It was scary. Unthinkable. Unacceptable.
But it had happened.
Perhaps she could have brushed the memory aside, if only the man had cooperated. But Tyler Barnett was not cooperating. Every time he had looked down the length of the table at her during supper, his bright eyes had said, I kissed you.
Sometimes they said, I’m going to do it again one day.
And always, the message that disturbed her just as much, You liked it, too. You’ll like it even more next time.
There wouldn’t be a next time, Carly vowed. She hadn’t come to Wyoming to get mixed up with a man. She’d come to Wyoming because she’d gotten mixed up with a man.
The wrong man. She wasn’t about to make that mistake again.
Branding, indeed. Her cheeks still stung at the thought.
Tyler Barnett would just have to get his kisses some- where else. Carly Baker was not available.
With that resolve firm in her mind, she gave the dishrag a hard twist and turned to wipe the table. And ran smack into Tyler’s broad chest.
“Whoa, there.” He put his hands on her shoulders to steady her.
Her heart racing, Carly stepped, back quickly and ran up against the counter at her back. The heated look in his eyes flustered her. She felt trapped.
With a toss of her head, she said, “That sounds like something you’d say to some poor dumb animal. One you were getting ready to brand.”
His lazy gaze slid down her from head to toe, then back up, making her skin tingle. “You interested?”
Her mouth went dry. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Back off, Tyler.”
“I notice you didn’t answer my question.”
“What question was that?”
“Are you interested. In wearing my brand.”
She gave another toss of her head, hoping to look defiant. “I’m not one of your horses or cows.”
“I noticed. Believe me. That was one of the first things I noticed about you.”
His husky voice sent hot and cold shivers down her spine. “No, the first thing you noticed about me was that I made Amanda laugh. That’s why I’m here, Tyler. That’s the only reason I’m here.”
His eyes flashed. “Is it?”
“That, and the money. I needed the money.”
As she watched, his jaw squared and the spark of heat in his eyes cooled. “Yeah, right. The money.”
“That’s right. The money.”
“Then get back to earning it,” he told her sharply.
Stung, she brushed past him and attacked the table with the dishrag.
Tyler ground his teeth and swore to himself. When he looked up, his father was standing in the doorway to the living room. Watching.
Carly crossed the living room, heading toward the stairs and bed, when Arthur Barnett’s voice stopped her.
“Miss Baker?”
Steeling herself against whatever he planned to throw at her this time, Carly slowly turned to face him. He sat in a recliner next to the sofa. Tyler, she thought, was in the office.
“What can I do for you?” she asked.
“First thing tomorrow you can move my things upstairs, and yours down here into my room.”
“No.”
Carly flinched at the harshness, the suddenness of Tyler’s voice from the office doorway.
Arthur frowned sharply. “She shouldn’t be upstairs with you.”
“She’s not upstairs with me.” His words were for his father, but his eyes were on Carly. “She’s upstairs with Amanda. That’s where she stays.”
“You know it’s gonna be all over the county how we’ve got an unattached female living here with two bachelors. Six if you count the men. There’s bound to be talk.”
Carly smoothed her hands down her thighs. “I don’t mind moving down here, Tyler.”
“I mind,” he said firmly.
“If it makes your father feel better to have me down- stairs—”
“I didn’t hire you to please my father. I hired you for Amanda. I want you close to her.” Something flared in his eyes. “Unless you’re uncomfortable with the idea of sleep- ing just down the hall from me.”
She hadn’t been. She hadn’t even thought to worry about where they slept in relation to each other. But now…
Carly straightened her shoulders. She’d be damned if she’d let him know he made her uneasy. Theirs was a busi- ness relationship, nothing more. And her business was Amanda.
“Of course I’m not uncomfortable. The room is lovely,” she added, deliberately misinterpreting his words.
Tyler gave a slight nod, then looked at his father. “It’s settled, then. She stays where she is.”
When Arthur didn’t comment further, Carly assumed the subject was closed. “Good night.” With trembling knees, she turned away and headed up the stairs.
Tyler watched her go.
So did his father. “You’re making a mistake, son. A big one.”
Tyler ran his fingers through his hair. “What is it with you? What have you got against my bringing someone here who can help Amanda?”
“Not a damned thing. But is that why you really brought her here?”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means. I see the way you look at her, like you can’t wait to get your hands on her. How’s that supposed to help Amanda? How is she supposed to help Amanda at all? She said herself she’s no doctor.”
“Dad, she made Amanda laugh. Out loud.”
“You told me that. You also told me, and I can see for myself, that nothing’s really changed. Amanda still can’t talk. You also told me that high-priced doctor in San Fran- cisco recommended her.”
“He did.” Tyler told his dad what he knew of Carly’s background.
Arthur frowned heavily. “I still don’t think she can help.”
“That’s obvious,” Tyler said softly. “No offense, but it’s not your decision. Amanda is my daughter. I’ll do what- ever I can to help her.”
Arthur shook his head. “I know you will. I want her to be able to talk, too. But I heard that Baker woman—”
“Her name is Carly,” Tyler declared.
“I heard her tell you she came because of the money. The last woman you brought here nearly bled this place dry. You get mixed up with this one, mark my words, she’ll do the same.”
“I’m not going to ’get mixed up with this one,’ as you put it”.
But he wanted to. He knew it as sure as night gets dark. There was no way in hell Carly Baker could live under his roof, sleep mere feet away from him night after night for six months, without his wanting her.
Oh, yeah, he wanted to get mixed up all right.
The question was, would she get mixed up with him? Would a city-bred girl from Nob Hill want anything to do with an ordinary rancher who lived in the middle of no- where and went around smelling like a horse most of the time?
Over the next few days, he had his answer, but it wasn’t the one he wanted. Every time he got near Carly, she backed off like a skittish mare. In the kitchen she kept the full length of the table between them whenever possible. If he ran into her in another part of the house, her defense was a dust rag, a vacuum, or Amanda. Outside—hell, she never went outside, as far as he could tell.
By Thursday, he knew he had to do something. The way she jumped and flinched when he got near was starting to make him jumpy. After his dad rode out with Smitty and Neal, and Tom and Willis were cleaning stalls, Tyler went back to the house and found Carly at the kitchen sink. Alone. Amanda wasn’t up yet.
“Did you forget something?” she asked, her voice sounding thin.
“You tell me,” he said slowly.
“I—what do you mean?”
“Tell me if I’ve forgotten how to act around a woman without scaring her.”
Her hand resting on the edge of the sink twitched. “Scar- ing her? Why would you scare some
one?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. What am I doing that scares you so much?”
“What makes you think you scare me?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” He strolled toward the counter. “Maybe the way you’re backing away from me right now, when all I’m after is coffee.”
She stopped in midstep and tossed up her chin.
“Then, too, maybe it has to do with the way you try to avoid me, the way your voice quivers when you can’t”
He searched her face, finding it stiff, her eyes downcast. “Hell,” he said, frustrated. “You can’t even look me in the eye anymore.”
After a long, uncomfortable silence that Tyler refused to break, Carry’s shoulders slumped. “You’re right,” she whispered. “I guess I can’t”
He took a short breath. “Mind telling me why?”
Carly felt his gaze on her and shivered. “Maybe…it’s the way you look at me.” She glanced at him and saw surprise flit across his face.
“How do I look at you?”
Oh, Lord, she’d left herself open for that one. Now what? How did she answer him? “Like…like…”
“Like I like what I see?”
She jerked her gaze away and felt her cheeks sting.
“Like you’re a desirable woman?”
A lump lodged in her throat. She wasn’t going to let him do this to her. She wasn’t going to be flattered and lied to and led on by a man again. Straightening her shoulders, she raised her head. “Come on, Tyler, it’s not necessary. You got me here. I took your job. I’ll do everything I can to help Amanda. There’s no need for the false flattery.”
He stopped in the act of reaching for the coffeepot. “False flattery?”
She shrugged and looked away. “You know what I mean.”
“No,” he said softly, “I don’t think I do.”
With jerky motions, Carly faced the sink and turned on the water to rinse out the dishrag. She was making a fool of herself. Maybe she had been misinterpreting those looks he’d been giving her. Maybe that hadn’t been heat she’d seen in his eyes after all.
“Talk to me, Carly.”
She turned off the water and whirled toward him. “Why are you doing this? Why can’t we just…just stick to busi- ness?”
“Business? On a ranch this size, this isolated? This isn’t an office, for crying out loud. I didn’t hire you to do my filing.”
“All right,” she cried. “Friends, then. Can we just be friends and forget all this…this other stuff?”
He finally grasped the coffeepot and filled his cup. “I thought we were already friends.”
After wringing the excess water from the dishrag, Carly moved to the table.
“Friends tell each other when something’s wrong,” Ty- ler said.
Instead of answering, she started wiping the table with perhaps more vigor than was necessary. She had to do something to keep from looking at him.
She heard his boots scrape lightly across the floor, the slight jingle of a spur. Good grief, what was she doing in the wilds of Wyoming with a man who wore spurs?
And he was walking toward her. Stalking her.
She skittered around the table.
Tyler swore beneath his breath. “Would you light a min- ute and tell me what the hell you meant by false flattery?”
With the secure width of the table between them, she paused. “All right. I mean all those hot, lingering looks you keep giving me, trying to make me think you’re… you’re interested in me.”
“Well, hell,” he cried, slamming his cup onto the table and sloshing coffee onto the just-wiped surface. “I am in- terested in you.”
That stopped her cold. Bewildered, she looked into his eyes. There she read frustration and puzzlement, but also a straightforward, frank attraction she couldn’t deny. He re- ally was interested in her.
How had it happened? Why…?
“And that makes you nervous as hell,” he said softly. “I can see it in your eyes. But I see something else in your eyes, Carly.”
She immediately lowered her gaze.
“I’m not the only one who’s interested. You’re inter- ested right back, and that makes you even more nervous.”
With her heart pounding a rapid drumbeat in her chest, Carly shook her head. “Tyler, this is crazy. I don’t want you to be attracted to me. I don’t want to be attracted to you.”
“I think it’s a little late for that. Funny thing about feel- ings. They don’t care what your mind wants. They just sort of happen on their own. I’m not going to hurt you, Carly,” he added softly.
A shudder ripped through her. “Aren’t you?”
Tyler thought about Carly’s parting words, uttered just before she’d fled the kitchen and left him feeling like a jerk. Why had he pushed her so damned hard?
But then, he knew why. What he was feeling was too strong for simple attraction. It was bone-deep, gut- wrenching want. His blood rushed and his jeans got tight just thinking about her.
If she had any idea what he really felt, she’d panic. She was close to that already.
But why? Why would his wanting her, her wanting him—because she did, and hadn’t even tried to deny it— why would that scare her so badly?
Maybe, he thought, trying to calm himself, it had some- thing to do with Mr. Junior Executive back in San Fran- cisco. Was she still carrying a torch for that sleek little puppy?
Surely not, or she wouldn’t get that hungry look in her eyes when she looked at him.
But then, she was a woman alone in a strange place, no friends, only a half a dozen old cowboys and a troubled child for miles around. She was totally dependent on Tyler. On his goodwill, his word.
When those thoughts fully registered, his eyes widened. Hell fire, no wonder she was skittish. She was, essentially, completely at his mercy. What woman wouldn’t be leery?
Frowning, he slipped into the corral and slowly ap- proached the new mare that had arrived that morning for training. “Easy, girl. That’s it—whoa, easy. I’m not going to hurt you.”
I’m not going to hurt you, Carly.
Aren’t you? she’d asked in return.
“No,” he crooned to the mare, to himself, to Carly. “No, I won’t hurt you. I just want to be friends. For now, let’s just get to know each other. How does that sound, huh?”
The mare twitched her ears back and forth, but stopped her fidgeting. Still wary, she nonetheless responded to his easy tone and stood still for his petting.
It was Friday night before Tyler got the chance to talk to Carly alone again, and even then he had to ask her to come to the office with him. He didn’t miss her instant tension when he closed the door and sealed them in relative privacy.
“Have a seat.” He motioned toward the old wing chair before the desk, while he took the swivel chair on the other side.
Carly sat, her shoulders tensing until she saw him pick up a pen and start writing in a large ledger-size checkbook.
Behind Tyler stood a floor-to-ceiling bookcase filled with everything from Shakespeare to books on veterinary med- icine. At right angles to the bookcase hung a glass-enclosed display case. Earlier in the week Carly had thoroughly in- spected all the huge silver buckles mounted against black velvet inside the case, as well as the gold, bronze and silver statues on the shelves next to it.
Carly knew virtually nothing about horse shows or ro- deos, but the name Loves to Prance appeared on an im- pressive number of buckles and trophies. Grand Champion of this, National Champion of that, Reserve Champion— whatever that was.
The stallion was apparently an American Quarter Horse Association Champion. A framed newspaper clipping claimed he was also a National Cutting Horse Association Triple Crown Champion.
Other horses had won awards, too. Names like Sweet tittle Sugar, Miss Sage, White Sox, Sugar’s Prancing Bingo and Sage Duster were engraved on many of the buckles.
Tyler’s name, too, appeared on more than a few buckles and trophies, as did
his father’s.
Tyler’s voice startled her. “Your first week’s salary.” He tore the check from the book and handed it to her across the desk.
Carly took the check carefully, not willing to let her fin- gers touch his. “Thank you.” She started to rise.
“One more thing.”
She froze, her gaze flying involuntarily to his. His eyes were open and calm, no threatening heat, no secrets.
“I think you had the right idea yesterday when you said we should be friends.”
Surprised, Carly let herself sink back onto the chair. “You do?”
“Yeah.” He gave a slight grin. “So how about it? Can we be friends?”
Carly felt relief rush through her. If it was tinged with disappointment, it didn’t matter. His friendship was what she wanted, what she needed. Her smile came easily. “I’d like that.”
Tyler returned her smile, feeling as though he’d just ac- complished a major feat. He liked seeing her relax around him. “So would I.” He leaned back in the chair and laced his fingers together behind his head. “So, now that we’re friends, maybe you’ll tell me what you’re going to do with all that money.”
Her smile twisted. “I’d like to say I’m going to save it up and hire an attorney to get my old job back.”
Much as he didn’t want to think about her going back to San Francisco, he forced himself to ask, “But?”
She shook her head. “I want my job back, but I don’t want to have to push my way back in. I don’t think I’d have the nerve.”
Despite himself, Tyler chuckled. “Anybody who can take on my father the way you’ve done is not lacking in nerve.”
“That was different.” She waved away his compliment, if that’s what it had been. “That was for Amanda.”
“Yeah, and I wondered while you were telling him off why you didn’t do that to those two in Union Square that day.”
Carly gave a harsh laugh. “It would have been a waste of breath. Becky wouldn’t have listened to anything I said. She seems to have completely forgotten we’ve been best friends nearly all our lives. And James already knows I didn’t take the money.”
“He knows, and you were dating him, and he’s not stick- ing up for you? You’re better off without him.”
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