Big Sky Seduction

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The thing he couldn’t quite figure was what happened to that woman. Where did she go? It was as if he made her up because the woman he woke up to—scratch that, she’d left before he’d woken up—was different. She was cold. Distant. Bossy.

She was...

“Shit!”

Dillon geared down and pulled over because the woman in question was in the ditch standing beside her car, looking a fright and holding her cell phone up as though she was hoping to get hit by a bolt of lightning. He pulled the truck over to the side of the road, parked it and got out. “You okay?”

Without answering his direct question, she said, “I can’t get a signal out here at all.”

He indicated the miles and miles of grazing country. “There aren’t many towers around here.”

She swore beneath her breath and Dillon covered up his smile by kicking the front tire that was bent at an awkward angle and ducking down to check underneath the front end. He stood, dusted his hands on his jeans and said, “Your front axle’s bent. You need a tow.”

Her hands were on her hips and she was staring at him, her lips pressed together, as if it was his fault. Or maybe not, because that was when he noticed how pale her face was and the remnants of fear lingering in her clear blue eyes. Moving slowly, the way he approached a newborn colt, he said, “I’ll give you a lift to town. Walt’s got a truck at the service station. He can tow it back.”

Her lips moved as though she was going to say something and then stopped. She nibbled on her bottom lip. “You sure? I don’t want you to go out of your way.”

“Darlin,’ it’s either that or you walk back.” He moved to the driver side. “I’m going to town anyway. Hop in.”

As if she had a choice—which she did not—Gloria looked around for other options.

Dammit, the woman was starting to make him mad.

“If you’re so dead set against riding with me, you can wait for Max. He should be along in an hour or two. Or, you could go back to the ranch and grab a horse. Ride back to town.” He didn’t even bother keeping his skeptical smile in check, the image of Gloria...bumping along on an old nag, well that was good for a laugh. But when she still didn’t get in the truck, he climbed in, started it up and rolled down the passenger side window. Leaning over he said, “Get in, Gloria. I don’t bite.”

She grabbed her things and got in. Staring straight ahead, she said, “Thanks.”

“My pleasure.”

Sneaking a glance at him while he pulled away, she added, “That’s a lie, you know. I remember quite clearly. You do bite.”

* * *

DILLON’S LOW CHUCKLE vibrated around in the cab of the truck as they sped down the bumpy gravel road. What had possessed her to say that? She’d vowed she wouldn’t bring up their night together and at the first opportunity, she reminded him—and herself—of what happened. Not that she needed reminding. What she needed was to forget.

“I wasn’t the only biter that night.”

She laughed. Then stopped herself. It wasn’t funny.

But when the truck’s back end fishtailed along a particularly “gravelly bit” of road and Gloria pressed her foot against the imaginary brake pedal on the passenger side while her knuckles turned white on the armrests, she suddenly forgot everything but the road ahead. “Can you slow down a bit?”

He glanced over at her. “Not used to gravel, huh?”

“I never would have guessed it’d be so slippery.”

“Yep. Can be tricky if you’re not used to it.”

“So, um...can you please slow down?”

“I’ve driven on these roads all my life. I know them like—”

“Please.”

Instead of finishing what he was going to say, he slowed down.

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”

Gloria stared out the passenger window, trying to think of something to say to fill the awkward silence. Her brain played over all kinds of possibilities except none of them were appropriate: Do you have a girlfriend? Do you still think about me? Why didn’t you call? She finally settled on the first appropriate thing that popped into her head. “So why are you selling your ranch?”

Without taking his eyes off the road, he said. “It’s not mine.”

Had she misheard before? “I thought you said it was yours.”

“It was my friend’s. When he passed, he left it to me.”

“Your friend left you his ranch?” Gloria turned in her seat. “Wow. You must have been very good friends.”