by Sara Orwig
“You have my word on it,” he said, and she gave a bitter laugh. “The sheriff or my house,” he repeated.
“Your house,” she whispered, her breath sweet, lightly brushing his skin.
Keeping up his guard, he moved away and fished for his keys, starting the pickup. Now she was hunched into a ball in the corner between the door and the back of the seat. As he drove out of the lot, he glanced at her again. She looked pitiful all huddled over, but his bruised midriff warned him not to be taken in by appearances. This was not a cringing, frightened little waif. The wildcat had a punch that had knocked him flat.
Jason worked out over an hour every day. He shouldn’t have been felled by a blow from a female of her size, and he vowed he would increase his workouts tomorrow.
He opened the glove compartment and pulled out a flask of whiskey, opening it and offering it to her. “Need a drink?”
“Now you want to get me drunk so you can have your way with me,” she snarled.
“Great grief,” he grumbled, wanting a stiff drink himself, but resisting, since he was driving.
“Where did you get your vocabulary—out of some 1920s dime novel? Outside of melodramas, I didn’t know anyone used that phrase have your way with me.”
“You’re too young yourself to know anything about 1920s dime novels, and I certainly don’t. And you know full well what I meant.”
“I gave you my word. You’re not my type anyway.”
“I can imagine your type.”
He glanced at her again, his curiosity growing. Silence stretched between them as he drove down Main Street, Royal, Texas, the place where he had grown up and lived a good part of his life. “So, what type do you imagine I’d like?” he asked finally.
“Someone beautiful, sexy, sophisticated and easy. Real easy.”
Amused, he looked at her, still unable to see anything except a huddle of black.
“You don’t think I have any charm to win over someone who isn’t easy?”
“You tackled me twice,” she said in the same haughty, aloof tone that he could recall early grade-school teachers lecturing him with. “That isn’t a winning approach.”
“I wasn’t trying a winning approach. I never intended seduction. I was trying to stop a criminal act. That’s not a fair judgment of me,” he remarked, amused by her in spite of his annoyance at being saddled with responsibility for keeping her away from the others.
He drove past Pine Valley, the exclusive, private-gated, residential community that held mansions, including one belonging to his family where his brother was currently residing. Jason could take her there, but he preferred her out on the Windover Ranch—far enough out of town so that she would have a hell of a hike if she decided to run away.
“It might be a good idea if we knew each other’s names. I’m Jason Windover.”
“I’m Meredith Silver,” she said.
“Well, hi, Meredith. Where are you from?”
“I’m from Dallas,” she said.
“And what do you do in Dallas?” he asked, slipping into old patterns of interrogation, avoiding the hot topics or accusations.
“I’m a computer programmer. I’m a freelance consultant.”
“Interesting profession—and gives you freedom to keep your own hours sometimes.”
“Yes, it does,” she answered while she stared out the window. “We’re out of town.”
“I’m taking you to the Windover family ranch.”
“You’re a cowboy?”
“Yes, I am. I’ve been with the government, but I recently retired to the ranch. So, Meredith, who’s your current boyfriend?”
“There isn’t one,” she replied. “But I’ll bet there’s a woman in your life.”
“As a matter of fact, there’s not at present.”
“I’m sure she’s not far in the past and there’s another lined up somewhere in the near future.”
“Now why do you think that? You don’t know me.”
“You have that easygoing manner of a man accustomed to always having a female in his life.”
“Do I really?” he asked, amused by her observations.
“You know darn well you do. You’re also egotistical and overbearing.”
“Golly gee whiz. I’ll have to work on that.”
“You can save the charm because it won’t work on me.”
“Now is that a challenge or what?” he asked, his voice dropping as he shot her a look.
“It’s definitely not a challenge. Besides, I’m not your type remember?”
“Point taken.” He drove quietly for a few minutes and then asked, “Do you have a hotel room in Royal or did you intend to drive back to Dallas tonight?”
“I’m staying at the Royalton Hotel,” she replied, naming Royal’s oldest and finest hotel.
“Do you still have family in Dallas?”
“Yes. My sisters and my mom are in Dallas. I have an older brother who’s in Montana, I think.”
“Silver,” he said, remembering a stocky, wild guy from the rodeo circuit. “I’ve met a bull rider—Hank Silver.”
“That’s my brother,” she said with what sounded like reluctance.
“Well, small world. He’s a tough cowpoke. I’ll bet that’s where you got the punch you pack. You have a big family,” he said, curious to see what she looked like. Her voice was soft, low and soothing. A sexy voice that didn’t match her volatile personality. If he had talked to her on a telephone and hadn’t seen her in person, he would have conjured up an entirely different type of woman in his mind. The voice definitely didn’t fit a little five-foot wildcat with a vocabulary as old-fashioned as his grandmother’s. Her enticing voice didn’t fit someone who could deliver a jab that knocked the breath from your lungs. But with Hank Silver as an older brother, Jason could well imagine, she’d had to defend herself growing up. From what Jason could remember, Hank Silver was in trouble with the law more than once over barroom brawls.
“I have two older brothers,” he said. “Ethan and Luke.”
“That’s nice,” she said, not trying to hide her anger. for the next hour they lapsed into silence, a new experience for Jason with a female.
Jason turned south between large posts with the Windover brand carved on the front of each one and drove swiftly along a hard-packed road until they pulled up behind the sprawling ranch house that had belonged to his family for four generations. Moonlight splashed over a combination of red sandstone, rough-hewn logs and glass. A porch with a sloping roof ran along the front and a well-tended lawn was surrounded by a picket fence. Beyond the house were outbuildings, a guest house, a bunkhouse and a barn.
Jason stopped near the back gate and untied the belt, taking her arm to lead her inside. When they entered the house, he switched on lights in a back entryway that held a coat rack, pictures of horses and potted plants. He turned and punched buttons on a keypad to disengage the alarm system that was beeping steadily. As soon as he had finished, the tiny red alarm light changed to green and the alarm was silent.
In the large kitchen he switched on soft lighting that fell over whitewashed oak cabinets and a pale-yellow tiled counter. Jason caught Meredith’s wrist lightly. “Come here,” he said, leading her to the sink. She wore black boots and black, lumpy sweats that hid her figure. And he knew from falling on her and pinning her down in the car that she definitely had a figure. Pulling out a towel, he ran warm water over it and then turned to scrub her face.
“I’d like to see what you look like. You’ve been a dark blob from the first moment I saw you,” he said, looking down at her as he tilted up her chin. At the sight of her in the light, he drew a sharp breath and remorse filled him because she had a raw scrape on her cheek and he knew he had caused it. When he touched her jaw lightly, she jerked her head away.
“I’m sorry you’re hurt. I thought you were a boy.”
Thickly-lashed, large, stormy gray eyes gazed up at him, and the moment his gaze met hers he received the second stunni
ng blow from her. Her eyes took his breath and held him mesmerized. He couldn’t recall ever seeing eyes exactly the color of hers. But it was something more than color that held him breathless. He felt as if he had touched a live wire and sparks were flying all around him. Silence stretched; he realized she was as still as he and he didn’t want to break the contact.
She took the cloth from his hand and began to rub black off her face. He retrieved it, wanting to touch her, wildly curious now to see what she looked like without all the junk on her face. And still neither one of them had spoken or moved or looked away.
“We need to clean up your scrapes quickly. Just a minute and I’ll be back.” Silently, he called himself all sorts of names for causing her face to be scraped raw as he hurried to the nearest bathroom. He returned with a bottle of peroxide. “Lean over the sink and let me pour this over your cheek. It’ll clean your scrape and disinfect it. How long since you had a tetanus shot?”
“Only a year ago.”
She tilted her head and he poured the clear liquid, dabbing gently. “Sorry, if I hurt you.”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” she grumbled, and he felt worse than before. Finally he patted her cheek dry. “Let’s see your hands.”
“I can take care of my hands.”
“Put your hands out and let me help,” he ordered. When she held them over the sink, palms up, he winced, hating that he was at fault for her injuries. He washed the scrapes, cleaning and disinfecting them. “I wouldn’t bandage those scrapes tonight. Maybe tomorrow when you’ll be out in the world, but let them heal tonight. Now, let’s get off the rest of whatever you have smeared on you.” In slow deliberate strokes he wiped her face gently, while he continued to look into her eyes. The longer he rubbed her face, the faster his pulse beat.
Finally, he had to rinse the cloth because it was covered in whatever she had spread over her face. In silence he rinsed it and returned to a task that was ever so pleasant, slowly stroking her face free of smudges. Besides the fabulous eyes, she had a slightly upturned nose, full pouty lips and prominent cheekbones.
She yanked the cloth from his hand. “I can wash my own face,” she snapped and turned to wash over the kitchen sink. She slanted him a look. “If you’ll tell me where the bathroom is, I’ll wash in there.”
“You’re fine where you are,” he said, not giving a rip about the sink and interested in the smooth, rosy skin beginning to show.
As she shook water off her hands, he handed her a clean towel, and she scrubbed with it vigorously, something he had never once seen a woman do.
Big gray eyes peeped at him over the towel, and he wondered if he should get ready to dodge her fist again, but she merely folded the towel.
Reaching out, he pulled the cap off her head. When long, slightly curly auburn locks spilled out, he drew a swift breath. Unruly, silken strands curled around her face. From what little he already knew, she was fiery, impetuous and fearless.
“You want anything to eat or drink?”
“No, thank you,” she replied with disdain.
“Come here,” he said, taking her wrist again and leading her through the kitchen, down the hall, into the spacious family room. He led her to a wide, brown leather couch that faced a large brick hearth. With a little tug he got her to sit down and he faced her, releasing her wrist. “Now, why were you slashing Dorian’s tires? What’s going on between the two of you?”
Two
Meredith Silver thrust out her chin stubbornly. “I don’t have to answer any of your questions,” she snapped. No man should look so sinfully handsome. He had black curly hair that he wore long, and it gave him a wild, dangerous look. His features were slightly rugged with a strong jaw, prominent cheekbones and straight nose. It was his thick lashes and blue-green eyes that had stopped her in her tracks in the kitchen.
Meredith wished she hadn’t stood there like a starstruck teen looking at a movie idol, because she suspected Jason Windover drew women the way flowers drew bees.
She glanced beyond him to study the windows. This was no fortress, although he had turned off an alarm system when they entered. She knew how to hot-wire a car, and later tonight she was getting out of this house and away from this man who was becoming a big interference in her life.
“I can still call the sheriff and have you locked up. This is a small town and most of us know each other pretty well. He can come up with some charges to hold you in a cell for a while.”
Her mind raced. She knew lawyers because she had solved computer problems for various ones, but not recently and she had never made lasting friendships with any of them. She didn’t know a single lawyer to call for help. Besides, compelling bedroom eyes were staring at her, an invisible push to get her talking.
“I’ve been trying to find Dorian Brady. Now I’ve found him and he’s telling everyone that I’m crazy and that everything I’m saying about him is a lie.”
“Well, is it or not?”
“I’m telling the truth, but he’s your friend and your good-ol’-boy fellow club member. Y’all are a bunch of snooty male chauvinists, and I know you’ll believe him over me, so what’s the point in even discussing this with you?” she said, becoming more annoyed as she talked because a twinkle had come into his eyes.
“What’s the point in slashing his tires?”
“I just want him to know that I’m here. That I’m in his life and I’m not going to go away. I want to cause that man some grief.”
“He knows you’re in his life, and you are causing him a little grief. But I’ll tell you what, all those good-ol’-boy male chauvinists have voted that I’m to keep you out of everybody else’s hair, so that’s just what I’m going to do. Tonight, you can just stay here under my roof until you simmer down. And tomorrow you can go back to wherever you came from.”
“That’s what you think, mister.”
“Jason is the name, remember?”
“Mister is sufficient. We’re not going to be friends.”
“Now that’s another challenge you’ve just flung at me,” he drawled, and she definitely saw the twinkle in his eyes that time.
Thrusting out her jaw, she leaned closer to him. “I will never be friends with a man like you, buster!”
He looked as if he was making an effort not to laugh out loud. He leaned close. “Why not, Meredith?”
Oh, my! She was going to have to watch it around this one. He was sexy and too handsome and his voice sent shivers skittering around inside her. And those bedroom eyes of his! She moved back and drew herself up. “I’m sure most women just melt when you bat your eyes at them, but I’m not melting, nor will I. I—”
“Challenge number three,” he stated, this time speaking in a slow drawl and looking at her with a speculative gleam in his eyes that made her draw a swift breath.
“I’m not flinging sexy challenges at you. I’m telling you. You probably can’t believe that a female in this whole big state of Texas is immune to your charm.”
“Darlin’,” he drawled in a tone that did curl her toes and sent a flash of heat that threatened to melt her, “I haven’t even begun to turn on any charm. Knocking the wind out of me doesn’t exactly draw out the best aspects of my personality.”
“You attacked me.”
“I stopped a vandal from escaping,” he reminded her. He took her wrist again. His brows arched. “Your pulse is racing, Meredith.”
She glared at him while crimson flooded her cheeks. “Don’t flatter yourself. It’s fright.”
“You—afraid?”
“There’s good reason to be,” she snapped, pointing at her scraped face and annoyed that her pulse was reacting to him in a wild, uncontrollable manner.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” he said, and to her surprise, he sounded truly contrite. “Come on. Let’s get something to drink. I definitely want a drink.”
“I’ll come without you holding my hand,” she said, attempting to yank free.
“I think I want to keep one hand under control
. You have a wicked punch there. Besides, I don’t want you heaving one of the family heirlooms at me and breaking some favorite vase.”
“I wouldn’t think of it.”
“Not much you wouldn’t.”
He was tall, broad-shouldered and a very sexy male. Having him hold her wrist made her nervous, even though his grip was light. When she had tried to get free, he had held her without effort, but she knew that wasn’t what bothered her. It was the physical contact with him, however slight, that set her pulse racing.
Maybe if she humored him until he locked her in a room—and she was certain that’s exactly what he would do sooner or later—then she could try to escape. Once they were in the kitchen, he released her wrist. While he pulled a cold beer out of the refrigerator, Meredith studied the windows and latches, which looked quite ordinary. And she had watched when he had turned off his alarm, so she could remember the series of numbers he had punched in. She was certain Jason wouldn’t think she’d try to escape, especially since they were so far from town. He had left his pickup near the back door and if she could get outside to his pickup, she would be on her way.
“Want some pop?”
“I am not drinking or eating with you.”
“Suit yourself,” he said, and turned to open the bottle of beer. They returned to the sofa where he sat too close for comfort. She could detect his aftershave, see the faint dark stubble on his jaw.
He set his beer on a coaster on the large cherrywood table standing in front of the sofa. He pulled off a boot and set it aside and then pulled off the other one. “We might as well get comfortable.”
She was half tempted to say she wanted to go to jail, but his house was cozy and there weren’t any bars on the windows and she stood a far better chance of escaping from this ornery Texan than she would from a jail.
“Now tell me why you want to cause Dorian grief.”
“He’s a wicked man. But I know you don’t believe a word I’m saying because he’s in your good-ol’-boy group.”
