Warrior In Her Bed. Cathleen Galitz

than usual. Lately she had taken to pulling it back in a practical ponytail that allowed her to meet the world head-on. Today the thought of using her hair as a curtain if necessary—an old trick passed freely among junior high girls—to obscure her face from Johnny Lonebear compelled her to dig out and dust off an old curling iron. After forcing her naturally straight tresses into loose curls that fell about her shoulders, she decided to forgo applying any blush to her cheeks. They were already burning with telltale anticipation.

      Laboring under the assumption that it would give Johnny an enormous sense of self-satisfaction to discover just how nervous this impromptu rendezvous with fate was making her, Annie sternly reminded herself that she was no giddy teenager preparing for her first date. The pink-cheeked woman staring at her in the mirror was certainly old enough to know better.

      Definitely old enough to separate fantasy from reality.

      Fact from fiction.

      And lust from love….

      Indeed, Annie had no more reason to believe that she and her enigmatic boss would hit it off any better today than at their first volatile encounter than she could expect to be treated as anything but an interloper at the day’s festivities. Johnny Lonebear himself had been eager to spell that particular fact out for her. As a white woman with no obvious ties to the community, her motives were naturally suspect.

      The loud knock at her front door did nothing to settle her nerves. Annie jumped at the sound, bumping a bottle of perfume off the bathroom counter in the process.

      “Come on in,” she hollered, bending down to retrieve the bottle and using the excuse to spritz her pulse points with its delicate scent.

      It had been so long since she had been out on anything resembling a date, even one as unofficial as this one, that she felt thrown off balance by the effort it required. Despite her entreaty, the front door remained stubbornly closed. Hurrying to open it, Annie paused only long enough to fasten a plastic smile to her face.

      She swung the door open and felt all the air sucked out of her small abode. The man standing there on her front porch looked so utterly devastating, dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a short-sleeved denim shirt, that Annie could almost hear her smile clattering to the floor. His clean-cut military haircut clashed with the predatory look in those dark-chocolate eyes as they swept over her. A flicker of approval illuminated their depths, causing a feminine shiver to ripple through her.

      “You look nice,” Johnny said, his voice sounding far more noncommittal than his heated gaze indicated.

      Having momentarily forgotten how to breathe, Annie attempted to resuscitate herself by swallowing a big gulp of fresh air.

      “Thanks,” she murmured, thinking there was no need to return the compliment. Nice was such a gross understatement when applied to this striking specimen of manhood. For heaven’s sake, the man practically radiated testosterone.

      It was all Annie could do to refrain from taking a giant step backward.

      It was all she could do to keep from stepping forward and indulging her curiosity by running her hands along the exposed muscles of his arms.

      Involuntarily, Annie’s headstrong imagination slipped beneath his shirt, as well, to check out the muscles hidden there. It gave her some measure of comfort to think that, just in case she ended up doing something utterly idiotic like swooning at his feet, this hale fellow would have no trouble carrying her to the couch—or to the bed, for that matter.

      Attempting to get her runaway hormones under control, she picked her smile up off the floor and gave her best imitation of someone who had it all together.

      “Just let me grab my purse, and we can be on our way.”

      She was eager to dispense with the formality of inviting him inside on the pretense of showing him around the house. Johnny Lonebear did not appear to be the kind of man who was into such things as floor plans and decorative touches. As far as houses went, he struck Annie as the type who preferred a canopy of stars overhead to any fashionable cathedral-style ceiling. The very thought conjured up a vision of two sleeping bags zipped together in a remote and romantic setting. Annie hastened to shake her head to clear it of that image, but it was too late to keep that wicked imagination of hers from diving beneath the sleeping bag covers to reveal herself wantonly writhing beneath this powerful, naked man.

      Grabbing her purse off a nearby chair as if it were a life preserver, she heard her lips form a bold-faced lie.

      “I’m ready if you are,” she said, fighting the urge to run back inside and bolt the door behind her.

      Johnny didn’t feel the need to respond as he waited for Annie to lock her front door. Nobody on the reservation bothered with such formalities. It wasn’t so much that they hadn’t anything worth stealing as it was the belief that one’s home should always be open to anyone in need—whether or not you happened to be around. Perhaps it was just a small cultural difference, but he couldn’t help feeling that the very act itself widened the gulf separating himself from Annie Wainwright.

      The four-by-four Dodge Ram parked out front bespoke the personality of its driver. It was a big truck for a big man. The deep-blue, extended-cab’s chrome sparkled in the midday sun. Directly beneath a decal of the American flag, a Native Pride emblem decorated the back window. Over them both hung a gun rack, complete with a fearsome-looking weapon that made Annie flinch just to look at it.

      In the bed of the vehicle sat a huge black beast that resembled a bear. Ferocious barking at its master’s approach only slightly reassured Annie that the creature was, in fact, domesticated. The look of distress upon her face compelled Johnny to chastise the animal.

      “Down, Smokey!” he said sternly. “Down.”

      The command only served to set the brute’s great tail in motion. Swishing through the air, it truly seemed to wag the dog, whose wet pink tongue panted in the heat. Annie did everything in her power to avoid either end of this perpetual-motion machine. She actually imagined disappointment not only in Johnny’s but also in the beast’s eyes when she failed to reach out and pet it: an act which, in her opinion, would have taken no more courage than sticking one’s head in a lion’s mouth.

      “Smokey the Bear, I presume?” she asked over the thundering of a heart coping with a sudden rush of adrenaline.

      Impressed with her quick wit, Johnny flashed her a smile.

      “Don’t worry,” he assured her. “He’s friendly. That is, unless he thinks I’m being threatened.”

      Not quite sure what to make of that qualifying statement, Annie kept a healthy distance as she stepped up to the passenger side door with Johnny beside her. Rugged and practical, the ultramanly vehicle sat so high off the ground that it necessitated a helping hand for any woman of normal proportions to manage hitching herself into the contoured bench seat with a minimum amount of clumsiness. As much as Annie appreciated the gentlemanly gesture of someone going to the trouble of opening her door when she was perfectly capable of doing so herself, she almost wished Johnny would have just left her to struggle awkwardly into her seat by herself. The mere touch of his hand at her elbow as he helped her up sent a blast of heat exploding inside her chest like that of a shotgun pointed directly at the freshly painted target on her heart.

      Annie had blissfully forgotten just how much her skin hungered for the touch of a man.

      Johnny shut the door behind her and crossed to the driver’s side in a couple of long, purposeful strides. Hopping into place behind the steering wheel as if it was nothing to climb into a vehicle custom made for the Jolly Green Giant, he turned the key in the ignition.

      “So you think you’re up for this?” he asked, somehow managing to sound genuine in his concern.

      In defiance of the fact that the rest of her body stubbornly disagreed, Annie nodded her head. Yet another sudden power surge of heat rushing through her body, a result of an indulgent smile bestowed upon her, made her wish she had donned a pair of shorts instead of the jeans she had on. Since she didn’t want to ask Johnny