"Sandstorm? Are we safe?" Her voice might make Mindy sound a little panicked, but then, she was.
Bret rolled up his window, tossed his Stetson behind the seat, and unbuttoned the second button on his denim shirt.
His open shirt exposed a mat of black hair. Mindy's fingers itched to run themselves through that hair, to feel the hard muscles of his chest. She clasped her hands together as if to keep them under control.
"I've never heard of a west Texas dust storm lasting much more than a couple of days," he finally drawled.
"You're joking."
"No, ma'am, it's the honest truth."
She looked outside, then back to Bret. As she watched, he pushed back from the steering wheel, his biceps bunching, then relaxing. In no way could she see spending a couple of days alone with nothing but twelve inches of bench seat separating them. Out the window, an ugly brown soup limited visibility to nothing.
"I'm willing to chance it. Let's try to drive," she told him.
"Absolutely, ma'am." He reached for the keys. Instead of cranking the engine, he removed them from the ignition and tossed them to her.
She caught the keys automatically, then stared at them.
Before she could react, he slid toward her, grasped her around her waist, and lifted her from her seat, then slowly slid her over his lap, turning her to face him as he moved her. Heat pulsed from his thighs as they brushed her hips.
Mindy had known he would try his male charms on her eventually. She had tried to prepare herself, thought through what she would do. Now he was doing it. And all she wanted to do was enjoy his touch forever, reveling in the sensation of a man lifting her as lightly as if she were a baby. The heat from his body carried his tantalizing scent of soap, leather, and something purely animal and male.
She almost let her lips follow the intriguing scent. But she came to her senses, struggling to shake off his hands, kicking with her legs.
Instinctively his grasp tightened. Then his grip slipped, letting her drop across his lap in a liquid heap. How ladylike.
Genuine surprise, or an incredible facsimile, filled his eyes.
"What do you think you're doing?" she blasted.
"Right now I have no idea. A minute ago I was trying to switch seats with you so you could drive. I should have realized you'd want me to step outside the car and get sandblasted."
"Well you could have warned me." Her face was only inches from his and she knew she should pull away. Somehow, her body didn't obey her commands.
"What have you got in your hands?" he asked.
"In my hands?" At least he was talking now, rather than subjecting her to silence. If only she could get him to start making sense, she'd have this game won. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Look," he ordered.
Mindy looked, seeing only the keys to the truck. "So?"
"Why'd you think I gave them to you? For decoration?"
"Actually I thought you were being petty."
"I try not to do that."
"Umm." She wasn't thinking clearly. But then, how could she be? She still sat facing him, her legs straddling his. The position couldn't have been more sensual, more intimate, if he had done it on purpose.
"You'd better decide which way you want to dismount," Bret urged. His voice sounded a little hoarse, his breath a little ragged. Could their proximity be affecting him as much as it was her? Surely a gigolo could call up desire on demand.
Her thoughts churned around the forbidden thoughts of Bret and desire, and something crazy took hold of her.
"I think you're right," she murmured. Feeling totally sinful, she bent forward and pressed her lips to his. Bret would try every way he could to flimflam her out of her Aunt's money. She might as well sample what she planned to turn down.
Bret's lips met hers half way, sealed on hers as if she alone could provide him life sustaining oxygen. She sent a tongue exploring across his lips.
Then he pulled away, again lifting her and spinning her the rest of the way around in front of the steering wheel. "What the hell was that about?"
"Sampling the goods," she shot back. She should have been frightened of him, alone in the middle of nowhere. He certainly looked angry enough to hop out of the car and try to blow the dust storm back to Oklahoma, or Odessa, or wherever it was coming from. And dangerous enough to make the idea sound plausible.
"I don't recall offering my body as part of the deal."
"You didn't have to," she said.
"I don't suppose anyone ever told you to mind your own business?"
"Never came up," she agreed.
"I'll bet." He closed his eyes. Wake me up when we get back to the house."
"Fine." Mindy put the keys into the ignition and started the truck, peering out the window into dark nothingness.
Bret was right. She'd be insane to drive in this mess. Then again, she'd been crazy to kiss Bret like that. What could she have been thinking?
She stole a glance at him. He had retrieved his hat from behind the driver's seat and pulled it forward until it almost covered his face then leaned backward, his eyes closed. Could he really have gone to sleep so quickly? Could their kiss have meant nothing to him?
Her body still tingled, her lips still burned in response to their brief kiss.
The heat had grown stifling in the still air of the cab and she reached down to switch on the air conditioner.
Instead of the knob, her hand met Bret's. "The dust is too thick for the filter to handle," he told her. "Without the air conditioning, the engine may make it. I doubt it, but it's possible. If you run the AC, it'll blow for sure."
He looked totally comfortable with his shirt open and his sleeves rolled half way up.
She was a mess. With no air conditioning, a hundred plus degree heat outside and their humid breath inside the cab, not to mention the blast furnace her hormones had started inside her body, she'd soon look like a contestant in a wet blouse contest.
She shot another glance at Bret. Again he looked asleep. One thing for sure, he certainly wasn't paying any attention to Mindy.
Watching to make sure he wasn't peeking, she unbuttoned the top three buttons of her blouse thanking her lucky stars she'd changed out of her long sleeved T-shirt when Bret mentioned going to the lawyer's office. She fanned the lapels of her blouse over her chest in an attempt to cool off.
It didn't help much, but at least it would keep the situation from getting worse. As long as Bret kept his eyes shut.
Now, back to driving. She took a deep breath. She was a good driver and she could do this. She put the key in the ignition, started the engine, and let the truck edge out onto where she thought the road was. All she saw was swirling brown dust. She couldn't even see her headlights when she turned them on.
"Go straight ahead exactly two miles," Bret said. "Watch the odometer."
His voice surprised her so much that she swerved the truck.
"Don't swerve, it'll throw off the calculation," he warned. "If you don't go above five miles an hour and drive perfectly straight, you should be able to feel the difference between the road and the shoulder. I'll try to help."
She nodded, then felt like an idiot. He couldn't see her with his eyes shut. "All right," she said out loud.
"You're braver than you look."
"Thanks." She flushed with irrational pleasure.
"That wasn't a compliment. The only thing we've got going for us is that no one from this part of the world is crazy enough to try a fool stunt like this. If anyone else is on the road, we're armadillo food for sure."
"Better keep your fingers crossed, hadn't you?"
"Believe me, I am."
She risked a glance at him. Damn. His dark blue eyes were wide open, staring at her.
She didn't dare take her hands from the steering wheel, not even to button her blouse. Still, what did it matter? He was a professional. He probably wasn't even interested in women's chests.
****
Bret couldn't take his eyes off the curves of Mindy's breasts.
She was insane, of course. This madwoman had dragged them away from one of the few shaded spots in west Texas to undertake a torturous, zero-visibility drive. Any minute, they might smash into another car, hit a train, or wander off the road and end up in a gully.
Of the two of them, though, he had to be the crazier. Rather than worry about survival, he spent his time admiring his driver's chest.
It beat TV any day.
"In a few more minutes, you'll feel a bump in the road. When you get there, go thirty more feet and turn right." He was pretty sure his voice sounded calm. Almost as if he expected to live.
Mindy nodded then turned her attention back to the road. He turned his attention back to her chest.
The urge to reach out and stroke her breasts was agonizing. He couldn't even accuse her of being a deliberate tease. She had unbuttoned her shirt when he was pretending to be asleep.
Bret sighed, then forced his attention to the sand-blasted windshield. For however long that would last.
"See anything?" she asked.
He didn't think she wanted to hear how good her breasts looked. "We're going to need a new windshield before we see anything out of this truck again."
"Are you sure we're still on the road?"
"That's the dip," he told her when the truck sunk about three inches, then climbed again.
"Thirty feet, right?"
"Right."
He thought she turned a little early, but he felt the crackle of gravel beneath the tires. Close enough.
"Good. Go straight ahead about three hundred feet and turn left. Don't go off the gravel." He closed his eyes. He needed all of his attention on the sensation of the road. Fortunately.
"I'm sorry." Her voice broke into his concentration.
"What?" He couldn't miss the slight catch in her voice. He opened his eyes and looked at her.
"I've probably killed us both, haven't I?" A tear ran down one of her cheeks.
"We're almost home now," he said. He reached across the seat, stroked her shoulder lightly, then pulled his hand back. Why did he toy with trouble?
To his surprise, she didn't say anything.
"Turn now," he said.
She swerved, first to the right, then, remembering his instructions, back to the left. A loud crunch and a shudder through the truck told him that he'd have both fence repair duty and body work to do when the dust settled. Her momentary confusion hadn't been quite enough to make them miss the open gate. Damned close, though.
The truck bounced over the cattle guard. Almost home.
"Straight ahead, dead slow," he told her.
She inched the truck along, her fingers clasping the steering wheel as if it were a lifesaver and she a drowning swimmer.
A huge dark shape leapt up from nowhere and clawed its way over the truck. Mindy gasped and swerved the truck.
"Just one of those killer tumble-weeds," Bret told her. "Straight ahead. Slower."
If they missed the ranch house, they would be in trouble. The land looked flat, but that could be deceptive. Spring floods had dug dozens of deep gullies into the red soil. Any of these would be plenty large enough to swallow the truck whole.
"Even slower," he urged.
The truck coughed, sputtered, then continued.
"Is the engine all right?"
He shrugged. "I needed to rebuild it anyway. Slower still."
She pressed the brake but not hard enough.
"Now hold on."
The truck came to a jolting stop and stalled.
"What happened?" she asked.
"You drove us home."
"I hit the house?"
"I sure hope so."
"And you knew it was right here?"
"That's why I told you to hold on."
"You idiot. I was worried sick about driving into some river or something and we were twenty feet from your house. We could have stopped and walked."
"We could have gotten lost. After I get out, just slide over here to this side. We can use the house to guide us to the door."
Fortunately for what remained of his self-control, Mindy remembered to button up her blouse before she scooted across the truck seat.
Bret grasped Mindy's hand and slid his other hand along the truck until he got to the house.
The wind felt like a living thing, wild and dangerous. It tugged at her blouse, whipping it around, threatening to pull it off. He admired its efforts and its motivation. He felt the same way.
Right next to the house, the dust cleared a bit and he could see for maybe five feet. While west Texas gets a couple of dust storms a year, he had never experienced one this bad. The house paint actually peeled away as he ran his finger along it using the exterior wall to guide them.
Mindy tugged to free her hand, but he held on. The sheriff would like nothing better than to accuse him of murder if something happened to the pretty niece. He owed his election to Henry's money and getting rid of Bret would be just the way to pay off those debts.
"Just a few more feet," Bret shouted over the still howling wind.
Mindy didn't look happy about it, but she nodded.
Finally he felt his way to the back door and held it open for her. The wind, frustrated with the loss of its prisoners, blasted its hottest, strongest gust yet, pushing Mindy straight into his arms. The two stumbled into the laundry room.
"Well will you look what the cat drug in?" Sharon's booming voice interrupted them before his mind could even begin to process how perfect Mindy felt against him.
"All the hands make it to safely?" he asked.
"Haven't heard from three of them. Johnny, Marvin, and Smitty."
"Figures. What do you bet that Smitty tries to find his way back through this and gets lost?"
Sharon shook her head. "From the looks of it, he wouldn't be the only crazy person out there. Winds blowing so hard it felt like someone ran a pickup truck into the house?"
"That was Mindy."
"Oh? I guess she just overpowered you. Took the wheel from your unwilling hands. Is that it?"
"We made it." Bret pushed the cat out of his way and opened the door to his room. I'm going to take a shower and then I'm going to have something to eat. If the dust is still blowing, I'll get on the radio and see if I can find what's going on."
He stripped off his shirt and tossed it into the laundry hamper.
"Put your name on your clothes and toss them in here," he told Mindy. "We do a couple of loads every day."
She didn't answer, so he looked to see if something else was wrong.
She was staring at him as if he had some kind of disease.
Of course. The shirt. She probably thought he was putting the moves on her again.
He thought back to their kiss in the truck. How had it started? With Mindy's legs tangled up among his own, his hands around her waist, one thing had led to another. He was almost certain that she had initiated things but maybe that was wishful thinking. The instant he had picked her up, all of his anger had been replaced by pure lust. Could he have projected his desire onto her?
"Oh," she finally said, still staring at him. "I think I'd better change in my room."
"Wherever you feel most comfortable."
****
Mindy didn't run to her room. Not quite. What kind of an idiot would stand there staring at Bret's chest as if she had never seen a half-naked man before? Admittedly, the only time she'd seen a body even close to as perfect as his, she'd been flipping through a fitness magazine at the supermarket.
She continued to beat herself up as she yanked off her sweat and dust-encrusted clothes, throwing them on the floor. Exactly what had she accomplished today? She had continued to antagonize her new partner, kissed him against his will, then risked both of their lives in a foolhardy drive through the dust storm. Was it just that morning when she had decided she would walk all over Bret because she was so much smarter than he?
Once she was naked, she stepped into the attached bathroom to take a shower.
She hadn't really paid much attention to the bathroom that morning. Before her first cup of coffee, she didn't pay much attention to anything. The green tile and worn shag carpeting spoke to her of years of neglect. The old ranch house, with its classic Craftsman style, deserved better. While she wouldn't live on the ranch long enough to enjoy it herself, she and Bret would certainly get a better price for their property if they made the old house reflect its historical past rather than its descent into the tasteless sixties.
The water turned reddish brown as it poured off her body and down the drain. Fine grit seemed to have invaded every pore, and she had to scrub herself again and again before she even started to feel clean.
At least some of the energy she expended on scrubbing was a futile attempt to wash away the sensation of Bret's strong hands grasping her, his body against her own. Still, what else could she do? If he had any interest in her, he would have let her know by now. Other than that initial, instinctive response to her kiss, he had been nothing but distant and professional with her.
Mindy emerged from the bedroom an hour later, finally feeling human again, if just barely. Maybe she was overreacting. Perhaps their shared adventure would bring her and Bret together in some way, at least enough to let them achieve a sensible business relationship for the short amount of time that they jointly owned the ranch.
"I think it was wonderfully brave of Mindy to drive home through that dust," she heard Sharon say as she opened the bedroom door.
Rather than barge in, she held back. What would Bret say if he weren't performing on her behalf?
"It's a miracle that we're alive."
"So why'd you let her do it?"
"Yeah, that was a mistake. I was sure she’d back off once she saw how bad the visibility was."
"You always underestimate us women, don't you?"
"Call me crazy. For some reason I can't get this notion out of my head that people should choose survival over death."
"I'll call you a lot worse than crazy. I think Lucy knew what she was doing leaving half the ranch to Mindy."
"Don't get me started on that. I earned the whole thing and now I'm going to have to earn it a second time. I didn't spend the last ten years of my life for this."
Eavesdropping, Mindy decided, creates its own punishment. She shut her bedroom door loudly, and strode into the dining room.
"Oh, dear. I think I hear something boiling." Sharon disappeared.
"Run the well dry?" Bret asked.
"That's it," Mindy shot back. “Got another one so I can finish?”
He shook his head. "Never mind." Then he handed her a thick sheaf of paper. "I'd like you to take a look at these appraisals. Once you’ve got a basis in the facts, we can talk about a fair selling price."
Mindy stared at the paperwork. Obviously he thought an irrational woman like her would be intimidated by the legal mumbo jumbo. Too bad for him, she'd minored in math. Numbers generated no fear in her.
"Great."
"Feel free to talk to the bankers and make sure that you understand the legalese. Of course you can stay here as a guest for a couple more days."
Mindy felt the temperature rise, but this time her heat wasn't driven by lust. "Let me get this straight. I own half the ranch, but you are going to allow me to stay on as a guest? I suppose you'll yank the invitation if I don't stay out of the way or make any trouble for you. And as a bonus, I have your permission to actually talk to a banker about how much my own property could bring in the open market. Have I got it right?"
His face darkened. "You seem to hear what you choose. I haven't made any secrets about my plans. I want this ranch and I'm willing to make one hell of a fair offer for your share of it. Look outside. Right this minute, the ranch is blowing away. We haven't had a drop of rain in two months and the cattle are getting close to starvation--"
"I think you mean dehydration, not starvation."
Bret's huge hands tightened around the back of the chair until his knuckles turned white. "You think I'm ignorant, don't you? Maybe I am, compared to a school-teacher like you. But I've been around ranching my whole life. Cattle don't die of thirst. We pump water for them. That's what those windmills are for. But if it doesn't rain, the grass doesn't grow. So, they drink as much as they can hold but they still starve.”
“Why not buy—“
“We're a ranch, not a feedlot. Sure we can bring in some hay, some corn, hold off the day of reckoning for a while."
"Why not pump a little more water and irrigate."
He shook his head in obvious frustration. "Haven't you ever watered a lawn? If we tried to pump enough water to irrigate even a couple of thousand acres, we'd need a hundred times more pumps. Even if we could afford that, we’d dry the aquifers so quickly they'd take decades to replenish. Then the cattle really would die of thirst."
"Oh." She was vaguely aware of the role that water, or rather its lack, played in the southwest. In Nebraska, floods rather than drought caused most of the problems.
"This place is in hock up to its eyeballs because your aunt ran up some big medical bills and because she made some poor investments," Bret continued. "It'll be hard to get anyone with any sense to lend us more money on the place. That's why I offered to pay you over time. As far as I'm concerned, you can stay here as long as you want. I don't care whether you call yourself a guest, a visiting absentee landlord, or whatever. Just try not to distract the cowboys too much. I need them ranching, not sitting around waiting on a pretty woman."
Mindy lost count. How many words had he strung together? And all directed at her. Whatever happened to the inarticulate cowboy type? Perhaps Bret had decided to give another side of his manipulative nature a chance.
"I wasn't raised to sit in bed eating bonbons," she told him. "As long as I own half of this place and as long as I'm staying here, I'll expect to be treated like an owner not a guest. I'll work just as hard as anyone else."
Bret shook his head. "I was afraid you'd take that attitude."
"Get used to it."
"Ranching isn't like other businesses. Cattle don't have a clear concept of weekends, and a dust storm like this can erase a decade of hard work."
"Until two weeks ago, I was a teacher. Nothing you throw at me will offer more challenge and more risk than teaching children how to think."
Bret took half a step toward her. The look in his eyes held a lot of emotion, but she couldn't tell whether his thoughts centered on kissing her or strangling her. Half of her mind urged her to close the distance and find out.
The logical half won for once. She backed away.
"I suppose you want a horse so you can pretend to help with the cattle," Brad said. "Let's get this straight right now so we don't have to go into it again. This isn't like one of those books where the rich rancher just happens to have a couple of perfectly trained horses that need to be ridden for exercise. We do most of our work with trucks and all-terrain vehicles. You're welcome to take one of those out, but if you wreck it, I'll take it out of your half of the ranch."
"Don't worry about me. I'll find something to do."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
"Are you two going to gab all night or do you want something to eat?" Sharon plunked a huge bowl of spaghetti on the dining room table then followed with an almost equally huge tureen of sauce.
"I'll be there in five minutes," Bret said. Without another word to Mindy, he turned and strode to his room.
"So what you going to do?" Sharon asked her as soon as Bret was out of sight, and out of hearing.
"I beg your pardon."
"It's no secret. You've got yourself half a ranch. You can sell out to Bret, or you can try to find someone else who'll take your interest off your hands. You'd want to find someone with a good lawyer, though. Bret wants this place bad, and he won't go easy no matter what you do with your half."
"Oh?" Evidently Bret had passed word of her aunt's will to the staff. Probably to give him an opportunity to position the news just right. "I don't know what I can do."
"As if you have a whole lot of choices." Sharon didn't sneer at her. Not quite.
"What do you mean by that?"
"That man always gets what he wants. He'll talk you out of your half quick enough."
Mindy bristled. She had begun to revise her estimate of Bret. Sharon's words put her back on track and also let her know exactly what the staff thought of her--helpless and ineffectual. She'd change their opinion.
"We'll see about that."
"Sure." Sharon turned on her heel and returned to her kitchen.