TEXAS BRIDES

Joan Johnston
Texas Brides

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.

CONTENTS

THE RANCHER & THE RUNAWAY BRIDE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

THE BLUEST EYES IN TEXAS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Dear Reader,

I had no idea when I wrote The Rancher & the Runaway Bride that I was starting a dynasty that would encompass three generations of Whitelaws in Texas. I grew up in a large family—six girls and one boy—and I always wondered what it might have been like to have older brothers. For heroine Tate Whitelaw, her brothers Garth, Jesse and Faron, turn out to be a little more protective than she would like. When they set boundaries that she finds too constraining, she heads off on an adventure that lands her in trouble—and leads her to her one true love.

I hope you’ll enjoy this book in my HAWK’S WAY series, which follows the lives and loves of a powerful and prolific Texas ranching family.

Long after writing The Bluest Eyes in Texas, I’m still writing about Texas Rangers and making them my heroes. They’re a fascinating, elite breed of modern-day lawmen who remain renegades and lone wolves. Burr Covington is one of my favorites!

I have no trouble picturing “the bluest eyes in Texas” because my heroine’s eyes aren’t really blue—they’re the color of Texas bluebonnets, which are actually a striking lavender. I have pictures of my children playing among those glorious Texas wildflowers, which blanket the hill country in south Texas each spring.

I invite you along as Burr Covington, a Texas Ranger from the wrong side of the tracks, rescues the governor’s “ice princess” daughter from kidnappers, and then falls head over heels for The Bluest Eyes in Texas.

I love hearing from you! You can contact me through my Web site at www.joanjohnston.com. Be sure to sign up on my mailing list if you’d like to get notice of upcoming titles.

Happy reading!

THE RANCHER & THE RUNAWAY BRIDE

Chapter 1

“MAY I KISS YOU good night, Tate?”

“Of course you can, Hank.”

“Your brothers—”

“Forget about them! I’m a grown woman. I certainly don’t need permission from Faron or Garth to give you a simple little good-night kiss.” Tate Whitelaw stepped closer to the tall cowboy and slipped her arms around his neck. The bright light over the front door didn’t quite reach to the corner of the railed porch where she was standing with Hank.

Hank took advantage of Tate’s invitation, drawing her into his arms behind one of the massive fluted columns that graced the front of the house and aligning their bodies from breast to hip. She was uncomfortably aware of his arousal, since only two layers of denim—her jeans and his—separated their warm flesh. His mouth sought hers, and his tongue thrust inside. It was more than a simple good-night kiss, and Tate suddenly found herself wishing she hadn’t been quite so encouraging.

“Hank—” she gasped, pulling her head back and trying to escape his ardor. “I don’t think—”

Hank’s arms tightened around her, and Tate found herself in a wrestling match. She struggled to get the heels of her hands to his shoulders to push him away. He gripped her short black hair with one hand and angled her face for his kiss.

“Hank! S-stop it!” she hissed.

Caught up in his lust, Hank was oblivious to Tate’s urgently whispered entreaties. Tate had already decided it was time to take desperate action when the issue was taken out of her hands. Literally.

Tate knew someone had arrived on the scene when Hank gave a grunt of surprise as he was jerked away from her. Her brother Faron had a handful of Hank’s Western shirt in his grasp and was holding the young man at arm’s length.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing with my sister?” Faron demanded.

Hank blinked owlishly. “Kissing her?”

“Who the hell gave you permission to kiss her?”

“I did!” Tate said through gritted teeth. Fisted hands on hips, chin up, she faced her brother defiantly. “Who gave you permission to interfere!”

“When I see my kid sister getting mauled—”

“I can take care of myself!”

Faron arched a brow, and Tate knew it was because she hadn’t denied the fact she was being mauled. Hank had just been a little exuberant, that was all. She could have escaped her predicament without her brother’s interference.

To Tate’s horror, Garth shoved open the front screen door and asked, “What in blue blazes is going on out here?”

“I found this coyote forcing his attentions on Tate,” Faron said.

Garth stepped onto the porch, and if the sheer size of him didn’t intimidate, the fierce scowl on his face surely would have. “That true?” Garth demanded of Hank.

Hank gulped. “Perspiration dripped at his temple. The color left his face. “Well, sir…” He looked to Tate for rescue.

Tate watched Garth’s lips flatten into a grim line as he exchanged a decisive look with Faron. Hank had been tried and convicted. All that was left was sentencing.

“Get your butt out of here,” Garth said to Hank. “And don’t come back.”

Faron gave Hank a pretty good shove in the right direction, and Garth’s boot finished the job. Hank stumbled down the porch steps to his pickup, dragged open the door, gunned the engine and departed in a swirl of gravel and choking dust.

There was a moment of awful silence while the dust settled. Tate fought the tears that threatened. She would never let her brothers know how humiliated she felt! But there was nothing wrong with giving them the lash of her tongue. She turned and stared first into Garth’s stern, deep brown eyes, and then into Faron’s more concerned gray-green ones.

“I hope you’re both happy!” she snapped. “That’s the fourth man in a month you’ve run off the ranch.”

“Now, Tate,” Faron began. “Any man who won’t stand up to the two of us isn’t worth having for a beau.”

“Don’t patronize me!” she raged. “I won’t be placated like a baby with a rattle. I’m not three. I’m not even thirteen. I’m twenty-three. I’m a woman, and I have a woman’s needs.”

“You don’t need to be manhandled,” Garth said. “And I won’t stand by and let it happen.”

“Me neither,” Faron said.

Tate hung her head. When she raised it again, her eyes were glistening with tears that blurred her vision. “I could have handled Hank myself,” she said in a quiet voice. “You have to trust me to make my own decisions, my own mistakes.”

“We don’t want to see you hurt,” Faron said, laying a hand on Tate’s shoulder.

Tate stiffened. “And you think I wasn’t hurt by what happened here tonight?”

Garth and Faron exchanged another look. Then Faron said, “Maybe your pride was pricked a little, but—”

“A little!” Tate jerked herself from Faron’s grasp. “You’re impossible! Both of you! You don’t know the first thing about what I want or need. You can’t imagine what it’s like to have every step you take watched to make sure you don’t fall down. Maybe it made sense when I was a baby, but I’m grown-up now. I don’t need you standing guard over me.”

“Like you didn’t need our help tonight?” Garth asked in a cold voice.

“I didn’t!” Tate insisted.

Garth grabbed her chin and forced her face up to his. “You have no idea what a man’s passions can lead him to do, little sister. I have no intention of letting you find out. Until the right man comes along—”

“There’s no man who’ll come within a hundred miles of this place now,” Tate retorted bitterly. “My loving brothers have seen to that! You’re going to keep me a virgin until I dry up and—”

Garth’s fingers tightened painfully on her jaw, forcing her to silence. She saw the flash of fury in his dark eyes. A muscle flexed in his jaw. At last he said, “You’d better go to your room and think about what happened here tonight. We’ll talk more about this tomorrow.”

“You’re not my father!” Tate spat. “I won’t be sent to my room like a naughty child!”

“You’ll go, or I’ll take you there,” Garth threatened.

“She can’t go anywhere until you let go of her chin,” Faron pointed out.

Garth shot a rueful look at his brother, then released Tate. “Good night, Tate,” he said.

Tate had learned there were only two sides to Garth’s arguments: his and the wrong one. Her stomach was churning. Her chest felt so tight it was hard to breathe, and her throat had a lump in it that made swallowing painful. Her eyes burned with tears that she would be damned if she’d shed!

She looked from Garth to Faron and back again. Garth’s face was a granite mask of disapproval, while Faron’s bore a look of sympathetic understanding. Tate knew they loved her. It was hard to fight their good intentions. Yet their love was smothering her. They would not let her live!

Her mother had died when she was born, and she had been raised by her father and her three brothers, Garth, Faron and Jesse. Their father had died when Tate was eight. Jesse had left home then, and Garth and Faron had been responsible for her ever since. It was a responsibility they had taken very seriously. She had been kept cloistered at Hawk’s Way, more closely guarded than a novice in a convent. If she went anywhere off the ranch, one of her brothers came along.

When Tate was younger she’d had girlfriends to share her troubles with. As she got older, she discovered that the females she met were more interested in getting an introduction to her brothers than in being her friend. Eventually, she had simply stopped inviting them.

Tate hadn’t even been allowed to go away to college. Instead she had taken correspondence courses to get her degree in business. She had missed the social interaction with her peers, the experience of being out on her own, that would have prepared her to deal with the Hanks of the world.

However, Garth and Faron had taught her every job that had to be done on a ranch, from branding and castrating to vaccinating and breeding. She wasn’t naive. No one could be raised on a ranch and remain totally innocent. She had seen the quarter horse stallions they raised at Hawk’s Way mount mares. But she could not translate that violent act into what happened between a man and a woman in bed.

So far, she had found the fumbling kisses of her swains more annoying than anything else. Yet Tate had read enough to know there was more to the male-female relationship than she had experienced so far. If her brothers had their way, she would never unravel the mysteries of love.

She had come to the dire conclusion over the past few months that no man would ever pass muster with her brothers. If she continued living with them, she would die an old maid. They had given her no choice. In order to escape her brothers’ overprotectiveness, she would have to leave Hawk’s Way.

This latest incident was the final straw. But then, kicking a man when he’s down is sometimes the only way to make him get up. Tate took one long, last look at each of her brothers. She would be gone from Hawk’s Way before morning.

When the front door closed behind Tate, Faron settled a hip on the porch rail, and Garth leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb.

“She’s too damn beautiful for her own good,” Garth muttered.

“Hard to believe a woman can look so sexy in a man’s T-shirt and a pair of jeans,” Faron agreed with a shake of his head.

Garth’s eyes were bleak. “Wha’re we going to do about her?”

“Don’t know that there’s anything we can do except what we’re already doing.”

“I don’t want to see her get hurt,” Garth said.

Faron felt a tightness in his chest. “Yeah, I know. But she’s all grown up, Garth. We’re going to have to let go sometime.”

Garth frowned. “Not yet.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. Just not yet.”

THE NEXT MORNING, Garth and Faron met in the kitchen, as they always did, just before dawn. Charlie One Horse, the part-Indian codger who had been chief cook and bottle washer at Hawk’s Way since their mother had died, had coffee perking and breakfast on the table. Only this morning there was something—someone—missing.

“Where’s Tate?” Garth asked as he sat down at the head of the table.

“Ain’t seen her,” Charlie said.

Garth grimaced. “I suppose she’s sulking in her room.”

“You drink your coffee, and I’ll go upstairs and check on her,” Faron offered.

A moment later Faron came bounding into the kitchen. “She’s not there! She’s gone!”

Garth sprang up from his chair so fast it fell over backward. “What? Gone where?”

Faron grabbed Garth by the shoulders and said in a fierce voice, “She’s not in her room. Her bed hasn’t been slept in!”

Garth freed himself and took the stairs two at a time to see for himself. Sure enough, the antique brass double bed was made up with its nubby-weave spread. That alone was an ominous sign. Tate wasn’t known for her neatness, and if she had made up the bed, she had done it to make a statement.

Garth headed for the closet, his heart in his throat. He heaved a sigh of relief when he saw Tate’s few dresses still hanging there. Surely she wouldn’t have left Hawk’s Way for good without them.

Garth turned and found Faron standing in the doorway to Tate’s room. “She probably spent the night sleeping out somewhere on the ranch. She’ll turn up when she gets hungry.”

“I’m going looking for her,” Faron said.

Garth shoved a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “Hell and the devil! I guess there’ll be no peace around here until we find her. When I get hold of her, I’ll—”

“When we find her, I’ll do the talking,” Faron said. “You’ve caused enough trouble.”

“Me? This isn’t my fault!”

“Like hell! You’re the one who told her to go to her room and stay there.”

“Looks like she didn’t pay a whole helluva lot of attention to me, did she?” Garth retorted.

At that moment Charlie arrived, puffing from exertion, and said, “You two gonna go look for that girl, or stand here arguin’?”

Faron and Garth glared at each other for another moment before Faron turned and pressed his way past Charlie and down the stairs.

Charlie put a hand out to stop Garth. “Don’t think you’re gonna find her, boy. Knew this was bound to happen sooner or later.”

“What do you mean, old man?”

“Knew you had too tight a rein on that little filly. Figured she had too much spirit to stay in them fences you set up to hold her in.”

“It was for her own good!”

Charlie shook his head. “Did it as much for yourself as for her. Knowin’ your ma like you did, it’s no wonder you’d want to keep your sister close. Prob’ly fearful she’d take after your ma, steppin’ out on your pa like she did and—”

“Leave Mother out of this. What she did has nothing to do with the way I’ve treated Tate.”

Charlie tightened the beaded rawhide thong that held one of his long braids, but said nothing.

Garth scowled. “I can see there’s no sense arguing with a stone wall. I’m going after Tate, and I’m going to bring her back. This time she’ll stay put!”

Garth and Faron searched canyons and mesas, ridges and gullies on their northwest Texas ranch, but not a sign did they find of their sister on Hawk’s Way.

It was Charlie One Horse who discovered that the old ’51 Chevy pickup, the one with the rusty radiator and the skipping carburetor, was missing from the barn where it was stored.

Another check of Tate’s room revealed that her underwear drawer was empty, that her brush and comb and toothpaste were gone, and that several of her favorite T-shirts and jeans had also been packed.

By sunset, the truth could not be denied. At the age of twenty-three, Tate Whitelaw had run away from home.

Chapter 2

ADAM PHILIPS NORMALLY DIDN’T stop to pick up hitchhikers. But there was no way he could drive past the woman sitting on the front fender of a ’51 Chevy pickup, its hood raised and its radiator steaming, her thumb outstretched to bum a ride. He pulled his late-model truck up behind her and put on his Stetson as he stepped out into the heat of a south Texas midsummer afternoon.

She was wearing form-fitting jeans and an off-the-shoulder peasant blouse that exposed a lush female figure. But the heart-shaped face, with its huge hazel eyes and wide mouth framed by breeze-ruffled, short-cropped black hair, was innocence itself. He was stunned by her beauty and appalled at her youth. What was this female doing all alone on an isolated stretch of southwest Texas highway in an old rattletrap truck?

She beamed a trusting smile at him, and he felt his heart do a flipflop. She slipped off the rusty fender and lazily sauntered toward him. He felt his groin tighten with desire and scowled. She stopped in her tracks. About time she thought to be wary! Adam was all too conscious of the dangers a stranger presented to a young woman alone. Grim-lipped, he strode the short distance between the two vehicles.

Tate had been so relieved to see someone show up on the deserted rural route that the danger of the situation didn’t immediately occur to her. She got only a glimpse of wavy blond hair and striking blue eyes before her rescuer had slipped on a Stetson that put his face in shadow.

He was broad-shouldered and lean-hipped, with a stride that ate up the distance between the two trucks. It was a fair assumption, from his dusty boots, worn jeans and sweat-stained Western shirt, that he was a working cowboy. Tate saw no reason to suspect he meant her any harm.

But instead of a pleasant “May I help you?” the first words out of his mouth were, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Tate was alarmed by the animosity in the stranger’s voice and frightened by the intensity of his stare. But his attitude was so similar to what she had recently gone through with her brothers that she lifted her chin and retorted, “Hitching a ride back to the nearest gas station. In case you hadn’t noticed, my truck’s broken down.”

The scowl deepened but he said, “Get in my pickup.”

Tate had only taken two steps when the tall cowboy grabbed her arm and pulled her up short.

“Aren’t you going to ask anything about me? Don’t you want to know who I am?”

By now Tate was more irritated than frightened. “A Good Samaritan with a bad temper!” she retorted. “Do I need to know more?”

Adam opened his mouth to make a retort, took one look at the mutinous expression on the young woman’s face, and shut it again. Instead he dragged her unceremoniously to the passenger’s side of his long-bed pickup, opened the door, shoved her inside, and slammed it closed after her.

“My bag! It’s in the back end of the Chevy,” Tate yelped.

Adam stalked back to the rattletrap Chevy, snagged the duffel bag from the rusted-out truck bed and slung it into the back of his pickup.

Woman was too damned trusting for her own good! he thought. Her acid tongue wouldn’t have been much help to her if he had been the kind of villain who preyed on stranded women. Which he wasn’t. Lucky for her!

Tate didn’t consider herself at all lucky. She recognized the flat-lipped expression on her Good Samaritan’s face. He might have rescued her, all right, but he wasn’t happy about it. The deep crevices formed around his mouth by his frown and the webbed lines at the edges of his eyes had her guessing his age at thirty-five or thirty-six—the same as her eldest brother Garth. The last thing she needed was another keeper!

She sat back with her arms crossed and stared out the window as they drove past rolling prairie. She thought back to the night two weeks ago when she had decided to leave Hawk’s Way.

Her escape from her brothers, while apparently sudden, hadn’t been completely without direction. She had taken several ranch journals containing advertisements from outfits all over Texas looking for expert help and headed south. However, Tate soon discovered that not one rancher was interested in hiring a woman, especially one without references, as either foreman or ranch manager.

To confound her problems, the ancient pickup she had taken from the barn was in worse shape than she had thought. It had left her stranded miles from the Lazy S—the last ranch on her list and her last hope for a job in ranch management.

“Do you know where the Lazy S is?” she asked.

Adam started at the sound of her voice. “I expect I could find it. Why?”

“I understand they’re looking for a ranch manager. I intend to apply for the job.”

“You’re just a kid!”

The cowboy could have said nothing more likely to raise Tate’s neck hairs. “For your information, I’m twenty-three and a fully grown woman!”

Adam couldn’t argue with that. He had a pretty good view of the creamy rise of her breasts at the frilly gathered edge of her blouse. “What do you know about ranching?” he asked.

“I was raised on a ranch, Hawk’s Way, and—” She stopped abruptly, realizing that she had revealed more than she had intended to this stranger. Tate hadn’t used her own last name to apply for any jobs, knowing that if she did her brothers would be able to hunt her down and drag her back home. “I hope you’ll keep that to yourself,” she said.

Adam raised an inquiring brow that met such a gamine smile that his heart did that disturbing flipflop again.

“You see,” Tate said, “the truth is, I’ve run away from home.”

Adam snorted. “Aren’t you a little old for that?”

Tate’s lips curled ruefully. “I suppose so. But my brothers just wouldn’t let me live! I mean, they watched every breath in and out of my body.”

Adam found the thought rather intriguing himself.

“My brothers are a little overprotective, you see. I had to run away if I was ever going to meet the right man and fall in love and have children.”

“Sounds like you could do that better at home than traipsing around the countryside,” Adam observed.

“You don’t know my older brothers! They want to wrap me in cotton batting and keep me safe. Safe, ha! What they mean is, they want to keep me a virgin forever.”

Adam choked at this unbelievable revelation and coughed to clear his throat.

“It’s true! They’ve chased away every single beau I’ve ever had. Which is only a waste of time and energy because, you know, a man who’s born to drown can manage to drown in a desert.”

Adam eyed her askance.

“I mean, if something is destined to happen, it’ll happen no matter what.”

Tate waited for Adam to say something, but when he remained silent, she continued, “My older brother, Jesse, left home, too, when I was just eight. It was right after my father died. We haven’t seen him for years and years. I don’t plan to stay away for years, of course, but then, who knows how long it will take to find my Prince Charming. Not that I have to marry a prince of a man.”

Tate grinned and shrugged. “But it would be nice, you know, to just once kiss a man good night, without having my brothers send him packing because he’s not good enough for me.”

Tate realized she was talking to fill the silence and forced herself to shut up.

Behind the young woman’s bravado Adam saw the desperation that had sent her fleeing from the safe haven her brothers had provided for her. He felt sick inside. Was this the way his younger sister had felt? Had Melanie seen him as an oppressive tyrant, the same way this young woman perceived her brothers?

Tate held her breath as the stranger looked into her eyes. There was an awful sadness there she felt constrained to dispel. So she began talking again.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for a job,” she said. “I must have been to fifteen different spreads in the past two weeks. But I haven’t had so much as a nibble of interest.

“What I find so frustrating is the fact that most owners don’t treat me seriously. I mean, I know I’m young, but there isn’t anything I don’t know about running a ranch.”

“Do you know how to figure the amount of feed you need for each head of stock?” Adam asked.

“Depends on whether you plan to keep the stock penned or let it graze,” Tate said. “Now if it’s penned—”

Adam interrupted with, “Give me some symptoms of colic.”

“A horse might have colic if he won’t eat, or if he starts pawing, or gets up and down a lot. Generally an animal that can’t get comfortable has a problem.”

“Can you keep books on a computer?”

Tate snorted inelegantly. “Boy can I ever! I got stuck with all the bookkeeping at Hawk’s Way. So, if you were hiring at the Lazy S, would I get the job?”

“What will you do if you don’t get the job?” Adam asked instead.

Tate shrugged, not realizing how revealing the gesture was of the fact she wasn’t the least bit nonchalant about that distressing possibility. “I don’t know. I only know I won’t go back home.”

“And if your brothers find you?”

Her chin took on a mulish tilt. “I’ll just run away again.”

Adam wondered if his sister was so forthright and disarmingly honest with the man who had picked her up the night she ran away from home. Had that stranger known all about the young woman he had raped and murdered and left lying in a ditch on the side of the road?

Adam’s teeth clenched in determination. If he had anything to say about it, the innocent young woman in his pickup would not become another such statistic. And he, of all people, was in a perfect position to help her. Because he owned the Lazy S Ranch.

However, in the months since Adam had put his advertisement in the ranch journal, he had changed his mind about needing a foreman. He had decided to place his country medical practice on hold and put the Lazy S Ranch back in the black himself.

But if he told this young woman he had no job for her, where would she go? What would she do? And how would he feel if he sent her away and she ended up dead somewhere on the side of the road?

“Say, there’s the Lazy S Ranch!” Tate pointed at a wrought-iron sign that bridged a dirt road off the main thoroughfare. To her surprise, the cowboy turned and drove across a cattle guard onto the Lazy S.

“I thought you were going to take me into town!” she said.

“I thought you wanted to interview for a job!” he retorted.

Tate eyed the cowboy. She was perplexed. Many western men were the strong, silent type, but the stranger who had picked her up was something more. Aloof. The more distant he was, the more intrigued she became. It was a surprise to find out he had been kind enough to take her directly to the Lazy S.

She could have kicked herself for telling him so much personal information without finding out anything about him—not even his name. When he dropped her off, she might never see him again. Tate suddenly realized she wanted to see him again. Very much.

As the cowboy stopped his pickup in front of an impressive adobe ranch house, she said, “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your giving me a ride here. I’d like to thank you, but I don’t even know your name!”

Adam turned to look at her and felt a tightening in his gut as she smiled up at him. Well, it was now or never. “My name is Adam Philips,” he said. “I own the Lazy S. Come on inside, and you can interview for that job.”

Chapter 3

TATE WAS STUNNED when the mysterious cowboy revealed his identity, but buoyant with hope, as well. She scrambled out of the pickup after Adam, certain that he wouldn’t have bothered bringing her here if he didn’t intend to at least consider her for the job of ranch foreman.

“Follow me,” he said, heading into the house.

Tate stopped only long enough to grab her duffel bag and sling it over her shoulder before scampering up the three steps after him.

Adam’s living room was masculine through and through, filled with massive Spanish furniture of natural leather studded with brass. There was not another frill or a furbelow to soften the room. No woman has lived here in a long time—if ever, Tate decided.

She discovered that the adobe hacienda formed a U shape. The two wings enclosed a garden shaded by immense moss-laden live oaks and bright with blooming bougainvillea. A central tile fountain splashed with cascading water.

They finally arrived at Adam’s office, which was located at the tip of one wing of the house. The thick adobe walls and the barrel-tile roof kept the inside of the house dark and cool, reminiscent of days gone by when everyone took an afternoon siesta.

Tate saw from the immaculate condition of the office that Adam must be an organized person. Everything had a place and everything was in its place. Tate felt her heart sink. She wasn’t averse to order, she just refused to be bound by it. That had been one small rebellion she was capable of in the space in which her brothers confined her.

Instead of sitting on the leather chair in front of the desk, she seated herself on a corner of the antique oak desk itself. Adam refused to sit at all, instead pacing the room like a caged tiger.

“Before we go any further, I want to know your real name,” he said.

Tate frowned. “I need a promise from you first that you won’t contact my brothers.”

Adam stopped pacing and stared at her.

Tate stared right back.

“All right,” he said. “You’ve got it.”

Tate took a deep breath and said, “My last name is Whitelaw.”

Adam swore under his breath and began pacing again. The Whitelaws were known all over Texas for the excellent quarter horses they bred and trained. He had once met Garth Whitelaw at a quarter horse sale. And he was intimately acquainted with Jesse Whitelaw. Tate’s brother Jesse, the one she hadn’t seen in years, had recently married Honey Farrell—the woman Adam loved.

Honey’s ranch, the Flying Diamond, bordered the Lazy S. Fortunately, with the strained relations between Adam and Jesse Whitelaw, Tate’s brother wasn’t likely to be visiting the Lazy S anytime soon.

Adam turned his attention to the young woman he had rescued from the side of the road. Her short black hair was windblown around her face, and her cheeks were flushed with excitement. She was gnawing worriedly on her lower lip—something he thought he might like to do himself.

Adam felt that telltale tightening in his groin. He tucked his thumbs into his jeans to keep from reaching out to touch her.

Tate crossed her legs and clutched her knee with laced fingers. She could feel the tension in Adam. A muscle worked in his jaw, and his expression was forbidding. A shiver ran down her spine. But it wasn’t fear she felt, it was anticipation.

She was so nervous her voice cracked when she tried to speak. She cleared her throat and asked, “So, do I get the job?”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

Tate was on her feet and at Adam’s side in an instant. “I’d be good at it,” she argued. “You wouldn’t be sorry you hired me.”

Adam had his doubts about that. His blood thrummed as he caught the faint scent of lilacs from her hair. He was already sorry he had stopped to pick her up. He couldn’t be anywhere near her without feeling as randy as a teenager. That was a fine state of affairs when he had appointed himself her guardian in her brothers’ stead. But he believed Tate when she had said she would just run away again if her brothers tried taking her home. Surely she would be better off here where he could keep a close eye on her.

He carefully stepped away from her and went around to sit behind his desk. Perhaps it would provide a more comfortable barrier between himself and the uncontrollable urges that struck him when he got within touching distance of this engaging runaway.

He steepled his fingers and said, “The job I have available isn’t the same one that was advertised.”

She braced her palms on the desk and leaned toward him. “Oh? Why not?”

Adam took one look at what her careless posture in the peasant blouse revealed and forced his gaze upward to her wide hazel eyes. “It’s complicated.”

“How?”

Why didn’t she move? He had the irresistible urge to reach out and—He jumped up from behind his desk and started pacing again. “You’d have to know a little bit about what’s happened on the Lazy S over the past couple of months.”

Tate draped herself sideways across the chair in front of the desk, one leg swinging to release the tension, and said, “I’m listening.”

“My previous ranch manager was a crook. He’s in prison now, but besides stealing other people’s cattle, he embezzled from me. He left my affairs in a mess. Originally, I’d intended to hire someone else to try to straighten things out. Lately I’ve decided to put my medical practice on hold—”

“Wait a minute!”

Tate sat up and her feet dropped to the floor, depriving Adam of the delicious view he’d had of her derriere.

“Do you mean to tell me you’re a doctor?” she asked incredulously.

He shrugged sheepishly. “Afraid so. Over the past few months I’ve been transferring my practice to another physician who’s moved into the area, Dr. Susan Kowalski. Now I have time to supervise the work on the Lazy S myself. What I really need is someone I can trust to organize the paperwork and do the bookkeeping.”

Adam pointed to the computer on a stand near his desk. “That thing and I don’t get along. I can’t pay much,” Adam admitted, “but the job includes room and board.” That would keep her from sleeping in her truck, which was about all Adam suspected she could afford right now.

Tate wrinkled her nose. She had cut her teeth on the computer at Hawk’s Way, and what she didn’t know about bookkeeping hadn’t been discovered. But it was the kind of work she liked least of everything she’d done at Hawk’s Way. Still, a job was a job. And this was the best offer she had gotten.

“All right. I accept.”

Tate stood and held a hand out to Adam to shake on the deal.

When Adam touched her flesh he was appalled by the electricity that streaked between them. He had suspected his attraction to Tate, all the while warning himself not to get involved. His powerful, instantaneous reaction to her still caught him by surprise. He blamed it on the fact that it had been too damn long since he’d had a woman. There were plenty who would willingly satisfy his needs, women who knew the score.

He absolutely, positively, was not going to get involved with a twenty-three-year-old virgin. Especially not some virgin who wanted a husband and a family. For Adam Philips wouldn’t give her one—and couldn’t give her the other.

Tate was astonished by the jolt she received simply from the clasp of Adam’s hand. She looked up into his blue eyes and saw a flash of desire quickly banked. She jerked her hand away, said, “I’m sure we’re both going to enjoy this relationship,” then flushed at the more intimate interpretation that could be put on her words.

Adam’s lips curled in a cynical smile. She was a lamb, all right, and a wily old wolf like himself would be smart to keep his distance. He didn’t intend to tell her brothers where she was. But he was betting that sooner or later word of her presence on the Lazy S would leak out, and they would find her. When they did, all hell was going to break loose.

Adam shook his head when he thought of what he was getting himself into. Tate Whitelaw was Trouble with a capital T.

“Where do I bunk in?” Tate asked.

Adam dragged his Stetson off and ruffled his blond hair where the sweat had matted it down. He hadn’t thought about where he would put her. His previous foreman had occupied a separate room at one end of the bunkhouse. That obviously wouldn’t do for Tate.

“I suppose you’ll have to stay here in the house,” he said. “There’s a guest bedroom in the other wing. Come along and I’ll show you where it is.”

He walked her back through the house, describing the layout of things as they went along. “My bedroom is next to the office. The living room, family room and kitchen are in the center of the house. The last bedroom down the hall on this other wing was set up for medical emergencies, and I haven’t had time to refurnish it. The first bedroom on this wing will be your room.”

Adam opened the door to a room that had a distinctively southwestern flavor. The furniture was antique Americana, with woven rugs on the floor, a rocker, a dry sink, a wardrobe and a large maple four-poster covered with a brightly patterned quilt. The room felt light and airy. That image was helped by the large sliding glass door that opened onto the courtyard.

Tate sat down on the bed and bounced a couple of times. “Feels plenty comfortable.” She turned and smiled her thanks up at Adam.

The smile froze on her face.

His look was avid, his nostrils flared. She was suddenly aware of the softness of the bed. The fact that they were alone. And that she didn’t know Adam Philips…from Adam.

However, the part of Tate that was alive to the danger of the situation was squelched by the part of her that was exhilarated to discover she could have such a profound effect on this man. Adam was quite unlike the men her brothers had so peremptorily ejected from Hawk’s Way. In some way she could not explain, he was different. She knew instinctively that his kiss, his touch, would be unlike anything she had ever experienced.

Nor did she feel the same person when she was near him. With this man, she was different. She was no longer her brothers’ little sister. She was a woman, with a woman’s need to be loved by one special man.

Instead of scooting quickly off the bed, she stayed right where she was. She tried her feminine wings just a bit by languidly turning on her side and propping her head up with her hand. She pulled one leg up slightly, mimicking the sexy poses she had seen in some of her brothers’ magazines—the ones they thought she knew nothing about.

Adam’s reaction was everything she could have wished for. His whole body tautened. A vein in his temple throbbed. The muscles in his throat worked spasmodically. And something else happened. Something which, considering the level she was lying at, she couldn’t help observing.

It was fascinating. She had never actually watched it happen to a man before. Mostly, the men she had dated were already in that condition before she had an opportunity to notice. The changing shape of Adam’s Levi’s left no doubt that he was becoming undeniably, indisputably, absolutely, completely aroused.

She gasped, and her eyes sought out his face to see what he intended to do about it.

Nothing! Adam thought. He was going to do absolutely nothing about the fact this hoyden in blue jeans had him harder than a rock in ten seconds flat!

“If you’re done testing your feminine wiles, I’d like to finish showing you the house,” Adam said.

Humiliated by the sarcasm in his voice, Tate quickly scooted off the bed. She had no trouble recognizing his feelings now. Irritation. Frustration. She felt the same things herself. She had never imagined how powerful desire could be. It was a lesson she wouldn’t forget.

She stood before him, chin high, unwilling to admit blame or shame or regret for what she had done. “I’m ready.”

Then strip down and get into that bed.

Adam clenched his teeth to keep from saying what he was thinking. He didn’t know when he had felt such unbridled lust for a woman. It wasn’t decent. But he damn sure wasn’t going to do anything about it!

“Come on,” he growled. “Follow me.”

Tate followed Adam back through the house to the kitchen, where they found a short, rotund Mexican woman with snapping black eyes and round, rosy cheeks. She was chopping onions at the counter. Tate was treated to a smile that revealed two rows of brilliant white teeth.

“Who have you brought to meet me, Señor Adam?” the woman asked.

“Maria, this is Tate Whitelaw. She’s going to be my new bookkeeper. Tate will be staying in the guest bedroom. Tate, I’d like you to meet my housekeeper, Maria Fuentes.”

“Buenos días, Maria,” Tate said.

“¡Habla usted español?” Maria asked.

“You’ve already heard all I know,” Tate said with a self-deprecating grin.

Maria turned to Adam and said in Spanish, “She is very pretty, this one. And very young. Perhaps you would wish me to be her dueña.”

Adam flushed and answered in Spanish, “I’m well aware of her age, Maria. She doesn’t need a chaperon around me.”

The Mexican woman arched a disbelieving brow. Again in Spanish she said, “You are a man, Señor Adam. And her eyes, they smile at you. It would be hard for any man to refuse such an invitation. No?”

“No!” Adam retorted. Then added in Spanish, “I mean, no I wouldn’t take advantage of her. She has no idea what she’s saying with her eyes.”

Maria’s disbelieving brow arched higher. “If you say so, Señor Adam.”

Tate had been trying to follow the Spanish conversation, but the only words she recognized were “Maria,” “chaperon,” “Señor Adam” and “No.” The look on Maria’s face made it clear she disapproved of the fact Tate would be living in the house alone with Adam. Well, she didn’t need a chaperon any more than she needed a keeper. She could take care of herself.

Fortunately, it wasn’t necessary for her to interrupt the conversation. A knock at the kitchen door did it for her. The door opened before anyone could answer it, and a young cowhand stuck his head inside. He had brown eyes and auburn hair and a face so tanned it looked like rawhide.

“Adam? You’re needed in the barn to take a look at that mare, Break of Day. She’s having some trouble foaling.”

“Sure. I’ll be there in a minute, Buck.”

Instead of leaving, the cowhand stood where he was, his eyes glued on the vision in a peasant blouse and skin-tight jeans standing in Adam’s kitchen. He stepped inside the door, slipped his hat off his head, and said, “Name’s Buck, ma’am.”

Tate smiled and held out her hand. “Tate Wh—atly.”

The cowboy shook her hand and then stood there foolishly grinning at her.

Adam groaned inwardly. This was a complication he should have foreseen, but hadn’t. Tate was bound to charm every cowhand on the place. He quickly crossed past her and put a hand on Buck’s shoulder to urge him out the door. “Let’s go.”

“Can I come with you?” Tate asked.

Before Adam could say no, Buck spoke up.

“Why sure, ma’am,” the cowboy said. “Be glad to have you along.”

There wasn’t much Adam could say except, “You can come. But stay out of the way.”

“What kind of trouble is the mare having?” Adam asked as they crossed the short distance to the barn, Tate following on their heels.

“She’s down and her breathing’s labored,” Buck said.

Tate saw as soon as they entered the stall that the mare was indeed in trouble. Her features were grim as she settled onto the straw beside the mare’s head. “There now, pretty lady. I know it’s hard. Just relax, you pretty lady, and everything will be all right.”

Adam and Buck exchanged a look of surprise and approval at the calm, matter-of-fact way Tate had insinuated herself with the mare. The mare lifted her head and whickered in response to the sound of Tate’s voice. Then she lay back down and a long, low groan escaped her.

Tate held the mare’s head while Adam examined her. “It’s twins.”

“Why that’s wonderful!” Tate exclaimed.

“One of them’s turned wrong, blocking the birth canal.” In fact, there was one hoof from each of the twins showing.

“Surely your vet can deliver them!”

Adam’s features were somber as he answered, “He’s out of town at his daughter’s wedding.” Adam couldn’t imagine a way to save either foal, entangled as they were.

Tate’s excitement vanished to be replaced with foreboding. She had encountered this problem once before, and the result had come close to being disastrous. Garth had managed to save the mare and both foals, but it had been a very near thing.

“I’ll have to take one foal to save the other,” Adam said in a flat voice.

“You mean, destroy it?” Tate asked. She couldn’t bring herself to say “dismember it” though that was what Adam was suggesting.

“There’s nothing else I can do.” Adam turned to the cowboy and said, “Buck, see if you can find me some rope.”

Tate stroked the mare’s neck, trying to keep the animal calm. She looked up and saw the dread in Adam’s eyes. It was never easy to make such decisions, yet they were a constant part of ranch life.

She was hesitant to interfere, but there was the tiniest chance the second foal could be saved. “My brother Garth went through this not too long ago. He was able to save both foals by—”

Buck arrived and interrupted with, “Here’s the rope, Adam. Do you need my help?”

“I’m not sure. I’d appreciate it if you’d stay.”

Buck propped a foot on the edge of the stall and leaned his arms across the top rail to watch as Adam knelt beside the mare and began to fashion a noose with the rope.

Adam paused and glanced over at Tate. She was gnawing on her lower lip again while she smoothed her hand over the mare’s sleek neck.

Adam found himself saying, “If you know something that can be done to save both foals, I’m willing to give it a try.”

He watched Tate’s whole face light up.

“Yes! Yes, I do.” She quickly explained how Garth had repositioned the foals.

“I’m not sure I—”

“You can do it!” Tate encouraged. “I know you can!”

Her glowing look made him think he might be able to move mountains. As for saving two spindly foals…It was at least worth a try.

A half hour later, sweat had made damp patches under the arms and down the back of Adam’s chambray shirt. He had paused in what he was doing long enough to tie a navy blue bandanna around his forehead to keep the salty wetness out of his eyes. He worked quietly, efficiently, aware of the life-and-death nature of his task.

Adam knew a moment of hope when he finished. But now that the foals had been rearranged, the mare seemed too exhausted to push. He looked across the mare to Tate, feeling his failure in every inch of his body. “I’m sorry.”

Tate didn’t hear his apology. She took the mare’s head onto her lap and began chanting and cooing to the exhausted animal—witchcraft for sure, Adam thought—until the mare amazingly, miraculously birthed the first of the foals.

Adam knew his grin had to be as silly as the one on Tate’s face, but he didn’t care. Buck took care of cleaning up the first foal while Tate continued her incantations until the mare had delivered the second. Buck again took over drying off the foal while Tate remained at the mare’s head, and Adam made sure the afterbirths were taken care of.

When Adam was finished, he crossed to a sink at one end of the barn and scrubbed himself clean. He dried his hands with a towel before rolling his sleeves down from above the elbow to the middle of his forearms.

Adam watched in admiration as Tate coaxed the mare onto her feet and introduced her to her offspring. The mare took a tentative lick of one, and then the other. In a matter of minutes both foals were nudging under her belly to find mother’s milk.

Tate’s eyes met Adam’s across the stall. He opened his arms and she walked right into them. Her arms circled his waist, and she held him tightly as she gave vent to the tears she hadn’t shed during the awful ordeal.

“Everything’s fine, sweetheart. Thanks to you, everything’s just fine,” Adam said, stroking her short, silky hair. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. You did just fine.”

Adam wasn’t sure how long they stood there. When he looked up to tell Buck he could go, he discovered the cowboy was already gone. Tate’s sobs had subsided and he became aware for the first time of the lithe figure that was pressed so intimately against him.

Tate Whitelaw might be young, but she had the body of a woman. He could feel the soft roundness of her breasts against his chest, and her feminine hips were fitted tight against his masculinity. His growing masculinity.

He tried shifting himself away, but her nose buried itself more deeply at his shoulder and she snuggled closer.

“Tate.” He didn’t recognize the voice as his own. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Tate.”

“Hmm?”

If she didn’t recognize the potential danger of the situation was he honor bound to point it out to her? She felt so good in his arms!

Before he could stop himself, his hands had tangled in her hair. He tugged and her head fell back. Her eyes were limpid pools of gold and green. Her face was flushed from crying. She had been gnawing on that lip again and it was swollen. He could see it needed soothing.

He lowered his head and caught her lower lip between his teeth, letting his tongue ride the length of it, testing the fullness of it.

Tate moaned and he was lost.

His tongue slipped into her mouth, tasting her, seeking solace for a desolation of spirit he had never admitted even to himself. Her whole body melted against him, and he was aware of an excruciatingly pleasurable heat in his groin where their bodies were fitted together. He spread his legs slightly and pulled her hard against him, then rubbed them together, creating a friction that turned molten coals to fire.

Tate was only aware of sensations. The softness of his lips. The slickness of his tongue. The heat and hardness of his body pressed tightly against hers. The surge of pleasure as his maleness sought out her femaleness. The urgency of his mouth as it found the smooth column of her neck and teased its way up to her ear, where his breath, hot and moist, made her shiver.

“Please, Adam,” she gasped. “Please, don’t stop.”

Adam’s head jerked up, and he stared at the woman in his arms. Good Lord in Heaven! What was he doing?

Adam had to reach behind him to free Tate’s arms. He held her at arm’s length, his hands gripping hers so tightly he saw her wince. He loosened his hold slightly, but didn’t let go. If he did, he was liable to pull her back into his arms and finish what he had started.

Her eyes were lambent, her face rosy with the heat of passion. Her body was languid, boneless with desire, and it wouldn’t take much to have her flat on her back beneath him.

Are you out of your mind? What’s gotten into you? You’re supposed to be protecting her from lechers, not seducing her yourself!

Tate could see Adam was distraught, but she hadn’t the least notion why. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

Her voice was still breathless and sounded sexy as hell! His body throbbed with need.

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong, little girl!” he retorted. “You may be hotter than a firecracker on the Fourth of July, but I’m not interested in initiating any virgins! Do you hear me? Flat not interested!”

“Could have fooled me!” Tate shot back.

Adam realized he was still holding her hands—was in fact rubbing his thumbs along her palms—and dropped them like hot potatoes. “You stay away from me, little girl. You’re here for one reason, and one reason only—keeping books. You got that?”

“I got it, big boy!”

Adam started to reach for her but caught himself. He stalked over and let himself out of the stall. A moment later he was gone from the barn.

Tate curled her arms protectively around herself. What had happened to change things so quickly? One minute Adam had been making sweet, sweet love to her. The next he had become a raving lunatic. Oh, how it had stung when he called her little girl! She might be small in stature, but she was all grown up in every way that mattered.

Except for being a virgin.

Tate had to admit she was a babe in the woods when it came to sexual experience. But she recognized that what had just happened between her and Adam was something special. He had wanted her as much as she had wanted him. She couldn’t be mistaken about that. But their attraction had been more than sexual. It was as though when she walked into his arms she had found a missing part of herself. And though Adam might discount what had happened because she was so young, she wasn’t going to let him get away with denying what had happened between them—to her or to himself.

She wasn’t some little girl he could dismiss with a wave of his hand. Powerful forces were at work between them. Tate had to find a way to make Adam see her as a woman worthy of his love. But how best to accomplish that goal?

Because the physical attraction between them was so powerful, Tate decided she would start with that. She would put temptation in Adam’s path and just see what happened.

Chapter 4

ADAM WATCHED TATE SMILING up at the cowboys who surrounded her at the corral while she regaled them with another of her outrageous stories about life at Hawk’s Way, as she had often done over the past three weeks. As usual, she was dressed in jeans, boots and a T-shirt with some equally outrageous slogan written on it.

Only this T-shirt had the neckline cut out so it slipped down to reveal one shoulder—and the obvious fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Anyone with eyes in his head could see she was naked under the T-shirt. The three cowboys were sure as hell looking. The wind was blowing and the cotton clung to her, outlining her generous breasts.

Adam told himself he wasn’t going to make a fool out of himself by going over there and dragging her away from three sets of ogling male eyes. However, once his footsteps headed in that direction, he didn’t seem to be able to stop them.

He arrived in time to hear her say, “My brothers taught me how to get even when some rabbit-shy horse bucks me off.”

“How’s that, Tate?” one of the cowboys asked.

“Why, I just make that horse walk back to the barn all by himself!” Tate said with a grin.

The cowboys guffawed, and Tate joined in. Adam caught his lip curling with laughter and straightened it back out.

“Don’t you have some work to do?” he demanded of the three cowboys.

“Sure, Boss.”

“Yeah, Boss.”

“Just leaving, Boss.”

They tipped their hats to Tate, but continued staring at her as they backed away.

Adam swore acidly, and they quickly turned tail and scattered in three different directions.

He directed a cool stare at Tate and said, “I thought I told you to stay away from my cowhands.”

“I believe your exact words were, ‘Finish your work before you go traipsing around the ranch,’” Tate replied in a drawl guaranteed to irritate her already irritated boss.

“Is your work done?”

“Had you been home for lunch, I’d have offered to show you the bookkeeping system I’ve set up. Everything’s been logged in and all the current invoices have been paid. I have some suggestions for ways—”

He interrupted with, “What the hell are you doing out here half-dressed, carousing with the hired help?”

“Carousing? I was just talking to them!” Tate flashed back.

“I want you to leave those boys alone.”

“Boys? They looked like grown men to me. Certainly old enough to make up their minds whether or not they want to spend time with me.”

Adam grabbed the hat off his head and slapped it against his thigh. “Dammit, Tate. You’re a babe in the woods! You’re playing with fire, and you’re going to get burned! You can’t run around here half naked and not expect—”

“Half naked?” she scoffed. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

“That T-shirt doesn’t leave much to the imagination! I can see your nipples plain as day.”

Tate looked down and realized for the first time that twin peaks were clearly visible beneath the T-shirt. She decided to brazen it out. “So what if you can? I assume you’re familiar with the female anatomy. Besides, you’re not my father or my brother. You have absolutely no right to tell me what to wear!”

Since the erotic feelings Adam was experiencing at the moment weren’t the least fatherly or brotherly, he didn’t argue with her. However, he had appointed himself her guardian in their stead. As such, he felt it his duty to point out to her the dangers of such provocative attire.

He explained in a reasonable voice, “When a man sees a woman looking like that, he just naturally gets ideas.”

Tate looked sharply at Adam. “What kind of ideas?”

“The wrong kind,” Adam said emphatically.

Tate smiled impishly and batted her lashes at him. “I thought you were ‘flat not interested’ in li’l ole me.”

“Cut it out, Tate.”

“Cut what out?”

“Stop batting those lashes at me, for one thing.”

Tate pouted her lips like a child whose candy had been taken away. “You mean it isn’t working?”

It was working all right. Too damn well. She was just precocious enough to be charming. He was entranced despite his wish not to be. He felt his body begin to harden as she slid her gaze from his eyes, to his mouth, to his chest, and straight on down his body to his crotch. Which was putting on a pretty damn good show for her.

“You’re asking for it,” he said through clenched teeth.

She batted her eyelashes and said, “Am I going to get it?”

“That’s it!”

The next thing Tate knew she had been hefted over Adam’s shoulder like a sack of wheat, and he was striding toward the house.

“Let me down!” she cried. “Adam, this is uncomfortable.”

“Serves you right! You haven’t been the least worried about my comfort for the past three weeks.”

“Where are you taking me? What are you planning to do with me?”

“Something I’m going to enjoy very much!”

Was Adam really going to make love to her? Would he be rough, or gentle? How was she supposed to act? Was there some sort of proper etiquette for the ravishing of virgins? Not that she had ever worried too much about what was proper. But she felt nervous, anxious about the encounter to come. Finally, Adam would have to acknowledge that greater forces were at work between them than either of them could—or should—resist.

The air inside the adobe house hit her like a cooling zephyr. The dimness left her blind for an instant. Just as she was regaining her sight, they emerged once more into sunlight and she was blinded again. Several more strides and she felt herself being lowered from Adam’s shoulder.

Tate barely had time to register the fact that they were in the courtyard when Adam shifted her crosswise in his arms. Grinning down into her face, he said “Maybe this will cool you off!” and unceremoniously dumped her into the pool of water that surrounded the fountain.

Tate came up spluttering. “Why you!” She blinked her eyes furiously, trying to clear the water from them.

“Why, Miss Tate, are you batting your eyelashes at me again? Guess I’ll have to try another dunking.”

He took one step toward her, and Tate retreated to the other side of the fountain. “I’ll get you for this, you rogue! You roué!”

Adam laughed. It had been so long since he had done so, that the sound brought Maria to the kitchen window to see what Señor Adam found so funny. She shook her head and clucked when she saw the new bookkeeper standing dripping in the fountain. She grabbed a bath towel from the stack of laundry she was folding on the kitchen table and hurried outside with it.

She handed it to Adam and said in Spanish, “This is no way to treat a young woman.”

Adam’s eyes crinkled at the corners with laughter. “It is when she’s bent on seducing an older man.”

Maria hissed in a breath and turned to eye the bedraggled creature in the pool. So that was the way the wind was blowing. Well, she was not one to stand in the way of any woman who could make Señor Adam laugh once more.

“Be sure you get the señorita dried off quickly. Otherwise she might catch a cold.”

Maria left Adam standing with the towel in his hand and a smug grin on his face.

Once the housekeeper was gone, Adam turned back to Tate. And quickly lost his smirk. Because if the T-shirt had been revealing before, it was perfectly indecent now. He could easily see Tate’s flesh through the soaked cotton. The cold water had caused her nipples to peak into tight buds.

His mouth felt dry. His voice was ragged as he said, “Here. Wrap yourself in this.”

Only he didn’t extend the towel to her. He held it so she would have to step out of the pool and into his arms. When he encircled her with the terry cloth she shivered and snuggled closer.

“I’m freezing!” she said.

He, on the other hand, was burning up. How did she do it to him? This time, however, he had only himself to blame. He felt her cold nose burrow into his shoulder as his chin nuzzled her damp hair. The water had released the lilac scent of her shampoo. He took a deep breath and realized he didn’t want to let her go.

Adam vigorously rubbed the towel up and down Tate’s back, hoping to dispel the intimacy of the moment.

“Mmm. That feels good,” she murmured.

His body betrayed him again, responding with amazing rapidity to the throaty sound of her voice. He edged himself away from her, unwilling to admit his need to her. In fact, he felt the distinct necessity to deny it.

“I’m not going to make love to you, Tate.”

She froze in his arms. Her head lifted from his shoulder, and he found himself looking into eyes that warmed him like brandy.

“Why not, Adam? Is it because I’m not attractive to you?”

“Lord, no! Of course you’re a beautiful woman, but—” Adam groaned as he realized what he had just admitted.

“I am?”

What had those brothers of hers been telling her, Adam wondered, to make her doubt herself like this?

“Is it because I don’t dress like a lady?”

His only objection to the clothes she wore was his reaction to her in them. “Contrary to what you might have heard, clothes don’t make the man—or the woman.”

“Then it must be the fact that I’m a virgin,” she said.

Adam felt himself flushing. “Tate, you just don’t go around talking about things like that.”

“Not even with you?”

“Especially not with me!”

“Why not?”

They were back to that again. He turned her so he had an arm around her shoulder, and began ushering her across the courtyard to her bedroom. “I think it’s time you got out of those wet clothes.”

Tate’s impish smile reappeared. “Would you like to help me?”

“Not on your life!” He opened the sliding glass door and gave her a nudge inside. “I’ll meet you in the office in fifteen minutes and you can show me whatever bookkeeping wonders you’ve accomplished today.” He turned and marched across the courtyard, fighting the urge to look back.

Once she was alone in her room, Tate let the towel drop. She stared at herself in the standing oval mirror in the corner and groaned. She looked like something the cat had dragged in! No wonder Adam hadn’t been interested!

Tate sat down on a wooden chair to pull off her wet boots, then yanked her T-shirt off and struggled with the wet zipper of her jeans. She peeled her silk panties down and quickly began replacing her clothing with an identical wardrobe. All except the wet boots, for which she substituted a pair of beaded Indian moccasins Charlie One Horse had given her for Christmas.

While Tate dressed, she reviewed the events of the past three weeks since she had arrived at the Lazy S. Teasing Adam had begun as a way of making him admit the sexual attraction—and something more—that existed between them. But she had discovered that kidding some folks was like teasing a loaded polecat. The satisfaction was short-lived.

Tate hadn’t been enjoying the game much these days, mainly because she had begun to suffer from the sexually charged situations as much as Adam. The problem was, on her side at least, her heart followed where her hormones led.

She would give anything if Adam was as interested in her as Buck seemed to be. The lean-hipped cowboy had been asking her every day for a week if she would go out with him on Saturday night. Well, maybe she should. Maybe if Adam saw that somebody else found her worth pursuing, he would get the same idea.

Tate had a cheerful smile on her face by the time she joined Adam in his office. He already had the computer on and was perusing the statistics she had input there.

“So what do you think?” she asked, perching herself on the arm of the large swivel chair in which he was sitting.

“It looks good.” Of course his office wasn’t as neat as it had once been. There were half-filled coffee cups amidst the clutter on the desk, and a collection of magazines and a dirty T-shirt decorated the floor. A bridle and several other pieces of tack Tate was fixing were strewn around the room.

But he couldn’t argue with what she had accomplished. Tate had set up a program to handle data on each head of stock, providing a record that would be invaluable in making buying and selling decisions. “You didn’t tell me you knew so much about computers.”

Tate grinned and said, “You didn’t ask.” She leaned across him and began earnestly discussing other ideas she had regarding possible uses of the computer in his business.

He started automatically cleaning the debris from his desk.

“Don’t worry about those,” Tate said, taking a handful of pebbles from him. “Aren’t they pretty? I found them down by the creek.” She scattered them back onto the desk. “I play with them while I’m thinking, sort of like worry beads, you know?”

“Uh-huh.”

Adam forced himself to concentrate on what she was saying, rather than the way her breast was pressed up against his arm. By the time she was done talking about the projects she had in mind, she had shifted position four times. He knew because she had managed to brush some part of his anatomy with some part of hers each time she moved.

Tate was totally oblivious to Adam’s difficulty, because she was having her own problems concentrating on the matters at hand. She was busy planning how she could make Adam sit up and take notice of her by accepting Buck’s invitation to go out tomorrow evening. She just had to make sure that Adam saw her leaving on the date with the auburn-haired cowboy.

Her thoughts must have conjured Buck, because he suddenly appeared at the door to Adam’s office.

“Need you to take a look at that irrigation system to see whether you want it repaired or replaced,” Buck said.

“I’ll be right there,” Adam replied.

Buck had already turned to leave when Tate realized she had the perfect opportunity to let Adam know she was going out with another man. “Oh, Buck.”

Buck turned and the hat came off his head in the same motion. “Yes, ma’am?”

“I’ve decided to take you up on your offer to go dancing tomorrow night.”

Buck’s face split with an engaging grin. “Yes, ma’am! I’ll pick you up at seven o’clock if that’s all right, and we can have some dinner first.”

The thunderous look on Adam’s face was everything Tate could have wished for. “I’ll see you at seven,” she promised.

Buck slipped his hat back on his head and said, “You coming, Boss?”

“In a minute. I’ll catch up to you.”

Adam’s fists landed on his hips as he turned to confront Tate. “What was that all about?”

“Buck asked me to go dancing at Knippa on Saturday night, and I thought it might be fun.”

Adam couldn’t very well forbid her going. As Tate had so pointedly noted, he wasn’t related to her in the least. But he couldn’t help having misgivings, either. There was no telling what Buck Magnesson’s reaction would be if Tate subjected him to the same teasing sensuality that Adam had endured for the past three weeks. If Tate said “Please” Buck was damned likely to say “Thank you” and take what she offered.

Adam suddenly heard himself forbidding his sister Melanie from going out on a date with a boy he had thought a little wild. Heard himself telling Melanie that he knew better than she what was best for her. And remembered the awful consequences of his high-handedness. Adam didn’t have to like the fact that Tate had decided to go out with Buck Magnesson. But if he didn’t want to repeat the mistakes he had made with his younger sister, he had to put up with it.

“Have a good time with Buck tomorrow night,” he said. Then he turned and walked out the door.

Tate frowned at Adam’s back. That wasn’t exactly the reaction she had been hoping for. Where was the jealousy? Where was the demand that she spend her time with him instead? Suddenly Tate wished she had thought things through a little more carefully. Agreeing to date Buck simply to make Adam realize what he was missing wasn’t turning out at all as she had hoped.

She felt a little guilty that she had even considered using Buck to make Adam jealous. But since her plan had failed—quite miserably—she could at least enjoy the evening with Buck with a clear conscience.

Tate had gotten the broken water hose fixed on her ’51 Chevy, and she used the pickup to drive the ninety miles east to San Antonio that afternoon to go shopping. She could have worn jeans to go dancing, but had decided that she owed it to Buck to show up for their date looking her best.

She found a pretty halter sundress that tied around the neck and had an almost nonexistent back. The bodice fit her like a glove and showed just a hint of décolletage. The bright yellow and white floral print contrasted with her dark hair and picked up the gold in her eyes. The midcalf-length skirt was gathered at the waist and flared at the hem. She whirled once in front of the mirror and saw that the dress was going to reveal a great deal of her legs if Buck was the kind of dancer who liked to twirl his partner a lot.

Buck’s smile when she opened the door on Saturday night was well worth the effort spent shopping. She couldn’t help feeling a stab of disappointment that Adam wasn’t around to see her off. Apparently he had made plans of his own for the evening.

Tate found Buck surprisingly entertaining company. The cowboy had older brothers of his own, and Tate was quick to agree, “Nothing is harder to put up with than a good example!” He and Tate shared older brother horror stories that kept them both laughing through dinner.

The country and western band was in full swing when they crossed the threshold of the Grange Hall in Knippa. The room was fogged with cigarette smoke that battled with the overwhelming odor of sweat and cologne. The sawdusted dance floor was crowded, elbow to elbow, with men in cowboy hats partnered by ladies wearing flounced Western skirts and boots.

Just as they made their way to the dance floor, a two-step ended and the band began playing a waltz.

“Shall we?” Buck asked, making a dance frame with his arms.

“Absolutely!” Tate said, stepping into his embrace.

Tate got another welcome surprise when she and Buck began to waltz around the room. The lean cowboy was graceful on his feet. He led her into several intricate variations of the dance that left her breathless and feeling like a prima ballerina by the time the song ended.

“That was wonderful!” she exclaimed.

“Would you like something to drink?” Buck asked.

“Just a soda, please.”

Buck found a seat for Tate at one of the small tables that surrounded the dance floor and forced his way through the crowd toward the bar.

Tate was tapping her foot to another two-step tune and enjoying watching the couples maneuver around the dance floor when she thought she saw someone she recognized. She followed the couple until they turned at the corner of the room.

Tate gasped aloud. It was Adam! He was dancing the two-step with a buxom redheaded woman.

As he passed by her table, Adam smiled and called out, “Hi, there! Having fun?”

Before she could answer, they had danced on past her, and she was left with the trill of the woman’s laughter in her ears.

Tate felt sick. Who was she? The Redheaded Woman in Adam’s arms was absolutely beautiful. No wonder Adam hadn’t been interested in pursuing her when he was acquainted with such a gorgeous female.

“What’s caught your eye?” Buck asked as he set a soda in front of Tate.

“Adam’s here.” She pointed him out. “See there. With that redhead.”

To Tate’s amazement, Buck scowled and swore under his breath.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing I can do anything about.”

“That’s the sort of statement that’s guaranteed to get a nosy female’s attention,” Tate said. “Out with it.”

Buck grinned sheepishly and admitted, “All right. Here goes.” He took a deep breath and said, “That woman dancing with Adam is my ex-wife.”

“You’re kidding!”

“’Fraid not.”

Tate watched Buck watching the Redheaded Woman. His feelings were painfully transparent. “You’re still in love with her.”

Buck grimaced. “Much good it’ll do me.”

“I assume Adam knows how you feel.”

“He asked my permission before he took Velma out the first time.”

“And you gave it to him?” Tate asked incredulously.

“She isn’t my wife anymore. She can see whoever she pleases.”

Tate snorted in disgust. “While you suffer in noble silence. Men!”

Tate had been so involved with talking to Buck that she hadn’t realized the song was ending. She was less than pleased when Adam and Velma arrived at their table.

“Mind if we join you?” Adam asked.

Tate bit her lip to keep from saying something censorable. She slipped her arm through Buck’s, put a gigantic smile on her face, and said, “Why sure! We’d love to have the company, wouldn’t we, Buck?”

It was hard to say who was the more surprised by her performance, Buck or Adam. What she hadn’t expected was the militant light that rose in Velma’s green eyes when Tate claimed Buck’s arm. Well, well, well. Maybe there was more here than met the eye.

Adam made introductions, then seated Velma and caught one of the few waitresses long enough to ask for two drinks.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Tate said to Adam.

“I enjoy dancing, and Velma’s a great partner.”

Tate could imagine what else Velma was great at. She had observed for herself that the redhead had a wonderful sense of rhythm.

Tate was aware of Buck sitting stiffly beside her, quieter than he had been at any time during the evening. How could Adam not be sensitive to the vibrations that arced across the table between the cowboy and his ex-wife?

In fact, Adam was eminently aware of how much Buck Magnesson still loved his ex-wife. It was why he had brought Velma here this evening. Adam knew that with Velma in the room, Buck wasn’t liable to spend much time thinking about Tate.

There was more than one way to skin a cat, Adam thought with satisfaction. He had known Tate would rebel against an ultimatum, so he hadn’t protested her date with Buck. He had simply sought out a more subtle way to get what he wanted.

Bringing Velma to the dance seemed like the answer to his problem. He was pretty sure Velma was as much in love with Buck as the cowboy was with his ex-wife. He didn’t mind playing Cupid, especially if it meant separating Tate from the virile young cowboy.

“How about trading partners?” Adam said, rising from his chair and reaching for Tate’s hand.

Before Tate could protest, Buck said, “That sounds fine to me,” took Velma by the hand and headed for the dance floor.

Tate wasn’t sure what to make of Adam’s ploy. She waited until they were half a dance floor away from the other couple before she said, “That was a pretty sneaky thing to do.”

“I wanted to dance with you.”

“Are you sure you aren’t matchmaking?”

Adam smiled. “You could feel it, too?”

“I think he might still love her.”

“I’m sure he does.”

“Then why did you bring Velma here tonight?”

“I would think that’s obvious.”

“Not to me.”

“I enjoy her company.”

“Oh.”

He grinned. “And I knew Buck would be here with you.”

He sent her into a series of spins that prevented her from making any kind of retort. By the time she was in his arms again the song was over and he was ushering her back toward their table, where Buck and Velma were sitting across from each other arguing vociferously.

“Buck?” Tate didn’t want to interrupt, but she wasn’t sure whether she should leave him alone with Velma, either.

“Let’s get out of here,” Buck said, jumping up and turning his back on Velma. “Good night, Adam. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As Buck hurried Tate away, she heard Velma say, “I’d like to go home now, Adam. If that’s all right with you?”

Tate wasn’t sure where Buck was taking her when he burned rubber on the asphalt parking lot. It was a safe guess from the dark look on his face that he had no romantic intentions toward her.

“Want to talk about it?” she asked at last.

Buck glanced quickly at her, then turned his eyes back to the road. “I don’t want to bother you with my problems.”

“I’m a good listener.”

He sighed and said, “Velma and I were high school sweethearts. We married as soon as we graduated. Pretty soon Velma began to think she had missed something. She had an affair.”

Tate bit her lip to keep from saying something judgmental. She was glad she had when Buck continued.

“I found out about it and confronted her. She asked for a divorce, and I gave it to her.”

“Why?”

“Pride. Foolish damn pride!”

“And you regret it now?”

“My life’s been running kind of muddy without her.”

“So why don’t you do something about it?” Tate asked.

“It’s no use. She says that I deserve better. She doesn’t believe I can ever forgive or forget what she did.”

“Can you?”

The cowboy’s eyes were bleak in the light from the dash. “I think so.”

“But you’re not sure?”

A muscle worked in his jaw. “If I were, I’d have her back home and under me faster than chain lightning with a link snapped!”

Tate had thought they were driving without direction, yet she realized suddenly that they had arrived back at the front door of Adam’s house. She saw Adam’s truck parked there. So, he was home. And there was a light on in the living room.

She let herself out of the truck, but Buck met her on the front porch. He put an arm around her waist and walked her away from the light.

“May I kiss you good-night, Tate?”

Tate drew a breath and held it. This was so exactly like the scene she had played out the night she had left home that it was eerie. Only there were no brothers here to protect her from the big, bad wolf.

“Of course you can kiss me good-night,” she said at last.

Buck took his time, and Tate was aware of the sweetness of his kiss. And the reluctance in it. When he lifted his head their eyes met, and they smiled at each other.

“No go, huh?” he said.

Tate shook her head. “I like you an awful lot, Buck. I hope we can be friends.”

“I’d like that,” the cowboy said.

He leaned down and kissed her again. Both of them knew how much—and how little—it meant.

However, it was not so clear to the man watching them through a slit in the living room curtains.

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.