JANE WAS RESTLESS all through the night. When Cherry went to bed, Todd sat with Jane. Tim had handed over the books earlier, so he took the heavy ledger with him. He looked through it while Jane slept, his reading glasses perched on his straight nose and a scowl between his eyes as he saw the inefficiency and waste there on the paper.
The ranch had almost gone under, all right, and there was no need. In addition to the beef cattle, Jane had four thoroughbred stallions, two of whom had won ribbons in competition, and on the racetrack before her father’s death. She wasn’t even putting them at stud, which could certainly have added to the coffers. The equipment she was using was obsolete. No maintenance had been done recently, either, and that would have made a handsome tax deduction. From what he’d seen, there was plenty of room for improvement in the equipment shed, the outbuildings, the barn and even the house itself. The ranch had great potential, but it wasn’t being efficiently used.
He scowled, faintly aware of a tingling sensation, as if he were being watched. He lifted his head and looked into curious blue eyes.
“I didn’t know you wore glasses,” Jane said drowsily.
“I’m farsighted,” he said with a chuckle. “It’s irritating when people think I’m over forty because of these.” He touched the glasses.
She studied his lean, hard face quietly. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-five,” he said. “You?”
She grinned. “Twenty-five. A mere child, compared to you.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “You must be feeling better.”
“A little.” She took a slow breath. “I hate being helpless.”
“You won’t always be,” he reminded her. “One day, you won’t have to worry about traction and pills. Try to think of this as a temporary setback.”
“I’ll bet you’ve never been helpless in your whole life.”
“I had pneumonia once,” he recalled. His face hardened with memory. He’d been violently ill, because he hadn’t realized how serious his chest cold had become until his fever shot up and he couldn’t walk for pain and lack of breath. The doctor had reluctantly allowed him to stay at home during treatment, with the proviso that he had to be carefully watched. But Marie had left him alone to go to a cocktail party with his best friend, smiling as she swept out the door. After all, it was just a little cough and he’d be fine, she’d said carelessly. Besides, this party was important to her. She was going to meet several society matrons who were potential clients for her new interior-design business. She couldn’t pass that up. It wasn’t as if pneumonia was even serious, she’d laughed lightly on her way out the door.
“Come back,” Jane said softly.
His head jerked as he realized his thoughts had drifted away. “Sorry.”
“What happened?” she persisted.
He shrugged. “Nothing much. I had pneumonia and my wife left me at home to go to a cocktail party.”
“And?” she persisted.
“You’re as stubborn as a bulldog, aren’t you?” he asked irritably. “You’re prying.”
“Of course I am,” she said easily. “Tell me.”
“She went on to an all-night club after the cocktail party and didn’t come home until late the next morning. She’d put my antibiotics away and hadn’t told me where, and I was too sick to get up and look for them. By the time she got home, I was delirious with fever. She had to get an ambulance and rush me to the hospital. I very nearly died. That was the year Cherry was born.”
“Why, the witch!” Jane said bluntly. “And you stayed with her?”
“Cherry was on the way,” he said starkly. “I knew that if we got divorced, she wouldn’t have the baby. I wanted Cherry,” he said stiffly.
He said it as if it embarrassed him, and that made her smile. “I’ve noticed that you take fatherhood seriously.”
“I always wanted kids,” he said. “I was an only child. It’s a lonely life for a kid on a big ranch. I wanted more than one, but...” He shrugged. “I’m glad I’ve got Cherry.”
“Her mother didn’t want her?”
He glowered. “Marie likes her when she’s having guests, so that she can show the world what a sweet, devoted mother she is. It wins her brownie points in her business affairs. She’s an interior designer and most of her work comes from very wealthy, very conservative, Texans. You know, the sort who like settled family men and women on the job?”
“Does Cherry know?”
“It’s hard to miss, and Cherry’s bright. Marie and I get along, most of the time, but I won’t let her dictate Cherry’s life for her.” He intercepted a curious glance. “Rodeo,” he said, answering the unspoken question. “Marie disapproves.”
“But Cherry still rides.”
He nodded. “I have custody,” he said pointedly.
“And Cherry adores you,” she agreed. She smiled, still drowsy from the pain medication. “I feel as if I’m flying. I don’t know what Copper gave me, but it’s very potent.”
“Coltrain strikes me as something of a hell-raiser,” he said.
“He was, and still is. I like him very much.”
One gray eye narrowed. “Like?”
“Like.” She was fighting sleep. Her slender hands smoothed over the light sheet that covered her. “I wanted to care about him, at first, but I couldn’t feel like that with him. I think I’m cold, you see,” she murmured sleepily. “I don’t...feel those things...that women are supposed to feel...with men...”
Her voice drifted away and she was asleep.
Todd sat watching her with a faint frown, puzzled by that odd statement. She was a beauty. Surely there had been men over the years who attracted her, and at least one lover; perhaps Coltrain, for whom she hadn’t felt anything. The thought was uncomfortable.
After a minute, he forced himself to concentrate more on the figures in the ledger and less on the lovely, sleeping woman in the bed. Jane’s sex life was none of his business.
THE AMBULANCE CAME promptly at ten o’clock the next morning, and Jane’s blue eyes snapped and sparkled when Todd told her that Coltrain had insisted on an X-ray.
“I won’t go!” she raged. “Do you hear me? I won’t go to the hospital...!”
“He only wants you X-rayed to be sure that you haven’t broken anything,” Todd said. He was alone in the bedroom with Jane. Tim had prudently found something to do several miles away from the house, and Meg had gone shopping, taking Cherry with her. Only now did Todd realize why.
“I haven’t broken anything!” she said hotly. She’d already had the traction apparatus removed so that she could go to the bathroom. Now she was sitting on the side of the bed in her pale blue cotton pajamas, her blond hair disheveled around her shoulders while she glared at the men who brought in the trolley.
“I won’t go!” she continued.
The ambulance attendants looked doubtful.
Jane waved a hand at them. “Take that thing away!”
“Stay right where you are,” Todd said quietly. He moved toward Jane. “Coltrain said you go. So you go.”
She verbally lashed out at him, furious that she was being coerced into doing this. “I tell you, I won’t...!”
He ignored her words and simply picked her up, cradling her gently against his broad chest as he turned toward the stretcher. She felt her breasts flatten against that warm strength and something incredible happened to her senses. She gasped audibly at the sensations that rippled through her slender body at the unfamiliar contact. Until now, the only man who’d ever seen her so scantily clad had been Coltrain, in a professional capacity only. And now here she was in arms that made a weakling of her, that made her whole body tingle and tremble with odd, empty longings.
All too soon, Todd put her on the stretcher and the ambulance attendants covered her with a white sheet. They were quick and professional, towing her right out toward the ambulance, which had backed up to the porch and was waiting for her.
“I’ll follow you in the car,” Todd told her. The way she was watching him made him uneasy. He couldn’t help feeling her violent reaction to his touch. It had been in her whole body, even as it lay in her eyes right now, surprised and vulnerable eyes that made him very uncomfortable. “What, no more harsh words? No more fury?” he taunted, hoping to stop those soft eyes from eating his face.
Her teeth clenched, as much from physical discomfort as temper. “You’re fired!” she yelled at him.
“Oh, you can’t fire me,” he assured her.
“Why can’t I?”
“Because you’ll lose the ranch if you do,” he said, meeting her angry eyes levelly. “I can save it.”
She wavered. “How?”
“We’ll discuss that. After you’re X-rayed,” he added. He moved back and the ambulance attendant closed the double doors on Jane and her confused expression.
“I TOLD YOU I was all right!” Jane raged at Coltrain when he’d read the X-rays and assured her that nothing was broken, chipped or fractured.
“I didn’t say you were all right,” he returned, his hands deep in the pockets of his white lab coat. He looked very professional with the stethoscope draped loosely around his neck. “I said you hadn’t broken anything. You were lucky,” he added irritably. “My God, woman, do you want to break your back? Do you want to spend the rest of your life lying in bed, unable to move!”
She bit her lower lip hard. “No,” she said gruffly.
“Then stop trying to prove yourself,” he said shortly. “The only opinion that ever matters is your own! Damn the reporter. If he’s too stupid to report the truth, he’ll dig his own grave one day. If he hasn’t already,” he added.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that the local rodeo association has banned him from the arena,” he told her.
Her eyebrows shot up. “But rodeo is the biggest local sport going, especially this time of year!”
“I know.” He smiled smugly. “I sit on the board of directors.”
“You did it,” she said.
“I had a lot of help,” he replied. “It was a unanimous decision. I wish you could have seen Craig Fox’s face when he was told he couldn’t send his new reporter to cover any more rodeos.” He fingered his tie. “As a matter of fact, the hardware store and the auto parts place pulled their ads this week. Their owners have sons who compete in the rodeo.”
She whistled through her teeth. “Oh, boy.”
“I understand that the reporter is making a public apology, in print, in this week’s edition,” he added. “You, uh, might take a look on the editorial page when your copy comes.” He patted her shoulder absently. “He eats crow very well.”
She laughed, her bad temper gone. “You devil!”
“You’re my friend,” he said with a smile—something rare in that taciturn face.
“And you’re mine.” She reached out and held his lean hand. “Thanks, Copper.”
He nodded.
Todd Burke, coming into the treatment room with Dr. Lou Blakely, stopped and glared at the tableau they made. The lovely blonde woman beside him didn’t give away anything in her expression, but her eyelids flickered.
“When you’re through here, I’d like to speak to you, Dr. Coltrain,” Lou said quietly. “I had Ned Rogers come in for some lab work. It isn’t good, I’m afraid. I let him go home, but we’ll have to have him back to give him the results.”
He let go of Jane’s hand, reluctantly it seemed to Todd, and turned to his partner. “Was it so urgent that you couldn’t tell me after I’d done my rounds here?” he asked shortly. “Who’s minding the office?”
Her cheeks flushed. “I’ve just finished doing my own rounds,” she said, furious that he thought she was chasing him here. “And it is noon,” she said pointedly. “I’m on my lunch hour. Betty’s had her lunch. She’s minding the phone.”
“Noon?” He checked his watch. “So it is.” He turned toward Jane and started to speak.
“I’ll drive Jane back home, if she’s through here,” Todd interjected, joining them. “I have some questions about the book work. I can’t do anything more until they’re answered.”
Lou studied the newcomer curiously and with a nice smile. “I’m Dr. Louise Blakely,” she said, holding a hand out to be shaken. “Dr. Coltrain’s partner.”
“Assistant,” Coltrain said carelessly, and with a pointed glare. There was no interest in his eyes, no curiosity, nothing except a faint glitter of hostility.
“Todd Burke,” Todd introduced himself, and smiled. “Nice to meet you, Dr. Blakely.”
Lou glanced at Coltrain. “The contract I signed says that we’re partners, Dr. Coltrain,” she persisted. “For a year.”
He didn’t reply. His pale eyes went back to Jane and he smiled. “I’ll be around if you need me. Take it easy, okay?”
Jane smiled back. “Okay.”
He patted her shoulder reassuringly and started for the door. “All right,” he told Lou curtly. “Let’s have a look at Mr. Rogers’s test results.”
Todd watched them go before he helped Jane into the wheelchair the nurse had brought into the room. She was wheeled out to the exit and Todd loaded her into his Ford. They were underway before he spoke.
“Are you jealous of Lou?” he asked abruptly, because he’d seen the way she watched Coltrain and Lou Blakely.
“Because of Copper? No,” she said easily. “I was wondering about Lou. She’s... I don’t know...fragile around him. It’s odd, because she’s such a strong, independent woman most of the time.”
“Maybe she’s sweet on him,” he suggested.
“For her sake, I hope not,” she replied. “Copper is a confirmed bachelor. His work is his whole life, and he likes women but only in numbers.”
Todd smiled faintly.
She glanced at him with twinkling eyes. “I see that you understand the way he feels. That’s the way you are, too, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “A man who’s been burned doesn’t go around looking for fires,” he said pointedly. He braked for a traffic light and then pulled out into the road that led out of Jacobsville toward the Parker ranch.
She stared out at the summer landscape as they left town, smiling at the beauty of flowers and crops in the field. “I can understand why you might feel that way,” she said absently.
“I’m glad,” he replied curtly, “because there was a look in your eyes that worried me when I lifted you onto the stretcher back at the house.”
Her eyebrows raised. “You’re blunt,” she said.
“Yes, I am. I’ve found that it’s easier to be honest than to prevaricate.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “You’re easy on the eyes and I think I’ll enjoy working for you. But I’m not in the market for a love affair. It’s the challenge of getting your ranch out of hock that appeals to me—not seducing you.”
She didn’t react visibly. She folded her arms over her breasts lazily and leaned back against the seat. It didn’t show that she felt cold and empty and wounded inside. “I see.”
“And now you’re offended,” he said with a cutting edge to his voice, “and you’ll pout for the rest of the day.”
She laughed. “I’m impressed that you know me so well already, Mr. Burke,” she returned. “And your modesty is refreshing!”
His brows collided. He hadn’t expected that mocking reply. “I beg your pardon?”
“You feel that I’m so overcome with panting passion for you that I have to be warned off. I never realized I was that dangerous. And in a wheelchair, too.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him. “Since you’re sooooo attractive, Mr. Burke, aren’t you afraid to be alone in the car with me? I might leap on you!”
He was disconcerted. He glanced at her and the car swerved. He muttered under his breath as he righted it in his lane.
Jane began to enjoy herself. He didn’t seem the sort of man who was easily rattled. She’d managed that quite nicely. She couldn’t wait to do it again. Two could play at his game.
“You’re making me sound conceited,” he began.
“Really? Well, you do seem to think that no normal woman can resist you.”
He sighed angrily. “You’re twisting my words.”
“I do find you attractive,” she said. “You’re everything I’ve ever wanted in a man. I think you’re handsome and intelligent and sexy. Shall we just have sex right now or wait until you stop the car?”
The car swerved again and he braked to avoid going into the ditch. “Miss Parker!”
She was enjoying herself. For the first time since the wreck, she could laugh. She had to fight to get herself under control at all.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said when she got a glimpse at his hard features. “Really, I am.”
He pulled onto the ranch road, his teeth clenched. She made him out to be an utter fool, and he didn’t like it. He wasn’t used to women who were that good at verbal repartee. Marie was sarcastic and biting at times, but she was never condescending. Jane Parker was another kettle of fish. He had to remember that her body was fragile, even if her ego wasn’t.
“I haven’t laughed like that in months,” she said, calmer when he pulled up at the front door. “I do apologize, but it felt good to laugh.”
He cut off the ignition and turned in the seat to face her. His eyes glittered, as they had at their first meeting. He was trying to control emotions he’d never felt to such an extent.
“I don’t like being the butt of anyone’s joke,” he said curtly. “We’ll get along very well if you remember that.”
Her eyes iced over. “We’ll get along better if you remember that I don’t like men who talk to me as if I were a giddy adolescent on a hero-worshiping tangent.”
His jaw clenched. “Miss Parker, I’m no boy. And I do know how a woman reacts—”
“No doubt you do, with your wide experience of them.” She cut him off. “I’ve been alone for some time now,” she added, “and I’m not used to being touched. So before you read too much into my reactions, you might consider that any man would have produced the same reaction.”
He didn’t like that. His expression went from surprise to cold courtesy. “I’ll get you into the house.”
“No, you won’t,” she said pleasantly. The look in her eyes wasn’t pleasant at all. “Please ask Tim to bring the wheelchair. I find that I prefer it to you.”
His face registered the insult. He knew already how she hated the stigma of the chair. But he didn’t react. He should have kept his mouth shut.
“I’ll get it,” he said.
He left her in the car and went into the house, fuming. Tim came out of the kitchen where he’d been talking to Meg.
“How is she?” he asked at once.
“Out of humor, but physically undamaged,” Todd said. He grimaced. “I made her mad.”
“That’s a step in the right direction,” the older man said, smiling. “She needs shaking up. Pity she doesn’t like Copper,” he added on a sigh. “He’d be perfect for her.”
“Because he’s a doctor?” Todd asked impatiently.
“Because they grew up together and he knows ranching,” came the reply. “He’d never have let the place get in this mess.” He eyed Todd narrowly. “Do you think you can get us out of the financial tangle I landed us in?”
Todd reached for the wheelchair. “I think so,” he said. “It’s not as bad as you think. Mainly it’s a matter of improving the operation and utilizing some resources. It will take time, though,” he added as he pushed the chair toward the porch. “Don’t expect instant answers.”
“I don’t,” Tim assured him. “Why can’t you just carry her inside?” he asked as an afterthought.
“Never mind.” Todd bit off the words.
Tim’s eyes twinkled. He followed the younger man out to the car and watched the byplay as Todd eased Jane into the chair and pushed her up onto the porch. She was stifling hot words, and he was controlling a temper that almost slipped its bonds. Tim took a longer look and liked what he saw. She wasn’t brooding anymore, that was obvious. If anything, she was seething.
“Will you call Cherry and tell her I’m putting lunch on the table, Todd?” Meg called from the kitchen.
“Sure.”
He put the car away and went to find his daughter, who was riding in the fenced arena, going around the barrels very slowly.
“Hi, Dad,” she called, waving her hand.
“How’s it going?” he yelled.
“Fine! I’m working slowly, like Jane told me to. How is she?”
“She’s all right,” he replied. “Meg’s got lunch ready. Put your horse up and come on in.”
“Okay, Dad!”
He stuck his hands into the pockets of his slacks and went back to the house. Meg had coffee and sandwiches on the long dining-room table, where Jane and Tim were sitting. He washed up and then they waited for Cherry, who came to join them a few minutes later.
“You’ll need some food before you start on those books again.” Tim chuckled, watching Todd raid the sandwich platter before he passed it along to his daughter. She helped herself, talking animatedly to Meg and Tim.
“I love to see a man with a healthy appetite,” Jane murmured, to needle him. She was sitting next to him and nibbling delicately on her own sandwich.
Todd glared at her. She finished her sandwich and leaned toward him, sniffing.
“Umm,” she murmured huskily, so that only he could hear while Tim and Meg were talking. “What is that cologne you’re wearing? It’s very sexy.”
He didn’t reply, reaching for his coffee cup instead with an expression as hard as steel.
“Jane, Todd said that he thinks he can get us operating in the black,” Tim said to Jane.
“Really?” Jane smiled at him. “Can we afford it?”
He sipped his coffee and put a sandwich on his plate. “It’s going to require some belt tightening, if that’s what you mean,” he said, refusing to rise to the bait. He looked directly at her. “And you’re going to have to borrow enough to make some improvements.”
She let out a long breath. “I was afraid you’d say that. I don’t think we can borrow any more.”
“Yes, you can,” he said, without telling her why he was sure of it. His name would convince any banker to let her have the loan, if he was willing to stand behind it. And he was. He dealt in amounts that would make her mind boggle. The amount she needed to get the ranch on its feet was paltry indeed compared to his annual budget. His backing would give her a good start, and it was an investment that would pay dividends one day. Not that he expected to capitalize on it. He’d be in the guise of a guardian angel, not a working partner.
She gnawed her lower lip, all signs of humor gone. “What would we have to do?”
He outlined the changes he had in mind, including the improvements to buildings, putting the stallions out to stud, building a breeding herd, leasing out unused land and applying for land development funds through government agencies.
Jane caught her breath mentally at the picture he painted of what could become a successful ranch, with horses for its foundation instead of cattle. It had been her father’s dream to make the ranch self-supporting. Jane had tried, but she had no real knowledge of finance. All she knew was horses.
“Besides these changes,” Todd added, “you have a name with commercial potential. It’s a hell of a shame not to capitalize on it. Have you considered endorsing a line of Western clothing? Other rodeo stars have gone into such licensing. Why not you?”
“I...couldn’t do that,” she said hesitantly.
“Why?”
“I’m not going to be photographed in a wheel-chair!”
“You wouldn’t have to be,” he said curtly. “The wheelchair is only temporary. Didn’t the doctor tell you so?”
She rubbed her temples. She was on the way to a king-size headache. Todd Burke headache number one, she thought whimsically, and had to bite back a grin.
“I can’t think that anyone would be interested in a line of clothing advertised by a has-been.”
“You aren’t a has-been,” Cherry said quietly. “You’re a legend. My gosh, at the riding school I went to they had posters of you all over the place!”
She knew the posters had been made, but she didn’t realize that anybody had actually paid money for one. She looked blankly at Cherry.
“You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?” Tim asked. “I told you that they had to reprint the posters because of the demand. But it was right after the wreck. I guess you weren’t listening.”
“No,” she agreed. “I was in shock.” She looked at Todd. “If there’s a chance that we can make the ranch into a paying operation, I want to take it. If I lose, okay. But I’m not going under without a fight. Do whatever you like about the loan and the financing, and then just point me in the right direction. I’ll do whatever you want me to.”
“All right,” Todd said. “We’ll give it a shot.”