The Enchantment (29 page)

It was a drawing of her, perfect in every detail.

Unsteadily she sank to her knees beside him, and with a silent oh, turned toward him. He was staring down at the paper, still frowning as his pen expertly recreated the stunning burgundy velvet Worth dress she'd worn the night they met.

"Oh, Larence ..." The word slipped out alone,

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with nothing to follow it. The drawing, and the memory it represented, sent heat rippling through her body.

The pen stopped, raised a hairbreadth from the paper.

Their gazes met. Emma felt his every breath like a whisper of promise against her lips.

It occurred to her that if she leaned forward, no more than half an inch, she'd be kissing him. Cool fingers flicked along her spine, made her shiver. She had a strange feeling that she was close to something magical, something she'd waited for all her life. . . .

"Do you like it?" he asked quietly.

Transfixed by the slow, sensual movement of his lips, it was a moment before she realized he was talking to her.

He'd said her name twice—twice—while she stared like an idiot at his mouth. Self-consciousness consumed her, left her feeling foolish and awkward. "Y-You have quite a memory," she said, despising the breathy, hesitant sound of her voice.

He flipped to the next blank page. "For some things." His pen started moving again. "Like this ..."

A couple of quick, sure strokes of his pen, and a door began to appear on the page. It was the door to her Eighth Avenue apartment—right down to the cracked center window.

She couldn't believe it. "That was a hairline crack. / could hardly see it, and I was the one who broke it.

How in God's name can you remember that?"

He grinned. "You see a lot when something's slammed in your face."

Emma felt the blood rush out of her cheeks. She squeezed her eyes shut in shame. "I . . ."A thickness THE ENCHANTMENT

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coiled around her throat, made it difficult to push the words out. "I shouldn't have done that."

With gentle fingers he cupped her chin and forced her to look at him. "Open your eyes."

She shook her head.

"Open your eyes. Now."

Reluctantly she did, and found him looking at her. The easy forgiveness in his eyes made her shoulders sag with relief.

"You're so serious about everything, Em. Relax. Have fun with life. Remember the good things; forget the bad. Like, remember when I stepped on your rug? You should have seen the look on your face. ..."

His smile was so infectious, Emma couldn't help herself. Her lips twitched. "It was only a hundred-year-old Aubusson."

"And they were just muddy, wet, out-of-date creed-more walking boots."

"A white hundred-year-old Aubusson." She burst out laughing.

Larence laughed with her, and the happy, rolling sound echoed off the nearby mesas and smoothed the day's rough edges.

Gradually it dwindled away, melted into a comfortable, friendly silence. Long into the night they sat around the campfire, laughing and talking and smiling.

Sometime around midnight, just as the moon sneaked behind a thick gray cloud, Larence slipped his arm around Emma's shoulder and drew her close. She leaned against the strong, hard curl of his shoulder and slid her arm around his waist. Her cheek rested comfortably against the cottony fabric of his shirt.

It seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

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The next morning they hadn't been riding half an hour when Larence noticed the first earth-shattering flora specimen. Emma knew she should groan when she heard the trademark Look a perfect blah-blah-blah, but for some reason, she didn't. In fact, she found herself actually smiling as Larence limped eagerly toward a flower.

Squatting down beside it, he waved her over. "Come on, Em. Look at this. It's beautiful."

It did look sort of pretty. Maybe just this once. Glancing left to right, as if she were afraid of being seen, she hopped off Tashee's back and sauntered over to Larence. "What is it?" she asked in as disinterested a voice as she could muster.

It wasn't disinterested enough. He looked up as if he'd been shot. And she knew why. He'd asked her to join him at some stupid plant or another a hundred times since leaving Albuquerque; not once had she deigned to even answer, let alone actually follow him.

Beneath his pointed perusal, Emma shifted from one foot to the other. "You can't draw much looking at me."

A slow, decidedly sensual smile spread across his face. Emma felt its impact all the way to her toes.

"You're right," he said, pulling out his notebook and turning his attention to the flower. "Here, sit."

Emma kneeled beside him. His pen moved atop the paper like a young girl at her first dance, in breezing, effortless circles. Transfixed, she stared at the strong, tanned fingers curled around the silver cylinder.

She felt hot. Then cold. Unbidden came a fantasy of those same fingers, gliding with the same scientific precision and attention to detail across her bare skin. A

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shiver rippled through her. Gooseflesh bubbled along her arms.

She swallowed dryly and forced her attention on the drawing. A beautiful, daisylike flower began to emerge.

"Wait, that's not right." The words popped out of her mouth before she knew she was going to speak.

The pen lifted. Larence turned to look at her. Their faces were close, so close Emma could see the tiny gold flecks that lightened his green eyes. His breath, a soft mixture of tooth powder and coffee-scent, brushed her cheeks. Bright morning sunlight gilded his hair, turned it the color of molasses. Once again she thought that if she just leaned the tiniest bit forward . . .

"What's wrong with it?"

She swallowed hard and forced her face and eyes to go blank, but she had a horrible feeling it didn't work, because a quick smile tilted the left corner of his mouth.

"The center should be darker." The words came out in a breathy rush. Wincing at the sensual sound of it, she snapped to her feet and strode away from him. Her walking boots crushed dozens of early spring flowers, but she didn't notice.

Once she was safely beside Tashee, Emma's breath expelled in a rush. She reached for her canteen and froze, staring at her fingers in horror.

She was shaking. Shaking.

The reason hit her like a lightning bolt and rocked her to the core of her being.

She was sexually attracted to Larence. Larence.

She shook her head in denial. No . . .

Unbelievable. Unthinkable.

Undeniable.

It wasn't that she'd been too long without a man in her bed, either. That answer was too simple. In New Kristin Hannah

York she might have been able to make herself believe it, but out here, in the middle of nowhere, she couldn't lie to herself.

"You're right, Em. I had it looking too much like a daisy."

His words floated to her, and all of a sudden the irony of the situation struck her. She burst out laughing.

She was in the middle of nowhere with no chaperon and a man whom she found sexually appealing.

Ordinarily, it would be considered ideal.

Except that the man was—quite possibly—the only male virgin in existence.

As jokes went, she had to admit it was a good one.

That night Emma lay awake a long time. Stretched out beside Larence, she stared at the tent's sagging canvas sides, turned a pale, glowing shade of amber by the light of a full moon.

His regular, quiet breathing filled the tiny space with calming, comforting sound. At least, it should have been comforting. But it wasn't. Not tonight. With every breath he took, every tiny, fluttering sound he made, she was reminded of her attraction to him.

She'd come a long way from her first horrible initiation to sex. She no longer despised and feared it; long ago it had become a fear to conquer. And conquer it she had. Now sex was merely part of life, something she did because she felt like it. It was a pleasant, enjoyable way to spend an evening, and if she was often left feeling frustrated and aching for something—she didn't know what— then that was simply part of life as well.

She wanted Larence. The fact still amazed her, but Emma was not one to lie to herself. Facts were facts.

She wanted Larence in her bed.

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Why? He had nothing to offer her, not really. He couldn't give her stock tips, or help her find that perfect investment, or introduce her to the "right" people.

And yet there was something about him that made all her previous criteria about men seem small and petty. In a thousand little ways he'd made her wonder if maybe—just maybe—sex couldn't be something more than practical and pleasant. She doubted it, of course. Everyone knew that sex wasn't supposed to be good for women, and yet ever since she'd touched Larence's foot, she'd felt . . . strange. Restless. As if she were searching for something, some door, and he was the key. And that small, niggling question, that quickly suppressed hope that sex could be ... exciting . . . was too compelling to deny.

Ordinarily, of course, getting a man in bed was no problem. But nothing about Larence was ordinary.

One thing she knew for certain: He wouldn't make the first move.

Somehow that made it even more compelling. More challenging.

Because if he wouldn't make the first move, then she had to.

It wasn't working.

Emma sat up straighter on the rock, trying to get his attention.

Nothing. No reaction at all.

Larence was sitting cross-legged, close to the fire, reading each and every page of that damned diary as if it held the secret to eternal life. Every now and then he muttered "Ah-ha!" as if it meant something, but other than that, he hadn't spoken to her since dinner. She bit back an irritated sigh. It took all her concentration to

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keep an alluring expression in her eyes—especially since he hadn't looked at her in fifteen minutes.

She refused to let his scientific idiosyncracies beat her. No one bested Emmaline Amanda Hatter when she had her sights set on something—or someone—and she definitely had her sights set on Larence.

Tonight.

She fanned the pale blue skirt out around her legs and cocked one shoulder up. The camisa slid enticingly down her shoulder. She waited for him to notice. He didn't. Next she tried uttering a low, sensual-sounding sigh.

Nothing.

Irrilaled, she tried the routine again. Except this time her right shoulder jerked up so hard, she almost lost her balance on the rock. Her arms flailed sideways. She grabbed hold of a little pine tree for support.

Larence looked up. "Be careful, Em. That's the second time you've almost fallen."

She offered him a thin-lipped, humorless smile. He flashed her a blinding grin and went back to his reading.

Emma slammed her arms across her chest and fumed silently. He hadn't even noticed the inviting way her blouse slid off her shoulder. . . .

Then suddenly he looked up again, and Emma was so surprised, she almost fell off the rock. He leaned forward and grabbed her just in time. "You better get down."

This was her best shot all right. Her cleavage—what there was of it without a corset—was right in front of his nose. "With you?" She purred.

He looked genuinely confused. "Of course."

Fighting the urge to roll her eyes, she tried again. "You look . . . excited."

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"lam."

Her heart sped up. She leaned closer. "Really?"

He nodded eagerly. "Tomorrow's Cibola. I feel it in my bones."

"Cibola," she repeated woodenly, shaking her head in disbelief. There was no doubt about it; she was wasting her time trying to seduce Larence. Temporarily defeated, she slid off the rock and landed beside him in a puff of dust. Resting her elbows on her bent knees, she plopped her chin in her hands and gave a disgusted, tired sigh.

"Let's do something," he said unexpectedly. "I'm too hot to sleep."

Hot? Emma immediately straightened. Maybe her decision wasn't wrong; maybe she'd just taken the wrong tack. Perhaps honesty would work better than subtle innuendo. God knew subtlety had never been her strong suit anyway. Or his, apparently.

"Actually, Larence, I've been thinking about—"

"Let's play that game of poker you're always bugging me about."

"Poker?"

He whipped a deck of cards out of his saddlebags and started shuffling. His fingers moved awkwardly, flipping cards right and left.

Irritation surged through Emma. She couldn't be that unappealing. Men had been lusting after her all her life. What was wrong?

The answer came as quickly as the question: Larence. Larence was what was wrong. Nothing about him was easy or normal or as expected. She'd have to think smarter, be smarter. Somehow she'd just have to figure out a way to get him into her bed. Maybe she should try touching him. . . .

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A card hit her right between the eyes.

"Oops, sorry," he said with a chuckle.

She glared at him. "I do not want to play poker."

"I'll let you win."

Let me win? Why, of all the—"

Another card flipped in her lap. Emma heaved a disgusted sigh and rolled her eyes. No one, but no one, let Emmaline Hatter do anything.

She snatched the cards from him and shuffled them expertly. Then she yanked her blouse's sagging shoulder up and started dealing. "Okay, Doc, let's play poker."

By the time they finished, Emma had "won" Diablo, Tashee, the pack mule, the tent, and practically everything else of value. She was so pleased with herself, she'd forgotten all about sex with Larence.

Winning was something she understood. Had always understood. It was the only thing she'd ever found that made her feel good about herself.

She tossed the cards down and leaned back lazily against the trunk of a medium-sized tree. Lord, she felt good. Content. "Well, that's that. There's nothing else to play for."

Larence took a slow, thoughtful sip of the freshly made coffee. "How about adventure?"