Valentine's Cowboy (2 page)

He felt his lip curling in a snarl. He didn’t want to give Shelby away. He didn’t think that fiancé of hers was good enough for her. Not that his love-struck sister cared two cents for his opinion. Disrespectful brat, even if he loved every disrespecting inch of her. He’d been older brother and substitute parent for over twelve years, since their parents had died and he’d been forced into the role and management of the family ranch. He was life experienced. She wasn’t.

He blew out a deep breath in an attempt to calm down. It didn’t help. Shelby had used her sweet, innocent pleading voice on him the second time she’d asked him to come to the wedding. She’d never taken “no” very well. His initial resistance had finally melted like chocolate in the sun. He’d be donning a damn tux, looking like an idiot. Cowboys weren’t meant to wear fancy duds like that.

Smoldering at the upcoming humiliation, he thought again about his destination. Maui.
Maui
! Cowboys didn’t belong in Maui. At least not
this
cowboy. If he didn’t love the imp so much… If she didn’t wind him so easily around her delicate little finger, he would have put his size twelve boots down and flat out said
No!

As he attempted to find a more comfortable position for his six-foot-four-inch frame, he grimaced. He should have forked out the money for first class. But he didn’t like wasting money, not when the ranch he was so damn tired of running needed every penny he could get his hands on. He hoped like hell he could talk Shelby and Dale into changing their minds about taking over Dale’s family’s tour business on Maui and take over the ranch in Kansas instead. It was as much hers as it was his.

He’d been thinking for months now how badly he wanted free of the ranch. He wanted to return to veterinary school to finish his degree. The dream he’d given up at twenty-two and had only resurfaced again when Crowley’s old veterinarian told Sam he wanted to retire. But he’d been waiting on Sam to finish his schooling and take over the practice.
Damn.
He wanted to do that so bad he could feel the longing clear down to his bones. He had to convince Shelby to do her duty with the family ranch.

Forcing aside the thoughts for now, he attempted to stretch out the kinks in his back and only ended up feeling worse. At least he didn’t have someone sitting next to him. A few minutes ago the pilot had announced that they’d be landing in Maui in another hour.
Seven days on what had once been a volcano, now professed to be paradise. It’s a damn tiny piece of land surrounded by water
. The idea alone made him shudder. He missed the rolling flint hills of Kansas already.

“Have you been to Maui before?” the early-twenty-something blond across the aisle asked cheerily, interrupting his bout of self-pity.

“No,” he stated simply, hoping she’d give up on him.

She’d spent a great deal of time trying to engage him in conversation, even though he hadn’t tried to encourage her in any way. He had just finished a five-year relationship with a woman he’d been comfortable with. He wasn’t exactly upset about the break up. He’d never had much luck when it came to finding a woman as passionate as he’d like her to be, or one that really sparked a need in him to mention the idea of marriage. Still, he wasn’t particularly interested in the dating scene again just yet. Certainly not with a peppy cheerleader type. In comparison to her, he felt ancient and decrepit, even if he was only thirty-three.

“You’ll love it!” She all but bounced in her seat in excitement. “Everything is so green, except the flowers, of course. And there’re tons of flowers.” She winked at him in a way he suspected was supposed to be flirtatious. “It’s warm, too, for February. Bikini sunbathing weather, in the low 80s. I’ve got
the
cutest, tiniest bikini and can’t wait to wear it.”

He didn’t want to think about her in a bikini, or about her at all. Not that he didn’t appreciate a woman’s body in some skimpy pieces of fabric. Or flat-out, bare naked. But he preferred a woman much closer to his age. A woman with a little meat on her bones, too. He preferred a woman who had some experience with a man and all the wonders that could be shared by good lovemaking. Miss Barely-Out-of-Her-Teens was scrawny, like too many of the high-fashion models these days. He sure didn’t want to think that she knew much about heat between the sheets.

“I like cold weather,” he finally said to discourage her.

It worked. Her eyes rounded and she looked like he’d slapped her. With a final shake of her head in disgust, she gave up on conversing with him.
Thank God
. She plunked her headphones back on and returned to watching the in-flight movie. He went back to reminding himself how much he loved his sister, enough that he was on his way to Maui. The last place he wanted to be, except to convince Shelby to take over the ranch.

* * *

The phone rang in the living room/kitchen area and interrupted Valentine’s dream of lying on the beach at sunset. She had just reached the point of moaning in increasing need as a tall, dark, and delicious man went from kissing her senseless to nibbling his way down to a breast he had slid free of her bikini top. As her frustrated body fought off losing the sensual dream, she squeezed her eyes more tightly closed and hissed her annoyance.
Death to the intruder
!

Her body still tingling in anticipation of the wonders that were not to be, she opened her eyes and was startled that the bedroom had darkened. She’d only lain down for a short nap to get over some of the jetlag headache. Short had evidently turned into quite a few hours.

Resigned to the loss of her mystery lover and fulfillment—at least in a dream—she rolled off the bed and tromped to the other room. The sounds of the rolling waves crashing against the shore through the balcony door she’d left partially open nearly drowned out the persistent ringing of the phone.

“Hello,” she said cautiously into the receiver. She held her breath, hoping her partners hadn’t tracked her down here to the Papakea Resort already. But they would have called on her cell phone anyway.

“Is your condo okay?” Shelby asked anxiously. “We can get you another one if it’s not. Dale’s family reserved six of the condo buildings here in the resort for the next two weeks.”

Sinking onto one of the white rattan barstools at the counter between the kitchen and the living room, Valentine smiled. Shelby and Dale had been terrific ever since she’d called and warned them she was on her way to Maui. They’d met her at Kahului Airport and driven her here to this place of absolute beauty. Shelby had talked nonstop the entire drive about all the exciting plans they had for their wedding guests the week before their Valentine’s Day wedding. And Shelby had insisted that she take part in each and every event planned. So much for time alone to think about her life. Still, it all sounded like such fun that she figured she could use her second week here to deal with all of that stuff.

“Val?” Shelby asked again, sounding concerned about the lack of response.

“Sorry, spaced out for a minute,” she apologized. Her gaze shifted out the sliding doors of her third floor condo to the exquisitely landscaped grounds. Vast areas of finely bladed green grass, bushes of dark pink bougainvillea lining one side of the sidewalk leading to the kidney-shaped pool and cabana surrounded by towering coconut palms. Miles of brilliant blue water lie directly behind that, defined by the line of white waves rolling to the light caramel-colored sandy beach. “I so love this place,” she said on a sigh. “No wonder you and Dale want to live here.”

Shelby snorted. “We won’t if Big Bro gets his way.”

Valentine felt her protective instincts bursting to life. Big Bro already had a lot to answer for, in her totally biased opinion! “Now what has he done?”

“He wants Dale and I to take over the ranch back in Kansas, which is crazy. Dale’s from Maui. He wouldn’t have a clue how to run a ranch, even if he wanted to, which he doesn’t.”

Shelby heaved a sigh much too heavy for someone so young. “I’m being torn between wanting to please my brother, and wanting to make my fiancé happy. Dale is furious with Sam for even asking this of us.” She hesitated. “I hope the two of them can be civil to each other this week.”

“This week? Are you telling me your sainted brother has relented and decided to come here after all?” She was stunned, and pleased at the same time. She couldn’t discuss anything Shelby had told her in confidence, but she would find some way to make her displeasure with him known.

“I did everything but cry over the phone to get him to come. He caved when he finally understood this is something I really, really wanted of him.” Her tone turned gentler. “I love him, and he loves me. Life hasn’t dealt him a fair hand, but he’s always tried to do the best he could.”

“Whoever is in charge of dealing out ‘life’ cards deals lots of unfair hands.” She didn’t have much sympathy for the man.

Shelby was quiet a second before saying thoughtfully, “Sam’s wanting us to take over the ranch really surprised me. It’s been his world for so long. Now I’m beginning to think there are things about him I never knew.”

Then she lightened up and said, “I called to remind you about the mai tai party and hula lessons tonight down by the pool. You’re coming, aren’t you?”

Valentine had considered passing on it since she was functioning on so little sleep. But she couldn’t resist the excitement in Shelby’s voice. Besides, she loved mai tais. And learning to wiggle her hips in a semblance of a hula—which is exactly all she’d be doing she was sure—sounded kind of fun. “Count me in.”

“Great! I think it starts in an hour. Wait until you see the Hawaiian stud muffin they’ve got lined up to man the bar in the cabana tonight! Hotter than hot, I tell you.” She giggled. “Don’t tell Dale I said that. He thinks
he’s
a stud muffin, too. And he gets kind of jealous.”

She hung up after agreeing to keep Shelby’s secret. She slumped against the counter. Why couldn’t she find a stud muffin of her own? Then she remembered what she’d concluded back in her office: that maybe she wasn’t meant to have a relationship with a man. That maybe she’d been dating the wrong gender.

An image of a hunka-hunka burning love flashed into her mind and she slumped even more. The image definitely wasn’t of a woman. No, it’d been that same image of the bare-chested cowboy sitting on an enormous horse she’d had before.

She forced the image away. Clearly she wasn’t trying hard enough to get in the right frame of mind. She’d spent too many years believing she was attracted only to men. It was a habit that was all. A person could break habits. She would. Men had given her nothing but disappointments for as long as she could remember. She was moving on!

* * *

Sam stood on his third floor balcony nursing one of the beers his sister had thoughtfully provided him in the condo’s refrigerator. She had tried to get him to come down to the mai tai party at poolside, but he’d begged off. It was all he could do to stand here for a few minutes and take in the view. Back home he never seemed to have time to notice the sunsets or the sunrises. They just happened. He worked from before sunrise to after sunset. He felt guilty for being here and leaving the ranch duties to his foreman. But Jake was more than just the foreman; he was Sam’s friend. A friend who seemed to love the ranch more than Sam did.

He took another swig of the cold brew and listened to the sounds of waves rolling into the shoreline. It was loud, much louder than the quiet of the Kansas flint hills he was used to. Yet he found it soothing. He figured he would get some good sleep tonight and he needed it.

Then his hearing picked up on the music being played by a trio with a guitar, an odd drum, and a keyboard. Definitely not country music, but it didn’t grate on his nerves. Along with the music a woman was announcing something about it being time for hula lessons. That had him noting a dozen women of various ages, including his sister, heading for poolside where the lessons would evidently take place.

He smiled in amusement, and then yawned. Maybe he ought to pass on watching this and go catch some serious zzzzs.

Before he could move away, his sister waved to a woman at the cabana bar and called her over to the lessons. Curious, he watched until the woman stepped out of the shadows and he muttered, “Well, hot damn!” Blond, beautiful, and built. The three Bs he was so fond of.

The woman nearly tripped coming down the steps from the cabana, but caught herself on the railing and laughed. Even with all the noise of the ocean rolling in and the sounds from the party, he managed to hear the very feminine laugh. It warmed him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed, or the last time he and his previous girlfriend had laughed together. There’d been a time when laughter came easily to him. Before his parents had been killed in the auto accident. Before he’d taken on more responsibilities than a young man should have to. He cradled the sweet, carefree sound to him, and decided he wanted to hear more of it from closer.

By the time he strolled through the gate at poolside the hula demonstration was in full lesson. Each of the young women had donned fake grass skirts that hung to mid-calf. Most of them sported either skin-tight T-shirts that stopped inches above the navel or bikini tops. He frowned for a second as he noted Shelby wore one of the bikini tops. He didn’t like seeing so much of her exposed to one and all. His gut reaction had him wanting to toast her butt, but then he had no say in the matter any more. She was grown up now. A fact that had him feeling sad and empty. Must be the empty nest syndrome he’d heard that mothers sometimes went through. ‘Course he wasn’t her mother, but he had raised her from age six on.

That soft, sensual laugh he’d heard before curled around him as the blond who’d caught his attention accidentally bumped hips with Shelby. Shelby bumped her back, giggling. The shapely blond sported a hot pink bikini top and full breasts that had his mouth watering. Those enticing breasts bounced rhythmically as she attempted to get back into the hula motion. He’d be dreaming about this for days, maybe longer.