Undaunted

by Diana Palmer

  So Emma could dance. But she wasn’t giving the big man any more chances to taunt her. She just remained silent.

  He cursed under his breath and left the room.

  Emma didn’t understand his changed attitude. Or maybe she did. He blamed her because he’d gotten out of hand. He wouldn’t remember that he’d pulled her into bed with him, that he’d been the pursuer. He was angry because he’d given in to a hunger he should never have entertained for a young woman who worked for him. But he didn’t make mistakes like that, so naturally it was Emma’s fault. She’d tempted him.

  Or maybe it was just that the new woman in his life had made him realize that he was desperate for sex. Emma had been handy and he’d been hungry. As simple as that.

  Either way, the joy was gone from the lake house. Emma knew in her heart that it was better this way. She didn’t dare get involved with him. But she’d had dreams. Stupid dreams. Why would a man like that, urbane and rich and sophisticated, want anything to do with a countrywoman who bought clothes off the sale rack and valued morality above fun?

  * * *

  She finished his letters. She’d had some idea that he’d have her help him sign them. It was dangerous to be that hungry for contact with him. She remembered too well how it felt to be held close to that muscular body.

  But he brought Barnes into the office with him and had the other man help with the signature.

  “They have electronic signatures now,” Emma ventured, braving his temper. “You sign up with the service, and then you just push a button on the screen to make legal signatures on documents.”

  “That’s something we’ll look into later,” Connor replied. There wasn’t an edge in his voice this time. He sounded worn-out.

  She wanted to say that, to say a lot more. He shouldn’t try to go nightclubbing when he was so obviously fatigued. She knew, because of Mamie, that too much excitement, along with any number of other triggers, could bring on a migraine. She remembered how bad the last headache had been. She hated seeing him suffer.

  But it would be worth her job to say so.

  “What time is it?”

  Barnes looked at his watch. “Just going on four thirty, sir.”

  “Take those letters to the post office as soon as Emma finishes with them. Then come back and help me dress,” he said, and smiled. “I’ve got a hot date.”

  He ignored Emma completely as Barnes opened the door for him and he found his way down the hall to his own room.

  Emma watched him go. Then she went back to the mail, carefully folding and inserting the letters in addressed envelopes. She stamped them. When Barnes stuck his head in the door, she had them ready to go.

  He gave her a sad smile. “It looks like you’ll have the night off, Miss Emma,” he said. “You should go see a movie with Marie. She likes movies. It would do you both good. Go talk to her.”

  “I’ll do that. Thanks, Barnes,” she added softly.

  He just nodded. He was mentally comparing sweet, kind Emma with the sort of women Connor brought home. What a shame that the boss was even blinder than he looked. Emma cared very much for Mr. Sinclair. He imagined it cut the heart out of her to hear him boast about his date. But there was nothing he could do to help her.

  * * *

  Connor wore a dinner jacket with a white shirt and black tie, immaculate slacks and polished black shoes. He had a Rolex watch on one wrist, and a ruby ring on his pinky finger that probably cost as much as the lake house.

  Emma had to bite her tongue not to tell him how devastating he looked.

  “I won’t be back until late tomorrow,” he repeated. “That doesn’t let you off work in the morning, Emma,” he added curtly. “There will be emails to delete and some to answer. Set aside the ones I need to address and we’ll see to them when I get back.”

  “Yes, sir.” She really did sound like a parrot. But her voice was light and breezy. She did that deliberately. He couldn’t see the pain in her soft brown eyes, and that was just as well.

  Marie saw it and grimaced. She didn’t understand what was going on. The Ariel that Connor was going nightclubbing with was the same brunette he’d sent packing because he’d gotten tired of bouncing soufflés. Now he was dating her again, and he was really rubbing it in. Did he know that he was hurting Emma with just the mention of the woman?

  She studied his hard face as he looked toward Emma’s voice. Yes, he knew it, she realized suddenly. He was doing it deliberately. He wanted to hurt her. But why? She’d been kinder than any woman Marie could ever remember seeing with Mr. Sinclair. What reason would he have to grind into Emma like that?

  There was one pretty obvious one. He liked variety and he had no religious leanings, while Emma was conservative and religious. Perhaps she’d said something to him about his lifestyle and he hadn’t liked it. He was getting even. No. It had to be more than that. He was taunting her with another woman. Had he been too forward with Emma and she’d knocked him back? That would certainly explain what was going on. Marie thought privately that he’d do far better with Emma than with all the glittery women, as Emma called them, he was used to. Emma would love him. She’d take care of him. Even if he lost everything, which was unlikely, Emma would never leave him.

  But he was going out with a woman he could buy. It was such a shame. Not her business, she told herself.

  “You’ve got the night off,” Connor told Emma. “I guess you can read one of your romance novels and dream about Prince Charming, can’t you?” he taunted.

  “I’m going to see a movie with Marie,” she replied quietly.

  “Better than books, I guess, as romance goes.”

  “It’s about a group of commandos rescuing a hostage,” Marie said coolly.

  He registered her disapproving tone. He thought about Emma in the city at night. Most of the theaters were in areas that could be dangerous in the dark. “Marie, call the limo service I use and get a car to take you to and from the movie,” he said curtly.

  Marie’s eyebrows arched. He’d never done that before. “I can drive us,” she began.

  “Do what I tell you,” he returned. “Barnes, let’s go.” He hesitated at the door. “Be careful of your surroundings,” he added to the women.

  “Mr. Sinclair...” Marie began.

  “I can’t cook,” he said, as if by way of explanation. “And I sure as hell can’t type.”

  Marie laughed. “Yes, sir.”

  Emma didn’t say anything. It made her feel warm inside, that even in his ill mood he cared about her welfare. Well, about Marie’s, too. Apparently even grizzly bears had hearts, she thought with faint amusement.

  Five

  The movie was exciting. It was even funny. But all Emma could think about, while she munched popcorn and tried to pay attention to the screen, was Connor in bed with some other woman.

  He’d ridiculed her idea of fun, listening to night sounds on the lake and enjoying the quiet landscape. He wanted noise, excitement, glitter. They were worlds apart on the things that really mattered in life. He had no faith. Her faith was all she had. He wasn’t going to settle down. He hated children. He was obsessed with making sure that he never fathered any. Emma loved kids. She wanted them more than anything.

  In retrospect, she should have stayed in Jacobsville and gotten married. There were plenty of bachelors there. She could have married and lived on a ranch. She’d loved her father’s livestock, the cattle dogs he kept. If he hadn’t been so cruel, her life might have been very different. She’d been the only stability at home. Her father drank so much in her last years of high school that she often had to set jobs for the cowboys, even take care of payroll and things like shipping cattle and helping with branding. It had been like that for so long. He’d always been tight with money, but she didn’t remember him drinking so much when she was lit
tle, when her mother was still alive.

  The last year she’d lived at home had been troubling. She hated to leave, but she couldn’t take any more of her father’s rampages. When he had too much to drink, she got the back of his hand for any imagined slight. He’d hit her just after graduation.

  The bruise had been visible, and Cash Grier had gone out to the ranch to have a talk with her father. She’d worked for Barbara Ferguson in the café part-time while she took business courses at the local vocational school. Cash and Tippy saw her at lunch most days. She was like family to them. Cash was livid when he saw the bruise on her cheek, and the almost pathetic way she’d tried to hide it with makeup.

  He came back with Emma’s suitcase, the very one she had in her closet right now, and he’d moved her in with his own family. She’d been nervous and shy and ill at ease the first day. But then Tippy’s brother Rory had taken her fishing, and Tippy had let her help with the baby boy and little Tris. And after that, she’d truly felt part of a family for the first time.

  She’d probably have stayed there, living with Cash and Tippy, cooking for Barbara. But then she’d met Steven at the vocational school and started dating him. He’d just moved to town, with his friend Willie Armour. He’d been applying at the school when he and Emma started talking and found a lot in common.

  Steven and Willie moved into an apartment in downtown Jacobsville. Steven didn’t start classes right away, but Emma was working at the café, and Steven and Willie went there for most of their meals. Soon afterward, Steven’s mother and father bought a small house near their son and moved there, as well. Emma liked Steven’s mother. In fact, she and her husband went to the same Methodist church that Emma attended.

  Steven wasn’t much on church. But he and Emma seemed to have a lot in common. They started talking and Steven seemed to find her really interesting. Only two weeks after they started dating, he proposed. He didn’t buy her a ring. His people were well-to-do, he could have, but he said he didn’t really believe in all that stuff, so they could just let it be known that they were engaged.

  He’d never mentioned a wedding date, and never asked questions about Emma’s family, even though he knew she lived with the Griers. Cash made some odd comments that never really registered about how close Steven was to his roommate, but they went right over Emma’s head. She was head over heels in love, probably because Steven was the first man who’d ever paid her any real attention. Besides that, he loved to plant flowers and trees and he loved coming to the Griers’ house, with Willie, of course, and watching a real-life fashion designing show on television that Tippy enjoyed so much. A famous model, Tippy had given up her career to marry Cash. Steven was fascinated with that world and was always asking her questions about clothes and makeup.

  Cash was supportive, even when she got engaged, although he and Tippy were uneasy. Emma assumed that was because Steven was so vocal about animals being used for food, and he’d never asked about Emma’s real family or what they did for a living. She wasn’t sure Steven would understand if she told him her father kept cattle. There was another odd thing, that Steven insisted they have his friend Willie with them wherever they went. Honestly, there were times when she felt positively left out. She liked Willie. He was a kind, sweet man, very like Steven. But it seemed odd that an engaged couple would take the man’s best friend everywhere they went.

  It didn’t matter, she reflected, because Steven hardly ever touched her. He said he liked her so much but he had a really hard time kissing her. He did it very rarely and even reluctantly. He thought such things should wait until after the wedding, he said once. But he wasn’t religious, didn’t go to church and hardly ever mentioned actually getting married.

  They were just talking one day in the café on her break when it came out that her father owned a ranch. Steven, who’d been acting oddly for days, suddenly burst out that he couldn’t marry a woman whose family killed helpless animals to eat. He said he was very sorry, but he was moving back to San Antonio with Willie and he wouldn’t see her again.

  He’d walked out without another word. Emma shuddered even now as she remembered how humiliated she’d been. Cash, strangely, didn’t seem surprised about the broken engagement, although he was sorry for Emma. He and Tippy did everything they could to cheer her up.

  Jacobsville was small, like Comanche Wells, where Emma’s father ranched. Everybody knew what had happened. Nobody spoke of it to Emma, but everyone who ate at Barbara’s looked at her with sympathy in their eyes. It didn’t help that Steven’s mother was still around, making sure everyone knew that Emma and her son had been engaged, and wasn’t it such a shame that things didn’t work out for them? She was sympathetic to Emma and often apologized for her son’s odd reaction, but, she reminded the younger woman, he was an animal rights’ activist. However, Emma seemed to remember that he loved steak more than any other food, and never seemed to see anything wrong with eating it, despite saying he’d helped found the local branch of PETA.

  Emma went on with her life, going to work and to church and trying to forget the heartache. But it wasn’t easy. She grew more and more depressed.

  Tippy saw what it was doing to Emma. She had a Facebook friend who knew Mamie van Dyke, a very famous author who’d just lost her longtime secretary. She’d messaged her friend, who’d talked to Mamie. Tippy had told Emma about a job ad—a white lie, there wasn’t one—for a typist, and did she want to apply for the job? It was in the North Georgia mountains, far away from Jacobsville and all the painful notoriety.

  Emma had agreed. Tippy, who’d saved Emma’s pride by not confessing that she’d interfered, had gone with Cash to put the girl on a plane for Atlanta. They’d arranged for a car to meet her at the airport, as well.

  “But what if she doesn’t like me?” Emma had worried at the gate.

  Cash chuckled. “She’ll like you.”

  “Yes, she will,” Tippy assured her. “If she doesn’t, you come right home.” She hugged Emma. “I’ll miss you.”

  Emma hugged her back. In a life desperate for female comfort, Tippy had been her fairy godmother. “I’ll miss you more,” she wailed.

  “Enough of that.” Cash hugged Emma, too. “Get on that plane and call us when you get to Mamie’s, so we know you got there all right.”

  “I will.” Emma looked at them with sad eyes. “Nobody was ever...so kind to me,” she said in a wobbly voice.

  “Go on, before I start bawling, too, for God’s sake,” Cash said, and he wasn’t totally kidding. He and Tippy had become very fond of the shy, unassuming young woman they’d more or less adopted.

  “Okay. Thanks. For everything,” she added.

  She got on the plane. Mamie, delighted with what she’d been told and even more with what she saw when Emma arrived on her doorstep, hired her on the spot.

  So Emma learned about clothes and deadlines and rich people. She called home every night for a week. Then she began to feel at home on Lake Lanier. She still missed the Griers. She talked to Tippy on Skype often, but she had to stop when she went to work for Connor. He’d mentioned once that a West Texas rancher named Cort Grier was a fellow investor in some new technology, and he knew him fairly well. Cash had a brother named Cort who ranched in West Texas. The name might be a coincidence, but if Cort was Cash’s brother, and Connor knew Cort, he might know Cash. She couldn’t risk having Connor find out that her family lived in Texas, because he might remember that the woman he’d warned about the speedboat also came from there. It might clue him in that his secretary was actually the woman who’d blinded him. So she sent emails and text messages to Tippy instead, explaining that her boss was eccentric and didn’t like her telling other people about him. She never said who he was, in fact. She simply told Tippy that she was doing a favor for this friend of Mamie’s who was blind and needed a temporary secretary while Mamie was out of the country.

  S
he hadn’t contacted her father at all. When she’d moved in with the Griers, he’d washed his hands of her. People said he was still drinking like a fish. But in his sober moments, he managed to keep the ranch going. Gossip traveled into town. There was a woman, someone he’d met through an agent for one of the bigger meat packing companies, who’d moved in with him. So maybe she was keeping things running so he wouldn’t go bankrupt.

  Emma put all that to the back of her mind and tried to forget the cloud under which she’d left home. She was still wounded by her memories of Steven. Their breakup had hurt her, especially in a small town where gossip ran rampant. Everybody knew he’d dumped her. It was heartless. She’d been in love with him, and he’d just walked away. She’d been crushed. It was as if her femininity was faulty, as if she wasn’t woman enough to keep a man. So she hadn’t tried again, after Steven, to attract men. On the rare occasions when a young man tried to flirt with her, she’d been shy and standoffish and not encouraging in the least.

  Not so much since she’d gone to work for Connor. But he was wounding her even more. She’d never been this upset by Steven. She hadn’t cared this much...

  She tamped down hard on those thoughts. She didn’t dare let herself get involved with Connor Sinclair, in any way. It was easy to forget why she worked for him. He was blind. He might never see again. It was Emma who’d blinded him. If he ever found out, her life would be hell. He never forgot people who crossed him, and he always got even.

  Her heart fell as she realized how hopeless her situation was. She’d been driving a speedboat too fast and she’d run over Connor in the lake and blinded him. What would he do to her if he knew? She recalled how Mamie had felt when he went after her, and that was just about a newspaper article he didn’t like. Emma had cost him his eyesight. He would be out for blood. Her eyes closed and she shivered.

  * * *

  It was late afternoon the next day when Barnes guided Connor through the house to his bedroom.