Sheltered By The Cowboy. Carla Cassidy

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СКАЧАТЬ with a queen bed.”

      The night just got worse. She watched, dumbfounded, as Brody slowly pulled his wallet out of his pocket and released a deep, audible sigh. “I guess we’ll take it.”

      * * *

      Brody had had a long, rough day and the idea of being locked in a motel room with the voluptuous, beautiful Mandy Wright was a candle on the top of a crap cake.

      He grabbed the key Fred placed on the counter and then headed out the door with Mandy trailing just behind him. There was no way he was going to crawl into bed with her tonight. Hopefully there would be a comfy chair in the room where he could sprawl until morning.

      He had a feeling if he found himself under the sheets with Mandy, something would happen and they would wind up having sex, and he refused to be another cowboy she’d bedded and then tossed aside.

      At room four he unlocked the door and opened it, reached inside to turn on the overhead light and then stepped aside so she could go in before him. She walked into the center of the room and turned to face him.

      Her full lips were blue and her dark hair hung in wet strands around her shoulders. She shivered uncontrollably, and he shut the door more forcefully than he intended. “Go get in a hot shower,” he commanded. “You’re soaking wet.”

      “But... I... I don’t have anything else to put on,” she replied, her lips barely moving.

      Brody frowned, then walked over to the bed and yanked off the blue-and-gray spread. “Use this to wrap up in until your clothes can dry.” He thrust it into her arms.

      As she turned and disappeared into the bathroom, he released another deep sigh. He shrugged out of his own coat and then turned up the heat in the room.

      The room was one of the smaller ones the motel had to offer, and the chair, which he’d hoped would be big and comfortable enough for a night’s sleep, wasn’t. It was a spindly straight-backed chair in front of the window that would assure no sleep at all for the night.

      He held his hands over the heat that had begun to blow from a vent. He could still smell her, a scent of brown sugar and vanilla that was intensely appealing.

      At the sound of the shower running, he tried hard not to visualize a naked Mandy. Far too often in the past he’d fantasized about a naked Mandy. Jeez, this was going to be tough.

      A glance out the window showed him that the snow was still coming down. The snow wasn’t so bad, but the icy mixture that had preceded it would have the whole town at a standstill.

      He sat down on the edge of the chair and pulled off his boots. The bottoms of his jeans legs were wet, but there was no way in hell he intended to strip down. It was bad enough that Mandy was going to wear only a bedspread when she got out of the bathroom. A wave of warmth swept through him at the very thought.

      Of all the women in town he could have been snowbound with, why did it have to be the one woman he was attracted to? A woman who, rumor had it, ate men for breakfast and spit them out by dinner? Not that he would care. He didn’t ever want a relationship with a woman.

      At least she hadn’t moaned and groaned on the miserable trek to the motel. She’d soldiered up, lowered her head and had done what needed to be done without a single complaint, although she had to have been miserable.

      He looked at his watch. It was just six thirty. What were they going to do to pass the rest of the evening? His stomach growled and he almost wished he’d picked up that meatloaf dinner from the floorboard and brought it to the room. He’d not only skipped dinner but also missed lunch. He wondered if she’d eaten dinner.

      Maybe he’d check out the motel vending machines and see if he could grab something there. With that thought in mind he pulled his boots on once again.

      A vision of Mandy clad in a red, white and blue sparkly bra exploded in his mind. It wasn’t just a fantasy. It was what she’d worn at the Holiday Ranch barn dance the month before. She’d been a sizzling sight as she’d danced and laughed and stirred something inside him that had been dormant for years...desire.

      It had been a costume party and she’d come as a patriot, and since that night he’d had a hard time getting her out of his head.

      As the sound of the shower stopped, his entire body tensed with an uncharacteristic anxiety. He quickly moved back to the chair and picked up the television remote from the table. She’d be coming out of the bathroom at any minute. At least the television would provide a welcome distraction from her. He punched the on button and stared at the message that danced across the screen.

      No Signal Detected.

      The bathroom door opened and she walked out, a vision wrapped in a bedspread.

      This was definitely going to be a long night.

       Chapter 2

      The hot shower had been heavenly. Of course, she would have liked to have her own shower gel and a hair dryer and all the comforts of home, but she’d been grateful that her purse had contained a hair brush, lip gloss and a little bottle of her favorite body spray.

      She wrapped the spread around her like an oversized towel, leaving her shoulders bare, but hiding anything that shouldn’t be shown.

      Of all the men in the town, why did she have to be stuck here with Brody? The other women at the café called him the brooding one. He might be hot and handsome, but he didn’t seem to possess a glimmer of a sense of humor or even the ability to smile...at least, not at her.

      Still, she’d been oddly attracted to him for a long time, despite his stern countenance and the fact that she felt like he somehow judged her and found her lacking.

      Her heart beat just a little more quickly than usual when she walked out of the bathroom. He looked at her, and for just a moment, as his gaze slowly swept up and down her, she felt completely naked.

      “The television isn’t working,” he said and stood, his gaze shifting to some point over her right shoulder. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to get hungry before this night is over. I’ll check out the vending machines. Do you want something?”

      “Whatever you can get. I haven’t eaten since just before noon,” she replied.

      He pulled on his coat and flew out the door as if the very devil himself was chasing him. Mandy drew a deep breath and sat on the edge of the bed. This whole situation was definitely awkward and would probably only get more so as the night wore on.

      She jumped up, went into the bathroom, grabbed her wet Santa costume and carried it into the main room. She draped it and her wet tights over one of the heater vents.

      Maybe she and Brody both could relax better once her clothes were dry and she was dressed again. They just had to make the best of things for the night.

      Instead of sitting on the edge of the mattress, she plumped up the pillows on what she decided was going to be her side and then stretched out.

      She considered calling her father to tell him she was stuck for the night, but then decided against it. The last thing she needed right now was for him to tell her she was stupid СКАЧАТЬ