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This was not good, whatever it was. She was waiting for a respectable man, with a position of authority. Someone so established that being his wife would set her firmly into the midst of the “good people” of Big Falls and no one would ever think of brushing her off again. She didn’t want to get involved with a dirt-poor drifter who couldn’t even afford a decent pair of boots. And especially not a man who was just passing through.
Above all else, Maya wanted a man she could depend on. A man who would be there for her, no matter what. One who would climb mountains, swim oceans, if that was what it took to be there when she needed him. A man who would be as honest and loyal and true as…as some silver screen cowboy from days gone by. What shedidn’twant was a drifter or a liar or a cheat. A man like her father, who had never once been around for her mother when the chips were down. A man whose exploits had shamed his entire family so much they were still trying to live them down—even though he’d been dead for over twenty years.
And yetthisman—who was already hiding something, keeping some secret behind his blue, blue eyes, and who was obviously a drifter and poor as a church mouse—this man was the one to come along and cause her circuits to overload. Go figure!
It must be physical attraction, she reasoned. Some chemical thing that she had no control over. But whatever it was, it was powerful. And its timing was damn near uncanny. Especially when she’d only just tonight been bemoaning the fact that she was a year from thirty and still a virgin. Untouched. Untempted…until now. Now she was extremely tempted to forget her morals and her ethics and her goals in life for one brief fling with a man whose eyes told her clearly he would be willing to oblige.
She’d never been so powerfully drawn to a man in her life.
Or maybe it was just the beer.
CHAPTERTWO
Maya Brand, he thought as he watched her across the table, pouring his cocoa and stirring it absently and looking at him as if…as if she couldn’t look at him enough.
Caleb knew he was running away. Shirking his responsibilities, worrying his father sick, more than likely, and letting a lot of people down. He knew that. And he knew it couldn’t go on. He had to go back. To pick up the legacy and carry it forward. It was what was expected of him. His life plan. He’d worked for these goals for years, and it was all coming together finally. In just over a year he would announce his candidacy for the U.S. Senate. He would step into the shoes of his father and grandfather. He would fulfill his destiny.
He didn’t know why the hell he’d put on these clothes or borrowed José’s pickup or driven clear out into some hole-in-the-wall town. Last minute jitters? A sudden attack of nerves? A desire to sabotage his own success?
Whatever it was, he’d arrived at the door of this little saloon angry, wet, and confused. But this…this was something different.
Maya Brand was an exceptionally beautiful woman. Oh, not the way most people would think of beauty. Her hair, for example. It wasn’t “done” or sprayed. Its color wasn’t artificial, but a deep mink brown. It was long and wavy, but not curly, exactly. It fell over her shoulders. She didn’t fuss with it. Her face…was clean. So clean he could see the slight sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Very slight. But there, not covered by makeup. Her shape was not bone thin. She was curvy. Wider at the hip than most women would probably like to be or see as ideal. On her it was good, especially in the snug-fitting jeans she wore. He wanted to rest his hands just above her hips and hold her close to him.
But the most attractive thing about her, he realized with the part of his mind that was still functioning on some rational level, was that she didn’t have a clue who he was. She didn’t look at him and see Cain Caleb Montgomery III, heir to millions, former mayor, future senator. She didn’t see anything but a man in dusty boots and worn-out jeans. And it seemed to him that she liked him anyway.
Why?
It puzzled him and drew him. What was there about him that she could see to like? He’d been Cain Caleb Montgomery III for so long he wasn’t sure who plain old Caleb was anymore. And he suddenly found he wanted to know. And he thought maybe this woman might be able to show him.
She went to the center of the floor, where a small crowd had already gathered. Men in their best blue jeans and western shirts with pearl snaps. Women in short skirts and cowboy boots. Caleb had never line danced in his life. He figured he would probably make a fool of himself. But it would be worth it just to have an excuse to get close to Maya Brand.
She stepped to the front of the room, looked around, and then glanced at him almost reluctantly. Everyone else had a partner. Everyone but him.
He shrugged. “Looks like you’re stuck with me.”
She smiled, not just to be polite, he thought. “You say that like it’s a bad thing. Come here.”
Damn, he liked the way she said “Come here.”
He moved to stand beside her at the head of the class. Maya waved to the woman at the far end of the bar. The woman at the bar waved back. She looked like a shorter, curvier version of Sophia Loren. Exquisite bone structure, dark coloring. Mexican, he thought. She had a head of raven curls that reached to her waist and a few laugh lines around her eyes that only added to her appeal.
Maya called, “Crank it, Mom. Let’s start ‘em with the Boot Scoot.”
Caleb blinked and looked at Maya. “Mom?”
“If you’re gonna look so shocked, Caleb, you really ought to do it when she’s up close enough to enjoy it,” Maya told him.
“She’s your mother,” he said, still not believing it.
‘‘Vidalia Brand, mother of five, and the most notorious female saloon owner in seven counties,” Maya told him, and there was more than a hint of pride in her voice and in her eyes.
“Wow.”
The music came up, and he had to focus on Maya’s instructions and try to imitate her footwork for a time. It was okay, though, because he had to get up close beside her and, every once in a while, hold her hand or slip his arm around her waist, so he didn’t mind at all.
And every time he looked down at her, her eyes were sparkling and staring right up into his. And her cheeks were pink with color, her lips full and parted as she got a little breathless. He hoped not entirely from the dancing.
Once he had the moves down, they ran through the dance again, without stopping after each step to explain the next one, this time. And though he got lost once or twice, he had it down soon enough, so he could resume the conversation.
