Marooned With The Maverick. Christine Rimmer

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       Chapter Three

      Willa felt Collin’s presence behind her acutely.

      But she didn’t turn to him. She sat on the edge of the pushed-together hay bales and stared resolutely out the tack room’s one window as waves of never-ending rain flowed down the glass.

      She finished what she had to say about Dane. “It just so happens that Dane would have liked to have taken me with him. But he was going to be very busy with the Australian children and I had things I could be doing here at home. We have summer school at Rust Creek Falls Elementary, in case you didn’t know and I …” Her voice trailed off.

      Collin hadn’t said a word for a couple of minutes, maybe more. Had he fallen asleep, for heaven’s sake?

      She wouldn’t put it past him. He was such an exasperating, impossible man. Always had been. And no doubt always would be.

       So why am I starting to feel ashamed of myself?

      Willa’s cheeks were flaming. She tucked her chin down into the scratchy saddle blanket he’d wrapped around her. At least he couldn’t see her embarrassment at her own behavior—not as long as she didn’t turn and face him.

      Which she was not going to do right now, thank you very much.

      Stretched out on the floor by the hay bales, Buster huffed out a long sigh. Willa bent down and scratched him on the head. His tail bounced happily against the rough plank floor.

      She gathered her blankets close again. All right, she probably shouldn’t have gone off on Collin like that. No matter how humiliating her history with the guy, he’d been there when she desperately needed him. He’d saved her life a few hours ago, at no small risk to himself.

      Plus, well, she hadn’t really been honest while she was getting all up in his face just now, had she? She hadn’t bothered to mention that she had serious reservations about her and Dane. Dane was the greatest guy in the world and he did want to marry her, very much. But Rust Creek Falls was her home and he wasn’t about to give up his wonderful career at CU. And more important than geography, Dane somehow didn’t quite feel like her guy.

      Whatever her guy should feel like. She wasn’t sure. She just had a certain intuition that Dane wasn’t it.

      And worse than her doubts about her future with an ideal man like Dane, well, there was that longtime thing she’d had for Collin—oh, not anymore. Of course not. That night at the Ace in the Hole had put an end to her ridiculous schoolgirl crush on the town bad boy. But before that night she used to fantasize about him now and then.

      Or maybe even more often than now and then.

      She used to wonder what it would be like if bad-boy Collin were to kiss her. Or do more than kiss her …

      Not that it mattered now. None of her past silliness over Collin mattered to anyone. It had been a fantasy, that was all. Her fantasy. He’d never been the least interested in her. He’d made that painfully clear on the night he led her on and then laughed in her face.

      And really, after all that had happened today, her four-year grudge against him for not having sex with her was beginning to seem nothing short of petty. She really needed to let the past go. She needed to be … a bigger person than she’d been so far about this. She needed to be a better person.

      And she needed to start doing that now.

      Willa cleared her throat. “Um. Collin?”

      He shifted a little, back there against the wall. “What now, Willa?” His voice was scratchy and deep. Lazy. What was it about him? He just always made her think of wrinkled sheets and forbidden passion.

      In a purely impersonal, objective way, of course.

      “I, um, well …”

      “Come on. Spit it out.”

      She made СКАЧАТЬ