Chapter 21

“I am not.” She bristled on reflex, then scowled. Nothing but the truth. “I’m afraid of what’s in this dark. Prairie girls aren’t used to having to worry about large predators.” She waited for him to laugh at her. “Aren’t you going to tell me I’m being silly?”

“No. Your fears are perfectly valid.”

Oh great. “Thanks. You’ve made me feel ever so much safer,” she drawled.

“Better nervous than cougar bait.”

Now he was just being cruel. She glared at him, but he ignored her. “I guessed that one, so you owe me another secret.”

“Fine.” She huffed out a breath. “I can’t open canned biscuits.”

His face screwed up in distaste. “Why would you want to?”

“Because not all of us are Miz Iris.” She rolled her eyes at his uppity attitude, then sighed. “It’s the way they explode. Scares the hell out me even though I know it’s coming. I spook easily. Loud noises. Sudden movements…as you probably noticed.” She pointed her pen at him. “For future reference, you should stop sneaking up on me so I don’t push you off another cliff.”

“You didn’t push me. I fell.”

“You wouldn’t have fallen if I hadn’t pushed you.”

“I took a bad step.”

She made an exasperated noise. “Oh, for crying out loud. You can’t even let me have credit for this mess?”

His eyebrows shot up. “Most people would say blame.”

“Most people aren’t dealing with you,” she muttered into her kneecaps.

“I heard that.”

“Good.” The hell with it. She’d clean up her attitude tomorrow. Or today, but after she had made it back to civilization without any tooth or claw marks in her hide. “Next question. Describe a defining moment in your life.”

“That’s not a question. It’s a prompt.”

She gritted her teeth and counted to ten. Forward. Then backward. “I can’t imagine how you ended up divorced.”

His expression didn’t change, but behind his eyes, he shut down. Bang! Like a shutter slamming in her face. Shit. Once again, she’d gone that step too far. Drawn blood in what had been a friendly sparring match. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.” She closed her notebook. “That’s enough—”

“No.” He made an abrupt bring it on gesture. Stopping now would be admitting she’d won—and even though she’d started it, she wasn’t even sure what game they were playing.

Why was he being so open? What advantage did he hope to gain?

“What was the question again?” he asked.

“The, um, prompt was ‘Describe a defining moment.’”

“My grandfather’s funeral.”

Again, he’d caught her by surprise. She’d expected the first time I worked the National Finals or when I was named Bullfighter of the Year. “You were close?”

“I admired him.” He shifted, rolling his shoulders as if the subject had caused the muscles to tighten.

She stayed quiet, waiting for the silent but…

He crossed his arms over his chest, tucking his hands in his armpits. Pure defensive posture. “I was seventeen when he died. That day…I looked around, and I realized that out of all the hundreds of people who’d shown up to pay their respects, there wasn’t a single soul who’d wake up every morning and feel empty because he was gone.”

Melanie thought of the pastor of her church—warm, serene, content—and shook her head. “I don’t understand. How can they be clergymen and still be so…”

“Religion and ambition aren’t mutually exclusive.”

She frowned, troubled. “Is it like that in all the big churches?”

“No. It’s not even like that everywhere in our church. But my family…” He shrugged again. “For a while, I thought I could fight the good fight from the inside. Open their eyes and show them the way.” His voice was ripe with self-disgust. “I was wrong.”

Then he shifted again, and in a blink he was once more the lazy beach bum. “What’s yours?”

“I, um…” Wow. After that, she felt frivolous even saying it. “Winning the college championship. Not just for myself,” she rushed to add. “The individual title was a huge thrill, but I also had to come through for the team. I was the last to go, the only chance we had to outscore Tarleton State…and I delivered. It’s the only national team championship our school has ever won.”

“That’s something to be proud of,” Wyatt said quietly. And without a hint of sarcasm.

She could learn from him. The longer they went on, the more she understood just how much she had to learn about Wyatt Darrington. She crimped the edge of the notebook paper between her fingers. “What’s one thing you would change about yourself?”

“This.” He made a circular motion around his head. “Once in a while, I’d like to be able to just take life one moment at a time.”

“Have you tried meditation?” she asked, only half joking.

“What do you think?”

That she’d always considered his mental aerobics a choice, not an affliction. Another point to seriously ponder.

“What would you change?” he asked.

“My temper.”

He laughed.

She scowled. “I’m serious. Do you have any idea how much trouble it gets me into?”

He raised his eyebrows again.

She sighed. “Yeah. I guess you had a front-row seat for this last round.”

“Do you wish you hadn’t done it?”

A debate that had been raging inside her skull for a week. “No,” she admitted. “I just wish I could’ve gotten away with it.”

“Maybe next time.”

She huffed out a laugh. “I’d rather not have a next time.”

His silence was answer enough.

“Okay. That’s a little unrealistic. How ’bout I shoot for Next time I won’t ruin my life?”

“You think it’s ruined?”

She paused, then hitched a shoulder. “I didn’t do myself any favors.”

“Don’t be so sure,” he said cryptically.

She considered asking him to elaborate, but they were supposed to be slicing and dicing him. She went back to the notebook and the question she’d been working up to. The man couldn’t be a bullfighter forever, but unlike most used-up cowboys, Wyatt had an almost infinite number of options. “Where would you like to see yourself on your fiftieth birthday?”

He took a minute to think before saying, “Involved. Not just the guy who writes the checks. A real part of…something.”

A feat he hadn’t quite been able to accomplish here or on the rodeo circuit. The sport was a tightly knit fraternity, nowhere more so than in the elite ranks, but despite his success, Wyatt was…separate. One almost unnoticeable step outside the circle, with the exception of his friendship with Joe.

Was that what he wanted to build at the Bull Dancer? A community? Not an unreasonable expectation. Cafés, bars, coffeehouses…they all had a way of bringing people together and forming connections. But how would she go about making that happen?

“What about you?” he asked.

She answered without thinking, her mind whirling with possibilities. “The same, I guess.”

“You already have that back in Earnest.”

“So do you.”

He leaned forward to toss a twig into the fire, a neat little move that put his face in shadow. “I just drop by once in a while. It’s your life.”

Once again, he was setting himself apart. Or was it possible that, despite the depth and breadth of Wyatt and Joe’s friendship, he truly believed he had become expendable the moment his best friend said I do?

Surely a man this smart couldn’t be that stupid?

“You know, once she lays claim to you, it’s not that easy to escape Miz Iris’s clutches,” she said.

“That would depend on the circumstances.”

She sensed something, a shadow moving under the surface of his inscrutable gaze, but before she could make out its shape, he turned those laser-blue eyes on her. “What about your career?”

She made a face. “If I do snag an agency job, I guess I’d want to be a partner by then.”

“That doesn’t sound very enthusiastic.”

She started to shake her head, then realized Wyatt was the one person who not only wouldn’t mock, but also would appreciate what had driven her career path. “I want to make a difference,” she blurted.

“Like you did at Westwind? You went there because you believed in their products.” It was a statement of a truth he’d already observed, and once again, she was uncomfortably aware that, unlike Michael, Wyatt did know her. On a level that made her want to squirm.

“I don’t sell anything unless I believe in it.” She snuck a quick glance. Wyatt was gazing straight up at the stars as if they held his complete interest. “In an agency, it’s all about landing the big fish, bringing in the bucks.”

“What’s the alternative?”

“I’m still working that out.” She shook off the gloom of uncertainty. “Last question, and it’s an easy one. What person do you admire most?”

“Someone I know personally?”

Geezus, he was almost as anal as Cole Jacobs. “Know of. Dead or alive,” she clarified, before he could ask.

He paused, and then he said, “Pass.”

“Pass?” She stared at him in amazement. “This one is a gimme for a guy who memorizes freaking history books.”

He slanted her an unreadable look. “You said you wanted my first, honest reaction.”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Then I have to pass…or you have to agree to accept my answer without explanation.”

Damn. She didn’t like either option. She paused, debated, then nodded. “No explanation required.”

“Okay.” He still hesitated for a few breaths before saying, “Grace. And you.”

She dropped her notebook. It bounced off her shin, landed edge first on one of the fire-ring stones, and toppled into the fire. She made an instinctive grab for it.

Wyatt jackknifed forward. “Don’t. You’ll get burned.”

Too late. The fire popped, and a glowing ember shot up to glance off her palm. She jerked her hand back. Wyatt snatched her wrist and turned her palm up, bending low to examine the tiny black smudge.

“It’s fine.” There was barely a sting from the hot coal…but the sparks from the gentle brush of his fingers radiated up her arm. The breath that was supposed to steady her was more like a snort of cocaine, his mind-bending scent slamming straight into her heart and sending it racing. The nape of his neck was right under her nose. His hair was trimmed to ruthless perfection, but this close she could see that it curled at the ends, as if rebelling.

The thought made her want to laugh. Or maybe it was the contact high of having Wyatt practically in her lap that was making her giddy. She lifted her other hand, but instead of pushing him away like she was pretty sure she’d intended, her fingertip brushed a golden curl that nestled in the hollow at the base of his skull.

He went utterly still. Her lungs seized up, and neither of them breathed as they remained frozen, his hands cradling hers, her fingers resting on warm, surprisingly soft skin. Slowly, his head came up, and they were eye to eye. And close. So, so close…

The mesmerizing blue of his gaze pulled at her, as powerful as an undercurrent on a hot summer beach. She let it drag her in, closing her eyes as her mouth touched his. The instant their lips touched, he made a low, feral sound deep in his throat, hungrier than anything that might lurk in the night. With a swiftness and power that startled a squeak out of her, he scooped her up, turned, and deposited her safely away from the fire without breaking the kiss. And then he was stretched out over her, his hard weight once again pressing her into the earth, but this time neither of them was pretending they didn’t notice exactly how well all of their parts fit together.

Her fingers dug into his neck, urging him even deeper as their tongues sparred. Her other hand slid under the hem of his sweatshirt, only to be frustrated by the T-shirt he’d tucked into his jeans. She flattened her palm and molded the soft cotton over muscle that flexed beneath her touch as his hips rocked into her. He buried his fingers in her hair, tilting her head to a new, better angle.

Her body arched, begging for his touch. Dear God. She was going to explode if he didn’t—

He tore his mouth free and shot to his feet, cursing when his weight landed on his sore ankle. Snatching up his handmade crutch, he tucked it under his arm and hobbled to the creek as she blinked after him, too stunned to react. Then she closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing until her lungs took up a reasonable rhythm. The rest of her body took a lot longer to recover. Finally, though, the chill worked its way through the haze of arousal.

She shoved herself into a seated position to find nothing but embers in the fire ring. Like their kiss, the flames had burned hot and fast, then quickly died down. There was probably a metaphor in that—something about banked fires, or being careful what you struck a match to. Her brain was too fried to be either witty or wise. Her notebook was still smoldering, half burned. She used a stick to poke it into the center of the fire and watched the pages curl and blacken in the resulting flames.

Her head spun with a whole new list of questions, but the rigid set of Wyatt’s shoulders as he sat on his boulder beside the creek didn’t invite conversation. She chose not to push it. They had hours of darkness yet to go, followed by more hours of what promised to be tough hiking. Better to retreat to their respective corners for now.

At least until she no longer had the taste of him in her mouth—and the nearly irresistible urge to take another bite.