He’d kept his shaking hands to himself, though, for the past three hours. For the next five minutes, he wanted quiet so that he could shore up his defense before they drove the hour back into Las Vegas.
He only needed five minutes. A few minutes out of the house, on his own, to get these feelings back under control. Especially after Miranda’s revelations on the drive out.
He admired her for trying to figure out what was going on with her father’s company, but he didn’t need her playing detective.
Connor finished off the bottle and leaned back against his elbows, watching the late afternoon sun begin to sink into the desert. The door opened and closed behind him, and the scent of magnolias filled the back porch. At least he’d gotten one of the five minutes he so desperately needed.
Miranda sat on the smooth, wooden surface. “I thought you might have left me behind.”
“You and Callie seemed lost in the library.”
“I love a good library. All those pages and pages of stories, the smell of the bindings. Did you know she has an extensive collection of Louis L’Amour novels bound in leather?”
Connor grinned. “Those were my father’s. He loved Louis. I thought we’d lost them over the years.”
“There have to be at least fifty in there.”
“Remind me to thank Callie for keeping them around.”
They sat in companionable silence for a long moment. Connor twisted the empty water bottle in his hands and tried to think of something to say that had nothing to do with how Miranda looked or smelled or the fact that he wanted to taste her sweet lips again.
“What are we looking at?” She leaned toward him, and the loose ends of her long, red hair brushed against his shoulder. He imagined how soft and silky it would feel in his hands if he buried them in the loose curls.
Connor shrugged. “Watching the sun sink into the Mojave and wondering how long until the first coyotes start to howl.”
“I know it’s silly, but I never imagined how much life there was in the desert until I moved here. I kind of imagined the mountains had a lock on wildlife.” She sipped her water, and all that mattered was this moment. Sitting on his back porch in the late afternoon with a beautiful woman. Hearing football and his brothers inside the house. It was a moment he wanted to last at least a year.
“I’m glad you came out with me. I don’t usually bring people out here.”
She thought about the statement for a long moment. “What did I do to make the cut?”
Connor blew out a breath. “You surprise me.”
“With my business acumen, my layout skills, or the fact that I was willing to lie to get a job with your company?”
All of the above, he thought, and more. The seriousness with which she took her job, the kindness she showed everyone in the office, the way she hadn’t changed her mind about taking their relationship to another level, maddening as it was to sit here on the porch and not touch her. “Do you want to take a walk?”
Miranda grimaced. “These boots aren’t made for walking,” she said and wiggled her feet on the bottom step.
“Callie probably has a pair of sneakers or flat-heeled boots you could borrow.”
“Where would we go?”
“It’s a big ranch.” He knew where he wanted to take her. There was an overhang near the lake that separated the Rocking R from the ranch that used to belong to Callie’s father. When he was a kid, he would pretend he was a pirate and that the overhang was a cave where he hid his treasures. He’d been ten before he’d ventured inside the overhang and found the pictographs painted thousands of years before. “Actually, we should take a four-wheeler, but you should still change your shoes. Desert sand and suede don’t mix.”
“Okay, I’ll go ask Callie.”
Miranda returned in a few minutes wearing a pair of flat-heeled, brown, riding boots. “Will these do?”
Connor nodded and led her to the barn. He grabbed a set of keys from the hooks on the wall, started the ATV, and motioned Miranda to sit behind him. “I don’t get my own vehicle?”
“Have you driven one of these before?” She shook her head. “Then, no,” he said over the rumble of the engine. Miranda climbed on the back of the four-wheeler, and Connor knew he was playing with fire, but said, “You can hold on to me if you want.”
Then he revved the engine, and the four-wheeler took off along the trail that led to the lake. Miranda’s arms tightened around his waist, and she pressed her body closer to his. He could feel the softness of her breasts against his back, the strength of her thighs. He clenched his teeth. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
Of course, walking in the desert, especially with night coming on, was never a good idea. Especially with a girl who wore four-inch heels to a casual family dinner.
“It’s beautiful out here,” she said, her voice loud in his ear. Miranda’s hair whipped around in the wind, and the faster he drove, the more she seemed to surround him. She released one arm from around his waist, and when Connor quickly glanced back, he saw she’d caught her hair in her hands to keep it from tangling any more. Her other arm, the one still as his waist, clutched his T-shirt tightly.
Connor nodded. They passed a few meandering cattle along the trail, and he spotted a few jackrabbits and other wildlife just off to the side. All too soon, the trail curved to reveal the lake, and a moment later the overhang came into view. Connor stopped the four-wheeler under a large yew tree and turned off the engine.
“Wow,” she said as she stepped off the ATV and onto the sand. “Is this part of Lake Mead?”
Connor shook his head. “Just a small lake my grandfather built by damming up the stream that crossed the property.”
“I’ll bet the three of you had some wicked water fights out here when you were kids.”
“Jase and I may have tried to drown Gage a time or two. Brotherly love, you know?” he said, and motioned her to follow him toward the towering wall of rock that rimmed the near side of the lake.
Connor stepped under the overhang and flipped on the flashlight he’d put in his pocket before leaving the house.
“Oh, my Lord,” Miranda said when he shone the bright light over the walls.
Low on the wall, near the floor, were the petroglyphs. The rock carvings depicted a hunting scene, Connor thought, with a few warriors chasing some kind of horned beast. Another carving looked like a series of squares, each inside another, and reminded him of a maze. Miranda reached toward the wall, but Connor took her hand.
“Don’t touch. Even the slightest touch could dislodge part of the carvings.” He shone the light over the rounded dome of the enclosure where other ancient people painted pictographs. Because the carvings and paintings were inside the overhang, they were somewhat protected from nature, and he could make out a few colors. Deep reds and yellows, mostly.
She reached her hands out as if to touch, but merely traced her fingers in the air a few inches from the wall. At one point, she knelt in the dust to get a closer look at one of the glyphs.
Connor couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was so entranced by the rock art that she wandered around the small room several times. Cocking her head to one side to examine a glyph that he’d always imagined depicted a family. Walking with her arms held out for balance while her gaze remained locked on the ceiling paintings.
He had never brought a woman here, and he didn’t think Jase or Gage had, either. Well, maybe Callie, but since she’d lived on the other side of the lake all their lives, she wasn’t exactly a visitor. They were her cave paintings, too.
“Who made these?” she asked, wandering along the back of the shallow overhang and then back along the opposite wall.
Connor shrugged. “Paiute is my guess, but it could be any of a hundred tribes.”
“I’ll bet tourists try to come out here all the time.”
He shook his head. “We’ve never advertised them. I don’t think anyone outside the ranch knows the glyphs exist. Most of the cowboys prob
ably don’t even know they’re here. Unless you come inside, it just looks like part of the rock wall.”
“But you brought me here.” She watched him closely.
“I thought you’d get a kick out of them.”
“I should be the one trying to make a peace offering. I didn’t mean to start that fight about my father earlier. You just caught me off-guard.”
“With my offer of Thanksgiving dinner?”
“Something like that,” she said after a long moment. “It’s just so awkward.” She waved her hand between them. “You’re too nice to me. You invite me to dinners and take me to lunches, and you had every right to fire me when you learned who I was, but you didn’t. Instead, you enlisted my help on the redesign, and you’ve included me in advertiser meetings, and it’s all just so …” She sighed. “I don’t know.”
“I like you, Miranda.”
“And then you go and say things like that. You like me. How am I supposed to take that, Connor? You’re my boss. I’m your employee. We barely know one another.”
“I know you like black olives on your pizza.”
“Newsflash: a girl likes olives on pizza.”
“I know you can’t use chopsticks and that you burn coffee.”
The sun sank a little lower in the sky, and as she shook her head, her hair seemed to glow in the light. “And I know you’re committed to protecting your employees like no CEO I’ve ever known.”
Connor couldn’t resist. He stepped closer to her. “And I know you risked a lot by coming to Las Vegas. I admire that.”
“I wasn’t so brave. I used my trust account to rent my apartment.” She drew her brows together, and Connor wondered what she was thinking. “The thing is, all my life I’ve had to be someone I’m not. The socialite, the debutante. I like Vegas because here I can just be Miranda.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“If we,” she motioned her hands between them, “if we’re more than boss/employee, who am I then? Am I still the woman asserting her independence, going after what she wants? Or am I the lemming who goes along with what other people want for her? I don’t want to be a lemming, Connor, and I don’t want to belong to anyone except me.”
“I lied.” He couldn’t answer those questions for her, not with any certainty. He didn’t want to own or control Miranda, but she wouldn’t believe him no matter how stridently he told her. He could show her, though, what he thought she meant to him. Connor swallowed.
Her brown eyes widened, and Connor took another step toward her. “Lied?”
“I said if you wanted to change what was between us, go from boss/employee to something else, you had to make the move. I’m tired of waiting for you to make that move.”
“Connor, I don’t … What happens when we’re tired of being more than co-workers?”
“I don’t know.” And though the thought of not being around Miranda was slightly nauseating, Connor knew he was willing to take the risk.
Miranda stepped back. Connor closed the gap between them and took her pretty face in his hands. Her skin was cool to the touch, her brown eyes nearly molten. Connor felt like an ass for pushing it, but he couldn’t not push. He wanted to be more than Miranda’s boss, more than the work friend she had dinners and lunches with.
“I’m not sure I’m ready for this.”
Her voice stopped him cold. She wasn’t playing games. There was a push-pull going on between them, but while he was ready to take the risk, there was still fear in her voice. Real fear. Of what would happen between them, of what it would mean not only to the people they worked with, but what it meant for her, too. He understood her misgivings, understood how hard it was to carve out a life for yourself when the people who were supposed to cheer you on weren’t available. His father died. Her father controlled. Both of them left their mark on their children.
Then there were the people at work. They would talk. They’d already been talking about her. If the two of them took whatever was between them further, that talk would only increase. Only a handful knew about Alyssa, but if he dated Miranda, that talk would begin again, too.
Connor dropped his hands. “It isn’t like I’m the owner of the company and you’re my secretary. You’re an executive.”
“And you’re still the CEO. That makes the playing field uneven. My father is still after your company, another inequity. People talk, Connor. I tried to keep my identity a secret, but half the people in the office think I caused the hack because my last name is Clayton and the other half think you’re an idiot for keeping me around even though I didn’t cause it. They know we’ve had a couple of dinners. How any of them figured out who I am is another question entirely, but I shouldn’t be surprised because before I came to Vegas I didn’t exactly shy away from press cameras, and the people I work with are trained journalists.” She took a breath. “I’m babbling. I know I’m babbling, but I can’t seem to stop.”
“I know you didn’t cause it, and if my employees distrust me that much, they should seek employment elsewhere.” Connor had heard the grumblings, too, but had ignored them. That was obviously a mistake.
“You don’t mean that.”
No, he didn’t. He wanted to, but he didn’t. He liked the people who worked for him, and he knew in time they would realize that Miranda was as much a victim of her father’s actions as anyone. This wasn’t just about sex; it was about her. Talking with her, planning with her, eating with her. His hands turned clammy. Not since Alyssa had Connor considered having a woman in his life for more than a date or two. He hadn’t been on a single date with Miranda, and already he was wondering if he could ever let her go.
“I do like you,” she said. “I see the way you look at me when you think I’m not paying attention, and it makes my insides go all mushy.” He made her feel things. If he just closed the gap between them one more time, he could really make her go all mushy. Could make everything fade away except the two of them. Maybe then she wouldn’t be so different from the other women in his life. “I need to know what all of this means, to me, before it goes any further.”
Connor clenched his fists to keep from reaching for her again. If Miranda wanted time, he would give it to her.
Maybe time would help him get a better handle on the feelings he didn’t want to acknowledge were inside him.
Chapter Seven
Not thinking about Connor was becoming a problem, because not thinking about him, of course, led to her thinking about him. Wondering about him. Watching for him in the hallways.
She imagined Lila laughing as she glanced through the window of her office door. His door was still closed. Good time to make a run for the break room and the cup of yogurt she’d brought in today.
In a couple of hours, she was set to present a new media property not only to Connor, but also to his brothers. She was ready for the presentation, had gone over it at least thirty times since she had dinner at the ranch last week. If she nailed the presentation, if they decided to move forward with the expansion, it would be a huge step forward for Miranda’s career.
If they hated it …
Maybe her father was right, and she should have stuck with planning parties in Denver.
Miranda stepped into the break room, grabbed her yogurt from the fridge, and pulled off the top. Bananas and chocolate. Her favorite. She scooped some into her mouth.
No, she would not bring her father into this. He was in Denver, and she was in Las Vegas. He had his business. She had a chosen profession of her own.
Lila poked her head around the doorjamb. “Big day. You want to go over the presentation?”
Miranda shook her head. “Thanks, though.” Lila continued down the hall.
She finished the yogurt, rinsed the container, and put it in the recycling bin. And ran into Connor in the hallway. Her mouth went dry, and the things she’d said to him in the cave by the lake echoed in her mind.
I see the way you look at me when you think I’m not paying attention.<
br />
I like you.
And the worst.
I’m not ready for this.
God, why hadn’t she just admired the cave paintings, apologized for the car ride to the ranch, and returned to the four-wheeler? Things would be so much simpler if she’d just kept her mouth shut. But all the way to the lake, she’d felt the hardness of his muscles against her body and smelled the outdoorsy scent that was him whether he wore casual jeans or a pinstriped suit.
Sometimes, endorphins just sucked.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hey.” He smiled at her, a tentative smile. The kind of smile he’d have given her before that night they worked on the new layout. She wanted the Connor who ate cold pizza or burritos from a roadside stand. The one who smirked and smoldered.
Since she’d said what she’d said in the cave, though, he’d been distant, and she didn’t know how to close the gap. She wasn’t sure she should close the gap. Wasn’t this what she wanted? A professional, business relationship with her boss? His tie was loose around his neck, and Miranda fought the urge to put it back in place.
“One-thirty for the presentation?”
“One-thirty,” he agreed.
Miranda nodded, and then she seemed to lose control of her body. She felt pulled into his orbit as if he were a magnet. To stop the temptation of throwing herself at him, she raised her hand in a half-salute-half-wave. “Okay, then.” She hurried down the hall, not daring to look back, and once she was in her office, leaned against the door. Lordy, she was an idiot.
At one thirty on the dot, Miranda entered the conference room. Connor wrapped up his part of the presentation with his brothers, not that they probably needed a full-on presentation. It was Connor’s business, the same way the property development arm was Gage’s, and the game development arm was Jase’s. The three of them met periodically to talk big picture ideas and make sure they were all on the same page.
Their approach was working. Reeves Brothers Entertainment was in the Fortune 100, and each of them was worth nearly a billion dollars. Funny. Everywhere her father went, it was clear he was a mogul from the clothes he wore to the way he interacted with people.
What the Heiress Wants Page 10
