Let It Bree. Colleen Collins

sorry,” he murmured thickly, staring at her underwear. He quickly turned away, his hand still stuck on his head.

      Having grown up in the country, Bree wasn’t hung up on what showed or didn’t show. Besides, any essential “body stuff” wasn’t showing at all. And even it if was, big deal. Ever since she was a kid, she and her buddies—girls and boys—had often skinny-dipped at the Connors pond.

      “I’m covered,” she said.

      “Barely,” he muttered.

      “How long you gonna keep your hand on your head?” she asked.

      He dropped it, holding it stiffly at his side.

      She laughed. “I’m wearing more than a bathing suit, for gosh sake!”

      Kirk wanted to say something, after all, his verbal acumen covered the gambit from lectures to theoretical discussions, but he had the gut sense that if he opened his mouth right now, the only thing that would emerge would be a garbled string of incoherent sounds.

      And Kirk Dunmore, always articulate, with an IQ topping 170, was at this very moment reduced to a brain-damaged, blithering idiot. And not just once in one night, but twice.

      Okay, okay, even Einstein’s brain might have turned to mush if he’d been faced with a Brahman bull.

      But would Einstein have turned to brain mush face-to-face with a striking, partially clad woman of Amazonian proportions? Hell no. Rumor had it Einstein turned into a damn playboy when he crossed paths with the likes of Marilyn Monroe.

      While all these thoughts collided in his head, Kirk realized he’d been staring openmouthed at Bree over his shoulder.

      Look away. Be a gentleman.

      But his eyes were behaving as though they’d been penned up for a lifetime and now were rarin’ to roam free.

      And roam they did. All over Bree’s long, lean, strong body as though the most exquisite sights of nature had been molded into one mighty fine package.

      The sheen of her tan reminded him of the warm, golden sands on New Guinea beaches. The curve of her breasts mimicked the lush, rolling hills of the Argentine pampas. And those red glints in her dark curls were like the fiery, predawn rays of the sun as it rose over the Himalayas.

      But when his gaze dropped to her legs, no geographical reference could do them justice. Those achingly long, sensuous legs reminded him of the libido-searing Rod Stewart song “Hot Legs.”

      Was that a tattoo on her ankle?

      At first he thought it was a flower unfolding, then realized it was a chocolate being unwrapped. A chocolate kiss. He licked his lips, aching for just a drop of that chocolate to whet his parched soul.

      “Are you all right?” asked Bree.

      “No,” he croaked.

      “If you’d feel better,” Bree said softly, “I’ll slip back into bed, get under the covers.”

      Better? He doubted he could feel any better except…if…

      Whoa, boy, put a lock on it. You’re getting married in two days. Forty-eight hours. Two thousand, eight hundred and eighty minutes.

      This had to be the result of the week-long dig he’d just finished. All that time alone, with nothing but prairie dogs and lizards for company, a man was bound to go whacko for a little chocolate drawing on an ankle.

      In the silence, Kirk heard her tread softly across the carpet. Then the squeak of the bed as she settled in. And he tried to keep his mind trained on the lodge’s wooden walls, upon which crookedly hung a framed print of a bear pawing a stream for salmon.

      But no matter what he tried to focus on, his just-turned-bad-boy mind kept returning to the image of those long, tan legs and chocolate-tattooed ankle, stretching and twisting in the warm dark under those seductively soft covers.

      Why had he been born a paleobotanist? Oh what he’d give for a moment as a plain ol’ blanket conforming to the shape and warmth of Bree.

      Breeeeee. The sound of her name was like the wind. Bree. Breeezy. With a soulful lilt, like in that Beatles song “Let It Be.” Let it Bree. Let me lick that little chocolate on your ankle for the rest of my life…

      Bree tucked the blanket under her chin and peered at Kirk. He seemed oddly off balance, as though he might topple over any moment.

      “Kirk, you look a little unsteady. Need some water?”

      “Chocolate.”

      “What?”

      He coughed. “Uh, water. Right. Need water.”

      “Okay, I’ll go grab a glass in the bathroom, get you—”

      “No!”

      He still stood with his back to her. “I’ll get it. Stay put. And cover up.”

      He returned a moment later, downing a glass of water like a parched man, staring at her with wide blue eyes. He was so flustered, so red-faced, she suddenly got it.

      “Don’t tell me you’re nervous about seeing me in my undies. We’ve already been through this.”

      “Not nervous. Not anymore.”

      Maybe he said he wasn’t nervous, but he looked positively mortified. “Aren’t you used to seeing naked women?” She almost said, aren’t you used to seeing your fiancée naked? but figured that was getting into overly personal terrain.

      “You weren’t naked—just nearly naked.”

      Maybe Kirk was a throwback to another century where men were polite, discreet, and the wedding night was the first time they…

      Wow. She didn’t know men like that existed in today’s world. And to think she, small-town girl from even smaller-town Chugwater, possibly knew more about the birds and the bees than Mr. Big City!

      “Well, I’m all covered now, so it’s a moot point,” she announced.

      Kirk put the glass aside, shot her a feeble smile, then backed up to the couch and fell into a sitting position. Avoiding looking at her face, he scraped his hand across his stubbled chin as though he’d just finished an incredibly long and exhausting journey.

      “Wish I had a glass of warm milk,” he rasped. He looked at her, his eyes burning as though he were running a fever.

      “Maybe that café’s still open?”

      “At 3:00 a.m.?”

      “Maybe those Harley people have some.”

      “Very funny. Obviously one of us has gotten some sleep.”

      Bree jerked her thumb toward the window. “Two.”

      Kirk looked outside at Val. “Okay, Val’s gotten some sleep-eye too, lucky bull.” Kirk narrowed his eyes, thinking. “Hmm, maybe I should take your bull to those bikers’ rooms, position him behind me while I ask if they could please keep it down.”

      “That’d work,” Bree said with a smile. “Val has a reputation for clearing out places. Once he accidentally kicked over a vat of chili at the Chugwater Chili festival—that sent people running! But his kicking was my fault. I’d accidentally brushed against his back left leg, which is our signal for him to kick out his right leg. It’s a little trick I taught him. Another time he got loose in downtown Chugwater and tore into Mary Jane Tock’s beauty parlor. The street was instantly filled with shrieking women in hair curlers and blue face masks.” Bree giggled.

      Kirk chuckled, shaking his head. “Yeah, that’s just what the Sundance Lodge needs in the wee hours of the morning. A bunch of hysterical bikers running amok in the parking lot.”

      Bree laughed louder, liking how the two of them were sharing a fun moment. This sure beat the hell out of Kirk’s mortification…or her paranoia that thugs were knocking