wouldn't be going home alone, that your plans were up in the air. I certainly wouldn't want to cramp your style.”

“Oh, right,” she said. “If anyone's jealous, it's you. You're jealous of my land, aren't you? Of my ability to adapt to the Wild West.” She turned on the heel of her new waterproof boot and continued marching up the trail, the beam from her flashlight illuminating the trail ahead of her.

He saved his answer until they reached the tumbledown resort, inhaled the faint scent of minerals in the air, saw the ever-present plume of steam outlined against the dark sky.