“’We’?” she blurted before she knew she was going to.
“I thought about it and between the scraping and the priming and the painting, it’s too big a job for one person,” he answered. “And I need the exercise.”
Victoria glanced over her shoulder at him. With a body like his, exercise was the last thing he needed.
So what was the catch?
She couldn’t help being suspicious.
It was one thing to hope for a kinder, gentler Adam Benson, but for him to go so far as to work alongside her? That didn’t make sense. Especially not when the whole point of this scheme of his was for her to do the work.
Was he toying with her again? Just when she thought he was going to help, would he pull out one of his smug smiles and call her a fool? Tell her it was her job, not his, now that their positions were reversed?
Or was he just looking for an excuse to keep an eye on her to make sure she did what he wanted? That his pound of flesh truly was being exacted?
Keeping an eye on her seemed like the most likely possibility except that he’d kept an eye on her the day before without lifting a finger.
Or maybe the plan was to just keep her off balance with these mood swings. To leave her never knowing what he was up to.
Or maybe she was just getting paranoid.
Adam crossed the room then, set his coffee cup on the counter and actually went to the cupboard for plates, silverware and napkins to set the table.
“Is this some new twist?” Victoria asked, surprised that the words had escaped and wishing she didn’t sound so wary that she gave herself away.
“’A new twist’?” he parroted.
“You being nice.”
“No. No new twist.
“You’re setting the table and planning to help paint the barn. That seems kind of strange.”
“I told you, I need the exercise.”
Victoria cast him a sideways look that conveyed even more of her disbelief.
Enough so that Adam apparently felt inclined to go on.
“Plus I want to make sure the job on the barn gets done right. And that’s not going to happen unless I’m doing part of it.”
Now that sounded more like him—a little curt, a little cutting, a little derogatory.
But only a little. Which still kept Victoria guessing.
Although even a little of his disparagement somehow reassured her that all had not changed between them overnight.
Yet as she laid strips of bacon on the griddle, that reassurance was in small quantity, too. Because she couldn’t help feeling, deep down, that something had changed between them.
She just didn’t know what it was.
As the day wore on, Victoria wasn’t any more sure what was going on with Adam than she had been that morning.
The ogre she’d convinced herself he was seemed to have disappeared and left in his place someone in better spirits.
There were still moments when he threw out a comment or two that reminded her he hadn’t forgiven her, but his disdain wasn’t ever-present the way it had been before.
To Victoria that was a vast improvement. Not only did she not have to suffer so much of his angry disposition but he kept enough of a distance to help her gain some control over her involuntary attraction to him.
What didn’t help was that she worked behind him on the barn. He went first, scraping the old paint in spots where it had blistered and peeled, and priming those areas, and she followed with the paint when the primer was dry.
The view of his backside gave her a view of the hole she’d noticed below his rear pocket that morning, and it went all the way to the skin.
The skin of the uppermost part of his thigh and the lowermost curve of his derriere.
Those brief, tiny glimpses of bare flesh, even though she tried not to look, kept the flutters in her stomach pretty consistent.
Not to mention that they kept several questions repeating themselves in her mind.
Such as, Didn’t the man wear underwear?
Didn’t he know the hole was back there?
How could the cool autumn day seem so hot and steamy?
Of course there were spells when she was convinced he’d worn the torn jeans just to torment her. That that was the purpose of his working on the barn with her.
But those spells were brief and she didn’t actually believe that he knew what he was doing to her. Any more than she believed he had any idea that every time he untied the bandana from around his thigh, it sent her heart into palpitations to go along with the butterflies in her stomach.
Palpitations and butterflies that only got worse when he bent to replace the scarf and that hole opened up.
By the end of the afternoon, between the exertion and the excitement, Victoria felt as if she’d been through the wringer. She wondered if the more harsh comeuppance was coming from fate rather than from Adam—in the form of the simmering attraction she couldn’t seem to shed no matter how hard she tried. Especially when she hadn’t been able to escape Adam all day long.
They were headed inside the back door of the house when a knock on the front door picked up Adam’s pace.
“Are you expecting company?” Victoria asked as she followed behind, not happy to greet a guest in top-to-toe paint splatters.
“No one I know of,” Adam answered as he opened the door.
The man who stood outside was dressed in a police uniform and he looked only slightly familiar to Victoria when she caught a glimpse of him from around Adam.
“Sloan.” Adam greeted the man with surprise in his voice.
“Sorry to bother you, Adam.”
Adam stepped aside and invited the officer in. Then he turned to Victoria and said, “Do you remember Sloan Ravencrest?”
Victoria knew the name more than the face or the slightly longish dark hair and darker eyes that went with it. Her folks had told her about the half Native American who was the newest sheriff’s deputy. Sloan looked too young for her to have known him from school or social activities growing up.
“I do now,” she said in answer to Adam’s question. She offered her hand and he shook it, apologizing to her as if the first one to Adam hadn’t been enough.
“I hate to barge in like this.” Then, with more of his attention focused on Adam, he said, “I’ve been up in the mountains all day. We got a tip about Christina Montgomery being in the woods somewhere and I pulled search duty. I thought I might stop here on my way back to town and find out if you’ve seen anything.”
“You still haven’t found the mayor’s daughter?” Adam asked, rather than offering any information.
The sheriff’s deputy shook his head. “No, and it isn’t looking good. We’re leaning toward the worst case scenario.”
“You think she’s dead?”
Sloan shrugged, but it was clear that was just what he thought. “She’s been gone awhile. Maybe an accident or foul play.”
“And nothing turned up from your tip?”
“No, we didn’t come across so much as a clue.”
“I wish I could help you, but we’ve only been here since late Sunday and haven’t gone farther than the barn.”
Sloan Ravencrest looked slightly uncomfortable. “I know you’re on your honeymoon out here.”
That embarrassed Victoria. Although she couldn’t be sure if it was because of what he was assuming honeymooning meant or because it didn’t mean what he was assuming at all.
Adam glossed over the comment. “We haven’t seen anything. And I’m sure if Sherm had, he would have said something before he left.”
“Yeah, I talked to your foreman on his way through town. He couldn’t tell me anything, either.”
“You’re welcome to stay for dinner. How about that? I’m slapping steaks under the broiler.”
That was news to Victoria but she was glad to hear it. Respite from cooking was welcome as far as she was concerned.
The deputy declined. “Thanks, but I have to get back. Would
you keep an eye open, though?”
“You bet. We’ll be getting out into the countryside tomorrow to round up some horses. Probably camp overnight. If I see anything, I’ll phone in on my cellular.”
“We’d appreciate it.”
Sloan turned back toward the door. But he seemed to remember Victoria at the last minute and paused to incline his head her way. “Congratulations on your marriage.”
“Thanks,” she answered, even though it felt very strange to accept congratulations on a sham of a marriage.
Adam exchanged a few more words with the deputy as he walked him to the door and let Sloan out.
Once he had, Victoria said, “You’re cooking tonight?”
“Just the steaks. You can do the rest. But you’d better wash up first. You’re a mess.”
He said that last part with a hint of a smile that let her know he wasn’t really insulting her.
“So are you,” she countered in the same vein.
“I need to check in with my assistant. You can use the bathroom ahead of me and then get dinner started while I shower.”
“Yes, Master,” she said like a zombie in an old B movie, bowing at the waist and wondering at her own boldness in teasing him about his dictates.
But he didn’t take offense. He merely rolled his eyes at her lame joke and headed for the telephone.
Yet the fact that he’d taken her teasing in stride also seemed like an improvement when, just twenty-four hours earlier, he would have leveled her with a withering look.
But then, twenty-four hours earlier, she wouldn’t have ventured it.
Adam was on the telephone when Victoria finished showering and padded across the living room in her bathrobe to climb the stairs to the attic.
She was glad about that, not having liked the idea that his attention might be on her when her head was turbaned in a towel and she was wearing a terry-cloth robe that wasn’t fit for company.
Upstairs in her small room she put on clean clothes, blow-dried her hair and then pulled the sides up in a knot at her crown, leaving the back to hang loose.
She told herself she wasn’t sprucing up for Adam’s sake, but just because it felt good after a day in dingy clothes and paint drippings.
She also tried to believe it.
But it wasn’t easy when she ended up feeling as overlooked as a piece of furniture when Adam didn’t seem to even notice her join him in the kitchen a little while later where he was seasoning the steaks. He was still talking on the phone.
Then he slipped the broiler pan into the refrigerator and took the cordless phone with him into the bathroom while Victoria went to work on the rest of their dinner.
He came out about half an hour later, freshly shaven, wearing clean clothes, and still holding the telephone to his ear.
He stayed on the phone all the while he broiled their steaks and the whole time they ate. Then, when he was finished, he moved from the table to the desk, and Victoria began to wonder if the telephone had taken root to his ear.
So much for change, Victoria thought as she cleaned the kitchen.
He finally hung up just as she closed the dishwasher.
“I’m sorry. That was just plain bad manners,” he said.
Again hearing an apology from him shocked her so much she didn’t know what to say.
But he didn’t seem to notice that, either, as he went on. “We’re in the middle of negotiations with a software company I’ve opted to reorganize, and apparently today was a bad day for me to be unavailable.”
That seemed the perfect opportunity to finally ask about his job. “I don’t know what it is you actually do for a living,” she said.
Congenially enough he said, “Mergers and acquisitions is the nicest title. Corporate raider isn’t as nice, but I’ve been called that, too.”
“You take over companies?” she said as she folded the dishtowels and put them away.
“Basically. I take them over, cut the fat, sell off certain portions or break things up into parts and sell off all the parts. Whatever is the most profitable. Although some companies have enough life left in them to make it worth my while to hang on to them. It’s more work restructuring and reorganizing, but in the end I’m the major stockholder in a business that can earn a higher profit than I can make from selling it off. Or, sometimes I get things in better shape, hold on for a few years and then sell when the market is better. But I didn’t mean to talk on the phone all through dinner. My mother would have tanned my hide for that.”
Of course it wasn’t all that big a faux pas if he were still considering Victoria the hired help. But it seemed as if she’d been elevated to a higher position than that.
Not that she was going to complain. Especially when he gave her a conciliatory smile that went a long way in warming her up.
“I think I’ll go for a little walk,” she said then, thinking only about cooling off.
“Okay. That sounds good,” he said as if she’d invited him along.
Which she wouldn’t have done because getting away from him—and from his effect on her—had been her intention. But what could she do?
“Want to get a coat?” he asked.
Not when cooling off was her goal. “No, I’ll be fine. I’ll just pull my sleeves down.”
He raised an eyebrow at that but only said, “I think I’ll grab one,” and went into the bedroom.
When he came back he had on a black leather jacket that just skimmed his waist and looked buttery soft and terrific on him.
It didn’t help Victoria’s cause one wit as she drank in the sight of him and felt every sense stand up to take notice. But all she could do was try to not pay attention to how great he looked and head for the front door with Adam following behind.
The night air was cooler than Victoria had anticipated and she immediately regretted not bringing a coat. But she wouldn’t admit it, telling herself the chill was therapeutic. Like a cold shower.
She left the porch at a brisk pace to generate some internal heat and headed toward the lake. It stood calm and shadowed by the huge elm tree that hovered over it and it seemed so serene she hoped she might find some serenity of her own just by circling it.
For Adam, her brisk pace was more of a leisurely stroll because his legs were much longer. He fell in beside her without a problem.
“So tell me how you got to be where you are today,” she suggested as they walked.
“You mean, how did I get into the business I’m in?”
“Yeah.”
“I started out as an investment counselor and stockbroker. That gave me contact with some wealthy people and a finger on the pulse of what was going on in some viable companies that weren’t doing well. I could see where there was money to be made in taking them over. I saved everything I could of my own money, raised the rest from investors willing to take a risk, and one thing led to another.”
“I never knew you were interested in the financial world.”
“There’s a lot you didn’t know about me.”
“But it’s a long way from working on a ranch to Wall Street.”
“I worked on the Chicago Stock Exchange, not Wall Street.”
“Still.”
“I liked the ranch work. The animals. The outdoors. The wide-open spaces. But I wanted to make money, be my own boss, and following in my father’s footsteps wasn’t going to get me that. After we left Whitehorn I went to four different high schools before I graduated—that was how many towns we moved to that year. I wasn’t going to be a vagabond, either, so I did my damnedest to get a scholarship to college, which I did. I still had to work so I could send money to my mother to help ends meet, but scholarships paid my way through school. I got a business degree, then an M.B.A. Then I went to work.”
He said that with enough inflection to let her know he hadn’t just earned his degrees and then gotten a job. She could tell he’d gone after success with a vengeance.
“You were determined to make something of yourself,
” she said as they reached the far side of the lake. As she spoke, her teeth chattered suddenly, letting him know just how cold she was.
He took off the leather jacket and slipped it around her shoulders.
“Here, I’ve been warm for the first half of the walk, you can be warm for the second.”
“No, that’s okay,” she protested. But there wasn’t much strength behind it. Particularly when his hands lingered at her shoulders for longer than they needed to and the heat of his body encased her every bit as much as the soft leather. When the scent of his after-shave rose from the collar of the coat, it all combined to make her light-headed.
Then he took his hands away, shoving them into his pockets as if they were safer there, and addressed her comment instead. “Yes, I was determined to make something of myself. Thanks in no small part to what happened that night in your father’s barn. And to my family afterward,” he admitted grudgingly.
“So it wasn’t all bad?” she ventured hopefully.
“It was all bad. But something good came out of it,” he qualified, obviously still not ready to let her off the hook.
Which made it seem like a good time to change the subject.
“We’re rounding up horses tomorrow?” she asked.
“First you get to clean the stable,” he informed her with an edge to his voice that said it was just what she deserved and she shouldn’t forget it. “Then we’ll head out. There are four prime breeders that I’ve had pastured at the farthest corner of the ranch for the summer. They need to be brought in before it gets much colder or heavy snowfall hits. But since we won’t leave until the afternoon, we’ll just reach them by dark. We’ll camp overnight and head back the next morning.”
“Why not just wait and leave early the next morning so we can get back the same night?”
“And miss making you rough it?”
“Ah,” she said, a little slow on the uptake. “More of my comeuppance—a night on the range like a ranch hand.”
He just glanced over at her and smiled a satisfied smile that let her know she was finally with the program.
Then he said, “Just make sure you pack warm enough clothes and a coat.”
The Marriage Bargain Page 8
