be willing to accommodate a pretty girl like yourself during his off hours—”
“Claire!”
“He’s your escort to the ranch. Didn’t he explain that?”
“He hasn’t quite had a chance yet, since he’s currently sawing wood in my bedroom.”
“Excuse me?”
“He’s asleep! Now, what’s this ranch you’re talking about?”
“Oh, dear. I didn’t realize you’d be working so late. I had him arrive there at five o’clock,” Claire said, ignoring Lucy’s question. “The poor guy’s been handcuffed to your bed for over three hours—and what did you think of the handcuffs, by the way? Those were my idea.”
“What ranch?” By the time she got the words out, a horrible thought had occurred to her. The Fantasy Ranch. The infamous adults-only resort several hours out into the desert where party people like Claire loved to vacation. Rumors of the wild parties and sexual escapades that took place at the resort circulated constantly around Phoenix. Just last month there’d been a story in the gossip pages about a party at the ranch that had ended with a fight between a popular movie actor and the paparazzo who’d caught him on camera literally with his pants down.
They’d gotten a fax at the travel agency several weeks ago saying that the ranch’s end-of-summer celebration was fast approaching. It would be just like Claire to book her a surprise vacation at such an outrageous place.
Claire sighed over the phone. “I wish I could go with you. That was the plan, but these weekend meetings came up at the last minute—”
“We can go on a trip together anytime. When you get back we can plan that trip to Hawaii we’ve been talking about. In the meantime, I’m just going to spend the weekend watching reruns—”
“No, you’re not. As your boss, I order you to take the trip as planned. Just go with Buck instead of me. You wouldn’t believe what I had to go through to get him for you.”
Lucy felt her insides go all jiggly as she considered the possibility of going off to a resort—an adults-only resort at that—with a complete stranger. “But I—”
“No arguments. You’ve said yourself that you don’t want to spend the rest of your life with no one but your cats to keep you warm at night. This is your chance to learn how to loosen up and have fun. In fact, I dare you to be a little naughty for once in your life. And you’d better not show up at work for at least another week.”
Lucy blinked in shock as the line went dead. She hit redial several times, but the line was busy. Claire had hung up on her and left her to deal with a stud named Buck. She should have never, ever told that awful woman about her secret cowboy fantasy.
After taking a deep, calming breath she crept down the hall to the bedroom again and peered around the edge of the doorway. He was still asleep—dead asleep by the sound of his slow, steady breathing.
She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. What was she to say? “Hey there, cowboy, come here often?” Or maybe, “Excuse me, could you please get your boots off my bed?” There just wasn’t an appropriate opener for this situation.
She allowed herself to take in the whole of him lying there with his well-tanned torso exposed, hard muscles forming a ripple effect on his abdomen, the muscles of his chest and arms bulging slightly as they strained from the handcuffs. His arms were up behind his head, his wrists clasped to the headboard with the cuffs that were looped around a wooden spindle, and the sexy thatches of dark hair under his arms were exposed. Lucy had never realized body hair could be so…arousing.
But mostly she just marveled that such a gorgeous man—gorgeous even with his face mostly hidden by the hat—was lying on her bed. When was the last time that had happened? Well, never. She did a quick mental inventory of all her past boyfriends, all four of them, and realized that none had been this attractive. More often than not, they’d been nice guys, but never drop-dead gorgeous. It just wasn’t a quality she looked for in a man.
Not that Lucy had minded dating average-looking men. In fact, she preferred it that way. Attractive men were dangerous, arrogant, shallow, too aware of their power over women. They got what they wanted too easily, and they never noticed plain, boring women like Lucy Connors. Even if they had, she was immune to their charms.
Then why did it feel as if her whole body sighed when she took in the sight of the half-naked Buck on her bed? Why did it feel as if her pulse had centered itself between her legs? And why was there a thin film of perspiration breaking out on her upper lip?
Lucy glanced down at herself and suddenly felt self-conscious in her buttoned-up white blouse and brown tweed skirt. She looked like an uptight bore. Her chest tightened ever so slightly as she admitted that she was exactly what everyone thought she was—a woman who didn’t have the slightest clue how to have fun.
Claire’s words echoed in her head. I dare you to be a little naughty for once in your life.
Forget Claire. She and her best friend were just different, that’s all, and she didn’t have to change who she was to suit that woman. No, if she wanted to spend the weekend in her flannel PJs, eating carrot sticks and unsalted, unbuttered popcorn, and watching TV as she caught up on her laundry and maybe balanced her checkbook, then that’s exactly what she would do. Claire wasn’t going to lose respect for her just because she refused to run off to some ridiculous hedonistic resort with a male bimbo named Buck.
Lucy made up her mind. She wasn’t going to accept Claire’s silly dare. But that didn’t change the fact that she still had to get rid of Buck. She took a step into the bedroom, then hesitated. She couldn’t wake a gorgeous guy like that wearing her wallflower work outfit. No, she would slip into something a little less boring while he was still asleep, and he’d never know the difference. When she woke the sleeping stud, at least she would do it with her womanly ego intact.
She tiptoed several feet without making a sound, but the closet across the room seemed a mile away; her chest of drawers wasn’t any closer. She couldn’t let a little thing like that stop her, though, she reminded herself as she took one more tentative step and sighed with relief when Buck continued to snore softly.
She did a mental inventory of her wardrobe, wondering which outfit best suited the occasion. What she realized immediately was that she owned a dizzying array of beige garments, and almost nothing that was appropriate for waking up a stud-muffin. She stopped in her tracks in front of the closet. There sat a black suitcase with a hot pink bow on top and a small note card tucked under the bow. Lucy bent and plucked the card out, recognizing her name written in Claire’s handwriting. She opened the envelope to find a card within that read, “This is everything you’ll need for the week, except an outfit to travel in. That, you’ll find hanging on the back of the bathroom door. Just wear it!” The words “wear it” were underlined twice. Claire had signed the note, “Love, C.”
Lucy eyeballed the suitcase warily. Where her tastes ran toward conservative styles and neutral colors, Claire had a penchant for outrageous platform heels and leopard-print undergarments. It was best not to look at the contents of the suitcase right away, not when she had Buck, who could wake at any moment, nearby.
She hurried across the room as silently as possible and slipped into the bathroom, gently closing and locking the door behind her. Her heartbeat thudded in her ears. When she finally turned on the light, the outfit in front of her was worse than she could have imagined.
And she couldn’t wait to try it on.
Two minutes later Lucy’s work clothes were lying in a heap on the bathroom floor and she was peering over her shoulder at the reflection of her butt in a pair of skintight black pants. As many other shocks as she’d received this evening, perhaps the greatest one of all was the realization that she didn’t look half bad in the outfit Claire had picked out. In fact, she might even say she looked…darned good. All those years of eating wheat bran and steamed veggies had paid off.
But whether or not