“Do you like this?

“I mean, are you enjoying what’s happening between you and me?” Juliet’s voice was soft, hesitant.

“Hell, yes,” Cody answered.

“Then what…what’s wrong?” Juliet asked.

“I didn’t say anything was wrong, exactly…. I want to talk, that’s all.”

She looked at him, her expression desperate and unhappy. Finally she pleaded, “Can’t we just wait? Please?”

“Until when?”

She sighed. “Until the festival’s over. Can’t we just have a wonderful time until then?”

“Live out your fantasy, you mean?” His voice had a bitter edge.

She looked away. “Yes. I suppose.”

He was quiet, considering. He was her fantasy come true, and nothing more. Soon enough, she’d be ready for reality again—and he’d be out the door….

CHRISTINE RIMMER

came to her profession the long way around. Before settling down to write about the magic of romance, she’d been everything from an actress to a salesclerk to a waitress. Now that she’s finally found work that suits her perfectly, she insists she never had a problem keeping a job—she was merely gaining “life experience” for her future as a novelist. Christine is grateful not only for the joy she finds in writing, but for what waits when the day’s work is through: a man she loves, who loves her right back, and the privilege of watching their children grow and change day to day. She lives with her family in Oklahoma. Visit Christine at her new home on the Web at www.christinerimmer.com.

Midsummer Madness

Christine Rimmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my sister, B.J. Jordan,

who always believed in me,

and for my brother, Paul Smith,

who held out a hand when I needed one.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

One

“Cody, um, I’ll take over…if you want….”

Cody McIntyre didn’t hear the hesitant proposition, partly because it was spoken so softly, and partly because he was glaring at the phone he’d just slammed back into its cradle. His mind was occupied with dark, murderous thoughts—thoughts that concerned the immediate and permanent elimination from the world of the “expert” from Hollywood who was supposed to have shown up in Emerald Gap the day before, and who had just called to say he wasn’t going to be showing up at all.

“Cody….”

This time he heard something. “Hmm?” he asked absently, glancing at the only other person in the room, his bookkeeper, Juliet Huddleston, whom he’d known all his life. Juliet sat at the spare desk in the corner, with his midmonth payroll spread out in front of her. “You say something, Julie?”

Maybe he really should sue the bastard, Cody was thinking, though lawsuits were generally not his style. Men like Cody considered a handshake a bond—and simply cut off dealings with people who didn’t.

Juliet sat on an armless swivel chair. Now she spun in the chair, until she faced him straight on. “I said, I’ll do it.”

Cody hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about, but he figured it must be important. She was looking directly at him, her hazel eyes unwavering. For shy Julie Huddleston, a dead-on look like the one she was giving him was such a rarity as to be kind of spooky.

“You all right, Julie?”

“I’m fine.” She straightened her narrow shoulders and tugged on the jacket of the gray business suit she was wearing. “And I want to do it.” She looked downright resolute.

“Er, do what?”

She cleared her throat. “I want to take over that director’s job. I want to run the town pageant this year.”

Cody stared at her, his surprise at what she’d just proposed so complete that he more or less forgot how to talk for a moment. Then his voice returned. “Midsummer Madness?” He muttered the name of the annual ten-day festival in frank disbelief. “You want to run Midsummer Madness this year?”

Juliet picked up his amazement at her suggestion, and blinked. She suddenly looked more like herself. Her eyes got that soft, anxious look. But she didn’t give in. She confirmed, “Yes,” the affirmative weakened only by the little gasp she took between the y and the e.

Cody stole a moment to comb his hair back with his fingers. He liked Julie, always had. In fact, ever since they were kids, he’d always made it a point to keep one eye out for her. The last thing he wanted to do was disappoint her; she was such a gentle soul.

But the Juliet Huddlestons of the world were not festival directors, not by a long shot. Once again, he silently cursed the delinquent professional he’d hired, this time for making it necessary for him to hurt poor Julie’s feelings.

Cody regretfully shook his head. “That’s sweet of you, Julie. But we’ve got to face facts. Running a pageant isn’t really up your alley.”

Cody watched the hopeful light fade from her eyes and felt like a rat for putting it out. Her shoulders fell, and she slowly turned back to the open check register and the stack of time cards on the desk.

Cody started around his own desk, to get closer to her and ease her hurt feelings a little. But he was stopped by the knock on the door.

“It’s open,” he called.

The door was flung back, and the room was filled with the sounds from the busy kitchen outside. Cody’s office was behind McIntyre’s, the bar and grill he owned and operated himself. He also owned and managed the hardware store down the street, and the family ranch a few miles out of town. Cody was a busy man. Too busy, he thought again, to run the damn summer pageant himself this year. But that was exactly what he was going to be doing.

Each of the merchants in town took a turn, and this year was his. He’d thought it a stroke of brilliance to convince them to bring in an expert. So much for brilliance. So much for damn experts….

“Here you are, you devil. The bartender said I could find you back here.” The shapely brunette in the doorway to the kitchen wore painted-on jeans and a little-girl pout. “Remember me?”

Cody’s mama had raised him right. He tried to be tactful, in spite of the fact that he couldn’t recollect ever seeing this woman before in his life. “Pardon me, but I don’t recall where we met before, ma’am.” Over the woman’s shoulder, he could see the day pot washer, Elroy, paused in midscrub and leering suggestively. “Why don’t you just come on in and close that door?” Cody suggested.

The woman made a big production of shutting the door. She glanced once in Juliet’s direction, and then shrugged, apparently deciding to pretend Julie wasn’t there. Next, the woman leaned against the closed door and sighed, a move which displayed her generous breasts to distinct advantage. “I kept hoping you’d call.”

“Excuse me, but who are you?”

“God, you are one gorgeous hunk of man.”

“Ma’am. Won’t you tell me your name?”

“Lorena. I wrote it on that matchbook that I gave to the waitress with the red hair. Last Saturday, it was. You sang that Garth Brooks song. I was at that itty-bitty table, way in the back corner. I had a date. But I whispered to that waitress to explain to you that I was a totally free woman, ready, willing, and able to get to know a terrifically incredible guy like yourself—”

“So then we’ve never met before, ma’am?”

At the small desk in the corner, Juliet couldn’t help but hear all this. She stifled a small, sympathetic smile and almost forgot her own problems as she tried to block out the sound of poor Cody dealing with another avid admirer.

“Well, we haven’t met formally, of course,” the brunette allowed. “But come on, admit it, you saw me back there. Don’t try to hide it from me. You felt it, too, when our eyes collided. Bam. Like a jolt. A bolt out of the blue.”

“Well, ma’am. I can’t precisely say that what you’re describing happened for me….”

Juliet shook her head. Poor Cody. The women just wouldn’t leave him alone. He had a talent with a harmonica and a guitar. He also had a slow, sexy singing voice and sometimes even wrote his own songs. When the mood struck, on occasional weekends, he’d sing a few numbers in the bar out front. That drove the ladies wild.

Also, besides being a talented musician and singer, Cody McIntyre just happened to be drop-dead gorgeous—in a very manly sort of way.

“Honey—” the brunette put a hand on her hip and sighed again “—I can make it happen for you. You just give me a chance….” She looked at Cody as if she longed to gobble him alive.

Objectively, Juliet could understand the brunette’s desire. Most women felt the same way when they looked at Cody. He could have been the prince in a grown-up woman’s fairy tale.

His shining gray-green eyes, with whites so white they dazzled, looked out from under straight brows. His nose was perfectly symmetrical, with nostrils that flared just enough to show sensitivity, but not enough to make a woman doubt his ability to take charge. His mouth was a sculpture, firm yet responsive, with the engaging tendency to curl with humor on the right side. His chin was strong, but not too square. His hair was brown with golden highlights. His ears did not stick out. And most important for a handsome man, he really didn’t seem to care a bit about how he looked.

And on top of all that, he was a genuinely good person.

As the brunette went on leaning against the door and sighing with great enthusiasm, Juliet filled out another check and tried to mind her own business.

She didn’t entirely succeed. From thoughts of how poor Cody couldn’t keep the women at bay, she found herself deciding that there was a certain similarity between herself and him.

Strange. She herself was the invisible woman, so plain and bland that everyone—men especially—saw right through her. And Cody McIntyre was a living, breathing masculine dream. Yet he lived alone as she did, having failed so far to find the right woman among all the ladies who threw themselves at his feet. Sometimes lately, Juliet found herself feeling more sorry for him than for herself.

Correction, Juliet thought, shaking a mental finger at herself. I do not feel sorry for myself. Not anymore. I’ve taken the reins of my life in my own two hands now. And I’m making the next thirty years more exciting than the past thirty were, or I will die trying.

Such was Juliet Titania Huddleston’s birthday resolution. She’d made the vow just four months before, on the day she hit the big three-oh. She’d told no one, partly because no one asked, and partly because this was her own private project, her business alone.

Juliet had already taken some specific steps to make her resolution a reality. And she intended to keep taking steps, until she had reached her goal.

Juliet straightened in her chair at just the idea of her vow. At that moment, the shapely brunette sashayed across the room to Cody’s desk, trailing an insistent cloud of musky perfume.

“So what do you say, darlin’?” the woman breathed. “How ‘bout you, me, a bottle of wine and a big, fat full moon?”

Cody kindly demurred, and then ushered the woman back toward the door. With a gentle skill born of extensive experience, he had the woman out the door and on her way before she even realized she’d been turned down.

Juliet was busily filling out the final check when a shadow fell across the paper.

“Julie?”

She looked up into Cody’s beautiful and sympathetic eyes—and made one of those wimpy little questioning sounds she’d been making all her life.

Inside, Juliet groaned at her own ingrained meekness. But then she gamely reminded herself that no one got assertive overnight. Little by little, she’d eliminate everything wimpy from her life, but she wasn’t going to be too hard on herself if she backslid now and then.

“Are you going to be all right?” Cody was asking.

Juliet knew what he was talking about. He wanted to be sure she had accepted the fact that directing Midsummer Madness was not a job for her.

Juliet considered. She had to admit that he was probably right. The truth was, she’d never directed anything in her life. And telling other people what to do was something for which she’d yet to show the slightest aptitude. Some people are born to lead; they shine in the limelight. And some are born to sit in the background, tallying receipts. Juliet knew quite well into which category she fell. She opened her mouth to tell him she understood why he didn’t want to give her a chance.

But something inside her choked the words off before they took form. There was her birthday vow to remember. If she hungered for more out of life than she’d had so far, she simply had to get out there and take what she wanted.

She decided she just wasn’t willing to give up on this yet. “I…I can do it, Cody. Let me try.”

Cody’s expression turned pained. He ambled away and hitched a leg up on the corner of his desk. He looked down at the rawhide boot on his dangling foot. “Now, Julie,” he said, still studying his boot. “I’d say you haven’t really given this notion much thought.”

“I h-have, too. Give me a chance.”

He looked up from his boot and into her eyes. His face spoke of great patience, and even greater conviction that she was asking to take on more than someone like her could ever hope to handle.

Juliet looked right back at him and found herself experiencing a truly alien emotion for someone as terminally timid as she’d always been.

The emotion was annoyance. He didn’t have to be so utterly certain that her running the pageant would be a disaster. Maybe leadership wasn’t her strong suit, but she did have some of the necessary qualities, after all. She’d earned a four-year degree and managed her own bookkeeping business, so she possessed the requisite organizational skills. And she’d been involved with the pageant, in minor capacities, almost every year of her life. She knew what needed to be done.

“Julie,” Cody said then, still in that infinitely understanding tone. “Be realistic. You’d have to oversee the entire opening-day parade, not to mention plan the Gold Rush Ball and direct the Midsummer Madness Revue. How are you going to manage all that, when most of the time I have to ask twice just to hear what you said?”

Juliet felt her shoulders start to slump again. He was right. She couldn’t do it. Not a timid mouse like her. Not in a million years….

Hey, wait a minute here, that new woman deep inside herself argued. Who took that weekend assertiveness training retreat last month and came out of it with a new awareness of how to know what she wants and take steps to get it? Who’s been going to Toastmasters International in secret since April, driving all the way to Auburn every Friday night in order to conquer her fear of public speaking? Who’s stood up there and spoken before the group three times in the past two months, achieving a higher score each time?

Me, Juliet, that’s who.

“I can speak up,” she said aloud, “if I force myself. I’ve been working on that.”

Cody, for his part, was studying her, puzzled why shy Julie would even consider taking on such a task, let alone insist on it. Then it came to him how to settle this problem once and for all.

He lowered his dangling foot to the floor and stood up. “All right, then,” he said, seeming to give in to her.

She blinked. “You agree? You’ll let me handle it?”

“It’s not my decision.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—” he shrugged “—that you can talk to the merchants’ association at seven tonight.” The words were offhand, though he knew they’d have a crushing effect. Julie would never get up in front of a group of people and give a speech. Now she would have no choice but to back down.

Cody began a casual circuit of his desk, not looking at her anymore. There was dead silence from Juliet’s corner of the room. He was positive she’d be wearing that stricken look she got when anyone even suggested she do something that might draw attention to herself. He’d always hated to see that look on her face, because he knew it meant she was suffering agonies of shyness.

However, a little suffering now was preferable to her getting too carried away with this crazy idea that she could take over Midsummer Madness for that damned delinquent expert from Hollywood.

Cody continued in an offhand tone. “You can impress them all with what a great idea it would be to hire you. I mean, you might as well start forcing yourself to speak up right away, don’t you think?”

Cody reached his leather chair and plunked himself down in it. He allowed a benign smile, confident that he’d handled this little predicament just right. Faced with the prospect of getting up in front of all those people, shy Julie would run the other way quicker than a cat with its tail on fire.

He looked directly at her again, steeling himself for the agony he’d see on her face, and for the defeated expression that would come next. It took him several seconds to absorb what he actually saw.

Her chin was set, her lips pressed together. She looked—by God, she looked determined. When she spoke, Cody couldn’t believe his ears.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll speak to the merchants’ association at seven tonight.”

Two

“And, as for the Midsummer Madness Revue,” Juliet announced in a calm, clear voice, “well, I just think we can have a lot of fun with it this year. We’ll have music by the Barbershop Boys and the school choirs, as always. And I also think maybe I could line up a few of our local favorites to give us a number or two. There’ll be poems by Flat-nosed Jake.” Juliet winked at Jake, a bearded, scruffy character in the front row, whose nose appeared to have collided with something unyielding at some point in his life. “Jake, as most of you know, is poet emeritus of our fair city. And we’ll include a skit detailing the settlement of Emerald Gap by a group of prospectors back in 1852. Also, Melda Cooks has written a reenactment of the hanging of Maria Elena Roderica Perez Smith, who, as you might recall, was a local laundress lynched here after she stabbed a man to death in a brawl in the spring of 1856….”

At the back of Emerald Gap Auditorium, where the bright spill of light that shone on Juliet’s pale hair did not reach, Cody sat in one of the creaky old theater seats and wondered what the hell was going on.

What had happened to shy Julie Huddleston?

This afternoon, no sooner had she knocked his boots off by saying she’d speak before the merchants’ association, than she’d demanded all the planning materials he’d been saving to give to the pro from Hollywood. With the big folder tucked safely under her arm, she’d taken right off for her own small office two blocks away.

She must have gotten right on the phone, because all the people she was claiming were going to help her out were sitting down front now, nodding and smiling and looking like they were willing to follow her off the nearest cliff if she asked them to.

And why the hell not? Her start had been a little rocky—that much was true. She’d had that freaky spooked rabbit look for just a minute there when she got behind that podium and realized all those faces were staring at her. But she’d recovered—boy, had she. She’d recovered just fine.

Up on the stage, Juliet continued. “And, since this is gold country after all, I think the ball on Saturday, the third, should be a genuinely gala event. This year we’ll really put some effort into making it a true costume affair, talk as many locals as possible into dressing in the period….”

Back in the darkness, Cody shook his head. On the one hand, he was experiencing a massive feeling of relief because it looked like the association was going to hire Julie to do the job. Cody was going to be let off the hook for it.

On the other hand, though, he felt a kind of creeping disquiet. He looked at Julie up there in the light, and he wondered if he knew her at all.

Which was crazy. He’d known her practically all his life. They were the same age and had gone through school together.

Cody smiled to himself, remembering Julie on the first day of kindergarten. The teacher, Miss Oakleaf, had called the roll. And Julie had been too scared to say her name. She’d stared down at her lap, her white skin flushing painful red, her little hands shaking.

In his memory, Julie had always been like that—afraid of her own shadow, keeping to herself, quivering visibly at any notice paid to her. He’d been a little surprised that she got through state college, wondered how she’d survived the crowds. But she’d done it, and she’d returned to Emerald Gap to set up her own business, with herself as her only employee. He’d hired her right off, and so had half of the other merchants and small businessmen in town. She was doing well, but always in that quiet, retiring way that she had. At least until recently.

Cody made a low sound in his throat, as it occurred to him that for the past few weeks Julie had been driving around in a red sports car. He’d seen the red car, on a morning when he’d gone out to do the chores, parked in front of the guesthouse at his ranch. Her little brown economy car had been nowhere in sight.

And that was another thing. Three months ago, he’d decided to rent out the guesthouse. Julie had taken it. It had never crossed his mind to question why she would suddenly decide to move out of the big house in town that her parents had left to her when they retired, and into a two-bedroom cottage fifteen miles from most of her clients; he’d simply been glad to get someone dependable so easily. But now he wondered….

Not that he was likely, the way things were, to find out much. They lived less than three hundred yards from each other, yet it might as well be three hundred miles; they each maintained strict privacy.

Up on the stage, Julie laughed. It was a shy little laugh, but a charming one. Her pale hair, which was straight and hung to her shoulders, had a smooth, curried sheen in the flood of light from above.

Cody shifted in the seat, trying to accommodate his long legs more comfortably without doing what he longed to do—swing his boots up on the row in front of him. Andrea Oakleaf, still very much a schoolteacher, was down in the second row. If she turned and saw him with his boots up, he’d be hearing about it in no uncertain terms.

Juliet made a mild joke. A ripple of laughter passed through the hall.

She was definitely changing, Cody thought. His efficient yet touchingly bashful bookkeeper wasn’t so bashful anymore. What could have made her decide to step out of the shadows after all these years?

Maybe, he thought, he should ask her out to dinner sometime and find out. After all, they were friends, weren’t they? There couldn’t be any harm in spending an evening or two enjoying each other’s company. They could laugh over old times together and really get to know each other—

Cody straightened up and cut off the rambling thought.

What the hell was going on here? He’d been wondering what was happening with Julie. Maybe a better question would be, what was happening with him? Why the big interest in a woman who’d been around since they were both in diapers?

Cody decided not to think about that. It was no big deal. He’d put thoughts of Julie—and thoughts about why he was thinking so much about Julie—right out of his mind.

That decided, he focused on the stage again—and saw Julie.

All at once, unable to sit still, he swung his boots up on the back of the chair in front of him, recalled Miss Oakleaf, and swung them back down again. They hit the old pine strip floor a mite too firmly, and Andrea Oakleaf turned briefly around to shoot one of her famous squinty-eyed looks toward the darkness where he sat. After that, Cody kept his feet on the floor and his mind, more or less, in control.

Up on the stage, Juliet finished her speech. She left the podium to the accompaniment of approving applause. She sat, feeling as if she floated there, on a folding chair to the left of the podium, while questions were asked of her. She had answers to all of them.

It was incredible.

Melda Cooks asked how Juliet would handle casting the play she’d written. Juliet remembered past years, when they’d had tryouts, and no one had shown up. Or when they’d cast by asking around, and some people had felt left out.

So Juliet said she’d combine the two methods: a day of tryouts, and then any uncast roles would be filled by appealing to the community consciousness of people who might fit the parts. Juliet raised her eyebrows just a fraction when she said “community consciousness,” and everyone chuckled a little. They all knew what she meant; they’d end up begging a few softhearted souls to get involved.

Babe Allen pointedly remarked that Juliet could hardly expect to be paid what they’d agreed to pay the expert from Hollywood. Juliet, prepared for that one, smiled sweetly and answered that she was willing to do the work as a community service—provided the merchants donated the full fee they would have paid to the new community park down at the foot of Commercial Street.

It was so…marvelously simple. And fun. She just used her head, and then explained what she’d figured out, and it made sense. People listened. Amazing. Wonderful.

After they took the vote and elected her, Juliet approached the podium again to murmur a brief thank-you and to ask her committee heads—whom she’d lined up just this afternoon—to confer with her briefly in the lobby after the meeting was over. Then she gathered up her materials and left the stage through the wings, floating out the stage door, and then circling around to wait for the others in the quiet lobby out front.

Within a half hour, all her people were assembled. Jake, who was not only a poet but also worked part-time on the Emerald Gap Bulletin, agreed to get right on the posters and newspaper notice for the revue tryouts, which would be held on Monday evening. Reva Reid, parade committee chairman, would make the rounds tomorrow to firm up the list of all the floats and themes. The frog jump and Race Day chairpeople respectively agreed that they’d have each event fully planned by Tuesday evening, when the pageant committee would meet once again. Andrea Oakleaf volunteered to check with the Pine Grove Park Commission about the permit for the big closing-day picnic. And Burt Pandley promised to find, by next Friday, at least twelve more participants for the Crafts and Industry Fair, which was slated to run upstairs in the town hall the whole ten days of the festival.

It was after nine when Juliet finally left the lobby of the old auditorium. Outside, the night was balmy and moonless, the air very still. She stood for a moment beyond the big entry doors, between a pair of Victorian gas street lamps, and shivered just a little with excitement and triumph. She drew a deep breath and thought she could smell the pines and firs that cloaked the surrounding foothills.

How beautiful Broad Street looked, clothed in night, with its brick-fronted buildings, and the old-fashioned gas lamps all along the street. On the corner diagonally across from her, she could see the lights in the window of Cody’s restaurant.

Now where, she wondered suddenly, had Cody disappeared to? He’d been waiting for her in the front row when she first entered the auditorium tonight. He’d wished her luck and then taken the podium for a moment to explain about the loss of the professional from Hollywood. He’d introduced her and left the stage.

And then she’d forgotten all about him in the excitement—and terror—of getting up and making herself heard.

Juliet grinned. Well, she’d see him soon enough. Between the work she did for him and the fact that she lived on his ranch, they ran into each other almost daily.

It was going to be fun, she decided, to tease him about not believing in her. He’d be a little embarrassed, she knew, and he’d smile that beautiful right-sided smile….

Juliet shivered a little, though the windless, warm night didn’t justify goose bumps. Odd, that she should think about teasing Cody. She wasn’t a teasing type of person, really.

Or she hadn’t been. But now, with what she’d accomplished tonight, Juliet was beginning to think that she could be just about any kind of person she wanted to be.

And if she wanted to tease a friend a little, why shouldn’t she? There was nothing wrong with that….

“Great job, Juliet.”

Juliet jumped, like someone caught thinking naughty thoughts. “Oh.” She gave a guilty giggle. “You surprised me, Jake.”

Flat-nosed Jake’s squashed face wrinkled with amusement. “You surprised all of us, gal. Damn good show.”

“Well, thank you.”

“Thank you,” Jake said. “We can use a real leader around here for once.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Nodding, Jake turned and strolled off down the street toward the ancient green pickup he’d been driving for as long as Juliet could remember.

Juliet stood for a moment more, savoring Jake’s praise, staring at a street she’d known all her life, but which tonight seemed the most beautiful place on earth. And then she turned and headed for McIntyre’s, because she’d parked her car just a few feet beyond the restaurant’s doors.

When she reached her car, Juliet paused once again, as she had outside the auditorium. She gazed fatuously at the automobile. It was a night to feel good about herself, and the car just added to the wonderfulness of it all.

Low, long, and sleek, it was the color of a scarlet flame. The salesman had told her it had eight cylinders, which he had implied was plenty, and which she suspected was probably immoral these days. She certainly felt immoral whenever she bought gas, which was often. It was not a practical car, nor was it precisely new—it had had one owner before her, who’d put quite a few miles on it, actually. But the salesman had assured her that the car was in tip-top condition. And she hadn’t bought it for practical reasons, anyway.

She’d seen it and wanted it, and now it was hers. For Juliet, the car was a symbol, a material representation of the way she was creating a whole new life for herself. So she looked at it awhile, on this special night-of-all-nights, and thought it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever laid eyes on in her life.

Still floating on air from her triumph with the merchants’ association, Juliet shrugged out of the gray jacket that went with her suit. She tossed the jacket and her pageant materials in back and slid beneath the wheel. The car was so low and streamlined that Juliet almost felt as if she were lying down when she settled into the driver’s seat. It was a glorious feeling.

Stretching out, sighing a little, she rolled down the window and unbuttoned the top two buttons of her white cotton blouse. The warm night air came in the window and kissed her throat.

Sensuous, Juliet thought. Downright sensuous, just sitting here.

And then she giggled. Sensuous. What a thought. Especially for plain-Jane Juliet Huddleston, who was getting real close to being considered a spinster by everyone in town.

The warm air played on blushing skin now, as Juliet rather primly reminded herself that everyone had sexy thoughts now and then, even thirty-year-old virgins who probably ought to know better.

But then, why should she know better? A woman who could do what she’d done tonight was no doubt perfectly capable of removing all her clothes and having an intimate experience with a man.

Eventually.

…Given that he was the right man, of course.

As she sat up enough to stick the key in the ignition, Juliet considered what the right man might be like.

He’d be good and kind and funny. A steady man, who, like herself, would never waver in his devotion. An attractive man—but not too attractive. Juliet was a realist, after all. She wanted, when the time came, a man to last a lifetime. And really good-looking men—men like Cody, for instance—were forever being tempted by one woman after another.

Juliet turned the key that she’d stuck in the ignition, and then forgot all about her mental shopping list for the ideal man. Because something strange happened when she turned the key, something totally unexpected: nothing. The car didn’t start.

Juliet checked to see that she was in neutral. She was. She shifted it out and then back into neutral again, just to be sure. Then she turned the key again.

And again, it didn’t start.

So she popped the hood latch and went to look at the engine. Which told her exactly zero. Juliet knew nothing about cars, except how to drive them and where to put the gas.

She did notice, however, that it didn’t look quite so spanking clean under the hood as it had when she’d bought the car three weeks ago. There appeared to be oil leaking out in some places. She thought that strange.

“Got a problem?”

Juliet sighed in relief at the sound of the familiar voice. Cody. As always, when Juliet had a problem, Cody just naturally seemed to appear to help her out.

She removed her head from beneath the hood and shyly smiled at him. “Hi.” Her voice did that funny wimpy thing, between the h and the i, that little hitching sound, but she didn’t let it bother her. She went on, more strongly. “My car won’t start.”

For a minute, he just stood there and looked at her. It was odd. She wondered if she had engine oil on her nose or something. She was just about to ask what was wrong, when he added, as if he thought he should explain, “Saw you from the window.” He gestured in the general direction of his restaurant.

She said, “Oh,” and thought about how she’d leaned back in the seat and unbuttoned her blouse and imagined taking off her clothes for a man. Had he watched her through all that? She felt her face flushing.

Which was ridiculous. Even if Cody had been watching her the whole time—which she was sure he hadn’t—what was wrong with leaning back in the seat and loosening her collar? Nothing. What she had been thinking was her own business. He could know nothing of that.

They kept on looking at each other. She wondered about something she’d never wondered about before: What was Cody thinking?

She opened her mouth, planning to ask him what was on his mind and be done with it, when he seemed to shake himself. He blinked and said, “Want me to have a look?”

She almost asked, “At what?” but then remembered. Her car. He would look at her car.

“Yes. Great. Thanks.”

He stuck his head beneath the hood and fiddled with a few of the wires. He took a few caps off of various doohickies in there.

“Battery’s not dry,” he muttered. “Nothing seems to have come unhooked.” He leaned out toward her where she stood on the sidewalk. “Get in and try it again.”

She did as he’d asked. And once more, nothing happened. He fiddled some more under the hood, she tried starting it once more, but still nothing happened.

After the third try, he said, “Was it giving you trouble before this?”

“No, none at all.”

“Just now, did it turn over at all the first time you tried it?”

She shook her head.

“You got nothing, not even a groaning sound?”

“Not a thing.”

“Then it’s probably not your battery. Maybe it’s just a loose connection, or possibly your starter. Hell, it could be a hundred things.” He took a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped his hands on it. “Tell you what, I’m heading back to the ranch now, anyway. Why don’t you ride home with me? You can call the garage in the morning.”

Juliet, worried about her beloved car, shook her head. “Do you think it’s anything serious?”

“That it won’t start…? Probably not. But these gaskets look shot, and the seals don’t seem to be holding.”

“What does that mean?”

He gave her a look with way too much patience in it to be reassuring. Then he asked, “Where’d you buy this car, Julie?”

“Don’s Hot Deals, outside of Auburn.”

“How much did you pay for it?”

She told him.

He looked pained. “I’ve always thought of you as practical, before this.”

“I know.” She giggled, forgetting altogether that she was not a giggling kind of person. She added, downright pertly, “There are a lot of things about me that aren’t the way they used to be.”

“I noticed.”

He looked at her some more, and she looked back. It was kind of fun, Juliet thought, these long pauses where they just looked at each other. At least, it was fun for her. Looking at Cody McIntyre was a purely pleasurable pastime.

“How much do you owe on it?” he asked eventually.

“The car?”

“Yeah.”

“Not a cent. I paid cash.”

“Hell, Julie.”

Juliet smiled and shrugged. “I wanted it. So I bought it.”

“You still have that little brown car?”

“Nope. I never want to see a brown car again.”

Cody shook his head. “Come on. Let’s not stand here all night. Get your things and let’s go home.”

Juliet got her jacket and the big manila folder and followed Cody to his shiny black pickup in the lot behind McIntyre’s.

They were quiet as Cody pulled out of the lot and headed for the edge of town. But once they’d left the lights of Emerald Gap behind and begun the twenty-minute ride to the McIntyre ranch, Cody had a suggestion. “You can use my spare pickup, if you want, until you get that car fixed.”

She looked over at him, smiling. “You’re so good to me, Cody. You always have been. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

He looked a little embarrassed at that, and spent a few moments paying great attention to the road. Then he said gruffly, “I’ve got to be honest, Julie. I think you bought yourself a world of headaches with that car.”

Juliet sighed. “I love it, anyway. I’ll get it fixed, that’s all.” She was a little worried about the car. But tonight, even the possibility that she’d spent several thousand dollars on a bona fide lemon didn’t daunt her. Nothing could faze her tonight.

Because she, Juliet Huddleston, who’d spent her whole life in the background taking orders rather than giving them, was going to run Midsummer Madness this year! The prospect was terrifying, but exhilarating, as well.

She rolled down the window and let the warm wind blow back her hair. Then she turned to Cody, ready to tease him a little as she’d imagined doing a while before.

“You didn’t stick around to congratulate me.”

He chuckled. “After the meeting, you were occupied in the lobby. I figured I’d see you soon enough, and you could give me a hard time about my lack of faith in you.”

“Why, Cody McIntyre. When in our lives have I ever given you a hard time?”

He threw her a glance. “When have you ever led a festival? Or owned a red car? Or rented your big house in town, to move out in the sticks?”

“It is not the sticks,” she reproved him. “It is the McIntyre ranch, where I have longed to live ever since first grade when your mom gave that pool party the last day of school. And now I do live there.”

He didn’t laugh this time, but there was humor in his voice when he said, “I get it. Living in my guesthouse is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.”

“Not exactly. Not quite so permanent as a dream. More temporary. Like a fantasy.”

He grunted. “As your landlord, I’m bound to ask, exactly how temporary do you mean?”

“Oh, Cody. Don’t worry. I’ll give a month’s notice before I leave. And it won’t be for a year or two, at least. What I mean is, it’s just something I always wanted to do, not something that lasts a lifetime. That’s all.”

He was quiet for a time, digesting this. Then he said, “So what gives, Julie?”

His serious tone surprised her. She answered in her old way, with that little frightened catch. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“You’re different. You’ve changed. I didn’t really notice it until today, when you suddenly insisted I let you take on the pageant. But it’s been happening for a while, a few months at least. I can see that now, looking back on things.”

She turned in her seat to face him. He gave her a quick, encouraging smile. Then he looked back at the road, which was climbing now, up into the pines, as they grew nearer the ranch. “I’d really like to know, Julie,” he said, this time not glancing over.

“Y-you would?”

He nodded.

She realized she wanted to tell him. Maybe it was that he’d actually asked; no one had asked before. Or maybe her confidence was finally high enough, that after tonight, she wouldn’t need to keep her resolution secret anymore.

But she supposed it didn’t really matter why. What mattered was he’d asked.

As he drove the twisting road to the ranch, she told him everything. About her vow that her next thirty years were going to amount to more than the past thirty had—and about all the steps she’d taken to make that vow come true.

He listened and nodded, and laughed a little when she told about that first time up in front of the group at Toastmasters International, when she’d been so nervous that she’d gestured wildly, knocking over her water glass into her shoes, which then made embarrassing squishing sounds every time she shifted her weight through the rest of her speech.

The miles flew by. She was just telling him how terrified she’d been for those first seconds up on the stage this evening, when the front entrance to the ranch came into sight. It was a high stone wall broken by two widely spaced stone pillars, with an iron M on a rocker in a cast-iron arch across the top.

Beyond the arch, Juliet saw the sloping lawn of the house grounds and a blue corner of the big pool. Kemo, Cody’s dog, stood between the pillars, wagging his tail in a hopeful manner. Juliet waved at the mutt and caught a brief glimpse of the rambling two-story house before they sped past and turned into the small drive that led to the guesthouse next door.

Juliet finished her tale as he pulled up before the little house she rented from him.

“So that’s that,” she told him. “I’m making myself a whole new kind of life, from now on.”

He gave her his beautiful right-sided smile. “And then what happens?”

“When?”

“After Midsummer Madness is over. After you’ve proved beyond a doubt that you’re the most assertive woman around.”

“Well,” she confessed, “I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.” She scooped up her jacket and her manila folder and leaned on the door latch. It gave, and she jumped down. “But I’ll let you know, as soon as I figure it out. If you’re still interested, that is.”

She turned and practically skipped up the stone walk to the small porch of the guesthouse before she realized that in her excitement over all she’d accomplished, she’d forgotten to thank Cody for the lift home.

Conveniently, he hadn’t driven away yet but was still sitting there staring after her, with his engine idling. She rushed back to the driver’s side and leaned in the window.

“Thanks, Cody. Thanks a bunch.” She kissed his cheek—it was warm and a little rough, very pleasant to the lips, actually. And then she whirled and danced back up the walk.

Cody sat and watched her go, bewildered at the change in her. Why, damned if her blouse hadn’t been open two buttons down. He’d got himself the sweetest glimpse of that little shadow between her small, high breasts when she leaned in the window and put her soft lips on his cheek.

He couldn’t figure it. What in the hell was innocent Julie Huddleston doing showing cleavage, making a man think about her in a whole new way?

He had half a mind to call her back and tell her to button up. But she was already bouncing up the steps of the guesthouse, turning once to wave, and disappearing inside.

Cody sat there a few minutes more, deciding that telling her to button up would have been presumptuous anyway. He was glad he hadn’t done it. It would have sounded nothing short of crude—and besides, then she would have known that Cody McIntyre, who had always looked out for her, had just now been looking down her blouse.

Three

Juliet’s only problem that night was getting to sleep. She was just too keyed up to simply close her eyes and drift off. So she lay with the window open and only a sheet for a cover, staring up at the ceiling and enjoying daydreams of her success.

She planned a little, thinking it would be fun to try to get a real professional auctioneer this year to raffle off the baked goods at the big picnic on closing day. And this year, for the frog jump, she was going to see that there were separate categories for out-of-county frogs. Recently, some tourists had been buying some real long jumpers from Sacramento pet stores and running them against the more short-hocked local frogs. It just wasn’t fair.

Smiling into the darkness, Juliet rolled over and tried to settle down. But ideas kept coming. She thought of a better way to arrange the booth spaces for the Crafts and Industry Fair even as she started planning her own costume for the Gold Rush Ball. Maybe she’d go as Maria Elena Roderica Perez Smith, the doomed laundress from local history. Or as one-eyed Charlie Parkhurst, who’d lived her life pretending to be a man. Or maybe Madame Moustache, the lusty bighearted saloon owner of Nevada City fame….

Juliet rolled over again and looked at the clock; it was past midnight. She really ought to get some sleep. Tomorrow was Friday, a regular workday. She had to finish off the payrolls for Duane’s Coffee Shop and Babe Allen’s Gift and Card Emporium, not to mention get a good start on that unit cost analysis for McMulch’s Lumberyard.

From outside, she heard the crow of a rooster who was up way past his bedtime. Juliet grinned. She knew the rooster. The ranch, which was mostly timberland, didn’t support too many animals. Cody kept three horses, Kemo the dog and a cow called Emeline. There were a few chickens pecking around the stables, and one big mean black rooster that Cody swore was destined to be thrown in the pot one day soon. Cody called him Black Bart, and he was the only one ornery enough to stay up making noise all night.

Black Bart crowed again. And as the sound of his crowing faded off into the night, Juliet heard, drifting in the open window, the sweet, high sound of a harmonica.

It was Cody. Playing that silver mouth organ of his in the way that only he knew how, the notes sliding all over the scale, from so high and sweet your heart ached, to those low, sexy notes that vibrated down inside a person in the most stimulating way. Lord, Juliet thought, that boy could make music. No wonder his songs drove the ladies wild.

For a while she just lay there, as she had many a night since she took the guesthouse, her senses gratified and her spirit soothed by the impromptu concert that drifted through the window on the night air.

And then it occurred to her that getting Cody to perform in the Midsummer Madness Revue would be a coup of sorts. Every year they asked him, and every year he very courteously declined. Cody would provide goods and capital to the festival, but he always claimed he was too busy to commit himself to getting up on the stage every single night.

Juliet closed her eyes and hummed along a little, until her own lack of musical talent made her fall silent, so that she could better enjoy the magic spell that Cody could weave with just a song.

Yes, she thought, as he began a new tune, she would definitely ask him. As she’d learned in assertiveness training, nothing was ever lost by asking. If the answer was no, you were in no worse a position than before you asked; if you got a yes, you were one ahead. Besides, maybe Cody would agree to perform if Juliet was the one asking. Maybe he’d do it for the sake of their lifelong friendship—if she caught him in the right mood.

As the second tune ended on a high note, the thought came to her: Why not just go ask him now?

She nodded at the ceiling. Yes, that would be a good approach. To ask him right now, spontaneously, in the middle of the night when neither of them seemed to be able to sleep.

Juliet pushed back the sheet and rose from her bed. She pulled on her light robe over her pajamas and decided not to even worry about her feet. She could use the little iron gate in the stone fence between the two houses. That way, there were only smooth paving stones and soft grass between his house and hers.

She went out the back door and down the few steps to the stone walk that led to the gate. The stones, as she padded from one to the next, were still warm from a summer day’s worth of sun.

Overhead there was no moon, but the stars were very bright. The gold grasses of the open pasture on her right, which was separated from her house by a wooden fence, seemed to reflect the starlight, so Juliet had no trouble seeing the way. She flew past the hay barn and small stables, which loomed just on the other side of the fence. Cody began another song as she pulled open the gate to the main grounds and slipped through.

Beyond the gate was another world. Six acres of sloping, manicured grass were bisected by a gravel drive that ended in a roomy garage. On the near side of the drive lay the swimming pool, lit now and casting its eerie light up toward the night sky. On the far side of the drive, up a walk lined with rose bushes, was the house, a two-story white clapboard structure with green roof and trim.

Originally, as Cody’s mother had once explained to Juliet, the guesthouse had been the main house. The ranch had been smaller then, more of a homestead than anything else. Cody’s great-grandmother had run the place, while his great-grandfather owned and operated the Rush Creek Digs mine. They’d closed the mine in Cody’s grandfather’s time; Cody’s grandfather had bought more land, then built his family a bigger, more comfortable place to live. Cody’s father, retired and living in Arizona for the past few years, had opened the hardware store in town and added the Olympic-size pool at the house. When he retired, Cody’s dad had signed both the ranch and hardware store over to his only son. Now Cody took care of it all, as well as the bar and grill that was his contribution to the family holdings.

The huge yard of the main house was surrounded on three sides by a stone wall. The north side, except for the garage, was divided from the pasture by a wooden fence. It was a stunning effect, Juliet had always thought: the pampered, lush grounds, cut off from the road and the outbuildings by the high wall—but opened right up to the wild, wide field on the north side. There, the tall grasses rolled away for a half mile or so until they hit the woodlands of the surrounding hills.

Once inside the gate and sheltered by the spreading shadow of a big fruitless mulberry tree there, Juliet hesitated, partly in hushed appreciation of the starlit yard, and partly to gauge the source of the music that curled through the still night.

The melody came, as she had suspected, from the wide front porch that faced her across the drive. She could see Cody there, now that she looked for him. Since the porch light was off, he sat in shadow, lounging against one of the two pillars that flanked the front steps. He faced the main gate and had his back to the garage. He was shirtless—she could see the sheen of bare skin—and barefoot, too, just as she was. His naked feet were on the second step. Not far away from him, near the porch railing, she could make out the sprawled black shape of the dog, Kemo. The dog’s head was raised and pointed in her direction.

Cody, staring off toward the front gate, seemed lost in his music. If he had looked, he could have seen her, even in the shadow of the mulberry, for her robe was the palest shade of blue and drew what little light there was within the darkness. But he didn’t look.

Kemo, still peering in Juliet’s direction, whined. Cody stopped playing to murmur a soft order to the animal. The dog laid his sleek black head on his paws once more.

Juliet stood for a while, listening to the song, suspended in the moment and glad to be there. All of her senses seemed heightened. There was the music, the faint gleam of Cody’s skin across the yard, the cool caress of moist grass at her feet. The grass had a sweet, full earthy smell that mingled deliciously with the dusty scent of the drier, wilder grass on the other side of the fence.

Cody paused for a breath. From somewhere on the green lawn, a frog croaked; it was a rough, humorous sound, after the beguiling beauty of the song. Juliet smiled. Cody played on.

It occurred to her that, were she to circle the pool and cross the drive up by the garage, she could approach from the side steps and keep from disturbing Cody for a few minutes more. It seemed appropriate, somehow, for her to come up on him quietly. It was in keeping with the enchanted mood of moonless darkness and haunting song.

The thick grass tickled her feet as she crept, still smiling to herself, beneath the trees that grew close to the stone wall. By the time she reached the wooden fence, it had become a sort of game to her. She shot across the open space, picked her way over the pebbles of the drive in front of the garage and then flew across the unprotected space on the other side. Then she had one of the pair of huge old chestnut trees that grew in front of the house for cover as she approached the side of the porch.

When she put her dew-damp foot on the bottom step, Cody began yet another song, one of his own that Juliet had heard once or twice over the years. It was a love song, about a poor boy who loved a rich girl whose family kept them apart. Now, of course, he only played the melody. But Juliet recalled the general flow of the lyrics, and felt sad for the penniless lover, whose dream girl could never be his.

Juliet mounted the steps and then, still unchallenged, began to approach the man who sat on the front steps with his back to her, playing one of those songs that broke women’s hearts.

The wooden boards of the porch were with her; they gave out nary a squeak. The dog, too, seemed to be on her side. Though he raised his head and watched her, he made no sound.

Juliet tiptoed to the Mission-style easy chair, one of a pair that flanked the double front door. And then, lost in the music, she hovered there, staring at the marvelously sculpted musculature of Cody’s bare back, until the sad song came to an end.

There was a silence, one that slowly filled up with the sounds of the night. An owl hooted somewhere behind the house. The crickets spun out whirring songs of their own. A mourning dove cried. Out in the field, a quail loosed its piping call, just as Kemo’s snaky black tail began beating the porch boards, and the dog opened his mouth to pant in a welcoming way.

Cody said, “Julie.”

He said it softly, in a different way than anyone had ever said her name before. He turned his head, slowly, and smiled at her.

Juliet smiled back, with no shyness or hesitation. It seemed that her triumph at the meeting earlier had boosted her confidence, while the magic safety of the darkness made her bold.

“You saw me,” she accused in a teasing manner, as Kemo rose and went to her to be scratched behind the ear.

Cody nodded. “When you came through the gate.”

“The music was so beautiful. I didn’t want to break the mood. So I sneaked up on you, hoping that you wouldn’t stop.” The dog, satisfactorily scratched, went to the end of the porch nearest the front gate. There, he walked in a circle, at last lying down again, all curled into himself.

Juliet came to sit next to Cody, first adjusting her robe where it met on her lap, then wrapping her hands around her knees. “I’ve enjoyed it each time you played, ever since I moved in.”

“You never came over before. How come?”

She glanced off toward the rippling lights of the pool. “I don’t know. I guess I was just never the kind of woman to run across a lawn barefoot in the middle of the night.”

“But now you are?”

Juliet chuckled, considering the question, considering her own lightness of spirit, her boldness, her sense of glowing self-confidence. Tonight, she felt disconnected from her usual self. It was as if her usual self were some other woman, a woman for whom she felt a little sorry. A woman frightened of life, of its sights, scents and sounds, of its sweet and sensual beauty that tonight seemed created for her alone.

“Well?”

“What?” She looked at him.

“I asked if now you were the kind of woman who—”

“I remember. And I don’t know. Tonight is different. I feel different. But we’ll see.”

He smiled again, that slow warm smile that lifted the right side of his mouth a fraction more than the left. Juliet thought, as he did that, that it was fully understandable why the women went wild for him.

Lord, he was one beautiful hunk of man. Much too much man for someone like Juliet—she knew that. But absolutely splendid nonetheless.

“Believe it or not,” she went on, in an effort to distract herself from the surplus of masculine splendor before her—from the hard, broad chest, the corded neck, the gleaming eyes and the right-sided smile, “I did come over here with a specific purpose in mind.”

“And that was?”

“To ask you a favor.”

He was watching her mouth. “A favor?” He repeated the word right after her, as if he’d caught it from her lips and then playfully tossed it back her way.

“Yes,” she confirmed, surprised at the steadiness of her own voice. Inside, she was drowning in the most wonderful yearning sort of feeling, an utterly delicious feeling, one she was sure she should restrain, but one to which she wanted to give free rein.

“Well?”

She recollected her supposed purposed. “It’s about the revue.”

“The Midsummer Madness Revue?”

“Yes.”

“What about it?”

“Well, I was thinking…”

“Yeah?”

“I was hoping, actually….”

“You were thinking and hoping what?”

She went ahead and said it right out at last. “I would really appreciate it if you would agree to sing a song or two in the revue this year.”

He said nothing for a moment. Then he murmured her name in a regretful tone, and she knew that next he’d be telling her how busy he was.

In a gesture that seemed perfectly natural, she put a finger on his lips. “Shh. Don’t answer now. Just think about it. Okay?”

“I don’t think so,” he told her. His lips were firm, his breath warm on her skin. It was a lovely sensation, touching his mouth, feeling the movement beneath her fingers each time he spoke.

Juliet shook herself, remembering that, no matter how good his lips felt, they were getting dangerously close to saying “no” to her request. She shushed him again. “Didn’t I ask you not to answer now?”

He smiled, which she felt as a brushing softness on the pads of her fingers. “All right. I’ll think about it.”

“Good.” She gave a satisfied little nod, and then realized she couldn’t go on touching his lips forever, no matter how good it felt. She pulled her hand away and faced the pool again. He didn’t move. She could feel his eyes on her.

A little silence happened, one that had a peculiar edge to it. A precipitous edge, Juliet thought.

She turned to him. “I, um, suppose I should go back to my house now.”

“Why?” He seemed to be looking at her mouth. And then her neck, and the little V that was formed where her pajamas buttoned up and the facings of her robe met.

“Well, I…I did what I came out here to do. I asked you to be in the revue.”

“That’s all you came out here for? To ask me to be in the revue?”

She nodded.

He didn’t seem to believe that. “You sure?”

When she’d touched his mouth to hush him, she’d scooted right up next to him. And then, even when she’d looked off at the pool, she hadn’t actually moved away. So now she was seeing him at very close range.

It was an enthralling experience. So near, his male beauty was absolutely mesmerizing. She stared at him, forgetting to even try to talk, marveling at the perfection of his firm mouth, his symmetrical nose, his shiny brown hair.

Goodness—the realization caused her to hitch in a quick breath—why, she wanted to kiss him! Her lips were practically twitching with the longing to be pressed to his.

He looked back at her, and it was as if he knew her forbidden wish, because the impossible happened. He shifted forward just a fraction and her wish came true.

They were kissing.

It couldn’t be happening—but it was.

And it felt wonderful. He made a lovely, rough sound in his throat, and his hard, naked arms went around her. She heard the harmonica clatter on the porch boards as he pulled her up against him.

Ah, how utterly delightful. Juliet didn’t want to pull away. So she didn’t.

His hands rubbed her back in slow, sweet circles, and his lips played with hers for a while, teasing and nibbling, kind of getting to know her mouth.

And then his tongue got involved, slipping out to press at the little seam between her lips. Juliet gasped at first, since she’d never in her life been familiar with another person’s tongue. But then she felt herself go easy and soft in his arms, because being familiar with Cody’s tongue felt just fine. Just terrific, after all.

Since his tongue seemed to hint at the possibility that she might allow her lips to part, she did it, with a little sigh.

He whispered “Julie,” and then his tongue slipped in. She smiled in welcome, liking it immensely, and even shyly touching the gentle intruder with her own tongue. The deepened kiss continued.

And then he pulled away. She gave a cry. But the loss of such joy was only temporary. He only wanted, she learned soon enough, to do a little rearranging of their bodies before he kissed her some more.

He turned her and guided her down, across his lap, cradling her on one arm, so he could sip from her mouth some more.

Juliet raised her lips eagerly to him, and stroked his shoulders, deeply pleasured by the taut feel of his skin, and the hard bulge of the muscles beneath.

“Oh, Cody.” She sighed against his mouth. “Oh, Cody, how wonderful…. No one ever told me…”

He chuckled at that, a husky chuckle that seemed to ignite all her senses the more. She went on stroking his sleek shoulders, and then sliding her fingers up to toy in the silky hair at his nape.

Meanwhile, he was not idle. Besides the long, drugging kiss that never seemed to end, his free hand caressed her, in long strokes at first. From the slim curve of her hip, to the cove of her waist, it moved up to slide along her rib cage, then back down again.

Somehow, the belt of her robe was gone, the robe fully parted. Cody’s exploring hand drifted over her hip, bringing the hem of her pajama top along, until he was rubbing the bare skin of her waist beneath the top.

Oh, it was heaven. How on earth could she have lived for thirty whole years and known next to nothing of this heady bliss? It was better than anything. Better than ice cream on a sweltering day, better than hot cocoa of a cold winter’s night. Better than— Oh, Lord, yes, it was true—better than driving her red car, or running Midsummer Madness for the first time in her life!

This was Midsummer Madness. Incredible. Divine.

Cody’s warm, big hand slid up her waist—and, light as a breath, skimmed the nipple of her left breast.

“Oh, my goodness!” Juliet gasped.

His hand repeated the action. Juliet gasped again. And then—

He pulled away.

Juliet, who realized her eyes were dreamily closed, opened them. She looked into Cody’s eyes, which were heavy-lidded and full of sensual promise. “I said, ‘oh, my goodness,’” she pointed out. “I didn’t say stop.”

Juliet found she didn’t regret her bold words when, for a moment, it looked as if he might resume where he’d left off—lower his mouth to where she could get at it, and start doing those lovely things with his hand again.

But the moment stretched out too long, and she had to admit that his expression had rearranged itself; he was now looking more stern than aroused.

Gently he guided her to a sitting position once more and handed her the belt to her robe, which had somehow ended up wrapped around his neck.

He said, “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Juliet, attempting to take things in stride, decided to be grateful for what she got. “I know,” she replied, “but I surely do thank you anyway, Cody McIntyre.”

Cody frowned at that. “Don’t thank me,” he said, rather harshly, she thought.

“But I—”

He cut her off. “Let it go.” Then he relented a little. “I went too far. I’m sorry.”

“You did?” She thought about that. “I don’t know. Isn’t…what you did natural? I didn’t ask you to stop.”

“Damn it, Julie. You’re a virgin.”

Juliet’s face flamed at the blunt way he said that. She turned away.

“Well, aren’t you?” he demanded.

She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, but she managed to nod.

He swore again. “That’s what I mean. You don’t know what the hell you’re doing. And damn it, neither do I. I don’t take advantage of virgins.”

Juliet wished she could crawl under the porch. Her ears were on fire from hearing Cody talk so bluntly about her lack of experience. She almost lurched to her feet and ran across the lawn for home. But then she decided that one of the reasons she was still a virgin at thirty was a distinct lack of nerve. She’d never really get to experience life if she always backed down. So she forced herself to stay put and dared to speak. “Well, um, then,” she began somewhat wiltingly. She drew in a bracing breath and went on with more gumption, “If you don’t take advantage of virgins, then why did you kiss me?”

He granted her another long look. Then he muttered with feeling, “Hell, Julie….”

She stared right back at him. “’Hell, Julie,’ is not an answer.”

“Damn it….”

“Neither is ‘damn it.’”

“Look, I didn’t mean it to go so far—I didn’t mean it to go anywhere.”

Juliet felt a sad little sinking feeling in her heart when he said that, but she went ahead with her next question anyway. “Well, what did you mean, then?”

“I don’t know,” he said, finger-combing his hair and shifting on the step. “I couldn’t sleep. I came out here to play myself a lullaby. And then you came, trying to sneak up on me. It was like a game, and I started playing. I wanted to kiss you, so I did kiss you. And it went further than it should have.”

Juliet, absorbed in her own confusions, didn’t fully realize what a rough time Cody was having. He was both frustrated in his desire, and disgusted at himself for toying with an innocent. Partly in an effort to get his bearings—and also in an attempt to hide the evidence that his lust still wasn’t exactly under control—Cody slid even farther away from her on the step until he was practically wrapped around the big post that supported the porch roof.

Juliet noted his withdrawal, and thought regretfully of the delicious caress of his hand on her breast—a caress she was becoming more and more certain she would never experience again. She forced herself to take a long, hard look at the situation—and to recall that a man like Cody McIntyre was not a man for her.

She said, a little sadly but very firmly, “You’re right.” She solemnly nodded. “We went too far.”

Cody listened with only half his attention; he was still pondering the prospect of trying to stand up without embarrassing himself.

Juliet rebelted her robe and tied it with a no-nonsense tug. “We’ll just have to forget this ever happened, okay?” She rearranged the robe to cover her knees. “A gorgeous man like you is nothing but trouble for a plain woman like me.”

Forgetting the problem with his jeans, Cody whipped his head around to face her again, ready to inform her that looks do not make the man—and to add, for her information, that he didn’t find her plain at all. Lately.

But she prattled on before he could get a word in. “You’ve been good to me over the years. You always stood up for me when Billy Butley used to pick on me back in school, and you were my first client when I opened my service. I’ll always like you. A lot. But I don’t want to get mixed up with you. I’d only get my heart broken, and that’s a simple fact.”

“Now wait a minute—”

“No. You wait. Cody, the women are always after you. And one of these days, one of them would be sure to tempt you right away from me.”

Cody stared at her. He had half a mind to point out to her just how wrong she was. He could use his father as an example. From the time he met Cody’s mother, Wayne McIntyre had never so much as looked at another woman. Cody’s grandfather, Yancy, had been the same way. Cody came from a long line of truehearted men. No other woman could tempt him away from the woman he’d chosen for his own….

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