TESS COULDN’T REMEMBER ever being quite so afraid. The man had her in a half nelson, and he was slowly dragging her to the front door of the building, where another man was sitting in a running car.
This couldn’t be happening, she told herself. She couldn’t let it happen. A knife was being held at her ribs, and she felt the certainty of death like black ice on her tongue.
If she let him get her into the car, she didn’t have a prayer. She would die. They’d carry her off and then certainly kill her. Desperate men, desperate deeds. The car the other man was driving was an expensive brown sedan, and they were both wearing suits. These were no run-of-the-mill street people, no lower-rank mules. These were men who made millions on the despair and desperation of weak people, and they certainly wouldn’t mind killing anyone who stood between them and their livelihood.
Dane had known that. But Tess hadn’t realized it until now, when it was too late.
There was a chance, only a brief one, that she might get away before the men got her into the car. When he opened the door at the front of the building, he was certainly going to have to take that knife away from her rib cage for an instant. If she was quick and kept her head, she might get away.
Her heart raced madly. She was shaking all over, but she couldn’t give way to panic and fear. She kept telling herself that, going over everything she’d learned from the operatives, the slick little moves they’d taught her about how to get away from a potential attacker. She’d listened and learned. Now those lessons were going to pay off.
She went along with him, acting terrified to throw him off guard. She pleaded with him tearfully to set her free. All the time her mind was working, going over and over the one move she was going to employ when the time came.
It was working. She felt him begin to relax his painful grip. He laughed. He was enjoying her fear. The front door was a foot away. He moved toward it, the knife lifting as he raised his arm to push open the glass door.
Just as he raised it, Tess brought her elbow into his diaphragm with a vicious jab. As his chin came down, she brought the back of her fist up to meet his nose, and felt blood on it. Reacting swiftly, she tore away from him while he was doubled over and ran up the side street toward the crowded main street. It was noon, and people were everywhere. Thank God! The men wouldn’t dare risk taking hold of her with a crowd around her. She ran, panting, not daring to look back.
She merged quickly into a group of people waiting for a red light to change. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a car speeding up the side street toward her. They wouldn’t, she thought feverishly, they wouldn’t…!
“Tess!”
She looked. It was a Mercedes, and Dane was at the wheel.
“Dane!” She ran across the side street and scrambled in beside him, throwing her arms around his neck and shivering.
He brought her close for an instant, barely aware of his surroundings in the stark terror he’d just experienced. He’d rushed back to the office, hoping to get there before the operatives left. He’d seen Tess running and the other car suddenly speed away. His choices dwindled immediately to getting to Tess or giving chase. That was no choice at all.
His mouth crushed down over hers for one long instant before he dragged it away and turned the car down the wide street into traffic. He didn’t let go of Tess. He couldn’t.
“They almost had me,” she whispered breathlessly. “One of them grabbed me as I started out of our office. He had a knife at my ribs….”
“God,” he groaned harshly, pulling her closer.
“Helen taught me how to defend myself against somebody holding me from behind,” she said. Her cheek moved against the soft fabric of his jacket. “I remembered it. I caught him off guard and got away.” She grinned, now that it was all over. “It was very exciting,” she said, her eyes sparkling as she looked up at him. “I can see why… Dane?”
He pulled off the street into a parking space and sat, white-faced, his hands trembling on the steering wheel. He didn’t speak or look at her.
“It’s all right,” she said softly. She moved, reaching up to draw his head down to hers. She kissed him slowly, nibbling at his lips, his nose, his closed eyes. Her arms slid around him and she pressed close, her face finally sliding against his hot throat and resting there. “It wasn’t your fault,” she whispered. “You forgot that you’d told me I couldn’t go with Helen.”
“I didn’t forget,” he said unsteadily. “I left in plenty of time to get back before the office emptied. But I had a flat on the way.”
“Dane?” she murmured.
“Let me hold you, Tess,” he said, his voice torn. “Don’t talk. Just let me hold you.”
She did, sighing as the peace of the embrace finally got through to him and calmed him. He felt guilty, she supposed, although God knew why he should. She didn’t blame him. She smiled against his throat and kissed him just below his Adam’s apple. She was about to say that for a man who didn’t love her, he was certainly excitable. But she thought better of it. He was vulnerable. He wouldn’t like having her point it out.
He drew in a rough breath, and she glanced up at him. His eyes were frightening. He touched her face with warm, hard fingers. “Did he hurt you?”
“No,” she assured him. Her eyes sparkled. “But I hurt him. I think I broke his nose.”
He whistled softly. “I’m going to have to talk to Helen.”
“You wouldn’t teach me,” she said defensively.
“Thank God she did. I’ll treat Helen and Harold to the biggest damned anchovy pizzas they can eat,” he mused.
“That’s nice.” She laid her forehead against his chin. “Can I have one, too? I’m hungry.”
“Poor little scrap, you haven’t eaten.” He put her back in her own seat and fastened her seat belt, his hands brushing against her body accidentally and setting her tingling. “You can have a pizza if you want one.”
Her eyes melted into his, adoring, acquisitive.
He bridled at that look, at his own vulnerability. He didn’t like having her see him when he couldn’t hide his disturbed state from her. She might think he was emotionally involved. Ridiculous, of course. All the same…
He bent and put his mouth softly over hers, kissing her gently. “From now on, if I have to leave the office, I’ll make sure someone’s with you. I’m sorry, Tess. Damned sorry.”
She smiled. “I told you, it wasn’t your fault.” She stared at his mouth dizzily. “Kiss me again.”
“Too public,” he murmured, drawing back. He indicated throngs of passersby.
“We could eat at the apartment, couldn’t we?”
“No, we could not,” he said gently, reading her expression all too well for his peace of mind. “In the first place, you’ll need days to recuperate from what I did to you last night. In the second place,” he said, his expression growing sterner by the second, “from now on, you’re going to sleep in your own bed, not mine. I won’t let that happen again.”
“Why not?” she asked softly.
His thumb rubbed slowly over her chin and he looked worried. “Because I don’t want commitment,” he reminded her. “I won’t ever forget how it made me feel to be your first lover. But you want forever after. I don’t believe in it anymore. I’ve had my illusions shattered.”
“You might change your mind,” she said. “I might grow on you.”
“You already have. But I can’t marry you,” he said bluntly. “Listen to me, Tess. You think you love me, but you don’t have any experience of men except what you’ve learned with me. One day, sex won’t be enough for you. You’ll want a child.”
“I love you, Dane,” she said simply.
His cheeks darkened and his eyes seemed to kindle, but he fought down the fever those words initiated. “You don’t know what love is,” he replied quietly. “You think it’s two bodies in bed.”
Her eyes searched his. “What we did together last night was much more than two bodies in bed. We made love, Dane,” she said. “Made it so beautifully that I can’t imagine ever letting any man but you touch me as long as I live.”
His eyes closed. He felt that way, too, but he couldn’t tell her. His feelings were locked up, chained.
“It was sex,” he said coldly, forcing his eyes to open and stab into hers. “And you’re damned lucky I’m sterile or you’d really have a problem.”
“I wouldn’t have thought so,” she said, smiling.
He gazed out the window blindly. “Anyway, it’s a moot point,” he said. He started the car. “We have to report this to the nearest precinct. Assault with intent is a felony. I’ll have that—” he employed some old ranger language “—in jail by sundown, and he won’t get out this time, not if I have to call in a few markers and have some old friends help me surround the courthouse!”
She could picture a throng of cold-eyed Texas Rangers holding a courtroom at gunpoint. She laughed gently.
“How can you laugh?” he demanded. “God in heaven, don’t you realize how close you came to being killed?”
“Nerves,” she told him. “Reaction. Yes, I realize it. I remember thinking I wouldn’t see you again,” she added, adoring his face with her gray eyes. “It made me sad.”
He looked away. He’d had too many shocks lately, all of them to do with losing her. He put the car into gear and pulled out into traffic. He lit a cigarette and didn’t say another word all the way to the police station.
Helen gloated later when she found out that Tess had used her instructions to foil a kidnapping. Dane was in a black temper that lasted all day, even if he did unbend enough to give Helen a bonus for teaching Tess how to survive an assault. But he watched Tess openly, his mind on the dope peddlers. He’d never felt so homicidal.
While the office was full of armed operatives, he made his way back to the police station, to talk to the sergeant who was handling the case.
“Nothing yet,” Sergeant Graves told Dane when the two men were in the former’s office. “We’ve got feelers out, but those two rats have gone down a hole somewhere. They probably knew we’d pull out all the stops after what they did. Your secretary was damned lucky, do you know that? Tomby, the man who tried to abduct her, got off once on a murder charge for lack of evidence. I don’t doubt he’d have killed her if he’d gotten her into his car.”
“Neither do I,” Dane said stiffly. He didn’t want to think about that. He’d go crazy. “I’m volunteering my staff to help find them. I can’t risk having Tess at their mercy again.”
“We’d appreciate the help,” Graves replied. “With your background in police work, you know how much there is to do and how inadequate our staff is. People don’t realize the time it takes to run down felons, or the bureaucracy that stands between law enforcement and the justice system.”
“God, I do,” Dane said heavily. “You try being a ranger. You’ll get an eyeful.”
The older man smiled wistfully. “I did try. Couldn’t pass the oral exam. God, those old-timers are thorough!”
“And damned mean, some of them.” Dane chuckled.
“They have to be. Everyone remembers the story of the single Texas Ranger who got off the train after he was called to put down a full-scale riot. The townspeople were astonished that one man was expected to accomplish all that. The ranger just drawled, ‘Well, you’ve only got one riot, haven’t you?’”
“One man was usually enough,” Dane replied.
“I’ve got a hunch about these two men we’re after,” Graves said suddenly, after the laughter diminished. “They’re high-class suppliers. There’s a man named Louie on parole for distributing. He has some ties to the same underworld element these two are involved with. I’d like to lean on him a little, unofficially.”
Dane smiled slowly. “Got an address?”
The other man returned the smile and scribbled something on a piece of paper. “You don’t know where you got this,” he cautioned.
Dane nodded as he got to his feet. “It was in my pocket when my jacket came back from the cleaners,” he promised. “Good luck.”
“We could both use a little of that.”
Back at the office, Dane gave the address to Adams with some instructions. At closing time, he made sure Tess was with him every minute until they got back to his apartment.
He threw off his jacket, an action she watched with possessive familiarity. Living with him had her spoiled. She loved being with him. Once the men who’d assailed her were caught, she’d have to go home. Her face paled at the realization.
He turned, rubbing a hand around the back of his stiff neck, and caught her expression. “What is it?” he asked gently.
“When they catch those two men, I’ll have to go home.”
He frowned slightly. He didn’t want to think about that, either. It made him feel empty. The past few days with her here had been magic, and not just because they’d become lovers. He enjoyed being with her.
“You’ll probably be glad,” she said, trying to brighten up. “No more lingerie drying in the bathroom, no more shoes under the couch….”
“That isn’t quite true,” he said. “I’ll miss you. I think you’ll miss me, too. But we adjusted to being apart a long time ago.”
She searched his eyes. “You mean, just after you got shot and I took care of you.”
He nodded. “We were almost this close then, until I made a dead set at you and scared you off.”
She smiled tenderly. “I’m not scared anymore,” she reminded him, and her face colored.
He moved closer, pulling her against him. His head bent over hers and he rocked her gently. “It has to end,” he said bitterly. “I told you, I don’t want commitment.”
Her arms slid under his and she lay her cheek on his broad chest, against his warm white shirtfront. She didn’t argue because there was no use. She drew in a breath, savoring every second she had with him. The memories would be sweet, at least. “Can I sleep with you tonight?”
He stiffened. “I want that,” he said huskily. “But, no. It will only make it worse when you have to leave.”
“That’s like not driving a car because it will be irritating when it breaks down.”
He chuckled despite himself. “I suppose so.” He lifted his head. “It isn’t a good idea to get any closer than we already have,” he said finally. “It’s going to hurt like hell as it is.”
She started to speak, but he put his thumb over her lips.
“I know you think you love me,” he said. “That will pass, once you’re back in your own apartment and resuming your own life. This will seem like a bad dream.”
“Last night won’t,” she replied.
“I know.” He kissed her forehead with breathless tenderness. “But it was only one night. You’ll forget, in time.”
“Will you?”
He let her go and stretched, pretending he didn’t hear her. “Who cooks, and what?” he asked. “I feel like a hamburger. Several hamburgers,” he amended. “That slice of pizza at lunch wasn’t filling.”
“Hamburgers it is. I’ll cook,” she volunteered.
“You always cook. That isn’t fair division of labor.” “It is, considering how you cook hamburgers,” she said under her breath as she went toward the kitchen. “Female chauvinism.”
“Contradiction in terms.”
He made a huffy sound and went into the bedroom to change.
She made hamburgers and sliced some Swiss cheese to go on them, along with chives and onions and mustard and mayonnaise. Dane stared at his suspiciously when she put it before him.
“Try it before you say terrible things about it,” she coaxed.
He narrowed one eye and glared at it. Eventually, he picked it up and tasted it, and his eyebrows arched. “Different,” he said.
“Kit taught me,” she said. “She learned from her boss.”
“The office has missed them,” Dane said dryly as he washed down bites of hamburger with rich black coffee. “Logan Deverell is one of my biggest accounts. His mother, Tansy, keeps me in the black.”
She laughed. “She’s a wild woman, isn’t she? Always into something, mostly trouble. We spend a lot of time looking for her. Mr. Deverell worries too much.”
“Not really,” he mused. “Not since she got arrested in Mexico for drug trafficking.”
“But she wasn’t,” she argued. “She bought a colorful purse from a vendor who mistook her for a mule.”
“Mistaken identity has landed saner people than Tansy in jail,” he reminded her. “If Logan could tie her to a post, he’d stop worrying.”
“Yes, but we’d lose his business,” she pointed out.
“Perish the thought.”
“I miss having lunch with Kit,” she sighed. She glanced at him. “She’d have a flying fit if she knew we were living together.”
“We aren’t,” he pointed out.
“We are so. Temporarily, anyway,” she replied.
He finished his hamburger and made himself another one. This time he sliced onions and spread mustard on one bun and catsup on another.
“Purist,” she muttered.
“I’m conventional,” he explained as he sat down again. “I like a downtown hamburger.”
She laughed. Her gray eyes sparkled as she looked at him, so enthralled by the sight of him across a table that she couldn’t hide it. Even in an old T-shirt and jeans, he was something to see.
“I don’t guess we could go down to the ranch for the weekend?” she asked wistfully.
He shook his head, his eyes wary. “We can’t risk it.”
“Because of the drug dealers.” She nodded.
“No, Tess,” he replied quietly. “Because we’ve been lovers. Beryl isn’t blind. The way we look at each other would give the show away.”
“Oh.”
“She’s old-fashioned in her attitudes.” He grimaced at her blush. “I know. So are you. So am I, for that matter.” His eyes darkened. “And despite that, it made me feel ten feet tall to know I was the first. I’ll treasure that night as long as I live.”
“So will I,” she said softly, searching his eyes. “You said you’d never been tender with anyone. But you were patient and gentle, and I know you didn’t feel like being that way. You wanted me very badly.”
“I wanted to cherish you,” he said huskily. “I wanted to give you a sweet memory, something to wipe out the fear I’d kindled in you the first time I kissed you.” He shrugged. “Maybe I wanted to know if I was capable of tenderness, as well.”
She cleared her throat. “I don’t think there’s much doubt about that anymore,” she said demurely.
His eyes softened as he looked at her. “You were everything I used to dream you would be,” he said quietly. “Soft and loving, gently abandoned in my arms. I exhausted you because I couldn’t manage to stop. I couldn’t get enough of you.”
She colored, remembering. She wrapped her hands around her coffee cup and sipped the hot black liquid. She met his eyes evenly. “I’m not sorry,” she said. “Not if I died of it, I wouldn’t be sorry!”
His jaw tautened. He had to drag his gaze back to his hamburger. He could have said the same to her, but he was getting aroused all over again. “I’ve got some work to do in the study. Can you amuse yourself?”
“There’s a National Geographic special on,” she replied. “About lizards. I thought I’d watch it.”
His eyebrows arched. “Lizards?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know why, but I’ve always been fascinated by them. Especially the Komodo dragons. Have you seen pictures of them? They’re huge, and they have forked tongues….”
“And a very well developed Jacobsen’s organ,” he added, smiling at her surprise. “They interest me, too. So does most wildlife.”
“You like cattle and horses. I guess wildlife is wildlife,” she mused.
“I’d have liked taking you back to the ranch,” he confessed, searching her face quietly. “But Beryl would make you feel uncomfortable.”
She looked down at the empty plate. “Is there such a thing as happily ever after these days?” she asked.
“For some people, maybe. I can’t forget how my marriage failed, Tess. Maybe it never had a chance, but in the beginning, things were bright for Jane and me. Somewhere along the way, we stopped caring about each other.” He looked up. “There aren’t any guarantees. If I could give you a child, I might think differently. But I can’t. I don’t think we could make it work. I’m afraid to take the chance, can you understand that?”
“You think I’m too young.” She sighed. Her eyes coveted him shyly. “I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted. I loved you when I was nineteen, and I love you now.” She smiled sadly. “How do I stop, Dane?”
His teeth clenched. He couldn’t handle questions like that. He swallowed the last of his coffee and put the mug down. “Leave the dishes,” he said as he rose. “I’ll take care of them, since you did the cooking.”
“I don’t mind….”
“This is my apartment,” he reminded her coolly. “I’m used to doing dishes. And cooking. I’ve lived alone for years.”
He went off in the general direction of the study and she got up after a minute and cleared things away.
“You really must feel like you have a shadow,” Helen remarked a couple of days later at work. “Dane never takes his eyes off you, and if he has to be out of the office, it’s Adams or me or Nick. You poor thing, I know you’ll be glad when this is finally over. Living with Dane must be pure hell. It’s a good thing you don’t have a social life, or you’d be screaming.”
Tess controlled her expression, just barely. “I suppose so.”
“Dane would have been your stepbrother, wouldn’t he?” Helen asked. “Everyone knows that your respective parents were going to be married. I don’t suppose it feels funny to you at all, being that close to him. After all, he’s almost family.”
She murmured her agreement, but it was a lie. Dane wasn’t family. He was the light of her life, except that she wanted something he didn’t. She wanted marriage and togetherness. Dane was afraid that she’d turn out like Jane, harping on his inability to make her pregnant, making his life hell.
She wouldn’t, though. It was a disappointment, surely, that he couldn’t give her a child, but it wasn’t the end of the world. She cared about him too much. If it could be only the two of them for fifty years, she’d have leaped at the chance. She couldn’t bear to even think of how life was going to be without him, now that she’d known him so intimately.
He didn’t seem to be having similar problems. If he was worried about their relationship, his expression gave nothing away. In the evenings, he was pleasant and kind, but he never looked at her too long or came too close. He spent most of his time in his study, working, and when he wasn’t in there, he was in bed.
Tess was alone these days at the apartment, and the distance between Dane and herself was growing. He was determined to put her out of his mind. She fought to keep the wonderful closeness they’d attained, but she did it with no help from him.
“Tess, come in here a minute, please,” he said the next morning, motioning her into his office.
Nick Reed was in there, too, tall and blond and carelessly attractive. He was Helen’s brother, an ex-FBI agent whom Dane had coaxed away from the government agency, and if Tess hadn’t been so hopelessly in love with Dane, she’d have gotten weak-kneed every time she saw Nick. He had that kind of good looks. He smiled at her as she sat down on the sofa and waited for Dane to close the door.
“We’re going to force their hand,” Dane told her abruptly. “Nick’s been to see a man I got a tip about. He got some information we can use, and I had him deposit a few clues about your movements in the process. We’re going to set you up, honey, and let the bad boys come after you.”
“Thanks,” she sighed. “I always knew you loved me, really.”
Nick chuckled at what he thought was a joke. Dane didn’t. His face closed up.
“You’ll be quite safe,” Dane told her. “We’re going to back you to the hilt, the whole damned staff and two off-duty cops. It’s the only way I’ve been able to find that wouldn’t give them the advantage. We can’t sit and wait until they try for you again. It’s too dangerous.”
“What do you want me to do?” she asked calmly.
“First they shoot you, then they try to nab you, and you break free and evade them,” Nick murmured. “Pity Dane won’t let you on the staff, Tess, you’re a natural.”
“Tell him, tell him,” she muttered, pointing at Dane. “He thinks I’m hopeless at detective work.”
“Getting shot doesn’t require ability as a detective,” Dane informed her.
“No, but getting away from a potential killer does,” Nick told him. “Some of our best operatives wouldn’t have been able to manage—”
“Let’s keep to the topic at hand,” Dane said tersely, glaring at Nick. “Tess, this is what we want to do,” he began.
He told her when, where and how they were going to set the trap. She was afraid and nervous, but she reminded herself that she’d been both when she evaded the men in the first place. She could keep her head under fire. She knew that now. It would be all right.
At least she’d be out of danger when it was over. She’d be out of Dane’s life, too. He seemed to be in a hurry to accomplish that, even if she wasn’t. What did they say about a quick cut being kindest in the long run? Maybe she could get her life back together when she was out of Dane’s, but she’d never be the same without him. Nothing was going to change that.
That weekend at the apartment, Dane was unusually restless. He couldn’t sit still long enough to watch television.
“Let’s go out,” he said tersely, glancing at her. “Put something on.”
“I’ve got something on,” she began, indicating her jeans and T-shirt.
“Then add a jacket and some sneakers to it. I feel like riding.”
“Where?”
“At the ranch,” he muttered. He saw her flush. “It’s Beryl’s day off,” he told her. “Even so, we manage the facade in public. Helen actually asked me if I’d ease up on you. She thinks I’ve been giving you hell.”
“Haven’t you?” she asked pertly.
He turned away. “Come on. Sitting around here all day isn’t going to do a thing for us.”
Probably not, since he wouldn’t touch her, she thought bitterly. But a whole day in his company wasn’t anything to sneer at. In the years to come, every minute would be a precious memory.
She grabbed her denim jacket, slipped into her pink sneakers and followed him out the door.
It was a cool day, and she was glad of the jacket when she and Dane rode across the lower part of his ranch, which lay along the boundary of the Big Spur. Her efforts to get on the horse had amused Dane, bringing a rare smile to his lips. The old mare he’d given her to ride was gentle, though, and after a while she felt quite at home on the animal. It wasn’t nearly the ordeal she’d thought it would be, learning how to ride. She was enjoying it.
She stared curiously at the red-coated cattle in the distance.
“They’re the same color as yours,” she remarked, nodding toward them. “Are they the same breed?”
“Santa Gertrudis,” he agreed. He eased back in the saddle, grimacing a little.
“Is your back all right?” she asked with concern.
He glance at her with a wry smile. “It was until a few nights ago.”
She actually gasped out loud.
He chuckled helplessly. “My God.”
“Do you mind?” she asked breathlessly, her color flaring.
“My back is all right,” he assured her. “A little stiff, but it gets that way from routine work. I can assure you,” he added in a soft tone, “that I’d much rather have a stiff back from what we did together than from going on stakeout.”
She cleared her throat. “I see.”
“Coward. You were the one who brought it up last time.” He caught her hand in his and brought it to his mouth. “Thank you for the gift you gave me that night.”
She really colored then. She couldn’t manage words.
He stopped his horse, and hers, and clasped her hand against him until she looked his way.
“I felt like a whole man,” he said slowly. “Even if I couldn’t give you a child.”
She winced. “Dane, a child isn’t the only reason two people marry.”
“Perhaps not,” he said wearily. “But it can destroy a marriage.” His face went hard. “God knows, it destroyed mine.”
“I’m not Jane!” she cried.
He looked at her hungrily. “There’s no doubt about that,” he said quietly. “She could barely suffer having me in bed.” His high cheekbones went ruddy. “You didn’t, though. My God, you…” He couldn’t even find the words. He pressed his mouth hard into her palm, his eyes closed on an anguished scowl. “I’ve never had it like that,” he said in a rough tone.
She flushed, too, at the unfamiliar emotion in his deep voice. “I thought it was always good for the man.”
His dark eyes caught hers. “I all but passed out in your arms,” he said huskily. “Just thinking about how it was arouses me.”
Her lips parted. It aroused her, too. She sensed his vulnerability, and just for an instant she thought he might be weakening.
The sudden sound of approaching horses distracted him, too soon. He let go of her hand and his eyes narrowed under the wide brim of his hat.
“Two peas in a pod,” he mused, watching two tall riders approach.
Tess shaded her eyes. “Who are they?”
“Cole Everett and King Brannt.” He kicked his boot out of the stirrup and looped his leg around his saddle horn while he lit a cigarette. He grinned as the two men galloped up beside him and stopped. He knew they’d seen him with Tess and had moved in for a better look. It was, as they knew, unusual for him to bring a woman to the ranch.
“Nice day,” the older of the two remarked, his narrow silvery eyes appraising Tess’s flushed face.
“Good weather, too,” the other man agreed, his dark eyes twinkling in a lean, formidable countenance.
“Her name is Teresa Meriwether,” Dane told them with exaggerated patience. “Tess for short. Her father was going to marry my mother until the wreck, so she’s…family. She’s my secretary at the agency.”
Cole Everett pushed back his creamy Stetson and eyed Dane curiously, his silver eyes quiet and steady. “Do tell.” He glanced at Tess. “Nice to meet you,” he said, smiling. He had a warm smile, not sarcastic or mocking.
“Same here,” King Brannt agreed. He was pleasant enough, but he had a cutting edge to his personality that intimidated Tess. She smiled shyly in his direction, wondering absently how his Shelby had ever gotten up enough nerve to marry such a wildcat.
Everett, too, had an untamed look, but he was older than the other two men, graying at the temples.
“How’s Heather?” Dane asked Cole. “Still teaching voice?”
“And writing songs,” Cole replied. “She sold one last year to a group called Desperado, based up in Wyoming, and their lead singer won another Grammy with it. Heather was over the moon. So were our boys.” He chuckled. “They’re just at the age where they like pop music.”
“My kids like it, too,” King mused. “Dana’s got a keyboard and Matt has drums.” He held a hand to his ear. “Shelby spends a lot of time working in the kitchen garden while they practice. They’re all in high school. His three hang out with my two,” he muttered, glaring at Cole. “God knows, I’ll go insane one day and start howling at the moon from the noise.”
“I send them over to his house so that we can have some peace and quiet at ours,” Cole explained dryly. “Shelby told Heather that she wished she had more than two kids of her own.” He pursed his lips at King. “You aren’t too old yet, are you?”
“Speak for yourself, Grandpa,” King returned. He glanced at Dane curiously. “Ever think of marrying again?” he asked bluntly.
Dane didn’t bat an eyelash. “No. Anything in particular you wanted, besides a look at my houseguest?” he added with a meaningful stare.
“We could use a new bull,” Cole reminded him. “King’s got one he’s ready to sell, and he needs a new one of his own. Since you and I are ready to unload…er, sell…that bull of ours, King thought we might work out a trade, when you’ve got time to discuss it.” He grinned at Tess, ignoring King’s dry glance in his direction. “Not today, of course.”
Dane chuckled at the blatant excuse. He saw right through them. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll come over next weekend and we’ll talk about it.” By then, he thought, he’d have sprung the trap on Tess’s assailant and she’d have moved out. The thought depressed him.
“Suits us,” King said. “As for unloading your bull on me,” he added with a mocking smile at Cole Everett, “that’ll be the day.”
“You watch too many reruns of old John Wayne movies,” Cole pointed out. “You’re starting to sound like the character he played in The Searchers.”
The younger man cocked an eyebrow. “All the same, you won’t slip a worn-out bull under my nose.”
Cole looked insulted. “Would I do that to a business partner?”
“Sure,” King said pleasantly. “Like you tried to land me with that gelding last year when I wanted a new stallion for my stud.”
“It wasn’t my fault. I swear to God I had no idea he’d been to the vet—”
“Like hell you didn’t. He was in on it with you,” he added, nodding toward Dane. “You gave it away when you started snickering into your hat.”
“Yes, but the joke backfired, didn’t it?” King mused. “I bought the animal anyway and he turned out to be one of the best stud horses I’ve got. The vet pulled a fast one on both of you.”
Tess was laughing out loud by now. “I thought you people were friends!” she burst out.
“Oh, we are,” King agreed. “But friends are much more dangerous than enemies.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Dane murmured.
“Yes, well, it pays not to turn your back on these two,” Cole returned. “Are you staying at the ranch long? Heather would enjoy getting to meet you, I’m sure. I imagine your job is pretty interesting. He never talks about it.” He jerked a thumb toward Dane. “That’s how he keeps his clientele,” Dane returned easily. “We’re leaving in a few minutes, but maybe I’ll bring her over another time.”
“You do that. Well, we’ll see you next weekend, then.”
“Nice to have met you,” King added to Tess. He wheeled his mount and started up. Cole Everett smiled and followed suit.
Tess watched them ride away. “Have your friends been married a long time?”
“Years and years,” he replied. “Their kids are all in their early teens now.” Kids. His face hardened. “We’d better get back.”
She put her hand on his upper arm as he gathered the reins in one lean hand. “Don’t let it wear on you like that,” she said softly. “Dane, children aren’t everything….”
“They are if you can’t produce any,” he said tersely. He looked into her eyes with pure malice. “Tell me you don’t want a baby, Tess,” he challenged coldly.
Her eyes clouded with mingled anguish and compassion, but he didn’t read it that way at all. He cursed under his breath and rode quickly ahead of her, leaving her to follow behind him with her heart in her shoes. She knew then that he was never going to give in. He wouldn’t marry again, because the specter of not having children was too much for him to bear. He’d never be convinced that she could be happy without them, so no matter what his feelings for her were, marriage was out of the question. He’d made that clear just now, without saying a single word.
She was sore and shaky when they got back to the barn. Dane saw her grimace and reached up to help her down. But, as always, the feel of her body triggered helpless longings in his own.
He let her slide down against him, his hands firm on her waist, his eyes holding hers.
“I like your friends,” she whispered huskily.
“So do I.” He had to fight to breathe normally. He looked down at her soft mouth and all but groaned. “We have to go back.”
She drew in an unsteady breath. “I enjoyed the ride.”
“Sore?”
She nodded and smiled. “I’m not used to horses, but I think I could learn to like riding.”
He searched her eyes slowly. “I could learn to like a lot of things, if I let myself.” His face hardened. “I want you so,” he whispered roughly. “But I can’t have you.”
“Dane…”
He let go of her and moved back. “No. In a day or two, we’ll wrap up your problem. Then we’ll get on with our lives.”
He turned to lead the horses into the barn. He had shut her out. Just that easily, he turned his back on what had happened, on any future that contained both of them. As they drove back to Houston, Tess thought she’d never felt quite so alone.
As long as she and Dane were communicating, she’d been able to push what had happened with the attempted kidnapping to the back of her mind. That, and the trap they were going to set the following Monday night for the men. Now she worried over it until her hands were twisting nervously in her lap. If anything went wrong, she could die this time. She glanced at Dane and wondered if losing her would hurt him at all. That was unfair, she thought. Of course he’d care if she died. He was a caring man, despite his misgivings about her role in his life.
He saw her worried face. “What’s wrong?” he asked quietly.
“I was thinking about the trap,” she said, surprising him. He hadn’t let himself consider the upcoming event, because it disturbed him so much. Now he was forced to think about it, and to worry about what might happen if something went wrong.
His chest rose and fell heavily. “Try to remember that Nick and I are fairly competent at what we do for a living,” he said after a minute, his voice deep and slow. “We’ll take good care of you, little one. We’ll get them.”
She smiled wanly. “Okay.”
She didn’t sound convinced, but he couldn’t dwell on that. He had to hope that the scenario would play as he and Nick had rehearsed it. Once the assailants were in custody, he could decide what to do about Tess. One thing was certain. He had to get her out of his life before he weakened and let her stay. For her own sake, that couldn’t happen. He cared too much to let her settle for a barren marriage, even if it was going to kill him to let her go.