At Her Beck and Call. Dawn Atkins

pretty much a single-story town.”

      “There’s always a ladder, Mike. Don’t kid yourself.” She knew that from hanging on the bottom rungs in high school and later, as a stripper, set apart from the straight world, even though she knew herself to be a moral person.

      “I don’t treat people that way.” He held her gaze, telling her he meant it. There was something rock-solid about the guy. She still didn’t want to hear his opinion of her other career. He might disappoint her and she wanted to respect him a while longer. At least as long as she worked for him.

      “What are you looking for in a wife?” she asked.

      “What you’d expect. A partner, someone with similar values and interests, someone committed to family and home.”

      “What about looks? Attraction? Passion?”

      He shrugged. “That’s part of it.”

      “But mainly, you want someone to bake your bread and match your socks and keep the home fires burning?” She was teasing, but she felt an undercurrent of irritation and…envy? What was that about? She would never tolerate life as some man’s little woman. That would be a prison sentence—life without parole.

      Of course men weren’t lining up to ask her to bake them pies, by any means. Autumn was all about sex and heat and animal drives. And she liked that, knew that, trusted how it worked. It was simple and human and satisfying.

      She loved that she could render men speechless and desperate with a slow spin, a soft slide, a loosened bra. She loved that a hint of nakedness, the suggestion of contact, made them as hard as the chrome poles she danced around. She loved that.

      “I’m not sure what you’re getting at, but I want an equal partner, not domestic help.”

      “So you’re willing to share your pants?”

      “If she’s into that, sure,” he said, making it sound deliciously sexual. His joke showed her he wasn’t a secret chauvinist. “What about you? What do you want in a husband?”

      “I don’t want a husband. Or a boyfriend for that matter. Sometimes being alone is…better.” Maybe she didn’t know the difference between lust and love. Or maybe she was like her friend Sugar and didn’t have the happily-ever-after gene. Well, the old Sugar, anyway.

      Mike looked thoughtful. Please don’t say it, she silently begged him. A woman as beautiful as you shouldn’t be alone…People need people, blah, blah, blech.

      Instead, he laughed, the sound warm and rich on the quiet desert air. “Good point. If I had a beer, I’d drink to that.”

      “Hear, hear,” she said, pretending to lift a glass.

      He tapped his knuckles against hers.

      Heat zinged between them. They both looked away.

      Standing close to Mike, breathing in synch, swaying closer with each heartbeat, Autumn’s back-burner sex drive was suddenly boiling all over the stove, flooding the floor and scalding her toes.

      Sex with Mike would be different, unexpected, she could tell. It would be like wading into a lake and having the bottom suddenly drop out from under her.

      “You’re in school now, anyway,” Mike said. “It’s not the right time to settle down.”

      She didn’t argue, though she didn’t see marriage in her future. A steady lover might be nice if they could keep it simple. Her mother had been right. It was far better to count on yourself. If you started depending on a man, you got soft and lost your edge and your way.

      “So, you’re enjoying school?” he asked.

      “Very much.” So much it embarrassed her. She was wildly proud of her grades, lapped up her professors’ praise like a cream-hungry cat. “I’m older than most of the students, but I don’t care. I can’t believe how they take college for granted. They’re all living off daddy’s money, too busy partying to study. I love every lecture. I even love studying. I’m soaking it all up, you know? Sometimes, I forget to eat. I—” She stopped, embarrassed again. The guy made her too comfortable blurting out secrets. “Sorry. Got carried away.”

      “I think it’s great, Autumn. I’d like to be that fired up about something.”

      “You love being mayor, don’t you?”

      “Sure.” He hesitated. “Maybe I just take it for granted. Maybe you’ll rub off on me.”

      “Maybe.” The idea of rubbing against the man made her weak in the knees and she took a shuddering breath.

      “So, you met Heidi at her salon, but what work did you do before you started school? I forget what your résumé said.”

      She’d only listed her bookkeeping for Moons—the DD in DD Enterprises stood for the owner, Duke Dunmore. “I had bar experience.” Which was true.

      “Ah, a waitress.”

      She didn’t correct him. She had been a cocktail waitress, but when she needed money to keep her little brother out of trouble, she’d hit amateur night at a strip club. It took two shots of tequila and a muscle relaxant to endure the surreal embarrassment of teasing off her clothes in the hot, close quiet of men’s staring lust, but she’d done it, by God.

      Took first place and the club owner offered her a job.

      She’d found her game face, too—adding a sexy element to the mask she wore as a girl to get along with her angry mother. The trick with stripping was to offer the teasing possibility of sex, but always hold back your soul.

      The money was great and she made friends among the dancers, DJs and bartenders. It could be a dark life. Some strippers used drugs or hooked on the side, but that wasn’t Autumn.

      “Good for you for trying for more,” Mike said. “Sometimes I think about going back to school. I only did junior college. Mark and I had a deal—two years each—so we could keep the family landscaping business going.”

      “What would you study if you went back?”

      “I don’t know. Civic leadership. Or business. Hell, not too ambitious, huh? What’s the point? I have obligations.”

      “The point is to do what makes you happy, not just what people expect.” She’d only begun to learn that lesson.

      “I’m needed. That’s important to me.”

      She admired his sense of duty. “But what you want matters, too. What do you wish you could do? Really?”

      “Lord.” He looked up at the sky, then back down at her. “There have been things I gave up, I guess.”

      “Like what?”

      “I always wanted to get my pilot’s license. But it takes time and it’s expensive. Hell, for that matter, I’d love to learn to hang glide.”

      “You want to hang glide?”

      “Yeah. I took a ride with a pilot once. It’s so quiet and very free. You feel like you’ve escaped.”

      “Is that what you want? To escape your life?”

      He laughed. “Maybe I just need a vacation.”

      “Or maybe more.” She felt his yearning like heat on her skin. In the moonlight, his eyes looked like diamonds bubbling in melted chocolate and the sight gave her a twisting sensation in her middle—part longing, part desire.

      “Anyway, here’s where I tee off.” He kicked at the rubber mat at their feet, changing the subject.

      “So you aim out there?” She squinted out into the darkness. “Too bad we don’t have a club and some balls.”

      “We couldn’t see where they landed.”

      “So what? Just let it fly.” Out here under the wide,