A Stetson On Her Pillow. Molly Liholm

she did to Clint. She wanted him.

      Ever since she’d first laid eyes on him six months ago, her dreams had been filled with erotic fantasies starring Clint. Too often she caught herself staring at his muscular forearms, the fine hair on his hands. She even admired his easy camaraderie with his colleagues. His drawl reduced her to a pool of longing. A mass of quivering Jell-O.

      She stiffened under his arm. For the sake of her pride, she wasn’t about to let Clint suspect even an inkling of her feelings toward him.

      Clint leaned in and whispered in her ear. “Relax, Princess. We’re the happy couple—everything Peter Monroe’s subconscious wants to be. We have to look deliriously happy together.”

      “We’re not big on overt public displays of affection in my family or my social set,” she said smoothly, annoyed at herself for telling him anything about herself. It wasn’t in her nature to confide in others, especially near-strangers.

      Maybe that was Clint’s appeal for her, she considered as Sweetums stretched forward and sniffed Clint’s leather jacket. He was so different from all the men she’d known, especially those from her upper-class background.

      A cowboy would shock her mother clear down to her pedicured toes.

      Wasn’t she a little old at twenty-seven to be going through a rebellious stage? Laura wondered.

      Clint’s warm breath continued next to her ear. “Besides I’m looking forward to you talking that little dog’s way into the hotel.”

      “Watch me.” She smiled sweetly and walked briskly into the hotel, cooing to Sweetums every step of the way, all too aware of Clint directly behind her. She wished she was the kind of woman who could swing her backside, instead she smiled at the doorman who scrambled to open the door for her, all the time pretending she was her second cousin, Mindy, who traveled with an entourage of pets, including a potbellied Vietnamese pig, to the most exclusive hotels.

      She sailed through the lobby, Sweetums’s bow flapping in the breeze, and went straight to the executive check-in. Luckily there was no one else waiting and she bestowed her most gracious look on the young clerk behind the desk. She smiled. “What a charming hotel you have, you must be very proud.”

      The young man looked confused but he recovered. “Thank you.”

      “And you’re so young to be in charge.” She looked at his name tag. “Ralph. May I call you Ralph? I’m Laura Marshall and this gorgeous man behind me is my husband Clint.” She turned to Clint. “Say hello to the nice young man, darlin’,” She drawled the last word in a fine imitation of his Texas twang.

      Clint pushed back his cowboy hat and grinned. “Howdy.”

      “This is Sweetums.” Laura placed the dog on the counter, fussed with the blue bow, continuing blithely as Ralph blanched. Sweetums panted and drooled on top of the marble countertop. “Oh, she really likes you, Ralph, but then again Sweetums has always had exquisite taste.”

      Ralph blushed. “I’m sorry ma’am but—”

      “Oh no, please don’t call me ma’am. It makes me feel…” she shivered and said in a low voice, “…matronly.” She leaned in closer, engulfing him in a wave of perfume. “You don’t think I look matronly do you?”

      The top of Ralph’s ears turned pink. “No. You’re beautiful.” He gulped for breath. “Er, I mean—”

      “No need to apologize for a compliment, young man.” She leaned in a little closer and caught Ralph’s eyes with her own, letting him fantasize for a moment about her. “But you’ll be wanting to do your job. You can look us up in that computer now. We have a suite. Mr. and Mrs. Clint Marshall.”

      Ralph began typing into his computer, his gaze flickering between the screen and the dog. “Got it.” He looked at her apologetically. “I’m afraid the hotel has a policy against animals.”

      “A very good policy it is, too.” She straightened Sweetums’s ribbon. “Imagine animals in a hotel. Whatever do some people think of?”

      Ralph’s ears turned red. “I meant pets. I’m afraid we don’t allow pets of any kind.”

      Laura smiled at him. “Of course not. It’s a very sensible policy. I knew I liked this place. Didn’t I say so as soon as we saw the hotel. I said, ‘Clint, honey, this looks like a first-class establishment.’ Didn’t I say that, dear?”

      “You sure did, honey pie,” Clint agreed from behind her.

      She heard the laughter in his voice, but she refused to turn around and glare at him. Instead, she continued to smile sweetly at Ralph.

      Ralph’s ears reddened even more as he swallowed and looked again at Sweetums. “I’m afraid we can’t, I mean—” he faltered as he pointed to Sweetums. The dog yawned and drooled on the marble countertop. “Your pet…”

      She picked up Sweetums and kissed the top of the Lhasa apso’s head. “Sweetums isn’t a pet, she’s part of the family.”

      “She’s a dog,” Ralph persisted.

      Laura covered the dog’s ears. “Ssh, you mustn’t say those words around her. Sweetums has species issues.”

      Clint made a curious sound, but she ignored him. She’d told him she was going to get Sweetums into the hotel and she was enjoying playing the part of cousin Mindy. Perhaps this odd sense of power was why Mindy traveled with her animal menagerie. “Ralph, I thought this was a first-class hotel. I hope you’re not about to change my impression within the first five minutes. We’re here for the York-Chandler wedding. Sweetums goes everywhere I go. Surely you don’t want me to tell the happy families that you’re refusing to let us stay?”

      “Of course not, Mrs. Marshall, but your do—”

      “Not that word,” she held up her hand. “Species issues.” She rubbed Sweetums behind her ears and Ralph gulped.

      “Sweetums is against hotel policy,” Ralph said as he tugged on an ear.

      “Of course I understand that for your average d-o-g,” she spelled out the letters, “this is a very good policy. But Sweetums isn’t average.” She leaned a little closer and stroked Ralph’s cheek, her hand lingering just beneath his earlobe. “Sweetums will be very good. No one will know she’s even here. I promise,” she breathed and raised her blue eyes to his and held him. She watched worry about his job and desire to please her cross his face and his ears wiggled. She held herself very still, every inch of her regal family’s genes giving her strength.

      Just as she was afraid she might have lost him, Ralph hit some keys on the keyboard and nodded to the bellboy behind them. “They’re in the honeymoon suite.”

      “We are?” Laura couldn’t keep the shocked surprise out of her voice. She cast a suspicious look at Clint, but he smiled blandly. There was absolutely no way she was going to spend four nights together with Clint in the honeymoon suite. “Won’t the bride and groom want that suite?”

      “They have separate rooms until the wedding and are leaving for the Bahamas right after the reception.”

      “How sweet and old-fashioned,” she muttered.

      “Honeybunch, I reserved us the honeymoon suite.” Clint had stepped forward and he hugged her to his side. Her face was pressed into his leather jacket and she couldn’t breathe. She tipped her face up and saw Clint smiling down on her like he’d won a prize. “I thought it would be nice to combine a little honeymooning of our own with this wedding shindig.”

      “How lovely. You should have told me.” She tried to move away from him but his hold was like a vise.

      “Don’t worry, I packed my favorite negligee.”

      She bared her teeth at him. She kicked him in the shins, but his cowboy boots protected him while her expensive shoes offered her no protection. “Ouch, er, a second