Hero by Nature Read online

She eyed him suspiciously. “The reason you’ve never tried to ‘put the moves’ on me is because I’m not your type. We’ve always been just friends.”

  He shook his head, brown eyes dancing teasingly at her. “The reason I’ve kept us ‘just friends’ is that you’re marriage bait if I’ve ever seen it. You can talk all you want to about staying footloose and single, but when you fall in love, you’ll be heading down that aisle just like your two sisters did during the past year. I was just making sure that I wasn’t the guy waiting at the altar for you, lovely though you are.”

  “You’re an arrogant, conceited creep, Brothers. I wouldn’t have seriously dated you if you’d asked,” she told him flatly, irritated at his accusation. “You’re the one who’s marriage bait!”

  He looked startled. “You’re crazy!”

  “Yeah? I don’t think you’d deny it so furiously if you didn’t think you were susceptible to the weakness. Every time you start to get close to a woman, you turn pale and run. How come, huh?”

  “I like being single,” her thirty-one-year-old friend answered earnestly. “I like not answering to anyone, not worrying about mortgages and bills, not saving for college funds or second honeymoons. I like going out with a redhead one night, a blond the next and a brunette the night after that.”

  “You can talk all you want about staying footloose and single, but when you fall in love, you’ll be heading down that aisle just like your brother did last month,” Autumn paraphrased primly, tossing her head so that her hair flew out, then settled in a thick, cinnamon curtain around her shoulders. “Now would you get out of here?” she demanded before he could voice the argument that she could see on his face. “I have to get dressed and I still don’t know what to wear.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Dinner and dancing.”

  “Wear that gold thing.”

  Autumn looked doubtful. “You think so?”

  “Trust me. I know so.”

  The gold thing. Autumn chewed on her lower lip, wondering if that choice would be at all wise. She shot a suspicious look at Webb, who was grinning from ear to ear. She was just about to speak when the doorbell rang again.

  “What is this tonight…the gathering place for all of Tampa?” she asked her bedroom wall, tossing up her hands at this new interruption. “I don’t even have my makeup on!”

  “Autumn, I’m sorry to bother you, but do you have any milk? Can you believe I’ve run out?” Emily Hinson, Autumn’s neighbor, stood on the doorstep, her fifteen-month-old son, Ryan, on her hip holding his favorite stuffed dog. Divorced since shortly after Ryan’s birth, twenty-three-year-old Emily was Autumn’s opposite in almost every way. She was delicate in appearance, if not in actuality, petite and blond with enormous china-blue eyes. She enjoyed her work as a secretary, loved cooking and needlework and all other things domestic, and made it no secret that she would like to be married again despite the failure of her first marriage. And yet the two women had become friends from almost the moment they’d met outside their duplex when Emily had moved in.

  “There’s milk in the refrigerator. Help yourself, I’m dressing for a date,” Autumn told her, patting Ryan’s chubby cheek as he grinned wetly at her.

  Emily started in, then paused at the sight of Webb. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know your date was already here.”

  “Oh, that’s not my date. That’s just Webb.” Autumn was already halfway through the door to her bedroom. “Introduce yourself, Webb. I have to get ready!”

  Thirty minutes later she took a deep breath and checked her appearance in the mirror. Even she could admit that she looked good. She wondered what Jeff would think.

  Webb, Emily and Ryan looked up and blinked when Autumn came out of her bedroom to join them in the living room. Autumn hadn’t realized that Emily was still there. It appeared that Emily and Webb had been talking easily for the past half hour while Autumn had dressed, Ryan playing with his toy on the carpet at their feet. “Autumn, you look beautiful!” Emily breathed, staring at the metamorphosis.

  Webb shook his sandy head and grinned. “I told you the gold thing would be the right choice,” he said smugly.

  Autumn grimaced. “I hope it’s not too much.”

  “It’s not too much. Believe me,” Webb answered solemnly, turning a smile to Emily. “What do you think, Emily?”

  “I think it’s gorgeous. And I truly wish it were my size so I could borrow it for a date sometime,” Emily added with a light laugh. “Not that it would do for me what it does for Autumn.”

  Webb looked startled. “A date? Oh, you mean with your husband.”

  “Oh, I’m not married,” Emily corrected him, looking a bit surprised that he didn’t already know. “I’ve been divorced for a year.”

  Webb swallowed, looked at her again, then all but leaped to his feet. “Well, I have to go,” he announced a bit too loudly. “Have a good time on your date, Autumn. Tell Bradford I said hello. Nice to meet you, Emily. Bye, Ryan.” And then he was gone.

  Emily frowned at the door that had closed behind him, then turned her bewildered gaze to Autumn. “Was it something I said?”

  Autumn only laughed.

  JEFF SHRUGGED into the jacket of his charcoal-gray pinstriped suit, adjusted his yellow silk tie and glanced at the thin gold watch on his wrist. Five minutes until seven. Five minutes until he saw Autumn. He took a deep breath, trying to calm his nervous stomach. Lord, he hadn’t been so nervous before a date since…since…well, he’d never been this nervous before a date.

  She was so skittish. All his instincts told him that one wrong move, one wrong word, on his part, would cause her to take flight, right out of his life. He wondered again who had hurt her, what she was afraid of and whether he would have a chance to explore his budding feelings for her without driving her away. He wasn’t interested in an affair, had never been interested in empty affairs. He wanted a future, a relationship, something meaningful and enriching and nurturing. He wanted what Pam and Bob had. He’d always suspected that when he met the right woman, he would know immediately. The moment Autumn Reed had taken off her sunglasses and looked at him with those bewitching green eyes, he’d known.

  Now if only he could convince her to give them a chance.

  He hoped he hadn’t overdressed. He’d wanted to look nice, but then Autumn seemed to be the casual type. Of course, he’d only seen her on the job so far. But then again, he thought with his one-sided smile, if she looked any more beautiful than she had the last three times he’d seen her, he might not be able to control himself.

  His doorbell chimed. Jeff’s heart jerked convulsively, and he swallowed, rather stunned by his own reactions. He looked in wonder at his hands. His palms were damp! Shaking his head in astonishment, he went to answer his door.

  He had to make a conscious effort to keep his jaw from dropping at the vision on his doorstep.

  She was the most exquisite thing he’d ever seen. Soft auburn curls glowing red in the evening sun, tumbling around her shoulders and begging for his hands. Artfully applied makeup enhancing emerald eyes and glistening lips. And that dress.

  He gulped. God, that dress. Shaped like an inverted triangle with padded shoulders and bat-wing sleeves, it clung lovingly to her full breasts, then hugged the feminine curves of her hips and thighs to fall to the middle of her knees. It was made of some slinky material that looked gold at one moment, black at the next. He blinked to clear his eyes, only then realizing that the fabric was black shot with thousands of glittering gold threads.

  She was beautiful, sexy, tempting. And looking at him in a defiant manner that dared him to say a word, much less follow his immediate impulse to reach out and grab her. “Would you…” He had to stop to clear his throat. “Would you like to come in for a drink?”

  Was that relief he saw cross her face? Had she been so anxious about his reaction to her transformation from work clothes to evening clothes? She had good reason to be. He shoved his hands into the pockets of
his suit pants, fighting all kinds of primitive urges that were as surprising to him as they would have been to her, had he followed through on them.

  And then she walked past him, and he had to swallow a moan. The dress had no back. From the button at the top of her shoulders to the top of the skirt, there was nothing but silky bare skin and the delicate ridges of her spine. The skirt was split in the center to allow glimpses of the backs of her knees as she walked.

  He turned his eyes heavenward as he closed the front door. “This is some kind of test, right?” he murmured beneath his breath. He remembered all his earlier resolutions about watching his step with her, being careful not to frighten her off, and he felt himself on the verge of hysterical laughter. How could he possibly have known that she would show up looking like…like this?

  “Did you say something?” Autumn asked curiously, turning to look at him.

  “Just praying,” he answered, then before she could comment, “What would you like to drink?”

  She looked at him rather oddly, then moistened her lower lip with the tip of her tongue. Jeff closed his eyes for a moment. This was definitely a test.

  “I don’t believe I want anything, thanks,” Autumn was saying when he opened his eyes again.

  Come to think of it, neither did he. The one thing he did not need just now was anything that might possibly weaken his control. Autumn was intoxicating enough. “Then I suppose we’re ready to go.”

  She nodded, twisting her hands in front of her. “Yes, I’m ready.”

  This might turn out to be a very long evening, Jeff thought wryly as he held the door for her to pass him. Without really thinking about it, he started to place a hand on her back, then jerked the hand away when he encountered bare flesh. A very long evening.

  Resigning himself to always acting like a thick-skulled, not-really-bright clod in this woman’s presence, he followed her to her sporty black Fiero, knowing better than to offer to drive—or to open her door for her.

  4

  AUTUMN CAREFULLY AVOIDED Jeff’s eyes as she started her car, though she was all too conscious of him within the confines of her small Fiero. Her hand was only inches from his thigh when she reached out to shift into reverse. Unable to resist, she glanced at that thigh, so solid and powerful beneath the fabric of his gray suit, and then her gaze drifted upward to his lap. She gulped and turned her eyes firmly forward, away from the tempting territory of his masculinity.

  It was going to be a long evening. She’d regretted her choice of clothing ever since he’d opened the door and immediately looked like a man who’d been kicked in the gut by the Karate Kid. She’d worn the dress only once before, to a party she’d attended with Webb. After a night of being pawed by strangers, she’d decided never to wear it again. So why had she let Webb talk her into it tonight? she asked herself in disgust.

  Trust me, he’d said. She should have known right then to choose something else. Though some perverse feminine part of her was secretly pleased by Jeff’s unspoken appreciation, a more rational part of her was cautious of the sparks that were so obviously flying between them. It had never been like this for her before. Never.

  The silence in the car was growing deafening. She glanced sideways at Jeff, finding him watching her with a faint, enigmatic smile, as if he were waiting for her to say something. She was fully aware that she’d barely spoken to him since she’d picked him up, but she didn’t know what to say. What she really wanted to do was stop, turn in her seat and just stare at him for about an hour. No man should be that good-looking. It simply wasn’t fair. It was nature’s way of keeping liberated women on their toes, she decided. Give a guy thick black hair, deep blue eyes and a smile that could melt the gold tips on the toes of her black shoes and watch Autumn turn to oatmeal.

  When the silence began to sizzle with tension, she reached out almost desperately and pushed a cassette into the player on the dash, not even noticing what she’d chosen. She smiled wryly when the music swelled out at the high level she generally preferred. Simple Minds. Appropriate choice of bands.

  She didn’t know why she was behaving this way, why she was on the defensive. She only knew that Jeff Bradford was the most dangerous man she’d ever met and that she would have to stay on the defensive to survive him with heart and pride intact.

  She should have worn a different dress.

  Jeff tolerated the loud music for a time, then reached out and firmly turned down the volume. Autumn threw him a startled look. “You don’t like rock music?” she demanded as if he’d be confessing to all sorts of terrible crimes if he did not.

  “I like rock music,” he answered. “I like Simple Minds,” he added to point out that he had recognized the group. “But I also like to converse with my date.”

  “Oh.”

  He fought a grin without much success. She was cute when she was being insecure, he decided, though he had no intention of telling her so. Something told him that “cute” would definitely be an unsavory four-letter word to Autumn Reed.

  She was so beautiful. And so uncomfortable with that beauty. She had been much more confident in her work clothes and cap than she was now in this ultra-feminine dress. An unusual woman. And yet so very fascinating.

  “Pull over for a minute, will you, Autumn?” he asked on a sudden impulse.

  She glanced at him with a frown. “What?” she asked as if she hadn’t heard him clearly.

  “Pull over. Just for a minute,” he repeated.

  Her frown remained, but she gave a slight shrug and signaled a lane change, turning into the Saturday-deserted parking lot of an office building. Shifting into park, she turned slightly in her seat to face him. “Okay. Now what?”

  “I just want to tell you that you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, your dress is fabulous and I’d like nothing more than to slowly peel it off you. But,” he added as a wave of scarlet tinged her fair cheeks, “I’ll settle for this for now.”

  He caught her face in his hands and brought his mouth firmly down on hers, kissing her as he’d wanted to do since he’d opened his door to find her standing there daring him to touch her.

  Autumn stiffened for a moment—only a moment—and then leaned into him, her hands settling on his shoulders. Her lips parted beneath his, an invitation he accepted with alacrity. And then she was a wholehearted participant in the kiss, and Jeff moaned softly at the pleasure of it. His pulse was roaring in his ears, his heart pounding against the walls of his chest when he finally drew back. He blinked rapidly a time or two, cleared his throat, took a deep breath, then nodded. “Okay. Now that’s out of the way and we can enjoy ourselves. Where are we going for dinner?”

  Autumn’s eyes drifted slowly open, and the dazed expression in their green depths almost had him reaching out for her again. And then she gave a slight shake of her head, wet her lips and glared at him. “Why did you do that?” she demanded aggressively, her tone almost making him laugh. Now this was the Autumn he’d met three times before—arrogant, annoyed, regally self-assured. He liked her this way. He strongly suspected that he was beginning to love her this way.

  “I wanted to,” he answered her question, tongue in cheek as he prepared himself for her blistering response.

  Instead, she turned sharply back to the steering wheel, slamming the car into drive and muttering something that sounded a lot like “obnoxious, conceited male.” He did laugh then, earning himself a fulminating glance and a toss of auburn hair. But he had accomplished what he’d wanted, because she loosened up and began to reply when he made innocuous conversation. By the time they reached the popular, expensive restaurant where she’d been fortunate enough to obtain reservations for the evening, they were chatting away in relative ease. She’d been expecting him to pounce on her, he had, and now they could get on with the evening. Jeff was quite proud of himself for handling that particular situation so deftly.

  Except his hands were still shaking in the aftermath of the most powerful kiss in his entire life.<
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  “Tell me about yourself,” he encouraged her when they’d ordered their dinners.

  “Like what?” she asked, immediately looking wary.

  He wondered what it was that could turn such a simple request into a threat to her. Why should she immediately go on the defensive just because he wanted to get to know her? “Anything,” he answered simply. “Where you were born and when, whether you have any brothers and sisters, how you decided to become an electrician, when you moved to Florida, what flavor of ice cream you like, what you wear to bed.”

  The last suggestion made her blink, then glare at him before speaking quickly. “I was born twenty-five years ago in Rose Bud, Arkansas. My parents had three daughters in just over three years—I’m the youngest. I moved to Little Rock when I was twenty, started working to become an electrician immediately because it looked interesting and I like working with my hands. I moved to Tampa almost a year ago. I like chocolate mint ice cream and I sleep in large T-shirts. Any other questions?”

  Delighted, he grinned and nodded. “Thousands.”

  She sighed deeply, propped her elbows on the table and looked at him with exaggerated patience. “Shoot.”

  He laughed. “You’re certainly being accommodating.”

  “You’re the one who said you like to converse with your dates. Converse.”

  “Okay. What are your sister’s names, where do they live, what do they do and are they married? Are you an aunt?”

  She shook her head, looking a bit dizzy. “Whatever happened to one question at a time?”

  “Takes too long. Besides, you fielded the last series so well I thought I’d give it another shot.”

  “Fair enough. My oldest sister is Spring McEntire. She’s an optometrist in Little Rock, Arkansas, and she’s married to a psychologist named Clay.”

  Jeff nodded gravely. “Okay. Go on.”

  “My other sister, Summer Anderson, is twenty-six. She and her husband, Derek, live in Sausalito, California, where she’s studying to teach theater arts, and he’s a business consultant. Did I answer them all?”