“I’m trying to think how I can best show my appreciation, Lucy.”

At Judd’s obvious interest, Lucy felt bolder than ever. She shot him what she hoped was a sexy look from where she lay on the floor. “You can’t do it from up there.”

He knelt down. “How about from here?”

“I think you’ll have to come closer.”

In a blink he was only inches away from her, effectively pinning her to the floor. She could feel the heat radiating from his body, and she could even smell the subtle scent of soap and shampoo, mingled with his own unique scent that made her dizzy and giddy all at the same time.

“I should tell you, as a rule I don’t sleep with guests at the ranch.”

The breath went out of Lucy’s lungs. “I’m the exception?” she whispered.

“You’re my weakness.”

He leaned closer, his hands sliding around her waist. He kissed her, creating swirling, tingling sensations all through her.

She could only hold on to him for dear life and pray that she’d always remember how this felt, because Judd had surely ruined her for anyone else.

Dear Reader,

I’m thrilled to introduce to you my first book for Harlequin Temptation, Some Like It Sizzling. Writing for Harlequin is a dream come true for me. Ever since I was a preteen girl sneaking my mother’s romance novels off the shelves to read, I’ve loved the kind of stories I now have the opportunity to write.

The idea for this story came to me one sizzling-hot summer day when I let my mind wander. Maybe it was the heat, but suddenly I found myself wondering what might happen if a woman came home to find a gorgeous stranger handcuffed to her bed. How would she react? Who would this stranger be, and how would he have ended up on her bed?

Oh, the possibilities! My imagination ran wild, and I ended up with Lucy and Judd’s story. These two lovers quickly worked their way into my heart and took on lives of their own with their sexy antics at the Fantasy Ranch. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did, and I hope their romance turns your cold January into a sizzling one!

I would love to hear what you think of the story. You can write to me at Harlequin Enterprises Ltd., 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada or visit my Web site at www.jamiesobrato.com.

Sincerely,

Jamie Sobrato

Some Like It Sizzling

Jamie Sobrato

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my wonderful husband, Rich Sobrato. Without your unflagging optimism and encouragement, I never would have fulfilled my dream of becoming an author. I owe you a lifetime of steamy love scenes.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Epilogue

Prologue

“…SO THEN I took off my dress and hopped into the fountain.”

Lucy Connors leaned forward in her chair, hanging on her friend’s every word, unable to resist the lure of Claire Elliot’s tale. “What did he do?”

“He took off his shoes, jumped in—” Claire paused, stirring cream into her coffee “—and we made wild passionate love right there in the middle of the park.”

She had a more exciting love life than Lucy could ever hope to have. Handsome men, scandalous rendezvous, extravagant weekend-long dates—Claire was a walking nighttime soap opera. Even her blazing red hair suggested a wildness that Lucy’s mousy brown mop couldn’t hope to match.

At least Lucy had her fantasies…She closed her eyes for a brief moment and imagined herself, wet and splashing in a park water fountain late at night with a gorgeous stranger. Of course, her gorgeous stranger would be wearing a Stetson, and he’d be tugging off a pair of cowboy boots and a faded pair of jeans to hop into the fountain with her.

Mmm…

Then reality came crashing in. She hadn’t gotten within five feet of a man fit for a fantasy since the last time the UPS guy came to her door and had her sign for a delivery. Lucy’s eyes popped open and she glared at the remains of her salad.

Claire frowned and reached across the table to take Lucy’s hand. “Oh, sweetie, don’t feel bad. You’ll be having wild passionate sex again soon.”

“Again?” Her past sex life could have been better described with words like “predictable” and “safe”—never wild, and rarely passionate.

Claire gasped. “Don’t tell me you’ve never had—”

“Not wild and passionate. No.”

“Not even once?”

“Do fantasies count?”

“You’re worse off than I thought. You need to let loose! You’ve got this hot fantasy life and you’ve never once acted on it.”

Lucy glanced around, hoping no one had overheard. She lowered her voice to say, “It’s not that I haven’t tried. But after you-know-who giggled when I did my striptease for him…”

Claire rolled her eyes. “He was a pig.”

Nodding in agreement, Lucy gazed out the window next to their table and watched wilting business people hurrying to and from their cars in the oppressive Phoenix heat. Was there a single man in this entire city who could be happy with plain, boring, old her?

Their waiter appeared at the table. “Should I bring dessert now?” he asked Claire.

“Yes, please.”

“Dessert? I’m too stuffed for dessert.”

Claire dismissed her protest with the wave of a French-manicured hand, and the waiter cleared their lunch plates and left.

When, moments later, the entire staff of the restaurant converged on their table singing “Happy Birthday,” Lucy understood. Their waiter set a small strawberry and chocolate torte ablaze with candles in front of Lucy.

When the singing stopped, the restaurant staff dispersed and Claire said, “Make a wish!”

She produced a camera and aimed it at Lucy, then started snapping photos of Lucy’s startled expression.

It wasn’t exactly her birthday yet. That wasn’t until tomorrow, but this was her last chance to celebrate with her best friend before Claire had to leave for out-of-town business meetings over the weekend.

Lucy closed her eyes, made her wish and blew out the candles. She had learned long ago not to make outlandish birthday wishes. Better to wish for something sensible, something safe, something that could possibly come true. And after last year’s disaster, the safest, most sensible wish she could produce was that she never get dumped by another fiancé at her own birthday party.

“Come on, give me a hint about what you wished for,” Claire said. “If I guess it on my own it can still come true.”

“Who made up that rule?”

“I did, just now.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know what I wished. You’d be disappointed.”

“Oh, sweetie, you just don’t seem happy. Where’s the spark in your life? The fun?”

“Um, I like my job,” Lucy offered lamely.

But becoming a travel agent hadn’t made her life more exciting, the way she’d hoped it would when she’d changed careers a year ago. She just didn’t know how to lead an exciting life the way Claire did. Lucy had been playing it safe for so long, she couldn’t remember how to take a risk.

Claire got that little crinkle between her eyebrows that always meant she was cooking up trouble. “I dare you to do something totally wild, totally un-Lucy-like, in honor of your birthday.”

Lucy’s stomach flip-flopped. “No way. I know better than to accept one of your dares.”

Claire gnawed on her lower lip, which had somehow managed to remain uniformly crimson throughout lunch. After a few moments of devious thought she said, “We’ll see about that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Claire glanced at her watch and her eyes grew wide. “I have to be at a meeting downtown in thirty minutes.” She stood, dug her wallet out of her purse, and put enough money on the table to cover both their lunches. “I’m sorry I have to rush off. I’ll talk to you tonight before I leave, though, okay?”

She headed for the door, but a few feet away from it she paused, turned, and flashed Lucy a thoroughly wicked grin. “Your birthday present—I almost forgot!”

“What?”

“It will be waiting for you on your bed when you get home.” Claire turned back to the door and hurried out.

Lucy waved at her friend’s retreating back. Waiting for her on her bed? Claire knew where Lucy kept her emergency key, so she guessed her friend had bought her something too large or cumbersome to carry around. Probably that new comforter set she’d been eyeing in the Spiegel catalog.

She smiled and took a tiny bite of her birthday cake. Yes, the pink rose comforter set would be the perfect birthday gift, and Claire always knew just what to give.

The sweet dessert brought her taste buds to life. She closed her eyes and moaned. Oh, she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d tasted it. Just for today, she’d allow herself to eat the entire miniature cake. Yes, and that would even fulfill Claire’s dare!

She was doing something totally wild and un-Lucylike already, with Claire barely out the door. Her friend would be proud.

1

HE WAS HALF NAKED and handcuffed to her bed. Lucy stared at the sleeping cowboy, unable to move or to even utter a cry of protest.

Everything else about her Friday had so far been normal. She’d put in a twelve-hour shift at Sunny Horizons Travel Agency dealing with frantic last-minute vacation planners and all the other customers her coworkers didn’t want to handle. She’d had lunch with Claire—the one bright spot in her day—and she’d stopped at the bank machine and the gas station on her way home. Now it was time to relax and watch TV, maybe balance her checkbook and do some laundry.

But…there was this stranger wearing a Stetson and silver handcuffs. Where had he come from and what was he doing on her bed?

For one horrifying moment Lucy wondered if she’d somehow stumbled into an intimate scene about to unfold in someone else’s apartment. Muscle-bound men didn’t fall asleep on her bed, and she didn’t own a pair of handcuffs.

But it was her bed, and her room, and her apartment, she assured herself as she looked around at the familiar setting. That didn’t change the fact of the slumbering, handcuffed cowboy.

Long muscular arms stretched over his head and a white Stetson tipped forward covered his face. Impossibly wide shoulders tapered to a smooth torso that begged to be touched by a woman’s hands. Faded jeans hugged narrow hips and enveloped bulging thighs. The picture was made complete by a pair of white snakeskin boots, accented by what looked like silver spurs.

In the agonizing moments it took her to recover from the shock, a voice in Lucy’s head screamed, Call 911! Yet she stood in the doorway, paralyzed, unable to look away. Somehow, by some bizarre stroke of luck, here was her fantasy come to life—a real, live, hunk of a cowboy in her bedroom at her mercy. Her tired body was suddenly awake and on alert, her libido kicking into overdrive and sending tingles to places that had been dormant for months.

Her heartbeat thudding in her ears, she willed herself to run, but she couldn’t move.

If she hadn’t felt so numb, she might find some humor in the bizarre scene, but she’d spent the last two hours at work dealing with the very angry Mr. Dorfler, whose vacation on the Family Fun Ship had been marred by a belligerent cruise ship employee in a Loopy the Cat costume. Now all she really wanted was to slide into her fuzzy pajamas and to watch TV reruns of I Love Lucy.

Something, some important fact she seemed to have forgotten, was nagging at her. And then she remembered…Claire had said she’d leave Lucy’s birthday gift in her apartment.

It will be waiting for you on your bed….

Suddenly it all made terrible sense…and she was going to kill Claire Elliot.

Easing out of the room for fear of waking the cowboy before she knew for sure that he was indeed her gift and not some masochistic intruder, Lucy rushed to the phone in the kitchen and hit the auto-dial button for Claire’s number. The phone rang, and her friend picked up after two rings.

“Are you insane?”

“Hi, Luc. I presume you’ve found your birthday gift.” Claire’s self-satisfied smile was apparent even over the phone.

“If you’re speaking of the Western-style gigolo or whatever he is, I found him.”

Her friend’s raspy laughter came across the phone line loud and clear. “He’s not a gigolo, but I’m sure he’d be willing to accommodate a pretty girl like yourself during his off hours—”

“Claire!”

“He’s your escort to the ranch. Didn’t he explain that?”

“He hasn’t quite had a chance yet, since he’s currently sawing wood in my bedroom.”

“Excuse me?”

“He’s asleep! Now, what’s this ranch you’re talking about?”

“Oh, dear. I didn’t realize you’d be working so late. I had him arrive there at five o’clock,” Claire said, ignoring Lucy’s question. “The poor guy’s been handcuffed to your bed for over three hours—and what did you think of the handcuffs, by the way? Those were my idea.”

“What ranch?” By the time she got the words out, a horrible thought had occurred to her. The Fantasy Ranch. The infamous adults-only resort several hours out into the desert where party people like Claire loved to vacation. Rumors of the wild parties and sexual escapades that took place at the resort circulated constantly around Phoenix. Just last month there’d been a story in the gossip pages about a party at the ranch that had ended with a fight between a popular movie actor and the paparazzo who’d caught him on camera literally with his pants down.

They’d gotten a fax at the travel agency several weeks ago saying that the ranch’s end-of-summer celebration was fast approaching. It would be just like Claire to book her a surprise vacation at such an outrageous place.

Claire sighed over the phone. “I wish I could go with you. That was the plan, but these weekend meetings came up at the last minute—”

“We can go on a trip together anytime. When you get back we can plan that trip to Hawaii we’ve been talking about. In the meantime, I’m just going to spend the weekend watching reruns—”

“No, you’re not. As your boss, I order you to take the trip as planned. Just go with Buck instead of me. You wouldn’t believe what I had to go through to get him for you.”

Lucy felt her insides go all jiggly as she considered the possibility of going off to a resort—an adults-only resort at that—with a complete stranger. “But I—”

“No arguments. You’ve said yourself that you don’t want to spend the rest of your life with no one but your cats to keep you warm at night. This is your chance to learn how to loosen up and have fun. In fact, I dare you to be a little naughty for once in your life. And you’d better not show up at work for at least another week.”

Lucy blinked in shock as the line went dead. She hit redial several times, but the line was busy. Claire had hung up on her and left her to deal with a stud named Buck. She should have never, ever told that awful woman about her secret cowboy fantasy.

After taking a deep, calming breath she crept down the hall to the bedroom again and peered around the edge of the doorway. He was still asleep—dead asleep by the sound of his slow, steady breathing.

She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. What was she to say? “Hey there, cowboy, come here often?” Or maybe, “Excuse me, could you please get your boots off my bed?” There just wasn’t an appropriate opener for this situation.

She allowed herself to take in the whole of him lying there with his well-tanned torso exposed, hard muscles forming a ripple effect on his abdomen, the muscles of his chest and arms bulging slightly as they strained from the handcuffs. His arms were up behind his head, his wrists clasped to the headboard with the cuffs that were looped around a wooden spindle, and the sexy thatches of dark hair under his arms were exposed. Lucy had never realized body hair could be so…arousing.

But mostly she just marveled that such a gorgeous man—gorgeous even with his face mostly hidden by the hat—was lying on her bed. When was the last time that had happened? Well, never. She did a quick mental inventory of all her past boyfriends, all four of them, and realized that none had been this attractive. More often than not, they’d been nice guys, but never drop-dead gorgeous. It just wasn’t a quality she looked for in a man.

Not that Lucy had minded dating average-looking men. In fact, she preferred it that way. Attractive men were dangerous, arrogant, shallow, too aware of their power over women. They got what they wanted too easily, and they never noticed plain, boring women like Lucy Connors. Even if they had, she was immune to their charms.

Then why did it feel as if her whole body sighed when she took in the sight of the half-naked Buck on her bed? Why did it feel as if her pulse had centered itself between her legs? And why was there a thin film of perspiration breaking out on her upper lip?

Lucy glanced down at herself and suddenly felt self-conscious in her buttoned-up white blouse and brown tweed skirt. She looked like an uptight bore. Her chest tightened ever so slightly as she admitted that she was exactly what everyone thought she was—a woman who didn’t have the slightest clue how to have fun.

Claire’s words echoed in her head. I dare you to be a little naughty for once in your life.

Forget Claire. She and her best friend were just different, that’s all, and she didn’t have to change who she was to suit that woman. No, if she wanted to spend the weekend in her flannel PJs, eating carrot sticks and unsalted, unbuttered popcorn, and watching TV as she caught up on her laundry and maybe balanced her checkbook, then that’s exactly what she would do. Claire wasn’t going to lose respect for her just because she refused to run off to some ridiculous hedonistic resort with a male bimbo named Buck.

Lucy made up her mind. She wasn’t going to accept Claire’s silly dare. But that didn’t change the fact that she still had to get rid of Buck. She took a step into the bedroom, then hesitated. She couldn’t wake a gorgeous guy like that wearing her wallflower work outfit. No, she would slip into something a little less boring while he was still asleep, and he’d never know the difference. When she woke the sleeping stud, at least she would do it with her womanly ego intact.

She tiptoed several feet without making a sound, but the closet across the room seemed a mile away; her chest of drawers wasn’t any closer. She couldn’t let a little thing like that stop her, though, she reminded herself as she took one more tentative step and sighed with relief when Buck continued to snore softly.

She did a mental inventory of her wardrobe, wondering which outfit best suited the occasion. What she realized immediately was that she owned a dizzying array of beige garments, and almost nothing that was appropriate for waking up a stud-muffin. She stopped in her tracks in front of the closet. There sat a black suitcase with a hot pink bow on top and a small note card tucked under the bow. Lucy bent and plucked the card out, recognizing her name written in Claire’s handwriting. She opened the envelope to find a card within that read, “This is everything you’ll need for the week, except an outfit to travel in. That, you’ll find hanging on the back of the bathroom door. Just wear it!” The words “wear it” were underlined twice. Claire had signed the note, “Love, C.”

Lucy eyeballed the suitcase warily. Where her tastes ran toward conservative styles and neutral colors, Claire had a penchant for outrageous platform heels and leopard-print undergarments. It was best not to look at the contents of the suitcase right away, not when she had Buck, who could wake at any moment, nearby.

She hurried across the room as silently as possible and slipped into the bathroom, gently closing and locking the door behind her. Her heartbeat thudded in her ears. When she finally turned on the light, the outfit in front of her was worse than she could have imagined.

And she couldn’t wait to try it on.

Two minutes later Lucy’s work clothes were lying in a heap on the bathroom floor and she was peering over her shoulder at the reflection of her butt in a pair of skintight black pants. As many other shocks as she’d received this evening, perhaps the greatest one of all was the realization that she didn’t look half bad in the outfit Claire had picked out. In fact, she might even say she looked…darned good. All those years of eating wheat bran and steamed veggies had paid off.

But whether or not she could walk out of the bathroom and allow another human being to see her like this was a different matter. She finished fastening the tiny eye-hooks on the front of the stretchy red top—red, a color she never wore—and slid on the black platform sandals that turned out to be a lot more comfortable than they looked, then took another look at herself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door.

Okay, she wasn’t exactly blessed by Mother Nature in the chest department, but still…She inspected herself further. Not bad for an outfit that made her look like a groupie hoping to sneak backstage at a rock concert. Her hair, however, was all wrong.

She reached up and removed the pins that held her French twist in place, then ran her fingers through her light brown hair until it fell around her face in waves that hung to her shoulders. She’d never liked her hair much, especially not the mousy color that made her about as noticeable as white wallpaper, or the flyaway curls that, on bad days, gave her the appearance of having wispy little horns, but with the groupie getup, she had to admit that the tousled look went quite nicely.

She wasn’t wearing a spot of makeup, but there was no time to fix herself up any more than she already had, especially when her makeup collection consisted mostly of ointments and facial cleansers—not tubes of lipstick with names like Scarlet Passion.

She had a cowboy to awaken. But as she took a deep breath and stepped out of the bathroom, her throat seized up and she felt her knees begin to buckle. What could she possibly have been thinking? She couldn’t wake up this strange man and let him see her like this.

She heard Claire’s voice again. You don’t want to spend the rest of your life with no one but your cats to keep you warm at night. Lucy loved her cats, but they didn’t make great bed partners. Aside from their more obvious shortcomings, Romeo hogged the bed and Juliet liked to deposit dead, mangled insects on Lucy’s pillow—her feline version of fancy hotel chocolates.

With that depressing thought, she decided the least she could do for herself was be proud of the way she looked in her new outfit, even if it was only for the couple of minutes it took to get Buck out of the apartment.

Her confidence somewhat renewed, she couldn’t help pausing for a moment to marvel again at the male form in all its glory. Why did such gorgeous men have to exist, to remind plain women such as herself of all they couldn’t have? She decided it would be wise not to spend much more time contemplating the unfairness of it all, but she still couldn’t stop staring. What she really wanted was a closer look.

It only took one more gander at that perfect expanse of chest to convince her that a closer look wouldn’t hurt anyone. Besides, she’d never actually seen a half-naked hunk at close range before.

As she knelt beside the bed, a little alarm sounded in the back of her brain that she quickly shut off. This was her one chance to gawk at Buck up close, and she wasn’t going to waste it. She eased her elbows onto the edge of the bed and leaned in, inhaling the scent of him—an advantage of getting close that she hadn’t even considered. He smelled of something warm and woodsy and unmistakably male, and the scent was intoxicating. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeper, nearly melting as the smell overtook her.

Eyes open again, she admired the smoothness of his tanned, olive skin and the little brown nipples that were nearly flat against his chest. The only body hair he had was under his arms, and a thin, dark trail that started below his belly button and disappeared into the waist of his jeans, calling Lucy’s eyes lower to the impressive bulge that filled his worn-out Levi’s. She felt her jaw sag as she contemplated the size of the bulge. Were there really men out there who were that well endowed? If so, she’d been missing the boat. Heck, she hadn’t even known the boat existed.

“Hey there, darlin’. Like what you see?”

The shock of Buck’s voice sent Lucy sprawling backward, landing on her rear end with a thud as she stared up at the man she’d thought to be asleep.

“H-how l-long have you been awake?” She felt her face burn as he watched her with amused eyes.

“Since you leaned against the bed.”

“Oh.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Lucy found herself mesmerized by his mouth as it formed words, words she didn’t want to hear at the moment because he had the sexiest mouth she’d ever seen and all she wanted to do was to find out how it would feel to kiss it. Oh, it wasn’t just his mouth, but his whole face! The hat had slid back to reveal features just as stunning as those below his neck. Straight nose, strong jawline, hint of a five o’clock shadow, dark brown lashes to match his tousled dark hair.

“What question?”

“Do you like what you see?” He had a lazy smile and a deeper voice than she’d imagined.

Lucy pushed herself up from the carpet and stood, futilely trying to brush cat hair from her black pants. Anything to hide her flaming-red face from Buck. “I was just a little shocked to find a strange man handcuffed to my bed, that’s all.”

“You’re hurting my feelings, darlin’.”

Lucy swallowed the acid taste of fear in her mouth and wished she could slink under the bed. She forced herself to look him in the eyes, and found that they were a most intriguing shade of pale gray. “You look quite acceptable.”

“Acceptable?”

“Nice, I mean.”

“Look, hon, I can call the ranch and have them send another guy if I don’t meet your standards—”

“No, that won’t be necessary. I mean, I’m afraid my friend—the woman who arranged for you to be here—she made a bit of an error in judgment.” Her face must have turned the same color as her shirt by now. She cleared her throat in the futile hope that he’d stop staring at her so blatantly.

“What sort of an error in judgment?”

“She assumed I would agree to go on this trip, but…”

He adjusted his shoulder and winced, and she realized he must have been in pain because of the handcuffs.

“Oh, dear, let me get you out of those. Do you have the key?”

“It’s in my right-hand pocket,” he said. “Just reach in there and feel around for it.”

Lucy’s mouth went dry as she caught his meaning. “You mean, in your pants?”

He nodded, a smile playing on his lips.

“I don’t think my hand will fit in there.” She eyeballed the skintight denim and wondered how she’d gotten herself into such a predicament. Claire. She was going to strangle that woman.

“You could unzip them if you think that would help.”

“That won’t be necessary.” She took a deep breath and tried not to think of the things that could possibly go wrong while fishing around in a stranger’s pocket.

What the heck? This is your one chance to stick your hand into a gorgeous man’s pants.

She lurched forward, the toe of her platform sandal catching in the plush carpet, but found her balance just in time. He didn’t seem the least bit uncomfortable as she slid her hand inside his right pocket for the key. It was a tight squeeze, and she had to lean over his torso a little to get her hand at the right angle. Her position forced her to inhale that dreamy scent of his again, and for at least the second time that night she felt certain parts of her anatomy turn tingly and liquid with sensation.

But there was no key.

“Are you sure you put it in your right pocket?” She withdrew her hand and breathed a sigh of relief that she had managed not to bump certain parts of his anatomy.

“Hmm, maybe it was the left pocket.”

Lucy glared at him as she realized that he had possibly sent her fishing in the wrong pocket on purpose, that he was actually enjoying this little game. Okay, so maybe she was enjoying it, too. Just a little.

Bracing her knees on the bed, she leaned further across his torso and started to slide her hand into the left pocket, but that was when she noticed that the sizeable bulge she’d been admiring a few minutes earlier was situated on that side. Her hand froze and she became all too aware of her compromised position leaning over him, at least four inches of her bare waist exposed by the short top.

She said a silent thank-you to the genius who’d invented fat-free yogurt. At least she could rest assured there were no unsightly rolls hanging over her too-tight pants. That is, if Buck were even interested enough to notice, which she doubted.

The quicker she found the key, the quicker she could put a comfortable distance between them, so as she swallowed her fear, she plunged her hand the rest of the way into his pocket and luckily felt the edge of something hard and metal rather than that other something she was trying to avoid. She caught it between her fingers and pulled it out.

“Is this it?” She held it up for him to see, but what surprised her was that she had caught him staring at that little slit of exposed skin at her waist.

“Mmm-hmm.” His gaze held a glint of teasing and she knew then that he’d only been looking because he could—just like any man would—and not out of any particular sense of admiration.

Her hands shook as she inserted the key into the lock on the handcuffs and turned it, releasing Buck from his restraints. He pushed himself up, letting out a sigh of relief as he lowered his arms and rubbed his wrists where the cuffs had been. Lucy watched him, but instead of feeling relieved that there was no longer a cowboy handcuffed to her bed, she felt a new sense of vulnerability. He was a stranger in her bedroom, and now he was no longer restrained.

He must have spotted the uneasiness in her eyes, because he said, “Don’t worry, darlin’. This is my job—I don’t go around preying on women.”

“So what exactly is it that you do besides get handcuffed to strange women’s beds?”

“I work for the ranch, doing various jobs. I normally don’t come to guests’ homes and handcuff myself to their beds, but your friend must like you a lot, because she made special arrangements.”

“My friend’s a little eccentric.”

“Weren’t you about to tell me about her error in judgment?”

Right, she had been, but now as she stared at Buck’s glorious abdominal muscles, she couldn’t remember what error in judgment she’d been about to point out. He was just so…hot.

Lucy imagined he got more than his share of women at the ranch. In fact, they probably threw themselves at him left and right. Women went to places like that to let loose, to get wild, and to forget about their boring everyday lives. He must have thought Lucy was one of those women looking for a good time, and the idea shocked her. After a moment, though, the idea didn’t seem so strange. Why couldn’t she be?

Why couldn’t Lucinda Jane Connors, boringly normal travel agent, let loose and have a wild, unforgettable time? That’s what Claire wanted her to do. Maybe that was even what Lucy really wanted to do.

As Buck rose from the bed and retrieved his white Stetson, settling it on his head of dark brown curls, Lucy realized that this was what she wanted herself to do—to go to the Fantasy Ranch and do things she’d never done before, be a party girl, drink too much and stay in the sun too long, eat sinful foods and flirt with sinful men. And maybe find a man—perhaps even one who looked like Buck—with whom to have a wild, lustful one-night stand that she’d never forget. Then Claire would never again have reason to call her boring. More important, Lucy would never again think of herself as boring.

“Something wrong?”

“Huh?”

“You looked like you were in a trance there for a minute.” Buck had produced a black T-shirt from somewhere and removed his hat again to slide the shirt on. Lucy allowed herself to admire the bronze contours of his torso as he lifted his arms over his head, but she averted her gaze before he could catch her staring.

“I was just thinking about what I have to do before I can leave,” she lied. “I wasn’t expecting you to be here, and I didn’t plan to leave until tomorrow.”

“Your friend told me to tell you she asked your neighbor to feed the cats, so you don’t need to worry about them.”

“I haven’t packed yet.”

“She took care of that for you.” He nodded at the suitcase across the room.

“Yes, but Claire tends to be forgetful.”

“She told me you might try to repack, and I have strict orders to make sure you just take that bag and come with me. I’m supposed to remind you about ‘your possible future with cats.”’

Lucy opened her mouth to argue but then thought better of it. What about this daring new woman she wanted to become? She couldn’t very well become her wearing khaki trousers and penny loafers.

“Everything you need is in the bag.”

“Well, I just need to grab my vitamins out of the kitchen, and then I’ll be ready to go.”

“Vitamins?”

“I know Claire wouldn’t have thought to pack them,” she said, heading into the hallway. She stopped in her tracks. She had to learn to think like a wild and crazy party girl. This new and improved Lucy probably wouldn’t worry about Vitamin C deficiency or osteoporosis. She resisted the urge to grab her dietary supplements, reassuring herself that after the week was up, she could always start taking them again if she didn’t like her new reckless self.

“Did you get them?”

Buck appeared beside her in the hallway, the black suitcase in his left hand.

“I decided I won’t need them. But let me just check to make sure Romeo and Juliet have enough food and water to last until my neighbor stops by.”

After she’d given the cats several extra bowls of food and water, she joined Buck in the living room where he was inspecting the photos on her mantel with a keen interest.

“I’m ready,” she announced, realizing too late that the Lucy in those photos looked a lot more conservative than she did standing there in her groupie getup.

“Is this you?” he asked, pointing to the photo in which she stood next to a Christmas tree with Claire. In the picture, Lucy was wearing a long burgundy-and-green-plaid wool skirt and a baggy turtleneck sweater. She’d been having a particularly bad hair day and little sprigs of curly hair had escaped from her bun to poke out all around her face. She looked horribly dull, she realized as she saw the picture through Buck’s eyes, but it was one of her best photos. She’d never been very photogenic.

He was still waiting for a response.

“Um, yes, that’s me. Bad hair day.”

“It’s a nice picture.”

Lucy watched for him to make a face or to otherwise indicate his sarcasm, but no, he seemed serious about the compliment. Perhaps he was a bimbo stud with exceedingly good manners.

Romeo marched into the living room and gave Lucy a belligerent look. He knew what a packed suitcase and three bowls of food meant—that his Slave Human was leaving him—and he didn’t like it one bit. He let out a mournful meow, prompting her to bend to rub his back one last time before leaving.

“Sorry, but you have Juliet to keep you company. I’ll be back real soon.”

Buck made a move toward the cat and Romeo slipped underneath the nearest chair, eyeing the stranger with derision.

“Oh, you cowardly cat. Be a nice boy and say goodbye to Buck.”

“Buck? Who’s Buck?”

Lucy looked up at him, her head beginning to spin. “Aren’t you Buck?”

He frowned and shook his head. “My name is Judd. Judd Walker.”

2

IT TOOK JUDD A MINUTE to figure out who Lucy was talking about. And then he remembered—Buck Samson. He was the ranch’s most popular employee with the female guests. Claire Elliot had apparently heard about him through word of mouth and called to request that Buck himself pick up Lucy and escort her to the ranch.

Judd’s older brother Mason was the owner of the Fantasy Ranch, and in the past three months he’d been experiencing what he believed were elements of a plot to ruin his business. With the busy last weekend of summer coming up, when much of the ranch’s return business was decided, Mason was anxious to ensure no disasters occurred like the ones the ranch had already experienced—tainted food at the restaurant, theft, unpleasant deliveries made to guests’ rooms—and that was where Judd came in.

Mason had reason to believe that Sunny Horizons Travel Agency might be involved in the sabotage, through its connection with his vengeful ex-girlfriend. Right now he was at the height of paranoia and trusted no one, including his star employee Buck, so he’d hired Judd as his private investigator and sent him on his way to find out what he could about Lucy Connors.

So here he was in the most ridiculous undercover operation he’d ever conducted, dressed like an idiot in this sleazy cowboy getup.

“I’m Buck’s replacement,” he explained. “He couldn’t make it to be your escort, so the owner sent me instead. Is that okay?”

She still looked confused. “It’s just that Claire said your name would be Buck.”

“I forgot to tell her I was replacing him. The subject of my name never came up when she let me into the apartment.”

“Oh.” She took a step back, obviously not thrilled to find a total stranger whose name was not Buck in her apartment.

He could understand her reluctance. “Why don’t you call the ranch and speak to the owner, Mason Walker. He can confirm for you that I am indeed your escort and that I don’t bite—” he forced himself to add in typical Fantasy Ranch style “—unless you want me to.” He realized too late that his little act didn’t help the situation, so he set down the suitcase and reached for his wallet to retrieve his brother’s business card.

Lucy stared at it for a moment and then looked up at him. “Walker? Isn’t that your last name, too?”

“Mason’s my brother.”

“Oh. Well, if you don’t mind holding on a minute, I think I will call, just to be safe.” She eyed him warily, and he began to feel as if he had fangs.

“Why don’t I wait outside?” he offered, hoping that might help her relax.

“No, that’s not necessary. It’s not like I haven’t already been alone with you all this time.”

She sat on the sofa and dialed the number to the ranch.

Judd occupied himself looking at her photos again. Why couldn’t this in-person Lucy be more like the conservative Lucy in the picture? That was the kind of woman he needed to spend a week with, not an obvious seductress. It was almost impossible to tell if the real-life woman and the woman in the photo were one and the same.

If he had to spend an entire week keeping an eye on Lucy, he was in big trouble. The promise he’d made to himself only a month ago would be out the window in no time flat if she kept looking at him the way she did, with those satin brown eyes of hers. He had a thing for brown eyes. A bad, bad thing. But why couldn’t he run into nice, respectable women with irresistible brown eyes and made-for-sin bodies?

Instead he attracted sex kittens. He’d already promised himself—no more wild women. They’d brought him nothing but trouble in the first thirty years of his life, and now that he was ready to settle down, he needed someone steady, respectable, and maybe even a little bit boring.

Lucy Connors, with her natural beauty, lush pink lips, wild bedroom hair and slim little waist that begged to be gripped, was definitely not boring. And in her presence he was already forgetting that he was supposed to be conducting an investigation.

He’d had enough of red-hot lust and crash-and-burn passion. He’d been scalded one too many times. He’d nearly lost himself to women like Lucy.

Judd winced at the memory of his most notable disaster—the woman who’d cost him his career in the police force. It had been his own fault for hopping into bed with a near stranger, for letting passion rule his decision-making. He should have guessed she might have been involved with one of his co-workers by her very presence at the party full of cops where they had met, but he’d never imagined she was his own boss’s girlfriend.

He had put that mistake behind him and was now well on his way to respectability. The last thing he needed was to be led back into temptation by a woman who could addle his brain with her beauty and turn him back into a man ruled by his sexual urges.

But he’d promised Mason.

He made a mental note to himself to kick Mason’s ass at the soonest possible opportunity. Just like when they were kids, his brother could still get him in trouble. Only this time Judd had walked into it with his eyes wide open. He never would have agreed to the investigation if his older brother hadn’t sounded as though he needed the favor so desperately. Judd hadn’t seen any way to say no.

“You’ll have the perfect opportunity to keep an eye on her,” Mason had said. “Just pretend that maybe you’re attracted to her on your off hours and she’ll be putty in your hands.” Mason had given him the same pleading look he’d used when they were kids to get Judd to tell their mother it had been him who’d broken two plates from the china collection.

Lucy’s voice interrupted his thoughts and snapped him back to the present. “Okay, thank you very much, Mr. Walker. Goodbye.” She hung up the phone and offered Judd a crooked smile. “Your story checks out, so I guess we can go.”

Judd took a deep breath and smiled at the woman that was sure to be his undoing.

NOW THAT SHE HAD A GOOD view of Judd’s face, Lucy couldn’t stop staring. He was handsome the way banana splits were delicious—decadently so, with a little too much of the good stuff. Too much beauty for one man to contain, yet he managed it somehow. Remarkably, those silvery gray eyes, that nose a plastic surgeon would be proud of, those soap-opera-hunk cheekbones, and that outrageously lush mouth all combined to make a face that was gorgeous in an unmistakably masculine way.

Lucy melted a little every time she looked at him. And that was only in the beginning. After those early moments in his presence, the full weight of the situation began to sink in…And sink in some more, bringing with it a schoolgirl giddiness that threatened to undermine her sex-kitten wannabe disguise. How could she be a cool seductress as she constantly resisted the urge to blush and giggle?

She couldn’t, at least not without a little help. Her plan became clear when Judd showed her to the rear passenger seat of the sport utility vehicle and offered her the complimentary bottle of champagne and box of overpriced chocolates. She’d succeed with the assistance of alcohol.

Although the rear seat had the advantage of proximity to the vehicle’s built-in bar, Lucy smiled with as much confidence as she could muster and said, “How ’bout I sit up front…and keep you company.”

Judd nodded one time. “Whatever you like.”

She plucked the already-opened bottle and a plastic glass from his hand, eyeballing the box of chocolates he also offered with apprehension. Boring Lucy would never succumb to the wanton calorie binge that gold foil box of sin represented, but she had the feeling Wild-and-Crazy Lucy would relish every bite without thinking twice about the health consequences. It had been so long since she’d eaten real chocolates, she could barely remember their flavor.

“I’d better take those, too. Champagne makes me hungry.” She took the box with her free hand and tucked it under her arm before climbing into the front seat.

A little alcohol-induced courage was just what she needed to get the vacation started right, Lucy told herself as she promptly filled and emptied the champagne flute twice. Since they hadn’t even started moving yet, she was thankful when Judd climbed into the driver’s seat and studiously ignored the suddenly emptier champagne bottle that sat in the little cooler between their seats.

“Ready to go?” His gaze stopped for a moment at her shoulder, and she imagined he was checking to make sure she was buckled in, an act she found incongruously charming.

He’s doing it for insurance purposes, the librarian voice in her head pointed out.

“Ready and willing,” she blurted, feeling her face heat up.

Okay, so she needed a little more champagne. Problem was, she had no idea how many glasses would produce the desired confidence without bringing with it the stumbling drunkenness she hoped to avoid. Too bad alcoholic beverages didn’t come with recommended dosages like prescription medications. For increased confidence, take three eight-ounce servings every four to six hours.

But they didn’t, so she realized her plan had a big chance of backfiring. Especially since she normally didn’t drink. Lucy had heard all about Claire’s drunken escapades, though, so she knew it was an accepted thing for party girls to drink a little too much champagne now and again. If things got out of hand, she could always explain it away later as her way of getting rid of the stress of the workweek.

As Judd pulled out of her apartment building’s parking lot, Lucy downed her third glass, and a few minutes later she was wrapped in a fuzzy sense of well-being the likes of which she couldn’t remember. It occurred to her as she peered at her tantalizing driver from across the darkened cab that her plan needed another step to be complete.

Seduce Judd Walker. What the heck. If she could pick any birthday present in the world, at that moment he was what she most wanted.

She wanted to touch him, to taste him, to feel their limbs tangled together in bed. She wanted to make love to him all night, then wake up and do it again in the morning. It was the most outrageous idea she’d ever had. And possibly the most brilliant.

She opened the box of chocolates, picked one out, and took a big, sinful bite.

JUDD DIDN’T HAVE REASON yet to suspect Lucy was anything but a woman taking a vacation. He realized with a little pang of guilt that he’d already let his attraction to her cloud his reasoning. He didn’t want her to be guilty of anything clandestine.

Before calling in Judd to investigate, Mason had figured out on his own that all the sabotage so far had taken place while employees of the Sunny Horizons Travel Agency, where Lucy worked, were staying at the ranch. And he’d made that connection because the travel agency was owned by the same corporation that owned the resort’s biggest competitor, the Oasis Spa and Resort, also the same corporation run by Mason’s slightly psycho ex-girlfriend.

It sounded more than a little far-fetched to Judd, but he had to agree with his brother that it was all they had to go on so far.

Judd peered over at Lucy for a moment, wondering if she’d had enough to drink yet to get loose-lipped and slip him some helpful information. “You enjoy being a travel agent?”

“How did you know what kind of work I do?”

“I did my homework, checked out your guest bio. Said you’re celebrating your birthday, right?”

“Right. What’s there to celebrate? Getting another year closer to death?”

“Gee, you look like you’re all of what? Twenty-four, twenty-five years old? I’d say you better invest in a burial plot now before it’s too late.”

She laughed softly. “You get paid to say nice things like that.”

“So how old are you?”

“Twenty-nine, as of tomorrow.”

“Why the bad attitude?” He heard the sound of more champagne being poured into her glass. “I’m almost thirty-one, and trust me, it’s not as bad as it sounds.”

“This is sort of a forced celebration. I wasn’t planning to go on the trip, even after I found you handcuffed to my headboard.”

He hadn’t been a tempting-enough invitation? Judd considered that his first impression of her as a wild party girl might not have been totally accurate. Some of the facts formed a different picture—Lucy’s sedately decorated apartment, her worry over whether to pack vitamins, her affection for her two overweight cats. The contrasts formed a puzzle he could hardly wait to solve.

“Your friend Claire’s the enforcer?”

“Yep.”

“What made you change your mind and come with me?”

She was silent for several moments, and he began to think she wasn’t going to answer, but then she said with a little laugh, “The cats. Definitely the cats.”

“I guarantee you won’t regret coming.” What the hell did he say that for? He made it sound as if he personally was going to ensure that she had a great time.

“How did you get involved in this field?” she asked.

“This field?”

“I mean, did you set out to work at a resort?”

“No, I just sort of stumbled on the job. Mason offered it, and I accepted.”

She probably thought he was an air-headed male bimbo using his body to get by in life. He wasn’t sure why that bothered him so much, but it did. He’d worked hard to make his private investigation business a success and was a damn good cop before that. Whatever he accomplished in life, he didn’t want to do it relying on his looks.

Judd took a mental inventory of all the ridiculous things Mason had told him would be part of his “duties.” To be able to watch Lucy in a variety of settings, his brother had given him the job of fill-in, which meant he went wherever help was needed, or more accurately, wherever Mason decided he would be needed at the moment.

Mostly, he was supposed to hover nearby in the guise of making sure Lucy was happy, watching her for clues of her involvement in a plot to ruin the ranch. During the times when she wanted to be left to herself, he had to keep up the facade of being a regular employee by performing a few of the other duties. Duties he’d hotly protested, such as leading karaoke, making sure the nightclub stayed hopping at all hours of the night and joining in the “wet boxers” contest when there weren’t enough entrants…Judd gripped the leather steering wheel tighter as his temper flared.

When Mason had bought a failing resort and claimed he’d wanted to turn it into an adults-only playground, Judd thought it was a stupid idea. But his brother was confident that the Fantasy Ranch would be a sure moneymaker, and he’d been right. Judd still couldn’t understand the appeal of the place, especially not when things got out of hand as often as they did. Mason, however, thrived on the constant challenge.

It quickly became clear that Lucy wasn’t much of a drinker. The champagne had gone straight to her head, and now when she spoke, her words slurred together slightly. When he’d glanced over at her a few minutes earlier, she’d been listing to the right in her seat, as if they were going around a sharp curve, but the road was dead straight. Judd was about to ask her if she’d had enough to drink when a low, soft moan came from her side of the Suburban. And another moan, this time louder.

His body responded primitively, and he shifted in his seat, afraid to look over to see what exactly was the cause of the moaning.

“This is incredible,” she said, a little breathless.

Judd took a quick mental inventory. The leather seats? They were comfortable, but not moan-worthy. The scenery? It was pitch-black outside. Must have been the champagne then. But why the delayed reaction?

And then he caught the scent of chocolate in the air. She’d tried another one, and as he glanced over, he saw her head tilt back and her eyes close in silent rapture. She had a streak of chocolate on her lower lip.

“You’re a big chocolate fan, huh?”

“I am now.” She bit into another truffle and groaned deep in her throat.

“Something special about those chocolates?”

“It’s just that,” she said with her mouth full, pausing to swallow, “I really never eat chocolate. So many empty calories, such high fat content—”

“So you’re one of those health fanatics?”

“I’m not a fanatic, I just believe in proper nutrition.”

“Even on vacation?”

“Mmm, raspberry,” she moaned, ignoring his question. “Oh, this is so good, why can’t carrots come with raspberry filling? Want to try one?”

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“Hmm?”

“Never mind.” He shook his head, smiling in spite of himself.

She must have finished the box, because a few moments later Judd heard it hit the floor with a soft thud.

“You know, chocolate, I think, is like sex for a woman, only better.”

Judd raised an eyebrow. “This from a woman who claims never to eat chocolate?”

“Hey, I just ate a whole box of the stuff, didn’t I? Besides, I have friends who eat it all the time, and I see what it does for them.”

“And what is that, exactly?”

She emitted an inexplicable gush of giggles. Once she recovered, she said, “It’s pure pleasure without the frustration. Like getting an orgasm every time. No worry about whether he’s going to be too fast, or too distracted, or too self-absorbed…”

“I think you’ve had a little too much to drink. And you’ve definitely been meeting the wrong kind of guys.”

She succumbed to another giggling fit, and Judd took note of her laughter. It sounded…nice. Not at all the throaty seductress laugh he’d imagine her having.

“I have, haven’t I?”

He decided not to ask if she was agreeing to one of his statements or both.

“I bet you get a lot of crazy drunks at the ranch.” She pushed herself up in her seat and deposited an empty champagne flute in the nearest cup holder. “That must make your job more interesting—or difficult.”

Judd had heard his brother’s stories of the guests’ antics, some of which were legendary. “Well, there was the time a woman somehow managed to get her head stuck between the legs of the cowboy statue in the cactus garden. She was, um, not wearing any clothes at the time.”

“Not even underwear?”

“Not even a smile.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, that’s what the firemen said when they got there. And that’s how the cowboy statue came to be known as One-Legged Joe.”

They rode in a silence occasionally broken by Lucy’s drunken giggles as Judd turned off the highway and drove along the road that led to the resort. But around the last bend they were forced to stop in the middle of the road to accommodate a pair of lovers who’d sprawled themselves across it in a sort of From Here to Eternity scene, minus the beach.

“What the—” Lucy muttered.

Judd wasn’t sure if she’d want to know that such occurrences were quite common, so he tapped the horn lightly and waited for the lovers to vacate the road. Instead, they kept kissing as if they hadn’t heard the blare of the horn. Judd tried again. No reaction.

He put the vehicle in park and stepped out, approaching the couple warily in case they mistook him for a willing third party.

“Excuse me.”

They stopped kissing and looked at him as if he’d appeared out of nowhere.

“I need to get past, and I’m sure you’d be more comfortable on one of the ranch’s many king-size beds,” he said with a cheesy, customer-service smile, repeating the response Mason had taught him for any situation in which a couple was getting out of hand in public.

Without responding, the couple looked at one another and giggled, then crawled up off the road and wandered hand in hand toward the desert.

Judd climbed back into the Suburban and gave Lucy an apologetic grin. “I think they’re about to give the coyotes an X-rated show.”

Lucy’s eyes widened for a moment. “Does this sort of thing happen often here?”

The wonder in her voice caught him off guard. “It isn’t called Fantasy Ranch for nothing.”

Before Judd could put the Suburban back into drive, he heard a nervous giggle only a few inches from his ear. He turned to find Lucy leaning toward him, her face next to his, and her bleary gaze focused on his mouth. She let out a little hiccup and Judd caught the scent of champagne and chocolate on her breath.

Her sudden nearness set his nerve endings on alert.

“So I guess with all the crazy stuff that goes on here, you wouldn’t be surprised if I did this.”

And that was when she kissed him.

3

SHE WAS DOOMED before she even began. He tasted like manliness and fire and sin, and his lips—once he got past the initial shock of her planting one on him—were strong, the way she imagined a cowboy’s lips would be. She felt herself melting, spinning, falling, sinking in—and it wasn’t just the alcohol.

His five o’clock shadow created a friction on her upper lip and chin, and she could imagine that she still smelled the dust of the trail on him as she inhaled. She was finally kissing a cowboy. It was the best kiss she’d ever had.

Drunken bliss only lasted a few seconds, though.

He may have responded with his mouth, but he didn’t touch her with his hands, and after a moment she got the vague feeling that she was behaving like a complete jerk. She pulled away. Averted her eyes. Stared intently at an air-conditioning vent. Her head swirled, but this time she feared it was the alcohol.

A merciful darkness descended.

When she came to, she had no idea how much time had elapsed, but it must not have been long because they’d only made it to the resort parking lot. And Judd must not have been too disturbed by her bad behavior because he was talking to her as if she were just another VIP guest. He was giving her an introductory tour, she guessed. She heard words like “facilities” and “Olympic-size pool” and “fifteen hot tubs,” but her brain was too foggy to follow it all, so she simply wobbled dutifully behind him as he carried her bag along a stone path through the gates of the resort.

They passed cacti and other artfully arranged landscaping, faux rugged wood fences, low-slung Santa Fe-style stucco buildings. Here and there couples wandered through the warm desert night, and Lucy felt a pang of loneliness at being on vacation alone, tipsy from alcohol and having just made an inexcusable pass at her paid escort.

Through the champagne haze, she had one painfully coherent thought—tomorrow was her birthday.

JUDD SPRAWLED ACROSS the bed and eyeballed the cold beer just out of his reach on the nightstand. Nothing like handcuffing himself to a stranger’s bed and impersonating the local Don Juan all night to make him too tired to lift an arm.

The recent memory of a certain champagne-induced kiss spurred him into action. He grabbed the beer and took a deep swig, trying hard not to think about how his body had responded so readily to Lucy’s come-on. Somehow he had to keep his mind on the investigation.

Instead, memories of Lucy kept invading his head. Her lips coaxing him, her chocolate-flavored tongue tempting and teasing him…Damn it if he hadn’t wanted to take her right there in the front seat of the Fantasy Ranch VIP vehicle.

And then there was her oddly awkward, utterly endearing reaction to the kiss. Her eyes the size of full moons, she’d sputtered and stammered an apology, expelled an hysterical string of giggles, and then passed out briefly. By the time Judd had gotten around to her side of the SUV to get her out, she was awake again, barely able to walk with him as he led her to her room. However much she looked like a party girl, she sure didn’t handle her liquor like one.

The contrasts intrigued him. And her kiss had a tempting innocence about it that nearly drove him wild. Stop it! Stop thinking about her.

Judd cursed and dragged himself up off the bed and to the table where he kept his laptop and the files on his investigation—or lack of one. All he had was one sexy-as-hell suspect and no evidence to suggest her guilt, other than her employment at the travel agency.

He booted up the computer and opened the file entitled Sunny Horizons Employees. In it he’d listed all the agents who’d stayed at the Fantasy Ranch since the incidents of sabotage began. With the steep travel agent discounts they received, and the agency’s proximity to the ranch, it wasn’t necessarily unusual that five out of nine agents had visited there in the past three months.

He’d listed each one in order of the dates of their stay at the ranch, along with the lengths of stay and the instances of sabotage that occurred while each was there. It could have been coincidence, because acts of sabotage had been going on pretty steadily, sometimes while Sunny Horizons employees were present and sometimes when they weren’t.

What he had was no evidence. He muttered another curse and took another swig of beer.

Only three of them, Frank Wiley, Rowena Kramer and Darren Ullrich, were there when more than one act of sabotage occurred. Maybe that meant something and maybe it didn’t.

A hunch kept nagging at him. Mason’s theory that this was all tied to Natasha Kendrick, his ex-girlfriend, was beginning to make more and more sense. It was just too convenient that she happened to be the CEO of Sunset Enterprises, and Sunny Horizons Travel was a direct subsidiary of Sunset. Were Lucy and her coworkers acting as Natasha’s pawns? Were they getting paid to help ruin Mason’s business?

Even that theory didn’t explain all the instances of sabotage, though. There was still a big hole in the investigation.

He glared at the computer screen, willing it to produce some answers, willing himself not to think about one particularly cute suspect.

LUCY PREFERRED to sleep in flannel pajamas. In fact, she had a nice pair of gray plaid ones at home in her top dresser drawer. But last night she’d been forced to sleep in nothing but her cotton panties, because Claire had neglected to pack any sleepwear. Sure, there was that black lacy thing that looked more like a Victorian torture device than a woman’s garment, but Lucy was quite sure it had not been designed to be slept in. And besides, she’d been a little too tipsy to work all the snaps and straps on the thing.

Apparently her friend didn’t include pajamas on her list of life’s little necessities.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Claire had filled the suitcase with items Lucy blushed just thinking about—thong underwear, lacy push-up bras, slinky dresses that left nothing to the imagination and, worst of all, a colossal box of condoms. It was just like that evil woman to embarrass Lucy with her warped sense of humor—and it did take a sense of humor to even suggest that Lucinda Jane Connors would ever need a hundred-pack of condoms for a one-week trip.

Lucy smiled at her friend’s packing job in spite of herself. That was what she loved about Claire; they were such opposites. Although Claire was often infuriating, Lucy admired her and wished more than a little bit that she could be so outrageous.

This week was her chance. Her chance to find out what it would be like to ignore her every boring instinct—even do the opposite of what the nagging voice in her head automatically told her to do.

Now she had to force herself not to succumb to the urge to cover herself with the nearest napkin as she sat at the poolside bar in nothing but a shameful little black string bikini and a tight, sheer, black cover-up that covered up nothing at all. This, she reminded herself, is what the new Lucy would choose to wear. But the old Lucy missed her navy-blue one-piece with its low-cut hips and high-cut neckline. It might not have drawn stares from the opposite sex, but at least she could rest assured it would keep all the important parts covered when she took a dive into the pool.

Except, she wouldn’t be diving into the pool with the highlights she’d just had put in her hair this morning at the Fantasy Salon, and not with the forty-dollar makeup job she’d had done to conceal the effects of her hangover. It was her birthday today, and she’d treated herself. Aside from the obvious benefits, Lucy hoped her outward transformation would help provide the impetus for a more significant inner transformation. One not influenced by the effects of too much champagne.

Besides, until this morning, she hadn’t had a clue about hair and makeup, but now she had a vague idea of what styles worked well with her face and what makeup colors went with her own natural coloring. Whether or not she’d be able to reproduce today’s results was another matter entirely.

Xavier, the stylist and makeup artist, had spent two hours turning her into, in his words, “The woman she was meant to be.” Lucy hadn’t recognized the woman staring back at her when she’d looked into the mirror to examine Xavier’s handiwork, but whomever it was had fabulous blond highlights and glossy pink lips that were a lot more voluptuous than Lucy’s could possibly be.

She couldn’t help wondering if Xavier’s skill was what had been eliciting the stares of more than a few men since she’d taken her seat at the bar. It was either that or Claire’s R-rated joke of a bikini.

She heard a commotion on the other side of the bar and looked over to see a gaggle of women surrounding one muscle-bound mountain of a man.

The bartender noticed her interest and leaned on the bar near her to comment, “That’s Buck Samson, you know.”

That was the man Claire had intended to have handcuffed to her bed? Long, chestnut hair, a calendar-model face, a deep suntan, obscene muscle development, skintight T-shirt and jeans, he looked as though he’d just jumped off the stage of a strip club. She much preferred Judd’s natural good looks, and if she’d found the real Buck in her bedroom, she might have actually passed out from the shock. And she definitely never would have agreed to come to the ranch.

The Buck Samson fan club—women of every size, shape and age—followed him to the pool and settled on chairs all around him. Lucy turned to stare, but found several men staring back at her instead of the spectacle created by Buck.

To avoid making contact with any of the resident lounge and pool lizards, she focused her eyes on her drink. But that left her to contemplate the way she’d embarrassed herself last night. She could only hope she wouldn’t run into Judd today, even though part of her was dying to see him again. She could remember every detail of the night before with painful clarity, and the memories became clearer as the morning went on.

For heaven’s sake, she’d kissed him! It was the most outrageous, uncharacteristic, stupid, irresponsible, utterly exciting thing she’d ever done. And now she had her whole birthday to spend regretting it. Well, maybe she didn’t totally regret it, but she mostly did. After all, he hadn’t exactly seen it coming, and while he’d behaved graciously under the circumstances, she could tell he’d been thrown off guard by the kiss.

But there had been sparks. It couldn’t have just been the champagne talking, because she had seen in his eyes that he’d felt it, too. And he’d responded, answering her kiss with a little tentative exploration of his own. She’d been surprised by that, and a little empowered by it.

Mostly, she’d been blown away by it. The kiss, that is. Girls like Lucy didn’t go around kissing guys like Judd, but she wanted to do it again. And again and again and again.

She’d emptied her virgin piña colada and was asking the bartender for another one when Judd appeared at her side, trapping her before she could escape.

“You slipped out early this morning. I’ve been looking for—” He stopped midsentence and gawked at her in a most disturbing manner.

Oh, no, her makeup was melting and turning her face into a bad Picasso. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, it’s just that you’ve changed.”

She blushed under his scrutiny. “Oh, that. I found the salon brochure on my nightstand this morning and got an appointment.”

“I didn’t think you needed any beautifying.” He continued to stare, taking in her hair, her makeup, her too-skimpy swimsuit.

Lucy felt her cheeks redden even more from the compliment and the scrutiny. “You didn’t see the dark circles under my eyes this morning, or that lovely hangover glow I had.”

He grinned. “Well, you look great.”

She took a deep breath and turned to face him fully. “Judd, I need to apologize about last night. I never should have—”

“Don’t say another word. We’ll just pretend it never happened.”

It was the same thing he’d said last night at the door of her hotel room as she’d apologized to him over and over again. But last night she’d been giggling throughout her string of apologies, and this morning she was serious. So was he. As far as she could tell, the kiss really hadn’t bothered him.

Maybe that sort of thing happened to ranch employees all the time. The thought gave her a little queasy feeling, on top of the already queasy feeling she’d been dealing with all morning.

“Listen, I have some time off, and since today’s your first day at the ranch, how about we go exploring?”

“Thanks, but you really don’t need to keep me entertained,” she said, unable to imagine why he’d want to spend the day with her after last night.

And then a thought occurred to her. Could it be that he was accepting her come-on, that he was interested? Her stomach did a flip-flop. Impossible…or was it? If her suspicions were correct, that meant Judd really could be the one!

He could be her wild fling, her one-night stand, the guy with whom she used a couple of those condoms Claire had packed for her. He certainly qualified, with his male-bimbo good looks, his unattached lifestyle on the ranch, and his seeming interest in her. And of course there were those sparks…

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