“Don’t pretend you’re not thinking the same thing, because I can see it in your face.”

  “Who, me? All I’m thinking about is getting your Jeep out of a ditch.”

  “Then the prospect of doing that must really turn you on, cowboy.”

  “I’m not a—”

  “Can you ride a horse?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you respect women?”

  His gray eyes twinkled. “Yes.”

  “Are you kind to old people, kids and animals?”

  “Yes.” He began to laugh.

  “I’ve watched hundreds of cowboy movies with my dad, and you just passed the test. Plus you look great in those clothes, so I now pronounce you a cowboy.”

  “If you say so. Now let’s go see about your Jeep.”

  “Oh, that’s the other thing. You rescue damsels in distress. Can’t forget that.”

  “Nope.” He held the door for her. “I’m not likely to forget it, either. That was the first time I got my hands on you. Here. Let me carry those for you.” He took her totes just as music started coming from one of them.

  “Let me keep that one. My dad’s calling.”

  “I should have known when I heard the theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”

  “Oh, yeah. He loves those old Clint Eastwood spaghetti Westerns. Excuse me a minute.” Pausing in the gravel driveway, she answered her phone.

  “Hey, Livy. Thought you might be home by now.”

  “Not quite, Dad.” She usually spent a couple of hours with him on Sunday playing chess, but she’d warned him she wasn’t sure how this Sunday would turn out. Boy, had that been on the money. “Do you need anything?”

  “Just wondered if we’d get in that chess game.”

  “Um, let me give you a call when I get home. I’ve been invited to come back here for dinner, so I’m not sure how much extra time I’ll have.”

  “Oh, that’s okay, Livy. We can skip it.”

  “Maybe we can schedule it for tomorrow instead.”

  “If you have time, but don’t worry if it doesn’t work out.” He sounded cheerful, as he always did. She’d never seen her father in a bad mood.

  “I’ll call you when I get home, Dad. Bye for now. Love you.”

  “Love you, too, sweetheart.”

  She disconnected the phone and glanced up to discover Wyatt watching her, and the gleam of desire in his eyes had been replaced by something more poignant. He seemed almost…wistful. “My dad and I usually play chess on Sundays for a few hours,” she said. “He just wondered if the game was on or off.”

  Wyatt perked up. “So you play chess?”

  “I do. You?”

  “I’ve been known to. Maybe we should play sometime.”

  She smiled, recognizing immediately that he was into it. “I warn you, I’ve been taught to play by a guy who tests out at the genius level on a standard IQ test. But if you’re ready to be beat, I’ll happily take you on.”

  “Okay. And just so you know, I can lose to a woman without whimpering.”

  “Good to hear, because I hate that. Whimpering puts a real damper on my sex drive. Maybe we could take a chess set when we go on that camping trip.”

  “I’ll plan on it.”

  “Great.” But her mind was no longer on chess. From the moment her dad had called she’d been mulling over a somewhat radical idea. She liked Wyatt. Really liked him. What if he turned out to be like the others she’d thought were nice until they made fun of her dad?

  The closer she and Wyatt became, the more she’d worry about that. But not if she took action now. True, she’d risk ending something that had been great so far, but if she didn’t take this step she’d risk future disillusionment and heartache. It was a no-brainer.

  But she’d have to sound übercasual about it. “After we get my Jeep out, how would you like to follow me home and see my house?”

  “Great.”

  “I probably should stop by my dad’s, too, and see if he’s low on groceries. I usually check that out when I’m there on Sundays. You can come along, if you want.”

  “Uh, okay.”

  She noted he sounded less enthusiastic about that part. “No big deal.” She laughed. “It’s not like I’m officially taking you to meet him or anything. It’s just that I’d like to spend time with you this afternoon, but I should probably at least poke my head in and check out his food situation. You could always wait for me at my house, I guess.”

  “No, no, I’ll go with you.” He was making a valiant attempt to cover his reluctance.

  She gave him points for that. Her suggestion obviously had taken him by surprise, but he was rolling with it. The more she thought about this plan, the better she liked it.

  Her dad was…different, and people couldn’t seem to resist commenting on his eccentricities. She could tolerate it when the comments came from casual acquaintances, but not from a guy she had feelings for. Much as she was resistant to admit it, she was beginning to have feelings for Wyatt.

  She thought about warning him that most likely the house would be a mess and her dad would be roaming around in his “lab coat,” which was really a ratty white bathrobe he loved to wear. If they were lucky he wouldn’t offer them something to eat. His food inventions usually combined ingredients never meant to coexist.

  But she decided against issuing any warnings or making any defensive statements. The less she said about her father at this point, the more she’d discover what kind of guy Wyatt really was.

  12

  WYATT CARRIED A TOW CHAIN in his truck and the road had dried enough that hauling Olivia’s Jeep out of the ditch didn’t take long at all. She seemed impressed with his efficiency and he didn’t mind winning more points, but it wasn’t a particularly heroic feat.

  Meeting her dad would be a much bigger test of his worthiness. Yeah, he was a little apprehensive about that. If it had been up to him he would have put the moment off a while longer. Then again, maybe it was a good thing to get out of the way.

  Deciding to pick up his clothes from the Bunk and Grub on the way back to the ranch, he followed Olivia to her house, a neat little two-story Victorian on a side street a block away from Shoshone’s central business district. On a Sunday afternoon the streets were deserted.

  He parked behind her in the driveway next to the house. The place was old enough to have a detached garage, but someone had kept the property in tip-top shape. The house was painted a sunny yellow with white trim. Two hanging baskets of petunias brightened the front porch along with a couple of white wicker rockers.

  Wyatt liked the whole rocker-on-the-porch concept, although he still hadn’t taken advantage of the ones at the ranch. He couldn’t complain, though. He’d much rather have spent the morning having hot sex with Olivia than lounging on the porch at the Last Chance.

  She climbed down from her Jeep and then pulled her totes out. “We can walk to my dad’s from here,” she said. “I called him from the road and I’m afraid he insisted on making us lunch. I tried to talk him out of it, but in the end it was easier just to agree.”

  “That’s fine.” He had a hunch that an eccentric genius might come up with some oddball combinations, but at least the guy sounded hospitable. Good thing Wyatt had a cast-iron stomach.

  “I appreciate you being flexible. I just need to put my bags inside. Come on in and see the place.”

  “Thanks.” He followed her over to the small porch, curious to see what her house would look like.

  “I’m still getting settled.” She opened the screen door and shoved the key in the lock. “I didn’t bring much with me from Pittsburgh. What I had wasn’t really worth moving, the kind of secondhand stuff you buy when you’re starting out.”

  “Right.” He’d have to take her word for it. When he’d moved into his first apartment, his mother had insisted he take all the rec room furniture, which she pronounced “ruined” after the one and only party he’d had for friends after graduating from college. One coffee table had a slight scratch. Technically it was secondhand, but not the way Olivia meant it.

  He followed her through the front door with its leaded-glass insert and found himself in a room full of rainbows. Sunlight streamed through the living room windows and the faceted crystals she had hanging in them.

  “Beautiful,” he murmured.

  “Cheap decorating. It kind of makes up for the lack of furniture.”

  “Yeah, but what you have is great.” An overstuffed sofa covered in denim with a couple of colorful throw pillows was the only piece in the room other than a cabinet holding a small flat-screen TV. It was what Wyatt thought of as a make-out couch—long, wide and cushy.

  Too bad he and Olivia had other things to do. He had no trouble imagining how he could draw her down on those plump cushions and coax her out of her clothes. He still had a condom burning a hole in his pocket.

  “We should go,” she said gently. “I told my dad we were on our way.”

  He snapped out of his erotic daze.

  Olivia had put down her bags and was gazing at him with amusement.

  “Sorry. But it’s a great sofa.”

  “I thought so when I bought it.”

  He decided there was no point in being subtle. “I was thinking about how much fun we could have on it.”

  “I could tell.”

  He noticed that her eyes were about the same color as the sofa. She’d look awesome lying naked on it. “I want to kiss you so much right now, but if I do it would lead to the sofa. So let’s head outside before my self-control disintegrates and I grab you.”

  She smiled. “Okay.”

  He felt very noble as he followed her out the door. “Going to lock it?”

  “Nope. That’s another thing I love about this place. I can run down to my dad’s for a while and not worry about locking up. When I’m going to be gone longer than that, I usually do, just so the wind won’t blow the door open and let in the birds and the squirrels. But I don’t worry about thieves.”

  Wyatt took her hand as they started down the tree-shaded sidewalk. “I’d like living like that. It’s not an option in my apartment building in San Francisco.”

  “I can’t picture you in the city.”

  “I’m not there much. I always figured it was as good a home base as any for Adventure Trekking, since most of my clients come through my website. I’ve never thought it mattered where I lived, but then again, I never look forward to going home either.”

  “It’s good to have a place that welcomes you when you walk through the door.”

  “You’ve certainly accomplished that.”

  She laughed. “I didn’t realize how seductive that sofa was until you stepped inside my living room. Suddenly all I could think about was rolling around on it with you.”

  “I’m glad I wasn’t the only one with a one-track mind.” He squeezed her hand. “But if I’m about to meet your father, I need to get that image out of my head. In my experience, dads have a sixth sense for identifying guys with designs on their daughters.”

  “Not mine. He assumes that if I allowed you into my life, then you’re A-okay.”

  “So he trusts you.” Wyatt now understood why a disparaging remark about her father would cause Olivia to cut that person off at the knees. Given the unwavering confidence her dad had placed in her, she wasn’t about to let him be hurt by an unkind comment.

  “He does trust me,” she said. “And I don’t take that lightly.”

  “I’m sure.” He loved how the sunlight brought out little flecks of gold in her blue eyes. “I’m having another one of those I-want-to-kiss-you moments.”

  She reached up and pressed her finger gently against his mouth. “Later,” she murmured as she came to a halt on the sidewalk. “We’re here.”

  The brick bungalow wasn’t as cheerful-looking as Olivia’s house, but the front yard was neat and the porch had a swing. The front door was painted dark purple.

  “Interesting door,” Wyatt said cautiously as they approached the house.

  “Dad’s choice. He thinks it’s a good color for wizardry.”

  “Ah.” Wyatt hoped to hell he was up for this. “So do you knock on the door, or say magic words, or what?”

  “Nothing. He knows we’re here and he’ll open the door.”

  “He was watching at the window?”

  “Nope. We just tripped a laser beam about six inches above the top porch step. It sounds a chime inside the house.”

  The purple door opened and Wyatt decided that Olivia’s father was indeed a wizard, or at least a good impersonation of one. Tall and thin, he wore a long white robe and black sandals. His white hair puffed out from his head like dandelion seeds about to take flight. Wire-rimmed glasses perched on his long nose, which brought Wyatt’s attention to piercing blue eyes. All the man needed was a staff topped with a dragon’s head and he could audition for a Lord of the Rings production.

  “Hi, Dad.” Olivia stepped forward and kissed his cheek. “This is Wyatt Locke, the guy who pulled me out of a ditch this morning. Wyatt, I’d like you to meet my father, Grover Sedgewick.”

  Wyatt stuck out his hand. “It’s a pleasure, Mr. Sedgewick. Or is it Professor Sedgewick?”

  “Nope, nope.” His grip was firm. “Dropped out of college. Never could get the hang of academia. And call me Grover, son. It sounds friendlier. Come on in. Lunch is ready.”

  Wyatt followed Olivia into a house that smelled sharp and tangy, as if it had been soaked in vinegar. The living room was chaotic, with papers and books scattered on the floor and covering the furniture. Stirring classical music played in the background, the kind with lots of drums and French horns.

  Among the books and papers Wyatt caught glimpses of gadgets—creations involving wires and batteries and strangely shaped pieces of metal. The only orderly surface he could find was the wall opposite the front door.

  There, marching in neat rows in an area at least four by eight feet, were framed pictures of Olivia from babyhood to womanhood. A few looked quite recent. Then the display moved on to certificates from elementary school through high school for things like spelling bees, making the honor roll and good citizenship. Wyatt had never seen more touching evidence of parental pride than this.

  “That’s my girl.” Grover swept a hand toward the wall, just in case Wyatt might have missed it. “She’s a corker.”

  “Yes, sir, she is.” Wyatt couldn’t help smiling. Corker was an old-fashioned word, but it fit Olivia.

  Instead of being embarrassed because her father insisted on splashing her early history all over his living room wall, she simply put her arm around him and gave him a hug. “Thanks, Dad.” She gazed at him with fondness. “You’re a corker, too.”

  As she stood serenely in this disaster of a house with a father who greeted a guest in his bathrobe, Wyatt looked at her with new respect and admiration. He’d always known this was a woman he could like, and certainly a woman he could lust after. At that moment, he realized she was also a woman he could love.

  * * *

  THEY ATE IN THE DINING ROOM, where Olivia’s father had cleared off enough of the papers to make room for three plates. Olivia watched Wyatt swallow a hot dog and peanut butter concoction without a grimace or complaint. He didn’t flinch when her father brought out his “bug juice” as a complement to the meal, even though it was a ghastly shade of blue.

  Lunch was a slightly larger test than she’d planned on, but she was impressed with the way Wyatt soldiered cheerfully through the meal. After having suffered through her dad’s cooking all her life, she knew the food could have been worse. She was relieved that today’s lunch was at least recognizable.

  Conversation revolved around Wyatt’s job and his reason for coming to the area. Grover seemed pleased that Wyatt was Jack Chance’s half brother and might end up moving to Shoshone. Because her dad wasn’t privy to community gossip, he didn’t know that Wyatt and Jack’s mother was persona non grata in town. Wyatt didn’t bring that up, which kept the tone positive, the way her father preferred it.

  As the meal wound to a close, her dad glanced over at Wyatt. “You strike me as a chess-playing man.”

  Wyatt sent Olivia a questioning look.

  She held up both hands. “I didn’t mention it. If my dad likes somebody, he usually asks if they play chess.”

  Wyatt seemed pleased with that. “As a matter of fact, Grover, I play a little.”

  “Care for a game?”

  Olivia crossed her fingers. If her father suggested a chess game, that meant he wanted to get to know Wyatt better. Grover believed in learning about people by observing them during a chess match.

  Once again Wyatt glanced at Olivia. “Okay with you?”

  She shrugged, as if it didn’t matter one way or the other. “Sure.”

  “All right, then, Grover. Let’s set up the board.”

  Olivia relaxed. She hadn’t realized until that moment how tense she’d felt as she’d watched the two men interact. But it would be okay. Anyone who could eat Grover’s cooking with as much grace as Wyatt had could also handle being annihilated in a chess game.

  To her surprise and delight, Wyatt played a decent first game. Her father still beat him handily, but then her father beat everyone handily. A couple of times in the twenty years she’d been playing him, she’d come really close to winning a game. Anyone who could give her father even a slight challenge was aces in his book.

  In the second game Wyatt actually managed to make her father pause and stroke his chin, a sign that he didn’t immediately know his next move. Olivia gazed at Wyatt with new respect. Not many accomplished that.

  “Did I stump you, Grover?” Wyatt took another sip of his blue drink.