Dalton's Undoing

“How did it go?” she asked, fighting the yearning to pull him into her arms for the kind of hug he used to give her all the time.

“My favorite Levi’s smell like horse crap.”

“I’m sure that will wash out.”

“I doubt it,” Cole grumbled. “They’re probably ruined forever.”

“Here’s a tip for you,” Seth spoke from the doorway with a lazy smile. “Next time you come to the ranch, maybe you shouldn’t wear your favorite pair of Levi’s.”

“If you’re going to suggest I buy a pair of Wranglers, I might just have to puke.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” Seth drawled. “Then your favorite pair of Levi’s would smell like horse crap and puke.”

Cole’s snort might have passed for a laugh, but Jenny could not be quite sure.

“Wear whatever you want. But if you take the school bus to the Cold Creek on Tuesday, we might be ready to get into the real work on the car now that we’ve taken a look at the damage. Bus Fifteen is the one you want to take. Ray Pullman is the driver.”

“Right. I need to take a shower.”

“Bring your jeans out when you’re done so we can wash them,” Jenny said.

Cole didn’t answer her or even acknowledge her as he headed down the stairs to his bedroom, leaving her alone with Seth.

In part because of embarrassment over her son’s rudeness and in part because Seth was so masculine and so blasted attractive, she was intensely aware of him. He seemed to fill up all the available space in the small foyer.

She gave a small huff of annoyance at herself and tried to ignore the scent of him that seemed to surround her, of warm male and sexy aftershave.

“Tell me the truth. How did it really go today? I doubt Cole will tell me much.”

“Good. He worked hard at everything I asked him to do and some of it wasn’t very appealing. I can’t ask for more than that.”

She relaxed the fingers she hadn’t realized she’d clenched tightly in the pockets of her sweater. “Was he…” her voice trailed off and she couldn’t figure out how to ask the question in a way that wouldn’t make her sound like a terrible mother.

“Rude and obnoxious? Not much, surprisingly. He digs cars and we spent much of the afternoon working on mine, so everything was cool.”

“I can’t tell you how relieved that makes me.”

“You should probably know I did throw him up on a horse for a few minutes. He actually seemed to enjoy it. Even smiled a few times.”

She blinked, trying to imagine her rebellious city-boy “I-hate-everything-country” son on the back of a horse.

“You’re sure we’re talking about the same kid? He wasn’t possessed by alien cowboy pod people?”

Seth laughed, his blue eyes crinkled at the corners, and she could swear she felt warm fingers trickling down her spine just looking at him.

“Not a UFO in sight, I swear.”

She shouldn’t be here, sharing laughter or anything else with Seth Dalton. With sharp efforts, she broke eye contact. “Thank you for all the trouble you’ve gone to,” she said after an uncomfortable moment. “It would have been less work on your part if you had just turned him over to the authorities.”

“I’m getting free labor with my horses and with my car. Not a bad deal. I’m no saint here.”

“So they tell me.”

Had she really said that aloud? She mentally cringed at her rudeness and Seth looked startled at first, then gave her one of those blasted slow smiles that ought to come with a warning label as long as her arm.

“Who’s been talking about me, Ms. Boyer?”

Her nerve endings tingled at his low, amused voice, but she ignored it, turning her own voice prim. “Who hasn’t? You’re a favorite topic of conversation in Pine Gulch, Mr. Dalton.”

He didn’t seem bothered by town gossip—or maybe he was just used to it.

Looking for all the world as if he planned to make himself right at home, he leaned a hip against the door frame and crossed his arms across his chest. “That must tell you what a quiet town you’ve settled in, if nobody in Pine Gulch has anything more interesting to talk about than me. So what’s the consensus?”

That you’re a major-league player. That you flirt with anything female and have left a swath of broken hearts behind you. That half the women in Teton Valley are in love with you and the other half are in lust.

She so didn’t want to be having this conversation with him. She thought longingly of the paperwork she’d been putting off all afternoon and would have given just about anything right then to be sitting at her desk filling out federal assessment forms. Anything but this.

“Nothing I’m sure you haven’t already heard,” she finally said. “You’re apparently a busy man.”

A purely masculine, absolutely enticing dimple appeared in his cheek briefly then disappeared again. “Yeah, starting a full-fledged horse ranch can take a lot of hours.”

He had to know she wasn’t talking about his equine endeavors, but she decided she wasn’t going to set him straight.

“I’m sure it does,” she murmured drily. Dating a different woman every night probably tended to fill up the calendar, too. But not this woman, even if she wasn’t four years older than him and the exact opposite of all the tight, perky young things he was probably used to.

She knew all about men like him. She’d been married to one, a man compelled to charm every woman in sight.

She had worked hard to rebuild her heart and her life and her family in the last three years. After a great deal of hard work and self-scrutiny, she had finally become someone she could respect again.

She was a strong, successful woman who loved her work and her family, and she wasn’t about to let a man like Seth Dalton knock her on her butt again.

Even if he did make her hormones wake up and sing hallelujah.

“Thank you for taking the time away from your horses to bring Cole back,” she said, in what she hoped was a polite but dismissive tone.

He either didn’t pick on it or didn’t care. “No problem. How’s Morgan doing now?”

She didn’t want him to be interested in her daughter or for the simple question to remind her just how kind and patient he had been during Morgan’s flare-up.

That was the problem with charmers, she supposed. They seemed instinctively to know how to zero in on a woman’s weak spot and use that to their advantage. He’d already slipped inside her defenses a little by being so decent about Cole crashing his car. She would have preferred if he ignored Morgan altogether.

How was she to pigeonhole him as a selfish womanizer when he showed such genuine concern for her daughter’s welfare?

“She’s fine. By the time we returned home, her peak flow was about seventy percent. After we nebulized her, it went up to about eight-five percent.”

“Good. I hope the flare-up doesn’t discourage you from bringing her out to the ranch again. She’s welcome to tag along with Cole anytime. You both are.”

She smiled politely, though she had absolutely no intention of taking him up on the invitation. “Thank you. But I’m sure the very last thing you need underfoot—with you being so busy and all—is a wheezing nine-year-old girl.”

“I’d like to have her back. Both of you. Pretty ladies are always welcome at the Cold Creek.”

His smile was designed to reach right into a woman’s soul and she felt it clear to her toes. Darn him. No, darn her for this ridiculous crush, the weakness she had for handsome charmers.

She couldn’t endure his light flirtation, especially knowing he didn’t mean any of it, it was all just a game to him.

He couldn’t possibly be seriously interested in a stuffy, overstressed thirty-six-year-old elementary school principal with no chest to speak of and the tiniest bit of gray in her hair that she only managed to hide by the grace of God and a good stylist.

He wasn’t interested in her, and he had no business smiling at her as if he were.

“Do you stay up nights thinking of lines or do you just come up with them on the fly?”

He raised an eyebrow, though amusement still lurked in his blue eyes, even in the face of her frontal attack. “Was that a line? I thought I was simply extending an invitation.”

She sighed. “Look, you’ve been incredibly understanding about what Cole did to your car. If I had been in your shoes, I can’t imagine I would be nearly so magnanimous. He’s going to be working with you to make things right for at least a few months and I suppose we’ll see a great deal of each other in that time, so let’s get this out of the way.”

“I’m all ears.”

And sexy smiles and gorgeous eyes and broad shoulders that look like they could carry the weight of the world.

She frowned at herself. “I’m not interested in being charmed,” she said bluntly.

“Is that what you think I was doing?”

“Weren’t you?” She didn’t give him a chance to answer. “I doubt you’re even aware of it, it’s so ingrained in your nature. The flirting, the slow bedroom smiles. Even if you’re not attracted to a woman, something in your blood compels you to conquer her, to find her weaknesses and exploit them until she surrenders to your charm like every other woman.”

He gazed at her, obviously taken aback by the sudden attack. She heard her own rudeness and was appalled but couldn’t seem to stop the words from gushing out.

All she could think of was Ashley Barnes crying her eyes out when Seth never called her back and Richard murmuring lies and promises while he was already sleeping with another woman and planning to abandon his children.

“It’s different if a man is genuinely interested in a woman,” she went on. “If he truly wants to know about her, if he might feel some spark of attraction and want to follow up on it. That’s one thing. But you’re not interested in me. Men like you charm just because you can.”

He straightened from the door jamb, a sudden fiery light in his eyes that had her stepping back a pace. “That’s quite a scathing indictment, Ms. Boyer, especially since you’ve known me less than a day. I thought good teachers and principals weren’t supposed to rush to snap judgments.”

His words gave her pause and she had to wonder what in heaven’s name seemed to possess her around him.

“You’re right. Absolutely. I’m very sorry. That was completely uncalled-for. I’ll make a deal with you. I won’t rush to any snap judgments provided you refrain from trying to add me to your list of conquests.”

Before he could answer, she held open the door in a pointed dismissal. Cold air rushed in, swirling around her like a malicious fog, but she knew it wouldn’t be enough to take care of her hot embarrassment. “Thank you again for bringing Cole home. I’ll be sure to send him out to your ranch on the bus Tuesday.”

Seth gave her a long, hard look, as if he had much more he wanted to say, but he finally turned around and walked outside.

She closed the door and leaned against it, her hands clenched at her sides.

How had she let him get her so stirred up? He hadn’t done anything. Not really. Sure, he’d flirted a little, but she had always been able to handle a mild flirtation. He seemed to push all her buttons—and several she hadn’t realized were there.

How on earth was she supposed to face him again after she’d all but accused him of trying to seduce her?

She would simply have to be cool and polite. She would be gracious about what he was doing for her son but distant about everything else. She had no doubt she could keep him at arm’s length, especially after she’d just slapped him down so firmly.

Keeping him out of her head was a different matter entirely.

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