Kirsten felt as if she were in a bad dream.
“I—I don’t understand,” she stammered, sitting up in bed, suddenly aware she had no nightgown on. “I applied for a mortgage. The owner of the property agreed to sell—”
“But the title company came back and said you already own that property, Ms. Meadows. You bought it cash. The title’s in your name. You can’t purchase a property you already own. However, if you really just wanted to cash out, I can get you in touch with our equity arm….”
The room seemed to spin.
The woman’s voice dwindled to background noise.
“Did you hear me, Ms. Meadows?” the woman asked again into the phone.
“Yes,” Kirsten croaked. “I guess I’ll have to get back to you. Thanks for trying, though.”
She put down the receiver.
A flood of memories of the night before rushed at her like a freight train.
Chagrined, she recalled the hours on the couch, how she’d wanted more, and then more, and how Seth had given her everything she wanted until they’d both fallen asleep, spent, in each other’s arms.
Somehow he must have carried her to her bed, because she didn’t remember waking and going to her room. He’d spared her the embarrassment of Viola finding them on the couch, but she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment to wake alone in her own bed after a night of such soul-piercing abandon.
Now she was going to have to deal with the realities of her irresponsibility. The realities and the consequences.
Stumbling to the shower, she knew she was in trouble when she didn’t want to step into the hot spray.
His scent clung to her hair and body like rare perfume. She didn’t want to wash him away. The musky male scent was stirring, even comforting to her senses, but life had to go on. Obligations had to be met. Denials that their night meant anything to her had to be made.
She slathered shampoo in her hair, closed her eyes and scrubbed. The shower did revive her, and the cleansing renewed her good sense.
She would have to face him like his personal assistant and no more.
The first thing she had to do was to confront him about her mother’s house and tell him how she would pay him back.
She was still rattled that he’d bought the house right from under her. She’d asked him to stay out of it, begged him not to get entangled in any way. Now she was in it up to her ears.
Refusing to think he’d orchestrated the house purchase just to get her into bed, she decided the timing wasn’t right. Besides, just the thought that that was what had happened would make her too angry.
And, in the end, leverage hadn’t even been necessary.
Now she just had to be sensible, get out an equity loan and pay him back. Then the fact that they’d had a little sex wouldn’t hurt so much. It wouldn’t leave her so vulnerable and hoping there might be more.
Comforting herself, she knew she could be the queen of denial. They’d had a little sex, and it was no big deal. It meant nothing. No obligations on either side.
She closed her eyes and let the water run down her. Of course, she was fooling herself. Their night together had been the kind she would comfort herself with when she was old. Indeed, she’d finally known what it was like to be fully a woman, to make love with a man who neglected neither body nor soul.
A small moan escaped her lips. They hadn’t used any birth control. There might be repercussions beyond just the two of them.
It seemed unimaginable that she could have Seth’s child, but it was a possibility. Nature was something that had a will of its own. And if she did become pregnant, she knew she would have the child. He would be very much like Seth, yet untainted by money and cynicism.
She shook her wet head, letting the drops spray across the marble tiles.
No, starting now, she was the queen of denial. She wouldn’t think about all the consequences right now. She just really needed to focus on what she was going to say when she saw him next, how she would act, how she would smile and shrug off the most magical night of her life as no big deal.
Queen of denial. Queen of denial, she kept repeating to herself like a chant.
She saw Seth out in a paddock working on one of his barrel racers. Coolly observing his expertise on the quarter horse, she walked up to the fence and perched on it.
He spied her and loped toward her.
“Howdy, ma’am,” he said in his best cowboy accent. He took off his hat to her.
She smiled. He always looked particularly roguish and handsome in jeans and a flannel shirt.
Losing her control, she imagined how wonderful it would be to have come to the paddock, given him a kiss and told him how much last night had meant to her….
Queen of denial. Queen of denial.
She let the smile freeze on her face. “I just wanted to see if you had anything you needed me to do. I have to go to town this afternoon. To take out an equity loan to pay you back for Mom’s house.”
“Don’t bother.” He studied her, his eyes hooded beneath the straw brim of his hat.
She shook her head. “I told you, I can’t accept the offer. It’s out of the question.”
“I thought now was different. I mean, after last night I really don’t see the need to pay me back.”
His words cut into her heart like a dull, serrated knife.
He clearly thought she’d slept with him to get the house. She’d told him she wasn’t about to pay for it with her body, but from his point of view, he’d ponied up the cash and right after he’d paid, there she was, waiting for him on the couch, as pliable and complicit as a spoiled mistress.
Choosing each word with care, she answered, “Last night changed nothing. I will pay you for the house.”
“Changed nothing? Or meant nothing?” he demanded gruffly.
“Of course it meant something. I had fun—didn’t you?”
Her tone was light, her words breezy. Inside she was anything but that.
She couldn’t believe the conversation. It was breaking her heart. But she had to remain collected. She had to save herself.
Queen of denial. Queen, queen, queen…
“Fun?” He repeated the word dully, as if he didn’t understand it.
“Look, I want to be gracious about the house, but I can’t accept the help, and I will be paying you back. I don’t want any strings. I said that before, and I’ll say it again—no strings.”
His face took on a rock-hard cast.
She could have sworn he said, “Holding out for more, huh?” but before she could ask him to speak up, he simply nodded and cantered away.
Heartbroken, she was dismissed.
Three days passed. Three days of living hell as far as Kirsten was concerned. She and Seth were barely on speaking terms. Desperately she wanted to demand why he was so closemouthed, but she was afraid of facing the answers as much as she was lonely and confused.
Worse than that, she needed her job now more than ever in order to pay back the huge loan she was taking out on “her” house. If she were fired, there was no way she could manage those payments.
Frustrated, she told Viola she was going to take Sterling for a little exercise. Seth had gone to town, and he’d left no work for her to occupy her time.
The mountains always worked to clear the mind and free the soul. Determined to cleanse both, she took off toward the high country, the late-afternoon sun slanting red-gold lacquer onto the granite face of Mount Mystery and the Continental Divide beyond.
Choosing the horsepacker’s trail in order to find solitude and really think, she loped Sterling easily through the foothills, her thoughts as dark as the thunderheads in the distance.
She had to get over Seth.
It would be difficult, to say the least, but she had no business falling for him in the first place. He was way too powerful to wrangle with, and even if she could make demands on him, he would never bend to her terms. The warning signs had been fluorescent, and she’d wilfully
ignored them. He was a rich man, used to manipulation and getting what he wanted. The sale of her mother’s house proved that. She was out of her league pretending she could be his match, out of her league in thinking he could be more than James or her father, men who viewed women as compliant dolls. Men who rebelled at the first sign of will in a woman.
Her gaze grew clouded. Even the beautiful stag that jumped through the field ahead of her didn’t take her mind from her woes.
But that she was falling in love with Seth was without question. The other night had only cemented her growing feelings. Certainly she was no virgin, but the night with Seth, even on the confines of the couch, had meant more than all her lovemaking experiences combined.
But loving him wouldn’t make him love her back. And there had never been any talk of love with him. His cynicism with Nikki was enough to make Kirsten never, ever broach the subject. She knew she wasn’t strong enough to take the answers.
She got to the steep path that ultimately led to the pass and the Continental Divide. Guiding Sterling expertly along the narrow rocky ledges, she was so immersed in her thoughts, she barely took notice of the rain until heavy plops of water began to pockmark the dust on the trail ahead.
The wind picked up. The sun hadn’t set, but it might as well have, given the opaque black clouds that hid it.
Sterling held her ground even when a spider vein of lightning cracked across the sky, followed immediately by earsplitting thunder.
“What a gem you are.” She soothed the animal, patting Sterling’s dappled neck.
Kirsten knew if she headed back to the ranch she’d just get soaked and perhaps even break Sterling’s leg in a mud slide, given the storm’s sudden downpour.
Her better judgment told her to ride it out. There was an old miner’s lean-to along Blue Rock Creek. It was still ten minutes away, but it was the best she could do under the circumstances.
Turning Sterling around, she headed down the path to Blue Rock Creek.
“Viola, I’d have thought you’d have gone to bed by now. I’ve never seen you up this late. You’re pacing like a caged bobcat. What’s wrong?” Seth asked, having come down from his suite to pour his own coffee from the coffeemaker on the kitchen counter.
Viola looked hesitant. Her gaze flickered from the storm to her boss.
“What’s going on?” he demanded.
“I don’t know, sir. I don’t know what to think. Maybe I should inform Jim—”
“This is my ranch. So tell me.”
“I’m sure everything’s all right.” The woman hugged herself and stared out at the storm that lashed the kitchen window.
“What is it?” Irritation sounded in his voice. From his expression it was clear he would brook no more wavering.
“It’s just that Kirsten decided to take one of the horses out. Now with this storm, I’m a little worried she didn’t get in yet.” Viola smiled, but it didn’t budge the worry in her eyes.
She waved aside her anxieties. “Oh, I’m sure she’s stuck having to listen to Jim’s tall tales in the barn.” Her gaze slid to the window and the wall of water that pummeled it on the other side.
Seth picked up the phone. Pounding in the speed dial, he barked into the phone, “Did Kirsten and Sterling get back yet, Jim?”
The grim silence gave the answer before he hung up the phone.
His thoughts tortured him. She couldn’t be in danger. He wouldn’t allow it. He cared too much. He realized he’d gone too far to lose her now. And he would not lose her.
Viola returned to staring at the window. “I know she’s an experienced rider and Sterling’s a reliable mount, but still, I’d hate to think of her going through this on top of the mountain.”
Seth was already pulling on his slicker.
“I’ll be happy to call for help from Hazel’s ranch, sir, to look for her,” the housekeeper offered.
“I’ll find her,” was all he said before he donned his black felt cowboy hat and headed out into the storm.
Nine
Kirsten shivered against the lean-to. She was at least out of the rain, but the temperature had dropped severely and she was soaking wet. Chunks of ice rained down on the tin roof.
It had to be forty degrees now, and when she’d left, the late-afternoon temperature had been almost eighty. She hadn’t even taken her polar fleece. Her only covering was a wet pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
Huddling next to Sterling for warmth, she tethered the animal while it ate what little straw was left from the last person who’d occupied the three-sided shack.
The storm would pass and she would be on her way soon, she told herself, her teeth chattering so loudly she could hardly hear the thunderous rain and hail pounding on the corrugated tin roof.
She hadn’t told Jim where she was planning on riding, but there was no point in wondering about that, because she didn’t need a rescue party anyway. She just needed the rain to end so she could safely see her and the horse’s way home.
Slowly lowering herself against the side of the cold metal lean-to, she hugged her knees and wiped the water from her face.
It would be only a matter of minutes before she could be in the saddle again and heading home.
Just a matter of minutes, she told herself, a strange feeling of comfort and warmth overtaking her thoughts and tingling through her soaked and freezing body.
And her mind was feeling sleep run through it like a narcotic. Maybe just a little nap would warm her….
When Seth found her, he could see hypothermia was taking over. Kirsten hardly roused when he shook her. Her lips were a bluish color and her clothes were soaked through. She had nothing on but a T-shirt and jeans in the forty-degree weather.
He tethered Noir, quickly took a blanket from his saddle pack and pulled aside his slicker. Treating her like a rag doll, he tore off her wet clothes, bra and panties and all, and pulled her cold nude body against his chest, covering her with his own chamois shirt and the blanket.
“I’m—all—all—right. I—I—I’m all r-r-right,” she protested groggily, her teeth clacking away as she spoke.
“When you’re warm we’ll get back to the ranch. Until then, just relax.” His arms encircled her farther, wrapping her as close to his body heat as possible.
“Why did you take my c-c-clothes off?” she stammered.
“You would have frozen.”
She looked up at him with those dark blue eyes that drove him so wild. Prudishly she said, “You really shouldn’t have, you know.”
He chuckled.
Tiredly she leaned her cheek against his chest.
“You know,” he mentioned wickedly, the rain still pounding the sides of the lean-to, “the professional wilderness rescuers would recommend that we have sex right now. It would really get your blood flowing quickly.”
Her hand shot up. She took a weak kitten swipe at him, but missed altogether.
He laughed and tucked the slim chilled arm back inside the chamois shirt. “I guess you’re warming up just fine.” He slouched against the cold sheet tin siding.
Wrapped up together, they waited for the rain to end.
“I’m fine, Dr. Saville. Really I am. I just didn’t know the storm was going to be so severe.” Kirsten sat up in her bed. The handsome young town doctor had been waiting for them when she and Seth had arrived back at the ranch, having been called by a frantic Viola.
Mortified at her state of undress when she’d dismounted—Seth hadn’t allowed her to put on her wet clothes—she had gone right upstairs with Viola, shrugged out of Seth’s chamois shirt and steeped in a hot bath.
Now, with a bowl of hot chicken noodle soup in her belly, all she really wanted was a nap and some privacy.
“Hypothermia’s nothing to fool around with, Kirsten. Everyone thinks it’s the snow and ice that will kill you, but more people die from cold exposure above thirty-two degrees than below. The body can’t get warm while wet.” Saville wrote out a couple of prescriptions. He gave
them to Viola.
“I’ll check on the patient in a few days. Call me if she seems to be coughing or catching a cold.”
Viola nodded.
Kirsten thanked him. “And how is Rebecca?” she inquired politely about his wife.
“She’s due the end of September. Number two, you know.” His face flushed with pleasure. “I don’t know how she does it. She’s a miracle worker.”
Watching him go, Kirsten wondered if her own husband would be so totally in love and devoted to her as Saville was to his wife.
Dr. John Saville and his wife, Rebecca O’Reilly, had been the talk of Mystery during their courtship. The rumor mill had it that they were one of Hazel McCallum’s famous matches. So far it had proven to be a blazing success.
Kirsten slouched back in the pillows.
Tomorrow she was going to have to begin again with her boss; she would have to forget that he’d rescued her from sure death, forget that every kiss, every caress was like food to her hungry soul. Seth Morgan had become less and less like a boss and more and more like a lover.
Yet she was fooling herself that she could ever manage a detached attitude. They’d gone too far. They’d been through too much.
And besides, she was in love with him.
She almost laughed piteously with the thought of it. Yet it felt good to admit it. The queen of denial was dead. It was like the old saying: Now that there was no hope, she felt much better.
He would never return her love as she required it. He was too rich, too powerful, too controlling. He wasn’t the kind of man who could raise a passel of children and look forward to making love to his wife, night after night, through a lifetime.
Sighing, she closed her eyes, exhausted. She hadn’t realized how fighting cold could wear a person out.
Within seconds she was fast asleep, nestled beneath her eiderdown comforter, dreaming she was wrapped in the warm steel arms of the man she loved.
Seth stoked up the fire in Kirsten’s bedroom fireplace. Viola had gone to bed, but he couldn’t without first checking on her.
Billionaire Boss Page 7
