Cindy Kirk - Betting On The Maverick

Vivian’s eyes remained trained on Brad.

“Friend,” Margot said reluctantly, then repeated. “Friend.”

Friend might be carrying it a bit far but the Crawfords were well-known in Rust Creek Falls, Montana. Although Brad was a good ten years older than her—and had quite the reputation as a ladies’ man—there was no denying his family was respected in the community.

While he wasn’t exactly her friend, Brad wasn’t a dangerous enemy, either.

With Vivian glued to her side, Margot moved to the sofa and took a seat. Questions over her father’s whereabouts fought with an unexpected spike of lust at the sight of Brad’s muscular chest. She’d already noticed he hadn’t quite secured the button on his jeans. Just like she noticed he smelled terrific: a scent of soap and shampoo and that male scent that was incredibly sexy.

Trying to forget the fact she’d driven ten hours today with the windows down and that her red hair was a messy tumble of curls, Margot leaned forward, concern for her father front and center. She rested her arms on her thighs and fixed her gaze on Brad. “Tell me where my father is.”

“I don’t know.”

A cold chill enveloped her in a too-tight hug. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

“He left town right after the Fourth of July,” Brad said in a conversational tone. “Hasn’t come back.”

It was now October. Three months . Her elderly father had left the family ranch not long after that last argument between them. A horrible conversation that had ended with him hanging up on her after telling her to not come back or call again.

“Everyone knows he has a daughter, yet no one in this town thought to let me know he’d up and taken off for parts unknown?” Fear sluiced through Margot’s veins and panic had her voice rising with each word.

“The sheriff confirmed he left by train with a ticket to New York City.”

“Wow. That makes me feel so much better.” Sarcasm ran through her voice like thick molasses. Then the anger punched. “Did anyone even try to get a hold of me?”

“Initially everyone thought Boyd had gone to see his sister, who—”

“Who lived in New Jersey, not New York City. My aunt Verna has been gone almost two years. She died six months before my mother passed away.”

“That fact wasn’t known until later.” Brad waved a dismissive hand. “You know your dad. He wasn’t the kind of guy to share personal stuff.”

Margot clasped her hands together. “That still doesn’t explain why no one called me.”

“After the sheriff discovered his sister was no longer living, he attempted to contact you. He discovered you’d been injured and were no longer competing. No one knew where to find you.”

After sustaining a serious skull fracture shortly after that last conversation with her father, Margot had left the rodeo circuit to stay with a friend in Cheyenne. But when a week or two of recuperation stretched into several months, Margot decided to return to the only home she’d ever known. “My father has my cell number.”

“One problem,” Brad said. “He wasn’t around to give it to us. And it’s not like you’ve kept in touch with anyone else in town.”

Where would her father have gone? None of this made any sense. Margot wasn’t certain if it truly didn’t compute or if her head just wasn’t processing the information correctly. Boyd Sullivan was a smart man who, despite his age, knew how to handle himself. When he was sober, that is.

“Was he still drinking before he left?”

“He was,” Brad said quietly.

Margot sat back abruptly. The head she’d injured ten weeks earlier began to ache. The strain of travel from Wyoming to Montana had taken its toll, but it was the tension of the past few minutes that now had her head clamped in a vise.

She rubbed the back of her neck with one hand, trying to ease the pressure. With every syllable Brad uttered, the story worsened.

“What are you doing here?” she asked bluntly.

“I live here.”

“You’re watching the place while my father is away?” she asked cautiously, her admiration for him inching up a notch.

Unlike in many large cities where people could live side-by-side for years and not really know each other, in Rust Creek Falls neighbors took care of neighbors.

Not to say there weren’t feuds. The bad blood between the Crawfords and the Traubs over the years was a prime example.

But on the whole, you couldn’t have asked for a better place to grow up, or in her father’s case, to grow old.

Brad shifted uncomfortably in the chair. “That’s not exactly the case.”

Margot frowned. “If you’re not watching it for him, what are you doing here?”

“Well, you see, your father put up the deed to the ranch in a poker game.” A sheepish grin crossed his handsome face. “He lost. I won. The Leap of Faith is now mine.”

* * *

Brad left the pretty redhead fuming in the downstairs parlor as he headed upstairs for his shirt and shoes. He was concerned about her father, too—if he wasn’t he wouldn’t have used some of his own money to hire a PI to search for the old man. But right now he had Boyd’s daughter on the brain.

Sitting across from Margot Sullivan with that white shirt gaping open and those green eyes flashing fire had been a huge turn-on. Especially when he’d told her she could stay the night. It had been like tossing kerosene onto a burning fire.

The hellcat had been so angry she’d sputtered and stammered, her breasts heaving in a most delectable way as she informed him that this was her house and if anyone was leaving, it was him.

Damn . There was nothing that excited Brad more than a woman with spunk.

That fact was firmly evident in the sudden tightness of his jeans. He grinned, more than a little relieved.

Though he’d dated his share of women since his divorce four years earlier, in the past six months there hadn’t been a single female who’d caused his mast to rise.

Not that his seeming lack of libido worried him. Not in the least.

Brad had been more puzzled than anything by the occurrence...or rather the non-occurrence.

Tonight had illustrated he’d been foolish to give the matter a second thought. Obviously it had just been that none of the women he’d taken out recently tripped his trigger.

Odd, as the saucy redhead had only to step through the front door to capture his interest.

Brad jerked on a flannel shirt, buttoned it but deliberately left the tail hanging out. Even being on a different floor in a far-removed room hadn’t, ah, cooled his interest. Still, there was no need to advertise the fact.

Of course, he reminded himself as he pulled on his boots, that interest between a man and a woman needed to be a two-way street. The fact that, in her eyes, he’d—oh, what was the phrase she’d used—“stolen a grieving old man’s ranch” almost certainly ensured she wasn’t likely to get naked with him.

At least not tonight .

He clambered back down the rickety steps and felt one bend beneath his weight. After making a mental note to fix it before it collapsed, Brad traversed the last few steps, then crossed to the parlor.

Margot stood at the darkened fireplace, her gaze riveted to one of the photographs on the mantel: a family picture of her parents and a skinny girl with rusty hair and freckles. But that gawky little girl had grown into a real beauty. Worn Levis hugged her slender legs like a glove and a mass of red-gold hair tumbled down her back like a colorful waterfall.

His body stirred in appreciation of such a fine female figure. Brad tried to recall how old she’d be by now.

Twenty-two? Twenty-three? Definitely old enough.