Tall, Dark & Western

“Unless you marry me.” Spoken straight out like that, it sounded so…intimate. His mind shot right to dark nights in a warm bed.

She raised her gaze to his, and for the longest moment he forgot everything around him and just let himself wallow in those eyes. Was she thinking what he was thinking?

“I really have to go,” she said softly, rising.

As she started out of the food court, he grabbed his hat and followed, taking her elbow when they reached the central walkway that led back to the rest of the mall. After the crowded café area, it seemed positively spacious.

He could feel the fragile bones of her arm beneath his fingers and the warmth of her skin. She seemed tiny walking beside him, and he acknowledged the attraction knotting his gut, making his body stir in response. His heart still belonged to Lora, but his body knew she’d been gone for two years. No question about it. “I’ll walk you back to work,” he said.

“All right.” She smiled up at him. “It’s just down this way.”

They strolled down the mall, passing specialty shops that sold jewelry from the Black Hills, apparel for women in the family way, sunglasses and leather goods.

Her feet slowed as another store on the far corner of the square into which they walked came in sight, and she paused just outside the entrance. “This is it.”

He looked from her to the displays in the windows, and into the quietly elegant shop behind her. “This is where you work?”

“This is it,” she said primly.

He felt a slow flush begin at his neck as the stirring in his jeans became a potential embarrassment. The sign proclaimed, “Hidden Pleasures,” and he could see why they wanted to keep it hidden. Juliette worked in a store that sold women’s underwear! And not just any women’s underwear. Filmy, see-through stuff, edged with ruffles and lace, cut into amazingly brief garments, trimmed in satin and velvet—underwear that made a man dream of a woman wearing it. Or not wearing it.

“Marty?” Juliette was smiling that smile that wiped out all his brain cells.

He looked down at her, feeling sheepish and embarrassed. “Sorry,” he said. “I was just a little surprised.”

She put out her hand. “Will I hear from you again?”

Would she hear from him again? Did the earth rotate around the sun? He needed to spend a little more time with her before he was sure, but he already could imagine Juliette in his home.

“How about a drink after you get off work?” he asked. “We could get to know each other a little more.”

Her smiled faded and anxiety carved a little crease in her brow. Then it cleared. “Well, maybe just one short one,” she said. “I have some things to take care of at home.”

“All right,” he said. “See you at—what time?”

“Seven. I’ll meet you right here.” She turned to enter the store, then peeked at him over her shoulder and raised her fingers to wave before she walked away.

And he was damned glad her back was turned because there was no way he could control the way his body reacted to that little smile. Hastily he swung away and headed down the mall, willing himself to think of anything, everything, except women and bedrooms.

And his upcoming date with Juliette Duchenay, manager of a sexy underwear store and his potential wife.

He reappeared at twenty minutes before seven.

Juliette caught sight of Marty through the windows of the store as she rang up a purchase and bagged items for a customer. He had settled his large frame on one of the benches in an arrangement of fake trees in the center of the wide walk-through, and as she watched, he opened the bag he carried and pulled out a book.

She didn’t know what she’d expected from a man who would advertise for a wife, but Marty surely was the last man she’d ever have imagined would need to do such a thing. He was incredibly handsome. Unlike her own straight, nearly cornsilk tresses, his hair was a chestnut-colored halo with wayward curls tipped by shining gold, the color probably enhanced by the hours he spent outside on his ranch. His hat lay on the bench beside him, and there was the suggestion of a hat ring crimped into his hair.

His eyes were the purest sky-blue she’d ever seen, made even bluer by the tan that made his skin glow. He wore a heavy leather jacket, but beneath the practical jeans and Western-style workshirt his body was broad-shouldered, slim-hipped and long-legged; in short, incredibly sexy.

She’d looked over her shoulder one last time after she’d waved at him earlier and caught his back view moving off down the mall. His jeans molded his butt and encased his muscular legs and she wondered what he’d be like as a lover. That thought made her pause.

Was she seriously considering marriage to a perfect stranger?

She already knew the answer. If it had been any other man in that food court, she’d probably have been polite and friendly and told him she’d made a mistake. After all, she’d had misgivings the very day she’d mailed her letter, and when she’d received an answer she’d nearly chickened out altogether.

But now…now everything had changed.

When her gaze had met Marty’s for the first time in the food court, something had pulled into an almost painful ball in her abdomen and she’d had to remember to take another breath. Had she ever been attracted to Rob like this? She must have been once. Of course she had been. The twin strains of widowhood and motherhood probably just had dulled the edges of her memories.

Sex appeal. That’s all it was. And she should be dismissing it as fast as she would have with any other man. But now she’d met Marty, and found that the man beneath the appealing exterior was every bit as appealing in personality.

She liked him. She liked him a lot.

Of course she did, she thought as she moved to the back of the store to assist another customer. Why else would she have called her baby-sitter and asked her if she’d mind staying later than usual tonight? She normally was fanatical about getting home to Bobby. And a part of her felt torn even now. Before he’d been born, she couldn’t imagine the powerful maternal feelings that dictated her every move. Now…she thought of nearly everything in terms of how it would affect her son.

She must be crazy. But Marty appealed to her in a powerful way that she couldn’t resist, couldn’t walk away from. He seemed like such a good man. He’d make her son a wonderful father. If she didn’t reach out and take this chance, she could be missing something important. Something that could change her life forever.

The last few minutes until closing time stretched interminably until finally the last customer was walking out of the store.

Marty lifted his head, and his gaze sought hers. When her eyes locked with his, she drew in a breath. He didn’t smile, didn’t move, but that look seared her with an unspoken possessiveness and deep in her stomach, nerves she hadn’t known existed began to hum with awareness.

The moment vibrated between them long after the exchange of gazes ended. He waited while she locked the heavy barred doors of the shop, and then he escorted her to the parking lot. He invited her to go with him to a popular watering hole whose name she recognized from overhearing the conversations of some of her co-workers, and when she asked him if she could follow his truck in her own car, he didn’t appear to mind.

The bar was large and noisy and crowded. Marty settled her at a small table next to the dance floor and went to the bar. When he returned with the soda she’d requested, she was surprised to see that he carried one for himself.

Apparently he noticed, because he said, “I have a two-hour drive home tonight. No drinks for me.”

She nodded. “Good practice.”

He indicated the energetic couples doing a two-step around the dance floor. “Do you do this?”

She shook her head. “I’ve watched, but no, I’ve never tried it.”

“Then it’s time you did.” Marty clasped her wrist and started for the floor.

“Marty! I’ll step on your toes!”

He stopped and looked back over his shoulder, and his lips curved, then parted as he laughed. “You’re just a little thing. I’ll hold you high so your feet don’t touch the floor.”

She smiled and let him pull her out amid the dancers, but when he faced her and held out his arms, she suddenly realized she would be stepping into the embrace of a man she barely knew. Other women do it all the time, she told herself. It’s just dancing.

But deep inside she was afraid that with this man, it might be much more than that. And when his arm slipped around her waist and his brawny strength encircled her, it felt so right that she automatically relaxed and let him lead her.

They danced several dances. Marty taught her the steps, patiently reminding her until she had mastered his movements. He was a strong lead; all she had to do was stay loose and let him put her where he wanted her.

She was very conscious of the words of one romantic song, and when Marty pulled her in and tucked her head under his chin, she could have stayed there all night. They swayed to the three-step, waltzing slowly on the crowded floor, and she fought the urge to press herself closer, to burrow into his warmth and strength and let him take care of her.

“There’s something I’ve got to ask you.” His voice was a low rumble above her head, and she tilted her face up so that she could see his expression.