100% Pure Cowboy (3 page)

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Authors: Cathleen Galitz

Tags: #Romance

BOOK: 100% Pure Cowboy
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There was one sure way to prove he was mistaken. A simple little kiss would settle the matter once and for all. But unlike Sleeping Beauty, Cody had no hope of ever awakening from the long slumber into which he had fallen. The few stale kisses he had allowed himself over the past few years had simply served to reinforce the fact that that special feeling just wasn't there—and never would be again.
Danielle stood her ground with hands defiantly poised on her hips.
“I'd like to see you try!” she challenged without thought of the consequences of such a dare.
“Glad to oblige, Red.”
One hand captured the back of her head and pulled her close. Before Danielle had time to protest, he pressed a searing kiss upon her.
His lips were firm and demanding. His tongue slipped inside her mouth to make a thorough exploration and an electrical promise. Her knees turned to rubber as Danielle sagged against the solid wall of his chest. Her heart was pounding so loudly she wondered if its wild staccato beat could be heard for miles around.
God must have palmed the earth with one hand and sent it spinning out of control on a sudden whim. Danielle steadied herself by wrapping her arms around the sturdy column of Cody's neck and answering him demand for demand. How long had it been since she had been kissed like this?
Never, she realized weakly. Never with such passion, such urgency, such reckless need. Vaguely aware of the corresponding shock registering in a pair of sky-blue eyes that mirrored her own bewildered reaction, Danielle's eyelids grew heavy as she surrendered to the white-hot flames that consumed them.
 
Cody hadn't been sure what he'd find in her. The woman's red hair screamed “fire” but the cool aqua waters of her eyes shouted “ice.” The heat radiating from her was a shock to his system, rekindling feelings in him that he'd thought long ago extinguished. Desire born of a long stretch of self-inflicted denial burst into flame. Having forgotten what it was to hunger for such things, he found himself a starving man at a banquet, longing for more than just a chaste morsel, aching for an end to his gnawing loneliness.
Winding his fingers in the silky thickness of her hair, Cody leisurely explored the inside of her mouth. Her taste was sweet and tempting. Tempting enough in fact to make him entertain thoughts about taming this wild, fascinating creature in his bed and at least temporarily easing the grief that held him prisoner.
The mere thought pumped icy guilt into blood that was running too hot and fast.
 
It occurred to Danielle that should her daughter stumble upon this scene, it would be impossible to explain how she had come to be wrapped in some strange man's arms. No justification of how she had come to be ravaged could possibly placate Lynn's shrill and certain indignation.
Placing her palms firmly against Cody's chest, she pushed him away. Hard.
Then she reminded herself to breathe. Surely it was only the altitude that made it so difficult to coax the thin oxygen into her lungs.
“Your ego is bigger than your ten-gallon hat,” she wheezed, wiping her sweaty palms on her skirt.
She wasn't quite sure whether it was anger or mirth tugging at the corners of Cody Walker's mouth as he stepped back and checked the position of the sun against the sky.
“That may be,” he replied, swinging gracefully up into the saddle. “But it's just about time to go, so unless you're willing to volunteer that red head of yours to act as a night beacon, I'd suggest you round your troop up and get them ready.”
With that he wheeled his horse around, leaving Danielle alternately cursing and admiring the receding view of his snug-fitting jeans.
Chapter Two
D
espite Danielle's repeated self-assurances that she didn't give a hoot about what Cody Walker thought of her appearance, she nevertheless tightened the bonnet strings beneath her chin. The allusion to Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer had cinched it. Never had she ever met a more infuriating, insulting, or presumptuous man in all of her life.
Nor one as sure of his overt sexual appeal. At the mere thought of the mind-numbing kiss that he had laid on her out of the blue, something tight and hot clenched deep within her. Tingling from head to toe, Danielle had enough sense left to resent the continuing quivers that she was unable to dismiss through sheer willpower alone. Just who did Cody Walker think he was, grabbing her up like some desperate old maid grateful for any measure of a virile man's attention?
A blush climbed the nape of her neck. Imagining how Cody must relish her complete lack of self-control, Danielle assumed his own presumptuousness was born out of years of taking such liberties whenever he felt like it. Someone needed to explain to this Western Don Juan that going around kissing unsuspecting women might just land him in a messy little sexual harassment case. Lucky for him it wouldn't be her. Right now all she wanted from the man was distance—and plenty of it.
Determined to believe that her reaction to his kiss had more to do with the onslaught of heat exhaustion than with any mutual attraction between them, Danielle was grateful to be past those kinds of girlish feelings. The other den mothers, she'd noticed, seemed to have no such compunctions about acting their age. Clearly her less-than-fond sentiments toward the despicable Mr. Walker were not shared by her fellow sponsors who fluttered around their long-legged wagon master like hummingbirds around nectar. She seriously doubted whether any of them would be lodging any complaints in a court of law if he chose to return their attention.
It really was something to watch how gracefully Cody Walker managed to step around their every snare without giving the slightest offense. Apparently it was impossible for these ladies to be angry with a man who so cavalierly swept off his hat and wickedly smiled into their eyes, ensuring that each felt he was secretly flirting with her. The only one, it seemed, from age thirteen up, immune to their wagon master's charms was Danielle herself.
Assuming that she was the only one who had been slung over his shoulder like prehistoric chattel, she couldn't hold the other women's weakness against them. Just the memory of his arms around her sent a curling heat unfurling in her body in pleasurable waves that threatened her grasp on reality. And the cold, hard reality was that Danielle had been married to just such a charmer, a man willing to share more than his winning smile with his female associates.
Danielle grimaced. She had been a perfect ninny, naively accepting at face value those all-too-frequent stories about having to work late. Had she not decided to drop by the office one night with some Chinese takeout, she would have never discovered her husband and an eager young trainee in a compromising position atop his desk. And Scott would more than likely still be playing her for a sucker. A lance pierced her heart at the memory of the awful night that had stripped away the last vestiges of her pride.
Never again,
Danielle told herself fiercely.
No, thank you.
Consciously hardening her heart against the rawboned cowboy leading their wagon train with the sinuous potency of a mountain lion, she reminded herself that there was no room in her life for any man at the moment, and most assuredly not for one who made her so achingly aware of the sexual dearth in her life.
Stumbling along in the deep ruts of the Oregon Trail in a pair of high-laced boots, Danielle had plenty of time to consider the decision that had brought her here. What at the time had made perfect sense seemed infinitely stupid when studied beneath the glare of the midday sun. Unlike other mothers who had high-powered jobs and pressing social engagements, Danielle had nothing to tie her down but a dreary list of entry-level Help Wanted ads. So when Lynn had come home from a Prairie Scout meeting one afternoon, echoing Hildy Fustis's request to sponsor the troop on this Oregon Trail Trek, she'd succumbed to her daughter's not-so-subtle arm twisting. It actually sounded like a pleasant alternative to spending the entire summer cooped up in a small, un-air-conditioned apartment with a budding teenager whose mood swings were as unpredictable as they were disconcerting.
Lately Lynn had donned the surly, snide attitude considered chic among her peers, even going so far as to verbalize how “crummy” their circumstances were in comparison to her friends'. Scott hadn't been around enough for Lynn to miss him much, but she did openly miss her daddy's money and was especially concerned how the lack of it could possibly jettison her from the “in” crowd at school. Lynn simply couldn't understand why her mother's pride had kept her from accepting more than the minimal child support payment from a man who obviously could afford more. Danielle didn't have the heart to tell her that Scott had employed the best lawyer money could buy to avoid paying a penny more than he had to.
Hoping that an educational excursion into the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming would be just the ticket to reestablish the open, loving relationship she had once shared with her daughter, Danielle figured she'd teach Lynn something about the things that money couldn't buy—things so obviously lacking in the expensive lifestyles of Lynn's friends.
Feeling the hot sun beating down upon her, Danielle berated herself for such ingenuous optimism. Even though it probably included a bimbo on the crook of his arm, the trip to Disneyland that Scott had been dangling before Lynn's nose for months could only look all the more appealing after a few days of this grinding ordeal. She grumbled beneath her bonnet that all her good intentions had accomplished was to land her smack-dab in the middle of hell with the devil himself as a wagon master.
With characteristic determination, she turned from such negative thoughts to the windswept landscape they were traversing. A land seemingly barren, it fostered hope of fresh beginnings. Ever-changing, it challenged the strong and mocked the weak. With consideration to the future, Danielle attempted to assess her own abilities. Her lack of college was proving to be a major stumbling block in securing a good job. Years ago when she had first broached the subject of pursuing a degree, Scott had immediately and firmly put the quietus on her hopes, blithely assuring her he would always be there to take care of her. All she had to do was hang tight to his rising star.
Choking on the memory, Danielle scanned a mental list of job possibilities. Other than dead-end minimum wage positions, the only thing she could come up with was the possibility of turning her cooking ability into something more substantial than a hobby. Insisting that they entertain frequently, Scott had demanded gourmet meals to impress his business associates. Over the years Danielle had satisfied the most discriminating palate. Beneath a bright, unclouded sky she pondered the possibility of starting her own catering service. Of course, starting one's own business took money, and at the moment the only thing more obviously missing from her life than financial stability was sex. That was the only reason, she assured herself, that Cody Walker's impetuous kiss had knocked her for such a loop.
“Just look at the way those jeans fit him,” Lynn sighed, interrupting her mother's thoughts with adolescent adulation.
Ray Anne Pettijohn, who was pushing a handcart beside her, agreed. Both girls' gazes lingered upon the fascinating fit of Cody Walker's backside to his saddle. Their crushes were as obvious as the blinding sun overhead and every bit as scorching to Danielle.
“You'd do better to judge a man by the size of his heart rather than the cut of his jeans,” she suggested wryly.
Lynn rolled her eyes at the advice. “You judge ‘em the way you want, Mom, and I'll judge 'em my way.”
Danielle bit her tongue. She couldn't help but wonder just how enamored chubby Ray Anne would be when she discovered their sexy wagon master had confiscated her hidden stash of candy bars back at the rendezvous site.
Danielle's new boots chafed almost as much as her daughter's infatuation with the high-handed Mr. Walker. The only bit of comfort she had derived over the past couple of hours was from the fact that the driver assigned to their wagon was none other than Mollie, the bright-eyed pixie who had so enthusiastically welcomed them aboard. While her own troop inanely discussed the waning appeal of musical groups with bizarre-sounding names and enumerated at length the reasons why their parents should allow them to date at the ripe old age of thirteen, Mollie was busy citing various points of interest.
The child was as taken with a jackrabbit lippety-lopping across the trail as she was with the prairie dogs lining up outside their holes at her shrill whistle. When a herd of antelope kicked up their heels and left the wagon train eating their dust, Mollie's laughter rang across the open range like tinkling chimes, her blue eyes sparkling with love for the vast land they were traversing.
As they slowly wound their way toward the Sweetwater River, Split Rock cast a long shadow over the sagebrushed plains. After just a few short hours of choking down trail dust, Danielle came to understand how that famous landmark had become such a beacon of hope. Eager for a taste of water that truly must have been sweet indeed for those trail-weary pioneers desperate to fill their canteens and wash away the grime of an unforgiving land, she was glad when Cody Walker signaled the wagon train to stop for lunch.
A short while later he approached their group, carrying two large cardboard boxes.
“How's everything going?”
That low-pitched voice of his sent a string of tingles to every nerve ending in Danielle's body. Luckily the need to reply was negated by a dozen adolescent voices trilling an enthusiastic response in unison. The fact that he was responsible for making them whittle down their belongings to “regulation size” had done nothing to lessen their infatuation with the romantic figure their wagon master struck in the saddle.
Cody's grin revealed two devilishly deep dimples at the sides of his mouth as he queried, “How about you, Red?”
“Just fine,” she lied over the blisters on her heel. “And, by the way, my name is Danielle. I'd appreciate it if you used it.”
“Pretty name,” he commented.
Surprised by the warmth evoked by the remark, Danielle felt oddly empty inside except for the steady rhythm of her pounding pulse.
“But,” he added with an infectious grin, “Red suits you better, temperament-wise.”
“Go away!” she snarled, clenching her hands into fists at her sides.
“But I brought you a present,” he protested.
“Let me guess—boxes of dynamite to blow us back to
Beverly Hills?
”
Ignoring the sarcasm, Cody set his load down. Nestled inside were sacks of flour, sugar, and salt, some dried meat, powdered milk, molasses, a burlap bag filled with fruit, a similar one of potatoes, an odorous lump of sourdough, and lots and lots of beans.
Dumbfounded, Danielle looked down at the contents and back up into pair of eyes so blue it hurt to gaze at them too long.
“You were expecting takeout maybe?” he asked.
That damned grin of his could have buttered a Thanksgiving turkey.
“Hardly,” Danielle snapped, the reference to fast food making her stomach grumble.
Unable at the moment to cope with fixing anything that didn't come straight out of a microwave, she proceeded to pass out fruit and jerky to the girls, promising them a more filling dinner later.
Cody couldn't help but compare Danielle's carefree attitude with his late wife's preoccupation with fixing three balanced, nutritional meals for her family every day. Here was apparently yet another modern woman willing to put her own needs before those of the children depending on her. What was most puzzling to Cody was why he was at all attracted to someone who was the exact opposite of what he admired most in a woman.
Swinging himself back into the saddle, Cody started to leave but was detained by a small hand pressed lightly upon his knee.
“Excuse me, sir,” Sheila Pooly said in a squeaky voice. Undeniably the prissiest girl in the troop, she was squinting up at Cody's sunlit profile as if he were God Himself.
“You can just call me Cody,” he said with an encouraging smile.
Scanning the vast expanse of the plains, Sheila posed her question as delicately as possible. “Where's the...ah... Porta Potti?”
Like resounding thunder, their wagon master's laughter exploded across the prairie.
Overhearing the conversation, Mollie, too, burst out laughing, and soon everyone within earshot was privy to the city girl's faux pas. The native Wyomingites hooted with glee as their wagon master pointed to a thick clump of sagebrush.
“Over there,” he guffawed.
The location to which he pointed hardly provided any privacy. Sheila blushed furiously, and Danielle's eyes flashed like summer lightning, burning a hole right through Cody.

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