by Janet Dailey
“I’m fine. And you?” she returned.
“Great. I’m married now, you know.” Her left hand was lifted to show off the wedding rings. “It’s Carolyn Quinlan now. No little ones yet, though. Bob and I are waiting for a couple of years before starting a family.”
“I wish you both the best of luck,” Kit offered and suddenly became aware of Reese standing patiently and courteously beside the table.
At some point in their initial greeting, he must have risen while all her attention had been focused on Carolyn. The gold flecks in his hazel eyes glittered alertly, his gaze directed solely, at her. The expression on his bluntly sculpted features was unreadable, but Kit was aware that she had been under microscopic study for the last several minutes. It was disquieting to discover he had been observing her all this time and she felt herself bristling at his invasion of her privacy.
When she glanced back to Carolyn, she realized she had drawn the blonde’s attention to Reese. Since he persisted in standing therewith such formal courtesy, it was impossible to ignore him. Kit could see the curiosity forming in Carolyn’s face and his action had made it imperative that she introduce them.
“This is Carolyn … Quinlan. We went to school together,” she said to Reese, informing him of facts he had probably already acquired from their conversation.
“So I gathered,” he said with an undertone of mockery, his gaze now fixed on the blond woman facing him.
“Carolyn, this is —” Kit hesitated a fraction of a second before announcing in a husky but challenging voice “— the owner of the Flying Eagle, the new baron.” She stressed his title and received a sharp look of censure from Reese.
The blonde was plainly flustered by his identity, her color fluctuating wildly. Incapable of speech, Carolyn seemed to be trying to make up her mind whether she should curtsy or merely bob her head in humble acknowledgment. Embarrassed and awed, she couldn’t do either. Kit felt sorry for her, but she hadn’t guessed that her former classmate would be so overwhelmed.
Reese took charge of the situation, extending a hand and flashing her a smile filled with potent male charm. “The name is Reese Talbot, Mrs. Quinlan.” Deliberately he didn’t notice how awkwardly Carolyn shook his hand.
“How do you do, sir,” Carolyn mumbled.
“Miss Bonner knows I have abandoned the title, but she enjoys needling me with it.” The persuasive prowess of his warm voice was already beginning to put Carolyn at ease. Even Kit could feel its calming and steadying effect, while his joking reference to her removed the formality from the introduction.
“Welcome to North Dakota … Mr. Talbot,” Carolyn offered in a more natural voice. “Have you been here before?”
“This is my first visit. I arrived only yesterday.”
Only yesterday, Kit thought. That seemed impossible. The waitress came with their food. The conversation was interrupted until she left.
“I don’t want to keep you from your lunch,” the blonde said, preparing to take her leave of them. “It was nice meeting you … Mr. Talbot.”
“It was my pleasure,” he returned with another flash of that virile smile.
A tentatively friendly smile was on Kit’s face when Carolyn turned to her, “It was good seeing you again, Carolyn.”
“For me, too.” Her gaze slid briefly to Reese then back to Kit, and a glow of happiness radiated from the blonde’s face. “Oh, Kit,” she breathed with barely contained fervor, “you must be so happy to have the ba — Mr. Talbot here. I mean, after all this time, you finally get to meet —”
The temperature at the table dropped to below zero as Kit withdrew behind a frigidly cold mask that froze the rest of the sentence on Carolyn’s tongue. Immediately she was contrite. “Kit, I’m sorry.” Her cheeks flushed a cherry pink. “I didn’t mean anything by —”
“It’s quite all right.” Kit sliced across the apology, feeling Reese’s gaze narrowing on her in sharp question. “I’ll see you around sometime, Carolyn.”
It was a dismissal that couldn’t be ignored. “Yes, all right, Kit,” the blonde murmured uncomfortably. “Goodbye.”
With the departure of her former classmate, Kit avoided looking at Reese as he sat down in his chair. A pulse was hammering in her throat at his continued silent study of her and she sought to dispel some of his curiosity.
“I have no use for people like that,” Kit announced, her husky voice brutally callous. “Just look.” Her brown eyes flickered disdainfully over the dining room and the few heads that had begun to turn in their direction, the rumor of Reese’s identity already reaching them. “Soon they’ll be fawning all over you just like Carolyn. Just because you have the right to the title of baron, they think you are different. Since you are supposed to have blue blood running through your veins, it makes you something other than human.” Vigorously Kit shook the salt shaker over her home fries. “This little episode just proves I’m right. You are going to have a horde of applicants for the housekeeping job.”
“I think you are being hard on Mrs. Quinlan.” His criticism held a cynically amused ring. “She seemed to be a very pleasant young woman. Your introduction of me took her by surprise.”
“And if she had known who you were before she came over, she would have been prissying around here like a handmaiden,” Kit retorted.
“You certainly can’t be accused of behaving like that around me, can you?”
“No, I can’t.” Briefly she met the speculative gleam in his eye before redirecting her attention to her plate of food.
“I wonder why she thought you would be so overjoyed to meet me?” Reese mused.
“Probably because she was.” Kit shrugged dismissively. “Since I was raised on the Flying Eagle she expects me to be impressed when the owner, a real, live baron, condescends to pay the ranch a visit.”
“Your friend obviously doesn’t know you very well,” he suggested dryly.
“No, she doesn’t. And Carolyn isn’t my friend. She is merely someone I went to school with.”
“I wonder if anyone knows you very well.”
“I do,” Kit returned calmly and picked up her sandwich.
Their conversation came to a standstill as both directed their attention to the meal. They had barely finished when the waitress stopped at their table, a steaming coffeepot in her hand.
“More coffee?” she inquired cheerfully.
Please,” Reese nodded.
“How about dessert?”
“Nothing for me, thank you,” he refused.
“I’ll have some French-fried vanilla ice cream,” Kit requested without hesitation.
A dark eyebrow shot up. “Some what?”
“French-fried vanilla ice cream,” the waitress repeated with a knowing smile.
“I am going to have to ask the obvious.” Again Kit witnessed the potentially devastating charm of his smile directed at someone else as Reese looked at the waitress. “What is it?”
“It’s a large scoop of vanilla ice cream dipped in cinnamon and nutmeg and rolled in Rice Krispies, then dropped in the French fryer for a few seconds. Then it’s smothered in hot fudge and topped with whipped cream,” she recited by rote. “It’s really very good, baron. You should try it.”
The use of his title revealed how quickly the word of his presence had got around in such a short time. A smile played with the corners of Kit’s mouth as she met his wry glance in her direction.
“Sounds delicious, but I’ll just stay with coffee,” he refused.
“Yes, sir.” She refilled his cup and deftly cleared the dishes from the table. Before she left, the waitress beamed with a bright smile. “If you change your mind about dessert, just let me know.”
Reese merely nodded and Kit didn’t bother to comment aloud on the change in their waitress’s behavior. She had been conscientious before, but now she was doubly so. In record time the dessert was set before Kit. As she dipped her spoon into the thick fudge, Kit heard his low chuckle.
She glance
d up with a challenging frown. “What’s so funny?”
“You have no idea how incongruous you and that dessert seem —” mocking laughter glinted in his eyes “— like a ruthless gunfighter walking into a saloon and ordering milk.”
“Why?” Kit stiffened, certain that somehow or another he had discovered a weakness in her armor.
“Enjoying rich food like that is a sensuous thing,” Reese explained in a soft, taunting voice. “It doesn’t fit with the image of a tomboy grown into a man-talking female that I’ve seen. It suggests that beneath that hard exterior exists a very sensual and passionate creature.”
Her toes seemed to curl inside her boots at the way he was looking at her. His intimately suggestive gaze was roaming over the patrician fineness of her features, their natural, wholesome beauty minus the artifice of makeup. It traveled down to the man’s cotton shirt Kit wore. The shapeless cut of the material could not conceal the rise and fall of her breasts as her breathing became agitated by his unnerving inspection. Kit had to look away from that bright light gleaming in his eyes.
She bent her head to stare at the dessert. “What nonsense!” she dismissed his suggestion, but she had lost her taste for the dessert and had to eat it mechanically, her usual relish for her favorite dessert banished by his penetrating comment.
It was with relief that she finished, the ice cream sitting heavily in her stomach. Reese downed the last of his coffee and looked pointedly at her.
“Are you ready?”
“Whenever you are,” Kit agreed, regarding him with a chilling expression. If it was possible, she disliked him more at that minute than she had at any other time in their short acquaintance. He was a much more dangerous adversary than she had first suspected. And she also suspected that however short his visit might be, it would still be too long.
Kit rose from her chair when he did and walked with free-swinging strides to the side entrance door, while he paid for their luncheon. Theirs was a somber silence on the return trip to the ranch, with a sidetrip to the service station to pick up the repaired tire, as if both were reevaluating the situation.
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Chapter Four
TWO MORNINGS LATER Kit was walking from the barn carrying a pail of warm milk, fresh from the cow, in her hand. The sky was blue and the sun was bright; a summery day stretched before her. The slamming of the screen door swinging shut at the Big House made her stride falter slightly, but she continued on without glancing around. She didn’t need to look to know it was Reese Talbot who had walked out onto the outer veranda.
“Kit.” His voice commanded her acknowledgment.
Since the trip into town Kit had made certain that any encounters with Reese were kept to the minimum and of short duration. It seemed the easiest way to deal with the situation. This resolve held firm as she altered her course toward the Big House. She stopped at the corner of the house, looking up to the porch where Reese stood.
“Was there something you wanted?” she questioned in a smooth, unemotional voice.
“What are you doing this morning?” He stood in the sunlight, his hands on his hips in quiet authority.
“I’m riding out to the west pasture to check on the herd,” Kit answered, feeling safe that she was occupied and couldn’t be volunteered to assist him.
“Good.” He nodded crisply. “I’ll ride along with you and take a look around myself.”
Momentarily taken aback, Kit protested, “But Nate took you on a tour of the ranch yesterday.”
“In the truck. I want a closer look,” Reese stated.
Irritation seethed at her inability to avoid his accompaniment. “Whatever you say,” she offered in tight-lipped agreement. “I’ll take the milk to the house then get our horses saddled. It’ll be about fifteen minutes.”
“That’s fine.”
Kit started to turn away, then stopped. “Our horses aren’t exactly what you would classify as gentle mounts. Can you ride?”
“Yes.” He seemed amused by her question.
“The sun might get hot so you’d better wear a hat,” she added.
“I am not a complete greenhorn, Miss Bonnet,” Reese drawled.
“I just thought I should warn you,” she said stiffly and turned away.
He was so damned complacent, she thought angrily, so arrogantly certain that he knew everything. How she would love to take him down a peg or two! A wicked gleam brightened her dark eyes as she slowed her steps toward the house.
Kit glanced toward the shed a few yards away where Lew, Frank and Kyle were. All three of them were crouched around the tractor, still trying to complete the repairs and get it in running condition.
“Lew?” She called to the senior of the hands. When he glanced up, Kit motioned him to her.
He straightened from his crouching position by the tractor and walked over. “I think we just about got it,” he declared with satisfaction.
But Kit’s thoughts weren’t on the tractor. “Talbot wants to ride out to the herd with me so would you saddle my bay and catch Dusty for Mr. Talbot?”
Lew’s mouth dropped open and stayed that way for the span of several seconds. “You don’t want Dusty,” he protested. “Not for the baron.”
“Yes, I do,” she insisted with a feline curve to her mouth.
“But Frank —” he motioned to the older cowboy beside the tractor “— just finally caught him the other day. He’s been runnin’ wild all winter and you know what he’s like after that. It takes a week’s worth of ridin’ just to get the humps out of his back.”
“Yes, I know,” Kit purred.
“He’ll throw the baron sure as hell the first time he steps into the saddle,” Lew breathed.
“Talbot assured me he wasn’t a greenhorn and that he could ride.”
“And you’re going’ to —” He saw the glint in her eye and the look of astounded protest slowly faded into a smile that spread across his whole face. “It’s goin’ to be a sight to see, isn’t it?” Lew chortled softly.
“It certainly is.” Kit grinned.
“I’ll saddle ’em and bring ’em both up to the Big House,” he promised.
“Meet you there in ten minutes,” Kit said and started for her own house, a new spring to her step.
Exactly ten minutes later her boots were clumping hollowly on the wood steps leading to the porch of the Big House. She saw Lew coming from the barn leading two saddled horses. Kit could feel the excitement building within her and fought to contain it.
“Are you ready, Mr. Talbot?” she called.
“Ready.” He pushed the screen door open and walked out onto the porch to join her.
Her gaze ran over him in swift appraisal, faintly surprised at how natural he looked in everyday western clothes. But clothes did not a cowboy make, Kit silently paraphrased the old saying, and turned away in case those sharp hazel eyes glimpsed something in her expression.
“Lew is bringing the horses,” she told Reese.
Standing at the top of the steps, hands on her hips and nerves tingling in anticipation, Kit watched the cowboy approach. One of the two horses Lew was leading was her blaze-faced bay gelding, Reno. But it was the second that drew Kit’s attention.
He was a rangy buckskin, buff-colored with jet-black mane and tail and black legs. Dusty was so named because any rider who climbed on him invariably ended up dusting the dirt off the seat of his pants. Or at least that was the case whenever he hadn’t been ridden for some time, as now. Once he had been ridden regularly he became an honest, hardworking cowhorse.
The buckskin’s split personality wasn’t visible as Lew led him toward the house. Kit’s bay walked alertly, ears pricked, the reins loose, almost crowding Lew. But Dusty was plodding along, ears drooping, seemingly half-asleep.
Over by the shed Frank looked up from the tractor, took a second look when he recognized the buckskin and straightened, touching Kyle’s shoulder to draw his attention. They knew instinctively what was going on
and were aware they had a front-row seat to watch the fun.
Lew kept his head down, the hat brim shadowing his face and concealing the mischievous light twinkling in his eyes. Initiating new ranch hands by giving them the roughest horse in the string wasn’t uncommon, but hazing a new owner was unheard of. Only Kit would have come up with the idea and had the leadership to carry it out.
“I’ll take the bay, Mr. Talbot. You can have the buckskin.” She forced an air of indifference into her voice as she skipped down the steps.
Kit was almost to Lew when she realized she had received no reply and there was no sound of Reese following her from the porch. She stopped and turned, Reese was at the top of the porch steps near where she had been.
His attention was on the two men over by the tractor. Then his gaze slid thoughtfully to the buckskin standing so quietly. Briefly Reese glanced at Lew holding the reins, head averted, before finally meeting Kit’s questioning look.
Had he guessed? Did he know what was going on? How could he? The questions flashed through her mind. Kit’s heart was pounding in her throat. He couldn’t possibly know, she assured herself grimly.
“Mr. Talbot, are you ready?” she challenged.
“Yes.” He descended the steps to Kit. Nothing in his expression revealed that he suspected anything was wrong and she almost sighed with relief. Lew was holding both sets of reins and started to separate those to the buckskin when Reese approached. “I’ll ride the bay,” Reese stated taking the reins before Lew could stop him. “The buckskin looks too placid for me.”
“No!” The strangled protest leaped from Kit’s mouth. He sent her an arching look of question and she attempted to temper her reaction. “I assure you he isn’t.”
“Then you won’t mind riding him.” Reese shrugged and looped the reins over the bay’s neck, moving to its left side.
“But —” Words deserted her.
With a hand on the saddle horn, he paused. “Do you object to switching mounts? Is there some reason why I shouldn’t ride the bay?”
“No … that is, I always ride him.” Frustrated, Kit couldn’t seem to come up with an adequate reason not to switch horses.