He raked a hand through his tousled hair and closed his eyes. “Annie... God, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”
“Hey, Jared, it’s okay,” she said with a flip of her hand, but he could see her fingers shake as she tucked a loose strand of blond hair behind one ear.
Dammit, she had every right to be scared. He’d practically attacked her!
“Besides,” she went on, “it’s my fault. I never should have come in here like I did. It’s just that I heard a crash and you called out, and I, well, I thought you were sick or something.”
A crash? Jared glanced around the room, then realized that a glass, the one that had been sitting beside the whiskey bottle, had fallen behind the nightstand and shattered. Good Lord, had he been reaching for the bottle even in his sleep?
“I’m fine.” Careful to keep his distance from her and just as careful to keep the sheet over his hips, Jared scooted to the edge of the bed. “I had a late night, that’s all.”
It must have been later than he thought, Jared realized, as he searched the bedroom floor. “Where the hell are my pants?” he mumbled irritably to himself.
“There’s a pair of jeans in the living room,” Annie said awkwardly. “They’re wet, though.”
Jared frowned. He’d been outside on the steps, and it had started raining. He’d obviously stayed out longer than good sense dictated.
But then, good sense was hardly one of his strong points, he reminded himself, in light of what had just happened.
He stood, intending to grab a dry pair of jeans from his dresser, then remembered his state of undress. When he quickly sat back down, she looked away and started to rise.
“I...uh, I’ll just wait for you in the other room.”
“No.” He took hold of her wrist and gently tugged her back down. Her pulse beat hard and fast under his fingertips.
He knew he should ask her to leave, but for some strange reason, he didn’t want her to go. Not just yet, anyway. Maybe because after nearly four years it was easier to face her here in the darkness, or maybe it was because he still didn’t want to face reality. He wasn’t sure what the reason was, but he did know that, even if it was only a few more minutes, he wanted her to stay right where she was.
“Just grab a pair of jeans out of that top drawer for me.” He gestured toward his dresser.
“Sure.” She stood and opened the drawer, then handed him the jeans. She folded her arms and looked away as he tugged the pants on.
When Annie felt brave enough to chance a look at him again, she was relieved to see that he was at least partially dressed. It was difficult enough standing here talking to him, pretending nonchalance, after what had just transpired between them. Her knees were the consistency of dry sand and her cheeks burned with embarrassment. Thank God the room was dark, she thought. She wasn’t quite sure how she could look Jared directly in the eyes at the moment, let alone have a calm conversation with him in the light of day.
He reached across her and pulled a T-shirt out of the dresser. She watched as he dragged it over his head, and it was impossible not to notice the ripple of lean hard muscle as he tugged it on. Goodness, but the Stone men were well built, she noted, quickly looking away.
Extremely well built.
“I—” she drew in a deep breath “—I just heard about your father. I’m sorry. I would have come for the funeral if I’d known.”
Jared tucked his T-shirt into his jeans, and Annie’s throat tightened as he pulled up the zipper. “Myrna made all the arrangements so fast even I couldn’t make it in time. I barely made it to the reading of the will.”
Annie remembered Jared’s stepmother. An attractive woman with red hair, she’d been somewhere in her late forties when Annie had last seen her. J.T. had married the woman close to twelve years ago, one year after Jonathan and Jared’s mother had died. Annie knew that Myrna was more tolerated by the Stone children than accepted.
Jared’s head snapped up suddenly and he looked at the lighted clock on the nightstand. His eyes widened. “Dammit. Dammit, dammit!”
“What?” Eyes wide, Annie stared at Jared. “What is it?”
He snatched a pair of socks from his dresser, then grabbed his boots. “I’ve got an appointment. Jeez, I had an appointment. At ten with a geologist from Arloco Oil. I was supposed to meet him at the rig. Annie, I’m sorry, but I have to go. If I blow this appointment, it will undoubtably put an end to my already shaky oil career.”
He hesitated at the bedroom door and ran a hand quickly through his hair. “Look, just make yourself comfortable. I’ll be back in—”
“Jared—”
“—a little while and—”
“Jared—”
“—we can talk then about—”
“Jared!”
He stopped. “What?”
“Jared, I hate to tell you this.” She swallowed hard and faced him. “But I’m your geologist.”
Two
Jared stared at Annie, certain he had misunderstood her. She couldn’t mean what he thought she meant.
“What did you say?”
“I said,” she repeated quietly, “I’m your geologist. The one you were supposed to meet this morning.”
An uneasiness tightened Jared’s chest. “From Arloco Oil?”
“Yes.”
No. She couldn’t be. Not Annie. He reached for the light switch and flipped it on. She blinked at the unexpected brightness.
Annie had been a geology major, Jared remembered. That was how she and Jonathan had met. He had just finished his last year when they’d become engaged, but she’d had one more year before she graduated.
He watched her, letting the impact of her words sink in. “So this is no social call,” he said carefully. “You’re here as a representative of Arloco Oil.”
She nodded. “That’s right.”
He took in the full sight of her: work boots, long denim-clad legs, white sleeveless blouse, short tousled blond hair, large hazel eyes and wide soft lips.
Lips that were still swollen from the kiss he’d unknowingly forced on her.
The uneasiness in his chest closed around him like a fist. He’d more than blown his chances with Arloco Oil. He’d pulverized them.
He stared down at his bare feet, then back to her. “Look, just give me a minute. You’ve caught me a little off guard here.”
She smiled weakly. “You might say the same thing for me.”
He rolled his eyes shut and groaned. “Annie, I’m sorry, I—”
She cut him off. “Never mind, Jared. Let’s just forget about it. There was no harm done. We’ll laugh about it later.”
He seriously doubted that. Nor did he think he’d forget about it, either.
“I’ll go put some coffee on,” she offered as casually as if she’d been gone four days, instead of almost four years. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen, and we’ll start all over. It should help,” she added with a smile, “that we’ll both be dressed this time.”
He could hear the teasing in her voice, but he was hardly in the mood for levity. Frowning, he stepped aside, wondering how a day that had started off feeling so damn good could end up so damn miserable.
Annie held her breath as she moved past Jared. The look on his face told her that he hadn’t appreciated her weak attempt to ease the tension between them. She sighed inwardly. She’d known it was going to be difficult seeing Jared after all these years, but she certainly hadn’t expected it to be quite this difficult.
Everything in the kitchen was pretty much in the same place as when Jonathan had lived here, and she had a pot of coffee brewing within a couple of minutes. When she opened the cabinet where she remembered the cups had been, an image of Jonathan reaching into this same cupboard suddenly came to her. He’d made dinner for her the night he’d proposed, a romantic candlelight meal with wine and flowers. When he’d slipped the ring on her finger, she knew she was the luckiest woman alive.
Strange, she thought, staring at the plastic coffee mugs in her
hand, how quickly and how cruelly happiness can be snatched away.
“Annie?”
Startled, she turned abruptly and dropped one of the mugs. It bounced on the tile of the kitchen floor, then landed on the living-room floor.
“I—I’m sorry,” she gasped, scrambling after the cup. Jared reached for it at the same time, and their fingers touched. She quickly pulled hers away, and they both straightened.
This time, when his gaze met hers, he smiled. “No harm done,” he said, mimicking the words she’d used earlier.
He took the other mug from her and moved to the coffeepot. It was still sputtering and bubbling, but he filled the cups anyway. The hot liquid dripped and sizzled on the burner.
She took a calming breath, watching as Jared poured the steaming coffee. He’d combed his hair, and the thick dark ends brushed the back of his neck. He looked the same physically as he had four years ago, except his arms and shoulders appeared more muscular than she remembered. He was almost a foot taller than her own five-foot-four frame, and she had to look up to meet his eyes when he turned and offered her a cup. They were the same deep blue as Jonathan’s had been. Stone blue, she’d called it, since all the Stone children had the same incredible eye color. It reminded her of the ocean at sunrise.
He handed her a mug. “Black all right?”
“Fine.” She accepted the cup, thankful to have something to hold on to.
“Annie—”
She raised a hand to stop him. “Jared, please, before we get to business, can we just talk a little? Maybe catch up on a few things?”
He stared at her over his coffee cup for a long moment, then leaned back against the counter. “All right.”
They both stood there.
She cleared her throat. “So how are you?”
What an inane thing to say. Blast it! Why was this so difficult?
He just nodded. “Okay. You?”
She nodded, too. “Fine.”
He sipped his coffee, watching her, and Annie felt a heat scurry through her at the intensity of his gaze.
“You look different,” he said at last.
He didn’t, she thought. He was as handsome as she remembered. Jonathan’s good looks had been more refined somehow, while Jared had been more rugged. “It has been almost four years.”
His gaze skimmed over her face. “Your hair.”
Embarrassed, she ran a hand through her newly cropped hair, suddenly wishing she hadn’t let the stylist talk her into the shorter cut. She’d nearly cried when she’d seen six inches of blond hair lying on the floor. “It’s supposed to be easier,” she said self-consciously.
The corners of his mouth tilted up slightly. “I like it.”
She thought she was in control again, but her cheeks suddenly felt warm. She blew away the steam rising from the cup in her hand, then took a sip of the hot liquid. “I heard you were in Venezuela.”
His lips thinned. “I was.”
Wrong subject, Annie, she thought with a silent groan. From the hard expression on Jared’s face, she guessed that South America hadn’t exactly been a picnic. It was also perfectly clear that he didn’t want to talk about it.
Jared’s reticence seemed to be another area where he and Jonathan had differed. Annie had never met anyone more open and verbal than Jonathan had been. Something told her that it would take a crowbar to extract anything more than superficial conversation out of Jared.
“Jake and Jessica?” she inquired about his sister and brother, intentionally changing the subject.
Jared’s smile returned, and she couldn’t help but notice the attractive lift of his dark eyebrows. “Jessica’s living in town. She’s applying for a grant so she can turn the ghost town she inherited into a camp for troubled kids.”
“Ghost town?”
Jared laughed. “I’ll let her tell you about it when she gets back from San Antonio. Jake and his wife, Savannah, took Emma to the Fall Festival there and she went with them.”
“Jake married! So there are snowballs in hell, huh?” she joked, remembering a remark Jared’s older brother had repeated more than once in the short time she’d known him. He’d been recently divorced back then and the subject of marriage was not his favorite. “And who’s Emma?”
“My half sister.” He chuckled at her confused stare. “It’s a long story. I’ll explain everything later.”
Obviously a lot had transpired since she’d last seen the Stones, Annie thought in amazement. A great number of changes had taken place with the family. Except for one thing.
The oil well.
Which brought her back to why she was here.
The lightness she’d felt a moment ago was gone now. In its place was an ache that settled over her like a lead weight.
The silence stretched around them as taut and thin as a spider’s web. If she touched one delicate strand, the entire web would either fall apart or ensnare her. Either way, someone lost.
As if sensing her plight, Jared made the first move. “How long have you worked for Arloco?”
“Almost two years. My first few months out of school I worked for a major oil company, mostly desk work. It’s not easy being a woman in a male-dominated industry, but I suppose being the youngest and only daughter of six children was a good training ground. When Arloco offered me a job, I jumped at the opportunity to work in the field for an independent company.” She made a small gesture with her hand. “So here I am.”
So here she was.
The awkwardness was back between them.
“Look, Annie,” Jared said, pushing away from the counter, “this is difficult for both of us. There’s a lot of...history here. It might be easier if we put that book on the shelf and just deal with the present. You don’t know me, I don’t know you. You’re here to do a job. Just do it.” She lifted her gaze to his. His eyes were narrowed, his lips drawn tightly together. He was right, of course. This was business, no matter what the past.
“Jared,” she said carefully, “you know that after I review everything here I have to draw up a report.”
“And based on your report, Arloco either gives or doesn’t give its support.”
It was bad enough, knowing that she was the one person who could destroy his dream, but hearing him speak the words made her stomach twist into a knot.
Her hands tightened around the cup. “I wish it wasn’t me standing here, Jared. But it is. This is my job. I can’t compromise that.”
“I didn’t ask you to,” he said tightly. “Nor do I expect it. Just give the project a chance.”
She hadn’t meant to offend him. This whole situation was just so difficult. She was walking on eggshells here, and none too lightly. “You have the maps?”
“They’re in my office.” He gestured toward the living room. “Why don’t we step in there?”
The teasing lilt was back again and she relaxed a bit. She appreciated that he was at least trying to make it easier for her. With a sigh, she moved past him, determined to put her mind to her work.
* * *
Annie sat cross-legged on the floor, a log sheet in one hand and a pencil in the other. She stared at the map spread out on the floor in front of her, her concentration intense as she cross-referenced the map to the logs.
On the floor beside her, Jared took a sip of his fifth cup of coffee as he watched her lean forward, her eyes narrowed, and study the sketched-out cross section of a trap fault. When her hair fell across her cheek, she unconsciously tucked it behind her ear with a smooth flick of her fingers.
She’d changed a lot since he’d first met her, he noted. Her blond hair had been halfway down her back before, and straight. Now it sort of curved around her oval face, accentuating her large hazel-green eyes and thick dark lashes. The style also revealed the long slender line of her neck. In a dim recess of his mind, he had an image of his lips pressed against that soft sensitive spot just below her ear. He cursed himself and tore his gaze away, determined to put the morning’s incident bet
ween them out of his thoughts.
The sound of her scribbling in the notepad at her knee brought his attention back to the present. It was almost as if she’d forgotten he was there. For the past three hours, she’d pored over the map that Jonathan had worked up—a “play,” it was called—and occasionally she’d ask a question, but there’d been virtually no conversation between them. It was starting to grate on his nerves, not knowing what was going on in her head.
He almost laughed at that. As if he’d ever known what went on in any female’s head.
He remembered the day Jonathan had brought her home. She’d looked like a typical college student. A long-legged long-haired blonde who would have turned any man’s head.
But now there was something more, something provocative, even seductive, in the way she spoke and moved. It made no difference she was wearing work boots and jeans and a loose-fitting white blouse. The femininity that radiated from her packed a punch with definite knockout power.
And when she began to nibble on the eraser of her pencil, Jared’s mouth went as dry as chalk. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t forget the feel of those soft lips under his own. Or the feel of her body pressed tightly against his.
“Jared,” she said suddenly, and he nearly jumped at the sound of his name, “did you have a seismic crew out here three years ago?”
He nodded. “I’ve got the file at the site.”
As she stared at the log sheet in her hand, then the map, she frowned slightly. Jared wasn’t at all sure he cared for the expression. He’d seen it too many times on bank officers and backers not to recognize it. It meant doubt. With a capital D.
He heard her stomach rumble then and realized that he hadn’t offered her anything to eat. Her cheeks flushed as she pressed a hand to her stomach.
He really knew how to rack up points, Jared thought sourly. First he attacked the woman, then he starved her.
“I’ll throw some lunch together,” he said, standing.
“I am a little hungry,” she admitted, tucking the pencil behind her ear and stretching. “I left Midland this morning about seven and didn’t take the time to pull off at a diner for breakfast.”
Texas Temptation Page 2
