A Creed in Stone Creek - Linda Lael Miller [91]
Melissa’s heart did a thing her granddad Big John would probably have called a twenty-three-skidoo, whatever that was, and she wished she’d bothered with lip gloss and mascara and maybe even a little perfume.
“We’re here to help,” Matt informed all and sundry, in a piping voice. “What are volunteers supposed to do, anyhow?”
Steven chuckled and ruffled the boy’s hair, but he’d locked gazes with Melissa as soon as he came to a stop, and he wasn’t letting go.
“Well,” Melissa fumbled, reminding herself that Steven had graciously offered to help out on the Parade Committee, managed to shift her eyes to Matt’s upturned face, “you could walk where the sheriff’s posse will be riding on the big day. That’ll give us a better sense of—spacing. Between the floats, I mean.”
Steven smiled, well aware, obviously, that she was disconcerted and enjoying the fact. Someone pointed out where the posse went, and Matt ran to the area, earnest and eager.
Before joining him, Steven moved closer to Melissa and gave her a heated once-over, very private.
Her nipples pressed hard against the fabric of her bra, and things warmed and softened inside her.
She blushed.
Steven grinned down at her. “You haven’t forgotten about our date, have you?” he asked.
Melissa bit her lower lip and rummaged up a smile, for the sake of curious onlookers—of which there were many—rather than Steven. “I haven’t forgotten,” she said. Then she looked past his shoulder, pretending to search for someone. “Where’s that drop-dead gorgeous cousin of yours?” she asked, just to take some of the smugness out of the man’s grin.
It didn’t work. Steven Creed looked every bit as cocky as before; maybe even more so. “Brody left yesterday,” he said. “He had to be up in Oregon for a rodeo by tonight.”
“Oh,” Melissa said.
Steven turned, mainly because Matt was calling for him to do his part holding the gap for the sheriff’s posse, but he looked back at her over one shoulder and his smile was so intimate that she felt as naked as any member of the infamous croquet team over at Ashley’s B&B.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“NOW, DON’T GO WEARING a three-piece suit on your hot date, Boston,” Brody warned, via cell phone, at around four-thirty Saturday afternoon. He’d called, as ordered when he left, to let Steven know he’d gotten to Oregon with no mishaps along the way. “You’re going to a dance with a pretty lady, not arguing a case before the Supreme Court.”
Steven laughed, standing there in his bedroom in Brad O’Ballivan’s tour bus and grimly assessing the limited wardrobe he’d brought along from Denver. Most of his clothes, like the furniture and the lion’s share of his and Matt’s personal belongings, were in storage until the farmhouse was ready to live in. “Point taken,” he said. “What do guys wear to a country dance these days, anyway?”
“Well, that’s a dumb-ass question if I’ve ever heard you ask one—which I have, of course,” Brody responded, his tone jocular. The way he talked, nobody would guess that he’d turned his back on the whole family almost a decade before and cut off all communications except for a once-a-year greeting card. “Wear jeans. Pretty new, if you have them, along with a halfway decent Western shirt and good boots, polished to a shine. You can dispense with the hat—you look like a dude when you wear a hat. Oh, and iron the jeans and the shirt, too.”
Steven pretended to be aggrieved. He and Matt had both missed Brody since he hit the road. “Are you through?”
Brody chuckled. “OK,” he conceded, “you looked all right in a real hat, back when you were rodeoing and punching cattle, but don’t try to get away with anything fancy, because it won’t work.”
“Got it,” Steven said. Then he asked if Brody had signed up for his events yet, and when he thought he might be rolling back through Stone Creek.
During Brody’s visit, they hadn’t discussed the past much. Only a few words about Davis and Kim had passed between them, and they hadn’t talked about Conner at all. Steven felt a prickle of guilt, wondered if he shouldn’t tell Brody