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But she opened the door and peered up at him bravely, even though she looked like a refugee from a bar brawl. Her left eye was swollen shut completely now.
‘‘Leo wants to see you,’’ he said easily, noticing how the top of her blond head only came to his shoulder. She wasn’t tall. Even bruised, her face had a beautiful complexion. Her mouth was pretty. He shook himself mentally. ‘‘He wants to thank you for what you did. He remembers that you rode in on the ambulance with him. You didn’t tell me that,’’ he added with faint accusation.
‘‘I wasn’t thinking,’’ she said. ‘‘I was worried about what would happen when I came home late.’’
‘‘Have you heard any more about your father this morning?’’ he asked grimly.
‘‘They’re going to charge him with simple battery,’’ she said heavily. ‘‘I can’t afford a lawyer. He’ll have a public defender and he’ll probably have to stay in jail for a few weeks.’’ She looked up at him. ‘‘It will be a godsend, you know, because he’ll dry out completely.’’
He hated the compassion he felt. ‘‘Did your mother leave him?’’ he asked.
She averted her face. She couldn’t bear to talk about it yet. ‘‘In a way,’’ she said huskily. ‘‘Are you going to drive me?’’ she added, glancing at him over her shoulder. ‘‘The bus doesn’t run for another thirty minutes.’’
‘‘Sure,’’ he agreed.
‘‘Then I’ll get my jacket and purse.’’
She went into another room and came back quickly, leading the way out the door. ‘‘Is he conscious now?’’
‘‘Very,’’ he murmured dryly. ‘‘When I left him, he was telling a nurse what she could do with the wash basin, and how far.’’
She chuckled. ‘‘He didn’t seem like that kind of man,’’ she murmured. ‘‘I had him figured for a gentleman, not a renegade.’’
‘‘We’re all that kind of man,’’ he replied.
‘‘All?’’
He led her to the car and put her into the passenger seat. ‘‘There are five of us. The other three are coming up this morning to have a talk with the police.’’
‘‘I remember. You said that your brother was the attorney general.’’
‘‘He is,’’ he replied. ‘‘We tend to stick together.’’
Her eyes went to his hands on the steering wheel. He had nice hands, very lean and strong with neat, clean fingernails. He was a tough-looking man, like a cowboy.
‘‘How’s your face?’’ he asked unexpectedly.
She shrugged. ‘‘It still hurts. It will for a while, but I’ll be fine.’’
‘‘You should see that plastic surgeon.’’
‘‘Why?’’ she asked heavily. ‘‘My insurance won’t pay for cosmetic surgery, and there’s not much chance that they can do any major repair on tiny shattered bones.’’
‘‘You’re not a doctor. Stop giving yourself medical advice.’’
She stared at him for a long moment and started to speak, then lost the opportunity when he pulled up in the hospital parking lot, cut off the engine, and got out.
Rey waited for her and led her up to the floor where his brother’s room was located.
Leo wasn’t alone. Three other men were with him, one big and dark and missing an arm, the other lean and light-eyed and handsome, and a third big one with black eyes and a threatening face towering over both the others.
‘‘That’s Cag,’’ Rey indicated the black-eyed man. ‘‘Corrigan,’’ he nodded toward the light-eyed man, ‘‘and that’s Simon,’’ he finished, smiling at the one-armed man. ‘‘This is Meredith Johns. She rescued Leo.’’
‘‘Nice to see you and know who you are,’’ Leo said, alert now and interested as his dark eyes swept over the neat woman just inside the door. ‘‘Miss Johns, I presume?’’
She smiled self-consciously, because everybody was looking at her bruised face. ‘‘Yes,’’ she said.
Simon Hart frowned when he got a good look at her. ‘‘What the hell happened to you?’’ he demanded.
‘‘Her father,’’ Rey said for her. ‘‘She got in late and he beat her up.’’
Leo looked suddenly as intimidating as the other three. ‘‘Where is he?’’ he asked.
‘‘In jail,’’ Meredith said heavily. ‘‘For several weeks, at least, and he’ll have time to dry out.’’
‘‘Good.’’ Leo looked toward Simon. ‘‘Maybe you can find a way to get him into rehab before he gets out.’’
‘‘I’ll look into it,’’ Simon said at once.
‘‘And some counseling wouldn’t come amiss,’’ Rey put his two cents worth in.
‘‘I’ll see about that, too,’’ Simon replied. ‘‘Nice to meet you, Miss Johns. We’re all grateful for what you did for Leo.’’
‘‘You’re all very welcome,’’ she replied. She clutched her purse, intimidated by the group of brothers.
‘‘Come here,’’ Leo said, holding out his hand. ‘‘They’re big and they look tough, but they’re really marshmallows. You don’t have to feel threatened. I’ll protect you.’’
‘‘She doesn’t need protecting from us!’’ Rey snapped.
The others gaped at him. It wasn’t like Rey to act that way.
He cleared his throat. He didn’t want them asking themselves embarrassing questions about his attitude. He shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘‘Sorry. I didn’t sleep much last night,’’ he explained.
Meredith went to stand beside Leo, who took one of her small, cold hands in his and looked up at her with interest.
‘‘Have you seen a doctor?’’ he asked.
‘‘Your brother took me to the emergency room yesterday,’’ she said.
‘‘Rey. His name’s Reynard, but he’s called Rey,’’ Leo informed her.
She smiled. ‘‘You look much better today. Head hurt?’’
‘‘A bit, but my vision’s clear and I’m not disoriented,’’ he said, quoting the doctor. ‘‘I have a good prognosis.’’
‘‘That’s nice to hear. You were in pretty bad shape.’’
‘‘I’d have been in a lot worse shape, but for you,’’ Leo said. ‘‘I hear that you can’t work out in public for a while, until your face heals,’’ he added. ‘‘Can you cook?’’
She blinked. ‘‘Of course,’’ she said at once.
‘‘Can you make bread?’’
She frowned. ‘‘Bread?’’
‘‘More specifically, biscuits,’’ he added, and had the oddest expression on his face.
She shifted her purse in the hand he wasn’t holding. ‘‘Well, yes, those and rolls and loaf bread,’’ she said, as if everybody could do it.
Leo shot a glance at Rey, who was just staring at him without daring to say a word. He knew what was coming, and he couldn’t decide how he felt about it. He didn’t want to think about it.
‘‘How would you like a brief stay in Jacobsville, Texas, in a big sprawling ranch house where your only job would be to make biscuits every morning?’’ Leo asked with his best smile.
Rey and the other brothers were staring at her, waiting. She wondered why. And Rey was frowning, as if he didn’t like the idea at all. Probably he still secretly thought she was a hooker. He couldn’t seem to credit her with any sense of decency.
She thought about his attitude for a few seconds, and decided that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take the job, and show him that you really couldn’t judge a book by its cover. It wouldn’t hurt that arrogant cowboy to be taken down a step or two, and she was just the girl who could do it.
She smiled. It hurt her face, but what was a little pain for a good cause? She turned back to Leo. ‘‘Mr. Hart, I think I’d like that job very much!’’
Three
‘‘Good for you!’’ Leo exclaimed, animated and smiling. ‘‘You won’t be sorry, Meredith. Honest.’’
She smiled back at him. He was nice, like a big brother. She liked him already. ‘‘I can do housekeeping, too,’’ she told him. ‘‘I’ll earn my keep.’’
‘‘You’ll go on salary, of course,’’ he insisted. ‘‘It won’t be a holiday.’’
‘‘Nothing is a holiday with those two,’’ Simon murmured dryly. ‘‘They aren’t kidding about biscuits. They’ll run you crazy baking them.’’
Rey and Leo gave their brother a disgusted look.
Meredith grinned. ‘‘I don’t mind,’’ she assured Simon. ‘‘I love to cook.’’
‘‘It won’t be that hard,’’ Leo promised, with another speaking glance at Simon. ‘‘We just love biscuits. But we’ll make you feel right at home. Anything you need, you can have—a new stove…’’ he added mischievously.
She thought about her father and her job, and her smile faltered. ‘‘I have to wrap up a few loose ends first,’’ she began.
‘‘No problem,’’ Leo assured her. ‘‘I can’t get out of here for another day at least, or so that doctor said,’’ he added with impatience.
‘‘You’ll stay until he lets you out,’’ Rey said firmly. ‘‘Concussions are tricky. You know that.’’
Leo grimaced. ‘‘I guess so. I hate hospitals.’’
‘‘I’m not too wild about them myself,’’ Rey had to agree.
‘‘It would be a very sad world without them,’’ Meredith spoke up.
She seemed irritated, Rey thought, and wondered why. ‘‘I’ll run you back home when you’re ready,’’ Rey told her. ‘‘We’ll be in touch before we’re ready to leave.’’
‘‘All right.’’ She held Leo’s hand again and squeezed it gently, to the amusement of all the Harts except Rey. ‘‘You get better. I’ll see you soon.’’
‘‘Thanks again,’’ Leo told her with genuine gratitude.
‘‘It was nothing.’’ She gave him another smile, tugged her hand free, and let Rey herd her out the door after a quick goodbye to the other brothers.
‘‘I thought your brother was big until I saw all of you together. Goodness, you’re all huge!’’ she exclaimed when they were outside in the parking lot. She gave him a long scrutiny. ‘‘And there doesn’t seem to be an extra ounce of fat on any of you.’’
‘‘We don’t sit behind desks. We’re ranchers, not office workers, and we work hard, right alongside our cowboys,’’ he said. His dark eyes cut sideways. ‘‘Leo likes you.’’
She smiled. ‘‘I’m glad, because I like him, too.’’
That set him off and he tried not to let it show. He didn’t want her to like Leo. He wished he knew why. He glanced at her as he wove skillfully through traffic toward her house. ‘‘Do you have family besides your father?’’ he asked.
‘‘A cousin or two near Fort Worth,’’ she said. She glanced out the window, absently rubbing the ring finger of her left hand, trying not to choke up over the question. ‘‘What is Jacobsville like?’’ she asked to divert him from any further questions.
‘‘It’s small,’’ he said easily. ‘‘There are a lot of ranches in the area. We have good pasture and soil, and we get enough rain to manage healthy crops.’’ He grinned. ‘‘A lot of us are heavily into organic cattle raising. And with the industry under threat right now, we’ll probably keep our financial heads above water when some other ranchers are going under.’’
‘‘I like organic food,’’ she said. ‘‘It may have a few more blemishes and bug bites, but if it doesn’t kill bugs, it won’t kill me,’’ she added with a grin.
He chuckled. ‘‘Good point. Do you like animals?’’
‘‘I love them. I’d like to have a cat, but it’s not possible. Dad’s allergic to them.’’ She sighed wearily, leaning her head back against the headrest. Her bruises were still giving her a lot of pain. Her hand went to them and she winced.
‘‘You should see that plastic surgeon,’’ he reminded her.
She shook her head. ‘‘Can’t afford it. Even if I could, I don’t want to go through weeks of surgery.’’
He hesitated and then he shrugged. ‘‘Have it your way.’’
‘‘I’ll heal.’’ She touched her cheek again self-consciously. ‘‘I’m not sure going to work for you is a good idea. I mean, people might think the five of you beat me up!’’
He laughed wholeheartedly. ‘‘Nobody who knows us would ever think that. Especially,’’ he added, ‘‘if you can bake. Simon was right. I’m afraid we’re famous locally for our addiction to biscuits.’’
Actually they were famous a lot further out than Jacobsville, but he didn’t want to make her think they were loopy.
She took the words at face value. ‘‘I like to cook.’’
He glanced at her again, taking in her very conservative way of dressing. ‘‘You don’t look like the same woman I met just after Leo was assaulted.’’
‘‘I almost never dress up,’’ she confided. ‘‘And it really was a costume,’’ she pointed out. ‘‘I wasn’t lying. I don’t make my living on the streets.’’
‘‘How old are you?’’
Her eyebrows arched. ‘‘Old enough.’’
‘‘Are you over twenty-one?’’ he persisted.
‘‘I’m twenty-three, almost twenty-four,’’ she replied.
‘‘And not married?’’
‘‘I’ve had responsibilities for the past few years,’’ she said distantly, staring out the windshield. ‘‘My father has become the largest of them. I’ve been afraid to leave him alone.’’
‘‘He’s obviously dangerous when he drinks.’’
She hesitated, fingering her purse. ‘‘He seemed to lose himself in the bottle overnight. I thought I could handle him, control him, break the cycle. I couldn’t even get help for him. My father doesn’t think he has a drinking problem, so nobody would take him.’’ She looked over at him. ‘‘I’m very grateful to your brother for his help. As I mentioned the night he was arrested, my father has only been like this for the past few months. It’s not a long-standing problem. But I couldn’t solve it alone.’’
‘‘You’re going to work for us,’’ Rey said. ‘‘And it’s not that much of a problem for Simon. He’s good at his job.’’
‘‘Is it a big ranch?’’ she asked unexpectedly.
‘‘Enormous,’’ he replied, ‘‘and one of five ranches we own as a family. Things get hectic during roundup, as you’ll find out if you’re still there next Spring.’’
‘‘I won’t be,’’ she said with some certainty. ‘‘When I heal, I have to get back to my job.’’
‘‘What do you do?’’ he asked curiously. ‘‘Is it housecleaning or working as a cook in a restaurant?’’
She almost bit her tongue at the demeaning comment. ‘‘You don’t think I’m qualified to do anything else?’’
He averted his eyes to the road. “I don’t know you, Miss Johns,” he commented carelessly. “But you seem pretty domestic to me.”
She didn’t feel well enough to retaliate. But one day, she promised herself, she was going to make him eat those condescending words.
‘‘I’ve made beds and done light cleaning,’’ she said, talking around her actual profession.
‘‘Aren’t you ambitious?’’ he persisted, with a faint frown. ‘‘Most women are, these days.’’
‘‘That sounded bitter,’’ she commented. ‘‘Did you get thrown over by an ambitious woman?’’
‘‘By a couple of them,’’ he said curtly, and his expression became hard.
She hadn’t thought of him that way. They’d been adversaries from the first contact. But it occurred to her as she gave him a quick, covert scrutiny, that he was a sensuous man. He wasn’t handsome—except for Corrigan Hart, the rest of the brothers seemed cursed by a lack of conventional good looks.
But Rey had a lithe, graceful stride, and a strong face. He had good hands, clean and long-fingered. She liked the blackness of his straight hair, the high cheekbones, the long, thin, chiseled mouth. He was the sort of man who could have attracted women, except for his personality. The Harts didn’t strike her as particularly gregarious or good mixers from her brief acquaintance with them. Leo was the one with the warmest personality. He made her feel at ease. The man beside her made her uncomfortable, insecure, nervous. She wasn’t usually so strung-out by a man’s proximity. Not that she’d had a lot to do with men in very recent years. Her father’s overprotective, possessive nature had seen to that. He’d been so certain that she was going to end up like her mother.
She closed her eyes briefly, hating the memories.
‘‘If you want to go and see your father before we leave for Jacobsville, I’ll ask Simon to arrange it.’’
She stiffened. ‘‘I don’t want to see him again until he’s sober,’’ she replied. ‘‘We both need time to get over what happened.’’
‘‘Is your face the only place he hit you?’’ he asked unexpectedly.
‘‘He got me in the back and the side, too, but those were only bruises. The doctor checked me over thoroughly.’’ She sighed wearily. ‘‘I’m so tired,’’ she murmured absently.
‘‘I’m not surprised. You can get some rest. I’ll phone you tomorrow, when we’ll know more about Leo’s condition and when he’ll be released.’’
‘‘Okay.’’
He stopped in front of her house and parked the car, walking to the door with her. He looked down at her while she fumbled the key into the lock. She was, in some ways, the most vulnerable woman he’d ever met. But there was steel in her makeup. He sensed that she wasn’t like this usually, that she was fiery and independent and determined.
‘‘This isn’t the first time your father’s laid into you, is it?’’ he asked suddenly.
She glanced at him, surprised. ‘‘No. But until this happened, it was more humiliating than painful.’’ She frowned. ‘‘How did you know?’’
He seemed concerned. ‘‘When I was in school, I had a couple of friends whose fathers got violent during binges. There’s an…attitude, a posture, that people get when they’ve been beaten. I can’t explain it, but I recognize it when I see it.’’
‘‘Do you want to know what it is?’’ she asked with a world-weary smile. ‘‘It’s a feeling of futility, of knowing that no matter what you do, you can’t hold out physically against a man who’s enraged and bent on hurting you. Because you know if you fight back, it will be even worse, maybe fatally worse. I don’t like it,’’ she added, her pale eyes beginning to glow, ‘‘and he’s never getting the chance to do this again. He’s my father. I love him, and I feel sorry for him. But I’m nobody’s victim. Not even his.’’
He pushed his hands into his slacks’ pockets and smiled at her. Her face was bright with color, and her eyes were alive, like peridots in sunlit water. He remembered her long blond hair around her shoulders and he wondered what she’d look like in pink silk. The thought shocked him and he scowled.
‘‘Did I glue my nose on upside down?’’ she asked, raising her eyebrows.
He let out a short laugh. ‘‘No. I had a wild thought. Do you need an advance on your salary? I mean, is there anything you have to get for the trip that you can’t afford?’’
‘‘I don’t have a car,’’ she began, and hated remembering why.
He glared. ‘‘I didn’t say you were going to have to get to Jacobsville on your own. You’ll go with Leo and me. Simon drove my car up from Jacobsville.’’
‘‘Do I get to ride in the car, or have you got me earmarked for the trunk?’’ she returned.
He pursed his lips. Odd feelings were kindling inside him. ‘‘Keep that up and you’ll be riding on the back bumper.’’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘‘Nice. Real nice. I can see you’re going to be a great boss.’’
‘‘If you don’t burn the biscuits, I will be,’’ he said.
‘‘I’ll stick close to your brother,’’ she promised. ‘‘He’ll protect me.’’
He didn’t like that, but he wasn’t going to let it show. ‘‘Leo’s a tease,’’ he said flatly. ‘‘Don’t get your hopes up. He’s not a marrying man. Neither am I,’’ he added deliberately.
Her eyes widened. ‘‘Well, gee whiz, that’s a major disappointment! And to think, I was only willing to take the job because of the marriage prospects!’’
His face shuttered. ‘‘Sarcasm doesn’t get you any points with me. I’m just making the position clear. We need a cook, not a prospective soul mate.’’
‘‘Speak for yourself,’’ she told him, turning back to her door. ‘‘I think Leo likes me already.’’
‘‘I just told you…!’’
She opened the door and looked back at him with pure irreverence. ‘‘Your brother can speak for himself. You don’t own him, and you don’t own me. I’ll do what I please.’’
‘‘Damn it…!’’
‘‘With charm like that, it’s no surprise to me that you’re still single,’’ she said as she walked into the house.
‘‘I can be charming when I’ve got a reason to be,’’ he said icily. ‘‘But that’s something you’ll never know!’’
‘‘Lucky me!’’
He started to speak, closed his lips tight, and walked back to his car.
She closed the door quickly and leaned back against it, almost shivering with anger. Of all the conceited, infuriating men she’d ever met, that one took the cake!
The next day, Rey phoned her midmorning to tell her that he and Leo would pick her up at one for the drive down to Jacobsville.
She had her suitcase packed and the house closed up when the big luxury car pulled into the driveway. It was a late-model car, and it looked odd, sitting in front of the shabby little house.
As she walked to the car, Meredith saw curtains fluttering and knew that the neighbors were getting an eyeful. They probably thought she was being carried off by the mob. That amused her and she smiled, glad that something diverted her mind from her father and her pain, and the misery of the past few months.
‘‘We hadn’t planned to ask you to help us move cattle,’ Rey drawled when he saw how she was dressed, in jeans and a striped shirt and boots.
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