Warrior's Embrace (2 page)

Virginia didn’t want to be intrigued.
Especially by a photojournalist.

“If you’re planning to tame me with your
virile good looks, don’t even try.”

“It’s not you I hope to tame, but the
horses.”

Bolton continued to gentle the horses with
touch and sound. He’d never done an interview with a hostile
subject, and he didn’t plan to start now.

Just as he’d suspected, Virginia’s curiosity
got the best of her.

“Where did you learn how to do that?”

“I was conceived on a horse.”

“What is that language?”

“Athabascan.”

Some of the aggressiveness went out of her
stance, and she tilted her head to one side as she listened.

“It’s beautiful. I’d like to learn it.”

“I’ll teach you.”

He turned the full radiance of his smile on
her. Virginia felt as if her insides were melting. His voice was
deep and rich and seductive.

Oh, he was dangerous all right, dangerous and
gorgeous and delicious... and far, far too young.

Virginia shut herself down. Bolton Gray Wolf
was off-limits.

“There’s nothing you can possibly teach me
that I haven’t already learned.” As she strode toward the house,
she flung over her shoulder, “If you want an interview with me,
you’d better come on. If not, you can hit the road.”

She was halfway across the barn lot when he
called her name.

“Virginia...” Slowly she turned around. “You
forgot about the horses.”

It was the first time she’d ever forgotten
about her horses. At that moment, she knew beyond a shadow of a
doubt that Bolton Gray Wolf would surely break her heart.

If she had a lick of sense she’d send Bolton
Gray Wolf back to Arizona and forget about the interview. That’s
what she told herself as she walked back toward the stables where
he waited with her horses.

His eyes were incredible, as vivid as the
wings of a bluebird, and he never took them off her. There was more
than professional interest in his stare: There was the hot, bright
look of a man aroused. It wasn’t something she imagined; it was
something she knew.

Her insides quaked like a teenager’s.

“What am I getting myself into?” she
whispered.

“Did you say something, Virginia?”

“Just talking to myself. Everybody knows
writers do that.”

“It must be a hazard of the profession,
sitting alone in front of a computer.”

“Yes, it’s a hazard of the profession.” She
reached for Starfire’s bridle, and her hand grazed his. Shock waves
that would have felled earthquake-proof buildings went through
her.

Another hazard of the profession, she told
herself. Constant isolation caused her to go slightly berserk at
the touch of a handsome stranger.

Her hands shook as she tried to remove the
bridle.

“Here.” Bolton covered her hands with his.
“Let me help with that.”

She should have told him she didn’t need
help, that she hadn’t needed help since Roger had walked out on her
fifteen years earlier leaving her with a mountain of debt, a car
that wouldn’t run in cold weather, and a five year old daughter to
raise.

But she didn’t. It felt so good to have
somebody take charge. She’d have to be careful, or she’d get to
liking it too much.

“In fact, why don’t you sit over there and
let me take care of the horses?” Bolton nodded in the direction of
a bale of hay.

“Is this part of your technique?”

“Technique?”

A hot flush came into her cheeks. She turned
her back on him and fanned herself before she sank onto the bale of
hay.

“Interviewing technique,” she clarified.

His laughter was rich and deep. “No. It’s
actually a selfish ploy on my part. I’ve been wanting to get my
hands on these Arabians since I first laid eyes on them.”

“I see.” Virginia plucked a strand of hay and
broke it into four even pieces. It gave her something to do with
her hands. Otherwise she might have had to sit on them in order to
keep them to herself.

“I don’t want you to misunderstand why I
requested you,” she said.

He cocked an eyebrow in her direction, but
his hands never ceased their efficient movements. There was no
sound in the stable except the soft scraping of the curry comb and
the cooing of pigeons in the loft.

“It’s not because of the way you look. I’m
sure women have told you, you’re gorgeous.”

“Not lately.” His smile was guileless. “In
fact, not ever.”

“They should have. By the droves.”

“Do droves of men tell you how beautiful you
are?”

“No. Not even one, unless you count Eldon
Prescott at the post office.”

“He must be a man of good taste.”

Virginia cupped her knees and drew them up to
her chest. The sun enhanced the bronze tones of Bolton’s skin and
gave his black hair the sheen of a raven’s wing. Except for his
blue eyes, he looked every inch the savage, as if he might leap
onto the stallion’s back at any moment and ride off with her
captive. And she wouldn’t even give a yelp of protest, not a single
one.

Her friend Jane would laugh if she could hear
Virginia describe the scene. “The thing I like about you,
Virginia,” Jane would say, “is that you know how to turn drab
reality into pulsating fantasy.”

It would behoove Virginia to get her head out
of the clouds and her feet back on the ground.

“Eldon Prescott’s a man of indiscriminate
taste,” she said. “He tells every woman in Pontotoc the same thing.
‘Good morning, Miss Ruthie. My, aren’t you beautiful today.’
‘Hello, Lola Bell, what brings such a beautiful woman out on such a
beautiful day?’ “

“And are they?”

“Yes, if you look on the inside rather than
the outside.”

“I like him already, and I haven’t even met
him yet.”

Virginia tensed. She was making a fool of
herself, lolling around in the hay thinking she could have an
ordinary conversation with a handsome man. The nature of her
profession lifted her out of the ordinary, and Bolton Gray Wolf was
not just any man. He was a journalist, that dread breed who probed
her as coldly as a scientist then spread her secrets out for all
the world to gossip about.

“Yet? Are you planning to ask Eldon Prescott
what the real Virginia Haven is like?” She jumped off the bale of
hay and dusted the seat of her jeans. “Let me save you the trouble.
I’m tough and independent and rich—I’m very, very rich—but I’m not
sneaky and I’m not mean. I don’t lie and I don’t pretend. So don’t
you ever pretend with me, Bolton Gray Wolf. Don’t you ever pretend
to be this charming friendly young man who adores horses when all
you want to do is sneak off behind my back and start trying to dig
up dirt on me.”

“Have you finished?”

“Not quite. Don’t think you can weasel your
way into my good graces
or
my bed with all that Apache
charm. I have no intention of being a conquest. Not yours, not
anybody’s.”

Bolton had never met a woman with such a
sharp stinger. The problem was, he’d long ago ceased to think of
Virginia Haven as an interview. When she’d sat on that bale of hay
with the sun in her hair and on her fair skin, he’d thought of her
as all woman, all
desirable
woman. As a matter of fact,
he’d lost his professional detachment about the time she’d
dismounted from the Arabian and stood in front of him with her hair
whipping around her face. She reminded him of sunshine and roses.
More than that she set off a fire in his blood, a fire of such
proportions, he knew it wasn’t a fluke, and that it wouldn’t go
away no matter what she said or did.

With her feet wide apart and her hands on her
hips, she waited.

“Well, aren’t you going to defend
yourself?”

He smiled at her. “No.”

“I suppose you’re going to pack up your
cameras and hightail it to the nearest airport.”

“No.” He draped blankets over the horses and
led them to their stalls.

Some of the starch went out of Virginia.
She’d never met a man she couldn’t back down. And she’d certainly
never met a journalist who didn’t grovel at her feet for the sake
of a story.

“What are you going to do?”

“Do you want me to answer that question,
Virginia, or have you already decided what my answers will be?”

“Don’t play word games with me. You’ll
lose.”

“I never lose, Virginia.”

His eyes cut through her like brilliant blue
lasers. She felt exposed, as if he’d stripped away her skin and
left nothing behind except bare bones and a heart beating too hard
and too fast.

There was a slow and easy grace in the way he
moved, as if the act of retrieving cameras and gear was some
ancient, ritualistic dance. With any other man she’d have said his
movements were carefully calculated, but Virginia was not dumb. If
she’d learned anything in the last few minutes, it was that Bolton
Gray Wolf was definitely not just
any
man.

The sun turned him to some kind of god as he
stood facing her with cameras slung over his shoulders. She’d read
about bones melting, had even written about it, but until that
moment she’d never understood the concept. Feeling behind her with
one hand, she slowly sank back onto the bale of hay.

“When you’re ready for this interview, call
me. I’m staying at the Ramada in Tupelo.” He scrawled the number on
the back of his business card and handed it to her. She refused to
reach for the card, and he placed it on the hay. Though he never
touched her, she could feel the heat of his hand as if he had
slowly and deliberately caressed her hip.

She looked up at him and became trapped in
his intense gaze.

“And Virginia... when I come to your bed, you
won’t be a conquest. You will be an equal.”

He walked away with the same silent grace
he’d used in rubbing down her horses. She wrapped her arms around
herself and watched him go. She was still sitting that way when
Candace came to the barn.

“What are you doing, Mother?”

How could she tell her daughter that she had
no earthly idea? That she’d been turned inside out and upside down
by a man who had boldly declared he was going to be her lover.

“What are
you
doing, Candace?”

“I came to tell you that Jane called to
remind you about dinner tonight... and to lead you to the house in
case you’d forgotten the way.”

Laughing, Virginia stood up and put her arm
around her daughter’s waist.

“Am I that bad?”

“Sometimes. But I’ve decided to keep you
anyhow.”

“Good, because I’ve decided to keep you,
too.”

They started toward the house arm in arm,
their heads close together as they talked.

“Did you finish the interview?”

“No.”

“Mother! You didn’t run this one off, did
you?”

“No. He’s not the kind of man who can be run
off. Besides, these interviews take longer than one afternoon.”

“How long?”

“A few days, I expect. Maybe even a week or
longer.”

“Good. Maybe he’ll still be here when I come
home next weekend. Marge will think he’s a dreamboat.” Candace
glanced at her mother. “I thought I’d bring her home with me, if
you don’t mind.”

“Of course not.”

Marge’s home was in Montana, and weekends on
the college campus were very long for her. Sometimes Virginia felt
as if she had two daughters instead of one, which was fine with
her. In fact, better than fine. It was good to have young people
around. It kept her from thinking too much about the severe
limitations of her social life.

That evening over catfish and fried dill
pickles at the Front Porch in nearby Tupelo, Jane reminded her.

“You need to get out more, Virginia.”

“I
am
out.”

“Oh, poop. Not with me. With somebody
handsome, well hung, and loaded.”

“Jane, a man would have to rob a Brink’s
truck to have more money than me, and I’m not interested in some
brainless jock.”

“You have not been interested in any man
since Roger dumped you.”

“That’s not true.” Virginia dragged the
appetizers closer to her plate. “You’re hogging all the dill
pickles.”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“I certainly am. I can think of nothing more
boring than my social life.”

“See. That’s just what I told you. You spend
too much time at your computer, Virginia. Computers can’t hold you
close at night, and they certainly can’t give you orgasms.”

“Jane, did I ever tell you that you have a
one-track mind?”

“Yeah. Every day since we turned sixteen. If
you weren’t rich and famous, I’d hate you.”

“And if you didn’t have freckles and red
hair, I’d hate you. It’s hard to hate somebody who looks like
Orphan Annie.”

Laughing, Jane patted her pouf of red hair.
“Do you think it looks natural? Lola tried a new color on me today.
It’s called siren-red.”

“I like it, Jane. It’ll stop traffic. As a
matter of fact—” Virginia stopped in midsentence.

“Virginia...
Virginia,
what in the
world are you staring at?”

When Virginia didn’t respond, Jane turned
toward the door.

“Holy Moses! Who is
that!”
Jane
clutched the front of her dress in a pretended swoon. “I could eat
him with a silver spoon. Heck, I could eat him with a tin spoon if
he’d just come close enough.... Good Lord, he’s coming this way.”
Jane grabbed her purse and hastily applied a fresh coat of
lipstick. “Do I look all right?
Virginia...”

In the few hours since she’d last seen him,
Bolton Gray Wolf had lost none of his good looks. As a matter of
fact, Virginia’s memories hadn’t done him justice. Quite simply, he
took her breath away.

“Hello, Virginia.”

“Bolton.”

She gave him a curt nod and refused to yield
to her urge to anchor herself to the table with a death grip. He’d
swapped his denim shirt for a soft butternut leather, open at the
neck to reveal a glimpse of dark hair.