about if I keep it now? I hear the espresso bar next door brews a mean latte.”
The same warm, musky scent that had infused a pang of desire into her blood so long ago slid into her lungs. Jackson Colton was attractive, magnetically sexual and she had lost count of how many times she had thought about him since they’d met. Now, as she always did, she reminded herself she was giving far too much importance to a man in whose presence she’d spent so little time.
Yet, tonight fate had brought her to him. She didn’t know why. The answer would come. It always did. Until then, she would not—could not—turn away from him.
“I’d love some coffee.”
“Great.” When he reached and slid the ticket from her grasp, his fingers grazed hers. “I’ll see about getting you a refund.”
“Fine,” she said, struggling to ignore the quick jumpiness in her stomach. “I’ll wait here.”
When he walked away, she closed her eyes and waited for her system to level.
Two
What were the chances, Jackson wondered, that just hours after his being questioned by the police, the one woman would walk back into his life whose testimony could put him behind bars? He had left her and dropped out of sight moments before someone took a shot at his uncle. Cheyenne James had seen him in almost the exact spot where the shooter stood. If she told Law that, the cop would have one more piece of circumstantial evidence against him.
An important piece.
Jackson gazed across the small table they’d settled at in the cozy espresso café that was cluttered with people and thick with noise. He had forgotten nothing about her, he confirmed as he watched Cheyenne sip a latte from an oversize cup. Not the high curve of her cheeks, her softly defined mouth, the dark eyebrows above those arresting brown eyes, or the jet-black hair that tonight was pulled back into a loose braid.
As he sipped his cappuccino, it occurred to him how striking the resemblance was between her and her brother, River.
“Marriage to River has made Sophie happier than I’ve ever seen her. That and motherhood.”
At the reference to her niece, Cheyenne’s smile tipped into a grin that sent heat into Jackson’s stomach and made him wonder if her mouth tasted as passionate as it looked. He didn’t make a habit out of wanting the hell out of a woman the minute he laid eyes on her. Yet, that was the very thing that had happened at his uncle’s party. He felt the same way tonight. He didn’t know exactly why. He had no idea what made Cheyenne James different from any other woman he’d met. He just knew she was.
“Sophie has promised to let me baby-sit soon for Meggie,” Cheyenne said. “I can’t wait.”
“That’s understandable. That kid’s a real charmer. All it took was one of her dimpled smiles, and Meggie had me hooked.”
Laughing, Cheyenne tossed her braid across her shoulder. “You sound like River. He goes around, grinning like an idiot day and night. He’ll have Meggie spoiled rotten before she can even crawl.”
“I don’t blame him.”
Jackson caught the whiff of Cheyenne’s warm scent and thought of the tea roses that bloomed in his aunt’s garden. His gaze dropped to the hand Cheyenne rested on the table beside her cup. Her fingers were long and as wand-thin as the rest of her. Her nails were oval and perfect, with the gleam of clear polish. She had hands made for rings, he thought, but wore none.
“It’s a shame you and I didn’t meet until my Uncle’s party. And that I was out of the country on business when River and Sophie got married. I would have liked to have seen you again.”
Cheyenne arched a brow. “Actually, you and I met years ago, Jackson.”
“We did?”
“Yes. River and I grew up apart. He was nearly sixteen when he came to live on your family’s ranch. That was the same year he and I reunited. Your uncle used to pick me up from the reservation on the weekends and bring me to Hacienda de Alegria so I could spend time with River. You and your sister stayed at the ranch on some of those same weekends.”
Jackson narrowed his eyes. “I have the image of a skinny girl with long legs and a dark ponytail trailing around the stables on River’s heels. That was you?”
“Yes.” Cheyenne tilted her head. “I was about eleven years old when you and I first met. You were in high school. Some of your friends used to come to the ranch to ride horses when you were there. Your taste seemed to run to voluptuous blond cheerleaders.”
Chuckling, Jackson leaned his forearms on the table. After the hours he’d spent in Detective Law’s presence, it was hard to believe someone could make him laugh. “Miss James, are you implying I have a reputation to live down?”
“It depends on if what I heard about you when I got to high school is to be believed.”
“What did you hear?”
“Among other things, that you always dated a handful of girls at the same time. You had a Monday night girl, a Tuesday night girl and so on. One time you got your days confused and showed up at your Tuesday girl’s house on the Wednesday girl’s night.”
“Although I’ll point out all that is hearsay, I’d better plead the fifth,” Jackson countered, resting one of his hands near hers. “With the stipulation that things get blown out of proportion over time.”
But not too much out of proportion, he thought wryly. He’d learned early not to take relationships seriously. After experiencing firsthand his parents’ farce of a marriage, then watching his aunt and uncle’s relationship slowly disintegrate, he’d resolved to never bring that kind of misery down on his own head. Even in high school he’d made a point to get involved only with females who knew how to laugh and to love without undercurrents. Whatever emotions came into play in those associations only skimmed the surface. That was the way he’d always wanted things. Nothing had happened over the years to change his thinking.
Until now. Now, he found himself incomprehensibly drawn to a woman who seemed to hold some underlying mystique for him.
Although that knowledge sent a stab of unease through him, Jackson pushed it back. Those moments he’d spent with Cheyenne at his uncle’s party had played in his mind too often for him to shrug off her having walked back into his life.
“I’m remembering something else about that skinny little girl who followed her brother around like a shadow.”
“That she was desperately shy?”
“That, and she read palms.” He creased his brow in thought, trying to bring back the long-ago memory. “Or maybe it was minds?”
The words were barely out of his mouth when her eyes went cool and remote. Her chin angled like a sword. “I don’t do either.”
“My mistake.” He’d hit a nerve. Which nerve, Jackson had no idea. All he knew was that it was a sensitive one. Judging from the absolute stillness about her, he knew it would be wise to change the subject.
“You said my Uncle Joe used to pick you up at the reservation. Do you
