Solitaire

by Lindsay McKenna

  Slade heard a knock at his office door and he made a half turn in his chair. Cat was standing outside the sliding-glass door, and immediately he was on his feet.

  “Come in,” he said, opening the door for her.

  The coolness of air-conditioning hit Cat as she stepped through the entrance. She saw hope in Slade’s eyes, and his exhaustion, and tried to steel herself against feeling anything remotely human toward him. As he slid the door closed and turned toward her, she said, “I’ll pay off the debt between us, Slade. I’ve got another two weeks before I’m freed by the doctor to resume my normal activities. In the meantime, I want all the core-sampling reports, maps and any other geological items you can supply me so I can begin studying the mining situation in Silla de Montar Valley.”

  Slade’s face softened and he took a step toward her. “Cat–”

  She stepped away, arms rigid at her sides, her chin raised, eyes defiant. “No.”

  Slade froze, all hope shattering like an emerald struck by a pickax. When he finally spoke, his voice was charged with feeling. “I have a spare office in the west wing of the house. I can have all those things brought to you.”

  “Fine.”

  “Look, you don’t have to jump into this with both feet. Kai said you still needed rest. I don’t want you working eight hours a day–”

  “My life for your mine. That’s the way you wanted it, wasn’t it?” Cat’s jaw tightened. “I’ll work however long I want. Don’t try and set how many hours a day I can work even if I’m still mending.” Her chin quivered. “I’m surprised you waited this long. It was probably killing you to wait six weeks–six weeks that could have been spent down in Colombia instead.”

  Slade’s eyes narrowed with barely contained fury. “That’s unfair, Cat. We need to talk.”

  She smiled wearily, some of her anger dissipating. “Nothing’s fair in life, is it? You were raised with rocks. Well, so was I. I’ll be just as tough as the situation demands. If you’ve got all the core and mining information I need, you’ll have a rough blueprint for a mine in two weeks.”

  Slade opened his hands. “Cat, I didn’t mean to make it sound as if you owed me. What I said was a mistake.”

  Her smile was brittle, her eyes dangerously bright with unshed tears. “We all make mistakes, Donovan. My mistake was in trusting you and your intentions. You’ve made it clear what you want and I’m prepared to give it to you. Your mine for my life. Okay, you’ve got a deal.”

  “Damn it, will you give me a chance to explain, Cat?”

  “No!”

  Slade wanted to strangle her. He also wanted to take Cat into his arms and erase the anguish he saw so clearly in her haunted expression. Her act was all a bluff on her part, and he knew it. And so did she. She was like brittle glass ready to explode right in front of him. But he didn’t dare call her hand, or she might run away. No, he’d have to play by her rules, allow her to retreat and hold him at arm’s length and maybe, just maybe, she’d gradually lower that shield she had in place and allow him a second chance. “All right,” he rasped, “you’ve got a deal.”

  Cat swayed slightly, feeling light-headed. She took a step away, covering up her reaction by walking to the door. “Fine. Get me what I need to figure out a construction blueprint for you.”

  He followed her out to the patio. “Come with me,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady.

  Cat nodded and walked a few paces behind him as they crossed to the western wing of the ranch house. She tried to contain her surprise when he opened the door to a spacious office replete with several personal computers, calculators and drafting board. Everything she might need to formulate the kind of mine required was present.

  Slade made a slight motion toward the office. “This will be yours. The IBM PC is hooked up to the data bank at Texas A & M in Houston, by phone modem, should you need more mining information.”

  She wondered if Slade had built this with her in mind, but bit back the question, not wishing to fight any more than necessary with him. Her strength had to be focused on the project at hand, not wasted on him. There was a cot in the corner complete with blankets and a pillow. Fine, she’d live, eat and sleep there. In two weeks, she ought to be able to come up with a decent preliminary blueprint to begin digging a mine.

  “Thank you.” She stepped past him, deliberately avoiding touching him.

  Slade went to the drafting board, pointing to a black buzzer on the phone beside it. “If you need anything, you can ring me in my other office.” He turned, pointing to a wall of cabinets opposite them. “Every core and drilling-sample spec I took on the mine is here. There are topographical maps of the valley, overburden, ore and basement-complex sample reports. I don’t think you’ll need anything else, but if you do, call me.”

  Cat refused to look at Slade and went to the cabinet. Everything had been carefully labeled, numbered and categorized. Her assessment of Slade’s abilities grudgingly rose. She pulled out a roll of specs from the first cubbyhole. “I think I’ve got enough to keep me busy,” she murmured.

  Slade nodded and retreated. “Dinner’s in two hours.”

  She went to the drafting desk, unrolling the specs and studying them intently. “Have Pilar bring it in here, please.”

  Well, what did he expect–for Cat to forgive and forget? Slade shut the door quietly behind him, a bitter taste in his mouth. This was a new side of Cat Kincaid: the brilliant, tenacious mining engineer who had carved out a name for herself in one of the toughest businesses in the world. He’d have to keep reminding himself of her steel determination, because she was certainly wearing it like armor now. And he’d forced her into donning it. Damn it, anyway!

  *

  Night melded with day and day with night. Cat immersed herself in the exploration of details that would help her determine what kind of mine shaft would be best suited for the Verde Mine. Slade had named the mine at the top of all the specs. “Green Mine”–that fit, she thought. Verde to her meant growth, as did anything green. Rubbing her eyes tiredly, she pushed aside the computer keyboard and placed her pencil on the pad. What day was it? They all blended together when she attacked Verde’s challenge. Looking at her Rolex, now scratched from the cave-in, she saw that ten days had passed. A slight smile cut across her lips as she slowly rose. Dawn was crawling onto the horizon as seen from the wall of windows that faced east.

  Sleep…. She took snatches of three or four hours at a time. Lying down with a groan, Cat closed her eyes. When she awoke, she would go back to her room, shower and get a fresh change of clothes. As she sank deeper into the embrace of sleep, Slade crossed her mind. To her chagrin, Cat had found that if she wasn’t actively pursuing her job, he would slip into her thoughts, catching her unawares. And every time that occurred, her pounding heart would underscore the wild, unnamed feelings that came on its heels. As much as Cat wanted to hate him, she could not. She was angry with him, and disappointed, and she would never trust him again…not ever.

  *

  Slade tried to contain his surprise when Cat came up to the sliding-glass door of his office on the tenth day. She had successfully avoided seeing him for nearly two weeks. Only Pilar’s insistence that Cat was in the other office and appeared well had kept him from seeing for himself. Slade knew he didn’t dare push Cat too far by showing up on her doorstep. He rose to open the door, but she beat him to it.

  “Come in,” he invited, pulling up a stool.

  Cat felt the heat rush to her face. Why did she have to blush? She stood just inside the office, holding his anxious stare. Slade looked as tired as she felt. There were shadows beneath his eyes, as if he’d slept little. His clothes were rumpled, which wasn’t like him. He always wore a crisp cotton shirt and dark blue jeans that outlined his beautifully narrow hips and well-formed legs. He was beautiful, Cat admitted weakly, her pulse pounding unevenly. As much of a bastard as he was, Slade still affected her physically, and she couldn’t ignore the sensations racing through her even now.
/>
  “I’ve finished the rough calculations. I need to sit down and discuss them with you. Do you have a couple of hours to spare?”

  Slade heard the strain in Cat’s voice. How he had missed her! Ten days without Cat had been a prison sentence for him. He had longed for her voice, her effusive laughter, her quiet, steady presence. Hungrily, he now drank her in as she stood like a wary doe ready to flee at the first sign of danger. She was pale, he realized with a pang, and she wore no makeup to hide it. She wore a light blue short-sleeved chambray shirt, jeans and sensible brown shoes. It looked almost as if she were dressed for field work, except for the mandatory hard hat and rough boots. Her outfit didn’t diminish her femininity in his eyes, though. The fullness of her parted lips sent an ache throbbing through him. Slade had often remembered kissing those lips.

  “Sure, I’ve got the time.” He sounded like an eager schoolboy on shaky ground. Well, wasn’t he?

  Cat turned without preamble and began the walk back to her office. Her hands were damp and she longed to rub them on her thighs to dry them off, but Slade would notice, and she didn’t want to broadcast her nervousness. She almost smiled in spite of herself, though. Slade’s harsh face had softened the moment he saw her. Was that an act on his part? Was it real? Cat groaned inwardly; why did she even care? Hadn’t he shown his real character already?

  Slade entered her office and saw two chairs sitting side by side at the drafting desk. Cat sat down, waiting for him. He wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans and then sat beside her.

  “What did you come up with?” he asked. Great, Donovan, you sound like a twelve-year-old boy whose voice is changing.

  Cat drew the first sheaf of papers between them, keenly aware of Slade’s closeness. She tried valiantly to cap her own escaping feelings and cleared her throat. “I’ve made a study of the Chivor and Muzo mine operations before deciding what ours would be. Muzo’s emerald fields are found in a loose, black shale that quite literally is on the surface. All they’ve had to do is clear out the jungle and go to work to reclaim the gems.” She scowled, placing a paper in front of him. “Their mining operations are antiquated and, to say the least, environmentally damaging. As you can see in this color photo, they’re using strip-mining techniques. They blast with dynamite and then go in with huge bulldozers, shoveling the black shale into vast washing and screening areas. Water is used to wash away the debris and leave the emeralds. What can’t be bulldozed after a blast is jackhammered by miners and then pushed into the gullies.” Cat glanced at him and lost her train of thought. She loved his mouth despite herself. It had ravished hers until she had melted into an oblivion of wildly boiling heat and desire. His nearness was devastating to her, and her voice faltered as she tried to pick up the reins of her conversation. “The gangue, or waste rock, is pushed into the Rio Itoco below. There the guaqueros sift through the tailings during the day, hoping to find a stray emerald.”

  Slade nodded, resting his chin on one of his hands. He saw her hand tremble as she turned the page of her assessment. Automatically, he wanted to reach out, take her hand and tell her everything would be all right. Miserably, he knew that wasn’t true. If only he could make things right between them. With a monumental effort, he addressed her comments. “The people pan the waters of the river during the day and become tunnel rats at night. They try to either break into the terraces, which are heavily guarded by the Colombian police, or dig into the shallow mines.”

  “Right.” Cat brought out another paper, swallowing hard. She had seen the tenderness in Slade’s eyes as he locked and held her gaze. Despite everything, he did lay claim to her heart, Cat realized in anguish. She wanted to reach out and caress his cheek, to take away some of the pain that lay at the downturned corners of his mouth. Yes, they were both suffering. “Muzo’s methods are outdated. Not only that, but indiscriminate blasting with dynamite is going to certainly destroy some of the emeralds.”

  Slade snorted. “That’s already happened. At Chivor they blast cautiously and with low charges and only when necessary.” Why did she have to look waiflike? It devastated him to think that he had caused Cat to appear almost a ghost of her former self. No longer was her skin that golden color, her eyes that glorious velvet green sparkling with life. When she stared at him, all he saw was fear and…was it longing? Was that possible? He clung to that possibility, barely hearing her speak about the assessment. Each word she formed with her full lips created a widening ache through him. He loved her.

  Cat couldn’t relax beneath Slade’s intense stare and she retreated deep into her mining-engineer mode. “Your mine, on the other hand, will be a mixture of open-pit mining methods involving the terracing of the surrounding hillside, plus sinking a shaft.” She cleared her throat and traced one line of figures on a core-sample readout. “My educated guess, based upon your channel samplings, is that the calcite-limestone vein surfaces here on the hill and slowly moves back down into the earth over here.” Cat drew him a quick picture, showing the stratum that might hold emeralds between its thinly wafered sheets.

  “What’s your opinion? Are we in business or not?” he asked.

  Cat straightened up, running fingers through her hair. She expelled a breath of air, taking another paper and handing it to him. “If my calculations stand up and if your channel samples were spaced properly, the Verde should yield one emerald for every twenty million particles of surrounding overburden. You’re in business, all right.”

  Slade stared down at Cat’s figures. Her numbers, all in dark leaded pencil, were agonizingly neat and precise. A slight smile hovered around the corners of his mouth. “This is even better than I had roughly figured.”

  “You’ll have everything you want, Slade.” The words had come out flat and emotionless as Cat stared at him.

  Slade ground his teeth together, bristling over her unspoken accusation. Her eyes were a cool green. He tried to tell himself he deserved that from Cat because of what he’d done to her. Damn it, it hurt! And he was angry at her for prodding that festering wound that now stood between them. “Why don’t you give me your mine evaluation?” he asked.

  Cat slipped back into her professional mode easily, like a horse into a familiar, comfortable harness. She went over the determination factors: an estimate of future operations, a suitable production schedule, the grade, market and selling price of the product and the production life of the mine. She went into the size, shape, attitude and quality of the emerald deposit, which was determined by geologic studies and maps. She missed nothing in her smooth, methodical presentation. At the end of the second hour, with a large flowchart concluding the final presentation, Cat wrapped it up.

  “The mine itself will be tricky. Transportation of certain types of timber is going to be a problem. I’m going to need heavy equipment to get that lumber out of the jungle. And you’ll need to build a good road that won’t wash out in the tropical rains of winter.” She shrugged and gestured toward the plans on the drafting board. “All of this is detailed and you can read it at your leisure.”

  Slade nodded thoughtfully, watching as Cat shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans and walked over to the wall of windows. The sun was slanting through the glass, making her sable hair come alive with threads of gold. He had sponged in her presence in the past two hours, as if starved. God, how he had missed her.

  “You’ve done a thorough job on this, Cat. A damn good job.” His voice shook with gratitude and pride in her abilities. Slade managed a tight smile, holding her thawing emerald gaze, realizing he had reached inside those defensive walls and touched her, the woman. “Now I see why you’ve got one hell of a name for yourself in our industry. It would take most people a good month just to put a preliminary study like this together. You did it in two weeks.”

  “You had everything I needed here,” Cat countered, feeling warm and good as his praise flowed through her. “Part of the time factor is based on how much an engineer has to run around collecting all the pieces of various data
that are needed to put a show like this together. You’re good at your job, too, Slade.”

  He arched like a cat beneath her flattery, and his mouth stretched into a smile. “What do you say we celebrate? Matt and Kai want me to fly us to Houston for dinner tonight. We’ll go to a nice restaurant and relax. We both need that.”

  Cat stiffened. At first, she was going to say no. But Kai had been a godsend the first two weeks of her stay at the ranch, and she owed her thanks. More importantly, Kai had become her friend. But every minute spent with Slade weakened her resolve, her past hurt over his actions. Cat anguished over the decision.

  “Come on, say yes,” Slade coaxed. “Kai’s called over here three times in the last ten days wanting to see you. She’s been craving some female company. What do you say?”

  Cat gnawed on her lower lip and stared down at her shoes. “Okay.” There was a razor-honed edge to her voice.

  “I’ll keep my distance from you,” Slade said, sensing she wanted to hear some sort of verbal promise from him.

  “Fine.” She lifted her head. “I think it’s best if it’s business all the way between us.”

  “I haven’t forgotten.”

  Cat eyed him. At first, she had been angry with Slade for tricking her. Then, she felt childish after leveling a barrage at him–although she had gotten it cleaned out of her system once and for all. But ten days had modified her initial anger. The past week had made her aware of just how much she liked Slade, regardless of what had happened to damage their relationship. Cat was afraid of her own feelings toward Slade. The less she saw of him, the more she was able to control them. “Good. I’ll see you later, then.”

  Slade rose. “They’ll be here at six tonight.”

  “Is this formal?”

  “Yes.”

  That meant a dress. And judging from the look of longing in Slade’s eyes, Cat knew she was in trouble. She had tried her best for the past two weeks to dress for business, not pleasure. She didn’t want any more of Slade’s mesmerizing advances weakening her resolve. Wearing a dress would invite his advances, and she knew it. How did she get herself painted into corners like this? If she hadn’t been angry with Slade, it would be funny. Normally, her sense of humor rescued her; this time it didn’t.