They started up the drive toward the house, walking side by side. “How was your informational evening last night? Did people like the video?”
She smiled despite her discomfort. “It was nice. A few people came and asked a lot of good questions, mostly about the impact on birds, wildlife and tourism. And somehow they’d heard the story of the video shoot. About the CEO and the cows and a certain cowboy who came to my rescue.”
“Hmm...” Slaid winked. “I have no idea how word got out on that one.”
“Yeah, right.” Tess gave him a friendly jab with her elbow.
He laughed. “Well, I might’ve mentioned it to one or two people. Can you blame me? It’s too funny a story to keep to myself.”
“No, I don’t blame you. But when I showed the video, I don’t think they were paying much attention to what Mr. Tate was saying. They were just looking for glimpses of the wild and crazy cows.”
He laughed. “I’d love to see that. But I’m sorry if me telling the story messed up your evening.”
“Hey, any interest in the project is good interest as far as I’m concerned. If the CEO had a sense of humor, I’d ask him to let me show an outtake video so people could actually see your cows in action. But I don’t think he’s the type to appreciate that.”
“Well, if you can get your hands on the bloopers, I’ll pay top dollar for a copy. I could set up a showing and serve beer and pass out antiwindmill flyers.”
Tess laughed. “No chance! I’d be aiding the enemy. Speaking of which...” She reached into her tote bag and pulled out a folder. “I saved you your very own copy of all the literature, including the environmental impact report.”
“It’s in here?”
“Just got it yesterday, barely in time for the meeting. So I’ve got another dinner scheduled in a few days to give people a chance to ask questions informally. You’re welcome to come.”
“You’re fearless, aren’t you?” Slaid asked. “I wouldn’t want you at one of my meetings.”
“Really? I promise I’d behave.” She gave him a wink that told otherwise.
Slaid just kissed the tip of her nose and took the information packet.
He opened a gate that led onto the flagstone patio. It was surrounded by a low stone wall that had desert plants growing all the way along it. There was a fire pit and a bunch of comfortable-looking chairs. A gas grill was beside the house, and Slaid paused to light it. “We’ll just let that warm up for a few minutes. I’ve got some chicken marinating.”
Tess shivered. “You grill at this time of year?”
“I’ve been known to grill with snow on the ground. It’s easy...and less dishes when you’re done.” Slaid motioned to the furniture as they walked across the big space. “We spend a lot of time out here on summer evenings. Though this time of year, it’s a little too cold for most people.”
“But obviously you’re not most people if you grill in the snow.”
He grinned at her, a teasing sparkle in his eye that had the power to melt. “I grew up out here. I don’t feel the cold so much as someone like you.”
“You mean someone wimpy?”
He laughed outright. “Your words, not mine.” He lifted her hands, his warm fingers twining through her freezing ones. “You’ve proved my point.” He kissed her knuckles. “Icicles. Let’s get inside.”
Tess pulled her focus from his kiss to take in the house more closely. “Hey, wait a minute! What’s a mid-century modern doing out here?”
Slaid smiled. “Should have known you’d recognize it.”
“Recognize it? I’m a huge fan! I wandered the streets of Palm Springs for a few days once just drooling over these types of houses. How did it get built here in Benson?”
“Well, my dad and mom honeymooned in Palm Springs and he decided then and there that this was the kind of house he wanted.”
“But it makes no sense,” Tess exclaimed. “These houses are all about the indoor-outdoor living. And those huge floor-to-ceiling windows... Don’t they let in all the cold air?”
“A little. But they’re double paned.” He showed her the extralong eaves to keep the snow off, and once inside, he had her place her palms on the floor. The stone tiles had radiant heat and were warm to the touch.
It was a modern icon but it was definitely a home, complete with comfortable furnishings. The large painting hanging on one of the living room walls depicted the mountains but was just abstract enough to be interesting. Slaid gave her a tour—it was one of the most serene homes Tess had ever been in. And then they passed a room that could only belong to Slaid’s son. Posters of football players adorned the walls and a few shelves were full of trophies. Schoolbooks were stacked neatly on the desk. “Where is Devin tonight?” Tess asked.
“At my sister’s. She loves having him over, and she has a son about his age. The boys are really close.”
It was none of her business, but she was curious. “How long were you with your ex-wife?”
Slaid leaned on the wall by Devin’s door. “We met in high school and got married right after graduating from college.”
“So you had Devin right away?”
“Devin’s adopted,” Slaid answered. “He’s my cousin’s son actually. She got involved with drugs and eventually landed in jail—where she is now. I got a call from social services one day, asking if I’d take him in. So we did, and we adopted him legally a few years later, when it was clear his mom wouldn’t ever be able to take care of him.”
Tess was stunned by this new image of Slaid. “You’re a good man,” she finally said.
“I got a good kid,” he answered. “I’m lucky to be his dad. I can’t believe he’s fourteen already. Kids grow up quickly.”
Tess did the math and swallowed hard. Fourteen. She’d had her baby fourteen years ago. Her son. Adam. She rarely let herself say his name—Adam would be the same age as Devin. Did he have similar sports photos on the wall? Did he have a shelf full of trophies, too? She tried to drag her mind away from those thoughts—picking at an old wound did no good. She was glad Devin was at his aunt’s tonight. She wasn’t prepared to meet him. Not yet. Probably never.
Slaid continued the tour of his house, but Tess was having difficulty paying attention. She shouldn’t be here, getting involved with someone who had a son—especially an adopted son. What would Slaid think of her if he knew about Adam?
Focus on the present, she reminded herself. The same four words she’d been using as a mantra ever since Adam’s adoptive parents had taken him home from the hospital, leaving her lost and devastated. Focus on the present.
Slaid led her through the living room and into the kitchen. Its clean lines and windows up by the roofline gave it a light and airy feel, even at night. He pulled a bottle of white wine from the refrigerator, opening it while she looked around, taking in the big dining table along the glass walls that lined two sides of the room. In the daytime the views must be spectacular.
He handed her a glass and she sipped it, appreciating the dry, bright flavors on her tongue.
Slaid was watching her as he drank from his own glass. “I’m glad to have you in my house, Tess,” he said. “Though I have to admit, after a couple years of fantasizing about you, it’s kind of strange to see you standing right here.”
Surprised, Tess’s laugh burst out. “You didn’t really fantasize, did you?”
His laugh matched her own. “Can you blame me?”
“Well, I hope the reality of me can measure up. Two years is a lot of time to build up unrealistic ideas about someone.”
“Oh, you’ve far surpassed anything I could think up. Smacking my cow with a scarf, for example.”
“That cow was crazy! What was that about?”
“Well, sometimes we get a cow who needs to be bottle-fed, and it gets kind of attached to people. And Devin likes to baby those ones a little too much. So that cow, Number Fifty-Eight, also known as Rosco, is way too used to the good life.”
“Rosco? It suit
s her—a pushy name for a pushy cow.”
Slaid grinned. “Not pushy. Just very, very loving.”
She was still giggling when Slaid went out to his chilly patio to put the chicken on the grill. Tess looked around his gorgeous home and sighed. Of all the houses in Benson, this was the one she’d want to live in. She could see herself sitting in the sun on those patios, appreciating ranch life from a safe distance, and cooking up a meal in this perfectly planned kitchen. When Slaid came back in she was so deep in her domestic reverie that she actually jumped. And then felt almost dizzy when she realized where her thoughts had been taking her.
Tess Cole, the queen of dry cleaning, takeout and maid service, had been lost in a fantasy that involved cooking? She had never cooked a meal, nor had a single domestic yearning, in her entire life. It was disconcerting to find herself having them here in Slaid’s home. The home he shared with a teenaged son. The home that was in Benson, so far away from her own world.
“I’d give a lot more than a penny to know what you were thinking just then,” Slaid said as he picked up his wineglass.
“Oh, highly classified. And you do not have security clearance,” she joked to cover her confusion over where her thoughts had just been.
“Does anyone have access to Tess Cole’s secrets?”
“Absolutely no one,” she said firmly, feeling that familiar panic seeping in. Change the subject. “So tell me more about life on a cattle ranch.”
For the next little while he entertained her with stories of cows and horses, downed fences and snowstorms, and somehow made life on his ranch sound fun. Not full of the grit and hard work that she knew was the reality. He kept up the conversation all through the cooking and then as they ate dinner. He seemed determined to put her at ease and, although he did ask about her work and her apartment in the city, he didn’t ask about her family or her childhood—and for that she was grateful.
Once they cleared the table, Slaid built a fire in the living room fireplace, and as they were curled up on the couch with the last of their wine, Tess felt a part of her unwind—a part she hadn’t realized was coiled and tensed. And she wondered if she’d ever felt so at ease with another person in the room.
He must have sensed it somehow because he turned to face her and said, “I really do want to get to know you better, Tess. But if my questions get too personal you can toss this pillow at me. Sound good?” He threw a rust-colored pillow in her lap.
Despite the twinge of anxiety at his request, she burst out laughing. “How about we just have a pillow fight? I think it would be way more fun.”
“How about you tell me where you went to college?”
Well, that was easy. “I graduated from UCLA.” He didn’t need to know about the years at community college and her struggle to pay for the two years of university once she transferred.
“And why did you choose to work in public relations?”
“I’m good at talking people into things.” A skill she’d had to learn young. The first time had been when she was probably four years old and she’d talked the local storeowner out of a candy bar. She’d been so damn hungry.
“But not cows.”
“Apparently my skills are not very effective with cows, no.”
He laughed. “Favorite color?”
“Red.”
“Food?”
That was a tough one. Tess loved all food. Maybe it was from growing up without much of it. “If I had to pick one thing, maybe peaches. Right in the middle of summer, when they’re completely ripe.” Fresh food had been a rarity in her foster homes. And nothing was fresher than a peach in summer.
“Favorite place to travel?”
“Paris, of course!” The ultimate symbol of how far she’d come from her roots.
“Can I have another date?”
She threw the pillow at him and he caught it with one hand. “We’ll see,” she said.
* * *
SLAID CAUGHT THE pillow with a sense of regret. The interview was over and he’d only learned a little about this mystery woman. He wondered about the stories behind her answers. Because there were a bunch, he could tell. Emotion flickered behind her concise words. She was obviously an expert at deflection, just like Jack had warned. Her quick humor was like a defensive weapon, so subtle you barely realized she was using it on you.
He wanted a firmer answer to his question about a date. But he knew if he asked her for one, she’d throw up a barrier between them. He glanced around the room, looking for inspiration, for something to distract her from her instinct to hide and flee. His eyes lit on the chessboard he and Devin kept set up near the fireplace. Devin was learning and Slaid had always loved to play. “Chess?” he asked.
Tess started, then threw back her head and laughed, long and low. “Oh, my,” she purred. “You do know how to show a girl a good time, don’t you?”
Damn, she was sexy when she teased him like that. When she laughed, her throat was a long, elegant column, and he remembered the silk of the skin from their kiss in Bodie. He remembered the satin of her when he’d been inside her back in Phoenix. In an instant he was hard and grateful for the pillow in his lap. “Hey, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. It’s a good game. I’ll teach you.”
“Teach me?” She cocked an eyebrow in worldly disbelief. “I’m pretty sure I’ve got a few moves I could teach you.”
He reached for the coffee table that held the game, and slid it closer to the couch. “Why am I not surprised?”
Tess turned out to be a formidable opponent. Lower lip caught in her teeth, a glass of Scotch swirling gently in her hand, he could have watched her concentrate all night. A faint line appeared between her fair brows when she drew them together in thought. And a satisfied smile molded her lips when she made yet another killer move on the board. Slaid whistled low when she slipped her queen behind her rook and murmured, “Checkmate.”
“You’re a shark, Tess. Where did you learn to play like that?”
“Boys and Girls Club after-school program. They had to keep us housing-project kids out of trouble somehow.” She froze. Her skin went pale and she kept her eyes glued to the board, as if by not moving she could somehow pretend the information wasn’t out there.
It wasn’t the answer he’d expected. Tess was so refined, cultured and polished, he’d assumed she’d come from a privileged background. And he realized in a rush of understanding, that that was exactly what she wanted him to believe—what she worked so hard to make everyone believe. Which was why this revelation had her almost glassy-eyed in shock.
He shoved down the curiosity that fizzed and popped in his mind. It wouldn’t serve him now. She was in distress and needed his help. “Well, whoever it was, they taught you well. Or maybe I’ve gotten rusty, playing against a fourteen-year-old.”
She still wouldn’t look at him. She took a long sip of her Scotch and stared into the fire. When she looked back at him, all signs of distress had vanished. Her shoulders were straight and that feline smile was back on her lips. “Or maybe I can teach you a thing or two, Mr. Mayor.”
He knew now that the smooth, sexy banter was an act. But he played along.
“I think you already have.” He saw the heat in her eyes and knew exactly what she needed right now. He needed it, too. He took the drink from her hand and set it on the coffee table. He leaned in and brought his hand to her hair, pushing the thick blond mass behind her shoulder. Her usual I-dare-you look flashed from deep in her eyes, and he took her up on the challenge, bringing his mouth to hers and kissing her sassy half smile until it melted into a heated response.
He’d promised himself he’d take things slow, that he’d show Tess what it was like to get to know someone, but when he was near her, slow just didn’t seem to work out. He lived his life with a lot of discipline, but he had almost none when it came to Tess. His entire focus centered on kissing her, on exploring her dark depths. His hand left her hair and found her full breast, and instead of caution, all he fel
t was frustration that there was a wool sweater between them. He must have let his feelings show, because her lips curved in a slight smile under his. Then she pulled back and tore off her sweater, all confidence now.
“Is this what you were looking for?” she murmured, meeting his eyes with pure seduction in hers.
Her bra was the color of deep red wine, and he reached for the lace without thought, only need. She laughed, low and satisfied, until he stopped the sound with another kiss, rough this time. He wanted to break through that facade and find the real Tess. The one he’d glimpsed in Bodie, the one he’d seen without makeup on Halloween, the one he saw every time she forgot herself and just laughed.
He eased her down onto the leather sofa and assaulted her mouth with kisses that wouldn’t let her hide or pretend they didn’t matter. Grabbing a wrist, he held it over her head while his mouth raged over hers, taking her lips, nipping at her jaw, sliding down to her delicate shell of an ear before capturing her mouth again, inhaling her surprised gasp with his ragged breathing. His other hand roamed, taking in a collage of sensation—her warmth, the muscles of her abdomen and the outrageous curve of her hip.
Tess moaned and moved under his hand, pressing her body into his erection, driving him crazy. Her free hand slid under his T-shirt and over his back, trailing along the waistband of his jeans. He opened his eyes and saw that hers were closed, her cheeks flushed. The composed woman had turned inward, wild and wanton and like nothing he’d ever seen in her or anyone else.
“You’re incredible,” he murmured, sweeping his cheek across hers, running his tongue along the rim of her ear, gratified by the way she whimpered at his touch and pushed against him. “I don’t care where the hell you came from, or what all those secrets are that you’re so damn careful to hide. I love being with you.” He kissed her again, but pulled back when he felt her hands on his chest, pushing him away.
Convincing the Rancher Page 16