Dani was cooking dinner with Beau when Kelsey rapped on their back door and walked in. “Sorry about my appearance,” she said at her older sister’s aghast look.
“What have you been doing?” Dani gave the chicken-and-rice dish another stir and set her spatula on the spoon rest. “You’re covered in ranch dust from head to toe.”
Kelsey washed her hands at the sink, then filched a slice of tomato from the salad Beau was making. “Brady and I bought some saddles and horses and stuff, and we carted some of it—like the horse blankets—home with us. They weren’t washed yet and I got as much dirt on me as the back of his pickup truck.”
“Where’s Brady now?”
Kelsey paced the kitchen restlessly. “At the ranch, taking care of the horses and cattle we do have.”
“Everything okay?” Dani asked.
“Yeah, sure,” Kelsey fibbed, not about to tell her sister she didn’t dare spend another night at the ranch alone with Brady, for fear of what she might want to happen, if she were left alone with him for too long. “It’s just been a busy day.” She didn’t want to cap it off with another romantic rejection from Brady. “And I need to ask you a favor.”
“Whatever we can do for you, we will,” Beau said as he wrapped his arms around Dani’s ever-expanding waist, and kissed her neck with husbandly affection. “You know that.”
“Yeah.” Kelsey tried not to notice how happy the two of them looked—how happy all her sisters looked, now that they were married to the men of their dreams. There was no reason for her to envy them. One day soon she would find her bliss, too. “Well, I just need to borrow a computer. Hopefully a laptop if you guys have a spare.”
Beau frowned. “You’re welcome to use mine, but it’s over at my office on Main.”
“I’ve got mine here. You can use that,” Dani said. She stood on tiptoe to kiss Beau’s cheek and reluctantly extricated herself from his arms.
“Can I take it with me and bring it back to you tomorrow?” Kelsey said. “Maybe print some stuff then?”
“Absolutely. Whatever you need.” Dani led the way to her study and packed it up for Kelsey in the carrying case.
“Well, I better get going,” Kelsey said.
“And think about getting a shower while you’re at it,” Dani teased. “Or at least changing your clothes.”
At the reference to her grubby state, Kelsey stuck out her tongue. Dani laughed. Both she and Beau waved as Kelsey drove off.
Instead of going home, Kelsey drove over to Jenna’s apartment, parked behind the shop and, Dani’s laptop in tow, headed up the stairs. Once inside, she stripped off her clothes and headed straight for the shower. Dani was right, Kelsey thought. She wouldn’t feel great until she had washed off some of this grit.
BRADY SHOWERED AND SHAVED, and put on a clean set of clothes. Following his hunch about where his errant, unpredictable wife had gone, he drove into Laramie. Kelsey’s pickup truck was right where he had expected it to be—parked behind Jenna Remington’s boutique on Main Street. He left his truck right behind hers, and took the exterior steps to the apartment two at a time. When she didn’t answer his knock, he strode on in anyway and found Kelsey walking out of the bedroom. She was wearing one of the sexiest negligees he had ever seen. The powder-blue satin gown had a plunging back and pretty low front and was held up by a pair of very thin spaghetti straps. It clung to her curves like a second skin, clearly delineating breasts, waist, hips and thighs. Her long hair had just been washed and blow-dried—it tumbled softly to her shoulders. Her face looked freshly scrubbed, and the complete lack of artifice gave her an innocent look that was even sexier than the nightgown she wore.
Kelsey scowled at him. “I came over here to work,” she said.
Brady grinned. She looked as ready to make love as he was to give it. “As what…?” he quipped. “A lady of the evening? Because if it’s companionship you’re looking for—” he tipped his hat at her and winked “—I volunteer.”
“Very funny.”
“It’s no joke, Kelse.” Brady took off his hat and set it on the table beside the door. He sauntered over to join her on the sofa. “I came to find you because I wanted to be with you tonight.”
Kelsey did not look at him as she opened up the laptop computer on the coffee table and turned it on. “Well, I’ve got to work on my schedule of riding classes, and start pulling together some instructional packets for the students to take home. Rules of Riding Do’s and Don’ts and things like that. I borrowed Dani’s laptop computer and Jenna’s apartment to do it, so if it’s an evening of fun you’re looking for, I suggest you go on down to Greta McCabe’s dance hall and kick up your heels there.”
“Without you? I don’t think so. And that still doesn’t explain the negligee you’re wearing.” He would’ve liked to think it was just for him, but since she clearly hadn’t expected to see him tonight…
Kelsey sighed. “I left in such a hurry I forgot to bring any clothes with me. And this is the only kind of nightwear Jenna had in her closet. She’s not exactly a T-shirt and jeans girl, you know, unless she’s out at her and Jake’s ranch. When she’s in town, she’s all sophistication. The only things in that closet are dresses and nightgowns like this.”
“Well, you look…really nice….” Brady said at last, knowing that didn’t begin to cover it. She looked sensational. He didn’t know how he was going to get through the evening without making her his.
Kelsey gave him a brisk smile. “You look really nice, too, Brady.” She pressed her lips together. Her shoulders drew tight as a bow as she focused on the laptop computer screen in front of her. “But that doesn’t change the fact I’ve got work to do.”
“Maybe I can help you,” Brady offered.
Kelsey began to type with the hesitancy of a novice computer-user. “I don’t think so.”
“Okay, have it your way.” Brady shrugged and headed for the refrigerator. They had all evening to get closer and figure out where this marriage of theirs was leading.
Kelsey sighed loudly as he opened the refrigerator door. “Now what are you doing?” she asked, clearly perturbed.
“Getting something to eat. I’m hungry.” Brady hunkered down to survey the interior. He was not enthused about what he saw inside the refrigerator. “Unfortunately, there’s not much in this refrigerator except diet soda and yogurt.”
“Works for me just fine,” Kelsey said. “But maybe you should hit one of the restaurants before you head back to the ranch.” Not waiting for his reply, she began typing on the laptop computer again.
Brady watched her move the mouse with the same awkwardness she typed. At this rate, he thought, it was going to take her all night. Which maybe was the plan? “I could bring us something back, if you want.”
“No, thanks. I’ll be fine with the yogurt and diet soda.”
Brady continued standing there. It didn’t take a genius to see she had put him in the deep freeze. He had hoped this evening would be the start of their getting even closer. Instead, she looked like she couldn’t be more miserable. “Did I do something wrong?” he asked, after a moment.
“No.” Kelsey made a panicked face. “I did. Darn it, I can’t get this graphics program to work!”
Glad they were now in an area he excelled in, Brady crossed to her side. He sat down beside her, so close their thighs were touching, and looked over her shoulder at the screen. “What are you trying to do?”
Kelsey lifted the laptop computer from the coffee table to her lap. “I wanted to make a big blue box, with red lettering inside it, but every time I attempt the red the blue goes away and now the darn thing has completely locked up.” Kelsey tapped on the computer keyboard, trying several different things. She wiggled the red mouse key in the center of the keyboard. Nothing worked.
Brady leaned across her to see what he could do. “Let’s use the escape key.” Nothing. “Maybe this will work,” he said, finally shifting the laptop onto his lap and taking over the keyboard. He typed in several variations and tried entering the commands into the computer. Still nothing.
As every effort to unfreeze the keyboard failed, Kelsey grew tenser and more worried. Finally, Brady sighed. “I think you’ve got a hardware problem here.”
“You mean the computer is broken?”
“Yep, looks like. Because you can’t exit any of the programs, and it won’t even turn off.”
Kelsey buried her head in her hands and looked all the more miserable. “Dani is going to kill me.”
“It’s not your fault,” Brady soothed as he set the malfunctioning laptop on the coffee table once again.
“Well, it sure seems like it. The thing was fine when I picked it up.” Kelsey gestured at it angrily. “I use it for half an hour, and now it’s broken.” She leapt up from the sofa and began to pace the small apartment.
Trying not to notice how the satin gown delineated Kelsey’s ample curves, Brady returned his glance to her face. “We can get it repaired. She’s probably got other computers at her house, right? Since she’s a film critic and works at home?”
“Actually—” Kelsey bit her lip and swung back around to face Brady “—Dani’s got several.”
“Then it’s no big deal.” Brady shrugged. “I suppose, though, you and I should be getting a computer of our own. That way you could work at home.” And I wouldn’t be chasing you all over Laramie County at night, just to spend time with you.
Abruptly, the computer screen went blank. Noticing, Kelsey said, “Hey, it shut off all by itself.”
But it didn’t turn on again.
Nor, to Brady’s disappointment, did Kelsey.
“YOU’RE REALLY GOING TO BED at eight-thirty at night?” he asked, when she had packed up her computer and the scribbled notes she had made.
Trying not to notice how he was looking at her—as if she were a forbidden dessert he would very much like to devour in one sitting— Kelsey smiled. “Yes. I’m very tired.” She finished zipping up the carrying case, then straightened. “It’s been a very long day. I just want to go to sleep.” Before I inadvertently screw up anything else. Like my “marriage.”
Brady shrugged, clearly disappointed. “Okay.”
“So you can feel free to go home now,” Kelsey continued, doing her best to get rid of him in as polite a manner as possible.
Brady stood and checked to see how much money was in his billfold. “I think I will go out and get some supper for us,” he said.
Kelsey didn’t like the possessive note in his low tone or the presumption in his eyes. That this was going to turn out to be some romance-or sex-filled evening after all. He had already turned her down twice. She wasn’t giving him a chance to go all gallant on her and turn her down again. “I told you I’m not hungry.”
“I’ll bring it back. Just in case.”
Kelsey rolled her eyes. She did not understand why this man would not give up on the idea of their spending the night together. It wasn’t as if he had romance in mind, or would miss her if she weren’t there. Besides, she needed time alone to collect her thoughts in a way that would prevent her from falling in love with someone who saw her only as a business partner and means to an end. “You’re not sleeping in the same bed with me tonight,” she warned him. Sleeping with him made her feel really married. And they weren’t. Regardless of what Wade McCabe or her sisters thought. She needed to remember that before she found herself wanting to make love with him again.
Brady smiled at her matter-of-factly. “The sofa looks fine.”
Kelsey tried not to think of the passionate kisses he had given her both times they had been in bed together. “There’s a bed at the ranch,” she said. It had been a little cramped and uncomfortable for two people who were trying to sleep without touching each other all night, but for one, it would do just fine.
Brady scowled and came closer. “If I sleep at the ranch tonight and you sleep here, as far as Wade McCabe and everyone else is concerned our marriage will be over, at least as far as appearances. Which would mean we’d be turning over the deed to the Lockhart-Anderson Ranch to him, pronto, and I’m not doing that. Hence, wherever you go, I go. Got it?”
Slowly, Kelsey let out the breath she had been holding. “Unfortunately.”
“So back to dinner,” he said. “Anything special you want?”
“No.” She flashed him a tight, humorless smile. “Thanks.”
“Okay.” Brady grinned as if she had welcomed him warmly and shrugged. “I’ll just wing it then.” He grabbed his hat and put it on. “See you in a while.”
FIVE MINUTES LATER, Brady walked into Callahan’s Pizza and Subs. Mac Callahan, a stocky, friendly guy in his mid-twenties, was standing behind the counter. One of the young entrepreneurs in Laramie, he had opened his restaurant right out of college, and thanks to Mac’s attention to quality and service, his business had been thriving ever since. “Hey, Mac,” Brady said.
“Hey, Brady. Heard congratulations are in order.”
“Thanks. Listen, you wouldn’t happen to know how Kelsey likes her pizza, would you?”
Mac grinned the way everyone who knew they were newlyweds grinned. “Trying to surprise her with a honeymoon special, huh?”
Actually, Brady thought, he was trying to lure Kelsey out from behind a locked bedroom door. But that was another matter. One Mac didn’t need to know about. “Here’s hoping,” Brady said casually, taking off his hat and hanging it on the rack next to the door. “So if you could help me out, I’d appreciate it.”
“No problem.” Mac picked up his order pad. “Kelsey’s favorite is pepperoni, sausage and onions. Double cheese. Easy on the sauce.”
“Sounds good to me. Make it an extra large. Add an order of buffalo wings, extra hot, and a hot Italian sub with everything in case she’s of a mind to try that. We didn’t have time to eat much today, we were so busy, so she’s got to be as hungry as I am.” For food, and other things as well…
While Mac began preparing the order, Brady leaned against the counter and watched. “You known Kelsey long?”
“I dated her. ’Course, near every guy in town can tell you that, too.”
So Brady’d heard.
“She’s a nice girl,” Mac continued conversationally. “Hopelessly fickle, of course. Can’t stay with anyone or anything for long.” Mac slanted Brady a hope-filled glance. “Maybe that will change, now that she’s got the ranch and you.”
And maybe not, Brady thought, as he considered the way she was running hot and cold with him, recklessly inviting him into her bed one minute, kicking him out of it entirely the next. Hoping Mac’s experiences with Kelsey could give him some insight into her behavior, Brady asked, “So how long did the two of you date?”
“Two weeks.”
Brady warned himself not to jump to conclusions. “Did you dump her or did she dump you?” he asked casually.
Mac slid the pizza into the oven and started on the hot Italian sub. “That’s not the way it works with Kelsey. She doesn’t like ugly or emotional scenes. She just sort of eases away from a fella.”
“Eases away,” Brady repeated uncomfortably, not sure he understood.
“Well, starts losing interest,” Mac explained further. “The signs are real subtle at first. She doesn’t quite seem to be listening to what you’re saying. Finds excuses to stay apart or spend time away from you. Before you know it, she’s looking to somebody else.” Mac snapped his fingers. “Then it’s over. Just like that.” Mac peered at Brady in concern. “Say, it’s not happening to you already, is it?”
It better not, Brady thought grimly.
KELSEY WAS TOSSING and turning in bed, wishing she’d thought to smuggle in some of that yogurt for dinner before she had flounced off, locking the door behind her. Now it was too late, Kelsey thought as her stomach rumbled even louder. Because Brady was back. He was out in the living room. And worse, he had obviously brought food back with him, just as he promised. And not just any food. Mac Callahan’s pizza.
Well, she had two choices. She could stay in here, pretending to be asleep, and starve to death. Or she could go out there and chow down. As always, the tomboy in Kelsey won out.
She threw back the covers and marched out into the living room to join Brady, hopelessly sexy negligee and all. He was sitting with his feet up on the coffee table, a plate of food in his lap, watching a popular sitcom.
Brady glanced over at her, taking in her tousled hair and irritated expression. For once, his eyes did not stray to her breasts. “That was quick,” he said. “I haven’t even had time to go to sleep yet and here you are already up, after a good…oh, thirty-five minutes’ sleep.”
Kelsey gave him a look that let him know she did not appreciate his attempt at humor at her expense. “Are you still sharing?” she demanded, getting right to the point.
Brady frowned as if that was a huge problem. “You told me you didn’t want any dinner,” he reminded her, squinting thoughtfully.
Her mouth was watering, her taste buds begging for even a smidgen of the food he’d brought back. “I changed my mind, okay?” Kelsey told him irritably, pushing the tousled hair off her face. “Now, can I have some or not?”
Brady flashed her one of his sexiest smiles. “Help yourself, darling. I figured you’d cave as soon as you smelled Mac’s cooking—which I have to say is far superior to either yours or mine—so I got plenty.”
She scowled at him—if this was his way of playing hard to get, and even harder to hold, it was working. Kelsey went to the kitchenette where he had left the food, and helped herself to a slice of pizza, a generous portion of wings and half the sub. She opened the fridge and found a six pack of cream soda. Regular, not diet. “You bought cream soda….”
“Mac Callahan said it was your favorite.”
It was. Only problem, she could never remember to buy it when she was at the grocery store, and most vending machines didn’t carry it, so she rarely had it. She paused to flip open the top and take a swig of the deliciously sweet soda. “You talked to him?”
“The whole time I was there,” Brady affirmed in a smug know-it-all tone that had her alarm increasing by leaps and bounds.
Kelsey came over and sat down beside him on the sofa. “What did he say?”
Brady flashed her a wickedly mischievous grin. “Oh, lots of things. Most compelling were his tips on how to keep you interested in me.” He winked. “Cream soda was right up there on the list.”
Kelsey had a funny, sinking sensation inside her that for once had nothing to do with her desire for Brady. “You are joking, right?”
“Nope.” Brady finished off one fiery-hot chicken wing and started on another. “Mac thinks, as does everyone else in town, that you are one fickle gal.”
Kelsey broke off a chunk of pizza with her fingers. “That’s just because we used to date and it didn’t work out.”
Brady narrowed his eyes at her. “It didn’t work out with a lot of guys,” he pointed out quietly.
Kelsey flushed. “Is that a criticism? Because, I’m telling you, Brady Anderson, if it is—”
He held up a staying hand before she could bolt to the relative safety of the breakfast room. “I’m just trying to understand you.”
Kelsey blotted the corners of her lips with her napkin. “Not to mention how and why I got my reputation as a heartbreaker.”
Brady shrugged, as if it didn’t matter to him one way or another, when she could tell it did. “Well,” he allowed, with a sexy wink, “now that you’ve brought it up, I wouldn’t mind hearing your side of things.”
To her surprise—usually she didn’t give two figs what anyone thought of her—Kelsey wanted to confide in him. More than that, she wanted Brady to understand her the way no one ever had. “I have dated a lot of guys, but it wasn’t because I wanted to set a record or anything. When I started out, I was just trying to find my own Mr. Right. And as soon as I realized the guy I was dating wasn’t my Mr. Right, I ended it.”
“Makes sense,” Brady said, the gentleness in his eyes giving her the courage to go on.
“Usually someone else would ask me out straightaway, and I’d go, and then after a week or two, sometimes more, sometimes less, I’d find out he wasn’t it for me, either,” Kelsey said softly.
“And the more guys you rejected, the more of a challenge you became,” Brady guessed.
Kelsey nodded, the bitterness and hurt she felt about that turn of events surfacing. “I sort of became the Mount Kilimanjaro of the fairer sex here in Laramie, and the guys around here began to want to go out with me, strictly for the challenge. It became a test of manliness, the quest to conquer me and take me to bed and steal my heart—and not necessarily in that order.” She sighed, hating the way that had made her feel. She turned and looked deep into Brady’s midnight-blue eyes. “That may not have been what they told themselves they were doing, you know. But it was what was happening nevertheless, and every time I realized I was just an object to be conquered, that rather than being themselves, the guys were doing everything and anything to please me, so they could go where no man had ever been before. Or worse, they were pretending to be something or someone they weren’t, just so I’d think the two of us were a perfect match and I’d succumb to their charms. Each time, it was like a switch turned off inside me, and that was just it. It was over. I couldn’t feel anything for them anymore, so then it was easier to break up with them.”
Kelsey paused, hating the hopelessness she heard in her voice. She hadn’t realized until now how much all the jockeying for her attentions had influenced her.
“Anyway, that’s what I liked about you, Brady,” she continued firmly, taking his hand in hers. “From the beginning there hasn’t been any pretense. You are who you are, and that’s that. There’s no pretending anything with you. No ulterior reason on your part for being my friend and partner and now husband, and I appreciate that, more than you can know.”
Abruptly, Brady looked uncomfortable. “I’m no saint, Kelse,” he told her gruffly, extricating his hand from hers.
“But you’re not using me,” Kelsey persisted, letting him know with a look that he was different from all the other guys she had dated. “You haven’t lied to me or pretended to be anything you’re not, just so you could claim me and get me into your bed. The majority of those other guys did, whether they were conscious of it or not.”
The way Brady looked at her then, as if there was nothing he wanted more than to make love to her, then and there, had Kelsey’s pulse racing.
She swallowed. “Anyway, I think that’s enough questions for one night,” she said casually, putting her plate aside. “And I know I’ve had enough pizza.” Enough rejection, in a sexual and romantic sense, too.
“Running out on me?” Brady said as they carried their plates to the kitchenette and set them there.
“Going to bed. Alone,” Kelsey clarified, quickly putting the leftover food away, and letting him know with a look that despite how she was dressed there was not going to be any hanky-panky in that apartment that night.
Not just because they had nothing better to do. She had figured out the first time she had tried to go to bed with him, just for the heck of it, that she wasn’t cut out for meaningless sex, even with someone as sexy and wonderful as Brady Anderson.
No, when she finally made love with a man it was going to have to be because she loved him, and he loved her, and for no other reason. She might be falling for Brady, big time, but all he felt for her concerned business, with an occasional dash of lust and guilt, which wouldn’t make for a satisfying sexual relationship, she was sure.
“Thanks for the dinner.” She brought back a pillow and a blanket and set them down on the coffee table. Feeling reckless and mischievous again, she said, already backing toward her bedroom door, “Sweet dreams, cowboy. The sofa is all yours.”
“And so is this,” Brady said, taking her into his arms abruptly. Ignoring her soft gasp of surprise, he delivered a long breath-stealing kiss that had her middle fluttering weightlessly and her nipples aching. She surged against him, and he kissed her again and again, so thoroughly and completely that her knees went weak and she moaned her pleasure despite herself.
When he finally let her go there was no doubt he desired her. And intended to have her, as soon as the time was right. “Good night, Kelsey,” he said.
“Good night.”