Sweet Return (24 page)

She was standing in the brilliant white glare of the overhead fluorescent lighting wearing nothing but her bra and bikini panties when the door opened. She yelped as Dalton stepped in. “Oh!”

“Hey—”

“Just a minute!” She grabbed up the jeans and pressed them to her front, her heart hammering.

“Oh, shit!” His eyes flew wide. “I’m sorry.” He stepped backward and slammed the door with a loud clap.

Though he had been in her egg-washing room before, she hadn’t thought of him coming in tonight or she would have locked the door. Mumbling swear words under her breath, she hurriedly stepped into her jeans and pulled on her work shirt. She padded to the door in bare feet, considering how she should handle his walking in on her unclothed.
Nonchalant. Like it never happened
, she finally decided, though she was well aware that in the few seconds he stood in the doorway, his eyes had touched all of her.

She opened the door and saw him leaning his backside on her pickup door, his thumbs hooked in his jeans pockets, his booted feet crossed at the ankles. Cowboy boots. Then it hit her that this was the magnet that drew her to him. Cowboys,
true
cowboys, had always been her greatest weakness when it came to men. That particular social group lived close to the earth. She believed cowboys knew a truth that some others didn’t, and she liked that.

Spotlighted by the golden glow cast from the doorway of the egg-washing room, he looked like the personification of every temptation she had ever known all rolled into one brooding package. Sex was the first word that flew into her mind.

He had on clean clothes—creased and pressed jeans and a pink, ironed button-down.

Pink?

He hadn’t impressed her as the
pink
type or the ironed-shirt type, either. Scott Goodman was the pink, ironed-shirt type. Dalton Parker’s color type was closer to black. But no question, with his black hair and olive skin, in pink he looked as delicious as cake.

Had he cleaned up and dressed up to have supper with
her
? He must have, because the date had been made this morning when he still needed a shave. A fullness suddenly grew in her chest, and if someone had asked her to explain it, she couldn’t.

“Uh, I don’t like to go into the chicken yard in my dress clothes,” she told him, meeting his gaze and trying not to sound apologetic.

“I already picked up your eggs,” he said. “Didn’t you see?”

He sounded put out, as if his feelings were hurt. “Oh. Well, I guess I didn’t look.”

For the first time she glanced at the counter and saw four baskets filled with eggs on the far end. Confusion muddled through her mind, but it wasn’t nearly as great as the sense of relief that she wouldn’t have to enter the chicken yard in the dark. Wanting to sound appreciative, she said, “Oh, my gosh. Listen, thanks. I don’t mind telling you I’m still thinking about that snake.”

“I fed those jackasses, too,” he said in his clipped way of speaking. “One of them tried to bite me.”

His grouchiness no longer struck dread into her. She was now interpreting it as a sort of cynical sense of humor. She thought she saw his eyes crinkle at the corners. He was teasing her again. “Come on, now. Don’t falsely accuse my little donkeys. Their names are Joe and Jill. They don’t bite.”

“Oh, yeah? I never met a jackass that didn’t bite.” He pushed himself off her pickup door and stood there with his hands jammed against his belt. “I’ve got the steaks thawed out and ready to cook.”

“Listen, I know I got here late. I’ll just get these eggs washed and—”

“No hurry. Do what you have to.” He turned and strode up the stone pathway toward the front door, obviously perfectly confident that she would follow him rather than just fire up her pickup and drive away. That was another of his traits that lured her. That unabashed self-confidence.

He might have
said
“no hurry,” but she had sensed impatience oozing from his every pore. Still unable to believe she was really doing this, she went back to her pile of clothing. She hurriedly put on her dress clothes again, covered them with clean coveralls and finished handling the eggs in record time.

She had left her purse in the pickup, and inside it was a hairbrush. She climbed into the driver’s seat and dug it out, along with a tube of Frosted Peach lipstick. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a drop of cologne with her. She ran the brush through her shoulder-length do and tried to improve her appearance in front of the visor mirror. In the dim glow from the overhead light, she could scarcely see the mark between her brows, though she was sure the concealer she had applied early this morning had melted away. She let out a breath of resignation. There was nothing she could do about it now.

Before leaving the pickup, she glanced at the brown paper sack of apples sitting on the passenger seat. She had bought them from one of her Lubbock customers for her mom and herself to share. She decided to offer the dozen apples to her host as a gift of appreciation. She doubted he would spend much time in a grocery store, so fresh fruit seemed like a good thing.

Ever the peacemaker, trying to get along,
her cantankerous side groused.

“There’s nothing wrong with a kind gesture,” she mumbled.

She dragged the apples from the pickup and carried them with her, rehearsing as she went something clever to say when she gave them to him. She felt as giddy as a schoolgirl on prom night.

She entered the house without knocking, placed her purse on the dining table and headed for the kitchen with the sack of apples. She was barely inside the door when his scent reached her nose. Soap and water and something outdoorsy. His being all dressed up and looking like a movie star was tantalizing enough, but smelling manly and sexy was almost too much for her starved libido. Especially when
she
looked like a tired old shoe, and felt worse. And she sure wasn’t wearing perfume. She tried to identify his fragrance but couldn’t. It was ridiculous that she couldn’t. She
sold
fragrances, for crying out loud.

He looked up from fussing with the steaks—two big T-bones lying on a large platter. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey, yourself,” she replied, suddenly self-conscious. She had been in this kitchen countless times, knew where everything in it was stored, but tonight in the sphere of his dominating presence, she felt awkward and out of place. “Uh…remember that smart-aleck remark you made to me yesterday about apples?” She set the brown paper sack on the counter. “Here you go. Fresh from the orchards in Washington State. They just got them in at one of the markets I went to in Lubbock. There used to be a dozen, but I ate one on the way home.”

He stopped, wiped his hands on a towel and came over. He peered into the sack, then back at her and grinned. Now, he was close enough for her to see his square jaws shining from a fresh shave. He did have the most arresting face. Not pretty, but lean-jawed and rugged. The force of his masculinity came at her like a barrage of pin pricks.

“Apples and snakes,” he said. “This might be prophetic.” He chuckled in a way that implied intimacy, as if they knew each other well and shared some secret joke.

Redirecting her attention, she saw a bottle of red wine on the counter, the cork already pulled, sitting beside a bowl of salad. The salad looked to be torn lettuce and tomatoes sliced into thin, neat wedges. She could smell potatoes baking in the oven. His being able to cook steaks was to be expected. Every man she had ever known, especially the studly types, thought he could cook meat on a grill, but a crisp, neat salad and baked potatoes surprised her. “Look at all of this,” she said. “I thought you were kidding about being a cook.”

One side of his mouth tipped into that crooked grin she had first thought was a smirk. “Babe, making a salad and throwing a potato in the oven isn’t exactly cooking. You hungry?”

“Yeah, I am. I mostly got along on Diet Pepsi and protein bars today.”

“And one of my apples?” He grinned, then added, “That fizzy shit’s bad for you, you know. You shouldn’t drink too much of it.”

And wasn’t he bossy? “Hm. I’ll try to remember that.”

“I’ve got something for you, too,” he said, and left the kitchen.

He came back carrying a manila file folder and handed it to her. Having no clue what could be inside, she opened it cautiously…and found an eight-by-ten color photograph of Dulce. It was a stunning shot of the white hen on top of one of the chicken houses, her neck feathers tufted as if she had posed just for Dalton’s camera. “Oh. My. Gosh. It’s Dulce. What a wonderful picture. How did you ever get her to look like this?”

She looked up at him and could almost see his chest swelled. He winked. “Photography’s my business, remember? Look at the others.”

She shuffled through several more photos—another of Dulce, one of Joe and Jill, their heads together and looking like twins staring at the camera; one of a cluster of several of her hens, all in various and striking colors and looking as if they were in a heated gossip session.

“This is so nice of you. I’ve had these chickens for over two years and I’ve never taken their pictures.”

“I would’ve fixed them up with mattes, but I didn’t have the stuff to do it,” he said.

“That’s okay.” She shuffled through the pictures again. “I’m sure I’ve got frames somewhere. I can put this one of Dulce on my desk in my office.” She looked up at him again and couldn’t keep from smiling like a witless fool. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” She turned to leave the kitchen. “I’m going to put them with my purse, okay?”

“Sure. I’ll make us a drink.”

When she returned, a half-gallon jug of Jack Daniel’s and a fifth of tequila sat beside the wine. Also, two double-shot glasses, the saltshaker and several limes.
Uh-oh
. “Good grief, are we having a party?”

He picked up the tequila bottle and unscrewed the cap. “You could say that.”

“What are we celebrating?”

He leveled a look into her eyes and smiled. “That’s up to you.”

Was he flirting? In spite of herself, she reacted with a giggle. “Me? I hope you aren’t trying to ply me with liquor so—”

“Un-huh. I know what you’re gonna say. I never ply. I just think we’d get along better if you weren’t so uptight. And if we got along better, who knows what—”

She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I wasn’t aware I’m uptight.”

He gave another one of those low, intimate chuckles. “See there? What’d I tell you? Darlin’, you’re the most uptight woman I’ve been around in a long time.”

Who wouldn’t be after the way you’ve behaved?
she thought.

He reached up and brushed her hair behind her ear, and his touch sent a tingle all the way to her toes. She stared into his eyes, eyes that no longer seemed so angry, but dark with mystery as much as color. Now she knew what it was about his eyes that hypnotized her. They were intuitive; he could read her mind. Their gazes held, and for a fleeting second, her insides felt as bare as her outside had been in the egg-washing room.

Was he really trying to seduce her? Was that the game they had been playing all along, from the day of his arrival? Maybe it wasn’t such a far-fetched notion. Since she had mused over how it would be, maybe he had thought about it, too. A little thrill zipped through her, setting off a drumbeat in her heart. A very long time had passed since she had let herself so much as think about intimacy with a man. “It’s my nature to worry.”

His face was close enough for her to feel his breath on her lips and breathe in his scent. His fingers cupped her neck and his thumb gently massaged. She closed her eyes and relished the strength in his hand.

“You know, there’s a cure for all of that tension,” he said, his raspy voice soft and smoky sounding.

She mentally shook herself.
Oh, God
. This was going way too fast. “Huh. What is it, Valium?” She looked up at him and saw that lopsided grin.

“That’s not exactly what I had in mind,” he said softly.

That funny little ripple squiggled through her belly again.
Devil
. She drew in a deep breath and stepped back, away from his hand. When he was like this, it would be so easy to just go along with whatever game he was playing. But then, as she almost had talked herself into believing that, instantly he ceased to be Don Juan, as if he was offended that she stepped out of his reach.

“I didn’t know what you might like to drink,” he said. “I didn’t have time to drive clear to Kingdom Come to buy booze. I can’t believe this county’s still dry. This is the twenty-first century, for chrissake. In LA, I buy liquor in the grocery store. On sale.”

He picked up the half-f bottle of tequila and looked at the label. “I found all of this in the cupboard. Must be Lane’s. Unless she started lately, my mom doesn’t drink much.”

His last remarks and his touch had left Joanna feeling so unsettled she could scarcely think, but she didn’t want to look like an unsophisticated ninny. Rather than confess she didn’t drink much, either, she said, “I’ll have what you’re having.”

He poured the two shot glasses full to the brims with tequila, pulled a knife from the knife block, sliced a lime in two and handed half to her. She watched as he licked his thumb knuckle, sprinkled it with salt, then threw back a shot of tequila. He licked the salt off his thumb, and followed with sucking the juice from the lime and a growling noise.

Though she didn’t drink tequila unless it was surrounded by a margarita, she knew many, women as well as men, who drank it just as he had demonstrated. She followed suit. The undiluted liquor slid down her throat and hit her empty stomach with a thud. Her whole body involuntarily shuddered. She gasped and grimaced at the kick, slamming the shot glass back onto the counter with a
thunk
. She quickly licked the salt off her knuckle and sucked on a lime half. “Oh, my God,” she croaked.

He grinned and picked up the tequila bottle, holding it poised above her shot glass. “The second one will go down easier.”

She was certain her eyes were crossed as she blinked away moisture. “Okay.”
I guess
.