“You Actually Want To Reopen The Old Feud. You Want Revenge.” Letter to Reader Title Page About the Author Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Epilogue Copyright

“You Actually Want To Reopen The Old Feud. You Want Revenge.”

It was to Celine’s benefit that Tyrell knew this was not a whim, but a need that drove her every breath. “You got it, buddy.”

“Well, then,” he said slowly. He stretched slowly, and Celine blinked at all that male body rippling in front of her. She swallowed abruptly as an unfamiliar little feminine lurch that she couldn’t define stabbed at her. Celine liked everything in black and white; she did not like unsteady emotions.

Tyrell’s slow smile might have devastated another woman. “I guess you’ve got to deal with me, then. I appreciate the notice. And thanks for referring to me earlier as a ‘big, juicy tomato.’ I’m honored, and you’ve gone to all this trouble, too, to pick me from my vine. My, that makes me feel so special.”

Tyrell Blaylock, the man she’d ruined, was flirting with her!

Dear Reader,

Merry Christmas from Silhouette Desire—where you’re guaranteed powerful, passionate and provocative love stones that feature rugged heroes and spirited heroines who experience the full emotional intensity of falling in love!

The always-wonderful Cait London is back with this December’s MAN OF THE MONTH, who happens to be one of THE BLAYLOCKS. In Typical Male, a modern warrior hero is attracted to the woman who wants to destroy him.

The thrilling Desire miniseries TEXAS CATTLEMAN’S CLUB concludes with Lone Star Prince by Cindy Gerard. Her Royal Princess Anna von Oberland finally reunites with the dashing attorney Gregory Hunt who fathered her child years ago.

Talented Ashley Summers returns to Desire with That Loving Touch, where a pregnant woman becomes snowbound with a sexy executive in his cabin The ever-popular BACHELOR BATTALION gets into the holiday spirit with Marine under the Mistletoe by Maureen Child. Star-Crossed Lovers is a Romeo-and-Juliet-with-a-happy-ending story by Zena Valentine. And an honorable cowboy demands the woman pregnant with his child marry him in Christy Lockhart’s The Cowboy’s Christmas Baby.

Each and every month, Silhouette Desire offers you six exhilarating journeys into the seductive world of romance So make a commitment to sensual love and treat yourself to all six for some great holiday reading this month!

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

Please address questions and book requests to.

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Typical Male

Cait London

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CAIT LONDON

lives in the Missouri Ozarks but loves to travel the Northwest’s gold rush/cattle drive trails every summer. She enjoys research trips meeting people and going to Native American dances. Ms. London is an avid reader who loves to paint, play with computers and grow herbs (particularly scented geraniums right now). She’s a national bestselling and award-winning author, and she has also written historical romances under another pseudonym. Three is her lucky number, she has three daughters, and the events in her life have always been in threes. “I love writing for Silhouette,” Cait says. “One of the best perks about all this hard work is the thrilling reader response and the warm, snug sense that I have given readers an enjoyable, entertaining gift”

For my daughter Karla

One

“A woman, and she looks like trouble.” Tyrell leaned back into the shadows of Wyoming’s Rocky Mountain pines and firs and studied the woman marching up the rugged path to his cabin hideaway. Her stride wasn’t easy, but firm, with a purpose — she wanted something.

His ex-fiancée had used other methods. But his sister, Else, the matron of the extensive Blaylock family, walked like that, and she always had a purpose.

Tyrell wiped the sweat from his chin with his forearm. Chopping wood took away a measure of his dark mood. He traced the zigzagging route of a red fox in the brush, then scanned the cloudy sky where a golden eagle seemed to hover in the high winds. At this altitude, late May was cold, though the ranches below were decked in spring’s vivid green. Six months ago, he had been a top executive, a chief of finance for a New York corporate office. Now the only peace he’d found was about to be invaded by a woman.

He wasn’t in a mood to deal with anyone, even his family Else didn’t like her brothers to escape her. James, Logan, Dan Roman and Rio all had wives and only lightly mourned the freedom of “holing-up.”

Until Tyrell had settled the storms within him, he was doing just that, taking a “breather” and coming home to the source of his peace—the mountains and his family.

He hefted the ax and placed his thoughts in numerical order He liked numbers; they had always served him well. He swung the ax at the trunk of the tree and began to count his thought with each solid whack. One—when he’d found what he needed settled that savage edge riding him, then he would—He swung the ax again, coming down on the first cut to create a wedge that would eventually fell the tree. Two—go in for the kill, find out who started the rumors about him. Someone had been tracking his life, his credit cards, his bank account, his method of travel and telephone bills. Three—the ax bit into the wood with an expert cut that would eventually topple it. Returning home was all part of his plan to sort out his life. And it would be a long time before he’d trust a woman.

A hawk, seeking a mouse, soared in the clear blue Wyoming sky as Tyrell gripped his ax tightly. The woman continued he steady march toward his sanctuary. The few women in Tyrell’ life had always wanted something—cash, career, status. At one time, he’d wanted those things, too. Now he didn’t; he wanted peace. Tyrell’s gaze swept over Jasmine, the small Wyoming town nestled in the valley below. His ancestor Micah Blaylock had settled the valley and had taken a bride, and the Blaylock name was rich with honor and respect. The youngest of seven children, Tyrell had come home again to find that honor and family values he’d tossed away the years he’d worked to build Mason Diversified. Mason’s, a top shipping and label company now owned many subsidiary companies with varied interests but Tyrell had paid a dear price. He’d been away from his family and his roots too long.

Micah Blaylock’s old cabin had been Tyrell’s refuge—rebuilding it had given him what he’d needed.

It wasn’t easy to move back into his family. He couldn’t forget his father’s last telephone call — Tyrell should have come home and didn’t. He’d been too busy chalking up profits for Mason Diversified.

He inhaled the fresh morning air, scented of spring. Soon there would be wild roses beginning to bud. A mountain blue bird shot across the sky, and new leaves shimmered on the cottonwood trees. And the air around him simmered with regrets. Now his parents were gone, killed in an accident on icy roads. He wondered if that ice had shrouded his heart, pictures of their crushed car in the deep canyon haunting him.

He studied the woman invading his peace. Then, with a curse, he expertly threw the ax he’d been using to cut wood; the ax handle rotated once in midair, the steel sinking deep into the trunk of an aspen tree. “If she makes it past that old rock slide, it will take her about two hours to get to the meadow, and she’s not getting past that. I came up here for peace and quiet.”

The woman, dressed in a ball cap, a dull red sweater against the morning chill and khaki shorts, placed one hand on a boulder and vaulted over it. Her small round glasses glinted, washed by the cloudy morning sun as she leaped over a stream and continued steadily upward on the rocky path. In a direct as-the-crow-flies line, she was not far from Tyrell’s cabin; however, the winding trail around a small canyon added to the walking time. From his high vantage point, Tyrell noticed her hiking boots and the slender athletic legs above them. Her backpack shifted as she vaulted over a log.

“She’ll sprain something and I’ll be stuck with her.” Tyrell had had enough of women for a long time. Hillary had left deep bruises. His ex-fiancée, the daughter of his boss, wasn’t exactly the love of his life, but she suited Tyrell’s rising financial career. After a five-year relationship, he’d expected her to believe his word against the rumor mongers’. His jaw tightened beneath his two-week beard. Someone had set out to deliberately sabotage his career, starting rumors about his private life and making insinuations about selling Mason Diversified’s lucrative client list to competitors.

An aging playboy, and jealous of Tyrell’s youth and fitness, Melvin Mason had gradually grown to resent his top man on a personal basis. Mason wanted singular control of the company, now that the firm was showing high profit.

Descended from hunters, Tyrell’s eyes jerked to a bighorn sheep, leaping on the red rock cliff above the cabin. Tyrell had expected his future father-in-law and employer of the past ten years to believe him. Insecure, feeling threatened and looking for reasons to strip Tyrell’s growing control of the company, Melvin Mason had believed what he wanted and took the rumors as truth. Melvin wasn’t the understanding sort, but then Tyrell hadn’t asked for friendship. He’d pushed Mason Diversified into a sleek, high profit company and had made millions for Mason. Tyrell liked numbers lining up to make neat profit. His colleagues hadn’t questioned his integrity; they respected him. He’d expected the same from his fiancée and an employer whom he had made rich. He hadn’t asked Hillary or her father for warmth; he’d asked them to believe him. After years of association, he hadn’t doubted that they would give him time to root out the troublemaker.

They hadn’t. Without waiting, without questioning or letting Tyrell untangle the gossip, Mason had wanted the company to himself. He wanted to play power hardball, ripping away Tyrell’s position and employee benefits. A bad move on Mason’s part — the aftershocks included Mason’s top clients calling Tyrell and asking for referrals to Mason’s competitors.

After Hillary’s and Mason’s reactions to the rumors that Tyrell had a sleazy private life, he hadn’t cared who started the trouble; he’d had enough after a long series of Mason’s attempts to undermine him. Prior to the final break, the day Mason ordered him out of the building, Tyrell’s instinct told him there was trouble. Two weeks before that day, Tyrell had moved to protect the investments and retirement portfolios of his staff and fellow workers, who wanted him to fight and who believed in him. Then, when their investments were safe and established in accounts outside Mason’s reach, Tyrell had set to work destroying what he’d built. On that final day, one touch of his finger to just one computer key, set into action damage that could not be repaired.

Descended from Apaches and Spanish conquistadors with a mix of European settler thrown in, Tyrell knew how to fight. He knew how to streamline profits and he knew how to fatten loss. He left Mason with a shell of a company, the same as it was ten years ago. Then he’d walked away, sickened by the lifestyle he had once wanted.

To mend, he’d come back to Jasmine, Wyoming, and his family, the Blaylocks. He’d sort out his disappointment and anger, in himself and in Mason, and then he’d rebuild his life.

Startled by his sudden flash of temper, Tyrell rhythmically slapped his thigh. Damn it, he wanted privacy, not visitors and chitchat or a helpless woman underfoot. The woman walked across a fallen log bridging another creek and Tyrell held his breath, hoping she wouldn’t fall. Instead she sat on a gray boulder and drew off her ball cap. Short, vibrant strawberry-red curls gleamed in the dim gray morning, her face small and pale in the distance.

“She’ll sunburn in this high mountain sun, even though it is cloudy.” Tyrell narrowed his eyes as she removed something from her backpack, stripped off her glasses and began rubbing her face and legs. “So she knows about sun protection, but there’s a whole lot more up here that can make life hard on a woman, including me. She’s not getting past my meadow.”

He glanced at the clouds and mist swirling around the blackrock jagged mountain above him. This was his element now, where he could trim his dark savage temper chopping wood and adding onto his log cabin. Rain was not far away, the air was heavy, fragrant with dampness. When the rain began, she’d change her mind and start back after resting. Then he could return to the peace he had to have....

“I want him to see me coming. I want him to know that I am Cutter Lomax’s granddaughter and that I’m taking away his family homestead.” Celine Lomax smiled tightly, coldly. After a full year of working to destroy Tyrell Blaylock, she was closing in to take away the Blaylock land. She’d spent her entire savings to finance recouping the land that was her birthright, according to her grandfather, Cutter Lomax. She knew his flaws, but they hadn’t stopped her love of him. Perhaps it was Cutter’s strength; her father and his son, Link, had been a much weaker man who failed at everything. Perhaps it was his expression when he talked about the land that had been taken from him. Or perhaps she’d always fought for the underdog, and Cutter’s lost claim appealed to that element of her nature. She, who had only two men for relatives, had held them close and dear, despite their flaws. Whatever the reason, she believed her deceased grandfather, without question.

As a surveyor, she had the skill to demolish the Blaylock claim to land Cutter Lomax said was rightfully his. She’d built her life, chosen her career, for this moment. Cutter’s revenge had been passed on to his son, Celine’s father, and she’d teethed on revenge. Now it was hers to carry out.

The unmarried, pampered, playboy baby of the Blaylocks was the perfect starting point

Today, she was edgy, tired and riding on nerves and coffee. For years, she’d worked overtime in freezing sleet, snow higher than her head and egg-frying temperatures. She’d hoarded every penny to finance tearing down the Blaylocks and their friend Boone Llewlyn. Except for long silk thermal underwear that was worth the high price, her wardrobe ran to anything she could wad into a duffel bag and wash in an icy creek. If she needed more, she stopped in a thrift shop along the way.

Light rain began and mist layered the meadow ahead of her. She shifted her aching shoulders under the heavy backpack that contained everything she owned. She’d paid her father and grandfather’s medical bills and spared nothing for herself. She’d teethed on “taking down the Blaylocks,” a phrase repeated by both men and now she was primed for action.

Raindrops fell from the shimmering aspens, dampening her clothing. She inhaled the mist, loving it. She preferred to work outdoors, rather than in an office. Her jacket was in her backpack; she should have been cold, but her fast march and her dark mood kept her warm. Celine was halfway across the alpine meadow, lush with mountain grass and gleaming with dew, when she saw him.

She gripped a damp stalk and tore it from the fragrant mountain earth. Through the layers of rain and mist, she recognized Tyrell Blaylock from the photograph she’d taken of him waiting for a New York taxi. He’d had the lean look of a predator, narrowed black eyes, taut jaw and a mouth that looked as if it had been cut into stone. This man’s face was just as hard and hawkish, bones thrusting against his dark skin, though on that New York city sidewalk he had been dressed in a designer shirt and tie, and an expensive pin-striped suit.

Now rain shimmered on his body and he had that same alert, impatient hawkish look. Cutter had said that the Blaylocks resembled their Apache and Spanish conquistadors’ ancestors, that they were a dark, gleaming, powerfully-built family. Cutter had said you could tell a Blaylock by their “Spanish eyes”—expressive eyes—and now this tall, rangy man’s were spearing her.

Unnoticed by him, she’d studied him six months ago. She’d expected Tyrell Blaylock’s straight, gleaming, blue-black Native American hair to be neatly, expensively clipped. She hadn’t expected the heavy shoulder-length cut to be pushed back from his hard-boned face with a sweaty red bandanna headband. The twin narrow braids framing his face added to the savage look.

She hadn’t expected the sweat gleaming on the dark skin of his bare chest, and his taut, powerful arms. His muscles rippled across his body as he walked smoothly toward her. She jumped when a taut muscle on his chest contracted suddenly, the dark nipple shifting on the smooth, gleaming surface. Celine blinked. An expensive gym-pampered body was smooth, but the ridges shifting under Tyrell Blaylock’s darkly tanned skin were those of a workman, more defined, edgy, taut. Wearing only his worn jeans and the red bandanna tied over his forehead, Tyrell could have emerged from the West a century ago. The long knife sheathed at his waist did not soften his appearance.

When he stood near her, Celine fought a shiver. His worn moccasins were locked to the spring earth, long hard legs braced wide, and his arms crossed over his chest in a forbidding pose. Tyrell Blaylock, up close and away from his city veneer, towered over her five-foot-six height. And there was nothing friendly in his black, searing eyes. Maybe she’d gone too far, maybe she’d pushed Tyrell over the edge.... How would he react when she told him...? She couldn’t worry about Tyrell’s sensitivity; she’d come too far, committed too much to his destruction. “I’m Celine Lomax and you are Tyrell Blaylock, lately of New York and Mason Diversified. We’ve never met. Spare me the ‘how do you do’s.”’

His black brows scowled down at her, and Celine braced herself for what she had promised Cutter and her father she’d do — take away Blaylock land. Cutter had blamed Luke Blaylock, Tyrell’s grandfather, for gaining the affections of Garnet, the woman he wanted. He’d blamed Boone Llewlyn for thwarting his real estate plans; he’d blamed them both for ruining his life and fortune. He’d blamed Celine for being female instead of the grandson who could reclaim his land, and Cutter had died a bitter man. “I see you recognize the name. Cutter Lomax was my grandfather. I’ve come to survey and make good my grandfather’s claim on what is now Blaylock land. Don’t worry. I don’t intend to take the whole Blaylock and Llewlyn land, but I am reclaiming Cutter Lomax’s honor and his land. You’ve heard of Cutter Lomax, of course. He is a legend in this country. The Blaylocks and Boone Llewlyn were afraid of him. That’s why they ruined him.”

“How did you know about New York and Mason Diversified?” His words were clipped, deep and laden with warning, each one hitting her like lightning bolts. Those black eyes slowly took in her worn sweater, her ragged cutoff khaki pants and her worn hiking boots, topped by thick socks.

Celine lifted her head. She didn’t need dresses or New York designer labels; she had money enough to do what she had to do. She’d have to work while ferreting out the truth, but she’d always worked, keeping house for Cutter and her father for as long as she could remember. They’d said her mother didn’t love her, that she hadn’t cared enough to stay. Celine had Cutter and her father, and then they were gone after years of drinking and mourning their loss to the Blaylocks.

Their revenge had become hers; their anger at the Blaylocks was one of her first memories. She’d come this far and now she pushed out the words she’d been savoring, shafting them at him. “You’re licking your bruises, Blaylock, and I’m the one who gave them to you. You won’t be dissecting struggling little mail-order companies anymore and shoving them into Mason Diversified’s hungry jaws. You won’t be boxing in and buying shares for takeovers anymore. But hey, maybe you could work in one of their label factories — packing shipping boxes or something. Let’s sea — they were a label company until you moved in. Then they became international, and with your calculator for brains, they started grasping struggling little companies. They had to ship those mail-order products, so you watched for a sinking company and moved in for the kill. You revamped Mason’s financial structure and employee benefits, and streamlined operations. I can see why Mason believed everything. As chief financial officer, you knew too much, had too much control and powerful friends, and you posed a threat to him.”

His gaze ripped down her body, then jarred as it locked with hers. “Lomax,” he said flatly, as if the word stood for trouble.

“You got it, Blaylock. The name is Lomax. The company I was working for sent me to do the survey on a building and parking lot for Mason Diversified’s in Montana. I caught the name on the contract and dug out a few facts, like Jasmine, Wyoming, home of the Blaylocks, who my grandfather said stole away his life. He hated the Blaylocks and Boone Llewlyn and for good reason. He died penruless and so did my father, and I paid their bills. They should have had an easier life...thanks to the Blaylocks and that land-grabber Boone Llewlyn, they didn’t. It wasn’t hard to follow your trail back to corporate headquarters in New York, and guess what? There was the baby of the Blaylocks, right in my sight.”

“You...are the woman who ‘accidentally’ bumped into my fian—to Hillary Mason in a shopping mall and said that you were pregnant with my child? That we had a toddler at home and you were destitute because I wasn’t providing for you?” The words were carefully placed, echoing loudly when Tyrell’s voice was deep and soft, too soft.

Celine forced a cheerful smile. That hit-and-run disguise had worked; they’d never find the woman again. His frown deepened. “You’re the woman who sent the thank-you letter to Mason. You said that I’d sold his private client list to you, contact information that was vital to sales and promotion of products?”

“I was proud of that letter. A few chats with employees who think Mason is insecure and jealous of you, and I was off to the races. I told Mason that I thought it was very nice of him to allow you to sell a ‘best client’ list to a competitor.”

“Mason was too furious and eager to get me out to check on that. You are, of course, the same woman who again bumped into Hillary at the doorway of Mason Diversified Corporate Building. But this time you were dressed in a leopard skin bodysuit and six-inch heels and wearing a long blond wig and fake eyelashes. You asked the way to my office to perform the services I had requested at noon? You hoped you wouldn’t get that much oil on my desk this time?” His eyes drifted down her compact, athletic body and her worn clothing.

The leopard-seductress image didn’t fit her now; she’d played the part to perfection and even enjoyed dressing up as a femme fatale. The seductress-for-one-day could never be traced. Celine allowed her smile to grow. “I was on rest and relaxation leave from my company. New York seemed to be the place to visit. Your ex-fiancée was shocked. Especially when I told her that all of my ‘working’ girlfriends knew and liked you.”

“Exactly how did you get your information about me?” His question was like a whip cracking the cold, misty air.

“Your secretary is such a motherly woman. We had a chat in the ladies’ room. That day, I was the scrub woman down on my luck.” She almost felt guilty. When she’d begun sobbing, Mary’s arms had enclosed her like a mother’s. But Celine didn’t know about a mother’s arms, and she had a job to do—get revenge.

“You took advantage of Mary’s soft heart. That wasn’t nice, Lomax. You realize that you can get into legal trouble for damaging my reputation and career. You wouldn’t like the penalties. Why would you admit this now? To me?”

“I wondered when you’d get to that. You won’t raise a fuss. You’ll protect your family and your reputation — what’s left of it. You won’t want anyone knowing that the Blaylocks and Llewlyn were land grabbers. It’s all so simple, Blaylock. I want you to see me coming. I knew you’d run back here to lick your bruises —”

One black eyebrow lifted, challenging her; the morning air sizzled with electricity. Tyrell’s gaze drifted lazily over her face. “Lick my bruises? Run back here?” he repeated slowly, the sound was that of a wolf growling low in its throat just before he—

She’d been threatened before; it was her earliest memory. “You’re here, aren’t you? And not cuddled up to Hillary-poo?”

“Let’s keep on track, Lomax. Why did you choose me? I’ve got a big family.”

“You’re the baby, Blaylock. The soft spot of the family. Five brothers and one sister and they all dote on you. You were prime for the picking, like a big juicy tomato. I checked out your career and reputation and then I studied you. There you were, standing on that street corner, waiting for a taxi. You fairly dripped in expensive designer labels, you checked time on a wristwatch that cost more than some cars. And you just had that spoiled, pampered city-boy look.”

She took a breath. “I just didn’t like you when I saw you. I didn’t care if my tactics worked. I was coming to Jasmine anyway to survey Lomax land, but taking you down — you know, a Lomax taking down a Blaylock, was just something I had to try. I had time off, and pushing a Blaylock out of his cushy job seemed right. If your fiancée and your boss hadn’t believed me, that was just fine, too. But it was worth the effort, and it paid off, didn’t it?”

Anger boiled out of her as she drove home the spear. Tyrell Blaylock had everything and an easy life road; she’d had to scrimp and work for every penny. He’d zipped through college on academic and athletic scholarships; she’d had to care for her sick grandfather and father and work for grocery money, and provide for them. They were all she had — they said her mother had run off when she was only a year old. She hadn’t had tune to date, but finally, as a teenager, she reached for romance. What she found was brief, painful sex in the back seat of a car.

She studied his tall angular body. A man with Tyrell’s looks would have found everything so easy, including sex; she resented that, too. “You were looking at a solid-gold future with the Masons. I wanted to ruin you just as your grandfather and his friend Boone ruined my grandfather. So I gave you a few well-picked Christmas presents and you went down.”

“That’s called stalking, Lomax. I could stop everything with one phone call to the police, but I won’t. I’m going to enjoy the look on your face when you find out that the land has always been Blaylock.” Tyrell’s expression shifted slightly, the corner of his mouth quirking as though he was restraining a grin. He reached to run his thumb along her cheek. “A drop of sun lotion you didn’t rub in when you stopped to eat that sandwich,” he explained.

He’d been watching her. Just as she had watched him. A slight cold chill lifted the hair on her nape. Men just did not watch her, she was part of a work crew—a brief passing glance during a poker game was tops and that was to see if she was bluffing. Now, Tyrell Blaylock was dissecting her piece by piece. Celine inhaled and locked herself to what she had to do; she couldn’t be derailed by him searching out every freckle on her face, by studying her green eyes... well, one did have that spot of brown. She fought the shiver that lifted the hair on her nape; she hadn’t been studied that close — ever. She brushed away the thought that Tyrell was looking at her as a prospective sensual encounter. Men considered her as one of the boys.

She tried to ignore his slow gaze traveling over her cropped reddish-blond curls. She jerked her head to one side as he plucked a leaf from her hair and showed it to her, his eyebrows lifting innocently. She really did not like that slight curve to his mouth, just that bit of lift that said he wasn’t taking her seriously. He would...once she dug out old abstracts, journals and anything else she could find to prove her case. “You’re only thirty-seven, Blaylock. You can build a new career. You’re just —”

She released a smirk and eyed him. “You’re just taking a time-out now, and everyone knows you’re too high powered for this little burg. I saw you there in New York and you looked just exactly like my grandfather said Luke Blaylock looked, like ‘the lord of the land.’ I knew you were the perfect place to begin. I checked you out. You like numbers and take-overs. You won scholarships and aced college, the whole bit. You’re very smart. The braids are a nice touch, by the way. If you’re trying for a warrior effect. A city boy playing at macho games — my, my.”

His smile was tight and chilling. “Thank you for that much. You’re half my size, you’re on my mountain, and you’re calling me out — threatening me and my family. I suppose you’re also the woman who called Diversified’s switchboard. You left a message for me to bring a can of whipped cream, my Tarzan loincloth and lots of scented oil for our date at that sleazy hotel? It was a bit overkill, wasn’t it?”

She’d really put everything she had into that scenario. Pushing away a smirk, she blinked up at him innocently. “Oh, dear. Did I leave that message for Mason to give to you? How silly of me. And my size hasn’t got anything to do with —”

“And you’ve got a fast mouth.” Those black eyes dipped quickly to her mouth, searing it, then jerked back up to lock with her eyes. “You’re going to need much more than threats to deal with me or take any portion of my family’s land away. Tell me why you think you have claim to my family land.”

She lifted her chin, glaring up at him. Raindrops dripped steadily from the brim of her ball cap. She inched to the left to avoid the steady drip coming from the aspen limbs above her. “My grandfather said so.”

He lifted those black eyebrows and reached to switch her cap backward, revealing her face. His dark narrowed gaze sliced at her. “And that’s it?”

Celine jerked her ball cap visor around to shield her expression. One remark about her freckles or her family and she’d—“It’s enough. He wouldn’t lie. He told me the whole story, again and again. It never changed — He bought several pieces of property and he had a deed, the boundaries marked. He had a good house in a high mountain canyon and he was just getting a good start in ranching when your grandfather and Boone decided they wanted the land. They said it was Blaylock and Llewlyn land and that he had no right to it. They said that he’d bought a small piece of property by threatening the owners and then had moved the boundary markers on their land. Then Luke Blaylock, your grandfather and sheriff at the time, kept after him and he couldn’t work to pay the lawyers. The judge who sent him to prison on various robbery charges and assault was bought somehow, or the witnesses were. Then the Blaylocks got the land.”

Celine sucked in air, her temper raging. “I’m a surveyor, Blaylock, and a good one. I know how to read courthouse records, abstracts, and dig at the truth. If a rebar—a metal boundary marker—has been moved one inch, I’ll know. If a pile of rocks serving as a boundary in pioneer times has been moved, I’ll know. If a stone marker has been sandblasted to erase the chiseled inscription, I’ll know.” She narrowed her eyes behind her round tinted glasses and leveled a stare at him. She hoped the raindrops and steam on her lenses wouldn’t diminish the impact of her threat. “I’m especially good at forged deeds. I chose my career with just this moment in mind — to bring down the Blaylocks.”

Celine forced herself not to move as Tyrell lazily reached out a big hand. He lifted her ball cap and eased a finger through her jumble of curls. She forced herself to stand still; she wouldn’t be intimidated by his size. Celine fought a shiver as Tyrell said slowly, “Let me get this straight. You’re dedicated to proving your grandfather’s...belief was the truth.”

He was toying with her hair, winding it around his finger, studying the strands, and not taking her seriously. If there was one thing that could set off her Lomax temper, it was a man taking her too lightly. Celine wished he hadn’t seen her hands curl into fists; the quick glint of satisfaction in his eyes said he had. She grabbed her ball cap and jerked it down on her head. “Cutter Lomax would not lie to me. Those boundary markers were moved, and he did not commit robbery. The sheriff, your grandfather, sent an innocent man to jail and then took his land!”

Tyrell’s lazy gaze lowered to study her expression. She hated her own intensity and wished she were more skilled at covering her emotions — she wasn’t; she had never played games. He spoke slowly, “You’re serious about this. You actually want to reopen Cutter’s old feud. You want revenge.”

She pounced on the words, “feud” and “revenge.” It was to her benefit that Tyrell knew this was not a whim, but a need that drove her every breath. “You got it, buddy.”

“Well, then,” he said slowly. He stretched slowly and traced a deer moving through the woods. Celine blinked at all that male body rippling in front of her. Working in the field, she’d seen men without shirts, but they were just — she swallowed abruptly as an unfamiliar need stabbed at her. Just a feminine little lurch that she couldn’t define. Celine liked everything m black-and-white descriptions, surveyed in neat definite lines with boundary markers; she did not like unsteady emotions.

Tyrell’s slow smile might have devastated another woman. “I guess you’ve got to deal with me. I appreciate the notice. And thanks for referring to me as a ‘big juicy tomato.’ I’m honored, and you’ve gone to all this trouble, too, to pick me from my vine. My, that makes me feel so special.”

She nodded grimly, satisfied that Tyrell was taking her as a serious threat. Then the notion struck her that Tyrell Blaylock, the man she’d ruined, was flirting with her. Uncertain, she eyed him through her steamy glasses. Only men desperate for women in her remote work sites had ever made passes at her. She’d squashed those ideas without hesitation. For the most part, the men she knew considered her efficient, precise and one of the boys.

A man, not one of the boys, stood in front of her, towering over her. Tyrell Blaylock was sleek, hard and unshaken by her threat. She eyed him; maybe he had a dual personality and could flip back at any moment to his sleek city-hunter image. Either way, she had him tacked to the wall and she wasn’t backing off.

His high cheekbones gleamed, a muscle moving rhythmically in his jaw. “Let’s just keep this between us, shall we, Lomax?”

“You’re already bargaining, Blaylock. That makes me happy. I’ve got you worried and that’s a good sign.”

He lifted that disbelieving eyebrow again. “You could be wrong. All you have is your grandfather’s side of the story.”

“I’m not wrong. But I agree that it would make my research easier if your family and neighbors didn’t worry about protecting their land. After I get the information I need, I’ll turn my case over to an attorney. Or your family can pay me for the land and we’ll assess damages, starting with all the medical bills of my grandfather and father.” Her stomach twisted painfully. The markers over their graves were the cheapest — She looked away from Tyrell, stiff with pain in her body and her mind.

“Do you agree that the rest of my family won’t enter this?” Tyrell asked slowly, defining the ground rules and pushing her.

She hated being pushed. She waited because she knew he wanted an answer, and she wasn’t ready to give it to him. “Hey. I’m setting the ground rules. I’m the one with a plan. I’m in control of this gig, got it? This isn’t a fancy boardroom. I’m not obligated to you.”

“You are if you want to stay out of jail and work as a surveyor again. I’m happy to play your little busybody game—”

She turned on him, burning with fury. She could have leaped upon him and — “‘Busybody game’?”

He lowered his head, meeting her glare. His fist gripped her sweater to draw her up on the tip of her toes. “You’ve got a temper, Lomax. You push my family and I’ll call in a few favors. I didn’t leave corporate America because I was forced out. I had job offers and colleagues who would have stood with me. I walked.”

“That’s a lie. I ruined you. Me...a Lomax, and you’re not blackmailing me. I don’t go down easy. You’re living up here in a cabin because you’re broke and hiding out. High wheelers and dealers can lose it as easy as they make it. Or maybe it’s just good old shame that you’ve been kicked out.”

“‘A lie,”’ he repeated slowly, dangerously, as if no one had ever dared speak to him like that. The vein in his throat stood out in relief. He hitched her a fraction higher, his breath sweeping across her face as their stares locked. “I’ll bet that backpack is heavy,” he said slowly.

“Not a bit,” she lied, though the straps would probably leave chafe marks. Her tiptoes barely touched the ground, but she wasn’t frightened. If Blaylock wanted to test her, that was fine. She’d lived with bullies all her life. “I’ve walked across deserts carrying this weight and more.”

His eyes darkened and shot down to her mouth. She licked her lips and hoped she didn’t have a crumb of that last cookie on them — that would nun her going-for-the-kill image.

“You like gingersnap cookies, do you, Lomax?” he asked in a tone that sent a jolt of electricity to every tense muscle in her body. There was just a hint of play, of curiosity, and something darker, deeper, more elemental.

Celine tensed. Whatever the ball game was right now, she didn’t know how to play. Tethered by his grip, she glared at him. In her lifetime, when uncertain, she’d found that glaring was always a safe defensive move. Tyrell’s eyes narrowed pinning her. The air seemed to slither, tingle and heat as if it were alive; it sucked away her breath, and sent tiny thunderbolts through her body. That uncertain churning in her stomach had to be too little sleep and too much coffee. She pushed away the unfamiliar tense emotion and went for a solid jab on what she suspected might be a tender spot. “When Papa jerked your position, she didn’t want a working man. Hillary-poo chose not to believe you, didn’t she? And then she couldn’t leave Papa’s money for someone who is down and out, could she?”

His expression darkened, tightened and then he abruptly released her sweater. He rubbed his jaw and the sound of beard against his rough palm echoed eerily in the misty air. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re not exactly sweet?”

“You’re hurting my feelings, Blaylock,” she shot at him cheerfully. She blew away the raindrop that had been clinging to the end of her nose.

His expression softened, humor dancing in his black eyes. “You’re wet clear through, Lomax. A pitiful soggy little thing.”

She snorted at the “little thing.” She’d worked right beside her crew, blazing heat and freezing ice storms. She’d hauled wood for campfires, climbed mountains and — “At least I’m dressed, not standing half-naked in a drenching rain and playing at being a mountain man.”

Tyrell looked slowly down her body and Celine realized that her flesh had chilled, her nipples thrusting against the damp sweater. She usually wore a vest in the cold, but men’s chests did the same thing in cold weather. She was sturdily built, probably a gift from her Scots-Irish ancestors. She watched, fascinated as a dark flush rose up his cheeks. He closed his eyes, groaned and turned, striding through the wet grass away from her.

“Hey! I’m not done with you,” she shouted, trudging after him through the sodden meadow. “You haven’t heard all the good stuff yet. You’re just a typical male, you know...running when things get tough.”

He turned his head to glower at her over his shoulder, then turned and kept walking.

“Running, huh?” she called, enjoying herself for the first time in—in forever. Her grin stopped when he allowed a small wet branch to flip back in her face. She sputtered, mopping the water from her face as she hurried after him. “You did that on purpose. I should have expected something sneaky like that from a Blaylock.”

Her backpack slipped and as she struggled to tug it back up again, her glasses went awry. Tyrell appeared out of the mist and stripped the backpack away. Dangling from his large hand, it looked like a toy. With his other hand, he straightened her glasses. “Coming, dear?” he asked between his teeth. “Or don’t you know enough to get out of the rain?”

Celine tensed, leaning toward him, her fists at her side. Tyrell’s mouth jerked as though he were hiding a grin. She wouldn’t tolerate anyone making fun of her. “Are you calling me a ‘twit’?”

“If the name fits —” Tyrell easily blocked the fist she shot at his stomach. Without missing a heartbeat, he slid her glasses from her and pushed them into her hand. “Here. Hold these.”

Then he bent and scooped her over his shoulder and began loping easily through the forest. He carried her over the narrow path as if she were a child.

Tyrell jerked open his cabin door and eased through it, carrying his squirming burden. That compact, squirming body had muscles, and Celine knew how to swear. Just what he would expect from Cutter Lomax’s granddaughter.

She was stubborn, willful, hot-tempered, and he felt a warm glow just looking at her. As he looked down at her in the rain-drenched meadow he wasn’t happy about the odd light-hearted feeling curling around him. Bristling, threatening him and his family, and scented of gingersnap cookies, rain and mist, she was loyal and untouched — Untouched. Every male instinct he had told him that Celine was an innocent. Defenseless, alone and fiercely defending her grandfather’s lies as truth, Celine Lomax hadn’t a clue that he’d found her interesting—as a woman.

Two

In Micah Blaylock’s refinished log cabin, Tyrell knew how hi ancestor must have felt, wanting to claim his reluctant bride The thought shocked him; he had streamlined his life and wasn’t prepared for elemental emotions for a woman.

Tyrell fought a groan. He’d just escaped a cold, empty life with Hillary Mason. The last thing he needed to do now was to stand in a Rocky Mountain meadow, watch Celine’s soft sweet mouth hurl threats at him and notice that she was al woman. That she was firm, soft in the right places and had hai that magically, silkily curled around his finger, ensnaring and delighting him. The same color as her lashes, the strand seemed to sparkle in the cloudy day, the varied sun-lightened shades warming his fingers. He’d wanted to run a fingertip across her lashes, those long softly bristling lashes with spark flashing at the tips, and those freckles. He’d wondered if they danced on the rest of that milky skin.... If a grown man could swoon, he almost did when she’d smirked. Those flashing green eyes turned sultry, darkening. An intoxicating little dimple had played on her left cheek; he’d begun to wonder how it would feel beneath his fingertips and how her bottom would feel cupped in his hands.

Celine Lomax’s bottom. It was now propped over his shoulder. He glanced at his hand, open and splayed, possessively digging in on her bottom. The soft flowing surface burned his palm. He frowned and forced his fingers to straighten, his palm rigid and flat He lifted his hand slightly away. She’d ruined his career; she should be hauled into court and—

She believed Cutter Lomax; she wouldn’t believe anything else until Cutter’s lies were proven wrong. Cutter’s reputation for land fraud, shakedown and other money-making schemes was legendary. Tyrell’s grandfather, Luke Blaylock, had gained a scar from Cutter’s blade; he’d tried to stop Cutter from mistreating a worn-out horse.

She’d stopped screaming and wiggling. She was using the limp, deadweight method to wear him down. Tyrell hefted Celine from his shoulder and plopped her into a chair. Her body balled as if to hurl herself at him. Celine’s furious green eyes dominated her pale face, her mouth pressed into a tight line. Under her ball cap, which was on sideways, her curls seemed to explode, fiery red around her face. One dainty ear was framed in her curls. It was a delectable ear, unpierced and sweet. A virgin ear. He wanted to nibble on it.

Every muscle in his body flexed; goose bumps rode his body. Instincts he’d hidden from the world shot him a solid thump, low in his stomach. He breathed uneasily, shaken by the need to take her to his bed. In the small one room, he caught her scent and hoped his nostrils didn’t quiver, inhaling every nuance. She smelled like rain on a tender rosebud as yet unfurled — sweet, tight and exciting to explore.

Tyrell did not want to explore Celine Lomax; he wanted her out of his life. He shoved the backpack no woman her size ought to be carrying into her hands. He ran his hands down his wet face, plucked off her ball cap and tossed a dry towel over her head. “It’s raining sheets out there. The creeks will be swollen by now and —”

She hadn’t moved, the towel remained draped over her head. Rain ran down her bare legs and a pool of water formed around her worn boots. Tyrell studied her as he swept another towel over his head, chest and arms. He hurled it and the wet bandanna from his forehead into a corner and watched her, his hands braced on his hips.

He wanted to kick off his sodden moccasins. But Cindi, his brother Roman’s adopted daughter, had painted his toenails and braided his hair as he slept yesterday. Tyrell studied Celine under the towel, small capable hands fisting her backpack. He studied those hands — compact and strong, just like her. Unpainted nails, blunt working tips and white knuckles — she was in a snit, all right. So was he. He wasn’t happy about discovering his shocking interest in a woman who wanted to destroy him.

He decided to let her sulk and turned to stuff wood into the old iron stove to warm the cabin. She’d tromped into his retreat; he wasn’t the offender. He simply wanted to take time to realign his life...without distraction. Tyrell wasn’t a man to be distracted easily. He glanced back at her. She sat very still Too still.

He could almost feel the whack of his mother’s behave yourself wooden spoon on his shoulder. The Blaylock males were trained to honor and treat women well. That spoon now belonged to his sister, Else, and she wouldn’t have been happy with him packing this fierce little fireball into his sacred lair.

He scowled at Celine Lomax, troublemaker in his life. He knew he had a savage temper, the surface of which was only scratched even when he discovered Hillary and her father’s rejection. He knew that of all the Blaylocks, he was perhaps the most elemental, and that was why he protected himself with an icy veneer. Deep within him, Tyrell knew that he had inherited arrogance and passion from his conquistador and Apache ancestors. He’d learned to conceal it early, and even in lovemaking, he was controlled. But the mountain fed his need to release that savage passion and here, in the wilds, he was free of tethers.

Tyrell studied Celine’s damp, gleaming legs. He could almost feel them around him, the slender feminine muscles tightening — His body lurched sensually, unexpectedly. He frowned at the towel covering Celine’s head and crossed his arms over his bare chest. She’d invaded his woman-free retreat. Still bitter about Hillary’s defection, he wanted a temporary breather from the whole female sex and he did not like bumps in his life. Celine was definitely a strawberry-blond bump.

He swallowed tightly, fear rising in him. Maybe she was crying. Hillary cried prettily to get her way, some new bauble or a glittering social event that he didn’t want to attend; Celine’s cry would be genuine. His stomach clenched again. Celine Lomax was too real, emotions pouring off her like molten lava. He ran his hand over his stomach as an old ulcer threatened to start up; one delicate sob from Celine and he didn’t trust himself. He scowled at her; she was unbalancing not only his life, but his emotions. A man who prided himself on cool logic, Tyrell looked at her uncertainly and waited.

From beneath the towel, she spoke quietly, biting the words. “You’re bigger and stronger. It’s a typical male ploy to use strength when threatened. But you’re outmatched.”

Tyrell didn’t like the bully-image she’d just hurled at him. He did like those flashing green eyes. Celine Lomax was definitely a passionate woman, all engines running full speed ahead, the air humming around her. Her hair seemed to foam into a brilliant, curling mass around her head, framing her small, set face. He pushed away the grin playing around his mouth. “Oh? How so?”

She ripped the towel away and stood. She jammed on her glasses and lifted both strawberry-blond eyebrows. “Because I’m right. I’ll prove that I’m right,” she stated firmly.

Tyrell almost admired her. Her loyalty to the cruel man who had torn apart lives was unquestionable. Cutter Lomax was notorious for his temper and his schemes.

Hillary’s loyalties ran to herself and money; this woman had wagered everything on a man’s word—a grandfather she loved deeply—without question.

She glanced around his neat cabin, the wood flooring planks he had just repaired, the single bed and spartan table and chairs. “So this is what I’ve reduced you to. Not quite the old upscale town house, is it? The sunken living room, designer furniture, that neat little office with a big window overlooking the city? Oh, my. I hope you’re not missing that pretty stainless-steel kitchen and the fancy gadgets. What? No cappuccino maker?”

Tyrell did miss that cappuccino maker. Now he knew how she’d gotten Mason’s top client list. She had mentioned enough names to seem authentic. “Don’t tell me. The maid, right?”

“Hey, Elaina was glad for the help that day. She’s got a brood at home, you know. The youngest had the flu and was up all night. I helped her clean her house, of course, and she did need the money — her husband is out of work and it was Christmas. I liked her and just helped tidy a bit. I went home with her and she took a luxury bath while I cooked supper and helped the kids with homework.”

She scanned the cabin, taking in the paperbacks neatly stacked against the wall and the kerosene lantern on the table next to the rough-hewn, homemade bed. “I’d expect a black-silk-sheet guy like you to hole up in something more classy than a mountain cabin.” She hitched up the backpack. “Gee whiz, no high-priced entertainment center, wide-screen TV and sound system here. Got to run. I’ve got a lot to do, taking Lomax land back.”

Tyrell struggled to keep his expression impassive. He really resented that little tic above his left eye.

She glanced around at the cabin again. “You can’t face them, can you? Tyrell, the Blaylock failure. Ruined by a Lomax. I’ll bet you brought a consolation prize here, some woman all sympathetic and sweet Most men like someone around to make them feel all big and strong when they’re down.”

“You’re all wet, Lomax, in more ways than one. You’ll get sick out there in the cold rain because you’ve been stubborn. Then you won’t be able to dig out those nasty little land-grabbing secrets.” Tyrell stared meaningfully at the wet sweater clinging to her chest. For just a heartbeat, he wondered about those freckles on that silky skin and how they would taste. Then he pushed away the idea of Celine’s compact body against his, beneath his. He was getting tired of being pitched into an overstuffed bin of “typical males.”

“I’m wearing a backpack, Blaylock. I carry spares and a raincoat,” she tossed back and glanced around for a separate room in which to change.

When her questioning look returned to him, Tyrell crossed his arms over his bare chest and looked steadily at her. “Take your pick of any room you want,” he said and glanced meaningfully around the single room.

When she blushed and averted her face, he knew with disgust that she fascinated him. That he wanted to protect her. That nothing would be right until he drew that sassy mouth beneath his and kissed her.

“Stop glowering, Blaylock. You’re starting to steam. I’ll step outside to change.”

“No. I’ll go outside,” he said and walked from the cabin, slamming the door after him. He resented that bit of temper, the savage part of him he’d always controlled. As he stood under the porch, watching the sheets of gray rain and brooding over the invasion in his life, Celine opened the door and looked up at him. Dressed in a yellow slicker with a hood, jeans and firemen’s boots, she found him in the shadows. A golden red curl clung, gleaming, to the yellow hood, her glasses like flashing gray steel in the dim light. “Be seeing you. Ta-ta,” she said lightly, then stepped down from the porch and trudged off into the sodden forest.

Tyrell glared at her and fought the growl rising in his throat. Surrounded by tall pines and fir and with cougars and bears hunting prey, she looked like a child merrily skipping off for the school bus on a rainy day. He wouldn’t be waiting at home with chicken soup when she caught a cold and returned.

He shook his head. If she made it past the creek, she’d be fine; few people could cross the dangerous creek in torrential rains. Tyrell ran his hands through his wet hair and they caught on Cindi’s “Braveheart” braids. He tore off his soggy moccasins and his painted toenails mocked him. The fire in the old stove caused him to feel guilty and he didn’t like the nettling burden; he should stay m his nice warm cabin and forget about Celine Lomax, and leave her to her hot-tempered fate.

Tyrell again growled low in his throat and knew that his first take on Celine Lomax was right. She was trouble. Blaylock males were trained to take care of and respect women. Therefore — With a decisive gesture, he shot out a hand to turn down the damper on the stove, slowing the flames. While the fire lowered, Tyrell tore off his wet jeans and dragged on new ones, pushed his feet into socks and boots and lashed them tightly. Celine Lomax would not be on his guilt list, his family was already occupying it.

When his father called that last time, Tyrell should have come home. He didn’t, and then his parents were gone, killed in an accident on icy roads.

Tyrell reached for a thermos. He would not be responsible for Celine Lomax, once he got her off his mountain.

“Maybe I was a bit hasty. My temper has a tendency to cause me to get into trouble at times,” Celine muttered as she clung to a branch, dangling just inches above a swollen, angry creek. If the branch broke, she’d be swept away. Above her, a huge black bear was watching her struggles. “Shoo,” she shouted. “I’m all out of gingersnaps.”

She looked up at the man standing on the ground above her. “Oh, hello,” she managed cheerfully and tried for a smile. The branch she was clinging to began to crack, resenting her weight.

Within the hood of his yellow slicker, Tyrell Blaylock’s dark face scowled down at her. Then his hand shot down to claim her wrist, and in a second, he hauled her up and to her feet. The branch cracked and hurled into the foaming, rushing swollen creek.

“I was doing just fine,” Celine said, returning his glare. She was bone-chillingly cold, her muddy jeans plastered against her legs. She struggled against the hand that cupped the back of her head while Tyrell wiped a clean red bandanna over her muddy face. She gasped for air and pushed at him.

He held her more tightly and mopped the cloth over her face one more time. Tyrell Blaylock’s slow devastating grin knocked the air she’d just reclaimed from her terror. “Typical. Now this is where you tell me that you were right and I was wrong, right?”

“Are you always this mouthy?” With one finger, he hooked her glasses from her face; he edged aside his raincoat and began cleaning them with the bottom of his black sweatshirt.

She sniffed. “I’m a Lomax, remember. I speak my mind,” she stated in a very proper tone. She watched him, warily as his grin remained. She plucked her glasses from him and thrust them on. Her quick mind shot for his problems like a dart on its way to the big red X. “So things aren’t that good with your family, either, huh? You can’t go to them and ask for money, can you, hotshot?”

The scowl jerked back. Tyrell’s jaw tightened and she knew that she’d hit a tender wound. She almost felt sorry for him. He looked like a shaggy outcast, scarred and wary of kindness. She almost put her hand on his cheek. But she couldn’t soothe a Blaylock; her grandfather had cursed her kind heart more than once. Cutter had said they were a treacherous lot, all tall and dark and moody, especially the men. They were hunters, Cutter had said, and savages beneath the fancy manners they used with women.

Because she’d betrayed Cutter’s memory, she dug in and attacked. “You had everything you wanted, didn’t you? I’ll bet your family missed you when you tore off into the world with all those scholarships in your fist. I checked your favorite airline’s records...you didn’t visit that much and when you did, you didn’t stay. Jasmine telephone calls were few since you were eighteen. Oh, you came back for your brothers’ weddings, but you didn’t stay. So, there’s big family trouble, and it’s a close family from what I heard at the gas station. So you must have hurt them. It’s an easy deduction. You’re up here. They’re down in the valley.”

“We visit,” he explained tightly, and glanced across the creek to the bear. “Let’s go.”

She crossed her arms. She’d let him off the hook for now. Her family life had been yells and threats and pain and revenge. Close, demonstrative and loving families were not in her experience, despite her love for Cutter and her father. She had believed in her grandfather without that comfort.

Tyrell had his soft spots and one of hers was not to be treated like a delicate piece of fluff. She’d managed her own life since she was old enough to feed herself. “I’m not going anywhere with you and do not pick me up again. I’m not a child. That typical macho stuff won’t work with me and besides that, you look like you’ve had enough of a bad day. You should go back to your nice little cabin. Stay there, why don’t you, while I tidy up my grandfather’s claim.”

“Uh-huh.” He glanced at the tree that had just been torn free by the rushing, churning water. He fished a small thermos bottle from the rain jacket he was wearing and thrust it at her.

Exhausted, determined to take nothing from a Blaylock, Celine hesitated before her hands settled on the warm thermos bottle.

“It’s coffee,” said the man who wasn’t her prince. His voice was raw, as if something was sticking low in his throat and couldn’t decide whether to come out as a growl or a groan. He looked tense and angry. “Warmed over, but hot. Are you going to drink it, or love it?”

She realized she’d been smoothing the shape with one hand, an up and down motion, enjoying the warmth on her frozen fingers. She studied him as she twisted the cup free from the bottle. She poured the hot coffee into the cup and said, “I suppose you’re going to catch a cold and blame it on me.”

The sound coming from Tyrell was definitely a choked growl.

“You’re afraid of me, aren’t you?” she pushed, smirking at her triumph. She sipped the hot coffee. “Ah, there’s nothing like a slug of hot coffee on a rainy day. But don’t think coffee will make points with me. I’m not backing off.”

An hour and a half later, she wished she hadn’t gone to sleep on Tyrell’s hard shoulder. She sniffed delicately, her nose against his throat. Scented of wood smoke and leather and that darkly intense, brooding scent, Tyrell tensed, glaring down at her; he edged slightly away. She pushed herself into the opposite corner. “I’m not happy, Blaylock,” she muttered drowsily, trying to push away the heavy weight of lost sleep. “You can’t just carry me down a mountain, and shove me into your four-wheeler.”

The sleek, roomy, leather-cushioned monster cost more than thirty of her junkyard pickups, bonded by wire and tape, and running on bald tires. “I’ll bet you’re behind on the payments for this rig.”

“Don’t talk.” Tyrell’s big dark hand tightened on the steering wheel, the other shifting the floor gear expertly. The dashboard lights glowed on the taut planes of his face. At that moment, he did look like his conquistador ancestors.

“You can’t handle the truth, can you? That your family land was built on the destruction of the rightful owner? Where are we going?” She studied the tall pine trees on the narrow dirt road, lasered by the vehicle’s lights.

“I am taking you out of my life.” The words were clipped and cold, quivering with frustration.

“You can try, Blaylock,” she said, burrowing into the warm blanket he had briskly tucked around her. She yawned and stretched, and tried valiantly to open her eyes.

The next time she awoke Tyrell was carrying her—back- pack, blanket and all—up the stairs of a lighted porch. Celine studied his profile, that set jaw, the muscle tensing in his cheek. Too bad his black, glossy lashes were so long and straight, shielding his eyes; she wanted to revel in how she’d shaken his safe little world, to see his fear. A tall, dark woman with a friendly face opened the house’s door the same time as Celine tried to squirm out of Tyrell’s arms. He held her tightly against him. Too close and too warm. He looked at her in a narrowed, hot, steamy way and his body seemed to ripple around her.

“See? I told you, you’d catch a cold,” she crowed and shot him her best smirk. His nostrils seemed to flare, his face tightening and darkening. A nasty little tic in his cheek began; the vein in his temple surged.

Celine blinked. Tyrell Blaylock looked nothing like the suit-clad steel stiletto she’d seen on that New York street corner. She had the strange and fascinating notion that this man was not far from his Native American and Spanish ancestors and that now, he wanted to carry her off to his isolated home. She stared at him and wondered why he held her so close, his body seeming to hum to hers.

Her hand, resting on his chest, picked up the hard staccato beat of his heart; heated vibrations that she did not understand started all over her body.

Tyrell glared at her. There was that slight flare of his nostrils again, a tic over his left eye. “You’re an emotional man, Tyrell Blaylock. Maybe too sensitive for your job in New York. I did you a favor.”

The woman at the door laughed outright, undaunted by his glare. “Tyrell? Sensitive?”

“Take...this, Else. She’s muddy and she’s got a mouth that never stops. Her name is Celine Lomax. She needs a place to stay for the night,” he said to the woman who resembled him. He dropped Celine to her feet, snagged her neck with a big, warm hand and shoved her inside. As though an afterthought, he reached inside to rip his blanket from her. He eyed her darkly with enough impact to lift the hair on her nape, then he closed the door between them.

Fully awake now, Celine blinked. A cat was twining around her legs, a friendly-looking man was smiling at her from the living room, and the house was definitely a home, fresh with scents of children and baking bread. Over her dress, Else wore an apron and a small sleepy child tucked on her hip. This was a Blaylock home and one Celine might tear apart.

She wasn’t certain what to say, or how to act. Delicious aromas wafted to her, and as a reminder that she hadn’t eaten, her stomach clenched. Latticed pies sat on a counter, and next to the smiling man was a rocking chair still teetering as if Else had been rocking the child.

Homes terrified Celine—she knew little of them. The warmth in this home reached out to her like a magnet; she’d dreamed of homes like this, and a mother—terror rose, chilling her. She had to escape. “He’s getting away,” she explained hurriedly and opened the door.

Else laughed aloud. “I know. You’re welcome to stay here tonight. But if you’re going to catch my brother, you’d better hurry. My brothers get moldy when they’re not stirred up and Tyrell is definitely—You’ve got him on the run. I wouldn’t lose any advantage by letting him get away like that.”

“I do? You wouldn’t?” Celine turned to study Tyrell’ quick stride toward his four-wheeler. “I do have him on the run, don’t I?”

“He had the last say, you know. I wouldn’t let him get away with that if I were you.”

“You wouldn’t?”

Else grinned, cuddling the sleepy child closer. “If I went you and he dumped me like a stray cat, I’d want him to pay.’

“Thanks. You’re right. I can’t let him get away with shoving me around.” Celine took a second to study Else, the matroi of the Blaylock family. The gas station attendant had said that Else had ruled her brothers and had taken.over her mother’ place in the community. Celine shivered; she didn’t know what a mother’s place was—her mother had walked out.

Else hugged the sleeping child tighter to her and nodded, he eyes dancing with amusement. Celine pushed away that little quiver of warmth, a woman who for the moment agreed with her, almost like a friend. Celine hurried out the door; she couldn’t think about Else Blaylock Murphy now. She had to get Tyrell.

Tyrell Blaylock presented a good, solid target. Above those long jeaned legs and narrow hips, his black sweatshirt covered a good rangy width of back and shoulders. Celine hurled the weight of her body at him; she hit him squarely in the bach with both open hands. He lurched forward a step and pivoted in one motion, crouching slightly. “I’ve had enough of you for one day, Lomax,” he said between his teeth as he straightened He flung the blanket he’d been carrying onto his four-wheelen

“You deserve it. You had no right to drop me off like an unwanted cat. What’s the matter? Can’t take a Lomax? Afraid of me?” she shot at him. As a child, before she’d learned to fend for herself, she’d been shoved into other places and some of them weren’t friendly. She knew she’d been unwanted by her mother, but she didn’t have to take that as an adult—from a Blaylock. Unknowingly Tyrell had really hit a sore spot.

“You’re pushing, Lomax,” he said between his teeth. “I don’t like it.”

“Really?” She slathered the word in delight; she’d gotten to him. She launched her best smirk at him.

His eyes narrowed as he towered over her. Battling her instincts to step back, Celine deepened her smirk up at him. She knew she was getting to him because that tiny muscle above his left eye started quivering.

“It’s the dimple,” he muttered with disgust, just before he pulled her into his arms and fused his mouth to hers.

She’d been kissed before—when she was an experimenting teenager. She hadn’t had time to explore her own needs, and that one brief painful teenage experience with sex was enough to last forever.

Stunned, she stared at Tyrell’s closed lashes, the line between his brows. Enclosed by his arms, by the heat coming from his body, Celine reached for his hair to pull him away. Her fists latched to the sleek damp strands and then the incredible heat and hunger of his mouth upon hers caused her mind to blank for a heartbeat

He’s devouring me, burning me, she thought distantly as her fingers curled into the strands and her eyes closed to seal in the pleasure riding her. Tyrell’s open hands claimed her close, one riding low on her hips, the other at the back of her head, supporting her and pressing her close to his body.

His obviously aroused body.

She wanted to stop and think, to dissect her options, but the tropical storm flashing inside her burned out any logic. She simply felt. Tasted. Hungered and dived into all the exciting textures surrounding her. Tyrell slanted his mouth, taking the kiss deeper, his hand surged beneath her bottom and lifted her firmly up to him.

She burned, his ragged breath sweeping across her face. She couldn’t let the excitement escape her, and locked her arms around his shoulders. Tyrell groaned, trembled and hefted her higher. Locking her legs around his hips, wrestling to keep that heat and excitement close, Celine almost sent them toppling to the ground. Tyrell spun and leaned back against his four-wheeler, his tongue flicked greedily at her lips, his face burning against hers. His big hands cupped her bottom, and when his mouth tore away from hers, she cried out softly.

His black stare shot down to lock on her shirt, her breasts pushed against his chest He began to tremble and because she couldn’t resist his uncertain, wary look, she stroked his hot cheek. He looked as if he’d explode, his familiar scowl down at her deepening. “Now you’ve done it,” he muttered and placed his hands on her waist, firmly removing her.

She ached for that warmth, for the hard safety of his arms. She didn’t know what to do, her body trembling.

Tyrell impatiently mopped the curls from her face, studied her and shook his head. He looked up at the cloudy night and groaned. He stared at Else, who was standing in front of the open door, her arms crossed in a forbidding stance. He issued a bearlike, frustrated growl, ran his hands through his hair and down his jaw and glared at Celine. She hovered there, stunned, licking her sensitive bottom lip and tasting his hunger.

Celine couldn’t worry about the matron of the Blaylocks defending her little brother. The Precious Baby of the Blaylocks had—Stunned, Celine touched her bottom lip. It throbbed and tasted of him, dark and moody and exciting. “You bit me,” she said. “You...bit...me,” she repeated, her tone rising indignantly as she wondered where to hit him. “That was a definite nip. Just exactly why would you kiss or nip me?”

Glaring at her, he didn’t answer and he had to pay. To add just one more torment in Tyrell Blaylock’s life, she turned to Else and yelled cheerfully, “I’m not pregnant.”

The shocking insinuation that she could be expecting Tyrell’s baby was certain to cost him.

Tyrell did that frustrated bear-growl thing again, low in his throat, and grabbed her shoulders; he turned and pushed her toward the house. She dug in her heels and turned to him. “You’re just so typical male, you know. If you can’t get something one way, you try for another. Nipping will not be tolerated, Blaylock.”

With a dark, threatening look at her, Tyrell jerked open the car door and slid inside. Still staring at her, he flipped on the ignition, jerked the car into gear and tore into the dark, sweet rain-scented night.

Celine stared at him; little aftershocks zipped through her body as though she’d just stepped out of a tropical storm into the cool night. Low in her body was the most peculiar ache. She glanced at Else and found a thumbs-up sign. Celine tried a smirk and it died; she was instantly aware of the cold without Tyrell’s arms around her.

At her side, Else placed an arm on Celine’s shoulder, ignoring her stiff body. “Well, I guess you gave him something to think about. My brother has been holing up on his mountaintop for six months, rebuilding that run-down old cabin, and you got him down among the living.”

Celine snorted. “He’s mourning Hillary-poo.”

“That out-for-money, moral-less witch,” Else stated vehemently and handed Celine a thick turkey-and-cheese sandwich on a paper plate.

Celine’s empty stomach clenched at the sight of food. She wanted to reject it, not wanting to take something from a Blaylock, but instead she picked it up and began munching. “Thanks.”

“Anytime. Do you want to come inside and have a glass of fresh cow’s milk to go with that?”

Celine shook her head, her mouth too stuffed to talk. She studied the older woman, a tall, older and feminine version of Tyrell. She seemed kind and a friend. “I’d like you to stay with us. Just for the night,” Else said.

“My tent is in my pickup. It’s just up the road. Thank you, but I’d better be going,” Celine said and hitched her backpack up on her shoulder. She didn’t want to think about the Blaylocks being kind and friendly. There was no reason for the Blaylocks to accept her, to make a stranger welcome. Cutter had said they weren’t to be trusted and the unexpected warmth raised her guard.

Then there was that Tyrell-kiss. She wanted to yank it from her and stomp it dead with her boots. She wanted to kill the taste of his hunger and the racing excitement within her. She wanted to relieve her temper with a really good yell.

She was just around the bend of the tree-lined country road, when the sound of an engine purred behind her. A glance at the vehicle without headlights told her it was Tyrell’s. She kept on walking, turning to punctuate her dislike of him with a glare. He didn’t take the hint, parking beside the road while she set up her tiny tent beside her pickup. Then his headlamps seared her and Tyrell drove away.

Celine threw a rock in his direction and knew it wouldn’t hit the gleaming metal monster. “Take that, Blaylock,” she muttered. Thanks to Tyrell Blaylock, the man she’d ruined, it was going to be a long, angry night.

Three

Tyrell slapped the file on Roman Blaylock’s desk. His brother’s upscale computer had provided everything Tyrell needed to dig into Celine’s life. The printed pages left little to the imagination; Celine had had a hard life. Her resources were next to nothing and after the deaths of her father and grandfather, she’d worked overtime—taking overseas and any high-paying job—to build a small nest egg. Those funds from an international bank had been withdrawn just days before her arrival on his mountain. Celine had pitted everything against the Blaylocks and on Cutter’s lie. “Thanks for the use of the computer.”

An older brother, just as tall and powerful, Roman stared at him levelly, reflecting the same strong planes and dark Blaylock features. “I’m glad you stopped by. Make it a point, will you? But not at bedtime?”

Tyrell’s family didn’t know of the cracks in his life, but they knew that he’d come back to roam the wild mountains he loved above the valley. They knew he needed peace and didn’t question his life away from them.

Roman’s ranch held part of the original Blaylock land that Cutter Lomax had claimed was stolen from him. Roman was also the executor of Boone Llewlyn’s estate, which included his ranch and ten thousand acres—minus one thousand that had been signed over to Paloma Blaylock, Rio’s wife. Roman, his wife, Kallista, his son, Kipp, and Cindi, his adopted daughter, lived in the addition; Roman had an up-to-date office in Boone’s turn-of-the-century house.

“It’s eleven o’clock at night, my son Kipp is dreaming one-year-old toddler dreams, and my wife is waiting for me,” Roman stated, in a firm get-lost tone. “I’d appreciate it if for tonight you’d find someone else to bother, or hike on back up to that cabin. You’ve been at my house twice in three days. Gee, why am I so lucky? You’ve wintered up there in Micah’s old cabin since you came back in January. Then suddenly, you come down to suck up my wife’s lasagna and sprawl, stuffed full, on my couch. Now you need a computer after months without one.”

Tyrell lifted an eyebrow. He’d felt like a stray cat on Roman’s doorstep. The warmth of his brother’s household and his obvious deep love for his wife caused Tyrell to feel even more of an outsider. He’d missed so much.

He’d resented the need for cooking other than his own, but he wanted to see his new nephew, to hold him. Tyrell needed to see Roman’s adopted daughter, Cindi, who was lively and a real challenge. He needed to know that simple loving lives went on in his family. “You probably gave Cindi the idea to paint my toenails and braid my hair.”

He should have been there for his parents, all those missing years. Instead he’d shot out into the world like a bolt, cutting his way to the top, clustering numbers around him like friends. That life had been hollow and cold, he saw that now. He’d missed so much. He was an outsider now, the lone wolf of the pack.

He’d also been an outsider to the social side of his financial world. Yet he’d stayed. If Celine hadn’t interfered, he would have been deep in power plays and building profit. Eventually he would have seen the emptiness of his life and needed more, but she hurried the process.

Roman’s knuckle-rap on Tyrell’s head was familiar and just as annoying as it was years ago. “Before you figured out that boys didn’t like girl stuff, Else used to dress you up with her dolls. Mmm. I have a picture of that somewhere. The Blaylock brothers, our sister and you at three, wearing a dress—Ouch! No elbows in ribs.... Celine Lomax. You came down from your cave for her.”

“To get rid of her,” Tyrell corrected darkly. “You’re going to hold that picture over me until we’re both too old to tangle, aren’t you?” He sank into the desk chair to glower at Roman. He’d forgotten how close his family was, and damned himself for forgetting. He didn’t want to look at the pictures, to look at his parents alive and happy and their brood around him. It hurt too much. He’d shot out of the Blaylock nest as soon as he could and he’d always been too busy to return for more than a few days. He should have come back; he should have stayed. Instead he’d traded his family for a demanding, profitable career . “Else must have called you.”

“She worries, and you’ve never tried to dump a spitting-mad woman on her doorstep before. She said you were really worked up, and it was the first time that all the Blaylock boys—she’s going to call us ‘boys’ forever, you know—were all stirred up at once.... She said she doesn’t have to worry about you going moldy up in that cabin with Celine around.... Lomax,” Roman frowned, testing the name. “Any relation to Cutter?”

Tyrell nodded. He decided not to tell Roman about Celine’s quest; she’d be gone soon enough.

Roman shook his head and stood. “She’s got plenty of nerve, coming back to country where her grandfather tried every crime possible. Cutter was notorious. He hurt a lot of people and it’s said that he murdered, too. I believe that, from the scar I saw on Grandpa Luke. Cutter didn’t want the sheriff, our grandfather, taking him in, or stopping him from abusing that horse. But Cutter was in jail more than he was out, until the judge sent him to the penitentiary for land fraud. Grandma was the only woman Cutter ever treated with respect. Lomax was a hot-tempered, red-haired and freckled-faced thug.”

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