Wild Mustang Man by Carol Grace Page B

part about me.” He pulled the cassette out of his pocket and waved it in front of his father. “Wanna see it?”
    “Sure.” Josh took the cassette and held it between his thumb and forefinger as if he was afraid it would bum him. He didn’t want to see it. He didn’t want to see any pictures of Bridget. “Did Bridget really come all the way out here just to take pictures of you and her?”
    “I dunno. I guess so. No, wait. She wanted to take pictures of outdoor stuff, so I showed her the best places. I told her you’d be back for lunch but she quick got in her car.”
    “I saw her,” he said, wondering why he’d made such an effort to catch her before she left, when she had such an unsettling effect on him. “We’ll watch the video tonight,” he promised. “After dinner. You’re going to Nathan Hogan’s to play this afternoon. Did you forget?”
    Max hadn’t forgotten and went to find his baseball cards to trade with his friend. Josh drove him there, then came back and tried once again to saddle his newest horse. It was the most demanding job he could think of, the one most likely to take his concentration away from that woman who wouldn’t leave him alone. It was bad enough she had to spend the morning at his ranch with his son, but she had to leave behind a video recording that he could watch.
    He could watch it now if he wanted to. The cassette was on top of their VCR in the den, tempting him to have a look. But he didn’t want to. Besides he’d told Max they’d watch it tonight. He glanced at his watch. Still three hours until he could pick up Max. Longer until they could watch the damned video.
    He blamed this distraction on his being alone too much for too long. That was why he agreed to go to Suzy’s party. His mother was right, he needed to get out and see some other people. Then he would realize that Bridget was just an ordinary woman...with ordinary long, smooth legs and ordinary warm, hazel eyes the color of autumn leaves, skin as soft as rose petals. His fingers still prickled where he’d touched her hair, where he’d stroked her cheek. He hadn’t meant to. He hadn’t meant to have anything to do with the woman. What happened? What went wrong? Because before he realized it, she was coming to his father’s birthday party as well as the party at Suzy’s.
    He hadn’t been to a party for years. He and Molly didn’t go to parties. She was too busy doing good works. And he didn’t care about socializing, though in high school he’d had a lot of friends. Somehow he’d drifted away from his old friends. That was what happened when you got married, you had different interests, different priorities.
    Somehow the afternoon dragged by. He picked up Max from his friend’s house. They ate dinner.
    “Now, Dad, now,” Max said, leaving his favorite fried-chicken TV dinner mostly untouched. “You gotta watch my movie.” He dragged Josh by the hand into the pine-paneled den, where Max put on the video. They sat together on the couch, Max squirming and wiggling and jumping up to put his finger on the image on the screen in case Josh missed anything. Josh didn’t miss a thing. He watched mesmerized, laughing hard at Bridget’s eensy-weensy spider song, so hard that Max gave him a wide-eyed look and asked him if he was okay. It made him realize that he didn’t laugh very often. Not anymore.
    He sat there watching Max and Bridget perform over and over again. Even after Max lost interest and went off to his room to look at his new baseball cards, Josh continued to watch Bridget do her somersault and sing and dance on the grass. She was so...so sweetly uninhibited. So delightfully, wonderfully charming. He’d never seen her that way, so loose, so natural, unreserved except...for that day when she’d wrapped her legs around his waist and kissed him like he’d never been kissed before. Aroused him in a way that had set his body on fire; even now it continued to smolder. He knew he had to put