The sparsity of his office décor wasn’t meant to highlight the man himself, but that’s exactly what it did. You couldn’t look anywhere but at him.
At least Pilar couldn’t.
He reached across the desk, the light catching the heavy watch he wore, his sleeves rolled up to reveal sinewy forearms, rough with hair and golden skinned. Her stomach clenched as she fought her reaction.
The first four years she’d worked for him, she’d been as crisp, as unfeeling, as he was. On the inside and on the outside. But the past year… she’d begun to notice him. Like notice him.
He tapped a finger on the paper in his hand. “Luke wants to meet about this?”
Luke ran the resort. Liliana and Luke and Benedict, another generation of Merrills to run things in Cabrillo.
And Josh, but no one spoke of Josh. At least not to Benedict’s face.
“Would you like me to set it up?” She looked down at the tablet, fingers poised over the small keyboard, waiting for him to tell her yes.
He didn’t.
She glanced up to find him watching her. His gaze pressed on her with a weight it had never had before, her bones seeming to shift under it.
She dropped her eyes back to the tablet, resisting the urge to rub the goose bumps from her arms.
Be cool. Of course he’s looking at you—what else is there to look at?
“Pilar?”
A tiny shiver danced down her spine at the way he said her name—a softly breathed P to open it and ending on a rolling R. Just as it was meant to be pronounced.
He leaned toward her, a hank of dark brown hair falling across his brow, his blue eyes narrowing. “Is everything all right?”
She shifted in the chair, her skirt dragging up her thighs half an inch. Damn. She didn’t want to have to tug down her skirt in front of him. She froze, hoping to arrest its climb. “Everything’s fine. When should I schedule the meeting?”
He leaned even closer and put on a reassuring—and devastating—smile. “If there’s anything the matter, you can tell me. We’re friends, you know.”
Friends. Friends shared jokes and secrets and mundanities. A friend didn’t take dictation for another friend.
But that wasn’t quite fair. They might not be friends, but he did care. She wouldn’t have this job if he didn’t. His solicitude made her attraction to him that much more painful.
She pulled up her I’m a friendly and competent admin smile, the one she used on everyone who came through his office. “Everything’s great.”
The envelope beneath her tablet poked through the knit of her tights to scrape the skin of her knee, a potent reminder that she was a liar.
* * *
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Afterword
I began plotting this book before I’d finished writing Summer Chaparral, way back in 2010, when I came across a letter in my research.
As I’ve said before, the Harper family is based on an actual family who were community leaders in the San Jacintos in the late 1800s. They had a son who served as sheriff—yes, a black sheriff—and was killed in the line of duty in 1895.
His sister’s letters survive and while reading a letter sent to her from one of her friends during this terrible time, I came across this:
I hope the man who did the deed will be hung. He is trying very hard to get out, but if he does get out, I hope the Cahuilla boys will get him and lynch him.
I started to weave a story around this, of a heroine who’d been wronged by the justice system, whose only hope of redress would come at the hands of a mob—and of a hero who absolutely must stop it. A hero who already had too much death on his soul. And the result was this book.
One note on courtroom and legal procedures—I have taken liberties with these in the course of telling this story. So for any lawyers who’ve made it this far: I’m sorry.
And a final note on geography: while the city of Los Angeles is quite real, the Santa Gertrudis valley is not.
Also by Genevieve Turner
Las Morenas
Summer Chaparral
Autumn Sage
High Country Spring
The Farmer Takes a Wife
The Sheriff Takes a Bride
Las Morenas: The Complete Series
A Cowboy of Her Own
Her Billionaire Rancher Boss
Her Bull Rider’s Baby
Rescued by Her Fire Fighter
Her Cowboy Rival
Reunited with Her Cowboy
A Cowboy of Her Own: Books 1-3
Always a Cowboy
Forever a Soldier
Forever a Maverick
Forever a Heartbreaker
Forever a Bad Boy
Los Caballeros
The Gaucho’s Lady
About the Author
Genevieve Turner is a USA Today bestselling author of western romance. She loves cowboys, the rural life, and happily ever afters. She lives in beautiful Southern California with the perfect number of kids, dogs, and turkeys—and probably too many chickens.
You can find her on the web at www.genturner.com.
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