Cherry Adair - T-flac 06 (4 page)

In a few weeks she'd be a very happy woman. He'd make sure of it.

He'd bet she'd taken her sweet time checking on the new mamas, but there was only so much she needed to do now that the babies were born. Within ten minutes she was back.

"Still here?" she asked pointedly, picking up her flannel shirt and shaking it out.

"Nowhere I'd rather be," he told her honestly, admiring the muscles in her slender arms, and the way the soft fabric of her T-shirt molded to the gentle swell of her breasts. Her silky, light brown hair was a mess.

Half in the braid and half out. Her bangs brushed her eyelashes. Unself-conscious and sexy as hell. She looked as though she'd just climbed out of bed, sleepy-eyed and tousled.

"How about Tahiti?"

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He imagined Lily, golden and naked, spread out on a sun-bleached beach. "I can have us there in ten hours."

She shook her head. "Some of us work for a living." She absently twisted her wedding ring as she looked around to see what else needed doing before she left. "Why don't you go on ahead," she told him, shrugging into her shirt and shooting him a wicked glance. "I'll meet you there."

"When hell freezes over?"

"When pigs fly," she said at the same time.

"Your loss," he told her, smiling.

"I'll sob into my pillow tonight," she assured him.

Light glanced off the plain gold band on her left hand as she buttoned her shirt. Inside it, Sean had had engraved
4 ever
. Derek knew, because he'd gone with Sean to pick out the ring, then stood beside him as it had been engraved. And all the while Sean had regaled him, and the three salespeople nearby, with the story of a waitress he'd picked up and spent the night with only the day before.

Derek'd realized then that Sean's judgment was screwed. He could never trust this man. But by then it was already too late. Derek was by no means a prude. If his friend wanted to screw every woman in Montana and beyond, that was his business. But the fact that he was screwing everything that moved and sliding a ring onto Lily's finger was enough to make Derek want to pound his lying face into the ground.

"Flip the lights, would you?" Lily told him, clearly ready to leave. The overhead lights in the birthing shed were brilliant enough for him to count the freckles across her flushed cheeks. He hit the main switch, and the cavernous barn was plunged into a soft amber glow.

"Now that we got that out of the way, I brought you dinner." He moved his coat and picked up the basket he'd brought in with him.

"Did you?" Lily's hazel eyes, always slightly wary when she looked at him, widened. She looked around for her coat. "Thanks. But I'll grab something at home."

"No, you won't. Come on. Take an extra ten minutes and eat with me. I'm starving. If you don't want anything, just stay and keep me company." He herded her over to a picnic table. "You're the one who instructed
me
to bulk up beforehand. Better eat something and practice what you preach." At first he'd become interested in the dog races because they were Lily's passion, had given him a chance to spend time with her. But the more he'd learned about the sport, the more he'd enjoyed it. Enjoying something with Lily had made it that much more attractive.

She stopped in her tracks. "Damn it, Derek. You're going to race anyway, aren't you?"

"Damn straight." He maintained an easy, taunting smile, knowing it would piss her off.

He was delighted to hear her robust laugh instead. That laugh was seldom heard these days, so he enjoyed it. That and the sharp intelligence in her eyes as she shot him a half-amused, half-exasperated look. "What
am
I going to do with you?"

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He wiggled his eyebrows just to see her grin. "How many suggestions can I make?"

"I'm going to hit you if you don't stop flirting with me."

"Will you tie me up first?"

She shot him an inquiring look. "Have you—Never mind."

Derek laughed. "I have my own handcuffs, wanna play?"

"I have my own sticks, wanna be staked out for the coyotes?"

He shook his head and grinned. "Different game. But I'll be happy to play." It took everything in him not to wrap his arms around her and taste that smile. She shook her head back at him and gave him a mock scowl. Lily had guts, and a wicked sense of humor. She was also prickly, argumentative and fiercely loyal—and a royal pain in the ass—and he wanted all of it. All of her. In his life, in his bed.

He was done waiting.

And by race's end, it would be mission accomplished.

But first things first. "Sit," he told her, nipping open the lid of the basket. She circled the table and plonked herself down on the bench seat opposite.

"Feed me then."

"Yes, ma'am." He started unloading Annie's offering.

Lily didn't stand a chance. All the Wright men were warriors, and Derek was no exception. He was a lover
and
a fighter. A tactician and a foot soldier. She was under siege. She just didn't know it yet.

This time things had to be done in the proper order, so as not to scare her off again. Friends, then lovers.

He'd waited six years. What were another few weeks?

"Fine." Hands in her lap, Lily watched him spread the contents on a blue-checkered cloth. If he'd thought he'd get away with it, he would've brought candles and wine. Another time.

"If you insist on entering the race," she said, eyeing the selection of foil-wrapped packages on the table,

"I can't stop you. Just promise you'll do your own thing and leave me alone."

Hard to do when she
was
his thing, Derek thought with an inward smile. "Not only am I going," he told her cheerfully, "I'm going to beat your time. Again."

"In your dreams," she scoffed. "What did Annie send me?" She fisted her hands in the small of her back and stretched out the kinks.

Her nipples were hard little pebbles beneath the thin cotton T-shirt that she wore under the flannel shirt.

Derek felt an answering twitch in his groin at the sight. God knew, he never got used to this intense physical reaction he'd always had to her.

"Here." He scooped up her sweater, shook out bits of hay and handed it to her. "Since you're not
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moving around, put this on before you catch pneumonia. That shirt's not enough. And how do you know Annie put the basket together? How do you know I wasn't the one to fix our meal?"

She shrugged into the sweater without comment, a silken filament of hair clinging to her cheek. Derek resisted reaching out to brush it away.

"Because this isn't an amorous encounter, Wright. Because this is me. The widow Munroe. That's why."

Derek finished setting out the food. His housekeeper had thrust the filled basket into his hand when he'd paced, one too many times, across her kitchen, glancing through the window toward the barns.

"Who said this isn't an amorous encounter?" For a second, he saw in her eyes something that stopped the fog of his breath, and then the look was gone.

"Could we resolve this flirting crap once and for all?" she snapped, reaching for a foil-wrapped packet without knowing what was in it. She frequently forgot to eat, but when she finally did, she more than made up for it.

"We both know you're not really interested in me. And even if you really
were
, and I know you're
not
, it's way too soon—what's this?—it's only been six months."

"Crab. Try it, you'll like it." In Sean's case, six months in mourning was too long. Derek watched her take a cautious bite. "Six months is plenty," he told her, wishing she'd look at him like she was looking at the crab sandwich. "Time you started dating again."

She made a rude noise. "What would be the point? I'm never marrying again—God, this is good…" She paused to chew and swallow. "Besides, who would I date around here? Pop Skyler? What is he, eighty?" She shook her head. "Six months is hardly a decent mourning period. Besides, who has the time—other than
you
, of course?"

"There's the solution right there. Go out with me. That would solve that problem."

"Oh, please." She shook her head. "We've done this to death. Don't waste your time. I'm immune. We tried that once, remember? Didn't take." She uncapped the Thermos and poured two fragrant mugs of Annie's great coffee. "Thanks, but no thanks. I'll leave you to spread yourself thin on the state of Montana's female population."

"Scared?"

"Of you?" she mocked. "Try
not interested.'"

"Sure you are," he said easily, his dark eyes glinting in the amber light as he glanced at her neck. "I can see the frantic pulse right there at the base of your lovely throat."

Lily rolled her eyes, and resisted, with admirable restraint, covering the telltale pulse with her hand.

"That's the superior vena cava, found in most humans," she told him, cool as a cucumber. On the outside.

"Not something you'd find in one of your blow-up Party Pattys."

Derek laughed. "Party Pattys? Is there such a thing?"

She gave him a patient look.

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"Come on, Lily, give me a break here. Test your self-control. Go out with me before we leave for Alaska. Hell, you might even enjoy yourself."

"I wouldn't."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to date. Not you. Not anyone," she said quietly, watching his face for a reaction.

"You had dinner with Don Singleton on Wednesday."

Talk about the bush telegraph. She didn't bother asking him who his informant was. It could've been anyone at the Dipsy Diner. "I went in for a piece of pie after going to the feed store. He was there. We shared a table. Hardly a date. After Pop, Don would be my second choice as date material, however."

Derek's expression went several degrees cooler.

Game, set and match, Lily thought with satisfaction and took a sip of rapidly cooling coffee. Time to go home. "It's been a long day." She rose and walked over to pick up her coat. "Are you home for a while, or do you have somewhere else to run off to?"

He ignored her question. "I know you loved Sean, Lily. But someday soon you're going to have to start living your life again."

"My life is exactly the way I want it, but thanks so much for your concern." Lily let her impatience color the words. The man was as damn relentless as Mrs. Simpson's bull terrier, Beasly. "Sorry if your enormous ego can't stand rejection. But there you are. Put me in the
Guinness Book of World Records
as the only woman to ever tell you
no
."

Even when she was pissed off, Lily had beautiful eyes. A rich hazel, long-lashed and luminous. And Derek spent way too much time thinking about them.

"I need to tal—" She waved her words away with a brushing gesture of her hands and shake of her head. "Never mind."

Derek stood. "No. What were you about to say?"

"It'll wait." Lily covered a yawn. "I'm too tired for another confrontation with you tonight." She leaned over and picked up her sandwich from the napkin on the table and bit into it, barely chewed before swallowing.

"Sit down again and finish that before you dash off. When are you leaving for Anchorage?"

She didn't sit, but she took another bite. "In the morning."

"Tomorrow morning?" he asked with a frown, and at her nod, said, "Why so soon? The race doesn't start for three weeks."

"I'm driving, first of all. And second, I want to get in a couple more weeks of training before the race starts."

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"Jesus, Lily.
Fly
. It's a hellishly long drive from Montana to Alaska. Especially at this time of year." He handed her another sandwich as soon as the first was finished. "I can fly us both up to Anchorage when I get back at the end of next week."

Lily peeled off the foil and bit into the sandwich. "You're going on another trip? You just got back."

"Business."

"I'm sure. Monkey business. No thanks. I don't want to wait."

"Then let me have one of my people take you."

"No thanks," she said around a mouthful of—
Hmm. Ham on rye
.

"You don't want to fly."

"That's right. I don't… I'm surprised Annie had time to make me a picnic while she's so busy with the wedding preparations."

"She has plenty of help." Derek didn't want to talk about his housekeeper or his father's upcoming nuptials. He knew Lily was afraid to fly. She'd been in the plane crash that had killed her mother when she was a child. "Flying is perfectly safe," he told her gently. "Come up with me a few times—hell, let me teach you to
pilot
a plane. I guarantee if you felt in control the fear would go away."

"It's not fear," Lily told him briskly. "It's a phobia. I'm dealing with it." She took another big bite of her sandwich, barely swallowing as she changed the subject again. "There can't possibly be enough help for a woman pushing sixty who's preparing for a hundred wedding guests to descend on her in six weeks." She tilted her head, making the long silky rope of her braid fall over her shoulder. Derek wanted to wind that shiny, honey brown skein around his hand and—

"Why's he getting married in the dead of winter anyway?"

Because it was the only time his sons could shake free at the same time. "You'll have to ask him."

"You could bow out of the race and stay to help," Lily suggested, reaching for her coffee mug.

It was his turn to snort. "And let you win?" Lily wasn't going to talk about what else was bothering her until she was good and ready, apparently. So they might as well get this settled. No way was he allowing her to head off to Alaska without him being close by. And no goddamn way in hell was he going to let her freaking
move
to Alaska. Not without a fight anyway.