Miranda's Outlaw

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“I know. I figured I’d better use this pole. Fly-fishing looks very complicated.”

“It is. But you have to use a different stroke with this pole.”

She flushed. It had been a long time since he’d seen a woman color at a suggestive remark. He pretended that her reaction didn’t warm his heart.

“What kind of stroke?” she asked, her voice husky with suppressed emotion.

“A delicate stroke, one that builds anticipation. A teasing stroke that makes the fish think you’ve been there all along. A tempting stroke that’ll lead her right into your trap.”

“Stop it,” she said.

He showed her how to fish, leaving off the words he’d been using to entice her. He demonstrated the casting technique before handing the rod to Miranda. She reeled in her first catch of weeds a few seconds later. The lady simply didn’t have the right swing.

Luke stepped behind her. Her floral perfume wrapped around his senses like a warm breeze on a cool day. He cursed himself as a fool but reached around and took the fishing pole from her hands. She started as his chest brushed against her back. The soft, rounded curves of her hips were a temptation he couldn’t ignore. The urge to drop the fishing pole and sink his fingers into her flesh almost overpowered him. Instead, he forced himself to strip the weeds from the hook.

“Do you really want to learn how to fish?” he asked, hoping for a negative answer. Yet, at the same time he knew he didn’t have to stay. That the only reason he was still here was because she’d given him those rotten-tasting cookies. A sweet gesture from a prickly woman.

“Yes.”

Damn, he cursed silently, then took a deep breath. Inhaling more than air, inhaling the very essence of the tiny woman standing next to him. So close, but farther away than Miami at the moment. “I’m going to put my hands over yours and show you how to cast.”

“Okay,” she said, turning to face him with her hands extended.

Great idea, he thought. Perfect way to avoid his raging hormones and her sweet curves, but it wouldn’t work.

“Turn around, darlin’. You’ve got to face the stream to catch fish.”

She followed his directions, standing stiffly in front of him. “What now?”

He walked closer to her, allowing only an inch of space between them. “I’m going to put my arms around you. Place your hands on the pole so that you can feel the flow of the cast.”

He demonstrated the overhead motion of his arm, releasing the line slowly as it came over their heads. The lure landed in the middle of the stream without so much as a ripple.

“Now, comes the tricky part,” he whispered, directly into her ear. “Waiting. Stay perfectly still.”

A lone trout swam close to the lure. “Watch carefully. This is where luck doesn’t count. It’s just you and the fish and you have to be patient...until... Come on, baby. That’s it, take the bait, you know you want it.”

Luke continued talking in that low modulated tone. The way his daddy had taught him to, years before when he was more a boy than a man. Back when his father had still respected him. Miranda relaxed against him, letting his body direct hers. Her hands still held ready over his and then slowly the speckled fish took the bait. He felt her backbone stiffen with excitement.

“Don’t lose it now with impatience. Let him get a good hold on the worm and pull it in slowly. Now.”

Luke reeled in the fish. Miranda ducked under his arms and grabbed a net to put the trout in. He unhooked the fish and placed him in the net Miranda held.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Did you bring a cooler?”

“I thought that was only used to hold beer, so I left it at home.” Her brow wrinkled as she searched her meager supplies for something to put the fish in. “Fishing is more complicated than I was led to believe.”

Luke couldn’t help himself. She sounded so disgruntled and looked so cute with her navy shorts and baggy T-shirt that he hugged her to his side in a quick embrace. “Don’t worry, darlin’. This guy’s too small to keep.”

“Great,” she muttered.

Luke tossed the fish back into the stream with a powerful motion of his wrist. The trout hit the water and swam quickly away. “Why don’t you practice while I go back for a cooler?”

“Okay,” she said, her gaze fixed on the worm bucket.

“Want me to bait the hook before I go?”

She gave him a look so haughty it made him want to kiss her. She had so many contradictions.

“I like this part,” she said. A huge grin spread across her face like dawn creeping past the power of the night.

“Why?” he asked, unable to fathom what she’d find amusing about baiting the hook.

She blushed but refused to answer. Luke turned away without pushing. He’d broken some major rules today but somehow that didn’t seem to matter. A part of his soul felt lighter—almost as if it’d come home. He hadn’t realized that home could be a feeling and not a place. He’d thought of his home as always being lost to him, the ranch house and acreage in West Texas gone forever. He didn’t want to question why, but knew the answer was sitting beside a cool mountain stream, fishing.

Miranda watched the last rays of the setting sun dip beneath the horizon. She’d been back from her fishing expedition for a few hours. She washed her hands under the outdoor spigot and glanced at her watch. She had less than ten minutes to get over to Luke’s place. Her hands shook as she dried them with the towel.

Hurrying inside, she changed into a pair of baggy khaki shorts and a short-sleeved oxford-style shirt. Standing in front of the mirror she wished she were anyone else. She wanted to be more like the women she’d seen who’d been at ease with men, but her career had always been first. She’d been sixteen when her doctor had told her she’d never be able to have kids. She’d overheard her father saying that marriage would never be an option for her. Miranda had focused on her education and career, following her dad into finance. Until Warren came along, pursuing her and saying he wanted a marriage without kids, allowing her to keep her secret. She didn’t really know how to entice a man and in her heart she knew disappointment would follow if she did succeed in seducing the sexy mountain man who lived so close to her.

She’d invited Luke on impulse. He’d accepted, but only after insisting that he cook their dinner at his place. She went down the hall to the kitchen where she cut up the vegetables for the salad. She sealed the salad in a plastic container and added it to the cooler where she’d placed a bottle of wine.

Single living was lonely on the side of the mountain. Maybe that was why she kept finding excuses to visit her neighbor. She didn’t even know who owned the town house next to hers in Atlanta. She had three friends and they were all through work. She’d never gone out of her way to encourage anyone to be close to her, preferring her own company.

But she wanted someone else’s company now. Not just anyone’s, she admitted to herself—Luke Romero’s.

She paused at the edge of his property. He was singing again. One of those sad love songs that made her heart weep. She almost turned back, afraid to confront him lest he was bathing again, but then he stopped singing.

She crept around the side of the house, finding an empty tub. Whispering a silent prayer of thanks, she glanced around for Luke. He faced the empty meadow that was his backyard, his head bent and hands on his hips.

The utterly masculine pose took her breath away. A black T-shirt molded to the thick muscles of his back and tight jeans conformed to his legs. He was all man—more man than she’d ever encountered.

He raised his hands to his mouth and the sound of a blues harmonica filled the air. The music drew her closer to him. She couldn’t turn away from that slow, sensuous sound if her life depended on it.

Her blood started pulsing in beat with the music. A strange sort of lethargy stole through her bones. She wanted to be closer to the source of the sound. Setting the cooler on the steps of the back porch, she approached Luke.

He continued to play but turned toward her. His deep brown eyes watched her like a trapped wolf waiting for the death knell. She knew that this was a side he didn’t like people to see. Something precious and rare unfolded inside her. She had one chance to grab hold of this emotion before it disappeared forever. One chance to experience a real man and real passion.

She took another step toward him.

He stopped playing. The hand holding the harmonica dropped to his side. He stared at her as if he’d never seen her kind before; as if she were the first woman to invade his world; as if she were the only woman he was hungry for. The only woman he needed or wanted in his life, but Miranda knew that it was only an illusion and she was seeing what she wanted to see, not what was really there. No man could ever really want her.

Long moments of silence fell between them and the creatures of the night began their daily symphony filling the meadow with sounds so sweet that only Luke’s harmonica could compete with them. Miranda wrapped her arms around her waist, trying desperately to remember why she’d come here.

But before she remembered, Luke paced to her—stopping only when his breath brushed her face. He smelled of mint, cigar and coffee. She opened her mouth, breathing in his breath, tasting something more than the caffeine, the tobacco and the freshness; tasting something so essentially male that it unnerved her.

“I brought a salad and wine,” she said into the silence.

He nodded but didn’t say a word. Only continued to stand there, towering above her like a pagan god of ancient times. She cleared her throat and took a step back, putting distance between herself and this man before something happened. Something that she wouldn’t be able to control.

“What took you so long?” he asked, his hot gaze running over her, leaving a slow burning in its wake.

What had he said? He stared at her lips and they tingled. She ached to know the taste and feel of his mouth. Would it be as fulfilling as the teasing breath had promised?

“I’m three minutes early,” she said, unable to keep quiet. “I brought a book that demonstrates how to grill trout on an open fire.”

“I’ve grilled before so you can hold on to that book.” Amusement was clear in his voice. She remembered the Field and Stream magazine fiasco and shook her head.

Miranda didn’t know why she felt like a teenager all over again. But something about Luke brought to mind those long, lonely days when she’d felt excited, nervous and unsure of the future. She forgot the sophistication she’d carefully cultivated in the intervening years. Damn.

He smiled. His teeth white against the rough, tanned skin of his face. He had a nice mouth, with lips that tempted her to lean closer, to taste him. To trace the individual serrations of his teeth with her tongue. To feel it moving over her own with the same precision he’d used to play the harmonica.

She felt the honey of his drawl before the words left his mouth. “Since you went to all the trouble of making the salad and bringing the wine, I’ll clean the fish.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

He chuckled and the sound of his laughter filled the meadow as his music had earlier. Miranda couldn’t help the giddy feeling that washed over her. Luke joined hands with her. The feel of his palm brushing against her own was strangely disquieting.