The Cowboy and the Lady Page 2

  “You look faintly terrified,” Terry remarked. “Recognize that car, do you?”

  She nodded, feeling her heartbeat triple as the car came closer and pulled up in front of the terminal. The door swung open and she breathed a sigh of abject relief.

  Marguerite Whitehall came toward them in a dressy pink pantsuit and sandals, her white hair faultlessly arranged, her thin face beaming with a smile.

  “It’s lovely to see you again, dear,” she told Amanda as she hugged her, wrapping her in the delicious scent of Nina Ricci and pressed powder.

  “It’s good to be here,” she lied, meeting the older woman’s dark eyes. “This is Terrance Black, my partner at the advertising agency in San Antonio,” she introduced him.

  “You’re very welcome, Terrance,” Marguerite said courteously. “Duncan explained the offer you’ve made. I do hope Jace will go along with it. It’s just good business sense, but my eldest has some peculiar ideas about…things,” she said with an apologetic smile at Amanda.

  “I’m anxious to talk with Duncan about the account,” Terry said with a smile.

  “He isn’t here right now, I’m sorry to say,” came the polite reply. “He had to fly to San Francisco this afternoon on some urgent business. But Jace is home.”

  Amanda felt something give way inside her, and she fought back the urge to leap back aboard the plane and go home. Instead, she followed the two of them to the car and allowed herself to be placed in the front seat with Marguerite while Terry loaded their bags and got in the back seat.

  “The weather’s nice,” Terry commented as Marguerite headed the sleek little car toward the city.

  “But dry this year.” Marguerite sighed. She didn’t go into the various ways droughts played havoc with a ranch. Amanda already knew, and it would have taken the better part of an hour to explain it to someone who wasn’t familiar with cattle.

  “I’m looking forward to seeing the ranch,” Terry volunteered.

  Marguerite smiled over her shoulder at him. “We’re rather proud of it. I’m sorry you had to take a commercial flight. Jace could have come after you, but Tess was with him, and I didn’t think you’d care for her company,” she added with a wry glance at Amanda.

  “Tess?” Terry probed.

  “Tess Anderson,” Marguerite replied. “Her father and Jace are partners, with Duncan of course, in that real estate venture in Florida.”

  “Will we have to consult him about the account as well?” Terry asked.

  “I shouldn’t think so,” the older woman replied conversationally. “He always goes along with whatever Jace says.”

  “How is Tess?” Amanda asked quietly.

  “Just the same as always, Amanda,” came the haunted reply. “With one hand reaching out toward Jace eternally.”

  Amanda remembered that. Tess had always been a step away from him, since they were in their teens. Jace had offered to take Amanda to a dance once—a mysterious offer that Amanda had refused in silent terror. Tess had got wind of it, and given Amanda the very devil, as if it had been her fault that Jace asked her.

  “Tess and Amanda were at school together,” Marguerite told Terry. “In Switzerland, you know.”

  It seemed like a hundred years ago. Amanda’s family had lost everything when Bob Carson was caught with his financial fingers in a crooked land deal. The shock of discovery had caused a fatal heart attack, and he’d died leaving his stunned wife and daughter to deal with the monumental disgrace and debt. By the time the creditors were satisfied there was nothing left, Jace had offered to help. Amanda still blushed when she remembered exactly how he’d presented the cold-blooded proposition to her. She’d never told anyone about it. But the memory was still with her, and she’d always believed her refusal had fanned Jace’s contempt.

  After the ranch went on the auction block, Amanda had carried her journalism degree to Terry Black’s office, and the association rapidly became a partnership. The job kept the wolf from the door, when Bea wasn’t on a marathon spending spree and so long as she imposed on her wealthy friends with long visits. The sacrificing was all on Amanda’s part, not on her mother’s. Bea liked pretty clothes and shoes, and she bought them impulsively, always apologizing for her lapses and bursting into tears if Amanda was stern with her. Every day of her life Amanda thanked God for time payments. And every other day, she wondered if Bea was ever going to grow up.

  “I said, how’s Bea?” Marguerite prompted gently, breaking into her weary musings.

  “Oh, she’s fine,” Amanda said quickly. “With the Bannons this season.”

  “The Bahamas.” Marguerite sighed. “Those lovely straw hats and musical accents and blistering white beaches. I wish I were there now.”

  “Why not go?” Terry asked.

  “Because the first time Mrs. Brown was fussy about Jason missing breakfast, he’d fire her,” came the tight reply, “and this is the only time I’ve ever been able to keep a cook longer than three months. I’m standing guard over this one.”

  Terry looked out the back window uncomfortably. “He sounds a little hard to please.” He laughed nervously.

  “It depends on the mood he’s in,” Marguerite said. “Jason can be very kind. He’s always easy to get along with when he’s asleep. The only time we have problems is when he’s awake.”

  Amanda laughed. “You’ll scare Terry to death.”

  “Don’t worry, now,” Marguerite promised. “Just make sure he hasn’t been near the cattle when you approach him, Terry.” She frowned slightly. “Let’s see, Sunday evenings are fairly safe, if nothing’s broken down or if…”

  “We’ll talk to Duncan first,” Amanda promised her colleague. “He doesn’t bite.”

  “He doesn’t always have Tess underfoot, either,” Marguerite said in a faintly goaded tone.

  “Maybe Jace will relent and marry her someday,” Amanda suggested.

  The older woman sighed. “I had hoped that you might be my daughter-in-law one day, Amanda.”

  “Be grateful for small blessings,” came the smiling reply. “Duncan and I together would have driven you crazy.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about my youngest,” Marguerite said with frightening candor, and the look she gave Amanda made her pulse race.

  She looked away. “Jace won’t ever forgive me for that bull.”

  “It was unavoidable. You didn’t ask the silly bull to crash through the fence.”

  “Jace was so angry,” she recalled, shuddering. “I thought he was going to hit me.”

  “I always thought he was angry for a quite different reason. Oh, damn,” Marguerite added with perfect enunciation when they turned into the long paved driveway that led to Casa Verde. “That’s Tess’s car,” she grumbled.

  Amanda saw it, a little Ferrari parked in the circular space that curved around the fishpond and fountain in front of the two-storey mansion.

  “At least you know where Jace is,” Amanda said lightly, although her pulse was doing double time.

  “Yes, but I knew where he was when Gypsy was alive, and I liked Gypsy,” Marguerite said stubbornly.

  “Who was Gypsy?” Terry asked the two women, who both had burst into laughter.

  “Jace’s dog,” Amanda volunteered through her giggles.

  Marguerite pulled up behind the small black car and cut the engine. The house was over a century old, but still solid and welcoming, retaining its homey atmosphere. To Amanda, who loved it and remembered it from childhood, it wasn’t a mansion or even a landmark. It was simply Duncan’s house.

  “Duncan and I used to hang by our heels from those low limbs on the oak tree at the corner of the house,” Amanda told Terry as they walked up the azalea-lined path that led to the porch steps. “Duncan slipped and fell one day, and if Jace hadn’t caught him, his head would have been half its present size.”

  “I shudder to think what might have happened,” Marguerite said and her patrician face went rigid. “You and Duncan were always restless, my dear.
Duncan has the wanderlust still. It’s Jace who’s put down strong roots.”

  Amanda’s fingers tightened on her purse. She didn’t like to think about Jace at all, but looking around that familiar porch brought back a bouquet of memories. And not all of them were pleasant.

  “Your son said that we could take a look at the property tomorrow,” Terry remarked casually. “I thought I might spend this evening filling his brother in on the way we handle our accounts.”

  “If you can get Jace to sit still long enough.” Marguerite laughed. “Ask Amanda, she’ll tell you how busy he is. I have to follow him around to ask him anything.”

  “At least I can ride.” Terry laughed. “I suppose I could gallop along after him.”

  “Not the way Jace rides,” Amanda said quietly.

  Marguerite opened the front door and led her two guests inside the house. The entrance featured a highly polished heart of pine floor with an Oriental rug done in a predominantly red color scheme, and a marble-top table on which was placed an arrangement of elegant cut red roses from the massive rose garden that flanked the oval swimming pool behind the house.

  A massive staircase with a red carpet protecting the steps led up to the second floor, and the dark oak bannister was smooth as glass with age and handling. The house gave Amanda goose pimples when she remembered some of the Westerners who were rumored to have enjoyed its hospitality. Legend had it that Uncle John Chisolm had once slept within its walls. The house had been restored, of course, and enlarged, but that bannister was the original one.

  A maid came forward to take Amanda’s lightweight sweater, followed by a man who relieved Terry of the suitcases.

  “Diego and Maria.” Marguerite introduced them only to Terry, because Amanda had recognized them. “The Lopezes. They’re our mainstays. Without them we’d be helpless.”

  The mainstays grinned, bowed and went about making sure that the family wasn’t left helpless.

  “We’ll have coffee and talk for a while,” Marguerite said, leading them into the huge, white-carpeted living room with its royal blue furniture and curtains, its antique oak tables and upholstered chairs. “Isn’t white ridiculous for a ranch carpet?” She laughed apologetically. “But even though I have to keep on replacing it, I can’t resist this color scheme. Do sit down while I let Maria know we’ll have our coffee in here. Jace must be down at the stables.”

  “No, he isn’t,” came a husky, bored voice from behind them in the hall, and Tess Anderson strolled into the room with her hands rammed deep in the pockets of her aqua knit skirt. Wearing a matching V-necked top, she looked like something out of a fashion show. Her black hair was loose and curling around her ears, her dark eyes snapping, her olive complexion absolutely stunning against the blood red lipstick she wore.

  “Wow,” Terry managed in a bare whisper, his eyes bulging at the vision in the doorway.

  Tess accepted the male adulation as her due, gazing at Terry’s thin, lackluster person dismissively. Her sharp eyes darted to Amanda, and she eyed the other girl’s smart but businesslike suit with distaste.

  “Jace is out looking at a new harvester with Bill Johnson,” Tess said casually. “The old one they use on the bottoms broke down this morning.”

  “Bogged down in the hay, I reckon,” Marguerite joked, knowing full well there wasn’t enough moisture to bog anything down. “Has he stopped swearing yet?”

  Tess didn’t smile. “Naturally, it disturbed him. It’s a very expensive piece of equipment. He asked me to stop by and tell you he’d be late.”

  “When has he ever been on time for a meal?” Marguerite asked curtly.

  Tess turned away. “I’ve got to rush. Dad’s waiting for me. Some business about selling one of the developments.” She glanced back at Terry and Amanda. “I hear Duncan is thinking about hiring your agency to handle our Florida project. Dad and I want to be in on any discussions you have, naturally, since we do have a rather large sum invested.”

  “Of course,” Terry said, reddening.

  “We’ll be in touch. ‘Night, Marguerite,” she called back carelessly. Her high heels beat a quick tattoo on the wood floor. Then the door slammed shut behind her and there was a conspicuous silence in the room.

  Marguerite’s dark eyes flashed fire. “And when did I give her permission to call me by my first name?”

  Terry looked down at his shoes. “Snags,” he murmured. “I should have known it seemed too easy.”

  “Don’t fret,” Amanda said cheerfully. “Mr. Anderson isn’t at all like his daughter.”

  Terry brightened a little, but Marguerite was still muttering to herself as she left the room to tell Maria to bring coffee to the living room.

  Maria brought the coffee on an enormous silver tray with an antique silver service and thin bone china cups in a burgundy and white pattern.

  While Marguerite poured, Amanda studied the contents of the elegant display case against one wall. Inside, it was like a miniature museum of Western history. There was a .44 Navy Colt, a worn gunbelt that Jace’s great uncle had worn on trail drives, a Comanche knife in an aging buckskin sheath decorated with faded beads, some of which were missing, and other mementos of an age long past. There was an old family Bible that Jace’s people had brought all the way from Georgia by wagon train, and a Confederate pistol and officer’s hat. There was even a peace pipe.

  “Never get tired of looking at it, do you?” Marguerite asked gently.

  She turned with a smile. “Not ever.”

  “Your people had a proud history, too,” Marguerite said. “Did you manage to hold on to any of those French chairs and silver?”

  Amanda shook her head. “Only the small things, I’m afraid.” She sighed, feeling a great sense of loss. “There simply wasn’t any place to keep them, except in storage, and they were worth so much money…it took quite a lot to pay the bills,” she added sorrowfully.

  Terry caught the look on her face and turned to Marguerite. “Tell me about the house,” he said, frowning interestedly.

  That caught the older woman’s attention immediately, and an hour later she was still reciting tidbits from the past.

  Amanda had been lulled into a sense of security, listening to her, and there was a quiet, wistful smile on her lovely face when the front door suddenly swung open. As she looked toward the doorway, she found her eyes caught and held by a pair almost the exact color of the antique silver service. Jace!

  Chapter Three

  Jason Everett Whitehall was the image of his late father. Tall and powerful, with eyes like polished silver in a darkly tanned face and a shock of coal-black hair, he would have drawn eyes anywhere. The patterned Western shirt he was wearing emphasized his broad shoulders just as the wellcut denim jeans hugged the lines of his muscular thighs and narrow hips. His expensive leather boots were dusty, but obviously meant for dress. The only disreputable note in his outfit was the worn black Stetson he held in his hand, just as battered now as it had been on Amanda’s last unforgettable visit.

  She couldn’t drag her eyes away from him. They traced the hard lines of his face involuntarily, and she wondered now, as she had in her adolescence, if there was a trace of emotion in him. He seemed so completely removed from warmth or passion.

  He was pleasant enough to Terry as he entered the room, shaking hands, making brief, polite work of the greetings.

  “You know my junior partner, of course.” Terry grinned, gesturing toward Amanda on the sofa beside him.

  “I know her,” Jace said in his deep, slow drawl, shooting her a hard glance that barely touched the slender curves of her body, curves that were only emphasized by the classical cut of her navy blue suit.

  “We’re not going to have much time to talk tonight,” he told Terry without preamble. “I’ve got a long-standing date. But Duncan should be back tomorrow, and I’ll try to find a few minutes later in the week to go over the whole proposal with you. You can give me the basics over supper.”

  “Fine!”
Terry said. He was immediately charming and pleasant, and Amanda couldn’t repress an amused smile, watching him. He was so obvious when he was trying to curry favor.

  “How’s your mother?” Jace asked Amanda curtly as he went to the bar to pour drinks.

  Amanda felt her spine going rigid. “Very well, thanks,” she said.

  “Who is she imposing on this month?” he continued casually.

  “Jason!” Marguerite burst out, horrified. She turned to her guests. “Amanda, wouldn’t you like to freshen up? And, Terry, if you’ll come along, I’ll show you to your room at the same time.” She herded them out of the room quickly, shooting a furious glance at her impassive son on the way.

  “I don’t know what in the world’s wrong with him,” Marguerite grumbled when she and Amanda were alone in the deliciously feminine blue wallpapered guest room. The pretty quilted blue bedspread was complemented by ruffled pillow shams and green plants grew lushly in attractive brass planters.

  “He’s just being himself,” Amanda said with more humor than she felt. The words had hurt, as Jace meant them to. “I can’t remember a time in my life when he hasn’t cut at me.”

  Marguerite looked into the warm brown eyes and smiled, too. “That’s my girl. Just ignore him.”

  “Oh, how can I?” Amanda asked, dramatically batting her long eyelashes. “He’s so devastating, so masculine, so…manly.”

  Marguerite giggled like a young girl. She sat down on the edge of the thick quilted coverlet on the bed and folded her hands primly in her lap while Amanda hung up her few, painstakingly chosen business clothes. “You’re the only woman I know who doesn’t chase him mercilessly,” she pointed out. “He’s considered quite a catch, you know.”

  “If I caught him, I’d throw him right back,” Amanda said, unruffled. “He’s too aggressively masculine to suit me, too domineering. I’m a little afraid of him, I think,” she admitted honestly.

  “Yes, I know,” the older woman replied kindly.

  “Tess isn’t, though.” She sighed. “Maybe they deserve each other,” she added with a mean laugh.