Tate had been so relieved to see someone show up on the deserted rural route that the danger of the situation didn’t immediately occur to her. She got only a glimpse of wavy blond hair and striking blue eyes before her rescuer had slipped on a Stetson that put his face in shadow.
He was broad-shouldered and lean-hipped, with a stride that ate up the distance between the two trucks. It was a fair assumption, from his dusty boots, worn jeans and sweat-stained Western shirt, that he was a working cowboy. Tate saw no reason to suspect he meant her any harm.
But instead of a pleasant “May I help you?” the first words out of his mouth were, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Tate was alarmed by the animosity in the stranger’s voice and frightened by the intensity of his stare. But his attitude was so similar to what she had recently gone through with her brothers that she lifted her chin and retorted, “Hitching a ride back to the nearest gas station. In case you hadn’t noticed, my truck’s broken down.”
The scowl deepened but he said, “Get in my pickup.”
Tate had only taken two steps when the tall cowboy grabbed her arm and pulled her up short.
“Aren’t you going to ask anything about me? Don’t you want to know who I am?”
By now Tate was more irritated than frightened. “A Good Samaritan with a bad temper!” she retorted. “Do I need to know more?”
Adam opened his mouth to make a retort, took one look at the mutinous expression on the young woman’s face, and shut it again. Instead he dragged her unceremoniously to the passenger’s side of his long-bed pickup, opened the door, shoved her inside, and slammed it closed after her.
“My bag! It’s in the back end of the Chevy,” Tate yelped.
Adam stalked back to the rattletrap Chevy, snagged the duffel bag from the rusted-out truck bed and slung it into the back of his pickup.
Woman was too damned trusting for her own good! he thought. Her acid tongue wouldn’t have been much help to her if he had been the kind of villain who preyed on stranded women. Which he wasn’t. Lucky for her!
Tate didn’t consider herself at all lucky. She recognized the flat-lipped expression on her Good Samaritan’s face. He might have rescued her, all right, but he wasn’t happy about it. The deep crevices formed around his mouth by his frown and the webbed lines at the edges of his eyes had her guessing his age at thirty-five or thirty-six—the same as her eldest brother Garth. The last thing she needed was another keeper!
She sat back with her arms crossed and stared out the window as they drove past rolling prairie. She thought back to the night two weeks ago when she had decided to leave Hawk’s Way.
Her escape from her brothers, while apparently sudden, hadn’t been completely without direction. She had taken several ranch journals containing advertisements from outfits all over Texas looking for expert help and headed south. However, Tate soon discovered that not one rancher was interested in hiring a woman, especially one without references, as either foreman or ranch manager.
To confound her problems, the ancient pickup she had taken from the barn was in worse shape than she had thought. It had left her stranded miles from the Lazy S—the last ranch on her list and her last hope for a job in ranch management.
“Do you know where the Lazy S is?” she asked.
Adam started at the sound of her voice. “I expect I could find it. Why?”
“I understand they’re looking for a ranch manager. I intend to apply for the job.”
“You’re just a kid!”
The cowboy could have said nothing more likely to raise Tate’s neck hairs. “For your information, I’m twenty-three and a fully grown woman!”
Adam couldn’t argue with that. He had a pretty good view of the creamy rise of her breasts at the frilly gathered edge of her blouse. “What do you know about ranching?” he asked.
“I was raised on a ranch, Hawk’s Way, and—” She stopped abruptly, realizing that she had revealed more than she had intended to this stranger. Tate hadn’t used her own last name to apply for any jobs, knowing that if she did her brothers would be able to hunt her down and drag her back home. “I hope you’ll keep that to yourself,” she said.
Adam raised an inquiring brow that met such a gamine smile that his heart did that disturbing flipflop again.
“You see,” Tate said, “the truth is, I’ve run away from home.”
Adam snorted. “Aren’t you a little old for that?”
Tate’s lips curled ruefully. “I suppose so. But my brothers just wouldn’t let me live! I mean, they watched every breath in and out of my body.”
Adam found the thought rather intriguing himself.
“My brothers are a little overprotective, you see. I had to run away if I was ever going to meet the right man and fall in love and have children.”
“Sounds like you could do that better at home than traipsing around the countryside,” Adam observed.
“You don’t know my older brothers! They want to wrap me in cotton batting and keep me safe. Safe, ha! What they mean is, they want to keep me a virgin forever.”
Adam choked at this unbelievable revelation and coughed to clear his throat.
“It’s true! They’ve chased away every single beau I’ve ever had. Which is only a waste of time and energy because, you know, a man who’s born to drown can manage to drown in a desert.”
Adam eyed her askance.
“I mean, if something is destined to happen, it’ll happen no matter what.”
Tate waited for Adam to say something, but when he remained silent, she continued, “My older brother, Jesse, left home, too, when I was just eight. It was right after my father died. We haven’t seen him for years and years. I don’t plan to stay away for years, of course, but then, who knows how long it will take to find my Prince Charming. Not that I have to marry a prince of a man.”
Tate grinned and shrugged. “But it would be nice, you know, to just once kiss a man good night, without having my brothers send him packing because he’s not good enough for me.”
Tate realized she was talking to fill the silence and forced herself to shut up.
Behind the young woman’s bravado Adam saw the desperation that had sent her fleeing from the safe haven her brothers had provided for her. He felt sick inside. Was this the way his younger sister had felt? Had Melanie seen him as an oppressive tyrant, the same way this young woman perceived her brothers?
Tate held her breath as the stranger looked into her eyes. There was an awful sadness there she felt constrained to dispel. So she began talking again.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for a job,” she said. “I must have been to fifteen different spreads in the past two weeks. But I haven’t had so much as a nibble of interest.
“What I find so frustrating is the fact that most owners don’t treat me seriously. I mean, I know I’m young, but there isn’t anything I don’t know about running a ranch.”
“Do you know how to figure the amount of feed you need for each head of stock?” Adam asked.
“Depends on whether you plan to keep the stock penned or let it graze,” Tate said. “Now if it’s penned—”
Adam interrupted with, “Give me some symptoms of colic.”
“A horse might have colic if he won’t eat, or if he starts pawing, or gets up and down a lot. Generally an animal that can’t get comfortable has a problem.”
“Can you keep books on a computer?”
Tate snorted inelegantly. “Boy can I ever! I got stuck with all the bookkeeping at Hawk’s Way. So, if you were hiring at the Lazy S, would I get the job?”
“What will you do if you don’t get the job?” Adam asked instead.
Tate shrugged, not realizing how revealing the gesture was of the fact she wasn’t the least bit nonchalant about that distressing possibility. “I don’t know. I only know I won’t go back home.”
“And if your brothers find you?”
Her chin took on a mulish tilt. “I’ll
just run away again.”
Adam wondered if his sister was so forthright and disarmingly honest with the man who had picked her up the night she ran away from home. Had that stranger known all about the young woman he had raped and murdered and left lying in a ditch on the side of the road?
Adam’s teeth clenched in determination. If he had anything to say about it, the innocent young woman in his pickup would not become another such statistic. And he, of all people, was in a perfect position to help her. Because he owned the Lazy S Ranch.
However, in the months since Adam had put his advertisement in the ranch journal, he had changed his mind about needing a foreman. He had decided to place his country medical practice on hold and put the Lazy S Ranch back in the black himself.
But if he told this young woman he had no job for her, where would she go? What would she do? And how would he feel if he sent her away and she ended up dead somewhere on the side of the road?
“Say, there’s the Lazy S Ranch!” Tate pointed at a wrought-iron sign that bridged a dirt road off the main thoroughfare. To her surprise, the cowboy turned and drove across a cattle guard onto the Lazy S.
“I thought you were going to take me into town!” she said.
“I thought you wanted to interview for a job!” he retorted.
Tate eyed the cowboy. She was perplexed. Many western men were the strong, silent type, but the stranger who had picked her up was something more. Aloof. The more distant he was, the more intrigued she became. It was a surprise to find out he had been kind enough to take her directly to the Lazy S.
She could have kicked herself for telling him so much personal information without finding out anything about him—not even his name. When he dropped her off, she might never see him again. Tate suddenly realized she wanted to see him again. Very much.
As the cowboy stopped his pickup in front of an impressive adobe ranch house, she said, “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your giving me a ride here. I’d like to thank you, but I don’t even know your name!”
Adam turned to look at her and felt a tightening in his gut as she smiled up at him. Well, it was now or never. “My name is Adam Philips,” he said. “I own the Lazy S. Come on inside, and you can interview for that job.”
Chapter 3
TATE WAS STUNNED when the mysterious cowboy revealed his identity, but buoyant with hope, as well. She scrambled out of the pickup after Adam, certain that he wouldn’t have bothered bringing her here if he didn’t intend to at least consider her for the job of ranch foreman.
“Follow me,” he said, heading into the house.
Tate stopped only long enough to grab her duffel bag and sling it over her shoulder before scampering up the three steps after him.
Adam’s living room was masculine through and through, filled with massive Spanish furniture of natural leather studded with brass. There was not another frill or a furbelow to soften the room. No woman has lived here in a long time—if ever, Tate decided.
She discovered that the adobe hacienda formed a U shape. The two wings enclosed a garden shaded by immense moss-laden live oaks and bright with blooming bougainvillea. A central tile fountain splashed with cascading water.
They finally arrived at Adam’s office, which was located at the tip of one wing of the house. The thick adobe walls and the barrel-tile roof kept the inside of the house dark and cool, reminiscent of days gone by when everyone took an afternoon siesta.
Tate saw from the immaculate condition of the office that Adam must be an organized person. Everything had a place and everything was in its place. Tate felt her heart sink. She wasn’t averse to order, she just refused to be bound by it. That had been one small rebellion she was capable of in the space in which her brothers confined her.
Instead of sitting on the leather chair in front of the desk, she seated herself on a corner of the antique oak desk itself. Adam refused to sit at all, instead pacing the room like a caged tiger.
“Before we go any further, I want to know your real name,” he said.
Tate frowned. “I need a promise from you first that you won’t contact my brothers.”
Adam stopped pacing and stared at her.
Tate stared right back.
“All right,” he said. “You’ve got it.”
Tate took a deep breath and said, “My last name is Whitelaw.”
Adam swore under his breath and began pacing again. The Whitelaws were known all over Texas for the excellent quarter horses they bred and trained. He had once met Garth Whitelaw at a quarter horse sale. And he was intimately acquainted with Jesse Whitelaw. Tate’s brother Jesse, the one she hadn’t seen in years, had recently married Honey Farrell—the woman Adam loved.
Honey’s ranch, the Flying Diamond, bordered the Lazy S. Fortunately, with the strained relations between Adam and Jesse Whitelaw, Tate’s brother wasn’t likely to be visiting the Lazy S anytime soon.
Adam turned his attention to the young woman he had rescued from the side of the road. Her short black hair was windblown around her face, and her cheeks were flushed with excitement. She was gnawing worriedly on her lower lip—something he thought he might like to do himself.
Adam felt that telltale tightening in his groin. He tucked his thumbs into his jeans to keep from reaching out to touch her.
Tate crossed her legs and clutched her knee with laced fingers. She could feel the tension in Adam. A muscle worked in his jaw, and his expression was forbidding. A shiver ran down her spine. But it wasn’t fear she felt, it was anticipation.
She was so nervous her voice cracked when she tried to speak. She cleared her throat and asked, “So, do I get the job?”
“I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
Tate was on her feet and at Adam’s side in an instant. “I’d be good at it,” she argued. “You wouldn’t be sorry you hired me.”
Adam had his doubts about that. His blood thrummed as he caught the faint scent of lilacs from her hair. He was already sorry he had stopped to pick her up. He couldn’t be anywhere near her without feeling as randy as a teenager. That was a fine state of affairs when he had appointed himself her guardian in her brothers’ stead. But he believed Tate when she had said she would just run away again if her brothers tried taking her home. Surely she would be better off here where he could keep a close eye on her.
He carefully stepped away from her and went around to sit behind his desk. Perhaps it would provide a more comfortable barrier between himself and the uncontrollable urges that struck him when he got within touching distance of this engaging runaway.
He steepled his fingers and said, “The job I have available isn’t the same one that was advertised.”
She braced her palms on the desk and leaned toward him. “Oh? Why not?”
Adam took one look at what her careless posture in the peasant blouse revealed and forced his gaze upward to her wide hazel eyes. “It’s complicated.”
“How?”
Why didn’t she move? He had the irresistible urge to reach out and—He jumped up from behind his desk and started pacing again. “You’d have to know a little bit about what’s happened on the Lazy S over the past couple of months.”
Tate draped herself sideways across the chair in front of the desk, one leg swinging to release the tension, and said, “I’m listening.”
“My previous ranch manager was a crook. He’s in prison now, but besides stealing other people’s cattle, he embezzled from me. He left my affairs in a mess. Originally, I’d intended to hire someone else to try to straighten things out. Lately I’ve decided to put my medical practice on hold—”
“Wait a minute!”
Tate sat up and her feet dropped to the floor, depriving Adam of the delicious view he’d had of her derriere.
“Do you mean to tell me you’re a doctor?” she asked incredulously.
He shrugged sheepishly. “Afraid so. Over the past few months I’ve been transferring my practice to another physician who’s moved into the area,
Dr. Susan Kowalski. Now I have time to supervise the work on the Lazy S myself. What I really need is someone I can trust to organize the paperwork and do the bookkeeping.”
Adam pointed to the computer on a stand near his desk. “That thing and I don’t get along. I can’t pay much,” Adam admitted, “but the job includes room and board.” That would keep her from sleeping in her truck, which was about all Adam suspected she could afford right now.
Tate wrinkled her nose. She had cut her teeth on the computer at Hawk’s Way, and what she didn’t know about bookkeeping hadn’t been discovered. But it was the kind of work she liked least of everything she’d done at Hawk’s Way. Still, a job was a job. And this was the best offer she had gotten.
“All right. I accept.”
Tate stood and held a hand out to Adam to shake on the deal.
When Adam touched her flesh he was appalled by the electricity that streaked between them. He had suspected his attraction to Tate, all the while warning himself not to get involved. His powerful, instantaneous reaction to her still caught him by surprise. He blamed it on the fact that it had been too damn long since he’d had a woman. There were plenty who would willingly satisfy his needs, women who knew the score.
He absolutely, positively, was not going to get involved with a twenty-three-year-old virgin. Especially not some virgin who wanted a husband and a family. For Adam Philips wouldn’t give her one—and couldn’t give her the other.
Tate was astonished by the jolt she received simply from the clasp of Adam’s hand. She looked up into his blue eyes and saw a flash of desire quickly banked. She jerked her hand away, said, “I’m sure we’re both going to enjoy this relationship,” then flushed at the more intimate interpretation that could be put on her words.
Adam’s lips curled in a cynical smile. She was a lamb, all right, and a wily old wolf like himself would be smart to keep his distance. He didn’t intend to tell her brothers where she was. But he was betting that sooner or later word of her presence on the Lazy S would leak out, and they would find her. When they did, all hell was going to break loose.
Texas Brides: The Rancher and the Runaway Bride & The Bluest Eyes in Texas Page 2