The Bridal Path: Ashley (3 page)

Just once had they crossed the line, and even then it had been at Ashley’s instigation, not Dillon’s. At his senior prom, which she’d attended with the Harvard-bound son of her father’s closest friend, she had found herself standing next to Dillon by the punch bowl. She’d been surprised he’d chosen to come at all, but apparently even the class rebel couldn’t stay away from such a momentous event.

Flying in the face of common sense, she had boldly asked him to dance. She’d been tempted for too long to resist the chance to discover what it felt like to be held in those muscular arms. Amusement glinting in his eyes at her daring, he had led her onto the dance floor.

The oh-so-slow dance had started with a proper distance between them. But, as if drawn by a magnet, Ashley had moved closer and closer until her head was tucked on his shoulder. She had sighed with incomparable contentment.

Even now, she shivered at the memory of feminine awareness she had discovered that night. Flirting had never excited her as Dillon’s dark-eyed gaze had. Stolen kisses were nothing compared to the whisper-light touch of his hand on her back. No boy’s most daring caress had thrilled her the way the brush of Dillon’s thighs against her own had.

It was just because he was forbidden, because he was so bad that no decent girl would date him, she had told herself that night. Now, with his gaze hot on her once again and her body trembling like a schoolgirl’s in response, she wondered if it was more than that. Or was she more than ever trying to rebel against a lifetime of being everyone’s perfect little good girl?

Whatever the case, she had to get him out of the cabin and she had to do it now, before he felled her senses with another one of those unexpected, staggering kisses. Her life was messed up enough without succumbing to a ridiculous urge to jump into the sack with Dillon Ford. She assured herself that she was past a need to rebel, way past.

Wasn’t she?

She skimmed a quick glance over dark hair that had a distinct curl to it, lingered on a scowling but astonishingly tempting mouth, then dared a peek at black eyes so intense they sent a once familiar tremble through her. Maybe she wasn’t as safe from those old urges as she’d thought.

She’d recalled Dillon more than once over the past ten years. In fact, Sara had taunted her about him only a few months ago, stirring old fantasies to life. Sara had encouraged her to seek out someone like Dillon, who would shake up her predictable existence. Little had they known….

But the truth was her memory and her wildest fantasies hadn’t done him justice. He was more gorgeous, more thoroughly masculine, more down-and-dirty real than the sexiest male models she’d worked with through the years.

Before she could figure out a reasonably polite way to send him out into the rain, he retrieved his gun, tucked it into the waistband of his jeans and gestured toward the visible kitchen area. Clearly he intended to make himself thoroughly at home.

“Any coffee made?”

The mundane question snapped her back to reality. She nodded.

“It should still be hot,” she said as she crossed the room, grateful for the chance to put some distance between them.

She injected a briskly polite note into her voice. “If you’d like to change out of those wet clothes before you leave, I’ll pour you a cup for the road. And there are plenty of first-aid supplies in the bathroom, if you want to bandage that cut.”

He grinned in a thoroughly male, tolerant way that suggested he found her less than subtle approach amusing.

“There’s enough heat in here to dry my clothes in no time,” he said. “As for the cut, you could always kiss it and make it better.”

She scowled at his teasing. “Not too long ago you were claiming you were likely to bleed to death from that wound,” she reminded him.

“A ploy,” he admitted unrepentantly.

“For sympathy? I doubt it.”

“No, to get inside. Worked, too,” he said.

He made the claim with so much arrogance, it was all Ashley could do to keep from dumping the cup of hot coffee into his lap. Instead, she handed it to him gingerly, careful to avoid so much as grazing his knuckles. His amused expression proved he knew exactly how thoroughly he’d disconcerted her with that kiss.

“This should wake you up so you’ll be alert for the drive back to town,” she said pointedly. “You should be back in plenty of time to get a room at the hotel and still catch a good night’s sleep.”

The comment drew a grin, but no retort.

She sat on the edge of the chair across from him and watched as he sipped the coffee, practically counting the minutes until he would be out of the cabin and a good, safe distance away from her life.

“I came up here to fish and I’m not going anywhere, you know,” he said after a while.

The direct challenge had her gritting her teeth. “Yes,” she said just as emphatically, “you are. Besides, as I can attest firsthand, the fish aren’t biting. It’ll be a waste of your time.”

“It’s the process, not the results that count,” he said lazily. “I’ll be happy enough just to wade into the stream and toss my line in.”

“Oh, sure. I’ve always thought of you as the laid-back type,” she commented sarcastically.

He got up, strolled into the kitchen and poured himself another cup of coffee, probably just to irritate her with his deliberate nonchalance.

It worked, too. She really, really wanted to slug him for the second time in less than an hour. It was an urge she had never, ever experienced before, much less acted on.

“Did your father know you were coming up here?” he asked when he returned to the living room.

“No,” she admitted. Sighing, she prepared for another round of sparring.

“And he obviously loaned me the cabin,” he pointed out with annoying logic, waving that damnable key under her nose again. “How do you think he’d feel about you tossing me out?”

“He sure as hell wouldn’t want us both here at the same time,” Ashley said, though she wasn’t nearly as sure of that as she wanted to be. Her father was pretty desperate to marry her off to just about anyone.

“Tsk, tsk, where are your manners?” Dillon retorted, clearly unoffended by her derogatory tone. “You shouldn’t be judging a guest in your home.”

“You are not my guest,” she repeated emphatically.

“Exactly. I’m your father’s guest, which means you should be treating me with kindness and respect,” he said triumphantly. “Isn’t that the way you were brought up?”

Ashley practically groaned aloud. Of course, that was the way she’d been brought up, and Dillon knew it. He’d presented her with the heart of her dilemma–good manners versus a panicky desire to be rid of him.

Their battle over who had claim to the cabin seemed destined to go on forever. Ashley’s head throbbed like the dickens, but she wasn’t about to yield the point by going off to bed with the issue unresolved.

She rallied half a dozen more arguments, but Dillon clearly wasn’t budging. Short of dragging him bodily out the door, which she doubted she could have managed anyway, she was fresh out of alternatives. Sometime after midnight, she grudgingly threw in the towel.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, just sleep here tonight,” she finally muttered, as if conceding him a great favor. “I’m too exhausted to keep arguing about it. You’ll find towels in the closet in the bathroom and a guest room at the end of the hall. Don’t expect me to make the bed for you. I’m sure you can manage on your own.”

“Where beds are concerned, I’m an expert,” he said.

“I’m sure,” she acknowledged as images flooded her mind and color flooded her cheeks.

“And I know where things are in the cabin. You don’t need to worry about me.”

Surprised by his claim to be familiar with the cabin, Ashley stared hard at him. “How? Have you broken in before?”

He waved the key under her nose…again. “It’s not breaking and entering when you have the owner’s permission,” he repeated with exaggerated patience. “It’s not the first time I’ve been here, sweetheart. I’m probably more familiar with this place than you are. When was the last time you stole away here for a little solitude?”

He had her there. “Never, but that’s beside the point,” she said airily. “How do you know so much about the cabin?”

“I’ve come here to fish with your father a time or two. Came back last year on my own, when I needed a break.”

“A break from what?”

“This and that,” he said unhelpfully.

“And my father gave you the key just like that?”

“Just like that,” he agreed. “He popped it into overnight mail the minute we got off the phone.”

She stared at him, bemused by what he was suggesting. “Are you suggesting that you and my father are buddies?”

“Do you have a problem with that?”

“Actually, the very thought boggles the mind,” she said, unconcerned about offending him. Clearly his ego was strong enough to take anything she cared to dish out.

He grinned, in fact. “No more than the thought of you and me, sweetheart. And just look at the two of us all alone together here in the wilderness.”

The words sent a shiver chasing down her spine. That old promise was in his eyes again, along with a bit of a dare. Ashley figured she better get out of the room before she took him up on it.

“Good night,” she said hurriedly and headed down the hall.

“Sweet dreams,” he called softly after her.

Sweet?
Hell, if she was very, very lucky, any dreams she had tonight wouldn’t burn the house down.

Chapter Three

A
lone in the master bedroom, in the middle of the suddenly enormous and seductive feather mattress, Ashley determinedly closed her eyes and tried to shut out all thoughts of the impossible man who’d invaded her privacy. It was like trying to plug a hole in the Hoover Dam with a wad of gum.

If she hadn’t been certain her father had no way of knowing she was at the cabin, she would have suspected him of setting her up. It would be just like him to put a macho, egotistical, testosterone-laden bully in her path just so he could sit back and watch the fireworks.

But Dillon Ford? Was her father that perverse?

Yes, of course, he was. He’d been telling her for the past ten years that the only men she was likely to meet in New York were criminals and wimps. Of course, that was his opinion of anyone who would knowingly choose to live crammed together in itty-bitty apartments, instead of on their own several-thousand-acre spread.

She had a feeling there was a fascinating story behind any friendship that had blossomed between Dillon and her father. Maybe before she kicked him out in the morning, she’d ask Dillon for the details.

More than likely, though, Dillon was on the run from the law, and Trent Wilde, exercising his own brand of justice, was choosing to help him hide out.

Or maybe…oh, what the heck, the possibilities were endless. She’d never in a million years guess the truth. Her father’s thought processes were too unpredictable, except when it came to scheming to marry off his daughters.

By daybreak she was exhausted, irritable and more determined than ever to get Dillon out of the cabin. She claimed she couldn’t wait to be rid of him. However, she dressed more carefully than she had since her arrival. She took her time brushing her hair until it gleamed, added a light dusting of makeup, steeled herself for battle and then stormed into the living room.

Since she was prepared for all-out verbal warfare, Dillon, naturally, was nowhere to be found. A quick fizz of relief was all too rapidly dispelled by a vague sense of disappointment. Their verbal gymnastics–or whatever, she thought dryly–the night before had kicked her adrenaline into gear. Apparently she’d been hoping for more of the same. For reasons it was probably best not to examine too closely, she’d felt more alive in those few hours than she had in a long, long time.

Better, though, that he was gone, she decided as she poured herself a cup of the rich, caffeine-laden coffee he’d brewed. She needed serenity right now far more than she needed a little sexual tension or a masculine sparring partner.

She’d wasted days on self-pity. It was time to start making plans for her life. Logical, sensible plans. Plans that most definitely did not include a fling with a man of Dillon Ford’s questionable reputation and penchant for heartbreaking. Ninety-nine percent of the women in Riverton under the age of thirty could probably testify that he was bad news. She certainly didn’t want to be the one to give him a perfect record.

Satisfied that she was on the verge of taking control of her destiny again, she sank into a comfortable chair and tucked her feet under her. Just as she prepared to get on with some serious thinking, she heard an all-too-familiar thump on the front deck. She closed her eyes and sighed. Apparently she’d spoken too soon. Trouble was back on the horizon. To her very deep regret, anticipation kicked in with predictable urgency.

When Dillon entered a moment later, carrying two fat, sparkling trout, she could cheerfully have shot all three of them.

Where the dickens had those fish been, when she’d been standing hip-deep in the water for the past week? The fact that she’d informed Dillon the night before that the fish weren’t biting made his gloating expression all the harder to take.

“I thought you weren’t all that interested in actually reeling in a fish,” she commented, ignoring the laudable size of his catch. “Or did you go out this morning just to prove that I was wrong and that you–the superior male of the species–could lure one in?”

“Why would I need to prove anything to you?” he inquired in a testy way that suggested she’d hit the nail on the head.

“You’re a man, aren’t you?”

Ignoring the jibe, he wrapped the fish, stuck them in the refrigerator, then returned to settle in the chair opposite her, coffee mug in hand. Once again, he looked as if he had no intention of budging. She had to admit, he looked more at home in her father’s very masculine wood and leather environment than she did. That grated on her nerves, too. Wasn’t there anywhere these days that she belonged?

“Maybe we should talk about this attitude you seem to have toward men,” Dillon suggested helpfully.