by Gail Dayton
"Take this one." Rudi gestured toward the first-floor suite.
Ellen's eyes narrowed. "And where, pray tell, will you be sleeping?"
"There are many rooms in this house." He stood and took her hand as she rose, despite her effort to avoid his grasp. "I will have no trouble in finding a place to sleep."
"I don't want to take your room." She let him draw her toward the bedroom door, but stalled outside it.
"My guest should have the best my home has to offer."
"What about the dishes?" Ellen turned back to the kitchen. Rudi stopped her before she could take a step.
"Annabelle will wash them when she comes in the morning. I will put away the remaining food. You are my guest. Please…" He opened the bedroom door and indicated with a graceful wave that she should enter.
"I really don't think—"
"But I do," Rudi interrupted. "If you are going to begin talking about bodyguarding and employment, perhaps I should point out that you will be closer to the entrances by sleeping here on the first floor."
"There is that."
"Please. Humor me."
The mere fact that he wanted so badly for her to stay in the master bedroom ought to be reason enough for Ellen to insist on another room. But she found herself nodding in agreement. "Oh, all right. If you're going to be that way about it."
"I am." He smiled at her. One of his patented smiles that could put furnace companies out of business, the way it seemed to raise the ambient temperature. "I will be sleeping in the bedroom right at the top of the stairs."
She shot him a suspicious glare.
He chuckled. "I assumed you would want to know which room I would take in order to better perform your guarding tasks. To be sure no one creeps in during the night to slit my throat."
He drew his finger across his throat, drawing her eye to it. Strong, muscular, shadowed with the day's beard, and yet vulnerable, his throat matched the rest of Rudi. Ellen told herself firmly that she did not want to press her lips to the faint pulse she saw there.
Rudi leaned toward her.
Here it comes, the kiss that's supposed to knock my socks off and convince me to share the room with him. Trouble was, Ellen was afraid Rudi's kiss really would knock her socks off. But she refused to run away from it.
Then he bypassed her mouth and pressed a warm, dry kiss on her forehead. "Sleep well, my dear Ellen."
He turned away, leaving her staring gape mouthed at him.
Damn him! She whirled away and slammed the door shut. She could hear him laughing through the closed door and wanted to open it again and yank out a few handfuls of that black, silky hair. How could he do this to her?
Not "how could he" as in how did he dare, but "how could he" as in how in the world did he do it?
Ellen knew men. She knew what they wanted, what turned them on and what made them angry. She knew how to push all the right buttons to make a man do what she wanted him to do. She'd learned it well, after Davis. Never had any man been able to push her buttons in return. Until now.
Rudi didn't behave the way she expected. At virtually every turn he surprised her. He was different.
And that was how he had stolen control away from her. She had no set of instructions for dealing with a man like Rudi, no experience in handling a man who would kiss her forehead at his own bedroom door and walk away, leaving her to sleep alone, without even attempting to join her. That innocent kiss had left her tingling and wanting, more than any tongue fight ever had.
She was going to have to play this one by ear, and when it came to Rudi, Ellen feared she was tone-deaf.
The big black SUV turned headfirst into a parking place on the downtown street—the only downtown street—of Buckingham, New Mexico. Ellen stepped out onto the red brick pavement, adjusting her sunglasses against the brightness of the summer sun.
It seemed harsher here, more glaring than she remembered it being in New York. Maybe because of the altitude, considerably above New York's sea level. Or maybe the sun had no pollution to cut through here. Whatever the reason, Ellen's stylish half-tint designer shades did not suffice to cut the brilliance.
She hitched up her borrowed jeans, which had been left in her bedroom before she woke by the efficient and estimable Annabelle, and stepped up the knee-high curb onto the sidewalk. The jeans bothered her. Not because they threatened to slip off her hips and tangle around her knees with every step, but because someone had entered the house, entered the bedroom where she slept, and she hadn't known it.
Just because she'd woken twice in the night, terrified by dreams that she'd gone deaf, and then been unable to go back to sleep was no excuse for screwing up. It was her job to be alert at all times. Still, she would never complain about New York City traffic noise again.
"When is this meeting?" she asked Rudi as he joined her on the sidewalk.
He checked his watch. "Eleven o'clock."
"So we have a little time before then." Ellen hoisted the jeans again.
"Yes. Was there something you wished to do?"
His mouth ought to be declared a controlled sub-stance, Ellen thought. It was definitely addictive. She couldn't stop staring at it, wanting to taste. But she forced herself.
Blinking helped. So did looking past his shoulder when she talked to him. She was a protector. She had to keep an eye out for bad guys, not go comatose staring at her protectee.
"If there's anything in this grand metropolis resembling a department store," she said, "I thought I might find something to wear that would stay on."
"That would be a pity." Rudi's voice sounded so sincerely solemn that Ellen risked looking at him. The mischief shining in his big brown eyes made her want to smack him. Not good bodyguard behavior.
"And why is that?" The words grated out between her teeth.
"I was so looking forward to spending the day waiting—perhaps hoping—that Annabelle's clothes would not stay on."
She couldn't smack him, but she could at least glare.
Rudi's smile stayed where it was, and he pointed down the street. "I believe there is a store that will have what you are seeking. There are things in the display window other than clothing, but I remember seeing clothing as well."
Saye's was a mix of antiques, gifts and clothes, which would have charmed Ellen if she'd encountered it in New York. Or anywhere that she could go to another store and buy normal clothes. All this store carried was tight jeans in every shade that denim could be dyed, and shirts to match.
The jeans wouldn't be so bad, Ellen decided, if she could find a shirt without a pointed yoke or pearl snaps. The ones without snaps had cute embroidered flowers or teddy bears on them. Ellen did not do cute.
Finally she bought two pairs of jeans that actually fit Two, because Rudi had told her they'd be in New Mexico at least one more day. She had the store owner put one pair in the sack with the sleeveless, disgustingly cute teddy-bear-print shirt, and she wore the red-checked-gingham, pearl-snapped shirt out of the store with the other pair of jeans. Rudi owed her big time. Making him pay for the clothes was only the beginning. She intended to collect a piece of his hide.
"You look very nice," he said as he followed her out the door.
"I look like Daisy Mae Clampett," she retorted, slapping him in the chest with the sack. "I look like an idiot."
Taking the sack from her, Rudi looked her over, head to toe. This once-over felt different from the others she'd endured. Everywhere his gaze touched she tingled. She wanted to snarl at him, tell him to take his roving eye off her or she would remove it for him. But she couldn't. He'd frozen the words right in her throat with his looking. Or maybe he'd burned them to ashes.
His gaze caressed her, warmed her inside. Good Lord, her nipples were getting hard. Thank God for Victoria and the secrets her bras could hide. This settled it Ellen was going to see Cousin Alice the shrink the minute she got home. She had gone completely over the edge into lunacy.
"The shoes," Rudi said, startling Ellen ou
t of her appalled reverie.
"What?" Her thoughts were still scattered, and she'd lost the broom to sweep them together again.
"Your shoes do not go with the rest of your clothing." Rudi nodded, as if he'd just solved the secrets of the universe.
"Yeah, I realize that high-heeled sandals don't exactly go with gingham." Her voice carried all the disdain she felt for the word. Gingham. Even the sound of it made her shudder. "But I didn't see any saddle oxfords around."
"Boots," Rudi said.
She lifted an eyebrow and tilted her head. He was nuttier than she was. "Are you on some kind of quota system? Did somebody ration your words so you have to save them up because you'll run out if you use too many words at once?"
Rudi laughed, so handsome in the sunlight with the mountains as his backdrop that Ellen's stomach curled around, kicked her heart into pounding and jolted something loose lower down that started to purr.
"You need some boots," he said, offering his arm. "I will buy you a pair of boots, and this afternoon we can go riding."
"I don't ride." Reluctantly she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow, unable to keep from it, unable to resist his charm or that stupid perfect smile.
"Does that mean you never have, or you never wish to?" Rudi started down the street, the breeze off the mountains stirring his sable curls.
"It means I don't know how." Nor was she sure she wanted to know, but she wouldn't say that out loud.
"That can be remedied. Riding is not a difficult thing to learn, if one merely wishes to ride for one's own pleasure." He paused, walking in silence for a moment as if absorbed in thought. "Unless, of course, one is afraid of horses."
There he went, pushing her buttons again. "I'm not afraid of horses or anything else."
"Then it is settled. I will buy you boots, and this afternoon we will ride."
"In the open? I don't think so."
"We are in the open now."
"Yes, and the back of my neck is crawling from all the eyes on us." Ellen surveyed their surroundings, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The few people on the street wore their jeans and boots like second skins, smiled and nodded. Not exactly terrorist behavior.
"You know how remote my home is. The area I will take you to ride is even more remote. No one will be able to reach it without your notice." He opened the door to a store with a neon boot in the window and Ellen went in, grumbling.
"I still don't like it," she said.
"You will like it once you are on your horse." Rudi turned his perfect smile on the salesclerk, a woman somewhere between thirty-five and sixty, with weathered skin that had Ellen wishing she'd been more generous with the sunscreen that morning.
Rudi's smile had its usual effect, and in fifteen minutes Ellen was equipped with a pair of black cowboy boots with fancy red stitching on the tops and extra socks to wear with them. She felt almost like a little girl again, playing dress-up. The boots fulfilled a secret fantasy she'd never known she had.
Then the salesclerk rattled off the total.
Ellen closed her gaping mouth, grabbed Rudi's arm and spun him around as she simultaneously tried to remove the boots from her feet. "I'm not doing this," she said. "That's too much. I can't let you pay—"
"Yes, you can." Rudi pulled a wad of cash big enough to choke an elephant from his pocket and peeled off several bills. Ellen grabbed at his hand, trying to stop him from giving them to the clerk, but with one foot half out of her boot, she nearly toppled. Rudi caught her arm, supporting her and holding her at bay while he handed the money to the clerk.
"Rudi," Ellen whispered. "I can't accept these. They're too expensive."
"If I bought you jewelry as a gift," he said, "I would spend three times the amount. This is a small thing. You can accept the boots, and you will."
"But—"
He cut off her protest. "You cannot ride a horse wearing sandals, nor can you accompany me this afternoon unless you are on horseback. If you do not go with me, I will go alone."
Rudi knelt before her and tugged the boot back on her foot, then looked up at her from that position as he smoothed her jeans down over the boot top. He spoke, his voice bedroom soft, so that only Ellen could hear him, despite the fascinated clerk holding out his change. "If you must, think of this as a business requirement, a purchase necessary to fulfill your employment obligations."
His fingers tickled the back of her knee, and the knee almost buckled. Rudi was stirring up things she'd rather he left alone, making her want things that weren't possible.
"But," he said as he rose to his feet, "know that this gift has nothing to do with business. It is for you, and you alone."
She knew it. That was why she couldn't take them. But if she didn't have the boots, she couldn't ride. Why did he have to do these things to her?
Rudi collected his change and escorted her out of the store, Ellen walking awkwardly beside him. The soles of the boots were slick and stiff, and the heels lower than she was used to. The fit was different, changing her walk. It would be a while before she felt comfortable in her new cowboy boots.
Five minutes later they reached a vacant lot across from the Buckingham schools. Pipe, heavy machinery and unidentified metal parts lay scattered all over the lot in a semblance of order, though Ellen couldn't say what that order might be. In the center of the lot a small derrick sat silent. It looked just like the ones she'd seen in movies, only smaller.
Rudi shook hands with the men waiting there and put on the hard hat they gave him. There was a brief scramble while another hat was found for Ellen, and the meeting in and around the machinery began.
She stood back and played bodyguard, ignoring the curious and speculative glances sent her way. In a few minutes the men got involved in their discussion and mostly forgot her presence. Ellen listened, as she usually did on this kind of assignment.
"We've gone down a thousand feet and still have nothing but dry hole," the short, thickset man said.
"How is the water situation, Mayor?" Rudi asked.
The mayor, a white-haired, red-faced cowboy, thought a moment before speaking. "Not good. We're having to get people to fill up their bathtubs in the morning so they'll have water in the evening when the pressure's down. We've been buying from some of the other towns around, but they're in trouble, too, it's been so long since we've had any rain to speak of. And we can't afford to keep drilling if there's nothing down there."
"The water is there," Rudi said. "I am sure of it. I have studied all of the information many times. It is there, but it is deep."
"We can't afford—" the mayor began, but Rudi waved him off.
"Do not worry about the cost. Keep drilling. I will pay."
"I don't feel quite right about that." The mayor rubbed the back of his neck. "You already did the geological study for nothing, helped us pick the site and bought the land to drill on."
Rudi gestured him to silence again. "I am a part of this community. If I can help, I must. The cost is unimportant. A thousand feet more. If you do not reach water at two thousand feet, notify me, and we can consider then what steps to take."
Ellen watched Rudi discuss the drilling with the foreman, and followed him around the well site, revising her opinion of him with every step she took. This meeting wasn't to impress her. Rudi had already been on his way here when he swept her onto that horse in Central Park. Except for glancing at her regularly, as if to make sure she was still present, Rudi devoted his attention to business.
This was the real Rudi. Caring, generous, capable. She'd been attracted to him from the beginning, had even liked him. The flight to Buckingham had given her respect for his flying skills, and now she'd found other things to respect and admire him for. Maybe he was more different from the men she knew than she'd realized.
That thought made her very uneasy, because it made her like him even more, and that could be dangerous. She could not afford to let her guard down. Not the one that protected Rudi, and especially not the
one that protected herself.
Rudi allowed his horse to dawdle a few paces so he could watch his companion. No. Admit it, his conscience prodded. You encouraged your horse to fall back. But the sight was well worth it.
Strands of long golden hair had escaped from Ellen's ponytail and floated about her face in the breeze. Her hips swayed with the motion of her horse, making it difficult for Rudi to ride comfortably as he watched her. But he could not tear his gaze away.
He wanted her. He had from the very beginning, but if this time alone together passed with nothing more than a kiss…
He would not be satisfied. Far from it. His frustration would reach unmeasured heights. But already he felt that the trip had accomplished its purpose.
Rudi had begun to see the Ellen behind that polished facade, the little girl who would accept any dare to prove herself. She still refused to back down from any challenge, but he sensed something more. Something that would explain the mask she hid behind. Something she would not easily reveal.
Ellen twisted in the saddle and smiled at him, open and friendly. "What are you doing messing around back there? Get up here and tell me what I'm looking at."
Rudi laughed and urged his mount alongside hers. "Land," he said, sweeping his arm across the horizon. "Trees. Rocks. And there—" He pointed as he spotted them. "Antelope."
"Where?" Ellen stretched, standing slightly in her stirrups as she looked. "I don't see—"
"There." Rudi touched her shoulder and directed her gaze. "You are searching too far. They are closer."
"Practically under my nose." Her voice softened when she saw them. "They're beautiful. They almost look painted, with those striped faces."
Rudi watched the brown-and-white animals grazing on the hillside, their short, straight, single-spike antlers dull in the bright light. "They remind me of the gazelles I sometimes saw at home."
"Gazelles? In the desert?"
"At the oases. Qarif is on the coast. More rocks than sand." Rudi surveyed the stark, beautiful landscape around them for a moment. "This reminds me of Qarif to some degree. There is no ocean nearby, of course, but water is the same precious treasure in both places. And in both places, there is more rock than soil."
