The Cowboy and the Lady Read online

  “Tess! If he marries that girl, I will move to Australia and set up housekeeping in an opal mine!” Marguerite threatened.

  “That bad?”

  “My dear, the last time she helped Jace with a sale, she had Maria in tears and one of my daily maids quit without notice on the spot. As you saw today, she simply takes over, and Jace does nothing to stop her.”

  “It is your house,” Amanda reminded her gently.

  The thin shoulders rose and fell expressively. “I used to think so. Lately she’s talked about remodeling my kitchen.”

  Amanda toyed with a button on one of the simple tailored blouses she was hanging in the closet. “Are they engaged?”

  “I don’t know. Jace tells me nothing. I suppose if he decides to marry her, the first I’ll hear of it will be on the evening news!”

  Amanda laughed softly. “I can’t imagine Jace married.”

  “I can’t imagine Jace the way he’s been, period.” Marguerite stood up. “For months now he’s walked around scowling, half-hearing me, so busy I can’t get two words out of him. And even Tess—you know, sometimes I get the very definite impression that Tess is like a fly to him, but he’s just too busy to swat her.”

  Amanda burst out laughing. The thought of the decorative brunette as a fly was totally incongruous. Tess, with her perfect makeup, flawless coiffures, and designer fashions would be horrified to hear them discussing her like this.

  Marguerite smiled. “I’m glad you don’t take what Jace says to heart. Your mother is my best friend, and none of what he said is true.”

  “But it is,” Amanda protested quietly. “We both know it, too. Mother is still living in the past. She won’t accept things the way they are.”

  “That’s still no excuse for Jace to ridicule her,” Marguerite replied. “I’m going to have a talk with him about that.”

  “If the way he looked at me was anything to go by, I think I’d feed him and get him drunk before I did that,” Amanda suggested.

  “I’ve never seen him drunk,” came the soft reply. “Although, he came close to it once,” she added, throwing a pointed look at the younger woman before she turned away. “I’ll see you downstairs. Don’t feel that you have to change, or dress up. We’re still very informal.”

  That was a blessing, Amanda thought later when she looked at her meager wardrobe. At one time, it would have boasted designer labels and fine silks and organzas with hand-embroidered hems. Now she had to limit spending to the necessities. With careful shopping and her own innate good taste, she had put together an attractive, if limited, wardrobe, concentrating on the clothes she needed for work. There wasn’t an evening gown in the lot. Oh, well, at least she wouldn’t need one of those.

  * * *

  She showered and slipped into a white pleated skirt with a pretty navy blue blouse and tied a white ruffled scarf at her throat to complete the simple but attractive-looking outfit. She tied her hair back with a piece of white ribbon, and slipped her hosed feet into a pair of dark blue sandals. Then with a quick spray of cologne and a touch of lipstick, she went downstairs.

  Terry was the first person she saw, standing in the doorway of the living room with a brandy snifter in his hand.

  “There you are.” He grinned, his eyes sweeping up and down her slender figure mischievously. “Going sailing?”

  “Thought I might,” she returned lightly. “Care to swim alongside and fend off the sharks?”

  He shook his head. “I suffer from acute cowardice, brought on by proximity to sharks. One of them was rumored to have eaten a great-aunt of mine.”

  With a laugh like sunlight filtering into a yellow room, she walked past him into the spacious living room and found herself looking straight into Jace’s silvery eyes. That intense stare of his was disconcerting, and it did crazy things to her heart. She jerked her own gaze down to the carpet.

  “Would you like some sherry?” he asked her tightly.

  She shook her head, moving to Terry’s side like a kitten edging up to a tomcat for safety. “No, thanks.”

  Terry put a thin arm around her shoulders affectionately. “She’s a caffeine addict,” he told Jace. “She doesn’t drink.”

  Jace looked as if he wanted to crush his brandy snifter in his powerful brown fingers and grind it into the carpet. Amanda couldn’t remember ever seeing that particular look on his face before.

  He turned away before she had time to analyze it. “Let’s go in. Mother will be down eventually.” He led the way into the dining room, and Amanda couldn’t help admire the fit of his brown suit with its attractive Western yoke, the way it emphasized his broad shoulders from the back. He was an attractive man. Too attractive.

  Amanda was disconcerted to find herself seated close beside Jace, so close that her foot brushed his shiny brown leather boot under the table. She drew it back quickly, aware of his taut, irritated glance.

  “Tell me why Duncan thinks we need an advertising agency,” Jace invited arrogantly, leaning back in his chair so that the buttons of his white silk shirt strained against the powerful muscles of his chest. The shirt was open at the throat, and there were shadows under its thinness, hinting at the covering of thick, dark hair over the bronzed flesh. Amanda remembered without wanting to how Jace looked without a shirt. She drew her eyes back to her spotless china plate as Mrs. Brown, Marguerite’s prize cook, ambled in with dishes of expertly prepared food. A dish containing thick chunks of breaded, fried cube steak and a big steaming bowl of thick milk gravy were set on the spotless white linen tablecloth, along with a platter of cat’s head biscuits, real butter, cabbage, a salad, asparagus tips in hollandaise sauce, a creamy fruit salad, homemade rolls and cottage fried potatoes. Amanda couldn’t remember when she’d been confronted by such a lavish selection of dishes, and she realized with a start how long it had been since she’d been able to afford to set a table like this.

  She nibbled at each delicious spoonful as if it would be her last, savoring every bite, while Terry’s pleasant voice rambled on.

  Marguerite joined them in the middle of Terry’s sales pitch, smiling all around as she sat in her accustomed place at the elegant table with its centerpiece of white daisies.

  “I’m sorry to be late,” she said, “but I lost track of time. There’s a mystery theater on the local radio station, and I’m just hooked on it.”

  “Detective stories,” Jace scoffed. “No wonder you leave your light on at night.”

  Marguerite lifted her thin face proudly. “A lot of people use night-lights.”

  “You use three lamps,” he commented. His gray eyes sparkled at her and he winked suddenly, smiling. Amanda, on the fringe of that smile, felt something warm kindle inside her. He was devastating when he used that inherent charm of his. No woman alive could have resisted it, but she’d only seen it once, a very long time ago. She dropped her eyes back to her plate and finished the last of her fruit salad with a sigh.

  In the middle of Terry’s wrap-up, the phone rang and, seconds later, Jace was called away from the table.

  Marguerite glared after him. “Once,” she muttered, “just once, to have an uninterrupted meal! If it isn’t some problem with the ranch that Bill Johnson, our manager, can’t handle, it’s a personnel problem at one of the companies, or some salesman wanting to interest him in a new tractor, or another rancher trying to sell him a bull, or a newspaper wanting information on a merger.” She glared into space. “Last week it was a magazine wanting to know if Jace was getting married. I told them yes,” she said with ill-concealed irritation, “and I can’t wait until someone shoves the article under his nose!”

  Amanda laughed until tears ran down her cheeks. “Oh, how could you?”

  “How could she what?” Jace asked, returning just in time to catch that last remark.

  Amanda shook her head, dabbing at her eyes with her linen napkin while Marguerite’s thin face seemed to puff up indignantly.

  “Another disaster?” Marguerite asked him as
he sat back down. “The world goes to war if you finish one meal?”

  Jace raised an eyebrow at her, sipping his coffee. “Would you like to take over?”

  “I’d simply love it,” she told her son. “I’d sell everything.”

  “And condemn Duncan and me to growing roses?” he teased.

  She relented. “Well if we could just have one whole meal together, Jason…”

  “How would you cope?” he teased. “It’s never happened.”

  “And when your father was still alive, it was worse,” she admitted. She laughed. “I remember throwing his plate at him once when he went to talk to an attorney during dinner on Christmas Day.”

  Jace smiled mockingly. “I remember what happened when he came back,” he reminded her, and Marguerite Whitehall blushed like a schoolgirl.

  “Oh, by the way,” Marguerite began, “I—”

  Before she could get the words out, Maria came in to announce that Tess was on the phone and wanted to speak to Jace.

  Marguerite glared at him as he passed her on his way to the hall phone a second time. “Why don’t you have a special phone invented with a plate attached?” she asked nastily. “Or better, an edible phone, so you could eat and talk at the same time?”

  Amanda’s solemn face dissolved into laughter. It had been this way with the Whitehalls forever. Marguerite had had this same argument with Jude.

  The older woman shook her head, glancing toward Terry with a mischievous smile. “Would you like to explain the advertising business to me, Terry? I can’t give you the account, but I won’t rush off in the middle of your explanation to answer the phone.”

  Terry laughed, lifting a homemade roll to his mouth. “No problem, Mrs. Whitehall. There’s plenty of time. We’ll be here a week, after all.”

  During which, Amanda was thinking, you might get Jace to yourself for ten minutes. But she didn’t say it.

  Later, everyone seemed to vanish. Jace went upstairs, and Marguerite carried Terry off to show him her collection of jade figurines, leaving Amanda alone in the living room.

  She finished her after-dinner cup of coffee and put the saucer gingerly back down on the coffee table. Perhaps, she thought wildly, it might be a good idea to go up to her room. If Jace came downstairs before the others got back, she’d be stuck with him, and she didn’t want that headache. Being alone with Jace was one circumstance she’d never be prepared for.

  She hurried out into the hall, but before she even made it to the staircase, she saw Jace coming down it. He’d added a brown-and-gold tie to the white silk shirt and brown suit, and he looked maddeningly elegant.

  “Running?” he asked pointedly, his eyes narrow and cold as they studied her.

  Chapter Four

  She froze in the center of the entrance, staring at him helplessly. He made her nervous. He always had.

  “I…was just going up to my room for a minute,” she faltered.

  He came the rest of the way down without hesitation, his booted feet making soft thuds on the carpeted steps. He paused in front of her when he got to the bottom, towering over her, close enough that she could smell his woodsy cologne and the clean fragrance of his body.

  “For what?” he asked with a mocking smile. “A handkerchief?”

  “More like a shield and some armor,” she countered, hiding her nervousness behind humor.

  He didn’t laugh. “You haven’t changed,” he observed. “Still the little clown.” His narrowed eyes slid down her body indifferently. “Why did you come back here?” he demanded abruptly, cold steel in his tone.

  “Because Duncan insisted.”

  He scowled down at her. “Why? You only work for Black.”

  “I’m his partner,” she replied. “Didn’t you know?”

  He stared at her intently. “How did you manage that?” he asked contemptuously. “Or do I need to ask?”

  She saw what he was driving at and her face flamed. “It isn’t like that,” she said tightly.

  “Isn’t it?” He glared at her. “At least I offered you more than a share in a third-class business.”

  Her face went a fiery red. “That’s all women are to you,” she accused. “Toys, sitting on a shelf waiting to be bought.”

  “Tess isn’t,” he said with deliberate cruelty.

  “How lovely for her,” she threw back.

  He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked down his arrogant nose at her. There was a strange, foreign something behind those glittering eyes that disturbed her.

  “You’re thinner,” he remarked.

  She shrugged. “I work hard.”

  “Doing what?” he asked curtly. “Sleeping with the boss?”

  “I don’t!” she burst out. She looked up into his dark face, her own pale in the blazing light of the crystal chandelier. “Why do you hate me so? Was the bull so important?”

  His face seemed to set even harder. “A grand champion, and you can ask that? My God, you didn’t even apologize!”

  “Would it have brought him back?” she asked sadly.

  “No.” A muscle in his jaw moved.

  “You won’t…you won’t let your dislike of me prejudice you against the agency, will you?” she asked suddenly.

  “Afraid your boss might lose his shirt?” he taunted.

  “Something like that.”

  He cocked his head down at her, his hard mouth set. “Why don’t you tell me the truth? Duncan didn’t invite you down here. You came on your own initiative.” He smiled mockingly. “I haven’t forgotten how you used to tag after him. And now you’ve got more reason than ever.”

  She saw red. All the years of backing away dissolved, and she felt suddenly reckless.

  “You go to hell, Jace Whitehall,” she said coldly, her brown eyes throwing off sparks as she lifted her angry face.

  Both dark eyebrows went up over half astonished, half amused silver eyes. “What?”

  But before she could repeat the dangerous words, Terry’s voice broke in between them.

  “Oh, there you are,” he called cheerfully. “Come back in here and keep us company. It’s too early to turn in.”

  Jace’s eyes were hidden behind those narrowed eyelids, and he turned away before Amanda could puzzle out the new look in them.

  “Off again?” Marguerite asked pleasantly. “Where are you taking Tess?”

  “Out,” he said noncommittally, reaching down to kiss the wrinkled pink cheek. “Good night.”

  He pivoted on his heel and left them without another word, closing the door firmly behind him.

  Terry stared at Amanda. “Did I hear you say what I thought I heard you say?”

  “My question exactly,” Marguerite added.

  Amanda stirred under their intent stares and went ahead of them into the living room. “Well, he deserved it,” she muttered. “Arrogant, insulting beast!”

  Marguerite laughed delightedly, a mysterious light in her eyes that she was careful to conceal.

  “What is it with you two?” Terry asked her. “If ever I saw mutual dislike…”

  “My mother once called Jace a cowboy,” Amanda replied. “It was a bad time to do it, and she was terribly insulting, and Jace never got over it.”

  “Jace took to calling Amanda ‘lady,’“ Marguerite continued. She smiled at the younger woman. “She was, and is, that. But Jace meant it in another sense.”

  “As in Lady MacBeth,” Amanda said. Her eyes clouded. “I’d like to cook him a nice mess of buttered toadstools,” she said with a malicious smile.

  “Down, girl,” Terry said. “Vinegar catches no flies.”

  Amanda remembered what Marguerite had said about Tess, and when their eyes met, she knew the older woman was also remembering. They both burst into laughter, dissolving the sombre mood memory had brought to cloud the evening.

  But later that night, alone in her bedroom, memories returned to haunt her. Seeing Jace again had resurrected all the old scars, and she felt the pain of them right through her s
lender body. Her eyes wide open, staring at the strange patterns the moonlight made on the ceiling of her room, she drifted back to that Friday seven years ago when she’d gone running along the fence that separated her father’s pasture from the Whitehalls’ property, laughing as she jumped on the lower rung of the fence and watched Jace slow his big black stallion and canter over to her.

  “Looking for Duncan?” he’d asked curtly, his eyes angry in that cold, hard face that never seemed to soften.

  “No, for you,” she’d corrected, glancing at him shyly. “I’m having a party tomorrow night. I’ll be sixteen, you know.”

  He’d stared at her with a strangeness about him that still puzzled her years later, his eyes giving nothing away as they glittered over her slender body, her flushed, exuberant face. She’d never felt more alive than she did that day, and Jace couldn’t know that it had taken her the better part of the morning to get up enough nerve to seek him out. Duncan was easy to talk to. Jace was something else. He fascinated her, even as he frightened her. Already a man even then, he had a blatant sensuousness that made her developing emotions run riot.

  “Well, what do you want me to do about it?” he’d asked coldly.

  The vibrant laughter left her face, draining away, and some of her nerve had gone with it. “I, uh…I wanted to invite you to my party,” she choked.

  He studied her narrowly over the cigarette he put between his chiseled lips and lit. “And what did your mother think about that idea?”

  “She said it was fine with her,” she returned rebelliously, omitting how hard she’d had to fight Bea to make the invitation to the Whitehall brothers.

  “Like hell,” Jace had replied knowingly.

  She’d tossed her silver-blond hair, risking her pride. “Will you come, Jason?” she’d asked quietly.

  “Just me? Aren’t you inviting Duncan as well?”

  “Both of you, of course, but Duncan said you wouldn’t come unless I asked you,” she replied truthfully.

  He’d drawn a deep, hard breath, blowing out a cloud of smoke with it. His eyes had been thoughtful on her young, hopeful face.