“I ain’t doin’ no such thing. What a fool notion.” She turned back toward the dancers and started clapping again, but the toe-tapping music had changed. Now everyone was twirling in another slow, seductive waltz. She had been so caught up in her talk with Brooks that she hadn’t even noticed. Her cheeks burned with inner heat and she brought her palms together awkwardly, not really sure what to do with her hands.
“Care to try?” Brooks asked with an amused chuckle.
“Try what?” Missy knew exactly what he was asking, but she’d sooner take a polecat for a walk than let Brooks James know she couldn’t dance. She looked back at the dance floor, staring determinedly at the laughing couples, trying to ignore the knot that had taken up residence in her middle.
He stepped closer and leaned near her ear. His warm breath carried the faint trace of whiskey—and danger. “Would you care to dance—with me?”
Missy whirled to face him once more. She summoned her voice, but the refusal that had been in her mind died in the back of her throat when she encountered his charming smile.
The night breeze lifted strands of his silky dark hair. Silvery moonlight and the amber glow from the bonfire made his eyes a most peculiar shade of blue.
Missy couldn’t describe it, or what looking into his eyes was doing to her insides. It appeared, for one heartlurching moment, that his eyes glowed with an inner fire like lightning playing on the horns of cattle in the midst of a storm.
Goll-dang, if he isn’t a handsome cuss.
She swallowed hard. Her heart beat against her rib cage like a gloved fist. “I—uh, that is…”
“You can dance, can’t you?” One winged brow rose in silent challenge. Then he raised his hand and deftly slipped the rose bloom behind her ear, tucking a thick lock of hair in place over it.
The heat of a blush raced up her cheeks. Her first inclination was to turn tail and run. She couldn’t dance, but she had gotten to know Mr. Smart-jackass James well enough to know he would require her to prove it. That was a humiliation she would just as soon spare herself, if you please.
“I—I—” she stammered while visions of public indignity raced through her mind.
One side of his mustache lifted. “I believe I will take that as a yes, Miss O’Bannion.” He slipped his arm around her waist and drew her close to his rock-hard body before she had a chance to flee.
Panic welled up inside her, but it was soon overwhelmed by the stunning impact of the way it felt to have his arm about her. A tiny voice in her head said Dig in your heels and run while there is time, but she didn’t listen, she just let him clamp her against his body and pull her off the veranda.
“You know, Miss O’Bannion—” his grin widened “—back home I was considered to be quite a good dancer.”
“Yeah, well, what do a bunch of Easterners know about anythin’?” she answered defensively, raising her chin a notch higher.
He laughed deep and low in his chest. He liked this easy, teasing banter; he liked Missy and the tug-of-war that went on between them. It was much more pleasant than getting all tangled up romantically. He looked at her face, sweetly flushed with lips that were soft and kissable, and he realized this was what he wanted. He wanted to stay in the Territory where he was safe from having to make any permanent commitments and decisions. He was content to stay where he could tease Missy and know that she was always there, day in and day out. She had no suitors hanging around, so he had a clear field. It was the best possible situation for a man who had no desire to settle down.
Missy blinked back her confusion while tingling heat meandered into her limbs from the spot on her back where Brooks’s hand rested. She was afraid her knees would buckle, afraid she’d get all tangled up in the dress, fearful she would make a fool of herself, and sure Brooks would take an inordinate amount of pleasure in whatever indignity befell her. But to her surprise, he started talking to her in low soothing tones, as if she was a skittish filly he was determined to gentle. His voice was smoother than Clell’s twelve-year-old whiskey and as hypnotic as a ripe summer moon.
“Put yourself in my hands, little lady. I promise I won’t step on your toes.” His deep voice vibrated through her rib cage, where he held her tightly against his body. “At least not too often.” His rumbling laughter drew her eyes to his face.
“And what happens if I step on yours?” Missy managed to ask as her foot touched the first pine board. “You won’t think your little joke is so funny then, will you, Brooks?”
The mocking grin faded from his face. “I hope I am tough enough and man enough to take whatever comes of this dance, Missy.” He stared at her, unblinking, while her heart hammered in her chest. “Now and in the future.”
His words hung before them like a spider’s silken web. Then he laughed again and broke the enchantment. “Now wipe that frown off your pretty little face and act like you’re having fun. Trace and Bellami will wonder what I’m doing to you if you keep scowling like that.”
Missy swallowed hard.
Telling her that she was pretty was just about the nicest thing Brooks had ever said to her. How in tarnation could a man like him think a girl who wore chaps and boots was pretty?
He had been everywhere, seen everything.
For half a moment Brooks returned her serious gaze, then he tilted back his head and laughed. Rich, hearty tones of masculine mirth erupted from him. Her belly quivered in reaction to the sound of it.
“Oh, you were teasing. You are always sayin’ the dangedest things to me—” She would’ve said more, but suddenly her feet had wings.
Brooks twirled her out onto the floor. With a sobering chill she realized the flames dancing beneath the side of beef and all the torches surrounding the dance floor had driven back the night. She might as well have been dancing beneath the noonday sun. Now everyone would see if she stumbled or fell or made an ass of herself.
She stared at her feet, trying to avoid stepping on Brooks’s shiny black Justins.
“You needn’t look so terrified, Missy. I promise I’ll never let you come to harm—never.”
Brooks’s words penetrated her gloom.
Her head slowly came up and she shifted her concentration from her feet to his face. Her breath lodged in the space beneath her heart.
I’ll never let you come to harm—never.
All her fear flitted away into the night. She forgot about the crowd of people and the dance steps she didn’t know. Her world compressed into the circle of space she occupied within Brooks’s arms. He turned her in a tight circle that brought her bosom up against the wide, muscular expanse of his chest. Each time he executed a new step and expertly pulled her along with him, her heart beat a little faster.
Missy was put in mind of a midnight gallop on a half-broke mustang. Each time Brooks twirled her she had the sensation of jumping fences and swift-running washes. There was an excitement being in his grasp, a thrill and a danger. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this moment.
Brooks smiled at her and she realized she was good and truly at risk, but not of breaking a leg or even her foolish neck. As she stared into his silvery blue eyes and her heart thrummed inside her chest, she knew what she risked was her heart.
She could care about him if she let herself.
A slow, lazy smile teased the corners of his mouth. “See, I was telling the truth when I said you were in good hands.” As he bent a little nearer and drawled into her ear, his breath fanned out over her neck and left a trail of hot chills in its wake. “I spent a good many hours dancing before I left New York.”
The spinning turns and his warm breath on her skin made