Calder Pride by Janet Dailey Page A

was instinctive and honest. Instantly Cat knew she didn’t want an exchange of names. Names led to a discussion of backgrounds and family histories. The man was a stranger to her; she wanted to keep it that way. Drawing back, she tilted her head up to look into his smoky gray eyes, then took the truth and twisted it. “Maggie the Cat, that’s me.”
    Amusement glinted in his eyes, giving them a quicksilver gleam. “The one on the hot tin roof?”
    For the blink of a second, Cat didn’t make the connection. Then she laughed at the irony of her choice. When she had innocently paired her name with her mother’s, she hadn’t given a thought to the character in the Tennessee Williams play. But she remembered her now—how very sensual she had been—and how very desperate and frustrated, aching to love and be loved, and denied that need. It seemed singularly appropriate.
    “That is exactly the one I am,” Cat declared in a suddenly reckless mood. “You would have recognized me straight off if I’d been wearing my slip.”
    “Ah, yes, the famous slip,” he said with an easy nod. “I knew something was missing.”
    “That’s it.” Her glance drifted down to study the lazy curve of his lips.
    His mouth was close, close enough to kiss. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted that and more, much more. She wanted all that the fates had denied her with Repp. Rising on her toes, Cat leaned closer until only a centimeter separated their lips. Her breath mingled with his and shallowed out, the sensitive surfaces of her lips tingling with the nearness of him.
    “Should I be looking over my shoulder for Paul Newman?” When he spoke, she felt his lips form every word, though they barely touched hers.
    “Silly,” Cat whispered. “You are Paul Newman.”
    “Is that why I have the feeling I’m being seduced?” This time he made deliberate contact, touching her lips in a brushing nuzzle.
    “Do you mind?” she murmured, straining closer.
    “No. But I’ll never understand how Paul Newman managed to resist you the way he did.” His husky comment struck a painful chord in her memory, sharply recalling all the times Repp had refused her.
    Reeling from it, Cat lost her balance and stumbled against him, her lips grazing his jaw. Drawing back, she tried to cover her shattered composure with a careless toss of her head, only to discover she was fighting tears. Her glance ricocheted off his face as she dipped her head and forced a laugh. “That’s what comes from having one too many margaritas,” she lied.
    “So I’ve heard.” But Logan Echohawk didn’t buy that as the reason. In his line of work, being a trained observer was essential; too often a person’s reaction told him more than words could. That glimpse of pain in her eyes had been brief, but a glimpse was often all that he ever saw.
    When she had first approached him at the bar, it had seemed the typical come-on, less subtle than most with a unique opening gambit, but not that much different from the normal. Truth to tell, he had welcomed the advance—a stranger in a strange town, discovering the loneliness that can be found in the midst of a crowd.
    He had noticed her the minute she walked in. An awareness of all that went on around him was vital in his profession; over time, it had become as natural to him as breathing. But he would have noticed her anyway. “Maggie the Cat” was the kind of woman who stood out in a crowd. Part of it was her natural beauty—the sculpted fineness of her features, the glossy blackness of her hair, the slenderness of her build with all its womanly ripe curves, and the unusual green of her eyes. But part of it, too, was the proud tilt of her head, the confident stride of her walk, and something else less definite—something vibrant and volatile, some fiery spark that blazed with life.
    Initially, she hadn’t struck him as the type who picked up men in bars; she didn’t look like the typewho needed to. Then she had come up to