It wasn’t exactly her birthday yet. That wasn’t until tomorrow, but this was her last chance to celebrate with her best friend before Claire had to leave for out-of-town business meetings over the weekend.
Lucy closed her eyes, made her wish and blew out the candles. She had learned long ago not to make outlandish birthday wishes. Better to wish for something sensible, something safe, something that could possibly come true. And after last year’s disaster, the safest, most sensible wish she could produce was that she never get dumped by another fiancé at her own birthday party.
“Come on, give me a hint about what you wished for,” Claire said. “If I guess it on my own it can still come true.”
“Who made up that rule?”
“I did, just now.”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know what I wished. You’d be disappointed.”
“Oh, sweetie, you just don’t seem happy. Where’s the spark in your life? The fun?”
“Um, I like my job,” Lucy offered lamely.
But becoming a travel agent hadn’t made her life more exciting, the way she’d hoped it would when she’d changed careers a year ago. She just didn’t know how to lead an exciting life the way Claire did. Lucy had been playing it safe for so long, she couldn’t remember how to take a risk.
Claire got that little crinkle between her eyebrows that always meant she was cooking up trouble. “I dare you to do something totally wild, totally un-Lucy-like, in honor of your birthday.”
Lucy’s stomach flip-flopped. “No way. I know better than to accept one of your dares.”
Claire gnawed on her lower lip, which had somehow managed to remain uniformly crimson throughout lunch. After a few moments of devious thought she said, “We’ll see about that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Claire glanced at her watch and her eyes grew wide. “I have to be at a meeting downtown in thirty minutes.” She stood, dug her wallet out of her purse, and put enough money on the table to cover both their lunches. “I’m sorry I have to rush off. I’ll talk to you tonight before I leave, though, okay?”
She headed for the door, but a few feet away from it she paused, turned, and flashed Lucy a thoroughly wicked grin. “Your birthday present—I almost forgot!”
“What?”
“It will be waiting for you on your bed when you get home.” Claire turned back to the door and hurried out.
Lucy waved at her friend’s retreating back. Waiting for her on her bed? Claire knew where Lucy kept her emergency key, so she guessed her friend had bought her something too large or cumbersome to carry around. Probably that new comforter set she’d been eyeing in the Spiegel catalog.
She smiled and took a tiny bite of her birthday cake. Yes, the pink rose comforter set would be the perfect birthday gift, and Claire always knew just what to give.
The sweet dessert brought her taste buds to life. She closed her eyes and moaned. Oh, she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d tasted it. Just for today, she’d allow herself to eat the entire miniature cake. Yes, and that would even fulfill Claire’s dare!
She was doing something totally wild and un-Lucylike already, with Claire barely out the door. Her friend would be proud.
1
HE WAS HALF NAKED and handcuffed to her bed. Lucy stared at the sleeping cowboy, unable to move or to even utter a cry of protest.
Everything else about her Friday had so far been normal. She’d put in a twelve-hour shift at Sunny Horizons Travel Agency dealing with frantic last-minute vacation planners and all the other customers her coworkers didn’t want to handle. She’d had lunch with Claire—the one bright spot in her day—and she’d stopped at the bank machine and the gas station on her way home. Now it was time to relax and watch TV, maybe balance her checkbook and do some laundry.
But…there was this stranger wearing a Stetson and silver handcuffs. Where had he come from and what was he doing on her bed?
For one horrifying moment Lucy wondered if she’d somehow stumbled into an intimate scene about to unfold in someone else’s apartment. Muscle-bound men didn’t fall asleep on her bed, and she didn’t own a pair of handcuffs.
But it was her bed, and her room, and her apartment, she assured herself as she looked around at the familiar setting. That didn’t change the fact of the slumbering, handcuffed cowboy.
Long muscular arms stretched over his head and a white Stetson tipped forward covered his face. Impossibly wide shoulders tapered to a smooth torso that begged to be touched by a woman’s hands. Faded jeans hugged narrow hips and enveloped bulging thighs. The picture was made complete by a pair of white snakeskin boots, accented by what looked like silver spurs.
In the agonizing moments it took her to recover from the shock, a voice in Lucy’s head screamed, Call 911! Yet she stood in the doorway, paralyzed, unable to look away. Somehow, by some bizarre stroke of luck, here was her fantasy come to life—a real, live, hunk of a cowboy in her bedroom at her mercy. Her tired body was suddenly awake and on alert, her libido kicking into overdrive and sending tingles to places that had been dormant for months.
Her heartbeat thudding in her ears, she willed herself to run, but she couldn’t move.
If she hadn’t felt so numb, she might find some humor in the bizarre scene, but she’d spent the last two hours at work dealing with the very angry Mr. Dorfler, whose vacation on the Family Fun Ship had been marred by a belligerent cruise ship employee in a Loopy the Cat costume. Now all she really wanted was to slide into her fuzzy pajamas and to watch TV reruns of I Love Lucy.
Something, some important fact she seemed to have forgotten, was nagging at her. And then she remembered…Claire had said she’d leave Lucy’s birthday gift in her apartment.
It will be waiting for you on your bed….
Suddenly it all made terrible sense…and she was going to kill Claire Elliot.
Easing out of the room for fear of waking the cowboy before she knew for sure that he was indeed her gift and not some masochistic intruder, Lucy rushed to the phone in the kitchen and hit the auto-dial button for Claire’s number. The phone rang, and her friend picked up after two rings.
“Are you insane?”
“Hi, Luc. I presume you’ve found your birthday gift.” Claire’s self-satisfied smile was apparent even over the phone.
“If you’re speaking of the Western-style gigolo or whatever he is, I found him.”
Her friend’s raspy laughter came across the phone line loud and clear. “He’s not a gigolo, but I’m sure he’d be willing to accommodate a pretty girl like yourself during his off hours—”
“Claire!”
“He’s your escort to the ranch. Didn’t he explain that?”
“He hasn’t quite had a chance yet, since he’s currently sawing wood in my bedroom.”
“Excuse me?”
“He’s asleep! Now, what’s this ranch you’re talking about?”
“Oh, dear. I didn’t realize you’d be working so late. I had him arrive there at five o’clock,” Claire said, ignoring Lucy’s question. “The poor guy’s been handcuffed to your bed for over three hours—and what did you think of the handcuffs, by the way? Those were my idea.”
“What ranch?” By the time she got the words out, a horrible thought had occurred to her. The Fantasy Ranch.