Almost Perfect Read online

  “I don’t know,” he said, his gray eyes moving away and lighting on the coffeepot. “But there’s something here they want. And getting you off your property is the only way to get it.”

  She remembered Aunt Sammie Jo’s speculation about some kind of survey that revealed something wonderful buried beneath the surface of the old ranch. “Are you thinking they know something we don’t?”

  “I think that’s probably a given,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because if they’d just left something here, buried it in the cellar or whatever, they could simply take it when you aren’t at home. Everyone around this place must know when you substitute-teach. They could duck in here the second you’re not at home and nab whatever they’ve stashed.”

  “Drugs...treasure...?”

  He shrugged but his lips lifted in a smile that caused a minor earthquake inside her. “I haven’t met them,” he said. “Somehow, they don’t sound like the treasure type. And I’m afraid the notion of buried treasure is a little pat.”

  “So you think there’s something else?”

  For a split second she questioned why she was asking him. Then she wondered why she hadn’t understood before. She sought his advice because he seemed a man who might know answers. That hard edge she’d instinctively seen in him was a reality.

  He’d been on her property for a few days, but looking at him now, she felt she was seeing him for the first time: he might not talk about himself or offer any information about his past or his present, but he was a man to whom command came easily, readily. Was this the key to him, then?

  “Maybe,” he said.

  He had the oddest way of allowing a pause to fall into nonresponse before answering a question, she thought. And to appear to be responding to her unvoiced thoughts. “Maybe...what?” she asked.

  “I think they’re after something else,” he said. “I don’t know what, but you being completely off this place is what they want. What they’re after.”

  And you? she wanted to ask. What are you after?

  He looked down into his empty mug as if reading tea leaves. Why did she know that something was bothering him?

  “What?” she asked.

  He half chuckled, but didn’t meet her eyes.

  “Really... what?” she asked.

  He raised his gray eyes to meet hers. “It’s not about the Wannamachers,” he said. “I...it’s been awhile since I had a shower...”

  She felt immediately chagrined by the realization that the bunkhouse had only a toilet and sink, nothing more. She’d asked him to come to her place, asked him to help her solve a problem no one else seemed willing to tackle and she’d never even considered his personal needs.

  And she felt ensnared by her sudden mental image of him in a shower she didn’t even have. “Upstairs,” she said. It felt like she croaked the words. “But we don’t have a shower. Only a bath. You’ll have to use the tub.”

  “Fine,” he said. “If you don’t mind...would tonight be okay?”

  “Fine,” she said, unconsciously echoing his words. “You’ll need towels.”

  That lopsided grin made an appearance. “One will do.”

  “Right. Well...I’ll just go get them. It. I’ll get the towel for you,” she said.

  “I’d appreciate it,” he said.

  She left him sitting in the kitchen, staring into the empty coffee mug, while she raced upstairs for a clean towel and washcloth.

  It wasn’t until she’d handed over the linens that she wondered what on earth she’d done. She’d invited a perfect stranger onto her property and now that perfect stranger was about to take a bath in her house.

  His need was mundane. His want was simplistic and necessary. A man needed a bath. Anyone did.

  So why did his taking a bath in her tub make her hands tremble and her heart thunder?

  “Thank you,” he said, accepting her gift of the towel and washcloth.

  “The hot water’s really hot...” she said, then trailed off at the look on his face.

  “I can figure it out,” he said. _

  She was very sure he could.

  Chapter 4

  Pete leaned back in the huge claw-footed bathtub, idly rubbing a sweet-smelling bar of soap across his chest as he listened to the distant low, sad cry of a nighthawk and the harmonized giggling of two little girls down the hall in their room.

  In the short time he’d spent in the West Texas desert he’d learned the high plains were a study of sharp contrasts. And on this strange night, only seventy-some miles from Lubbock, ninety miles from Amarillo and a whisper from Carolyn Leary’s bedroom, he felt those contrasts to his very soul.

  He’d taken all three of the Leary women out to a makeshift target range he’d set up on the far side of the barn. He’d been pelted with more questions than bullets had hit the hay bales that held up the paper targets he’d drawn with the girls’ crayons.

  “Why’s it so loud?”

  “Can’t we use a silencer like they do on the movies?”

  “Why don’t you lean your head over sideways like they do on TV?”

  “Why does it want to push me backward when I pull the trigger?”

  Target practice had been an unmitigated disaster. Of the four of them, only he hit any of the targets, Bratwurst the horse had complained bitterly, and the girls had been more concerned with covering their sensitive ears and closing their eyes in anticipation than worrying about where they shouldn’t point the gun.

  And Carolyn had eyed the guns as if they were live snakes. She was tough as nails when the guns weren’t loaded, but put a little ammunition in them and she started shaking like a kid in a thunderstorm. Except she hadn’t started trembling until he’d wrapped his arms around her, had she?

  And she’d felt so very right in his arms. Her body had curved into his in perfect harmony. He’d felt her stiffen, felt her try to avoid touching him anywhere, and had been unable to resist the urge to press closer. He’d used the target practice as the excuse, but it was the need to feel her that made him step into her, draw her closer, slowly ease his hands down her arms.

  And then there was the way her eyes met his when they were downstairs drinking coffee. There was a candor and fresh honesty about Carolyn that he’d never encountered before. She wore her vulnerability on the surface and apparently had no idea what a strong aphrodisiac it was.

  Pete sighed and stirred the warm water.

  On the one hand he’d never been made to feel more welcome anywhere. On the other, he knew the face-value Pete Jackson they welcomed was like some killer iceberg, the kind that only had the tip showing while the base could rip apart huge ocean liners. Couldn’t Carolyn feel the murky depths inside him? What kind of woman was she that she could give trust so easily, so readily? And why did that very trust both warm and frighten him at the same time?

  Upon first consideration, it had seemed he might just scare off a couple of thugs and make the lives of three Leary blondes a little happier. But just a few days in close proximity and he knew the Leary trio was like a vortex that would, if he lingered or strayed too close to the center, suck him in.

  As with many older homes, insulation in the walls proved virtually nonexistent, so, from his vantage spot in the old iron and enamel tub in the bathroom at the apex of the stairs, he could hear everything transpiring in the house. The girls were playing some board game—and by the sound of it, Jenny was cheating—and Carolyn had mounted the stairs singing some love song Pete almost recognized.

  He’d have much preferred a quick, curtained shower but the plumbing in the place didn’t run to such modern conveniences. He hadn’t said anything when, after questioning her, Carolyn handed him a large, stiff, line-dried towel and washcloth, but he’d been all too conscious of the blush one her cheeks and the warmth in his own. Had she been picturing him leaning back in the tub as he was now, his legs crossed and sloped against the far wall? Had she thought, as he did now, that with his legs where they were
, the tub was definitely large enough for two?

  Maybe her mind didn’t run to such thoughts. Maybe it was only him who, after looking at the ancient hulk of a tub, pictured her long limbs dewy with moisture, her naked form blurred by eddying water and soap bubbles, her hair pulled up from her damp face, her eyes closed in bliss.

  He ran the washcloth over his face as if to erase the image. It might have worked if another part of his anatomy hadn’t bought the picture wholesale.

  A sudden rap on the bathroom door made him jump guiltily and slosh a good gallon of water onto the tiled floor. “What?”

  “I gotta go, Pete,” Jenny’s voice piped urgently as she punctuated her need in staccato knocks against the thin door. “Let me in!”

  “Hang on a second,” he said even as he hauled himself out of the old tub, losing another gallon or two, and grabbed at the towel that didn’t seem nearly so large once it was wrapped around his middle. He fumbled with the lock and had scarcely drawn the bolt back before the door slammed into him and Jenny burst through it, already tugging at her jeans.

  Clutching the towel and rubbing his bruised forehead, Pete ducked out of the bathroom and swiftly closed the door behind him. If he’d had any intention of staying, he would install a shower in the bunkhouse even if it would have killed him. Which it might well do since he didn’t have the foggiest notion of how to go about building a shower stall.

  He raised his forearm to the doorjamb and rested his bruised forehead against it. “What am I doing here?” he muttered. “I’ve got to be insane.”

  “Oh my God!”

  He stiffened and turned slowly to meet Carolyn’s wide eyes. She was wearing a shiny, loose nightshirt that did absolutely nothing to hide her curves or her shapely legs. And she had a pair of ridiculous slippers that looked like happy-faced raccoons on her feet. A thick terry robe dangled uselessly from one limp hand.

  “Jenny had to go,” he said, and tried to grin. But her parted lips and the hand pressed against her chest—in what should have seemed a melodramatic gesture but wasn’t didn’t help his attempt to be casual.

  “I—I’m sorry,” she whispered, and her eyes dropped to the puddle of water at his feet and skittered back to his as if determined not to see anything else. Or afraid of doing just that.

  The bathroom door jerked open, almost causing Pete to lose his footing, and Jenny shot out and under his arm, zipping her jeans. “Thanks! I almost didn’t make it!” She skidded a bit in his puddle and giggled as she caught her balance, ducked around her mother and skipped into her room.

  “You were right! He’s got hair all over his body!” she said before the bedroom door slammed shut.

  While the comment should have made him feel more self-conscious than ever, Carolyn’s reaction to it saved the day. She closed her eyes for a moment and her lips moved in an obvious oath. Without opening her eyes, she pivoted and said aloud, “Aliens. Just think aliens.”

  Staring at her back, the lush curves, the long legs, the bent blond head, Pete had to fight the urge to walk up to her and wrap his arms around her as he’d done earlier that afternoon. In reassurance, he told himself, but knew his desire ran far deeper than that.

  He wanted to do a lot more than simply hold her, he thought, dragging his eyes away from her. He stepped back through the bathroom door and into copious amounts of cold water on the floor. He stared at the tub half-filled with what was sure to be tepid water.

  But a slow smile took hold of his lips. The Leary household didn’t have any more notion of safety than literal babes. Fine. He would make certain they all knew how to shoot one of their weapons and then he would leave.

  He reached over and wrenched on the hot water faucet and grinned before dropping his towel onto the wicker clothes hamper and stepping back into his interrupted bath.

  When she heard the door snick shut behind her, Carolyn felt as if two tons of lead weight slipped from her shoulders. Her heart still beat too rapidly and her fingers shook in a contrapuntal rhythm. But at least he wasn’t standing there any longer, too tall, too lean, too muscular...and too nakedly wet.

  His eyes had seemed more silver than gray in the dim light from the hallway. And his wetted hair had seemed almost black. Droplets of water had clung to the thick mat of hair on his broad chest and rivuleted down the coarse hairs of his long, sturdy legs.

  She’d wanted a brawny man out where the Wannamachers could see him so they would understand she wasn’t helpless, wasn’t desperate. She’d wanted his sheer size parading around the place to let the Wannamachers know she had one tough hombre on hand for protection. But when she came out of her room to see what Jenny’s commotion was about and saw Pete instead, mostly naked, wet, leaning against the bathroom door, holding his towel around his waist, she hadn’t spared a single thought to any notion of mere protection.

  The sight of him had completely robbed her of any semblance of rationality. Her heart had scudded in her chest, then seemed to stop for a wild moment. Her first need had been to repress the groan that had instinctively risen from deep inside her. Her second had been to slip away without letting him discover she’d seen him.

  But before she could do either, he’d shifted position, propping one elbow against the doorjamb and resting his head on his forearm. He’d looked like a Michelangelo statue come to life and she’d involuntarily made some sound. He hadn’t whirled around, he’d only stiffened and turned his head, as if in slow motion, arm still against the door, his eyes panning the hallway to meet hers.

  She’d wanted to sink into the floor...or into his arms. she wanted to dry his brow, wipe the moisture from his back and legs; dear heaven, she’d wanted to press against that damp mat of hair on his chest and feel his hard, taut body melt into hers.

  She leaned her overwarm forehead against the woodwork surrounding her bedroom door and closed her eyes. He had to have seen every vestige of her want in her gaze.

  “Carolyn Leary, you are a complete idiot,” she murmured.

  “Mom?”

  She didn’t move. “You’re dead. Both of you.”

  “Why?”

  The voice of total innocence. The voice of complicity and deviltry.

  Carolyn sighed but she had the feeling that someday, perhaps when she was eighty or so, she would be able to laugh about the situation. “The next time, if Pete’s taking a bath, you either wait or figure out some other solution.”

  The girls were wise enough not to argue or ask about alternate solutions.

  “And you do not, on pain of death, discuss Pete’s body, do you understand me?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Jenny said too sweetly.

  “Good night.”

  “Good night, Mom.”

  “See you in the morning.”

  “We love you.”

  “Yeah. We love you.”

  “I love you, too,” Carolyn said, but at that moment, she couldn’t for the life of her think why.

  All she could think about was Pete’s naked, muscled form sprawled out in her bathtub. He was too tall to fit easily, she thought. He would have to stretch his feet far up the wall if he wanted his back anywhere near the water. In Dallas, Craig had used to splay his legs on either side, but somehow Carolyn couldn’t picture Pete doing the same.

  No, Pete would find a comfortable spot near the corner and cross his legs, his arms lightly resting on the sides. A king at home. A big cigar in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other would complete the picture.

  Especially if he was beckoning her to join him.

  The mental image actually made her ache.

  Only after she’d heard the bathroom door open and his quiet footfalls on the stairs and the subsequent closing of the back door did she leave the safety of her bedroom. And, when she saw the single wet footprint near the corner of the wall, some three feet above the faucets, she understood why she’d come in the room.

  After splashing a little cold water on her face, she went downstair
s to perform the routine locking up of doors. She fumbled her way into the darkened kitchen.

  “Don’t turn on the light.”

  Her heart seemed to leap into her throat. Pete had spoken the words too softly to be anything but a warning. A nearly hysterical part of her wanted to ask if he’d been waiting for her. And her hands trembled in immediate reaction.

  “Get out of the light from the living room,” he murmured.

  He’d been waiting, but not for her. The realization made her both relieved and oddly disappointed.

  “Why? What’s wrong?” she whispered, edging around the kitchen table. Her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the abrupt change from light to dark, nor had her body adjusted to the notion that Pete Jackson was somewhere in her black kitchen.

  “I’m not sure,” he said softly.

  She hesitated then inched toward Pete’s voice. She had both hands stretched out before her and she jumped a little when her fingers poked his rigid shoulder. She wrapped her trembling hand around his broad arm then jerked back from his heat.

  “What’s wrong?” she managed to repeat.

  “Someone’s here,” he said.

  By now she could make out his silhouette against the opened curtain on the back door. His eyes weren’t on her but on something outside. He raised his left hand to cover hers and pull her behind him a bit.

  She was reminded of the night she’d found him in the desert with her daughters, the way he’d pressed them behind him as she got out of the Ranger.

  She leaned into him a little, feeling his back against her body, drawing strength from him. Tall as Craig had been, she’d never felt this sense that he’d been a fortress, a bulwark against danger. The realization stung her a little, as if she were betraying Craig’s memory by merely thinking of their differences.

  “I saw the headlights of a car as I was starting for the bunkhouse,” Pete murmured.

  She leaned forward to look around him and pulled back as she felt him stiffen and realized she was pressing her breasts against the back of his arm. She shifted to cease the contact and was sorry. “Where? I don’t see any car.”