Three weeks of digging, and all the P. I. had come up with was the name of the ranch where John Smith had been born. Well, it was something. At least he knew now that John Smith had begun life not in Georgia but in Texas.
That was how he thought of the boy he’d been, as if he and Smith were two separate people. The skinny kid with the ropy muscles who’d had to fight for his place in the world was a stranger to the successful man who had everything he could possibly want.
A jackrabbit zipped across the road ahead, moving so quickly it was almost a blur. Maybe the rabbit had places to be, Tyler thought with a tight smile. If the rabbit didn’t, he surely did yet here he was, walking a dirt road in Texas when he had a life to live, a corporation to run…and, if he chose, a relationship to mend. Adrianna had phoned and left a message. It hadn’t taken much reading between the lines to realize she’d be willing to take him back, on his terms.
The thing of it was, he wasn’t sure that was what he wanted.
She was lovely, and charming, and he’d enjoyed the time he’d been with her, but the affair had run its course. He was willing to admit that was his fault but what Adrianna had said about him wasn’t true. There was nothing the matter with him. He did feel things. If he never spoke of love, it was simply because he couldn’t bring himself to lie.
He liked women, liked their soft laughter and their scent, but that didn’t mean he was going to pretend there was more to the best of male-female relationships than a few months of companionship, good times and sex.
Sex was something he never lied about. It was a need, a powerful one, and if you shared it with a beautiful, interesting, willing woman, it was one of the most pleasurable things in life.
A smile curled across the corner of Tyler’s mouth. Finding women to adorn his arm and warm his bed had never been a problem.
For now, though, he was going to concentrate his energies on an enigma named John Smith. And Smith was an enigma, one not even the detective he’d hired had been able to unravel.
“I have to tell you, Mr. Kincaid,” Ed Crane had said, when they’d met for breakfast the prior week, “this is one of the toughest investigations I’ve ever done.”
Tyler’s eyed had narrowed. “Meaning?”
“Meaning,” Crane had replied, around a mouthful of buttermilk gravy, “all I know is what’s in that report I sent you this morning.”
“Humor me,” Tyler said, with a smile that made the phrase a lie. “I haven’t had time to do much besides glance at it. Smith was born in Texas?”
“Uh-huh.”
“On a windblown acre of dusty soil?”
“No, sir, Mr. Kincaid. We’re talking about a ranch the size of a small country.” Crane offered his best good old boy smile. “Anywhere but Texas, this Espada would be flying its own flag. Cattle, horses, oil wells—this isn’t any windblown acre. It’s a miniature kingdom.”
“A kingdom,” Tyler said slowly.
“Yes, indeedy. Ruled by an old hard-ass name of Jonas Baron. The guy was eighty-five last summer, he’s on wife number five, he’s got three sons and a stepdaughter—a kingdom and a king, sir, that’s the setup at Espada.”
“And John Smith was born there.” Tyler eyed Crane over the rim of his coffee cup. “To whom?”
Crane’s smile faded. “Well, that’s the problem. We haven’t been able to turn up a record so far. But there are some strong possibilities.”
Tyler put down his coffee cup. “Such as?”
“I’d rather wait until I have all the facts, sir.”
“And I wouldn’t.”
Crane cleared his throat. “Well, there’s a housekeeper, woman named Carmen. She was pregnant that winter, would have delivered just about the middle of the summer.”
Tyler nodded, waited to feel some reaction but didn’t. Whoever his mother had been, she’d dumped him fast enough. Only a fool would feel anything for a woman like that.
“Possibilities, you said.”
“Yes, sir. There were a couple of married ranch hands working at the place that summer, one, maybe two, with wives who were expecting.”
Tyler smiled stiffly. “A fertile place, this Espada.”
Crane grinned. “Yeah.”
“Anyone else?”
“Jonas Baron’s wife—wife number one—was expecting, too. But that one’s easy to rule out.”
“Yes. You already said, Baron has three sons.”
“He does, Mr. Kincaid, and they were all born after the year you specified.” Crane reached for another biscuit, thought better of it and let his jowly face settle into more serious lines. “Besides, the baby and Mrs. Baron both died in childbirth. The two of them are buried out there, on the ranch.”
“Which leaves us with the housekeeper and the cowboys.”
“That’s right, sir. So, what do you think? You want me to keep on digging?”
For a moment, Tyler had been tempted to tell the man to end the investigation. His mother was either a housekeeper or the wife of an itinerant cowboy. Either way, she’d abandoned him with less thought than most people gave to an old shoe. Not that it mattered. He’d done just fine on his own. He wasn’t even sure exactly why he’d started this search. He’d been in a strange mood the night of his birthday, that was all.
On the other hand, he’d never been able to resist a puzzle. It was part of the reason he’d succeeded in business. What made people take one path, instead of another? His mother had given birth to him, then dumped him on a doorstep. Why? Why hadn’t she turned him over to an adoption agency? And why would a woman rise from the bed where she’d just delivered a child and go all the way to Atlanta to get rid of it?
“Mr. Kincaid? Shall I keep going? Another couple weeks, I’ll have a better fix on things. You just need to be patient.”
Patient, Tyler had thought. It was a logical suggestion, easy for a man to make when it wasn’t his past that was being uncovered but after thirty-five years, what was the rush? But there was a rush; he didn’t understand it but he could feel it, in his belly. So he’d nodded, told Crane to keep on digging. The meeting had ended, Tyler had returned to his office and buried himself in work.
An hour later, he’d given up pretending. How could a man work when his head was filled with pictures of a place he’d never seen and images of three faceless women, one of whom was probably his mother? He’d called in his personal assistant and his first vice president, told them he was going away for a while and that he’d keep in touch by e-mail and phone. They’d both looked surprised but he knew they wouldn’t question him. Nobody ever questioned Tyler Kincaid.
“Fine,” his P.A. said.
His vice president shook his hand and wished him a pleasant vacation.
Tyler hadn’t bothered correcting him. There wasn’t much he could have said that wouldn’t have made him look even more surprised, so he’d smiled and said he’d certainly try. And here he was, trudging into a gully on a dusty road in the middle of nowhere, his shirt stuck to his skin with sweat, looking for answers that probably wouldn’t matter a damn once he found them.
“Hell,” he said, and came to an abrupt stop at the bottom of the slope. Was he crazy? Who gave a damn about John Smith? He’d ceased to exist years ago. What did it matter if—
“Look out!”
He heard the hoofbeats and the cry almost simultaneously, spun around and saw a horse crest the top of the slope and fly toward him. Tyler flung himself out of the way and the animal thundered by with only inches to spare.
Tyler went down in the brush at the side of the road, then he scrambled to his feet. The horse and its rider, a boy who didn’t look as if he had enough muscle to control a pony much less a horse that looked as high-strung as this one, were drawing up a couple of dozen yards down the road. The horse turned, blowing hard. The rider rose in the saddle and looked at him.
Tyler waited for some word. An apology. A question. Are you okay? seemed like a good start but the boy didn’t speak. He sat down again, straight as a
ramrod in the saddle, while the horse blew and snorted. The kid was wearing a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead so he couldn’t see his face, but every inch of the boy’s posture indicated contempt.
Tyler drew in a breath, enough to calm his runaway heart rate. Then he plucked his hat from the dirt, knocked off the dust and jammed it on his head as he moved into the center of the road..
“You damned near ran me down,” he yelled.
The horse tossed its head. The boy said nothing. Tyler tucked his hands into his back pockets and walked toward them.
“Hey, kid, did you hear me? I said—”
“I heard what you said.” The boy’s voice was low. There was an edge to it that suggested he was accustomed to giving orders. “You’re trespassing.”
“This is a public road.”
“It’s a private road. Or am I supposed to believe you opened the gate three miles back, walked under the arch and never noticed?”
Tyler frowned. He hadn’t come through any gate that he knew of though he supposed it was possible, considering how lost in thought he’d been.
“Well? Is that your story, cowboy?”
Tyler’s frown deepened. The kid’s voice had an interesting quality to it, one that sent a funny sensation dancing along his spine. A couple of dark auburn curls had escaped from the baseball cap he was wearing. No, not dark auburn. Red, and chestnut; maple and even a touch of gold…
Holy hell. He must have been out in the sun longer than he thought. It would be a hot day at the North Pole before he cared one way or another about the sound of a boy’s voice, or the color of his hair.
The horse whinnied and danced sideways. “Did I say something that amuses you?” the boy asked coldly.
“I didn’t see any gate,” Tyler said, just as coldly. “Not that it matters a damn. Public land or private, you haven’t the right to—”
The boy touched his knees lightly to the chestnut’s sides. The horse took half a dozen steps forward. Tyler had been away from horses for a long time but the animal had a look that said it had a touchy disposition and, probably, a hair-trigger temper.
“If the gate was open, it’s because some no-account left it that way and I assure you, I’ll deal with him.”
“Yeah,” Tyler said slowly, his eyes locked to the rider’s shadowed face, “I’ll just bet you will.”
“You just turn around now and head back out the way you came.”
The presumptive quality of that throaty voice, the command issued by a skinny boy who couldn’t have been a day older than, what, sixteen, seventeen, made Tyler’s muscles knot.
“You’re pretty good at giving orders,” he said softly. “What happens when you run into a man who won’t take them?”
The boy hesitated, then touched his knees to the chestnut’s sides again. The horse moved closer, as much a weapon now as if the boy had picked up a stone.
“You mean, what happens when I run into a fool that doesn’t use the brain he was born with?”
“Yeah,” Tyler said, and in one quick move he reached up and grabbed the boy by the front of his T-shirt. The chestnut whinnied and danced away but Tyler hung on and hauled the kid from the saddle…
Except, as soon as he’d dragged him halfway down the length of his body, he knew it wasn’t a boy at all.
It was a woman.
A slender woman, but one who had all the right parts in all the right places. Round, high breasts that pressed against his chest. Rounded hips that meshed with his. An incredible mass of silky auburn hair that fell to her shoulders when her baseball cap dropped to the grass. Enormous hazel eyes, the irises shot with green and gold, stared into his; delicate bones and surprisingly hard muscle twisted under his hands.
“Damn you,” she gasped, “let go of me!”
Her skin was hot, and so was the smell of her. Sweat, horse, summer meadows and woman…she smelled of things he’d once known and things he’d never had, and the feel of her against him, of those soft breasts and narrow hips, of that tilted pelvis and the long, endless legs, turned him as hard as stone.
She felt his erection. She had to. He had her trapped against him. He saw her eyes darken, saw her mouth tremble. What the hell are you doing, Kincaid? he asked himself coldly, but even as he asked it, he wondered what would happen if he tumbled her down into the soft grass, how long it would take to strip the clothes from her, touch her, turn the anger and growing fear in her eyes to need…
Tyler dropped his hands from her and took a step back.
“A woman’s an idiot,” he said roughly, “to take on something that’s too much for her to handle.”
Caitlin’s heart was slamming against her ribs. Was he talking about the horse or about what had just happened between them? All her talk about this being private land was just that. Talk. What did a man like this care if he were trespassing? She was alone out here. And even though she was strong and fit, she’d be defenseless against a man like this. She’d felt all that tightly leashed power, that almost-terrifying maleness…and she’d felt something else, too, something even more frightening. For a heartbeat, as he held her, she’d felt like a sleeping cat coming slowly awake under the expert stroke of a man’s hand.
Heat rushed under her skin. She covered it by bending down and retrieving her cap. When she looked up again, her face gave nothing away. The only way to handle the situation was to show no fear, even though her heart was still banging like a drum.
“I assure you,” she said crisply, “I can handle the chestnut. As for you—if you turn around right now and walk on out, I won’t report you.”
“Report me?” He laughed. “Damn, but you’re good at this, lady. We’re in the ass-end of nowhere, and you’re making threats.”
“We’re on private land, as I’ve already told you. And I make promises, not threats.” Caitlin looked him over, from head to toe. He was a drifter. The battered old hat, the worn boots, the very fact that he was traveling on foot through the hot Texas countryside…but there was something about him. It wasn’t just his looks: The long, muscular legs. The narrow hips and broad shoulders. The face that was handsome in a dark, dangerous way. It was more than that. The way he held himself, maybe, or the way he looked at her out of those emerald-green eyes. There was an authority to him—and that was ridiculous. Drifters had no authority, no aura of command…
“Do I pass muster?”
Her gaze flew to his. He was watching her from under his sooty lashes, arms folded, his expression unreadable. She could feel herself blushing again but she fought against it and against the desire to turn away from that penetrating stare.
“Texas is filled with men like you,” she said.
“Really.” He shifted his weight, tucked his hands into his back pockets. “And what kind of man is that?”
“You’re broke, you need a job, a place to sleep and eat.”
Tyler started to laugh but thought better of it. Behind her, the chestnut eyed them warily, its reins trailing through a bed of wildflowers.
“And?”
“And, we don’t hire drifters. You’re not going to find work at Espada.”
He jerked as if she’d slapped him. Espada. Of course. He’d been so damned caught up in playing games with the woman…
“Espada,” he said softly. His eyes met hers. “You’re Caitlin McCord. Baron’s stepdaughter.”
This time, she was the one who looked surprised. “How do you know that?”
“Everybody knows it,” Tyler said, cursing himself for the slip. He shrugged lazily. “People talk. After all, Espada’s the biggest spread in the county.”
“Then you must also know that what I told you is true. We don’t hire—”
“Baron’s the man I’ve come to see.”
“You can’t. He’s not here.”
“I’ll wait.”
“He won’t be back for days.”
“And I just said, I’ll wait.”
“It’s a free country. You want to wait, wait,
but not on Baron land.”
She swung away from him. It was a gesture of complete dismissal. Tyler stared at that straight back, the stiff shoulders, and his composure snapped. He reached out, grabbed her arm and swung her toward him.
“Dammit,” he growled, “don’t you turn your back on—”
The sudden movement, or maybe the anger in his voice, were too much for the nervous horse. The chestnut jerked back, tossed her head and reared. Caitlin didn’t see it happen but she might as well have. She felt the whisper of air as the animal moved, saw the flash of awareness in the drifter’s eyes, and then he yelled a warning, caught her by the shoulders and tumbled her to the ground, rolling her out from under those slashing hooves.
They lay in the grass, tangled together, his hard, long body pinning hers beneath it.
“You okay?” he said, and when she nodded, then managed a shaky “yes,” he scrambled to his feet and made a grab for the mare’s reins.
Caitlin stood up, dusted off her bottom and watched. The chestnut whinnied, fought, but the stranger hung on, the muscles in his arms and shoulders bunching under his T-shirt. The horse was strong but the man was stronger. After a few minutes, the animal trembled and calmed. The stranger rubbed the mare’s throat. He stroked the trembling neck and spoke softly.
The chestnut’s body shuddered, then became still. She pressed her head to the man’s shoulder.
“She’s okay now,” he said quietly.
Caitlin cleared her throat. “Yes. I…I…Thank you. She’s new, you see, and scared…”
“She’s new and scared, and needs to know who’s boss.” The chestnut blew softly. “Isn’t that right, girl?”
“You—you seem to know horses.”
The stranger’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “What else would a man like me know, Ms. McCord?”
Women, Caitlin thought. That was what a man like him would know. A tremor raced through her, and she looked away.
“So, what do you think? Can you use an extra hand who knows his way around horses?”
Caitlin ran the tip of her tongue over her lips. “Look, I’m—I’m grateful for what you just did, mister, but—”
“Kincaid. My name’s Tyler Kincaid.”
The Taming of Tyler Kincaid Page 3