JANE BARELY SLEPT that night, wondering what would come of her meeting with the clothier and the company’s public relations representative. It didn’t help that Todd left early the next morning with Cherry for Victoria.
“I’ll be back before they get here,” he assured Jane. “Stop brooding.”
“I’ll try. It’s a big decision. I just hope that they’ll ask me to endorse a line I can feel comfortable putting my name on.” She hugged Cherry, and the girl returned the embrace with genuine fondness. In a short time, they’d become close. “Have a good time with your mother, and have fun shopping.”
“Sure. You take care of yourself. No dancing,” she teased, nodding toward the crutches.
Jane laughed softly. “Okay.”
“I’ll see you Monday.”
Jane nodded, and waved them off. Todd looked glad to go. Perhaps, like her, he needed some breathing space. She wondered if he planned to spend the weekend at the ranch or go off on his own. Probably, she thought bitterly, he had plenty of women just waiting for the chance to go out with him. As good-looking as he was, she didn’t doubt his attraction for the opposite sex. In a way, she was glad that she was exempt from his attentions. The very brief glimpse she’d had of his ardor the day before at the corral made her knees weak in retrospect. He wasn’t the sort of man to play games with inexperienced women. He didn’t know that she was inexperienced, either, and she had no intention of giving herself away.
She went back inside, glad of the time she was getting to distance herself from Todd’s disturbing presence. She went over the books, amazed at what he’d accomplished in so short a time. He really was a wizard with figures. How, she wondered, could a man with such superb business sense spend his life working for someone else? He could have made a fortune by putting his analytical mind to work in his own interests. Perhaps he had no ambition, she decided finally.
She might have changed her mind if she could have seen him later that morning, sitting behind the desk in the president’s office at Burke-Hathaway Business Systems. He’d long since bought out the Hathaway who was the old head of the company, but he left the name. It was known in south Texas, as Burke wasn’t, and that made it good for business.
He made several pressing telephone calls, dictated letters and made arrangements to have leftover business sent down by fax. He’d installed a machine in the study, and he told his secretary that he’d telephone her with instructions as to when he wanted business documents sent. It wouldn’t do for Jane to be in the study when he was working. He felt a twinge of guilt at keeping this from her, but after all, he had told her that he would be keeping his job and working for her on the side. In effect, he was.
That might bother him one day, but there was no reason for her to know the truth about his private life. She was just a temporarily disabled woman whom he felt sorry for. On a whim he’d decided to help her. It was a diversion, a challenge. Life had gone sour for him lately, with his business prospering and orders coming in faster than he could fill them. He’d been stagnating with nothing to challenge his quick mind. He had good people, subordinates, who did all the really interesting work—inventing new software, balancing books, marketing. All he did was public relations work, making contacts, conducting high-level meetings, signing contracts and talking to bankers and stockholders. The thing that had made the company fun in the first place was the risk. He’d left any real risk behind when the company became one of the Fortune 500. These days, he was the chief executive officer and president of Burke-Hathaway.
He was a figurehead.
But not on the Parker ranch. No, sir. There, he was necessary. He was the one thing standing between Jane and bankruptcy, and it made him feel good to know that he could make such a difference in her life. There was the challenge he needed to put the color back into his life. And it was helping Cherry, too. She and Jane were already friends. The girl hadn’t had much fun in her life, but she really loved rodeo and Jane was the perfect person to help her learn the ropes. In fact, it had helped Jane already. She was less broody and more determined than ever to get her broken body back into some semblance of normalcy. All around, to sign on as Jane’s business manager was one of the better decisions of Todd’s life.
Then if it was such a great move, why, he asked himself as he signed letters on the mahogany desk, did he feel so morose and out of humor? He and Jane should have been friends, but they weren’t. Jane fought him at every turn, and all at once, yesterday, he’d precipitated a physical awareness in her that he regretted. She was vulnerable now, and he should have known better than to start something he couldn’t finish.
She was so lovely, he thought angrily. Under different circumstances, he’d have made a dead set at her. But although she was old enough to have had lovers, he wondered about that side of her life. The doctor was interested in her, but there was no hint of real intimacy between the two of them. Old lovers would show it. They couldn’t help but show it.
“Mr. Burke, you have to initial this contract as well,” his secretary reminded him gently, pointing to two circles in the margin.
“Sorry.” He initialed all three copies in the appropriate places and pushed them toward her. “Anything else pressing?”
“No, sir, not until next week.”
He got up from the desk. “I’ll be in and out,” he said. “Mostly out. But I’ve left a number where I can be reached in case of an emergency.” His steely gray eyes met hers. “Notice that I said emergency.”
“Yes, sir.” Miss Emory was in her early fifties and unflappable. She smiled. “Are you in disguise, sir?”
He chuckled. “In a manner of speaking, yes, so take care.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll check with you periodically. If anything urgent crops up, fax me. You don’t need to explain anything, just state that I need to phone you. Sign your first name, not your last, to the fax. That way if anyone sees it, they’ll just think I’m getting messages from a girlfriend.”
Miss Emory chuckled. “Yes, sir.”
He stacked the paperwork on the edge of the desk and left Miss Emory to deal with it. He had a feeling that she was going to earn more than her regular check for the next few weeks. He hoped he wasn’t going to regret the decision that had taken him to Jacobsville.
THE EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT from SlimTogs leisure wear was a young woman named Micki Lane. She had a nice smile and a firm handshake. Jane liked her at once. Her companion, however, was another sort altogether. Rick Wardell was a high-powered promoter with a fixed smile and determination in every line of his body. He verbally pushed Micki to one side and began to outline what would be expected of Jane if the company decided to use her.
Micki started to protest, but she was no match for Rick’s verbal onslaught. Jane, however, was.
She held up a firm hand when the man was in full spate. “Wait a minute,” she said pleasantly. “I haven’t said that I want or need to do this endorsement. Furthermore, I’m not endorsing anything that I haven’t seen.”
“But we’re very well-known,” Rick said, sounding less confident than before.
“Of course you’re well-known to most people,” Jane replied. “But not to me,” she said emphatically. “I’m rodeo from the boots up. I come from a long line of rodeo people. That means that if I endorse a product, a lot of fans will buy it. I want to be sure that I’m putting my name on something that’s attractive, fairly priced and durable.”
Rick’s face tautened. “Listen, honey, you don’t seem to understand that we’re doing you a favor—” he began angrily.
“Nobody calls me honey unless I say they can,” Jane interrupted. “I’m no wallpaper girl.” Jane’s blue eyes were flashing like lightning, and the man’s mouth closed abruptly as he realized that he’d overstepped the mark and the situation was deteriorating rapidly.
Before Jane could say anything more, the borrowed car Todd was driving pulled up behind Rick’s flashy little red sports car. He got out and joined the small group, taking in the situation with one long look.
“Burke! Glad you’re here. I don’t think Miss Parker understands what a favor we’d be doing her to put her name on this new line,” Rick began, smiling as if he were certain that another man would surely side with him. “Maybe you can talk some sense into her.”
“Surely the ‘favor’ extends in both directions?” Todd interrupted suavely. “Or hasn’t your sales manager told you that several boutiques are queueing up already to place orders for any merchandise endorsed by Jane Parker?”
Rick laughed nervously. “Well, certainly, but...” He laughed again. “Perhaps we could start over?”
Micki was standing near Jane, looking irritated.
“Ms. Lane, isn’t it?” Todd asked, and moved forward to shake hands with her. His eyes narrowed. “Excuse me, but I thought you were sent here to negotiate with Miss Parker?” He glanced pointedly toward Rick Wardell as he spoke.
“I was,” Micki replied. “Mr. Wardell is in charge of sales and promotion.”
Jane smiled at Rick. It wasn’t a nice smile. She hadn’t liked his condescending tone. “In order to have something to promote, I have to sign a contract. Frankly I don’t think there’s a chance in hell that it’s going to happen. But it was nice of you to come out, Mr. Wardell. You, too, Miss Lane.”
Micki stepped in front of Rick. “I’d like to show you our new line of jeans,” she said quietly, “along with some of the new T-shirts we’ve adapted to imitate rodeo styling—with fringe and sequins and beads. They’re machine-washable and guaranteed not to shrink or fade. I think you might like them.”
Jane was impressed. She smiled. “Well...”
Micki glanced toward a very defensive-looking Rick, and the buried steel in her makeup began to show itself in her cool smile. “Mr. Wardell wanted to come along so that he could meet you. Now that he has, I’m sure that he won’t mind leaving the contractual discussion in my hands. Will you, Mr. Wardell?” she added pointedly.
He smiled uncertainly, then cleared his throat. “As you say, that might be best.” He grinned, showing all his teeth. “Nice to have met you, Miss Parker, and I hope we’ll be doing business. Burke.” He nodded, still grinning, and turned to stride quickly back toward his sports car.
“If I sign anything, it had better have a clause that that man isn’t to come within shooting range of me,” Jane said bluntly, glaring after him. “I hate being talked down to!”
“Rick has his drawbacks, but he could sell ice to Eskimos. We’re slowly drawing him into the twentieth century,” Micki said with a grin. “I’ll have a few words with the division boss about it when I get back. Meanwhile, couldn’t I show you these samples, now that I’m here?”
“Well... I guess so,” Jane agreed.
Micki smiled and went to get the case from her own car, a neat little tan sedan.
“It seems as though I arrived in the nick of time,” Todd said quietly.
Jane looked up at him, still defensive. “Just in time to save that man’s life, for a fact. The condescending, stuck-up son of a—”
“He’s a super salesman,” he said pointedly. “He’s a master at sucking up to people when he feels he has to.”
“He’ll think he’s found lemon heaven if he tries it on me!”
Todd chuckled. He liked the way she looked when she was animated. “You’ve got a temper.”
“No kidding!”
“Calm down,” he advised. “I won’t try to force you to sign with them, but it would be to your advantage. The money for these repairs has to come from somewhere. This would almost pay for it. And if the line is as good as Micki says it is, you won’t have a reason to refuse.”
“I can give you a good one, and it drives a red sports car!”
“You won’t even have to talk to him again. I promise.”
She eased up a little. “Well, if you promise.”
“That’s the spirit.”
Micki came back, the sun shining on her sleek black hair. She was a pretty woman, slight and sedate looking, with dark eyes and an olive complexion. She smiled, and her eyes sparkled.
“Can we sit down?” she asked. “I’ve been on my feet all day and I’m tired.”
Probably, Jane thought sagely, because the woman could see that Jane was tiring as she leaned heavily on the crutches. Business sense and diplomacy were a nice mixture, and Jane knew even before she saw and approved of the clothing samples that she was going to sign that contract.
SHE GAVE THE contract to her attorney to look over, but she sent Micki off with her assurances that she would do the endorsement. Micki was relieved and elated when she shook hands with both of them and left. Todd watched her out the door, his lips pursed thoughtfully.
“She isn’t married,” Jane remarked, aware of a faint twinge of jealousy that she was going to smother at once. “And she’s very pretty.”
He turned, his hands deep in the pockets of his tan slacks. Muscles rippled in his long arms, emphasized by the clinging knit of his yellow sports shirt. “So she is,” he agreed. “But she’s off limits.”
“Why?”
“I don’t seduce business contacts,” he said frankly. “It’s bad for my image.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “I didn’t know accountants worried about things like that.”
Business executives did. But he couldn’t say it. He’d almost made a serious blunder. He laughed off his own remark. “I might work for her one day,” he explained. “It’s better if I don’t get involved with potential bosses.”
“Or current ones?” She was fishing and grinning. “Thank God!”
He glowered at her. “There’s no need to look so relieved.”
“Sorry. It slipped out. Erase it from your memory.” She leaned back on the sofa and stifled a yawn. “It’s been a long day. I’m sleepy.”
“Why don’t you stretch out there and take a nap?” he asked. “I’ve got some figures to catch up and Meg and Tim have gone grocery shopping. You’ve got nothing to do, have you?”
“Not right now, anyway.” She stretched back onto the cushions, stifling a grimace. She was sore from the walking she’d done for the past two days on the crutches. “I suppose I’m a little less fit than I thought,” she said with a self-conscious smile. She tucked a pillow under her head. “The crutches are hard going.” Her eyes closed. “But I hate the wheelchair.”
“Go to sleep,” he said gruffly. He stood there watching her, his eyes narrow on her pale face in its frame of long, silky blond hair. She did look like a fashion doll, all the way up and down, from her pretty face to her slender, curvaceous body and long, elegant legs. He liked the way she looked. But he couldn’t afford to pay too much attention to it. This was a very temporary job, and soon he was going to be back in the fast lane. He had to be objective and remote.
He turned and went into the study, closing the door gently. He had enough paperwork of his own to occupy him until supper, much less the additional burden of Jane’s. It was a shame that things in his company had become complicated at just the wrong time. But he’d manage. The challenge was refreshing. He couldn’t remember when he’d enjoyed himself so much.
IN THE WEEKS that followed, a bond developed between Jane and Cherry. They were all but inseparable, especially out at the corral where Cherry worked on perfecting her technique on horseback. She was better. She had self-confidence and the turns weren’t making her hesitate. She gave Feather her head and watched the little mare incredulously as she sailed through her paces.
Jane was proud of her pupil, and that showed, too. She spent less time brooding about her slow progress and began to show marked improvement as her therapy sessions became fewer and farther between.
Todd, on the other hand, was finding his job harder by the day. The paperwork and the building work were easy, but being close to Jane all the time was wearing him down. An accidental touch of their fingers sent his heart racing. A look that lingered too long made him tingle down to his toes. He found himself watching her for no reason at all, except that he liked to look at her. And his vulnerability made him bad-tempered. He was spending a lot of time with Micki Lane, going over the contracts with the attorneys before Jane signed them. She was pretty and interested in him, and he needed a diversion. So without counting the cost, he called her up and invited her to a dance.
THE DANCE AT the Jacobsville Civic Center was one of the monthly events that passed for socializing in Jacobsville. Jane had gone to them frequently before her accident, often with Copper Coltrain. But she’d given up dancing because of her injury. When Cherry mentioned casually that her dad was taking that pretty leisure wear executive to it, Jane was unprepared for the surge of jealousy she felt. She liked Micki, but it was hard to think of her with Todd. At least, she thought miserably, she’d have Cherry for company.
Only it didn’t work out that way. Cherry accepted a last-minute invitation to spend the weekend with her mother and caught an early bus to Victoria. Then Tim and Meg announced that they’d be gone, too. Jane felt miserable and tried desperately not to show it. It seemed that everyone was going to desert her.
TODD THOUGHT THAT Jane seemed pale when he was ready to leave to pick Micki up that evening. He paused with the car keys jingling in his pocket. “You don’t mind being here alone?” he asked. He looked very attractive in tan slacks, cream-colored boots and a patterned Western shirt and black string tie.
“Of course not,” Jane said proudly. “I’m used to being by myself when Tim and Meg go to visit their daughter. They go at least one Saturday a month and they don’t get in until late,” she added.
He looked concerned. He didn’t like having her on her own so far from any neighbors.
“This isn’t a big city,” she said, exasperated. “For heaven’s sake, nobody’s going to break in and kill me! I’ve got a shotgun over there behind the door, and I know how to use it!”
“If you have time to load it,” he muttered. “Do you know where the shells are?”
She made a face. “I can find them if I have to.”
He threw up his hands. “Oh, that’s very reassuring! I hope any potential intruders are polite enough to wait while you do that!”
“I’m almost twenty-six years old!” she raged at him. “I can take care of myself without any tall, blonde nursemaids! You just go on and mind your own business. I’m looking forward to a quiet evening with a good book!”
“I can see how that will benefit you,” he said sarcastically. He picked up the book on the table beside the end of the sofa where she was lounging in jeans and a loose green shirt. “A source book on the battle of the Alamo. How enlightening.”
“I like to read history,” she said.
“Romance novels might do you more good,” he returned. “A little vicarious pleasure would be better than nothing, surely.”
Her blue eyes flashed. “If I want romance, I know where to go looking for it!”
“I’m flattered,” he said, deliberately provocative.
“Not you,” she said angrily. “Never you! That’s wishful thinking on your part. You’re not that attractive to me!”
“Really?” He bent toward her. She averted her face, but he reached behind her head with a steely hand and turned her face up to his. She had one quick glimpse of flint-hard gray eyes before his hard mouth came down on hers.
She reached up instinctively to push at him, but his teeth were nibbling her shocked, set lips apart. He tasted of mint and smelled of sexy cologne. The clean scents seduced her as much as the sharp, teasing movements of his mouth.
Her fingers clenched on his shirtfront in token protest. She made a sound, but his free hand came to her throat and he began to smooth it in gentle caresses. She felt her breath catch as the lazy pressure of his mouth touched something hidden and secret, deep inside her body. She felt like a coiled spring that was suddenly loosened. Her quick intake of breath was echoed by the faint groan that pushed past his hard mouth into her parting lips.
He caught her grasping fingers and spread them against the front of his soft shirt, moving them sensually from side to side over the hard, warm muscles. His breathing quickened, as did hers, and his hand moved to press her mouth closer into the demanding contact with his.
Her faint whimper excited him. He gave in to the red-hot waves of pleasure, hardly aware that he’d moved until he felt her body under his as he eased down on the sofa with her.
She felt the cushions at her back, his lean strength touching her from shoulders to thigh, his arms around her, his mouth touching and lifting, seducing, demanding in a silence so fraught with emotion that she could hear the sound of her own heartbeat.
His hands were under her blouse, against the skin of her back, exploring her as if she belonged to him. One long leg was insinuating itself between both of hers, gently so as not to jar her, seductively slow.
She managed to get a fraction of an inch between her mouth and his, and she struggled for breath.
His left hand tangled in her long hair while the right one roughly unsnapped the pearly studs of his shirt. He was wearing nothing underneath the fabric, and without hesitation, he gently pushed her face against thick hair and clean, cologne-scented bare skin, coaxing her mouth to touch him just below his collarbone.
She hadn’t experienced that sort of intimacy. She tried to remember that he was on his way to another woman.
He shifted, so that her lips were touching the hard, tight thrust of a male nipple. His hand, behind her head, guided her, insisted, without a single word.
She was curious and attracted, so she did what he wanted her to do. She wasn’t prepared for the ripple of muscle under her mouth or the soft, tortured moan that sounded above her head.
She hesitated, but his hand contracted in her hair and he moaned again, shifting. She gave in, suckling him, tasting him in a heated interlude that made her lower body seem to swell with new sensations.
Both his hands were in her hair now, guiding her mouth around the fascinating territory of his chest. It expanded violently as she kissed him, and he groaned even as he laughed at the delight her touch gave him.
He moved to lie on his back, his mouth swollen, his eyes glittering with emotion, his chest bare and throbbing when she finally lifted her head to look down at him.
He smiled with a kind of secret fever, stretching so that the shirt fell away. He arched, holding her eyes.
She pressed both hands to the wall of his broad chest, testing the wiry silkiness of the hair that covered him, watching him watch her while she touched him exploringly.
His hands pressed down over hers, holding them where his heart beat roughly, quickly, at his rib cage.
“You don’t even know what to do,” he said half-angrily. “Do you need an instruction manual?”
She blinked, feeling sanity come back with a rush. Her hands jerked back and she gasped. She moved away from him and sat up, grimacing as the movement caught her painfully. She could only imagine how she must look with her hair disheveled and her mouth swollen and her face flushed. Her eyes were like saucers.
He stared at her as if, for a moment, he didn’t even recognize her. In fact, she hardly resembled the pale, composed woman he saw every day. He remembered her stinging comment and bending to kiss her in anger. Then the whole situation had gotten out of hand. How could he have forgotten himself so completely?
With a muffled curse, he got to his feet and fastened his shirt, straining to breathe normally. Of all the harebrained, stupid things he’d ever done...!
Jane was feeling equally addled. After that last sarcastic remark he’d made, he was going to be lucky if she ever spoke to him again! She picked up her book and opened it in her lap, refusing to even look at him. She was embarrassed, nervous and defensive because she’d been so vulnerable.
He finished snapping his shirt and tucked it back into his slacks. His hands were faintly unsteady, which made him furious. She got to him without even trying. He seemed to have no control whatsoever once he touched her. That had never happened with Marie, even in the early days of their romance. And she just sat there, so cool that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, looking unaffected when he could barely breathe. That alone made him furious.
“Nothing to say?” he asked, glancing at her with steely gray eyes. “Would you like to repeat that bit about not finding me attractive?” he mocked.
She wouldn’t look up. Her face reddened a little more, but otherwise, no expression showed in it. She didn’t say a word.
He moved to the door. “I’ll lock this behind me.”
She nodded, but he wasn’t looking.
He went out without another comment. His heart was still racing and he wasn’t sure that his knees wouldn’t buckle on the way to his car. Whatever Jane did to him, he hated it. He only wished he knew how to handle it. He had nothing to give her. It wasn’t fair to lead her on when he felt that way. If she could be led on, that is. She’d been responsive enough until the last, when she’d seemed shocked and outraged. But she hadn’t said a word. Not a word. He wondered what was going on in her mind.
He cursed as he fumbled the key into the ignition of his car and started it. Well, it didn’t really matter what she thought, because that wasn’t going to happen again. He’d have a good time with Micki and forget that Jane even existed.