Diana Palmer - The Cowboy and the Lady

Terry laughed, lifting a homemade roll to his mouth. “No problem, Mrs. Whitehall. There’s plenty of time. We’ll be here a week, after all.”

During which, Amanda was thinking, you might get Jace to yourself for ten minutes. But she didn’t say it.

Later, everyone seemed to vanish. Jace went upstairs, and Marguerite carried Terry off to show him her collection of jade figurines, leaving Amanda alone in the living room.

She finished her after-dinner cup of coffee and put the saucer gingerly back down on the coffee table. Perhaps, she thought wildly, it might be a good idea to go up to her room. If Jace came downstairs before the others got back, she’d be stuck with him, and she didn’t want that headache. Being alone with Jace was one circumstance she’d never be prepared for.

She hurried out into the hall, but before she even made it to the staircase, she saw Jace coming down it. He’d added a brown-and-gold tie to the white silk shirt and brown suit, and he looked maddeningly elegant.

“Running?” he asked pointedly, his eyes narrow and cold as they studied her.

Chapter Four

She froze in the center of the entrance, staring at him helplessly. He made her nervous. He always had.

“I…was just going up to my room for a minute,” she faltered.

He came the rest of the way down without hesitation, his booted feet making soft thuds on the carpeted steps. He paused in front of her when he got to the bottom, towering over her, close enough that she could smell his woodsy cologne and the clean fragrance of his body.

“For what?” he asked with a mocking smile. “A handkerchief?”

“More like a shield and some armor,” she countered, hiding her nervousness behind humor.

He didn’t laugh. “You haven’t changed,” he observed. “Still the little clown.” His narrowed eyes slid down her body indifferently. “Why did you come back here?” he demanded abruptly, cold steel in his tone.

“Because Duncan insisted.”

He scowled down at her. “Why? You only work for Black.”

“I’m his partner,” she replied. “Didn’t you know?”

He stared at her intently. “How did you manage that?” he asked contemptuously. “Or do I need to ask?”

She saw what he was driving at and her face flamed. “It isn’t like that,” she said tightly.

“Isn’t it?” He glared at her. “At least I offered you more than a share in a third-class business.”

Her face went a fiery red. “That’s all women are to you,” she accused. “Toys, sitting on a shelf waiting to be bought.”

“Tess isn’t,” he said with deliberate cruelty.

“How lovely for her,” she threw back.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked down his arrogant nose at her. There was a strange, foreign something behind those glittering eyes that disturbed her.

“You’re thinner,” he remarked.

She shrugged. “I work hard.”

“Doing what?” he asked curtly. “Sleeping with the boss?”

“I don’t!” she burst out. She looked up into his dark face, her own pale in the blazing light of the crystal chandelier. “Why do you hate me so? Was the bull so important?”

His face seemed to set even harder. “A grand champion, and you can ask that? My God, you didn’t even apologize!”

“Would it have brought him back?” she asked sadly.

“No.” A muscle in his jaw moved.

“You won’t…you won’t let your dislike of me prejudice you against the agency, will you?” she asked suddenly.

“Afraid your boss might lose his shirt?” he taunted.

“Something like that.”

He cocked his head down at her, his hard mouth set. “Why don’t you tell me the truth? Duncan didn’t invite you down here. You came on your own initiative.” He smiled mockingly. “I haven’t forgotten how you used to tag after him. And now you’ve got more reason than ever.”

She saw red. All the years of backing away dissolved, and she felt suddenly reckless.

“You go to hell, Jace Whitehall,” she said coldly, her brown eyes throwing off sparks as she lifted her angry face.

Both dark eyebrows went up over half astonished, half amused silver eyes. “What?”

But before she could repeat the dangerous words, Terry’s voice broke in between them.

“Oh, there you are,” he called cheerfully. “Come back in here and keep us company. It’s too early to turn in.”

Jace’s eyes were hidden behind those narrowed eyelids, and he turned away before Amanda could puzzle out the new look in them.

“Off again?” Marguerite asked pleasantly. “Where are you taking Tess?”

“Out,” he said noncommittally, reaching down to kiss the wrinkled pink cheek. “Good night.”

He pivoted on his heel and left them without another word, closing the door firmly behind him.

Terry stared at Amanda. “Did I hear you say what I thought I heard you say?”

“My question exactly,” Marguerite added.

Amanda stirred under their intent stares and went ahead of them into the living room. “Well, he deserved it,” she muttered. “Arrogant, insulting beast!”

Marguerite laughed delightedly, a mysterious light in her eyes that she was careful to conceal.

“What is it with you two?” Terry asked her. “If ever I saw mutual dislike…”

“My mother once called Jace a cowboy,” Amanda replied. “It was a bad time to do it, and she was terribly insulting, and Jace never got over it.”

“Jace took to calling Amanda ‘lady,’“ Marguerite continued. She smiled at the younger woman. “She was, and is, that. But Jace meant it in another sense.”

“As in Lady MacBeth,” Amanda said. Her eyes clouded. “I’d like to cook him a nice mess of buttered toadstools,” she said with a malicious smile.

“Down, girl,” Terry said. “Vinegar catches no flies.”

Amanda remembered what Marguerite had said about Tess, and when their eyes met, she knew the older woman was also remembering. They both burst into laughter, dissolving the sombre mood memory had brought to cloud the evening.

But later that night, alone in her bedroom, memories returned to haunt her. Seeing Jace again had resurrected all the old scars, and she felt the pain of them right through her slender body. Her eyes wide open, staring at the strange patterns the moonlight made on the ceiling of her room, she drifted back to that Friday seven years ago when she’d gone running along the fence that separated her father’s pasture from the Whitehalls’ property, laughing as she jumped on the lower rung of the fence and watched Jace slow his big black stallion and canter over to her.

“Looking for Duncan?” he’d asked curtly, his eyes angry in that cold, hard face that never seemed to soften.

“No, for you,” she’d corrected, glancing at him shyly. “I’m having a party tomorrow night. I’ll be sixteen, you know.”

He’d stared at her with a strangeness about him that still puzzled her years later, his eyes giving nothing away as they glittered over her slender body, her flushed, exuberant face. She’d never felt more alive than she did that day, and Jace couldn’t know that it had taken her the better part of the morning to get up enough nerve to seek him out. Duncan was easy to talk to. Jace was something else. He fascinated her, even as he frightened her. Already a man even then, he had a blatant sensuousness that made her developing emotions run riot.

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?” he’d asked coldly.

The vibrant laughter left her face, draining away, and some of her nerve had gone with it. “I, uh…I wanted to invite you to my party,” she choked.

He studied her narrowly over the cigarette he put between his chiseled lips and lit. “And what did your mother think about that idea?”

“She said it was fine with her,” she returned rebelliously, omitting how hard she’d had to fight Bea to make the invitation to the Whitehall brothers.

“Like hell,” Jace had replied knowingly.

She’d tossed her silver-blond hair, risking her pride. “Will you come, Jason?” she’d asked quietly.

“Just me? Aren’t you inviting Duncan as well?”

“Both of you, of course, but Duncan said you wouldn’t come unless I asked you,” she replied truthfully.

He’d drawn a deep, hard breath, blowing out a cloud of smoke with it. His eyes had been thoughtful on her young, hopeful face.

“Will you, Jace?” she’d persisted meekly.

“Maybe,” was as far as he’d commit himself. He’d wheeled the horse without another word, leaving her to stare after him in a hopeless, disappointed daze.

The amazing thing was that Jace had come to the party with Duncan, dressed in immaculately stylish dark evening clothes. He looked like a fashion plate, and, to Amanda’s sorrow, he was neatly surrounded by admiring teenage girls before he was through the door. Most of her girlfriends were absolutely beautiful young debutantes, very sophisticated and worldly. Not at all like young Amanda, who was painfully shy and unworldly, standing quietly in the corner with her blond hair piled on top of her head. Her exposed throat looked vulnerable, her pink lips soft, and her brown eyes stared wistfully at Jace despite the fact that Duncan spent the evening dancing attendance on her. She’d looked down at her green-embroidered white organdy dress in disgust, hating it. The demure neckline, puffed sleeves and full, flowing skirt hadn’t been exciting enough to catch and hold Jace’s eye. Of course, she’d told herself, Jace was twenty-five to her sixteen, and probably wouldn’t have been caught dead looking at a girl her age. But her heart had ached to have him notice her. She’d danced woodenly with Duncan and the other boys, her eyes following Jace everywhere. She’d longed to dance just one dance with him.

It had been the last dance, a slow tune about lost love that Amanda had thought quite appropriate at the time. Jace hadn’t asked her to dance. He’d held out his hand, and she’d put hers into it, feeling it swallow her fingers warmly. Even the way he danced had been exciting. He’d held her young body against his by keeping both hands at her waist, leaving her hands to rest on his chest while they moved lazily to the music. She could still smell the expensive oriental cologne he’d been wearing, feel the warmth of his tall, athletic body against the length of hers as they moved, sense the hard, powerful muscles of his thighs pressed close to her even through the layers of material that made up her skirt. Her heart had gone wild in her chest at the proximity. New, frightening emotions had drained her, made her weak in his supporting arms. She’d looked up at him with all her untried longings plain in her eyes, and he’d stopped dancing abruptly and, catching her hand, had led her out onto the dark patio overlooking the night lights of Victoria.

“Is this what you want, honey?” he’d asked, crushing her against him with a curious anger in his voice. “To see how I rate as a lover?”

“Jace, I didn’t—” she began to protest.

But even as she opened her mouth to speak, his lips had crushed down on it, rough and uncompromising, deliberately cruel. His arms had riveted her to the length of him, bruising her softness in a silence that had combined the distant strains of music with the night sounds of crickets and frogs, and the harsh sigh of Jace’s breath with the rustle of clothing as he caught her ever closer. His teeth had nipped her lip painfully, making her moan with fright, as he subjected her to her first kiss and taught her the dangers of flirting with an experienced man. With a wrenching fear, she’d felt his big, warm hand sliding up from her waist to the soft, high curve of her breast, breaking all the rules she’d been taught as he touched and savored the rounded softness of her body.