The Virgin Beauty. Claire King

want me to kiss you again?”

      “No!” she shouted at him, forgetting the sidewalk and her potential clients.

      He smiled. “All you have to do is ask,” he said mildly.

      “Oh, forget it,” she said, swinging away.

      She would have sworn later that he barely touched her. But suddenly she was backed up against the side of his dusty pickup and caged between his tree-trunk arms.

      “Everything you say is true, Doc,” he murmured. He brushed against her, took another whiff of that baby-soft hair. “I’m a bastard.”

      “You are.” Her nerve endings were zinging, and her breath was coming short. He needed to stop nuzzling her hair if she was going to be able to think coherently. “Get off me. We’re on the street.”

      “In a minute,” he said, indulging himself. She was right; he didn’t much like her—a fact he had to remind himself of on a near-daily basis—but he could overlook that in the face of this raging attraction. “How do you work with animals all day and still smell this good?”

      “That’s not— What does that—? Daniel, stop!”

      Vulnerable again, Daniel thought, and just stopped himself from biting her earlobe. Anyway, his hands were slippery on the hood of his truck, and if he didn’t stop now, he’d end up making a town spectacle of them both.

      “You want to know what I meant today?”

      She was trembling. “About what?” she asked, dazed.

      “About being trained to stand in stinking barns with sick cattle?”

      She barely knew what he was talking about. “Um. Okay.”

      “Then meet me at the Early Bird and we’ll have dinner.”

      “I don’t think that’s—”

      “God, you’re a mule. You can pay for your own meal if it’ll make you feel better.”

      She took a deep, calming breath. It didn’t help. She could smell him, and he smelled amazing. Like a big, tough man. “It probably would.”

      “Fine. When you get done in there—” he nodded toward the clinic; the clinic he was slowly, reluctantly beginning to think of as hers “—come on over.”

      “All right,” she agreed, suspicious and hesitant.

      “And, Doc?” he whispered, leaning back in.

      “Yes?”

      He kissed her. Right in front of God and everyone who happened by on Main Street, Nobel, Idaho. Kissed her hard and slow and thoroughly. His mouth made a small sucking sound when he pulled away. She could only stare at him.

      “I may be humorless, but I can follow orders pretty well.” He grinned in her stunned, wide-eyed face and pushed away. “You just have to make your needs clear.”

      “It’s not— My needs are— That was a despicable—”

      “You stutter when you’re turned on, Doc,” he said, low, into her ear. “Against my better judgment, I have to wonder what else you do.”

      “What else— What else—” She clamped her mouth shut before she proved him right. She fisted her hands before they grabbed the lapels of his sheepskin cowboy coat and yanked him back against her.

      “See ya, Doc.”

      He walked away—swaggered away, Grace thought dazedly—and left her backed up against his truck unable to string two thoughts together.

      He met her outside the Early Bird, had the distinct pleasure of watching her cross the street on those gams.

      “Hey.”

      “Hey.” She felt bashful, and wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t that she was unaccustomed to being with men; in her business she spent most of her time with men. Dairies and ranches were primarily run or owned by men, and her fellow vets were mostly men. And she had brothers; three irritating, smelly, pompous and pushy brothers she adored.

      But this man was different from any of those. Certainly.

      “Have you been waiting over here all afternoon?”

      “No, I had some other business in town.” He’d walked around for a couple hours, ostensibly doing business, but actually trying to walk off a little of the heat that had exploded into his system when he’d kissed her. He’d meant it as a sort of lesson, a salve to his ego after the fight—that she’d won—out at the dairy, but he’d ended up learning more than he wanted to. Less than an hour ago he’d stood right at this spot, tempted to go to her office and drag her out. He’d decided against it. Urges as strong as the ones Grace McKenna gave him were probably best resisted, for the time being.

      They sat in a back booth. Daniel was grateful the place was Monday-night empty. Everyone in Nobel was well acquainted with his miserable tale of woe. It had been discussed and dissected and gossiped about until, like most stories started in small towns, the truth was almost completely obscured by rumor and innuendo. But he’d been back for years; other more scandalous legends had boiled up and over and his disgrace had cooled. He would have hated to stir the pot again.

      The waitress came and Grace ordered a salad and an iced tea. She wasn’t exactly sure what a person was supposed to order on an occasion such as this, but she was sure it wasn’t what one normally ate. Daniel smiled into his menu, then ordered two long-neck beers and enough food to feed three people.

      “You hired my cousin, I hear,” Daniel said in the way of small talk after the waitress left. He was in no hurry to spill his guts.

      Grace nodded. “I assumed from her last name she was related to you. Her résumé said she worked for your outfit.”

      “Lisa had a résumé?”

      Grace smiled. “It was short. Yours was the only name on it. She’s worked for you since high school.”

      “Yeah. She’s a pretty hard worker. Once a month, though, you have to give her a couple of days off if you don’t want your head ripped off for the slightest little thing.”

      “Chauvinist.”

      “Wait and see.”

      Grace smiled in spite of herself. “Okay, I’ll keep it in mind. Why does she want to work in town all of a sudden? You cut her pay?”