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His mouth went slack, and the strangest sensation began to uncurl low in his belly. Somehow managing to tear his gaze away, he clamped his mouth shut and told himself to get a grip.
For crying out loud, that was Mel McCully. The girl who’d stuck her tongue out at him so often he’d lost count. The girl he’d teased incessantly when they were kids. The girl he’d caught with her grandfather’s chewing tobacco when she was ten. The girl he’d never thought of as a girl at all.
Clayt rubbed his hand across his jaw. Luke and Wyatt were kissing their brides. And Clayt had the strangest urge to kiss Mel.
He was either going crazy, or he’d been without a woman for far too long. The way he saw it, that was enough to drive any hot-blooded man crazy. But Mel McCully?
Nah.
It had to be the candles or the ever-darkening stainedglass windows or the occasion, or something. Hell, it could be anything, as long as it wasn’t honest-to-goodness attraction.
“Well?” Jillian asked, reaching for a glass of punch. “Has my new brother-in-law noticed?”
“Details,” Lisa whispered, her dark eyes dancing in her heart-shaped face. “We want details.”
Mel finished ladling punch into another glass before taking a close look at her friends. Their gowns were as beautiful and unique as the personalities of the women wearing them. Jillian’s was made of old-fashioned lace with pearl buttons down the back. It had a waist that dipped low in front, the material falling over her hips and legs like a whisper with every step she took. Lisa’s gown was made of shiny satin and had a neckline just low enough to hint at the lush curves the bodice covered but couldn’t hide. Her dress had short sleeves, the hem and waistline trimmed with thousands of tiny rhinestones.
“Are you going to keep us waiting all day?” Jillian prodded.
Mel handed a glass of punch to two young boys. When they were out of hearing range, she said, “He noticed.”
“I knew it,” Lisa exclaimed.
“What did he say?” Jillian asked.
“What did he do?” Lisa cut in.
Hooking the ladle on the side of the punch bowl, Mel grinned. “Well, he almost dropped your rings for one thing.”
“So that’s what that was all about,” Jillian said.
“Ye-ha!” Lisa exclaimed. “You were right to keep the changes as subtle as possible, Mel. That man’s staggering beneath the weight of a ton of bricks, and he doesn’t even know what hit him.”
“You could be right,” Mel said around another smile.
“Has he said anything?” Jillian asked.
“Not exactly. He’s been steering clear of me ever since the ceremony. But he’s been watching me like a hawk.”
Reaching up to adjust the flowers in her long, red hair, Jillian said, “He’s more than likely trying to tell himself that he’s imagining the whole thing. ‘See?’ he’s probably saying to himself right now. ‘Nothing’s changed. She’s manning the punch table just like she always does.’”
Feeling as if she were in a time warp that was a cross between Christmas morning and the first day of spring, Mel chanced a glance across the old town hall. Pretending that she hadn’t noticed Clayt peering at her instead of looking at Brandy Schafer who obviously wanted his attention, she let Lisa and Jillian sweep her with them to the edge of the plank dance floor where their new husbands were waiting and the Anderson brothers were starting to play.
There. See? She manned the punch table just like she always does. There’s nothing unusual about that or about Mel It’s all in your head, Carson.
Clayt rotated a kink out of his shoulders and released a deep breath. When he’d first seen the tendrils of hair skimming Mel’s ears and neck he’d thought she’d gone and had her hair chopped off. Now he realized she was wearing it up, that was all. He wasn’t accustomed to seeing Mel McCully in that kind of dress, either, but Brandy Schafer had told him that Lisa was stocking a new style of women’s wear in the Jasper Gulch Clothing Store. That pretty much explained the differences in Mel’s appearance. Now that he knew that his initial reaction to her had been nothing more than a combination of surprise and a figment of his imagination, he could relax and enjoy the reception.
After checking on Haley, who was having a punchdrinking contest with Jeremy Everts, Clayt joined a group of ranchers who were complaining about the middle man and the shortage of hay and oats due to the summer’s drought. He happened to glance at Mel while Grover Andrews was asking her to dance. All in all, Clayt thought it was right nice of her to give that mama’s boy the time of day. It just went to show that Mel could be nice when she put her mind to it.
He was talking to Cletus when he noticed her dancing with Jason Tucker. Cletus snapped one suspender, and Clayt shook his head. That young buck loved to dance so much he’d been known to kick up his heels with his own great-grandmother.
Clayt was standing with his parents when Boomer Brown called for all the single gals to gather on the dance floor for the traditional tossing of the bouquet. “Look, son,” Rita Carson said, laying a hand on Clayt’s arm. “Haley’s going to try to catch one of the bouquets.”
Lisa and Jillian turned around at one end of the dance floor. All around them the folks of Jasper Gulch started counting backward. Ten. Clayt shook his head and gave his mother an indulgent smile. “I’m hoping to be a groom again before I become the father of the bride. That girl of mine has had me going around in circles all summer. Thank goodness you’re home.”
At the count of nine, Rita Carson glanced up at her oldest son and said, “Oh, didn’t your father tell you?”
Clayt shook his head. “Tell me what?”
“We’re going back to Oregon first thing Monday morning.”
At seven Clayt narrowed his eyes at his father. Hugh Carson nodded and grinned. He’d been doing a lot of that since he’d gotten back from Oregon. Clayt wished he’d cut it out.
At six Rita said, “We wouldn’t have missed your brother’s wedding for the world. Your father and I are so proud of both you boys. I can hardly wait for Mama to be completely well so we can come home for good and get to know our new daughter-in-law.”
At four Clayt scowled and said, “What about Haley?”
Three.
“She’s adorable.”
Two.
“And she certainly reminds me of you when you were that age.”
One.
Looking up at her son, Rita exclaimed, “You’d better hurry if you want to be a groom again, Clayton, because Haley just caught Lisa’s bouquet.” Still laughing, she set off toward her only granddaughter.
Wondering if it might not be a good idea to simply lock his daughter in the attic until she turned thirty, Clayt leaned against the wall. On the other side of the dance floor Boomer Brown was taking a lot of elbow jabbing over the fact that DoraLee had caught the other bouquet. Sparing a glance at his father, Clayt said, “You’re really not home to stay?”
Hugh Carson was the same height as his sons, but his hair had turned gray and his face bore the lines of all the years he’d spent out on the range. Staring across the room at the woman he’d married nearly forty years ago, he said, “When I met your mother I didn’t think a thing of whisking her away from Oregon and everybody and everything she knew. She’s already lost your grandpa, but it looks as if your grandma’s going to pull through. The time your mother is spending back there now is giving her a chance to get reacquainted with the friends she knew growing up. You can handle the ranch on your own, son. Something tells me you can handle Haley, too.”
Clayt figured he should have thanked his father for the vote of confidence, but Mel swung by on Rory O’Grady’s arm, and whatever he’d been about to say died on his lips. The O’Gradys owned the largest spread in this part of South Dakota and never passed up the opportunity to brag about it. If you asked Clayt, Rory’s hair was a little too black, his pants a little too tight, his clothes a little too flashy right down to his snakeskin boots.
The lighting in the old town hall had never been great, but Clayt could see the intent in Rory’s eyes all the way from here. The fact that Rory was a self-acclaimed ladies’ man didn’t bother Clayt. But when Mel reached up on tiptoe to hear what Rory was whispering in her ear, Clayt clenched his teeth so hard his jaw ached.
“Is it just me?” Hugh asked, “or is there something different about Mel McCully tonight?”
Before Clayt could add anything to his snort, Rory whisked Mel away in the other direction. Folks started clapping their hands and stomping their feet as other couples headed for the floor. Mel and Rory didn’t seem to notice. Clayt didn’t wholly recognize the feeling creeping under his skin but he didn’t like it one bit.
Emerging from the crowd, Boomer Brown sidled up next to him and crossed his arms at his massive chest. “Jed Winters mentioned that Grover Andrews told him that Karl Hanson claims that Mel said she finally realizes how silly her infatuation with you has been all these years. I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen her dancing with Rory with my own two eyes.”
Slapping his son on the back, Hugh Carson said, “Well, well, well. What do you think about that?”
Rory dipped Mel, the action drawing attention to the smooth column of her throat and the soft-looking skin visible above the scooped neckline of her dress. Watching through narrowed eyes, heat started in Clayt’s chest, only to twist and turn and slowly burrow lower.
What did he think? his father had asked.
Clayt thought that woman was making a spectacle of herself. And by God, something had to be done.
Chapter Three
The clock on Main Street struck midnight as Clayt cut across the alley and yanked on the door that led to Mel’s place. The wedding reception was finally over. A person would think the folks of Jasper Gulch had never been to a wedding before. They sure hadn’t been in any hurry to leave. As far as Clayt was concerned the whole thing should have ended right after Luke, Jillian, Wyatt and Lisa had left for their honeymoons. The longer it had dragged on, the more disgusted he’d become.
The light was off in the stairway below Mel’s place, but he didn’t bother searching for the switch. He, Luke and Wyatt had sneaked up there so often when they were kids he could have found his way blindfolded. The apartment had been vacant back then, which had made it the perfect place to steal a kiss from Angela Nelson after the homecoming dance when he was sixteen. He hadn’t been up here much since he’d helped Wyatt and Cletus move Mel’s things in when she bought the diner ten years ago, but the lack of good lighting didn’t slow him down. He had a bone to pick with Mel McCully, and the sooner he got it over with the sooner things could get back to normal around here.
The thought of Mel grated on his nerves. There was nothing unusual about that. Hell, she’d been like fingernails on a chalkboard for as long as he could remember. Holding that thought, he reached for the doorknob. At the last minute he raised his fist and knocked instead.
“Come on in. The door’s open.”
Gearing up to say what was on his mind, he stormed inside. He opened his mouth to speak, only to clamp it shut again when he found himself alone in the room.
“I’m a little surprised Boomer dropped you off so early, DoraLee,” Mel called, her voice coming from someplace down the hall. “You must be as anxious to talk about the wedding as I am. Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right out.”
Clayt had never been very good at waiting, and he’d already been waiting hours to speak his mind. After striding to the window overlooking Main Street, he glanced around the room. The apartment wasn’t large. He could see most of it from here. A kitchen too small to turn around in was completely dark, but light spilled from a narrow hallway on the right There was gray carpeting on the living room floor, a blue sofa on one wall, a television on another and a lamp turned to its lowest setting in the far corner. The coffee table was cluttered; the wicker basket beside it literally overflowed with magazines and newspapers. Mel McCully had never been much of a neat freak, that was for sure.
Clayt had no idea why that thought made him feel better, but suddenly he figured it wouldn’t hurt to take a seat. He was in the process of pushing an old afghan and a pile of clothes out of his way on the sofa when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye.
Mel entered the room talking, her hands fiddling with a clasp in her hair. “So, DoraLee, what did Boomer say about the fact that you caught the bouquet?”
Her hair fell around her shoulders just as her gaze met his. She had cut her hair.
“You’re not DoraLee.”
Feeling like a deer trapped in the glare of headlights, Clayt could only shake his head.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
He straightened and tried to speak, but had to clear his throat and try a second time. “I came to talk to you.”
She pushed her hair away from her face, then let her fingers trail through the ends as if she wasn’t accustomed to its new length, either. “Oh. Okay. What did you want to talk to me about?”
He 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 back a curse and sputtered, “I don’t know why I bothered.”
“Don’t bother,” she taunted as he strode to the door. “And the next time you get the urge to fondle women’s lingerie, I suggest you buy your own!”
Fondle women’s lingerie? He hadn’t been fondling…
She slammed the door so hard Clayt doubted his ears would ever be the same. He took to the steps like a man being chased by a demon. By the time he reached the bottom, he figured that was a pretty good description of the hothead upstairs. He was still sputtering when he stomped into the alley and headed for his truck.
Confounded, contrary, ill-tempered, cantankerous woman.
Mel McCully hadn’t changed. She hadn’t changed at all.
“I’ve changed, haven’t I, Granddad?” Mel asked, handing a wet plate to Cletus.
“Oh, I s’pose there have been a few…”
Up to her elbows in soapy water, Mel pushed her hair away from her cheek with her shoulder and forged ahead in the middle of her grandfather’s reply. “I admit that I miss the convenience of my braid, but I don’t miss its weight or the way it looked. And what’s wrong with wearing a pretty dress once in my life? And there isn’t any law against using a little lipstick and mascara.”
Accustomed as he was to these talk sessions, when Mel didn’t let him get a word in edgewise, Cletus simply nodded. Scrubbing another plate, Mel said, “Clayt thinks he knows who I am. He thinks he can barge into my place and ask me what I’m trying to prove. If he didn’t have such a thick skull he’d know I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m trying to show him something.”
“He got your dander up, did he?” Cletus asked.
Mel shrugged one shoulder as she thought about a few of the things she’d said the night before last. For heaven’s sake, she’d practically called Clayt a pervert. Handing her grandfather another plate, she said, “I might have uttered a word or two I shouldn’t have.”
Pursing his thin lips, Cletus said, “Oh-oh. What did you say?”
“Well, I seem to recall mentioning that I wouldn’t marry an arrogant, muddleheaded ignoramus like him if he were the last man on earth.”
Cletus shook his old head. “I thought you were going to hold your temper where Clayt’s concerned from now on.”
Mel leaned on the old sink, suddenly tired. “It could take me the rest of my life to learn to hold on to my temper where Clayt is concerned. I wanted him to notice me, and I ended up making him mad just like I always do. I’m a pathetic, hopeless spinster who will be thirty in a few months. At this rate he’ll never notice me.”
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