The suggestion, coming as it did from out of nowhere, caught Dallas by surprise. Up until that moment she had blocked out the honky-tonk music coming from the jukebox. Now she heard the ballad being played. And the woman in her wanted to know what it would be like to feel his arms around her.
“Are you asking?” she said, unconsciously holding her breath.
“Are you accepting?” he countered.
She had expected him to smile an answer, but his expression, while warm, was on the serious side.
Letting her actions speak for itself, Dallas slid off the bar stool and turned toward the dance floor. An instant later she felt the light pressure of his guiding hand on the curve of her waist. The contact produced a delicious little tingle.
When they reached the cleared space in front of the jukebox, two other couples were already making use of the slow music. Dallas turned into his arms, surprised at how very natural it seemed to slide her hand onto his shoulder.
Hands linked, Quint made no attempt to draw her close as he guided her into the opening steps. But with each turn around the dance floor, the space between them lessened until their legs were brushing and he felt the occasional rub of her breasts against his chest.
The top of her head came just to his nose. Every now and then he felt the evocative stir of her warm breath against his jaw and caught the faint fragrance of the strawberry-scented shampoo she used on her hair.
A silence swirled between them, charged with the stimulating effect of physical contact. With each step, each rocking sway of motion, they came a little bit closer together, their bodies automatically adjusting to the contours of each other.
Quint was conscious of a thousand things about her—the long sweep of her brown eyelashes, the supple grace of her body, and the heat that emanated from her.
In spite of the rightness he felt holding Dallas in his arms, he was gripped by a growing frustration that came from knowing he didn’t dare see her again—not for a while, not until this business with Rutledge was concluded. And not just for her sake, but also for his own.
If Max Rutledge suspected that Quint cared even a little about Dallas, it wouldn’t trouble his conscience to use her as a means to get to him. Quint couldn’t afford to let Rutledge have any kind of hold over him.
After tonight, he needed to stay well away from Dallas. He had no other choice.
John Earl Tandy stood to one side of the pool table, his hands wrapped in a stranglehold around the cue stick while he stared holes in the back of the stranger circling the dance floor with Dallas. It sickened him the way the stranger was coming on to her, sickened and infuriated him.
“Hey, John Earl.” Somebody poked him in the shoulder. “Have you gone deaf or something? It’s your turn.”
John Earl turned a scowl on his fellow ranch hand, Deke Saunders. Before he had a chance to reply, one of his other buddies spoke up. “Hell, haven’t you noticed? John Earl always turns deaf, dumb, and blind whenever he’s in the same room with Dallas.”
“That’s her dancing with that new guy from the Cee Bar, isn’t it?” Deke Saunders observed. “Sure looks like she’s getting mighty friendly with him.”
John Earl leaned onto the pool table and took aim at the white cue ball. “If you’d been watching, you’d know, he’s the one getting friendly with her. I have half a notion to go over there and cut in on him.”
“Why don’t you?” his other buddy, Chuck Reno, taunted.
“Maybe I will.” John Earl was quick to take up the challenge, straightening from the table when the cue ball took a nosedive into the corner pocket.
“Too late,” Deke informed him. “The song’s over.”
John Earl turned to look, his eyes narrowing at the sight of that tanned hand riding so familiarly on Dallas’s hip when the stranger guided her back to the bar.
“Somebody needs to let that guy know he isn’t welcome here,” he declared stiffly. “And maybe do a little rearranging of his face at the same time.”
“Now you’re talking, John Earl. Go get him,” Deke urged.
“Don’t think I wouldn’t like to, but I talked to him before. He’s liable to remember me.” He eyed the trio around him with sudden speculation. “He’s never seen any of you, though.”
L.B. Brody, always the quiet one, drew back in uncertainty. “Wait a minute, John Earl. Rutledge might not like the idea of us roughing him up.”
“Hell, he’s liable to pay you a bonus for it,” he retorted. “And if he does, you damned well better share it with me.”
“Why should you get anything when we’re the ones taking the risk?” Deke wanted to know.
“There won’t be any risk, not the way I got it figured,” John Earl stated and motioned them closer to explain his plan.
At the bar, Quint waited until Dallas had climbed onto her bar stool before he slid onto his tall seat. There was distance between them again, but it didn’t eliminate the new awareness that sizzled between them. Quint knew he had to do something about that.