Welcome to Paradise (2 page)

His grin faded. He piled a stack of crisply fried fish on a tin plate and handed it to her. “My turn to guess,” he drawled. “You live in a city. This place looks pretty primitive to you. You're disappointed. You're thinking, what can I do with it? That's where I come in. I'll take it off your hands. Give you a fair price for it.”

“But don't make any hasty decisions,” he said. “Take your time and sleep on it.” He paused. “Where are you sleeping, by the way?” He leaned back against a sturdy pine tree and studied her. With her smooth skin and fine features she didn't look like the type who'd sleep on the ground. She looked like the type who'd sleep in a big, soft four-poster bed with a bunch of little bitty pillows. Wearing a little short silky thing cut low that revealed the curve of her lush breasts and her long legs.

His gaze dropped to the cotton-knit shirt that hugged her breasts and the soft jeans that caressed her hips and suddenly he was short of breath. His own jeans were uncomfortably tight. Maybe he should have waited with his offer. But he was not only out of breath, he was almost out of time.

“I'm here to claim my property,” she said, hoping he couldn't see the crimson flush on her cheeks in the gathering twilight. How could he know about her broken heart, her recent divorce? Was he clairvoyant?

More likely he was just an ordinary cowboy. From the look of the muscles straining against the faded denim of his shirt, he spent his days roping steers and branding bulls. Why would he want to buy an old hot-springs resort? Just so he could have a steamy soak at night in peace? The memory of him rising out of the hot steam, his raw masculinity so blatantly displayed, sucked the air right out of her lungs. And still she wondered. A sexy, good-looking guy appears in her tub, plies her with homemade beer, carries her suitcase, cooks dinner and then offers to buy her property. Why?

“I know what you mean. You think I'm too good to be true,” he said in a smug tone that made her clench her teeth. He leaned back against a tree stump and shoveled a chunk of fish into his mouth. “But this is just Western hospitality. It's the custom. Tradition.”

The firelight cast shadows on his angular face. Custom, tradition, hospitality? In her experience men, whether architects or cowboys, usually had ulterior motives for their hospitality.

“What would you do with the place if I sold it to you?” she asked casually, tilting her head to one side.

“What are you going to do with it?” he countered.

“I don't know,” she lied. She'd be damned if she'd have some arrogant cowboy laughing at her plans.

“Neither do I.” He dumped a handful of ground coffee into the boiling pot of water and Chloe's mouth fell open in surprise.

“What's that?”

“What does it look like?”

“You can't make coffee like that,” she said wrinkling her nose in disgust.

“I just did.”

“It'll be awful.”

“Wanna bet?”

She stiffened her spine against the rock. “I don't bet.”

“Don't drink, don't bet. What do you do?”

“None of your business.”

“If it's any consolation,” he said, “I'm not going to turn the place into a casino.” He threw that in to reassure her. Not that it was any of her business what he did with the land.

She didn't answer. She was looking at the fire so intently she might have been a million miles away.

Zeb was running out of patience with this woman. If he didn't need the land so badly he'd douse the fire and cut out right now. He was an impatient man. He was sick of waiting. Sick of struggling, of trying to raise champion cattle without a champion bull. So he took chances. So what? So he sometimes bet on things that didn't pay off. This one would. It had to.

He set his cup on a rock, then stood and walked around the fire. Glancing down at Chloe, he planned to say good-night and leave. But he saw her hair had dried into a mass of curls, turned red-gold in the firelight. Her chin was propped on her knees as she stared into the flames, dreamy-eyed.

He had dreams, too. And he wasn't going to let some slick, well-endowed city gal put the kibosh on them. His palm itched to reach down and slide his hand through her hair, wind his fingers through those unruly silky curls. Yank her up by the arms. Make her look him in the eye and admit she had no business here. Then kiss those ripe, red lips until his lust was satisfied and he could put her out of his mind.

Was there ever a woman less suited to outdoor life than this one? Of course, there weren't many who were, which was why he didn't mix ranching with women. When he wanted the company of women instead of cows, he went to town. But it was too late to go to town tonight and he had work to do.

He held his hand out in front of her. “Good night,” he said.

Without thinking, Chloe took his hand and let him pull her up to face him. Dusk had settled over the old dilapidated buildings and his angular face was in shadows. The only sound was the hiss of the last of the dry birch wood. His eyes were dangerous pools of darkness—the kind a woman could drown in and never be heard from again. An owl hooted in the distance and she gave an involuntary shiver.

“Are there many...uh, animals around here?” she asked.

“Not many,” he said. “Just a few bobcats, mountain lions, coyotes....” He braced his hands under her elbows. “You're not afraid, are you?”

“Of course not. I just wondered...what to expect.” Her voice shook just slightly as his hands moved up her arms to cup her shoulders, sending tremors up and down her spine.

“Expect the unexpected,” he warned. Then he leaned forward and took her mouth with the fierceness of the wild animals she feared. Wood smoke and the heady masculine scent of Zeb Bowie swirled around her. She could have pushed him away. She could have turned and run. Instead, she grabbed a fistful of his cotton shirt and held on for dear life.

He parted her lips with his tongue and she let him in. Met him half way in a duel no one could win— or lose. She wasn't thinking. She was sinking into a whirlpool of passion. For the first time in months, she let all rational thought go—and good riddance.

For the first time in months, years, she felt the heat of passion surging through her veins. The pounding of her heart matched his. He made her feel sexy, desirable, lightheaded, lighthearted—and scared. Scared to death of making another disastrous mistake.

She pulled back, breathing hard and pressed her hand against his chest to steady herself. Then she jerked her hand away as if she'd been burned. What was wrong with her, letting some stranger trip all the emotional switches she'd carefully turned off? Hadn't she learned anything in this horrible past year?

“What was that?” she demanded, pressing her palms together. “Another example of Western hospitality?”

His teeth flashed white like a wolf’s in the semi-darkness. He was laughing at her. Thinking she was a greenhorn who'd fall for the first real honest-to-God cowboy who happened along. He didn't know she would never fall for anyone again. Never be taken for a ride again. And never be used.

For a long moment he held her mesmerized with the strength of his gaze. Then he grabbed a bucket, poured water on the fire and fastened his knife to his belt. “You'll be all right?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said. She had to bite her lip to keep from screaming,
Help. Don't leave. I'm scared of the dark, the wild animals and being alone
.

“Got your sleeping bag, gas lantern, food in that suitcase of yours?”

Yeah, and a laptop computer and a portable TV. She wrapped her arms across her waist as if to ward off the dangers of the night. “Don't worry about me,” she said, certain he was the type who only worried about himself. “I'll be fine.”

“Good enough,” he said, clamping his wide-brimmed hat on his head. “See ya.”

She watched him amble off through the trees, whistling to himself as if he didn't have a care in the world. He didn't know or really care that she had none of the things he'd mentioned. Except food. She had packets of freeze-dried food, but she'd thought... she'd expected...

She had not expected a naked cowboy with shoulders from here to there. She had not expected him to feed her or give her a kiss that left her shaken and throbbing with unfulfilled desire.

She staggered back to the bathhouse on rubbery legs, opened her suitcase by the light of a tiny flashlight she carried in her purse, and dragged out a sweater and jeans. She layered them over her shorts and shirt, then considered her options. Every bone ached, every muscle screamed out for a soft bed. But there was no soft bed. There was only a hard bathtub.

After draining and drying the tub, Chloe padded the tub with more clothes from her suitcase, then took a deep breath and climbed in it for the second time that day. With her head resting against the cold, hard porcelain, she stared up at the star-studded sky through the gaps in the roof.

If she could get some sleep then tomorrow she would be prepared for Zebulon Bowie. She would not let him interrupt her, destroy her equilibrium, or make her feel inadequate. Or kiss her. She sat up straight in her makeshift bed and stared into the darkness. What if she was prepared, but he didn't show up? What if she never saw him again? For some reason the thought scared her more than the coyotes and mountain lions put together.

The telephone rang at seven the next morning, jarring Zeb out of a dream. A dream in which he and the beautiful hot-springs heiress threw their clothes to the four winds and raced each other to the bathhouse to make passionate love in the hot tub. But when the phone rang, Zeb realized it was just a dream. He groaned into his pillow and cursed the person on the other end of the line.

His whole body went rigid at the memory of Chloe's luscious body floating naked in the tub. That was not a dream. It was real. She was real—maddeningly real. He reached for the phone.

Zeb tossed the blanket off the bed and sat up straight. “What about breeding?”

“Raring to go, they say.”

“How much?”

“Negotiable.”

“Then negotiate,” Zeb ordered.

“I thought we didn't have any money.”

“We'll get it.”

“Any word from the woman?” his brother asked.

“As a matter of fact,” Zeb ran one hand through his hair until it stood straight up “she stumbled on to the property yesterday in her high-heeled suede boots, silk shirt and a camera around her neck.”

“What'd she say?” Sam asked.

“She ordered me out of her bathtub.”

“Not an auspicious beginning,” his brother noted. “Did she agree to sell?”

“Not yet But after a night on the ground without a sleeping bag I reckon she'll be ready to sign over the deed today.”

“You let her sleep on the ground?” Sam asked.

A twinge of conscience hit Zeb between the ribs. Was he going to let his little brother lecture him on how to treat a woman?

“What was I supposed to do, invite her to use the spare room? Give her Granny's nightgown and kiss her good-night? You want a stranger to make money off Horatio's property instead of us?” he demanded.

“Hell, no. You think I like worrying about foreclosure? But...”

“But nothing. We've got to convince her to sell. Now. Today. Before she finds out.”

“Okay, okay. What's she look like?”

“I didn't notice,” he lied. Didn't notice her eyes were like brown velvet, her hair a ribbon of shiny copper. “All I know is that she looks like she doesn't belong here. Like a hothouse flower in an onion patch. Anyway I'm heading down there right now to make her an offer. After she's seen the place in broad daylight the answer has gotta be yes.”

“Is it fair that our herd got hit with the anthrax epidemic and we lost our prize bull? Is it fair that the price of hay went up and the price of cattle went down? Life's not fair, Sam.”

“I know that. You know that. But does she know that? What if she quit her job to come out here? What if she has cash-flow problems as big as ours?”

“Nobody's got problems like ours. Anyway, I'm offering her a decent price for the property. She goes home with money in her pocket, and you and I make a bundle on the resale. We buy that bull and we're back in business.”

“I've been thinking about the woman.”

“You've been thinking about her? Don't. Think about cattle. That's what I do.”

Except in the early hours of morning. Then the face that invaded his dreams was not that of a fifteen-hundred-pound bovine. It was her face.