by Nora Roberts
She could see his expression draw inward, though it barely changed at all. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry.” Jillian turned to look out the side window. “It’s hard,” she murmured, thinking of her grandfather. “It’s so hard for them.”
“He’s dying,” Aaron said flatly.
“Oh, but—”
“He’s dying,” he repeated. “Five years ago they told him he had a year, two at most. He outfoxed them. But now . . .” His fingers contracted briefly on the wheel, then relaxed again. “He might make it to the first snow, but he won’t make it to the last.”
He sounded so matter-of-fact. Perhaps she’d imagined that quick tension in his fingers. “There hasn’t even been a rumor of his illness.”
“No, we intend to keep it that way.”
She frowned at his profile. “Then why did you tell me?”
“Because you understand about pride and you don’t play games.”
Jillian studied him another moment, then turned away. No soft words or whispered compliments could have moved her more than that brisk, emotionless statement. “It must be difficult for your mother.”
“She’s tougher than she looks.”
“Yes.” Jillian smiled again. “She’d have to be to put up with him.”
They drove under the high-arched Double M at the entrance to the ranch. The day was hovering at dusk when the light grew lazy and the air soft. Cattle stood slack-hipped in the pasture to the right. She saw a mother licking patiently to clean her baby’s hide while other calves were busy at their evening feeding. In another few months they’d be heifers and steers, the maternal bond forgotten, but for now they were just babies with awkward legs and demanding stomachs.
“I like this time of day,” she murmured, half to herself. “When work’s over and it isn’t time to think about tomorrow yet.”
He glanced down at her hand that lay relaxed against the seat. Competent, unpampered, with narrow bones and slender fingers. “Did you ever consider that you work too hard?”
Jillian turned and met his gaze calmly. “No.”
“I didn’t think you did.”
“Cowboys in skirts again, Murdock?”
“No.” But he’d made a few discreet inquiries. Jillian Baron had a reputation for working a twelve-hour day—on a horse, in a pickup, on her feet. If she wasn’t riding fence or hazing cattle, she was feeding her stock, overseeing repairs, or poring over the books. “What do you do to relax?” he asked abruptly. Her blank look gave him the answer before she did.
“I don’t have a lot of time for that right now. When I do there are books or the toy Clay bought a couple years ago.”
“Toy?”
“Videotape machine,” she said with a grin. “He loved the movies.”
“Solitary entertainments,” Aaron mused.
“It’s a solitary way of life,” Jillian countered, then glanced over curiously when he stopped in front of a simple white frame house. “What’s this?”
“It’s where I live,” Aaron told her easily before he stepped from the car.
She sat where she was, frowning at the house. She’d taken it for granted that he lived in the sprawling main house another quarter mile or so up the road. Just as she’d taken it for granted that they were having dinner there, with his parents. Jillian turned her head as he opened her door and sent him an uncompromising look. “What are you up to, Murdock?”
“Dinner.” Taking her hand, he pulled her from the car. “Isn’t that what we’d agreed on?”
“I was under the impression we were having it up there.” She gestured in the general direction of the ranch house.
Aaron followed the movement of her hand. When he turned back to her, his mouth was solemn, his eyes amused. “Wrong impression.”
“You didn’t do anything to correct it.”
“Or to promote it,” he countered. “My parents don’t have anything to do with what’s between us, Jillian.”
“Nothing is.”
Now his lips smiled as well. “There’s a matter of the horses—yours and mine.” When she continued to frown, he stepped closer, his body just brushing hers. “Afraid to be alone with me, Jillian?”
Her chin came up. “You overestimate yourself, Murdock.”
He saw from the look in her eyes that she wouldn’t back down no matter what he did. The temptation was too great. Lowering his head, he nipped at her bottom lip. “Maybe,” he said softly. “Maybe not. We can always ride on up to the main house if you’re—nervous.”
Her heart had already risen to the base of her throat to pound. But she knew what it was to deal with a stray wildcat. “You don’t worry me,” she said mildly, then turned to walk to the house.
Oh, yes, I do, Aaron thought, and admired her all the more because she was determined to face him down. He decided, as he moved to open the front door, that it promised to be an interesting evening.
She couldn’t fault his taste. Jillian glanced around his living quarters, wondering just how much she could learn about him from his choice of furnishings. Apparently, he had his mother’s flair for style and color, though there were no subtle feminine touches here. Buffs and creams were offset by a stunning wall hanging slashed with vivid blues and greens. He favored antiques and clean lines. Though the room was small, there was no sense of clutter. Curious, she wandered to a curved mahogany shelf and studied his collection of pewter.
The mustang at full gallop caught her attention, though all the animals in the miniature menagerie were finely crafted. For a moment she wished he wasn’t a man who appreciated what appealed to her quite so much. Then, remembering the stand she had to take, she turned around. “This is very nice. Though it is a bit simple for a man who grew up the way you did.”
His brow lifted. “I’ll take the compliment. How do you like your steak?”
Jillian dipped her hands in the wide pockets of her skirt. “Medium rare.”
“Keep me company while I fix them.” He curled a hand around her arm and moved through the house with her.
“So, I get Murdock beef prepared by a Murdock.” She shot him a look. “I suppose I should be complimented.”
“We might consider it a peace offering.”
“We might,” Jillian said cautiously, then smiled. “Providing you know how to cook. I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
“Why not?”
He gave her such a disapproving look that she laughed. “I got bogged down in paperwork. I can’t work up much of an appetite sitting at a desk. Well, well,” she added, glancing around his kitchen. Its simplicity suited the house, with its hardwood floor and plain counters. There wasn’t a crumb out of place. “You’re a tidy one, aren’t you?”
“I lived in the bunkhouse for a while.” Aaron uncorked a bottle of wine that stood on the counter next to two glasses. “It either corrupts or reforms you.”
“Why the bunkhouse when—” She cut herself off, annoyed that she’d begun to pry again.
“My father and I deal together better when there’s some distance.” He poured wine into both glasses. “You’d have heard by now that we don’t always agree.”
“I heard you’d had a falling-out a few years ago, before you went to Billings.”
“And you wondered why I—buckled under instead of telling him to go to hell and starting my own place.”
Jillian accepted the wine he handed her. “All right, yes, I wondered. It’s none of my business.”
He looked into his glass a moment, as if studying the dark red color of the wine. “No.” Aaron glanced back up and sipped. “It’s not.”
Without another word he turned to take two hefty steaks out of the refrigerator. Jillian sipped her wine and remained quiet, watching him as he began preparation of the meal with the deft, economical moves that were characteristic of him. Five years ago they’d given his father a year, perhaps two, to live. Aaron had told her that without even a hint of emotion in his voice. And he’d gone to Billings five years before.
To wait his father out? she wondered and winced at the thought. No, she couldn’t believe that of him—a man cool and calculating enough to wait for his father to die? Even if his feelings for his father didn’t run deep, it was too cold, too heartless. With a shudder, Jillian took a deep swallow of her wine, then set it down. She wouldn’t believe it of him.
“Anything I can do?”
Aaron glanced over his shoulder to see her calmly watching him. He knew what direction her thoughts had taken—the logical direction. Now he saw she’d decided in his favor. He told himself he didn’t give a damn one way or the other. It wasn’t just astonishing to find out he did, it was enervating. He could feel the emotion stir, and drain him. To give himself a moment to settle, he slipped the steaks under the broiler and turned it on.
“Yeah, there’s something you can do.” Crossing to her, Aaron framed her face in his hands, seeing her eyes widen in surprise just before his mouth closed over hers. He meant to keep it hard and brief. A gesture—a gesture only to rid him of whatever emotion had suddenly sprung up in him. But as his lips moved over hers the emotion swelled, threatening to take over as the kiss lingered.
She stiffened, and lifted her hands to his chest in automatic defense. Aaron found he didn’t want the struggle that usually appealed to him, but the softness he knew she’d give to very few. “Jillian, don’t.” His fingers tangled in her hair. His voice had roughened with feelings—mysterious, unnamed—he didn’t pause to question. “Don’t fight me—just this once.”
Something in his voice, that quiet hint of need, had her hands relaxing against him before the thought to do so had registered. So she yielded, and in yielding brought herself a moment of sweet, mindless pleasure.
His mouth gentled on hers even as he took her deeper. Her hands crept up to his shoulders, her head tilted back so that he might take what he needed and bring her more of that soft, soft delight she hadn’t been aware existed. With a sigh that came from discovery, she gave.
He hadn’t known he was capable of tenderness. There’d never been a woman who’d drawn it from him before. He hadn’t been aware that desire could ever be calm and easy. Yet while the need built inside of him, he felt a quiet wave of contentment. Aaron basked in it until it made him light-headed. Shaken, he eased her away, studying her face like a man who had seen something he didn’t quite understand. And wasn’t sure he wanted to.
Jillian took a step back, regaining her balance by placing her palm down on the scrubbed wooden table. She found sweetness in the last place she expected to. There was nothing she was more determined to fight. “I came here for dinner,” she began, eyeing him just as warily as he was eyeing her. “And to talk business. Don’t do that again.”
“You’ve got a point,” he murmured before he turned back to the stove to tend the steaks. “Drink your wine, Jillian. We’ll both be safer.”
She did as he suggested only because she wanted something to calm her nerves. “I’ll set the table,” she offered.
“Dishes’re up there.” Aaron pointed to a cabinet without looking up. The steaks sizzled when he flipped them. “There’s salad in the refrigerator.”
They finished up the cooking and preparation in silence, with only the sound of sizzling meat and frying potatoes. Jillian finished off her first glass of wine and looked at the food with real enthusiasm.
“Either you know what you’re doing, or I’m starved.”
“Both.” Aaron passed her some ranch dressing. “Eat. When you’re skinny you can’t afford to miss meals.”
Unoffended, she shrugged. “Metabolism,” she told him as she speared into the salad. “It doesn’t matter how much I eat, nothing sticks.”
“Some people call it nervous energy.”
She glanced up as he tilted more wine into her glass. “I call it metabolism. I’m never nervous.”
“Not often, in any case,” he acknowledged. “Why did you leave Chicago?” Aaron asked before she could formulate a response.
“I didn’t belong there.”
“You could have, if you’d chosen to.”
Jillian gave him a long neutral look, then nodded. “I didn’t choose to, then. I felt at home here the first summer I visited.”
“What about your family?”
She laughed. “They didn’t.”
“I mean, how do they feel about you living here, running Utopia?”
“How should they feel?” Jillian countered. She frowned into her wine a moment, then shrugged again. “I suppose you could say my father feels about Chicago the way I feel about Montana. It’s where he belongs. You’d think he’d been born and raised there. And of course, my mother was, so . . . We just never worked out as a family.”
“How?”
Jillian dashed some salt on her steak and cut into it. “I hated my piano lessons,” she said simply.
“As easy as that?”
“As basic as that. Marc—my brother—he just melded right in. I suppose it helped that he developed an interest in medicine early, and he loves opera. My mother’s quite a fan,” she said with a smile. “Anyway, I still cringe a bit when I have to use a needle on a cow, and I’ve never been able to appreciate La Traviata.”
“Is that what it takes to suit as a family?” Aaron wondered.
“It was important in mine. When I came here the first time, things started to change. Clay understood me. He yelled and swore instead of lecturing.”
Aaron grinned, offering her more steak fries. “You like being yelled at?”
“Patient lecturing is the worst form of punishment.”
“I guess I’ve never had to deal with it. We had a wood shed.” He liked the way she laughed, low, appreciative. “Why didn’t you come out to stay sooner?”
She moved her shoulders restlessly as she continued to eat. “I was in college. Both my parents thought a degree was vital, and I felt it was important to try to please them in that if nothing else. Then I got involved with—” She stopped herself, stunned that she’d almost told him of her relationship with that long-ago intern. Meticulously she cut a piece of steak. “It just didn’t work out,” she concluded, “so I came out here.”
The someone who touched her wrong, Aaron decided. The astonishment in her eyes had been brief, her cover-up swift and smooth, but not smooth enough. He wouldn’t probe there, not on a spot that was obviously tender. But he wondered who it had been who had touched her, and hurt her while she’d still been too young to build defenses.
“I think my mother was right,” he commented. “Some things are just in the blood. You belong here.”
There was something in the tone that made her look up carefully. She wasn’t certain at that moment whether he referred to the ranch or to himself. His eyes reminded her just how ruthless he could be when he wanted something. “I belong at Utopia,” she said precisely. “And I intend to stay. Your father said something today too,” she reminded him. “That a Murdock doesn’t do business with a Baron.”
“My father doesn’t run my life, personally or professionally.”
“Are you going to breed your stallion with Delilah to spite him?”
“I don’t waste time with spite.” It was said very simply, with that undercurrent of steel that made her think if he wanted revenge, he’d choose a very direct route. “I want the mare”—his dark eyes met hers and held—“for reasons of my own.”
“Which are?”
Lifting his wine, he drank. “My own.”
Jillian opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again. His reasons didn’t matter. Business was business. “All right, what fee are you asking?”
Aaron took his time, calmly watching her face. “You seem to be finished.”
Distracted, Jillian looked down to see that she’d eaten every bite on her plate. “Apparently,” she said with a half laugh. “Well, I almost hate to admit it, Murdock, but it was good—almost as good as Utopia beef.”
He answered her grin as he rose to clear off the table.
“Why don’t we take the wine in the other room, unless you’d like some coffee.”
“No.” She got up to help him stack the dishes. “I drank a full pot when I was fooling with the damn books.”
“Don’t care for paperwork?” Aaron picked up the half-full bottle of wine as they walked out of the kitchen.
“Putting it mildly,” she murmured. “But someone has to do it.”
“You could get a bookkeeper.”
“The thought’s crossed my mind. Maybe next year,” she said with a move of her shoulders. “I’ve gotten used to keeping my finger on the pulse, let’s say.”
“Rumor is you rope a steer with the best of them.”
Jillian sat on the couch, the full white skirt billowing around her. “Rumor’s fact, Murdock,” she said with a cocky smile. “Anytime you want to put some money on it, we’ll go head-to-head.”
He sat down beside her and toyed with the end of her sash. “I’ll keep that in mind. But I have to admit, it isn’t a hardship to look at you in a skirt.”
Over the rim of her glass she watched him. “We were talking stud fees. What’d you have in mind for Samson?”
Idly he twisted a lock of her hair around his finger. “The first foal.”
Chapter Five
For a moment there was complete silence in the room as they measured each other. She’d thought she had him pegged. It infuriated her to realize he was still a step ahead of her. “The first—” Jillian set down her glass of wine with a snap. “You’re out of your mind.”
“I’m not interested in cash. Two guaranteed breedings. I take the first foal, colt or filly. You take the second. I like the looks of your mare.”
“You expect me to breed Delilah, cover all the expenses while she’s carrying a foal, lose the use of her for three to four months, deal with the vet fees, then turn the result over to you?”
Relaxed, Aaron leaned back. He’d almost forgotten how good it was to haggle. “You’d have the second for nothing. I’d be willing to negotiate on the expenses.”
“A flat fee,” Jillian said, rising. “We’re not talking about dogs, where you can take the pick of the litter.”
