Dancing in the Moonlight

Jake met her at the horse’s side. Instead of simply giving her a boost into the saddle as she expected, he lifted her into his arms with what appeared to be no effort.

For just a moment he held her close. He smelled incredible, a strangely compelling mixture of fabric softener, clean male and some kind of ruggedly sexy aftershave that reminded her of standing in a high mountain forest after a summer storm.

She couldn’t believe how secure she felt to have strong male arms around her, even for a moment—even though those arms belonged to Jake Dalton.

Her heart pounded so hard she thought he must certainly be able to hear it, and she needed every iota of concentration to keep her features and her body language coolly composed so he wouldn’t sense her reaction was anything but casual.

He lifted her into the saddle and set her up, careful not to jostle her leg, then he stepped away.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“No problem. I’ll meet you at the barn to help you dismount.”

“That’s not necessary,” she assured him firmly. “My dad built a mounting block for my mother to help compensate for her lack of height. It works well for us cripples, too.”

His mouth tightened but before he could say anything, she dug her heels into the mare’s side and headed across the field without another word.

Her mother would have been furious at her for her rudeness. But Viviana wasn’t there—and anyway, her mother had always had a blind spot about the Daltons.

Because Marjorie was her best friend, she didn’t think the arrogant, manipulative males of the family could do any wrong.

Ten minutes later Maggie reached the barn. She wasn’t really surprised to find the most manipulative of those males standing by the mounting block, waiting to help her down.

He wore sunglasses against the late-afternoon sun, and they shielded his expression, but she didn’t need to see his eyes to be fairly sure he was annoyed that she’d ridden away from him so abruptly.

Too bad. She was annoyed with him, too.

“I told you I didn’t need help,” she muttered as she guided the mare alongside it.

“Just thought you might need a spotter.”

“I don’t. Go away, Dalton.” She hated the idea of him witnessing her clumsy, ungainly efforts, hated that he had seen her stump, hated his very presence.

To her immense frustration, he ignored the order and leaned a hip against the block, arms crossed over his chest as if he had nothing better to do with his time.

She wanted to get down just so she could smack that damn smile off his face.

She swung her right leg over so she was sitting side-saddle, then she gripped the horn, preparing herself for the pain of impact and angling so most of her weight would land on her good leg and not the prosthesis. Before she could make that final small jump to the mounting block, he leaped up to catch her.

She had no idea how he moved so fast, but there he was steadying her. Her body slid down his as he helped her to the block. Everywhere they touched, she could feel the heat of him, and she was ashamed of the small part of her that wanted to curl against him and soak it up like a cat in a warm windowsill.

He didn’t let go completely until he’d helped her from the mounting block to solid ground. With as much alacrity as she could muster without falling over and making an even bigger fool of herself, she stepped away from him.

“Consider this your Boy Scout good deed of the day. I can take it from here.”

He studied her for a moment, then shook his head. “I should offer to unsaddle the horse for you, Lieutenant, but I think the black eye you’d give me if I tried might be tough to explain to my patients tomorrow.”

“Smart man.”

“Put your leg up when you’re done here. Promise?”

“Yeah, yeah.” She turned away from him to uncinch the saddle. She felt his gaze for a long time before she heard his SUV start up a few moments later and he drove away.

Only when the engine sounds started to fade did she trust herself to turn her head to watch him go, her cheek resting on the mare’s twitching side.

She hated all those things she’d thought of earlier—that he’d seen her stump, that she’d been so vulnerable, that he wouldn’t take no for an answer, like the rest of his family.

Most of all, she hated that he left her so churned up inside.

How could she possibly be attracted to him? Her stomach still trembled thinking about those strong arms holding her.

She knew better, for heaven’s sake. He was a Dalton, one of those slime-sucking bastards who had destroyed her father.

Even if they hadn’t had such ugly history between them, she would be foolish to let herself respond to him. That part of her life was over. She’d been taught that lesson well by her ex-fiancé.

Though she tried not to think of it very often, she forced herself now to relive that horrible time at Walter Reed five months ago when Clay had finally been able to leave his busy surgery schedule in Phoenix to come to the army hospital.

Of all the people in her life, she thought he would be able to accept her amputation the easiest. He was a surgeon, after all, and had performed similar surgeries himself. He understood the medical side of things, the stump-shaping process, the rehab, the early prosthesis prototypes.

She had needed his support and encouragement desperately in those early days. But the three days he spent in D.C. had been a nightmare. She didn’t think he had met her gaze once that entire visit—and he certainly hadn’t been able to bring himself to look at her stump.

One time he happened to walk in when the nurses were changing her dressing and she would never forget the raw burst of revulsion in his eyes before he had quickly veiled it.

She had given him back his ring at the end of his visit, and he had accepted it with an obvious relief that demoralized and humiliated her.

She couldn’t put herself through that again. She had been devastated by his reaction.

If a man who supposedly cared about her—who had e-mailed her daily while she was on active duty, had sent care packages, had uttered vows of undying love, and who was a surgeon—found her new state as an amputee so abhorrent, how could she ever let down her guard enough to allow someone new past her careful defenses?

She couldn’t. The idea terrified her. Like her career as a nurse practitioner, sex was another part of her life she decided she would have to give up.

No big whoop, she decided. Lots of people lived without it and managed just fine.

She hadn’t even had so much as an itch of desire since her accident, and she thought—hoped even—that perhaps those needs had died. It would be better if they had.

If she wasn’t ever tempted, she wouldn’t have to exercise any self-control in the matter.

To find herself responding on a physical level to any man would have been depressing, proof that now she would have to sublimate those normal desires for the rest of her life or face the humiliation of having a man turn away from her in disgust.

To find the man she was attracted to was none other than Jake Dalton was horrifying.

The best thing—the only thing—would be to stay as far away as possible from him. She had enough to deal with, thanks. She didn’t need the bitter reminder that she was a living, breathing, functioning woman who could still respond to a gorgeous man.

Chapter Four

The sneaky, conniving son of a bitch went over her head.

Maggie stood with her mother at the window of the Luna kitchen. From here, she had a perfect view of the ranch—the placidly grazing Murray Greys, the warm, weathered planks of the barn, the creek glinting silver in the sunlight.