almost tripped over her shoes as he took a step, which made him glance down at her stockinged feet, which drew his gaze over the peach-colored fabric of her skirt and on up to a waist that looked amazingly narrow. Higher, the fabric ended at the creamy expanse of skin he’d never paid much attention to until Rory O’Grady had bent her over his arm earlier.
Suddenly seething with renewed anger, he narrowed his eyes and gave his head a hard nod. “What the hell were you trying to do tonight?”
Mel took a calming breath. Honestly, it required an iron will to keep from telling Clayt to take a flying leap. That was what the old Mel would have done. The new Mel pretended not to notice how good he looked with his collar unbuttoned and his dress slacks slung low on his hips. The new Mel looked into his eyes and ever-so-innocently asked, “What do you mean?”
She could tell her question threw him, but being a Carson, which meant that he was quick-witted, among other things, he recovered almost immediately. “I mean it wasn’t a good idea to let every bachelor in the county see you twirling around the dance floor with the biggest womanizer in South Dakota—especially looking the way you looked tonight. I don’t know what you were trying to prove, but I don’t think—”
The step Mel took toward him stopped him in the middle of his tirade. “What’s wrong with the way I look?”
Clayt swallowed. Hard. What was wrong with the way she looked? The long plain braid was gone, for one thing. Now her hair waved almost to her shoulders as if it had a mind of its own. Not that he should have been surprised about that. But he’d never noticed those golden highlights before, and he was certain her eyes used to be plain blue, not violet. When had she grown those eyelashes? And those lips. Those pink, full, wet lips.
“Clayt?”
He came to in slow motion. Where was he? Oh, yeah. Taking inventory of what was wrong with Wyatt’s little sister. Only Mel wasn’t little anymore. At least not everywhere. He remembered the summer she’d started wearing a bra. He and Wyatt had teased the living daylights out of her. Back then she’d been as skinny as a cat in a bath. She was still skinny. Almost. It was that almost that made him pause, because where she wasn’t skinny she was damned appealing.
What was wrong with the way she looked? he asked himself as his gaze made its way back the way it had come, over narrow hips, gently sloping breasts, the shadow in the little hollow at the base of her neck, to her lips. Those pink, full, wet lips.
He swallowed again, but it only made him aware of the pulsing sensation in his throat and the growing pressure much, much lower. “People are talking,” he declared.
“The people of Jasper Gulch always talk.”
“Yes, but do you want them to whisper about you behind their hands and brand you a…”
Holding up a hand, she took another step toward him. “Before you call me a hussy, I believe you have my slip.”
He glanced down at the scrap of lace and satin he must have picked up without realizing it when he’d been trying to clear a spot to sit down. Aware of how he must look fingering her underclothes, he clenched his jaw. He was all ready to set her straight when she tugged on the slip, causing it to swish over his wrist and wind through his fingers like a whisper slipping through a sigh.
He rubbed his fingers over his palm and found himself looking in a place he had no business looking. Feeling guilty and agitated, he tore his gaze away from Mel’s breasts and glanced around the room once again. He’d noticed the clutter before. Why hadn’t he noticed how feminine the room was? The garden prints on the wall, the light gray carpet on the floor and the sky blue couch weren’t exactly frilly, but they were womanly. Funny. Until today he’d never thought of Mel in exactly that way.
“You were saying?” she asked quietly.
A force bigger than him drew him closer. Mmm, he thought, inhaling her scent. “Since when do you wear perfume?”
“Do you like it?”
His gaze got stuck on her mouth all over again. He’d always thought Mel’s smile was too big for her face. Tonight, it didn’t seem too big at all. Her lips were full, yes, but not too full. They looked perfect.
Perfect for kissing.
“Clayt?”
When had her voice become sultry? And when, exactly, had he lost his mind? He ran a hand through his hair and pulled himself together. Good God, this was Mel McCully. What in the world was he thinking? Clenching his teeth, he sputtered, “What difference does it make if I like it? The question you should be asking yourself is whether or not you want to have the reputation of a floozy.”
She plunked her hands on her hips and raised her chin the way she’d been doing all her life. “Clayt Carson, you couldn’t say something nice if your life depended on it.”
Clayt’s vision cleared. And then he did something he hadn’t done since he’d caught sight of Mel during the wedding ceremony hours ago. He grinned. This was more like it. This Mel he could handle.
“Would you mind telling me why you cut your hair and why you’re wearing makeup?” he asked, the epitome of superior rationality.
“I took Granddad’s advice,” she said.
“Cletus had something to do with this?”
Try as he might, Clayt couldn’t help noticing the way the light shimmered over her hair when she nodded. She tossed the slip to the sofa and turned, her skirt brushing his pant leg. He had a hard time swallowing.
From the other side of the room, she said, “He says a person catches more bees with honey.”
“Since when have you been interested in catching bees?”
He didn’t like the way she shrugged, or the way she turned, or the way he was reacting to the sight of either of those things. “Not bees, Clayt. I’m trying to draw a man.”
“Rory O’Grady?”
“Pu-lease.”
Clayt admitted that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the turn his hormones had taken, but he was enjoying the smug feeling of satisfaction coursing through him right now. Mel had gone to a lot of trouble to impress somebody, and it hadn’t been Rory O’Grady. Hot dang, he hadn’t lost his touch after all. Not that he’d ever really doubted it.
Mel was meandering on the other side of the room, letting her hand trail over the top of the television, along a windowsill and onto a picture frame of her parents, taken a long time ago. Doing his best to hold back a grin, he said, “So you’ve done all this to try to impress a man other than Rory.”
She shrugged again and answered without turning around. “I’m not getting any younger, you know.”
“Then you see marriage in your future?”
She nodded, and Clayt was almost glad she wasn’t looking, because he couldn’t keep the hundred-watt grin off his face no matter how hard he tried. “Then why don’t you just end this stupid charade and marry me once and for all?”
“What?”
When she turned this time, his mouth went dry for an entirely different reason. “Look, Mel, that didn’t sound quite the way I intended.”
Mel’s hair may have been shorter, and she might have been wearing a dress he hadn’t seen until today, but he recognized the daggers shooting from her eyes, and nobody else could twist their upper lip in such a snide way or sputter quite so vehemently.
“Stupid charade? You think this was all for your pathetic benefit? And people say Rory’s got a big head. I said I wanted a man, Clayt. I didn’t say I wanted you. I wouldn’t marry an arrogant, muddleheaded ignoramus like you if you were the last man on earth.”
He knew she couldn’t possibly reach him from the other side of the room, but Clayt took a step backward anyway. He bit