CHAPTER 9

“Why are there dresses?” Gina asked, voice muffled as she pulled on a third, or maybe a fourth. Her head popped out the top. “For that matter why would there even be dress?”

“You never know when you might need a hot outfit.” Amberleigh’s forehead creased as she studied Gina.

“I know,” Gina muttered. “Three days past never.”

“This one works.” Amberleigh smiled. “Don’t you think so, Ash?”

Gina was shocked that she fit into Amberleigh’s clothes. The blonde appeared smaller in some ways and larger in two others. But with a little tugging and pinning—why Amberleigh had pins in her suitcase was as much of a mystery as why she had dresses—Gina had to admit the dress worked.

“That’s the one.” Ashleigh agreed, then motioned for Gina to turn.

When she did, she found herself captured by the stranger in the mirror. The garment nipped in places and tucked in others, and the shade—a combination of red and brown that the As had insisted on calling auburn—had made Gina’s plain old brown hair shine with streaks of gold.

“You wear that tomorrow,” Amberleigh said, “and no man is gonna be able to take his eyes offa you.”

Gina wasn’t sure how that would help; then again it probably couldn’t hurt.

“You can’t wear a dress like that without heels like this.” Ashleigh handed her a pair of ankle breakers the shade of a copper penny.

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Gina tried to return them, but Ashleigh put her hands behind her back and shook her head firmly.

“The whole effect’s gonna be ruined if you don’t wear the shoes.”

“The whole effect’s gonna be ruined when I fall on my face and break my nose,” Gina muttered.

“Even itty-bitty girls wear heels,” Ashleigh said.

“Especially itty-bitty girls,” Amberleigh agreed. “Makes their legs look lo-o-ong. Makes men wonder how those legs would feel naked and wrapped around—”

“I’ll wear the heels!” Gina interrupted, not only because if she heard the rest of that sentence her eardrums might go pop but also because she’d needed to put a stop to the image that had leaped into her own head.

Of her long legs, naked and wrapped around Teo Mecate’s—

“Thanks,” she told the As, feeling kind of fond of them for a minute.

Gina had never done anything like this before. No sharing of clothes and shoes, no discussions of men, no slumber parties. The few friends she’d had in school had never really felt like friends because they were always talking about all the fun things they did while Gina worked at the ranch.

Sure, she’d had Jase. She’d always have Jase. But there was something to be said for a girlfriend.

“Why are you helping me?” she asked.

Had she expected apologies for rudeness, perhaps an explanation of girl power, or a sudden profession of friendship, which in her current state she might have accepted, Gina would have been disappointed.

Because what she got was a yawn from Ashleigh. “We were bored.”

And a shrug from Amberleigh. “It’s not like you’re gonna come out ahead in any competition for a man. Not even in that dress.”

“Like there are any men left to compete for,” Ashleigh muttered, disgusted. “Two old guys, a dad, and a little kid.”

“What about Jase?” Gina asked, then bit her lip. Why on earth was she trying to sic these two on her best friend?

“He’d never leave here, and I’m certainly not stayin’,” Ashleigh answered as Amberleigh nodded in agreement.

Every once in a while the As said something that made Gina think they were smarter than they pretended. Because they were right. Jase would never leave Nahua Springs, and neither would she.

Gina was a bit disgusted with herself. For an instant after the As had declared she couldn’t beat them in a competition, she’d actually experienced a burst of competitiveness accompanied by the thought: I’ll show you!

Gina rubbed her forehead. The dress and the shoes and the brainless twits were getting to her. She wasn’t in a competition, for men or anything else. The outfit was supposed to make her feel good about herself, give her the confidence to slay the dragon ex-banker in his den.

And if Mr. Morris got distracted by her cleavage or her legs and gave her another sixty days before he sold the ranch … Gina gave a mental shrug. It was no more than he deserved for looking in the first place.

There was a wrench in her logic somewhere, but Gina decided not to look for it.

The As kept her up long past midnight—she’d had to wait for her nail polish to dry—and Gina overslept the next morning. Then the unfamiliar clothes, the needle-heeled shoes, which fit fine with the addition of some newspaper in the toes—Ashleigh had freakishly big feet—the styling of Gina’s hair, and the application of makeup so old she had to add water in order to smooth some of the dry cracked stuff onto her face meant she was parking the truck in front of Benjamin Morris’s office at 9:30 instead of the 8:45 she’d planned.

“Tough.” Gina slammed the door of the truck. It wasn’t as if Mr. Morris wasn’t going to be in his office on this fine May morning. He always had been in the past.

As before, Mr. Morris sat behind a desk that was much too large for him. Gina had to wonder if he’d inherited the furniture from an extremely tall previous owner of the building or the desk itself was the usual male compensation mechanism. She’d been around enough men to know what big cars, big hats, big boots, and big horses meant.

She also knew better than to say so.

As her mother would have told her, now was the time for honey, not vinegar. Since Gina was more of a vinegar type she had her work cut out for her.

Maybe the dress would help.

“Gina,” Morris murmured, his voice so low it still startled her to hear it coming from a man so small in stature his feet couldn’t possibly be touching the floor from the height of his gigantic office chair. “What can I do for you?”

“I … well…”

Get it together, Gina. Smile. Dance. Show him what you’ve got!

Gina smiled, straightened her back, and walked to the guest chair, swishing the skirt for all she was worth. And Mr. Morris did notice. His gaze went from her face to her breasts, then did a quick leap to her feet and stayed there.

“Nice shoes.” He licked his lips.

“Thanks. I’ve come about this.” Leaning over, she set the letter in front of him. Instead of peering down her dress, as any red-blooded American male should, or so she’d heard, he leaned to the side so he could keep his gaze on her feet.

Gina tapped the paper, then snapped her fingers beneath his nose. She was starting to think that the dress had been a mistake. The shoes certainly were.

She snapped again when Mr. Morris continued to salivate over parts of her much lower than he should be and was at last rewarded with his attention.

His tiny dark eyes flickered over the letter before he pushed it back toward her. “There’s nothing I can do.”

“I’ll have the money next month.”

She wouldn’t, but she had to say something.

He stared down his also-short nose at her. “It wouldn’t matter if you did.”

“Because you don’t like money?”

“I adore money. Which is why I accepted the offer of the gentleman who was in my office this morning a single moment after I arrived.”

“I don’t understand.”

He leaned back and spoke to the ceiling: “They never understand.”

“Who’s they?”

He lowered his head. “People who can’t pay their bills. I warn them and I warn them; then when I sell off the merchandise they’re so confused.”

“Sell?” Gina stood, towering over the man. He didn’t appear intimidated. He was no doubt used to it. “You sold my ranch?”

“Not yours. Not mine, either, anymore.” He wagged a finger at her. “I did warn you.”

Gina sat again. Her legs weren’t going to hold her much longer. “What happens now?”

“That’s up to the new owner.” Morris’s attention had returned to Gina’s shoes. “A doctor…”

“Crap!” Gina sprang to her feet just as Mr. Morris murmured, “Mecate.”

*   *   *

Matt returned to the Strater and began to make phone calls. He put a decent-sized crew on alert. They’d come just as soon as he found the area of the ranch that matched the photograph. A few more calls and he’d rented all the equipment he’d need for the dig.

He’d thought the meeting with Benjamin Morris would take longer, that the man would require convincing, that Matt might even have to bid against other interested parties or wait for a public auction. Instead, he’d walked out of the office a half hour later with the paperwork.

Cash worked wonders. Or at least the ability to complete a wire transfer.

Matt tossed the few things he’d removed from his suitcase back in. He couldn’t wait to tell Gina.

He’d just set his glasses on the bedside table, then yanked off the tie and scratchy dress shirt he’d bought the day before when someone tapped on the door. Figuring it was a bellman—even though he hadn’t requested one, he had called to inform the desk he was checking out—Matt glanced up, saw he’d left the door ajar in his hurry to return to the ranch, and called, “Come in.”

It wasn’t the bellman.

At first he wasn’t sure who the woman was. She flew across the room so fast Matt, without his glasses, only got the impression of tall, curvy, lots of legs, and miles of flowing hair. Then he caught the scent of the forest an instant before he caught her.

His mind, full of those legs and that hair and the smell of her, stuttered once before it came to the conclusion that she’d found out about him saving her ranch and come to thank him. Personally, so to speak. So he wrapped his arms more tightly around her.

Their chests bumped, their hips, too. She murmured his name as they both lost their balance; then one of her obscenely high heels came down on his foot. Next thing Matt knew they fell onto the bed.

He landed on top. They bounced once. All the air in her lungs flew out, blowing back his hair. Her dress had bunched up; his palm now cupped her thigh. Her skin was so damn soft he couldn’t help but stroke.

Her lips parted; her eyes darkened to smoke, and then he was kissing her, tasting her, wanting her as he had kissed and tasted and wanted her not so long before. But this time no one would interrupt and tell her his secrets. She knew his secrets—all of them—and still she had come to him here.

His hair made a curtain, shrouding them from the world. She reached up, her fingers tangling in the strands, hard; it kind of hurt.

He tugged on her lip with his teeth, and her grip relaxed, turning from torture to temptation. She pulled him closer, opened her mouth wider on a sigh, and he caught the flavor of … lipstick?

How strange. He wasn’t a fan. Then again, he’d eat a tube if it meant he could kiss her some more.

Her tongue met his, sliding along the underside, then tickling the edge. Her hands had moved from his hair to his neck, her fingers cupping the back of his head, urging him on.

He discovered his fingers were cupping her ass, shifting her so that they fit together just …

There, that felt better. Except they were wearing far too many clothes, or at least she was. He spared a moment to be glad his shirt had scratched and he’d yanked it off, because now her palms were on his chest, stroking him as he’d just stroked her.

It had been so long since anyone had touched him. Or at least anyone he’d wanted as badly as he wanted Gina.

His hand had just lifted to the tricky fastening at the front of her dress when someone cleared their throat. Matt ignored the sound. It couldn’t be real. He and Gina were in his room. On his bed.

Alone.

Someone coughed—loudly—and they didn’t stop. Whoever was out in the hall sounded like they’d just swallowed a whale down the wrong pipe and they were going to die if the Heimlich wasn’t performed immediately.

Matt’s concentration was shot. He lifted his head, then blinked at the slightly fuzzy assortment of hotel personnel and guests assembled just outside his open doorway. How could he have forgotten that he’d told Gina to come in? Neither one of them had shut the door. They’d been a little preoccupied.

With the fingertips of one hand brushing the swell of a breast and the palm of the other cupped around a butt cheek, not to mention his erection cradled between her legs, her thumbs poised over his almost painfully perky nipples, and his lips no doubt as swollen and wet as hers, Matt understood why none of the passersby had been able to pass by.

Who’d want to miss this show?

“Get off me.” Gina’s voice sounded as if it were coming from between a set of tightly clenched teeth.

He glanced down. Huh. It was.

No doubt she was embarrassed. She was the one with her dress rucked up to her hips and her breasts almost bursting from what he could see now was a very un-Gina-like bodice. What was going on?

Matt needed to be a gentleman. If he could only remember how.

With all the dignity he could muster Matt got up, crossed the floor, and slammed the door. Then he leaned his forehead against it while he tried to tame an erection the size of Tokyo—one that continued to thunder with a pulse that reminded him uncomfortably of Godzilla’s footsteps.

The bed creaked. Clothes rustled as Gina put herself back together. Matt waited for her to cross the room, maybe put her hand on his shoulder, even give him another kiss, and murmur, Thanks.

Perhaps he didn’t need to tame that erection after all.

He turned, and his shirt hit him in the face.

“Put that on.” She waved at his chest, her gaze landing everywhere but on him.

Matt shrugged into the shirt, but he left the buttons alone. He was too busy staring.

The dress was all wrong; the shoes were ridiculous. Her hair was nice; he liked it down, and the way the light played across the strands made him think of the sun slanting through autumn leaves. But whatever she’d put on her lips, which he’d done his best to lick off, had stuck there, along with the brown gunk on her eyelids and some orangey stuff on her cheeks.

She didn’t look like Gina at all. However, when she spoke she sounded exactly like the Gina who’d kicked him off her ranch.

“What the hell was that?” she demanded.

“You forgot to close the door.”

She waved her hand again, and he was distracted by the copper sparkle on each and every nail. He hated it.

“I meant, why did you kiss me?”

“I thought…” He had to pause and force himself to stop staring at her nails, her lips, those stupid, stupid shoes. “You wanted me to.”

She snorted, sounding more like Spike than Spike. “Why would I want that?”

“You ran into the room, threw yourself into my arms, said, ‘Matt,’ and—” He frowned. Then things kind of blended together.

“I did run into the room—the faster to kill you, my dear.” Matt’s frown deepened. “Then I tripped, said, ‘Ass!’ and grabbed onto you to keep from falling.” Her gaze went to the bed, stuck on the tangled bedclothes, then jerked back to his. “It didn’t work.”

“You’re sure you said ‘ass,’ not ‘Matt’?”

“Since you introduced yourself as Teo,” she practically spit the name across the room like a rotten watermelon seed, “I’d hardly call you Matt.”

He went back over what had happened, which did not help the erection from Tokyo. Even though she didn’t look anything like Gina, she smelled like her and she talked like her and when he’d touched her and kissed her she’d been her—the woman he’d probably never stop wanting to touch.

And why was that? He’d had his hands on plenty of women. They’d been nice, but he’d never been desperate for one brief brush of their lips the way he was desperate, even now, for one more brief brush of Gina’s.

“Wait a second,” he said. “You stroked my hair.”

“Yanked on it. I was trying to get you off me.”

Now that Matt thought about it, she had pulled kind of hard. At first. Then she’d shoved her fingers in, right before she’d wrapped them around his neck and given him the tongue.

Matt shook his head.

Gina’s gaze narrowed. “Why are you shaking your head?”

“You kissed me back.”

“In your dreams, Mecate.”

She had been in his dreams, and from the sudden blush across her cheeks, the color so much more appealing than the false one she’d brushed there, he’d been in hers.

“I know a tongue when I feel one,” he said. And her hands had been all over his chest, not pushing him away, either, but stroking his ribs, his collarbone, his shoulders, and more.

He shifted those shoulders, feeling again those hands. Her gaze lowered to his stomach and stuck there. Then her blush deepened, and he couldn’t help but smile.

Bad idea. Because her gaze jerked back to his and she flipped.

“I know someone’s hand on my rear when I feel one, too. You play a lot of grab ass with your students?”

“No!” His smile folded into a grimace. “That’s disgusting.”

“I bet three-quarters of the coeds are far from disgusting. More like the As than like me.”

“There’s no comparison.”

“I know.”

“You’re so much more beautiful than they could ever be.” Her quick glance, the expression on her face, made him realize she didn’t believe him. Damn Jase McCord and his manipulative bullshit. How many men had told her she was beautiful, then never talked to her again?

“Is that what this is about?” Matt waved his hand at the dress, the shoes, the makeup. “A competition with the As?”

She made a sound of derision, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I had to talk to a man about some business. The As thought I needed help.”

“The As are the ones who need help. They should leave you alone.”

“I wish they would. Unfortunately, they’ve still got several more days on their ranch package. Unless…” Gina lifted her gaze to his, and her lip trembled.

Matt took a step forward, hand outstretched: What was there on this earth that could cause Gina O’Neil’s lip to tremble? Whatever it was, he would make it go away.

“Unless you’re going to close the place down right away.”

“I’m going to…” Matt let his hand fall back to his side. “What?”

“You bought the ranch.” She glanced out the window, and her shoulders slumped, making the dress pooch across the bodice. He could see the smooth, supple curve of one breast, and right now he didn’t even care.

“I did,” he agreed. “But—”

“Must be nice to be rich. To be able to buy anything you see that you might want.”

He knew there was a trap in there somewhere, but he couldn’t quite figure out what it was. “It is.”

Her gaze flicked back to his. “You spoiled, elitist, rich-boy snob.” She lifted her chin. “You can’t buy me.”