His eyes narrowed. “Used to be you thought my front was my best side.”
She raked a thorough look across his bare chest and arms, his stomach, the unfastened waist of his slacks.
Everywhere her gaze touched, his body tightened and grew hot. His reaction to her was instinctive, and had been since the minute he’d met her in his sophomore year of college.
Somehow she managed to look as though she’d studied him and found him lacking. Which was, he knew, total bullshit. The flush on her cheeks and the way she couldn’t quite control her deep breathing told him her dismissing look was as fake as her perfectly manicured nails.
Caroline was a nail biter. A blusher. And a heavy breather.
But she gave it her best shot. Crossing her arms, she managed what would probably pass for a pitying smile. “That was before I got to know you. I’m all grown-up and I’ve figured out that the rear is always the best side of a horse’s ass. The better to watch him walk away.”
He grinned, unable to help it. Damn, the woman always had been able to throw a good insult. Her prickliness had been one of the things that had so fascinated him in the old days. Because it came in the sweetest, most adorably sexy package.
“So what are you doing here, Caroline?” he asked, struggling to remain casual and calm, as if his world hadn’t rolled over the minute he’d seen her face.
She ignored his question. “Are you going to call 9–1-1?”
He raised a curious brow.
“A woman just threatened to shoot you.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want you to end up in jail so soon. I mean, we just met again. We haven’t had time to catch up yet.”
Her eyes narrowed as she tapped her fingers on the top of his desk, near the gun Louise had dropped. “I’m talking about your big friend.”
“Louise? She’s harmless.”
She gaped. “She had you at gunpoint.”
“Right.”
“She made you take off all your clothes.”
“She didn’t really make me,” he explained in his own defense, not wanting Caroline to think he was a pansy-ass who’d let a woman—even an armed one—make him do anything he didn’t want to do.
“Oh, so you just decided it was too warm in here this morning and decided to strip down to nothing to get some fresh air?”
“No.”
She tapped the tip of her fingertip on her cheek. “Let’s see, you’ve become a nudist since the last time I saw you?”
“Not exactly.”
“So, she was right? You consider yourself hot enough that she’d fall over in a faint when she saw your manly magnificence?”
“Something like that,” he replied with a long, low chuckle.
She rolled her eyes. “You’re not all that, Mick.”
He raised a challenging brow, daring her to be honest. Once upon a time, he’d been all that and a lot more to this woman.
No, Caroline hadn’t exactly fainted away the first time she’d seen him naked. But she had dropped to the nearest flat surface pretty damn quick.
“She’s a nice, misguided lady, who I don’t think has ever had a date in her life,” he explained, recognizing that Caroline really did think he should call the police on poor, sad Louise. “So, yeah, I somehow thought I might be able to scare her off.”
“But you’re no Buddy.”
He remembered Louise’s comments about her daddy’s prize bull, who was famous in these parts. “Ahh, you were eavesdropping for quite a while, hmm?”
She pinkened. “Just…scouting out the situation before I decided what to do. I wasn’t sure whether I’d interrupted some lovers’ tryst, a robbery or a bizarre sex crime.”
Mick pulled his shirt on, tucked it in, then refastened his belt. It was easier to deal with Caroline when fully dressed. Half-naked felt too damned vulnerable. “So, what would you have done if it were a lovers’ tryst?”
“Backed out gracefully.”
“Bizarre sex crime?”
She didn’t hesitate. “Called the police.”
“And since it was neither,” he said suggestively, “you just decided to, uh…watch.”
She straightened her back, looking so stiff he thought she might break in two. “I did no such thing.”
“You were out there a long time,” he countered, keeping his voice at the level of a purr. “Staring at the…scenery.”
“The only scenery I was staring at was the nightmare on your butt.”
He couldn’t prevent a triumphant smile for getting her to admit she’d been staring at his naked body.
“I was trying to figure out what kind of man would shout his true nature to the world. ‘I am dog, hear me roar.’”
Tsking, he clarified, “It’s a wolf.”
“Same species.”
He shook his head. “Actually, no. But same genus, I think.”
She let out a soft groan, and he knew he was driving her crazy. He’d always been able to drive her crazy, just like this. A highly emotional person—easily swinging from the highest highs to the lowest lows—Caroline had been a perfect foil for someone like Mick, who was so difficult to rile he’d been accused of having no heart at all.
She’d been the one to accuse him of that, come to think of it. Then she’d stormed out, missing the damage Mick was capable of when his emotions really got the better of him.
“Want to sit down? You look flushed,” he said, thinking she was doing a good job getting riled up all on her own this time.
Ignoring the offer, she shook her head and walked across the office, leaving them separated by a few feet and an ocean’s worth of emotional baggage. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
She was wrong there. He had changed. Not that she’d see it, not that he’d admit it out loud. But he wasn’t the same guy she’d known.
Actually, he wasn’t sure who Mick Winchester was these days. But that was okay. Because nobody else was quite sure who he was, either, other than the black sheep of the Winchester family. The playboy of Derryville. The tattooed bad boy who was much more often found playing poker with the guys on a Sunday than having a weekly after-church gathering with family.
“Still Mr. Cool, aren’t you?” Caroline said. “Still trying to pretend you’re untouchable.”
Untouchable. Perhaps, but only in the emotional sense.
Caroline wasn’t the only one to accuse him of hiding his emotions behind an easy laugh and a charming grin. His little sister, Sophie, had told him more than once he was an emotional teakettle, at full rolling boil just beneath a calm, smooth surface.
Sophie was probably right. No one had ever been able to get Mick to completely lose his control and erupt. Except once. With the woman standing right in front of him.
Of course, Caroline hadn’t been around to see. That had been after she’d left. After she’d waltzed out of his life, accusing him, judging him, sentencing him and walking away without even giving him a chance to defend himself. Hell, he hadn’t even done anything. He’d been guilty of what he might do in the future, and that was enough for her.
Such trust from the girl he’d asked to marry him.
That was