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A challenge if he ever met one.
A woman he wanted with every beat of his pulse.
He hadn’t initially come to Thunder Canyon for a good time, though. Months ago, it’d been his brother Corey’s wedding that had brought him here, and Jackson had stayed just long enough to throw a few punches during the reception before returning to his gentleman’s ranch in Midland, Texas, then back to work for the family oil business, where he spent the weekdays in his city penthouse.
During the past few months, he’d been thinking hard about the mess he’d created up here in Montana during Corey’s nuptials. At first, Jackson had chalked it all up to just being a bad day, and he’d had a few too many champagnes as well as a few too many thoughts about how his brothers seemed to be falling prey to marriage, an institution that Jackson had never cottoned to.
So he’d spoken his mind at the reception, saying that matrimony was a great way to ruin a relationship. And, as if that wasn’t awful enough, he’d gone on to pretty much call his two married brothers wusses.
He’d said that he would never change his life for a woman, and he’d damn well meant it.
Needless to say, the brothers Traub hadn’t taken kindly to his opinions, and Jackson had left Thunder Canyon with his fists and face bruised, knowing that he’d gone too far. But he’d tried his best during his time away to think on how he was going to make it up to his family.
Not only that—he’d really taken a good look at what he had or hadn’t accomplished during his thirty-four years here on earth, and he didn’t like the view much at all.
That’s why, when his older brother Ethan stepped up his attempts to explore oil shale extraction opportunities, Jackson saw an opportunity not only to get into his family’s good graces again, but…
Hell. In spite of his shortcomings, he loved his family more than anything, and he just wanted to make them see that he wasn’t a loser who would always start fistfights at weddings. The superficial guy who could be so much more than the company “schmoozer” who closed deals and wooed clients.
So here he was, back in Thunder Canyon, convinced that he could finally put what brains he had to some use in getting this new branch of Traub Oil Industries started. He’d actually persuaded his brother, Ethan, that he could head up community outreach and education, since Traub Oil Montana was exploring new, more environmentally friendly ways of extraction at the Bakken Shale; he would also be working with the ranchers and landowners from whom the company had bought or leased rights.
Even though Jackson wasn’t here for the long run, he was going to make his time in Thunder Canyon matter, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t use a little entertainment while he was around… .
He finally took a sidelong glance at Laila Cates, but she’d gone back to her conversation with Cade Pritchett, whom Jackson only knew because of his outburst at the pageant. Honestly, Jackson had felt for the man after he’d shouted out that proposal. In fact, after Cade’s brother had come to his rescue with another marriage offer to Laila, Jackson had impulsively broken in with his own. It wasn’t so much for Cade’s sake as Laila’s because, even under her unruffled façade, Jackson had sensed how vexed Laila had seemed on that stage, and if there was one thing Jackson was, it was a sucker for a woman, especially one who seemed embarrassed that her big night had been shot to hell by an unexpected profession of devotion.
He was pretty sure that someone like Laila was used to men falling all over her, although not in such a mortifyingly public way.
And he wasn’t about to be like the other guys.
At present, as Laila sat there looking as uncomfortable as all get out once again, Jackson could tell she was in another tight spot, that here was a woman who was just about telepathically asking anyone in the room to interrupt the conversation she was having.
Now it wasn’t as if Jackson would’ve done what he did next if Laila hadn’t been providing a clear opening for him. If she was having a grand old time with her date, he would’ve stayed a mile away from her.
But being the woman-loving sucker he was, he turned from the bar, getting an even better look at her. His heartbeat picked up.
She was dressed as if she’d just come from work, in a stylish dark gray pinstriped suit, and her wavy mass of blond hair—shiny and silky enough to make his fingers itch to touch it—was swept up in a style that left some strands framing her face.
And…that face.
It belonged to a beauty queen, all right. High cheekbones, full red lips, long black lashes, delicate eyebrows and all.
Now it was more than his heart that was thudding.
To rescue her again or not to rescue her?
There wasn’t much of a choice, and he left his whiskey glass at the bar as he crossed the floor.
She seemed to know he was coming before he even got there, and that did something to him—riled him up inside, stretched a string of lit firecrackers through him.
“Well,” he said as she parted her lips, as if to utter something before he beat her to it. “If it isn’t my bride-to-be.”
Okay, there it was. If she gave any indication that he was intruding, he would go.
He even gave her another chance to shoo him off. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything—”
Cade and Laila spoke at the same time.
“You are,” the man said.
“You’re not,” she said.
Jackson had sure called it correctly. And when Laila nudged a chair away from the table with her foot, she only emphasized the point.
Had Cade proposed again to this woman who’d announced to the whole town that she Never. Wanted. To. Get. Married?
Was that why she looked like a deer caught in the headlights?
Cade had seen her pushing out the chair, too, but Jackson only tipped his hat to them both, then took a seat, signaling to a waitress who came right over, all smiles.
“What can I do you for?” she asked.
“A round of beers,” Jackson said. “On my tab.”
When she scuttled off, she left a view of the bar, and Jackson couldn’t help but notice that many a male gaze was turned his way, obviously envious that he was sitting at Laila’s table. One man in particular—a cowboy with a chunky silver belt buckle and a mustache—watched Jackson for a moment too long before looking away.
Cade’s voice rumbled. “Not tonight, Traub.”
Jackson was checking in with Laila, whose smile was forced, even though it seemed to be asking him to stay, no matter what.
Sure enough.
When Jackson faced Cade, the man seemed likely to wring his neck, if the sight of his bunched fists on the tabletop meant anything.
Time for some peace talk. “Just introducing myself around town.” He stuck out his hand for a shake. “You can call me Jackson.”
“I know who you are.” Cade shot Laila a glance, and if it could speak, it would’ve said, You gonna do anything to get him out of here or should I?
But when Laila only took a sip of the lemonade that had been waiting in front of her all this time, Cade stood, got out his wallet, then tossed some bills on the table.
When he spoke, it was to Laila, and it was far quieter than Jackson expected.
“Just think about what I said.”
Then he was gone, leaving only the background murmur of bar discussion over the strains of Merle Haggard on the jukebox.
The waitress came with the beers, and Jackson decided that if Cade wouldn’t be around to drink his, he would gladly do the honors.
He didn’t make anything out of the sassy smile that the waitress gave him, instead taking a swig of his drink, then leaning back in his chair and grinning at Laila.
There was a little beauty mark near the tip of her mouth, and he wished she would smile, just as prettily as she had on that stage last week. But he was out of luck. She only traced a pattern on the table from the condensation that had dropped down from the lemonade mug.
“Was I in the wrong when I sat down here?” Jackson asked.
“No, you weren’t. Thank you. It was one of those discussions. You know—the kind that you don’t want to have in the middle of a bar?”
“Glad to have been of assistance.”
She sighed, still tracing pictures on the table. Jackson couldn’t make hide nor hair of what she was drawing.
“If he puts the moves on you again,” he said, meaning to cheer her up, “you just give a holler. He’s big, but I can take him.”
There it was—a wisp of a smile now.
“Truly,” he added. “I know how to dodge and weave. Also, I’ve got a twin back home who’s always willing to stand up for a lady, too.”
“Good heavens—there’s more than one of you?”
He chuckled. “I’m afraid so.” Getting even more comfortable, he propped his booted ankle just above his knee. “But Jason’s far less reckless. That’s what everyone says, anyway.”
“I’d heard you’re a rebel, even before you showed up at the pageant to cause mischief.”
He took that in stride. “Heard from who?”
She had a flush on her cheeks, and it looked so sweet that Jackson’s veins tangled.
“I’d heard,” she said, “just in general. Thunder Canyon’s a small town, so gossip travels.”
“I know. That’s why I proposed to you, Miss Laila—because I’d heard you were the perfect woman for me.”
Her gaze widened.
He laughed. “You don’t have to say it again—the part about your never getting married. The message came through loud and clear at the pageant.”
She blew out a breath, as if she’d been dreading having to repeat it to yet another suitor. It made him think that Cade’s pageant proposal had been much more than just an impetuous moment, that it bothered her far more than she’d let on in public.
That she was just as determinedly single as he was?
“I happen to agree 100 percent with you about the holy state of matrimony,” he said. “I’m not sure what the appeal is.”
“Ask your brothers, Corey and Dillon. I’m sure they can wax on about it.”
“No, thanks. It’s bad enough that Ethan just got engaged, too. I never thought I’d see him strapping himself to a ball and chain. All I can do now is hope that Jason and my sister, Rose, stick with me.”
“You talk as if the rest of your family has abandoned you or something.”
He paused. He’d never thought of it that way before, but that’s what he’d been feeling during Corey’s wedding—abandonment. Being left behind while everyone else traveled ahead to what were supposed to be bigger and better things in life.
She seemed to realize that she’d hit some kind of target on him, whether he’d meant to show it or not.
“Or maybe you’re just a born rebel,” she said. “I could tell the minute you jumped into the fray at the pageant that your skills were instinctive.”
“Hey, I was only trying to ease a tense situation.” He shrugged. “And maybe have a little fun.”
“I rest my case.”
He picked up his mug, toasted her with it, then drank.
When he was done, she was watching him, her bluebonnet eyes narrowed just the slightest bit, as if she was turning over a million questions about him in her head.
If she was sitting there wondering what went into the creation of a rebel like him, he wasn’t about to give her answers.
He wanted to get back to the flirtation. He hadn’t met anyone in Thunder Canyon who’d made him forget all the tough questions that had been echoing in his brain ever since the wedding brawl, and he wasn’t about to lead her into thinking that he was the kind of guy who was even comfortable having that type of conversation.
Leaning his elbows on the table, he sent Laila his most lethal grin.
“If you’re thinking of asking me questions, don’t.”
“Questions about what?”
“Serious stuff. The kind of questions that come after a first date.”
She laughed, as if he’d stepped over a line she’d already drawn with him. “Are you saying this is a date?”
“Nope.” He lowered his voice. “But when we do go on our first one, I’m just laying out some ground rules. I don’t want to hear any of the kind of questions that make you narrow your eyes like that.”
She was flustered, and he hadn’t expected that from a graceful, composed woman like Laila Cates.
“When we…?”
“When we go on our first date,” he said, completing her sentence, enjoying the hell out of the chase.
Because he always got what he wanted when it came to women, and Laila Cates wouldn’t be an exception.
“I never said I would—”
“You didn’t have to, Miss Laila. But you know damn well that we’re going to go out.” He lifted an eyebrow. “It’s just a matter of when.”
Chapter Two
He sure was cocky, Laila thought, her pulse racing so fast that it felt as if she was running.
Jackson Traub—arrogant and altogether too confident.
And they were talking about a date.
Her. Him.
She could just imagine what her parents—no, the whole town—might say if they caught wind of this conversation. Laila Cates, the proper bank manager, the woman who did everything according to the letter, hanging around with a rabble-rousing Texas stranger.
But then a different type of thought altogether started to take shape in her mind… .
What if going on a date with a fly-by-night man like Jackson Traub could convince Cade Pritchett that she really wasn’t longing for stability and marriage?
Suddenly, she liked the whole idea. Especially since, even if she wasn’t looking to settle down, there would be no future with Jackson, anyway. Because the talk around Thunder Canyon was that he was merely here to work on that oil shale project.
Here and gone.
There was an appeal to that. And there was a definite appeal to him, too, as he sat across from her with that crooked grin, all playful cowboy, the complete opposite of a man like Cade.
What would be the harm in just one date?
But then something went swirly in her belly, melty and hot, trickling downward until it settled in the core of her.
She shoved the sensation aside.
“Come on, Laila,” Jackson said, his brown eyes glinting with that flirtiness she’d seen before. “I’m just talking about a date, not a marriage proposal.”
Wasn’t he a card.
Or, more to the point, a wild card.
“Very funny,” she said.
“Don’t tell me a man doesn’t have a chance with you.” He sent a glance over his shoulder, toward the door where Cade had disappeared only moments ago. “Or maybe there’s something else to it.”
She had the feeling he was going to go somewhere she didn’t want to go.
“Maybe,” he said, “there really is something between you and Pritchett, even if you were desperate to get away from him less than five minutes ago.”
Jackson said it in a teasing way, as if he didn’t believe it for a second.
Was there anything this Texan didn’t see? It was as if he could read her through and through.
Yet she refused to dignify his question with an answer. She knew when a troublemaker was stirring it up.
He chuckled, just as the jukebox went silent, leaving only the laughter from the bar patrons.
She crossed her arms over her chest.
“We both know that there’s no way you’ll end up with a nice guy like Pritchett.” He put the glass to his lips, drinking.
His throat worked with every swallow.
She couldn’t take her eyes off him, couldn’t stop herself from thinking what it would feel like to have her lips against that throat, the warm skin roughened by stubble from a five o’clock shadow.
But she managed to pull her gaze away before she offered evidence that he was right about her being attracted to a bad boy over a good one.
“I may not end up with Cade,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean I’d put myself in the position of ending up anywhere with you.”
He put down the drained mug. “Shot through the heart, Miss Laila. You’ve got some excellent aim.”
“And you don’t know enough about me to go around predicting who’s my type and who’s not.”
“I can sure guess.” He sat back in his chair, long-limbed and laconic.
A wise girl would have gotten up from the table by now, heading through the door for home, where it would be safe. But here she was flirting with him.
And she didn’t want to stop.
He said, “I surmise that, all your life, you’ve dated men who are steady. Men who drive just five miles above the speed limit—and that’s their idea of living dangerously. And yours, too.”
He didn’t even seem to be expecting a response—not judging by the long, cocky stare he was fixing on her, one that suggested he knew how madly her blood was flying through her veins, just from being near him.
When had she ever felt like this before?
Was it curiosity that was keeping her here? Or was it because the big 3-0 was looming above her like a net, ready to drop and wrap her up in the great unknown?
Whatever it was, she finally, quietly dared to say, “And just what would a man like you have to offer on a…date?”
Jackson lowered his ankle from where it’d been resting on his knee. “I drive a whole lot faster than the speed limit, for one thing.”
“And you’ll be driving just as fast out of town, once you’re done with your business here.”
“So I will. But a woman who doesn’t aim to settle down wouldn’t care so much about my leaving. We understand each other’s philosophies on that.”
Was he saying that they had something in common? That because she didn’t have any plans to get married, she was just like him?
The notion should’ve disturbed her, but instead, it sent a shot of adrenaline racing through her body.
“Come on, Laila,” he said, leaning toward her even closer. Charmingly. Devastatingly. “One date. That’s all I’m asking for.”
She swallowed. “That’s all?”
What was she doing?
“One date is all…for now.” He stood to his full height, towering above her, then leaned down until his words brushed her ear with warmth. “But I’m pretty sure you’ll find that one date won’t be enough.”
And, with that, he ambled away, not even bothering to get her phone number or arrange a time to pick her up.
Just as cocky—and tempting—as he’d been when he’d entered the bar.
“Seriously?” said Laila’s best friend, Dana Hanson, while sitting in a chair by Laila’s office desk the next day. “You’re actually going out with that pugilist?”
Laila closed the glass door that separated her working space from the rest of the bank, which bustled with people during lunch hour. Dana, who was wearing her sandy hair in a conservative upswept style that artfully hid the purple streak she’d decided to add last weekend, had pushed her decorative Clark Kent glasses to the crown of her head in her awe of Laila’s situation.
“I think I have a date with the pugilist,” Laila said, staying near the door where she could keep an eye on things.
“How is it that you’re not sure?”
“Well, he asked me out then just sort of…left me hanging.”
“A proficient tease. He sounds like an all-around bad seed.” Dana waggled her eyebrows. “I would go out with him, just for the adventure.”
“I’m not sure I should, even though I kind of said I would.” Laila shook her head. “He has me all confused.”
“Then that’s why you’re into him. He’s different. He’s the guy who makes our straight-arrow golden girl feel like she could get a little tarnished. And he throws you for a loop when you don’t normally get riled up by men.” Dana pointed at her. “That’s why you like him.”
“Technically, I didn’t say yes to a date.”
“But you didn’t refuse.”
“I should’ve.”
“Why?”
Laila gave up trying to make sense out of any of it, then motioned to the suit she was wearing—a black and white advertisement for dedicated businesswomen everywhere. “Because of this, Dane. Because maybe I’m a little…”
“Bored with it all?”
Nodding, Laila leaned her head against a wooden reinforcement by the door. All around, her office seemed so bland, with its chrome touches, the fake potted flowers in strategic places. Real ones would’ve been prettier, but it took commitment to maintain them.
“I know, life’s rough,” Dana said. “Every man wants the beauty queen. It must be a slog, fending them all off.”
“You know what I mean by bored.”
“Yeah. And I’d have some compassion if you weren’t you.”
She knew her friend didn’t mean anything cruel by that; Laila had tried all her life not to be smug about her looks, appreciating what God had given her while always working for more.
“I have to say, though,” Dana said, “that when the Pritchett boys and then this Traub fellow proposed at Miss Frontier Days, I did feel for you. I actually regretted entering you into the pageant…for about two minutes.”
“No major harm done.”
“So if he does take you out, where do you think it’ll be?” Dana asked, not even remotely off the subject of Jackson. “Bowling? Cow-tipping in the fields?”
“Hilarious.”
“You’ve totally been thinking about your choices.”
Lying was futile, and Dana was smirking now.
“What?” Laila asked.
“You’re fidgety about this. Laila Cates, I’ve never seen you so nervous, not even back in our junior year, when you had your very first date, with Gary Scott.”
Nervous? Her?
Couldn’t be.
Laila opened the door, smiling caustically at her friend. “Isn’t it time for you to get back to the loan desk?”
Dana smoothed down her red skirt and headed for the exit. “You’re affected, Laila. A-F-F-E-C-T-E-D.”
And she left, still smirking.
Laila tried to get back to the paperwork on her desk, plus the million-and-one to-do items on her list, but she just couldn’t focus on work. So it was almost a relief when she saw the bank’s elderly owner, Mike Trudeau, walking by the windows of her office.
She’d been waiting for her boss to come in for hours and, even before she went to him, she marked him off her to-do list, then rose from her seat. With a smooth gait, she went outside, following him to his own office, which was decorated with a huntsman’s touch, featuring kitschy, homey things like a mallard clock and a painting of buffalo roaming a prairie.
He was standing behind his desk, accessing his computer when she walked in.
“Morning, Laila.”
Casual, friendly, with the silver hair of a grandpa…He shouldn’t have intimidated Laila in the least, especially since he’d shown up to check in on his business dressed in jeans and a bulky sweater, just as laid-back as usual.
And, as usual, Laila put on the same façade that made everyone think that nothing ever got to her.
“Morning, Mike. Do you have a moment?”
“For our reigning Miss Frontier Days? Always.”
He motioned toward the chair in front of his large oak desk, and she sat, crossing her legs, slipping a folder toward him.
“Ah,” he said. “Do we have another idea today?”
She was used to this bit of harmless condescension in his tone, and she kept smiling, even if every idea she brought to him seemed to end up in the garbage heap. Or, more likely, she suspected that there was a vortex that could only be accessed through a drawer in his desk, and that was where her ideas went.
But that didn’t stop her from trying again, especially since this particular idea was closer to her heart than usual.
“Yes, sir, I’ve got another one,” she said, folding her hands in her lap.
He didn’t make a move to open the folder, so she started her pitch, determined that he would at least hear it.
“It’s no secret that most people in Thunder Canyon have been hit hard by the economy,” she said, leaving out the fact that Mike Trudeau himself was flush right now, along with his bank.