by Diana Palmer
“It won’t be much of a life, will it, Jim?” she asked softly.
“No, hon, it won’t. But don’t think you can tell him that.”
She laughed mirthlessly. “When was the last time you tried to tell him something?” she challenged.
“I remember it well, as it happens. It was 1969, and I warned him that if he bought that damned helicopter to use to herd cattle, he’d spend more time maintaining it than he would flying it.”
“That was before my time,” Eleanor said. “What happened?”
“One of his temporary summer hands got smashed at a local bar and decided to take the thing up at midnight one night.”
“Could he fly a helicopter?” Eleanor asked.
“Well, as a matter of fact, he’d only been in one twice. He knew how to start it and how to get it in the air. The only problem,” he added with a grin, “was that he didn’t know how to get it down. Hit a pine tree, broke off a blade, and came down in the lake. My God, you should have seen Curry when they told him. He hasn’t let a drop of alcohol on the place during roundup since. And,” he added with a grin, “he’s never bought another chopper.”
“So that’s why he uses the little Cessna,” Eleanor remarked.
“That and the old-time ways. They’re really better on some ranches.” He chuckled.
Eleanor sighed. “Well, I guess I’d better call it a night. It’s been such fun, Jim. Thank you.”
“Thank you,” he said with a smile. “If Curry gives you a hard time, come on over, and hang working out your notice. The Blacks will take care of you good and proper.”
“The Blacks,” she returned, “are super people—all three of them.”
“Now, if you’ll help me convince Elaine of that…”
“Any time,” she promised. “Good night.”
“Good night, Norie.”
She went into the house with a dreamy smile, relaxed because Curry wasn’t home, content to be alone and decide what she was going to do with herself when the job ended. It wasn’t going to be so bad after all. Once she got over the initial jolt of not waking up to see Curry at the breakfast table in the morning, in his den during the hours he had to be inside, on the porch late in the evening when the world was still….
Six
As she moved through the halls, the grandfather clock chimed twice in a loud, metallic voice. She hadn’t realized that it was so late. She’d really enjoyed herself tonight as much from playing cupid as from Jim’s company. She had a feeling that Elaine was going to be good for the lonely widower and his family.
“What the hell do you mean coming in at this hour of the morning?” came a loud, angry voice from the doorway of the den.
She froze for an instant, not expecting that, as she tried to decide whether or not she was hearing things. She turned slowly to find Curry leaning against the door, his hair tousled, his eyes glittering like sun on a knife blade, his whole appearance threatening and dark.
“I…we were at the club,” she faltered. “I thought you were in Houston. You said…”
“You don’t even look kissed, little girl,” he growled, and his eyes dropped to her mouth with its soft traces of lipstick, her hair flowing in soft waves around her shoulders, looking as neat as if she’d just left to go out. “I always suspected he was something of a cold fish. Lida Mae started running around on him barely a year after they were married.”
“You don’t have any right to talk that way about him,” she replied coldly.
“Why not? I’ll bet he’s been giving me hell behind my back ever since he started taking you out.”
Before she could deny it, the flush on her high cheekbones gave her away.
“Come have a drink with me, Jadebud,” he said gently, shouldering away from the door facing with a weariness that was so alien it was faintly shocking. “I’ve had a hell of a night.”
She followed him hesitantly into the den and watched him fill two glasses with whiskey and ice, lacing one liberally with water to weaken it. He handed her the weaker drink.
“Sit down,” he said, indicating the sofa.
She perched herself on its edge, trying not to cringe when he dropped down beside her and crossed his long legs. The pale brown slacks he wore emphasized the powerful contours of his thighs and he was wearing a cream silk shirt that was partially unbuttoned, and since he never bothered with an undershirt, it left a wide expanse of bronzed chest and curling dark hair uncovered. He looked unbearably adult and masculine, and the sensuality that clung to him like the exotic cologne he wore made her feel like running.
“Don’t start tensing up on me,” he said roughly, darting a quick glance at her rigid profile. “I’ve learned my lesson, and I don’t have the patience to initiate terrified little virgins into the intricacies of lovemaking. You’re perfectly safe, so you can lean back and stop looking like a fawn in the hunter’s sights. I won’t rape you.”
She went red as a beet and sipped at her drink, hating him now as she’d loved him before, wishing she had the sophistication to fight back.
He studied her quietly and a heavy, bitter sigh left him. His lean hand brushed away a thick swathe of hair from her cheek with a tenderness that puzzled her.
“I’m in a hell of a temper. I didn’t mean to say that, little girl.” He set his drink down and lit a cigarette. “I feel like I’ve had the floor cut out from under my feet tonight.”
She studied her drink, aching with conflicting emotions. “Do you want to talk about it?”
He took a long draw from the cigarette and exhaled a cloud of silvery smoke that almost matched his eyes. “Amanda wants to live in Houston,” he said simply.
“She’s a top model, Mr. Matherson, her job…”
“Don’t call me that!” he said curtly, his eyes pinning her.
“You…you are my boss, what else should I call you?”
“My name is Curry.”
She turned her head away from that penetrating gaze, but his hand caught her under the chin and turned her right back to face him.
“My name,” he repeated in a low, deep tone, “is Curry.”
She swallowed nervously and bit at her lower lip. “All right.”
“Well, say it!”
“Curry,” she said in a hesitant, frightened tone. She didn’t recognize him in this strange mood.
“That’s better.” He let go and leaned back again, flicking ashes into the ashtray he’d set on the other side of him on the sofa.
“Anyway,” she persisted, “you know how much her job means, she’s worked very hard to make it as far as she has.”
His eyes narrowed, glittered, as they met Eleanor’s. “I want a son,” he said stubbornly. “At least one, maybe two or three. I want a woman who’s here when I need her, who puts me first. I don’t want a glossy photograph, Jadebud, I want a flesh and blood woman who’ll burn like hellfire in my arms when I make love to her, who’ll make sons with me!”
She turned every color of red in the spectrum, feeling herself charred with embarrassment.
“I’m sorry,” he said curtly. “I forget sometimes how unworldly you really are, for all that you’ve spent the past three years in an earthy environment. I’ve spent my whole life here, and I don’t find anything embarrassing or shocking about procreation. It’s a natural, beautiful part of living. But you wouldn’t know about that, would you, not with a mother as icy as yours was.”
“Leave my mother out of this! You don’t have the right to sit in judgment on her; no one does.”
“After what she did to you?” he demanded, meeting her hot gaze levelly. “My God, it was like kissing a rock, Eleanor!”
She turned her face away from him, remembering with clarity those few painful seconds in his arms when she felt his mouth demanding impossible things of hers. “I’d like to forget that ever happened,” she whispered unsteadily.
“Do you freeze up on Black like that?” he asked quietly.
“He doesn’t kiss me,” she sa
id before she thought about it.
“He what?” he asked sharply.
“I told you before, he’s my friend, not my lover, and what right have you got to pry into my life?” she demanded.
He shifted, turning so that one long arm rested across the back of the sofa, and his eyes burned where they touched her.
“Not much, I suppose,” he admitted. He ran a lean, brown hand through his tousled hair, and watching it, she wondered how that thick, charcoal-colored hair would feel under her fingers.
“I’ve been rough on you this week,” he said without malice. “I don’t even know why, but I seem to want to hurt you lately. Maybe it’s for the best that you do go. I’ve never had a complaint about your work, Eleanor, if that’s any consolation. I couldn’t have asked for a better secretary.”
“Thank you,” she said demurely, lowering her eyes to her glass as she took another sip of the fiery liquid. It was beginning to relax her a little and she sighed as she rocked the glass so that the ice clinked.
She made a pattern in the condensation on the cool surface of the squatty container. “Is that all that’s wrong with you?” she asked after a minute. “That Mandy doesn’t want to live on the ranch?”
He took another deep, harsh breath. “She’s trying to move up the wedding,” he admitted. “We never discussed a definite date, but now she’s pushing for next month. I’ll be damned if I like being pushed!”
“She loves you,” she said, hurting inside even as she defended the redhead. “Naturally, she’s…”
“That isn’t it. Something’s not right about this whole damned thing, and I’m wearing out my mind trying to figure it. She tried to seduce me tonight,” he said frankly. “And she damned near succeeded. I’m so hot-blooded, it was all I could do to get out the door.”
“Please, you shouldn’t be telling me this….” she protested.
“I’ve got to tell somebody, damn it, who else is there?” He clenched his fingers around the glass and leaned forward, staring blankly ahead. “I don’t know what kind of game she’s playing, but I don’t like it. She’s always said ‘no’ before. Now, all of a sudden, anything goes. It looks very much as if she wants a guarantee. And she knows I’d never turn back if there was the risk of a child.”
She got up and moved to the bar, reaching idly for the whiskey bottle.
“What’s the matter, little saint, can’t you even discuss adult subjects without trying to climb into an alcoholic haze?” he shot at her.
She froze with her hands on the bottle. “It embarrasses me, if you must know,” she said in a choked voice.
“You should have entered a convent, then. How old are you now?” he asked gruffly.
“Almost twenty-one.”
There was a long pause. “Twenty?” he asked incredulously.
“I’d just turned eighteen when you hired me,” she reminded him.
“You always seemed so much older…but that was part of the disguise, too, wasn’t it?” he asked bitterly. “You’re young with Black, like a filly just feeling her legs. Yet with me, there’s something matronly about you, a kind of reserve…even when I took your mouth that night, you turned to stone against me. And I hurt you, didn’t I?” he asked with a strange, sweet tenderness in his deep voice. “I bruised you all over because I couldn’t make you give in. Not a very satisfactory introduction to passion, was it, Jadebud?”
She felt a shudder run the length of her body as he brought it all back again. “I didn’t know…men got like that,” she admitted weakly. “I…I thought the first time it was gentle.”
“The first time is usually with a boy your own age who’d be afraid to touch you,” he replied quietly. “And, yes, it’s usually gentle. But a man…kissing is something entirely different for a man, Eleanor. A tightly closed little mouth becomes a challenge; he needs to taste a woman, not just feel the softness of her mouth against his. It’s damned hard to explain,” he said finally and with soft laughter. “I suppose it all goes back to the basics, to passion. A man my age likes to arouse a woman more than he likes to simply kiss her, because it usually ends up in a bed. That’s one reason I never take out a woman who doesn’t already know the score. Until Amanda came along,” he added gruffly. “And by the time I realized how innocent she was, I was hooked.”
“I still think it will work out,” she said in a soothing tone, turning to look at him. He wanted the woman, and if he loved her, all Eleanor wanted for him was to see him happy.
He met her soft gaze and his silvery eyes studied her for a long time, from her face to her slender body and back up again. “You’re lovely, little girl,” he said softly. “As lovely as a dream, and I can’t think of anything I’d like better than to draw you down with me on this sofa and teach you how to make love.”
She felt her eyes going wide with fear as she set the glass down quickly. He’d had too much to drink, apparently, and she didn’t feel like being a stand-in for the woman he really wanted.
“I…I’m very tired,” she said quickly, moving toward the door. “And sleepy. And I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.”
“Afraid of me, Eleanor?” he asked patiently.
She turned at the door, her whole look puzzled and uncertain. “I’m terrified of you, Curry, and that’s God’s own truth,” she admitted. “Please don’t make it any harder for me. I don’t want to be used, like a toy to amuse you when Amanda’s not around. I don’t want to be flirted with. I’m your secretary and you’re my boss, and if it’s going to be any other way than that, then please let me go now. I can’t bear being played with,” she finished on a pained whisper.
“Honey,” he said quietly, “what makes you think I’m playing?”
She whirled and left him sitting there, feeling her heart bursting against her ribs as she made her way quickly up the stairs. And when she finally got into her room and ready for bed, that last gentle question kept her awake for another hour despite the fact that her senses were exhausted.
He was at the breakfast table when she went down only hours later, her eyes still bloodshot from lack of sleep, and she wondered idly why he hadn’t gone out with the hands.
His pale eyes shivered over her as she sat down across from him, and a hint of a smile curved his mouth.
“It’s about time you crawled out of bed,” he told her, sipping his coffee as he eyed her. “I want you to come out with me today.”
She stared at him uncertainly. “Where?” she asked.
“Roundup starts this morning.”
“Oh!” She couldn’t hide the surge of excitement that statement created. Every year she’d begged to be taken along when the first of the cattle were brought in from winter pasture to be moved to summer quarters. New calves were branded, and the vet was around to check for disease. It was the most exciting time of the year on a cattle ranch.
“You love it, don’t you?” he asked with narrowed eyes. “Every bit of it, from the branding to the culling, even tossing hay to the horses. Yes, Miss Priss—” he nodded at her start of surprise “—I hear what goes on around here. You conned Johnny into letting you feed the horses in the stalls. Or didn’t you think he’d tell me?”
“I thought ranch managers were supposed to keep their mouths shut,” she grumbled.
“They are—but you’re forgetting, I don’t keep a ranch manager, I keep an assistant manager. Nobody manages this spread except me,” he added.
“As if I didn’t know.” She sighed. “You manage everybody on it, too, when they’ll let you.”
“You used to let me,” he said.
“I grew up,” she said smugly.
“Not quite,” he said with a meaningful lift of his eyebrow.
She glared at him across the table. “Maybe it depends on the man, did you ever think of that?”
The smile got deeper. “Or maybe the man just didn’t try hard enough. Next time, I won’t be so impatient.”
Her eyes widened and she dropped them to her plate with volcanic erupti
ons taking place in her blood. “There won’t be a next time,” she said firmly, although her voice wasn’t quite steady.
“Are you coming with me? You’ll have to change. That pretty pantsuit will be ruined if you wear it.”
She glanced down at the white slacks and matching top. “More likely it’d turn red,” she mused. “Jeans and a cotton shirt okay, boss?”
He smiled at her. “And boots. Got yours?”
“Of course. I do ride, you know,” she reminded him.
“I haven’t seen you on a horse in two months.”
“You haven’t looked in six months to see what I was on,” she teased.
He didn’t smile at that. His pale eyes caught hers and held them for a long time with a searching look that made her forget the blistering heat of the cup in her hand.
Bessie came in noisily with the coffeepot and broke the spell. Eleanor held her cup out with a smile while she fought to calm her stampeding pulse.
“Haven’t touched your breakfast,” the housekeeper scolded. “He ruining your appetite?” she nodded toward Curry.
“Maybe it’s the other way around.” Curry grinned, winking at Bessie.
“Well, aren’t we in a good mood this morning!” Bessie said brightly as she filled his cup again. “What’d you do, foreclose on somebody?”
“You,” he told the buxom woman, “are pushing your luck.”
“Not likely. Who’d you find with the gumption to put up with you?” she shot back.
Eleanor smiled. “She does have a point,” she put in.
“Look who’s talking,” Bessie scoffed. “You only just got the good sense to leave after three years of it.”
The smile faded as Bessie went out again, and she felt an aching emptiness inside her that breakfast couldn’t fill.
“Don’t think about it,” Curry said suddenly, his jaw set, his eyes somber. “Let’s take it one day at a time, honey.”