“I don’t know ... with Marti not there...”
Kendra put a key in her hand. “It’ll be fine. Absolutely fine.”
* * * *
Luke did not need another chore. He had enough to do keeping up with work while twisting his schedule like a pretzel to keep out of range of Rebecca.
He’d almost made a really bad mistake. But he’d been saved.
It rankled that he’d been saved by Helen Solsong, but you couldn’t pick and choose your salvation. She’d saved him partly by her bull-in-a-china-shop nosiness, mostly by being the lesson that reminded him of what made Rebecca Dahlgren bad news.
You enjoy thumbing your nose at the world, Luke, but I’m in no position to do that. ... I have a responsibility to reflect well on the family name.
Hard to believe he’d needed to be told that not twelve hours after how Rebecca acted at Far Hills Market. Even a jackass that had been kicked in the head a few times could’ve figured that one out. By the time he’d driven her home, it had slid right out of his jackass head.
Replaced by the image of how she’d looked astride a western saddle, wearing jeans and a simple shirt, dust on her cheeks, her eyes spitting fire when he asked if she was ready to quit... She didn’t much resemble the woman who’d tiptoed across the field toward him that first day.
Ever since then it seemed like any time he turned around, she was there. What nearly got him into big trouble was letting himself enjoy that.
The way she’d start off each time they met with that chin of hers stuck out and her mouth firm, practically setting off neon signs saying “strictly business,” was a red flag to any bull. Teasing her across those silly “that’s not appropriate” lines she kept harping about was almost too easy.
Maybe that was his first mistake. Because beyond those lines was a Rebecca a darn sight more tempting than “strictly business,” It didn’t help that her increasing tendency to wear ranch clothes showed off her feminine curves even better than her proper suits – hell, was it his imagination or was she even moving differently?
He had enough on his mind. He didn’t need Kendra insisting she had to have the figures from last year’s payout to the Susland descendants for some legal thing for Matthew. You’d think she’d have kept it with her own records. Kendra usually didn’t let details slip. And that business about it would take him so much less time to find because he knew where to look was so much– Someone was in the office.
Through the window, he could see the open door to the file room, and a shadow moving beyond it. Without moving, he watched.
A slender shadow. A dark-haired slender shadow.
Tension ebbed out of him, but the adrenaline that had flooded his system took a new turn and concentrated in a dangerous area. If he hadn’t been so damned curious, he’d have walked away.
Instead, he silently reached the outside door, tested the knob and found it unlocked. He eased the door open slowly so the motion wouldn’t attract attention.
He shouldn’t have bothered to be so careful. Rebecca was too engrossed to notice a little thing like a man sneaking up on her. Before he closed the door behind him, a lick of breeze skittered into the file room and ruffled the papers in a folder she held open. Did that alert her? Oh, no. She simply held the top of the folder open with her chin, smoothed the papers with her hand and kept reading.
Now he was not only curious, but irked. What right did she have coming on his ranch, where he was responsible, and not have the sense the Good Lord gave a grasshopper?
He was all the way to the door of the file room, leaning the middle of his back against the jamb, one bracing leg extended and the other leg crossed over it, and it still wasn’t until he spoke that she knew he was there.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Oh!” She spun around, juggling the folder. He had to give her credit, she not only collected the folder and its papers before they could be upset, she collected herself in record time. “You startled me, Luke.”
“I meant to.”
She blinked. “Why?”
“The door was open.”
Looking past him, her dark brows dropped in a frown of memory. “No, it was locked. Kendra gave me the key. So I could start my work without waiting for Marti to return – since you haven’t been available.”
He ignored the needle in that. “It might have been locked when you got here, not when I got here.”
“If you have a problem with my having a key, I suggest you take it up with Kendra. She is a part-owner.”
So much for subtlety.
“You should have locked the door behind you,” he said bluntly. “Especially when you’re so deep in what you’re doing that a lightning bolt wouldn’t catch your attention. And you haven’t answered what I asked to start – what are you doing?”
“Oh, just looking at old personnel records.”
Did she think that sounded casual? Or truthful?
“As a matter of fact,” she started in a tone she probably called breezy and he found suspicious as hell, “I see a notation here that records from more than 20 years ago are in a storage facility. If you’ll give me the key, I’ll go out there and check them and return the key when I’m – ”
“Why?”
“ – done. Why? Because I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you any more than I absolutely have to.”
He kept to his point. “Why do you want to see them?”
“Seeing what information earlier documents included will help determine if the software format needs to be expanded.”
The woman couldn’t lie worth spit.
He, on the other hand, was a better than middlin’ liar, as the guys at the Ranchers Rest knew from their poker games.
“Good idea.”
He shifted against the door frame, putting more of his weight forward. She watched him, and she still didn’t have a clue what was coming – or how to avoid it. He rocked forward onto his front foot, snatched the folders, and was back leaning comfortably against the doorframe before she drew in a single, audible breath.
Give her her due, though – she might not anticipate, but she recovered quick. No gaping or gasping or sputtering. Just a chilly, “Please give those back.”
Instead, he flipped through the folders once, then twice.
“Funny thing. Looks like you’re only including old timers with Indian names in your research.”
He couldn’t call what her extended hand did trembling. More like a dip, before she locked her elbow and stretched the demanding hand more directly in front of him.
He handed over the folders – he’d seen what he wanted to see – though he placed them far enough out on her flattened hand that she had to reach forward with the other one to save them from falling. That made her take two quick, balancing steps toward him so he could see the other thing he wanted to see – that quick, undeniable flare of light that gave her brown eyes the warmth of a blaze.
She clutched the folders to her chest, and made a move as if to get by him to the main room. She stopped short. She didn’t have much choice, unless she was willing to climb over him. And he wasn’t in any condition to make a quick change of position, not without letting her see what that flash in her eyes had done to him.
She turned back into the store room.
“Fine. You want to know why I was looking at these folders?”
“I’d admit to some curiosity.”
“I was wondering if any of these would have been my name, if my father had bothered to marry my mother.”
Now, that was some of the truth. Not all of it, but a sizable chunk.
She was continuing. “I guess ... I guess being out here has made me think about the possibility that this – ” Her gesture was probably meant to take in her hair, eyes and skin. It also called his attention to the length of her neck, the swell of her breasts, the curve into her waist and out to her hips. “ – could be a sign of Indian heritage.”
“What if it is?”
�
�What do you mean?”
“What are you expecting from him when you find him – your father?”
“I’m not expecting anything.” She’d gone East Coast stiff again.
When a cow planted its feet and got the look now on Rebecca’s face, there was only one thing to do – take a different approach “Okay, what are you planning to do when you find him?”
“Do?”
“Throw yourself in his arms, crying Daddy? Spit in his eye?”
“I’m simply curious. I believe that’s natural.”
Even after she finished that answer, he could see her mind working over his question. But it wasn’t her mind that was tormenting him. At this rate, he wouldn’t be moving for a week.
“I suppose,” she said, “I would ask why he left my mother, pregnant and unmarried.”
“For somebody all worked up about what people think, you talk enough about your father not being married to your mother.”
“Not to most people.” Recognition of what she’d revealed widened her eyes and rounded her mouth, but again, she recovered quickly ... almost as quickly as she started talking. “I mean, it hasn’t ever been a secret. It wouldn’t have made sense trying to keep it a secret when Mother returned to Delaware with me and no husband, would it? Not among so many people who knew the Dahlgrens. Grandmother said – and I’m old enough now to understand – that it was better to have it out in the open than try to pretend it didn’t exist and have everybody whispering behind your back.”
She winced slightly, as if remembering something or someone. Or maybe not remembering someone – a father she’d never known.
As a kid, he’d followed his Dad’s every move like it answered the biggest riddle in life. Maybe it had in a way, because that’s how he’d learned to ride and rope and ranch. No matter what had followed, he had that, and he had it from his father.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, Luke, I have work to do in the other room.”
She came close, as if she thought crowding him would get him to move out of her way. With her drawn up straight and him propped against the doorjamb, they were eye to eye. Close enough to see the tiny flecks of gold and black and green that gave her eyes a special glitter. Close enough to smell a clean warmth that seemed to go directly from her skin to his groin.
“If you don’t mind, Luke ...”
She sounded sterner now. Or was that worried? She should be worried – there was no Helen Solsong to save her – or him – this time.
“I mind.”
He hooked one hand around the back of her neck, drawing her in the little bit it took to meet him halfway as he leaned forward.
She sucked in a breath just before their lips met – surprise maybe, or something else. Either way, it drew his breath in to her, and it left her lips slightly parted. He played his over hers, feeling the full curve of her bottom lip from outside to inside, first with his mouth and then with his tongue.
She swayed into him, brushing the side of her breast against the inside of the arm he’d extended to put a hand over the back of her shoulder blade. He pressed that arm tighter against her, feeling a change in her flesh. She felt it, too, and started to draw back.
He went with her, turning her withdrawal inside out, by letting it carry him to her side of the doorframe, so their legs tangled, his pelvis fit against hers and his whole chest could brush against the tightening tips of her breasts.
She tasted of the tartness he’d heard on her tongue more than once. And of the sweetness he’d seen in her eyes. And of the warmth he’d felt on her skin. All that, rolled together. Every taste a man needed to sustain his soul.
He took it all in. He delved for more. He feasted. Felt it filling him, and yet the craving only deepened. He wanted more ... more ... Needed more ...
A soft, moaning sound came from her, sending urgent blood to his groin. Her fingers curled into the hair at the back of his neck. Her tongue slid against his, flitted into his mouth.
What tastes did she gain? What did she draw from him?
Needed more ...
Was she needing more from him, too? Another surge in his groin and the chill of reason in his brain came simultaneously.
He lifted his mouth from hers. They were too close to look each other in the eye. He focused on the corner of her mouth, reddened, moist, slightly puffy, and listened to their harsh breathing, unsynchronized but somehow creating a rhythm.
She stepped back, half a step. She should have been running.
She wasn’t.
He would have been running.
He couldn’t.
Her dark lashes lifted slowly. Caution created a sheer curtain over her eyes, but in the depths, down where the green and gold and blue glinted, he read passion.
“I’ll leave you to your work.” His throat felt like sandpaper; he refused to clear it.
“Okay.” She said it slowly, like it was a foreign language.
“Okay.” He swallowed. He moved cautiously, his alternative being making an adjustment that she was sure to recognize. At the outside door, he turned back. “Now lock the damned door.”
* * * *
It was near sunset two days later, and he’d almost reached the path that led to the front door of the Ranchers’ Rest when he heard her voice behind him.
“Luke – I want to talk to you.”
He’d known Rebecca had spotted him when her little car going one way passed his truck going the opposite one on Kaycee Road. In a single flash of her face as they came abreast, he’d seen the recognition, the memory, the embarrassment, the heat and then the determination. He hadn’t considered that the determination might overcome all the others and bring her to the Ranchers’ Rest.
Still, there she was, steaming toward him. She was wearing jeans. Not as tight as some wore them, but cut close enough to remind a man who didn’t need any reminders of what the curve of her thigh felt like under his hand. His body surged in abrupt awareness. He cursed under his breath.
This was nothing but trouble. She might not believe it, but he had a few rules himself. One was not getting involved with a female who was headed in a whole different direction from him. No matter what happened when he kissed her and she kissed back.
“I’ve been trying to get in touch with you, and you’ve been avoiding me.”
Hell, yes, he’d been avoiding her.
The kissing they’d done in the file room had proved the desire crackling between them, like the whip-cracks of lightning between a pair of opposite charged clouds. So Luke had done the only thing a sensible man could do – he’d kept as much distance as possible so there wouldn’t be any more discharges of lightning.
“Avoidin’?” he drawled.
“Yes,” she snapped. “Just like you were doing before Kendra gave me the key to the office and we – ”
She stopped so abruptly he should have heard brakes squeal. Too late, though, at least for him, He was seeing and smelling and feeling their kisses all over again.
“We’ll talk later.” His voice sounded a little husky.
“Now.”
He could see her digging in. He tried another tack. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Why not?” She looked around as she asked, and the widening of her eyes when she spotted the name over the door said he didn’t need to answer. He did anyway.
“Not the place for someone worried about her reputation.”
“You’re going in,” she accused.
“I don’t have a reputation, least not one to guard.”
“You could change that with some effort.” He saw the honesty in her rise up and force the next words. “Maybe more than some effort. I’m afraid some people think – ” She flashed a wary look at him. “Some people, uh, speculate about the ... relationship between you and Marti.”
He was half tempted to make her spell that out. “I know.”
“You know!”
“Been saying it for years.”
“Then why did you get so angry when I
– ?
“Everybody ‘round here knows the ones who’ve been saying it are fools. Seemed you might be a fool, too. But people ‘round here wouldn’t know that yet, so you might be dangerous.”
“If you know, why don’t you do someth – ”
“Because I don't care.”
He might have more than an ordinary itch for this woman, but he was not going to start caring what people thought just because she got herself tied up in knots about it. That’s one line he’d never cross. He’d seen what came of that, and he’d be damned before he let that happen in his life again.
“I care – ” Her own vehemence seemed to startle her. She pulled in a quick breath. “I, uh, I don't want to see you – or any fellow human being, I mean – especially someone like Marti, or even the ranch – hurt or thought poorly of, especially when it’s based on misinformation. It’s not right that people talk that way...”
“Won't hurt me.” He cleared his throat. “Or maybe you’re worrying that people will start thinking something of you for having anything to do with me? Just tell ‘em it’s business.“
She glared at him. Then, instead of making it easy on him, she gave him a level look and said in a voice that came too damned close to breaking for his comfort, “I’m trying to make you see how you could make it easier on yourself. You know, it’s not like I’m defending people like Helen.”
“That’s the hell of it, Rebecca Dahlgren. If you did, it would all be easy.”
He walked away then. When he couldn’t keep his mouth shut, it was time to get away. He went into the familiar dark of the Ranchers’ Rest, and closed the door behind him.
* * * *
That was so like Luke Chandler. To turn it around on her. Like she was messing up his life by trying to find a middle ground between him and the people talking about him. Why the man insisted on not only letting the world think the worst of him, but almost inviting it, was beyond her.
Hidden in a Heartbeat (A Place Called Home, Book 3) Page 11
