Maverick / The Playboy's Passionate Pursuit: Maverick / The Playboy's Passionate Pursuit

Looking bored, Tanner rolled his eyes at Bri, a wry smile twitching the corners of his mouth. “Candy of the Hamptons, meet Brianna Stewart of Pennsylvania.”

Candy gave a delicate sniff, obviously not impressed. “How nice. Are you visiting someone here in Durango?” She arched one perfect bleached eyebrow. “One of Tanner’s friends, perhaps?”

Bri didn’t know whether to laugh or slug the overbearing woman. She did neither, of course. Instead she answered drily, “No, I’m not visiting. I have business with Mr. Wolfe.”

“Really?” Both eyebrows went up.

“Yeah, really,” Tanner said, now sounding as bored as he looked. “If you’ll excuse us?” He indicated a table toward the back. “I think your friend is getting impatient for you to join him.”

Candy turned back to him, instantly changing to Miss Sunshine again. “Yes, of course, darlin’,” she cooed, raising a small hand to lightly drag her dagger nails down his face. “Toodles,” she said, drawing her hand away and wiggling her scarlet-tipped fingers at him. “Call me.” Without so much as a glance at Bri, she sashayed away.

“Toodles?” Battling another bubble of laughter sparked by the drama queen, Bri resumed her seat just as the server approached the table with their meals.

“That’s Candy,” he said, shrugging.

Yes, Bri mused, but did he like candy? Mentally dismissing the oddly disturbing idea, she asked, “A good friend of yours?” The question was out before she could stop herself. Dammit, she didn’t give a rip either way…did she?

Tanner saved her from her self-condemnation. “No.” He shook his head, setting his long waves rippling, brushing his shoulders. “She’s a bit of an airhead, I’m afraid, and calls every man ‘darlin” in that cloyingly sweet voice.” He shrugged. “But she can be polite and even amusing at times.”

“I see.” Bri hid a frown of dissatisfaction by lowering her head to inhale the aroma wafting from the steaming plate the server set in front of her.

The food was delicious. The conversation, which didn’t include candy of any sort, ranged from favorite foods to favorite movies to general likes and dislikes. Bri relaxed, let her guard down.

It was a mistake she rarely made.

On leaving the restaurant, feeling mellow—too mellow—she soon realized she had been led down the conversational garden path, so to speak.

“Where are you staying?” Tanner asked as they headed for their vehicles.

“The Strater Hotel. It’s lovely.”

“Yeah, a landmark, built in 1887.” His tone held a tiny note of the proud resident. “You know, Will Rogers stayed there. And Louis L’Amour wrote several of his Western novels while he was staying there.”

“He must have stayed a while,” she said, smiling at his instructive tone. “Or written very fast.”

He grinned.

Bri felt something inside go all squishy. Why did he have to have such a sexy grin? She swallowed a sigh of self-disgust—or was it longing?—and was relieved when they came to her rental SUV. “This one’s mine.”

“I’m right behind you.” He moved his head, indicating the much larger, kick-ass SUV. “I’ve got some calls to make before I go for the food supplies and some loose ends to tie up tomorrow. Suppose I pick you up the day after tomorrow? I want to get an early start. Is five okay with you?”

In that instant Bri became wary of his intentions. “You will be here, won’t you?”

At once, his pleasant expression changed, his features growing taut. “Didn’t I just say I will?” His voice carried both anger and insult.

“Yes.” Bri was not about to apologize. “But I want to be certain you won’t take a flit on me.”

“A flit…” He shook his head. “What are you getting at? Do you believe—” As he paused, she pounced.

“That you’re going to take off on your own, leave me cooling my heels here in Durango?” she finished for him. “Oh, yeah, Mr. Wolfe, that’s exactly what I think you might try. I guess I should have listened to your cousins. They warned me you were a loner, a maverick who went his own way alone.” He started to speak, but she charged on. “And that’s what you intend to do to me, isn’t it?”

“Okay, I admit I prefer to do my hunting alone, as I always have. But I had agreed to your going with me, so why in hell did you get the idea that I was planning to take off without you?” Now Tanner sounded angry, and his features had hardened, turning the saint into the bounty hunter.

Bri wasn’t impressed by either his voice or the hard look of him. At least she worked to appear unimpressed. In truth, she was shaken, trembling inside. But that was because she was just as angry.

“Oh, couldn’t be because you now seem eager to get rid of me while you get your stuff together, now could it?” She didn’t wait for him to ditch the stunned, speechless look, but continued, “It might even have worked except for one minor detail. You forgot that I’m carrying the check.”

“I didn’t forget a damned thing.”

Whoa. If she had thought he was angry before, she was now seeing real anger. More like fury. And furious, Tanner Wolfe was downright frightening.

“Good, because even if I’d have bought into your softening-up routine in the restaurant—” he again opened his mouth to interrupt but she held up her hand, keeping him still while she rushed breathlessly on “—and you skipped off on your own and brought in that bastard, you wouldn’t have gotten anything but the original ten thousand bounty.”

“Finished?” His cold tone was chilling.

The tremor inside Bri turned into an icy shiver she was hard-pressed to hide from him. “Yes.” How she had managed so calm a tone amazed her.

“Feel better for having your little rant?” There was something new and dangerous in his voice that froze the icy shiver solid.

Bri stiffened her spine and raised her chin to a defiant angle. “I was not ranting.”

“Coulda fooled me,” he drawled. “And there was no softening-up in the restaurant. I guess I’m not too bright, because I thought we were having a nice time getting to know each other.” He gave her a quizzical look. “What made you think I was setting you up, anyway?”

How did one explain a feeling, a sudden onslaught of intuition? she asked herself. A hard lesson learned from another man who’d been a pro at stringing along women?

“I’m not quite sure myself,” she admitted. “When we were talking, I relaxed, and the next minute I began to feel suspicious.” She told herself the sudden feeling had nothing to do with how he had allowed that man-eater Candy to step into his embrace.

At the back of her mind, another unsettling suspicion niggled at her. The suspicion that he might have been in a hurry to send her packing so he could go back to the restaurant to indulge in some after-dinner candy. Then he would collect his stuff and head into the mountains without her.

Bri brushed the suspicion off, not about to recognize it. There was no way she would voice it to Tanner. His heavy sigh dissolved her uncomfortable reverie.

“Do you want to spend the next two nights with me?”

Yes, she thought at once. “No,” she said in firm denial of her first response.

“Then I suppose you’ll have to trust me.” He smiled quite like a chess player who had his opponent checkmated. “That is, if you still want to go with me.”

“You know I want to go with you,” she snapped, angry at him, at herself for stepping so blindly into his game of strategy. “As long as you remember who holds the purse strings.”

Tanner shook his head as if in pity for her. “I don’t forget details, Brianna, even when they are recited by a spoiled little rich girl.”

Bri simmered over his parting shot at her the rest of the day and all through the next, all the while she wandered around, checking out the shops closest to the hotel.

She’d show him what a spoiled little rich girl could do.

Three

Damned if she wasn’t wearing killer heels.