others, brushed against the soft bristles of
his mustache and she shivered. He kissed the very tip of the finger, then
examined it as if it might have changed. He then kissed the first knuckle,
letting his lips linger.
Callie caught herself
holding her breath but could no more let it out than tell him to stop. His dark
lashes fanned against his cheeks as he continued his attentive pursuit. He
moved up to the next knuckle, kissing gently. She finally let out her breath
before her chest burst open. She’d never been so awakened by something so
trivial as a man kissing her hand. But then, she’d never had a man kiss her
hand, and she certainly had never imagined it to be anything like this!
When Rand finally turned
her hand over and pressed her palm to his hot lips, she closed her eyes to
capture the feeling forever. Before she could stop herself, she sighed, “Oh, Rand.”
With his other hand, he
cradled her face. She leaned into it as his thumb rubbed along the swell of her
bottom lip. As he looked down, he cocked his head to one side.
“Nice shoes. Too bad
they don’t match your dress.”
Callie self-consciously
rubbed her sneakers together. “My feet were hurting. No one could see them
behind the bar.” She searched his eyes. “I’m sorry about your tie,” she
murmured.
“I’ve had worse things
done to me.” Then smiling, he whispered, “But nothing like what Miss Becky will
do if I don’t get out of here.”
She opened her eyes as
he stood up and descended the stairs slowly, his burning eyes never leaving
hers.
Chapter Five
“As I live and breathe,
I thought I’d seen everything, but tonight takes the cake.”
Becky emptied ashtrays
into a tin bucket while Callie and the other girls gathered up glasses. Callie
was too preoccupied with her own disbeliefs to even question Becky’s. But true
to her forthright style, Becky continued the one-way conversation.
“In a horse they call it
loco, in a man they call it love.”
When the other girls
giggled, Callie knew exactly what man Becky referred to.
“I wouldn’t call a walk
and a little kiss love,” Callie remarked as she plunked down a tray of glasses
on the bar.
“If you’d known Rand as long as I have you would. My remarks were half-joking when you came riding into
town with him. I was even surprised when he left the card game to go for a walk
and returned with lipstick smudges and a twinkle in his eye.” Shaking her head
in wonder, “But after that display on the stairs, I’m downright serious. Rand is not the same man who rode into town.”
Callie opened her mouth
to comment, then thought better of it. A question niggling at her since the
showdown between Rand and Tyler seemed more appropriate.
“Becky? That showdown,
does that happen often?”
“Oh, sure. These men get
all caught up in the spirit of the Old West. The testosterone kicks in and they’re
ready to outdo anyone who looks at them cross-eyed. It happens a couple times a
week.”
Callie swiped a damp rag
across a table while Becky straightened some chairs. “So why were you so
shocked when Rand and Tyler did it?”
Becky stopped and
leveled a stare at Callie. “Because it’s not like him. He’s as gentlemanly and
reserved as any man I’ve ever met. He’s never been aggressive.”
“Maybe he had no choice.
I mean, Tyler was pretty adamant about his accusation. Nobody likes to be
called a cheat.”
“No. It was more than
that. Any other time, Rand would have just let it roll off his back and
continued on his way. This was different, as though he had to prove something.”
Her unwavering stare
penetrated Callie’s. She looked down, remembering how he’d kissed the hand she
now stared at.
“So, if they’d had real
guns and Rand hadn’t been so fast he could’ve been killed and it would’ve been
my fault, right?”
Becky went to Callie and
put a comforting arm around her. “Let’s just forget about that little incident
and concentrate on what
Katlin Stack, Russell Barber