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  Without a word, he yanked open his door and slid out of the cab. Stomping and cursing, he circled the truck, then stood in front of it and scratched his head as he regarded their predicament.

  Lacey opened her door and slid from the cab, setting her high-heeled foot carefully on a rock, only to slip and end up ankle-deep in the stream.

  “Shoot.” She picked her way through the rocks, ignoring the cold water. If it hadn’t been ruining her shoes, it would have felt good.

  Joining him in front of the truck, she eyed their situation and sighed, blowing a stubborn strand of hair out of her face. The truck was stuck, all right. The left front tire was wedged between two rocks, and the right one had spun a deep trench into the streambed. The rock behind the rear wheels seemed to have grown since she’d driven over it.

  “I’m going to have to call Cody,” he said.

  “Who’s Cody?”

  “Guy with a winch.” He waded back to the truck, sloshing water onto her capris. “Damn,” he said. “I’ll never hear the end of this.”

  “You can tell him it was my fault,” she said.

  “I sure will.” He glowered down at the phone he’d taken from his pocket and stabbed at the keypad.

  “I won’t tell him how it was your stupid truck that got us stuck.”

  Chapter 12

  That spunky response was vintage Lacey, and suddenly Chase felt their old friendship reasserting itself. They hadn’t spent a lot of time together, and except for that one night, they’d never been close, but they’d always joked around like Burns and Allen, her playing zany Gracie to his George.

  He couldn’t help smiling. “You’re not going to give an inch, are you?”

  “Why should I?” Her voice wavered a little, and he knew he’d win this one.

  “You can’t drive for shit,” he said. “And you’ll never admit it.”

  “Well, you’ll never admit this truck’s a piece of crap. Made for off-road driving, my… patootie.”

  She hadn’t sworn in high school either. She played tough, but she had more euphemisms in her vocabulary than an old maid aunt.

  “You still don’t curse, do you?”

  She looked away. “No. Only when I’m really mad. And I guess this was kind of my fault.” She looked back at the rock, her green eyes tearful. “You’re the one who’s probably mad.”

  She looked away, blinking fast. Damn. He hadn’t meant to make her cry. And the truck probably wasn’t the gem he’d made it out to be. But at least it had been clean. Now it was spattered with mud from its white sidewalls to the fog lights on top.

  So was he. His ass felt damp where he’d landed on it when she’d backed into him, and the front of his shirt was speckled with goop. He put a hand up to brush his hair back from his forehead and felt a glob of mud matting the hank that fell over his face.

  He keyed a text message into the phone. Cody would come and pull them out. He was the fry cook at the diner, and he spent every penny of his limited income on a Jeep that looked like something out of a cartoon and could probably haul an elephant out of the mud-slicked banks of the Ganges. The Dodge would be no problem.

  The phone beeped back immediately, and he scanned the reply.

  “Cody’s on his way.” He looked at Lacey, who quickly dashed away a tear that was dangling from her lower lashes. “It’s okay, Lacey.”

  She looked up at him, eyes wide and hopeful. Her reluctance to curse wasn’t the only thing that hadn’t changed since high school. She still had that knockout combination of indomitable spirit and sweet vulnerability that had captivated him since sixth grade. A moment ago, she’d been barreling down the fence line like a seasoned four-wheeler; now she was hesitant and scared. She’d gone from trucker chick to delicate flower in six seconds, shifting gears faster than a Grand Prix racer.

  It was those eyes. Looking into Lacey’s eyes was like looking into the jagged, icebound heart of a glacier, but instead of chilling him, her gaze warmed him from the inside out. And right now, there was a question there he couldn’t quite interpret. Was she asking if he’d forgive her for getting them stuck? Or was she asking him to kiss her?

  He sure as hell wanted to kiss her. A warning bell chimed in the back of his mind, reminding him he’d never gotten over their last kiss, urging him to back off, but most of him was on autopilot, overwhelmed by the way her closeness set his blood humming in his veins and the way she smelled, all peaches and soap and sex.

  She looked expectant, with her pink lips parted as if she couldn’t quite catch her breath, and suddenly kissing her seemed like an easier choice than pulling away. He lowered his head to hers and brought one hand up to cup the back of her head while he wrapped the other arm around her shoulders. He almost pulled her off her feet in his rush to draw her close.

  She felt just as soft and giving and sweet as he remembered, her curves round but firm. Kissing her didn’t feel like the start of something new; it felt like a continuation of the long-running fantasy he’d been enmeshed in half his life. In the years since he’d known her, he’d bedded a dozen women, but every one of them had been Lacey when the lights went out. And if they wanted to do it with the lights on, that had been okay. All he had to do was close his eyes.

  Thinking of Lacey had worked for years, putting distance between his heart and the women he slept with and keeping it safe. After all, you couldn’t lose what you’d never had. And the idea of Lacey ever being in his arms for real had been laughably unlikely, especially once he’d moved to Wyoming.

  Or so he’d believed.

  He pulled her toward him, and her body molded to his, her breasts pressing into his chest. He dipped to taste her lips, and she parted them easily, letting him trace the soft skin inside her lower lip, letting him lick the slight fullness below her cupid’s bow with the tip of his tongue before he rededicated himself to living this moment as completely as he could.

  Because it was too much of a miracle to ever be repeated. He needed to memorize every detail. The brush of her breath on his cheek, the faint scent of warm skin and sunshine, the teasing tickle of her hair on his arm. He moved his hand down to cup her breast, savoring the warmth of her skin, hoarding every sensation like ammunition that would protect him from all the other women who might share his bed. Women like Krystal, who didn’t care whether he gave them his heart as long as he gave them a good time and paid for dinner.

  He pulled away and watched her tilt her face to the sun. There was Lacey as he’d always pictured her, eyes closed, lips parted, her thick, dark lashes lying on her pale cheeks. She looked like a woman in ecstasy, a woman in love, and for a heartfelt half-second, his heart swelled at the possibility she could be his.

  Take that, Trent Bradford.

  He slapped that thought away. Getting back at Trent Bradford had been part of the fantasy—but that wasn’t what this moment was about. It was about love. Revisiting old times. Rekindling old flames.

  Revitalizing an unhealthy obsession.

  ***

  A harsh, grating noise suddenly swelled from the trees beyond the truck. Lacey snapped back to reality as the sound grew louder, the snapping of tree limbs accompanying it like a percussion backbeat.

  “It’s Cody,” Chase said. “We’re saved.”

  He didn’t look like a man who wanted to be saved. He looked like a man who wanted something else—something more than a kiss.

  “Saved,” she echoed.

  But the vehicle that crashed into sight in a copse of trees didn’t look like any kind of savior. It reminded her of the Jabberwocky in Alice in Wonderland, whiffling through the tulgey wood and burbling as it came. The headlights, set high on the hood, looked like wide googly eyes, and the cast steel bumper created a sneering mouth.

  The thing was terrifying.

  It slid to a stop five feet away, spattering muck every which way. A wiry man in a stained white T-shirt jumped from the driver’s seat. Lacey couldn’t tell if he was tanned or dirty, but his teeth flashed white and his
loose-limbed grace indicated he was in his element crashing through the woods. His sunlit brown hair looked like it had been hacked off at random intervals with a pair of dull scissors, and he clearly hadn’t shaved for days.

  “Man, you are stuck,” he announced. “Stuck good. What the hell you doing out here, buddy?”

  Lacey picked her way around the front of the pickup, watching her step in the rocky terrain. When she looked up, both men were staring at her.

  “Oh,” the Jeep driver said. A knowing smile split his lean face. “Got it. You sure you’re ready to leave? I can give you two a minute.”

  “There’s nothing to stay for,” Chase said.

  “You sure?” Cody gave her a long head-to-toe look. It wasn’t sexy like Chase’s; it was amused.

  She was probably a muddy mess.

  “I fell in the mud,” she said.

  Cody grinned. “Sure you did.”

  He shot a knowing glance at Chase, and she looked down to see that a perfectly clear five-fingered handprint marked her tank top, right over her left breast. She remembered Chase’s hand brushing her breast. As the memory flooded her mind, her body reacted, her nipples tightening against the cold, wet fabric.

  The men probably knew exactly what she was thinking. She blushed, her chest and neck suffused with heat. Flushed pink skin probably made the situation even worse. She crossed her arms to cover herself and looked Cody straight in the eye.

  “I fell in the mud. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.”

  “Well, all right.” He scratched his head and pondered the stuck truck. “Let’s get started, then.” He turned to face her. “Since Doofus here isn’t going to introduce us, I’ll do it myself. I’m Cody. Work at the diner, but I’m a knight in shining armor the rest of the time.” He gestured toward the Jeep. “Me and Sal. Lot of people get stuck on these country roads.”

  “The diner? Oh, you work with Pam.” Lace realized now that she’d seen him before, behind the pass-through at the diner. He’d been clean then, but it was the same guy.

  “Sure do.” He grew suddenly serious. “You know her?”

  Lacey nodded.

  “Put in a good word for me, would you? Tell her I rescued you and all that.”

  “Sure.” Lacey tried to picture Pam with this wild man and failed. “I’ll tell her.”

  Cody strolled around the pickup in a slow circle, taking in its awkward position. Shaking his head, he shifted his grin toward Chase.

  “How the hell did you do this?”

  “I didn’t. She did.”

  “You let her drive?”

  “It was a test drive,” Lacey said.

  “You going to buy it?”

  “Nope.” She hiked herself up on a boulder and crossed her legs. “Gets stuck too easy.”

  Cody laughed. “I’ll get Sal past you here and pull you over the creek. There’s a clearing a ways up there where you can turn around. If you’re careful, you can get through this area just fine.”

  “Yeah,” Chase said, shooting Lacey a glare. “If you’re careful.”

  Cody started the Jeep and roared to the front of the truck, the huge tires clearing rocks like they were pebbles. Unwinding a thick rope from a pulley on the back, Chase headed for the pickup. He bent over the bumper, struggling to fasten a huge hook onto the vehicle’s frame. Lacey couldn’t help enjoying the view as his Wranglers stretched over his butt and his shirt hiked up to reveal the muscles flexing in his back.

  “Got it?” Cody yelled when Chase rose and headed back to the driver’s seat.

  “Got it.”

  Lacey hastily jumped from her rock as Chase started the truck and the two vehicles began moving, Cody’s Jeep rolling steadily through the stream while the winch tightened. The pickup’s tires spun briefly, flinging mud, then gripped the ground. The truck tilted and creaked as Chase negotiated the stream and drove up the bank, following Cody off into the woods.

  Lacey leaned against a tree, listening to the engines fading in the distance. She wondered briefly if they’d left her behind, but soon the noise increased and the pickup roared into sight, splashing through the stream and heaving up the bank to stop just beyond the rock where they’d gotten stuck.

  Lacey looked across the stream.

  “Where’s Cody?”

  “He took off. There’s another way through the woods to the county road.”

  She glanced warily at Chase. Had he sent his friend off so they could be alone? So they could finish what they’d started? He was looking at her like he could see her naked.

  She looked down at her shirt and realized she might as well be. The handprint still stood out clearly over her breast, and everything under her shirt stood out clearly, too. Her thin cotton bra was no help at all.

  “Oh, God.” She tried to flick off the mud but it only made things worse. “I hope I can get back to the motel and change before anyone sees me like this.”

  “There’s no way you’d get in without everybody seeing you. Maybe you could rinse off in the stream. Kind of smear that around.” He looked away, embarrassed, and she was suddenly embarrassed herself. What had she been thinking? That kiss had been a mistake—for both of them.

  She sighed. “I guess.”

  Mincing down the muddy bank, she bent over the water and cupped it in her hands, splashing it over her chest. It was cold enough to make the bones of her hand ache, but it felt good on her hot skin. Besides, it was the closest thing she could find to a cold shower.

  She looked down at her shirt. Instead of being marked with a handprint, it was now a uniform shade of brown, and the fabric was wet through and clung even more tightly to her breasts.

  Turning, she caught Chase staring at her and straightened, suddenly self-conscious. Judging from his expression, he needed a cold shower too.

  “Here.” He extended a hand and helped her up the bank. When she reached the truck, she teetered a little and put out one hand to steady herself against his chest.

  To heck with cold showers. She splayed her fingers and ran her hand up his chest and over his shoulder. When she slid her fingers into his hair, he bent his head and brushed her lips with his, reviving the kiss and all the feelings that went with it.

  Chapter 13

  Lacey loved to kiss. She was good at it too, having spent her entire high school career at first base. She hadn’t given herself to any of the groping, gasping boys who’d tried to steal second in the backseats of their cars, and she’d become expert at parrying their stealth moves—the slow hand creeping under her shirt, the subtle tug that signaled an attack on her bra strap.

  But Chase wasn’t trying to steal anything. Unlike those high school boys, he didn’t seem to be thinking about the usual male goals and aspirations like seeing her naked or working toward his own satisfaction. More than any man she’d ever kissed, he was in the moment, making the most of every touch, every stunned intake of breath, every whisper of sensation. She laced her fingers around his neck and gave herself up to the sheer pleasure of it.

  She pressed her breasts into his chest, trying to smother the sharp ache of longing for more, harder, now, but he was so tall, she couldn’t plaster her body to his quite the way she wanted. She let out a mew of frustration. Twisting against him, she hiked herself up on her toes, then felt his arms wrap around her as he hoisted her up on the truck’s open tailgate. She wrapped one leg around his waist and deepened the kiss with an aggression that surprised her.

  She’d always played submissive with Trent, letting him take what he wanted. There hadn’t been anything he could give her she’d wanted enough to work for, but now, for the first time, she wanted a man for herself. Chase seemed to sense her need as he cupped the back of her head and lowered her onto the hot black plastic of the truck’s bed liner in one swift move.

  Now their bodies were aligned and his weight pressed down on her, finally giving her some relief from the ache of need that was pulsing in her breasts and between her legs. She brought one foot up to
stroke his calf and wondered when she’d lost her shoes, but she’d never cared less about fashion than she did now. In fact, all she wanted from her designer duds at this moment was easy removal.

  ***

  Chase had known exactly how Lacey’s body would feel. He’d fantasized about it for years—how soft her skin would feel to his work-hardened hands, how quickly her nipples would rise under his touch—but he hadn’t realized how strongly his own body would react. He’d been uncomfortably erect ever since Cody had left them alone, and now he ached so fiercely it was hard to take things slow. He needed her so badly, it hurt.

  He took a deep breath, feeling every muscle in his body, every nerve, every fiber, reaching toward her and aching for the culmination of all those years of fantasy and desire. He felt like his accelerator was pressed to the floor, his engine roaring, but his wheels were spinning and he was just heating up and going nowhere.

  He had to have her—had to. And if he couldn’t have her honestly, he’d gladly pay for the privilege. She needed money? Sure. How much? A job? Hired. A place to stay? How about his bed? Tonight and every night. He’d give her anything.

  “What do you want, Lacey?” He could barely speak for the ache in his throat. “Just tell me what you want. I’ll help you. Just tell me.”

  He brushed her nipple with his thumb while he kissed her, tormenting her gently but with a firm touch that told her he wanted to take charge. She sucked in a quick breath and squirmed against him, and for a minute, he thought he’d gone too far, that she was going to cover herself, that he’d lost his chance—but then she tugged the wet shirt up over her breast and pressed herself into his hand.

  She moaned, and his brain shut down completely except for a flash of memory that reminded him how much he’d wanted this, how many years he’d fantasized about touching Lacey.

  He looked down at her and gentled his touch, moving his finger in a slow circle around the smooth, dark aureole before he palmed her breast and squeezed. Her bra was made of some kind of thin, stretchy fabric that was almost transparent. Drawing away from the kiss, he slid it aside and took her nipple between his lips, flicking his tongue over the tip, before sucking it into his mouth and moving his hand down to her waist. Her hand flew to her waistband before he could get there, and again he thought she was going to stop him, but she was pulling at the hem of her shirt, then yanking it over her head. He watched it fly upward from her hand in slow-motion, catching on a tree branch and hanging there like a flag of surrender.