He regretted the words the minute they were spoken, but he could not call them back. Suddenly Renata seemed entirely too close again—too ready, too willing. Her lips seemed to beg him for a kiss, and Michael feared he didn’t have the willpower it would take to pull back.
But Renata abruptly stepped around him and headed toward an open box of clothes. “In the old days Grandpa always took in tired travelers,” she said nonchalantly. “You need to sit down and take a load off. I’ve got a spare bed.”
He knew she did. He’d been in her guest bedroom this morning, upstairs beside the small bathroom. He’d also seen Renata’s room, right across the hall.
Anticipation suddenly tightened his groin. It was a keen warning of why it would be foolish to spend the night in this house. Renata was only offering the guest room, and he had no doubt that she expected him to sleep there tonight. But a fresh kind of intimacy lurked in the darkness nonetheless, a drawing together that tomorrow or next week or next month would surely spell nothing but trouble.
“I think I’ve imposed on you enough,” Michael said tightly. “I really should go.”
“Where?” Renata asked, turning back to face him. “You’re not going to leave Tyler until you find him. The lodge is jammed to the rafters with all Eddie Wocheck’s people who came in for the ground-breaking ceremony tomorrow, and your only other choices are way back in town.”
Her logic seemed impeccable, but Michael knew he had to find a flaw in it.
“Even if you drove back,” she continued, “you know you couldn’t sleep. You’d be waiting for me to call with news, or you’d be driving by here every hour.”
He couldn’t really argue. Staying here was the reasonable choice, and she was kind to invite him. She’d be insulted if he offered to pay her, but at least she’d know that he considered it a purely practical arrangement.
“Renata, I’d feel a lot better if—”
“Michael Youngthunder, if you even suggest paying for my guest room, I swear I’ll make you sleep in the barn.”
Again he laughed. It wasn’t funny. Nothing was. But he hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours and he was punchy as hell. “I’m not looking for a roll in the hay,” he joked.
At least it seemed like a joke to him. But Renata didn’t seem to find it humorous.
“Barn, hay—you get it?”
Stonily she gathered up her grandpa’s jeans and thrust them into his arms. “Michael, you don’t need to spell it out for me. I have no intention of throwing myself at a man who’s made it clear that he hasn’t got the slightest interest in me as a woman.”
He flushed. “Renata, I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did. You’ve been giving me ‘no way, lady’ signals ever since you got here tonight, and now your alarm is working overtime. I know you wish you could get away from me, but until we find your grandfather we’re stuck with each other.”
He was speechless. And absolutely mortified.
“I get the message, Michael. No problem. What makes you so damn sure that I’m hot to trot with you, anyway?”
Just like that, his confidence vanished. Had he read her all wrong? Was she reminding him that compassion was one thing, attraction to an Indian quite another?
“I’m sorry,” he said lamely. “I don’t know what I’m thinking. This has been such a bizarre day. When I got here you seemed so glad to see me that I—”
“Of course I was glad to see you. I need your help on a project and your arrival saved me having to track you down. You did tell me, didn’t you, that I should give you a call if I ever needed a favor?”
Confused and embarrassed, he said, “Yes, I did. I would be happy to even the scales, Renata. It...” It’s the Winnebago way, he’d almost told her. There had been a time in his life when every thought was Winnebago. Then there’d been a time when every thought was white. Now there were surprises like this one.
He’d been disappointed when he’d thought she wanted him. Now he was upset to learn he’d been wrong. It didn’t make sense, but nothing about this crazy day did. And things were getting even worse.
Ever since he’d arrived tonight he’d been afraid of hurting Renata, but she’d just turned the tables. She’d shut him down and turned away. Surely that would be the end of it.
But as Michael watched her sashay up the basement stairs, a flush of arousal warned him that he was far too tired to lie to himself. Getting close to this woman would be stupid. Spending the night here was unwise. Sorting out in her presence the parts of him that were Winnebago would be akin to opening a Pandora’s box of trouble.
He was going to do it anyway.
IT WAS THE SOUND of a door opening that woke Renata. No woman living alone in a big city fails to develop a certain wariness about unexplained sounds and movements in her own home. The clack was enough to jolt Renata out of her grogginess in a flash. Her heart was pounding crazily before she remembered where she was...and that she was not alone.
There had been a change in Michael after her little speech in the basement. Before then he’d been alternately warm and distant. Since then he’d been apologetic, almost meek. When he’d thanked her—profusely—for putting him up for the night, his tone had been decidedly impersonal. But his intimate gaze hadn’t left her face until she’d shut the door to her own room.
With her mind so full of worries—about the old man, the crafts fair and Michael—Renata hadn’t expected to doze off. But after an hour, even the gripping spy novel she was reading couldn’t keep her awake. Now, in the darkness, she seized the hardback book as though it were a weapon.
She stood up, crossed the room and groped for her own door, still securely shut. She opened it and whispered, “Michael?” When he didn’t answer, she turned on the light in the hall. The door to the guest room was open, but there was no one inside.
Quickly Renata grabbed a robe—the lightest one she owned, since it was a humid night—and hurried downstairs. There was a light on in the kitchen, revealing an open pickle jar and an unwrapped pack of bologna on the counter she’d cleaned off a few hours before. She called Michael’s name again, but there was no answer. Hoping his grandfather had finally shown up, Renata opened the front door and peered out at the porch. There was no sign of Michael...or his grandfather.
Resigned to the fact that Michael must have gone off searching again without her, Renata turned to go back inside. She almost didn’t hear the quiet, reluctant voice that said, “I’m over here, Renata.”
Her pulse pounded in a second’s quick fear before she recognized Michael’s voice and sought his virile face in the darkness. He was sitting on the lawn in the shadows. Right about the spot where he’d first joined his chanting grandfather.
Tightening the sash of her robe, Renata crossed the porch to the railing. Between the porch light and the moon, she could see him and he could surely see her, but somehow Renata felt they both welcomed the emotional barrier the hand rail provided. She’d invited Michael the yuppie to spend the night in her guest room. It was Michael the Indian who was sitting on her front lawn.
“Sorry if I woke you,” he said in a troubled tone. “I did my best to be quiet.” Then, with an apologetic smile, he reminded her, “You told me to make myself at home. I was hungry.”
“I’m beginning to believe that’s a permanent condition with you,” she teased.
He chuckled.