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  “There will be a line of eager buyers at your door,” Gabe drawled. “I want to know when it goes on the market.”

  Talk turned to ranching, and Jonah looked around, seeing Kate standing alone on the terrace, watching him. He crossed the room and went outside to her.

  “Think we can get away from here now?” he asked, wanting to have her in his arms. “You’re gorgeous, Kate. When I look at you, my heart misses beats.”

  “And you’re the most handsome man in the whole state of Texas. Which is really saying something. You Texans are a handsome lot. And yes, I think we can leave. The party is in full swing without us. Let’s tell Henry and your folks goodbye. The others won’t care.”

  Jonah took her hand, and they found Henry with his cousins. Jonah hugged and kissed him, and then Kate did. As they left to find Jonah’s parents, she said, “I don’t think Henry is going to miss us at all.”

  “He’ll have a wonderful time at my folks’ house, you know. There’s Mom.”

  They said goodbye to Jonah’s parents and slipped away from the crowd to a car Jonah had waiting. In minutes they were speeding to the airport. They expected to be in New York tonight and on their way to Switzerland tomorrow.

  It was after dark when they entered their hotel room, which was the bridal suite, high above the city. “Look at the lights, Jonah,” Kate said, moving to the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  Switching off the lights in their suite, he crossed the room to stand behind her. He shed his coat and tie, and then leaned down to trail kisses across her nape.

  “I have champagne, I can put on music, we can go out if you want, or we can have room service. Or…”

  “Or? What’s the other choice?” she said, turning to look into his dark eyes as he wrapped his arms around her waist.

  “Or we can just kiss the night away.”

  “I like that choice best, Jonah. How I love you! I want to spend the whole night showing you,” she said.

  “Ahh, darlin’. Thank heavens you’re back in my arms and my life. I love you with all my heart, Kate. I mean it. I always have and I always will.”

  She slipped her arms around her handsome husband’s neck. “You wild, reckless man, I love you! Come here and let me show you,” she said, pulling his head down to kiss him passionately.

  Standing Outside the Fire

  By Sara Orwig

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  One

  “H ow did this happen to me?” Boone Devlin wondered for the hundredth time as he climbed out of his rental car.

  It was an hour from midnight, the seventh of July, and the glistening asphalt parking lot of the swank San Antonio hotel was deserted. Boone strode across it, dodging puddles from the night’s rain.

  Summer lightning streaked through the sky and was gone, plunging the Texas night back into darkness. He walked briskly, still in shock over his inheritance of a nationally famous quarter horse ranch and over a million dollars. He was in town to meet the manager of the ranch and to break the news that he intended to sell it. He was interested only in funding his new air charter service. With the money from the sale of the ranch, he could foresee endless possibilities for his business.

  The staccato click of heels caught Boone’s attention, and he caught sight of a shapely female a few yards ahead who hurried toward the hotel. As his gaze ran appreciatively over her form, a man stepped out of the shadows and accosted her.

  Boone couldn’t hear the man’s words, but she shook her head and snapped an emphatic no as she strode past him. The intruder fell into step beside her and continued speaking in a low voice. Abruptly, the woman veered away from him. When she did, the man reached out and grabbed her arm.

  Clenching his fists, Boone sprinted toward them.

  Already the woman had reacted, stomping her heel on the man’s instep. Then, she slapped him hard over the ear and shoved him away.

  “No!” she exclaimed again loudly, and while the man staggered, she rushed into the hotel.

  Boone chuckled, and the man spun around. “What’s so damn funny?” he snarled, starting toward Boone. The guy was ready to take out his anger on someone.

  Boone clenched his fists and spread his feet. “You want some more?” he asked softly. He stood close enough now that he could face the man squarely.

  Lightning flashed, and they stared at each other, eye to eye.

  The man’s chest expanded while he inhaled. Turning, he hurried away, disappearing into the shadows.

  Boone sauntered into the hotel’s elegant, deserted lobby that had leather chairs grouped around polished mahogany tables centered with vases of flowers. He strolled to the desk and checked in. When he went to the elevators, the woman from the parking lot was still there, and they entered the same elevator.

  Boone had only seen her in the dark parking lot. Now, in the bright lights of the elevator, she stole his breath. His gaze skimmed over a figure that was usually found only in men’s dreams. Her emerald-green sleeveless dress revealed lush curves and a tiny waist. Her slender arms had well-toned muscles, and he guessed that she worked out regularly. Especially since that display in the parking lot.

  Her full red lips conjured up his curiosity about how they would taste and feel beneath his own. He glanced at her long, slender fingers and noted she wore no wedding ring. She was looking down, adjusting her purse strap. The thick curtain of silky shoulder-length red hair fell forward, hiding her face. She raised her head and he gazed into the greenest eyes he had ever seen.

  Thickly lashed, her cat eyes mesmerized and enticed. They were cool, icy green, full of mystery and mischief and hints of sensual pleasure. She met his gaze with her own direct, self-assured stare.

  “I was going to come to your rescue out there in the parking lot,” Boone told her, “until I saw I wasn’t needed.”

  “Thanks, anyway,” she replied in a throaty voice.

  “Would you like to go downstairs and have a drink?” he asked, hoping to prolong their time together.

  She smiled briefly at him. “Thank you. Actually, I was going back downstairs. I haven’t had dinner tonight so I’m going to eat not drink.”

  “Fine. I just got into town. Let me take you to dinner to celebrate.”

  Her eyebrow arched. “Celebrate what? Your getting into town?”

  He grinned. “No, you fending off that guy. You were cool, collected and efficient. It was impressive.”

  “Thanks.” The elevator doors opened. “Maybe I’ll see you in the restaurant,” she offered, and the doors closed behind her.

  “Yes, you will,” Boone replied quietly. He rode to his floor, hurried to his room to deposit his flight bag, wash up and comb his wavy brown hair.

  Downstairs in the restaurant, he got a table beside a window that overlooked the deserted swimming pool. In the red-carpeted restaurant the lights were low and, because of the late hour, the room was almost deserted. While he sat and waited, he could hear live music from the lounge.

  Less than five minutes later, she walked through the door, and his pulse skipped a beat. When he stood and waved to her, she hesitated, but then she smiled and crossed the room toward him, moving past the tables draped with white linen cloths.

  He watched the easy sway of her hips, and his temperature rose another notch.

  “You don’t give up easily, either, do you?” she demanded.

  “No, but I’m not going to coerce you into eating with me. You’ll have to admit, it’ll be far more entertaining than if we eat alone.”

  “And you don’t lack in confidence,” she added, sounding amused.

  “That was fact not confidence. I know I’ll have a better time eating with you instead of alone.” He p
ulled out a chair.

  “I don’t usually let guys pick me up,” she told him, “and I don’t usually have dinner with strangers. For all I know, you’re married.”

  “I’m not picking you up—this isn’t a date,” he said as she sat down. “And I’ve never been married, not married now, not going to be.”

  “A free spirit?”

  “Exactly.” He walked around to his chair to sit and face her. “Besides, we’re not strangers now. We’ve known each other almost a whole half hour.” He held out his hand. “I’m B—”

  She shook her head. “No names. Let’s keep this impersonal.”

  “You don’t want to know my name?”

  “No, because we won’t see each other again after this night. When dinner is over we’ll go our separate ways. I’ll feel much better about it.”

  He cocked his head. “Want to make a bet? I’ll bet you that before we part, you’ll tell me your name. In the meantime, I’ll just call you Red.”

  Smiling, she nodded while her green eyes twinkled. “All right, I’ll take that bet. Winner gets what?”

  “What would you like if you win?” he challenged, knowing what he would like to claim as his prize, but also knowing he couldn’t tell her that now. Another loud clap of thunder boomed and crackled through the hotel. “What would you like if you win? Name something,” he urged her.

  She gazed past him and pursed her lips in thought. Boone had to fight the temptation to lean across the table and touch his lips to hers. Finally her gaze returned to him. “I’m a chocoholic. If I win, you get me a chocolate dessert, or if they don’t have one, a candy bar. I know the gift shop will have them.”

  “Fine with me,” he replied.

  “Now, if you win, what do you want? You better keep the prize simple and impersonal,” she warned in a no-nonsense tone.

  “That you tell me four facts about yourself—in addition to the ones I figure out on my own.”

  He received another smile. “If you’re trying to figure me out, I can save you the trouble. I’m an ordinary person who leads an ordinary life.”

  “I don’t think so. Four new facts, right?”

  “That’s an easy one. All right. I’ll take that bet and enjoy my chocolate.”

  “Tonight we can have a double celebration.”

  “This ought to be a good one—what else will we celebrate?” Outside, lightning flashed, and then was gone.

  “My having dinner with one of the prettiest women in Texas, and that’s saying a lot. Since Texas women are usually gorgeous.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “That’s a little thick!”

  “There! Your smile is absolute proof. You have a dimple, even, white teeth, a smile that would set any man’s pulse racing, plus those big green eyes…” He paused when a waiter arrived to pour glasses of water for each of them.

  Boone ordered white wine, yet all the time he was ordering, he was watching the woman and thinking about her. He had meant every word he’d said to her. Besides being capable and keeping a cool head in a scary situation, she was stunning and sexy—a combination to heat his blood to boiling. And he had the feeling that she was merely tolerating him. He could get some response from her, but it was slight and guarded, a rarity in his dealings with women.

  As soon as the waiter left, Boone leaned forward. “Where was I? Big, green eyes, luscious red lips, fiery red hair,” he said, catching a lock of her hair in his fingers. It was silky soft.

  “Who were you telling all this to last night?” she asked, tugging her hair away from him. Though she was being flippant, there was no mistaking a chemistry sparking between them.

  “I could deny telling anyone, but I don’t think you’d believe me. The way you decked that guy in the parking lot says a lot about your personality.”

  “Am I supposed to ask you what you think my personality is like?” she asked with amusement in her eyes.

  “I think you’re practical. No frills. Intelligent and cool and confident. You’re laughing at my compliments, which means you are self-assured and don’t need to hear compliments. You can laugh at yourself and don’t believe you are one of the most gorgeous women in Texas, though you should.”

  “Hardly! That’s a real stretch.” She laughed, and he wondered how many men had succumbed to that irresistible smile. “I’ve never won a beauty contest in my life.”

  “How many have you entered?” he countered.

  “None,” she admitted.

  “And I’m right in my assessment otherwise—will you agree with that?”

  Her lips firmed as she seemed to give his question thought before she nodded. “I’d say that I am practical and no frills. Intelligent—I hope reasonably so, but maybe I’m not showing a whole lot of sense eating dinner with a stranger. To my credit, when we finish dinner, I will go to my room and you will go to yours. And you won’t accompany me to mine. You won’t know which room it is. You won’t even know who I am. Let’s keep the evening impersonal. I’ll feel safer that way. I carry a cell phone and can call for help at any time. As for cool and confident—most of the time. Not always. It’s a fairly accurate assessment.”

  “So is the part about you being gorgeous.” He leaned back as the waiter brought a bottle of wine, opened it and let Boone approve before pouring. The pale liquid half filled the glasses and then the white-coated waiter set the bottle in a bucket of ice and placed ornate red menus in front of each of them before he left.

  As soon as they were alone, Boone lifted his glass. “Here’s to you for handling a bad situation with great aplomb.” He touched his glass to hers with a faint clink, and then gazing into her eyes, took a sip of his wine. The pale, dry wine went down smoothly while excitement hummed in him like an idling engine.

  As she sipped and lowered her glass, thunder boomed.

  “We may have just beaten the rain here,” he observed.

  “They’ve had two inches today already,” she replied, looking outside and sounding as if she had forgotten him.

  “How do you know that?” He was curious about her, wanting to know everything possible and wanting a date.

  “The desk clerk told me.”

  While she talked, Boone caught her hand in his and felt a current zing over his nerves when he touched her. Her skin was soft and smooth. “I don’t see an engagement or wedding ring.”

  “No, you don’t,” she replied with a faint smile. She looked outside again as if the matter held her attention more than Boone.

  “And the way you said that, I suspect there is no steady boyfriend.”

  “You’re right again. Maybe you should earn a living as a clairvoyant.”

  “I’m a good—guesser,” he said, giving another innuendo to the last word, and she arched her eyebrows. “And another toast to a gorgeous redhead I’ll always remember.”

  She moved her hand away as he touched her glass again. “Always being until the next pretty woman crosses your path.”

  “Not so. I’m not going to forget you and—” he leaned forward again and lowered his voice “—I hope before the night is over, I can see to it that you will always remember me.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so, but you can tell yourself that I will. When we go our separate ways, dinner tonight will be a brief and soon forgotten interlude.”

  “I intend to see that it isn’t,” he said, intrigued more by her each minute. “So, I’ve given you a personality appraisal. Now, you give me one. I’m curious what you think about me and what you think I’m like.”

  “Self-centered,” she answered lightly.

  “Ouch! All I’ve talked about is you—where do you get this self-centered stuff?”

  Her eyes twinkled. “You’re aware of yourself. You’re totally confident, determined, not a little arrogant, and in some ways, charming.”

  “I’m glad you threw in the last or I’d think I’d better get up and move to another table and stop imposing on you. ‘In some ways, charming?’ How so?”

/>   “You know you’re charming to females,” she replied firmly. “You do not need compliments. You didn’t get so self-confident by being turned down.”

  While she looked at the menu, Boone studied his. “How about the steaks?” he asked her, and she nodded.

  “A steak sounds delicious. Actually, I missed lunch and had only a tiny breakfast this morning, so a steak would be wonderful.”

  In minutes the waiter returned and took their orders, leaving and coming back with a thick loaf of fresh bread on a wooden plank.

  “You slice the bread,” Boone suggested. “I’d mangle it.”

  He watched her slender fingers deftly cut two slices and offer him one.

  He put a slice on his bread plate, but he was far more interested in talking to her than he was in eating. She had taken only a few sips of wine when he started to refill her glass.

  “Thanks, I don’t need more. Actually, I think this is the first wine—or any alcoholic drink I’ve had—since Christmas.”

  “Christmas! Do you ever get out of the house?”

  She laughed. “Yes, I get out of the house.”

  “Since Christmas, I think you can have a tiny refill,” he said, looking at her questioningly.

  She took a deep breath as she appeared to reconsider, and then she nodded. “I suppose. This has been a horrendous day.”

  “Uh-oh. I hope it took a definite turn for the better about half an hour ago.” He refilled her glass and put the bottle in the ice bucket. “What happened that was so terrible?”

  “I was at a business meeting,” she said, and her voice became brisk as she stared past him. “Someone on the way to the meeting was in a terrible car crash and is in intensive care now and that put a damper on the day.”

  “That’s tough. Sorry. Was it someone you knew?”

  “Yes, but not well. And then my flight home today was delayed by storms, and we sat on the runway for three hours.”

  “You have had a bad day. Plus the guy in the parking lot. Well, the bad part is over, and I’ll do my damnedest to cheer you up.”