by Janet Dailey
"Let's get this straight, Mrs. Cochran." His cold voice would have made an icicle shiver. "I am the one in charge now. It makes no difference to me if your father whimsically indulged a senile old man. I have no intention of wasting precious time while an eighty-two-year-old man todders up and down a field behind some overweight mules. My concern is getting the land ready for planting in the fastest and most efficient way possible."
"What is time?" she flared. "It's a meaningless measurement. The ground, the trees, the wind, they have no conception of it. They are still here. They still exist. The efficient use of time is worthless if it means sacrificing the principles of human dignity." Green fires flashed in her eyes as she paused to catch her breath. "And you obviously have never spent any time with Cato to dismiss his worth so contemptuously. I assure you he does not todder, but strides with the physical ease that you do. His mules are always kept in condition. That's not fat but muscles you see."
"It doesn't change anything. My decision stands," Rans stated with unrelenting hardness.
A finely drawn brow arched upward. "It will stand only until my father hears about it," Lara declared haughtily. "And once the rest of the workers discover, that the Alexander family does not support you in this, you will have difficulty finding anyone to do the plowing. We have always taken great pride in the loyalty of the people who work for us."
"I wouldn't be too sure about your father, if I were you, Mrs. Cochran." A self-satisfied glint appeared in his narrowed eyes. "I have already discussed the matter briefly with him and he left the final decision to me."
"That's a lie!" she gasped in sudden, trembling outrage. "My father would never condone this! He would not betray Cato in the way you are suggesting!"
One corner of his mouth, quirked sardonically. "It's not betrayal," Rans harshly mocked her description. "The man will receive an ample pension to keep him comfortably for the rest of his life."
"Is that all?" Lara asked sarcastically. "Don't you want to throw in a gold watch, too?" A muscle twitched along his, jaw as his lips thinned into a straight line. "Have you told Cato of your decision, or do you intend to let the grapevine inform him that he's out of a job because he's too old?"
"I haven't had the opportunity," he replied coldly.
"Oh, you've been busy I'm sure," she responded caustically. "Too busy to do the dirty work. Let Cato think my father is to blame. What does it matter to you?"
"I have been busy. Some fool forgot to latch one of the bull-pen gates and two of our prize bulls got into a fight; I'm still not certain we aren't going to lose one of them. Plus one of the cows died giving birth to a calf, and I've spent the last three nights trying to keep the calf alive. Since the decision was mine, I chose not to delegate the responsibility of informing Cato to anyone else. When I do talk to him, I will make it clear that the decision was mine."
The bay pranced nervously behind Lara, who was now trembling with the fierceness of her anger. "I am going to fight you on this, Rans MacQuade. I don't accept that your decision is the final one. You will regret it if you try to carry it out. No one who works here is going to approve of what you're doing. Believe me, I won't be fighting you alone."
"You are a spoiled little brat who has got her way too often. You can rant and rave and throw all the temper tantrums you want, but if you ever try to usurp my authority with the workers, you will find that you have tackled more than you can handle!" The fire glittering in his eyes warned that it was not an idle threat.
"I doubt that," Lara jeered.
"Do you?" A thick eyebrow arched arrogantly. "Pick up the tractor keys and hand them to me."
It was undeniably an order. Mutinously Lara stood her ground, her red gold head thrown back in open defiance, daring him to try to make her, Martin Alexander's daughter; obey.
"I said pick up the keys," he snapped.
With the swiftness of a striking cobra, his fingers wrapped around her wrist, jerking her forward. The bay reared, pulling the reins free from the same hand he held. Lara's reaction was instinctive. The riding whip arced toward that arrogant face.
The whip didn't reach its target, checked in mid-swing by another set of iron fingers seizing her other wrist. Brown eyes glinted with mockery at her futile attempt. Rigidly Lara stood in front of him, moving her wrists only slightly to test the firmness of his hold while she silently smoldered with rage.
"Let me go!" she hissed.
A hard smile curved the strong line of his mouth, his grip tightening. "So you can use that riding crop? Not a chance." Harsh, mocking laughter sounded in his throat. "If anyone uses it, I will…on your backside. Something your father should have done years ago."
Lara tossed her head back, green eyes glinting with confident challenge. "You wouldn't dare," she jeered.
Again a dark eyebrow flicked upward. The pressure of his grip was slightly increased, fingers digging into the delicate bones of her wrist, forcing Lara to lean forward to lessen the sharp pain.
"Wouldn't I?" Rans murmured softly.
In that split second, Lara realized that there was very little this arrogant, dominating man wouldn't dare. And she just might have goaded him into proving it. There was no way she was going to suffer that kind of humiliation at his hands.
With a quick downward twist of her wrists, she tried to surprise him and pull free, without success, but that was only the beginning of the struggle. Kicking and twisting and clawing the air around his face, Lara fought to get loose. He held her easily, amused by her vigorous efforts.
Two of the pins fell out of her hair, tousled waves Of shimmering red gold curved around her cheek only partially held back by the remaining pins. Her heart was racing madly, the exertion of her struggles coloring her cheeks. Green eyes blazed with the light of battle, refusing to submit to superior strength.
Summoning what remained of her own strength, Lara stiffened her arms, straining her wrists against the overlapping of fingers and thumbs. With a quick twist, Rans curved them behind her back, imprisoning her against the solid wall of his chest.
Her hipbones were forced against the bruising hardness of his thighs. Breathing heavily, her energy nearly spent, Lara kicked weakly at his shins with the toes of her riding boots. After a series of harmless, glancing blows, a toe accurately found its target, drawing a stifled curse near her ear.
With punishing cruelty, Rans twisted her arms higher up the curve of her spine, arching her more firmly against him. "You damned little hellcat!" He muttered savagely.
Reacting to the shooting pains in her arms, Lara jerked her head back and up. Her parted lips accidentally came in contact with his mouth. Instantly she was paralyzed, totally incapable of any movement. The scent of him enveloped her in an invisible, musky cloud. She was suddenly conscious of his shirt buttons biting into her breasts.
The same stillness gripped Rans. Less than a feather separated their lips, yet neither moved. No longer blinded by her temper, Lara couldn't ignore her vulnerability to a male assault. Frightened, her rounded eyes gazed helplessly into the brown depths of his, veiled by thick, spiky lashes. Her pulse quickened, drumming loudly in her ears. His attention seemed to be focused on the flaming disarray of her hair, then his gaze moved with unnerving slowness to look into her eyes.
For ticking seconds they were locked together, lips touching without kissing. There was no one to hear her if she screamed. She was at his mercy and Lara doubted if he possessed any. But she wouldn't beg for it, not from him or any man.
When the seconds had stretched to a fever pitch, his grip shifted on her wrists, releasing one as he spun her away with the other. Before Lara could draw a shaky breath of relief, pressure was applied to the still captured wrist, bending her down toward the ground.
"Pick up the key," Rans growled thickly.
She had completely forgotten the cause that had precipitated her struggles moments before and stared at the ground blankly. The plowed earth bore imprints of their scuffle and the key was nowhere to be seen.<
br />
"I can't see it." Her voice trembled in humiliating betrayal.
Rans forced Lara to her knees, then joined her, raking the dirt with his fingers and uncovering the key. He picked it up himself and pulled her to her feet, his eyes glittering with a dark light. Reluctant curiosity flickered across her face as she wondered why he hadn't made her pick up the key.
"I couldn't have the chatelaine of the castle getting dirt beneath her fingernails, could I?" His mouth crooked derisively as he answered her unspoken question. There was no change in his expression when he let go of her wrist. "Unless you want to walk home, Mrs. Cochran, I suggest you go catch your horse."
Lara averted her head at his cutting sarcasm, massaging her numbed wrist and hand. When she glanced up to retort in kind, Rans MacQuade was striding down the swath of turned soil in the direction of the tractor.
Tears burned the back of her eyes and she blinked furiously to check the impulse to cry. With the back of her hand she rubbed her mouth, trying to rid her lips of the warm sensation of the nearness of his. It didn't work. They still trembled achingly in remembrance, as did the rest of her flesh where his body had been imprinted on it.
Wrenching her gaze away from the hated sight of the broad shoulders tapering to slim hips, Lara searched the orchard for the bay hunter. She glimpsed a flash of his dark, sleek coat, through the branches of the trees some distance away. He appeared to be grazing, his short flight checked by the temptation of green grass.
Tapping the riding crop against her tan breeches, Lara forced her weak legs to carry her to the horse. Luckily Pasha was easy to catch. The sound of the tractor motor reminded Lara of Cato and she was filled with new purpose.
Once she caught the hunter, she would take the shortcut home through the tangled growth of pines. She was going to corner her father about his supposed endorsement of Rans MacQuade's plan to pension off Cato. She hadn't given up the fight by any means.
Chapter Four
WHEN LARA arrived at the house, it was to discover that her father wasn't home. Two or three mornings a week, depending on the workload, her father went into the office. This turned out to be one of those mornings. Sara informed her that he would be back for lunch, but Lara didn't want to wait that long before talking to him.
Her attempt to contact him at the office was thwarted by the receptionist's announcement that he had taken a prospective buyer to look over the young bulls that were for sale. Lara restlessly prowled the house, pouncing on Martin Alexander the instant he walked through the door shortly before noon.
"Well, hello, pet," he greeted her in mild, but pleased surprise when she met him at the door.
Lara dispensed with the formality of a greeting and went straight to the point. "Is it true you told MacQuade he could pension off Cato?"
Her father paused, taken aback by the sparkling fires in the green eyes of his usually calm and composed daughter. "I wouldn't put it quite that way," he frowned. "Rans discussed the possibility with me about a month ago. I made it clear that my wish was to keep him, but the decision ultimately rested with him since he is in charge."
"He chose not to consider your wishes," Lara retorted acidly. "As of this morning, Cato was forcibly retired."
"You must be mistaken." Confusion drew his sandy brows, together.
"I' m not. MacQuade told me himself. Daddy—"
"But that's impossible," he interrupted. "I drove by the Desirable orchard not ten minutes ago and Cato was plowing with his mules."
"You must have been seeing things," Lara shook her head with certainty.
"Then I was hearing things, too," Martin Alexander chuckled softly, because I stopped to ask how his mother was. He said she was just fine and that he would be stopping by in a day or two to drop off a couple of jars of his mother's fig preserves. There was no mention of retirement. You must have misunderstood Rans."
Stunned, Lara could say nothing. She knew positively that she hadn't misunderstood Rans. He had been very definite that Cato was through. She stared at her father, bewildered by his statement.
"I don't believe you," she murmured.
"Go see for yourself," he shrugged. "I imagine he's having lunch under one of the trees."
"I will," she stated flatly, opening the front door he had just closed.
"Hey, what about your lunch?"
Tell Sara I'll have something cold when I get back," Lara replied as she closed the door.
The garage, housing her blue Mustang, was at the back of the house near the stable. Lara hurriedly followed the brick sidewalk around to the rear. Within minutes she was speeding out of the house lane behind the wheel of her car.
When she arrived at the orchard, there was definite evidence that more ground had been plowed. No sound of a motorized vehicle could be heard, which meant nothing at lunch hour. Parking the car in the orchard turn-in, Lara climbed quickly out and pushed open the gate.
Following the most recent swath of plowed soil, she walked swiftly down the row of trees, her gaze scanning the area ahead of her. She spied the mules first, standing together beneath a tree Cato's spare frame was seated beside them, leaning against the trunk. His keen eyes saw her immediately; he lifted a weathered hand in greeting.
"Hello, Lara." He waited to continue until she was closer. "It's been a long time since you've come to walk beside old Cato." He clicked his tongue reprovingly. "You don't have a covering for your head. I told you about that time and time again. You know your skin turns as red as your hair if you get too much sun."
His words evoked fond memories that brought a smile to her lips. Lara knelt beside him, curling her legs beneath her to sit cross-legged as she had done so many times before.
"Actually, I didn't come to walk with you." She wasn't certain how she was going to explain why she came.
"You've got something troubling you. I could always tell when something was bothering you," Cato nodded sagely. "Your eyes always turn that dark shade of green, like the pines on a cloudy day."
"I never could fool you, could I?" Lara smiled wistfully, then glanced at the grass, plucking a blade and twirling it in her fingers. "Cato—" she hesitated "—did Mr. MacQuade, the new man daddy hired to run the farm—did he stop to see you this morning?"
"Hee, hee, hee!" A high-pitched chuckle rolled from a snaggle-toothed grin. "So that's it. Yep, he stopped to see old Cato."
"And?" Lara prompted as the old man shook his head as if remembering the meeting, the grin still splitting his weathered face.
"I was chopping logs, when he came, for my firewood customers," he nodded. "I knew why he'd come, a new man and all. He'd come to tell Cato he was too old to work any more."
Lara flinched at the perceptive words. "I'm sorry, Cato."
"Don't you be Sorry for me," he scolded sharply. "I've lived long and hard and seen me some good times and I don't mind growing old. Not that there's a damned thing I could do about it if I did mind." The gentle smile returned, the one of a man who knows inner peace. "Well, as I was saying I knew why he'd come, but I didn't want to hear the words, not right off. So I told him I couldn't talk until I finished the chopping. He took a look at the big pile of logs I had laying there and said he'd give me a hand. I always keeping a sharp ax handy in case the one I'm using gets dull, so I won't have to stop to sharpen it. I pointed it out to him and told him he was welcome to help if he was up to it."
He paused to laugh again, his dark eyes sparkling with impish glee. Lara felt her own tension lessening. She couldn't help smiling with him.
"So we chopped and we chopped and we chopped until finally that pile was all gone," Cato continued. "He was a-sweating by then. When he buried the ax in a chuck of wood, I looked at him and said, 'We ain't done. I still got that pile to do.' It wasn't as big as the first, but I think it looked bigger to him. That's when he smiled and shook his head and said to me, 'Cato, you've proved your point. I came here today to tell you that you were too old, but right now I feel older than you.' Then he told me I'd bet
ter get my mules hitched up and out to the field."
"He really said that," Lara breathed. "Oh, Cato, I'm so glad. Neither daddy nor I wanted you to retire and I hope you didn't get your feelings hurt by what happened."
"Hurt?" He straightened, drawing his head back to give her a hard look. "This is a proud day. I wouldn't want to keep my job on any man's sufferance. I earned my right to work here today and that new man knows it or I wouldn't be here."
"You're right, of course," she agreed with a happy smile.
"That new man's going to be good. It's a pity you didn't marry someone like him instead of that skirt-chasing dandy," Cato said bluntly.
The smile vanished from her face. Hastily she got to her feet, averting her head to hide the rush of color to her cheeks. She should have realized that some gossip would have filtered through to him.
"I'd better be getting back to the house." She changed the subject hurriedly with a lie. "They're holding lunch for me."
"I'm too old to mind my own business, if that's what you're saying," he chuckled, "but I gotta get back to work now. You stop by to see me again, Lara. And bring a hat for your head."
"I will, Cato," she promised as he closed his lunch bucket and agilely rose to his feet. "Goodbye."
He lifted a hand in acknowledgment, then turned to his mules. As Lara walked away, she could hear him talking to them in a low, musical tone. A smile played on her lips. She found it amusing that Cato had got the best of Rans MacQuade. She had thought no one could change Rans's mind, but she was glad that he had. And she was glad about the way it happened.
Lara was still smiling when she reached her car. At the sound of an approaching vehicle, she glanced up with absent curiosity. Her hand remained poised on the door handle at the sight of the familiar green and white pickup. It stopped opposite her car.
A tanned arm was crooked over the open window on the driver's side. The impassively rugged face of Rans MacQuade looked at her. Thick tobacco-brown hair had been ruffled by the wind. The truck's motor was still running. The sight of him brought back all the hated memories of their morning confrontation. Her skin tingled where it had been crushed against him.
