Warrior In Her Bed

“Why don’t we just consider it a homework assignment and let it go at that?” Johnny suggested with a twinkle reflected in the midnight sky of a pair of eyes as completely unfathomable as Annie’s reaction to it.

Three

Annie spent the better part of the next twenty-four hours berating herself for not following up on the offhand remark that the “date” for which she was meticulously preparing was nothing more than a homework assignment. She couldn’t help but wonder exactly whose homework Johnny been referring to. Had he been alluding to her need to familiarize herself with the local culture? Or to the fact that he planned on doing some personal research of his own before reporting back to his sister whether Annie did indeed have snakes in her head and was a danger to the impressionable young minds of this reservation?

Neither scenario appealed to her much.

Furthermore, such contemplation served to make getting ready for what was already destined to be an uncomfortable afternoon all the more difficult. Indeed, Annie had no idea what to wear to a powwow. Neither a true cowgirl nor an Indian, she couldn’t very well bring herself to succumb to the lure of either culture. She could no more envision herself bedecked in Native leather and beads than she could picture herself in Western boots and a mile-high Stetson. Believing it to be hopeless that she could ever blend in at such a local event no matter what she wore, she decided at last to simply go as herself. Since her preferred choice of attire for any given outing was a T-shirt, pair of shorts and tennis shoes, she saw no need to stray from comfort now. Having checked with Jewell beforehand to make sure casual dress was acceptable, she decided a pair of jeans would prove less disrespectful to any participants who might resent her presence at such a traditional, time-honored ceremony.

Annie’s most overt concession to the fluttery feeling that settled into her stomach whenever she thought about the sexy, intimidating man who was due to arrive any minute to pick her up was to pay her hair more attention than usual. Lately she had taken to pulling it back in a practical ponytail that allowed her to meet the world head-on. Today the thought of using her hair as a curtain if necessary—an old trick passed freely among junior high girls—to obscure her face from Johnny Lonebear compelled her to dig out and dust off an old curling iron. After forcing her naturally straight tresses into loose curls that fell about her shoulders, she decided to forgo applying any blush to her cheeks. They were already burning with telltale anticipation.

Laboring under the assumption that it would give Johnny an enormous sense of self-satisfaction to discover just how nervous this impromptu rendezvous with fate was making her, Annie sternly reminded herself that she was no giddy teenager preparing for her first date. The pink-cheeked woman staring at her in the mirror was certainly old enough to know better.

Definitely old enough to separate fantasy from reality.

Fact from fiction.

And lust from love….

Indeed, Annie had no more reason to believe that she and her enigmatic boss would hit it off any better today than at their first volatile encounter than she could expect to be treated as anything but an interloper at the day’s festivities. Johnny Lonebear himself had been eager to spell that particular fact out for her. As a white woman with no obvious ties to the community, her motives were naturally suspect.

The loud knock at her front door did nothing to settle her nerves. Annie jumped at the sound, bumping a bottle of perfume off the bathroom counter in the process.

“Come on in,” she hollered, bending down to retrieve the bottle and using the excuse to spritz her pulse points with its delicate scent.

It had been so long since she had been out on anything resembling a date, even one as unofficial as this one, that she felt thrown off balance by the effort it required. Despite her entreaty, the front door remained stubbornly closed. Hurrying to open it, Annie paused only long enough to fasten a plastic smile to her face.

She swung the door open and felt all the air sucked out of her small abode. The man standing there on her front porch looked so utterly devastating, dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a short-sleeved denim shirt, that Annie could almost hear her smile clattering to the floor. His clean-cut military haircut clashed with the predatory look in those dark-chocolate eyes as they swept over her. A flicker of approval illuminated their depths, causing a feminine shiver to ripple through her.

“You look nice,” Johnny said, his voice sounding far more noncommittal than his heated gaze indicated.

Having momentarily forgotten how to breathe, Annie attempted to resuscitate herself by swallowing a big gulp of fresh air.

“Thanks,” she murmured, thinking there was no need to return the compliment. Nice was such a gross understatement when applied to this striking specimen of manhood. For heaven’s sake, the man practically radiated testosterone.

It was all Annie could do to refrain from taking a giant step backward.

It was all she could do to keep from stepping forward and indulging her curiosity by running her hands along the exposed muscles of his arms.

Involuntarily, Annie’s headstrong imagination slipped beneath his shirt, as well, to check out the muscles hidden there. It gave her some measure of comfort to think that, just in case she ended up doing something utterly idiotic like swooning at his feet, this hale fellow would have no trouble carrying her to the couch—or to the bed, for that matter.

Attempting to get her runaway hormones under control, she picked her smile up off the floor and gave her best imitation of someone who had it all together.

“Just let me grab my purse, and we can be on our way.”

She was eager to dispense with the formality of inviting him inside on the pretense of showing him around the house. Johnny Lonebear did not appear to be the kind of man who was into such things as floor plans and decorative touches. As far as houses went, he struck Annie as the type who preferred a canopy of stars overhead to any fashionable cathedral-style ceiling. The very thought conjured up a vision of two sleeping bags zipped together in a remote and romantic setting. Annie hastened to shake her head to clear it of that image, but it was too late to keep that wicked imagination of hers from diving beneath the sleeping bag covers to reveal herself wantonly writhing beneath this powerful, naked man.

Grabbing her purse off a nearby chair as if it were a life preserver, she heard her lips form a bold-faced lie.

“I’m ready if you are,” she said, fighting the urge to run back inside and bolt the door behind her.

Johnny didn’t feel the need to respond as he waited for Annie to lock her front door. Nobody on the reservation bothered with such formalities. It wasn’t so much that they hadn’t anything worth stealing as it was the belief that one’s home should always be open to anyone in need—whether or not you happened to be around. Perhaps it was just a small cultural difference, but he couldn’t help feeling that the very act itself widened the gulf separating himself from Annie Wainwright.

The four-by-four Dodge Ram parked out front bespoke the personality of its driver. It was a big truck for a big man. The deep-blue, extended-cab’s chrome sparkled in the midday sun. Directly beneath a decal of the American flag, a Native Pride emblem decorated the back window. Over them both hung a gun rack, complete with a fearsome-looking weapon that made Annie flinch just to look at it.

In the bed of the vehicle sat a huge black beast that resembled a bear. Ferocious barking at its master’s approach only slightly reassured Annie that the creature was, in fact, domesticated. The look of distress upon her face compelled Johnny to chastise the animal.

“Down, Smokey!” he said sternly. “Down.”

The command only served to set the brute’s great tail in motion. Swishing through the air, it truly seemed to wag the dog, whose wet pink tongue panted in the heat. Annie did everything in her power to avoid either end of this perpetual-motion machine. She actually imagined disappointment not only in Johnny’s but also in the beast’s eyes when she failed to reach out and pet it: an act which, in her opinion, would have taken no more courage than sticking one’s head in a lion’s mouth.

“Smokey the Bear, I presume?” she asked over the thundering of a heart coping with a sudden rush of adrenaline.

Impressed with her quick wit, Johnny flashed her a smile.

“Don’t worry,” he assured her. “He’s friendly. That is, unless he thinks I’m being threatened.”

Not quite sure what to make of that qualifying statement, Annie kept a healthy distance as she stepped up to the passenger side door with Johnny beside her. Rugged and practical, the ultramanly vehicle sat so high off the ground that it necessitated a helping hand for any woman of normal proportions to manage hitching herself into the contoured bench seat with a minimum amount of clumsiness. As much as Annie appreciated the gentlemanly gesture of someone going to the trouble of opening her door when she was perfectly capable of doing so herself, she almost wished Johnny would have just left her to struggle awkwardly into her seat by herself. The mere touch of his hand at her elbow as he helped her up sent a blast of heat exploding inside her chest like that of a shotgun pointed directly at the freshly painted target on her heart.

Annie had blissfully forgotten just how much her skin hungered for the touch of a man.

Johnny shut the door behind her and crossed to the driver’s side in a couple of long, purposeful strides. Hopping into place behind the steering wheel as if it was nothing to climb into a vehicle custom made for the Jolly Green Giant, he turned the key in the ignition.

“So you think you’re up for this?” he asked, somehow managing to sound genuine in his concern.

In defiance of the fact that the rest of her body stubbornly disagreed, Annie nodded her head. Yet another sudden power surge of heat rushing through her body, a result of an indulgent smile bestowed upon her, made her wish she had donned a pair of shorts instead of the jeans she had on. Since she didn’t want to ask Johnny to turn on the air-conditioning for fear the request would be a dead giveaway to a level of discomfort she couldn’t remember feeling since adolescence, Annie suffered the heat in silence.

Any hope of feigned nonchalance evaporated beneath a completely cloudless sky. Demurely, she crossed her legs and grabbed hold of the overhead strap as the pickup lurched forward down a road that resembled the washboard ripples of her driver’s hard belly. The stiff suspension of the vehicle rattled Annie’s teeth, making pleasant chitchat difficult if not impossible. Concentrating on the scenery rolling past her window, she did her best to dismiss the sexual tension building between them like storm clouds gathering forces in the distance with the potential of unloosing a tornado in the general vicinity.

Johnny was of the impression that his passenger would have preferred riding in the bed of the truck rather than being strapped into a seat next to him. Annie Wainwright’s body language couldn’t have been any more unsociable had she erected a stone wall between them. He was thinking along the lines of the Great Wall of China. The way she wrapped her one free hand around her stomach reminded Johnny of a seashell curled protectively around itself. He wanted to tell her that she had nothing to be afraid of but couldn’t bring himself to utter the lie. The way his body was reacting to this woman’s proximity confirmed the fact that her fears were not completely groundless.

That he wanted her came as a surprise to him.

Reminding himself that Annie Wainwright was not his type did nothing to lessen the desire pulsing through him. He was naturally drawn to taller women of a similar complexion and background to his own. Usually the raven-haired beauties in a crowd caught his eye. Not to mention that he preferred women comfortable enough in their sexuality to flirt outright. Women willing and eager to make the first move.

Painful experience had taught him that making the last move was far more to his liking.

That a light-skinned, fair-haired woman of a rather prudish nature was having such a peculiar effect upon his senses was alarming, to say the least. His sister would surely be outraged by the thoughts playing havoc with his imagination. And while Johnny promised his niece that he would put forth an honest effort to give her mentor a fair chance to prove herself, he hadn’t expected to feel anything more for this woman than for any other of the other teachers he supervised.

What he was feeling at the moment was decidedly not of a professional nature.

Johnny reached over and turned the air-conditioning on full blast. Unfortunately, it did little to cool him off. For that reason alone he was relieved to reach the outskirts of Fort Washakie. Having traveled all over the world, it never failed to amuse Johnny to see the city population sign proudly announcing all 271 inhabitants of the small outpost to passing motorists. Some of the locals maintained that the reason that particular number stayed so constant was because every time a baby was born, another man left town. Having been on the receiving end of such questionable humor himself, Johnny refrained from repeating the old chestnut as he pulled into the dirt parking lot.

The smell of fry bread wafting on an almost imperceptible breeze brought home memories of the grandmother who had raised Johnny and his sister Ester after their parents had been killed in a tragic car accident. Grandma dubbed the deep-fat fried treat squaw bread and, to this day, Johnny could think of nothing sweeter for the body and soul than rolling fresh, hot twists of it in pure sugar. Others preferred the bread plain or filled with seasoned meat and cheese, not unlike a taco. A single whiff was enough to announce the beginning of three days of singing, dancing and contests. It put him in a fine humor.

After parking the pickup, Johnny proceeded to take Annie on a tour of the premises. The powwow was held in a circular arena surrounded by benches and protected from inclement weather by wooden awnings. Vendors set up stands around the perimeter. The jewelry was predominantly made of silver, turquoise and jade. Also on display was a wide variety of beadwork, leather crafts and toys, as well as an incredible array of food in quantities that astonished Annie.

She expressed surprise that no admission fee was charged and kept looking over her shoulder as if someone might ask her to leave. Their first stop was at a concessionaire’s where Johnny bought her a cola and a sample of the fry bread that always took him back to a childhood home that might have been described as a hovel had it not been filled with the sound of his grandmother’s humming and the pride she instilled in her grandchildren as patiently and meticulously as the fancy beadwork she sold to make ends meet. For himself, Johnny ordered a “Big Indian”, a hamburger concoction served on fry bread that spilled over the edges of a large dinner plate.

Glistening with the inquisitiveness of a sparrow, Annie’s blue eyes darted everywhere, reminding Johnny of the excitement he felt the first time he had attended a powwow. Even though Johnny warned her that she would end up a sticky mess, she nonetheless decided to fill her fry bread with honey. Moaning in delight over the concoction, she appeared to have absolutely no idea how delectable she herself appeared with a spot of sweet stuff dribbling down her chin.

“Here,” Johnny said, stopping her in her tracks and pulling a handkerchief from his back pocket. “Let me help you.”

Annie felt like an errant child only until the next moment when his eyes locked upon hers and the rest of the world faded away. Suddenly there was nothing between them but an expression of totally unexpected and inappropriate longing shimmering beneath the blue sky for anyone happening by to see. Annie tipped her chin up as if inviting a kiss. Johnny paused, considering the wisdom of licking the offending honey from her flesh before dragging her off to one of the surrounding tepees and making passionate love right then and there. Instead he put his forefinger beneath her chin and with staggering tenderness wiped away the sweet trickle with the corner of his handkerchief.

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