Книга - Baily’s Irish Dream: Baily’s Irish Dream / Czech Mate

Baily's Irish Dream: Baily's Irish Dream / Czech Mate
Stephanie Doyle

Kate Thomas


Bailey's Irish Dream by Stephanie DoyleMarried by thirty or else!If still single on her birthday, Baily Monohan promised her family she'd return home and marry her boring childhood sweetheart. But fate has other plans when Baily is involved in an accident with a black Mercedes–driven by a man with an even blacker temper! Daniel Blake is headed east, as well–to stop a wedding! Can these two drive cross-country together without crossing swords? Or perhaps they'll be the ones crossing the threshold–together!Czech Mate by Kate ThomasShe knew all the right moues…Wendy Marek needs to see green–as in money to finance her studies in fashion design in Paris. But to claim her inheritance she must marry. Visiting Czech Peter Havel also needs to see green–as in green card! What will Wendy do with a Czech math genius with the body of an Olympic gold medalist? Well, marry him, of course. However, what will happen to this marriage of convenience when love enters the equation?









Duets™


Two brand-new stories in every volume…twice a month!

Duets Vol. #87

You met the first of the two HOMETOWN HEARTTHROBS in Double Duets #71, Catching Chase and Nabbing Nathan. Popular Liz Jarrett finishes the delightful miniseries this month with two more of the single Barrett siblings—in Meant for Trent and Leigh’s for Me—who won’t remain single for long! All these tales are “full of Texas charm and wit and a wonderful small-town feeling,” asserts Rendezvous.

Duets Vol. #88

Talented Stephanie Doyle returns with a quirky story about a cross-country drive that quickly becomes a cross-country romance with unexpected results! “Ms. Doyle displays bountiful creativity in both her plot and appealing characters,” says Romantic Times. Joining her is Kate Thomas, who delivers a hero with all the right moves in Czech Mate. This author pens “an original story with gregarious characters, warm scenes and an amusing tone,” notes Romantic Times.

Be sure to pick up both Duets volumes today!




Baily’s Irish Dream

Stephanie Doyle

Czech Mate

Kate Thomas







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




Contents


Baily’s Irish Dream (#ua82be33e-824e-520b-9a34-27ac221fc3d5)

Chapter 1 (#ud5b6721a-d1e9-5d0d-911f-fbd99c1511dd)

Chapter 2 (#ud1654fc4-e5a1-5596-829b-bb3aecb6d308)

Chapter 3 (#u0e76b608-e45e-5d8e-8450-914a67f30a77)

Chapter 4 (#u0311c069-9990-58f7-93d4-86d57d99b901)

Chapter 5 (#uf057320a-82c3-5999-ac30-01bf503ce1cc)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Czech Mate (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 1 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 2 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 3 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)



Baily’s Irish Dream


“So you’re engaged?”

Daniel frowned. “Where’s your ring?”

Shifting in her seat, Baily said, “Technically…I’m not…we really haven’t quite…he hasn’t actually…”

“He hasn’t proposed yet.” Ha! Daniel felt triumphant, although he had no idea why.

“He hasn’t proposed, but he will. He’s waiting for me to come home.”

“How long’s he been waiting?”

“Uh, seven years,” she muttered under her breath.

Daniel started to laugh. “You’re telling me your soon-to-be fiancé has been waiting for you for seven years. What on earth have you been doing, picking out bridesmaids’ dresses?”

His question was met with stony silence. “I’m sorry for laughing. Hey, I’m not even married.”

“Big shock there,” Baily retorted.

“See, I won’t even rise to your bait. Now, tell me about this guy.”

“Harry? He’s the supportive, sensitive type.”

Daniel groaned. “Oh please, spare me the sensitive man stories.”

Inwardly he fumed. The thought of Baily in a lifeless marriage didn’t sit well with him. She was the throw-everything-off-the-table, toss-her-skirt-over-her-head-and-take-her-hard-and-long type. Oh, hell! Where had that thought come from?


Dear Reader,

This book was inspired by so many things: my thirtieth (cough, cough) twenty-ninth birthday; my very Irish mother, who is determined to see me married; but most of all the best vacation I ever had—a five-day drive across this huge and magnificent country.

I’ll never forget what it was like to see so much beauty, so much vastness and so much commonality between American towns all over the country. It was a trip that I will never forget, and then I realized it would be the perfect backdrop for Daniel and Baily’s story.

It’s amazing what these two seemingly different people discover they have in common when trapped inside a Volkswagen Bug for three days with a cat who thinks she’s a former president!

So sit back and enjoy this story as you would a long, leisurely car trip. Just don’t ask if you’re there yet. You’ll know you’ve reached the end of the trip when you get to the happy ending.

I love to hear from readers! You can e-mail me at stephd_romance@hotmail.com.

Have fun!

Stephanie Doyle




Books by Stephanie Doyle


HARLEQUIN DUETS

65—DOWN-HOME DIVA


Charlie, we’ll always have Chugwater.

Good luck to you and Glynn in your life together.




1


“DONE. END. FINISHED. Gone. Goodbye. Get out of my way. No more. No way. Not me. Adiós. Au revoir. Hasta la vista. See you. So long. Sayonara.”

“So what you’re saying is that you’re leaving.”

“Yep.” Baily looked up from her task of trying to fit too many articles of clothing into a too small suitcase. Her friend Janice looked utterly confused.

“You could always tell your parents no. You are an adult, after all.”

That was questionable. Regardless, Baily had given her word. And if her parents’ persistence wasn’t enough to make her return home then her own honor was.

“Don’t you think I’ve tried to reason with them? Don’t you think I’ve explained that I’m a real, live grown-up? It simply doesn’t work. Besides, Harry is a really nice guy.” Any anger that Baily had over the situation quickly melted away. No one could ever be angry with Harry. Baily dropped the lid on the overpacked suitcase and threw, as she would term it, her nicely rounded bottom on top to give it extra incentive to close.

Janice sat atop the second suitcase and sighed with frustration. “It’s barbaric, I tell you. Forcing you to come home to marry the chosen suitor. Why did you ever agree to that kind of deal in the first place?”

“I wanted adventure, and it was the only way they would let me come to Seattle.” Snap. Baily felt the locks catch under her weight. She didn’t know whether to be glad that the suitcase shut or mournful that it shut so easily.

Janice debated that last point. “They couldn’t have stopped you.”

“Obviously you’ve never seen the size of my brothers. Trust me, they could have stopped me.” Baily glanced around the empty apartment, checking to see that the movers had gotten everything. All that was left were her two suitcases and Miss Roosevelt.

“Barbaric,” Janice muttered as she shifted her weight on the second suitcase, trying to close it.

“You said that already,” Baily returned, smiling at her friend’s irritation and knowing how illogical it must seem to a person who wasn’t raised a Monohan.

“Medieval! Did I say that yet? What about your job? The school is really going to miss you.”

“I’ll get another teaching job when I get back to New Jersey. There is always a job for a teacher who doesn’t mind middle school kids.”

“It’s still wrong.”

With a sigh, Baily moved to sit on the suitcase with Janice, both of their nicely rounded rumps filling the tiny space and then some. Snap. Apparently, it was diet time again. “Listen, my parents only wanted to secure my future. They gave me seven years to explore the west. And I had a glorious time. But the more I think about it, the more I agree with them. I miss my family.”

“You’re going to marry a man just because you miss your family?” Janice was incredulous.

No, of course not! Okay, maybe a little. How did Baily explain all that to Janice? Janice would tell her to hold out for true love and other such ridiculous romantic notions. Baily, once a devoted romantic, had simply given up on the idea that true love existed for her in the cosmos. She had met too many men, had dated several of them, and not once had Cupid struck a blow.

“Harry will make an excellent husband. He’ll be loyal, faithful, loving…”

“And he’ll come on command, sit when you tell him, and he won’t make puddles on the rug,” Janice said sarcastically, moving off the suitcase to stand in the middle of the empty room.

“Hey. Don’t knock it. Housebreaking a man is harder than it looks.” Okay, so Harry had all the qualities of a fine dog. There were worse things in life. Harry would give Baily children. Something a dog certainly couldn’t do. Just think of the children, Baily reminded herself. Unfortunately, that meant that she had to think about how she was going to get those children with Harry. Ugh-hh.

“You’re not taking this seriously. This is your life, Baily Monohan. You’re about to throw it all away,” Janice fairly shrieked.

“Not throw it all away. More like start it all over…again.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Baily announced with a firmness that surprised her. She was making the right choice. In her mind she knew that. It was just her heart that was doing little anxious flip-flops every time she thought about spending the rest of her life with Harry.

With a determination she knew she was faking, Baily stood and lifted her two suitcases.

“Theodora! Let’s go, Miss Roosevelt. We’re leaving!”

“Miss Roosevelt” peeked out from her perch on one of the kitchen shelves. “Meow.”

“Now, Theodora,” Baily coaxed, “we talked about this. You agreed. So stop being so stubborn and move your tail.”

Reluctantly the cat joined her. An indignant mew at Baily’s feet let her know it wasn’t without complaint. It was obvious Theodora wasn’t at all happy about moving, but she apparently knew she wasn’t going to have any say in the matter.

Janice shook her head in wonder. “You treat that animal like a human. It’s not natural, you know.”

“Shh. Do you want her to hear you? You know how she gets when someone reminds her that she wasn’t the president of the United States. I know I’m encouraging her delusions, but it’s less crying this way.” Baily gazed down upon the black ball of fluff with loving adoration. “Are you ready, Madam President?”

“Meow.” Theodora practically sighed, as if she realized she had no choice.

“Tell me again which of you is the delusional one?” Janice asked under her breath, not exactly sure she wanted an answer.

The two friends made their way out of the apartment with the President in tow. Baily popped the trunk of her antique yellow Volkswagen Bug and shoved the suitcases in place. There was a litter box already set up in the back seat and a six-pack of Diet Pepsi on ice in the passenger’s seat. Baily was ready.

“Are you sure you are okay driving across the country by yourself? What about the maniacs that prey on helpless women?” Janice wondered out loud.

“Way to put me at ease.” Baily had driven out to Seattle with her brother, Nick, the first time. At the time, Seattle had seemed as far away from New Jersey as she could get. Nick, a Philadelphia police officer, had insisted that she be accompanied. Currently he was rebounding from a nasty divorce and was unfit company for fish. No way Baily wanted to put up with his ex-wife bashing for three thousand miles. Which meant that this was a solo trip. She wasn’t exactly thrilled about that, but she also had to be practical. Besides, how dangerous could it be?

Okay, so maybe she was a little nervous. But she was tough. One had to be to be a Monohan. Just in case, she’d packed a can of Mace.

“Be careful. And whatever you do, don’t pick up hitchhikers.” Janice threw her arms around Baily and clung tight. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too.”

Baily situated herself in her car and drove off. Through semi-watery eyes, she watched as Janice became smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror. The next time Baily looked up, Janice was gone.

“Well, Theodora, it’s just you and me. Are you ready to go home?”

“Meow.”

“Me, too.”

DAMN! DAMN! DAMN! Damn! Daniel Blake simply refused to believe his ears. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be happening. Not to him. Not now. Not Sarah. With an impatience born of fury, he stabbed the rewind button on his answering machine then hit the play button once again. Maybe during the process of rewinding, the tape would somehow alter itself and a new message would play. One that did not cause his pulse to leap and his blood pressure to soar.

Beeeep. “Hi, Danny! It’s me, Sarah. I’ve got wonderful news. You’re never going to believe it. Well, I mean you’ll believe it because I’m telling you it’s the truth, and you know I don’t lie….”

Daniel closed his eyes. It was his sister’s habit to explain every exaggeration she ever made. He used to find the quality endearing. It declared her honesty. Now it was just time-consuming, and he was in a hurry to get to the punch line. Again.

“So what I really mean is that you’ll probably be stunned. Oh, here it goes…I’m getting married! Can you believe it? Me, married. It’s Pierce, of course. I know you have your reservations about him, but trust me he’s really a doll, and sweet, and funny. I could go on forever. I mean not really forever because I would run out of words, but…well, you know what I mean. He says he can’t wait. So we’re doing it on August 3.”

Seven days! Actually six, since the message was a day old.

“I know what you’re thinking…I always wanted a big wedding with all the trimmings, but with Mom and Dad gone and Pierce not having any family, either, we decided to keep it small. Just you and a friend of Pierce’s. Oh, and I know that’s only seven days away, but it should only take you three or four to get here if you drive all day. That’s probably faster than the train what with all the schedule juggling you’d have to do. So I’ll expect to see you at the end of the week. Can’t wait!” Beeeeeep.

His sister’s voice seemed to echo throughout the house. She was going to marry that sleazy, two-bit fortune hunter, and he only had six days to stop the wedding. Six days. It simply wasn’t enough time. For a moment he considered flying, but the idea was gone as soon as it had entered his head. He had given his word to Sarah that he would never fly, and his word was his bond. She was right about the train schedules being a hassle, too. There was no point in trying to reason with her on the phone, either. She may be flaky, but she could also be very stubborn. The only way to handle this was face to face. Which meant getting in his car and driving.

Without wasting any time, he opened the suitcase that was still filled with his clothes from the trip he had just returned from late last night. He had driven down to San Francisco to meet with a potential client interested in his unique software package. Daniel’s product was one of a few that the large timber company had shown an interest in, and he had a hunch that his trip had all but sealed the deal. Still, nothing was concrete, and the last thing he needed was something to distract him from winning the bid.

Family, however annoying, came first. His only choice was to do what Sarah suggested: drive to Philadelphia. Not to attend her wedding, but to stop it. His vice president, Bruce, could handle the California bid while he was away.

Decision made, Daniel’s next step was to find some clean clothes to replace the ones he’d just dumped in the hamper. Thankfully his maid had taken care of the laundry in his absence. Neatly laundered jeans and crisply ironed cotton polo shirts hung in his closest. Barely taking the time to fold them, he shoved them into the suitcase. A quick check to see that he had his wallet, and he was ready. He practically sprinted down the stairs of his Seattle, Washington, home and out the door, only to climb back into the car he had recently vacated.

After a tiresome drive back from California he’d had visions of unwinding for the day before getting back to work. Now he was going to have to make a marathon drive across the country to where his incredibly naive sister was about to make the biggest mistake of his life. Her life, he corrected himself.

At least she had given him six days. It could have been worse. Daniel figured he could make it to Philadelphia in three if he really pushed it. That would give him plenty of time to scare off the would-be husband and to lock Sarah in a convent. In that order.

Armed with a plan, he secured his seat belt and checked his rearview mirror. He spotted a beige Ford sedan parked too close to his driveway. The driver was still in the car. Daniel hit his horn to let the man know he was about to leave the driveway. As Daniel backed up, he shot the man a look to let him know he didn’t appreciate him blocking his driveway. The man in the car averted his eyes.

“Damn tourist,” Daniel muttered under his breath. Was there anyone on the planet who knew how to drive other than him? He doubted it.

Just stick to the plan, Daniel told himself, and this nightmare would soon be over.




2


“WILL THIS NIGHTMARE ever be over?” Daniel asked himself after being forced to put his foot on the brake yet again. It was only day two of his trip, but at this rate he would never reach his sister’s wedding in time. Not when the vehicles in front of him insisted on driving as slow as his late great-grandmother. A Volkswagen Bug and a semi both conspired against him by only driving sixty miles per hour each in their own lane. For a brief moment Daniel considered passing the truck on the shoulder of the road, but it would be just his luck to get caught in a rut and end up with a flat tire. What he needed to do was to get the attention of the woman in the car in front of him.

He knew it was a woman because it was hard to miss the mass of red hair that spilled over the headrest of her seat. However, she clearly wasn’t aware of his presence behind her. Daniel hunched forward over the steering wheel in the hope that by bringing his body inches closer to the lady in front of him she might sense his desire to pass. Since she remained at a constant speed, he had to assume she hadn’t picked up on his mental vibe.

He tried another ploy and flipped on his headlights. A reflection of bright light bounced off her silver bumper. He could see his high beams clearly. No such luck from Red.

The woman was obviously too distracted to check her rearview mirror. The curls that he’d noticed before were bouncing around her head. She was bobbing and weaving and thrusting an occasional finger at the passenger in the seat next to her. If Daniel had to guess, she was either having a seizure or singing to a very short companion. It must have been his imagination that conjured up the image of pointy ears peeking around the front seat. She wasn’t actually singing to a cat?

“HOW WAS I?” Baily asked, slightly out of breath from sining along with the radio. Baily was no Aretha Franklin, but Miss Roosevelt didn’t seem to mind. Madam President had soul.

Baily waited anxiously for the next song. In the interim she took stock of where she was. A glance in her rearview mirror revealed an ominous black Mercedes practically sitting on her back bumper.

“Jeesh. Sorry, buddy,” Baily muttered a little sheepishly. “I didn’t realize you were back there.” After all, Aretha demanded full concentration. She hit the gas and attempted to accelerate enough so that she could pull ahead of the semi next to her. Her Bug had other ideas.

The car sputtered a bit and sped up a mere five miles per hour on the decline. Since the truck was also picking up speed, there was no way Baily would be able to pass it let alone pull in front of it. Poor car, she thought. She’d pushed it too hard, and it let her know that it didn’t appreciate it. Her only recourse was to slow down and pull in behind the semi.

SHE WAS SLOWING DOWN! There was only one option left. Daniel laid his hand on the horn and left it there out of sheer frustration. Frustration at the woman in front of him for driving too slow. Frustration at his sister for marrying the wrong man. Frustration at having to walk away from his business at a crucial time. It was undignified to shout at the top of his lungs, but there was nothing in the rule books about using a car horn to let off a little steam. The noise was an awful wonderful sound that made his ears ache joyously. The blare filled the car, zoomed out around him, and echoed against the vast Montana landscape.

MISS ROOSEVELT SHRIEKED and dove for cover under the seat. “Oh!” Baily shouted with indignation. The big bully. She’d been trying to move over to do him a favor and he had gone and scared her baby. The semi passed, and she immediately swung into the lane behind it. The truck picked up speed and was soon out of sight. Baily, meanwhile, couldn’t help but stare at the man in the Mercedes as he pulled even with her.

WITH ONE LAST FINAL PUSH, Daniel released his horn. A dreamy sort of peace invaded him. Damn that had felt good. If he smoked he would have had a cigarette. Nothing like a good blow of the horn to relieve a little stress. Heck, now that the car in front of him had moved, Daniel no longer felt the sudden rush to get ahead. He pulled up slowly alongside the yellow Volkswagen Bug. Belatedly he turned to get a better look at the driver, wondering if she was as pretty as her hair.

“BIG…JERK!” Baily shouted, rolling down her window in an effort to make herself heard. Unfortunately it was doubtful that he heard her because his car window was still rolled up. Not that he would be overly offended by such a comment. Baily really needed to work on the whole swearing thing. She had lived too long with her mother’s words ringing in her head. A lady simply doesn’t swear. Obviously her mother never had to put up with jerks that drove Mercedes.

WHAT WAS HER PROBLEM? Daniel thought. He hadn’t heard her, but it didn’t take a genius to understand that she was furious. After all, she was the one who wouldn’t pull ahead of the truck. When Daniel had tried to encourage her forward, she’d had the nerve to slow down. Of course now Daniel realized that she had only slowed down so that she could get behind the truck. More than likely the little car didn’t have the acceleration required for a high-speed pass. It was Daniel’s turn to feel a bit sheepish.

The only thing to do was to apologize. No chance she would hear him through two car widths. Daniel improvised with a shrug of his shoulders and a harmless smile that said, “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to honk so loud.”

BAILY GASPED. “The nerve of that man! He’s smirking and shrugging at me like he doesn’t even care that he turned five of my hairs gray with that blasted horn of his.”

The meanest action she could think to do popped into her head. Without a second’s hesitation she did it.

SHE STUCK HER TONGUE OUT at him! Here he was trying to apologize, and she was showing him tongue. Obviously she was disturbed. Probably an escapee from some kind of mental facility. The best thing to do would be to hightail it out of there before she did something really crazy.

Like the pig face. Daniel hated the pig face. The one where the person pushed his nose up on his face and slanted his eyes back toward his ears. It chilled him just thinking about it. With one last glare to show her that he didn’t appreciate her driving etiquette, Daniel hit the gas pedal with the full weight of his foot.

A mistake, considering he hadn’t taken his eyes off the redheaded driver. Daniel never saw the cow that had slowly made its way through the opening in the fence along the side of the road until it was actually on the road itself. He knew it was too late the minute he saw the big bovine. Completely oblivious to the damage the dumb animal was about to cause, the cow mooed at the oncoming car.

Daniel slammed on his brakes so hard he feared he would push the pedal through the floor of the car. The vehicle swerved then spun out of control. He tried to steer into the skid, but the car didn’t respond in time. Before he was aware of what was happening, he’d skidded off the road and crashed into a fence post. The air bag inflated, and Daniel was thrown back against the seat.

It all took exactly two seconds.

“Moooo.”

Well at least the cow made it.

“Mister! Mister! Are you all right?”

The air bag now deflated, Daniel was able to move within the car. First he took stock of his body. Both his legs and arms were okay. His chest and the rest of his body had been protected by the air bag. He bumped his head and he felt a burning sensation on his cheek from where the air bag had scraped his face. Other than that he was fine. And lucky.

His car…not so lucky.

“Answer me!”

Daniel turned his head and met the worried green eyes of his redheaded nemesis. “Why?”

Baily sat back on her haunches. That was an odd answer. “Because I want to make sure you’re okay.”

“Obviously I am, or I wouldn’t have been able to answer you, now would I?”

Good point. He was awfully calm for someone who had just gotten into a car wreck. And by the looks of it the car was totaled. The hood was practically wrapped around the thick fence post. The fence post, however, looked fine. “Didn’t you see the cow?”

No words were necessary. Daniel’s sour face said it all.

“Okay, you didn’t see the cow,” Baily concluded.

Daniel attempted to open the car door. Not an easy task since the entire frame had been pushed in. Baily saw his intent and aided him by pulling on the door while he pushed. Together they managed to create enough space for him to escape. Finding his legs a bit unsteady, he took a few calming breaths before he inspected the damage.

“You should sit down while we wait for the cops.”

“What cops?”

“You know the cops that come after you’ve been in an accident,” Baily told him naively.

Daniel raised his arms to indicate the vast space around him. The only thing for miles was Baily’s Bug, Daniel’s wreck and a cow. “And just where do expect these magical cops to sprout from?”

“Oh.” She saw his point. The road they traveled wasn’t a hotbed of activity. The semi was the only other vehicle Baily had noticed for hours and by now it was long gone. “I don’t have a cell phone or anything.”

“Who doesn’t have a cell phone in today’s world?” he asked incredulously. He didn’t know why he cared, but it seemed wrong for a woman to be on the road alone without a cell phone.

“Me. I’m a schoolteacher on a budget. It was either a cell phone or my monthly manicure.”

“Cell phones are very useful in cases of emergencies, accidents…”

“Yes, but well-painted nails are a joy every day,” she said holding out her pretty pink nails for inspection. He didn’t seem impressed. “I take it you have a cell phone.”

“Of course I have a cell phone,” he stated haughtily. He reached for his right pants’ pocket and found it empty. Then he reached for his left pocket and also found it empty. Looking down at his pants, he realized they weren’t the same ones he’d been wearing on his trip back from California. The ones with his cell phone still in the pocket. They were on the floor of his bathroom where he’d last left them. Not here. With him. In the middle of Montana.

“No cell phone?”

He almost wanted to growl at her.

“So what should we do?”

Again, Daniel was beyond words. He moved around the car slowly and carefully. The hood, the engine, the frame—the whole damn car was trashed. He began to swear with the skill of a sailor.

Baily smiled uncomfortably. It wasn’t that she hadn’t heard the words before. Growing up with five brothers, she could give vocabulary lessons in swearing. She just envied the ease with which he did it. Boy, if her mother could hear him now, she’d shove enough soap in his mouth to keep his language clean for years.

Finally, after he’d surveyed the wreck and realized that he wasn’t going anywhere, Daniel turned his attention on the woman. “You,” he accused.

“Me?” Baily asked.

“This is all your fault!” It was a lie. He’d been driving too fast, but it felt good to blame someone else for his stupidity.

“My fault! You were the one who almost hit that poor cow and drove off the road.”

“Poor cow?” Daniel searched and found the cow off to the side of the road munching on some grass. “The cow is fine! What about my car?”

Baily spared a glance at the car. “It’s pretty much totaled.”

“Ah-hh,” Daniel yelled in frustration.

Perhaps this would have been a good time for Baily to get in her car and get the hell out of Dodge. Who knew what the man would do next? Honking and yelling, he was obviously the emotional sort. But she couldn’t leave. Although she’d denied it, she did feel partly responsible for the accident. She wasn’t about to admit it to him, but he had been staring at her tongue. The tongue she’d so childishly thrust at him. It was why he hadn’t seen the cow until it was too late. For that reason, she had to at least offer her assistance.

“What am I going to do?” Daniel yelled. Now that he had regained some of his senses, he realized that he was in big trouble. Totaling his car wasn’t part of the plan. Being stuck out in the middle of nowhere with a redhead wasn’t part of the plan, either.

Baily refrained from making a comment, but she had asked a similar question only moments before. They were still all alone. Not counting the cow.

That’s when the trepidation hit. She was alone in Montana with a strange man who liked to beep his horn and swear. The smart course of action, the one the self-defense books suggested, would be to get into her car, drive to the nearest phone, and call someone to help him. That idea, however, didn’t sit well with Baily. Not while she was still feeling slightly, just slightly, guilty.

Besides that, the poor man appeared to be desperate. It was a safe bet he hadn’t staged the accident as part of some diabolical plot to kidnap, rape and murder her. Had that been the case he wouldn’t have been driving a Mercedes. No one totaled a sixty-thousand-dollar car just to commit murder. He could do that in a Ford.

“Listen, I could drive you to the nearest gas station. You could call a tow truck.”

Daniel stood there for a moment and contemplated his choices. There were none. That had already been established. It was just that he had a sinking suspicion getting into the yellow Bug with its redheaded owner was going to be a life-altering decision. He couldn’t see how, but his gut was never wrong. And it was telling him the woman was trouble.

Baily opened the driver’s side door of her car and got in, then leaned her head out the open window. “Hey! Are you coming or what?”

Daniel removed his suitcase from his trunk. He opened the hood of the ancient Bug and shoved his suitcase inside. Then he closed it and stared at her through the windshield.

She stared back and shrugged her shoulders as if to ask what was taking him so long. Sighing, he moved around the car to the passenger side and got in. Or at least tried to. It was an effort, but he managed to squeeze himself into the compact automobile, feeling the car lurch as his weight was added.

“Meeeooow!”

“What the hell was that?” Daniel bellowed.

“Poor, poor, Miss Roosevelt. Did the big bad man take your seat?” Baily held Theodora in her arms, crooning to her as if she were an overly spoiled child. Which, in fact, she was.

“A cat.” So it had been a cat she’d been singing to.

“I hope you’re not allergic,” Baily announced, “because let me tell you who is going to get the boot if you are.”

Her smile was evil. Daniel returned it with full force. “Not the cat?”

Satisfied, Baily decided to play nice. “Her name is Theodora Roosevelt. You can call her Miss Roosevelt or Theodora or, if you prefer, Madam President. She likes that name best, but I try not to encourage her delusions of grandeur too often.”

He was in Oz. That must be it. His car had driven off the road, a tornado had picked him up, and now he was in Oz. Either that or he had just agreed to drive the next twenty or so miles with a lunatic.

Baily introduced her cat to her new passenger. “Miss Roosevelt, this is…I don’t know your name.”

“Blake. My name is Daniel Blake.” Daniel thought about offering his hand, but he’d be damned before he shook a cat’s paw.

“Oh,” Baily commented. Starting up the car, she maneuvered herself back onto the highway. “My name is Baily Monohan.”

“Bailey, huh? Is that like the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life? George Bailey, wasn’t it?” It would be typical for her to be named after a fictional character. She, herself, was fictional-like. The red hair, the green eyes, the cat.

“No. It’s Baily as in Irish Cream.”

“The drink? Baileys Irish Cream?”

“Yes,” explained Baily, “only it’s not spelled the same. I was born around Christmastime you see, and my father…well Baileys is his favorite drink at Christmas. So he had a few when mother went into labor. I was born and he named me Bailey, but he spelled it wrong on the birth certificate. It’s sort of the family joke.”

“Good thing your dad wasn’t drinking tequila. Any brothers or sisters? Maybe a Jack Daniels or a Wild Turkey?” Daniel chuckled at his own joke.

“Very funny. And original, too. No, my brothers are Nick, Michael, Billy, Sean, and James. All very Irish and very proper. But I was the first girl, you see, so my parents were stumped. Not to mention I was number six, and they were running low on options.”

“Six children!” The thought of having more than six people in his house at the same time made Daniel nervous. Families in general made him nervous. “Big family.”

Baily shook her head, laughing. “You don’t know the half of it. Three of my brothers are married with children. One still lives at home, and one is temporarily living at home because he just got a divorce. Other than Nick and James, the family has practically quadrupled in the last ten years. It’s really a lot of fun.”

“I wouldn’t know about families and fun,” Daniel remarked grimly. His family, his sister, was the reason he was in his current predicament. It finally dawned on him the magnitude of his dilemma. “I’m never going to reach my sister in time.”

“Is your sister in trouble?”

Daniel redirected his attention back to the woman. He hadn’t realized he said his thoughts out loud. “Yes, my sister is in trouble. Thanks to the accident, I’ll never make it in time to save her.” Daniel pushed his hands through his hair in frustration and grimaced when he found a goose egg that had suddenly sprouted on his head.

Baily witnessed the grimace out of the corner of her eye. “Are you hurt?”

“Hurt?” That was the understatement of the year. “My car is totaled. My sister’s life is about to be destroyed, and to top it all off I’ve got a bump the size of Mount Rainier on my head.”

Baily had to humph a bit at that last comment. Really, the size of Mount Rainier?

“You don’t believe me?” Daniel bellowed. Reaching out he took her right hand off the steering wheel and shoved it over the lump on his forehead that had only been partially covered by his brown bangs. Baily brushed her fingers through his thick chestnut hair, trying to ignore the silky feeling of it and how it made her fingers tingle. It wasn’t too hard to find the lump. A startled gasp left her mouth before she could stop it.

“It’s really big,” she stated, as if he didn’t already have that information. “Maybe I should take you to a hospital.”

The concern in her eyes and the tremor in her voice made him realize how much his little speech had affected her. Good, he thought evilly.

“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” he assured her. Rubbing a hand over his face in an attempt to alleviate some of his frustration, he murmured, “What I need is to get to Philadelphia.”

“Philadelphia? Did you say Philadelphia?” Baily asked, thinking she hadn’t heard what she thought she’d heard. It was too much of a coincidence.

“Yeah. What about it? I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do now. It’s going to take days to fix my car, and I don’t have that long to wait. I could rent a car, but where the hell am I going to find a car rental place around here.” Daniel muttered to himself as he sorted through his options. “I’ll never make it in time.” What would happen to Sarah?

Before she could stop herself the words seemed to pop out of her mouth. “I’m going to New Jersey. South Jersey, actually, right over the Ben Franklin Bridge just a few miles from Philadelphia.” It was a ridiculous thought. Surely she wasn’t offering to drive this complete stranger across the country. It sounded like it though, didn’t it? It might not be so bad. She would have someone to split the driving time, and she wouldn’t be so defenseless. Unless of course he turned out to be a psychopathic killer. What had Janice said about not picking up hitchhikers?

The ashen color of his skin made the red bump stand out even more. He didn’t look like the average menacing hitchhiker. Besides, the company wouldn’t hurt. It would give her someone to talk to besides Miss Roosevelt. As for him being a stranger, he didn’t feel like a stranger.

He’d seen her tongue.

She’d felt his bump.

In the short time they had shared the car ride, Baily was pretty confident that she could trust this man. Of course she was sure that was what every woman had said when she’d first met Ted Bundy.

“Or,” she suggested, “I could just take you on to the next town like we originally planned.”

“What am I going to do there?”

“What am I, your guidance counselor? I don’t know. You could have a tow truck pick up your car for starters. Then see about a rental.”

“A Hertz? In the two street blocks they call towns around here? I don’t think so,” he stated sarcastically.

Baily was now beginning to get angry. He was quick to shoot down her ideas, but what was he coming up with? “Well what do you want to do?” Baily shouted back.

The shouting was beginning to get to him. His head throbbed. The best thing to do was to make peace first. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m just frustrated. I’ve got to be in Philadelphia in five days at the latest. I know this isn’t all your fault.”

“All my fault? It isn’t any of my fault!” That was her story and she was sticking to it, guilty conscience aside. “If you hadn’t beeped at me…”

“If you hadn’t put your brakes on…”

“If you hadn’t been on my bumper…”

Daniel clenched his teeth. This was getting them nowhere. “The point is, my sister’s life depends on me getting to Philadelphia.”

“If it was that important, why didn’t you fly?” It seemed like the obvious solution. “You can probably get an airline ticket at Billings. That isn’t so far. I could drive you there.”

“I don’t fly,” Daniel replied without explanation.

This man could try the patience of Mother Teresa. “Your sister’s life is on the line, and you can’t get over your fear of flying?”

If he clenched his teeth any tighter, he knew they would break. “I didn’t say I was afraid of flying. I said I don’t fly. There is a very big difference. The end result is still the same though. I don’t fly. I won’t fly. Now let’s move on to the next suggestion.”

It should have dawned on him then the way he had so casually brought her into his decision-making process that this wasn’t any ordinary woman who had entered his life.

“I offered to drive you to Philadelphia,” she pointed out, feeling as if they had wasted a long time just to get back to the point from which they’d started.

It was a good offer, but the last thing he wanted to do. He couldn’t drive across the country with this woman. Not this woman.

“I can’t do it,” he announced, giving voice to his thoughts.

“Why not?” Baily waited for his reasons. She had a hunch this was going to be good. “What’s the matter, isn’t my car luxurious enough for you?”

His knees hit the dashboard. The top of his head scraped the roof of the car. The only place to put his arms was in his lap or around a cat named Madam President. The Bug wasn’t his big roomy Mercedes. But he’d be a fool to tell her that. The problem was less substantial than that. He stared at her hard and something inside him screamed at him to jump out of the car now while he still had the chance. “I simply can’t drive with you all the way to Philadelphia.”

“What’s the matter with me?”

Nothing obvious. The trouble was hidden. It was there in the way her jean shorts rode up high on her thighs and the way her shirt clung to her breasts. It was the way her hair bounced around her shoulders as if it were alive and the way her green eyes sparkled with mischief.

“Well, look at you, for one thing.”

Actually, the whole picture had only just registered in Daniel’s mind. He’d seen her profile; he’d seen her standing in front of him. He’d seen her hair, of course. But it was only a second ago that all of those images filtered back through his mind and he put them all together into one extremely attractive, heart-pumping package that would disturb his equilibrium. Which was exactly the last complication he needed at this time.

Baily glanced down at herself. She was wearing a pair of cutoffs and a white T-shirt. She didn’t see the problem. “What is wrong with the way I look?” she asked defensively. She was no beauty but no one had ever told her that she was too repulsive to drive with.

Daniel didn’t know how to articulate it. “It’s your red hair, and the eyes, and the freckles. All I have to do is look at you to know that you are going to irritate me like no one on this planet has ever irritated me before.”

“Listen you overbearing, Mercedes-driving jerk! I didn’t have to pull over to help you. I didn’t have to offer to drive you to the next town. I could have left you there looking for the cell phone you don’t seem to have. I certainly didn’t have to offer to drive you to Philadelphia. But you’re in a bind. And your sister, whom I’ve suddenly developed a great sympathy for, is in trouble. So why don’t you just say yes, then shut the hell up. Because let me tell you, you have already irritated me more than anyone I’ve ever known. And I’ve been irritated by the best, pal.”

Daniel snorted. He refused to agree to anything until he had a chance to weigh his options. He wouldn’t know what those options were until they reached civilization.

It was twenty silent miles to the next town. One that had a gas station, a quickie mart, five dwellings and nothing else. Certainly no rental car facilities. Even if Daniel had wanted to wait while the car was being repaired, there wasn’t an available hotel room for at least another hundred miles. His options were becoming fewer and his hope of avoiding a three-thousand-mile car trip with a batty redhead was becoming dimmer.

The only bright spot was that the gas attendant, Doug, was the helpful sort. He took Daniel’s credit card number and assured Daniel that he would bill him fairly for the damage to the car. Daniel told the man he’d be back in less than two weeks to pick up his car. No problem for Doug as there was plenty of room in his garage. Western courtesy. It wasn’t a myth. Doug also mentioned that Jackson Hole, just over the border of Montana, would have the rental car facilities Daniel needed.

“See, your problems are solved. I’ll take you to Jackson Hole. I was planning on stopping there anyway. And Doug said he would take good care of the car.” Baily had trusted the attendant completely.

“He’ll probably be joyriding in it once he gets it fixed,” Daniel said cynically. Nobody was that nice. Then again he had just accepted a ride from a woman who had selflessly offered to drive him where he needed to go. Maybe he was the one with the problem.

“Well, we’re off,” Baily announced.

Daniel groaned as he struggled to fit his frame back into her car. She started the engine and the car sputtered to life. It was going to be the longest trip of his life. That he knew, absolutely. If nothing else, the cramped confines of the car would more than likely cause him permanent injury. To keep his mind off his already sore knees he looked around for something to distract him. Unfortunately, that would be Red’s too tight T-shirt. Even while she irritated his mind, she stirred his body. A lethal combination.

A thought occurred to Daniel, but he was almost hesitant to ask. “Are you married? What am I saying, of course you’re not.”

She had opened her mouth to tell him no, but then closed it when he answered his own question. “What is that supposed to mean? Don’t I look like someone who might be married? Don’t you think I could get a husband if I wanted one? Don’t you think it’s possible, even a little, that someone somewhere might find me vaguely attractive enough or interesting enough to marry? Huh?”

“Sensitive subject, I see,” Daniel remarked while he watched her face turn several shades of purple.

“Meow,” Miss Roosevelt concurred from the back seat.

Slightly embarrassed, Baily tried to compose herself. Okay, maybe she was a little too sensitive about the whole topic of marriage. Besides, there was nothing to worry about now. She was going to marry Harry.

“All I meant was that if you were married, your husband would most likely be with you and you would be wearing a ring. Since neither of those things are true, I assumed you weren’t married.”

Daniel’s logical explanation only turned her cheeks rosier. “I’m not,” she quietly replied.

“That’s what I thought,” Daniel said smugly.

A little too smugly, Baily decided. “But I’m going to be.”

Not quite sure what she meant, he conceded, “Sure. Most people think they’ll get married and have a family someday.”

“No, I mean I’m getting married. When I get back to New Jersey,” Baily clarified.

He was at an absolute loss to explain the sudden sense of regret that washed over him. It was as if he tried to capture something in his grasp but it was gone before he could close his fingers around it. Then he shook his head. He was being ridiculous.

“So you’re engaged?” Daniel concluded. “Where’s your ring if you’re engaged?”

Shifting slightly in her seat, Baily thought of a few legitimate excuses, but none of them rang true. “Technically…I’m not…we really haven’t quite…he hasn’t actually…”

“He hasn’t proposed yet.” It was a statement. Ha! Daniel felt triumphant. Although he had no idea why.

“He hasn’t proposed, but he will. He’s waiting for me to come home.” There, that was reasonable. It was also the truth.

Daniel was confused. And really, none of this was his business. He should let the subject drop, lean his head back and catch a few winks. That was sound thinking.

“So he’s been waiting for you in New Jersey while you’ve been Seattle.”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

She squirmed in her seat a little bit, then muttered something under her breath.

“I’m sorry I didn’t catch that.”

“Seven years,” she said clearly.

There wasn’t any reaction at first. For a second, Baily thought he might have fallen asleep. That was until she glanced quickly to her right and saw his face turning red and his eyes watering up. Shortly after that, the laughter started.

Five minutes later he was still laughing. Baily’s anger grew proportionately. She didn’t know what had made her say anything in the first place. That wasn’t true. Maybe she’d wanted to share the story with someone. Get someone else’s feedback to decide whether or not she was making a huge mistake. Stupid idea. Now on top of everything else she was completely humiliated.

Breathing in deep gulps of air, Daniel tried to get control of his body. He couldn’t say why he found the story so amusing, but he had a feeling that the laughter had been building inside him from the first moment he’d seen her. Seven years. She certainly could deliver a punch line. Once he was calm he was able to ask his next series of questions.

“Okay, give. You’re telling me your soon-to-be fiancé has been waiting for you for seven years. What the hell have you been doing, picking out bridemaids’ dresses?” Daniel amazed himself with his witty banter.

His question was met with stony silence. Taking in her profile, he could see her proud chin was raised slightly. While he waited for her reaction, he took the time to study her other features. He couldn’t help but notice that her nose sloped up at the cutest angle. Her lips were firm, but were currently stiff with irritation. Long lashes dusted her cheeks when they closed. If he looked close, he could even count the number of freckles that covered the right side of her face. Seventeen.

“I’m sorry for laughing,” Daniel apologized, unused to the sound of those words echoing off his own lips. “I really want to know the whole story.”

“Why? So you can make fun of me some more?” Baily was no masochist.

The long highway stretched in front of them, and Daniel felt penned in by the confines of the small car. The question and its answer was just a way to pass the time. At least that was what he told himself. “I won’t make fun. Hey, I’m not even married.”

“Big shock there,” Baily retorted.

“See, I won’t even rise to your bait. Now tell me about this guy…What’s his name?”

Sniffing past her indignation, Baily muttered, “Harry.”

“Henry?”

“Harry. His name is Harry, and I’ve known him since I was ten. We grew up together. Dated in high school. Dated in college. Everybody assumed that we were going to get married. I wanted to experience a little more of the world before I settled down. My family was adamantly against me leaving. Harry was bothered, too. I guess.”

“You guess?”

Baily winced at the implication. “You have to know Harry. He’s the supportive, sensitive type.”

Groaning, Daniel stopped her. “Oh, please, spare me the sensitive man stories. Whoever put those two words together should be shot.”

Baily ignored his sarcasm and continued with her story. “Well, he is. So when I told him I wanted to move to Seattle, he said that was fine. He said he would wait and that he loved me. My parents weren’t nearly as supportive. They made me promise that if I wasn’t married by the time I was thirty that I would come home where I belonged and marry Harry.”

“You’re kidding. And that worked?”

“My birthday is in three weeks. My thirtieth birthday.”

Daniel issued ultimatums to Sarah all the time. They never worked. He needed Sarah and Red to meet. Maybe Red would rub off on her and—Scratch that thought.

“I don’t think I need to point out to you that you are an adult. You don’t have to obey your parents. Although I do respect the fact that you are honoring your word.” Daniel couldn’t think of a woman he knew that he would have ever described as honorable, yet it was a characteristic he admired greatly.

Finally, she thought, here was someone who understood what it meant to keep one’s word. However, Baily had to admit that it wasn’t the only reason she was heading east. “I wouldn’t break my word, that’s true. But I also think it’s time for me to get married. I want a home and children. A family. Harry can provide that. The truth is, having almost reached the age of thirty, I’m beginning to believe that true romantic love doesn’t exist.”

“Damn right!” Daniel agreed readily.

“Somehow I knew you would agree with me.”

He wasn’t exactly sure how he should take that statement. He decided it was a credit to his logical way of thinking. Therefore, it was obviously a compliment, and he thanked her.

Baily chuckled. A man like him would view her comment as a compliment. Maybe it was wrong to judge him so quickly without really knowing him. But his short brown hair, his clean-shaven jaw, his green polo shirt, and his crisp new blue jeans with a brown belt that matched his casual shoes said a lot about the man. He was the bottom line, the practical choice, and the reasonable solution type.

“What I meant,” Baily clarified herself, “is that love isn’t like the storybooks. It doesn’t hit suddenly. It isn’t passionate and fiery and out of control. Sure some people say they experience that. But how long does it last? Instead I’ve decided that love is like a warm comforter. Snugly. Cuddly. Secure. Harry and I will love each other and our children. It won’t be a story for the fairy tales, but then fairy tales are fiction. Harry and I are nonfiction.” Baily nodded her head with conviction. She was definitely doing the right thing. How could being part of warm loving family, one that she would help to create, be wrong?

“Very practical,” Daniel added. Not that he understood her need to be married and have children, but at least she wasn’t one of those women who believed love would make everything all right. However, the thought of Red trapped in a loveless, lifeless marriage didn’t sit well with him. He saw Red as the fiery, passionate type. She was the throw-everything-off-the-table, toss-her-skirt-over-her-head and take-her-hard-and-long type.

Oh, hell! Where did that thought come from? It was one thing to notice a woman’s chest in a T-shirt; it was another to envision that chest naked. No, he told a certain part of his anatomy. Don’t even think about it. Don’t even twitch, you son of a bitch. Not her. She is absolutely out of the question.

That part of his body wasn’t listening. In fact the mere image of her thighs spread in front of him open and waiting for him to claim her was enough to make his sex do more than just twitch.

“Are you all right?” Baily caught a glimpse of a really pained expression on his face. “Is it your head? Is it bothering you?”

“Yes,” he replied gruffly. “It’s my head.” It was sort of the truth.

“Your problem is you’re still cranky. Why don’t you rest for a while? I’ll let you know when we get there,” Baily suggested.

Perhaps that wasn’t a bad idea. He could close his eyes and catch up on the sleep he so desperately needed. Then he would wake up refreshed and in charge of his own body. He would expunge all thoughts of Red as a sexual being while he slept and life would once again make sense. It was a wonderful idea. Closing his eyes, he yawned once then sighed deeply. One last thought occurred to him before he drifted off.

“You said you would wake me up when we got to where we were going, but Jackson Hole is hours away. I won’t sleep that long.” And there really wasn’t anything else that was noteworthy along the way.

“Oh, I meant when we get to Yellowstone, of course.”




3


“YELLOWSTONE! Yellowstone National Park? But we don’t have to go through the park to get to Jackson Hole. That’s south. We want to go east.” Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose in an effort to stem the pain of his headache.

“And eventually we will. I just want to take a little detour. You certainly don’t want to miss Yellowstone, do you? Elk, bear, caribou, Old Faithful! It would be a travesty to be this close and not visit.” It made perfect sense to Baily. She was a traveler by nature. She needed to accumulate new sights and experiences to keep her senses fed. And the first time she’d driven across country Nick had been in charge. He didn’t allow for detours. This was a perfect opportunity.

“Did I mention that my sister’s life was at stake? I don’t have time for detours.”

“Maybe it’s about time that we talked about your sister. It would help if I knew exactly what kind of danger she was in. I can’t imagine that her life is truly in jeopardy or else you would have found a way to overcome your fear of flying.”

Daniel, with his severe features, intense hazel eyes, and broad shoulders, didn’t look like a man who feared much. It was hard to reconcile the man who overwhelmed the space inside her small car as someone who had fears like other normal people.

Sighing, Daniel patiently explained. “I told you, I’m not afraid to fly.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. You don’t fly.” Baily attempted not to roll her eyes. She didn’t succeed, which was fortunate because when she did succeed it always made her dizzy.

“That’s right. Like you, I made a promise, and I don’t intend to break it.” His voice changed somehow, and immediately Baily knew that she had touched a vulnerable spot inside the man.

“Who made you promise not to fly?” An important person in his life, that much Baily surmised. It made her wonder how many other important people were in this man’s life. She would bet her life savings there weren’t many. Although considering that her life savings was the sum of eight hundred dollars, it wasn’t much of a bet.

It was an area of his life he didn’t think he wanted to share. He’d known this woman less than a day. She didn’t have the right to know about his personal problems. He should probably tell her to go to hell. Then he remembered how vulnerable she’d looked when she told him about her purported fiancé. It had taken both trust and hope on her part that he would tread softly on her feelings. Would she do the same?

More than likely. She had a quality about her. “My sister made me promise not to fly. My parents were killed in a plane crash many years ago. And it was our misfortune to be there when it happened.”

Tears burned Baily’s eyes, appearing so quickly they stunned her. “I’m so sorry. How old were you?”

“I was seventeen, but Sarah was only ten. Obviously, she took it harder.”

It wasn’t so obvious to Baily. She bit her tongue, but she couldn’t stop herself from silently wondering why Daniel shouldn’t be just as hurt by the loss of his parents.

“She’s been fragile, even frightened, ever since,” Daniel continued. “The next year I went to college. That first Christmas I planned to fly home, but Sarah made me promise that I wouldn’t. Then she made me promise that I would never fly…ever. It was probably wrong of me to indulge her, but if you had heard her voice trembling on the other end of the phone. She was so scared I wanted to make that fear disappear.”

“Surely she’s overcome that fear or at least would understand if you flew occasionally. You live across the country for Pete’s sake. How do you ever get home?” Baily thought about how difficult it was for her to be separated from her family for so long. Even the plane trip was long and arduous. If she didn’t have the option of flight open to her, she never would have made it home for Christmas and other family occasions.

Not easily, and not often, Daniel wanted to answer. It was just as well, too. Home only brought with it uncomfortable memories of a time long gone. Those memories and the sense of loss they brought with them were what had goaded him into leaving in the first place. That first year he had taken a summer job in Alaska, cutting wood, and seen the need to standardize the cutting and replanting process. After college, a software company recruited him, and he’d honed his skills until he was ready to venture out on his own with software designed to track the lumber business. In the ten years since he’d lived in Seattle he’d made it home only once a year, every year. Both he and Sarah accepted the fact that neither one of them would step foot on a plane again.

“Sarah hasn’t overcome her fear and I don’t want her driving by herself. I get home about once a year. Sometimes I drive, other times I take the train. Either way I’m not home as often as I would like. But my business is in the northwest, so there’s nothing I can do about that.”

It was odd that even after living in Seattle for more than ten years, he still considered Philadelphia his home despite his intentional neglect. Daniel thought about the implications of that statement. When would Seattle be home?

Since it was evident that this wasn’t his yearly trip home, Baily was still left with questions concerning his sister. “You said Sarah’s life was at stake. She’s not sick, is she?” If that were the case Baily would be willing to drive twenty-four hours a day if necessary to reach her. A sister shouldn’t be sick and without her family to comfort her.

Baily remembered breaking her ankle in a game of tag football with some of her larger students. She’d been laid up in her apartment all by herself. Friends had come to help and visit, but it wasn’t the same. No one stayed with her. No one commiserated with her when her ankle itched so bad that she wanted to scream. No one brought her ice cream with extra chocolate syrup on top. That hurt more than the ankle.

“She’s not sick.” For that he should be grateful, he supposed.

Baily waited, but no other answer was forthcoming.

“Well, is she in danger?”

Daniel thought about that. He doubted that Pierce was the violent type. Sarah was most likely physically safe. It was Pierce who was about to suffer some serious pain in the near future, as soon as Daniel got his hands on the wretched fake. “No, Sarah’s not in danger.”

Again, Baily waited. “Is she about to be run down by a heard of buffalo, uprooted from a ranch in Montana and transplanted to a farm in Pennsylvania, that somehow got loose in the city of Philadelphia and is now on a tragic course headed directly for her?” Baily smiled mischievously thinking he might laugh.

He didn’t. “No, that isn’t the problem, either.”

Frankly, Baily was out of options.

“She’s in love,” Daniel muttered, as if that were far worse than any of the before-mentioned suggestions.

Confused, Baily prompted him to elaborate. “In love? That is why her life’s at stake? Because she’s in love?”

Daniel was again reluctant to share personal information with this woman. He had a sneaking suspicion she wasn’t going to approve of his tactics.

His reticence was clear. Baily watched as he struggled over whether or not to divulge the information. She decided that she would make it easier for him. “Hey, if I don’t have a good reason to head east immediately, I might take the opportunity to stop and see the Grand Canyon. And that’s south. I mean, really south.”

Gritting his teeth, he spilled the story. “She’s in love with a man who’s going to rob her blind and leave her shattered. That is what I’m referring to when I say that her life is at stake. Okay maybe not her life, but definitely her future. As her brother, it’s my job to protect her. So I’m on my way to Philadelphia where I will proceed to stop the wedding and save her future.” Both arms crossed over his chest, Daniel stared resolutely out the windshield at the road ahead. The discussion was over as far as he was concerned.

Baily, however, was not quite ready to let the matter drop. First things first. “How do you know this guy is going to steal all her money?”

Daniel struggled to put his thoughts into words.

“He’s…he’s…”

“Yes?”

“Slick,” Daniel finally said, as if that explained everything.

“And…”

“And?”

“Yes,” Baily reiterated. “And. And. As in, what else, or in addition to, or as well as. And.”

“What?” Daniel had lost her train of thought. Not to mention his.

Exasperated, Baily screamed, “Exactly! What? Surely you’ve got more to go on than the fact that he’s slick!”

“You don’t have to shout.” Typical woman, Daniel thought, always flying off the handle at the least little thing.

Question: a woman drives a car at sixty-five miles per hour on a highway and shoves a man who weighs one hundred and eighty pounds out of the speeding car. How many years does the woman serve in prison for justifiable manslaughter? Answer: zero. She was justified. It was a trick question.

In a calm and rational voice Baily asked, “What’s his name?”

“Pierce Larson. And doesn’t that just smack of a con man. I mean really, Pierce? Pierce Larson.” Daniel repeated in what Baily believed to be an English accent.

He sounded ridiculous. Giggling, Baily asked, “Is he English?”

“No,” Daniel replied, unsure of how to react to her laughter. As a rule, people didn’t laugh at Daniel Blake. Then again Daniel didn’t often say much that would be considered humorous.

“So he’s slick and you think his name is fake. And that is the reason, the only reason, you want to stop your sister’s wedding?”

“Yes.”

“We’re going to the Grand Canyon.”

“Come on. Seriously, Pierce? It sounds as if it comes from one of those silly romantic books about the English earl who falls in love with a chambermaid. Really, the name couldn’t be any sillier unless it were…”

“Baily,” Baily supplied with a mischievous grin. Somehow she knew that her name was on the tip of his tongue.

Not in least perturbed, Daniel replied, “Exactly. Baily is a silly name. So much so, I think I’m going to have to refuse to call you by such an appellation.”

“It’s going to be a while before we get to Jackson Hole. What do you plan to call me for all that time? ‘Hey, you’ might not work if we find ourselves in a crowd at the next pit stop.”

“I’ll make sure I poke your shoulder when I say, ‘Hey, you.’”

“It’s funny because you look like a rational man, but it’s becoming clear to me that you rarely make sense.”

“I don’t make sense? Miss I’m-going-home-to-marry-aman-I-haven’t-seen-in-seven-years, and I’m bringing my cat who, by the way, thinks she’s the president of the United States, is telling me I don’t make sense.”

With an affirmative nod, Baily confirmed, “Yes, you don’t make any sense.”

Maybe she did have a slight point, but Daniel certainly wasn’t about to admit that to her. “It’s more than that. He knows exactly what to say, yet he says nothing. I’ve asked him several times what he does for a living. He tells a fine story and goes into great detail, but after a fifteen-minute dissertation I still don’t know what he does. He says nothing about his family or his background. As far as I can tell, he comes from nowhere. He’s nothing more than a leech. In addition to all that, he doesn’t look at her like…”

“Like what?” Baily asked genuinely curious.

“Never mind,” Daniel said, shaking off that thought. He was going to say that he doesn’t look at his sister like a man in love. But that would have been preposterous since Daniel himself didn’t believe in love. Neither did Red, he reminded himself.

“No, tell me.” Baily didn’t know why it was important for her to know, but she couldn’t seem to stem her curiosity about the drama in which she had embroiled herself.

“When Sarah looks at him, he’s all smiles and kisses. When she turns her head, it’s as if he takes off a mask and underneath is another person. I’m convinced he’s conning her.”

Baily believed him. Although she had no doubt that Daniel was too protective for his own good, he didn’t seem the type to interfere unless he thought it was necessary. “Perhaps you don’t want to let your little sister go,” Baily suggested. She had been on the receiving end of her brothers’ protectiveness and knew from firsthand experience that it stemmed from them not wanting to let her grow up.

It was Daniel’s turn to laugh, but he wasn’t amused. “Believe me, I would be more than willing to give Sarah away to the first decent man that would have her. She needs someone to watch over her and protect her, and I am simply not there enough. Pierce Larson, however, is not a decent man. I’m sure of it.”

Daniel wanted nothing more than to relinquish his role as Sarah’s guardian. Mostly because he knew he hadn’t done the job to his own satisfaction. If she were married to a good man, a strong man, Daniel could absolve himself of the guilt that plagued him.

“Why didn’t you try to run him off the last time you saw him?” Baily wondered. For the time being she decided to believe that Daniel was probably correct in his assumptions, which meant she might as well lend her hand to the cause of ousting Pierce from Sarah’s life.

“I tried,” Daniel explained, seeing that Red was with him in his efforts. Great, now he had a partner. A female partner. In the next few hours they were sure to come up with some idea of how to get rid of Pierce without sending Sarah straight into his arms. “I thought he had gotten the message. I was mistaken.”

“Let’s rule out the obvious. Number one, you can’t bribe him. That would be the worst mistake.”

Cautiously, Daniel asked, “Why do you say that?”

Baily sighed as she realized she was dealing with an amateur in these matters. “Don’t you ever watch TV? When the rich father—or brother, as the case may be—” Baily used her hand as a pointer to indicate Daniel without actually looking at him “—offers the sleazy boyfriend money to stay away from his daughter, or sister, as the case may be, the sleazy boyfriend always tells his girlfriend. The girlfriend becomes so enraged with her father, or her brother—”

“As the case may be,” Daniel supplied. “I get the picture.”

Baily continued. “…for insulting her boyfriend and trying to interfere with her happiness, which she is convinced rests with the sleazy boyfriend that she immediately elopes with him. Simple.”

“Ha!” Daniel shouted, his finger in the air with triumph.

“What do you mean, ‘ha’?”

Wiggling his eyebrows, Daniel told her smugly, “I did offer him a bribe. That was months ago and they haven’t eloped.”

“No, they didn’t elope. They just decided to get married and only gave you…how many days’ notice was that?”

“Seven. Now I have only five days left to get there.”

“Seven,” she repeated. “Enough time for you to make it home and walk your sister down the aisle. The bribe obviously didn’t work.” If smug was a woman, she would look like Baily.

“Maybe I didn’t offer him enough,” Daniel muttered, not willing to concede total defeat.

“If this guy is as slick as you say he is, then we’re going to have to do better than a bribe.” The sound of her brain clicking into devious action seemed to emanate throughout the tiny car. Even Miss Roosevelt looked up from her pillow in the back seat.

“‘We’?” Daniel asked. When she said the word, it made it sound as if they were going to be together longer than they were. For whatever reason, the idea of them together for longer than a day didn’t sound as horrible to Daniel as it had that morning.

“Lord knows you’re going to need the help. A bribe! How cliché.” Baily ignored his mention of the word “we,” but she couldn’t help but be affected by the significance of it. We. Frightening thought.

Daniel chuckled and let his head fall back against the seat. He was content now to forget his worries and to let Red try to wrestle with the problem of how to separate Pierce from his sister. He was also long overdue for that nap he’d planned to take. “Wake me when you need a break.”

“I’ll wake you when we get to Yellowstone. You can’t miss Yellowstone,” Baily informed him, her voice as serious as stone.

“I wouldn’t think of missing Yellowstone.”

In minutes Daniel was asleep and the occasional snore filled the car. As much as she could, Baily took her eyes off the road to peek at her passenger. It was odd, but he reminded her of a new toy that was fun to play with. He challenged her, made her laugh, and also made her feel comfortable in his presence. They barely knew each other yet they had basically spilled their life stories to one another.

As a child Baily had received many toys. She would play with them nonstop, for hours on end. After a time, though, she would get bored and move on to her other toys. But every so often there came a special toy. Those toys became her best friends forever. Those toys she took to bed with her and snuggled with them under the covers to pass away the hours of the long, dark, lonely night. Those toys had become part of her life and she felt less than whole when she was without them.

In a slight whisper Baily asked, “What do you think, Miss Roosevelt? Should we keep him?”

“Meow.”

“I agree,” Baily replied.

Daniel, who woke at the sound of Baily’s voice, spent the next few hours trying to decipher what the cat had said.

“WE’RE HERE!”

Daniel felt the car jolt to a stop. Surprised that he had actually dozed off, he took a few minutes to get his bearings. There were cars in front of him, in back of him, to his right, and to his left. Either they were stuck in a really bad traffic jam or they were in a parking lot.

“Come on, sleepyhead. I let you sleep through the elk sighting, but this is Old Faithful,” Baily informed him. She pulled Miss Roosevelt from her spot with difficulty, as Theodora was also unwilling to relinquish her nap time. “I swear between the two of you you’re like a bunch of babies. There will be time to sleep later. Right now we have a national treasure to see.”

“Meow,” Theodora complained.

“I agree with the cat. Wake us when you get back,” Daniel groaned. He’d been in the middle of a wonderful sexy dream, and he wanted to return to it. A vision of Red flashed in front of his eyes, and he suddenly realized that she’d been the focal point of his dream. Since that kind of thinking had been outlawed this morning, Daniel forced himself to wake up, but his eyes wouldn’t cooperate.

Baily decided to encourage him.

The loud blaring noise of a horn rang throughout the car, and Daniel wondered whether or not they were in a state that permitted spanking. Her point made, he opened his door and left the car.

Satisfied, Baily removed her hand from the horn and scooped up Theodora in her arms. She moved around the car and began to follow Daniel as he headed in the direction of all the other tourists.

“Sorry about the guerrilla tactics to wake you up, but I’m convinced you would have been devastated if you had missed this,” Baily apologized.

“Devastated,” he assured her insincerely.

In front of a large clearing where the hot springs were located, Daniel could see a huge clock on the side of the recreation center. It was eight minutes to countdown until the ever-faithful gusher blew.

The two moved up to the barrier that kept the tourists at a safe distance from the hot water. Daniel turned to see that Baily was practically jumping out of her skin with excitement over what was about to happen. He was about to tease her, after all it was just some bubbling water, but somehow her excitement became infectious. Even Miss Roosevelt’s ears had perked up.

“The pressure from the heat of the spring builds up until finally it must be released,” the tour guide lectured to the group standing around the barrier. She continued with a complete explanation of how the spring worked.

Baily hung on every word. Then water suddenly began to spout from the opening in the ground. It wasn’t exploding yet, just a bubbling of water that indicated the time was at hand.

“Isn’t this thrilling?” Baily turned and with her free hand she clasped Daniel’s, squeezing it tightly as the water began to shoot up higher and higher.

Daniel looked down at their joined hands. He didn’t feel any spark of electricity. He didn’t see fireworks in the distance or hear the clamor of bells in his ears. Instead he felt the crush of people around him, smelled the stale steam that emanated from the water, and saw two hands joined. His and hers linked together. He sensed a swirling in his stomach and decided that he must be hungry.

“Wow!” The water was twenty feet high now, exploding from the ground like a rocket headed for space. Baily jumped up and down, subconsciously imitating the water. Theodora whined at the treatment, but Baily was heedless of her irritation. She didn’t just witness Old Faithful—she experienced it as no one else around them was doing.

All too soon it ended. The water subsided, as did Baily’s jumping. She turned to Daniel who seemed to be more enthralled with her than he was with the spectacle. “Wasn’t it wonderful?”

“Yes it was,” he answered truthfully.

Baily thought that he sounded a bit cryptic, but she didn’t pursue it. “Well, let’s make tracks. We want to make Jackson Hole by nightfall. There will be a place where you can rent a car. Then tomorrow you can head east.” For what ever reason the words turned sour in her mouth.

And the words sounded sour to his ears. But it made sense for him to get his own car. Didn’t it? Of course it did. This woman was trouble. And he was too damned attracted to her. He couldn’t deal with that attraction and save his sister at the same time. Besides, any attraction he might feel for Baily would be a lesson in futility. They might be driving in the same direction, but emotionally they were headed their separate ways: one toward a home and family, the other as far away from a home and family as he could possibly get. The only thing to do was to separate.

Without argument, Daniel followed Baily back to the car. Purposely, he moved to stand by the driver’s side door. Now that he had decided to leave her, he wanted to get the leaving over with as soon as possible before he did something stupid such as reconsider his options.

Baily looked at him suspiciously.

“If you want to make Jackson Hole by nightfall, trust me—this is the only way,” Daniel reasoned, and stuck out his hand for the keys. Baily acquiesced and handed him the keys. As soon as he had them in hand, Daniel completed his thought. “You drive like an old lady.”

Affronted, but not really because it was more or less the truth, Baily made herself comfortable in the passenger’s seat, snuggling Theodora into her lap. Her legs bumped into her cooler, and she remembered that she had put another six-pack of Diet Pepsi on ice this morning. A cold soda sounded delicious to her while she still felt the residual heat from all that steam at Old Faithful.

“Do you want a soda?” she asked, her hand remaining in the cooler in case he answered in the affirmative.

“Diet?” Daniel questioned. Baily’s nod prompted his answer. “No, thank you.”

With a shrug Baily pulled out a can for herself and cracked it open. She took long, audible gulps and sighed after she pulled the can away from her lips. She was like a commercial; she compelled Daniel to watch. Once again her actions were bolder than Daniel thought they should be, bolder than anybody else’s actions would have been. She didn’t just drink the soda, she consumed it. He couldn’t help but be distracted by the sizzle of the soda, the sound of her sigh, the sight of her neck arched back and her throat as she swallowed. Then to really drive him nuts she placed the perspiring can against her neck, her cheeks and her forehead to cool herself.

Catching his gaze, Baily asked, “Are you sure you don’t want one?”

“I don’t like diet soda,” he explained. “Besides, what do you need diet soda for anyway? You have a perfect figure.”

Smiling at the compliment and blushing slightly, too, Baily replied, “I hardly have a perfect figure, but what I do have I owe to diet soda. It’s not so bad once you get used to it.”

Another gulp oozed down her throat and Daniel crumbled. “Okay, give me a sip.”

“Why don’t I just get you your own?”

“I don’t know if I’ll like it, and I don’t want you to waste a whole can on me.” I want that one, he thought. I want to put my lips where yours have been and taste the sweetness of your mouth, which I’m sure, is far sweeter than any soda could ever be. He kept that opinion to himself.

Baily seemed almost reluctant to give him the can. She, too, was thinking about where her mouth had been, and where his would be, and where hers would be after his had been there. It was practically kissing!

Reaching his hand around the can, Daniel actually had to tug it away from her. “I don’t have cooties.”

With a laugh that gave no hint of humor, Baily relinquished her soda. She watched him as he put his lips over the rim and craned his neck to take in the sweet, carbonated fluid. His bottom lip was fuller than his top lip and it flattened against the can, leaving a trace of moisture where his hot breath had formed dew against the cold can.

Gulp. Baily swallowed. And she wasn’t the one drinking. Daniel handed the can back to her with a satisfied, “Ah.”

Then he waited.

Baily looked down at the can. She saw where his lips had been and felt him stare at her between the glimpses he shot at the road. All she had to do was wipe his presence from the can with her fingers. It would have been a clear signal to him that she meant to keep her distance from this stranger who had so suddenly entered her life.

Instead she lifted the can to her lips and took a deep swig. What the hell, she thought. Maybe it was time to start living a little more dangerously. After all, she was headed home to Harry. Life couldn’t get any less dangerous than Harry.

For some reason Daniel was inordinately pleased. “So are you one of those diet fanatics who always watches their fat content?” he asked, turning the conversation back to the mundane to ease the sensual tension they had just created.

“Yes,” Baily sighed. “Sad to say I am. But I do have the occasional lapse. Actually it’s more than occasional, as you might have noticed by the way my shorts snug my rump a bit to…snugly.”

He had noticed. But he had liked the result.

“I have this awful craving for chocolate-chip cookies,” she admitted. “It’s like an addiction.”

“You mean the soft gooey kind with big chunks of chocolate,” Daniel elaborated. He often suffered from similar cravings.

Baily closed her eyes with desire. “Oh, yeah! You pull it apart and the chocolate drips from one end of the cookie to the other. Yum-mm.”

“And walnuts,” Daniel added. “I love it when they add the walnuts.”

Baily’s mouth popped open and she sat up a bit straighter, her expression incredulous. “You don’t really like the walnuts.”

Taken back by her fervor, Daniel corrected her. “I love the walnuts.”

“Nobody loves the walnuts.”

“I love the walnuts,” Daniel insisted.

Baily simply couldn’t believe it. “But that’s impossible. Everybody knows that the easiest way to ruin a perfectly good chocolate-chip cookie is to throw in walnuts. It’s a myth. Everybody really hates the walnuts.”

“Not me!” Daniel retorted, irritated at her suggestion that he was a freak just for liking walnuts in his damn cookies. “I adore the walnuts. I worship the walnuts. A cookie isn’t a cookie without the walnuts!”

“You know it’s people like you who ruin it for the rest of us. I can’t go to a bakery these days without having to specifically ask for cookies without walnuts. It should be the other way around. You freaks should simply do your walnut eating at home and let the majority enjoy their cookies the way they want them.” Baily was incensed. Just the other day she had bought a cookie only to find that it had walnuts in it. Yuck.

Daniel wasn’t about to let up so quickly. “Ha!”

“Again with the ‘ha.’”

Undaunted, he continued. “Did you ever think that maybe us walnut-eating people were the majority, and that’s why all the bakeries make their cookies that way?”

“No.”

It lasted for hours. The great walnut debate continued long into the afternoon and into early evening. Textures, taste, fullness, richness, all were debated with one being pro walnut, the other con walnut. It wasn’t until they reached Jackson Hole and found a motel that they both realized that they had spent an entire afternoon arguing about a nut.

Getting out of the car and stretching, they looked at each other.

“We’re nuts, no pun intended. You do realize that? We’ve spent hours talking about cookies.”

“Well, if you hadn’t been so insistent….”

“I was insistent? What the hell were you?” Daniel asked as he started toward the hotel lobby to check in.

“I wasn’t insistent. I was right,” Baily shouted over her shoulder. “And wait a minute, wait a minute! Let’s first find a place where you can rent a car, then we’ll check in.”

“Fine,” Daniel said huffily. “Once that’s done I’ll be out of your hair forever.”

Forever, Baily thought.

Forever, Daniel thought.




4


“I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS has happened.”

“It’s seems like par for the course for you on this trip. You haven’t broken any mirrors lately, have you?” Baily asked, hitching Theodora up over her shoulder. The cat had been cooperative so far, but if they didn’t settle her in their room soon for her nap she would be impossible to travel with the next day.

“No, I haven’t broken any mirrors or walked under any ladders. I have spent too much time with a black cat and its wacky mother.”

“Oh, is this going to be my fault, too?” Baily asked. They stood outside the car rental place, which was only a few blocks from the motel where they had parked. Baily had suggested they see about the rental car first as it was getting late and the place might close. Daniel had agreed. To stretch their legs, they’d decided to walk the few blocks through the crowd of tourists that filled the streets of the trendy new boomtown in Wyoming. Through the tourists and one pickpocket, that is.

“I didn’t steal your wallet,” Baily reminded him.

“It was your idea to walk!” It was a ridiculous accusation said out of aggravation. Still it felt good. No wallet. No credit cards. No license to rent a car even if he did have his credit cards. He could get his V.P. to wire him some cash first thing tomorrow morning, but what was he going to do about his license? More importantly, what was he going to do for a room tonight?

Unfortunately, the answer to his question had red hair and was an endless source of irritation.

“You realize what this means?” Daniel asked her.

Of course she knew what it meant. It meant that he would be making the trip with her all the way to Philadelphia. The thought made Baily queasy. Originally when she had asked him, she thought his presence might mean good company, protection, someone to break up the driving. That was two shared Diet Pepsi’s and a walnut debate ago. What Baily had come to understand during their trip so far was that she was much too interested in this man than an-about-to-become-engaged woman should be. She liked him. Even when they fought, she liked him. That in itself was bad, but worse was the fact that every time she gazed into his hazel eyes her heart pounded heavier, her blood raced thicker, and violent flashes of the two of them together naked flashed before her eyes. That was really bad.

The first thing she’d wanted to do when they arrived at Jackson Hole was to get him his own car. She couldn’t take the risk that she might have to spend another day with him. Now it appeared that she was going to be spending more than just one more day with him.

“It means,” Daniel finished, “that we’ll drive to Philadelphia together. That is, if your offer is still open.”

“U-uh,” Baily stuttered.

“What am I saying? Of course it’s still open. You wouldn’t leave me stranded in Jackson Hole, would you?”

“No?” Baily asked, not as certain of that fact as he seemed to be.

“No.”

Defeated, Baily nodded. She was just going to have to keep a stranglehold on her wayward thoughts and her out-of-control hormones.

The couple backtracked their route just in case Daniel’s wallet had dropped out along the way. Since he’d kept his wallet in his back pocket, it seemed unlikely that he could have dropped it, but both of them wanted to be positive, each for their own reasons. After a thorough search, their conclusion was still the same. The wallet had been pinched. Baily suggested that they file a complaint with the police. Daniel agreed and the two went in search of the local cops. The officer on duty quizzed Daniel for details, but Daniel couldn’t tell the man much. Equally, the officer couldn’t offer Daniel much in the way of hope that his wallet would turn up.

As the two headed back to the motel Daniel reiterated what he had told the police, in the hope that maybe something would spark his memory.

“I thought I felt somebody bump into me a bit harder than one would normally expect. But no way I felt a hand reach into my back pocket. It must have been a pro. A serious pro.”

“Heaven forbid that you get ripped off by an amateur,” Baily snickered. Typical man. Not just any old pickpocket was brave enough or smart enough to outwit the almighty Daniel Blake. It had to the best pickpocket in the West.

Finally they reached the motel lobby. Daniel held the door open for Baily and graciously allowed her to enter ahead of him. Together they approached the motel clerk.

The young girl with the bright smile and blond ponytail was completely unaware of the brewing storm that had just entered the small little lobby. They looked like two normal people and a cat. She would never know what hit her.

TEN MINUTES LATER an enraged Baily emerged from the lobby holding on to Miss Roosevelt with one hand while she held the door in the other.

As soon as Daniel reached the door, she slammed it backward with intent to kill. Or at least to bump him in the nose real hard.

If Daniel’s reflexes hadn’t been as quick as they were, Baily might have succeeded. Fortunately for her, he knew her well enough by now to expect the dirty trick. A chilling notion if he thought about it for too long.

“You behaved like a child. I don’t see what the big deal is.” Daniel fumed under his breath as he trailed her to their room. He’d never been so completely humiliated in his life. Humiliation, a heretofore unknown emotion, was now as commonplace to him as breathing thanks to an unreasonable redhead.

“You wouldn’t,” Baily responded to his muttering. “But trust me, it is in fact a big deal.”

“Meow,” Theodora concurred.

“See, even she agrees with me,” Baily announced.

“Oh, now I’m convinced because the damn cat said so.”

Baily lifted Theodora off her shoulder so she could see her face. “Did you hear what he just called you?”

“Meow.”

“Clearly the man has no sense of propriety,” Baily said, cuddling Theodora once again over her shoulder.

In one coordinated motion, Daniel passed Baily and her cat en route to the room and removed the key from her hand. He had opted not to rise to her previous challenge. Daniel fast discovered that Red took a profound delight in having the last word. If he chose to respond to her comment, he knew there would be more to follow. And between the morning’s argument, the afternoon’s argument, and the early evening’s argument, he simply wasn’t ready to engage in a late-evening argument.

Once inside the room, he couldn’t ignore the gasp from immediately behind him. So much for détente.

“Look at how small the room is! It’s minute, minuscule, miniature, tiny, teeny, weeny—”

“I get the point,” Daniel interrupted.

“But you said it probably wouldn’t be that bad. You said we’d never even notice one another. You said we would forget the other person was even there,” Baily protested, throwing Daniel’s words back at him.

“I said we would try to forget the other person was there, and believe me I will do everything in my power to make that true. It would help things considerably if you shut your mouth for more than five seconds at a time. Not that I think you could even if you wanted to.”

“You don’t think I can keep my mouth shut.”

“Yes, I’m pretty positive you couldn’t keep your mouth shut for any extended period of time.”

Baily closed her mouth, determined not to talk. Which was her misfortune, since she still had a considerable amount to say. It was like shaking up a soda can and then refusing to open it. All her fizz was bursting to get out. Then again, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t said everything already.

At the registration desk, she had asked for one room for herself and Theodora. She’d then stepped aside so that Daniel could ask for his room.

That was when he reminded her that his wallet had been stolen.

She told him he couldn’t share her room. It was unthinkable. She wasn’t that kind of girl.

He told her he wasn’t that kind of guy, but where in the hell did she think he was going to stay.

She told him she couldn’t afford two rooms. It would run up the limit on her credit card too fast, what with the bulk of the trip in front of them. And she had no idea where he was going to sleep.

He told her to get a grip. He was staying with her. Then he added all that stuff about the room being so big they would miss each other.

She told him that she wouldn’t miss him even if he were the last man on the planet.

Then he’d tried to walk out on her.

And she’d discovered that she did miss him. That is, she missed the opportunity to punch him right in the nose. So she’d walked out on him first.

Now she sat on her bed, the one that was only a foot away from his bed, and sulked. She threw in a few pouts and sighs every now and again for good measure. But she didn’t say a word. He was lying back on his bed, seemingly oblivious to her irritation.

“Uh-hh-hh,” she sighed once more, this time so audibly that he couldn’t miss it. She waited for his reaction.

Slump. A large white puffy mass hit her square in the face. For a moment she was too stunned to think. Then it hit her. Literally. Why that arrogant, no good, stinking, rotten, conniving…jerk! No, wait. Bastard! He’d just thrown his pillow at her.

Taking the weapon in hand, Baily stood over him astounded that he had the nerve to close his eyes. Didn’t he know she would retaliate? She poised the pillow high above her head in attack position ready to bring it down on his face…hard.

It was as the pillow was on the way down that she realized she had made a tactical error. She’d been suckered into a trap. The most obvious trick in the book. The play dead routine. After having used the same ruse on her brothers a multitude of times, she should have been adept at spotting it herself.

In an instant Daniel’s eyes were open. His hands sprung up and captured her wrists. Stopping the attack wasn’t enough, however. He had to disarm her before he could truly consider himself safe. Keeping a firm grip on her wrists, Daniel pulled her toward him while at the same time rolling so that her natural momentum threw her down next to him on the bed. In a flash he rolled on top of her, pinning her arms high above her head. A quick glimpse confirmed she still had the pillow.

Panting with sudden exertion and blushing with humiliation at having been so easily duped, Baily confronted her conqueror. That was her second mistake. Hazel eyes loomed above her. Their color was extraordinary. But no more so than the man to whom they belonged. His breath blew in little puffs on her mouth. An odd expression suddenly crossed his face. It must have just occurred to him—the predicament he had put them in.

Daniel looked down at his captive. He’d been prepared to taunt his victory over her, but once he saw her eyes and dove into those green depths, he was helpless to stop the rush of desire that crashed over him. Red tresses shot like flames from her head to decorate the whiteness of the pillow beneath her. They demanded to be caressed. Freckles called to him for a kiss, each one individually.

“Red…” he whispered. Then, “Red?”

“Daniel?” Baily replied, not knowing what else to do. Her neck arched ever so slightly, bringing his lips into closer contact. He lowered his head and the touch of his lips was like the brush of a feather across her own.

“Meow!” Theodora chose that moment to launch an attack on Daniel’s back. She used her front paws to scrape at his back through his cotton shirt. Apparently, she didn’t like the idea of anyone pouncing on her mistress—other than herself, of course. “Me-ow!” she roared furiously.

“Miss Roosevelt! Really,” Baily scolded, although she didn’t know whether she was grateful, angry, or frustrated with her cat’s interference. She’d lay odds on frustrated.

With a groan, Daniel slowly rolled to his side to give the cat a chance to jump. She did and went along her merry way now that her mistress was out of trouble.

“What just happened?” Daniel asked.

“How about dinner?” Baily suggested, completely ignoring his question. Her voice was tense and high-pitched. She bounced off the bed and ran to the bathroom. Her only hope was that she didn’t trip in her urgency. “I’m starved. Why don’t you check the hotel guide for a restaurant,” she called out from the other room.

“Red…” Daniel began, uncertain of what to say. Perhaps dinner was the best idea. They had the whole night to talk about the attraction that had sprouted between them. The whole long night in the same room with their beds mere inches apart. Yes, dinner for now. Later…Well, who knew what the night would bring. He was, however, going to have to do something about that cat. One pussycat in his bed was enough.

In a smooth motion Daniel leapt off the bed and waited for Red to finish up in the bathroom. He felt like a free-loader at that moment. She’d provided him with transportation, shelter, and now she was going to feed him. He was a wealthy man and an old-fashioned one. It wasn’t his style to let any woman pick up the tab. What if she demanded sexual favors in return for feeding him?

Hot damn.

He chuckled and told himself that tomorrow would be soon enough to pick up some cash.

Bruce. Daniel needed to call him now if he was going to be able to get his money by tomorrow. The best solution would be to have him wire the money to their next pit stop. Daniel searched his memory for Bruce’s home number then realized that Bruce was more than likely still at the office working on the bid for the Northern California Timber Company.

Red walked out of the bathroom, her hair still a little mussed, although it tended to do that naturally, and her cheeks a little redder than normal. Other than that she appeared to be unscathed from their near miss.

Baily had taken more deep breaths than she could count, yet she still hadn’t managed to slow her pounding heart. She could only hope that he couldn’t actually see her heart pulsing through the T-shirt she wore. That was impossible. Wasn’t it? She waited for him to ask again about what had happened on the bed. This time she was prepared with an answer.

It was a natural reaction after all the tension they had been through that day. They were both looking for release after having fought for so long. Boy, are you looking for release, a little voice in her head gibed.

Stop that, her conscience warned.

That wasn’t part of the answer, Baily reasoned. They were two adults. Nothing happened. Nothing could happen since she was on her way to be with Harry and Daniel was eventually going to be returning to Seattle. Baily was not a one-night-stand kind of girl. Or a one-trip-stand kind of girl, for that matter. That was why when he asked where they were headed tomorrow, Baily naturally assumed he was on another topic.

“Well, we are not headed to bed!” she stated indignantly.

Daniel laughed until his sides hurt. Which in turn only served to make Baily’s skin flush from blushing pink to infuriated purple. “I’m sorry…I’m sorry,” he said between gasps. “It’s just that you looked so serious.”

“I am serious.” She stomped her foot to prove it.

“I think the lady is doth protesting too much.”

“You’re lousy at quoting Shakespeare,” she informed him with a sneer. “If you didn’t mean what I thought you meant, then what did you mean?”

Daniel had to think about that. She had this way of talking that twisted his mind into knots. He was beginning to think she did it on purpose. “I meant, where is our destination tomorrow? I’m going to call my vice president and have him wire me some money. I’ll have him wire it to our next stop so it will be there when we get there rather than wait around here all morning.”

“Custer.”

“Are we back on the dinner subject?”

Baily closed her eyes. “Not custard. Custer. Custer is where we are headed. It’s in South Dakota not too far from Rapid City.”

“Can’t we just go to Rapid City? It’s larger, and we’d be more likely to find a Western Union office.” It was a logical suggestion, but Red was shaking her head and looking at him as if he were insane. “Stop shaking your head. Why can’t we go to Rapid City?”

“Because then we would miss Mount Rushmore, silly. You know, the presidents…Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and—”

“Roosevelt,” Daniel finished as understanding dawned on him.

“Meow.” Theodora, now snuggled on the pillow that had once been used as a weapon against her mistress, lifted her head for a moment to give her opinion.

“Yes, Miss Roosevelt. I promised you we’d go to Mount Rushmore,” Baily said lovingly. To Daniel she said, “And you know I always keep my promises. But we’ll pass through Rapid City the next day so you can tell your vice president to send the money there.”

“Too late. I don’t want to wait two days. We’ll just have to hang out here tomorrow morning. Sorry about all this.” Daniel picked up the phone and dialed nine to get an outside line.

With another shake of her head, Baily dismissed his apology. “You were robbed. There was nothing you could have done.”

Daniel smiled, thanking her for her acceptance. His conversation with Bruce was curt and to the point. The money would be there tomorrow. Daniel hung up the phone and turned to find Baily with her hand on her chin as if she were considering something. “What?” Daniel questioned.

Baily shrugged her shoulders. “I was just thinking that maybe you could have realized that the shove you received was more than accidental.”

“How was I supposed to tell that? It was a shove. I think there was a guy in a brown hat, and then I felt a bump. How could I have guessed I was robbed?”

“I’m not saying that you should have. I’m merely pointing out that if you had checked your wallet after you were bumped, maybe you would have been able to catch the guy. You could have chased him down into an alley. Then maybe you could have kicked the knife out of his hand—”

“What knife?” Daniel asked incredulously.

“The knife in his back pocket. All professional crooks carry a knife. And we do agree that he was a professional?”

“Damn straight.”

“There you go. You would have kicked away his knife and punched him in the nose. Then you would have ripped your wallet out of his greedy little paws and said something macho like, ‘Nobody messes with Daniel Blake.’ Then you would have returned to me triumphant.” Baily sighed. “It would have made a wonderful story.”

“What if I turned tail and ran after I saw the knife?”

“You’re not the turn-tail-and-run type of guy,” Baily assured him.

Amused by her conviction, Daniel thanked her for the compliment.

“But since you didn’t do any of that, we’ll have to wait until noon before we can leave. I don’t mind, but what about your sister? Can we afford the delay?”

Nobody messes with Daniel Blake. Would he have really said that? God, he hoped not. A shake of his head brought his focus back to the matter at hand. He’d been grappling with the problem of making the wedding in time all afternoon as he drove Red’s Bug. Her worn-down, pitiful little Bug couldn’t be pushed past sixty-five without making a fuss. The car wasn’t made for a high-speed trek across the country. Perhaps the best thing he could do would be to buy himself more time.

“I have an idea.”

“Uh-oh.”

Daniel shot her his what-the-hell-does-that-mean look. Baily couldn’t decipher it, so he asked her, “What the hell does that mean?”

“Nothing.”

Satisfied, Daniel picked up the phone again.

“I just meant that your last idea concerning your sister—offering her beau a bribe—bombed so miserably that maybe you ought to let me do the thinking from now on.”

Wolflike growls originated from the back of this throat.

Baily didn’t seem to notice. “For instance, I was thinking that maybe you could call Sarah and tell her you are running late. Is it a big-deal wedding? You know, church, reception, that kind of thing.”

“No, she said Pierce didn’t want to wait. They’re being married at city hall.”

“So ask if she could postpone the wedding for a few days. That way we’ll have a little extra time built into our schedule.”

“That was my idea!” Daniel shouted irritably.

“Okay, okay. No need to get huffy. Make your phone call. Then we’ll eat.”

Punching the necessary numbers with a little more force than necessary, Daniel barked a hello. “Oh, it’s you, Larson. Listen, get my sister. It’s an emergency.”

Baily waited and listened to his side of the conversation.

“What do you mean, she’s not there? Where is she? …Out shopping for a gown…. I see…When will she return? …You don’t know. She’s your fiancée yet you have no idea when she’s coming home? …What the hell was that crack supposed to mean? …I am not too possessive…Listen you…”

Baily watched as he became increasingly agitated. If he didn’t control his temper, there was no way Pierce would consider postponing the wedding. She jumped up to stop him before he said something stupid. Grabbing the phone out of his hand, she spoke to who she assumed was Pierce Larson.

“Hi, Mr. Larson. You don’t know me, but I’m a friend of Daniel’s.”

“I didn’t know he had friends,” came the response from the other end of the phone. Baily had already made up her mind not to like him but she couldn’t help smiling at the insult.

“Yes, well, he does. He’s been having a little car trouble, and wallet trouble, and bump-on-the-head trouble. What I mean to say is that he’s running behind schedule. So we thought since it’s so very important that he be at his own sister’s wedding that you could postpone the wedding for a few days.”

“I don’t know. We’ve got everything planned already,” Pierce said smoothly.

“You’re getting married by a judge, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then you should have no problem simply making another appointment. Daniel is her brother. He’s got to be there.”

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I will run it by Sarah. If she agrees, then we’ll postpone everything until Daniel arrives.”

Baily smiled triumphantly at Daniel who was still trying to contain his temper. “That’s perfect. I’m sure Sarah will agree. Goodbye.”

“IT WAS ELEVEN O’CLOCK at night,” Daniel said to the waiter. It was an odd response considering the waiter had asked him if he would like anything to drink.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Daniel paused for a moment while he attempted to gain his focus.

Baily jumped in with an apologetic excuse. “You’ll have to forgive my friend. He was hit really hard on the head today. And his car was trashed, and his wallet was stolen, and…”

With a warning glance, Daniel attempted to shut her up. Fat chance.

“We really don’t even know if he has suffered any permanent damage,” Baily continued, unaware of Daniel’s disapproval. “Head wounds can be tricky.”

The waiter nodded sympathetically, but it was easy to see that all he wanted to know was what the man would like to drink.

“Stuff it, Red,” Daniel told her. “I’ll have a beer, a cheeseburger, fries if you have them, and a large salad with blue cheese dressing.”

Baily nodded approvingly. “Sounds good. I’ll have the same. Except no fries. And I’ll have a chicken sandwich instead of a hamburger. No cheese on the chicken of course. And instead of blue cheese dressing I would like something low fat if you have it. If not, then I’ll take honey dijon.”

Daniel shook his head. “That wasn’t the same thing at all.”

Baily handed the waiter the menus while looking at Daniel in an attempt to decipher what he meant. She didn’t notice that the waiter practically sprinted from their table. “What are you talking about? I ordered a beer, too.”

“Never mind,” he muttered, knowing it wasn’t worth what little energy he had left in this day.

“Speaking of not knowing what you are talking about, what did you mean by eleven o’clock?”

“Larson said Sarah was out buying a dress.” Daniel had calculated the time difference and realized that it was after eleven at night Philadelphia time when he had called. “What kind of stores are open at eleven at night? He lied. He didn’t want me to talk to Sarah. I can’t stand that he lives with her in that house. He’s got too much control over her that way.”

“What kind of control?”

“He can screen her calls, for one thing.”

“He has to. He’s afraid you’ll talk her out of getting married. It’s actually a risky gamble on Pierce’s part. If Sarah finds out that her calls are being screened, she might call off the wedding herself.”

“He’s right to be afraid. I’m sure if I could talk to Sarah, I could tell her what lunacy this sudden marriage is.” At least that was what Daniel hoped. He didn’t want to think about the possibility that his sister was truly in love with this con man.

“Do you think he’ll do what you asked? I mean, if he’s a true con man he’s better off if you don’t make it to the wedding.”

Good point. He didn’t know. “I don’t think Sarah would let Pierce rush her down the aisle without me there. And hopefully it won’t matter. I still plan—I mean, we still plan to be in Philadelphia on time, right? There’s nothing he can do from his end to stop me.”

Daniel’s eyes were lit with a ferocity that sparked something deep in Baily. She imagined what it would be like to have a man love her with same intensity that Daniel loved his sister. She knew that a man like Daniel would be protective as well as possessive. But he would also be giving and indulgent, much as he was with his sister. Much as her own brothers were with her. If only Harry could be more like Daniel. But Harry was Harry. He was sweet, and lovable, and an absolute pushover.

Their meals came and for the next hour they satisfied their hunger and attempted not to further confuse the waiter. It was while they sipped their coffee after dinner that Daniel decided it was time to talk about what had happened back in the motel room.

“Listen, Red, we need to work a few things out.”

Baily’s eyes met his over the rim of her coffee cup, and instantly she knew what he referred to. His hazel eyes took on a deeper color and he lowered his voice. He hunched forward in his seat, creating a more intimate atmosphere. And if it were possible, although Baily didn’t see how it was, he made himself look sexier.

“Did I tell you about the history of this restaurant? It was named after a famous mountain man.” Baily simply couldn’t tell this man with a straight face that she wasn’t interested in him, which of course she had to say because she was going to become engaged to another man in a few short days.

“You’re avoiding the subject,” Daniel informed her. Ironic, since he was usually the one to avoid personal conversations. It was why he had never dated a woman for any longer than a couple months. There was only so much sex you could have and so many superficial conversations you could carry on. Once a woman started to talk about a future and family, Daniel bolted. He had no interest in becoming part of another family again. Not when he knew from experience that the pain suffered from the loss of a family could cripple a man. He’d protect Sarah, but that was where all of his family obligations ended. He couldn’t say that he ever broke any hearts. Most women never got to know him enough to like him very much, let alone love him.

Red was different. He wanted to talk about the intimate stuff with her. He wanted to talk about what they were going to do with this attraction they felt for one another. And it was mutual. Instinctively, Daniel knew that to be true.

“Did I tell you that this man was the first to cross the Sierra Nevadas? He was. He fought off Indians. He tackled bears. He charted new land. He….”

“…seduced virgins,” Daniel filled in, hoping to snare her attention.

“I don’t think he did that.”

“I do. It must be the air at this altitude,” Daniel quipped. Pushing ahead now that he had her attention, he continued. “So about what happened in the hotel earlier…”

“I’m engaged!” Baily shouted, which in turn caused the other diners to turn their heads in their direction.

In a lower tone, but no less menacing, Daniel insisted, “No you are not. Regardless, that doesn’t have anything to do with us.”

“Of course it does,” Baily replied, her tone equally soft.

“This is between you and me. Howard has nothing to do with us.”

“It’s Harry, and I hope you aren’t implying that I’m the type of woman who could promise one man that I was going to marry him and then sleep with another man days before I saw him again.” Just because that was exactly what Baily wanted to do didn’t mean that he could go around implying it. Besides, it didn’t matter what she wanted. She couldn’t betray Harry. It would be wrong. No, they weren’t married. No, they weren’t engaged. They had never even been lovers. Really they were just good friends.

But she had made up her mind that she was going to marry him, which meant that she had to be faithful to him starting now. Never mind that in her heart she had already been unfaithful to him. She wanted Daniel. Was it wrong to want someone when you were supposed to want someone else even though you didn’t really want the someone else? She thought so. It was hard to tell.

Sometimes, Baily confused herself.

“I did not imply anything,” Daniel countered irritably. In truth though, he had. He wanted Red, and he was annoyed now that he wasn’t going to get to have her because of some man that waited for her in New Jersey. A man, he could tell, she didn’t even want. “Why are you marrying this man?”

“I’ve already told you,” Baily said as she reminded him of their conversation earlier that day. That day! Had they only known each other less than twenty-four hours? It didn’t seem possible.

“Oh, yeah, now I remember. Security.” He might as well have said money for all the disdain in his voice.

“If I remember correctly, you agreed with me.”

Daniel shrugged his shoulders as if to pretend he couldn’t quite recall what he said on the matter. It had been a long day. Day. Had it only been one day?

“We both agree that love is nothing more than a fancy word for poems, songs and romantic stories,” Baily continued. “In real life it doesn’t happen the way people say it does. There are no sparks.” Well, there were a few between them it seemed. “There is no love at first sight.” Okay so maybe she’d been attracted to Daniel at first sight, but that wasn’t love. “And there is no ‘happily ever after.’”

And that was certainly true. Even if they did decide to pursue their mutual attraction it would only end in heartbreak. He was going to Seattle. She was going to be with her family in New Jersey. Certainly not a fairy-tale ending. Baily told herself to stop being depressed by that thought.

Daniel wondered what she was thinking that dimmed the sparkle that always seemed to glow in her eyes. He supposed it was her convincing argument that true love, magical love, didn’t exist. He wondered why that thought should depress him.

“Go home and marry Herbert. See if I care,” he said a bit nastily.

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” she returned haughtily. “Nothing is going to stop me.”

Please stop me. Please. Shut up, she told her conscience. She was doing the right thing. She had waited all her life for someone like Daniel. She had waited for someone handsome, smart and funny. Okay, so he was a little arrogant. And maybe he could fly off the handle from time to time. But probably only after trashing his car or getting his wallet lifted. A case could be made that he was overly protective of his sister, but that really couldn’t go down in the negative column. There was still the whole walnut issue. Frankly, she didn’t know if that one was surmountable. Not that she wanted to sur…mount him. But if she was considering him as a potential love interest, it was just possible that he might be the very sort she would fall for. For some unfathomable reason, she wanted to cry.

The meal was over, but Baily wasn’t ready to retire back to their small room where the beds practically touched. Instead she had a better idea for the evening’s entertainment. “How about a gunfight?”

“You’re not still on the room thing, are you?” he asked a little worriedly. Pistols at fifty paces over a motel room seemed drastic, but he didn’t put it past her.

“No, silly, it’s a tourist attraction. Like a reenactment of a real-life shoot-out. Two men face each other at dusk and stare down the barrel of a gun aimed at each other’s heart. Neither one knows if they’re going to live or die. It’s all very intense.” Baily’s face was flushed with excitement at the thought of actually being able to see a real-life gun battle. A real-life fake one, that is.

“And very dramatic,” Daniel added. “You’ve seen too many movies.”

“That’s the point! This will be like watching a movie only live.” Daniel knew he wouldn’t be able to squelch her enthusiasm so he didn’t try. Besides, watching her watch the gunfight would be like watching her watch Old Faithful. For that it would be worth the price of admission.

The two left the restaurant in search of the attraction. They didn’t need to walk far. The gunfight was held in the center of town, which, Baily insisted, was the only place to hold it.

Jackson Hole, despite its chic shops and expensive restaurants that catered to the skiers, still maintained an authentic Western atmosphere. All of the storefronts were faced in a dark wood and since the main street was framed by a large wooden boardwalk one could imagine horses tied to the posts out front. The effect was nineteenth-century Wyoming, and it attracted tourists during the summer as well as the winter season.

Finding a place to watch the event wasn’t easy. Daniel managed to squirm his way up to the front, dragging Baily with him. He wanted her to have a front-row view. She would enjoy the show best that way, and he would enjoy watching her best that way, as well.

The actors came out and faced each other from across the street at a distance of about twenty yards or so. One began saying that the town wasn’t big enough for the two of them. The other replied he was sorry that the other man was going to have to die. The cliché dialogue continued for a few minutes. Then they both fell silent. The crowd noise fell to a hush. Baily reached over, grabbed Daniel’s hand, and squeezed it hard. It was becoming a pattern. Daniel understood that Baily was the type of person who couldn’t keep her excitement to herself. She needed to share what she felt. Apparently, she did that through touch. Daniel couldn’t help but imagine what kind of lover she would be. Then he abruptly dismissed that thought from his mind. It was not going to happen. Not as long as Harold was in the way.

Suddenly the man from the left drew his gun, and then the man from the right did the same. There were several loud popping noises after which they both fell dead. A man in a dark suit and a tall hat came out to measure the bodies.

“The undertaker,” Baily whispered in case Daniel hadn’t already figured that out.

The undertaker dropped sheets over the two men, essentially ending the play, and the crowd erupted in thunderous applause. Then the two men under the sheets stood to take their bows. Daniel thought it rather anticlimactic.

“They should have stayed dead until everybody left,” Daniel complained like a kid who was disappointed to learn that there was no Santa Claus. They headed back to their motel, enjoying the fresh air and the view of the mountains in the distance.

“You’re being unrealistic. They would have had to stay under those sheets too long. Besides, they deserved to take their bows just like any other actor,” Baily said, answering his compliant, but her mind was elsewhere. Now that the gunfight was over there was nothing to prevent them from returning to their tiny room. Maybe it had gotten bigger in the past few hours.

They reached the door of their motel room. Both were clearly reluctant to go inside. “If this were a date,” Baily noted, “this is where I would say thank you for a lovely evening.”

“It was a nice night, wasn’t it?” Daniel seemed slightly stunned. He couldn’t recall a date when he’d had as much simple fun. Innocent pleasure. This must be what it felt like to be a boy on a first date. Daniel was sure he must have felt this way before. If he had, it was too long ago to remember. This night, however, he didn’t think he would ever forget.

It was almost perfect. Almost. “You know if this were a date,” Daniel continued, “and you did have a nice time like you said you did, it wouldn’t be such a horrible thing if I asked for a kiss. Would it?”

“Daniel, I already told you that I can’t—” Baily started.

Daniel put two fingers against her lips to stop her excuses. “One kiss, Red. One kiss, then we’ll call it quits, go to bed, and never bring any of this up again.”

She couldn’t refuse him one kiss. She couldn’t refuse herself one kiss, either. Tilting her head slightly, she allowed him to press his lips against hers. First he was gentle, tugging at her lips with his own. Then he was playful, darting his tongue out to caress her lips and the seam between them. Then he was bold, pushing his body against hers until her back was pressed against the door and her arms had no place to go except around him. His tongue plunged into her mouth, conquering her with his intensity.

She tasted him and he was wonderful. She knew he tasted her, as well, and groaned with the thought of it. Baily could only hope that she was as pleasing to him as he was to her. Every good intention she ever had was about to fly out the window because she couldn’t remember the name of the person she was having those good intentions for.

Daniel chose that moment to end the kiss. He practically had to rip his lips off hers. For a moment they looked at each other and felt their chests beat against each other as their lungs struggled for breath. Baily wanted to tell him to forget Howard, or Harold, or whatever his name was and take her right there against the door hard and fast and so deep that she would never forget it.

Instead she said, “Wow.”

“Yeah, wow,” Daniel repeated. Then he backed off, leaving her arms empty. “A deal’s a deal.” He took the key from her hand, opened the door, and went inside.

Numb, Baily could only stare at the open door.




5


“ARE YOU ASLEEP?” The soft question filled the dark room. Even Miss Roosevelt, who was sleeping soundly on Daniel’s chest, pricked up her ears.

“No,” he replied with resignation. How the hell was he supposed to sleep with a cat on his chest and a woman’s soft lips on his mind? He told himself a hundred times that he could have taken her, should have taken her. She wanted him as badly as he wanted her. Her lips said as much even if her words did not. But he had done the right thing. He’d let her go and denied both of them what could have been the sexual experience of their lives. Why had he done that?

“You were a real gentlemen earlier,” she said somewhat forlornly.

“Thanks.”

It wasn’t necessarily a compliment. She had rather hoped that he would have proven to be an absolute cad. She would have been seduced against her will, forced to make love with the man, and it would have been beyond her control. No guilt. All pleasure.

Instead he’d gone and ruined everything by listening to her.

Baily smiled at her own silly thoughts. Daniel wasn’t to blame; she was. She was the one who put up the hands-off sign. At the time, she had meant every word of it. It was only when he’d started kissing her that things had gotten a little hazy. Fortunately, he’d had the willpower to break away before things had gotten out of hand. And it was fortunate, she told herself firmly. She was too close to reaching her goal and fulfilling her dream of creating a family to be thwarted by something as trivial and transient as desire.

Oh, yeah, he had all the willpower. Baily, however, had needed a good five minutes to recover before she could even walk through the door. Daniel, already out of the bathroom, had snuggled into bed. Miss Roosevelt, evidently having forgiven him for his previous attack on her mistress, had huddled into a ball on top of him. Traitor.

It was the first time Baily could ever remember being jealous of a cat. And what made it worse was that Miss Roosevelt had gaped at her mistress as if she were crazy to pass up the opportunity to snuggle with Daniel. Evidently, he was a very good snuggler.

Now in the wee hours of the morning, Baily was feeling restless and very unsnuggled. It was only right that Daniel share in her insomnia. “So you can’t sleep, either,” she said, stating the obvious.

As if he could have slept with her only one foot and eleven inches away from him. Did she think he was made of stone? He hadn’t been able to close his eyes let alone sleep. Every time he did, he saw flaming red hair. Red hair spread out against a white pillow. Red hair clutched between his fingers. The only way he knew to prevent the erotic, ungentleman-like dreams that would surely come if he slept, was to stay awake.

Awake was no picnic, either. Awake, he heard her soft breathing, imagined the rise and fall of her chest, imagined her soft, full, and well-kissed lips parted ever so slightly. No, awake wasn’t any easier than asleep was, and now Red had just made it harder by informing him that she was having as much difficulty sleeping as he was.

“I see you’re having the same problem,” Daniel noted with a hint of smugness. The way he saw it, her suffering was of her own making. She was the one who’d established the rules.

“Yes, and it’s all your fault,” Baily snipped. She was tired and frustrated, feeling lustful and guilty all at the same time. If he hadn’t kissed her, she’d be snoozing sounder than Theodora right now. It was definitely all his fault.

“My fault! The way I see it, Red, this is all your fault,” he informed her, amazed at her audacity to blame him.

“My fault!” she exclaimed. “You’re the one who kissed me.”

“And you’re the one who said I couldn’t do anything more than kiss you. That’s why we’re both frustrated. I’m a gentleman, remember.” Daniel taunted her with her own words.

“I said you couldn’t do any kissing before you kissed me,” she retorted. “Then you kissed me, anyway. That’s why we’re both frustrated. Now that I think of it, you’re about as far away from a gentleman as as…Miss Roosevelt.”

“Meow!” Theodora wailed from her perch, apparently not pleased with the analogy.

“Honey, you may have said no kissing, but your whole being cried out to be kissed. I was simply…helping you fulfill your needs.” As soon as the words left his mouth, Daniel had the distinct impression that he’d said the wrong thing.

“What in the hell is that supposed to mean?” Baily fairly shrieked with rage. Fury vaulted her into a sitting position. “Are you saying that was a pity kiss?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was a pity kiss,” Daniel said, attempting to retreat. But he had a feeling that one false move and she would be feeding him his other foot.

“Theodora! Get off him,” Baily ordered. The cat, despite her contended position, knew where her kitty kibble came from. She immediately jumped off Daniel and off the bed to seek a safer bed.

Daniel should have seen it coming. Without the cat in the way to prevent a full frontal assault he was left vulnerable to whatever revenge Baily had in mind. The pillow that hit him squarely in the face wasn’t a surprise. Nor was the second one. He thought she overdid it when she threw the third pillow, and he laughed out loud when she threw the fourth pillow.

“Why are you laughing?” Baily screamed. Her temper still flared, only now she was weaponless.

“Typical redhead. You got yourself in a snit and now you’ve just thrown all your pillows away. Looks like you’ll be resting your head on the mattress tonight.” Daniel chuckled. He had to admit she was entertaining.

After a few deep breaths Baily managed to calm herself. Fighting with a man she had no intention of remembering five days hence was pointless. So she decided to forget her temper, put him completely out of her mind, and drift off into a peaceful slumber. Which was exactly what she would have done if she had a pillow.

“Give me my pillows back,” she ordered.

“No,” Daniel answered smugly.

“Come on, just one pillow.”

“No.” Who had the last word this time? Him. Heh, heh, heh.

“If you don’t give them back I’m just going to come over there and get them,” Baily explained logically. Then she saw the form beneath the sheets move. Suddenly his eyes gleamed at her through the dark, cat’s eyes that seemed to see right through her despite the lack of light.

“If you come over here, I can guarantee you won’t make it back to your bed tonight. Have I made myself clear?”

The husky timbre of his voice, the gleam in his eyes…yes, his point had been made, and his threat was unmistakable. Baily shut her mouth and laid her head down on the mattress. It wasn’t so bad.

“THIS IS HORRIBLE!” The morning sun was harsh on eyes that hadn’t been closed for more than a few hours off and on throughout the night. Baily felt as if her whole body was about to burst with annoyance as she stared down at her car. The one with two flat tires. Two. How could anyone get two flat tires at the same time?

“What the hell did you park it on? Glass?” Daniel had exited the room with the cat under one arm and their overnight bags under the other.

“Me?” Baily still hadn’t recovered from being furious with him the night before. So it wouldn’t have taken more than a sneeze for Daniel to irritate her all over again this morning. He had just given her more than a sneeze. “If I recall correctly, you were the one who parked the car when we drove up to the motel. So what the hell did you park it on?”

“It’s pointless to stand around here arguing about how it happened. What we need to do is get it fixed. Then we can find the Western Union office. I can’t waste a whole day in Jackson Hole, or I’ll never make it to Philly in time to stop the wedding.”

Baily mumbled something about men never being able to admit when they were wrong, but she let it go at that. He was right. This was more than two flat tires. This was his sister’s future. “I spotted a gas station when we pulled into town. Maybe they have a tow truck.”

“They’d better.”

He turned his back on her then and returned to the room to get the rest of their belongings. As if Baily had any say in whether the gas station had a tow truck or not. She took the opportunity to stick her tongue out at him again. The effect was ruined with the sight of Theodora’s tail swishing about from under his arm. Baily was forced to smile and that only irritated her more because the last thing she wanted to do was to dwell on how cute he looked holding her cat.

Better to think of him as a tyrant. Much better. It wasn’t as if she wanted to be stuck in Wyoming with two flat tires. She had places to go, people to see, a man to become engaged to. Okay, so maybe there were worse things in this world than being stuck in Wyoming. Still, she hadn’t popped the tires herself. Not only that, but if they didn’t manage to find two new tires they were going to have to spend another night together in that tiny motel room. She simply didn’t have the willpower.

After a short search in the small town, Daniel and Baily first located the Western Union office, then the service station. Luckily, the attendant had two tires available for them and Daniel was able to pay cash as an incentive to speed the process along. The attendant promised to tow the car and change the tires. They could return in a few hours for the car. Baily balked at Daniel’s highhandedness for paying for the damage, but he considered it his way of paying for his trip across country. Since Baily secretly believed that the tires were his fault anyway, she accepted.

“We’ve got some time to kill, what do you say we hunt something down to eat?” Baily suggested. Daniel agreed, and the two took an idle walk about the town until they found a small nook of a restaurant that served breakfast.

Seated in the small diner off the main street, they ate bagels and drank coffee.

“Are you sure Miss Roosevelt is okay in that motel room by herself?” Baily asked the question for the third time that morning.

“Yes,” he said for the third time since they had left her. “I don’t get it. We left her alone in the room last night when we went to dinner. What’s the problem this morning?”

“That was before the slashed tires,” Baily told him worriedly. “What if someone is stalking you and the tires were just a warning?”

He hated to admit it, but she wasn’t completely out of line this time. A stolen wallet was one thing, but two flat tires were something else. No one had this kind of luck. Not ready to voice his thoughts on the subject and frighten her quite yet, he turned the question back on her. “How do you know our stalker is after me? Maybe he’s after you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Who would want to stalk me? You, on other hand, I can see ticking off a lot of people. And you know what deranged psychos do to poor helpless pets, don’t you? Bad things, that’s what. Not that Theodora wouldn’t put up a good fight considering who she is. So you really think she’s okay?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say,” she mumbled under her breath.

With a sigh, Daniel put down his coffee. “You know, Red, I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to listen. Your pet, Theodora Roosevelt, is a cat. A cat with ears and a tail. She is not a child.” He only meant to tease her. But he saw an expression cross her face that wasn’t funny at all. Her eyes were serious and sad, and a bit stubborn.

Knowing that her eyes would betray too much of her emotions, Baily turned her head away from him and pursed her lips. She didn’t trust her voice not to crack with emotion if she told him what she thought of him at this moment.

Daniel was shocked by the reaction. He expected a stinging retort, a sour look, maybe even a gentle kick under the table just to let him know she didn’t care for his remark. Instead, silence. Something he could never have anticipated from Red. Reaching his hand across the small table, Daniel placed his fingertips under her chin and turned her face to his. The impact of her moist eyes slammed into his gut with the power of a sledgehammer.

“What did I say?” Daniel asked, not in a defensive tone, but as a legitimate question so he would know never to repeat his mistake again.

Baily shook off her sudden sadness like a dog shaking off water after a bath. To break the contact of his hand she lifted her chin even higher. Then she took a deep breath to calm her emotions. It was ridiculous. Daniel hadn’t said anything that anyone who has ever known her and her cat for a length of time hadn’t also said. Theodora was a cat. Baily knew that, of course.

Only there were days. Days in Seattle when she felt alone, detached somehow because there was no recipient for all the love she had to give. She didn’t have a husband to pamper, or children to watch over and protect, but she did have Madam President. So maybe her treatment of Theodora was questionable. It stemmed from a fear that Theodora would be the closest thing she’d ever have to actually having a baby of her own. That was why she had to marry Harry. Maybe it was wrong to use him for her own ends, but she would make Harry a good wife and she would be an even better mother for his children.

“I’m sorry. You didn’t say anything. I was just being a ninny.” Baily smiled to back up her words. Her sadness, as always, was a momentary aberration. Life was too short to brood. As a result she limited all brooding episodes to only one minute apiece. Two minutes, max.

He should have just smiled and changed the topic, but he wasn’t satisfied with her answer. “No way.”

“No way I’m not a ninny?” Baily asked, thinking what a sensitive guy he was to understand that everyone is entitled to an occasional moment of sadness.

“Oh, no, you are a ninny,” Daniel clarified.

So much for him being a sensitive guy.

“Tell me why you looked so hurt a minute ago. Surely you know that your cat is a cat. I mean, I’m not driving all the way to Philadelphia with a delusional wacko…am I?”

Baily was about to start shooting fireworks when she caught a glimpse of his lopsided smile. He was attempting to be funny. He wasn’t. But the attempt was sweet nonetheless.

“Not a delusional wacko,” she returned with a wry grin. “Theodora is special to me, that’s all. Of course she’s not a child. But she’s the only one I have to give all my love to. I have this deep endless well of maternal mushy feelings. Sometimes they bubble up on me and if I don’t use them I know I’ll burst. So maybe Theodora is spoiled more than your average cat. She’s my family, and I love her accordingly.”

“Family,” Daniel repeated derisively. What was so wonderful about a family? Families were nothing more than groups of people depending on each other and needing each other. When one person in the family failed to live up to all that responsibility, everyone suffered. It was far more advantageous to be independent and free of familial burdens. No letdown. No pain.

“Why do you say ‘family’ like it’s a bad word?” Baily asked.

“Do I? I didn’t notice,” he said dismissively.

With a shrug and a small chuckle to break the tension that seemed to have formed around the table, Baily concluded, “Theodora won’t be so spoiled once I have my children. That’s why I’m going home to marry Harry.”

The image that suddenly formed in Daniel’s mind wasn’t a pleasant one. Baily was pregnant with another man’s child and that man wasn’t worthy. “Harry,” he muttered as if the word was a curse.

“Harry,” Baily repeated as if it were final.

Silence hung over their heads. They shared a private look, almost as if Harry was at the table sitting next to them and they couldn’t voice their thoughts in front of him. One was a look of longing, the other of regret.

“You think the car is ready?” Baily offered.

“Let’s check.”

Both knew that the car wasn’t ready. However their discussion had come to an end, and to prolong it any further would more than likely result in an argument.

Together, but separated by a new tension that flowed between them, the two meandered down the main street of Jackson Hole. Baily let her eyes wander so that she saw everything except Daniel.

Studying the people around her, she noted the obvious tourist wearing the wrong kind of shoes, experienced hikers who looked as if they were off to the mountains never to return, and a familiar face. She couldn’t say why the gentleman looked familiar to her. He wore casual brown Dockers and a beige shirt. She wanted to tell him that his color sequencing needed a bit of work. Especially considering that he wore a brown baseball hat to top off the ensemble. He was across the street and a few paces back, so she didn’t bother.

A brown hat! She’d seen one like it the other day on their walk to the car rental place. Of course, that could mean nothing. He could be just another tourist taking in the sites as they were. Jackson Hole wasn’t so big that it was inconceivable she would run into someone she’d seen last night. Yet something nagged at her. Baily was about to catch up to Daniel to ask him if he recognized the man in the hat, but he was three feet away and walking as if his life depended on getting away from her.

She wasn’t sure why he bothered. They were both headed to the garage. Taking her own sweet time, she arrived several steps behind him.

“It wasn’t a race, you know.”

Coolly, Daniel turned toward her. “I’m sorry. Weren’t you able to keep up with me?”

He knew just the right words to irk her. And the thing that galled her most was that he had done it on purpose. It was obvious that anytime Harry’s name was brought up in the conversation, Daniel immediately turned nasty afterward.

“Look, I apologize for mentioning Harry,” she apologized. “Clearly, talk of my engagement distresses you. I’ll make an effort to avoid further conversations about my future bliss.”

“Your engagement does not distress me.”

His teeth were clenched, his jaw muscles were flexing, and the veins were bulging in his neck. Nah, he wasn’t distressed at all. “Yes, it does.”

Astounded at her cheek to even suggest such a thing, Daniel discovered a new muscle in his jaw to clench. “I’ve only known you the sum total of a day and a half. And from all that I know I haven’t even decided if I like you yet. Please don’t think I’ve forgotten how you practically forced me off the road and are the absolute cause of my being stuck in Wyoming, relying on a car with two flat tires, a car that shouldn’t even be driven to the market yet alone cross-country. So there is no reason under the sky that I would have any reason to be distressed about you and some wimpy sensitive man named Herman getting married!”

“It’s Harry. But you’re right. How could I have been so blind?” In the face of his tirade, she had made her point.

Good, Daniel had made his point. “Now that all that nonsense is settled. Why don’t we get the car?”

“My car?” Baily asked innocently.

Not in the mood to be toyed with, Daniel simply nodded.

“You mean, the car that isn’t fit to drive to the market? The car that so far has taken me across this county once already? The car that has driven over mountains, never not started when I really needed it to, and has already taken us through two states, unlike a certain Mercedes that I know of? That car? Huh?”

Daniel watched her eyes flare and her red curls bounce around her head in absolute fury. She was beautiful at rest. She was breathtaking on fire. A fist of desire slammed him hard in his lower gut. Normally, Daniel didn’t consider himself the wildly romantic passionate sort of man. When the need warranted, he could be creative in bed, but for the most part he’d never felt comfortable enough with a woman to completely lose control when having sex. More often than not he watched himself, as if from above, giving his body directions to follow.

Do this now. Do that now. Okay it’s your turn. Take your pleasure then let’s get out of here. We’ve got an early meeting in the morning.

Baily, however, was someone who would demand total attention. She was someone you slammed against a dirty wall behind a greasy service station, ripped her clothes to shreds, and took hard and long standing until she was screaming with pleasure and raking her nails deep into your buttocks. She was someone you made love to all night long, waking her up time and time again to sink your body deep within hers because at that moment, when she was lying under you, taking you deep into her womb, she was truly yours.

He had to have her. It really wasn’t an option anymore. In his mind he’d crossed some invisible threshold and now he knew that he couldn’t leave this woman until she screamed out his name in mindless earth-shattering pleasure. Just once. Maybe twice.





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