Читать книгу The Millionaires' Club: Ryan, Alex and Darin - Cindy Gerard - Страница 7

One

“If you call me cute one more time, I swear I’m going to break every bone in your foot.”

Ryan Evans lifted a considering brow and gauged the scowl on Carrie Whelan’s face across the booth where they sat in the Royal Diner. She meant business. She wasn’t just scowling; she was close to breathing fire as hot as the straight, shining length of silky red hair brushing small shoulders stiffened in a pique of anger.

Carrie was way too much fun to tease. Always had been. And hell, at fourteen, she had been cute. At twenty-four, however, it was obvious the idea that he—or any man—would regard her that way, rankled.

Sheer orneriness prompted him to push another hot button. But safety first. He cleared his throat, pulled himself up straighter and very deliberately drew his long legs back under the faded red plastic booth seat so the simmering Ms. Whelan couldn’t stomp the three-inch stiletto heel of her designer boots into his instep.

“That time of the month again, is it, sweetie?” he asked with the sage and patronizing compassion of a wise and understanding man.

When she growled, he blinked, all innocence and mystified male guile. “What? What’d I say?”

She tilted her head to the side and studied him as if he were a wad of gum she’d like to scrape off the bottom of her boot. “You know, for a man of such reputed and vast experience with women, you know exactly the wrong things to say to impress a lady.”

He couldn’t help it. He gave it up and grinned. “Oh, so you’re a lady now, are you?”

It wasn’t all that long ago that little Carrie Whelan—cute little Carrie Whelan, his best friend, Travis Whelan’s, kid sister—had declared to anyone within earshot that she was gonna be a cowboy and she’d have to be dead before anyone would catch her in anything but denim and her cowboy hat and boots.

Well, he could testify for a fact that she was still alive—very much alive—even though she’d traded denim for silk and her worn Ropers for butter-soft Italian ankle boots a few years ago. She also wore a different kind of hat these days—several different kinds, actually. Thanks to the trust fund Trav had set up for her, she didn’t have to work, but the darling of Royal, Texas, society was always involved in something. If she wasn’t volunteering at the Royalty Hospital burn unit or at the library, she devoted many hours a week at a tax-supported day-care center—and all that was in between organizing fund-raisers and squeezing moldy money from kindhearted old and not-so-old men with deep pockets, who were sympathetic to her causes and suckers for her smile.

And yes. She was definitely alive, Ry thought again before he could curb a quick, appreciative glance at the full, healthy breasts pushing against the ivory silk of her blouse.

But he wasn’t supposed to notice that. He wasn’t supposed to notice anything remotely sexy or female about Carrie.

He tugged his hat brim lower over his brow. The problem was, she was right about one thing. She wasn’t cute anymore. She was beautiful…supermodel gorgeous, in fact, with those snapping hazel eyes, her tall, willow-slim body and a mouth that made a man wonder what it would feel like pressed against his bare skin.

Not him, of course. He didn’t think of her that way. At least, he tried like hell not to.

Frowning, he schooled his gaze to her face again—to those mossy-green eyes—and forced a mandatory return back to surrogate-brother role. “What’s got your tail in a twist, Carrie-bear?”

The look she threw him could have peeled paint off the bumper of his black four-by-four Ranger. “You’re worse than my brother,” she sputtered, and tipped her coffee—muddy tan and loaded with cream and sugar—to her lips. “Neither one of you takes me seriously.”

Ry slumped back in the booth, resisting the urge to own up to exactly how seriously he did take her. How he’d seriously like to take her and how she could seriously mess up his head if he didn’t herd his thoughts back in the right direction.

“What’d Trav do now?” he asked instead.

“What does he always do? He treats me like a child.”

“He loves you,” Ry said softly, and watched some of the starch ease out of her stiff spine.

She turned those hazel eyes on him. They made him think of wispy, glittering smoke. Like a night fire, embers banked but smoldering.

“What are we doing here?” she asked abruptly and with such earnest inquiry, he sobered.

“Well, the way I remember it,” he said carefully, because he didn’t want her getting wise to the fact that at Trav’s request, Ry had been sticking pretty close to her for the past week or so, “I called to see how you were doing, you said you’d had a long day, wanted to unwind and asked me to meet you here for a cup of coffee.”

She was already shaking her head. “No, I don’t mean, what are we doing here, at the Royal Diner. I mean, what are we doing here—you and me? Look at us. It’s Saturday night, for Pete’s sake. Why aren’t we out on the town with our respective dates, drinking champagne—or in your case, your beer of choice,” she added with a smarty-pants smile, “and looking forward to a night of hot, passionate se—”

“Hold it right there.” He sat up straight, pushing a hand into the space between them.

When she actually shut up, he wiped that same hand over his jaw, then resettled his hat. This was territory he had no intention of invading. “I don’t think I want to be discussing my love life with you.”

“Not to mention, you don’t want to discuss my love life.”

Yeah, he thought grimly, that, too. Keeping a protective eye on her in the wake of the danger that Trav’s fiancée, Natalie Perez, still faced was the extent of his involvement with Carrie. He still couldn’t believe he’d agreed to play watchdog slash bodyguard. Just like he couldn’t believe they were having this conversation.

“I didn’t hear that,” he said firmly. “I didn’t hear anything about you even having a love life. Because if I did, I’d have to share the info with your brother and then he’d probably feel obligated to kill the messenger—that would be me—before he came looking for you. And Lord have mercy on the man who messed with Travis Whelan’s little sister.”

She shook her head, pushed out a humorless laugh, then stared past him out the grease-and-smoke-coated window of the diner. “You can breathe easy, big guy. There’s not much chance of him killing anyone anytime soon. Why? you ask. Because I don’t have a love life, that’s why. And that’s what’s got my tail in a twist.”

Ryan felt a small bead of sweat form on his forehead, beneath his hatband. This conversation was fast getting out of hand. “I don’t think I want to hear about this, either.”

Oblivious to the squirming he was doing, she met his eyes with such solemn entreaty that he couldn’t look away. “Do you have any idea…do you have even a remote idea,” she repeated for emphasis, “what it’s like being twenty-four years old and still a virgin?”

Virgin? Oh, Lord.

“Why don’t you say that a little louder?” he ground out, falling back on irritation to cover the instant and forbidden surge of arousal her revelation prompted. “I don’t think Manny Hernandez, back in the kitchen, heard you.”

She sat back with a huff of disgust. “Manny would probably like to give me a tumble.”

He snorted. “Manny would like to give anything in skirts a tumble.” Manny Hernandez, the Royal Diner’s part-time cook, part-time bodybuilder was not only an outrageous flirt but also a notorious womanizer. “And what kind of way is that for a nice girl to be talking, anyway?”

“Aha!” She pointed an accusing finger, a woman vilified. “See? That’s the problem. Maybe I’m not a nice girl. Maybe I’m this red-hot sex pistol who will drive men wild with my sexual mystique and my sultry, seductive—”

“No.” He cut her off again with a shake of his head. “Oh, no-ho-ho. I am not hearin’ this.”

“What’s the matter, Ry? Am I getting you a little hot and bothered?”

Yeah. He was hot all right and wishing he’d never started teasing her in the first place. She was the one who was supposed to be squirming, not him.

“I’m about bothered enough to turn you over my knee and whoop the daylights out of your backside,” he warned her in an attempt to regain his equilibrium.

Her eyes narrowed in a flirty, bad-girl grin just before she touched the tip of her tongue to the sweet, lush curve of her upper lip. “Ooo, sounds…kinky.”

His heart thumped him a good one in the chest. “Carrie, I’m warning you. You keep this up and I’ll—”

“You’ll what? Tattle to my brother? Take me home and tie me to my bed? Which, by the way, has a fairly intriguing ring to it,” she continued, her voice rising again.

He implored her with his eyes to tone it down before the handful of other diner patrons heard her—all the while fighting a vivid mental image of her naked and spread-eagle on his bed, her wrists bound to the brass headboard with silk scarves.

“Come on,” he growled, feeling closed in and steamed up and as rattled as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. “We’re leaving.”

“Leaving? Oh, I don’t think so.”

Looking furious and, on a more disturbing note, a little hurt, her gaze tracked around the diner before landing on and holding on to the booth in the corner. Her eyes turned feline and determined as she dug into her purse.

“You go on, Ry, but I’m staying right here and introducing myself to the new man in town. Maybe he’ll see me for something other than Travis Whelan’s little sister and not run for his life in the other direction.”

The glare Ry shot her was wasted. She wasn’t sparing even a nickel’s worth of attention his way. Her eyes were still locked on a spot in the corner of the diner when she pulled out a tube of lipstick and, without consulting a mirror, expertly applied a cherry-red gloss to her lips.

Ry was still staring at her mouth, indulging in a forbidden fantasy about those lips leaving crimson tracks across his belly and about silk scarves again, when she scooted toward the edge of the seat and stood.

Finally he snapped out of it and found the presence of mind to key in to her statement—introducing myself to the new man in town—and followed the direction of her gaze.

He recognized the man in the corner booth. He’d never met the new doctor who had just come on board at the Royalty Hospital, but he’d seen him around. In fact, Dr. Nathan Beldon was the reason Travis specifically requested Ry keep an eye on Carrie.

“I can’t put my finger on it,” Trav had said with a thoughtful frown when he’d first approached Ry, “but there is something about that guy that just doesn’t feel right…he’s a little too slick and way too smarmy for my taste. But for some reason Carrie seems to have her sights set on meeting him.”

Well, Ry thought grimly, he and Trav were of the same mind on that count. Beldon did look smarmy. The idea of Carrie taking up with him didn’t sit right with him, either. It sat so wrong, in fact, that when she took a step in Beldon’s direction, Ry snagged her arm and tugged her back down onto the seat.

“Beldon?” he asked, ignoring her sputtering protest for him to let go of her wrist while trying to convince himself that the coiling sensation in his gut wasn’t an unsolicited curl of jealously. “You want to put the moves on Dr. Beldon?”

She stilled, shot him a considering look, then smiled. It was not a sweet smile. Neither was it innocent.

“Well, I hadn’t thought of it in exactly those terms, but thanks, Ryan. Great idea. I’ll ‘put the moves on him,’ as you so delicately put it. And if I’m lucky, by morning, maybe I won’t be the last twenty-four-year-old virgin in Texas.”

“Ho-kay. That does it.” He knew she wasn’t serious but he could see she was feeling just reckless enough to start something with the doctor she might not be able to finish. And like it or not, he was seeing enough green to know he could easily do something really stupid if this went any further. “You’re going home. You are just not thinking straight tonight.”

He dug into his pocket and tossed some bills on the table to cover their tab and a generous tip for Sheila, their waitress. With a steely grip on her elbow, he hustled her toward the door. Ignoring her outraged squawks of protest, he snagged her red cashmere jacket from the coatrack on the way by and shoved it into her arms.

The little gold bell hanging over the entrance door tinkled as it closed behind them. The fuming Ms. Whelan was still calling Ry names when, with his hand clamped firmly on her nape, he escorted her to her car.

“Go home,” he ordered, opening the driver’s-side door.

“Go to hell!” she snapped with a venomous glare.

He guided her gently but firmly behind the wheel. “Yeah, well, there’s always that possibility. In the meantime, I’ll just follow you to make sure you find your way.”

“Neanderthal throwback,” she fumed, and jerked the door shut with a slam.

“Un-huh.” He leaned down, peered in the window at her fiery red cheeks and tapped his palm on the roof of her car. “No breaking the speed limit, now.”

She stared straight ahead, shifted into gear and laid rubber for a full block.

Ry let out a long breath and thumbed back his Stetson. Then he walked to his sleek black truck and settled behind the wheel.

“Handled that well, didn’t you, chump?” he muttered as he pulled into traffic and put pedal to metal to catch up with her.

Tomorrow he was going to have a talk with Travis. His friend could damn well find someone else to play watchdog to his sister. A eunuch maybe—which he definitely was not. And whoa…did she ever remind him of that fact. Carrie Whelan lit him up like a stick of dynamite sizzling along with a dangerously short fuse. She was a very hot, very spicy, very—did he mention hot?—female who he was supposed to regard as a little sister.

Damn.

He expelled a thick breath. She was not his sister, even though his mom and dad had taken her and Trav in when their parents had been killed in a car accident fourteen years ago. He still carried an image of sad, lost little ten-year-old Carrie crying in his arms. And it still broke his heart when he thought of what she’d suffered. But too often lately he was having a hard time dredging up the gumption to think of her as either that sweet, lost little kid or a surrogate sister.

It had been one thing when she’d been ten and he’d been eighteen. He’d even been on track when he’d reached his early twenties and she was a blossoming sixteen with a mad crush on him. He’d been sensitive to her infatuation and hadn’t minded keeping an eye out for her then—at least, he hadn’t when he was around Royal, which, given college and then his five-year stint on the PRCA rodeo circuit, wasn’t often.

But now…well, now it was a different story. The eye he kept on Carrie Whelan now was far from fraternal—no matter how hard he tried.

Mouth set in a hard line, he followed her onto State Street. Trav would kill him if he so much as suspected Ry was thinking of Carrie in conjunction with beds and scarves and black lace, which, he’d already decided, she would look damn fine in or out of.

He shook the too-vivid picture out of his head and pulled up behind her. When her angry eyes fastened on his in her rearview mirror, he gave her a little, “Hey, how ya doin”’ wave. With typical Carrie sass, she flipped him the friendly finger, ran a yellow light and left him sitting at the intersection waiting for the light to change.

“Damn woman,” he sputtered with a slow shake of his head, but he was grinning when her taillights disappeared in a glut of traffic. “Gonna be the death of me.”

Silky red hair. Lush plump lips. Full firm breasts. Long slim legs. He shifted position and adjusted the fly on his jeans with the heel of his hand—like he had to do damn near every time he saw her lately.

He caught up with her a few blocks later. Five minutes after that he sat at the curb, motor idling and watched her storm out of her car and let herself into her house. Even mad as a hornet, she was a joy to watch move—all swaying hips and swishing silk.

“Death of me,” he repeated under his breath as she slammed her front door behind her and a light flicked on inside. “But what a way to go.”

With a warning to himself to back off—way off—he shifted into gear and headed for the Cattleman’s Club. He needed a drink. A stiff one. And tomorrow he needed to see Trav. He needed to look him square in the eye and remember that the woman who was sparking his explicit sexual fantasies was his best friend’s little sister.

Little virgin sister.

Blood rushed to his face…and to another part of his body it had no place going where Carrie was concerned.

Virgin. He’d suspected, but until she’d made the announcement to the world at large back at the diner, he hadn’t wanted to know. He really hadn’t wanted to know.

His heartbeat hit about 6.9 on the Richter scale at the thought of her innocence and what it would be like to be the first man to make love to her.

He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. Well, it wasn’t going to be him. It wasn’t going to be anybody if Trav, the quintessential overprotective nobody-touches-my-sister-and-lives-to-tell-about-it brother, had his way. Ry knew Trav’s reaction was left over from when their parents had died. Trav had taken on the responsibility for looking out for her with a vengeance. That had been many years ago, but he still hadn’t been able to let go. Carrie would die a spinster if it were within Trav’s power.

And what a waste that would be, Ry thought, picturing the fire in her eyes and the sweet curve of her hips as he drove through the night street.

Okay. He had to quit thinking about her that way. And tomorrow he would. Tonight, though, he planned to do the rest of his thinking with a drink in his hand and let the fantasy play out. And maybe, if he was lucky, he thought as he pulled into the Cattleman’s Club parking lot, he’d have the fantasy and her worked out of his system by morning. Maybe by morning, he’d also figure out an excuse to give Trav for why he couldn’t be the one to keep an eye on Carrie any longer.