Frustration coiled through Austin, and he dragged a hand along his jaw. “I thought you said you didn’t want to have anything to do with the business, including taking calls during the day.”
“I don’t, and I didn’t.” A humorous sparkle entered Jordan’s eyes as he pushed his hands into the front pockets of his pleated trousers. “I heard the message while the caller was leaving it. Seems that filly you played cowboy for last night took a hankering to you. She requested a repeat performance for tonight.”
“Teddy?” The name, which had invaded his thoughts all day, slipped from Austin’s lips almost involuntarily.
“Teddy…” Jordan repeated the word as if testing it, then nodded. “Yeah, I believe that’s what she said her name was.”
Easing himself into the chair behind the desk, Austin frowned. Despite the chemistry that had charged between them, Teddy didn’t seem the type to brazenly pursue a man, especially when a ring on her finger indicated she was committed to another. Then again, he could have pegged her all wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been led astray.
Punching the play button on the recorder, he listened to four requests for fantasies before her voice finally drifted out the phone’s speaker.
“Hi, Austin,” she said, then hesitated a few moments before continuing. “I’m calling about the Christmas party this Saturday. Have you decided to go? Since you’re not home, I guess we’ll talk about it tonight. We’re still on for drinks, right? I’ll see you at seven at the Frisco Bay.”
Though her voice was strong, he grasped another thinly veiled emotion in her tone. Desperation.
She continued in a sexy, husky voice, “And later on tonight I’ll wear that adorable Stetson you gave me for my birthday, as long as you promise to wear your chaps.”
The recorder beeped at the end of her message, and Austin hit the stop button before the next caller could speak. He sat there, feeling both confused and fascinated by what he’d heard.
Jordan chuckled. “If that isn’t a line to inspire fantasies, I don’t know what is.”
Austin silently agreed with his brother’s comment, considering the provocative images that had leaped into his mind, of Teddy wearing nothing more than the Stetson he’d given her, and a head-to-toe flush tinging her skin. Oh, yeah, he was certainly inspired. And intrigued. More than he’d been in years.
But beyond the sexy innuendo of Teddy’s final remark, there was more to her words than a flirtatious come-on. Though she’d spoken in an enticing tone of voice, he didn’t get the impression that she was asking for a personal fantasy. On the contrary, he got the feeling that her entire message was a setup of some sort, and that last line had been her way of prompting him to remember who she was.
As if he could forget.
When he’d arrived home last night, he’d been keyed up from the performance and that rare, inexplicable connection he’d experienced with Teddy Spencer. And though he’d tried, he hadn’t been able to shake his mental image of her soft smile and those incredibly sensual brown eyes that had shown him glimpses of shyness, and the potential to be a little reckless. She was off limits, for so many reasons, but his mind had a hard time accepting that fact. Despite his best efforts to maintain his professionalism, she’d taken a hot shower with him, then continued to distract him while he’d attempted to concentrate on an estimate he was preparing for an upcoming landscaping bid. She’d so totally consumed his thoughts that he had no choice but to abandon the figures and call it a night. And that’s when he’d done the unthinkable-he’d taken her to bed with him and succumbed to the most erotic dreams he’d had since puberty.
And damn if he didn’t wake up hard and aching, and wanting her.
Suddenly, the familiar stirring started again, deep in Austin’s belly. He drew a deep breath, gradually released it and firmly focused on the present situation. He knew nothing about a Christmas party, or a date for drinks tonight. She’d left no phone number, no way of contacting her to find out what her strange message was all about.
Remembering the silent plea he’d detected in her voice, he found he couldn’t bring himself to stand her up.
“So, what’s this about a Christmas party this Saturday?” Jordan asked, his expression curious. “Do you think maybe she needs a guy to play Santa Claus?”
Austin curbed the impulse to let out a hearty ho, ho, ho. As amusing as he found Jordan’s suggestion, gut instinct told him Teddy’s request had little to do with needing a Santa for hire.
“I haven’t the slightest idea what she’s talking about,” he admitted, then allowed a slow, devilish smile to form. “But I do intend to find out.”
3
HE WAS LATE. Either that, or Austin McBride had no intention of meeting the woman who’d left such a brazen message on his answering machine. Despite how much Teddy was depending on Austin to help her out of her predicament, a part of her wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t show.
Feeling anxious, Teddy glanced at her wristwatch for the fourth time in the past ten minutes and made the decision that she’d give Austin until 7:30 p.m. before she resigned her post in the Frisco Bay.
While she waited, she sipped her sparkling water and looked over the patrons in the lounge, most of whom she knew as regular customers of the bar. Thanks to Brenda’s and Laura’s outgoing personalities, Teddy was now acquainted with many of the men on a first-name basis. She’d even politely turned down a date or two from a few of the single males present tonight. Luckily, the men who frequented the Frisco Bay were out looking for a good time, no strings attached, and didn’t seem to take rejections personally.
As the minutes ticked by, Teddy found herself perusing the guys in the bar tonight, sizing each one up as a potential date for Saturday’s party should Austin not show. None sparked her interest. Certainly none compared to Austin McBride’s gorgeous looks and charisma. His confident appeal was precisely what she needed to convince Louden that he could never measure up.
“Hey, Teddy,” a female acquaintance sitting at a nearby table called. “Isn’t that your cowboy?”
Every female head in the establishment turned toward the entrance of the Frisco Bay to get a glimpse of last night’s attraction. Teddy included.
Relief at seeing him mingled with a heady dose of awareness that prickled along the surface of her skin. “Yeah, that’s him.”
There was no trace of the cowboy who’d come calling the previous evening, but then Austin didn’t need a western costume to accentuate that athletic body of his. A dark brown knit shirt showed off his broad shoulders and molded to a muscular chest and flat belly. The khaki pants he wore weren’t nearly as tight as the jeans he’d donned last night, but they looked just as good, in a more polished, urban sort of way.
What the women in the place recognized, Teddy suspected, was Austin’s head-turning features, that tousled thick brown hair that made a woman want to run her fingers through the warm strands, and those striking green eyes that flirted and seduced with a simple sweep of those long, dark lashes.
“Is he back for a repeat performance?” another woman asked hopefully.
“Not a public one,” Teddy replied, startled by the spurt of jealousy she felt. She certainly had no claim to Austin McBride, but that thought didn’t diminish the fact that she didn’t want to share him with the dozen other women in the bar who were anxious to see him shed his clothes.
Eyebrows rose curiously, and Teddy reached for her drink, refusing to elaborate on her comment, though it was true. Austin’s performance would be a private affair, one he’d be keeping his clothes on for.
He found her sitting at the bar and headed in her direction, carrying himself with a relaxed self-assurance that was at once appealing and unwavering in confidence. Oh, yes, Teddy thought breathlessly. Austin was exactly what she needed to convince Louden that he was overstepping boundaries. Austin came across as the type who wouldn’t tolerate another man infringing on his territory.
Her stomach fluttered as his gaze locked on hers, making her feel as though she was the only woman in the place-certainly the only woman he was interested in, despite the hungry looks and moist-lipped smiles being cast his way by the other women in the bar. The intensity with which he focused on her was a good indication that he could convince anyone that he was her devoted lover.
By the time he reached her, Teddy knew she wouldn’t be able to find a better man for the job than Austin
