He held out his hand. She looked at it, looked at him, told herself it was ridiculous to feel heat sweep over her skin again.
“Ms. McCord?”
Slowly she put her hand in his. His fingers clasped hers tightly. They were warm and strong, but she already knew how gentle they could be. She’d seen the way he stroked the mare. Would he touch a woman’s skin the same way?
Color flew into her cheeks and she jerked back her hand. “All right,” she said briskly. “I’ll give you a week’s trial. The ranch is a couple of miles beyond that ridge. Talk to Abel. He’s our foreman. Tell him…Hey. Hey, Kincaid! What are you doing?”
The question was pointless because he’d already done it. Tyler Kincaid had swung into the saddle. Now, he was holding his hand out to her, as if the horse and the land were his and she were the trespasser.
“You wouldn’t ask a man to walk in this heat, would you?”
He gave her a slow smile, the sort that made it clear she’d seem incredibly foolish to say yes, she would, if he were the man in question.
With a hiss of breath, Caitlin put her hand in Tyler’s and swung up into the saddle behind him. He’d saved her from injury or worse but she’d made a mistake, she knew that now, even if it was too late to do anything about it.
“Hang on,” he said, which she had no intention of doing. But he leaned low over the horse’s neck, whispered something and the animal took off like the wind. Caitlin had no choice but to wrap her arms tightly around Tyler’s waist as they raced toward Espada.
CHAPTER THREE
THE woman had been easy to convince—but then, it was she who’d come up with the story, not he.
By the third morning of his employment at Espada, Tyler was almost ready to believe the tale himself. Once, a long time ago, a lifetime ago, he’d been an itinerant cowboy, wandering from ranch to ranch, taking a job here, another there, doing whatever needed doing so he could put a meal in his belly.
That was the man he’d been, the man Caitlin McCord thought he was. And he, lacking any better entrée to the Baron kingdom, and to whatever secrets it might hold, had accepted the scenario.
The only person who didn’t buy into it was the foreman.
Tyler knew those keen old eyes had not missed the way he and Caitlin McCord had come riding in together on the horse, and certainly not the way she’d jumped from the saddle, her face pale, her eyes cold.
“This is Tyler Kincaid,” she’d said to the old man, as Tyler strolled after her. “Give him a job, a bed and a meal.”
She turned on her heel and stalked off toward the main house, shoulders set, spine rigid. Tyler watched her go and thought how remarkable it was that a woman could look so stiffly unyielding when she felt so softly feminine in a man’s arms.
“Kincaid.”
The old man’s voice had sounded rough as gravel. Tyler looked at him.
“Ms. Caitlin ain’t an employee. She’s family.”
The warning was clear.
“And she’s offered me a job,” Tyler said, smiling politely.
“So she has.” The old man’s face was expressionless. “Name’s Jones,” he said, and spat into the dirt. “Abel Jones. I’m the foreman here.”
Tyler nodded, started to stick out his hand and thought better of it.
“Where’d you work last?”
“Here and there,” Tyler answered, with a lazy smile.
“You ain’t from these parts.”
“No,” Tyler agreed, “I’m not.”
“Southerner, ain’t you?”
“Yeah. From Georgia. But I was born in Texas.”
It was the first time Tyler had said such a thing, or even thought it. The old man stared at him for a long moment, his eyes narrowed to slits.
“Fancy duffel you got there,” he said, jerking his whiskered chin at Tyler’s bag.
Tyler didn’t blink. “Nylon. Lasts longer than canvas.”
“Uh-huh. What can you do?”
“Rope, ride, fix whatever needs fixing. And I’m good with horses.” God, he’d said those same words more times than he wanted to remember, a thousand years ago.
“Ms. Caitlin wants you hired on, so be it.” The foreman’s eyes turned flinty. “Jes do your job and we’ll get along fine.”
Tyler recognized the warning that was implicit in the simple words. But he said nothing, simply nodded and followed a kid named Manuel to the bunkhouse, where he was assigned a room.
“You want me to show you around?” the kid asked.
“No, that’s okay. I want to put my stuff away first.”
Abel was waiting for him, shovel in hand when he came out, but Tyler ignored it.
“I’m hungry,” he said shortly. “Haven’t eaten in a long time.”
Well, it wasn’t a lie. He’d had breakfast hours ago. Half a grapefruit, a croissant, black coffee. His usual morning meal, sufficient when a man faced a few hours spent riding a desk and then lunch with a client but not very substantive when you were going to ride horses or clean up after them, he thought grimly, looking at the foreman and the shovel.
The old man nodded. “You don’t look much like you’ve missed a meal.”
Tyler forced a smile. “Care to listen to my stomach growl, Pop?”
“Name’s Abel. All right, go on up to the main house, to the back door. Tell Carmen to feed you.”
The house on the rise was big and imposing, but no more so than Tyler’s own home back in Atlanta. He concentrated on the irony in that in hopes it would keep him from thinking about the banging of his own heart as he rapped on the door, then stepped inside to confront the woman who might have borne him.
Carmen was round. Round face, round body—even her shiny black hair was round, braided and twisted high on her head in a coronet.
And she was not his mother. Tyler knew it, the minute she turned from the stove and smiled at him.
“Señor?”
“Abel sent me,” he told her, while his heartbeat returned to normal. “He said it would be okay if you fixed me something to eat.”
She smiled even more broadly, sat him at a massive oak table and fed him huevos rancheros, homemade biscuits and cups of fragrant black coffee until he thought he’d burst.
“The men who work at Espada are lucky to have you to cook for them. Your children, too,” he said casually, because he needed to be certain, even though he already knew.
“Ah, my children,” Carmen said happily, and told him all about Esme, her daughter, who was twenty and in her second year at the university, and about her son, Esteban, who was a doctor in Austin.
“Dr. Esteban O’Connor,” she said, and chuckled. A blush colored her dusky cheeks, making her look younger than her years. “The child of my youth—and of a youthful indiscretion.”
Tyler smiled. “And how old is this child of your youth?” he said, even more casually, and Carmen told him that Esteban was going to celebrate his thirty-fifth birthday next month.
Tyler had nodded, tried to ignore the sudden emptiness inside. It wasn’t a surprise; he’d known, hadn’t he, that this warmhearted woman wasn’t his mother? She’d never have given him life, then abandoned him.
“That was a wonderful meal,” he’d said. “Gracias, Carmen.”
He’d dropped a kiss on her cheek and gone to find Abel, who’d set him to work.
Work was what the old man had given him, all right, Tyler thought now, grunting as he unloaded feed sacks from the back of a pickup truck. Hard work, too, as if hoisting heavy sacks and shoveling manure were tests he had to pass before he could be trusted with anything as important as risking his neck trying to break a horse.
All the time he worked, whatever the job, he kept his eyes open, alert for something, anything, that might give him some clue about his birth, about how his mother—his parents—had fit into the enormous puzzle that was Espada. He knew it was foolish, that he’d left this place when he was only a day or two old. What memories would a newborn infant have? Not a one.
He understood that.
Still, he looked at everything as if the most simple thing could be the key to unlock the mystery of his past.
And then, on the third morning, Caitlin McCord came strolling toward the stable and he knew he’d been kidding himself. Part of him had been searching for clues to John Smith’s birth—but part of him had been watching, and waiting, for her.
He felt as if someone had landed a hard right to his jaw.
She was beautiful. How in the world had he ever mistaken her for a boy, even at a distance?
It was a hot day. China-blue sky, brutal yellow sun, with no breeze or a cloud to ease the sizzling temperature. He was sweating and so were the other men. Even the horses were feeling the heat, but Caitlin looked untouched by it.
He drank in the sight of her. She was wearing a sleeveless blue T-shirt and he could see the musculature of her arms, the strength of them, and he wondered why it was that he’d never before thought how sexy that could be. She was wearing jeans, as he was, but hers were a faded blue, almost white at the knees and hems. They fit her snugly, cupping her bottom, skimming the length of those incredibly long, long legs as lovingly as a caress. Her hair was pulled back from her face but a couple of auburn curls had escaped at her ears and on her forehead.
Tyler drew in his breath.
She looked, he thought, like a cool, clear drink of water—and he was a man dying of thirst.
He tossed the last sack from the truck, then straightened up. She was going to pass within a couple of feet of him and the truck but her gaze never drifted right or left. His belly clenched. She was going to walk right on by and pretend he wasn’t even there.
To hell with that, he thought, and jumped down in front of her.
“Good morning.”
Caitlin stumbled to a halt. “Good morning,” she said coolly, and started around him. Tyler moved along with her.
“Nice day,” he said.
“Very.” She took a step to the right. Tyler took a step, too.
“Mr. Kincaid—”
“Well,” he said lazily, “isn’t that something? When I was trespassin’ on your property, you called me ‘Kincaid,’ but now that I’m gainfully in your employ, I’ve graduated to ‘Mr.’”
Caitlin flashed him a look. “It isn’t my property, Mr. Kincaid, nor are you in my employ. This ranch belongs to Jonas Baron.”
“You’re his stepdaughter.”
“Exactly.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, but I don’t see the difference.”
“I am not a Baron, Mr. Kincaid. That means I hold no legal interest in Espada and never will. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“Is there a reason you’ve been avoidin’ me, Ms. McCord?”
Caitlin flushed. “I haven’t been…I don’t like being made fun of, Mr. Kincaid.”
“Forgive me, Ms. McCord. I wasn’t makin’ fun, I was makin’ an observation.”
“Here’s an observation for you, Kincaid.” Her hazel eyes flashed as she looked at him. “I find it interesting that you seem to have developed a drawl in the last couple of days. And you can ditch the ‘forgive me’s’ and the ‘beggin’ your pardon’ nonsense. Expressions like those are lies, coming from you. I don’t think you’ve ever apologized to anybody in your life.”
Tyler tried to look wounded. “I’m a Southerner, Ms. McCord. We’re all gentlemen. Would a gentleman lie to a lady?”
He saw her mouth twitch but she stopped the smile before it got started. “You didn’t talk that way when we met, Kincaid.”
He grinned. “Maybe I was trying to impress you.”
“Maybe you were trying to convince me you were something you’re not.”
Tyler’s dark brows lifted. “Meaning?”
“Meaning, Abel doesn’t think you’re who you claim to be, and I’m starting to think he’s right.”
“Because of the way I talk?”
“Because of the way you act, Kincaid. Everything about you says you’re not the drifter you pretend to be.” Her nostrils flared. “And because you’re the first hand we’ve ever hired who has a cell phone in his duffel bag.”
Tyler bit back the curse that rose to his lips. “And you’re the first employer who’s gone through my things.”
“One of the men saw you using it.” She put her hands on her hips and looked into his eyes. “Or are you going to deny the phone is yours?”
“No point denying it.”
He reached past her for his shirt, which he’d left hanging on the tailgate. The scent of him rose to her nostrils, a combination of sun and man, and his arm brushed lightly against hers. Caitlin felt her heartbeat stumble, which was ridiculous. She didn’t trust Tyler Kincaid, didn’t like him—and she surely didn’t enjoy standing this close to him when he was half-naked. Lots of the men worked shirtless on a day like this but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have had the decency to cover up before he spoke to her instead of putting his body on display.
At least now he’d put his shirt on, rolled up the sleeves, smoothed down the collar. Dammit, why didn’t he do up the buttons? She certainly had no wish to look at the dark hair on his chest, or follow it as it arrowed down toward his belly button, over those hard abdominal muscles…
“Ms. McCord?”
There was a little tilt to the corner of his mouth and she knew, she knew, he’d done it deliberately, put himself on exhibit as if she gave a damn what his body looked like, or how many women had known the pleasure of it.
“Lots of things are against the law,” he said softly. “This isn’t one of them.”
She flushed. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said, owning a portable phone isn’t illegal.”
Caitlin straightened her spine. “You’re not a drifter,” she said flatly.
Tyler answered with a shrug.
“Why did you say you were?”
“You were the one who called me that, lady. Not me.”
“You didn’t try to correct me, Kincaid.”
“Correct you?” He laughed. “‘You want to wait,’” he said, mimicking her, “‘wait, but not on Baron land.’ You were into your Lady of the Manor routine. I figured correcting you would only have landed my butt in jail for trespass.”
Her color heightened but she kept her chin up and her indignation intact. “Who are you, then? And what do you want at Espada?”
He hesitated. He could tell her the truth, tell her the reason he’d come here, but the survival instincts he’d honed years before, that had kept him in one piece at the State Home and then in covert operations in the steaming jungles of Central America, were too powerful to let him make such a mistake. There were secrets here; he was certain of it. There was something in the way Abel looked at him, in the way Caitlin spoke of her role at Espada…
“Kincaid? I asked you a question. What do you want?”
He looked at the woman standing before him. Her eyes were almost gold in the morning sun; her hair was a hundred different shades of red and mahogany and maple. Her mouth was free of lipstick, full and innocent-looking, and he wondered what she’d say, what she’d do, if he told her that what he wanted, ever since he’d laid eyes on her, was to take her in his arms, tumble her into the grass, strip off that cold and haughty look, and the boyish clothes with which she camouflaged a woman’s body, and ignite the heat he knew smoldered in her blood.
Hell, he thought, and turned away.
“I told you what I wanted,” he said roughly. Grunting, he hoisted a feed sack on his shoulder and walked into the stable. “I want to talk to Jonas Baron.”
“About what?”
Tyler dumped the sack and headed out the door. “It’s none of your business.”
“Everything about this ranch is my business.”
“You just told me otherwise. You’re not a Baron, you said, remember?”
“I run Espada, Kincaid. Maybe you’d better get that through your head.”
It took all his determination not to turn around an
d show her that she might damned well run this ranch but she didn’t run him. This was a woman who needed to be reminded that she was a woman, and he ached for the chance to give her that reminder, but he knew it would be a mistake. Instead he decided to take the wind out of her sails.
“That’s fine,” he said easily, “but my business with Baron has nothing to do with Espada. Now, if you’re done questioning me, Ms. McCord, I’ve got these sacks to deal with and the stalls to muck out, so if it’s all the same with you—”
“Stalls? What about the horses?”
“What about them?”
“Why aren’t you working with the stock?”
“Ask Abel. I’m sure he’s a font of information.” He brushed past her on his way out the door.
“I told him you’re good with horses,” she said as she followed him back and forth. “And he knows we have a horse that needs gentling—oof.”
“Sorry.” Tyler caught her by the elbows as she tottered backward.
“That’s—that’s all right…”
Her heart rose into her throat. His hands were still on her. His eyes glinted like jewels in the shadowed darkness of the stable. And, as she looked into their green depths, she saw something that sent her pulse racing.
“I’ll speak with him,” she said. “With Abel. About putting you to better use.”
A smile curved his mouth, one so sexy and dangerous that it made her breath stop.
“Good.” His voice was soft and slightly husky. A shudder ripped along her spine as he looked down at her mouth, then into her eyes. “I’d like to be put to better use.”
“With—with the horses.”
The smile came again, lazy and even more dangerous. “Of course.”
Caitlin knew she was blushing and hated herself for it, hated this insufferably egotistical male even more for causing her face to redden.
“Let go of me, please.”
“Ever the lady,” he said, in that same husky whisper. “Except, I don’t believe it. I think there are times you’re not quite the lady you pretend to be.”
“I am always a lady,” she said coldly.
“In that case…” His hands slid up her arms and clasped her shoulders. “Maybe it’s time somebody showed you what you’re missing, Ms. McCord.”
The Taming of Tyler Kincaid Page 4