The Buckhorn Brothers Box Set: Sawyer\Morgan\Gabe\Jordan (51 page)

But then Gabe had dismissed her, and that she was more than used to. Except with the heroes she’d interviewed, the men who wanted their unique stories told.

Damn, Mr. Kasper was an enigma.

“Don’t mind that none, miss. Gabe always gets more’n his share of notice from the fillies.”

Elizabeth snapped her attention to Bear. His name suited him, she thought, as she looked way, way up into his grizzled face. “I beg your pardon?”

He nodded toward the docks, where Gabe and the woman were chatting cozily. Elizabeth curled her lip. It was disgusting for a woman to put on such an absurd display, especially right out in the open like that. And for Gabe to encourage her so…Good grief, he had a responsibility to the community as a role model after all the attention they’d given him.

“Has he acted any different since becoming a town hero?” During her research, Elizabeth had discovered that people heralded for valor quickly adapted to all the fanfare and added interest thrown their way.

Bear chuckled. “Not Gabe. Truth is, folks in these parts have pretty much always looked up to him and his brothers. I don’t think anyone doubted Gabe would do something once he noticed what had happened. Any one of his brothers would have done the same.”

“He mentioned his brothers. Can you tell me something about them?”

“Be glad to!” Bear mopped a tattered bandanna around his face, then stuck it in his back pocket. “The oldest brother, Sawyer, is the town doc, and a damn good one to boot. He takes care of everyone from the newborns to the elders. Got hisself married to Honey, a real sweet little woman, about a year back. And that cut his patient load down considerable like. Seems some of the womenfolk coming to see him weren’t really sick, just ambitious.”

Bear grinned, but Elizabeth shook her head in exasperation.

“Right after Sawyer is Morgan, the sheriff, who generally looks like he just crawled right off a cactus, but he’s as nice as they come as long as you stay on his good side.” He leaned close to whisper, “And folks in these parts definitely stay on his good side.”

“Lovely.” Elizabeth tried to picture these two respectable men related to Gabe, who looked like a beach bum, but she couldn’t quite manage it.

“Morgan up and married Honey’s sister, Misty, just a bit after Sawyer married. He smiles more these days—that is, when she doesn’t have him in a temper. She does seem to enjoy riling that boy.”

It was a sure sign of Bear’s age that he’d call a man older than Gabe a boy.

“Then there’s Jordan, the best damn vet Buckhorn County has to offer. He can sing to an animal, and damned if it won’t sing back! That man can charm a bird out of a tree or lull an ornery mule asleep. He’s still a bachelor.”

Good grief. Elizabeth could do no more than blink. Doctor, sheriff, vet. It was certainly an impressive family. “What does Gabe do for a living?”

Bear scratched beneath his chin, thinking, and then he looked away. “Thing is, Gabe’s the youngest, and he don’t yet know what it is he wants to do. Mostly he’s a handyman, sort of a jack-of-all-trades. That boy can do just about anything with his hands. He’s—”

“He doesn’t have a job?” Elizabeth didn’t mean to sound so shocked, but Rosemary had told her Gabe was twenty-seven years old, and to Elizabeth’s mind, that was plenty old enough to have figured out your life’s ambition.

“Well…”

She shook her head, cutting off whatever lame excuses Bear was prepared to make. “I got the impression from a few things Rosemary said that he worked here.”

A cold, wet hand clamped onto her shoulder, and Elizabeth jumped, then whirled to see Gabe, dripping lake water, standing right behind her. His grin wasn’t pleasant, and she wished that she hadn’t gotten engrossed in what Bear had to say, that she’d kept at least part of her attention on Gabe.

She looked around him, but his newest female companion was nowhere to be found. Which, she supposed, accounted for his presence. Surely if any other woman was available he’d still be ignoring her.

Gabe nodded to Bear, more or less dismissing him, then pulled Elizabeth around and started walking a few feet away. In a voice that only barely bordered on cordial, he said, “Well, Miss Nosy, I do work here, but I’m not employed here. There’s a definite difference. And from now on, I’d appreciate it if you kept your questions to yourself. I don’t much like people prying into my personal life, especially when I already told ’em not to.”

Elizabeth gulped. No amount of forced pleasantness could mask his irritation. She tried to inch away from his hot, controlling grasp, but he wasn’t letting go. So she simply stopped.

Gabe turned to face her. They were once again standing in the bright sun, on a gravel drive that declined down the slight hill, used to launch boats into the lake. The glare off the white gravel was blinding. She had to shield her eyes with one hand while balancing her notepad, pen and purse with the other. Looking directly at him both flustered and annoyed her. He was an incredibly…
potent
male, no denying that. Standing there in nothing more than wet, worn, faded cutoffs—and those hanging entirely too low on his lean hips—he was a devastatingly masculine sight. A sparse covering of light brown hair, damp from his swim, laid over solid muscles in his chest and down his abdomen, then swirled around his navel. He was deeply tanned, his legs long, his big feet bare. He seemed impervious to the sharp gravel and the hot sun. And as she watched, his arms crossed over his chest.

“You be sure and let me know when you’re done looking so I can finish telling you what I think of your prying ways.”

The heat that washed over her face had nothing to do with the summer sun and everything to do with humiliation.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that you don’t look like the other men.”

He sighed dramatically. “I take it we’re talking about the other supposed heroes?”

“Yes.”

“And how did they look?”

Elizabeth hesitated, wondering how to explain it. She couldn’t just say they had all been fully dressed, because thinking it made her blush more. At the moment, Gabe Kasper looked more naked than not, and even the jean shorts didn’t help, considering they were soaked and clinging to his hard thighs, to his…
Don’t go there.

She cleared her throat. “They were all more…serious. They have careers they take great pride in, and they enjoyed telling their stories.”

“But I told you, I don’t have a story to tell.”

“Your friends disagree.”

His arms dropped and he scowled at her. Strangely, Elizabeth noticed he was watching her mouth instead of looking into her eyes. It made it easier for her because staring directly at him kept her edgy for some reason. There was so much expression in his eyes, as if he wasn’t just looking at her, but really seeing her. It was an unusual experience for her.

But with him looking at her mouth, she felt nervous in a different way, and without thinking, she licked her lips. His gaze shot to hers, and he stared, eyes narrowed, for two heartbeats while she held her breath and felt faint for some stupid reason. She gulped air and fanned her burning face.

Relaxing slightly, he shook his head, then said, “Look, Lizzy—”

“Don’t call me that. My name is Elizabeth.”

“And as long you’re disregarding my wishes, I think I’ll just disregard yours. Besides, Lizzy sorta suits you. It sounds like the proper name for a red-haired girl.”

Elizabeth wanted to smack him. But since he’d come right out and all but admitted he wanted to annoy her, she decided to deny him the satisfaction. When she remained silent, he smiled, then continued. “This is all foolishness. Now I’m asking you nicely to let it drop.”

“I can’t. I’ve decided you’ll make a really good contrast to the other men in my study. See, you’re very different, and I can’t, in good conscience, leave out such an important factor in my study. In order for the study to be accurate, I need to take data from every angle—”

He raised a hand, looking annoyed enough for his head to explode. “Enough of that already. This is your summer break, right?”

She watched him cautiously. “Yes.”

“So why work so damn hard on summer break? Why not just cut loose a little and have some fun before going back to school?” He looked her over again and judging by the tightness of his mouth and the expression in his eyes, obviously found her lacking. “You’re so prissed up, you have to be sweltering. No one puts on that many clothes in this heat.”

Her shoulders were so stiff they hurt, and her stomach was churning. How dare he attack her on such a personal level? “Obviously someone does. I consider my dress totally appropriate.”

“Appropriate to what?”

“To interviewing a hero.”

His head dropped forward and he groaned. “You are the most stubbornest damn woman….”

“Me? You’re the one who refuses to answer a few simple questions.”

Their voices had risen and Gabe, with a heartfelt sigh, took her arm again and started farther up the gravel drive.

“Where are we going?” She had a vague image of him dragging her off and wringing her neck. Even a hero could only be pushed so far, and with the way everyone worshiped him, she didn’t think she’d get much help.

“We’re drawing attention and it isn’t the kind of attention I like.”

With a sneer she couldn’t quite repress, she asked, “You mean it isn’t purely female?”

Glancing her way, he grinned. “That’s right.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!”

“Here we go. Have a seat.”

Luckily, this time it wasn’t a root he wanted to perch her on. The rough wooden picnic table was located beneath a tree—not an elm—and though it was partially covered with dried leaves, acorns and twigs, it was at least shaded.

Elizabeth had barely gotten herself settled before Gabe blurted, “Okay, what is it going to take to get you to back off?”

He wanted to bargain with her? Surprised, but also hopeful because she really did want to add his story to the others—he was proving to be the exception that broke the hero mold she’d mentally formed—Elizabeth carefully considered her answer. Finally, she said, “If you’d just answer five questions…”

“I’ll answer one. But it’ll cost you.”

Her relief died a short death. “How much? I have a job, but it’s barely enough to pay my tuition so I couldn’t offer you anything significant—”

He looked so totally and utterly appalled, she knew she’d misunderstood. His expression said so, but in case she hadn’t caught on, he leaned close, caging her in with one arm on the picnic table, the other on her shoulder, and said through his teeth, “You actually think I’d take money from you?”

Elizabeth tried leaning back, but she didn’t have much room to maneuver, not without toppling over. “You…you said you don’t have a job.”

“Wrong.” He looked ready to do that neck wringing she’d worried about. “I said I’m not employed here. For your information, Red, I more than pay my own way. Not that my financial situation is any business of yours.”

“But…” It was one of the questions in her survey, though luckily this time she had the good sense to forfeit it. “Of course not. I didn’t mean to suggest—”

“If you want me to answer a question, you’ll have to loosen up. And before you start widening those big blue eyes at me again, I’m not suggestin’ an illicit affair.”

Her heart almost stopped, but for the life of her she wasn’t entirely sure if it was relief or disappointment she felt. No one had ever offered her an illicit affair, and the idea held a certain amount of appeal. Not that she’d ever accept, of course, but still…“What, exactly, are you suggesting?”

“A swim. In the lake. Me and you.”

The big green murky lake behind her? The lake he’d pulled that enormous fish out of—then thrown it back so it was still in there? The lake where any number of things could be living? Never mind that she didn’t even own a bathing suit, the thought of getting into that lake positively terrified her. Hoping against hope, she said, “I don’t understand.”

“It’s easy, Lizzy. I want you here tomorrow, same time, wearing a swimsuit instead of all that armor. And I want you to relax with me, to take a nice leisurely swim. Maybe if you loosen up a bit, I won’t even mind so much answering a question for you.”

To make certain she understood before she agreed to anything, she asked, “And in exchange, you’ll answer my questions?”

“No, I’ll answer one question. Just one. Any question you like. You can even make notes in that damn little book of yours.” He eyed her mouth again, then shook his head. “And who knows, if all goes well, maybe we can work out another deal.”

“For another question?”

He shrugged, looking reluctant but strangely resigned.

Elizabeth had the sneaking suspicion he was trying to bluff her, to force her to back out. But she was fascinated. Such unusual behavior for a hero! She could almost imagine the response she’d get from this thesis—if anyone even believed it. But there had to be some redeeming information there, something that would make her research all that more complete, valuable and applicable.

In the end, there was really only one decision she could make. She held out her hand, and after a moment, Gabe took it.

His hand was so large, so tanned. And he felt hot. She gulped, shored up her courage, and with a smile that almost hurt, she said, “Deal.”

* * *

H
E COULDN’T BELIEVE
he was running late.

If anything, he’d planned to be on the dock, sunning himself, a man without a care, when she arrived. Truth was, he felt strangely anxious. He grinned at the novelty of it.

“You’ve been doing a lot of that this morning.”

Gabe turned to his brother Sawyer. “What?”

“Smiling like a fool.”

“Maybe I have good reason.”

“And what would that be?”

“None of your business.” Gabe, still grinning, finished running caulk around the windowpane then wiped his hands on a small towel. “That should do you, Sawyer. From now on, don’t let kids play baseball in your office, hear?”

Honey hustled up to his side with a tall glass of iced tea. Bless her, he did like all the doting she felt compelled to do. Having a sister-in-law was a right nice thing. “Thanks, Honey.”