Forbidden Read Free Page A

won’t dare come upstairs.”
    His deep voice was pure Montana—soft and rich with a slow western drawl.
    “I got you pretty dirty too,” Kayla said. His jeans were soaked and streaked with mud.
    “Nothing a load of laundry and a shower won’t cure.”
    It was more than the color of his eyes that was odd, Kayla thought as she gazed up at him. It was his lack of expression that was so strange. There was a matter-of-fact detachment in his eyes, as if he kept himself carefully distanced from any and everything.
    He seemed particularly distanced from the fact that he was standing in the bathroom, half dressed, while she was in the tub. Of course, she still had her clothes on. But that didn’t make it any less weird. It was oddly, quietly intimate with the candlelight and the wind howling outside. But he seemed not to notice.
    “What were you doing anyway, wandering around out there?” he asked.
    “That’s exactly what I was doing,” she replied. “Wandering. I wanted some fresh air.”
    He almost smiled. “Guess you got some.”
    Kayla did smile at that. “I got way more than I bargained for.”
    Cal gazed down at her, held in place by her smile. It was wide and uninhibited, and it lit up her entire face, making her eyes crinkle at the edges. Something moved deep within him, something that hadn’t stirred in a long, long time.
    “I’m not from around here.” The girl smiled again. “But you probably already guessed that, right?”
    Cal nodded.
    “It’s still summer back east, where I’m from,” she said.
    “It’s still summer here too.”
    “You could’ve fooled me. You and Thor saved me from a cold, miserable night. I owe you both a steak dinner.”
    “Next time, pay attention to the weather before you go out,” Cal told her. He turned away slightly, afraid she might think he was staring at her. Which he had been. Damn, she was pretty.
    “There’s not going to be a next time,” she said melodramatically. “From now on I’m sticking to my car.”
    “You’ll miss a lot that way.” He glanced back at her.
    “Yeah, like freezing to death.” She tipped her head back under the water and rinsed the silt from her hair. “Or trying to impersonate a prairie dog.”
    “That was real smart to do that—to dig into the ground.” Cal watched her sit back up and sweep the water from her hair. He knew he was staring again, but he couldn’t help it. “It probably kept your body temperature from dropping too low.”
    “I remembered that pioneers used to make houses out of sod,” the girl told him. “There was no other shelter out there….” She shrugged and smiled again. “I’m serious about that steak dinner. I’d like to pay you back—you’ve gone to a lot of trouble for me.”
    Her smile was like sunshine. And when Cal opened has mouth to tell her there was no need to repay him for anything, he found himself saying something entirely different.
    “All right.”
    “Tomorrow night?” she asked, gazing up at him with those green eyes. “Say…about seven o’clock?”
    Cal nodded. “Yeah.”
    Sweet Lord, he had a dinner date for tomorrow night. And he was actually looking forward to it. At least, he thought that was what this odd feeling in his gut was. It had been so long since he’d felt anything at all….
    Kayla pulled her gaze away from the cowboy’s. He was going to have dinner with her tomorrow night. It meant nothing, she tried to tell herself. It wasn’t really a date. It was a thank-you in the form of a meal. The fact that something subtle had changed in his eyes wasn’t anything to worry about. She glanced up at him again, and sure enough, the heat in his eyes was still there, making her feel for the briefest of moments as if
she
were the promised meal.
    But he quickly looked away, as if he were too well mannered to let her see his attraction to her. And when he looked back again, his eyes were once more expressionless. His feelings were still there though—he was simply