The Cowboy and the Lady (6 page)

“Didn’t Jace try to stop her?” Amanda asked incredulously.

“Jace didn’t know about it.” He chuckled. “Mother dared me to open my mouth. And he was off the property so much checking on the other ranches, he didn’t notice the animal was missing.”

“What did he do when he found out?”

“Threw back his head and laughed,” Duncan told her.

Both eyebrows went up. “All that money…!”

“Strange how different Jace is with you,” he remarked. “He’s the easiest man in the world to get along with, as far as the rest of us are concerned.”

Amanda turned away from those probing eyes and looked out across the range. “Did you mention something about showing us the new bull?” she hedged.

“Sure. Follow me.” Duncan grinned.

* * *

It was roundup at its best, and hundreds of calves were being vetted in a chuted corral with gates opening into paddocks on all four sides. In the midst of the noise, bawling cattle, dust, yelling cowboys and blazing sun was Jace Whitehall, straddling the fence, overseeing the whole operation. His interest in ranch work had never waned, even though he could have gone the rest of his life without ever donning jeans and a work hat again. He was rich now, successful, and his financial wizardry had placed him in a luxurious office in a skyscraper in downtown Victoria. He didn’t have to work cattle. In fact, for a man in his position, it was unusual that he did. But then Jace was unconventional. And Amanda wondered if he hadn’t really enjoyed ranch work more before it made him wealthy. He was an outdoor man at heart, not a desk-bound executive.

He caught sight of Amanda at once, and even at a distance, she could feel the ferocity of his look. But she straightened proudly and schooled her delicate features to calmness. It wouldn’t do to let Jace know how he really affected her.

“Don’t let him rattle you, Mandy,” Duncan said under his breath. “He picks at you out of pure habit, not malice. He doesn’t really mean anything.”

“He’s not walking all over me anymore,” she returned stubbornly. “Whether or not he means it.”

“Declaring war?” he teased.

“With all batteries blazing,” she returned. She put up a hand to push a loose strand of her silvery hair back in place.

“I came to see the calves,” Duncan called to his brother.

Jace leaped gracefully down from the fence and walked toward them, pausing to tear off his hat and wipe his sweaty brow on the sleeve of his dusty shirt. “Did you need to bring a delegation?” he asked, staring pointedly at Amanda and Terry.

“We did think about hiring a bus and bringing the kitchen staff,” Amanda agreed with a bold smile.

Jace’s glittering silver eyes narrowed. “Why don’t you come down here and get cute,” he invited curtly.

“Grass allergy,” she murmured. “Dust, too. Horrible to watch.”

Duncan chuckled. “Incorrigible child,” he teased.

“How do you stand the dust and the heat?” Terry asked incredulously. “Not to mention the noise!”

“Long practice,” Jace told him. “And necessity. It isn’t easy work.”

“I’ll never complain about beef prices again,” Terry promised, shading his eyes with his hand as he watched the men at work sorting and tagging and branding.

“Hi, Happy!” Amanda called to an old, grizzled cowboy who was just coming up behind Jace with his sweaty hat pushed back over his gray hair.

“Hello, Many!” the old cowboy greeted her with a toothless grin. “Come down to help us brand these little dogies?”

“Only if I get a nice, thick steak when you finish,” she teased. Happy had been one of her father’s foremen before…

“How’s your mama?” Happy asked.

Amanda avoided Jace’s mocking smile. “Fine, thanks.”

Happy nodded. “Good to see you,” he said, reading the hard look he was getting from Jace. “I’d better get back to work.”

“Damned straight,” Jace replied curtly, watching the older man move quickly away.

“It was my fault, Jace,” Amanda said quietly. “I spoke to him first.”

He ignored her soft plea. “Show Black the Arabians,” he told his brother. “They’re well worth the ride, if he thinks his anatomy will stand it,” he added with an amused glance at Terry, who was standing up in the stirrups with a muffled groan.

“Thanks, I’d love to,” Terry said through gritted teeth.

Jace chuckled, and just for a moment the hard lines left his face. “Don’t push it,” he advised the younger man. “It’s going to be tough walking again as it is. Plenty of time.”

Terry nodded. “Thanks,” he said, and meant it this time. “I’ll pass on the horses today.”

“We’ll head back, then,” Duncan said, wheeling his mount. “Amanda, race you!” he called the challenge.

“Hold it!” Jace’s voice rang out above the bawling cattle.

Amanda stopped so suddenly that she went forward in the saddle as a lean, powerful hand caught at the bridle of her mount and pulled him up short.

“No racing,” Jace said curtly, daring her to argue with him as he averted his gaze to Duncan. “She’s too accident-prone.”

Duncan only looked amused. “If you say so.”

“I’m not a child,” Amanda protested, glaring down at the tall man.

He looked up into her eyes, and there was a look in his that held banked-down flames, puzzling, fascinating. She didn’t look away, and something like an electric shock tore through her body.

Jace’s firm jaw tautened and abruptly he released the reins and moved away. “If Summers calls me about that foundation sale, send somebody out to get me,” he told Duncan, and then he was gone, striding back into the tangle of men and cattle without a backward glance.

Duncan didn’t say a word, but there was an amused smile on his face when they headed back to the house, and Amanda was glad that Terry was too concerned with his aching muscles to pay much attention to what was going on around him. That look in Jace’s eyes, even in memory, could jack up her heart rate. It wasn’t contempt, or hatred. It was a fierce, barely contained hunger, and it terrified her to think that Jace felt that way. Ever since her disastrous sixteenth birthday party, she’d kept her distance from him. Now, finally, she was forced to admit the reason for it, if only to herself. Fastidious and cool, Amanda had never felt those raging fires that drove women to run after men. But she felt them when she looked at Jace. She always had, and it would be incredibly dangerous to let him know it. It would give him the most foolproof way to pay her back for all his imagined grievances, and she wouldn’t be able to resist him. She’d know that for a long time, too.

She glanced back over her shoulder at the branding that was proceeding without a hitch in the corral. If Jace hadn’t been there, Amanda would have loved to stay and watch the process. It was fascinating to see how the old hands worked the cattle. But Jace would have made her too nervous to enjoy it. She urged her mount into a trot and followed along behind the men.

* * *

Terry didn’t move for the rest of the afternoon. He spread his spare body out in a lawn chair by the deep blue water of the oval swimming pool, under a leafy magnolia tree, and dozed. Amanda sat idly chatting with Duncan at the umbrella table, sipping her lemonade, comfortably dressed in an aged ankle-length aqua terry-cloth lounging dress with slit sides and white piping around the V-necked, sleeveless bodice. She could no longer afford to buy this sort of thing and the dress was left over from better days. Her feet were bare, and her hair was loose, lifting gently in the soft breeze. All around the pool area, there were blooming shrubs and masses of pink, white and red roses in the flower gardens that were Marguerite’s pride and joy.

Her eyes wandered to the little gray summer house further along on the luscious green lawn, with its miniature split rail fence. It was a child’s dream, and all the family’s nieces and nephews and cousins had played there at one time or another.

“What do you really think of the campaign we’ve laid out?” Amanda asked Duncan.

“I like it,” he said bluntly. “The question is, will Jace? He’s not that keen on the real estate operation, but even so he’s aware that it’s going to take some work to sell the idea of an apartment complex in inland Florida. Most people want beachfront.”

She nodded. “We can make it work with specialty advertising,” she said quietly. “I’m sure of it.”

Duncan smiled at her. “Are you the same girl who left here a few years ago, all nervous glances and shy smiles? Goodness, Miss Carson, you’ve changed. I noticed it six months ago, but there’s an even bigger difference now.”

“Am I really so different?” she mused.

“The way you stand up to Jace is different,” he remarked dryly. “You’ve got him on his ear.”

She flushed wildly. “It doesn’t show.”

“It does to me.”

She looked up. “Why did you insist that I come with Terry?” she asked flatly.

“I’ll tell you someday,” he promised. “Right now I just want to sit and enjoy the sun.”

“I think I’ll go help Marguerite address invitations to her party.” She rose, willowy and delightful in the long dress, her bare feet crushing the soft grass as she walked and her long hair tossing like silver floss in the breeze.

Duncan let out a long, leering whistle, and she smiled secretly to herself, pulling off her sunglasses as she walked, to tuck them into one of the two big pockets in the front of the dress.

She went around to the back entrance, where masses of white roses climbed on white trellises. Impulsively, she reached out to one of the fragrant blossoms just as a truck came careening around the house and braked at the back steps.

Jace swung out of the passenger seat, holding his arm where blood streamed down it through the thin blue patterned fabric.

“Go on back,” Jace called to the driver. “I’ll get Duncan to bring me down when I patch this up.”

The driver nodded and wheeled the truck around, disappearing at the corner of the house.

Amanda stared dumbly at the blood. “You’re hurt,” she said incredulously, as if it was unthinkable.

“If you’re going to faint, don’t get between me and the door,” he said curtly, moving forward.

She shook her head. “I won’t faint. You’d better let me dress it for you. I don’t think it would be very easy to manage one-handed.”

“I’ve done it before,” he replied, following her through the spotless kitchen and out into the hall that led to the downstairs bathroom.

“I don’t doubt it a bit,” she returned with a mischievous glance. “I can see you now, sewing up a gash on your back.”

“You little brat,” he growled.

“Don’t insult me or I’ll put the bandage on inside out.” She led him into the bathroom and pulled out a vanity bench for him to sit on. He whipped off his hat and dropped it to the blue-and-white mosaic tile on the floor.

While she riffled through the cabinet for bandages and antiseptic, his eyes wandered over her slender body moving down the soft tangle of her long hair to the clinging aqua dress. “Water nymph,” he murmured.

She looked down at him, shocked by the sensuous remark, and blushed involuntarily.

“What have you been doing, decorating my pool?” he asked when she turned back to run a basin of water and toss a soft clean cloth into it.

“I’ve been listening to Terry moan and beg for a quick and merciful end,” she replied with a faint smile. “You’ll have to take off your shirt,” she added unnecessarily.

He flicked open the buttons with a lazy hand, his eyes intent on her profile. “Tess would be helping me,” he remarked deliberately.

“Tess would be on the floor, unconscious,” she retorted, refusing to be baited. His flirting puzzled her, frightened her. It was new and exciting and vaguely terrifying. “You know blood makes her sick.”

He chuckled softly, easing his broad, powerful shoulders out of the blood-and-dust-stained garment, dropping it carelessly on the floor.

She turned with the washcloth held poised in her slender hand, her eyes drawn helplessly to the bronzed, muscular chest with its mat of curling black hair, to the rounded, hard muscles of his brown arms. She felt her heart doing acrobatics inside her chest, and hated her own reaction to him. He was so arrogantly, vibrantly male. Just looking at him made her weak, vulnerable.

His glittering silver eyes narrowed on her face. “You’re staring,” he said quietly.

“Sorry,” she murmured inadequately, feeling her whole body stiffen as she leaned down to bathe the long, jagged gash above his elbow. “It’s deep, Jace.”

“I know. Just clean it, don’t make unnecessary remarks,” he bit off, tensing even at the light touch.

“It needs stitches,” she said stubbornly.

“So did half a dozen other cuts, but I haven’t died yet,” he replied gruffly.

“I hope you’ve at least had a tetanus shot.”

“You’re joking, of course,” he said tightly.

He was right. It was ridiculous to even think he wouldn’t have had that much foresight. She finished cleaning the long gash and turned to get the can of antiseptic spray.

“Spray the cut, not the rest of me,” he said, watching her shake the can and aim it.

“I ought to spray you with iodine,” she told him irritatedly. “That,” she added with an unkind smile, “would hurt.”

He lifted his arrogant face and studied her narrowly. “You wouldn’t like the way I’d get even.”

She ignored the veiled threat and proceeded to wind clean white gauze around the arm. “I wish you’d see a doctor.”

“If it starts to turn green from your amateurish efforts, I will,” he promised.

Her eyes flashed down at him and found, instead of menace, laughter in his dark, hard face. “You make my blood burn, Jace Whitehall!” she muttered, rougher than she meant to be as she tied the bandage.

“Revealing words, Miss Carson,” he said gently, and watched the color run into her cheeks.

“Not that way!” she protested without thinking.

Both dark eyebrows went up. “Oh?”

She turned and started to put away the bandages, refusing to look at him. It was too dangerous.

“From riches to rags,” he commented, a lightning eye appraising the age of her aqua dress. “Can’t your partner afford leisure clothes for you?”

She stiffened. “He doesn’t buy my clothes.”