Standing Outside The Fire

“I Want You, Erin.

And I want you to stay with me this morning if you will.” All amusement vanished from his expression, replaced by so much desire that it took her breath.

Her heart thudded because she knew if she said no now and walked out, he would let her go. She had to make a choice here. All her life she had known what she wanted and didn’t want. She knew now what she really wanted.

She didn’t want to walk away from this man who had turned her world topsy-turvy, the first man in her life to set her heart pounding. The best-looking man she had ever known, as well as the most exciting. He was silent, waiting, letting her make her choice.

On tiptoe, she pulled his head down. With their lips almost touching, she whispered, “Someday, I may regret this moment, but right now it seems perfect.”

Dear Reader,

Yes, we have what you’re looking for at Silhouette Desire. This month, we bring you some of the most anticipated stories…and some of the most exciting new tales we have ever offered.

Yes, New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jackson is back with Randi McCafferty’s story. You’ve been waiting to discover who fathered Randi’s baby and who was out to kill her, and the incomparable Lisa Jackson answers all your questions and more in Best-Kept Lies. Yes, we have the next installment of DYNASTIES: THE DANFORTHS with Cathleen Galitz’s Cowboy Crescendo. And you can be sure that wild Wyoming rancher Toby Danforth is just as hot as can be. Yes, there is finally another SECRETS! book from Barbara McCauley. She’s back with Miss Pruitt’s Private Life, a scandalous tale of passionate encounters and returning characters you’ve come to know and love.

Yes, Sara Orwig continues her compelling series STALLION PASS: TEXAS KNIGHTS with an outstanding tale of stranded strangers turned secret lovers, in Standing Outside the Fire. Yes, the fabulous Kathie DeNosky is back this month with a scintillating story about a woman desperate to have a Baby at His Convenience. And yes, Bronwyn Jameson is taking us down under as two passionate individuals square off in a battle that soon sweeps them Beyond Control.

Here’s hoping you’ll be saying “Yes, yes, yes” to Silhouette Desire all month…all summer…all year long!

Melissa Jeglinski

Senior Editor

Silhouette Desire

MILLS & BOON

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Standing Outside The Fire

Sara Orwig

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SARA ORWIG

lives in Oklahoma. She has a patient husband who will take her on research trips anywhere from big cities to old forts. She is an avid collector of Western history books. With a master’s degree in English, Sara has written historical romance, mainstream fiction and contemporary romance. Books are beloved treasures that take Sara to magical worlds, and she loves both reading and writing them.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

One

“How did this happen to me?” Boone Devlin wondered for the hundredth time as he climbed out of his rental car.

It was an hour from midnight, the seventh of July, and the glistening asphalt parking lot of the swank San Antonio hotel was deserted. Boone strode across it, dodging puddles from the night’s rain.

Summer lightning streaked through the sky and was gone, plunging the Texas night back into darkness. He walked briskly, still in shock over his inheritance of a nationally famous quarter horse ranch and over a million dollars. He was in town to meet the manager of the ranch and to break the news that he intended to sell it. He was interested only in funding his new air charter service. With the money from the sale of the ranch, he could foresee endless possibilities for his business.

The staccato click of heels caught Boone’s attention, and he caught sight of a shapely female a few yards ahead who hurried toward the hotel. As his gaze ran appreciatively over her form, a man stepped out of the shadows and accosted her.

Boone couldn’t hear the man’s words, but she shook her head and snapped an emphatic no as she strode past him. The intruder fell into step beside her and continued speaking in a low voice. Abruptly, the woman veered away from him. When she did, the man reached out and grabbed her arm.

Clenching his fists, Boone sprinted toward them.

Already the woman had reacted, stomping her heel on the man’s instep. Then, she slapped him hard over the ear and shoved him away.

“No!” she exclaimed again loudly, and while the man staggered, she rushed into the hotel.

Boone chuckled, and the man spun around. “What’s so damn funny?” he snarled, starting toward Boone. The guy was ready to take out his anger on someone.

Boone clenched his fists and spread his feet. “You want some more?” he asked softly. He stood close enough now that he could face the man squarely.

Lightning flashed, and they stared at each other, eye to eye.

The man’s chest expanded while he inhaled. Turning, he hurried away, disappearing into the shadows.

Boone sauntered into the hotel’s elegant, deserted lobby that had leather chairs grouped around polished mahogany tables centered with vases of flowers. He strolled to the desk and checked in. When he went to the elevators, the woman from the parking lot was still there, and they entered the same elevator.

Boone had only seen her in the dark parking lot. Now, in the bright lights of the elevator, she stole his breath. His gaze skimmed over a figure that was usually found only in men’s dreams. Her emerald-green sleeveless dress revealed lush curves and a tiny waist. Her slender arms had well-toned muscles, and he guessed that she worked out regularly. Especially since that display in the parking lot.

Her full red lips conjured up his curiosity about how they would taste and feel beneath his own. He glanced at her long, slender fingers and noted she wore no wedding ring. She was looking down, adjusting her purse strap. The thick curtain of silky shoulder-length red hair fell forward, hiding her face. She raised her head and he gazed into the greenest eyes he had ever seen.

Thickly lashed, her cat eyes mesmerized and enticed. They were cool, icy green, full of mystery and mischief and hints of sensual pleasure. She met his gaze with her own direct, self-assured stare.

“I was going to come to your rescue out there in the parking lot,” Boone told her, “until I saw I wasn’t needed.”

“Thanks, anyway,” she replied in a throaty voice.

“Would you like to go downstairs and have a drink?” he asked, hoping to prolong their time together.

She smiled briefly at him. “Thank you. Actually, I was going back downstairs. I haven’t had dinner tonight so I’m going to eat not drink.”

“Fine. I just got into town. Let me take you to dinner to celebrate.”

Her eyebrow arched. “Celebrate what? Your getting into town?”

He grinned. “No, you fending off that guy. You were cool, collected and efficient. It was impressive.”

“Thanks.” The elevator doors opened. “Maybe I’ll see you in the restaurant,” she offered, and the doors closed behind her.

“Yes, you will,” Boone replied quietly. He rode to his floor, hurried to his room to deposit his flight bag, wash up and comb his wavy brown hair.

Downstairs in the restaurant, he got a table beside a window that overlooked the deserted swimming pool. In the red-carpeted restaurant the lights were low and, because of the late hour, the room was almost deserted. While he sat and waited, he could hear live music from the lounge.

Less than five minutes later, she walked through the door, and his pulse skipped a beat. When he stood and waved to her, she hesitated, but then she smiled and crossed the room toward him, moving past the tables draped with white linen cloths.

He watched the easy sway of her hips, and his temperature rose another notch.

“You don’t give up easily, either, do you?” she demanded.

“No, but I’m not going to coerce you into eating with me. You’ll have to admit, it’ll be far more entertaining than if we eat alone.”

“And you don’t lack in confidence,” she added, sounding amused.

“That was fact not confidence. I know I’ll have a better time eating with you instead of alone.” He pulled out a chair.

“I don’t usually let guys pick me up,” she told him, “and I don’t usually have dinner with strangers. For all I know, you’re married.”

“I’m not picking you up—this isn’t a date,” he said as she sat down. “And I’ve never been married, not married now, not going to be.”

“A free spirit?”

“Exactly.” He walked around to his chair to sit and face her. “Besides, we’re not strangers now. We’ve known each other almost a whole half hour.” He held out his hand. “I’m B—”

She shook her head. “No names. Let’s keep this impersonal.”

“You don’t want to know my name?”

“No, because we won’t see each other again after this night. When dinner is over we’ll go our separate ways. I’ll feel much better about it.”

He cocked his head. “Want to make a bet? I’ll bet you that before we part, you’ll tell me your name. In the meantime, I’ll just call you Red.”

Smiling, she nodded while her green eyes twinkled. “All right, I’ll take that bet. Winner gets what?”

“What would you like if you win?” he challenged, knowing what he would like to claim as his prize, but also knowing he couldn’t tell her that now. Another loud clap of thunder boomed and crackled through the hotel. “What would you like if you win? Name something,” he urged her.

She gazed past him and pursed her lips in thought. Boone had to fight the temptation to lean across the table and touch his lips to hers. Finally her gaze returned to him. “I’m a chocoholic. If I win, you get me a chocolate dessert, or if they don’t have one, a candy bar. I know the gift shop will have them.”

“Fine with me,” he replied.

“Now, if you win, what do you want? You better keep the prize simple and impersonal,” she warned in a no-nonsense tone.

“That you tell me four facts about yourself—in addition to the ones I figure out on my own.”

He received another smile. “If you’re trying to figure me out, I can save you the trouble. I’m an ordinary person who leads an ordinary life.”

“I don’t think so. Four new facts, right?”

“That’s an easy one. All right. I’ll take that bet and enjoy my chocolate.”

“Tonight we can have a double celebration.”

“This ought to be a good one—what else will we celebrate?” Outside, lightning flashed, and then was gone.

“My having dinner with one of the prettiest women in Texas, and that’s saying a lot. Since Texas women are usually gorgeous.”

She laughed and shook her head. “That’s a little thick!”

“There! Your smile is absolute proof. You have a dimple, even, white teeth, a smile that would set any man’s pulse racing, plus those big green eyes…” He paused when a waiter arrived to pour glasses of water for each of them.

Boone ordered white wine, yet all the time he was ordering, he was watching the woman and thinking about her. He had meant every word he’d said to her. Besides being capable and keeping a cool head in a scary situation, she was stunning and sexy—a combination to heat his blood to boiling. And he had the feeling that she was merely tolerating him. He could get some response from her, but it was slight and guarded, a rarity in his dealings with women.

As soon as the waiter left, Boone leaned forward. “Where was I? Big, green eyes, luscious red lips, fiery red hair,” he said, catching a lock of her hair in his fingers. It was silky soft.

“Who were you telling all this to last night?” she asked, tugging her hair away from him. Though she was being flippant, there was no mistaking a chemistry sparking between them.

“I could deny telling anyone, but I don’t think you’d believe me. The way you decked that guy in the parking lot says a lot about your personality.”

“Am I supposed to ask you what you think my personality is like?” she asked with amusement in her eyes.

“I think you’re practical. No frills. Intelligent and cool and confident. You’re laughing at my compliments, which means you are self-assured and don’t need to hear compliments. You can laugh at yourself and don’t believe you are one of the most gorgeous women in Texas, though you should.”

“Hardly! That’s a real stretch.” She laughed, and he wondered how many men had succumbed to that irresistible smile. “I’ve never won a beauty contest in my life.”

“How many have you entered?” he countered.

“None,” she admitted.

“And I’m right in my assessment otherwise—will you agree with that?”

Her lips firmed as she seemed to give his question thought before she nodded. “I’d say that I am practical and no frills. Intelligent—I hope reasonably so, but maybe I’m not showing a whole lot of sense eating dinner with a stranger. To my credit, when we finish dinner, I will go to my room and you will go to yours. And you won’t accompany me to mine. You won’t know which room it is. You won’t even know who I am. Let’s keep the evening impersonal. I’ll feel safer that way. I carry a cell phone and can call for help at any time. As for cool and confident—most of the time. Not always. It’s a fairly accurate assessment.”

“So is the part about you being gorgeous.” He leaned back as the waiter brought a bottle of wine, opened it and let Boone approve before pouring. The pale liquid half filled the glasses and then the white-coated waiter set the bottle in a bucket of ice and placed ornate red menus in front of each of them before he left.

As soon as they were alone, Boone lifted his glass. “Here’s to you for handling a bad situation with great aplomb.” He touched his glass to hers with a faint clink, and then gazing into her eyes, took a sip of his wine. The pale, dry wine went down smoothly while excitement hummed in him like an idling engine.

As she sipped and lowered her glass, thunder boomed.

“We may have just beaten the rain here,” he observed.

“They’ve had two inches today already,” she replied, looking outside and sounding as if she had forgotten him.

“How do you know that?” He was curious about her, wanting to know everything possible and wanting a date.

“The desk clerk told me.”

While she talked, Boone caught her hand in his and felt a current zing over his nerves when he touched her. Her skin was soft and smooth. “I don’t see an engagement or wedding ring.”

“No, you don’t,” she replied with a faint smile. She looked outside again as if the matter held her attention more than Boone.

“And the way you said that, I suspect there is no steady boyfriend.”

“You’re right again. Maybe you should earn a living as a clairvoyant.”

“I’m a good—guesser,” he said, giving another innuendo to the last word, and she arched her eyebrows. “And another toast to a gorgeous redhead I’ll always remember.”

She moved her hand away as he touched her glass again. “Always being until the next pretty woman crosses your path.”

“Not so. I’m not going to forget you and—” he leaned forward again and lowered his voice “—I hope before the night is over, I can see to it that you will always remember me.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so, but you can tell yourself that I will. When we go our separate ways, dinner tonight will be a brief and soon forgotten interlude.”

“I intend to see that it isn’t,” he said, intrigued more by her each minute. “So, I’ve given you a personality appraisal. Now, you give me one. I’m curious what you think about me and what you think I’m like.”

“Self-centered,” she answered lightly.

“Ouch! All I’ve talked about is you—where do you get this self-centered stuff?”

Her eyes twinkled. “You’re aware of yourself. You’re totally confident, determined, not a little arrogant, and in some ways, charming.”

“I’m glad you threw in the last or I’d think I’d better get up and move to another table and stop imposing on you. ‘In some ways, charming?’ How so?”

“You know you’re charming to females,” she replied firmly. “You do not need compliments. You didn’t get so self-confident by being turned down.”

While she looked at the menu, Boone studied his. “How about the steaks?” he asked her, and she nodded.

“A steak sounds delicious. Actually, I missed lunch and had only a tiny breakfast this morning, so a steak would be wonderful.”

In minutes the waiter returned and took their orders, leaving and coming back with a thick loaf of fresh bread on a wooden plank.

“You slice the bread,” Boone suggested. “I’d mangle it.”

He watched her slender fingers deftly cut two slices and offer him one.

He put a slice on his bread plate, but he was far more interested in talking to her than he was in eating. She had taken only a few sips of wine when he started to refill her glass.

“Thanks, I don’t need more. Actually, I think this is the first wine—or any alcoholic drink I’ve had—since Christmas.”

“Christmas! Do you ever get out of the house?”

She laughed. “Yes, I get out of the house.”

“Since Christmas, I think you can have a tiny refill,” he said, looking at her questioningly.

She took a deep breath as she appeared to reconsider, and then she nodded. “I suppose. This has been a horrendous day.”

“Uh-oh. I hope it took a definite turn for the better about half an hour ago.” He refilled her glass and put the bottle in the ice bucket. “What happened that was so terrible?”

“I was at a business meeting,” she said, and her voice became brisk as she stared past him. “Someone on the way to the meeting was in a terrible car crash and is in intensive care now and that put a damper on the day.”

“That’s tough. Sorry. Was it someone you knew?”

“Yes, but not well. And then my flight home today was delayed by storms, and we sat on the runway for three hours.”

“You have had a bad day. Plus the guy in the parking lot. Well, the bad part is over, and I’ll do my damnedest to cheer you up.”

“You’re doing a pretty super job of cheering me so far.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“Now I’m staying at this hotel since I couldn’t go home tonight because of the storms,” she said, sipping her wine.

“You don’t have a northern accent. Hmm—where does the pretty lady live?”

“You’re on a need-to-know basis tonight and that’s another one of those things you don’t need to know,” she said, her dimple showing.

“Maybe,” he said. She wore a delicate golden bracelet that was a chain on her right wrist. He touched it. “A gift from a boyfriend?”

“No. A gift from a friend.”

He arched his eyebrow and looked at the necklace around her slender neck. An intricate emerald cross hung on a thick golden chain. “And the necklace?” he asked, leaning forward to pick it up, his knuckles lightly brushing her throat, but he felt the contact to his toes, and from the flicker in the depths of her green eyes, he suspected that she felt something, too.

“Is your necklace from the same friend?”

“No, it isn’t. The cross is a family heirloom. Have you ever heard of Stallion Pass, Texas?”

“Yes, I have,” Boone said in a noncommittal voice, keeping his expression bland, but inwardly he was startled because she was linked to Stallion Pass, Texas, so she must live somewhere in the area. The ranch he had inherited was near Stallion Pass. Maybe he could get this mystery woman to reveal her address.

“It’s a small Texas town near here.” He continued to turn the necklace in his hand, lightly brushing her throat with his knuckles. Each contact was electric, and he noticed that her voice had grown more breathless. He looked into her eyes and could feel the tension between them increase as the air sparked around them.

In a primitive, sexual way, she was responding to his light touches and his outrageous flirting.

“Do you know the legend of Stallion Pass?” she persisted.

“Something about a horse—I don’t know the specifics,” Boone said, remembering that his friend Jonah Whitewolf had received a white stallion when he got married. There was talk about the legend, but Boone hadn’t paid close attention at the time because he had little interest in horses or legends.

“The name comes from an old legend,” she explained, “where it was said that an Apache warrior fell in love with a U.S. cavalryman’s daughter and persuaded her to run off and marry him. On the night the warrior was to come get her, he was killed by cavalrymen. His ghost was said to be a white stallion that forever roams these parts searching for his lost love. And according to legend, if anyone catches the stallion and tames him, that person will find true love.”

“So that’s where the town gets its name?” Boone asked, gazing steadily into her eyes while she talked. Once again, they were mere inches apart across the narrow table. He was only partially listening to her because the rest of his attention was heating in a fiery attraction that all but made the air crackle between them. As she talked, her words became more breathless and her voice lower. Her gaze never wavered from his. His only contact with her was his fist holding her necklace, yet the longing to kiss her was multiplying exponentially.

“Right,” she replied, her words slowing. “There have been wild white stallions in these parts off and on through the years, so their presence has always fueled the legend.”

He ran his fingers over the cross. “So where does this cross come in?”

“The maiden was brokenhearted to learn of her warrior’s death. Instead of marrying a man selected by her father, she entered a convent. According to our family history, this was her necklace and it has been passed down through the years. We are supposed to be descended from her family. She had a brother who married and had children and the necklace was passed down in that manner.”

“Giving credence—somewhat—to the old legend.”

As she talked, he ran his fingers over the cross and felt an inscription on the back. He turned it over in his hand. And read, “Bryony.” He looked up in question, rubbing her jaw lightly with his knuckles while he continued to hold the cross in his hand.

“So your name isn’t Bryony?” he asked.

“No, it’s not. Bryony was her name.”

The waiter approached bearing their salads, and Boone leaned back, dropping her necklace and brushing his knuckles across her collarbone when he did so.

Over tossed green salads, Boone said, “You’re a Texan and maybe you live in Austin.”

When she gave him a mysterious smile, he knew he wasn’t going to get affirmation or denial. “You know this area if you’re familiar with Stallion Pass and you couldn’t get home because of storms. It’s clear to the north because I flew in from there, but they’ve had storms moving through from west to east, so I’m guessing you must live in Austin and have to spend tonight here.”