“What do you mean I’m too old? You don’t even know how old I am.”
“You have to be between eighteen and twenty-two. And single.”
“Well, of course you know I’m single,” Amber said. “What makes you think I’m too old?”
Jesus. He’d walked right into that one. “Now, honey, you’re beautiful, but you can’t possibly be—”
Amber’s face reddened, and she reached into the small pocketbook hanging at her hip. She pulled out her wallet and then her driver’s license and shoved it in Chad’s face. “I’m twenty-one, you dumb cowboy. Twenty-two next month. So I qualify. And I’m entering.”
“Christ,” Chad muttered. Twenty-one? He’d had no idea.
Twenty-one. Catie’s age.
Damn.
Somehow, though, with Amber, the age didn’t pack quite as much of a wallop as it did with Catie. Maybe because he remembered what Catie looked like at five. He shook his head.
Damn it all to hell.
“Clearly, I look like an old bat to you,” Amber yammered in his ear.
“No, that’s not it at all,” Chad said. “I just assumed… Aw hell, there’s no getting out of this one, is there?”
“Afraid not, Chad,” she said.
“Let me get you a drink, then,” he said. “I’ve found women find my foot in my mouth much more charming when they’ve had a drink.”
Amber’s lips curved upward. Yep, the McCray charm worked every time. “All right, I guess.”
“Forgive me, then?”
“Sure, I suppose.”
“Let me get you that drink. What’ll you—” His mouth dropped open.
In a clingy red sundress leaving nothing to the imagination stood Catie Bay. Nothing to the imagination except the hue of those pert nipples protruding through the silky fabric. Pink? Or a deeper crimson? Maybe a dusky brown? And the color of the curls between her legs. Were they dark mahogany, like on her head? Or black as onyx?
His jeans tightened around his groin. Damn, her legs went on forever. Those luscious thighs disappeared under that clingy red skirt, and all Chad could think about was the sweet, moist spot at their apex. Would that taste like lime and raspberries too?
“A cosmo,” came a voice from far away. “Or white wine, if they don’t have mixed drinks.”
Who was that?
Amber. Right. He’d offered to get her a drink. A bar had been set up on the deck…where Catie was headed.
“Right. I’ll get it.” Not looking at Amber, he headed toward the bar. And Catie.
“Hey, little bit.”
“Hey yourself,” Catie said, leaning down to pet Marnie, “and I thought you promised not to call me that anymore.”
Chad chuckled. “Old habits die hard, Catie.”
“Caitlyn.”
“Right. Caitlyn. Drinking ’ritas again?”
Catie smiled. Had she always had those cute little dimples?