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He stopped himself then. This was different. Always before he’d been Cain Caleb Montgomery. Everyone knew the Montgomerys always got what they wanted. It was a patriarchal dynasty, practically his birthright.
Here, tonight, he was just Caleb. And she was like no other woman he’d ever met.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was out of line.”
She lifted her face to his, and he was tempted to get out of line again. “I can’t kiss a man who hasn’t even told me his last name, Caleb,” she said.
And he got a feeling—a feeling that the way he answered that one, simple question might easily have some great impact he would feel for a long time to come. It was one of those moments when you just sense things looming—like a crossroads. More than anything, he wanted this delicious anonymity to go on. He’d learned more about her—and about himself—in the last couple of hours than he ever would have or could have as Cain Caleb Montgomery III.
So he made his choice. He chose to lie to her.
“Cain,” he said. “My name is Caleb Cain.”
* * *
She thought he was looking less heartsick than he had when he’d arrived.
And she hadn’t minded dancing with him at all. Sure, he was a drifter, on the skids, and from out of town. Sure, he barely had two nickels to rub together, from the looks of him. But tomorrow was her damned birthday, and he was drop-dead good-looking. His touch made her tingle, and she really was getting tired of being good all the time.
No steady boyfriend, no prospects in sight. Hell, one more year and she would be a thirty-year-old virgin. Being the good one was not turning out at all the way she had hoped it would. So if dancing real close and real slow with a handsome stranger was bad, well, then she would be bad. Just for this once.
She ignored the look of surprise on her mother’s face when she lifted her head from his shoulder to see her across the room. She ignored the way Vidalia elbowed Mel and pointed at her, and the way Mel’s brows came down hard, and the way Selene folded her arms and nodded knowingly, while Kara peeked out of the kitchen looking curious and excited for her. She ignored everything except the man she was with. And how good and strong his arms felt wrapped tight around her. His breath tickled her ear and her neck, and she grew warmer. She might very well be good, and respectable, and pure. But she was also a woman. A Brand woman. And never had she felt it more than she did in this stranger’s arms.
At some point later, she realized she was laughing. Laughing out loud up at him, and he was laughing, too. Her skin was warm, and her heart was racing, and she felt incredibly alive.
He walked her back to his table, eyed the now cold cocoa and said, “Am I allowed to have a beer now?”
“Sure you are. In fact, I think I’ll join you.” She held up two fingers, not even looking toward the bar.
“Think someone saw you?” he asked.
She winked. “Believe me, they haven’t taken their eyes off me since you walked in.” Then she pursed her lips. “On second thought, I’d better get that beer myself. They’re liable to water it down or something.”
He looked surprised but said nothing as she went to the bar.
When she came back, he was deep in conversation with one of her regulars, a local fellow by the name of Jimmy Jones, but they stopped talking the minute she arrived, and Jimmy tipped his hat to her and skulked away, never meeting her eyes.
She set two foaming mugs and a filled pitcher on the table, then sat down and sipped from one. “So what was Jimmy telling you about me?”
“What makes you think he was talking about you?”
She thinned her lips, lowered her brows, gave him the look. She’d learned the look from her mom, and she was pretty good at delivering it, in her opinion. All the Brand women were.
He smiled. “Okay. You win. He was. He said you come from a wild family. That you Brand girls are the talk of the town.”
“Oh, but I already told you about our notoriety.”
He smiled. “You left out some things.”
She sat down, grinning. “I’m dying to hear. What did he say?”
Tilting his head to one side, Caleb’s smile faded. “I don’t want to say anything to ruin the night for us, Maya. It’s been…too nice.”
She drew her brows together, turning to look at Jimmy, who immediately looked away. “My goodness. It must have been pretty bad.”
“No, it really—”
She reached across the table, clasped his hand and said, “I’ve been putting an awful lot of effort into making myself respectable in the eyes of the good people of this town, Caleb. It would help me a hell of a lot if you’d be honest with me right now. What did Jimmy say about us?”
