Calder Pride by Janet Dailey Page B

him, and that impression had undergone an instant revision.
    Now, holding her while they swayed to the music, her head nestled against his shoulder, her face hidden from him, he found himself wondering about her again. Something didn’t ring true. Something more than just her name.
    If he were smart, he’d leave after this dance, call it a night, go over the testimony he would need to give at tomorrow’s trial, and forget he had ever met Maggie the Cat. But he kept remembering that glimpse of pain, of utter vulnerability.
    When the song ended, he followed her back to the bar. She picked up her margarita glass and turned to him, all smiles and bewitching green eyes.
    “So, tell me, Dakota—are you a real cowboy or the urban kind?”

SIX
    I ’ve been a real one.” He leaned both arms on the bar top and hooked his hands around the Lone Star bottle he’d been nursing for the last hour. “Maybe someday I’ll go back to it. It’s hard to say.” Logan took a swig of the tepid beer and cut a sideways glance at her, an eyebrow arching in question. “And you? Have those boots ever waded through the muck of a calving shed?”
    “They have,” Cat answered with a trace of smugness, then raised one foot, an audacious twinkle in her eyes. “Want to smell? Heaven knows, once it gets into the leather, you can never get all the odor out.”
    “I’ll take your word for it.” He chuckled.
    She liked the sound of it, and the warm feeling it gave her. At the same time she wished they were still out on the dance floor. She didn’t want to engage in all this small talk; she didn’t want to know all these little details about him. It only made it harder to pretend that he was Repp. And that was what she wanted—to be in his arms, close her eyes and imagine it was Repp holding her, that it was his hands touching her, his lips kissing her.
    Maybe it was wrong; maybe it was foolish. But itwas what she desperately wanted.
    “Is there a problem?”
    At his prompting question, Cat realized she was staring intently at her drink. Hurriedly she fixed a quick, bright smile on her face and looked up, forcing herself to meet his sharply probing gaze.
    “Someone told me that every tequila bottle has a worm in it. I was just checking to make sure there wasn’t one in my drink.” She rattled the cubes in her glass and raised it to her lips. She tossed down a long swallow of the watered-down drink. Just for an instant, the room swam, reminding Cat that she’d had enough.
    Apparently satisfied with her explanation, he turned at right angles to the bar and cast an idle glance around the room, then paused. “I think your friends are ready to leave.”
    Cat looked back at their table and saw Kinsey and J.J. standing beside it. Kinsey waved and signaled that she and J.J. were leaving, then mouthed the words Good hunting, and winked. Laughing, Cat waved a farewell to them, a little relieved that she didn’t have to go through a tearful good-bye scene with them.
    When she turned back to the bar, he eyed her curiously. “Aren’t you going with them?”
    She shook her head. “We came in separate vehicles.” She went to set her drink on the countertop and misjudged the distance, nearly tipping it over. “Whoops.” She quickly righted it. “That was close.”
    “I’m not sure you’re in any shape to be behind a wheel.”
    “I think you’re right,” Cat agreed with a wise nod. “Maybe we should dance instead.”
    She caught hold of his hand and struck out for the dance floor, in full confidence that he would come along. That certainty briefly annoyed him, butit vanished when she turned into his arms and fitted herself naturally to his length, a hand cupping the back of his head and her face nuzzling the side of his neck.
    “This is much better,” she murmured on a contented sigh.
    At the moment, she felt very much like a cat to him, soft and purring, pressing close and rubbing against him. And he was enjoying every minute of it. That