by Penny Jordan
She could almost feel Dolores summing her up, and suspected that her offer of help was the last thing the housekeeper had expected.
‘We get a mite short of help in the kitchen when Jay entertains out-of-state buyers. How good are you at washing dishes?’
Controlling her temper—she knew when she was being deliberately goaded—Natasha said evenly, ‘Very good. It was the first chore my mother ever taught me…’
‘Oh, Dolores, quit teasing her,’ Cherry interrupted. ‘You know we’ve got dishwashers to do that.’
Natasha had known it as well. One quick glance round the enormous kitchen, when she had taken her breakfast things into it earlier, had shown her that it was well equipped with everything any cook could desire.
‘Um…well, it’s gonna take some acclimatising before that skin of yours gits used to our Texas sun. If you’ll take my advice you’ll git yourself a hat before you go out in it…’
Miraculously, Dolores seemed to be softening towards her, although Natasha couldn’t understand why.
Dolores herself wasn’t so sure either, she only knew that she had looked into those dark golden eyes and received the distinct impression that their owner would find it very hard to lie. She said as much to her husband Miguel later, adding complainingly that the girl must have bewitched her, because everyone knew what she had done to Jay and how she had stolen his inheritance away from him.
The twins’ ponies, along with half a dozen or so other mounts, were stabled in their own quarters not far away from the house.
The flat, dust-baked yard and the stables round it were curiously English in design, and for a moment as she stared around her, Natasha felt tears blurring her eyes. Only then did she recognise the enormous strain she had been under since her arrival in Texas.
The yard and its stables were probably Spanish in conception, like the house itself, she realised. She wondered about the history of the house and the family. Tip had told her much of it, but from a blatantly male point of view, mentioning nothing of the women who had lived and loved here.
‘These are our ponies,’ Rosalie told her, leading her towards two adjacent stalls.
Two pretty cream noses appeared over the top of the half-doors, two pairs of intelligent brown eyes studying the visitors.
Almost from nowhere, a small, bow-legged, grizzled man arrived. He was chewing something which he spat out as he approached them, and Natasha realised it was probably tobacco.
‘Well, now…and where have you two imps of Satan appeared from?’
It was strange to hear that faintly Irish brogue mangled by the long, flat vowels of Texas, and it took Natasha a few seconds to recognise the brogue for what it was.
‘We’ve come to see our ponies, and to show them to Natasha, Rory.’
A quick, narrowed glance at Natasha informed her that Rory already knew all there was to know about her, but she refused to let her eyes slide away or her head drop.
‘Just come out from England, so they tell me. You’ll have to mind that Celtic skin of yours,’ he warned her. ‘You’ll need a hat…’
‘I know. I intended to buy myself one in Dallas, but there wasn’t time…’
‘Boss is going into the city tomorrow morning. I guess he’ll give you a ride.’
‘Oh, yes, Natasha, and we can go with you. We both need new clothes, don’t we, Rosalie? And especially new outfits for Jamie Claire’s party next month. We wanted to go shopping with Uncle Jay, but he always gets so impatient.’ Cherry made a face.
There were certain things she needed, things she hadn’t bothered to buy at home, because then she had anticipated having an overnight stay in Dallas, with some time for shopping. And, besides, there was that matter of her own transport.
‘We’ll have to see,’ she temporised, ‘if your uncle is going to Dallas… I thought you two came out here to ride,’ she reminded them.
‘Ride yourself, do you?’ Rory asked her, as she stood carefully to one side, watching as both girls mounted up.
‘I used to…as a child. But it’s years since I last did.’
‘Once you learn, it’s something you never forget. We’ve got a nice little lady’s mount at the other end of the yard. Jay bought it for…’ He broke off, his ruddy face colouring darkly, as though he had been on the edge of committing an indiscretion.
Natasha deliberately ignored it. After all, it was no concern of hers who Jay might or might not have bought the animal for.
‘She hasn’t been ridden in a long time. I take her out myself when I get the chance…so she’s a mite frisky. Want to take a look at her?’
The girls were leaving the stable yard, and she paused to watch them go.
‘Will they be all right on their own?’
‘Oh, they’ll be fine! A sensible pair they are. They know better than to break any of the ranch rules.
Beyond the yard stretched mile after mile of dusty red earth, all of it empty of any sign of human or animal occupation. In the distance Natasha could just about make out the sight of the huge oil derricks they had flown over last night, now shimmering in the afternoon heat.
‘Where are the cattle?’ she asked Rory, as she followed him down the yard.
‘Well, the breeding stock is kept in special pens and yards. The rest—the beef cattle—they’re out on the range. We move ’em closer to the river at this time of year…’
‘I understand that Jay’s hoping to develop a new breed of beef cattle—with leaner meat…’
Rory’s eyebrows lifted in surprise at her interest and knowledge.
‘Yep, that’s right. Costing him a mite of sleepless nights and money to do it as well… First time he tried, the calves were too big for the cows, and half of ’em aborted. Now he’s introduced another strain. Should start calving any time now. We’re all keeping our fingers crossed…’
‘Only just calving now? They’re late, aren’t they?’
He looked at her again, and she explained hastily, ‘My father was a farmer, in Cheshire.’ A faint, nostalgic smile lit her features. ‘Calving time was always a very anxious period. Most of them went into labour late at night, especially those that were having problems… My mother used to get up to join him…’
Her smile faded abruptly as she recalled her parents’ death and her own subsequent loss, and Rory, sensitive to her pain, didn’t press her with any questions.
‘Mare’s down here,’ he told her awkwardly. ‘Fine animal she is, although like I said, a mite temperamental. Tip was always on at Jay to get rid of her. At least, he was until he came back from London. Then he seemed to sing a different tune. Here she is.’
The mare was pure bred Arab, with flared nostrils and a satiny coat. She moved restlessly round her stable, rolling her eyes as they approached. Instinctively Natasha held out her hand to her, letting the mare accustom herself to her scent, crooning soft words to her…generations of farming and diluted Cossack blood showing her exactly how to treat the nervous animal watching her so intently.
‘Well, now. Raisa has sure taken a fancy to you,’ Rory pronounced when the mare regally allowed Natasha to stroke her silky neck. ‘Fancy riding her? I could get her saddled up for you…’
‘Not today.’ Natasha thanked him with a smile. ‘As you said, I need to get myself a hat…’
Already she could feel the effect the sun was having on her bare head. A faint feeling of nausea crept through her stomach, and she knew that it was time she got out of the sun. But the girls were still out, and the deep vein of responsibility that her father had passed on to her wouldn’t allow her to go in until she knew that they were safely back.
She looked around the yard, searching for a patch of shadow, but there wasn’t one. A film of sweat broke out over her skin. Whichever way she turned the sun continued to torment her. She licked dry lips and closed her eyes, feeling the heat beat down on her closed eyelids. This wretched fair skin of hers. Had she had a couple of weeks’ holiday she might have stood a chance, but comin
g straight from the cold dampness of a London summer to the heat and dryness of Texas had made her doubly vulnerable to the overpowering strength of the hot sun.
She blinked a couple of times and then smiled reassuringly at Rory when she saw the concern with which he was watching her.
‘Why don’t you come and sit down in one of the empty stalls? Get out of this sun. It can be a mite overpowering if you’re not used to it. I mind when I first came over from Ireland… Working in Virginia I was then, as a stable lad. Fair knocked me out at times it did.’
He was talking to her in the same soothing voice he used to his horses, Natasha recognised, as she docilely followed him across the yard and into the welcome coolness of one of the stalls. She was out of the sun now, but she suspected that the damage had already been done.
Not for the first time in her life, she cursed her vulnerability to it. She would have been all right if she had worn something on her head, but she had simply not realised it would be so intensely hot.
She sat down on the small stool Rory passed to her, and when he asked awkwardly if she would be all right, she assured him that she was fine.
‘I’d better go and get on with my chores, then. I don’t want the boss to come back and find me slacking.’
‘No,’ Natasha agreed. ‘He doesn’t strike me as the lenient sort.’
The criticism was out before she could stop it, and she saw from the faint frown on the Irishman’s face that he didn’t like her criticising his employer.
‘Oh, he can be hard enough when he needs to be, but he’s a fair man…a very fair man. Which is more than you can say for most… He’s well liked around these parts and with good reason. Pays good wages, and sees to it that all his staff are properly covered for medical insurance. I had nearly a month off this time last year on full pay.’
Somehow Natasha managed to placate him, although she had to admit to herself, when she was alone, that she found it hard to recognise the sarcastic, contemptuous man who had accused her of being his grandfather’s mistress in the almost benign employer Rory rhapsodised over.
By the time the girls returned, her head was throbbing unmercifully; every time she moved, waves of heat and cold washed over her, and her stomach churned nauseously. She had experienced these symptoms often enough before to know that she was in a full-blown attack of heat-stroke.
There was nothing she could do about it. It would just have to be endured. And it was her own fault, after all, but who could have imagined that less than half an hour standing in the sun would be enough to bring on such unpleasant symptoms?
She went out to greet them as she heard the clatter of their ponies’ hooves, trying desperately to remain in what little shadow there was as she waited for them to dismount.
She was pleased to see that they had been taught the proper care of their mounts, and that they made sure their ponies were comfortable before handing them over to Rory.
They were just about to return to the house when Rosalie called out, ‘Look, here’s Uncle Jay…’
Sure enough, as Natasha turned round reluctantly, she saw Jay striding towards them, his boots kicking up small flurries of red dust.
He took off his Stetson as he reached them, wiping a muscular forearm across his face.
‘Hot one today, Rory…’
Natasha watched as the girls hung back, obviously longing to run up to him, but just as obviously fearful of doing so. Was this why Tip had made that extraordinary will? Because of the girls? Somehow it seemed out of character. He had scarcely mentioned them to her when he was in London, and yet his conversation had been peppered with comments about his longing for a great-grandson. No, she didn’t think that could be the reason behind it…
‘Uncle Jay, Natasha needs a hat to protect her head from the sun,’ Cherry announced when he at last deigned to notice them.
‘And we need dresses for Jamie’s party,’ Rosalie added. ‘Can you take us to Dallas for the day tomorrow?’
‘Not tomorrow, but maybe the day after…’
Natasha could see the impetuous words springing to both girls’ lips, but they suppressed them, turning disappointed faces in her direction.
‘Never mind, tomorrow you can show me some more of the ranch,’ she consoled them.
Now that Jay was in the stable yard with them, the atmosphere there had suddenly become very oppressive. Natasha walked past him as delicately as a highly strung mare avoiding a snake, but she had forgotten about the power of the sun, just as strong now as it had been when they first came out. It hit her full in the face, dazzling and then dizzying her, so that she swayed and then cried out as pain exploded inside her head.
She was dimly conscious of pitching forward into painful darkness, of voices, high and tense with concern and fright, and then the comfort of something hard and warm protecting her, blocking out the fierce power of the too-strong sun.
In her confused, half-conscious state, her mind played tricks on her, sweeping back time. She was a little girl again, fainting from heat-stroke in one of her father’s fields, when she had disobeyed her mother and taken off her sun-hat.
The sense of strength and protection in the arms that held her now was the same as then, and without needing to give the matter any thought she clung to the body that warmed her own.
She was conscious of movement, of doors opening and then the blessed coolness of air-conditioning. She heard fresh voices, low and composed, and an answering rumble from the chest against which her head rested, without being able to make out what was being said.
She was being placed on something soft and cool. She longed to simply sink back into it, and yet at the same time she fought against losing contact with the man who held her.
Hard fingers prised hers away from the shirt into which they were curled; an even harder profile blotted out the light; a harsh voice calling her back from the past and its comforting memories.
‘It’s OK, you can stop the play-acting now. You don’t have any audience. What are you trying to do? Make everyone feel sorry for you, the way Gramps did? Well, it won’t work with me, honey girl. I’m not an old man, vulnerable and lonely…’
His words jerked her back to reality, her fingers releasing their grip of him as though the contact with him burned her, her eyes flying open, what little colour there was in her face leaving it.
It was galling enough to have practically fainted right into his arms, without him now trying to accuse her of having manufactured the whole thing. Just what sort of woman did he think she was?
She already knew the answer to that question, and it wasn’t an answer she liked.
Anger came to her rescue, driving the lethargy and nausea from her body, giving her strength to sit up and face him, despite the continued pounding in her head.
‘If you honestly believe that about me…that I deliberately tried to seduce your grandfather…that we were lovers…then you don’t know much about women…’
‘But you’re only too willing to be my teacher, is that it, honey?’ He stood up abruptly, his mouth hard with dislike and contempt. ‘Forget it. Other men’s leavings have no appeal for me…’
Natasha almost choked on her fury at his chauvinistic response. How dared he suggest that she had deliberately been trying to make him notice her as a woman? She watched him walk to her door and open it, wishing now, when it was too late, that she had died rather than let him pick her up. How could she explain that it was her memories of her father, her vulnerability to them that had made her forget for a moment who he was and know only that the strength of his body offered her a particular kind of comfort she had not known in a very long time? Her instinctive reaction to being held in his arms had been completely innocent—as free from any sexual undertones as his own attitude towards her, but she would never be able to make him believe it. Never!
But then, why should she want to? Why should she care what he thought about her? Why should she concern herself with his psychological problems—and he obviously
had them. He had to have to jump to such ridiculously inaccurate judgements about her.
A misogynist, Tip had apparently called him. Was he? Was his antipathy not just for her but for her entire sex? And if so, why?
A brief rap on her door distracted her from her thoughts. Dolores came in, carrying a glass of milk and some sandwiches.
‘Jay said you weren’t feeling too good, and probably wouldn’t be down for supper.’
‘Heat-stroke,’ Natasha told her wryly. ‘Completely my own fault. I went out without a hat. Somehow my one and only straw didn’t seem quite the right thing to wear with jeans. I intended to get myself a Stetson while I was in Dallas. I had planned to stay there overnight; I wasn’t expecting to be picked up by Jay. In fact, there are a whole lot of things I wasn’t expecting,’ she added under her breath, but Dolores caught the remark and looked curiously at her.
‘Are you trying to tell me you knew nothing about Tip’s will?’
‘I’m not trying to tell you anything at all, but as it happens, I didn’t. I barely knew him, after all, and certainly not well enough to expect anything like that. He didn’t even tell me about the twins. All he could talk about was Jay and the fact that he wasn’t married. To me, he seemed to be obsessed by a desire for Jay to produce a son or, even better, several sons.’
‘That was Tip all right,’ Dolores agreed, her manner relaxing slightly as she put down the tray and sat down on the edge of Natasha’s bed. ‘Well, there’s no reason why I should, but I’m inclined to believe you mean what you say. But if that’s the case…’
‘Why am I staying, instead of simply handing Jay’s inheritance back to him? I’m not sure. As I said, I only knew Tip for a week, but he struck me as a very shrewd man, a man who would always put himself and his family first. To leave me so much seems out of character, and yet he must have had a reason for it… If I stay I might find out what that reason was…’
‘Mmm…’ Dolores was giving her an odd look, something that combined amusement and approval, almost as though somehow she had just passed a secret test.