Free Showdown at Lizard Rock by Sandra Chastain Page B

inside the trailer. Feeling embarrassed and vulnerable, she went back inside and gathered her clothes. How in the world had she let herself get in this predicament tonight? she asked herself repeatedly. One more minute on the bed with King and she would have made love with him, not caringwhat happened to Pretty Springs or Lizard Rock or her goals.
    She returned to her tent and huddled miserably in her damp sleeping bag. When sleep finally came, her dreams were vague and sad, as if she’d lost something that she’d never regain.
    At dawn King came back to the trailer. He was exhausted. His boots were covered in mud, and his hair was slicked to his head with rain. Kaylyn was gone. Only the indention of her head on his pillow was evidence that they’d shared a few minutes of gentle, thrilling camaraderie. The pillow smelled of her, a wildflower fragrance. After he showered, he lay down on his stomach and burrowed his head against that fragrance.
    His body’s reaction to her scent was powerful and frustrating—too frustrating. He didn’t need this kind of distraction. He’d never allowed anyone to sway him from his goals before, and last night Kaylyn had nearly done it. He realized with alarm that he’d been a heartbeat away from telling her he’d drop the whole construction project, and she could keep enjoying her beautiful springs and her whimsical notions about their healing powers.
    He suddenly threw the pillow onto the floor. Later that day he had a new tent delivered to Ms. Kaylyn Smith, Humanitarian, Pretty Springs.

Four
    “I don’t know what to think, Sandi,” Kaylyn said to her friend a few days later. “After all that happened—his arrest, Matilda, the storm, the equipment crash, and my sit-in—the man actually sent a new army tent to the springs the next morning.”
    Kaylyn was in the activities room preparing the bulletin board that announced the annual Fourth of July Pretty Springs Founders’ Day Picnic. She should have been focusing on the perennial manpower shortage for the picnic’s crews. All she could think about was King Vandergriff’s black satin bathrobe.
    Sandi Arnold was standing in the doorway, sipping a glass of iced tea as she watched Minnie Rakestraw next door in the therapy room gamely lifting a small weight with her good hand.
    “Not only did he send a tent for me,” Kaylyn went on, “but he had one of his men erect a temporary shelter for Matilda.”
    “The donkey?”
    “Yes. And a supply of hay appeared the day after that.”
    “Well, personally I think any man who shows compassion for a donkey can’t be all bad. Has he said anything?”
    “No. I haven’t … spoken to him since the night of the storm. He comes in very late. But he doesn’t cross the rocks to my side of the camp until after I’m in bed.”
    “Whoa, now. After you’re in bed?” Sandi swallowed hard. Kaylyn could see she was trying not to choke on the liquid that threatened to go down the wrong way. “Want to explain that?”
    “He swims in the springs—every night.”
    “I see. He just walks past your tent every night, and you never say a word.”
    “That’s right. He doesn’t say anything, so why should I?”
    “But you watch.”
    “Yes. I mean, well, he’s swimming right next to the window in my tent. And he splashes around like some great whale in the moonlight.”
    “Great-looking guy, isn’t he?” Sandi said casually, rolling her now empty glass in her hands.
    “I suppose you could say that he’s … attractive,” Kaylyn admitted as she stepped back to survey the finished board.
    “Yes, I suppose. If you call the most gorgeous specimen of manhood to hit this town in the three years I’ve been here ‘attractive,’ he’d qualify. I heard he looks great in red.”
    Kaylyn’s chest constricted, and she tried to conceal a sudden gasp for breath with an obvious cough. “Well, yes. He does have rather interesting taste inclothing.” Obviously Sandi was referring to King’s