The Cowboy and the Lady Read online

  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.”

  “You’ll never make me believe it,” Jace replied coldly. “Those suits you wear didn’t come out of anybody’s bargain basement. The
latest fashion, little girl, not castoffs, and you don’t make that kind of money.”

  “Can’t I make you understand that they’re old?” she cried, exasperated. “I bought clothes with simple lines, Jace, so they wouldn’t be dated!”

  He flexed his shoulders as if the conversation had wearied him, and reached over to retrieve his shirt from the floor. “Nice try, Lady.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” she said through her teeth. “Why can’t you be like Duncan and just accept me the way I am without believing every horrible thing you can imagine about me?”

  His eyes cut into hers. “Because I’m not Duncan. I never was.” His jaw clenched. “Do you still want him? Is that why you came with Black?”

  She threw up her hands. “All right. Yes, I want him. I’m after his money. I want to marry him and steal every penny he’s got and buy ermine for all my friends! Now, are you satisfied?”

  One dark eyebrow lifted nonchalantly. “I’ll see you in hell before I’ll see you married to my brother,” he said without heat.

  Her eyes involuntarily lingered on his broad chest, the hard, unyielding set of his face that never softened, not even when he was in a gentler humor.

  “Why do you hate me so?” she asked quietly.

  His eyes darkened. “You damned well know why.”

  She dropped her gaze. “It was a long time ago,” she reminded him. “And it isn’t a pleasant memory.”

  “Why not?” he growled, his hand crumpling the shirt in his lap. “It would have solved your problems. You’d have been set for life, you and that flighty mother of yours.”

  “And all I’d have had to sacrifice was my self-respect,” she murmured gently, glancing up at him. “I won’t be any man’s mistress, Jason, least of all yours.”

  He looked as if she’d slapped him, his eyes suddenly devoid of light. “Mistress?” he growled.

  She lifted her chin proudly. “And what name would you have put on our relationship?” she challenged. “You asked me to live with you!”

  “With me, that’s right,” he threw back. “In this house. My mother’s house, damn you! Do you think her sense of propriety would have allowed anything less than a conventional relationship between us? I was proposing marriage, Amanda. I had the damned ring in my pocket if you’d stayed around long enough to see it.”

  Death must be like this, she thought, feeling a sting of pain so poignant it ran through her rigid body like a surge of electricity. Marriage! She could have been Jason Whitehall’s wife, living with him, sharing everything with him…by now, she might have borne him a son…

  Tears misted her eyes and, seeing them, a cruel, cold smile fleetingly touched his chiselled lips.

  “Feeling regrets, honey?” he asked harshly. “I was on my way to the top about then. We were operating in the black for the first time, the first investments I’d made were just beginning to pay off. But you didn’t stop to think about that, did you? You took one long look at me and slammed the door in my face. My God, you were lucky I didn’t kick the door down and come after you.”

  “I expected you to,” she admitted weakly, her eyes downcast, her heart breaking in half inside her rigid body. “I wouldn’t even have blamed you. But you looked so fierce, Jason, and I was terrified of you physically. That’s why I ran.”

  He stared at her. “Afraid of me? Why?”

  She put the repackaged gauze back in the medicine cabinet. “You were very rough that night at my birthday party,” she reminded him, blushing at the memory. “You can’t imagine the secret terrors young girls have about men. Everything physical is so mysterious and unfamiliar. You were a great deal older than I was, and experienced, too. When you asked me so coolly to come and live with you, all I could think about was how it had been that night.”

  There was a long, blistering silence between them.

  “I hurt you, didn’t I?” he asked quietly, his eyes intent on her stiff back. “I meant to. Duncan told me that you only invited me out of courtesy, that you hated the sight of me.” He laughed shortly. “He’d added a rider to the effect that you didn’t think I’d know what to do with a woman.”

  She turned back toward him, the shock in her eyes. “I didn’t tell him why I invited you,” she said. Her head lowered. “The other part…I was teasing. Isn’t it true that we sometimes joke about the things that frighten us most?” she mused. “I was frightened of you, but I used to dream about how it would be if you kissed me.” She turned away. “The dreams were…a little less harsh than the reality.” She shrugged, laughing lightly to mask her pain. “It doesn’t matter anymore. They were girlish dreams and I’m a woman now.”

  “Are you?” he asked, rising to tower over her in the small room, moving closer and smiling sarcastically at the quick backward step she took. “Twenty-three, and still afraid of me. I won’t rape you, Amanda.”

  She flushed angrily. “Must you be so insulting?”

  “I didn’t think you could be insulted,” he said coolly, his eyes stripping the clothes from her. “Poor little rich girl. What a comedown. How old is that thing you’re wearing?”

  “It covers me up,” she said defensively.

  “Barely,” he replied. His eyes narrowed. “Mother mentioned something about buying you some clothes while you were here. Apparently she’s seen more of your wardrobe than I have. But don’t be tempted, honey,” he added with a narrow glance. “I don’t work like a fieldhand to keep you and that mother of yours in silks and satin. If you need clothes, you see to it that Black furnishes them, not Mother.”

  Her lower lip trembled. “I’d rather go naked than accept a white handkerchief that your money paid for,” she said proudly.

  “No doubt your boyfriend would prefer it, too,” he said curtly.

  “He’s my partner!” she threw at him. “Nothing more.”

  “He’s not much of a horseman, either,” he added with a half-smile. “If he couldn’t handle that tame mount Duncan put him on, how does he expect to handle you?”

  She turned away. “What would you do for pleasure if I wasn’t around to insult?” she asked wearily.

  “Speaking of the devil, where is he?”

  “Out by the pool with Duncan, discussing the account.” She glanced at him icily. “Not that it’s going to do any good. You’ll just say no.”

  “Don’t presume to think for me, Amanda,” he said quietly. “You don’t know me. You never have.”

  She licked her dry lips. “You don’t let people get close to you, Jason.”

  “Would you like to?” he asked coolly.

  “I don’t think so, thanks,” she murmured, turning. “You’ve had too many free shots at me already.”

  “Without justification?” he queried, moving closer. “My God, every time you come here there’s another disaster.”

  “I didn’t mean to hit the bull,” she said defensively. “And you didn’t have to yell…”

  “What the hell did you expect me to do, get down on my knees and give thanks? You could have been killed, you crazy little fool,” he growled.

  “That would have suited you very well, wouldn’t it?” she burst out. She turned away, just missing the expression on his face. “I meant to apologize, but I sprained my wrist and I couldn’t even think for the pain.”

  “You sprained your wrist?” His eyes exploded. “And you drove from here to San Antonio like that? You damned little fool…!”

  “What was I supposed to do, ask you for a ride?” she threw back, her brown eyes snapping at him. “You’d already shot the bull. I thought you might turn the gun on me if I didn’t make myself scarce!”

  She whirled and started out the door, ignoring his harsh tone as he called her name.

  He caught up with her in the hall, catching her arm to swing her around, his eyes fierce under his jutting brow. With his shirt off, and that expanse of powerful bronzed muscles, he made her feel weak.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.


  “To seduce Duncan by the pool,” she said sweetly. “Isn’t that why you think I came?”

  “You’ll never marry him.” The threat was deliberate, calculated.

  “I don’t have to marry him to sleep with him, do I?” she asked with a toss of her long, silvery hair. “What’s the matter, Jace, does it bother you that your brother might have succeeded where you failed?”

  It was the wrong thing to say. She only got a second’s warning before he started after her, but it was enough to make her turn and run. There was a peculiar elation in rousing Jace’s temper. It made her feel alive, light-headed.

  She ran into the living room and whirled to shut the door behind her, but she was too slow. Jace easily forced his way in, catching the door with his boot to slam it shut behind him, closing the two of them off from the world.

  He stood facing her, his silver eyes blazing under his disheveled hair, his face hard and frankly dangerous, pagan-looking with his broad, bronzed chest bare, its pelt of dark hair glistening with sweat.

  “Now let’s see how brave you really are,” he said in a voice deep and slow with banked anger as he began to move toward her.

  She backed away from him slowly, all the courage ebbing away at the look on his face. “I didn’t mean it,” she said breathlessly. “Jace, I didn’t mean it!”

  The desk caught her in the small of the back, halting her as effectively as a wall, and he closed the gap quickly, his hands catching her upper arms in a viselike grip that hurt.

  “Don’t,” she pleaded, wincing. “You’re hurting me!”

  “You’ve been hurting me for years,” he said in a rough undertone, his eyes blazing down into hers as he jerked her body against the hard, powerful length of his and pinned her to the desk in one smooth motion. “Has Duncan had you? Answer me!”