Celebrate the legend that is bestselling author

PENNY JORDAN

Phenomenally successful author of more than two hundred books with sales of over a hundred million copies!

Penny Jordan’s novels are loved by millions of readers all around the word in many different languages. Mills & Boon are proud to have published one hundred and eighty-seven novels and novellas written by Penny Jordan, who was a reader favourite right from her very first novel through to her last.

This beautiful digital collection offers a chance to recapture the pleasure of all of Penny Jordan’s fabulous, glamorous and romantic novels for Mills & Boon.

About the Author

PENNY JORDAN is one of Mills & Boon’s most popular authors. Sadly, Penny died from cancer on 31st December 2011, aged sixty-five. She leaves an outstanding legacy, having sold over a hundred million books around the world. She wrote a total of one hundred and eighty-seven novels for Mills & Boon, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family, To Love, Honour & Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Loved for her distinctive voice, her success was in part because she continually broke boundaries and evolved her writing to keep up with readers’ changing tastes. Publishers Weekly said about Jordan ‘Women everywhere will find pieces of themselves in Jordan’s characters’ and this perhaps explains her enduring appeal.

Although Penny was born in Preston, Lancashire and spent her childhood there, she moved to Cheshire as a teenager and continued to live there for the rest of her life. Following the death of her husband, she moved to the small traditional Cheshire market town on which she based her much-loved Crighton books.

Penny was a member and supporter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Romance Writers of America—two organisations dedicated to providing support for both published and yet-to-be-published authors. Her significant contribution to women’s fiction was recognised in 2011, when the Romantic Novelists’ Association presented Penny with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Fight For Love
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

CHAPTER ONE

THE letter came on a grey, wet morning in mid-June; just the sort of cold, damp summer day that made one’s thoughts turn lustfully to sun and heat, Natasha thought enviously as she studied the unfamiliar American postmark.

Texas—how many names could exercise such a powerful effect on the diverse imaginations of the Western world? But she knew no one from the Lone Star State, unless … Her forehead pleated in a faint frown as she flicked through her memory.

There had been that American last year. A faint smile curled round the corners of her mouth as she remembered the male in question. Tough and weathered like the Texas plain, he had displayed all the stubborn grittiness a dedicated television soap watcher could have wanted. She had rescued him from the wheels of a London taxi, closing her ears to the string of swear words turning the air blue, and her eyes to the sight of his stetson worn with an immaculate dark pin-striped business suit.

He was, she discovered, on his way to a business appointment at the Connaught, and she had helped him on his way, but not before he had insisted on taking a note of her name and address. She had judged it safe enough; after all, he looked as though he was well into his seventies.

She had been surprised, though, when he had invited her to dinner, and her boss at the prestigious Bond Street art gallery where she worked had cautioned her against accepting.

Maybe that was why she had. There was a wide vein of stubbornness in her own character—a legacy from a far-off Russian ancestress, whose unlikely blood still ran in the veins of an otherwise phlegmatic Cheshire farming family.

She put down the letter and stared out of her flat window at the dull grey vista of rooftops and television aerials. It was on days like this when she longed most to exchange the stifling claustrophobia of London for the open fields and gentle skyline of the Cheshire plain.

She had been brought up there on the farm that had been in her father’s family for generations, but after her parents’ tragic death in a multiple motorway pile-up, the farm had had to be sold off. She had been sixteen at the time, and it would have been impossible for her to run it herself; her father’s main love had been the developing and breeding of a new strain of cattle—an expensive programme that called for a far greater degree of knowledge than any sixteen-year-old could have.

Even so, after nine years she still missed it, still ached whenever she drove past well tended fields. Deep down inside, part of her would always feel this deep empathy for the land that went with being a farmer’s daughter.

She sighed faintly, imagining Adam’s shock if he were ever to look into her mind. Her boss was the epitome of a sophisticated man-about-town. Natasha knew that he would be more than willing to take their relationship beyond its present status of boss and employee were she to indicate to him that she wished him to do so.

She also knew that most of her friends would consider him a good catch—excellent husband material. He was independently comfortably off. He owned a pleasant house in a Chelsea mews, and it was being rumoured that within the next five years, he would be invited on to the board of the gallery which he now managed. So why did she continue to hold him at arm’s length? He was the right age for her, and good-looking in a blond, languid fashion, but if she was ever to tell him of this deep need inside her to live on the land, to be part of it and its cycle, she knew that he just wouldn’t understand.

Perhaps her looks were to blame for that. She just didn’t look the way men visualised a farmer’s daughter should look.

She was just over average height and willow-slim, her cloud of dark red hair curling lavishly on to her shoulders when it wasn’t constrained into the chic chignon she wore for work. Her eyes were long and slightly slanting, a deep tawny-gold, like those of a jungle cat. Her face had the sort of bone structure loved by the modelling world. As a teenager it had been suggested, in fact, that she should model, but she hadn’t been interested. She had been in love then. She smiled a little wryly for her teenage self. The object of her affections had been the son of another local farmer, but Rob, a sturdy Cheshire lad with his head set firmly on his shoulders, had not been interested in her. However, by the time her teenage crush on him had faded, her parents were dead, and she was living away from Cheshire in the care of the aunt and uncle who had taken her into their London home.

They had retired now to Spain, and to all intents and purposes she was on her own.

So why didn’t she give Adam the encouragement he was waiting for? He would make a good husband and father, and she wanted children … a family … Maybe it was because he didn’t represent enough challenge … She smiled wryly to herself and turned to study her letter again.

Fortunately, this morning she was not due into the gallery until mid-morning, since they never did much business so early in the week.

The letter must be from Tip Travers, although why on earth the old Texan should be writing to her …

At his behest she had acted as his guide while he was in London, showing him most of the more famous sights. Once she got used to his abrasive manner she had enjoyed his company, although always firmly refusing the money he offered her in exchange for her time.

By the end of his week’s stay, a mutual respect had built up between them. She had told him about her parents’ death, and about her longing to return to the land, and he had told her about the massive ranch he owned near the Rio Grande; about the oil that had been found on it, and about the feud that had broken out between his sons because of it.

One of them had become president of the oil company and one of them had remained on the ranch, and as she listened to him, Natasha had known that, like her, Tip’s first love had been the land and his cattle.

Now both his sons were dead, and the oil company had passed into other hands. His grandson ran the ranch and, although nothing had been said, Natasha had noticed the way the old man’s face tightened with pain when he mentioned his family and she guessed that there were still many unresolved conflicts within it.

She had enjoyed his company and never once regretted giving up the week’s holiday she had intended to spend in Spain with her aunt and uncle to show him around, but she had certainly never expected to hear from him again. He had been a tough, gritty individual with no room for sentimentality in his make-up.

She opened the letter, the words blurring as she trembled in sudden shock.

It wasn’t from Tip, but from his lawyers, informing her that she was a beneficiary under the terms of his will, and requesting her to fly out to Texas to the family ranch where the full position would be explained to her.

She sat down, stricken with shock and sadness. Somehow she found it hard to accept that Tip was dead. He had seemed such a vital man, despite his heart condition. He had confided to her in a rare moment of weakness that he had no intentions of dying yet, because he still had too much to do …

‘There’s that grandson of mine …’

He had shaken his head, and again Natasha had sensed some sort of conflict between the two men. She wasn’t a fool. It was easy to see how hard Tip must be to live with. He had his own decided views on everything—many of them uncompromisingly harsh—but then he had lived a harsh life, fighting for most of it to hang on to what he considered to be rightfully his. His grandfather had carved the ranch out of nothing, sometimes quite literally fighting with his bare hands to hold on to it and pass it down through his family.

Allowances had to be made for such men, although she was the first to admit that living with him on a day-to-day basis could never be easy. She had winced sometimes to see and hear how he had treated the staff at his hotel. The American credo might stipulate that all men were equal, but those with money, it appeared, were more equal than those without.

And yet, despite it all, she had liked him. In many ways he had reminded her of her own grandfather, who had died when she was six years old. They had both possessed that same brand of toughness, of hardiness, and of love for their land.

Her sadness at his death increased the greyness of the cold summer’s day. She picked the letter up again, studying it idly. Texas … Even the word was exciting … punchy … She couldn’t imagine what he had left her, or why. He had not struck her as the overly sentimental type.

Initially, when she had rescued him from the taxi, he had tried to tip her, but the cool hauteur with which she refused his money had made him eye her with speculative interest.

Later, she had suspected that he had deliberately overplayed his weakness on that first occasion, because during the latter part of the week, he never once displayed any of the feebleness that had made it necessary for him to request her support back to his hotel.

Quite how she had come to agree to act as his guide while he was in London she had no real idea. He had told her that originally it had been the intention that his grandson would accompany him, but some last-minute hitch at the ranch had made this impossible, so he had come on alone, and despite his bravado and his loudness he had been lonely.

Yes, that was what had drawn her to him, she recognised. His loneliness. It was a state she had experienced too much to be able to turn her back on it in anyone else.

But to leave her something … It didn’t ring true somehow; it was too out of character … No, he had been too shrewd, too deeply enmeshed in his own sense of family and history to leave something to an outsider. That smacked too much of a sentimentality she knew he hadn’t possessed.

She couldn’t imagine what he had left her … Another frown wrinkled her forehead. Her skin was the colour of cream, and impossible to tan. When she went abroad she spent a fortune on barrier creams, and she had to wear a hat to stop herself from getting sunstroke.

She tapped the letter with one long forefinger. Of course, she could always refuse to go. In that event, her bequest would be forfeit …

It was a rather odd clause to include … There was even a provision for her air fare. She frowned again. She had been quite open with Tip about her financial situation. He knew that …

She blocked off the thought because, since it was associated with her parents’ death and the subsequent sale of the farm, she found it painful still.

Suffice it to say that if she did go to Texas she would pay her own way there, and Tip must surely have realised that … If she went … she couldn’t go! She had already decided to spend two of her four weeks’ holiday in Spain with her aunt and uncle—she hadn’t seen them for over twelve months, and had tentatively been considering Adam’s suggestion that she spend the other fortnight with him on a friend’s yacht, sailing round the Greek islands.

She ought to go. She owed Tip that much, surely? Or was she using his bequest as an excuse to delay making a decision about her relationship with Adam? In her heart of hearts she knew she was already regretting her promise to join him and his friends. It had been given in a moment of weakness and had left her with a panicky feeling of being pushed, albeit gently, in a direction she wasn’t sure she wanted to go.

Now she had the perfect escape route.

Yes, that was the answer. Fate had handed her the perfect excuse. She already knew deep down inside her that Adam wasn’t the one for her. This way she could let him know it more tactfully than if she simply handed in her notice and left. She enjoyed her work, but she knew it wasn’t taxing her to the full, wasn’t making the most use of the university degree she had expended so much time and effort in gaining. After university there had been the fine arts course in Italy, paid for as a twenty-first birthday present by her aunt and uncle. She had enjoyed that, and it had been her entrée into the arty world. London was full of young women like her, she thought in a moment of cynicism. Over-qualified for what they did … If she didn’t look the way she did, elegant and decorative, Adam would never have hired her, despite her impressive qualifications. She remembered her life in Cheshire and how the farmers’ wives had been cherished for their ability to work hard alongside their husbands, rather than for their looks, but even there certain taboos and rules had applied. A woman was supposed to fit in with her husband’s life-style rather than develop one of her own. A farmer’s wife who wanted to write, or to paint, would have gained scant approval among her peers. In so many ways men made the rules and women lived by them.

She moved restlessly round her small flat, unable to define exactly what was making her feel so restless. Maybe it was an echo of Tip’s outrageous tall tales of Texas, with its wide open skies and harsh landscape. It was a land that demanded much from its people, and a land she knew next to nothing about, and yet a land that held some mystical allure for her, which she couldn’t totally understand.

Had that long ago ancestress of hers—who had come from the wild freedom of the Russian steppes in the wake of the Tsar Nicholas on his visit to Regency England—given her more than just her vivid colouring?

They had long memories in Cheshire, and her grandfather had told her the tale of the wild Russian woman brought back from London by his ancestor. She had been a serving girl in the retinue of one of the Russian princesses; a free woman who had boldly given up everything she knew to follow the man she loved.

Had she missed the empty wildness of her native land? Had she ached, as Natasha herself sometimes ached, for something more than her life encompassed? Had she known the same wildness of spirit deep down inside her? It was a wildness that Natasha had long ago learned to control, but it was still buried deep inside her: a yearning, an aching for … for what? For freedom? Why did she think she might find that freedom in Texas? Surely she hadn’t been foolish enough to fall for Tip’s stories? She had travelled enough to know that people were the same wherever one went—their emotions … their hopes … their fears—but still she knew that, despite all her logical analysis, she would go to Texas.

ADAM WAS astounded when she told him.

‘You can’t mean it!’ he expostulated, as they ate a late lunch in a small ‘in’ restaurant off Bond Street.

‘I have to go to find out what he’s left me,’ she pointed out calmly.

Adam frowned. ‘There is that, of course, but it won’t be much,’ he warned her. ‘I know these Texans, Natasha … It’s family first, second and third …’

Adam knew little of her life before she came to London, and so she smiled coolly at him, knowing that he had just destroyed any chance there might have been of a more intimate relationship between them. If he knew her so little that he actually thought she could be motivated by greed, then he was most definitely not the man for her.

Force of habit made her keep her thoughts to herself, her smile calm and unrevealing as she listened to him and ate her meal. She waited until they were on the point of leaving before telling him that she had not changed her mind.

‘Well, if you go, it means that you will have to leave the gallery,’ Adam told her. ‘I can’t afford to have you missing right now … and there are plenty of other women looking for jobs …’

It was a threat and they both knew it, but Natasha chose not to betray her knowledge.

‘I’m sorry, Adam. I have to go … As you say, you can’t afford to give me time off right now, so I think it best all round if I hand in my notice.’

He looked stupefied, and she was quite surprised by the sensation of exhilaration and freedom that rushed over her. She had worked at the gallery for two years without realising how much she was beginning to dislike it.

‘I suppose you’re hoping he’s left you enough to mean that you won’t have to work,’ Adam sneered. ‘Or maybe you’ve got other plans. With looks like yours, you might be able to hook yourself a real-life millionaire while you’re out there, is that it?’ he suggested crudely. ‘Well, be warned, Natasha. Oil prices aren’t what they were … and Texan women are pretty tough competition. Money marries money out there …’

She managed to hold on to her temper until after he had gone. She had no wish to quarrel with him, and there was little point in countering his snide suggestions. Let him think what he wished …

A husband, children, a home—yes, these were all things she wanted; but she had no need to sell herself to get them. When she married it would be to a man she could respect, a man whose life she could share, a man who respected her …

Respect? A mirthless smile tugged at her lips. There must be more of that good Cheshire blood in her than she had known … What had happened to love? Or, at twenty-five, was she too old to be chasing after that elusive chimera? She had seen her friends in love, and seen that love fade, only to be reborn again with someone else … Married couples changed partners in a strange and complex dance that left her wary and aloof. She still held true to the old tenets and old ways: marriage was for life … That was how she wanted hers to be. If she couldn’t have that, then better not to marry at all.

ONCE SHE’D made up her mind to go out to Texas, the whole trip began to take on the air of an adventure, fuelled as much by the fact that her aunt and uncle took a very similar view to her plans as Adam had, as by anything else.

Her aunt complained over the telephone that she no longer understood her; that she had always been such a practical, sensible girl.

Perhaps that was half the trouble—she had been too sensible, repressing the zinging love of life and adventure that was such a part of her character, out of a desire to please others rather than herself.

She grieved for Tip, of course; she had liked the old man very much but, as she went sedately about her daily life, making her plans, nothing could quite subdue the bubble of excitement frothing inside her.

Adam accused her of being childish.

‘What do you expect to find out there?’ he had demanded in a last, vain attempt to prevent her leaving. ‘Romance? Love? Do you think the whole state’s filled with lean-hipped, laconic cowboy types, just waiting to sweep you off your feet? Is that it?’

Of course she didn’t, but the picture he conjured up was an irresistible one, and only added to her determination to go. Sanely and honestly, she didn’t know why she was so intent on going; partly it was because of Tip, of course, but there was more to it than that—much, much more.

She was even buying a new wardrobe especially for the trip. The day after she made her decision she had thrown open her wardrobe doors and looked thoughtfully at the silk dresses and neat suits therein, and on a sudden impulse—remembering the jeans of her teenage years—she had gone out scouring the shops for clothes suitable to wear on a Texan cattle ranch.

She didn’t know how long she would have to stay; the letter simply stated that there were certain conditions attached to her bequest which were best explained in situ. She couldn’t begin to work out what they were but, at the end of the day, there was no way anyone could force her to accept either a bequest or conditions she did not want; and with that escape route very much to the forefront of her mind she felt quite comfortable about following the instructions contained in the lawyer’s letter.

She bought a round-trip ticket, and booked herself into a Dallas hotel room overnight. She held a current driver’s licence, her visa was rushed through and she was assured that there would be no problems in her hiring a car. If, as she suspected from Tip’s conversation, the ranch was a long, long way from the nearest town, then she would prefer to drive herself to her ultimate destination rather than rely on others.

Who would own the ranch now? Presumably Tip’s grandson; the one who had been refusing to knuckle down and marry as Tip had wanted him to do. ‘One grandson—that’s all I’ve got, and he’s so damned cussed he won’t settle down and start a family,’ he had complained to Natasha on more than one occasion, and sometimes in terms earthy enough to bright a faint tinge of colour to her pale skin. Tip was nothing if not frank about his grandson’s prowess with the female sex, and Natasha could see that he was more than proud of him, although deploring the fact that he was not prepared to confine his activities to one woman and get down to the all-important business of providing him with great-grandsons.

Oddly for an American, Tip had had no photographs to show her, but from his conversations she had gained the impression that his grandson was cast very much in the mould of the older man. She suspected that, if they met, she wouldn’t like him. What was acceptable in an old man of seventy-odd was not so easy to overlook in a much younger male!

Chauvinistic didn’t even begin to describe the Travers men, or so it seemed from Tip’s description of his own and his grandson’s attitudes to life. Arrogance seemed to sit on their shoulders as naturally as their Stetson hats fitted their heads. But, of course, she could be wrong; Tip’s grandson could turn out to be very different from the way she visualised him.

She had booked her flight for the end of the week, which left her just about enough time to sort herself out. A visit to her bank provided the necessary currency and traveller’s cheques. Like her aunt and uncle, the manager was surprised at what she was planning to do, and she wondered wryly how much of his concern sprang from a regard for her and how much from a regard for her bank balance, for Natasha was a very wealthy woman. Something she preferred to keep quiet about. Tip had wormed the truth out of her, but very few people did.

After her parents’ death, her trustees had been approached by a large building concern who wanted to buy the farm land, to put up an estate to service the new town being built locally. Her trustees had agreed and, cautious, careful men that they were, they had looked after her money very well for her during the years of her minority. If she had wanted to, she could quite properly have described herself as a millionairess—something that not even Adam knew.

Initially she had hated to even think about her wealth, because it went hand in hand with her parents’ death, and then later as she grew older, she had seen how the world treated those with money, especially young and vulnerable women with money, and so it was something she never mentioned.

She supported several charities, but always anonymously, and for the rest, she preferred to live modestly within her income from her job. The only significant purchase she had made from her inheritance had been her flat, and even that was surprisingly modest in view of her means. She didn’t even run a car—it wasn’t feasible while living in London. Clothes were her one extravagance, but even then she shopped shrewdly, waiting for the sales, spending her money on one good item and then adding less expensive accessories.

Tip had heartily approved of all this. He had told her, with a frankness that almost made her grit her teeth, that he didn’t approve of women inheriting money or property, but that he could see that she was an exception to this rule and that she was obviously a very sensible young woman.

It was ironic to think that he was the very means of her rebelling against that sensibleness, and she chuckled out loud, wondering what he would have thought had he known he was responsible for her altering so much of her way of life.

CHAPTER TWO

NATASHA left London on a cold, windy Saturday morning. It was going to be a long flight, but she was well prepared for it, with a new blockbuster paperback and the minimum of hand luggage, all packed away in a soft roll bag in the same pretty shade of peach as her track suit.

She had chosen the track suit especially to travel in. It was made in a fine lightweight cotton, its padded blouson-jacket top warm enough for the cold London morning and the air-conditioned flight, the thin matching T-shirt underneath it cool enough for the heat of Dallas once she arrived.

She had found a pair of toning cotton boots with a pretty white trim, and for once her hair was not coiled back in an elegant knot, but left to curl freely on to her shoulders.

Her own mirror had told her that she looked completely different from her normal work-a-day elegant self—much more like the teenager who had loved life on her parents’ farm. The track suit suited her rangy slenderness, its soft peach colour a startling foil for her dark red hair. Several of the male passengers gave her a second look as she stalked past them with the feline walk she wasn’t aware of possessing.

Shaking free of the self-imposed restrictions of her London life had unleashed something elemental and untamed within her, releasing a female power she was not yet aware of. It clung to her as provocatively as the scent of musk; invisible, and yet strong enough to draw the masculine eye and attention.

Luckily, the plane wasn’t full, and so she had the advantage of an empty seat in which to place her bag. She settled down for the long flight and opened her book.

Dallas came as something of a disappointment, but she told herself that it was only to be expected that one airport should be much like another.

At Customs, her passport was examined by a tall red-headed man, who hesitated and then said in a soft Texan drawl, ‘Miss Ames, you’ll find someone waiting to meet you in the Arrivals lounge. Have a nice day!’

Someone had come to meet her? The fatigue of the long flight fell away and she felt a sudden surge of optimism. She had heard about American hospitality, and now it seemed that she was to experience it first-hand.

As she waited for her luggage, she surveyed the exit to the Arrivals hall. Luckily her cases came off almost first. A lone male traveller offered to put them into her trolley, but she refused, her cool smile fending him off. He watched her departing back with a rueful grimace which she didn’t see.

The Arrivals hall was seething, and she frowned as she looked hesitantly round it. Someone was waiting for her here, but who? And how on earth was she supposed to recognise them?

In the end, she didn’t need to. A hand suddenly gripped her elbow, causing her to spin round in sudden shock.

Cold grey eyes stared down into the wary amber depths of hers, a hard, chiselled male face studying her with acute dislike.

‘Natasha Ames.’

It was a statement and not a question, delivered in a thin-lipped drawl that held none of the lazy warmth of the customs officers. An almost hawklike profile; a Stetson worn low over his forehead; glossy, thick, night-black hair … these were the first impressions of the man holding on to her.

She tried to pull free, wincing as she felt the callused pads of his fingers tighten their grip. He was tall enough for her to need to tilt her head right back to look into his face, immediately putting her at a disadvantage. A prickle of atavistic animosity ran through her. Without a word being exchanged she knew that this man didn’t like her. She felt it bone-deep in the contact of his flesh on hers; had seen it in that brief clash of eyes.

Who was he, and why had he come to meet her? She had been perfectly happy with her own arrangements for getting out to the ranch!

The strong streak of independence bred in her by her ancestors flared up dangerously, her eyes cold, her voice as brittle and clear as glass as she stood back from him and demanded coolly, ‘You seem to have the advantage of me … You appear to know my name, but I’m afraid I don’t know yours, Mr …’

Her coldness made as much impact as snow falling on foot-thick ice. He looked down at her, grey eyes boring into her skull, cynicism carved deeply into the lines round his eyes and mouth.

‘My grandfather said you were a sassy little thing … It wasn’t often that he made an error of judgement.’ A thin smile twisted his mouth. ‘Is that how you would describe yourself, Miss Ames?’

Again that grey-eyed glance slashed across her face, telling her that his description of her would always be less than flattering.

Fighting against a sudden surge of uneasiness, she struggled to meet him on equal terms, refusing to be dominated by his arrogant masculine demeanour.

‘No … no, it isn’t,’ she told him calmly. ‘For one thing, I’m not exactly little—’ Her eyes held his, warning him that she was not going to allow him to browbeat her.

‘I’ve just had a long flight here … It’s very kind of you to meet me, but I do have a hotel room booked, so if you will excuse me.’

Her voice matched his for coldness, she made a move to walk past him, but he still held on to her arm, and the force he used to make her stand still left her short of breath, although she was too angry and too proud to let him see it.

‘Let’s get this over with just as quickly as possible, shall we, Miss Ames? You’re here to see what the old man left you, and for no other reason, no matter how much you might want to play at being a tourist. My plane is standing by to fly us out to the ranch … If you’d like to come this way …’

Anger took over. She dug her heels in, resisting his attempt to draw her forward.

‘Now, just a minute … I’m not going anywhere with you. For one thing, I don’t have the faintest idea who you are, and I …’

‘You what?’ His voice was soft, but the look he gave her was decidedly ugly. ‘Don’t go home with strange men? That’s not the way the old man told it …’

She had to bite down hard on the words springing to her tongue. Tip had been the type of man to indulge in a little harmless boasting. It was obvious now that this man standing in front of her was his grandson, even though he hadn’t introduced himself to her. Who knew what tall tales Tip had taken home with him? Seventy-odd or not, he had still been the sort of man who enjoyed female adulation. She had seen that and been tenderly amused by it, even though she had made it quite clear that their relationship was one of friendship only and she knew that she had won his respect, but even so she did not put it entirely past him to have returned home boasting about his English conquest. He had been that sort of man …

Unlike his grandson, she decided, risking a brief glance at the hard profile angled towards her. This man would never, ever discuss his relationship with women in his life; if indeed there was a woman hardy enough to brave that icy disdain!

The anger that had flared in her died suddenly, her interest piqued by his attitude towards her. What did it matter what he or anyone else here thought about her? Her relationship with Tip had been wholly innocent, and she ought to be amused rather than annoyed that a man as cynical and worldly as this one obviously was could be taken in by an old man, bluffing his way through life. Even so, she was still angry enough to want to taunt him a little.

Looking up at him through dark, curling lashes, she said sweetly, ‘Do I look the sort of woman who makes a play for older men?’

Her gibe bounced harmlessly off him, his eyes narrowing in bitter concentration on the upturned oval of her face as he said bitterly, ‘Yes … provided he’s rich enough to afford you. Gramps told us you worked in an art gallery—where they paid you peanuts. That fancy rig you’re wearing didn’t come cheap, lady …’

It took her a moment to catch her breath, and by that time he was hurrying her through the Arrivals hall.

What on earth had happened to this man to make him so bitter, so cynical about her sex? He was what … somewhere in his early thirties? Good-looking, if you liked the rough-hewn, domineering type. More than good-looking, she acknowledged with another quick glance at his impassive profile. He was dark enough to possess Indian or Mexican blood; she couldn’t remember Tip mentioning anything about either of his son’s wives. Women hadn’t held much importance in Tip’s life, except as the providers of sons and grandsons, and great-grandsons …

‘It’s very kind of you to come all this way simply to pick me up, Mr …’

The sweet sarcasm of her comment bounced back off him. With a hard sideways look, he told her laconically, ‘I didn’t … I had to come down to pick up the girls.’

The girls! Wild thoughts of tarty good-time girls joining them on the flight were swiftly banished when he added, ‘They’re at school here in Dallas, and school’s out for the summer now …’

‘Oh, I see.’ She didn’t, of course, but it was becoming a challenge to see if she could actually goad him into some sort of response, and so she added questioningly, ‘The girls … they’re your daughters?’

She could feel the heat in the sideways glance slashed in her direction, and she had to fight against responding to it.

‘My brother’s.’

She could almost feel the tight-lipped clenching of his jaw that went with the raw admission. Why should it cause him so much pain to tell her that? She frowned, deep in thought, trying to remember the little Tip had told her about his family. There had been another grandson; he had been killed, like her parents, in a road accident along with his wife. Ah, yes, she remembered it now. Something about a quarrel, but between whom and what about she didn’t know.

Tip hadn’t mentioned his great-granddaughters at all, but then, of course, they were female … and thus to be easily disregarded.

She frowned again as they walked out across the hot tarmac. Her captor was still holding her arm; standing between her and the hot wind racing across the exposed space, but she didn’t delude herself that he was standing so close to her from any gentlemanly concern for her.

This hostility, this almost ferocious dislike of her wasn’t something she had bargained for and yet, instead of frightening her, she found it challenging.

Again those callused fingertips brushed her skin, causing a faint frisson of sensation to whirl through her. Without turning to look at him, she knew that he was aware of her sudden shiver, and she hoped that he thought it was caused by dislike. It was rather unnerving to be so aware of him as a man, when quite plainly he loathed and detested the very sight of her.

He must have recognised her from the few photographs Tip had insisted on them having taken together, she mused as they approached an immaculate—although frighteningly small—Cessna aircraft, which brought her back to another matter.

‘You still haven’t told me your name,’ she reminded him when they stopped alongside the plane. Where on earth had it come from, this dangerous desire to goad him until she could see the grey eyes burn with controlled ire?

‘Jay—Jay Travers,’ he told her laconically. ‘I’m sure my grandfather mentioned me to you.’

His mouth twisted oddly over this last cynical statement, and deep down inside her something fluttered in feminine response.

‘Oh, yes,’ she countered sweetly, determined not to let him see how he affected her. ‘But only as ‘‘my grandson’’.’

There, that should put him in his place! He struck her as a man so fiercely proud and independent that he would loathe the very thought of being considered a mere adjunct to anyone.

He didn’t make any attempt to help her board the small plane, much to her relief. She didn’t like the way her thought processes became tangled up when he touched her.

As she entered the small cabin, she saw that it already had two other occupants.

‘You found her then, Uncle Jay. Great, now we can go! I’m just dyin’ to git back to the ranch …’

‘You quit talking like that, Rosalie … You know that Gramps sent us to school so that we could learn to talk properly and become ladies.’

Two voices, one brimful of mischief, the other slightly prim; two identical faces with matching sets of blonde pigtails; two small noses liberally sprinkled with freckles, and two pairs of grey eyes remarkably like those possessed by their uncle.

The girls were twins, and they were studying Natasha with open interest.

‘Is this her, then, Uncle Jay? Gramps’s fancy-piece?’

A muffled giggle from the silent twin belied the innocence shining out of the clean little-girl face.

Although she fought against showing it, Natasha was appalled. Was that how all of Tip’s family thought of her? If so, she would have to disabuse them of their false ideas, right away. She opened her mouth to do so, and would have done, if she hadn’t caught the faint flicker of fear running over the silent twin’s face. She turned her head to see what had frightened her, and realised that Jay was standing behind her, studying the twins with hard implacability.

‘Apologise to Miss Ames, Rosalie,’ he commanded, thin-lipped. ‘That’s not the way to treat our guests.’

A bright flush stained the small face, and Natasha felt her heart go out to the child. She was, after all, only repeating what she must have overheard from adults. She wanted to say as much to Jay Travers, but was surprised to discover that she didn’t have the courage.

‘I’m sorry I was rude, Miss Ames.’

Two pairs of grey eyes watched her uncertainly, and then the irrepressible Cherry burst out, ‘If you’d have married Gramps, would that have made you our grandmother? We’d have liked that, wouldn’t we, Rose? Gramps was always saying that we needed a woman about the place. I ‘spect that’s why he brought you out here …’

Natasha could feel the hairs lifting at the back of her neck, and she knew that the sudden tension filling the small enclosed space did not come from her.

What had Cherry said that made Jay go so instantly tense? Whatever it was, she was not likely to find out. Besides, she had more pressing matters to attend to right now.

‘Cherry, your grandfather and I were friends—nothing more,’ she explained as she leaned towards the little girl. ‘And he didn’t bring me out here, I came because …’

‘Because he’s left you half the ranch. Yes, we know all about that!’

‘Cherry!’

The whip-hard voice cut through the little girl’s revelations.

Natasha spun round, her face suddenly milk-white. It couldn’t be true, Cherry must have misunderstood. She opened her mouth to question Jay, but he was already turning his back on her.

‘Time we were taking off … Cherry, please show Miss Ames how to fasten herself into her seat …’

‘Just a minute …’

It was too late, he was already disappearing into the nose of the aircraft, and as she subsided into her seat alongside the girls she was dimly aware of Cherry saying placatingly, ‘Don’t worry, Miss Ames. Uncle Jay is a real good pilot … You’ll be quite safe.’

She lay back in her seat and closed her eyes, trembling with shock. Tip couldn’t have left her half the ranch; it just wasn’t possible. The twins must have overheard something and misunderstood the situation … She looked covertly at them. They were what … ten? Nine? Old enough and intelligent enough not to make those kind of mistakes … Something twisted painfully deep inside her. She had to have an explanation. She had to get off this plane.

She wasn’t even aware of struggling to sit up until she felt Cherry tugging sympathetically on her arm.

‘It’s all right, Miss Ames, really,’ the little girl reassured her. ‘We’ll be there inside an hour. You’re quite safe … Rosalie used to hate flying too, didn’t you?’

Her sister nodded.

‘And driving—especially after Momma and Poppa were killed.’ She shuddered tensely, her eyes clouding.

‘Gramps told us that your parents died in a car crash just like ours.’ Cherry looked at her uncertainly. ‘Did they?’

‘Yes. Yes, they did. When I was sixteen …’

‘And where did you go? What happened to you?’

‘I went to live with my aunt and uncle.’

‘Just like us with Uncle Jay. He takes care of us now, but he doesn’t have a wife, does he, Rose?’ She looked to her twin for corroboration. ‘Gramps wanted him to get married. He was always going on about it. ‘‘The ranch needs sons’’—that’s what he used to say …’

‘Did he tell you that our great-grandmother was an Indian?’

So that explained the dark hair and olive skin! Natasha gave Cherry a distracted smile, and was on the point of asking her gently if she really should be telling her so much about her family, when Rosalie added, ‘She was his second wife. He had another one first … She came from New York, and she was very rich, but she died …’

‘Yes, and Gary, her son, quarelled with Gramps because he wanted to sell the ranch, and so Gramps gave him the oil wells. And then he got married again and had another son so that he could leave him the land …’

Tip had mentioned a family feud to her, but she had never pressed him for further details. In Cheshire, people were reticent about their family history. Here in Texas it seemed to be just the opposite.

‘Our mummy went away and left us, but Daddy went to get her back—’

‘That’s when they were killed … They were always fighting, weren’t they, Rose? But we miss them a lot …’

There was no mistaking the emotion in those few pitiful words, and Natasha felt her own eyes fill up with tears.

‘Gramps said that we needed a woman to love us, and that men don’t understand women’s things … We thought he meant that Uncle Jay was going to get married … women flock round him like bees round honey … but he don’t have no truck with them, does he, Rose? Gramps used to say that he was a mis a …’

‘A misogynist,’ Natasha told her wryly.

Their conversation was a blend of naëveté and sophistication: bits of gossip picked up here and there around the ranch no doubt. Even though Tip had not mentioned them to her, she sensed that they had loved him very deeply, and he had obviously cared for them; cared enough, at least, to know that they needed a woman to share their lives.

‘Gramps told us a secret before he died. He made us promise not to tell anyone …’

The grey eyes sparkled, and Natasha knew that she was being begged to question this secret. However, she shook her head; she felt she had already pried far enough into Tip’s family history, albeit innocently.

‘If it’s a secret, that’s the way it must stay … Your grandfather wouldn’t have told it to you if he wasn’t sure you could keep it.’

She felt mean as she watched the excitement die out of their eyes, but she told herself it was for the best. Already in these two girls she sensed a yearning, a reaching out to her, which she suspected stemmed not just from their own need to replace their dead mother, but also from Tip’s careful tutoring.

It was no secret that he had wanted Jay to marry, and what better way to coerce him than to enrol the two little girls on his side? A mother for them, a wife for Jay, and a great-grandson for Tip … Oh, yes! He had been a wily old character, Natasha reflected grimly. But none of that could explain Cherry’s comment about his will.

There was no way that the man she had known in London would have parted with a single inch of his land to someone outside his family. No, the girls must have overheard something and misinterpreted it. To judge from the reception she had received from Jay, she was already marked down as a first cousin to a fortune-hunter, and no doubt the girls had picked up some derogatory remark made about her by their uncle and woven their own reason for it.

It had been dusk when she arrived at Dallas; now it was fully dark. Not the dark of London that she was used to, but the dense blackness of the wide open spaces, illuminated only by the stars, surely far more brilliant here than they had ever seemed at home?

Despite her tiredness, despite the shock of Jay’s hostility and the twins’ revelations, somewhere deep down inside her that tiny flicker of excitement still burned. Idiotically, since she was in a fully enclosed plane, she felt as though she could almost smell the hot, dry scent of the land, as though its lure and magic were already weaving their spell around her.

She wondered how close to the Rio Grande the ranch actually was. Tip hadn’t said, although he had said that the ranch had survived in the early years because it had its own water supply that didn’t dry out, even in the longest drought.

Suddenly she felt the plane start to drop. At her side, Cherry said reassuringly, ‘Don’t worry, it won’t be long now.’

As she glanced out of the window, Natasha had a confused impression of rows of oil derricks, and flat, sandy earth, illuminated by the huge floodlights on top of the derricks.

‘Those are Uncle Pete’s oil wells,’ Rosalie told her matter-of-factly.

‘They used to be,’ Cherry corrected her. ‘Gramps said that most of ‘em belong to Uncle Sam now.’

Natasha hid a small smile as she heard Rosalie saying curiously, ‘But we don’t have an Uncle Sam …’

‘No! Gramps meant the government—silly!’

The plane banked drunkenly, and ahead of them Natasha could see the long, brightly lit airstrip. And then they were going down, bumping gently on the tarmac, slowing to a halt.

Cherry and Rosalie busied themselves unfastening their seat-belts and collecting their things as matter-of-factly as though they might have got off the tube. But to these children flying was a part of their lives.

Natasha followed them as they moved towards the exit. Jay Travers came to join them, his Stetson still rammed down on his head. Did he always wear it? she wondered. He had struck her as being too cynical and too worldly to constantly parody the cowboy image. She glanced again at his worn jeans and dusty boots. There had been other men wearing Stetsons at the airport, but they had all been dressed in executive suits, or immaculate western outfits …

‘I’m a working rancher, Miss Ames,’ she heard him saying behind her as he reached out to open the door. ‘I’m sorry if my clothes aren’t what you’re used to, but out here time is money …’

‘And I wasn’t worth the time and effort it would have taken you to get changed,’ Natasha said sardonically, holding back any further comment when she saw how intently the girls were listening to them.

Jay, it seemed, had no inhibitions.

‘Gramps was right about one thing,’ he agreed. ‘You sure are quick on the uptake …’

The way he said it, it wasn’t a compliment, and Natasha felt an angry flush sear her skin as she followed the two girls down on to the airstrip.

It was surprisingly cold, and then she remembered that this land came pretty close to desert conditions, and that the temperature would drop dramatically at night.

As the girls raced over to the waiting vehicle, Natasha hesitated. Her cases were still in the plane, and she suspected it would be unwise to rely on Jay’s chivalry to bring them for her. As she paused, a chilly breeze raised goose-bumps on her exposed arms.

‘You’d better go get in the truck. Didn’t Gramps tell you anything about conditions out here? Or were you so eager to come and claim your dues that you forgot?’

Her brief softening toward him, born of his sudden appreciation of her shivers, died as she listened to his sarcastic words.

‘My luggage is still on board the plane,’ she told him, ignoring his taunt.

‘I’ll see to that. Go join the girls.’

Much as she longed to ignore his command, she knew it would be foolish to simply stand around and shiver, while she waited for him to bring her cases.

The vehicle he had described as ‘the truck’ was huge. It was a truck, in that there was an open section at the back, but as Cherry opened the door for her she gasped to see the luxurious interior, with its front and rear bench seats and sophisticated bank of equipment.

‘Some truck,’ she muttered under her breath, causing the girls to giggle.

‘Uncle Jay uses it when he’s driving around the ranch,’ Cherry explained. ‘It has full radio contact with the ranch so that he can keep a check on what’s going on, and these seats make up into a bed in case he has to stay out overnight. It’s real neat, isn’t it?’

Natasha had to agree that it was, although her slightly puritan Cheshire soul protested a little at its opulent luxury. Her father had driven round his farm in a battered old Land Rover, with the hardest bench seats in the world and an antiquated form of heating that constantly belched out putrid and polluted air. It had been practically held together with pieces of string and odd bits of wire! In Cheshire, farmers were a thrifty, frugal lot who did not believe in expending money on new equipment while the old was still in working order.

Luckily the back seat was wide enough for her to be able to wedge herself alongside the girls. There was no way she was going to sit next to Jay and listen to more of his acerbic comments.

It took twenty minutes to drive back to the homestead, along one of the straightest bitumen roads Natasha had ever seen, and at a speed that had her clutching the sides of her seat as she tried to control her start of terror.

‘It’s all right, Uncle Jay isn’t going to hit anything,’ Cherry assured her kindly, calling out, to Natasha’s chagrin, ‘Can’t you slow down some? Natasha is scared …’

‘We used to be scared, too, when our folks were first killed, but Gramps said that the only way to get over falling off a horse was to climb right back on again.’

Yes, she could just hear him saying it too, Natasha thought wryly.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll let you hold my hand. That will make you feel a lot better … Uncle Jay always lets me hold his when I’m scared …’

So the man was human, after all. It came as something of a shock, and she couldn’t resist sneaking a glance at his rigid profile.

In the darkness of the truck she could just about make it out. While she was studying him he turned his head abruptly, as though sensing her scrutiny, and immediately she was aware of his leashed tension and resentment. Surely the fact that she had befriended his grandfather and had been left some small token in remembrance of that friendship could not be responsible for this almost savage sense of hostility she sensed in him?

Uncertainly, like someone probing an aching tooth, she examined her own feelings. It was unheard of for her to react so strongly to a man on such a short acquaintance … What had happened to her notorious coldness, so much bemoaned by other men? What had happened to the cool hauteur behind which she habitually hid her real feelings?

‘We’re almost there now.’ Cherry’s excited comment distracted her and she followed the little girl’s pointing finger. ‘Look, those are the breeding pens and the cattle sheds,’ she announced importantly. ‘Uncle Jay is trying to develop a new strain of Brahmin cattle, that will give leaner meat. He …’

‘I’m sure Miss Ames isn’t interested in any of that, Cherry.’ Jay’s ice-cold voice cut across the little girl’s excited chatter, and Natasha felt her resentment of him harden into something deeper.

If he wasn’t concerned with her feelings, surely he might have considered those of his niece? Or was he like his grandfather … did female members of the human race have no importance at all in his scheme of things?

It was cool, prim Rosalie who put the final seal on what Natasha felt was already promising to become a disastrous decision by saying virtuously, ‘Gramps used to say that Uncle Jay would have been better off breeding sons than wasting his time trying to breed a new type of cattle …’

‘That’s enough!’

Instant silence consumed the interior of the truck. Natasha found she was wishing herself a thousand miles away from Texas, and most especially from the man driving this vehicle. She had come out here with such high hopes, such a feeling of adventure, and within a few short hours he had managed to destroy all of that and replace it with …

With what? Hostility? Fear? Compassion for his two poor nieces—and any other woman unfortunate enough to come within his sphere … Resentment against Tip for putting her in such a position in the first place, and other alien emotions she couldn’t even begin to understand.

There had been that frisson of sensation when he had touched her, for instance. That momentary need to know what he would look like with his mouth softened by passion, his eyes hot instead of cold. That terrifying second when she had looked at him and read bitter loneliness in his eyes and almost ached to reach out and smooth it away …

She was imagining things, she told herself. She was suffering from jet-lag. People did the strangest things under its influence. Yes … yes, that was it. She heaved a faint sigh of relief as the truck suddenly stopped. She had been so deeply engrossed in her worrying thoughts that she hadn’t realised that they had pulled up in front of what must be the main entrance to the house.

As she stared at it, she caught her breath on a sudden surge of pleasure. It had been built in the Spanish style, which she recognised from trips to Andalucia: long and low, with white walls and a veranda, around which was entwined what she very much suspected must be bougainvillaea.

Another veranda ran round the second storey, with shuttered windows obviously opening out on to it.

‘Come on, Miss Ames, we’re here!’ Cherry tugged on her arm. Natasha shook herself free on her sudden and instinctive sense of homecoming and followed the girls outside.

‘Go on into the house. Dolores, our housekeeper, has prepared a room for you, Miss Ames.’

‘Uncle Jay …’

The twins’ protest was ignored as he swung down from the truck and strode away from them.

‘I’ve got work to do, kids, and it’s way past your bedtime … See you in the morning.’

Did that apply to her, too? If so, she ought to be relieved. She was so tired that she could have stretched out on the hard packed earth and dropped straight off to sleep!

‘I suppose he’s going down to the cow barns. Come on, let’s get inside.’

It was Cherry who took charge, pushing open the heavy door and calling out, ‘Dolores, we’re home!’

The Mexican woman who came in answer to her summons was smiling broadly. She hugged both girls and then turned to look at Natasha, her smile fading abruptly, as she said coolly, ‘You’ll be wanting to go to your room, Miss Ames. I’ll have one of the girls bring you a tray up … Jay said to tell you that breakfast will be at eight, and the lawyer will be here at nine. Tomas will see to your bags. If you’ll just come with me.’

What had she done to provoke this degree of antipathy from Tip’s staff? Too proud to show how hurt she was by the woman’s attitude, she trailed tiredly behind her as she mounted the elegant double-banistered stairs.

‘Jay said to put you in the guest suite—for the time being …’

Why was it that those last few words should have such an ominous ring to them? Natasha wondered, as Dolores paused and pushed open one of the many doors leading off the galleried landing.

In London, she had looked forward with hope and anticipation to being asked to stay on for a brief time, but now … Now she was half wishing she had never come, she admitted, as she stepped past Dolores and into her room.

She was left alone to explore it. It was certainly very elegant: not just a bedroom, but a bedroom, a sitting-room and her own private bathroom.

It was decorated in a style that Natasha found slightly pretentious, and not suited to the beautiful simplicity of the Spanish-style house. The furniture was too modern, the pale Nile-green leather settee not in keeping with the building. Her bed was swathed in flimsy printed silk covers, where she would have instinctively chosen a heavily carved Spanish bed and covered it with one of the beautiful heritage quilts she had seen in a display of American goods in Harrods, or perhaps even an Indian or Mexican woven spread. Certainly, she would never have chosen the bedroom’s delicate pseudo-French gilt and white trappings.

At home in Cheshire, the farmhouse had been furnished with sturdy heirlooms collected over the generations, each one suited to its purpose and its background. Here she found her surroundings jarred on her, so out of step was the décor with the exterior and the ambience of the house.

Who had been responsible for choosing them? Not a man—they were too flimsy, too delicate for that. They spoke of a woman who loved luxury; a woman who despised the sturdy building that was her home …

She was getting fanciful again, Natasha told herself. For all she knew, Tip might have commissioned interior designers to decorate and furnish this suite.

She was in the bathroom freshening up when she heard her door open. When she returned to her sitting-room she discovered a pot of fragrant coffee and a generous plate of sandwiches waiting for her, along with her luggage.

She poured some of the coffee and ate a couple of sandwiches, stifling her yawns, as she started to make an attempt to unpack. She had to give it up half-way through, overcome by intense exhaustion. A shower and then bed, she decided sleepily. That was what she needed now …

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.