Finally he snapped out of it and found the presence of mind to key in to her statement—introducing myself to the new man in town—and followed the direction of her gaze.
He recognized the man in the corner booth. He’d never met the new doctor who had just come on board at the Royalty Hospital, but he’d seen him around. In fact, Dr. Nathan Beldon was the reason Travis specifically requested Ry keep an eye on Carrie.
“I can’t put my finger on it,” Trav had said with a thoughtful frown when he’d first approached Ry, “but there is something about that guy that just doesn’t feel right…he’s a little too slick and way too smarmy for my taste. But for some reason Carrie seems to have her sights set on meeting him.”
Well, Ry thought grimly, he and Trav were of the same mind on that count. Beldon did look smarmy. The idea of Carrie taking up with him didn’t sit right with him, either. It sat so wrong, in fact, that when she took a step in Beldon’s direction, Ry snagged her arm and tugged her back down onto the seat.
“Beldon?” he asked, ignoring her sputtering protest for him to let go of her wrist while trying to convince himself that the coiling sensation in his gut wasn’t an unsolicited curl of jealously. “You want to put the moves on Dr. Beldon?”
She stilled, shot him a considering look, then smiled. It was not a sweet smile. Neither was it innocent.
“Well, I hadn’t thought of it in exactly those terms, but thanks, Ryan. Great idea. I’ll ‘put the moves on him,’ as you so delicately put it. And if I’m lucky, by morning, maybe I won’t be the last twenty-four-year-old virgin in Texas.”
“Ho-kay. That does it.” He knew she wasn’t serious but he could see she was feeling just reckless enough to start something with the doctor she might not be able to finish. And like it or not, he was seeing enough green to know he could easily do something really stupid if this went any further. “You’re going home. You are just not thinking straight tonight.”
He dug into his pocket and tossed some bills on the table to cover their tab and a generous tip for Sheila, their waitress. With a steely grip on her elbow, he hustled her toward the door. Ignoring her outraged squawks of protest, he snagged her red cashmere jacket from the coatrack on the way by and shoved it into her arms.
The little gold bell hanging over the entrance door tinkled as it closed behind them. The fuming Ms. Whelan was still calling Ry names when, with his hand clamped firmly on her nape, he escorted her to her car.
“Go home,” he ordered, opening the driver’s-side door.
“Go to hell!” she snapped with a venomous glare.
He guided her gently but firmly behind the wheel. “Yeah, well, there’s always that possibility. In the meantime, I’ll just follow you to make sure you find your way.”
“Neanderthal throwback,” she fumed, and jerked the door shut with a slam.
“Un-huh.” He leaned down, peered in the window at her fiery red cheeks and tapped his palm on the roof of her car. “No breaking the speed limit, now.”
She stared straight ahead, shifted into gear and laid rubber for a full block.
Ry let out a long breath and thumbed back his Stetson. Then he walked to his sleek black truck and settled behind the wheel.
“Handled that well, didn’t you, chump?” he muttered as he pulled into traffic and put pedal to metal to catch up with her.
Tomorrow he was going to have a talk with Travis. His friend could damn well find someone else to play watchdog to his sister. A eunuch maybe—which he definitely was not. And whoa…did she ever remind him of that fact. Carrie Whelan lit him up like a stick of dynamite sizzling along with a dangerously short fuse. She was a very hot, very spicy, very—did he mention hot?—female who he was supposed to regard as a little sister.
Damn.
He expelled a thick breath. She was not his sister, even though his mom and dad had taken her and Trav in when their parents had been killed in a car accident fourteen years ago. He still carried an image of sad, lost little ten-year-old Carrie crying in his arms. And it still broke his heart when he thought of what she’d suffered. But too often lately he was having a hard time dredging up the gumption to think of her as either that sweet, lost little kid or a surrogate sister.
It had been one thing when she’d been ten and he’d been eighteen. He’d even been on track when he’d reached his early twenties and she was a blossoming sixteen with a mad crush on him. He’d been sensitive to her infatuation and hadn’t minded keeping an eye out for her then—at least, he hadn’t when he was around Royal, which, given college and then his five-year stint on the PRCA rodeo circuit, wasn’t often.
But now…well, now it was a different story. The eye he kept on Carrie Whelan now was far from fraternal—no matter how hard he tried.
Mouth set in a hard line, he followed her onto State Street. Trav would kill him if he so much as suspected Ry was thinking of Carrie in conjunction with beds and scarves and black lace, which, he’d already decided, she would look damn fine in or out of.
He shook the too-vivid picture out of his head and pulled up behind her. When her angry eyes fastened on his in her rearview mirror, he gave her a little, “Hey, how ya doin”’ wave. With typical Carrie sass, she flipped him the friendly finger, ran a yellow light and left him sitting at the intersection waiting for the light to change.
“Damn woman,” he sputtered with a slow shake of his head, but he was grinning when her taillights disappeared in a glut of traffic. “Gonna be the death of me.”
Silky red hair. Lush plump lips. Full firm breasts. Long slim legs. He shifted position and adjusted the fly on his jeans with the heel of his hand—like he had to do damn near every time he saw her lately.
He caught up with her a few blocks later. Five minutes after that he sat at the curb, motor idling and watched her storm out of her car and let herself into her house. Even mad as a hornet, she was a joy to watch move—all swaying hips and swishing silk.
“Death of me,” he repeated under his breath as she slammed her front door behind her and a light flicked on inside. “But what a way to go.”
With a warning to himself to back off—way off—he shifted into gear and headed for the Cattleman’s Club. He needed a drink. A stiff one. And tomorrow he needed to see Trav. He needed to look him square in the eye and remember that the woman who was sparking his explicit sexual fantasies was his best friend’s little sister.
Little virgin sister.
Blood rushed to his face…and to another part of his body it had no place going where Carrie was concerned.
Virgin. He’d suspected, but until she’d made the announcement to the world at large back at the diner, he hadn’t wanted to know. He really hadn’t wanted to know.
His heartbeat hit about 6.9 on the Richter scale at the thought of her innocence and what it would be like to be the first man to make love to her.
He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. Well, it wasn’t going to be him. It wasn’t going to be anybody if Trav, the quintessential overprotective nobody-touches-my-sister-and-lives-to-tell-about-it
