Dani tossed her head and stepped past him. “Dream on, cowboy.” She threw the words over her shoulder like discarded bits of sand.
For three weeks now Beau had been telling himself that circumstances had exaggerated the potent chemistry between them, the impact of her stunning good looks and feisty personality combined. But it just wasn’t so. He had only to be near her to realize what a truly beautiful woman she was. Sassy, spirited, determined, and no one challenged him—no one wanted to know him—the way Dani did. As for her stunning good looks, he had only to be near her to appreciate the flawlessness of her complexion and the delicate features of her oval face. He dreamed about her pert nose, full lips and perfect chin. Longed to see the intelligence and quick wit in her amber eyes and hear the throaty softness of her voice.
Aware he had never wanted to possess a woman more, heart and soul, Beau closed the distance between them. Maybe it was time she learned she couldn’t shut him out that way, not out of his own child’s life and not out of hers, not if he wanted in, and right now, as it happened, he did want in. The best way to do that, of course, was to drag her into his arms and kiss her again, the complications of their situation be damned. He wanted to let their feelings—not logic and reason—take over. He wanted to take her to bed and make wild passionate love to her again, so thoroughly and completely neither of them would ever forget a single instant of it. And then, only then, when they’d exhausted themselves, run the gamut of their feelings for each other, deal with all the unresolved specifics of their situation. Which, he admitted, were considerable. But they couldn’t take it all on now. They had to take on each issue one at a time. Starting with the return of their memories.
“Can you think of a better way to bring it all back to both of us?” Beau asked silkily as they continued their silent two-step around the kitchen until her back was to the wall and he was directly in front of her. He sure couldn’t!
Dani blushed and drew in a quavery breath as he braced a hand on the wall on either side of her. Their bodies weren’t quite touching, but he could already see her trembling with desire. Her palms flattened against his chest, holding him at bay. Even as the full brunt of her temper shone in her eyes, her body shuddered and softened toward his. “I’m sure this isn’t it!” she shot back breathlessly, tilting up her chin.
Beau smiled as he read the desire in her eyes. He tunneled his hands through the coppery softness of her hair. “We’ll never know for sure,” he murmured softly, smiling down at her, “unless we give it the ol’ Texas try.”
“I don’t want to give it the ol’ Texas try,” she said stubbornly.
“Sure about that now, Dani?” he taunted, noting her eyelashes already beginning to close. “’Cause you look to me like you’re just dying to be kissed.” And then, waiting be damned, his lips were on hers. He knew she didn’t mean to kiss him back, any more than he could help kissing her, and somehow that made the culmination of their desire all the sweeter. Groaning, he deepened the kiss, exploring her mouth with his tongue, leaving not a millimeter untouched. He knew, married or not, they were different as night and day. It didn’t matter. She made him aware of needs that until now he had been unaware of. She made him feel like half of a whole. She made him feel married. Not just for now, but forever. And heaven knew he had never felt anything like this in his life. Never wanted a woman so much. Never wanted to possess her so thoroughly and so quickly. Never wanted to give her his heart and his soul. But with Dani, he did.
Dani struggled to keep her feelings in check, but it was an impossible task when his body was flush against hers and his arms were wrapped around her. Over and over, his tongue plunged into her mouth, stroking and exciting. No one had ever asked her to give so much, and a few more kisses robbed her of the ability to protest at all. When his hand slipped beneath her blouse and cupped her breast through the lace of her bra, she arched her back and trembled with helpless pleasure. So this was what had happened, she thought. This was why and how they had made love. She was drowning in the pleasurable sensations sweeping through her. He’d made her want him to the point of madness. And he, too, had wanted her in exactly the same way.
Warm ribbons of pleasure flooded her as he caressed the taut aching tip of her breast and covered her mouth in a searing kiss. And it was then that Dani began to remember. Then that she had a brief potent mental image of the two of them in bed together, intimately entwined. Beau’s hands on her breasts, kneading and caressing…then his lips…his thighs spreading hers even as she ached and writhed…her whole body surrendering, straining, wanting, needing…his hands beneath her hips, lifting her…as if to possess…
Startled by the vividness of the imagery, the knowledge of her own unprecedented wanton behavior she pushed him away, her breath coming raggedly. She couldn’t believe he’d made her feel so vulnerable so fast. Any more than she could believe she’d responded as passionately as she had. “I can’t believe you just did that,” she fumed, as angry at herself for the thoughts running through her mind as she was at him for his actions. She knew the difference between sex and love. And she wanted love. Until she knew he loved her as a husband should, there would be no more making love. Making love too soon was one of the things that had gotten them into this mess.
“I can’t believe we stopped.” Clearly he wanted to take their lovemaking to the limit and beyond.
“It shouldn’t have happened,” Dani insisted stubbornly.
His glance dropped to the nipples visibly protruding against the material of her blouse. “We are married.”
Dani glowered at him. “Legally—temporarily—maybe,” she allowed.
Beau’s eyes clashed with hers as he corrected softly, reasonably, “At least for the next nine months.”
“You can’t—we—”
He stepped closer and, before she could run, cupped her shoulders warmly. “We may not know exactly how we went from fighting to loving in such a short period of time, or even why we acted like lovestruck lunatics, rushing off to get married, but that no longer matters.”
Dani was still as a statue as she studied his face. “It doesn’t?”
“No,” Beau replied. “And you know why not?” He looked deep into her eyes. “’Cause we are having a baby together, and that baby is coming into the world the best way possible, with two parents who love him or her enough to put their own needs aside and concentrate on their child. Our baby is going to be born legitimate, Dani.”
As much as Dani wanted to, she couldn’t argue the wisdom of that. They did owe it to their baby to give it the best possible start in life, and that meant having two parents who were married at the time of his or her birth. The real problem was what followed. She didn’t want to let herself fall in love with Beau or grow to depend on him, only to have him walk out on her. She’d endured the loss of her parents. She couldn’t endure another loss of that magnitude. And if he kept kissing her that way, kept looking at her that way, kept hanging around that way, acting like a husband and calling her his wife, Dani knew odds were good she would fall head over heels in love with him.
Marshaling her defenses, she stepped away from him. “And after the baby’s born, then what?” Dani pressed, looking Beau straight in the eye.
He shrugged and flashed her an unapologetic grin. “It’ll all depend on how we get along in the meantime, I guess.” He seemed to think they were going to get along just fine.
Dani studied him in silence. His optimism was contagious, though some of her reservations remained. It had not been her experience that happiness landed on her doorstep very often. And yet, the more she looked at him, the more she wanted to believe this could all work out for the best, despite the odds against it. “You’re really serious about this,” she said slowly.
Beau raked his hands through the inky-black layers of his hair. “The more I think about it, the more I know we had to have done whatever we did for a reason, Dani.” He paused. “Because you and I both never do anything without a damn good reason.”
That was certainly true, Dani thought. His career and rise to fame had been one of the most well-orchestrated campaigns she had ever seen. Just as her own achievements had taken a lot of planning and determination. Both of them had guts and singularity of purpose in abundance.
Beau ran his palm across his jaw. Seemingly aware of just how ruggedly handsome he was to her with the hint of evening beard on his face, he flashed her a sexy grin. “Unfortunately I don’t happen to recall what that reason was.” He planted his hands on her shoulders encouragingly. “But ten to one, it’s there. In both our memories. And when we do remember everything, we’ll understand why we did what we did down in Mexico.”
Dani sighed. She hoped that was the case. She didn’t know how much more of this she could take.
TEN MINUTES LATER, Beau and Dani were squaring off again. This time over sleeping arrangements. “You honestly expect me to sleep on the sofa?”
Dani thrust the pillow and blanket she had culled from one of the moving boxes at him. “Be glad it’s not the floor.”
Beau cradled the blanket and pillow against his chest. He did not look inclined to use either. At least not alone. “I saw your bed,” he said, a mixture of mischief and desire glimmering in his eyes. He tossed the bedding onto the sofa and followed her to the L-shaped staircase leading up to the second floor. “It’s a double.”
“Actually,” Dani drawled as she halted on the bottom step with one hand resting on the banister, “it’s a queen.”
“See?” Beau shrugged, patiently waiting for her to stop blocking his path. “Plenty of room for two.”
He was doing it again, looking at her as if he was already making love to her. She could feel the desire pouring from them both. Only this time she knew he wouldn’t be satisfied with a fleeting touch and a few kisses. If he joined her in her bed, he would want more. And she wasn’t ready for the next step.
“Think again, cowboy.” Dani stood firm, not sure what was more annoying—his persistence in pursuing her or his thoroughly male confidence that one day he would win this battle of wills. “There will never be enough room in my bed for you, Beau Chamberlain, no matter how married we are or what size mattress I sleep on,” she told him hotly, not about to forgive him for the kisses in the kitchen just now or the passion they had engendered. A passion that was bound to keep her up all night! She was still tingling from head to toe!
Want to bet? Beau’s look said. “Now, honey, don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he taunted playfully, sidestepping the moving boxes that were stacked at various places in the hall and stopping just outside her bedroom door. “If we made love once, we can—heck, we probably will,” he finished with a knowing wink, “do it again.”
Which was exactly what Dani was afraid of. She didn’t want to add any more memories to those that were already starting to come back, unbeknownst to Beau. But not about to let him see how vulnerable she felt when she was around him, or how much she was beginning to want him, too, she volleyed back, “You just keep telling yourself that, cowboy. Meanwhile,” she told him in her soft Texas drawl, “I’m going to bed.”
Beau grinned as happily as if she’d invited him into her bedroom. He stuck his thumbs through the belt loops on either side of his fly and retained his arrogant stance. He held her eyes with his mesmerizing gaze, making her feel all hot and bothered inside. “Try not to dream about me too much.”
Dani rolled her eyes and ignored the tidal wave of heat starting deep inside her. “Don’t you wish that was going to be the case?”
“I’M GLAD YOU CALLED,” Dani’s sister Meg said fifteen minutes later as Dani curled up in bed, newly installed telephone in hand. “I was going to check in with you in a few minutes.”
“Jeremy asleep?” Dani asked, referring to Meg’s son, who was almost six.
“Out like a light,” Meg replied happily. “That birthday party he went to this afternoon really tuckered him out. But we digress,” Meg said. “What we really need to be talking about here is Beau Chamberlain. What in the world was he talking about today when he called you his wife?”
“The truth, apparently,” Dani said dryly, then went on to explain about their apparent marriage and resulting pregnancy, as well as their mutual memory lapse.
Meg listened quietly to Dani’s entire recitation. Like Dani, Meg was happy about the baby. She knew Dani had always wanted to have a baby of her own someday. Meg was less certain about the baby’s daddy.
Meg was silent for a long moment on the other end of the phone connection. Finally she said, “You really think you can trust Beau to be there for you the way you and the baby are going to need him to be? I mean, the two of you have carried on quite a feud the past few years.”
“I know.” Dani sighed.
“But…?”
Dani paused, recalling the look in Beau’s eyes when he had finally confessed he had amnesia about almost everything that had happened in Mexico. She had only to think about his gotta-do-right-by-our-kid attitude when it came to the baby to know he was telling her the truth. They were really in a jam here. And like it or not, they were in it together. Dani swallowed. “All I know is that Beau is serious and responsible enough to want—no, demand—that we stay married until the baby is born and we can figure out what to do.”
Meg sucked in a breath. “Whoa now, little sis. Is that really what you want?”
Dani knew it wasn’t a choice Meg had made. She had decided to rear Jeremy alone, to this day never even revealing who her son’s father was.
And that had been a surprise, too. The oldest of the four Lockhart sisters, Meg had always been the responsible one. Looking after all her sisters, making sure everyone was okay. And that trait had intensified after they’d lost their parents. Maybe, Dani mused, because Meg had been away at college in Chicago when the tornado that had killed their parents had hit and unable to get back home to her sisters for a good twenty-four hours after the catastrophe.
Dani knew even if she never said so that Meg still felt guilty about that. But she also knew it wasn’t Meg’s fault. It wasn’t anyone’s. Thanks to the high winds and fierce storms that had accompanied the tornado, phone lines had been down all over Laramie County. They’d had trouble finding Meg—who hadn’t been listening to the news and had no idea anything was wrong.
Once they’d finally located her at the college medical library around midnight, they’d had to wait until early the next morning to get her on the first available flight home. Then they had to arrange for someone to go to the Dallas–Fort Worth airport to pick her up and bring her back to Laramie to console her sisters, make funeral arrangements and decide what to do next.
None of which had been easy tasks.
Afterward Meg had dropped out of college, where she’d been working toward a master’s degree in nursing, and returned home to Laramie to sell the Lockhart Ranch and care for her three younger sisters.
Her sacrifice had kept Dani, Jenna and Kelsey from being split up and put in foster care. And since then, Meg had done everything possible to protect, nurture and care for her three younger sisters. To the detriment of her own life and happiness, Dani sometimes thought. Because Dani couldn’t help but think, had it not been for them, Meg—who had also found herself unexpectedly pregnant shortly after returning to Laramie—might have married or built more of a life of her own.
“Do you want to stay married to Beau?” Meg continued, sounding quite frankly aghast.
Dani took a deep breath and clutched the phone even tighter. “I don’t know,” she said finally. The heck of it was, marriage to Beau wasn’t as unpalatable an option as it should have been. Not nearly.
But that wasn’t even the worst of it, Dani thought several minutes later as she snuggled under the covers and attempted to get comfy enough to sleep. The worst of it was, she had fibbed when she’d said she didn’t remember anything else about their time together in Mexico. She did. She just hadn’t been sure it was real until Beau had kissed her downstairs in the kitchen. But once he had taken her all the way in his arms and covered her lips with his, she had known those recollections that had seemed more dreamlike than real had been rooted, not in fantasy or imagination as she had first supposed, but in something that had actually happened.
And if she could remember how gently and intimately he kissed, how thoroughly and passionately he loved, what else, Dani wondered nervously, might she eventually remember?
BEAU STRETCHED OUT on the sofa that was a good foot short for his six-foot-plus frame. It had been a long time since he had been banished to the sofa for the night. Even longer since he’d had his life turned upside down by a woman. And never to this degree. He had never expected to get married again.
Never wanted to get married again.
And yet, at least part of being married to Dani, the physical part, didn’t seem all that bad. The kiss they had shared, not to mention the fuzzy recollection he had of their wedding night in Mexico, had let him know that their lovemaking was the kind of lovemaking that came along once in a lifetime, if you were lucky.
The problem was, the two of them were as different as night and day. Dani didn’t believe in happy endings or happily-ever-after anything. Beau not only believed such happy outcomes existed, he believed they were within everyone’s reach.
Which wasn’t to say he hadn’t gone through his jaded period, too. After his divorce from Sharon, there’d been a two-year period when he’d been so wary of being made a fool of again or getting involved with the wrong woman that he’d had trouble believing in anything or anyone. Two things had kept him going. His need to make movies. And his flirtatious feud with Dani Lockhart. She’d not only gotten to him as no woman ever had, she’d also inspired him to do some of the best work of his life in Bravo Canyon.
Now it was Dani’s turn to face reality. He had to make her see that he was interested in her, not just the baby. He had to transform her inherent cynicism—the prevailing feeling that nothing wonderful or magical would ever happen to her—to the feeling that something wonderful surely would.
On the surface it was an impossible task.
Or would have been if his niche in life hadn’t been what it was. He knew what people thought—his job wasn’t just about pretending to be someone or playing a role. With every performance, every role he took, he was selling hope. He was selling dreams. The idea that it was worth whatever pain or grief a person endured to stand up and fight for what he or she believed in. The idea that if a person put his or her heart and soul into an endeavor, he or she would succeed. That, ultimately, right always prevailed over wrong, good over evil. That was why he’d always done westerns in the past and always would. Because he wanted to make movies that showed the measure of a man was more about his honor and integrity than his personal wealth. He’d given up his house in L.A. and returned to Texas because he needed to be partnered with a woman who shared his time-honored values and loved the Texas way of life, where home and family were everything, as much as he did. That woman was Dani. He knew it. And soon, with his help, she would know it, too.
DANI WAS STILL SLEEPING upstairs and Beau had just gotten the coffee started the next morning when the doorbell rang. He wasn’t as surprised as he would have liked to see his attorney/agent and publicist standing on Dani’s front porch. Edie and Ellsworth Getz were one of the power couples in Hollywood these days, presiding over a stable of the most gifted actors, directors and writers in the business. Having nurtured Beau’s talent and career from his first days in Hollywood, they were also like a father and mother to him. With a father and mother’s penchant for meddling.
“I don’t even want to know how you found me,” he grumbled. He had visited Laramie, Texas, often when he was a kid. He’d had an aunt who lived there. But he hadn’t been around much since his aunt had moved away ten years earlier. And he hadn’t yet told either Edie or Ellsworth of his plans to open an office of his production company there.
“It wasn’t easy,” Edie admitted as she breezed in, looking as smart as ever in a summery blue designer pantsuit. She patted her sleek blond chignon. “No one in the industry seemed to know where you were.”
They hadn’t, Beau thought. Until now. “I’m supposed to be on vacation,” he reminded her. He had worked nonstop for the past three years, with no more than a few days off here and there. The five weeks he had allotted himself were vital to his mental health. And his personal life.
“Your vacation was over four days ago,” Ellsworth said, looking just as chic as his wife in his Saville Row suit and carefully trimmed pewter-gray beard. He gazed at Beau shrewdly. “You were supposed to be back in Los Angeles last Friday.”
Beau shrugged and offered no apology. “I had a change of plans.”
“There’s no time for that. You have a movie coming out in two weeks. The premiere in Dallas is five days from now. Back-to-back interviews and publicity blitz start in seven days,” Edie said as she put on her publicist hat. All of which, it went without saying, took quite a bit of preparation. There were wardrobe fittings. Photo sessions. Question-and-answer sessions to sit through.
“I know all that,” Beau said, beginning to get a little irritated.
“Then why haven’t you been checking with your service or returning any of your calls?” Ellsworth demanded.
“I have more important things going on here in Laramie.”
“Like romancing Dani Lockhart to try and get a good review out of her?” Ellsworth accused.
Gently Edie took up where her husband left off. “There’s no doubt she’s fast emerging as the leading movie critic in the country. But to think you could seduce her into writing you a favorable review…well, you’d be wasting your time.”
“I quite agree,” Dani said icily, joining them in the kitchen. She had on blue-and-white-striped pyjamas. A matching calf-length robe was tugged on carelessly over that, the front falling open, the belt drooping on either side of her. Her coppery hair was all tousled, her cheeks pink from sleep, her eyes glittering with fiery amber lights. She looked beautiful and kissable—and ticked off as all get-out. Knowing what she must have heard, Beau couldn’t say he blamed her.
Beau bit back an oath. He hadn’t meant for Dani to be privy to any of this. Determined to end this unscheduled business conference as soon as possible, he turned back to his agent and publicist. “I’ll be in New York when I need to be in New York. And I will also be at the premiere in Dallas in ten days,” he promised flatly. “Until then I have personal matters to attend to.” And about that, he wasn’t budging.
Ellsworth jerked at the knot of his tie. “More than you know,” Ellsworth muttered, looking stressed out.
Edie looked at Beau steadily. “We need to talk, Beau. Something serious has come up, and I’m not sure Miss Lockhart should hear it.”
Dani glared at Beau, obviously believing the worst, and turned to go.
Acting on impulse, another thing he almost never did, Beau reached out, grabbed Dani’s hand and tugged her back to his side. “Stay,” he said. He drew a padded swivel chair up to the glass-topped breakfast table. “There’s nothing you can say Dani can’t hear,” he told Edie and Ellsworth.
Dani’s jaw dropped.
As did Ellsworth’s and Edie’s.
The pair thought about arguing with him, until they took a good look at his face and realized he was not going to budge about this.
“Fine,” Edie huffed after a moment. “As long as it is agreed nothing said here leaves this room.” Edie gave Dani a pointed look.
Dani sighed, looking more irritated to have her integrity questioned than her home commandeered for an impromptu meeting between Beau and his representatives. “You have my word.” She pushed the words through her teeth.
“It’s Sharon,” Edie said as Beau got steaming paper cups of coffee for everyone. “She’s secretly peddling a tell-all about her marriage to you to one of the television networks.”
At the thought of having the most intimate details of his private life splashed across the TV screen and being made a fool of, not just in private but in public this time, Beau clenched his jaw.
“It gets better,” Ellsworth warned wearily as he stirred sugar into his coffee. “She’s planning to close the deal and go public on the same night your new movie opens in Dallas.”
Edie looked really worried. “She’s planning to say that in your case art is imitating life, that your playing the pursuer of a married woman in the movie is more true to life than everyone knows. And that it was your secret sexual involvement with a string of prominent married women that prompted her to end the marriage to you.”
Beau shook his head in disgust and shot a look at Dani. He wished he knew what she was thinking, but her expression revealed nothing except a sort of subdued wariness where he was concerned. He turned back to his agent and publicist. “That’s complete bull and you know it.” For the first time Beau was regretting his decision to keep the real reason behind his divorce from Sharon private.
“Yes, we know it,” Edie said, her eyes full of sympathy for her client. She stirred artificial sweetener into her coffee. “But we’re not the movie-going public, and they may not think so. A scandal like this, timed to coincide with your movie’s debut, could dramatically hurt ticket sales. If ticket sales on Bravo Canyon are low the first week, well…” Edie looked steadily at Beau. “I don’t have to tell you how quickly films are leaving the theaters and going to video these days.”
Beau made no effort to hide his displeasure. “Can’t we stop her?” he demanded impatiently, drawing on his agent’s experience as an attorney.
Ellsworth shrugged. “You could ask for an injunction. But that would probably only bring more negative publicity and more speculation about whether or not Sharon’s allegations are true. Meanwhile, the new movie debuts…” Ellsworth’s voice trailed off. It wasn’t necessary to say more.
Beau took a long sip of coffee, then put his cup aside. “So what are you asking me to do?” He sat back in his chair and folded his arms.
“Talk to her,” Edie said.
Beau would sooner burn in hell. He noted Dani didn’t seem to like that option much, either. His jaw shot out pugnaciously. “No.”
Ellsworth looked at Beau sternly. “Her representatives, then. She must want something. If you don’t want to do it yourself, then authorize us to do it for you.”
Beau shook his head. “I’m not paying her off again.” He’d done that once, just to end the marriage, get it over with. And he’d regretted it ever since. “Besides, Sharon and I had an agreement. Neither of us was going to talk publicly about the reason the marriage ended. That agreement was a prerequisite of her getting any money from me. If she breaks it, she loses the settlement she won in the divorce.”
Edie sighed. “You’d have to sue her to get it back, and word around Hollywood is she’s already spent it all and then some.”
“All going after her that way would do is tie you up in more litigation for years and further the scandal.” Ellsworth backed up his wife.
“On the other hand,” Edie continued persuasively, “if you could figure out a way to get her to stop this before it goes any further and does damage to either of your careers…”
“Maybe use your influence to get her a plum role in an upcoming film?” Ellsworth suggested.
“No,” Beau said firmly. He stood, signaling this impromptu meeting was over. “I paid her off once.” He looked at his agent and publicist grimly. “It was a mistake. I am not—I repeat not—doing it again.”
BEAU WALKED EDIE and Ellsworth to the front door and stood watching as they drove off. His expression was so dark and brooding that eventually Dani joined him on the wide front porch. She knew, even if he was far too much the strong silent type to admit it, that he really needed to talk about what was going on in his life. As his wife, albeit only temporarily, she needed to know so she could be braced for whatever else might be coming next from Sharon Davis and her bogus claims and the resulting public furor.
The only problem was finding a way to get Beau to talk to her about what he clearly did not want to talk about. To anyone. “What are you thinking?” she asked gently after a moment, hoping a little kindness and understanding would break the ice.
He turned to look at her, his eyes scanning her face. Searching for what exactly, she couldn’t say. “Breakfast,” he told her in a low hushed voice, his warm breath brushing her hair.
She became aware her pulse had picked up marginally. He looked so right, so natural, standing next to her on the porch. For a second Dani let herself fantasize how it might be to live there with him as husband and wife, to go to sleep with him every night and wake up with him every morning. Even if she didn’t believe for an instant what he was currently telling her—that he’d put the problem with his ex-wife completely out of his mind.
“I’m hungry,” Beau continued with the sort of lazy male insistence that had made him an international movie star. His sexy smile deepened as his gaze moved from her eyes to her lips and back again. Turning so he faced her, he wrapped both arms about her waist. “How about you?”
Dani was hungry. She wasn’t willing to be diverted from her quest. “Then we should get dressed and head to one of the restaurants on Main Street,” she suggested, figuring they could talk on the way. She took his hand, intending to lead him back into the house.
Instead, Beau let go of her and lounged against one of the posts supporting the porch roof. He was wearing the same clothes he’d had on the day before. Only this morning the white shirt was unbuttoned and untucked, revealing a two-inch strip of golden skin, covered with tufts of velvety black hair. His eyes were a very sexy dark blue. His black hair was rumpled, his lips soft and sensual. A day’s growth of beard lined his handsome face, giving him sort of a desperado aura and reminding her just how good he looked, in and out of bed, on and off a movie screen.
“No need for that,” Beau drawled. “Last time I checked, we had plenty of food in the refrigerator.”
Dani fastened on the we. He had certainly taken to the idea of couplehood awfully fast. She wasn’t sure she liked him making himself so much at home in what was still her place.
“Only one problem with that, cowboy,” Dani retorted. Knowing how easy it would be to find herself in bed with him again, but determined not to be sensually distracted, Dani stepped back and crossed her arms. “I don’t have any dishes unpacked yet. Nor am I even sure where any are.” There were so many boxes. None of them all that well marked. Trying to find even a couple of cereal bowls and spoons to use—never mind the dish detergent to wash them with—would be a nightmare. Besides, the less they were alone right now, she thought, the better. She didn’t want Beau getting any ideas about reenacting their baby-making session as a method of jogging their memories.
Beau’s smile only deepened. He pushed away from the support post, reassuring her with a wink, “Not to worry, sweetheart. I’ve got Old Faithful with me.”
Old Faithful! That sounded like a horse. Or a dog. Dani scanned the pickup truck he had left sitting at the curb and saw neither. “And what might Old Faithful be?” she inquired, wishing all over again he weren’t so darned appealing to the eye, even this early in the morning. She knew he wasn’t talking about some geyser.
“Hang on a minute and you’ll see.” Beau trotted down the steps, across the yard and over to his pickup. While Dani watched, he reached in behind the front seat and pulled out a saddle-brown leather satchel. Seconds later he had her back in the kitchen and was opening the custom-made case. Dani blinked at the contents. She wasn’t sure what she expected, but certainly not this. With effort, she closed her jaw, which had fallen open. “You travel with a black cast-iron skillet?” she asked in surprise.
“A perfectly seasoned black cast-iron skillet,” Beau boasted. “There is nothing worth eating this fine utensil can’t cook.”
Dani shook her head at the mischief shimmering in his eyes. “You’re speaking from experience, of course,” she guessed.
“Of course.” Beau took out two tin plates—suitable for using at a campsite—matching mugs, silverware and a velvet-wrapped set of professional-quality cooking utensils that included a grater-shredder, spatula, slotted spoon, vegetable peeler, paring knife and carving knife. He opened her refrigerator, peered inside at the wealth of groceries her sisters had brought over. Grinning, he shot her a look over his shoulder. “You up for some campfire eggs?”
Dani shrugged. “As long as you do the cooking.” Truth be told, she had never been all that great in the kitchen.
“No problem.” Beau broke open a package of bacon and layered six slices into the bottom of the pan. While it began to sizzle, he peeled, sliced and shredded two potatoes from the mesh bag on the counter. Entranced by his culinary know-how, which put hers to shame, Dani helped herself to some more coffee and watched for several minutes. He still hadn’t buttoned his shirt, and as he moved around the kitchen, she could see the muscles in his stomach and chest contract and expand as he moved. Not to mention the iron hardness of his thighs and calves, and the sexy shape of his buttocks beneath the soft blue denim of his jeans.
With effort, she forced her thoughts back to what had happened earlier. What she still wanted to know. And he was keeping purposefully mum about. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?” Dani surmised as she poured herself the last of the decaf in the pot, then set about making some more.
Beau removed the bacon and put it on a paper-towel-covered plate to drain. Then he gave her a sidelong glance that took in the sleep-mussed tangles of her hair and her cotton bedtime ensemble. “Tell you what?”
“Why your marriage to Sharon Davis really ended.”
His expression guarded, Beau studied her. “You really want to know, don’t you.” Beau slid the potatoes into the skillet.
“I’m curious.”
He shrugged his broad shoulders as he added a little bit of salt and a lot of pepper and cut off the rest of her questions with a don’t-mess-with-me look. “So is the rest of America.”
Knowing she would never understand him any better than she ever had unless he started telling her what was in his heart and on his mind, Dani ignored his demand she back off. “Only because you and Sharon kept it such a secret,” she said.
Beau reached for an onion and after peeling it, began to chop that up, too. “You don’t believe in privacy when it comes to a someone’s personal life?”
Dani shrugged, not sure how to answer that. The truth was, she wouldn’t be asking personal questions if she didn’t care about Beau. But she did care about him and had from the very first, even—to her amazement—when they weren’t getting along. Figuring that was a revelation that could be withheld for a more appropriate time, she tried another tack. “But you give up your privacy when you become a celebrity or a public figure, don’t you?”
“To a point,” Beau allowed reluctantly as he added the onion to the pan and stirred it in with the potatoes. Putting his spatula aside, he wiped his hands on a towel and turned to her. “Which is why it’s so great hanging out in a small town like Laramie.” His eyes roamed her face with disturbing intensity, taking in the contours of her softly parted lips before returning to her eyes. “Once the newness of seeing somebody like me wears off—” he reached up to tuck a wayward strand of hair behind her ear “—I’m just a regular guy.”
Well, maybe not exactly regular, Dani thought, but she knew what he meant. Since he’d landed in town several weeks ago, people had taken great pains to respect his privacy and not fawn over him. They had, in fact, with the exception of that one giant publicity stunt he’d concocted with Shane McCabe, let him be just a regular guy. Beginning to tremble all over, from the heat radiating from his tall muscular body in mesmerizing waves, Dani stepped back. “So are you going to tell me or aren’t you?” She was aware her heart was pounding.
Beau leaned close enough to kiss her—and didn’t. “You really want to know?” he asked softly.
Dani nodded. “I really want to know.” Maybe it would give her the clue she would need to understand him the way he needed to be understood.
Beau exhaled and turned back to the stove. His back to her, he pushed the sizzling potatoes and onions around to the edges of the pan. “The pool guy,” he said gruffly.
Dani blinked, not sure what he was talking about. “What?”
“And the pizza delivery boy.” With a great deal more concentration than necessary, Beau broke four eggs, one right after another, into the center of the pan. “And the guy that delivered our groceries in Malibu.” He grimaced. “She slept with them all. Of course, I didn’t know it at the time.” His voice filled with bitterness as the corners of his mouth curved grimly. “Like a fool, I thought they all just had big crushes on her.” He paused long enough to shoot Dani a remorse-filled look. “They were a lot younger than her and in most cases were just completely gaga over the fact that she was a movie star. I didn’t think much of it at the time. Sharon’s incredibly beautiful and a well-known if not abundantly talented actress. It was normal for them to act funny around her. And me, too, for that matter, because of my celebrity status.”
“How did you find out?” Dani asked as Beau placed a lid onto the skillet.
His eyes darkened unhappily. “I came home and found her with the twenty-year-old pool boy in our bed.”
Dani had only to look at the expression on his face to know how much that must have hurt. “What did you do?” she asked quietly.
Beau rubbed the tense muscles at the back of his neck. “I turned around and walked out. When I came back a couple of days later to get my things, she swore to me it had been a one-time thing. A mistake. She begged me to take her back.”
Beginning to feel pretty tense herself, Dani edged closer. “Did you?” The heartache she felt for him echoed in her voice.
“No.” Beau’s expression was grim and unrelenting as he crumbled the bacon in his fists. He lifted the skillet lid and sprinkled the bits over the sizzling potatoes and eggs. “In my view, the fact that the sex was meaningless made the betrayal even worse,” he said.
Dani could understand that. She brought out the jug of orange juice and filled two paper cups. She carried them to the glass-topped table in the breakfast nook. “How did you find out about the others?” Dani asked.
Beau slid two eggs and half of the potato, onion and bacon mixture onto each plate. “I had a feeling from the way she acted that the pool-boy thing was just the tip of the iceberg. Whatever the truth was, I had to know it.”
That sounded like him, Dani thought. He’d behaved the same way about their predicament.
He scowled as he carried their plates to the table. “So I thought about it and then went to have a man-to-man talk with each and every one of the guys that had seemed a little too attentive to my wife. Most of them were pretty young and woefully inexperienced—at least until Sharon came along and indoctrinated them into things—and it didn’t take long for the facts to come out.” Beau sighed, suddenly looking weary to his soul. A distant look came into his eyes. “In some cases it took a little money, but eventually all of them understood the wisdom of not discussing my wife’s hankering for men other than her husband.”
“And then?” Dani asked as she ate a forkful of the hot delicious eggs.
“I advised her to get therapy.” Beau dug into his potatoes.
“But she refused,” Dani guessed.
Beau rolled his eyes. “You bet she did. She said as long as she was of legal age and they were of legal age and everyone consented, it was okay. Forget that she was making a damn fool out of me, and our marriage. She thought of herself as sort of a sexual fairy godmother, for initiating them into sex.”
“Oh, dear,” Dani said.
Beau’s jaw clenched as he thought about what had happened between him and his ex-wife. “I could have gone public with the truth and probably kept her from getting anything other than what she had brought to the marriage in a financial sense, which wasn’t much. But I didn’t want to involve the guys she’d slept with—they were little more than kids themselves and I figured they’d already been misused enough. That no good could come of making the sordid mess public. Anyway—” Beau shrugged “—you know the rest. The settlement, the agreement to keep the reasons behind the divorce private.”
For several minutes they ate in silence as Dani reflected on what Beau had been through with his ex-wife. No wonder he had become bitter, cynical and wary at the time of the divorce. Yet he seemed to have finally risen above it. At least he had until Sharon had come back to make more trouble for him. Dani’s fingers tightened on her fork as she regarded Beau anxiously.
“What are you going to do now?”
“For the moment?” Beau suddenly seemed weary of the whole mess. “Let it ride.”
He was certainly more generous than she would have been in the same situation, Dani thought, admiring him all the more. She would have wanted revenge, retaliation, something. She reached across the table and took his hand. “Why?”
Beau tightened his grip on her fingers and looked deep into her eyes. “Because you and I have more important things to do.”