Calder Pride (Calder Saga 5)

“Do you mind?” she murmured, straining closer.

“No. But I’ll never understand how Paul Newman managed to resist you the way he did.” His husky comment struck a painful chord in her memory, sharply recalling all the times Repp had refused her.

Reeling from it, Cat lost her balance and stumbled against him, her lips grazing his jaw. Drawing back, she tried to cover her shattered composure with a careless toss of her head, only to discover she was fighting tears. Her glance ricocheted off his face as she dipped her head and forced a laugh. “That’s what comes from having one too many margaritas,” she lied.

“So I’ve heard.” But Logan Echohawk didn’t buy that as the reason. In his line of work, being a trained observer was essential; too often a person’s reaction told him more than words could. That glimpse of pain in her eyes had been brief, but a glimpse was often all that he ever saw.

When she had first approached him at the bar, it had seemed the typical come-on, less subtle than most with a unique opening gambit, but not that much different from the normal. Truth to tell, he had welcomed the advance—a stranger in a strange town, discovering the loneliness that can be found in the midst of a crowd.

He had noticed her the minute she walked in. An awareness of all that went on around him was vital in his profession; over time, it had become as natural to him as breathing. But he would have noticed her anyway. “Maggie the Cat” was the kind of woman who stood out in a crowd. Part of it was her natural beauty—the sculpted fineness of her features, the glossy blackness of her hair, the slenderness of her build with all its womanly ripe curves, and the unusual green of her eyes. But part of it, too, was the proud tilt of her head, the confident stride of her walk, and something else less definite—something vibrant and volatile, some fiery spark that blazed with life.

Initially, she hadn’t struck him as the type who picked up men in bars; she didn’t look like the type who needed to. Then she had come up to him, and that impression had undergone an instant revision.

Now, holding her while they swayed to the music, her head nestled against his shoulder, her face hidden from him, he found himself wondering about her again. Something didn’t ring true. Something more than just her name.

If he were smart, he’d leave after this dance, call it a night, go over the testimony he would need to give at tomorrow’s trial, and forget he had ever met Maggie the Cat. But he kept remembering that glimpse of pain, of utter vulnerability.

When the song ended, he followed her back to the bar. She picked up her margarita glass and turned to him, all smiles and bewitching green eyes.

“So, tell me, Dakota—are you a real cowboy or the urban kind?”

SIX

I’ve been a real one.” He leaned both arms on the bar top and hooked his hands around the Lone Star bottle he’d been nursing for the last hour. “Maybe someday I’ll go back to it. It’s hard to say.” Logan took a swig of the tepid beer and cut a sideways glance at her, an eyebrow arching in question. “And you? Have those boots ever waded through the muck of a calving shed?”

“They have,” Cat answered with a trace of smugness, then raised one foot, an audacious twinkle in her eyes. “Want to smell? Heaven knows, once it gets into the leather, you can never get all the odor out.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” He chuckled.

She liked the sound of it, and the warm feeling it gave her. At the same time she wished they were still out on the dance floor. She didn’t want to engage in all this small talk; she didn’t want to know all these little details about him. It only made it harder to pretend that he was Repp. And that was what she wanted—to be in his arms, close her eyes and imagine it was Repp holding her, that it was his hands touching her, his lips kissing her.

Maybe it was wrong; maybe it was foolish. But it was what she desperately wanted.

“Is there a problem?”

At his prompting question, Cat realized she was staring intently at her drink. Hurriedly she fixed a quick, bright smile on her face and looked up, forcing herself to meet his sharply probing gaze.

“Someone told me that every tequila bottle has a worm in it. I was just checking to make sure there wasn’t one in my drink.” She rattled the cubes in her glass and raised it to her lips. She tossed down a long swallow of the watered-down drink. Just for an instant, the room swam, reminding Cat that she’d had enough.

Apparently satisfied with her explanation, he turned at right angles to the bar and cast an idle glance around the room, then paused. “I think your friends are ready to leave.”

Cat looked back at their table and saw Kinsey and J.J. standing beside it. Kinsey waved and signaled that she and J.J. were leaving, then mouthed the words Good hunting, and winked. Laughing, Cat waved a farewell to them, a little relieved that she didn’t have to go through a tearful good-bye scene with them.

When she turned back to the bar, he eyed her curiously. “Aren’t you going with them?”

She shook her head. “We came in separate vehicles.” She went to set her drink on the countertop and misjudged the distance, nearly tipping it over. “Whoops.” She quickly righted it. “That was close.”

“I’m not sure you’re in any shape to be behind a wheel.”

“I think you’re right,” Cat agreed with a wise nod. “Maybe we should dance instead.”

She caught hold of his hand and struck out for the dance floor, in full confidence that he would come along. That certainty briefly annoyed him, but it vanished when she turned into his arms and fitted herself naturally to his length, a hand cupping the back of his head and her face nuzzling the side of his neck.

“This is much better,” she murmured on a contented sigh.

At the moment, she felt very much like a cat to him, soft and purring, pressing close and rubbing against him. And he was enjoying every minute of it. That was the problem; to touch was to want more. Always more. And he had spent too many nights alone, without the warmth of a woman next to him. He told himself to stop being a fool and simply accept what was offered.

“Maggie—or whatever—”