His hand gathered up tack from its storage place on the wall. Colby could have sworn he laughed softly as he turned to sit on a bale of hay, but when he looked up, Rafael’s
expressionless mask revealed no emotion whatsoever. “Are you going to stand there, or are you going to help me?” he asked, patting the hay beside him.
She stared at him as if he had grown two heads. His hands were busy on the leather, his fingers sure and deft. She watched him, counting the beats of her heart. Finally, reluctantly, Colby took the two steps bringing her to his side. “You’re going to help me with the tack? What’s the catch, De La Cruz?”
“I think it would be a good time to start calling me Rafael,” he said quietly.
Colby hesitated a moment then sat down, careful to avoid touching his body. Even so, she could feel the heat radiating out to her. Body heat. “Rafael, then,” she repeated with a sigh, “what’s the catch?” She caught the bridle he dropped in her lap, desperate to do something to distract her attention from him.
“Is that your philosophy on life?” he replied mildly. “There always has to be a catch? A most interesting way to live. It is an American tradition?”
She reprimanded him with one look from under her long lashes. “You know very well there is no such thing. It’s occurred to me more than once over the years that there’s a price tag on almost everything.”
His black eyebrow shot up. “Including simple friendship?”
She didn’t look at him as she worked the leather, her fingers sure and quick. “I don’t think you know what
simple
means. What is it you want from me, De La Cruz?”
“Is it so difficult to use my name?” he asked softly, the sound of his voice washing over her, brushing at her insides and causing a melting sensation in the region of her stomach.
“I don’t believe in fraternizing with the enemy.” She glanced at his perfectly chiseled features and just as quickly looked away. “You are the enemy, Rafael.” Deliberately she used his name to prove she wasn’t afraid of him. It was a mistake. It created a further intimacy between them in the small room. “You want my sister and brother. You want the ranch.” Her eyes suddenly locked with his. “Mostly you want to go home and I’m in your way.” She stared intently at him as if seeking something beyond what he was telling her.
Rafael felt the sudden surge of power in the room. It was strong and focused. He knew immediately she was reaching for the information in his mind, seeking answers to the sudden change in him. Joy surged through him, but he kept his triumph buried deep. He reached casually for the next piece of equipment, his arm deliberately brushing her body. “That was true a couple of days ago. It no longer is so.”
“What has changed?” There was a wealth of skepticism in her voice.
“I met you.” He said it softly, meaning it. Everything had changed. He was going home, but he was taking her with him. Nothing else mattered to him, he
would
have her, whatever it took. He should just take her. He had enough power to kidnap her, get her to his home territory, yet his very feelings for her prevented him from doing so. She looked sad, weary. He wanted to sweep her into his arms, close against his body, and comfort her. Rafael was a vampire hunter, a man of swift decisions and action. After more than a thousand years of living, he found himself in new territory. “I am very sorry about your friend. Sean tells me you were very good to the man. I am sorry, I do not know his name.”
“Pete. Pete Jessup.” Her throat constricted, but she fought her way through the emotion and continued. “He was a very good friend to me. I’m not sure I can run the ranch without him. He couldn’t always do the work, but he gave me very valuable advice. Everyone thought he was a charity case, but Pete knew so much about running a ranch; he’d worked on ranches all of his life and he was willing to teach me.” He had provided companionship to her as well as advice.
She hung up the bridle she had been working on and found another ragged piece to avoid looking at him. She was embarrassed and slightly ashamed she had come out with such private information. Rafael De La Cruz was dangerous to her. In such close proximity she could feel his need to comfort her, to protect her, and that was dangerous to her peace of mind.
“You are a woman, Colby, you should not have to run a ranch.” He said it so quietly, so gently, the words almost didn’t register.
For a moment she sat there beside him until the words sank into her brain. Rafael felt it again, the swift surge of power,
filling the room until the walls were nearly bulging outward in an effort to contain it. Colby struggled for control of her temper. She shoved a hand through her thick hair, taking several deep breaths while she battled with herself. “I think it would be best if you left, Rafael,” she finally suggested. “I appreciate the attempt at friendship, but we are never going to be friends.”
His black eyes glittered at her, fathomless, holding a thousand secrets. “I think we will learn to be very good friends.” His smile was frankly sexy, his teeth very white. “It will be necessary for you to lose the chip on your shoulder first.”
In spite of everything, the terrible day, her worries over the ranch, even who he was, Colby found herself wanting to smile at his choice of words. Both her brother and Ben Lassiter often accused her of exactly the same thing. “I do not have a chip on my shoulder.” When his black eyes continued to stare steadily at her she shrugged. “Okay, maybe a small one where you’re concerned. I don’t like you.”
He leaned close to her so that his thigh rubbed against hers. “Do you flatter all men, or am I the only one so privileged?”
“I’m sorry, that was rather rude. I’m usually not rude.” She rubbed her forehead. “At least I don’t think I am. Okay, maybe I am sometimes. What are you doing here?”
“I am courting you.” He sounded very old-fashioned.
Her vivid green eyes jumped to his face. “Courting me? Whatever for?”
He turned the power of his black eyes on her face. Mesmerizing. Hypnotic. Sexier-than-sin eyes. “Why do men usually court women, Colby? I think you can work it out for yourself.” His voice was velvet soft and slightly husky, the accent giving him a tremendous advantage.
Colby could feel her skin burn. Little flames seemed to be licking along every nerve ending. She sent him a quick reprimand from under her long lashes. “I think you are so used to women falling all over you that you can’t stand it when one doesn’t. I’m a practical person, Rafael. Men like you do not court women like me.”
His black gaze slid over her from head to toe like a whisper of velvet, leaving her skin on fire and slow color creeping into her face. “See, right there, that’s what I’m talking about,” she accused. “You’ve spent your life seducing women, and I just
think of men as friends, colleagues. You wouldn’t know how to relate to a woman as a friend. And I wouldn’t know what to do with one who wanted to seduce me.”
His teeth were whiter than ever, his smile slightly mocking. “I do not think you quite understand the situation you find yourself in,
pequena.
I am
courting
you as a man would his bride, not looking for a mistress to spend a few nights in my bed. You do not have to know what to do with seduction. I have enough knowledge for both of us.”
The breath rushed right out of her lungs and she gaped at him, silently appalled. For a moment she could only stare at him. “Do you even hear yourself when you spout this nonsense?” She leapt up to put a couple of feet between them so she wouldn’t wring his neck with the bridle. “Is that supposed to be a compliment, that you would choose me to be your bride and not your mistress? How many mistresses do you have exactly? Is there a set number after you’re married or do you just wing it?”
She looked so beautiful she robbed him of breath. There was a steel thread running through her small soft body, a fierce pride, hard-earned. He looked at her and saw himself through her eyes. What had he done with his life? She knew nothing of him other than the image they had so carefully cultivated of powerful, rich playboys.
Who did he love? Members of the Chevez family had lived with him for centuries, running his affairs during the daylight hours; his own brothers, loved only through dim memories—he felt it now, that intense, protective emotion; but Colby had seen him cold, uncaring. She had seen he had little interest in others. People were thought of in the same vein as his cattle, his property. It was necessary to protect them, but it was his duty, a matter of honor, nothing more. Women were to be seduced, fodder, really, easy prey for a man as alluring and as seductive as Rafael. Colby Jansen was looking at him as if he were a rather useless ladies’ man. She thought him handsome, sexy, but rather cold and cruel. Useless. There was the slightest curl of contempt in her mind when he managed to slip past her guard. A Latin lover. She thought his life one of endless parties and women. Rafael’s long fingers tightened on the old leather.
Colby knew what it was like to love fiercely, passionately, protectively. She worked hard without complaining, without thought for anything but those she cared about. Rafael found he wanted desperately to be one of those few she counted as her own. Taking her to his lands and claiming her would not earn him her genuine love. She was his lifemate, and her body had all the responses to him of a lifemate, but her heart and mind viewed him as a rather useless individual. He found he didn’t like her assessment of him at all and, more importantly, that her opinion mattered to him.
Rafael and his brothers had been sent from the Carpathian Mountains in times of turbulent war and massacres. It had been long after they had lost their ability to see in color, to feel all emotion, but they had served their prince to the best of their abilities in keeping with their rigid code of honor. It was all they had left to them in a gray, barren world of endless existence. But through the long, long centuries, memories dimmed and more and more the darkness had crept up on them.
Colby’s eyes suddenly flashed fire at him. “And have you forgotten my rather unfortunate parentage? As I recall, I was the reason the Chevez family could not find it in their so-called hearts to accept Armando back into the family fold. I believe I am illegitimate. A De La Cruz shouldn’t associate with someone like me, let alone court me. It might ruin your good name.”
His black eyes went from a sheer black intensity to icy cold so fast she shivered. “Where would you get an idea like that?” His voice was very soft, yet carried a wealth of menace. He didn’t move, but all at once he was far too close, looming over her.
Colby stood her ground, but suddenly it seemed to be shifting out from under her. “I read the letter. The letter from the family patriarch ordering Armando to get rid of my mother and me before I brought disgrace to the name of De La Cruz. It was in my mother’s drawer. I found it after she died.”
He stared at her a long moment hearing the hurt she tried so hard to hide.
Feeling
her hurt. “Ah, I see. That does explain quite a bit. Just to set the record straight, my brothers and I have our own strange reputations; we do not much care what others say of us or anyone else.” He waved a graceful, dismissing hand
and Colby had to believe him. He was too casual, too arrogant and sure of himself to worry about what another might say gossiping. “Old Chevez was a man much taken with his position in the community. He believed if he brought disgrace to us we would retaliate against his family in some way. It was not so.”
Rafael sighed. “We did not intervene when we should have,” he admitted heavily. He ached inside her, for that young girl who had found a letter written by a proud old man who didn’t understand the ways of the new world.
She could have sworn there was a fleeting tenderness in his expression when he looked at her. “Somehow I don’t think that old man would have listened to you,” Colby conceded, slightly ashamed of herself. “Maybe your father, but certainly not you.”
He had forgotten for a moment to be careful about time sequences. He was always pointing it out to his brothers, to be cautious about talking of things in the past as if they had all been present and had lived it. He chose his words, his voice very soft.
“I am sorry your
família
was hurt by the pompous attitude of an unbending man. When he died, and Armando’s brothers discovered the letter, they would not rest until they had come in person in an attempt to right this terrible wrong. To their credit, they did not know Armando had married and had children. They didn’t know his wife was killed in a plane crash or that he was injured so severely. Had they known, or had my brothers or I known, we would have come at once.” That was true. The De La Cruzes considered Armando a member of their family. Had they been informed of his need, they would have come in full force.
They should have known, should have cared enough to monitor him from a distance.
Rafael would have to live with that knowledge.
“That makes me feel much better, but I’m still not letting perfect strangers run off with my brother and sister.” Even to her own ears she sounded defiant.
“You did not really read the entire letter the lawyer sent you, did you?” he asked gently, his black gaze on her face.
She shrugged carelessly and lifted her chin. “I read as much as I needed to and skimmed the rest of it. The ranch is in my name; it belonged to my mother. Did the Chevez family
know that? It has been in my mother’s family for a hundred years. I am not going to hand it over to them. Armando recovered all the acres lost over the years and managed to turn a run-down property into a thriving business. It is his legacy to his children and I intend to hold it for them. I loved him. He deserved better than he got.”
Rafael nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving her face. “So did you,
querida.
The Chevez family wanted you to accompany Ginny and Paul. They are relatives, Colby, and they are not responsible for the terrible tragedy their
avô
precipitated upon the
família.
They are doing their best to make amends.” There was the gentlest of reproofs in his voice. “They do not need this ranch, as they are wealthy in their own right. Each of them has property and they manage our lands as well.”