His Defender

by Stella Bagwell

  He shrugged one shoulder. “You grew up on the Jicarilla. You ought to know that this land is rough. A man has to be hard to survive.”

  Physically yes, she thought. But what about emotionally? Had this place made him so tough he no longer had any feelings?

  “My life on the Jicarilla was hard, too,” she reasoned. “But it didn’t make me heartless. Just stronger.”

  He frowned at her. “Who said I was heartless? I loved Snip. I want him back. And God help the man who took him. But if the forces of nature got him, I’ll have to accept the fact and go on.”

  And if circumstantial evidence eventually put Ross on trial, how would he accept that? she wondered. Then her mind just as quickly shied away from the image. To Isabella, Ross being unjustly tried was even worse than the idea of buzzards making a luncheon of his beloved Snip.

  They finished the remainder of the meal with bits and pieces of small talk. Once they’d eaten the last bite of dessert, Ross suggested they carry their coffee out to the back porch.

  Since it was still relatively early and she didn’t want to appear unsociable, Isabella agreed. But the moment they took a seat together on a cushioned glider, she doubted the wisdom in joining him.

  The night was like purple velvet wrapped warm and soft around the mountains. Stars winked like glittering jewels in the wide, western sky and the only sound to be heard was the far-off trickle of a stream falling over a bed of boulders.

  Beside her, Ross’s thigh and shoulder pressed warmly against hers and his gravelly sigh was a husky note that beckoned to every womanly particle in her body.

  “This is heaven,” he murmured.

  Heaven? There wasn’t anything angelic going through Isabella’s mind at the moment. But the pleasure of being this close to him certainly felt like paradise.

  “You must be a happy man,” she quietly remarked.

  He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “Why shouldn’t I be? I love this place. I love my job. I’m healthy and I’m wealthy. What more could a man want?”

  Isabella supposed he was right. But she sensed that underneath his devil-may-care attitude, he was a man who shunned anyone who tried to get too close to him.

  “So there’s nothing you need.”

  There was a smile in his voice when he answered. “Other than getting Snip back, I can’t think of a thing.”

  Her gaze slipped to his strong, tanned forearms, then farther down to where his hand rested against his thigh. What would it be like to be his lover? she wondered wildly. To be stroked by such tough hands, to be crushed against his hard body? The mere thought made her inwardly shiver.

  “What about a woman?” she asked huskily.

  He gave her a sidelong glance. “I can have a woman. When I want one.”

  If she’d thought he’d been simply crowing, she would have gotten to her feet and walked off. But there hadn’t been a note of arrogance in his voice. Besides, she thought ruefully, it was most likely the truth. He could probably have most any woman he wanted, anytime he wanted. Except her. She might let herself do a little fantasizing about Ross Ketchum, but she wasn’t about to let herself fall victim to his charms.

  “I don’t mean on a temporary basis, Ross. I’m talking about someone to live here with you. To share your life.”

  His head twisted around so that he was looking at her squarely. Isabella’s heart thumped even faster as her eyes met his.

  “Why don’t you just come out and ask me why I’m not married?” he dared.

  “Okay. Why aren’t you?”

  He let out a rough sigh. “I like women, Isabella. But not that much.”

  “Maybe you’ve never met the right one,” she suggested softly.

  Oh, he’d believed he’d met her, Ross thought. He’d fallen hard for Linda. She’d been pretty and sweet and everything Ross had ever thought he wanted in a woman. But he and the T Bar K hadn’t been enough to satisfy her. She’d wanted to be a reporter. Not just a reporter for the local newspaper in Aztec, but a noted journalist for a major news media outlet. The minute she’d been offered a prestigious job at a leading television station in Denver, she hadn’t hesitated to tell him goodbye.

  “Look Isabella, I don’t want to get married,” he snapped. “Now or ever. I’m not the marrying sort.”

  Her prying had obviously irritated him. Apparently he believed his private life was none of her business. But the more she knew about the man, the more it enabled her to help him. And she wasn’t going to lie to herself. She wanted to know how his mind worked, and also his heart.

  “So, you don’t intend to follow your father’s footsteps?”

  A puzzled frown touched his forehead. “How do you mean?”

  Turning her gaze away from him, she sipped her coffee. “Well, he married and had children.”

  His reaction to that was a mocking snort. “Some folks say I’m just like Tucker. And maybe I am in some ways. He loved women. And he was a horse trader at heart. He made certain he always bought everything low and sold it high. But those are the only ways I’m patterned after him.”

  Curious, she glanced at him. “You say Tucker loved women. Yet he was married to your mother. Are you telling me that he had affairs?”

  Shrugging, Ross glanced away from her. “Sure he had affairs. I don’t think Victoria ever realized he was unfaithful to our mother. But I did. I’m fairly certain Seth and Hugh were probably aware of it, too.”

  And what, pray tell, had that done to the three brothers’ young impressionable minds? Isabella wondered.

  “What about your mother?” she asked. “Surely she didn’t know. She didn’t divorce him, did she?”

  “No. Up until Mom died, they were married. Whether she knew about Dad’s philandering is anybody’s guess. She was a quiet woman. She kept herself busy here on the ranch with raising us kids and keeping the household running. I don’t think I ever heard her raise her voice to Dad. If she’d been aware of his cheating, she never showed it.”

  His parents had lived together as a family, Isabella mused. Yet Ross had known that all had not rung true in the marriage. How sad that must have been for him and his brothers.

  “Is that why you don’t want to get married? Because of your father’s infidelity?”

  He let out a laugh so harsh that Isabella outwardly cringed. “Not hardly. That was his life. I’ve got sense enough to know I don’t have to be like him. Unless I want to be.”

  Isabella’s head swung back and forth. “I can’t imagine you cheating on a woman that you loved.”

  He placed his coffee cup on the floor of the porch, then turned to face her. “Now see, Isabella, that’s where you’ve got me all wrong. ’Cause in the first place, I’d never love a woman.”

  She felt sick. Although, she wasn’t exactly sure why. His words weren’t directed at her personally. And she wasn’t concerned about his ever loving her. It was the whole notion that he wanted to be a man with an empty heart.

  Quickly, she rose from the seat and walked to the end of the porch. As she looked out at the steep bluff rising above the house, she told herself she was going to make a mess of things if she didn’t get control of her emotions. This was her first real case since she’d left the D.A.’s office in Dona Ana County. She couldn’t get all caught up in her client’s life. She had to keep her mind clear and that meant keeping her emotions detached.

  “What’s the matter?”

  His voice was just inches behind her left ear and even though there was space all around her, she felt suffocated by his nearness.

  “Nothing,” she lied. “I just needed to stretch.”

  “You left the glider like a scalded cat,” he softly accused. “Did you leave because of what I said? About not ever loving a woman?”

  She straightened her shoulders and continued to stare out at the bluff. “Whether you ever fall in love has nothing to do with me,” she said as casually as she could manage. “Just as you said about your father’s adultery: that was his ow
n business. This is your business.”

  “Well now, let’s not lump the two issues together,” he gently scolded. “They’re hardly the same.”

  She breathed deeply, then turned enough to enable her to see his face in the semidarkness. “But equally sad.”

  “You’re way too serious for a woman of your age.”

  “I’m twenty-eight,” she retorted. “And it’s my job to be serious.”

  His hand suddenly settled on the top of her shoulder. “You’ve been asking me all these questions, Isabella, but you haven’t given me a chance to ask you many. So why don’t you play fair and tell me why you’re not married?”

  Shaken by his question and the touch of his hand, her lips parted as she looked up at him. “Because I…haven’t found the right man.”

  One of his dark brows lifted to mocking proportions. “Maybe you haven’t been looking in the right places,” he murmured.

  She could feel her breaths growing short, her fingers curl into her palms. She didn’t know why he was making her angry with his prying questions, after all, he was only giving her a little of her own medicine.

  “Love isn’t something a person can look for. It simply comes to you. And so far it hasn’t found me.”

  “Do you want it to find you?”

  Of course she wanted love to come her way. And for a while with Brett she’d believed it had. But just as she’d started to think he was the man who would give her the children and home she’d always wanted, he’d shown his true feathers and demanded that she forget about the reservation, forget that she was half Apache. Just thinking about Brett filled her with bitterness and continued to make her doubt her own judgment about people. Particularly men.

  “I want a home just like any other woman, Ross. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going inside—to my room.”

  Bending her head, she started to step around him, but his hand on her shoulder tightened to prevent her from walking away.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “I only got to ask you one question and you’ve asked me several.”

  Isabella peered up at him. She’d already been in this man’s company too long this evening. She was beginning to think things, feel things that were totally forbidden.

  Putting as much frost to her voice as she could, she said, “That’s because you’re the one who’s likely to be put on trial. Not me.”

  Her ice-cube attitude heated Ross as nothing else could have, and before he realized what he was doing, he yanked her forward and against his chest.

  She landed against him with a soft plop as air from her lungs whooshed past her lips.

  “You think you’re a real ice princess, don’t you?” he drawled softly.

  His hands were searing her shoulders and the contact of his chest was causing her nipples to harden and tingle. The erotic reaction to him swamped her with helplessness.

  “I don’t think like that. Now let me go,” she ordered between gritted teeth.

  He grinned down at her mutinous face. “Not yet. Not until I find out something.”

  His hands slipped down her back, then tugged her even closer to his hard body. Fire flamed in her lower belly as he nestled her hips against his.

  “Find out—what?” she whispered breathlessly.

  His head began to lower toward hers. “Whether you want me as much as I want you.”

  “No!”

  Isabella wasn’t sure if she’d shouted the word or simply thought it. Either way, it did nothing to stop Ross’s lips from closing over hers.

  Mindlessly, her eyes closed, her hands clutched the front of his shirt as wave after wave of heat washed over her.

  Kissing Ross was the most reckless, thrilling and stupid thing she’d ever done in her life. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself, or gather the energy to try to stop him. He tasted wild and wonderful. Like all the things she’d ever wanted or needed. And the fact shook her in a way that nothing ever had.

  “So,” he murmured when his lips finally lifted away from hers. “You’re not an ice princess after all.”

  Somehow she found the will to pull out of his embrace, but her face flamed with lingering desire as her eyes dared to meet his. “I’m not a fool, either. Good night, Mr. Ketchum.”

  No, he was the fool, Ross thought, as he watched her turn and walk away. He’d been crazy to invite her to stay on the ranch, to think he could keep his hands off her, and most of all he was an idiot for believing he could kiss her and not have his world turned upside down.

  The next morning Isabella slept later than she’d intended, but by the time she’d fallen into a deep sleep, it was time for the rest of the ranch to be waking. She tried to blame her restless night on the strange bed and the rich food she’d consumed for supper, but who did she think she was fooling? she asked herself as she stood beneath the spray of the shower.

  The kiss she’d shared with Ross Ketchum had caught her totally off guard. She’d expected it to be pleasant. After all, he was a very sexy, very masculine man, and she’d felt the tug of physical attraction from the first moment she’d seen him in the horse pen. But last night when his hands had pulled her close and his lips had made a thorough search of hers, she’d felt a sense of homecoming. As though Ross Ketchum was the only man she was supposed to kiss and like it!

  Dear Lord, what was happening to her? she prayed. Was this the way her mother had fallen victim to Winston Jones? Maybe there wasn’t that much comparison between the two men, Isabella considered, in an effort to be fair minded. After all, Ross wasn’t married or cheating on a wife as Winston had been. Yet she couldn’t ignore that, like her father, Ross was a rich, prominent man. He was well-known in this area. He probably wouldn’t want to have an Apache wife any more than Winston had wanted an Apache child.

  Wife! The thought was like a slap in the face and Isabella quickly turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. As she roughly dried the water from her skin, she mentally upbraided herself for letting her thoughts get so far astray. One kiss didn’t have anything to do with marriage. She didn’t even want to be a wife! Not with a man like Ross. No, if she ever found enough courage to marry, it would be to a man of her own people, a man who would be proud of her and want her children.

  After dressing in a white cotton dress splattered with sunflowers, Isabella applied a light amount of makeup, then tied back her hair with a white scarf.

  In the kitchen she ate a flour tortilla spread with butter and honey and drank two cups of coffee while Marina puttered back and forth between the gas range and the sink full of dirty pots.

  By the time she was finished eating, she’d managed to turn her thinking back to the problem at hand. Who had tried to kill Jess Hastings and why had he used Ross’s rifle?

  Rising from the table, Isabella carried her empty cup and dirty plate over to the sink. “Marina,” she began thoughtfully, “on the evening the shooting took place, did you hear or see anyone around the house? Someone who normally doesn’t come around?”

  The cook continued to shuck fresh corn as she considered Isabella’s question. “No. I didn’t see anybody. I was here in the kitchen, cooking. Victoria had told me she was going to ask Jess to stay for supper, so I was making some extra things for him.” She frowned with frustration. “Ross’s bedroom is too far from here to hear anything.”

  That much was true, Isabella silently agreed. Ross’s bedroom was on the far end of the south wing. There was no way Marina could have seen or heard anything from this part of the house.

  “I need some clues, Marina. Something that will point me in the direction of who really shot at Jess.”

  The older woman sniffed. “I think you should talk to the ranch hands.”

  Isabella leaned her hip against the cabinet counter as she watched Marina peel the green husks from the corncobs.

  “Ross tells me he’s particular about the men who work for him,” Isabella said. “Surely he would know if one of them had an evil streak or was holding some sort of grudge agains
t Jess or the Ketchums.”

  “Not if the man kept his feelin’s hid.”

  Isabella sighed. Marina was right. The crime committed against Jess had been a sneaky ambush. If any of the men started badmouthing Ross now, it would point a guilty arrow straight at him.

  “You’re a wise woman, Marina. Have you ever thought about becoming a detective instead of a cook?” Isabella teased.

  Marina laughed and waved away the compliment. “Ross would just as soon be in jail if he couldn’t eat my cookin’.”

  Smiling, Isabella thanked Marina for the breakfast then went down to the study to use the telephone.

  Victoria Hastings’s receptionist answered after the first ring. “Dr. Hastings’s office, Lois speaking.”

  “Hello, Lois. This is Isabella Corrales. I was wondering if I could possibly see Dr. Hastings today?”

  “For a checkup or are you having a problem?”

  She was having a problem all right, Isabella thought. But it had nothing to do with her health. Unless she wanted to call the intense physical reaction she felt for Ross an ailment. “Neither. I’m her brother’s attorney. Her brother Ross,” she further explained.

  The news must have taken the receptionist by surprise because there was a long pause before she finally spoke. “Oh. Can you hold just a minute, Ms. Corrales?”

  “Sure.”

  Classical music suddenly filled the line, but rather than listen, Isabella used the time the woman was away from the phone to study the room around her.

  It was mostly a masculine room with heavy furniture, a wide rock fireplace and deer and elk heads hanging from several walls. On the corner of the desk where she was sitting, there was a small framed photo of a man and woman posed with a beautiful black horse.

  Isabella assumed the couple was Tucker and Amelia Ketchum.

  The man somewhat favored Ross with his dark hair and broad-shouldered physique. And, like his son, there was a faint grin on his face that said he had the world by the tail and nothing could stop him from getting what he wanted. As for Amelia, her sober expression and reserved clothing seemed to make her the exact opposite of her husband’s lively appearance. But then what woman wouldn’t look somber if she was living with a man she knew to be unfaithful? Isabella grimly asked herself.