“And then near the end, I’m just me. Riding and roping.”
“Do you like being a performer?” Unlike most of the gorgeous L.A. population, Sky didn’t fit the let’s-have-lunch, I-want-to-be-a-star mold. But then, how could he? He hated California.
He shrugged. “The horses are the true performers. I just consider myself along for the ride.”
A fast, crazy ride, no doubt.
Windy realized she had allowed the door to fall open while they’d chatted. She stood in full view now. A tousled blonde in a Minnie Mouse nightshirt and bare feet, an unmade bed and carton of half-eaten stir-fry behind her. She sent him a nervous smile. Her room had caught his attention. She could see him scouring it with an amused gaze. Apparently he hadn’t expected mosquito netting and various shades of leopard and zebra prints.
“My room wasn’t vandalized,” she said. “I guess they didn’t get that far.” Thank God. Although she didn’t keep anything particularly valuable in her bedroom, it was her sanctuary, with her bras and panties, scented candles and perfumes.
“I like the jungle motif. Always thought animal prints were sexy.”
“Oh, umm…thanks.” She glanced back at the bed. It did look sexy. Wild and inviting. What a thing for him to notice.
Silence clung to the air like moss. Thick and heady.
When he shifted his stance, his boots scraped the hardwood floor. “Guess I should bring my stuff in. The terrarium won’t fit in my bedroom, though. It’ll have to go in the living room.”
Terrarium, aquarium. Plants, fish. It didn’t matter. She needed to escape. He stood too close, smelled too virile, looked too good. “That’s fine. Good night, Sky.”
“’Night, Pretty Windy.”
Pretty Windy. She closed the door and leaned against it. Another minute and she would have melted into a pool of hot, steaming liquid.
Oh, get over it, she told herself, hating the watery feeling in her legs. Swooning over a man was shallow and immature. She knew better. Dang it. What was it about him that had her behaving like a doe-eyed teenager? The cowboy drawl and long-legged swagger? The shoulder-length hair and sparkling blue eyes? Or was she just caught up in the mystery surrounding him?
Moving toward the bed, Windy fingered the sheets. She knew. Deep down, she knew. Troubled souls fascinated her. And this troubled soul sported dimples and a crooked smile. A dangerous combination for a woman hell-bent on mending fractured lives.
She sighed and climbed under the covers, even though sleep would be a long time coming.
The following morning brought a bright ray of sunshine and a stiff neck. Windy stretched and groaned. What her weary body needed was a long luxurious shower, water therapy. After gathering a fluffy new bath towel and her favorite worn-out terry cloth robe, she stumbled down the hall to the bathroom, noting Sky’s door remained closed.
A pulsating spray from the shower head massaged her shoulders, washing away the tension. She hadn’t slept well. Her “sexy” bed, with its sleek leopard-print quilt, had blanketed her like a jungle cat’s warm, muscular body—a jungle cat with exotic blue eyes.
Struggling to clear her mind, Windy reached for the shampoo, squeezed a large citrus-scented dollop into her hands and lathered her hair. Don’t think about him, she told herself. Don’t think about his lopsided grin or his—
Something brushed her foot. She glanced down. Something long and gray.
A snake!
She froze, praying sleep deprivation had fueled her imagination. But when she glanced down again, it was still there. A huge slithering creature, coiling in the splash of water.
Windy screamed, then jumped, her feet slipping and sliding on the slick white porcelain. Suds stinging her eyes, she climbed out of the tub. Still shrieking in blind panic, she snatched her robe and raced out the door.
In the hallway she fumbled with the robe as her legs turned rubbery. Oh no! Not her robe. A towel. A lousy towel, which of course meant her robe was somewhere in the bathroom. With an enormous snake.
Shivering, Windy wrapped the towel around herself. What if that reptile was a rattler or a man-eating python? She’d heard stories on the news—snakes who’d attempted to eat people, swallowing their limbs whole.
Modesty be damned. She clutched the towel and headed straight for Sky’s room.
Two
“Skyyyy!”
He shot straight up from a deep sleep, blinking and squinting, trying to focus on the frantic woman screaming in his bedroom. Instantly he panicked.
“Is the house on fire?”
“No!” Windy pranced around nervously. “There’s a snake in the bathtub! A snake!”
Relieved, he sighed, then fell back onto the bed, his rapid heartbeat stabilizing. “It’s okay, honey, that’s just Tequila. She won’t hurt you.”
“Tequila?” Her mouth fell open. “You mean that thing is some sort of pet? That horrid, slimy thing?”
Sky sat up, pushed several stray hairs away from his face and evaluated Windy with an irritated frown. Tequila wasn’t a “thing.”
A moment later he found himself amused. There she was, dancing around, dripping water onto the hardwood floor, while struggling to keep the towel on with one hand and wiping shampoo suds off her forehead with the other. He bit down on his bottom lip to suppress laughter and watched her bat away another stream of suds. He almost felt sorry for her. Almost. The woman had insulted Tequila.
“Dang you, Sky,” she shrieked. “I can’t believe you brought a snake into this house. A snake. My God, that thing is as big as me. I could have had a heart attack.”
“I told you last night I was puttin’ her terrarium in the living room.”
“I thought you were talking about a plant terrarium. Or a fish aquarium.” She narrowed her watery eyes. “If I had known you meant a snake…oh…just get that thing out of the bathroom.”
“All right. Calm down, okay?” He slid out of bed and strode past her, reaching for the front tie on his low-riding shorts. What a way to begin the day—his gray sweat shorts nearly falling off his hips while his sexy roommate stood wrapped in a towel.
The bathroom check proved futile. He turned off the water, grabbed Windy’s robe and returned to find her hopping up and down, alternating feet. He withheld a grin. Did she think the snake would bite her toes?
“Tequila’s not in the bathroom. At least not that I could see, but there was a hole in one of the cabinets.” A hole leading to the wall interior, he’d noticed. “I can’t patch it till I find her, though. She might have slipped through it.”
Windy’s sniffling grew louder, warning the threat of tears. “What am I going to do?”
Aw shoot, Sky thought, she was gonna cry. He held out her robe and turned away, even
