“Don’t let it go to your head.”
He loomed closer still, close enough that she could feel his breath across her cheek, marvel at the thickness of his lashes over those damn night-dark eyes of his. “You’re not scaring me off.” He spoke the threat tenderly. “Not this time.”
She held her ground. “Watch me.”
“I am. I do.”
The door behind them opened and Lupe appeared, a black pea coat flung over her black jeans and short-sleeved black sweater. Her bangles jingled as she held up a Nikon. “Ready.”
B.J., deeply grateful for the photographer’s timely appearance, flashed her a blinding smile.
Buck muttered, “Fine. Let’s go.” He led the way across the bridge to Main Street.
As they strolled along the town’s major street, Buck played tour guide. He pointed out landmarks: the post office, the school on a rise one street over, the hardware emporium, the town hall, the firehouse. Three gift stores, a beauty shop, two restaurants. He showed them the bars, of which there were also two—one on either side of the street. And the Catholic church on the hill behind the school. Lupe got several shots of the white clapboard building sporting one central spire and nestled so prettily in a copse of autumn-orange maple trees. There was also a Methodist church, Buck told them, farther up Commerce Lane from Chastity’s B & B.
Everybody seemed to know him. It was “Buck, how you been?” and “Buck, nice to have you home again,” and “Great to see you back in town.” Some had even read his book.
One grizzle-haired old fellow perched on a bench outside the grocery store asked him when he was going to write a book about “the Flat,” as the locals called it. “Now, there’s a book that needs writin’.” The old character winked at B.J.
“One of these days, Tony,” Buck promised.
“You be sure to come and talk to me before you put down a single word,” Tony warned, turning his bald head this way and that, hamming it up for the camera as Lupe snapped shot after shot. “I got all the best stories—and I can tell you where all the bodies are buried…if you know what I mean.” He wiggled his bushy white eyebrows.
“Tony, you know you’re the first one I’ll come see.”
The old guy nodded, looking gratified. “I’ll hold you to it, see if I don’t.” He winked again at B.J.—and then at Lupe, too. “I like a pretty woman. Which one of these is yours?”
Buck sent B.J. a far too intimate look. She pretended not to notice.
“Well?” prompted old Tony with a chuckle.
Lupe blew a midnight strand of hair out of her eye and brought her camera into position again. “Leave me out of it. I’m just here to take the pictures.”
“Ah,” said Tony, turning to size B.J. up. “You, then.”
“No. I’m not his—and he’s not mine.”
“You sound real definite about that,” said Tony. “Maybe too definite. So definite I’m wondering who you’re tryin’ to convince.” Tony did some more chuckling.
Buck stepped in and made the introductions. “Tony Dellazola, this is B. J. Carlyle and Lupe Martinez.”
“Well, I am pleased to meet you both—so Buck. Tell me. You still livin’ in New York City?”
“That’s right.”
“Never been there, never will. It’s not healthy, folks livin’ all on top of each other that way. Like rats in a maze. They start chewin’ off their own tails.”
“Hey.” B.J. couldn’t let that remark pass. “I’m a New Yorker. You couldn’t pay me enough to live anywhere else.”
“And I like a good-lookin’ woman who knows her own mind,” declared old Tony. He pulled a toothpick from his shirt pocket, stuck it between his yellowed teeth, leaned back on the bench and asked Lupe, “What d’you need all those pictures for?”
Lupe kept shooting and let Buck answer for her. “We’re here to do an article for Alpha magazine.”
Tony snapped to attention. “What’s that? I’m gonna have my picture in Alpha magazine?”
“Could be.”
Tony thought it over. “Well. I suppose that’s okay with me. Alpha’s a fine magazine. Classy, you know? And those Alpha Girls…each one prettier’n the last, all of ’em wearing a nice, big friendly smile—and not a whole lot more.” He gave yet another cackling chuckle and then grew serious again. “You’ll send me a free copy so I’ll know I was in there?”
“Absolutely,” said B.J.
Buck thanked the old guy and they moved on, crossing the street and heading down the other side, back toward the bridge to Chastity’s place.
“Quite a character,” Lupe remarked once they were out of earshot.
Buck said, “He was sitting on that bench all day every day back when I was a kid. I swear, he looks exactly the same today as he did then. He’s gotta be ninety by now. Glory’s his great-granddaughter.”
“Glory.” Lupe looked pained. “You mean the screamer?”
Buck ignored Lupe’s question. He seemed faintly bemused. “Glory was maybe ten years old when I left town. And now look at her.”
“Yeah,” said Lupe, “hanging around your mother’s B & B, terrorizing the clientele.”
Buck shrugged. “No one to terrorize. It’s the slow season. For tonight, I think we’re the only guests—and whatever she was screaming about, Glory does have a valid reason to be there. She lives downstairs, in an add-on apartment in back. She’s the maid.”
Lupe shuddered. “Remind me to lock up my valuables when I leave my room.”
“Relax,” Buck said. “Glory’s a good kid. Yeah, she’s got a little drama queen in her. Like all the Dellazolas. They’re a big, rowdy family and generally, with them, the one who screams the loudest gets the most attention. But they’re sweet and harmless, really—and honest as the day is long. Every last one of them.”
Back at the Sierra Star, all was quiet. They went in the front door to find the fire still burning cheerily in the fireplace and nobody in the living room or the front hall. Lupe headed for the stairs. B.J., oh-so-casually, fell in behind her, hoping to reach the safety of her room without Buck suggesting another outing—one with just the two of them this time.
She made it halfway up.
“B.J.”
With a sigh, she turned and looked down at him. Their eyes met. Zap. There went that disgusting hot little thrill coursing through her.
Really, he was much too attractive—an attractiveness consisting of more than mere good looks. He had a certain…energy about him. An energy that radiated off him and kind of filled up the space around him with excitement, with a sense of expectation.
And why, oh why, was she thinking about how attractive he was? She really had to watch herself or she’d be falling into bed with him all over again.
And she wasn’t going to do that. She really, truly wasn’t.
He said, “I want to take you to dinner.” He glanced beyond her at Lupe, who had paused at the head of the stairs. “Lupe, you’re officially not invited.”
Lupe shrugged. “So I’ll check out the club scene.”
“Bars, Lupe. They’re just bars.”
“Leave me my fantasies, at least.” She turned for her room.
Buck waited until the photographer disappeared