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Austin groaned inwardly. Damn. He’d actually forgotten about Audra for a moment. “Um...”
Poor Mandy went dead white and looked as if she were going to throw up. “Excuse me,” she said, with all the politeness of a guest at high tea with the queen. “It was a pleasure to meet you, but I have to go now.”
Thank God Audra was a quick study. She sized up the situation in a glance. Her eyes widened. “Oh, crap. I’m sorry. Don’t go. I’m his sister. Honest.”
Mandy hesitated.
Austin nodded. “It’s true. Underneath that bottled red hair is a blonde just like me.”
Audra stood up and grimaced. “Forget the beer, little brother. I’ll grab a cab. See you at the house later.”
Then his five-years-older sister went completely off script. She stepped around him and took both of Mandy’s hands in hers. “Here’s the thing, ma’am. I know it’s sometimes scary to meet men these days. Getting hit on in a bar can be dangerous.”
“She was hitting on me,” Austin muttered.
Both women ignored him.
Audra continued. “My brother is a good, decent man. He doesn’t have any diseases, and he doesn’t assault women. You don’t have to be afraid of him.”
“Audra!” His head threatened to explode from embarrassment.
Mandy barely glanced at him. “I see.”
Audra nodded. “He doesn’t live here. He’s in town visiting me, and we came out tonight to...well...”
For once, his outrageous sister looked abashed.
Mandy gave him a puzzled look. “To what?”
Dear Lord. He gritted his teeth. If he didn’t tell her, Audra would. “Today is the anniversary of my wife’s death. She’s been gone for six years. I finally took my wedding ring off, thanks to my sister’s badgering. That’s it. That’s all.”
Tears welled in Mandy’s eyes. She blinked them back, but one rolled down her cheek. “I had no idea. I am so sorry.”
Audra patted her shoulder. “It was a long time ago. He’s fine.”
Austin got to his feet and grabbed his sister’s arm none too gently despite her glowing character testimonial. “You’re leaving. Now.”
He glanced back at Mandy. “Don’t move.”
On the way to the door, Audra smirked at him. “I won’t wait up for you. Have fun tonight.”
“You are such a brat.”
Outside on the sidewalk, he hugged her. “I won’t discuss my love life with you. A man has boundaries.”
Audra kissed his cheek. “Understood. I just want you to be happy, that’s all.”
“I am happy,” he said.
“Liar.”
“I’m happier than I was.”
“Go back in there before she gets cold feet.”
“I love you, sis.”
“I love you, too.”
He watched his only sibling get into a cab, and then he looked through the window into the bar where not one but two men had taken advantage of his absence to move in on Mandy.
No way. No way in hell. The little blonde was his. At least for tonight.
* * *
Brooke breathed a sigh of relief when her cowboy returned and dispersed the crowd that had gathered around her. Apparently if the hour was late enough and the man drunk enough, even the most vehement no didn’t register.
When it was just the two of them again, the cowboy gave her a slow, intimate smile that curled her toes. “May I buy you another drink?”
“No, thanks. I wasn’t drinking. Not really. Alcohol clouds a person’s judgment. I wanted to be clearheaded tonight.”
“I see.” He cocked his head and studied her. “Do you live here in Joplin?”
“Nope.”
“So we’re both just passing through?”
“It would seem that way.”
A small grin teased the corners of his mouth. The man had a great mouth. Really great. She could imagine kissing that mouth all night long.
Finally, he shook his head, bemusement in his baffled gaze. “I know what I’m doing here, Mandy, but I’m still not clear about why you showed up at this bar tonight.”
“Does it matter?” She hadn’t expected a man to quiz her. The fact that her cowboy was slowing things down rattled her.
He nodded. “It does to me.”
“Maybe I’m horny.”
He snorted out a laugh and tried to turn it into a cough...unsuccessfully. Then he rubbed two fingers in the center of his forehead and sighed. “I’m not asking for your life story. But I’d like to know why me and why tonight. Is this a rebound thing? Are you trying to teach someone a lesson? Am I even warm?”
“Ninety-nine men out of a hundred would already have me in bed right now.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
The look in his eyes made her feel like a naughty schoolgirl. And not in a good way. She drained the last of her melted daiquiri and wrinkled her nose. “My life is boring. I’m having some family issues. For once I wanted to do something wild and exciting and totally out of character. Plus, you’re really hot.”
“So you don’t frequent bars as a rule?”
“You know I don’t,” she grumbled, “or I wouldn’t be so bad at it.”
He flicked the end of her ponytail. “I never said you were bad at it.”
Some deep note in his voice caught her stomach and sent it into a free fall of excitement and anticipation. “So are we good now?” she asked.
The cowboy stared at her. He stared at her for so long that her nipples pebbled and her thighs clenched. “What makes you believe that you and I will be wild and exciting? What if you chose wrong?”
She gaped. Words escaped her.
He closed her mouth with a finger below her chin. “It would seem prudent to take me out for a test drive ahead of time...don’t you think?”
Before she could do more than inhale a sharp, startled breath, he slid one big hand beneath her ponytail, cupped the base of her neck and pulled her toward him just far enough for their mouths to meet comfortably.
Actually, comfortable was a misnomer for what happened next. Fireworks shot toward the ceiling in all directions. Angel choirs sang. A million dizzying pinwheels shot through her veins and rocketed into her pelvis.
The man was kissing her. Nothing more. So why was the earth shaking beneath her feet?
He tasted of whiskey and temptation. If she’d had any remaining reservations about her plan, they vanished in the heat of his lips on hers. It was possible she whimpered. She definitely leaned in and wordlessly begged for more.
Somewhere in the distance catcalls and whoops and hollers signaled an appreciative audience. But Brooke barely noticed. Her hands settled on the cowboy’s shoulders. “Take off your hat,” she begged.
“I only take off the hat in bed,” he said, the words rough with lust and determination.
“Oh.”
His smile was more of a grimace. “It’s not too late for you to walk away. In fact, it’s never too late. You started this little fantasy, but you can say no whenever you want.”
She looked up at him, feeling the oddest combination of confidence and stomach-curling uncertainty. “I don’t want to say no.”
“Do you have a hotel room?”
“Not yet.”
“Any preference?”
“Not somewhere fancy.” Translation—nowhere that the staff might know her parents.
His terse nod seemed to indicate agreement. “Let’s go, then.” He tossed money on the bar for the tab and took her elbow as they walked out.
Outside, they paused on the sidewalk. It was August, and the air was pleasant at this hour. He pointed at a late-model pickup truck. “Would you like me to drive?”
Brooke shook her head. Who knew that the mechanics of a one-night stand were so tricky? “My things are in my car. I’ll meet you there. How about the Sherwood Hotel? Two streets over?”
“I know it.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling brutally young and stupid.
“For what?”
“I’m sorry you lost your wife.”
He cursed beneath his breath, rolled his shoulders and stared up at the moon, his profile starkly masculine. “You told me we weren’t going to use our real names,” he said. “That was your rule. Well, mine is no rehashing the past. This is sex, Mandy. Wild and exciting and temporary—if that’s not what you want, walk away.”
His entire body vibrated with tension. She honestly couldn’t tell if he was angry or sexually frustrated or both.
In that moment, she realized that her reasons for coming to Joplin no longer existed. She wasn’t here to flirt or to pick up a stranger or to have an anonymous tryst to prove to herself that she wasn’t boring.
Right here, right now...with her limbs shaking and her mouth dry and her nerves shot...the only thing she wanted was to undress this cowboy and to have him return the favor. Because this man, this beautiful, hauntingly complicated man, tugged at her heartstrings. She wanted to know him in every way there was to know a lover.
She only had one night. It would have to be enough.
Daringly, she reached out and put a hand on his arm. She could feel his taut, warm muscles through the soft cotton fabric of his shirt. “I don’t want to walk away, Cowboy. I’ll meet you at the hotel. Don’t make me wait.”
Two (#u55d1a74b-7e1f-5330-87d9-fec97bea603e)
Austin Bradshaw couldn’t be entirely sure he wasn’t dreaming. This night was like nothing he had ever experienced. He glanced in his rearview mirror to make sure Mandy’s little navy Honda was still behind him. He chuckled to himself, because he had a hunch the car was a rental. His mystery woman struck him as the kind of person who would attend to the details of a plan with great care.
The desk clerk at the midrange hotel was neither curious nor particularly friendly. He swiped Austin’s credit card, handed over two keys and immediately returned his focus to whatever show he was watching on his laptop.
When Austin went back outside, he found Mandy leaning against the side of his pickup, an overnight case in her hand. She shifted from one foot to the other. “All set?”
He stared at her. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Quit asking me that,” she huffed. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
Releasing a slow, steady breath, he took the bag out of her death grip and set it on the ground. Then he cupped her head in his hands, tilted her face up to his and crushed his mouth over hers. He’d been in a state of arousal now for the better part of two hours. The faint scent of her perfume and the taste of her lips were imprinted on his brain.
He wanted her. Naked. Hungry. Begging. The more he thought about the night to come, the more he unraveled. At the rate they were going, there wasn’t going to be much of the night left.
Reluctantly, he let her go. “Hurry,” he said.
The hotel was three stories tall with indoor corridors and modern decor. At this point, Austin could have taken her up against the wall in the stairwell, but he resisted.
They rode the elevator to the top floor. Their room was at the end on the corner. His hand shook so badly it took him three tries to get the key in the door. He expected Mandy to give him grief about it, but she never said a word.
When they were finally inside, he closed the door carefully in deference to their fellow guests and leaned against it.
Mandy frowned. “Where’s your bag?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Why not?”
“That’s not really how a one-night stand works, honey.”
She looked mortified. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought you’d be more comfortable if you had your bag. Women like to have their little bits and pieces with them.”
