by Janet Dailey
"Why?" Lara smiled, knowing she was disturbing him as he had disturbed her so often.
"I have only one rule as far as women are concerned," he said flatly. "I stay away from the ones who are married. And like it or not, Mrs. Cochran —" his voice lashed silently as his hands firmly pushed her away from him "—you are married."
"Rans." Pain choked off the rest of her protest. Instead she asked breathlessly, "If I wasn't married?"
An eyebrow slashed upward with arrogant cynicism. "Is there any likelihood of that?" Rans taunted. Lara hesitated, unable to answer him immediately. "That's what I thought. Good night, Mrs. Cochran."
"Rans, no!" she called out to him as he spun away to stride into the hall.
His step didn't slacken as if he was determined to get as far away from her as possible in the shortest amount of time. On shaking legs, Lara followed him. She reached the top of the stairs as he opened the front door on the ground floor.
"Rans, wait." The door was slammed shut. "I love you." The admission was out in the open, her voice trailing forlornly into a whisper when Lara realized she was the only one who had heard it.
The pickup truck roared out of the driveway. Slowly Lara retraced her steps to the bedroom, ignoring the cup of cocoa on her dresser to curl into a tight ball of pain and misery beneath the covers of her bed.
The next morning Lara slept late, mentally and physically exhausted from the turmoil. She had just dressed and was walking toward the stairs when she heard voices in the hall below. One was her father's and the second belonged to Rans. Lara hurried to catch him, wanting to speak to him even if it was too soon, but the front door was closing as she reached the landing.
"Was that Rans?" she questioned her father, taking the last few steps with skipping feet, "Is he leaving?"
A puzzled frown creased his forehead when he turned to her. "How did you know?"
"I heard his voice. I have to talk to him." Lara raced toward the door in time to see the rear of the pickup driving down the lane. "Did he say where he was going?"
"No." Martin Alexander shook his head, running his fingers through the sides of salted auburn hair. "Where's Trevor? I've got to talk to him about this." Lara noticed the paper her father had clutched in his hand. "I imagine if Rans told you, he told Trevor, too. I just don't understand," he sighed.
"What?" His sentences were confusing her. "What was Rans supposed to have told me?" Was her father referring to last night? She didn't understand.
"About him leaving, of course," he answered impatiently. "Did he explain his reasons to you?"
"Leaving," Lara breathed, her face growing pale.
"Yes, leaving!" Her father waved the paper in the air. "He even put his resignation in writing. A two-week notice and the name of a man qualified to replace him."
"Why?" In her heart she guessed the reason.
"That's what I'm asking you!" he retorted. "You were the one who said you knew he was leaving,"
"No, I…I only meant was he leaving the house. I had no idea at all that he had quit," Lara explained. "What…what reason did he give for leaving?"
"Oh, some mumbo-jumbo about the job not turning out to be the kind of thing he wanted," her father shrugged absently, his brow furrowed in concentration.
"Surely you tried to talk him out of it?"
"Of course," he sighed, and rubbed his forehead. "I offered him more money, a part ownership in the farm, a new house, a new car. I tried everything, but he kept insisting that he was still dissatisfied and nothing would change that. I nearly got down on my hands and knees and begged him to stay. I couldn't have found a better man for the job than Rans if I had ordered him directly from heaven. And now what?" He lifted his hands in a helpless gesture.
"He can't leave," Lara whispered. Her father was too concerned with his own problem to hear the pulsing ache in her soft voice.
"Maybe Trevor can talk him out of it, or at least we can put our heads together and come up with some kind of a plan. Where is he?" Martin glanced toward the stairs. "Is he still in bed?"
"He didn't come home last night," she answered swallowing back the lump in her throat.
"Didn't come home? You two left the party together last night? How could he bring you home and not come home himself?" he demanded incredulously. "Where is he?"
"I don't know and I don't care!" The details of last night would require too much telling for Lara to want to spend the time explaining, "It doesn't matter what you think anymore, daddy. I'm divorcing Trevor as quickly as I can see an attorney and get the legal papers filed. Our marriage has been dead for a long while. It's time it was buried. So Trevor isn't going to be much help to you whenever he does come back. And you can tell him what I said, if I'm not here."
"What are you talking about? What's going on?" His confusion increased as Lara opened the front door. "Where are you going?"
"To talk to Rans."
"Well, see if you can talk him into staying!" he called after her. "Rans might be at the cattle barns."
Racing around the side of the house, Lara realized that now that she had faced the truth, it really hadn't been such a difficult thing. What would hurt was if she had left it too late. Her fear now was that Rans would really leave.
Behind the wheel of her blue Mustang, she stepped on the accelerator, the tires churning up a cloud of dust as they tried to answer the demand for speed. The pace didn't slacken until she reached the breeding pens two miles from the main house. The rust-colored head of a Santa Gertrudis bull lifted curiously when she turned into the lane to the barns.
Rans's pickup truck was parked beneath a large oak. Lara stopped her car beside it, stepping out before the engine died. At first glance there was no sign of activity in any of the barns. Despairing, Lara thought she would have to search each of the large structures, then there was movement near one of the large double doors.
She held her breath, letting it out slowly when Rans appeared. Sunlight glinted on the amber highlights in his brown hair. The white of his shirt contrasted sharply with the dark tan of his sun-browned features, chiseled into an expressionless mask. Snug-fitting Levis of faded blue molded the muscular length of his legs, striding purposefully forward.
There was a slight narrowing of his gaze as he saw Lara poised beside her car. His stride faltered for an instant, then continued in a direct line toward his truck. Lara realized he had no intention of speaking to her and she walked swiftly to intercept him.
"Rans, please, I want to talk to you," she explained hurriedly as he drew near her.
His glance, dispassionate and aloof, swept over her briefly. "We don't have anything to discuss, Mrs. Cochran," with deliberate emphasis on her name.
"Yes, we do," Lara protested. "You can't leave, Rans, not now."
"I see your father told you I was quitting," he interrupted briskly, not slackening his long stride to match her smaller steps.
"Yes. Rans, I have to know why, please."
"I gave him my reason. I'll let it stand." He opened the door of his pickup and would have crawled in if Lara hadn't caught at his arm to stop him. He looked down at her coldly.
"You have to listen to me. I wanted to explain to you last night, but you left before I had a chance," Lara declared earnestly.
"I've heard it all before," Rans replied disinterestedly. "As far as I'm concerned, last night never happened. I've handed in my resignation, and there is nothing you can say that will change my mind. Do I need to make it any plainer than that?"
Recoiling a step as if he had struck her, she stared at him, unable to believe the rejection his words implied. When her hand fell away from his arm, he stepped into the cab of the truck, started the motor and drove away without another glance at Lara as she stood in stunned silence.
The truck had disappeared on the graveled road before she moved, walking numbly to her own car. Her hands clasped the steering wheel and Lara bowed her head against them, intense pain sweeping through her. She didn't want to believe what she h
ad heard.
He had not even listened to her, nor allowed her the opportunity to explain. The only sentence that gave her any hope at all was his comment that he had heard it all before.
It was a hope as slim as a wishbone, but it was the only one she had. She needed it. The next few days would not be easy. Lifting her head, Lara smiled tightly. First things first, she told herself, turning the key in the ignition.
But if Rans MacQuade thought he had heard the last from her, he was very much mistaken. Alexanders did not give up very easily, as he would soon discover. She shifted the car into gear, driving at a much slower rate back to the main house, using the time to think of how she was going to deal with her father and Trevor. Again the thought returned that the next few days would not be easy, but nothing that was ultimately worthwhile was easy.
Chapter Ten
LARA NIBBLED AT HER FINGERNAIL. Her anxious gaze swung from the sun-bathed courtyard to her father, who was seated behind the mahogany desk. A black telephone receiver was in one hand while the other tapped the eraser end of a pencil on the table.
"You see that he gets the message immediately, Tom," Martin Alexander instructed into the phone, then replaced it in its cradle.
"Well?" Lara prompted. "Is he coming?"
"I don't see how he can possibly avoid it," he answered with a smiling shake of his head.
Suppressing a shiver, Lara turned back to the courtyard scene. "What are we going to do if this doesn't work, daddy?" she murmured.
"We will think of something." The chair squeaked. A few seconds later she felt his hands curving around the soft flesh of her upper arms. "I'm sorry, pet. I don't know if I've got around to saying that yet or not. I wasn't a very understanding father."
"You meant well." Lara turned her head, glancing up to the concerned brown eyes. "I just didn't tell you everything, that's all." She smiled reassuringly. "Let's face it, daddy, we are both Alexanders, and sometimes we have to be hit in the face with the truth before we'll accept it."
"A sheer case of too damned much pride." He winked and lightly kissed her cheek. "If we don't want our plan to fall apart, I'd better leave. It's not going to take Rans long to get here from the sheds once Tom delivers the message."
If he comes, Lara thought silently. In the last ten days, Rans had avoided her and the house like the plague. Every attempt she had made to speak to him had been met with defeat. But Martin Alexander was still his employer for a few more days, and he could hardly ignore a direct order—she hoped.
"I'll be back in, oh, about two hours." Her father moved away toward the hall door. "Good luck, pet."
"Daddy?" Lara turned, her voice checking his departure at the door. "Thanks…for all you're doing."
A rueful smile curved his mouth. "After the callous advice I gave you the last time you came to me, this is the least I can do."
With a wave of his hand, he was out the door. Several minutes later, Lara heard the sound of his car pulling out of the drive. The clock ticked loudly in the silent house, the hands on the dial moving much too slowly.
Restlessly she walked from the study to the living room, counting the ticking seconds as she twisted her hands nervously, her left hand bare of any rings. She hovered beside a window looking out onto the front lawn.
Her heart stopped when a pickup truck turned into the driveway. The plan had worked thus far. Stifling the impulse to race to the front door, Lara waited at the window, well back so she couldn't be observed from the outside.
Rans swung his long frame out of the truck, hesitated as he glanced at the house, then slammed the cab door. There was an impatient spring to his stride and his mouth had thinned to a forbidding line. Inhaling deeply, Lara didn't move until she heard the knock at the door.
Her palms were moist with nervous perspiration. She dried them self-consciously in a smoothing gesture down the sides of her green plaid slacks. Her pulse was throbbing erratically and her legs were weak as they carried her to the front door.
Rans looked at her as she opened the door, his expression granite-hard. "Your father left a message that it was imperative he see me at once," he said tersely, without even offering a polite greeting.
Lara swallowed, unable to smile even stiffly. With a nod of her head, she stepped away from the door, holding it open until he had walked into the hall. Rans didn't stop, but continued toward the study, ignoring her existence completely.
Her heart was in her throat as she followed him. A step inside the empty room, he pivoted. His gaze flicked to her whip sharp. The blood mounted in her face at his accusing look.
"He's not here," she explained unnecessarily. "He had to leave unexpectedly."
A dark eyebrow shot up in sardonic disbelief, freezing scorn in the glitter of his brown eyes. "I'll come back when he's here."
"No, wait," Lara hurried, trying to remain calm but unnerved by his uncompromising hardness. "He asked me to give you a message."
"Very well." Rans moved to one side as Lara entered the room, his mouth thinning into a grim line.
His alert gaze watched her walk to the desk and pick up the folded paper lying to the front. Her shaking fingers held it for an instant as she sent up a silent prayer, then turned, holding it out for Rans to take. His hand reached forward, but stopped short of the paper when he recognized it.
"You have the wrong paper." His hand fell back to his side. "That is my letter of resignation."
"Yes, I know." Lara's voice quivered in spite of her efforts. "My father wants you to reconsider it."
"No." Rans turned abruptly, terminating the conversation with his action.
"Not to stay on permanently," Lara rushed, "but just for a few more weeks. That's all he's asking. Things are in somewhat of a turmoil around here. I don't know if you've heard."
Rans paused near the door, but kept his back to her. "Martin has my notice. If my leaving has put things in a turmoil, then it is his problem. I made my recommendation for a replacement and would have been able to work with him this past week if your father had hired him, or anyone else. Since he didn't see fit to do it, I don't see any reason to stay any longer than my two weeks."
"He's been busy trying to find someone to take over Trevor's work." Lara held her breath as Rans hesitated again, letting it out slowly in relief when he turned. "You haven't heard?" she breathed.
His gaze sliced over her. "I've been too busy to listen to gossip. What happened?" he taunted coldly. "Was he sued for breach of promise by one of his mistresses? The scandal would be quite a blow to your self-righteous pride, wouldn't it? He was supposed to keep his affairs discreet."
His words were meant to hurt, and Lara winced at the pain they inflicted. "I've filed for divorce. Trevor has left."
She had been afraid that Rans had known and that it hadn't made any difference to his decision. But the flicker of surprise in his expression dismissed that possibility.
"Since when?" He clipped out the question.
"Since a week ago Sunday." Lara waited. When he didn't respond, but kept studying her with narrowed look, she continued anxiously. "With both you and Trevor leaving within days of each other, it puts a heavy burden on my father. Would you consider staying for a while longer?"
A frown creased his forehead as Rans breathed in deeply and walked to the courtyard doors. "Is Trevor's absence supposed to make a difference to me?"
Nervously, she clasped the paper in both hands, "I hoped it would." She stared at it, the words blurring in front of her eyes.
Glancing over his shoulder, he impaled her on his thrusting gaze. "Why?"
Widened eyes, shimmering and green, met his without flinching. "Because I want you to stay."
"Because of your father?" Rans persisted, not lessening the intensity of his piercing gaze.
There was a tenseness about him. He seemed to be holding himself rigidly still as if his tall, muscular frame was carved from stone. Lara kept wondering if she was battering her head uselessly against a rock wall that nothing she
said would penetrate.
"Partly," she acknowledged, dipping her chin. "He needs you."
"What's the other part?"
Achingly Lara's gaze studied his face, the roughly hewn jaw and chin, the faint lines around his eyes that crinkled when he smiled and the dimpling clefts in his cheeks, the firm line of his mouth, the wide tanned forehead framed by thick, tobacco-brown hair. He was so aggressively virile that her whole body throbbed with his nearness.
"Don't you know?" she whispered.
"No."
A heavy silence weighted the room while Rans waited for her answer. Lara gathered what little of her pride that remained and threw it away.
"Because I'm in love with you, Rans." Her voice quivered. "In my heart I divorced Trevor a long time ago."
Slowly he crossed the room, not releasing her from his pinning gaze. His hands settled on her shoulders, their touch making her sway toward him, but he firmly kept her away.
"Are you sure?" His fingers dug into her flesh as if he meant to shake the truth out of her.
"Very sure," she smiled tremulously.
Some of the hardness began to leave his expression as if the rock wall had started to crumble. "Am I a fool to believe you?" he mused absently, his gaze traveling over the cascading red gold curls falling loosely around her shoulders and returning to the jewel brightness of her eyes.
"Probably," Lara murmured. "I'm headstrong and independent and spoiled. I lose my temper at the drop of a hat. And I'll probably turn into a jealous shrew when I'm old and wrinkled and not pretty enough anymore to make you —"
His mouth closed over hers in a bruising kiss to stop the enumeration of her faults. She melted against him, deepening the kiss with the hungry response of her own lips. Roughly his hands pulled her nearer. The torrid embrace stretched into minutes until Rans gained control of the fire raging inside. Lara's arms remained locked around him as she nestled her head against his chest, the pounding of his heart sounding joyfully in her ears.
"You will stay. Promise me you will never leave." She tipped her head back to gaze at him.
