“But?” she prompted.
“But I’m waiting on this crazy little girl to show up. She’s new to town and real unsophisticated. You know what I mean? The kind who’d get lost on a sunny day.”
Her eyebrows rose. She had clear, pretty blue eyes, and the just-teased tangle of her silvery-blond hair was appealing. Made a man’s fingers want to wander there.
He glanced toward the door again. “She probably got lost on her way here,” he said. “I should have offered to escort her.”
“That would have been chivalrous,” she agreed, “but you didn’t, and so now you and I are stuck waiting for a mystery person to show up.” She pulled him by the hand, though he didn’t fight too hard. Once on the dance floor, he’d shift her over to Bandera, and go back to watching out for Clover. He shot a quick glance toward the potted banana tree strung with white lights, to make certain she wasn’t hiding over there.
Cool skin slid into his arms, and he was jerked into the present predicament. “Gosh,” he said. “You feel good.”
“So do you, cowboy.” She smiled at him, happy that she’d managed to disguise her accent completely.
They moved well together, Archer acknowledged. Bandera was glowering at him, but Archer shrugged. It had been ages since he’d held a soft woman, and this one was firm and ripe, and her lips were glossy—
“Once upon a time I dreamed of a cowboy like you,” she said. “He was strong and powerful, and he knew how to romance a woman.”
“I know how to romance a woman,” Archer said. He could feel his arms warming from the heat her body was beginning to give off. Glowing embers turning to a sexual fire he hadn’t felt in a long time—maybe ever. Frowning, he stared down at her, wondering if she knew she was working over his testosterone.
“You could show me,” she suggested. “I like romance.”
She was definitely coming on to him.
He glanced toward the door, watching for Clover.
The woman in his arms pressed lightly into his body, a full-length hint of the wonders available.
Taking a deep breath, Archer decided that opportunity only dropped sporadically into a man’s life, and when it did, it needed to be seized by the throat.
“Think my brother had his eye on you,” he said gruffly, his energy now captured by the fantasy of tugging the dress off of her.
“He may have,” she said lightly, “but he doesn’t know me like you do.”
“Really?”
She looked at him with guileless eyes. Then she lowered her head onto his chest, in a gesture he would have to call gentle surrender. “Really,” he heard her murmur.
That was it. Female-led seduction, his favorite pastime.
He dragged her off by the hand.
CLOVE HELD HER BREATH as Archer led her to his truck. She got in when he held the door open for her, and then she stared out the passenger-side window, hoping he wouldn’t look beneath the hair and curls to find plain ol’ Clove. Unsophisticated, he’d called her. Thought he had to watch out for her, a touch of pity in his voice.
His hand snaked around her wrist, surprising her as he pulled her across the bench seat toward him. Then he kissed her hot and fast and hard, and in that moment, Clove knew she’d underestimated her man.
He was everything he’d bragged about in his e-mails.
He just wasn’t showing it to “Clover.”
The way she was now brought out the beast in him. She had rattled the cage.
Pulling back to look at her, Archer said, “Are you okay?”
She nodded.
“You went quiet on me.”
It was too quiet in his truck. In the bar, it had been loud and they hadn’t talked enough for him to recognize her. He’d also been scoping the door, not paying attention to her until she’d fairly propositioned him.
Switching the radio on to turn his mind from chivalry, she kissed him, reminding him of why they were in the truck.
“All right, then,” he said a moment later. “I take it that means yes. I’m in the mood for a swim. Hope you are, too.”
In February? Not likely, but if it meant getting him down to his boxers, then she would swim with polar bears in the Arctic.
He put his hand around hers, driving with his other hand. Clove closed her eyes, thinking about Lucy.
Just one baby.
A few minutes later, Archer parked the truck at a creek wooded with trees. He shone the headlights of the truck into the darkness for a few moments, then switched them to low. Putting the radio on a sexy jazz station, he said, “Now let’s dance properly.”
She went out the driver’s side behind him, sliding into his arms.
“God, I never realized a woman could feel this good,” he said. “You’re like satin.”
They danced together wordlessly after that, until the station went to commercial. Then he took Clove by the hand, leading her toward the water. “I was teasing about swimming,” he said.
“I’m brave,” she said softly. “I can handle it if you can.”
“Skinny-dipping in February? No, my plan is to keep you warm.”
She thought he would find a grassy spot for them to lie, but instead he walked with her, their fingers interlaced.
“This is one of my favorite places on earth. My brothers and I used to come here to swim after rodeos.”
He ran a hand across her bare shoulders. Clove shivered at the caress, her breath held nervously.
“You’re cold,” he said. “Come back to the truck.”
She wasn’t cold, but she followed him, anyway, enjoying his concern for her. He let down the gate of the truck bed, spreading a blanket for them. Turning off the truck lights, he crawled into the bed, pulling her up to join him. Then he covered them with another blanket and rested her head on his chest.
“You’re prepared for everything,” she whispered.
“No, I’m not. If I was, I’d have a bottle of champagne cooling in an ice chest,” he said. “See those stars?”
“Mmm,” she said, loving the feel of his chest and hearing his heart beat fast.
“One of those stars has your name on it,” he said. “What is the name of that star?”
“It’s a secret,” she whispered into his ear, straddling him to kiss his face.
“I like secrets,” he said, pushing his hands underneath her dress to run his hands over her bare bottom. “You have on no underwear,” he said with surprise. “You little daredevil!”
THERE WERE SECRETS and then there were secrets, Clove thought, quietly getting down out of the truck three hours later. She knew the town wasn’t far, and she wanted to be long gone before her cowboy awakened.
It had been a night she’d never forget. They’d made the truck rock like mad, and she’d learned that giving up one’s virginity was easy when the pleasure was that intense. They’d made love over and over again, hungry for each other. When he’d asked about birth control and offered a condom, she’d said she was fine.
At the final second, she’d confessed her virginity, hoping he wouldn’t hop out of the truck.
He hadn’t. He’d been quite tender and considerate of her.
She