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The western band was already up and running with a two-step. The room was alive with couples having a good time, and Lyndie suddenly felt her aloneness. To get her mind off the negative, she played tourist. She studied the exquisite truss-work of spruce that held the roof, and she was most impressed by the oak dance floor, worn to an ice-pond finish by nearly a century of sliding cowboy boots.
“When in Rome,” Hazel said, handing her a glass from the bartender.
Lyndie took a sip and coughed. “This is whiskey!”
“Like I said, dear, ‘When in Rome,’” Hazel repeated, smiling secretively.
“I’m not much of a drinker…” Lyndie tried another sip. The next one didn’t burn nearly as much.
“That which doesn’t kill you, my dear…”
“Yeah, I know. But I’m really sick of having to be so strong.”
Hazel gave her another one of those tricky smiles. “That’s what tonight is for. Don’t be strong tonight. Just loosen that girth a little and— Why, speak of the devil! There’s Bruce Everett!”
Lyndie looked across the packed dance floor.
She found him in the haze, leaning against the bar like a gunslinger. She’d thought he was tall, but in the crowd he looked even taller, gazing over the crowd with those shuttered, unapproachable eyes.
“Look! He’s seen us! He’s coming over!” Hazel exclaimed with glee.
Suddenly the whiskey started tasting pretty good to Lyndie. Another gulp and she was prepared to meet those silvery eyes.
“Miss Clay, Hazel,” he said, tugging on the front of his black cowboy hat.
“Why aren’t you out there on the floor boot-scootin’?” Hazel demanded.
“I was waiting for you,” he offered, taking Hazel’s arm and wrapping it inside his, as he led her away.
Lyndie watched the two on the dance floor. Bruce and Hazel waltzed as if they’d been made for each other. As they floated and laughed around the crowded floor, Lyndie gripped her whiskey. She was feeling braver, and yet more out of her element with every passing second.
And for this, she had agreed to a vacation?
She should have stayed home. It was less bruising to her ego to spend every day hunched over her books, than hunched over a bar, hoping some cowpoke would ask her to dance.
Bruce brought Hazel back to the hitching post that separated the bar from the dance floor. Lyndie leaned against it, anticipating the moment he’d ask her. She couldn’t dance a two-step but she was suddenly eager to try.
She watched as Bruce whispered something in Hazel’s ear.
The cattle baroness laughed.
Then he was gone, like a shadowy sharpshooter who dissipated in the mist.
“Well, I’ll be,” Lyndie muttered.
“You’ll be what, dear?” Hazel asked.
“Oh, nothing.”
Hazel winked at Lyndie’s empty whiskey glass. “Why, you’ve gone dry!” She was off to the bar before Lyndie could stop her.
It was another hour before she saw Bruce Everett again. Lyndie spied with him a young brunette who was falling all over him on the dance floor.
“Don’t you think he’s robbing the cradle a bit there?” she muttered over her glass.
“Who?”
Lyndie went to point out Bruce, but the waltz had stopped and the band picked up a lively two-step.
“Dance?”
She looked up and found Bruce next to her, his dark expression quizzical.
It took a moment for Lyndie to realize what Hazel had done. The cattle baroness had to have known that after watching all the couples dancing for an hour, and downing a couple of stiff ones, Lyndie would be tipsy and, at last, ever so grateful to be asked to dance.
“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you,” she joked to herself before taking Bruce’s strong arm.
Out on the dance floor she had some difficulty following him. Then suddenly she burst out, “I get it! A two-step is really three steps!”
He laughed. His teeth were very white.
The vision sent an unwanted thrill down her back.
“Give the little lady a hand,” he smirked, pulling her back into sync with him.
“This is fun, actually,” she confessed.
“’Course it is. Why else would we do it, then?”
She looked up at him, capturing his gaze through the shadow of his low-slung hat.
“I’d better watch out,” she teased. “A girl could get used to having fun and not working so hard.”
“Why do you need to work so hard? I thought you were the boss.”
“That’s exactly why I have to work so hard. I’m expanding and I can’t find a silent partner, so I’m having the worst time financing—”
She giggled and put her hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to bore you.”
“You’re not boring me,” he said, his gaze never leaving her.
She laughed out loud. “But it’s technical. You won’t understand.”
“I may not be an MBA from one of those fancy East Coast schools, but I understand a good—”
She put her hand to his mouth. His lips were taut with suppressed anger, and she wondered what it would be like to try to kiss the anger away.
“Look, I don’t want to ruffle your feathers. I’m here on a vacation. To have fun. So let’s have fun.”
He pulled her around the dance floor one more time before he spoke.
“You wanna have fun?” He seemed like he’d pondered something for a while and finally had made up his mind.
“Sure,” she said lightly.
“Have you seen the old gristmill?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen an old gristmill—let alone the one here in Mystery.”
“Then, let’s go.” He stopped dancing and took her hand.
The whiskey must have really hit her hard because she heard herself saying, “What do you do at the mill?” instead of, “My God, I’m not going anywhere with you alone!”
“Skinny-dip,” he answered.
She took this bit of news more calmly than she would have expected. “But you don’t understand. I can’t—” she began.
He stopped her. “Sure you can. Just take off your clothes and jump in. It’s easy.”
“Take off my clothes?” she repeated numbly. “I really don’t think I can take off my—”
“Hey, you’re the underwear queen. I thought showing off the merchandise would be second nature.” he countered.
“Just ’cause I sell lingerie doesn’t mean I can go around—”
“Sure it does,” he said soothingly, putting a vise-like grip on her arm as he led her away.
“No really,” she countered, but still let him lead her.
“I’ll make you a deal then. I’ll let you keep on everything you sell in your shop.”
“It’ll just bore you. I only wear what’s beige and functional. I save the froufrou for the customers.”
He seemed to hold back a grin. “I’m a cowboy, ma’am. Plain and simple’s just fine with me. In fact, you’d like to get plain right down to your birthday suit—”
“I couldn’t. I just couldn’t,” she added.
He grinned in full. “Then, bore me with the beige and functional. And hey, think of it as advertising. Do it for the business. It’s good customer relations to show off the merchandise.”
She didn’t really have an answer for that one.
His arm went around her waist and soon they were out the door.
“Shouldn’t I have told Hazel where I’ll be?” she asked before getting into an old faded-red pickup.
“You never lived in a small town, did you?” he asked, sliding behind the steering wheel.
“Nope,” she answered with more vigor than was necessary.
“Believe me, everybody, including Hazel, knows we’re going to the mill.”
“Now, how can that be?” she murmured stumped. “Does everybody here have cell phones I can’t see?”
“Don’t need ’em. We’ve got Hazel McCallum—and everyone reports to Hazel the goings on ’round here. That’s twice true if it concerns one of her own.”
He smiled that carnivore’s smile and said, “So are you ready?”
She looked at him in the dark. Suddenly she wanted to get out and run.
“I guess,” she whispered, all the while wondering what madness had gotten hold of her.
“I’m only doing this because Hazel trusts you. Otherwise, let me tell you, I never go off with strangers.” Lyndie rambled on while the pickup negotiated the unpaved mountain road.
“I’m no stranger,” Bruce said. “Ask Hazel.”
“She says you used to be a tomcat. And even this city girl can figure out what that means.”
“Haven’t been tomcatting in a while,” he almost whispered.
“She told me that, too.”
A silence permeated the truck’s cab. It was so deep and oppressive, Lyndie was glad when the silhouette of the mill appeared over the hill.
“Here we are.”
He pulled next to the fieldstone building. A small river emptied alongside the building and drove the wheel. Beneath it all was a large inviting pool of river water that shimmered in the opalescent moonlight.
She opened her door and got out.
The creaking wheel and the splash of water suddenly set her nerves on edge. As did the tall dark man next to her.
“So, what do you do here?” she asked in a tough voice.
“Swim. I’ll show you.”
He tugged his shirt out of his jeans and peeled it over his head.
In the moonlight, she could see the ripple of muscle on his chest. There was also a light sprinkling of dark hair that narrowed where his abdominal muscles tightened into a grid. It formed a trail that disappeared into the waist of his jeans.
When he reached for the button on his jeans, she held up her hand.
“If I’m giving a lingerie show, then, so are you. Keep ’em on,” she instructed, gesturing to his white boxers that showed through his fly.
“You sure you’ve never done this before?” He grinned.
She nodded. “I’m sure.”
Tossing off his hat and scuffing out of his boots, he finally stood in his boxers, arms crossed as if impatiently waiting for her to follow suit.
