AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Londyn stared down at the dirty clothes on the floor, wondering if they would dry by morning if she washed them in the sink that night.
A soft knock on the door made her hands tighten on the towel tucked around her. She had to remind herself Nash was a stranger to her, yet here she was, practically naked in a bathroom that didn’t have a door lock. “Yes?” she said, looking around for something she could use for a weapon and finding nothing.
“You might want this.” Nash opened the door a crack and stuck his hand through. In it was a faded black T-shirt and a pair of royal blue boxer briefs. “It’s the best I can do for the night. I have a pair of sweats you can wear to the set tomorrow. If you let me know your sizes, I can see what I can have brought in.”
She took the proffered offering, touched that he’d thought about her predicament and had come up with a temporary solution to running around naked in nothing more than a towel. “Thank you.”
He shut the door. “Swede had the kitchen stocked with some supplies. Hungry?”
Her belly rumbled loudly.
Nash chuckled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Londyn pulled the boxer shorts up her legs, feeling oddly sexy in the smooth fabric. Knowing he had worn these at some time made it seem even more intimate. Heat rose up her neck into her cheeks and coiled low in her belly. She quickly pulled the T-shirt over her head. The jersey fabric slid over her skin, the hem falling to the tops of her knees.
Her nipples puckered against the soft material.
Londyn ran her hands over her body, shocked at its response to wearing men’s clothing. No. It wasn’t that they were men’s clothing. They were Nash’s, and they held the lingering scent of the man’s cologne like he’d stored it amongst his clothes.
What was wrong with her? She’d had several attempts on her life in the past forty-eight hours. Yet, she was fantasizing over the man whose clothing caressed her body. A man she’d just met—also, the guy who’d saved her from a certain explosive death.
That had to be it. She had some hero-worship complex going on since he’d saved her.
She tried to finger-comb her hair to no avail and ended up wrapping it in the towel. The stylist in charge of her hair would have to sort through the tangles tomorrow. Without a brush, she could do little to straighten her long black hair. Not for the first time in the past few years, she wondered why she didn’t just cut it off. Short hair made much more sense for a rancher as busy as she was.
Then again, her hair was part of her heritage. Though her mother had never told her who her father was, it was obvious to everyone she looked like him, not her blond-haired, blue-eyed movie star mother.
When she was with her mother, no one ever guessed they were related.
When Londyn had been old enough to ask about her father, her mother had said he wasn’t in the picture. He’d been her drunk, one-night stand on her last night in Montana before she’d moved to California to pursue a career in film. She hadn’t known his name and didn’t think she’d ever see him again to let him know he had a daughter.
She’d discouraged Londyn from looking for the man, saying he was probably a roughneck who worked on a pipeline and had a woman in every town he visited. And if he did come looking for Londyn, it would be to see how much money he could get out of her mother now that she was a wealthy movie star. According to her mother, men only came looking for their bastards if there was money in it for them.
Londyn only took her mother’s words halfway to heart. She didn’t believe all men were assholes. Her grandfather had been a stern man, but he’d had a big heart beneath his tough exterior. Deep down, he’d been heartbroken when his only daughter had left Montana and refused to return. Only on his deathbed had he opened up enough to say they’d had a disagreement over his daughter’s choice of boyfriends.
Since her mother had married three times and divorced three times, Londyn guessed her mother had left that boyfriend behind in Montana, having revenge sex on her way out.
Until Londyn had moved to Montana to live with her grandfather, she’d never known what it was like to have a father figure in her life. Especially one who gave a damn about her.
In her grandfather’s gruff way, he’d loved her and taught her how to treat people by example. He’d always been fair but never a pushover. He’d helped people who needed it but who’d been willing to help themselves. And he’d instilled in her a love of the land, the animals and all the good that hard work could achieve.
Based on her dark hair, eyes, skin and bone structure, Londyn was obviously of Native American descent. She’d always wondered what tribe she belonged to. One Christmas, her grandfather had gifted her a DNA testing kit. When her mother had found out about it, she’d blown a gasket, demanding Londyn throw it away.
To keep the peace and save her grandfather a lot of grief, Londyn had told them both she’d tossed the kit in the burn barrel. But she’d lied. She’d already sent in her sample. She’d beat her grandfather to the mailbox every day for a month until the results had come back.
The results had showed that she was primarily of Shoshone descent. When she’d gone to college in Bozeman, she’d joined the American Indian Council of MSU, eager to learn more about her people.
That had been where she’d met Tala and other young people eager to make a difference in the lives of their people. The only difference was that the others had come primarily from the surrounding reservations, while Londyn had lived on a ranch with her white grandfather. She’d never told them who her mother was. She’d liked the relative anonymity her mother’s choice of shortening her name had provided.
Standing in the bathroom, dressed in Nash’s clothing, all those memories raced through her head. She looked as Native American as the kids from the rez. Had her mother warned him that her daughter didn’t look anything like her? Had he been shocked that she was Native American instead of the blond, blue-eyed beauty her mother still was?
With the towel balanced on her head, Londyn squared her shoulders and pulled the door open.
What Nash thought of her was irrelevant. She didn’t need his approval for anything. The man was only there to do a job.
Protect her.
So far, he’d proven himself adept. Who brought a mirror on an extension rod to a movie set when you’re assigned to guard a movie star?
