by Jan Freed
Bypassing the graded gravel road leading to the county highway, she took a deeply rutted track to the west. “You know where we’re going, don’t you, Fleetwood?” Laura smiled as one black ear swiveled back like a satellite dish. Leaning forward, she patted the sleek freckled neck. “All right, old girl. Let’s see what you can still do.” Laura tightened her knees and jabbed with her heels.
The mare responded gallantly, erupting into an earth-eating gallop on the smooth flat center between tire ruts. Laura gloried in the whistling wind, the drumming hooves, the awesome power of surging muscles. She raised her face to the broiling sun and, for the first time in two weeks, felt glad she wasn’t dead.
After a quarter mile, she sensed the mare tiring. “Whoa, there, girl. That’s enough for you today.” Slowing Fleetwood to a walk, Laura settled back in the saddle. Everywhere she looked, mesquite trees, cactus and sagebrush threatened to swallow up the grazing land. Scott and her father waged a constant war against the encroachment, but Laura secretly liked the sense of isolation it gave the ranch. She felt like the only person within a hundred miles.
Fleetwood snorted, nodded against the bit and pricked her ears. No doubt she smelled the water ahead. Urging her into a trot, Laura spotted the levee surrounding a one-acre stock tank in the distance. The mare scrambled up the outer bank and then down to the water, sinking deep in the mud to sip from its surface.
After Fleetwood drank her fill, Laura headed for a towering oak tree at the mouth of the tank. Dismounting at the tree’s base, she tied the reins securely to a branch.
It was still there, she saw with relief. Her sanctuary. The place she’d run to whenever she needed to dream. And she’d had big dreams then.
Laura tilted her head and examined the weathered structure nestled within the tree’s center. How had it fared over the years? She eyed the rickety series of boards nailed into the massive trunk, shrugged her shoulders and started climbing. Midway up, her left boot slipped, ramming her knee into the coarse bark. Glad she’d worn jeans, Laura clamored up the last few boards.
The original structure had been built to last, with walls about six feet high all around. Interlocking branches swaying overhead served as the roof. She swept aside a layer of leaves from the floor with her toe and surveyed the eight-by-ten-foot platform for dry rot. The tree house had survived the elements with surprisingly little damage.
How many hours had she spent here imagining herself in glamorous settings and exciting new places? Too many to count. She sat on the bench her father had built against one wall, hugged her chest and closed her eyes. The rumble of Scott’s pickup heading toward the west pasture blended with the droning cicadas. In this place of dreams, all her pretenses crumbled.
Her father and Scott thought she’d sacrificed her happiness for them, that she was noble and unselfish. But they would survive, dignity intact, with or without her help, she knew. In truth, she would have stuck by Alec like a burr on a saddle blanket if he’d so much as crooked his finger.
But he hadn’t.
Oh, God, how would she endure life without him or Jason? How would she endure canning vegetables and hanging curtains, instead of breaking new campaigns and reading bedtime stories to an angel? How would she endure the nights, now that her body had known rapture?
She’d experienced more emotional intensity during her short time with Alec than the rest of her life combined. He’d given her so much, really. Shown her that independence, without discipline, lacked purpose and meaning. All she’d given him was a pain in the neck.
Unaware of passing time, Laura rocked back and forth on the bench, her aching hollowness too deep for tears. Eventually little things penetrated her senses. The creaking branches and rustling leaves. The dappled sunlight warming her bare arms. The biting smell of dust and decomposed leaves. Fleetwood’s soft nicker. Life went on, whether one enjoyed it or not.
She would endure, and possibly learn to enjoy life again, all the wiser for her experience. But far, far lonelier.
Fleetwood jangled her bit and whinnied. Poor girl. She was probably hungry and couldn’t reach the grass with her reins tied high—
“You can climb pretty good—for a girl,” the deep familiar voice broke into her thoughts.
Laura froze.
“I’ve only climbed a tree once in my life, but I suppose I could do it again.”
Alec! Her heartbeat galloped like a Thoroughbred. She listened to the squeaking protest of rusty nails strained to the limit. Seconds later, a blue-black crown of hair bobbed into sight, followed by a frowning, sinfully handsome face.
With a loud curse, Alec maneuvered his broad shoulders through the narrow opening and hoisted himself onto the platform. He flicked a leaf off his red polo shirt, dusted the seat of his faded jeans, retied the shoelace of his right sneaker and straightened.
The oxygen left her lungs.
His glossy black hair lifted and fell with the stirring breeze. Her gaze wandered over the planes and angles of his bronzed face, lingered on his sensual mouth and rose to meet his eyes. They were narrowed, bluer than the triangles of sky peeping through the leaves, and fixed with smoldering interest on her lips.
“Hello, Laura.”
She stared at the apparition her yearning soul had conjured up out of nowhere.
“You’re looking well,” he said.
Dazed, she touched her windblown hair, her sunburned nose, her powderless cheeks and silently groaned. “How...” she squeaked, cleared her throat, and tried again. “How did you find me?”
“The Luling feed store gave me directions to the ranch. Scott dropped me off in his truck about a hundred yards from the tank. Your horse gave you away from there.”
She didn’t know where to look. Those eyes of his were magnetic, narcotic. Settling for the opened neck of his shirt, she watched the rhythmic pulse at the base of his throat. Edging the lower V of fabric, curly black hairs quivered with each heartbeat.
“I’ve gone to considerable trouble to get here. Aren’t you glad to see me?” he asked.
What kind of game was this? Why was he torturing her? As his shirt loomed closer, her nails bit into her palms. She looked at her feet and concentrated on the pain.
“I’m glad to see you.“ His sneakers butted her boots. “I’ve missed you, Laura.”
Her heart lodged in her throat. She trembled, not daring to raise her eyes, not daring to hope. “You’ll get over it,” she assured him.
“And Jason? Will he get over it? He cried when I told him you’d left.”
She curled over as if punched, then drew in a shuddering breath. “That’s pretty low, Alec, even for you.”
“I’d sink lower, if I thought it would bring you back.” His tone was wry, humble, completely sincere. “Come back to us, Laura.”
Her mind whirled in confusion. She fought for equilibrium. “Why are you doing this? You don’t even trust me.”
“I didn’t trust myself. I’ve always trusted you, Laura. I knew right away you weren’t responsible for leaking campaign secrets, but it was easier to keep my hands off you when I knew you hated me.” He shifted his feet, then stilled. “I went to see my father yesterday.”
Her gaze flew upward at that, recoiled from his passionate intensity and dropped to her lap. She couldn’t concentrate if she looked at him. And she desperately needed to concentrate.
“He was just like I remembered, Laura, only different. Physically we look alike, and that scared the hell out of me. But then he started talking, and a funny thing happened.” The toe of one sneaker rubbed her tooled leather boot in slow circular movements. “I kept hearing your voice, telling me I wasn’t really like him at all.”
She clasped her hands and held her breath. Tingles shimmered up her shin.
“Pretty soon it was like a veil had lifted, and I was seeing him for the first time. Seeing myself, too. And you were right. I’m not like that bastard. I could never be like that bastard!” His voice rang with triumph. “Would you look at me
, please?”
Disappointment crushed her chest. He was grateful. That was why he’d come, to thank her. Self-preservation kept her chin down.
“Stubborn as ever, eh? Okay then, I’ll look at you. I don’t think I’ll ever get my fill of doing that.” His voice gentled, deepened to an intimate caress. “Want to know what I see?”
She waited, entranced—and hating herself for it.
“I see a thick mane of hair, the kind a man wants to stare at in the office and run his fingers through at home. I see long beautiful legs, the kind a man wants walking beside him every day and tangled with his at night.”
His low throbbing croon matched the sluggish hot beat in her veins. Her gaze rose and snagged on his straining zipper. Blood surged to her face and loins.
“I see cheeks that blush a pretty rose pink and make a man want to know if the skin he can’t see is half as lovely. I can still feel your skin in my dreams, like ivory satin. So creamy, so smooth...” He made an odd sound, a cross between a choke and a laugh. “I’m dying here, Laura. Look at me, please.”
“Oh, Alec...”
Her face lifted, but she was already being hauled into his arms. She had a brief impression of glittering blue eyes before his mouth covered hers. Laura could no more prevent her uninhibited response than tame Twister’s wild spirit. Twining her arms around Alec’s neck, she gave herself up to the magic of kissing a man she’d thought never to kiss again. A man she loved more than life itself.
It was Alec who broke away first. Breathing hard, he looked into her eyes. “I tore up the letter from your lawyer. As far as I’m concerned, you’re still my partner. The agency needs you, Laura.”
The pain caught her by surprise, doubly worse in contrast with the pleasure of seconds before. Her mouth twisted. “The agency will do fine without me. You’ll find someone to replace me. There are hundreds of talented copywriters out there—” The sentence merged with Alec’s kiss.
After a long moment he lifted his mouth a scant inch. “What I meant was, I need you, Laura. I need you to make me laugh when I get too serious.” He dropped a kiss on her parted lips and continued as if she wasn’t stunned. “I need you to mother Jason and help guide him into manhood.” He dipped his head for a longer deeper taste. “I need you to warm my bed, and give Jason brothers and sisters, and love me, Laura, until I’m old and senile and hard of hearing. I need you to marry me.”
Joy exploded throughout her. Still, she bit back her glad cry of agreement.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Alec scowled. “Don’t you want to marry me?” His arms tightened, as if to squeeze out the answer he wanted to hear.
Laura pushed against his chest, succeeding only in straining her arms. She glared into his face. “Is there something, maybe, you’ve forgotten to tell me?”
Honest confusion clouded his eyes.
She would have to spell it out, the dolt. “You seem to admire some of my body parts. And you say you need me. But those things seldom last a lifetime. I’ll get saggy and wrinkled, Jason will grow up, someone else will run the agency eventually. You won’t need me then. What’s to keep you from tottering off with some cute young thing hanging on to your cane?”
He frowned. “That’s stupid. I—” He broke off, looking sheepish. “Ah, Laura. I’ve never told you, have I? But how could you doubt it?”
She grabbed two fistfuls of shirt and shook. “Doubt what?”
Grinning, he grabbed her shoulders and shook back. “I love you! I love your smart mouth and smarter brain, your generous heart and loyal soul...” He cocked a brow, eyes sparkling. “Have I finished, yet?”
“No way, pal. I just went through two weeks of hell.”
“Me, too,” he breathed. Every trace of amusement fled, replaced by heart-stopping tenderness. “I love you, Laura Hayes, because without you, life is calm and predictable and completely, utterly boring. You brought joy and happiness into my life when I thought I’d never experience either emotion again. There’s no one else in the world I’d rather be partners with, in business—or in life.”
He paused, looking boyish and hopeful. “Did I get it right?”
“Almost. When you say partners, what exactly do you mean?”
“Two halves of a whole, give and take, fifty-fifty. Equal partners all the way.”
Laura smiled radiantly. “By George, I think you’ve got it.” Wrapping her arms around his waist, she slipped both hands inside Alec’s back pockets. The man had some body parts of his own she particularly admired.
When her fingers encountered a small cylindrical object, she frowned. Pulling out a roll of antacids, she leaned back and tossed them up and over the tree-house wall.
“Hey! I need those,” he protested.
“Not anymore, you don’t.” Laura gave him a long sultry look. “Surely we can come up with a more... creative way of relieving your tension, hmm?”
His answering grin curled her toes. “Funny, now that you mention it—” he pulled her close, his gaze filled with delicious promise “—I feel a helluva stress attack coming on.”
ISBN: 978-1-4592-8589-7
Too Many Bosses
Copyright © 1995 by Jan Freed
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