“Two can play at that game,” Laura whispered provocatively

“What are you doing?” Clint murmured, aware that their suspects were watching them on the dance floor.

“Why, playing the part of the loving wife,” Laura purred. She raised herself up on her toes to brush a kiss along the side of Clint’s mouth, pleased to feel his arms tighten around her, to see his dark eyes filled with raw need.

Unaware that the music had stopped, she pulled his head to her and pressed her lips ravenously over his. Clint’s hands curved over her hips in primal exploration, squeezing gently and sending liquid heat through her body. Her heart pounded in her ears until she realized it wasn’t rushing blood she was hearing.

Applause from the restaurant patrons jolted them back to reality like a bucket of cold water. Laura quickly turned her shocked expression into a smile. She couldn’t let Clint know that her kisses had been anything more than part of their assignment.

“I think we’ve made our point,” she said, turning on her heel. “Although I must admit, if I’d known that cowboys kissed so well, I’d have visited Texas long ago.”

Dear Reader,

I’m convinced I adore cowboys because watching them on television taught me how to speak English. Although I was born in Toronto, Canada, my parents were from Estonia and I grew up speaking Estonian.

I learned English by playing with all my friends who spoke Greek, Italian and an assortment of other languages (Toronto is very multicultural) and by watching TV with my dad—hence my second passion for television.

My father preferred Westerns, and I spent many an hour watching these shows, falling in love with the rugged, do-the-right-thing, let-nothing-stand-in-his-way cowboy. Whether he’s the strong silent type or a silver-tongued charmer, the cowboy is my perfect romantic hero.

Which made writing about Clint Marshall and Two Mule Junction such fun. Pairing him with his complete opposite, a Boston blue blood with a silly dog, only made the possibilities entertainingly unending. I hope you enjoy A Stetson on Her Pillow as much as I did.

Happy trails!

Molly Liholm

Books by Molly Liholm

HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

552—TEMPTING JAKE

643—BOARDROOM BABY

672—THE GETAWAY GROOM

706—THE ADVENTUROUS BRIDE

745—BABY.COM

A Stetson on Her Pillow

Molly Liholm

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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For Nancy Hill, superachiever, who is always looking for new challenges and adventures.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

1

“YOU WANT ME to marry the cowboy?” Laura asked. “You expect me,” she punctuated the word with a tone of disbelief, “to marry him?”

Even as she spoke in her low, cultured voice and brushed a strand of blond hair off her face, securing it back into the neat French braid she favored, Clint Marshall knew their boss had already made up his mind. They had been called into his office to receive their marching orders—not to debate whether or not they wanted the assignment.

Still, he found it downright amusing to watch patrician Laura Carter try to wiggle her skinny behind out of the assignment. Her cold-blue eyes, a color that reminded Clint of the silver blue of a Texas sky just before a storm, swept over him, quickly dismissed him and returned to Captain Clark.

Clint slouched farther down on the hard wooden chair and crossed one well-worn cowboy boot over the other. He felt Laura’s gaze fall on the scuffed leather. He swung the foot back and forth as if he were relaxing on a rocking chair on his mother’s porch and wished he had a cowboy hat he could tilt forward and drive little Miss Prim and Proper plum crazy. Not that she showed it, but he knew his good old boy routine had gotten to her as she sat even straighter in her chair. Not for the first time he wondered what a Boston blue blood was doing on the Chicago police force.

Or why in the world their captain would be assigning the two of them to work together.

Undoubtedly the skinny, pale man standing in the corner of the office had something to do with this. From the stranger’s expensive, but ill-fitting, suit and polished shoes Clint knew he wasn’t a regular cop. He didn’t look like a guy who knew what the inside of a patrol car looked like much less smelled like. He reminded Clint of an accountant.

In fact he reminded Clint of Jason Fairmount, a nervous tweedy fellow who arrived in Two Horse Junction twice a year to offer his accountancy services. Clint’s mother always had Jason over for dinner whenever he was in town, saying she admired him, and that she wished one of her sons could be as responsible and reliable as Jason.

The skinny, pale man wiped his brow and waited for Captain Clark to speak. Clint kept his mouth shut. There was no point in asking why he and the ice princess had been chosen for this confidential assignment. Captain Clark would tell them when he was ready. If there was one thing Clint knew how to do, it was how to wait.

Instead he smiled at Laura and settled back in his chair, still pretending that it was a comfortable rocker and not a bare-boned, hard-assed flimsy excuse for a chair. Why, such a chair wouldn’t even last through one fight at the Two Horse Watering Hole back home.

Laura glanced at the stranger who was standing silently behind them, opened her mouth, but then closed it again without a word of protest. Clint knew she was annoyed at being assigned to work a case with him. For some reason, Laura Carter had taken one look at him six months ago and decided she didn’t like him.

Of course, he didn’t like her much better.

But if successfully completing this assignment meant that he had a chance to move up to the vacant detective position in Homicide he would work with anyone—including Laura Carter.

He wondered if the rumors about her were true. She had transferred into their unit six months ago after an alleged affair with her boss. Her new boss, Sam Clark, hated having the brass chose his officers for him. Anytime the captain had joined the team for drinks Clint had heard him say that the reason his unit had such a good arrest record was because he chose his detectives without political interference.

Until Laura Carter.

Clark had given her all the crappy assignments, like looking for bond jumpers and investigating small-scale burglaries and purse snatchings. When she’d caught a burglar who’d been stealing from local businesses for over a year, Clark had grudgingly commended her on a job well done.

Laura took a deep breath, looking like a particularly ornery mule about to set out on its own path, ignoring the fact that it would never find its way back home. Clint decided to rescue her before she made another mistake and complained about the assignment further—especially the part about being married to him.

“Darlin’, most of the single women on Chicago’s finest would jump at the chance to be Mrs. Clint Marshall. If there’s one thing us Texas men are known for, it’s for treating a woman right.”

She stiffened even more. He wondered if any man ever got her to loosen up enough to uncross her gorgeous legs and… Well, he wouldn’t let his thoughts continue on their ungentlemanly path. No matter what Ms. Laura Carter thought about his manners, his mother had raised him right.

He let his lips quirk in a half smile as Laura studied him coldly. Her porcelain skin turned even whiter as a slash of pink burned along her high cheekbones. “First, no matter how foolishly some of the other women in this department behave, I’m not part of your female fan club,” she said. “Second, I wouldn’t identify myself by my husband’s name even if he was a Nobel Prize winner for establishing world peace and finding a safe, nonpolluting, inexpensive form of energy.” She tightened her lips in a thin line as she contemplated the unappealing prospect of being married to him. “Mrs. Clint Marshall. That is so outdated and macho! Finally, the last thing I would ever want from you would be to be treated just right.”

She thrust out her chin and glared at him, sparks sizzling from those blue eyes. For the first time Clint saw that there was a tiny ember of fire in her. What could be more fun than to make it burn higher—to make the rigid, frigid Laura Carter burn with anger—and then maybe something else? He wondered what she would be like in bed, with those long, slim legs wrapped around a man, her hair loose and wild about her face. Startled out of his unexpected fantasy about Laura, he winked at her. “Trust me darlin’, if you don’t want it, then you’ve never been treated just right.” He drawled the last two words in his best Texas twang.

“Stop calling me darling,” she said between gritted teeth.

Her angry gaze locked on to his amused eyes, and Clint felt a jolt jump between them. Hot damn, he sat up a little straighter. There might be more to this filly than he’d imagined.

Laura, however, had not felt any similar connection as she turned to appeal to their captain. “Sir, pretending to be Detective Marshall’s wife seems unnecessary for this case, why we could—”

“It is completely necessary.” Clark was only in his late forties, but the lines in his face and the ever-increasing amount of white in his salt-and-pepper hair proved to Clint that he was right in his own plan to return to his hometown before the constant unrelenting pressures of big-city policing had him looking the same. The captain shoved aside the salad he was having for lunch and poured two Advil capsules into his palm from his always open bottle.

Laura frowned. “You shouldn’t take so many—”

She snapped her mouth shut when Clark glared at her.

He chewed the tablets and swallowed. “Trust me, if it was up to me, the last officers I would team up would be you two—not because I care what either of you thinks of the other, but because you are both new to my department and I don’t particularly like either of you. Now, however, you’re coming in useful. So you’re going to do exactly what I say.” He glared at them.

Clint kept on his good old boy face and Laura never twitched a muscle in hers. She was tough, he had to give her that.

Clark picked up a glass of murky greenish brown liquid and, holding his breath, swigged it. A newlywed, he’d taken to drinking the green bile as part of a health kick. He put down the glass and grimaced. “Damn, this stuff tastes so terrible it has to be good for you. Now, listen good while I go over the facts of the case—the faster I have you out of my office the better. Peter Monroe is target of the Special Financial Investigation’s case,” he nodded at the slim, blond-haired man.

“Peter Monroe of Monroe Investments?” Laura asked, a note of admiration in her voice. “He started out with nothing and has a multibillion dollar empire today.”

“That’s him,” the skinny man said. “Special Agent Vincent Garrow, SFI. I’ve been on the Monroe case for twenty months.”

So he was right, Clint thought. Garrow was an accountant or some kind of financial expert. SFI were police officers with briefcases and business degrees working on insider trading, embezzlement, scams and other financial shenanigans. It was not a department Clint wanted to be part of. He preferred people to numbers. “He must be very good to have avoided being caught doing anything guilty in that time,” Clint said. “In almost two years he must have at least cheated on his expenses.”

Garrow ignored Clint and tossed a folder on Clark’s desk. “This is everything on Monroe, including lists of his investments and businesses he’s bought and sold.”

Laura opened the file and scanned a few pages. As Clint suspected, she fit in with the pencil pushers. “Monroe’s wealth is even greater than Fortune magazine said it was, but why do you think he’s doing anything worth investigating?”

Garrow wiped his palms with his handkerchief. “We received a tip almost two years ago about Monroe laundering Russian mob money through his investment divisions.”

“If the information was solid enough for SFI to begin a full-scale investigation,” Clint asked, “why haven’t you brought charges against him?”

Garrow leaned over Laura’s shoulder and picked a piece of paper out of the file. Clint noticed Garrow linger, a little too long, close to Laura. Garrow saw Clint watching him and dropped his gaze. “Russian Mafia money definitely went through Monroe’s companies, but we can’t connect it directly to him. In fact, every piece of dirty money we’ve followed into Monroe Investments has been tied to a different division. We haven’t been able to connect anything directly and specifically to Peter Monroe—only to five of his senior executives.”

“So he’s very smart—and you can’t pin anything on him. I’m surprised you still have a full investigation on him,” Clint said. “Why don’t you arrest the suits and sweat them until one talks.”

Garrow smiled sourly. “Our case isn’t strong enough—the clues add up but broken down it’s just circumstantial evidence. High-priced lawyers will poke enough holes in our case to keep each of our suspects out of jail. We want the brains behind the money.” He stroked his upper lip and Clint wondered if he’d been on assignment recently where he’d worn a mustache. “We don’t have a complete team on Monroe anymore. In fact, for the past six weeks, I’ve been the only investigator. I’m being reassigned in one week.”

“So you came up with one last-ditch effort to find the incriminating evidence you need,” Clint concluded.

“Last ditch is perhaps a little desperate sounding.” Garrow straightened his tie.

“He’s desperate,” Clark interrupted. “The only solid piece of information the numbers guys have on Monroe is his psychological profile. Two years of investigation and they have absolutely nothing on him.” Clark guffawed, a loud burst of noise, and then grinned in pleasure at another department’s failure. Clint knew that like most cops, Clark resented the SFI’s impressive budget and habit of stealing news headlines. “Two years and nothing. Nada. Zilch.” He made a zero with his fingers. “That’s why they’ve come crawling to us. Us ordinary cops with no special titles or secret budgets. The guys who are out there on the streets, taking it every day for the safety of the city of Chicago. Specifically for you two. The cowboy and the heiress.”

Clint saw Laura move ever so slightly and almost leaned forward to stop her, but checked himself. Let her make her own bed. He’d always reckoned it was better to go along until he could figure out how to suit the circumstance to his own needs.

Laura smiled winningly at her boss. “Captain Clark, if I could interrupt here for a moment, I’ve studied financial—”

“No, you may not,” Clark shouted.

The smile dropped from Laura’s face, in fact Clint would have sworn she shut herself off. Clint didn’t know any other way to describe how she was looking at their boss. She had just thrown off a switch in herself. She was still listening, but he could tell part of her wasn’t there anymore.

“You may not say another word,” Sam Clark continued. Clint could have told her there wasn’t any point in trying to change their senior officer’s mind, but she would never listen to his advice. As far as he could tell, Laura never listened to anyone’s advice.

More importantly he wanted to hear more details of the case. This could very well be the opportunity he’d needed to get him back home. He’d spent the past year in Chicago and while he genuinely liked the windy city, he heard Texas calling to him more and more often.

If he and Laura were successful on this case, he might be promoted to Homicide, which was the best of the best. If he solved the case quickly, Captain Clark would have to recommend him for the spot. With his record in Dallas and his work in Chicago, he figured he was the prime candidate. Once he’d plugged in a year or two in Homicide, no one back home could ever claim that there was anyone more qualified than himself to be sheriff of Two Horse Junction. In fact the only downside to this whole situation was being forced to spend a lot of time with Laura Carter.

Mind, if she had to wear a couple of pretty dresses, hang off his arm and admire him, he didn’t think the assignment would turn out all that bad. “Perhaps you could share with us exactly how the cowboy and the heiress fit into your investigation?”

Garrow nodded. “You’re going to attend a society wedding and make contact with Peter Monroe.”

“Who’s getting married?” Laura asked.

“Penelope York and Kyle Chandler.”

“Penelope York of York Construction?”

Garrow nodded. “Do you know the family personally?”

“No,” Laura said. “I’ve never met them, but my uncle owns stock. He likes to talk about his investments. Have we been invited to the wedding?”

“Yes. I’ve made arrangements for your invitation. Since it’s a big society event, your family connection,” he looked at Laura, “was the entry we needed. The bride’s father was more than happy to cooperate with the SFI, especially after we found a few irregularities with one of his deals. He’s the only one who will know the two of you aren’t married.”

“So York gets his case closed and a cop from a good family on the guest list,” Clint said. “Won’t other guests know that Laura is a cop?”

“No,” Laura said quickly. “People from my family’s social set don’t know I’m a cop.”

“What do they think you do?”

“Nothing.”

“They think you’re just a party girl?” he asked disbelievingly. While he didn’t much care for Laura, no one could deny she was a hard worker.

“Something like that.” Laura pushed that errant strand of hair back into her braid. “What exactly are Clint and I supposed to do at the wedding?”

“With all the parties celebrating the nuptials it’s a week-long affair. Donald York has gone full-out with the celebrations and the Chandler family has thrown in what money they have as well.” Garrow waved the Monroe file at them accusingly. “Let me state the assignment more clearly. You’re going to do more than make contact, you’re going to become Mr. and Mrs. Monroe’s new best friends.” Garrow stared at the file he held in his hands. “We’ve had agents in his company studying every move Peter Monroe makes. Another operative became a social friend at his country club, but nothing. Hell, one of our best agents has spent hours shopping with Mrs. Monroe, but she doesn’t know anything.”

“Or she’s too smart for your operative,” Laura said, but the men ignored her.

“Clint and Laura Marshall are attending all the festivities of the York-Chandler wedding because the Yorks are important business associates. What’s more, Donald York revealed that Monroe asked for Nicholas Vasili to be invited to the wedding ceremony and reception. Vasili is Russian Mafia. This is the closest we’ve ever been to getting Monroe and Vasili in the same room.” Garrow’s face grew animated as he revealed his case. “You two are going to figure out why Monroe wants Vasili at the wedding and uncover what they’re up to. I suspect Vasili will be handing over another load of money for Monroe to launder through his companies—and you’re going to catch them at it.”

“That sounds about as likely as convincing a goat to keep out of the garbage. Surely you have some kind of a better lead?” Clint asked, wondering what kind of a crazy assignment SFI was running.

Garrow mopped his brow with a white handkerchief. “This is our last chance. After this weekend the budget for this case is gone and I have to move on to a more likely candidate, but I want to get Peter Monroe.”

“Why is he so important to you?” Laura asked.

Garrow looked at her, and for a second Clint thought he was going to tell the truth. But then Garrow said, “Because he’s breaking the law.”

Laura tilted her head to the left and studied the skinny man; clearly she, too, knew there was more to the story. “I don’t understand why Clint and I need to pose as a couple to attend the wedding.”

Sam Clark smiled with genuine pleasure as he studied the two of them. Clint didn’t like the man’s assessment. “Because you two, as a couple, fit Peter Monroe’s fantasies. He’s a boy from Jersey who grew up dreaming about the wild west. And cowboys.”

“That explains him,” Laura nodded toward Clint, “but how do I—”

“I’m from Texas,” Clint interrupted. “That doesn’t necessarily make me a cowboy.”

“You could have fooled me,” Laura muttered and stared at his boots.

Captain Clark took another swig of his green health drink, grimaced and pointed at Clint. “I don’t care whether you can shoot a lasso or brand a haystack, you walk and talk like a cowboy and you’re going to do your best to convince Peter Monroe you’re the genuine article.”

Clint wondered if he should point out his many years of police experience and several commendations, but decided not to give Clark more reason to punish him.

Laura crossed one elegant leg over the other and Clint noticed the other two men watching her. “Fine, Peter Monroe wants to play cowboy. I don’t see—”

“If you’d let me finish a sentence you’d learn how you fit in. Damn, your last captain never said anything about you being such a chatterbox.” Captain Clark ran a tongue over his teeth and grimaced as he tasted the remnants of the health drink. “Peter Monroe has two driving fantasies. He comes from a working-class family. His father was a factory worker and his mother was a waitress who used to make extra money by hiring herself out as service help for large society parties. Peter went with her, helping in the kitchen. Clearly that’s when he became obsessed with high society. The longer a family’s been in America the more impressed he is.”

“But…” Laura started to interrupt again but quickly thought better of it.

“Yes?” The captain smiled at her predicament but Laura wisely decided not to ask how she fit into the scenario. At least the woman acknowledged the silver spoon she was born with.

Clint wondered what it would be like to be accepted because of one’s family name. He was placing extraordinary demands on himself because of how badly his own family was perceived. His father had run off with the life savings of too many people in Two Horse Junction for him to be comfortable accepting the sheriff’s job just because he was a good cop. He needed to show that he was a great cop.

Captain Clark smiled. “Unfortunately the Chicago P.D. isn’t overrun by socialites. Luckily you transferred in. In fact it’s good that the pair of you transferred in. I never dreamed I’d be happy to have a cowboy and an heiress working for me.”

“I’m not…an heiress. My mother—” Another look at Captain Clark’s face and Laura stopped. She didn’t bite her lip or fidget or anything. She just waited. Clint had to admit he liked how calm she was. It was the only thing he liked about Miss Nose-Stuck-Up-In-the-Air Laura Carter. When she’d transferred in from Boston he couldn’t help but admire her beauty. But her ice-maiden attitude didn’t appeal to him. He liked a woman who wasn’t afraid to laugh out loud, who wasn’t afraid to step in a puddle in order to cross the road. He preferred having a warm loving body in his bed, not a prickly cactus. She had about as much personality as a cactus, too.

It hadn’t taken long for the rumors about her to spread. Clint didn’t believe every story he heard, but there were so many of them about Laura Carter—and her relationship with her last boss—that he had wondered. She had been transferred out of Boston to Chicago very quickly—and under a cloud of secrecy. He knew how much paperwork was involved in switching from one city to another. It had taken him over a year to get himself approved for the move from Dallas to Chicago and that was only after he’d received a hero’s thank-you for rescuing a kidnapped baby.

Clearly Little Miss Society had been sent to Chicago because of her misdeeds. He had seen her having dinner with the police superintendent just last week, probably thanking him for her job. Having dinner with the highest-ranked police officer in Chicago certainly didn’t hurt her career. None of the other officers in their department had ever had such an honor, yet there she’d been, only a couple of months after joining the Chicago force.

He’d been having dinner with his own date, and unfortunately had become bored with her too quickly. He found that happening a lot recently. Probably because he missed home and was looking forward to finding himself a sweet Texas gal. A woman who appreciated a man like him.

The SFI agent took the center of the room. “The wedding of two of Chicago’s most established families will be playing into Peter Monroe’s psyche. It’s the perfect opportunity for Mr. and Mrs. Marshall, the personification of his ultimate fantasy, to become his new best friends.”

Laura frowned. “What you’re saying makes a certain kind of logic, but once Clint and I worm our way into Monroe’s circle then what? He’s not about to confess his well-thought out criminal activities to us.”

“The psychologists think he just might.” Garrow shrugged. “I admit, the plan is kind of crazy, but it’s our last chance. You can have all the paperwork on the profile, but our psychologist suggests that if Clint and Peter could become friends and then enter a one-upmanship contest—which Clint must win—Peter might show his own hand. At the very least he may be more careless than usual at the wedding when he meets with Vasili. This is the first time that we’ll be able to prove that these two men have even been in the same room together. I need you two to be there and take advantage of whatever the situation may offer.” Vincent ran a hand through his hair, “I realize this sounds desperate and—well it is. Basically you’re going to have to improvise—including how to get Peter Monroe to show his hand.”

Laura stood. “We’ll do it.”

When had she turned so sympathetic? Clint stood as well. “Well Captain, I’m honored to have the opportunity to work with an officer as fine as Ms. Carter. Plus, as my dear mother always says, the sooner we get started the sooner we’ll be finished.”

Laura glared at him.

“The most important thing is to convince Peter Monroe that you two are madly in love,” the captain said.

“I’ve usually found the fillies do fall madly in love with me,” Clint said in his very best Texas drawl.

Laura harrumphed. Clint slid an arm around her, hugging her to him. “Now, honey, was that any way to show enthusiasm for this project?”

She stiffened against him. He felt her take a deep breath and he counted to five before she disengaged herself and moved away from him slightly. It figured Laura didn’t have to count to ten like a regular person; she regained her composure in five. “Cowboy, there’s nothing I would like better than to be married to you for the weekend.” She smiled sweetly and he felt incredible pain—and realized she’d ground one heel of her pump into his boot.

Determined to show her he wasn’t the hick she thought he was, and wondering why he wanted to prove otherwise, he limped to the office door and opened it. She swept past him, her chin up in the air and her back ramrod straight as she marched away. He let his gaze fall to her buttocks which nicely filled out the tailored navy skirt but there was no seductive sway of her hips.

Damn, he had to admit she was beautiful, especially when she was mad at him, but she was not the kind of woman he was attracted to.

Laura Carter might be gorgeous but she was also a royal pain in the butt.

She kept going past his desk to the women’s bathroom while he picked up his messages. His brother Ben had called, as had Amber, a working girl who sometimes had good tips. Naturally she hadn’t left a number for him to return her call, but he knew that if it was important she’d find him.

Stan Lesky stopped at his desk and grinned. “Score man. You got assigned to Carter.”

“Only for this assignment. There’s nothing permanent about us as a team.” In his year with the Chicago P.D. he’d had three different partners. Willy and he had partnered up for six months before Willy’s retirement. Contrary to popular cop movies, they’d thrown a nice goodbye party and Willy had retired to the suburbs to annoy his wife. Then Clint had partnered with whoever was available, most often with Lucy Wong, a veteran of fifteen years in the department, and with Jeff Knight on his first rotation as a plainclothes officer. Despite the fact that Jeff Knight had grown up in Chicago, Clint knew he had never been as young or enthusiastic as Jeff.

It wasn’t only the big city that had hard lessons to teach. Anyone looking at Jeff and Clint side by side at age twenty-two would assume Clint was the sophisticated, cynical man from the big city and optimistic Jeff the bumpkin from Two Horse Junction, Texas, population five hundred and eighty-seven.

Every year the population of Two Horse fluctuated by five to ten. Some years it decreased as the young people left; then it would swell again as some disillusioned souls came back home. Clint planned to increase the number by one very soon—his brothers needed him, and more importantly he needed to be back home. And once he was back he planned to find a nice local girl to marry—he knew his mother had a list of suitable single women—and to increase the population of his hometown even further with a houseful of kids. A sweet and loving wife he would treasure, look after and never leave. And he would be sheriff.

Sheriff in a small town was much better than being a detective in Chicago. Both jobs were important, he acknowledged, but back home he would know the people in his town. He’d be able to help in a real way—and be able to stop trouble before it grew out of hand. A small-town sheriff was a law enforcer, the first administrator of justice, a social worker, marriage counselor and role model.

Unlike his father he wanted the respect of his town. He loved his hometown but he needed its respect even more. When Sheriff O’Conner retired next year and Clint was offered the job, he wanted everyone in town to say that he was the best man for it. If he succeeded with this case—made some kind of breakthrough that the SFI had not—if he joined the homicide squad, then no one in Two Horse Junction could doubt that a full-fledged Chicago detective hadn’t earned the position of sheriff.

Lesky grinned even wider, showing off his big shiny white teeth. The man could be found in the men’s room flossing several times a day and recently he’d even bleached his teeth. “Carter is a fine piece of woman.”

“More like an iceberg.”

“Sometimes melting an iceberg can be appealing. All that fresh, untapped water.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

“You’re forgetting what happened to the Titanic. I, however, remember my history. My only interest in Laura Carter is whether or not she’s a good cop.”

“I’ll bet she’s good all right—at least that’s what her old captain believed.”

“That’s a rumor,” Clint replied, feeling a twinge of guilt at his own hypocrisy. “We’re cops and are supposed to follow the facts, not gossip.”

Lesky grabbed a chair and straddled it. “Fact number one, Laura Carter is a very beautiful woman. Fact number two, she moved up the chain of command faster than usual—faster than either you or me. Fact number three, she had a very close relationship with her captain in Boston.”

Clint put his phone messages into his desk drawer. Lesky was tiresome. “That’s pure speculation. The captain may simply have been her mentor.”

“You’ll be the one to judge how good she is…at police work.” Lesky loved the sound of his own voice, and a small crowd was gathering around Clint’s desk. The only way to stop Lesky was to let him finish.

Lesky looked around at his fellow officers. “Back to the facts. Fact number four, most of her unit believed she was having an affair with the captain, apparently including his wife. Fact number five, his wife began divorce proceedings and fact number six, because of Laura’s family connections, she was transferred to us. How long did it take the paperwork to get you from Dallas to here?”

“A year.”

“It took Laura two weeks.”

Lesky had a valid argument but Clint never believed all the stories told about a person. Stories could be vicious and mean, even when they were based on truth.

He knew all about living with a reputation. “The facts could also indicate that she was—is—a damn fine cop.”

“But that body. She’s got great legs and—” he cupped a pair of imaginary breasts. “I’d love to lose myself in her body for a few hours.”

“That’s where we’re different. I don’t believe every rumor.” Clint stood. “And trust me, the last thing I want to do is get my hands on Ms. Carter’s body. Us Texas boys don’t like frostbite.” He pretended to shiver but saw that Lewsky wasn’t smiling. He took a deep breath and turned around.

Clint reminded himself that his mama had taught him better. If you spoke your mind you had to accept the consequences. Laura stood in front of him, looking like she always did.

Her face wasn’t flushed with anger, she didn’t sweep her gaze disdainfully over him or even turn on her heel and stalk out.

Instead she looked cool and imperial. When she opened her mouth he braced himself for her cutting remarks. “What time do you want to pick me up tomorrow? It will make our cover story more believable if we arrive in one car.”

He thought about apologizing, but she didn’t look like she cared about what her colleagues thought of her. “Does noon work?” he asked instead.

“Can you make it a little later, say one-thirty? I have to organize a lot of clothes to play my part.”

“Sure, that’s okay.” He opened his mouth and then closed it again.

She took a pen and piece of paper from his desk and wrote something on it. “My address. I’ll be in the lobby at one-thirty.” She handed the paper over to him and their fingers brushed. For a moment she eyed Lesky, then walked away.

This time Clint wanted to shiver for real. Laura Carter was even colder than he’d imagined.

No matter what the next few days held at the society wedding, it would be no honeymoon.

2

AT EXACTLY 1:25 p.m. of what she was sure was about to be the first of the worst four days of her life, Laura placed her two suitcases on the floor of the lobby of her building and looked out the front window. No cowboy on a white stallion.

She let out a pent-up breath, angry at herself. “You are a complete idiot and a juvenile one at that. You weren’t even this bad when you had a crush on Kevin Beckins in seventh grade!” If she’d thought talking to herself would fix her unreasonable and unwanted crush on Clint Marshall, it didn’t work. She’d never been so humiliated in her entire life. She had a crush on the cowboy. A crush!

Deliberately she replayed his words in her mind: Trust me, the last thing I want to do is get my hands on Ms. Carter’s body. Us Texas boys don’t like frostbite.

He hadn’t even used her first name. He probably thought his tongue would freeze if he said her name out loud. He clearly considered her a stiff, prissy socialite.

She softly kicked one of her expensive suitcases with her even more expensive shoes. Sweetums whimpered in disagreement. “Baby, did I scare you? I’m sorry. Mummy was thinking about that nasty man we’re being forced to spend a very long weekend with and I was trying to work out my frustration.” She scooped the bundle of white fluff into her arms and adjusted the blue bow tied to the tiny dog’s collar. “How’s my little Sweetums?”

The dog squinted at her from under her long blond bangs and blinked. Laura kissed the top of the dog’s head, amazed she’d come to care as much as she did for the ridiculous dog. She scratched Sweetums behind her ears and continued her running monologue. Sweetums liked to hear the sound of human voices. “If you were a real dog you’d bark. Or growl, or make some kind of loud noise—anything more than those little whiny noises you make when you sleep. Try barking for Mummy. Bark,” Laura coaxed and then demonstrated by making a loud woofing sound. Sweetums looked at Laura curiously, opened her mouth and licked Laura’s face.

“Well at least somebody likes me,” she said ruefully and wished the cowboy’s words hadn’t hurt so much. Normally she liked her ice-princess routine. After all, she had spent years refining the image. She was very good at it. Because of it most men stayed far away.

Romantic involvements only confused most women’s lives. At present count her mother had been married five times and each husband had had his own horrible qualities. Her mother continued to sail blithely across extremely dangerous seas from man to man, never noticing how much of her fortune each husband cost her or even more importantly how they destroyed her emotionally.

But Laura had noticed. And when she caught herself repeating her mother’s pattern—completely changing herself to fit into her ex-fiancé’s life—she’d stopped. Brian Simpson had almost been the biggest mistake of her life, but she’d gotten smart. Like her mother, men were her weakness so she’d stopped dating. Joined the police force. Concentrated on her career. Exclusively.

She liked being a cop and she was good at it. She loved the challenge of figuring out a case: following obscure leads, interviewing witnesses until something clicked and she knew who had broken the law. She sympathized with Garrow’s frustration; he knew that Monroe Investments laundered Russian Mafia money but he didn’t have the evidence he needed to arrest Peter Monroe. When she’d first made detective, she and her partner had kept a case open for three years, working on it whenever they could squeeze in the time, until they’d finally made an arrest.

Once she’d proven she wasn’t just playing at being a police officer, her colleagues had assumed that she would request a transfer to a unit like Special Financial Investigations. But while she appreciated the work Agent Garrow did, Laura preferred being on the street, helping ordinary people.

Being a good cop was her only priority. No man had been able to even chisel an inch of permafrost off her carefully developed exterior.

Until Clint Marshall.

A red sports car pulled up in front of her building and Clint unfolded his tall form from within. She watched and waited as he smiled at her neighbor, Mrs. Schwarz, and then held open the lobby door for her. He tilted his cowboy hat to the elderly woman and Mrs. Schwarz giggled as she passed him.

Laura’s pulse quickened as she studied him from under her eyelashes. Clint was tall, well over six feet and since she was five-nine, he’d be the perfect height to kiss. He had broad shoulders and a well-muscled chest. She knew because he’d had his shirt ripped off once during a violent arrest and he’d spent ten glorious minutes in the squad room processing the paperwork before going to the locker room to change. She’d had to take a tight hold of her desk to stop herself from running her hands over his bronzed muscles.

Clint’s long strides had him next to her and she took a deep breath, inhaling the crisp masculine scent of Clint Marshall. She held Sweetums up to her face to mask her swirling emotions. Whenever she was around Clint, it always took a little longer for her to put on the face she showed the rest of the world.

“What in the blazes is that?” Clint demanded as he frowned at the bundle of white fluff in her arms.

“Her name is Sweetums.” She raised the dog to his eye level.

Clint scowled at Sweetums. “What is it?”

“She’s a dog.”

“Darlin’, I’ve got cats bigger than that and with a lot less fur.”

Laura knew perfectly well the picture she and the Lhasa apso made. She was dressed in a pale blue suit, cradling a poofy white dog that in turn wore a bow that matched the exact shade of her blue suit. The image they presented was both sweet and ridiculous and, as she planned, Clint was looking at her in puzzlement. What was most important to Laura, however, was that she did not look like a member of Chicago’s finest. Looking at Laura and her dog, people would assume she was a socialite with too much time on her hands rather than a hard-working police officer. Laura straightened the bow on her dog’s head. “Sweetums is a Lhasa apso. She’s not supposed to grow any bigger, which is a good thing, because she’s just perfect as she is.”

“Just big enough to fit into your pocketbook?”

She smiled sweetly and scratched Sweetums behind her ears. The dog panted and sighed. Ever since Sweetums’s first owner had passed away, the dog loved to be petted and fussed over. Clint shook his head, his lips twitching and stroked Sweetums’s head. The dog drooled. Of course, if Clint touched her like that, Laura reflected, she’d drool, too.

“The dog is named Sweetums?” Clint asked.

“Yes. Say hello to the nice man, Sweetums,” she cooed into the dog’s ear and waved one little doggy paw at Clint. Sweetums looked bored and yawned. “I guess she doesn’t know what to make of a cowboy.”

“I get that reaction a lot in Chicago. Although people are generally a little more polite.”

“Is that why you turn the Texas drawl on and off?”

He shot her a quick look with his steel colored eyes but said nothing. He picked up her two suitcases. “Is this everything?”

“Yes.” She patted Sweetums on the head and straightened the dog’s bow again so that she wouldn’t see Clint pick up her bags, see the rippling muscles in his arms or appreciate the view as he walked away from her. When she looked up she realized she was too late. Clint was already outside her building. She scrambled after him and caught up just as he put her two bags in the miniscule trunk of his convertible—his own bag was on the pretend excuse of a back seat—and then opened her car door.

“Darlin’,” a mocking smile teased his lips as he gestured wide with his arm and helped her in. He touched her arm as she settled herself in, unaware that his touch marked her with greater power than any branding iron could have done.

As he walked around the car she looked at her left arm expecting to see the imprint of his fingers.

What was it about Clint Marshall that reduced her to a quivering mass of want? As Clint got in the car she pulled herself together—she’d spent enough evenings wasting her time thinking about Clint. She needed to establish a professional working relationship with him, that was all. But she was curious about him.

He started the sports car and pulled out into traffic. Laura settled Sweetums on her lap and readjusted the bow, choosing her words. If she was going to spend the next four days with him, she didn’t want to offend him, but she wanted to understand him—for purely professional reasons, she told herself. She and Clint would be a team for the next number of days. “With some people the good old boy accent is so thick I can barely make sense of what you’re saying through all the y’alls and cow metaphors. But when you’re with people you like, the whole routine disappears.”

She waited. Unlike how he behaved with most of their fellow officers, Clint always turned on the Texas routine when he spoke to her.

“Darlin’, I just give the people what they want. They see a Stetson and a pair of cowboy boots and have certain expectations—especially in a big established city like this.”

She certainly understood his reasoning and she’d heard the other women gossiping often enough about the handsome cowboy. One of the very young and gorgeous female cops on the force had stated that she couldn’t imagine anything sexier than a cowboy in her bed. Unfortunately that image had stuck in Laura’s mind and she’d spent too much time fantasying about his Stetson on her pillow.

She realized that she and Clint shared a common trait: she, too, gave people exactly what they expected.

Clint passed a car and then looked at her. “Why did you bring that dog with you? Hotels have rules about not allowing pets.”

Sweetums settled herself more comfortably on Laura’s lap, drooled, sighed and closed her eyes. Luckily Laura was familiar with this routine and had her handkerchief ready to wipe away the drool before it landed on her silk suit or the soft leather of the car seat. Most Lhasa apsos didn’t drool, but after the trauma of losing her first owner the dog had stopped barking and started slobbering. She ran a hand along the calfskin. “Nice car,” she said, avoiding his question.

“The department loaned it to me. Garrow must have some kind of pull—or else his bosses are giving him a last chance. They figured a red sports car would suit our image as wealthy newlyweds.”

“It’s lovely.” Her mother’s third husband, Larry, had loved cars and spent a lot of money filling a seven car garage. Laura had liked the vintage roadsters, and was quite sad when Larry and her mother had divorced and Larry had taken all the cars in the settlement. Laura missed the cars more than she’d missed Larry. As her mother was already in love with husband number four, she wasn’t sure if her mother had noticed the absence of either.

Clint thumped the driving wheel of the red sports car. “Maybe you’re used to a useless expensive car like this but back home this car wouldn’t make it through the first pothole. You couldn’t transport anything with it.”

“Some things are designed to look good and go fast. Period. Not to haul around outhouses or maneuver around giant potholes. Maybe you should fix the roads back in Three Mule Station,” she snapped and realized she’d lost her temper, deliberately making fun of Clint’s hometown. She never, ever, lost her temper. But then again she never behaved like herself when she was around the cowboy.

“It’s Two Horse Junction,” Clint said without any heat. “I guess I prefer the practical to the purely decorative.”

She knew he meant her, but she chose to ignore his comment. The knowledge that Clint Marshall didn’t like her would not bother her. She ruffled Sweetums’s bow, schooled her face not to reveal any emotion and pretended she didn’t understand his real meaning. “Sweetums is a completely useful dog.”

“Ha! She probably couldn’t bark loud enough to call for help if someone was trying to break into your apartment.”

“I have a doorman for that,” she replied, but in truth she had been trying to teach Sweetums to bark for the past three months, ever since her neighbor, Mrs. Novak, had passed away. Laura had been the first person to enter Mrs. Novak’s apartment, alerted by Sweetums’s whining and scratching to find the elderly woman in her bed. The coroner had diagnosed heart failure. As Mrs. Novak hadn’t had any relatives, or even many friends, Laura had handled the funeral arrangements. And, unable to turn the dog over to the city pound and an uncertain future, she had taken Sweetums home to live with her.

Laura had never had a dog, or a desire to saddle herself with a fluffy white useless creature that didn’t even bark, but neither could she abandon the defenseless creature. So Laura took Sweetums home and tried to make her feel safe.

But after a month of silence, a month of the only sound of Sweetums making being an occasional pathetic whimper along with the excess drooling, Laura had taken the pooch to an animal psychologist. The therapist, after several expensive sessions, assured her that Sweetums just needed time to grieve for the loss of her mistress and to adjust to Laura. Sweetums would bark again, the doggie therapist had assured her and offered further counseling.

Laura declined and hired one of the kids in her building as a dog walker. Sometimes she worried that her long and erratic hours weren’t fair to the dog, but Sweetums was delighted every time she came home.

Laura had to admit she rather liked having Sweetums to come home to. Never before in her life had anyone ever been excited to see her come home. In fact, Sweetums made her apartment feel much more like a home.

The dog was all the company she needed. Once she got over her inexplicable lust for the cowboy her life could return to normal. She pushed away the thought that she and Clint would be sharing a hotel room for the next four nights. What if he slept in the nude? No, she wasn’t going to let her ice-princess façade chip one millimeter. Clint would never know how much time she had spent wondering what it would be like to kiss him…or anything else!

She continued playing with her dog’s bow as she snuck covert looks at the cowboy. Mrs. Novak had liked to dress up the small dog and Sweetums seemed to enjoy it, so Laura occasionally tied a ribbon on her, or dressed her in one of the many sweaters Mrs. Novak had lovingly knit for her pet. Laura had brought along Sweetums’s entire wardrobe for this assignment.

She shifted slightly in her car seat and stole another look at Clint Marshall. My, but he was a fine specimen of manhood, as Mrs. Novak would have said. And as Mrs. Schwarz had appreciated him when he had held open the door for her. Laura and all the little old ladies of Mortimer Manor would agree that Clint Marshall was the sexiest man they had ever seen.

Part of her wished that Clint found her attractive, that she could seduce him and have a passionate wild weekend. Wild, sweaty, hot sex. She would taste every inch of his broad chest that strained against his shirt, run her fingers through his dark hair, while his strong hands would caress her breasts and…she licked her dry lips.

Clint Marshall wasn’t attracted to her.

She peeked another look at Clint. How she wished she was the kind of woman who could sleep with him just once, or twice or even half a dozen times and let that be it!

Instead she knew her weaknesses. If she gave in, Clint Marshall would be the biggest mistake she could ever make. But only if she let down her defenses and let him know even for one second how much she wanted him. The state of Texas would host a Cowboys Getting in Touch with their Feelings convention before she would ever admit to her lustful fascination with Clint Marshall.

She wasn’t the kind of woman who could have a fling without regrets, but she stupidly fell in love with whatever man she was with and let herself become distracted from her goals. It had happened with Brian. It could happen again. She was weak when it came to men.

She liked being a cop. She was good at being a cop. And despite the rumors that had followed her from Boston, the other officers were beginning to think she might be okay as well. She knew she had a lot of ground to cover before her colleagues believed her quick promotions had been because of her skills at detection rather than in the bedroom, but she was on the right track. The absolute worst thing she could do for her career would be to have a fling with Clint while on the society wedding assignment. She should be relieved that Clint found her repulsive.

It was much safer to talk about the dog. “Sweetums has been through a lot recently and was traumatized by the death of her first owner. The animal therapist said she’d start barking when she finished grieving.”

“A doggie shrink.” Clint shook his head as he shifted gears, and Laura wished his hand was on her leg. “We sure do live in different worlds, Princess.” He reached over and patted Sweetums’s head, while Laura tried not to notice how close his hand was to her thigh.

“How did you finally figure out that burglary case?” Clint asked suddenly. “It had been passed around the department for a year before you took it over.”

“I got lucky because Captain Clark assigned me all the grunt cases. The small-business burglaries and the purse snatchings.”

“Every other detective was thrilled not to have those cases.”

“I was the new guy, I had to pay my dues.” Laura shrugged. “Anyway, I was checking out the various pawn shops to see if any of the items from the purse snatchings might have ended up there. I know muggers usually take the money and ditch the bag, but sometimes women have jewelry in their purse. Instead I found personal items stolen from the businesses that had been robbed over a year ago. That made me realize the thief was very local and someone who was willing to wait a long time to fence the personal items he took. Mostly he stole laptop computers and fax machines, but every once in a while the thief wasn’t able to resist jewelry, expensive photo frames or other personal items.”

“So the thief is local and patient. Then what?”

Laura could feel him watching her, but she continued to pet Sweetums and stare straight out the window. “The most reasonable assumption was that the thief didn’t steal full-time for a living, because of how long he would wait to pawn the items. So I tried to think of someone who would go into a lot of offices on a regular basis so he’d know what was where. And then when I was in a pawn shop the watercooler guy made his delivery.”

“That’s what made you realize it was the water delivery guy?”

“Him or someone like him.” Laura had been delighted that she’d been able to solve a burglary case that had sat open for a year. Clark had even grudgingly told her she’d done a good job. “I realized it was the water delivery guy when he asked what case I was working on and whether I’d heard anything about the local burglaries. He wanted to talk about himself. I didn’t have enough for a warrant so I staked him out for a week and saw him break into a real estate office. I had him.”

“A week’s stakeout? There’s no way Captain Clark would have approved that.”

“I used my own time.”

Clint pulled the car in front of the hotel, the Chicago Regal, one of the city’s oldest and most elegant buildings. The York-Chandler wedding had reserved most of the rooms in the hotel. Laura looked at the gracious building, surprised the drive had passed so quickly.

He turned to her. “You’re very determined. We’re going to need that on this case.”

She didn’t wait for Clint to open her car door, but scrambled out. Sweetums looked around excitedly and made a high-pitched squeaking sound. Laura held her breath as she listened for any sound that could be called a bark, but Sweetums squeaked again and stopped.

She turned back to watch Clint wrestle his bags out of the back seat. A bellboy loaded them onto a waiting cart and the valet slid into the front seat of Clint’s car.

“Woowee, Sugar, this here looks like a mighty fine hotel.”

Clint draped a casual arm around her shoulder and a surge of warm pleasure washed over her.

Her reaction to Clint Marshall confused and surprised her. She’d dated since she was fifteen but she’d never experienced such a strong sexual attraction to any man as she did to Clint. She wanted him.

Ever since she’d first laid eyes on him six months ago, her dreams had been filled with erotic fantasies starring Clint. Too often she caught herself staring at his muscular forearms, the fine hair on his hands. She even admired his easy camaraderie with his colleagues. His drawl reduced her to a pool of longing. A mass of quivering Jell-O.

She stiffened under his arm. For the sake of her pride, she wasn’t about to let Clint suspect even an inkling of her feelings toward him.

Clint leaned in and whispered in her ear. “Relax, Princess. We’re the happy couple—everything Peter Monroe’s subconscious wants to be. We have to look deliriously happy together.”

“We’re not big on overt public displays of affection in my family or my social set,” she said smoothly, annoyed at herself for telling him anything about herself. It wasn’t in her nature to confide in others, especially near-strangers.

Maybe that was Clint’s appeal for her, she considered as Sweetums stretched forward and sniffed Clint’s leather jacket. He was so different from all the men she’d known, especially those from her upper-class background.

A cowboy would shock her mother clear down to her pedicured toes.

Wasn’t she a little old at twenty-seven to be going through a rebellious stage? Laura wondered.

Clint’s warm breath continued next to her ear. “Besides I’m looking forward to you talking that little dog’s way into the hotel.”

“Watch me.” She smiled sweetly and walked briskly into the hotel, cooing to Sweetums every step of the way, all too aware of Clint directly behind her. She wished she was the kind of woman who could swing her backside, instead she smiled at the doorman who scrambled to open the door for her, all the time pretending she was her second cousin, Mindy, who traveled with an entourage of pets, including a potbellied Vietnamese pig, to the most exclusive hotels.

She sailed through the lobby, Sweetums’s bow flapping in the breeze, and went straight to the executive check-in. Luckily there was no one else waiting and she bestowed her most gracious look on the young clerk behind the desk. She smiled. “What a charming hotel you have, you must be very proud.”

The young man looked confused but he recovered. “Thank you.”

“And you’re so young to be in charge.” She looked at his name tag. “Ralph. May I call you Ralph? I’m Laura Marshall and this gorgeous man behind me is my husband Clint.” She turned to Clint. “Say hello to the nice young man, darlin’,” She drawled the last word in a fine imitation of his Texas twang.

Clint pushed back his cowboy hat and grinned. “Howdy.”

“This is Sweetums.” Laura placed the dog on the counter, fussed with the blue bow, continuing blithely as Ralph blanched. Sweetums panted and drooled on top of the marble countertop. “Oh, she really likes you, Ralph, but then again Sweetums has always had exquisite taste.”

Ralph blushed. “I’m sorry ma’am but—”

“Oh no, please don’t call me ma’am. It makes me feel…” she shivered and said in a low voice, “…matronly.” She leaned in closer, engulfing him in a wave of perfume. “You don’t think I look matronly do you?”

The top of Ralph’s ears turned pink. “No. You’re beautiful.” He gulped for breath. “Er, I mean—”

“No need to apologize for a compliment, young man.” She leaned in a little closer and caught Ralph’s eyes with her own, letting him fantasize for a moment about her. “But you’ll be wanting to do your job. You can look us up in that computer now. We have a suite. Mr. and Mrs. Clint Marshall.”

Ralph began typing into his computer, his gaze flickering between the screen and the dog. “Got it.” He looked at her apologetically. “I’m afraid the hotel has a policy against animals.”

“A very good policy it is, too.” She straightened Sweetums’s ribbon. “Imagine animals in a hotel. Whatever do some people think of?”

Ralph’s ears turned red. “I meant pets. I’m afraid we don’t allow pets of any kind.”

Laura smiled at him. “Of course not. It’s a very sensible policy. I knew I liked this place. Didn’t I say so as soon as we saw the hotel. I said, ‘Clint, honey, this looks like a first-class establishment.’ Didn’t I say that, dear?”

“You sure did, honey pie,” Clint agreed from behind her.

She heard the laughter in his voice, but she refused to turn around and glare at him. Instead, she continued to smile sweetly at Ralph.

Ralph’s ears reddened even more as he swallowed and looked again at Sweetums. “I’m afraid we can’t, I mean—” he faltered as he pointed to Sweetums. The dog yawned and drooled on the marble countertop. “Your pet…”

She picked up Sweetums and kissed the top of the Lhasa apso’s head. “Sweetums isn’t a pet, she’s part of the family.”

“She’s a dog,” Ralph persisted.

Laura covered the dog’s ears. “Ssh, you mustn’t say those words around her. Sweetums has species issues.”

Clint made a curious sound, but she ignored him. She’d told him she was going to get Sweetums into the hotel and she was enjoying playing the part of cousin Mindy. Perhaps this odd sense of power was why Mindy traveled with her animal menagerie. “Ralph, I thought this was a first-class hotel. I hope you’re not about to change my impression within the first five minutes. We’re here for the York-Chandler wedding. Sweetums goes everywhere I go. Surely you don’t want me to tell the happy families that you’re refusing to let us stay?”

“Of course not, Mrs. Marshall, but your do—”

“Not that word,” she held up her hand. “Species issues.” She rubbed Sweetums behind her ears and Ralph gulped.

“Sweetums is against hotel policy,” Ralph said as he tugged on an ear.

“Of course I understand that for your average d-o-g,” she spelled out the letters, “this is a very good policy. But Sweetums isn’t average.” She leaned a little closer and stroked Ralph’s cheek, her hand lingering just beneath his earlobe. “Sweetums will be very good. No one will know she’s even here. I promise,” she breathed and raised her blue eyes to his and held him. She watched worry about his job and desire to please her cross his face and his ears wiggled. She held herself very still, every inch of her regal family’s genes giving her strength.

Just as she was afraid she might have lost him, Ralph hit some keys on the keyboard and nodded to the bellboy behind them. “They’re in the honeymoon suite.”

“We are?” Laura couldn’t keep the shocked surprise out of her voice. She cast a suspicious look at Clint, but he smiled blandly. There was absolutely no way she was going to spend four nights together with Clint in the honeymoon suite. “Won’t the bride and groom want that suite?”

“They have separate rooms until the wedding and are leaving for the Bahamas right after the reception.”

“How sweet and old-fashioned,” she muttered.

“Honeybunch, I reserved us the honeymoon suite.” Clint had stepped forward and he hugged her to his side. Her face was pressed into his leather jacket and she couldn’t breathe. She tipped her face up and saw Clint smiling down on her like he’d won a prize. “I thought it would be nice to combine a little honeymooning of our own with this wedding shindig.”

“How lovely. You should have told me.” She tried to move away from him but his hold was like a vise.

“Don’t worry, I packed my favorite negligee.”

She bared her teeth at him. She kicked him in the shins, but his cowboy boots protected him while her expensive shoes offered her no protection. “Ouch, er, a second honeymoon. What a nice idea.”

“Well, Sugar, nothing’s too good for you. And since we never saw anything of Paris on our first honeymoon, I thought we could do things proper this time.”

“Chicago isn’t Paris.”

“No but this time we’ll leave the hotel room occasionally.” He winked.

“Darling, you’re making my toes curl in anticipation.” She managed to loosen an arm and elbowed him in the side. Clint let go of her and grinned, enjoying her discomfort. Laura scooped her dog back into her arms to keep Clint away from her.

“I married a big strong man, didn’t I, Sweetums?” She stepped a little closer to Clint and rose on tiptoe so that her lips were next to his ear. Irritated with the man beyond belief, but also unable to resist, she brushed her teeth across his lobe and had the satisfaction of feeling his body stiffen. His hands shot out and grabbed her arms. Before he could pull her away from him, she whispered “Peter and Cassandra Monroe at four o’clock.”

His tight grip turned into a caress as he turned slightly so that he was able to see the couple. “Did he notice us?” he asked against her ear.

She ignored the shiver his warm breath sent down her spine. “He looked over in our direction, but that’s it.”

“The whole point of our being here is for him to notice us. Let’s make sure he does.”

Before Laura had any idea what he planned he took Sweetums out of her arms and she found herself holding her breath thinking: he’s going to kiss me. She’d considered that at some point over the festivities she and Clint might kiss, but she’d been sure she would know when it was going to happen and have time to prepare herself. She didn’t want to give Clint any inclination of her true feelings for him.

She took a deep breath, which steadied her nerves. She smiled at him, ready for his mouth to descend over hers and her world to turn upside down.

Her world turned upside down. She felt her feet leave the ground and found herself staring at Clint’s very attractive behind. Sweetums was decorously cradled against Clint’s chest while she was tossed over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Laura didn’t care who heard her. “Put me down you big oaf!”

Clint slapped her backside and strode across the lobby in huge man-eating steps. Laura ground her teeth in frustration as she realized every last person in the hotel lobby—including Peter Monroe and his wife Cassandra—were staring at them. Clint pushed the elevator button. She could hear the grin in his voice as he announced to the hotel lobby, “I’ve got me a first-class filly and we’re going to have a second honeymoon. Not that the first one ever really ended.”

As Laura raised her head she saw Cassandra say something to Peter Monroe and the target of their assignment smiled as he looked at her. Then he winked at her.

The elevator doors opened and Clint strode inside, turned around and stopped the bellboy who was about to follow them with their luggage. “Take the next car. The missus and I want to be alone for a minute.”

The bellboy obeyed, his mouth hanging open, and the doors closed behind them leaving her and Clint alone in the elevator.

“Put me down.”

“If I put you down, are you going to kill me?”

“Yes.”

He shifted her weight slightly on his shoulder. “Then I can’t put you down until you promise not to hurt me.”

“You hoisted me over your shoulder like a bag of wet laundry.”

“More like flour really. You’re not nearly heavy enough or lumpy enough for wet laundry.”

“Put me down!” she demanded.

“Not until I have your word.”

“You can’t keep me on your shoulder forever.”

Clint pushed the Stop button.

“Don’t do that. They’re going to think we’re…”

“We’re what?” he drawled the question in his most obnoxious Texan twang as one hand traced a circle on her inner knee.

Laura clenched her teeth together to stop herself from moaning. She tried to kick her leg but his arm was like a band of steel across her upper thighs. “You know very well what they’ll think.”

To her surprise she found herself back on her feet. She straightened out her skirt as the blood drained from her head.

“Well, at least we got Peter Monroe’s attention,” Clint said.

She knocked him back with both hands hard against his chest. Or rather she meant to knock him back but he didn’t move. Instead he caught her hands in his and held her captive. How did this man do this to her? She was far too aware of her racing pulse. Hopefully he would account it to anger and not lust.

“I apologize,” he said, surprising her again. He let go of her hands and leaned against the wall. “If Peter Monroe really has a subconscious desire to be a cowboy, then he got a taste of what people believe Texans are.”

She sighed. “Overgrown Neanderthals who think they’re charming?”

“Yes.”

She understood all about being mistaken for your image and her anger deflated. “You do get ribbed about being a cowboy cop. Okay, maybe you did have a good idea—but no more good ideas like that without consulting me first. I don’t appreciate having my butt stuck up in the air for everyone to ogle.”

“It’s such a cute butt how could they help but admire it?”

“Don’t try to sweet-talk me, cowboy. I’m not falling for any of your good old boy routine.” She pushed the Start button. “And don’t even think about manhandling me again.”

“What about when we get to the honeymoon suite? It’s customary for the groom to carry the bride over the threshold.”

Clint stood watching her, humor lighting his chiseled face, making him so handsome she had to catch her breath. She turned away from him and pressed their floor button again, wishing she could transport herself safely behind doors and away from Clint. She put on her best frosty expression as she raked him from head to toe. “It’s also customary for the groom to live through the night. You try any funny business and you won’t.”

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