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“Are you trying to tell me that you howl whe
never there’s a full moon out?” she asked sarcastically.
“No,” he answered impatiently. “I’m trying to tell you that with my being a lone wolf, well...marriage isn’t in the cards for someone like me,” he said bluntly, then quickly added, “but that doesn’t mean that I would shirk my duty toward the baby.”
Her tone grew icy. “That’s very nice of you, but you don’t have to concern yourself about doing your duty,” Marlowe told him. “I am more than capable of taking care of and providing for my baby,” she concluded flatly.
“You mean our baby,” Bowie corrected her.
Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. “The last I heard, possession was nine-tenths of the law,” Marlowe informed him, her hand moving to protectively cover her as-of-yet exceptionally flat belly.
She’d clearly had just about enough for one night, she thought. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll just turn in early.”
She didn’t wait for Bowie to respond. Instead, she turned on her heel and walked back into the cabin. Once inside, she went straight to the bedroom in the back, slamming the door in her wake.
Damn it, he hadn’t meant to do that, Bowie thought, upbraiding himself. His only intention was to spare her from entertaining any false hopes about their future.
He frowned, looking back toward the cabin door. In getting his message across, he had somehow managed to scare her off altogether. That wasn’t what he was trying to do.
This was all damn confusing. He was really attracted to her, probably a great deal more attracted than he had ever been to any other woman before her. But a wife and baby were just not in the cards for him, he silently insisted. RoCo was everything to him, and he had to focus on the company, not on the daughter of his father’s archenemy—as melodramatic as that had to sound, he thought, mocking himself. More than likely, she felt the same way about Colton Oil.
With a sigh, Bowie decided to call it a night himself and went into the cabin. Closing the door behind him, he made sure that locks were all secured. Satisfied, he started to go toward the back bedroom, wanting to apologize. But he stopped himself before he got halfway there.
It was better this way.
He couldn’t afford to pursue Marlowe, or to allow the attraction he felt for her to get the better of him, beyond being a good dad. For all he knew, if he said anything at all about being attracted to her, she’d laugh at him. Or she might tell him that even though they’d had one good night together, that didn’t mean anything in the long run.
Marlowe was married to Colton Oil for the long haul; she had all but told him so. He needed to stop letting his emotions rule his head and get his priorities straight and keep them that way once and for all.
* * *
Bowie spent an even more restless night this time than he had the previous night when he had intentionally stayed awake.
Come morning, he had made up his mind about what to do next.
“We can’t hide here indefinitely,” Marlowe told him early the following morning. “I think it’s time to go back. I know I have work to do and I’m assuming so do you. If I stay here for another day, I’m going to go stir-crazy.”
Bowie smiled, nodding. At least they were in agreement when it came to this, he thought. “Yeah, me, too.”
“Maybe Callum, who’s a bodyguard, can help keep an eye out. I guess we have some things in common,” Marlowe told him.
Without thinking, his eyes ran over her body. He felt himself reacting before he shut down. “Yes, we do,” he responded.
* * *
The trip back to Mustang Valley was fairly tense. Bowie kept looking over his shoulder, as if he expected their unknown stalker to pop up at any moment, while Marlowe was very quiet. Her mind was busily trying to figure out just what her connection was to the killer who was after Bowie—and perhaps her, too. Was Bowie right that this had all begun after he left her room that night, or was that all just a terrible coincidence? Or could one of Colton Oil’s clients feel that their investment money was being misused because they found out she was looking into making the company green?
She was fervently hoping that she would be able to think more clearly once she was back at work. Back in familiar surroundings.
Going to the cabin had ultimately been a bad idea. She hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that she was a sitting duck, waiting for some invisible villain to get off a kill shot. And having Bowie around was just a bitter reminder of the mistake she had made six and a half weeks ago: Bowie thought of himself as a lone wolf. Wolves didn’t settle down; they prowled around, she thought.
Well, he was free to do that once they got back to town. She certainly had no intentions of standing in his way.
As a matter of fact, the way she felt right now, she would be more than happy to push him on his way, and good riddance.
* * *
As Bowie pulled his vehicle up in front of the Colton Oil building, he noted the rather strange, contemplative expression on her face.
