A Cowboy's Temptation
“This is paradise,” Marta observed, settling onto one of the towels.
The moon was high in the sky, surrounded by pinpricks of stars. A soft breeze wafted the scent of pine from the hillsides, and the lake water lapped softly against the floater, little more than ripples on the calm surface.
“Can you imagine a freight train chugging past, spewing out diesel smoke and shaking the ground?” Darby pointed to a rise behind the Sierra Hotel building. It would travel the length of the lowest ridge, crossing Wren Road, where it would have to blow its whistle. They’d have to put a bridge across the creek, and the reverberation would carry across the lake for miles.
“What was it like?” Marta asked as she poured herself a glass of wine. “Being in a war zone?”
“I was mostly behind the wire,” said Darby, taking the bottle from Marta and pouring her own glass. She didn’t mind talking about her time overseas. She knew Marta wanted to understand her passion for keeping Sierra Hotel open.
She took a sip of her wine. “It’s the uncertainty that gets to you. No matter how calm things might feel in the moment, at any second all hell can break loose.”
“That’s the problem with the trains.” Marta nodded.
“The women who stay here might have just been in a war zone, maybe even a military firefight, or maybe they’ve chased gang members down the streets of Chicago. I can’t imagine telling them that all will be calm and quiet, well, except for the sudden blasts and clattering from the freight trains. Can you imagine having that wake you up in the middle of the night? They’d be lunging for their firearms. They need a complete break,” Darby ended. “A complete break from the stress.”
Marta held up her glass in a mock toast. “Here’s to defeating the mayor.”
Darby saluted in return, wondering just how difficult that was going to be. “How long have you known him?” she asked.
“All my life. I used to have a crush on his brother, Travis. Most of the girls in my age group had a crush on one or the other. Or on Caleb Terrell, at least until he moved away.”
“I can see it,” Darby allowed. She’d seen both Travis Jacobs and Caleb Terrell around over the past three years.
“Forgetting for a second that Travis and Caleb are both married,” Marta continued. “Which one do you find attractive?”
“Of the two of them?” It seemed like an odd, theoretical question.
“Of the three of them,” Marta clarified.
“You’re asking if I’m attracted to Seth?”
Marta grinned. “I’m trying to figure out your type.”
“Seth’s more my type than the other two.” Darby didn’t see much point in denying it. She’d trusted Marta with her secrets for a long time now. “I mean, they’re all good-looking, but I guess I like the take-charge type, smart, committed, take-no-prisoners.” She gave a little self-deprecating laugh. “Even if those prisoners are me.”
Then she paused. “You know it occurs to me that I might not find him quite as sexy if he backed down. Do you suppose that’s a terrible character flaw?”
“You find him sexy?”
Darby rubbed a fingertip along the rim of her wineglass. “I’m afraid I do.”
Marta looked calculating again.
“What?” Darby prompted.
“I’m wondering if we can use that to help our cause. Any chance he reciprocates?”
“He was a little flirty the night of the barn raising. And again at the fair, there might have been a little something. But I have a feeling that was more of an automatic response to the fact that I’m female. I bet he flirts with everyone.”
“I don’t think so,” Marta countered. “I’ve seen him with lots of women. He’s quite circumspect.”
“Hmmm.” Darby let her mind go back over the memory. She knew she shouldn’t care whether or not he found her attractive, but her ego kind of liked the idea.
“It’s another option. Maybe you could flirt your way to a referendum.”
“I think you’re being ridiculously optimistic. But I have to admit, I did think about it.”
“It couldn’t hurt to try,” Marta reasoned. “If the petition fails, maybe you could cloud his judgment with lust.”
“Would you ever try something like that?” It didn’t seem particularly noble, but Darby had no doubt it would work for some women.
“Sure,” said Marta. “Depending on the circumstances, if the stakes were high enough.”
“How high?”
“If somebody’s life was on the line. Or if a thousand lives were on the line. How could you live with yourself if you didn’t?” She grimaced.
“Alas, in this case, no lives are on the line.”
“Disappointed?” Marta grinned.
“No.” Darby emphatically shook her head. Well, maybe a little. If somebody’s life were on the line, she’d have a perfectly noble excuse to flirt with Seth.
“Plus, you’d probably have to sleep with him to really make it work.”
“Excuse me?” Darby’s fantasy didn’t extend that far. Well, not really.
“I don’t think you’ve got that in you.”
“Why not?” Darby demanded, before she realized how that would sound out loud.
Marta laughed at her.
“I mean, of course I don’t.” Darby shifted to her stomach, settling more comfortably on her towel. The prone position kept her below the freshening breeze.
“Though,” Marta mused, leaning back on her elbows. “I suppose you could sleep with him recreationally. Do it for fun, and if it helps, it helps.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Darby told both of them.
“I prefer to think of it as practical.”
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
“I am, but not really. If, and only if, you’d be willing to sleep with him, anyway, why not let the chips fall where they may?”
Darby tried to picture it. Unfortunately, she could.
Three
Darby’s petition was printed, bound and sitting on the breakfast table in the mayor’s residence. Seth gazed at it while he sipped his orange juice and wondered about his next move. Some of the names he’d expected, others had surprised him, leading him to make some mental estimates about his chances in a full-on referendum. Would Darby be able to hold this level of support through a secret ballot? Or had they simply signed the petition to make a pretty woman happy?
Lisa appeared in her usual black slacks and dark blazer. She crossed the kitchen to the breakfast nook. There, she took a seat in the streaming sunshine, pouring herself a cup of coffee from the stainless vacuum pot.
“I have good news and bad news,” she opened.
“I’m staring at the bad news already,” Seth said.
“This is ironic,” said Lisa.
“How so?”
She pointed to the petition. “That’s the good news.”
“I love it when you play mind games in the morning.” It took Seth an hour or so for his brain to be firing on all cylinders. But Lisa could hit the mental ground running.
“They don’t have enough signatures.”
Seth sat up straight, shaking some oxygen into his brain cells to make sure he’d heard right. “What?”
“They have five hundred ninety-seven signatures. We’ve double-checked.”
Seth reached for the printout. “They actually lied?”
Darby was gutsier than he’d given her credit for. He found himself chuckling. After her accusing him of cheating, he couldn’t wait to toss this in her face.
“They don’t have the numbers.” Lisa took a satisfied sip of her steaming coffee.
“So that’s it.” Seth’s mood brightened considerably. “We’re good to go. We can implement the permits tomorrow.”
Finally, finally, he was going to accomplish something significant in this job. The hard work, the late nights, the compromises of his family—it was all going to be worth it.
“Not so fast,” said Lisa.
He held his optimism in check. “Why?”
“Mountain Railway called. Well, one of their lawyers called.”
“Don’t tell me they’ve changed their minds.” He tried to keep the fatalistic tone from his voice.
Seth knew the deal wasn’t nailed down until every single piece was in place, formally signed and witnessed. And the recent negative press had been worrying him. He was afraid it would scare off the railway.
“They haven’t changed their minds. During their legal review, they found a problem in a land survey.”
He shifted gears. Problems, he could solve. Well, most of them. At least in the long run. “What did they find?”
“There’s a discrepancy between the survey filed on the property title, and the survey filed in the Lands Office. And, in the case of a discrepancy, the Lands Office copy trumps anything else.”
Seth waited for the bad news.
“Darby Carroll’s land doesn’t sit next to the proposed railroad right-of-way like we thought. The right-of-way crosses her land.”
Frustration washed over him. “You have got to be kidding.”
Darby owned part of the right-of-way? Was the woman his curse?
“I wish I was.”
“By how much?”
“Her land goes over the right-of-way and half a mile past.”
“Half a mile?”
“All the way up to the cliffs.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Seth pushed back his chair. He’d seen the maps a hundred times.
“That’s record keeping in the 1890s.”
Lisa seemed far calmer than Seth felt, and it occurred to him that she might have a plan.
“Okay. Fine. If that’s what it is, that’s what it is. What’s our best path forward?”
“We can ask her to grant an easement.”
Seth scoffed his disbelief.
“I admit, it’s a long shot,” Lisa allowed.
“It’s a no shot,” he corrected. “Darby would laugh us into the next county.”
“As mayor, you can expropriate,” Lisa offered.
He was definitely willing to do that. After all, the woman had lied on her petition. As far as he was concerned, the gloves were off.
“How long will it take to expropriate?”
“If she draws it out?”
Seth set aside his napkin and came to his feet. “Oh, I think we can count on her drawing it out.”
The gloves were coming off on both sides, and he’d be willing to bet she’d give him a run for his money.
“Days for sure,” said Lisa. “Weeks, probably. It depends on the judge.”
“Do we have any control over the judge?”
Lisa drew back, her brows shooting up. “You want to influence the judge?”
“No.” Seth took a couple of paces across the kitchen. He hadn’t realized how that could sound. “Of course I don’t want to influence a judge. But I think it’s fair game to get it in front of the right judge.”
“Oh. Yeah. Maybe. If we time it right.”
“By all means, let’s time it right.” He moved back to the table, swallowing the last of his coffee, figuring he was going to need the caffeine. “Any chance we can subtly slip through an easement request without her noticing?”
Lisa cocked her head. “You mean, hope she doesn’t read the document before she signs it?”
“Good point. Okay, expropriation it is.”
“The sooner we inform her, the sooner the formal process gets underway.”
Seth picked up the petition. “I’ll inform her myself. And while I’m at it, I think I’ll ask her why she falsified a legal document.”
He’d love it if there was a stiff penalty for having filed a bogus petition. If there was, he’d threaten to have her charged with the crime, then offer to let it go if she signed off on the easement.
He wanted to see her unnerved when she found out she was caught, watch her squirm, watch those big, green eyes widen with—
He stopped himself short.
What he really wanted to do was kiss her senseless. And that wasn’t all he wanted to do to her. And his impulse had nothing whatsoever to do with any petition or railroad.
“Boss?” Lisa interrupted.
He shook himself. “What?”
“You faded away there for a minute.”
“I’m plotting my strategy.”
“Just don’t make her mad,” Lisa warned.
“She’s already mad,” he countered.
And then he was thinking about kissing her again, flattening her against a wall and pressing the length of his body against hers, delving into the sweetness of her mouth, making her pant and moan with—
Again, he pulled himself up short. “Cancel everything I have booked for today until you hear from me.”
His number-one priority was Darby. No, that wasn’t right. His number-one priority was the railroad. Darby was an obstacle to the railroad, and he had to get her out of the way.
* * *
Darby was halfway up a stepladder, rolling a coat of Summer Peach on the breakfast alcove wall, when a pounding threatened to cave in her front door. She’d been keeping herself busy all morning, trying to forget about the petition.
“Coming,” she called out, wondering why whoever it was didn’t just let themselves in. Her big foyer served as the lobby of the inn, and people were free to come and go.
She padded down the ladder, set the paint roller in the tray, wiped her hands on a rag and started for the great room.
The pounding came again.
“Come in,” she called out this time, giving the furniture a wide berth in her paint-splattered clothes.
Nobody responded, so she gingerly turned the handle, pulling the door wide, coming face-to-face with Seth.
“Can I help you?” she asked, struggling to banish the guilt she was feeling from their petition subterfuge.
“I sincerely hope so,” he answered, tapping a sheaf of papers against his palm.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what those papers were.
She kept her expression neutral, feigning innocence, inviting him to continue.
“There seems to be a small problem with your paperwork.”
“Oh?”
“Oh?” he parroted, gaze hard and accusing.
“What’s the problem?”
He cocked his head. “Are you really going to play innocent?”
“Innocent of what?”
He moved slightly closer. “You’re a smart woman, Darby. And you know how to rise to a challenge. You don’t have to cheat to get there.”
She recognized her own words from their coffee at the Fall Festival. Okay, now she really felt guilty.
“Are you suggesting we miscounted?”
His eyes glittered with triumph. “Who said anything about the number of signatures being wrong?”
The question tripped her up, and it took her a moment to respond. “What else could it be?” she asked airily.
“About a dozen other things.”
She could feel her face heat. “That seemed the most likely.”
“At least you’re a bad liar.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, of all your many flaws, I don’t have to add consummate liar to the list.”
“What flaws?” she asked before she could catch herself.
Why would she care if Seth thought she had flaws?
“You’re caught, Darby. Own up to it.”
“We may have miscounted,” she admitted. “But that’s hardly a crime.”
“Punishable by a ten-thousand-dollar fine and up to three months in jail.”
It took her a second to realize he was mocking her.
“Ha, ha.”
He shrugged. “That’s what it ought to be.”
“You actually think I deserve jail?”
“It would keep you out of my hair.”
“You just can’t stand the fact that I’m right.”
“You’re not right.”
She went for broke. “Then why does the idea of a petition scare you so much?”
“Do I look remotely frightened?”
She leaned her shoulder against the doorjamb. “If you weren’t afraid of what I could do, you’d have sent somebody else up here to complain about the signature count.”
“Wild speculation on your part.” He braced his hand against the wall, close to her shoulder.
“Why are you here?”
“I don’t need to send a minion to deal with you.”
She wondered again about the plan to flirt with him. Was it crazy? Would it work? Would it put him off his game?
She seemed to be out of other options, so she tossed her hair back and let her gaze go soft. “Exactly how are you planning to deal with me, Seth?”
He blinked.
She added a coquettish smile for good measure.
He inched ever so slightly closer. “You really think that’s going to work?”
“Do I think what’s going to work?”
He leaned closer still. “You can’t flirt your way out of the missing signatures. And what happened to you not flirting back?”
“Who’s flirting back?”
He reached forward, resting his palm on her hip, his intense blue gaze trapping hers. “You’re flirting.”
“In your dreams, cowboy.”
“Perhaps. But right now in real life, too.”
The timbre of his voice made her chest tighten. Her pulse sped up, and a warm flush made her skin tingle.
His tone dropped to a lower rumble. “How far you going to take this?”
Excellent question.
While she struggled to come up with a reasonable answer, he eased forward. She told herself to back off, but for some reason, she didn’t move. She told herself this was a terrible idea, but still, she didn’t move.
He whispered her name in obvious frustration, and then his hot lips came down on hers.
The searing power of his kiss zipped through her nervous system, bringing her entire body to instantaneous life. He wrapped his arm around her, pressing it against her back. The doorjamb dug into her shoulder but she barely felt it. Endorphins and who knew what else had formed a hormone-fueled cocktail that took over her senses. All she felt was Seth.
He didn’t let up. His lips urged hers open, while his tongue teased, and hers answered in kind. Her nipples tightened, and heat flooded her body, making her pliant and malleable.
When his hands moved to her bottom, urging her against his hard body, she came to him willingly. Her arms snaked their way around his neck, and she tilted her head while he deepened their kiss. His fingers then splayed into her hair, and the friction from his hard chest made her nipples tingle with desire.
Color and light swirled through her brain. The world tipped beneath her, and her equilibrium was lost. If not for Seth’s enveloping hug, she might have tumbled to the porch.
Her one small scrap of sanity was no match for the avalanche of passion flooding her body. She had a sudden urge to tear off their clothes and make love right there on the front porch.
He drew back, dragging in breaths, looking as dazed as she felt. “Another minute, and I’ll be swearing it’s six hundred names.”
Another minute and Darby would be sporting a train engineer’s hat.
He dropped his hands and stepped back. “This could get me into a lot of trouble at the office.”
“I’m sorry—” She stopped, not sure exactly what she was sorry about.
He laughed. “For being a great flirt? I’ve got to hand it to you, Darby. I didn’t think you’d go through with a kiss.”
Still feeling slightly unsteady on her feet, she forced out a casual laugh. There was no way she’d let him know how he’d affected her. “I figured it was worth a shot.”
His expression turned serious. “Take another shot, any old time you’d like.”
“We’re getting more signatures,” she told him, ignoring the urge to kiss him again right here and now. “Marta’s out there signing more people up.”
“You can’t do that. The deadline’s passed.”
“There’s nothing in the policy that says all six hundred have to be present at the deadline.”
“That’s the whole point.”
“Maybe,” she allowed. “Maybe not. But if you don’t approve the referendum, I’ll have to meet you in court so we can let a judge decide.”
“Fightin’ words, Ms. Carroll.”
“You have paint on your jacket, Mr. Mayor.”
He followed her gaze to the finger-shaped smears of peach where she’d gripped his sleeves. He blew out a heavy sigh.
“You’re a regular walking disaster.”
She stifled a smile. “I’ll pay for the dry-cleaning.”
He shrugged. “Sadly, the jacket barely registers on my radar today. There’s also a problem with your property survey on file at the Lands Office.”
The sudden change in topic took her by surprise.
“What problem?” She scrambled to figure out his new angle.
“Mountain Railway’s lawyers did some research—”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she interrupted. “You are not going to mess around with my land—”
“I’m not messing around—”
“I don’t care who you are, Seth Jacobs.” She closed the space between them, tapping her index finger against his chest. “I will not be—”
“You own more land than you thought,” Seth all but shouted over her, grasping her paint-smeared hand and dragging it away from him.
“Huh?”
“The mistake is bad for me. I’m not here to cheat. Not that you don’t deserve someone who plays dirty.”
While he spoke, Seth suspiciously checked his shirtfront. “There was a mistake made in the survey record back in 1893. It turns out your land goes across the rail right-of-way. That being the case, we’ll be asking you for an easement.” He stopped talking.
The breeze gusted up from the lake, while songbirds darted from tree to tree.
“Are you saying I own more land?” She struggled to wrap her head around the news.
“Yes. The Lands Office will redraft your plan to match the one on the official file,” Seth said.
“So the train would come across my land?”
“If you grant an easement,” he confirmed.
“I don’t see that happening.”
“Neither do I,” he admitted. “So I’ll expropriate your land.”
“You can’t do that.” If it was her land, she should have a say.
“Yes,” he told her firmly, “I can.”
She believed him. “I’ll fight you.”
Their relationship was about to get more adversarial than ever.
“You can’t fight me on this one. And a petition won’t help.”
“Do you enjoy being the bad guy?” asked Darby.
“I’ve never been the bad guy. And I’m the good guy now. It’s what the people want, Darby. Accept it and move on.”
“A referendum will tell you what the people want.”
He shook his head and drew away, looking every inch in control. “The election already told me that.”
* * *
“What happens if they succeed?” Travis asked Seth from the passenger seat of the mayor’s official car.
“Succeed at what?” Seth asked, needing Travis to narrow the question down. Darby Carroll was uppermost on his mind, but as mayor, he was battling problems on a whole lot of fronts right now.
The two men were driving along the River Road on the way to a Rodeo Association dinner. Seth was at the wheel of his official vehicle, working hard at avoiding potholes.
“Succeed in getting the railway referendum.”
“They didn’t get enough signatures.”
“It might not matter,” said Travis. “Abigail read the bylaw, and Darby isn’t wrong. There’s nothing specifically stopping her from submitting additional signatures after the petition is filed.”
“It’s going in front of Judge Hawthorn.”
“So?”
“So, he grew up in the Valley. Half his family is still in ranching.”
Travis frowned. “You’re not saying what I think you’re saying.”
“I’m saying Judge Hawthorn will give us a straight-up reading of the bylaw and the intent of the bylaw. He’s not going to go looking for esoteric little loopholes to derail progress.”
“He’s honor bound to follow the law.”
Seth splashed the car through a puddle, knowing he’d have to get it washed yet again. “Exactly. I’m counting on that.”
Red and yellow leaves fluttered in bursts from the woods, ticking their way across the windshield. Seth rounded a corner and came to a rolling field where cattle dotted the golden wheatgrass. Snow was gathering on the high, distant peaks, and a chill blew down from the mountains.
He angled the car into the gravel parking lot of the association’s clubhouse, sliding it between a powder-blue pickup and a steel-gray SUV.
“Anything I can do to help?” Travis asked as they exited the car.
“I’m the one who ran for office,” Seth responded, knowing, for better or worse, he was getting what he’d signed up for, and it was his responsibility to deal with the problems.