'Oh, but I couldn't,' Seana protested, only to have her objections brushed aside with casual disdain.
'You can and you will,' said Mrs Jorgensen in tones that brooked no argument. 'Now hustle yourself out and pour us a small drink. I'll only be a few moments.'
Seana obeyed with a shake of her head, and when Mrs Jorgensen joined her in the living room a few minutes later, she raised her glass in salute and offered a genuine thanks for the hospitality and the gift.
Then both women adjourned to supervise the final meal preparations, mostly involving the creation of some home-made apple-sauce to go with the roast. Mrs Jorgensen was busy at that when the doorbell rang, so it fell to Seana to answer it.
She walked to the door in a sudden shroud of apprehension, a feeling so unexpected and yet so real that she wondered about it, suddenly tense and wary. As she reached out to open the door, it swung wide before her, revealing two figures on the porch.
One was an enormously tall, husky young man, but it was the other man who drew Seana's eyes and whose mere presence had her tongue-tied with surprise and shock.
CHAPTER TWO
'Hi there, ladybug,' said Ryan Stranger, his mouth twisted in a sardonic grin and one eyebrow raised in a gesture that fairly screamed out his amusement at Seana's surprise.
Worse, he seemed quite oblivious to the earlier events of the day and the effect they might be expected to have on whatever welcome he expected.
'Well, aren't you going to invite us in?' he went on, adding to her discomfort the knowledge that she'd been standing there in numbed silence for far too long.
But she couldn't, simply couldn't speak. Instead, she stepped silently to one side and waved the men forward with her hand, then closed the door behind them and meekly accepted the bottles of wine they thrust at her.
Mrs Jorgensen, thank goodness, chose that moment to enter the living room, and both young men shouted, 'Hullo, Mother,' almost in unison and lifted the white-haired woman clean off the floor as they planted smacking kisses on her rosy cheeks.
'Get down, you young fools!' she scolded with mock anger. 'You'll have the young lady thinking you've no manners at all.'
'Hah!' cried Ryan. 'She already thinks that of me. And probably worse, too.' Whereupon he turned to Seana, gesturing towards his enormous companion. 'This, by the way, is Ralph Beatty,' he said. 'And he's much better mannered than I am, I promise. Ralph— Seana Muldoon.'
The tall giant acknowledged the introduction with a slow, almost shy nod and an even shyer smile. It was from Mrs Jorgensen that she received the information that Ralph was the chief resident fish and wildlife officer.
'You know where things are, Ryan,' the older woman said then. 'Pour yourselves a drink while Seana and I finish up in the kitchen, and we'll start dinner fairly soon. You might give us each a fresh sherry, too, if you wouldn't mind.'
Thankfully, she waited until the two women were alone in the kitchen before uttering her next remark. 'What's with you and Ryan?' she demanded without preamble. 'Lord, child, don't tell me you've fallen for him already? You've hardly been here a day!'
Seana suppressed a shudder. 'Nothing like that,' she replied grimly. 'Just the opposite, if you must know.'
'Heaven help us,' was the reply. 'That kind of reaction is even more dangerous than the other!'
Seana laughed, but it was a hollow, almost bitter laugh that fooled no one. Why, she wondered, had Mrs Jorgensen invited Ryan Stranger to a dinner supposedly in Seana's honour? Surely she'd heard his vitriolic remarks in the office, and if she didn't already know about Seana's initial encounter with the red-bearded tyrant, it would almost certainly come out at dinner.
She returned to the living room on the other woman's heels, unable to quell the rising apprehension inside her.
Ryan was waiting for her, her glass of sherry dwarfed in his fingers. But it was his eyes that compelled her attention, eyes that seemed to reach out and touch her, caress her; eyes like those of some great, predatory animal.
He had changed for dinner, of course, and the switch from rough bush clothing to a perfectly-cut three-piece suit was really quite astonishing in its effects. When she had first met him, Seana had reckoned him in his late twenties, but now she had to revise her estimate considerably. Thirty-five, she thought. Perhaps even closer to forty.
She also had to revise her estimate of his attractiveness. With his hair and beard combed, and dressed as he was, handsome became too tame a word. He wasn't, in any event, conventionally handsome. There was too much harshness, too many planes and angles in his features. And all of it dominated by those eyes…
'You just window-shopping, or do you want to buy?' he asked quietly, and Seana flinched with embarrassment at having been caught staring. Mrs Jorgensen and Ralph Beatty were already seated on the chesterfield, chatting comfortably and almost out of earshot.
'Neither, thank you,' she snapped. 'In fact, I can't think of anything less enticing.'
'Oh, prickly,' he replied with a mocking smile. 'Funny, I wouldn't have thought you'd be so temperamental.'
'Obviously,' she retorted, shifting to one side in a bid to get past him and join the others. He countered the move so easily she might have saved herself the effort.
'If I didn't know better, I'd think you'd taken a distinct dislike to me,' he said with that same, smirking grin. 'Really, Seana, have you no sense of humour, not to mention of course a sense of gratitude?'
'Oh!' she choked. How typical of this arrogant devil to remind her of her debt. No mention, of course, about how he'd gone out of his way to try and keep her from getting her forestry tower job, no mention of the insults heaped on her in front of a prospective boss. 'You're… despicable!' she retorted angrily.
'But loveable,' he replied without apparent offence.
'Mind you, there are those who wouldn't agree, but I think you'll find out in time that I am.'
'With any luck I won't ever have to find out,' she replied coldly. 'Especially in view of your comments in the forestry office.'
Exactly what she'd expected that remark to produce, she wasn't sure. But certainly it wasn't the howl of genuine laughter that brought instant silence from the room's other occupants.
'Now that's gratitude for you,' Ryan Stranger said to no one in particular. 'I save the lady's job for her and all she can do is abuse me!'
And to Seana's astonishment, both Mrs Jorgensen and Ryan broke into peals of honest laughter that was quickly joined by a chuckle from Ralph Beatty.
She looked from one to the other and back again, unable to figure out what could possibly be so funny, and when she returned her gaze to Ryan, he reached out unexpectedly to tuck one finger beneath her chin and grin down at her with the fond patience of somebody gentling a fractious child.
'You're astonishing, ladybug,' he laughed. 'I didn't think they made girls that naive any more. You really were taken in by that performance today, weren't you?'
Unsure of his meaning, but decidedly not amused at apparently being made the butt of some private joke, she could only stare daggers at him, which seemed only to heighten his amusement.
It was left to Mrs Jorgensen to explain. 'But I thought you must have realised it was all an act,' she said between intermittent fits of the giggles. 'And a very well performed one at that, if you were taken in along with Frank Hutton.'
It wasn't, however, until they had gone in to dinner that the full details of the elaborate charade were explained to Seana. And by this time she was beginning to at least see some of the logic, if not the humour.
'Old Frank doesn't much like me,' Ryan explained, 'but he likes having women on his towers even less, as a general rule. So when Mrs J. realised that he didn't even know you were female until today, she and I reckoned we'd best do something to keep him from talking you out of the job.'
'Thank heaven for two-way intercoms,' Mrs Jorgensen added. 'I hate to think what might have happened if I hadn't been able to let Ryan listen in on what approach Frank was taking.
'
'You mean you…' Seana was honestly shocked, despite the benefits she'd gained from the exercise.
'No, she didn't,' Ryan interjected. 'I did! And just be thankful, young lady, because one hint about my true thoughts on the matter of you going to White Mountain Tower and you'd be back on the road to Edmonton right now.'
He grinned then at her look of surprise. 'No kidding. And if I do say so, it was a sterling performance considering we only had about two minutes to get it together.' And he laughed. 'Poor old Frank! I wonder if he'll ever realise how easy he is to lead down the proverbial garden path.'
'Yes, well, I wouldn't go making too much of a habit of it,' said Mrs Jorgensen. 'You're already high enough in his bad books at it is. Let him just once realise how he's been taken in today, Ryan Stranger, and he'll have you barred from every tower site in the district.'
'And I certainly wouldn't want that to happen,' he said, looking at Seana in a glance that was startlingly meaningful. 'No sense going to all this trouble if I'm not going to be allowed to take advantage of it.'
Seana tried to meet his eyes directly, but there was a flame of attraction there she dared not meet, lest she be drawn to it like a moth… and perish.
The last thing she needed, she thought, was any kind of involvement with a man as frankly devious and cunning as Ryan Stranger. He was, Seana decided, much too fast on his feet for her liking, and much too aware of his attractive charm.
Her suspicions were more than justified a moment later when he raised his wine glass and declared, 'A toast—to lovely ladies, exquisite cooking, and to debts unpaid.'
And as he said the final words his eyes promised that he had no intention of letting Seana ever forget that she now owed him—twice!
'Speaking of debts,' she said, taking immediate advantage of the situation in what she thought was a clever gambit. 'I don't suppose you'd like to tell me now just how much I owe you for the gasoline you gave me this morning?'
And when his eyes clouded ever so slightly as he recognised her motive, she pushed even further. 'Oh, come now, you wouldn't want me to feel beholden for ever. Let me see, ten gallons at…'
'It's not going to work, you know,' he interrupted. 'I told you I'd take a raincheck and I will. Which means you have to forget about it until the next time it rains.'
'But I couldn't do that,' she countered sweetly, all of her attention now focused on Ryan, almost oblivious to the fact they had an audience.
He met her gaze with eyes hardened with growing anger, then suddenly they cleared, the hardness replaced instantly by the mocking light she was coming to dread.
'All right,' he said very softly. 'Have it your own way; provided of course you've got a hundred bucks.'
'What?' Seana couldn't believe her ears. 'A hundred dollars? For what, may I ask?'
'For the service, of course. The gasoline wouldn't have been much use to you without somebody to bring it to you, and put it into your car, and…'
'Now you're being ridiculous,' she snapped.
'Maybe, but that's my price. Unless you're prepared to do what you should have done in the first place .. and wait for a rainy day.'
Seana couldn't help but review her meagre financial situation. Did she even have a hundred dollars, she wondered, and if so, would it be worth the cost simply to make a gesture this infuriating man would probably find some way to foul up? The answer was obvious, but that didn't stop her from adding acid to her tongue when she replied.
'And I suppose you'll be asking twice that for your… performance in the forestry office?' she demanded. 'Or will it be three hundred, considering there was a job at stake?'
She was all too aware that Mrs Jorgensen and Ralph were now listening avidly to the exchange, but in her anger she no longer cared.
'Oh no,' Ryan replied, still with that unholy gleam in his eyes. 'The price for your job will be even higher. But don't worry about it; I'll find some… enjoyable way for you to work off your debt.'
'Not at my dinner table you won't,' Mrs Jorgensen interjected. 'You two can sort it out between you some other time, if you don't mind.'
And to Seana's great relief, he didn't. At least he didn't seem to; without turning a hair, he redirected the conversation on to a totally different topic, and within a minute the tension had flown from the room. The dinner passed peaceably enough after that, although on several occasions Seana was aware of Ryan's gaze upon her. She found the conversation moving through a wide range of topics, many of them quite unfamiliar to her, but it wasn't until the two men became engrossed in a vivid argument concerning the relative merits of various breeds of truck that Mrs Jorgensen stepped in once again.
'You two can talk trucks some other time,' she said firmly, 'but not in my time. I'd rather you share a glass of port while we do the dishes, and then I'm going to fire you both out. Seana's got a long day ahead of her and I'm going to see that she gets a decent night's rest before it.'
'A proper cook should never clean up,' Ryan declared. 'So you ladies can sit with the port, and the moose and I shall do the dishes.'
Whereupon he turned on Seana with a finger raised in emphasis. 'And don't go thinking this is something special, either, young lady. If the truth were known, it's one of the rules of the house, and Mother Jorgensen knows it too.'
And that was that! Within seconds, it seemed, Seana and Mrs Jorgensen had been hustled into the living room, where they sipped at their port and listened to the truck argument resumed amidst the tinkle of plates and glassware being washed, dried and put away.
'Well,' said Mrs Jorgensen after a moment, 'you're off to a fine start with Ryan, aren't you? And the way you're going you'll have to be careful, or you'll owe him so many kisses it'll take half your life to pay off the debt.'
Seana chuckled. There wasn't much Mrs Jorgensen missed; that much was obvious. Than she realised suddenly there was an ominous silence from the kitchen, and she took just a second to think before she replied.
'Yes, it is a problem,' she replied in a deliberate stage whisper that sounded terribly confidential but would carry, she knew, to the ears for which it was intended.
'Especially with that beard. I mean, it doesn't matter that it makes him look so old, but it would be… why, it would be like kissing an Airedale!'
'More like a wolf, and don't you forget it,' her hostess replied. 'He's not all that much older than you, although there are times, I must admit, when he seems to be older even than me.'
'And he looks it, too, with that scraggly beard,' Seana replied, still in the same carrying whisper. 'I suppose he's ugly as sin underneath it… or has he just got a baby face he's trying to hide?'
Mrs Jorgensen laughed aloud at that, and her laugh was followed by the sound of a piece of cutlery landing on the tiled kitchen floor.
'It's okay, Mother,' Ralph's voice boomed out. 'The geriatric just dropped a fork, that's all.
'And very good hearing he has for his age, too,' the older woman retorted. 'It's too bad he doesn't listen to what he hears… he might learn something.'
'Oh, I'm learning, no question about that,' said Ryan as he walked back into the living room. And although he smiled, Seana noticed that the smile didn't quite reach his eyes. Eyes that were piercing in their intensity as they probed boldly over her face, then even more boldly down the length of her body, studying, seeing … as if the caftan wasn't even there.
But what really bothered her was the way her nipples surged to erectness against the restraint of her bra, and the way her stomach fluttered and her throat began to quiver. How could any man have an effect on her… just by looking?
She was incapable of denying his attraction, and yet she wanted to deny it, wanted desperately to convince herself that Ryan Stranger just couldn't be as irresistible as her own body said he was.
And he knew it! She could tell that much just from the expression on his wide, mobile mouth, or from the calculating gleam in his pale eyes. He knew very well… too well . . that given the slightest
opportunity he could manipulate Seana as he had undoubtedly manipulated many women before her.
She was almost glad when it came time to bid both men good night; glad, and yet…
At the very least, she thought, she'd been able to avoid an outright confrontation with Ryan. At this time in her twenty-three-year-old existence, she didn't feel quite up to meeting a challenge like Ryan Stranger head-on.
'You're going to have to watch yourself with that man,' Mrs Jorgensen quipped, hardly waiting until the door was closed on the two men before turning to Seana with a knowing smile. 'He's a heartbreaker, is Ryan, and no denying it. I just hope that you don't find yourself wishing, before the summer's out, that you'd been delegated to a different tower.'
'Oh, I'll manage,' said Seana with a conviction she didn't really feel. 'I didn't come up here to play romantic games with any man, least of all one like Ryan. In fact, that's the last thing on my schedule. I came to do a job and to see if I can't find out a bit more about myself. Despite having spent most of my life in the city, I don't really think of myself as a city person, and yet I haven't lived in the country since… since Dad's accident, when I was twelve. So I don't really know if I'm a country person, either.'
Mrs Jorgensen was a willing and sympathetic listener, and Seana found herself telling the older woman much of what had happened to the family since her father had been so badly injured in a truck accident. Coincidentally, it had happened on the road up to White Mountain Tower, when he had lost control of his Forestry Service truck and wound up at the bottom of a deep ravine with the truck on top of him. The resultant spinal injuries had left him barely able to walk, and then only with continuing physiotherapy that was only available at the University Hospital in Edmonton.
The forest service had been a relatively small department in those days, and Sean Muldoon's knowledge and personal popularity had gained him a desk job in the city. There, despite his disabilities, he had built a strong reputation in his field until cancer stepped in to take quick advantage of his physical weakness.
Battle of Wills Page 3