Natural Born Trouble (19 page)

“Sure.”

He led the way to a vendor selling hot dogs and soft drinks. Dani slathered her hot dog with mustard, relish and was debating over the onions when he caught her eye. She swallowed hard, then left the onions untouched. He figured it was tantamount to an admission that she knew before the day ended they would share at least one kiss, probably more.

They finished their meal and were about to go back inside, when Duke caught a glimpse of the dab of mustard at the corner of her mouth. All of the desire that had rocketed through him that morning when she'd been eating that doughnut came back now with twice the intensity.

“Wait,” he said softly and reached for a napkin. Alarm flared in her eyes as he tilted her chin up. His thumb skimmed her lower lip, even as he gently wiped away the mustard with the napkin.

“Thanks.” It came out as a breathless whisper.

“No problem,” he said, though it was a lie. There was a very definite problem. He suddenly wanted nothing more than to drag her off somewhere and tumble her into a haystack or a bed or any other place that would be soft and accommodating.

As if the gods had heard his prayers, a flash of lightning split the sky, followed by a clap of thunder. The skies opened up and rain came down, first in huge, individual drops, then in solid gray sheets.
Duke grabbed Dani's hand, and they made a dash back inside.

Fortunately, they'd been quick enough to avoid being soaked to the skin. Duke glanced over her. “You okay? We could leave if you're too wet. There's no point in catching pneumonia.”

“Nice try, but I am not leaving without my horse,” she said stubbornly.

Quite a few of the other serious bidders caught a glimpse of the storm and decided to flee before it got any worse. When the pinto's number was called, the hall was half-empty. Dani had only one competitor for the horse, and he was bidding with lackluster enthusiasm. He dropped out after only four rounds.

Eyes shining, Dani turned to Duke. “I stole him. I virtually stole him.”

“I just hope the payback for your thievery isn't a broken neck,” Duke retorted.

“A lot you know,” she countered. “That horse is going to be the best investment I ever made.”

“Obviously, you've never heard of stocks and bonds,” he countered.

“Oh, give it up,” she said finally and flashed a knowing smile at him. “Otherwise I might make you explain why it is that you claimed not to know anything about horses, when it's obvious that you know at least as much as I do. I might have taken classes in vet school, but you've spent time around horses, haven't you?”

Uh-oh, Duke thought. “You figured it out, huh?”

“Hours ago. Next time you decide to feign ignorance, it might be a real good idea to keep your mouth shut,” she advised.

“I was hoping you'd think I just happened to ask particularly intelligent questions.”

“Not just intelligent questions,
well-informed
questions. There's a difference.”

“Are you going to hold it against me?”

“Not if you'll tell me why you lied about knowing anything about horses.”

“Isn't that obvious?”

“Not to me.”

He reached out and touched a finger to her cheek. His gaze locked with hers as he confessed, “It was the only way I could come up with to get you alone for an entire day.”

“Oh.”

He smiled at that. Oh, indeed. He wondered what she'd think if she figured out he'd been praying to beat the band that this rain would turn to ice any second now so they would be stranded overnight, too.

As if to prove that he still had some pull with heaven, hail began pinging against the cars and trailers outside, making an unmistakable clatter.

Dani's eyes widened as she recognized the implication. “Hail?”

“Sounds like it.”

“Maybe it'll pass,” she suggested hopefully.

“Do you want to take that chance?” he asked reasonably.

She looked torn. Clearly, she was indecisive about which danger was the greatest—going or staying. She lifted her gaze to his and he could read those by-now familiar warring emotions, desire and panic.

“I'll trust your judgment,” she said quietly.

As she said it, her gaze never wavered.

And Duke felt the full weight of responsibility settling on his shoulders. She was leaving more than their going or staying up to him, and they both knew it. He would also be the one to decide if tonight was the night they finally made love.

He could make her respond, make her forget her reservations about their relationship with just a kiss. It would be a simple matter to seduce her…if he dared. Whatever he decided, he would have to live with the decision forever after.

S
he could live with this, Dani told herself staunchly as Duke drove through the blinding combination of rain and sleet in search of a decent-looking motel. They were adults. Nothing was going to happen beyond getting a good night's sleep unless they both wanted it to.

Unless, of course, her hormones overruled her head, she thought grimly. Maybe she should play it safe and put up more of a fight to go straight back to Los Pinos. She glanced at Duke's tense expression. When he gazed over at her and gave her a quick smile, she felt her pulse zing dangerously. Suddenly, a tactical retreat seemed like a very good idea.

“Are you certain we can't get back tonight?” she asked, peering out the window at the leaden sky. “It looks as if it might clear up,” she added with unjustified optimism based on a pinprick-sized patch of blue in the distance.

“Do you believe in the tooth fairy, too?” Duke inquired, not taking his eyes from the hazardous road.

“You don't have to be sarcastic,” she said, but she could see his point. The road already had an inch or
more of swirling water on it, more than enough to send a car off in a skid and dangerously close to enough to have it stall out. Despite that tiny bit of blue, most of the sky was filled with stormy, rain-filled clouds.

“Why don't you help me out by looking for a half-decent place to stay,” Duke suggested. “I passed one motel a block back, but it looked like a dump.”

Dani had seen it, too. To describe it as seedy-looking would have been a compliment. Duke would have had to drag her kicking and screaming into a place that crummy. “You drive. I'll look,” she said resignedly.

It took another fifteen minutes before she spotted a motel with a Rooms Available sign lit and a small, cozy-looking restaurant attached. It wasn't exactly a luxury resort, but it would do. Perhaps even more important from her perspective, there wasn't the slightest suggestion of a romantic retreat about it, at least if taste was any factor at all. It was very much bright lights and gaudy ambience.

“How about that one?” she asked. “It looks clean.”

Duke followed the direction of her gaze. His expression turned skeptical. “You don't mind the flashing neon and the water-bed option?”

“The water bed is just that, an option,” she said firmly, even though her stomach turned flip-flops at the thought of climbing into one with Duke. “As for the neon, who cares what's flashing outside. We'll be asleep.”

“Your choice,” he said and swung the car into the parking lot. “I'll see what's available.”

“Duke?”

“Yes?”

“Skip the water bed. I want an ordinary mattress.”

“All to yourself?” he inquired, his tone light.

She thought about it for no longer than a heartbeat, but apparently that was long enough for him to interpret the message of uncertainty.

“I'll get two rooms,” Duke said, taking the decision out of her hands.

If he was upset, he didn't show it. Still, Dani stared after him, already regretting her cowardice. Would it be so awful to steal just one night with this man?

The answer to that was a straightforward, unequivocal yes. One night would never be enough. Despite her very best efforts, he had gotten to her. She had ignored danger signs, alarms and warning bells. She had allowed herself to fall for him—and for his kids—but it wasn't going to work.

Not for lack of interest, of course. Duke wanted her. She wasn't mistaken about that. He also considered her good mother material. She had recognized that as well. But he didn't love her. There was a part of himself he always held back, even when he was flirting the most outrageously. In the end, that inability to love her wholeheartedly was all that really mattered. She wouldn't settle for less than the surrender of his heart.

Of course, she, too, was holding back, she reminded herself. It made them quite a pair.

She peered disconsolately out the window just in time to see Duke dashing back to the car. His clothes were soaked. Water dripped from his hair and ran down his face. He looked as if he'd just climbed from a shower with his clothes on. The image sent heat shimmering through her.

Duke, however, was shivering. “Bad news, darlin'. There's only one room left. We're going to have to share.”

Dani's heart began to hammer. She couldn't demand that they search for someplace else. They'd passed almost every motel within miles of the horse show. They were either shabby or fully occupied. Duke was too soaked to be driving around anymore, anyway. Fate, it seemed, had stepped in.

“It has two beds, though,” he said as he pulled up in front of the room at the very end of the row facing the street.

Dani blinked and stared, taken aback by the belated announcement. “What did you say?”

“Not to worry. It has two beds.”

Relief washed over her, followed almost instantly by disappointment. The latter, combined with a healthy dose of frustration, made her cranky.

Reluctantly, she followed Duke, coming to an abrupt halt just inside the doorway. There were two beds, all right, both of them seductively huge. The motel might have an uninspired, gaudy exterior, but the rooms themselves were generously sized and decorated with expensive, but still garish taste. There was a lot of red, she noted, with a startling dash of purple thrown in. Through the open doorway she could see that the bathroom was tiled in a vivid pink.

Duke caught her expression and grinned. “If you think this is bright, you should meet Mrs. Perez at the registration desk. She's wearing an outfit that would blind anyone without sunglasses. She says everyone needs color in their lives. It cheers them up.”

He crossed the room to stand in front of her. “Are you feeling cheered up?”

“Not exactly,” she said, though she was rapidly getting there. She made one last desperate pitch for sanity. “Are you absolutely sure we couldn't make it back home?”

Duke didn't appear to mind the question. He seemed to sense her need for reassurance.

“Absolutely,” he said emphatically. “It's pouring rain, mixed with hail. Another hour of these plummeting temperatures and the roads will be sheets of ice. I don't want to take a chance skidding on the highway while I'm trailering three horses back home. We'll pick them up in the morning and get an early start. Maybe the weather will break by then.”

“And maybe it won't,” she observed. “Then what? You going to settle down in Fort Worth?”

“You ever known it to rain for months on end in Texas?”

“No, but I've never known a man to be scared by a little shower before, either.”

“Darlin', we made the right decision. Mrs. Perez says a tornado touched down not twenty miles north of here. You can't see across the road. This isn't a little, inconvenient shower we can wait out. It's a full-blown winter storm and way too unpredictable to be on the road.”

“Whatever you say.”

The truth was she was having a full-scale attack of jitters. Ever since she'd gotten a look at those beds and all that provocative red, she'd felt caught up in an irresistible web of sensuality. In the pit of her stomach, she had that hovering-on-the-edge sensation that the room itself was just daring her to behave wickedly.

Given her own sadly deficient resistance, she told herself she didn't want to spend the night within fifty miles of this man, not with the spark of pure lust she'd been spying in his eyes these past months. Heck, in these past few minutes.

Worse, she suspected it was reflected in her own eyes. The man made her hotter than West Texas pavement in the midday August sun, she conceded as Duke went into the bathroom and turned the shower on.

He stuck his head out the door. “Sure you don't want to join me?” he inquired, regarding her hopefully.

“Very sure,” she lied.

“I won't take long,” he promised. “Then I'll put on some dry clothes and we can have dinner. The restaurant stays open until eight. Mrs. Perez says it has the best Tex-Mex in this part of town. Her husband's the cook.”

“Could be she's prejudiced.”

He winked. “I wandered in and got a whiff of what's on the menu. Could be she's right. The aroma was downright decadent. It made my mouth water.”

There was nothing Dani liked better than fiery Tex-Mex. Maybe that heat would take her mind off the steam being generated in this motel room. “That'll give me something to look forward to, then,” she said.

He grinned. “I thought spending the night all alone with me would be temptation enough,” he taunted, then closed the door in her face before she could respond.

Why did he have to be right? she wondered with a wistful sigh. She didn't want to be attracted to Duke Jenkins. She sure as heck hadn't wanted to kiss him,
the first time or the last or any of the times in between.

Okay, let's be honest here, she corrected. She had wanted to experiment with one little kiss, but she hadn't wanted to like it. She'd wanted to hate it. She'd wanted to be so turned off that she would never, ever be tempted to throw herself into his arms the way she was right this minute. In that state of mind how could she ignore the pull of those mammoth beds? One kiss now and it would be all over, except for the morning-after regrets.