Lethal Attraction: Against the RulesFatal Affair

by Linda Howard

  Promptly at nine she sat down before the phone and chewed on her lips, uncertain in the face of the step she was taking. In a way Rule was asking her to choose between himself and David—an unfair choice, as David was dead. And he had been a very special person. Cathryn knew that a part of her devotion would always be David’s…but he was gone, and Rule was very much alive. He was asking her to leave the home that she had shared with her husband, to leave behind everything. Yet she had promised, and if she broke that promise she would have to leave the ranch today, before Rule returned. She couldn’t do that. Not now, not after that night spent in his arms. She had to know for certain how she felt—and how he felt—or she would regret it for the rest of her life. Picking up the receiver, she dialed.

  Ten minutes later she was unemployed. Now that she had done it she was almost in a panic. It wasn’t money; she really had no money worries. While talking to her supervisor she had suddenly had the thought that only people in love made such sacrifices. She didn’t want to love Rule Jackson, didn’t want to let herself get that vulnerable until she was certain in her own mind that she could trust him. She didn’t think that Rule had ever been involved with Monica, despite Ricky’s tales to the contrary. There was just no sense of intimacy between Rule and Monica, nothing in their behavior that would indicate even a past relationship. That was obviously pure mischief making on Ricky’s part, something that she excelled in.

  No, what Cathryn wasn’t certain about was Rule’s motive for pursuing her. She wanted desperately to believe that he wanted her simply for herself, but the fact remained that he was extremely possessive of the ranch. He had taken it over, made it his, and she had no doubt that he would fight with whatever weapons he had to in order to keep the ranch. He controlled the ranch, but she legally owned it, and it might be constantly on his mind that she could sell it at any time and his control would be ended. He had denied being concerned with the ranch at all, but the doubt remained in her mind.

  If he was so interested in her, why hadn’t he made an effort to contact her at some point since David’s death? It hadn’t been until she came for a visit, indicating a renewed interest in the ranch, that he had suddenly become so smitten with her.

  As she drove his truck into town the issue nagged at her. Her entire decision hinged on that one matter. If she trusted him, if she believed that he wanted her as a man wanted a woman, with no other considerations involved, then she would stay with him in whatever capacity he wanted. On the other hand, she refused to let him manipulate her with sex. He was an extremely dominating, virile man. Sex was one of the weapons he could use against her, clouding her senses with the sensual need he aroused simply by touching her. She knew of no way she could reach her decision except by simply being with him, hoping to learn enough about him despite his iron control to be able to say that she trusted him.

  CHAPTER 5

  Franklin’s Feed Store was the only one in town, so Cathryn had no doubt that she was in the right place as she backed up to the loading dock. She had gone to school with Alva Franklin, the owner’s daughter, and she grinned as she remembered the day Alva had pushed her older sister Regina into a mud puddle. Alva had been a little devil. She was still smiling as she went up the back steps into the musty atmosphere of the building.

  She didn’t recognize the man who came over to take her order, but it had been eight years since she had spent any time at all on the ranch, and he was obviously one of the people who had moved into the region since then.

  However, the man eyed her doubtfully when she told him what she wanted. “The Bar D order?” he asked warily. “I don’t believe I know you, ma’am. What did you say your name is?”

  Cathryn stifled a laugh. “My name is Cathryn Donahue…Ashe,” she added as an afterthought, guilt-stricken as she realized that she had almost forgotten her married name. It seemed as if David were being pushed away as if he had never existed, and she didn’t want that to happen. She hadn’t even protested when Rule had introduced her to Lewis Stovall by her maiden name, letting herself slip back into the identity of Cathryn Donahue and under the domination of her ranch manager. But not now, she thought grimly.

  She finished her explanation, but the man still stood uncertainly.

  “I own the Bar D.”

  “Mr. Jackson—” began the man.

  “Is my ranch manager,” she finished smoothly for him. “I understand that you don’t recognize me, and I’m grateful that you’re so careful with the orders. However, Mr. Franklin knows me, if you want to verify my identity with him.”

  He did, and went in search of the store owner. Cathryn waited patiently, not at all put out by his caution. It would be chaos if just anyone was allowed to sign a load slip and have a load of feed charged to any ranch at random. It was only a few minutes before the man returned with Ormond Franklin close behind him. Mr. Franklin peered at her through his glasses; then his gaze settled on her hair and he said, “Why, hello, Cathryn. I heard you were back in town.” He nodded to his employee. “Go ahead and load the order, Todd.”

  “It’s good to see you again, Mr. Franklin,” said Cathryn pleasantly. “I arrived on Saturday. I had only intended to stay for the holiday, but now it looks as though I’ll be here for a longer time.”

  He smiled so widely that she wondered why her news should be so pleasing. “Well, now, that’s good news. Glad to hear that you’re taking the ranch over. Never did like that Rule Jackson. Got rid of him, did you? Fine, fine. He’s nothing but trouble. I’ve always thought your pa made a bad mistake in taking on trouble the way he did with Jackson. He was wild enough before he went to Vietnam, but after he came back he was pure crazy.”

  Cathryn could feel her mouth fall open as she stared at him, stunned. He had made so many fantastic assumptions that she didn’t know where to start. But why should Mr. Franklin hold such a grudge against Rule? Then memory stirred and she had a clear vision of Regina Franklin’s pretty, sulky face, remembered also that the girl had had a reputation for chasing men she would have done better to avoid. One of those men had been Rule Jackson, and, being the man he was, he had made no effort to hide it.

  She made an effort to be reasonable. Mindful of Mr. Franklin’s grudge against Rule—even if his daughter had been equally responsible—she said mildly, “I couldn’t begin to run the ranch by myself, Mr. Franklin. Rule has done a fantastic job; the ranch looks better now than it did even when Dad was alive. I have no reason to fire him.”

  “No reason?” he asked incredulously, his brows gathering over the bridge of his glasses. “His morals are reason enough for a lot of decent people around here. There’s a lot of people who haven’t forgotten the way he acted when he came back from overseas. Why, in your own house you’ve got to watch him like a hawk or that stepsister of yours—”

  “Mr. Franklin, I can understand why you dislike Rule, given the circumstances,” interrupted Cathryn, suddenly and fiercely angry at his persistent attack on Rule and at the way he had linked Rule with Ricky. She refused to listen to any more of that. She went straight to the heart of the matter with her counterattack. “But Rule and your daughter were both very young and confused, and that was all a long time ago. Rule was in no way solely responsible for that scandal.”

  Mr. Franklin turned a dusky red with fury, and he spat from between clenched teeth, “Not responsible? How can you stand there and say that? He forced himself on my girl, then refused to stand by her. Why, she couldn’t hold her head up in this town. She had to leave, and he walks around as if he never did anything wrong in his life!”

  She hesitated, wondering if he had twisted his own guilt around to rest on Rule because he couldn’t face the possibility that his own rigidity had been responsible for driving his daughter away. She didn’t want to hurt him, but there was one thing she couldn’t let pass, and she said coldly, “Rule Jackson has never forced a woman in his life. He’s never had to. I was young, but I can remember the way girls chased him from the time he could even thin
k of growing a beard. After he got out of the army it was even worse. You can think what you like, but I’d advise you not to say things like that out loud unless you want a charge of slander brought against you!”

  Their raised voices had gathered the attention of everyone in the feed store, but that didn’t stop Mr. Franklin. His gray hair almost stood on end as he shouted, “If that’s the way you feel, Miss Donahue, then I suggest you buy your feed from someone else! Your daddy would never have said something like that to me!”

  “The name is Mrs. Ashe, and I think my dad would be proud of me! He believed in Rule when no one else did, and it’s a good thing he did, because the ranch would have gone under years ago without Rule Jackson!” She was boiling now, and she stomped down the steps to where Todd was waiting, bug-eyed, with the ticket for her signature. She scribbled her name across the bottom of it and crawled under the steering wheel of the pickup. Her foot was heavy with temper and the vehicle shot away from the loading dock, bucking under the demand she was making of it.

  Shaking with temper, Cathryn drove only a block and pulled over to calm herself. Fencing…she couldn’t forget the fencing, she reminded herself, drawing in a deep breath. Her hands were trembling violently and her heart was pounding, her body wet with perspiration. She felt as if she had been in a physical free-for-all rather than an argument. Catching a glimpse of her hair in the rearview mirror she startled herself by giving a shaky giggle. Did the color of one’s hair really have anything to do with temper?

  She regretted the scene with Franklin now. It would have been bad enough if there hadn’t been any witnesses, but with so many people standing around the argument would be repeated verbatim all over town before dark. But she couldn’t let anyone talk about Rule like that!

  “God, I’m really getting a bad case of it,” she moaned to herself. Rule needed protection about as much as a prowling panther did, but she had leaped to his defense as if he were nothing more than a helpless cub. It was just one more measure of the hold he had on her. He had always seemed larger than life, outsized in both his reputation and his domination of her. As a child she had been frightened and awed by him; as a teenager she had bitterly, wildly resented his authority; but now, as a woman, she was so drawn to his rampant masculinity that she felt as if she were battling for her own existence.

  After several minutes she made a U-turn and drove down the street to the building-supply store. She had no trouble there. Not only had she known everyone employed there all of her life, but Rule had called in an addition to the order he had given her. When everything was loaded the bed of the pickup was riding low on the springs, so she drove carefully back to the ranch, mindful of the heavy load she was hauling.

  It was a beautiful day, with everything fresh and sweet and green after the needed rain of the day before, and Cathryn took her time, trying to calm herself completely before she reached the ranch. She didn’t quite succeed. Rule was waiting in the yard for her when she drove up, and she remembered that he hadn’t fully trusted her to return. As she thought of the battle she had fought on his behalf, resentment welled up in her and her temper surged back in full force. She got out of the truck, slammed the door and yelled at him, “I told you I’d be back!”

  He stalked up to her and took her arm, hauling her with him to the house. “I need those supplies right away,” he gritted. “That’s why I’m here. Now rein in that temper of yours before I put you over my knee right here in front of the men.”

  Right then she needed nothing more than a chance to work off the energy her temper had raised, and she welcomed the prospect of a fight. “Any time you feel ready, big man,” she challenged between her teeth. “After what I’ve been through this morning, I could take on five of you!”

  He pulled her up the steps and she stumbled, only to be rescued by his hard grip on her arm. “Ouch!” she snapped. “You’re jerking my arm out of its socket!”

  He began swearing softly under his breath as he opened the kitchen door and ushered her inside. Lorna looked up from her permanent station in front of the window, a flicker of amusement in her serene eyes as she continued without pause in her preparation of a beef casserole that Rule was fond of.

  Rule sat Cathryn forcibly in one of the chairs, but she bounded out of it like a rubber ball, her fists clenched. With one big hand on her chest he returned her to the chair and held her there. “What in the hell is wrong with you?” he growled softly in the almost crooning tone he used when he was about to lose his own temper.

  He would hear about it anyway, so Cathryn thrust her chin out at him belligerently and told him herself. “I got in an argument! We have to buy our feed somewhere else now.”

  His hand dropped away from her chest and he stared at her in disbelief. “Do you mean,” he whispered, “that I’ve managed to do business with Ormond Franklin all these years without having a flare-up, and in one trip you’ve wrecked all of that?”

  Her lip curled, but she didn’t tell him the details of the argument. “So we’ll go to Wisdom to buy our feed,” she said, naming the nearest town.

  “That’s twenty miles farther, an additional forty miles round trip. Damn it, Cat!”

  “Then we’ll drive that extra forty miles!” she shouted. “Let me remind you that this is still my ranch, Rule Jackson, and after what Mr. Franklin said I wouldn’t buy another sack of feed from him even if the next feed store was a hundred miles away! Is that clear?”

  Pure fire sparked from his dark eyes and he reached for her, stopping just before he actually touched her. Then he whirled on his heel and stalked out of the house, his long legs eating up the distance at such a pace that she would have had to run to keep up with him.

  After getting out of the chair, Cathryn went to the window and watched him climb into the truck, then head it across the pastures to the far side of the ranch where the fencing was needed. She said aloud, “The ground is wet after the rain yesterday. I hope he doesn’t get stuck in the mud.”

  “If he does, there are enough hands to get him out,” said Lorna. She chuckled quietly. “You know exactly how to get a rise out of him, don’t you? There’s been more life in his face in the few days you’ve been here than in all the years I’ve known him.”

  “People need to stand up to him more often,” Cathryn muttered. “He’s run roughshod over me since I was a child, but I won’t stand for it now.”

  “He’s going to have a hard time letting anyone else have a say in running the ranch,” Lorna advised. “It’s all been on his shoulders for so long now that he won’t know how to let someone share the responsibility with him.”

  “Then he’s going to have to learn,” said Cathryn stubbornly, her eyes still on the far dot of the pickup as it drew out of sight. Suddenly it went into a dip and disappeared from view, and she turned away from the window.

  “Do you know what you two remind me of?” Lorna asked suddenly, laughing again.

  “Do I want to know?” Cathryn responded wryly.

  “I don’t think it’ll come as any great surprise. You remind me of a sleek little cat in heat, and he’s the tomcat circling around you, knowing he’s going to have the fight of his life if he tries to get what he wants.”

  Cathryn burst into laughter at the image and admitted that they did fight like two snarling, spitting cats. “You do have a way with words,” she choked, and the two women stood in the kitchen laughing like maniacs at what was, after all, a very apt observation.

  To Cathryn’s disappointment, Rule didn’t return for lunch. Lorna told her that she had already packed a basket of sandwiches and coffee and sent it out to the men, and as Ricky was also with the men, Cathryn ate a silent lunch with Monica, who had returned some time during the morning while Cathryn had been in town. The two women had no common interests. Monica was absorbed in her own thoughts and didn’t even ask where Ricky was, though perhaps she already knew.

  They had finished lunch when Monica leaned back and lit a cigarette, a sure sign that she was
nervous, as she seldom smoked. Cathryn looked at her and Monica said abruptly, flatly, “I’m thinking of leaving.”

  At first Cathryn was surprised, but when she thought about it she was more surprised that Monica had stayed as long as she had. Ranch life had never suited the older woman. “Why now?” she asked. “And where would you go?”

  Monica shrugged. “I’m not really certain. It doesn’t matter, so long as it’s a city and I never have to smell horses and cows again. It’s no secret that I’ve never liked living on a ranch. As for the timing, why not? You’re here now, and it’s your ranch, after all, not mine. I stayed on after Ward died because you were a minor, but that’s not true anymore. I just let time drift, and now I’m tired of all this.”

  “Have you told Ricky yet?”

  Monica gave her a sharp glance from her slanted cat eyes. “We’re not a package deal. Ricky’s a grown woman; she can do what she wants.”

  Cathryn didn’t reply right away. At last she murmured, “I haven’t made a definite decision about staying.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Monica replied coolly. “The ranch is your responsibility now, not mine. You can do what you want, and I’ll do the same. Let’s not pretend that we’ve ever been close. The only thing we’ve ever had in common was your father, and he’s been dead for twelve years. It’s time I started to live my life for myself.”

  Cathryn realized that Monica’s presence hadn’t been required for years anyway, not since Rule had taken over. Even if she herself didn’t stay, the ranch would continue to run as always. If Monica left it wouldn’t affect her own situation at all; she still had to make the decision whether to stay or go. The thought of selling the ranch slipped into her mind but was quickly pushed away. This was her home and she never wanted to sell it. She might not feel that she could live here, but it would be impossible for her to turn her back on her heritage.