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He saved you.
McKade.
The clever rascal was using that to his own advantage.
“I’m okay,” she said, so he would leave.
“Good.” His voice was gruff. He almost pushed her away as he shoved himself up from the bed. “No more bad dreams, promise?”
The minute he stood up, his wide muscular shoulders were silhouetted against the light from the window. Suddenly, irrationally, she ached to have him back. “What do you want from me?”
“Sex. A thousand dollars’ worth.”
“And that’s all?”
“Of course.”
“Then why didn’t you take—”
“All in good time. When you feel better.”
“I’m surprised you have any qualms.”
“I want to get my money’s worth.”
“You’re vile.”
“And you’re such an excellent judge of character.”
She drew a sharp, little breath. She was stung, but she liked sparring with him. It distracted her from her more serious problems.
“If you’re disappointed we didn’t…” His suggestive voice was low and hoarse. “If you’re feeling lusty…just say the word. I’ll be happy to oblige.”
“Go back to your chair.”
He laughed but obeyed. She clutched her sheets and was secretly bereft and disappointed.
As soon as he was safely ensconced, she said, “McKade, if you were the last man on earth, I wouldn’t want you.”
“Then, pretend, the way you pretended when you danced. If you’re half as good at sex as you were at stripping, we’ll be dynamite together.”
“Good night, McKade.”
“Good night, Willa.”
He snapped out the light and fell silent. Suddenly, the darkness and the walls seemed to close in on her. She was a little girl tied to the mast again. She was a woman tied to that bed in that fetid shack.
He’d come, saved her.
Saved her baby.
No matter how she tried, she couldn’t seem to get over that.
“McKade?”
“Change your mind about sex?”
“Is that all you think of?”
“When I’ve got a thousand bucks of my money on the line and a girl like you in my bed—”
“I’m beginning to think your bark’s worse than your bite.”
“I’ve got a helluva bite. I promise you’ll love it.” His voice was a soft, sensual rumble. “Just say the word and I’ll nibble you all over.”
“Would you quit!”
When he fell silent, the shadows in the room seemed to darken. When she’d been a little girl, her aunt had told her the witches lived in the closet and they’d get her if she got out of bed.
Willa had thought the witches had yellow eyes and long black fingernails. On a shudder, she closed her eyes. Terrifying darkness enveloped her. Instead of witches she saw Brand. Her eyes snapped open.
Willa got out of bed and scrambled across the floor to McKade’s chair. Her hands climbed his jeans, fingernails clawing the denim. Huddling at his feet, she seized his long fingers and held on tightly. His long, brown fingers closed over hers.
He drew a breath. So did she.
“I’m scared of the dark.”
“You’ve been through a lot.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
So, she told him about her parents, about the accident, about the two days and nights before she was saved.
“I was dehydrated and sunburned, but most of all, ever since, I’ve been terrified of the dark. Tonight when I was alone in that shack, it was like that storm. I had lost everything…all my illusions. The shack was so dark. I—I could hear things crawling. I—I couldn’t have stayed there two days…and two nights…wondering what would happen to me.…I would have gone really mad, died of fear. I know I would have. You came. You saved me.”
He stood up. Slowly, he pulled her up with him. He said nothing, he just held her, and never had rougher hands felt more gentle. After a long time, he lifted her into his arms and carried her back to the bed where he tucked her under the crisp sheets.
When he rose to go, she blindly circled his neck with her arms and held on. “Move your chair closer.”
His fingers tightened on hers. “Be careful what you ask for.” His eyes blazed.
She let him go.
When he’d scooted the wooden legs across the floor and sat down, she fell asleep almost instantly. This time, because she knew he was there to keep her demons and her aunt’s witches at bay, her dreams were pleasant.
6
“I’m going to kill me a bastard.”
Willa’s eyes slitted open. Blearily, she fought to focus on the blaze of pink splashed on the far wall. Through the screen of her dense lashes, she saw that the fake leather chair beside the bed was empty.
McKade. He was gone. He’d left her. But her fuzzy thoughts were brain chatter, delivering no emotional punch. Then she heard more chatter. No, raised voices from the next room!
“You can’t tell me what to do, you bastard. You’re nothing to me. Nothing.”
“Ditto, you histrionic, self-destructive…punk.”
“You’d give anything to be me, to be his real son.…”
“You’re wrong.” But McKade’s voice was soft, and strangely hoarse.
“You don’t like being our bastard, do you?”
“If you shot him, you sorry sonofabitch, and talked to the press about me, my name might get in the papers.”
“Your precious name? What a laugh.”
For an instant, Willa was back in the shack. The redheaded man, no boy, the redheaded boy with the scary eyes was waving his gun and acting crazy. He was here, threatening McKade of all people.
No. She was dreaming.
“You’re going home, Little Red,” McKade said in that firm, irritating, grimly condescending tone she resented every bit as much as this kid did—at least when Mr. Macho directed it at her. “Home to New Mexico.” McKade paused. “You’re going to behave and keep your filthy mouth shut.”
“Save your high-and-mighty act for someone who doesn’t know about your mother—”
You tell him, kid, Willa thought.
McKade must have launched his big body at the brat. Willa heard the rumble of heavy furniture, the crack of bone and sinew and then what sounded like both men rolling and fighting on the floor.
The kid had a gun.
Don’t shoot the big lug. Please, don’t shoot him.
Was that her or Mrs. Connor, pleading for Mc-Kade’s life?
“Hold your tongue, you sonofabitch!”
Despite the life-and-death drama in the next room as well as the squabble in her own heart, Willa awoke slowly, the way she liked to, drifting through pink clouds.
“Don’t shoot me.” The kid’s voice this time.
Oh, goody, McKade had the gun. He wasn’t going to get all shot to pieces this nice pink morning. Not that she cared.
Then a lamp crashed.
Oh, please don’t do murder.
Muffled male curses and scuffling sounds broke through her muzzy consciousness, and she began to fret about McKade again. Oh, dear. Why couldn’t they just cool it? Men were so difficult, such attention-getters. And they were making a horrendous mess that some poor woman would have to clean up.
“Bastard.”
“You crazy, sonofa…”
She knew that tone. McKade was getting mad. Really mad. A fearsome, yet thrilling vision of a huge powerful street warrior, holding a broken beer bottle, towering over her, ready to do battle for her, rose in her mind’s eye.
“What the hell did you think you were doing? A gun? In Mexico?”
Shrill hysterical laughter. The boy’s. Then his whining voice. “What do I have to lose?” He sounded desperate.
There was a great clump. They must’ve hurled each other to the floor again. Bodies rolled. She heard grunts, fists slugging flesh again.
And then silence.
McKade? Was he hurt?
More likely, the boy was dead.
They’d put McKade behind bars.
Curiosity, not concern for McKade, got the best of her. She pulled sheets and blankets around her and rushed into the living room. McKade was sprawled on top of the skinny redhead. The two men’s entwined bodies lay beside a toppled chair, a fallen lamp and shards of glittering glass. Not that either of them were cut. McKade, his silver eyes wild with the lust of battle, was stretching a hand toward the gun that lay six inches beyond his reach.
No man in such a mood could be trusted with a gun. Certainly not McKade. Quick as a flash, she stepped on his wrist and reached down and snatched the weapon away.
He yowled. “Give me that!”
She jumped to safety. “Get off him, you big bully.” Then she scooted backward toward the bedroom. Not that she stopped her bossy scolding. “You’re twice his size! You’ll kill him!”
“Give me the gun and get back in the bedroom where you belong.”
“And let you blow that poor child’s brains out?”
“For the last time! Mind your own business, Willa!”
“You saved me last night from my own stupidity. I’m returning the favor.”
McKade lunged. She raced for the bedroom and locked the door behind her. The gun dangled from her fingers and she opened a narrow glass door that led out onto the balcony.
Where to hide this awful instrument of death?
Where? There were four stories down to bushes, dirt and cactus, where it could be buried.
Where? Nowhere!
Besides, if she dropped the gun, it might explode or something. Like men, loaded guns were not to be trusted.
Leaving the glass door open, she ran back inside and nearly tripped over the red dress. McKade had a key in the lock of the adjoining door. Grabbing the horrid heap of silk flounces, she dashed into the bathroom, slammed the door and locked it.
She eyed the gun, scanned the dull, sterile, white-tiled cubicle. Where? Where?
Nowhere.
Somewhere a door slammed open. “Willa!” thundered that most irritating of bullying voices.
She knew that yowl. Knew that fist pounding her bathroom door. The door rattled alarmingly.
“Just a minute, dear,” she cooed with wifely, saccharine sweetness.
“Willa!” he muttered. “Quit acting like a fool!”
She stared at the black gun.
Where?
Absolutely nowhere. Still, she had to put the gun somewhere. So in desperation, she opened the toilet tank and dropped it into the water.
Plop. Gurgle. Lots of satisfying bubbles.
Did bullets rust? She scooted the lid back in place, seized the postage-stamp bit of silk and wriggled into it as best she could. As she adjusted the flounces that barely covered her derriere, McKade kept up his furious pounding. When she was dressed, or rather squeezed into the awful playsuit, frilly skirt and all, she stared at herself in the mirror.
Oh, dear, dear, dear, said Mrs. Connor.
Breasts. Legs. All those wild curls. That drowsy look in her hot, sexy eyes. And that telltale blush that betrayed an alarming amount of excitement. Terrible as last night had been, there was nothing like danger and drama to give life a keen edge, or to make a girl who’d been blinded by love see clearly.
Brand had been the biggest mistake of her life. He hadn’t respected her, hadn’t seen past her sexy, good looks.
She studied her reflection. Cheap. Tarty. Come on, honey.
But cute.
No wonder a man of McKade’s low sexual instincts had formed the same opinion Brand had had, that she was a party girl who would put out.
Do not concede a moral inch.
Thank you, Mrs. Connor. McKade had no right to judge her on her appearance. It was most unreasonable. But she would use it. Maybe if she could get his mind on sex, she could outthink him.
Don’t get all conceited because you turn him on.
“Thank you, Mrs. Connor,” she whispered to the tart in the mirror.
Willa, of course, prided herself on being unreasonable. Most unreasonable. After all, it was a woman’s prerogative. If McKade was such a fool not to see the intelligent, vital woman inside the tarty, bimbo getup; if he was such a cad he’d take advantage of a desperate woman he deserved whatever he got.
Her wanton reflection jumped—due to McKade’s bellowing and male bluster on the other side of the door. She watched the door rattle, almost relishing his thunder.
How long could the big lug keep that up? Such fierce male energy—it was rather exciting having all that bluster and determination directed at her. She decided to wait and see how long he could rant.
For no reason at all, she wondered what he’d be like in bed. All that energy. Would he attack? Or be gentle? He certainly had a lot of bad-boy passion. She turned him on, too.
Only when McKade stopped slamming his fist against the door, and all got quiet outside, did her curiosity get the better of her.
She fluffed her hair, threw back her head, opened the door, and went into the bedroom in the tight red dress. McKade’s eyes blazed, so she wiggled her hips like a burlesque queen, strutting almost…just to get his goat…and to unhook the wires to his brain, too. McKade liked it when she strutted her stuff.
One minute, the men had been glowering at each other by the glass door. Then she sashayed out like a stripper about to start her act and tension charged the three of them like a jolt of blue-hot electricity. Her wanton wiggle was like a match, arcing into a pool of gasoline.
McKade’s gaze grew fiercer. A slow smile broke across his disreputable captive’s thin face. When the boy ogled her, McKade got so mad he looked like he was about to blow a gasket. Which, oddly enough, greatly pleased Willa.
“Don’t even think about her,” said McKade. “She’s mine.”
The kid’s smile thinned sardonically. “Really? She doesn’t look to me like she belongs to anybody.”
The kid, Little Red, with the crazily spiked orange-red hair, was growing on her fast.
“Where’s the gun?” McKade demanded.
She notched her nose up defiantly. “I said, you don’t have to shout. The last thing you two need is a gun.”
“I like her sass,” Little Red said.
“Shut up.” McKade scowled at Willa. “Is it out here?”
“Do you ever listen?” she demanded.
“No, he does not,” said Little Red. “What’s a nice girl like you doing shacked up with a rude jerk like him?”
“We’re not shacked up,” said Willa huffily.
“Good for you,” said Little Red.
“Not yet,” growled McKade.
“You didn’t shoot Brand, did you?” she asked, batting her lashes at the kid, mainly because it had such a powerful effect on McKade. His face had gone as dark as a prune.
Little Red looked sullen…until he caught on she was flirting with him to bedevil McKade.
“I bet you’re a good shot,” she said to the boy.
McKade swore in an undertone. “He missed, didn’t he?”
“The asshole stole my rented car,” explained Little Red.
Which meant Brand could and would come after her. Which meant that she had to get out of here fast.
“Sorry to break up this little party,” said McKade. “But I’m taking you back to New Mexico, kid.”
“Can I come, too?” Willa asked.
The men were too wrapped up in their own war to answer her.
“Nobody, especially not you, is gonna tell me what to do—you—you bastard,” the kid whispered.
McKade grabbed the boy by the collar, shook him and then shoved him roughly out the door.
Bastard. Willa made a mental note. That particular word really got to McKade.
They slammed the door in her face. She opened it and rushed outside into the hall after them. “Don’t you two dare leave without me.”
McKade shot her an insulting grin over his wide shoulder. “So, get that cute polka-dotted fanny of yours in gear, girl. You’ve yet to earn your keep.”
Her keep! The nerve! But she rushed back into the room, grabbed the thousand dollars off the table, came outside, and stuck it between her breasts, while both men watched her little maneuver so appreciatively that the elevator door closed and the elevator went down without them.
“You’re really paying her? You’re really that hard up?” asked Little Red with lewd interest. He lowered his voice. “How much?”
Willa pulled out the bills and flapped them saucily. “A thousand dollars.”
“Would you choose me…if I gave you more?”
“Butt out,” growled McKade.
“Sure. I’ll go to auction. Go ahead. Make me an offer,” Willa snapped sassily, not because she was serious, but because this game might have possibilities, because she felt afraid and chose to mask her fear with an air of bravado. McKade’s scowl had gone as black as a prune again. As always, the dramatic held appeal.
The madder McKade got, the slower he would think. And why couldn’t she amuse herself? Why shouldn’t she distract herself from the very real terrors of last night? After all, she knew she had no intention of sleeping with either of them. So, why not play their silly little male game and pretend she was a slave, up for grabs on an auction block?
“Money, lots of it. And me,” said McKade.
“Marriage,” said Little Red without missing a beat.
Marriage. One little word. Willa felt breathless.
Marriage.
Suddenly, the stakes had changed.
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