Let It Bree: Let It Bree / Can't Buy Me Louie

Anyway, it was probably just some happy drunk, home from one of those rowdy Nederland bars, knocking at the wrong door. If the knocking continued, she’d call the front desk. Let them know some poor drunkard was knocking at random rooms.

She swung her feet over the side of the bed and edged through the dark across the thick rug, trying to remember where she’d put that phone after calling Grams earlier and leaving the message.

“Bree?” Bang-bang-bang. “It’s me, Kirk.”

She stopped in her tracks. “Kirk,” she whispered. With a burst of pent-up energy, she ran to the door and threw it open.

A blast of frigid night air assaulted her. Shivering, she hadn’t thought about how she was dressed, or wasn’t dressed. All that stood between her and the freezing mountain night air was a spaghetti-strap pink T-shirt and matching undies.

Wrapping her arms around herself, she scooted back as Kirk stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

“A-anything wr-wrong?” she asked through chattering teeth.

“Don’t you hear them?”

“Th-them?”

In the distance, a bottle crashed, followed by raucous laughter.

“It’s that damn Harley party,” Kirk huffed. “Those bikers have been going full steam ever since I went to bed. Haven’t slept a wink.”

Despite the cold, she smiled. With three wild teenage boy cousins living next door, she was used to all kinds of racket, day and night. If she could sleep through beer keg parties, band practices and a bunch of teenage boys screaming and whooping it up, it was nothin’ to sleep through some drunken biker party.

“Where’s the light?” Kirk asked.

She fumbled along the wall behind the door and flipped a switch.

The overhead light flickered on, casting the room in a warm, yellowish glow. Fortunately, the room heater was quickly warming things up, erasing the night chill.

Kirk, disheveled in a pair of worn jeans and a partially buttoned flannel shirt over a dark blue T-shirt, blinked and looked around. It hit Bree that he looked kinda cute all sleepy and disoriented. He speared one of his tan, roughened hands through his rumpled hair…

And froze in that position as his gaze swerved to Bree. “Oh, sorry,” he murmured thickly, staring at her underwear. He quickly turned away, his hand still stuck on his head.

Having grown up in the country, Bree wasn’t hung up on what showed or didn’t show. Besides, any essential “body stuff” wasn’t showing at all. And even it if was, big deal. Ever since she was a kid, she and her buddies—girls and boys—had often skinny-dipped at the Connors pond.

“I’m covered,” she said.

“Barely,” he muttered.

“How long you gonna keep your hand on your head?” she asked.

He dropped it, holding it stiffly at his side.

She laughed. “I’m wearing more than a bathing suit, for gosh sake!”

Kirk wanted to say something, after all, his verbal acumen covered the gambit from lectures to theoretical discussions, but he had the gut sense that if he opened his mouth right now, the only thing that would emerge would be a garbled string of incoherent sounds.

And Kirk Dunmore, always articulate, with an IQ topping 170, was at this very moment reduced to a brain-damaged, blithering idiot. And not just once in one night, but twice.

Okay, okay, even Einstein’s brain might have turned to mush if he’d been faced with a Brahman bull.

But would Einstein have turned to brain mush face-to-face with a striking, partially clad woman of Amazonian proportions? Hell no. Rumor had it Einstein turned into a damn playboy when he crossed paths with the likes of Marilyn Monroe.

While all these thoughts collided in his head, Kirk realized he’d been staring openmouthed at Bree over his shoulder.

Look away. Be a gentleman.

But his eyes were behaving as though they’d been penned up for a lifetime and now were rarin’ to roam free.

And roam they did. All over Bree’s long, lean, strong body as though the most exquisite sights of nature had been molded into one mighty fine package.

The sheen of her tan reminded him of the warm, golden sands on New Guinea beaches. The curve of her breasts mimicked the lush, rolling hills of the Argentine pampas. And those red glints in her dark curls were like the fiery, predawn rays of the sun as it rose over the Himalayas.

But when his gaze dropped to her legs, no geographical reference could do them justice. Those achingly long, sensuous legs reminded him of the libido-searing Rod Stewart song “Hot Legs.”

Was that a tattoo on her ankle?

At first he thought it was a flower unfolding, then realized it was a chocolate being unwrapped. A chocolate kiss. He licked his lips, aching for just a drop of that chocolate to whet his parched soul.

“Are you all right?” asked Bree.

“No,” he croaked.

“If you’d feel better,” Bree said softly, “I’ll slip back into bed, get under the covers.”

Better? He doubted he could feel any better except…if…

Whoa, boy, put a lock on it. You’re getting married in two days. Forty-eight hours. Two thousand, eight hundred and eighty minutes.

This had to be the result of the week-long dig he’d just finished. All that time alone, with nothing but prairie dogs and lizards for company, a man was bound to go whacko for a little chocolate drawing on an ankle.

In the silence, Kirk heard her tread softly across the carpet. Then the squeak of the bed as she settled in. And he tried to keep his mind trained on the lodge’s wooden walls, upon which crookedly hung a framed print of a bear pawing a stream for salmon.

But no matter what he tried to focus on, his just-turned-bad-boy mind kept returning to the image of those long, tan legs and chocolate-tattooed ankle, stretching and twisting in the warm dark under those seductively soft covers.

Why had he been born a paleobotanist? Oh what he’d give for a moment as a plain ol’ blanket conforming to the shape and warmth of Bree.

Breeeeee. The sound of her name was like the wind. Bree. Breeezy. With a soulful lilt, like in that Beatles song “Let It Be.” Let it Bree. Let me lick that little chocolate on your ankle for the rest of my life…

Bree tucked the blanket under her chin and peered at Kirk. He seemed oddly off balance, as though he might topple over any moment.

“Kirk, you look a little unsteady. Need some water?”

“Chocolate.”

“What?”

He coughed. “Uh, water. Right. Need water.”

“Okay, I’ll go grab a glass in the bathroom, get you—”

“No!”

He still stood with his back to her. “I’ll get it. Stay put. And cover up.”

He returned a moment later, downing a glass of water like a parched man, staring at her with wide blue eyes. He was so flustered, so red-faced, she suddenly got it.

“Don’t tell me you’re nervous about seeing me in my undies. We’ve already been through this.”

“Not nervous. Not anymore.”

Maybe he said he wasn’t nervous, but he looked positively mortified. “Aren’t you used to seeing naked women?” She almost said, aren’t you used to seeing your fiancée naked? but figured that was getting into overly personal terrain.

“You weren’t naked—just nearly naked.”

Maybe Kirk was a throwback to another century where men were polite, discreet, and the wedding night was the first time they…

Wow. She didn’t know men like that existed in today’s world. And to think she, small-town girl from even smaller-town Chugwater, possibly knew more about the birds and the bees than Mr. Big City!

“Well, I’m all covered now, so it’s a moot point,” she announced.

Kirk put the glass aside, shot her a feeble smile, then backed up to the couch and fell into a sitting position. Avoiding looking at her face, he scraped his hand across his stubbled chin as though he’d just finished an incredibly long and exhausting journey.

“Wish I had a glass of warm milk,” he rasped. He looked at her, his eyes burning as though he were running a fever.

“Maybe that café’s still open?”

“At 3:00 a.m.?”

“Maybe those Harley people have some.”

“Very funny. Obviously one of us has gotten some sleep.”

Bree jerked her thumb toward the window. “Two.”

Kirk looked outside at Val. “Okay, Val’s gotten some sleep-eye too, lucky bull.” Kirk narrowed his eyes, thinking. “Hmm, maybe I should take your bull to those bikers’ rooms, position him behind me while I ask if they could please keep it down.”

“That’d work,” Bree said with a smile. “Val has a reputation for clearing out places. Once he accidentally kicked over a vat of chili at the Chugwater Chili festival—that sent people running! But his kicking was my fault. I’d accidentally brushed against his back left leg, which is our signal for him to kick out his right leg. It’s a little trick I taught him. Another time he got loose in downtown Chugwater and tore into Mary Jane Tock’s beauty parlor. The street was instantly filled with shrieking women in hair curlers and blue face masks.” Bree giggled.

Kirk chuckled, shaking his head. “Yeah, that’s just what the Sundance Lodge needs in the wee hours of the morning. A bunch of hysterical bikers running amok in the parking lot.”

Bree laughed louder, liking how the two of them were sharing a fun moment. This sure beat the hell out of Kirk’s mortification…or her paranoia that thugs were knocking at her door.

Speaking of which…

“Hey, you know what?” she said, trying to sound as though she’d just had this great idea. “Why don’t you stay on the couch in here tonight? That way, you’ll hardly hear those bikers.” And I’d have a built-in bodyguard. She looked him over in his rumpled hair, flannel shirt and threadbare jeans.

Too bad those pickaxes are still in the truck.

Well, still, he’d be an extra body in case those thugs showed up. And two bodies, plus a bull, were better odds against two thugs.

In the distance, something crashed, followed by the syrupy sound of drunken laughter.

Kirk blew out a puff of air as he looked toward the far wall. “Think I’ll take you up on your offer. At least the sounds are more muted in here.”

Bree snuggled down in her bed, bunching up the pillow under her head, feeling the happiest she had in hours. She wasn’t alone, she had a roof over her head, she and Val had a place to sleep, and tomorrow, ah sweet tomorrow, she’d be back home in Chugwater. Kirk had mentioned that his buddy in Denver, a guy named George who owned a cattle trailer, could drive her and her bull back home.

“Turn out the light when you’re ready,” she said sweetly. “And don’t worry about me if you feel like staying up and reading or watching TV.”

Oops.

Earlier, she’d switched on a local news channel and had watched, openmouthed, as some newscaster reported an alleged bull theft. Bree’s name wasn’t mentioned, but the newscaster described her clothes, right down to her scuffed boots. It had to be because of that damn “implied contract” that the media was insinuating she was a thief!

Bree shoved herself up on one elbow and stared wide-eyed at Kirk. “Uh, nix the TV idea! It would, uh, be too loud, keep me awake.”

“No, I wouldn’t watch TV at this hour,” he answered calmly. “Might read, though.” He rummaged through the stack of old paperbacks on the coffee table. “If it wasn’t so cold out, and if the van wasn’t parked down the road, I’d dash out and get The Priest Kings of Gor, which I left in the glove compartment.”

Bree blinked at him. “The what of what?”

Kirk glanced up. “Book by John Gorman. Science fiction.”

“Oh.” She lay back down. No TV. Life was good.

Kirk rummaged halfheartedly through some books. “What do you like to read?”

“Historical romances.”

“Really.” He flashed her a look, then resumed his rummaging.

“You sound surprised. By which part? The historical or the romance?”

“I…just didn’t envision you as a romance reader.”

“Really,” she answered, mocking his droll tone.

He cocked an eyebrow, obviously catching her mimicry. “You just don’t strike me as the truffle-eating, pink-satin-slipper type.” When she stared at him in silence, he finally asked, “Something the matter?”

“Yours is a typical clueless-male response about romance novels. Double-dare you to find even one truffle-eating heroine in one of those novels. They’re too busy flexing their stamina and intelligence in the face of adversity.”

His eyes glistened with amusement. “I always love a challenge. So, I accept.”

Well, that response took her aback for a moment. She’d never met a guy who’d seemed eager to explore something new and romantic. Well, in a book anyway.

But then Kirk Dunmore was an explorer, she realized now, in more ways than one. A warming feeling washed through her as she realized she was starting to like the guy. Okay, she’d already known he could jump-start her libido with one whiff of his masculine-drenched jacket, but it was a bonus to realize he had an open, intelligent mind with just the right touch of feminist leanings as well.

Was he even from the planet Earth?

“So why the historical part?” Kirk asked, thumbing through one of the books.

“Well, I’ll read about almost any historical era. But my preference would be the Roman era. First or second century B.C.”

He was busy scanning the back blurb on the paperback. “Why?”

“My major was art history, with an emphasis on ancient Roman art. For my senior thesis, I wrote a paper on conserving ancient sculpture, focusing on a second-century statue of Marcus Aurelius.”

“Very interesting,” Kirk set the book down and met her gaze.

“My aunt Mattie doesn’t think so. She’s still stewing that I didn’t study accounting.”

Kirk chuckled. “Well, I must disagree with your aunt because I find your choice of study very impressive. Surprising, but impressive.”

“I found your van rather…surprising, but impressive, too.”

“Surprised me, too. It’s a prewedding gift. My mother-in-law—well almost mother-in-law—is always over-the-top. Too much money and time on her hands. Nice lady. Just too rich.”

He’s getting married, Bree reminded herself. Of course, she’d known, but it didn’t stop a tremor of disappointment rippling through her.

Murmuring she should go to sleep, Bree closed her eyes, determined to think about anything other than him. Like, where was Grams when Bree tried to call earlier? And should she have left the message on the answering machine that she and Val would be back in Chugwater, she hoped tomorrow? With the local news describing Bree’s alleged theft, what if the sheriff or FBI had staked out Grams’s and her home, listened to the answering machine and knew she and Val were on their way back to Chugwater?

She stared up at the ceiling. Sheesh, didn’t anybody in authority check that maybe Bree was the innocent one in this mixed-up fiasco?

Well, I’ll just have to be clever when I get back to Chugwater tomorrow. I’ll pen Val in the south corner of Mr. Connors’s field. Then I’ll sneak into town and, from the back windows of Mary Jane Tock’s hair salon, catch up on the latest gossip. Then I’ll know what steps to take next.

“Thought you wanted to go to sleep.”

She shifted her gaze to Kirk. “Thought you were reading.”

“Couldn’t find any historical romances.”

Kirk liked Bree’s smile. Her big dimples created the cutest shadows in her cheeks. And when she smiled, her gray eyes twinkled as though they housed little stars.

Plus she was pretty without a dot of makeup. Her face had a clear, rosy freshness about it.

Funny, he couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen Alicia without makeup. Or even what she looked like without makeup. For the two years he’d known her, her face was slathered and painted and God knew what else. She even had colored contacts. If someone were to ask him his fiancée’s eye color, he’d have to say either emerald green or cobalt blue.

Not that makeup was a bad thing. After all, Alicia Hansen was a born-and-bred Cherry Creek girl, from the ultraexclusive section of Denver. Maybe Alicia had the money to preen and primp, but thanks to her family’s wealth, she also used her money connections for good causes, like raising money for research and exhibits at the Museum of Nature and Science. Which was where they’d met when she’d hosted a fund-raiser two years ago. Thanks to Alicia’s efforts, the museum had raised the money to build the current replica of the Minotaur’s labyrinth which was gaining national recognition for its study of ancient mythology.

Yes, he appreciated and even admired Alicia. But most important, the two of them shared a common dream to have roots—a family, children—the kind of roots he’d never had as a kid.

He stared at Bree with her twinkling gray eyes and wild mass of curly brown hair. She was just the opposite of Alicia. Where Alicia was polished, Bree looked wild. Untamed, uncontrollable like the elements. Part wind, part sun, all soul and energy. He’d never met a woman like her.

And maybe it was late, but he wanted to know her just a little more…after all, after tonight and tomorrow, they’d never have the chance to talk again.

“So where’d you go to college?” he asked.

“In Laramie, on a volleyball scholarship. Started out as a psychology major, but after attending a traveling tour of Roman art, I switched majors to art history. Loved ancient art. Those ancient carvings were so raw, so passionate…so unlike anything I’d ever seen growing up in little Chugwater.”

“What did you plan to do with the degree?”

“Escape Chugwater. Travel the world, see all kinds of real ancient art, not just pictures in books and on the Internet.”

He’d never escaped anywhere. Never wanted to. Probably because he’d moved so much as a kid, and traveled over half the globe as a scientist, the last thing he wanted was to escape to somewhere else.

“So,” he said, mulling over her response, “are you escaping Chugwater?”

“Almost did,” she whispered. “Still might.”

She was quiet so long, he figured he’d change the subject. “I love ancient art, myself. Leaf art.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

“I study ancient fossils of plants, especially the period between sixty to one hundred million years ago.”

She emitted a low whistle. “Now that’s ancient. And I was pretty proud to love first- and second-century art.”

He smiled. “My area of expertise is the K-T boundary. The era when the dinosaurs went extinct.” He paused. “Typically I stop here unless I’m chatting with scientists or other leaf whackers. I’m accustomed to other people’s eyes glazing over about now.”

But Bree’s twinkled. “K-T boundary?” she prompted.

He smiled. “It’s the layer of iridium that indicates that an asteroid—about the size of Denver today—hit the earth, which caused the dinosaurs to go extinct.” Her eyes still twinkled. “So, by excavating fossils from that era, I’m also studying the traces of the K-T boundary and pinpointing when, exactly, the dinosaurs disappeared from the earth.”

“Wow! Very cool!”

He grinned. Alicia never got this excited over his work. “Why, thank you. I think so, too.”

“So, what’s a leaf whacker?”

“We—paleobotanists and anybody else who joins our excavations—whack rocks to discover embedded fossils, which typically contain ancient leaves. Hence, leaf whackers.”

“This K-T boundary…where is it?”

“Sections are all over the globe. The challenge is to find the thread, the link-to-link layers of iridium that prove my theory.”

Her eyes grew wider. “Does that mean you’ve traveled all over the world?”

He nodded. “Many places, that’s for sure.”

She clasped her hands together like a little kid. “You are one lucky guy, you know that?”

“Lucky to love my profession, yes. But my personal dreams are more simple,” he said quietly. “I’ve seen the big world. I want the smaller one. I want roots.”

“Not me!”

“So,” he started, piecing together her dream with her current situation, “when do you plan to see the world?”

“Don’t know. Right now I just need to get back home…”

Her eyes moistened and she turned her head away.

When she stayed that way for several long moments, he got up and headed to the bed. Looking down at her, he reached out, hesitated for a moment, then gently patted her hair. He liked how the silky curls spiraled around his fingers.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, not sure why he should be sorry, but wanting to comfort her.

“It’s been a long day,” she whispered. She slid him a glance, her gray eyes filled with such a gentle sadness, he wondered what exactly she and her “pet” had gone through. And why.

Were they running from something?

Up to now, he’d bought her story that they’d been left on the side of the road. After all, this was Colorado, cow—and bull—country. But looking into her eyes, clouded with hurt, he knew, just knew, something more was at stake. Not wanting to dig, or upset her further, he simply stroked her hair, comforting her.

Minutes later, her eyes closed and she fell asleep.

4

“THERE IT IS.” Louis turned off the headlights and eased the trailer down a side street off the main drag of Nederland.

“Dere what is?” asked Shorty, leaning closer to the windshield as though that would help him see better.

“In front of us, forty or so feet,” Louie said, jabbing his thumb at the big yellow truck with Nederlander Highlander Ranch in red and blue doughnut-shaped letters on its back doors. “It’s big and yellow and says exactly what that wino said was written on it.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Louie said between his teeth. “It’s right frickin’ in front of us or are you frickin’ blind?”

“Don’t need to get so sensitive, Lou,” muttered Shorty. “I sees it.”

“Sorry,” muttered Louie, not really meaning it but needing to say something sorta nice so Shorty wouldn’t go all sloppy sad and blow their chance to nab the bull—which meant nabbing a cool half a mil each.

“Hey, that truck’s so yellow,” said Louie, trying to sound super friendly-like, “it’s like followin’ a moving block of butter.”

“Yeah, a block o’ buttah.”

“You and me, Shorty, we were pretty damn smart getting a big black trailer ’cause we blend into the night.” He didn’t really mean that, the part about Shorty being smart, but compliments usually cheered people up.

“Right now,” Louie continued, sounding as breezy as the winds over the Keys where he’d soon be living, “we’re blending into the night like chocolate frostin’ on chocolate cake. That dude would hafta be glued to his side mirror to realize he’s bein’ tailed.”

“Chocolate frostin’ on chocolate cake,” repeated Shorty as he took a last drag on his cigarette and flicked it out the window. The burning embers flamed in the darkness.

Louis slugged Shorty on the arm. “Nice move. Next time, why don’cha set off a flare?” So much for being friendly-like.

Shorty rolled up his window. “Flare? Wha—?”

“We’re on reconnaissance. We just found our mark—” Louie nodded toward the yellow truck down the alley ahead of them “—and you toss a lighted cig out the window! How many times I gotta tell ya there’s an ashtray in here! But did you use it? No, better to signal the guy with a miniflare that we’re tailin’ him!”

“I’ll use the ashtray next time, Lou.”

“So you’ve said. Now shut up. I’m concentratin’.”

Louie drove slowly, keeping some distance behind the truck.

“He’s movin’ awful fast for hauling a bull,” commented Shorty.

Louis had thought the same thing when he’d seen the truck turn down this side street.

Suddenly, the Nederlander Highlander truck lurched to the right and parked in a well-lit spot between a scooter and a compact car. Louis did an ultra-smooth glide into a neighboring parking lot, conveniently dark with no streetlights.

“Primo lookout spot,” he murmured, killing the engine. Damn, he was good.