had stopped laughing, but mischief sparked like blue fire in his eyes as he looked directly down into her face, and maybe into her soul, where she stashed her deepest secrets.
“Prove it,” he said.
“Prove what?” Ria demanded, disgruntled and overheated, even though it was still too early in the day for the temperature to climb. “That I’m not a violent person? I think I just proved that by not striking you or running you through with the nearest pitchfork.”
Slowly, Landry shook his head from side to side, as though marveling, albeit sympathetically, at the ravings of a dimwit. “No,” he drawled, in a voice so low and so quiet that it felt—well—intimate, like a caress. He leaned in toward her, until their noses were almost touching. “Prove that you’re immune to me,” he breathed. “That shouldn’t be difficult, now, should it? Not unless the lady protests too much, that is.”
Part of Ria reconsidered finding a pitchfork and using it feloniously. Another part of her, one she barely recognized as belonging to her, wanted to rise to Landry’s challenge, prove once and for all that, unlike a lot of other women probably, she could live without him. Happily.
“That’s crazy,” she said, after some mental scrambling. “I don’t have to prove anything to you or to anybody else.”
“How about to yourself?” Landry asked reasonably—so reasonably that Ria thought about breaking her personal code of behavior and slapping him after all. No, punching him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she lied, heading for the edge of the field now, her stride brisk and purposeful.
And slightly desperate.
“The hell you don’t,” Landry said, keeping pace easily, since his legs were so much longer than hers. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. That kiss was nuclear, at least on my side, and you’ll have to go some to convince me you didn’t feel some of the same things I did.”
“I’m not trying to convince you of anything,” Ria argued, afraid to look at Landry, because if she did, she might just hurl herself into his arms, wrestle him to the grass right there where the flower fields and the lawn met and have her way with him. In broad daylight.
Oh, God, she thought. What was wrong with her?
She’d loved Frank passionately—she had—but the best climax she’d ever reached making love with her husband hadn’t rattled her as much as the one and only kiss she’d shared with Landry Sutton.
In the shade of a venerable maple tree, one with some of the lower branches stripped of leaves, almost certainly a casualty of the most recent buffalo raid, Landry caught hold of Ria’s elbow and stopped her. His grasp was gentle, but firm, and it sent fresh waves of wanting roaring through her.
“You’re right,” he ground out, glowering down at her now. “You don’t have to convince me of anything. You don’t need to prove a damn thing. But something’s going on between us, Ria, and maybe you’re too cowardly to find out what it is, but I’m not.”
Her throat thickened, closed tight. She didn’t pull away, didn’t speak, didn’t move at all.
Landry sighed, loosened his hold on her arm, slid his hand down to close his fingers around hers. “I’m not asking you to sleep with me, Ria.”
She met his gaze directly, there in the soft shade of that old tree. “Then what are you asking me?” she replied, in a near whisper. Her heart felt winged, like something caged, flailing against the bars, frantic to break free and go soaring into that big sky arching high over their heads.
At last, Landry smiled. It wasn’t a mocking grin; it wasn’t a smirk. It was a genuine smile.
And Ria realized, much to her chagrin, that she was helpless against it. It rocked her first, then settled over her heart like some invisible balm.
When Landry finally answered her question, she was panicking again, and she could barely hear him over the hum in her ears. “There’s a party at the Boot Scoot Tavern, over in Parable, this Saturday night. It’s a sort of kickoff before the rodeo starts, and half the county will be there, so nothing drastic will happen. Between us, I mean.”
Nothing drastic?
Even as she mentally catalogued the most obvious reasons why she should refuse—she’d be tired and grubby after a long day at the farmers’ market, selling flowers, and crowd or no crowd, the proposed evening amounted to a date, and what were the implications of that?—Ria was stunned to find herself on the verge of agreeing. Was she losing her mind? She wasn’t much of a drinker, after all, and she had no clue what else there was to do in a bar.
Again, Landry seemed to be reading her mind, a disconcerting thing. “If you won’t trust yourself,” he said, “how about trusting me?”
“I do trust myself,” Ria insisted.
Not so much, argued a snarky voice in her head.
Landry smiled again, and spread his hands wide in a well-then kind of gesture. “Great,” he said. “Then we don’t have a problem. I’ll pick you up around seven—we’ll have some dinner and head for the Boot Scoot.”
With that, he nodded a farewell and started off toward his truck.
“Just a minute,” Ria called after him.
He paused, perhaps ten feet away from her, the sun in his hair, his eyes lively with amusement and something less easily defined. “What?”
It’s not too late to beg off. Make an excuse—do something!
“What do people—women, that is—wear at the Boot-whatever-tavern?”
Had she really and truly just asked him such a 1950s kind of question? Brylee could have clued her in on the dress code, or Casey Parrish, both of whom were good friends. Damn, what was up with her mouth?
Landry’s gaze glided over Ria, from head to foot, with a look of appreciation and, strangely, nothing that even vaguely resembled mockery. “I figure you’d look good in just about anything,” he told her gruffly, “and even better in nothing at all. But the Boot Scoot isn’t fancy, so jeans and something short-sleeved will do. It gets hot in there when there’s a crowd.”
Ria opened her mouth, closed it again.
There was still time to call off the whole crazy idea—she was no cowgirl: she didn’t ride horses or dance to ballads on a jukebox or anything like that—but, for some reason she refused to examine too closely, she didn’t call it off.
Landry reached his truck, turned long enough to nod an amiable goodbye and got behind the wheel. He was driving away by the time Ria collected her scattered wits, willed some strength into her legs and headed for the house.
The wall phone was ringing as she stepped inside and, in need of an immediate distraction, she answered—in spite of the fact that the caller was Meredith—a robotic voice had already announced that.
“Hello,” Ria said tersely.
She could almost see her half sister recoil at the tone of the greeting. “Ria?” Meredith asked, sounding wary. “Is that you?”
Ria thrust out a sigh. No, she thought. The real Ria has been abducted by aliens and replaced by a reckless and wanton woman determined to play with fire.
If she and Meredith had been close, like other sisters, they could have talked about Landry Sutton and the way he riled her, hammered out some of the whys and wherefores. Ria might have confided in an older and wiser Meredith that she was scared and confused and horny as hell, all at once. But she and Meredith weren’t close.
“Yes,” Ria finally replied, with another sigh. “It’s me.”
Meredith’s voice brightened. Enough small talk—time to move in for the kill. “Have you given my offer any thought?” she trilled sweetly, immediately setting Ria’s teeth on