by Rachel Lee
“No, it won’t.” She spread her hands. “If I talk to him with someone else present, he’ll do exactly what he said he wants to do. He’ll apologize. That doesn’t mean he won’t come back a couple of hours later to kill me. Whatever else he may be, Craig, my father isn’t a stupid man.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. Seems pretty stupid to me when you beat up your wife and kid. Pretty stupid to cripple one and kill the other. If nothing else, that kind of behavior gets you in trouble with the law.”
“He didn’t get into any trouble for throwing me down the stairs that time. He told a good enough lie that the doctor believed I’d fallen.”
“Only because you were little and didn’t know how to fight back. You know how to take care of yourself now, though, don’t you? You wouldn’t let him get away with that stuff anymore.”
But somewhere inside her she was still the small child at the mercy of her much larger father, and all she could do was shake her head. “No way I’m going to face him. No way. I know what he can do to me.”
Craig looked as if he would argue further, but just then they both heard Guinevere’s bark from the front door.
“I’ll get her,” Esther said, rising swiftly from the table and hurrying as fast as her unbraced leg would allow. It seemed as if everyone was expecting something from her that she wasn’t capable of doing. How could anyone possibly expect her to face her father after all he’d done? Why couldn’t they see how impossible it was?
She was aware that Craig was right behind her, but she ignored him, hoping he would leave her alone. Now that she’d accepted his protection it was beginning to seem as if she were going to have to accept his interference in every aspect of her life, even something as insignificant as letting the dog in.
She wanted to turn and confront him, but lingering caution prevented her. She still wasn’t ready to get into a real confrontation with a man…although maybe that was something she needed to do. Maybe a whole lot of things in her life would get better if she would just learn to stand up to a man. Any man.
She flung the door wide. Guin darted past her joyfully, but right behind Guin was an elegant blond woman in a blue suit who puffed on a thin cigar.
“Hi,” said Jo Fenster with a smile. “I thought I’d better come stay with you since it’s my fault that madman is bothering you, and you said you wouldn’t hire a bodyguard.”
Esther felt a blush rising hotly in her cheeks. She couldn’t think of a thing to say.
Jo’s smile widened as her gaze wandered from the nightgown-clad Esther to Craig, who wore nothing but a pair of jeans. “I should have known you’d have everything well in hand.”
Chapter 13
Jo breezed through the door as if she owned the place. Esther had always envied that about her. Jo Fenster was brimming with the confidence that came from being both beautiful and successful, and it never occurred to her that she didn’t belong wherever she happened to be.
She walked straight up to Craig and stuck out her hand. “I’m Jo Fenster, Esther’s agent, and the person primarily responsible for this fiasco since it was one of my people who gave that criminal son of a bitch Esther’s address. And you are?”
“Craig Nighthawk.” He shook Jo’s hand, smiling faintly.
“White knight and bulwark against the world, I presume,” Jo said.
“No, just a sheep rancher,” Craig told her. “Excuse me while I finish dressing.”
Craig disappeared into the living room, closing the double doors behind him. Jo followed Esther down the hall to the kitchen, talking all the while.
“My dear, if I’d known they grew them like him out here, I’d never have settled in the big city. But a sheep rancher? How…unique.”
Esther was very fond of Jo, whose pretenses for the most part were humorous and not serious at all, but this time she felt a strong surge of protectiveness for Craig. She didn’t want anybody viewing him as some kind of amusement. “He’s a very nice man,” she told Jo.
“I’m sure.” Jo plopped down at the table and waved away the offer of coffee or breakfast. “He’s also gorgeous, and I’m going to tease you mercilessly. But later. First I want to know if the man has given you any trouble. Your father, I mean.”
“He came out here yesterday to try to see me. I refused to open the door.”
“Good for you! I’ve been absolutely worried sick, which is why I came straight here once I concluded matters in Europe. By the way, you’re going to have a show in Madrid, not Paris, after London wraps up, so you’d better paint just as fast as you can. I promised them a minimum of ten pieces, but I told them I couldn’t set a date until I’d spoken to you.”
“Ten pieces!”
Jo smiled. “You can do it, Esther. We both know damn well you can, so why don’t you just admit it? But to get back to that south end of a mule you have for a father, just what exactly does he think he’s going to accomplish by harassing you? Maybe they’ll just throw him back in prison.”
“They can’t throw him in prison unless they convict him of something, and as I’ve been reminded more than once over the last couple of weeks, he has to do something illegal. Calling me, writing me, even showing up on my doorstep isn’t illegal.”
“Well, it ought to be!”
“That’s what I thought, too, until I really started to think about it. If it was illegal for him to show up on my doorstep, it’d have to be illegal for you, too.”
Jo frowned and pulled on her cigar. “Well, we can’t have that, can we? So, how did you meet this gorgeous sheep rancher?”
“One of his sheep ate my flower garden.”
Jo rolled her eyes. “Count on you to have a sheep devour your garden. Can’t you do anything normally?”
Esther felt her own humor rising in response to Jo’s droll teasing. “I wasn’t doing anything abnormal at all! Really. I was just sitting on my porch sipping iced tea when this animal wandered up and began to dine on my marigolds.”
Jo shuddered. “Can you imagine eating a marigold?”
“I was worried the sheep would get sick, but apparently it survived quite nicely.”
“And this is when you met Monsieur Nighthawk?”
“Exactly.”
“And how long was this man a sheep rancher next door to you before you met him? Or did he just suddenly spring out of the ground?”
“Oh, he’s been ranching over there since long before I moved here.”
“And it took you more than two years to meet him?” Jo shook her head. “What am I going to do about you, Esther? You’re entirely too reclusive. It’s one of the reasons I came hotfooting it out here to the end of the world. I figured you wouldn’t have a soul to turn to.”
Esther regarded her wryly. “If I make a whole bunch of friends, I’ll have less time to paint.”
“There is that. Oh, well, there’s nothing really wrong with being a hermit.” Jo’s eyes were dancing, belying her words. “Well, if you can possibly stand it, I’d like to bring in my bag, explore your shower and change into something more suited to the locality. Then you can tell me that you don’t need me, that Señor Nighthawk has the situation well in hand. I will listen and gratefully take myself back to civilization.”
“Why don’t you stay a couple of days and catch your breath?” Jo would make a wonderful buffer against the presence of Craig in the house.
“I’ll think about it.” Jo sighed. “Actually, I really should be heading back. Work has been piling up on my desk the entire time I was in Europe. I’ll probably find myself buried in an avalanche of paper the instant I sit in my chair. But, oh well! It’s waited this long, it can wait a little longer.”
She rose. “I need to get my carry-on out of the car, then lead me to the bathroom!”
Esther walked along with her, feeling the wobbliness of her leg like a background warning of an earthquake to come. The muscles were becoming very fatigued from trying to compensate, and at any moment she would probably put her foot down and go f
or a headlong tumble. Exercising caution, she stayed on the porch while Jo traipsed across the uneven gravel walk and the driveway to her rental car.
“How did you find me, anyway?” she called to Jo.
The agent pulled her suitcase from the trunk. “It wasn’t at all difficult. I just asked this very nice sheriff or deputy or whatever he was when I reached Conard City. His directions were very clear.”
Which, thought Esther glumly, may have been exactly how her father had found her. Some helpful person—and this county was full of helpful persons—had probably given him directions. Why had she ever thought she would be impossible to find?
She showed Jo to the upstairs bathroom, then went to her own room to change.
The first thing she did after donning her underwear was to reach for the brace. Her leg was already aching from so much unaccustomed work without the aid of it, but she didn’t want to put it on. Somehow that brace was a symbol of a bondage inflicted on her by her father. It was a visual symbol of the blight on her life.
She wanted to hurl it across the room and never touch it again.
The door to her bedroom opened suddenly, startling her. She gasped as Craig stepped in, closing the door behind him. Instinctively she tried to cover herself, but Craig’s raking gaze made a mockery of the attempt. He noted every detail, right down to the delicate lace on her bra and the low cut of her panties.
“Delightful,” he said with an enigmatic half smile.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” she told him breathlessly. “Jo—”
“Jo,” he interrupted, “is in the shower. Anyway, she’s already figured out what’s going on here.”
Esther stiffened her back, feeling that she was being boxed in somehow. “And just what is going on here?”
“I’m filling my eyes with the delightful sight of the lady I made love to last night.” Before she could do more than feel a warm, curling thrill at his words, he was squatting before her, taking the brace from her limp hands. “Let me help with this.”
She should have sent him on his way immediately, but somehow it was the last thing on earth she felt capable of. Instead she let him put that awful contraption on her, showing him how to fasten it so that it was just snug enough.
“Wonderful things medical science comes up with,” he remarked as he tightened the last strap. “This has got to be better than crutches.”
It was, and she found herself feeling almost ashamed for having resented it so much. He surprised her by bending forward to drop a kiss on her thigh between the rods of the brace. Then he helped her to her feet and drew her into a snug embrace.
“This,” he said, “is how the morning-after should begin.” Bending, he stole her mouth in a mind-stunning kiss that left her hanging almost limply in his arms. How was it possible to melt inside merely from the touch of lips? How was it possible that a kiss could drive away all the many things that had been annoying her and leave her so wonderfully relaxed, as if she were suddenly floating on a warm cloud?
She could gladly have stayed there forever, wrapped in his strength and his warmth. Eventually, though, his hold began to slacken and she knew it was time to step back.
“Since Jo is here,” he said gently, “I’m going to run back to my place for an hour or so. Will you be all right?”
She managed a nod, even though his sudden desire to get away left her feeling bruised.
He seemed to sense her reaction because he hesitated, then added, “There’s some business I need to look into. Really.”
“Sure.” She managed a bright smile, reminding herself that she had no claim on this man, and that he’d made it as clear as crystal that he didn’t want her to have any claim on him.
“Tell you what. I’ll wait until Jo is through with her shower.”
He’d misunderstood her reluctance, and she was relieved that he didn’t realize that she was simply disappointed, not frightened of being alone. “Really, it’s not necessary. I’ll be just fine.”
After he left, she donned a long voile skirt with subdued roses on a beige background, and a beige cotton sweater. Jo would probably want to see what she had ready for the London show and there was little likelihood that she would get any painting done while she had company.
When she descended the stairs, her leg grateful for the added stability of the brace, she went to make a fresh pitcher of iced tea, wait for Jo and wonder how it was that her entire life seemed to have careened out of her control.
Ever since the letter from her father had arrived, she realized, little by little events had been slipping out of her control.
No, wait. The problem had really begun with Cromwell eating her geraniums and marigolds. Amusing or not, it had been the first sign that the universe had decided to play games with her mind. Cromwell and Craig Nighthawk, not to mention Mop.
Good Lord! Her garden had been devoured, her dog impregnated and her privacy invaded by a dark wanderer with eyes like windows on midnight. If she really thought about it, her father was the least of her problems. He, at least, was only exacerbating a fear she had never lived without. Craig and his animals, on the other hand, were turning her life on its ear.
She was thinking about Craig entirely too much, mooning over him when she ought to be thinking more seriously about her work. Then there was Guin, curled up in a corner of the kitchen, ignoring everything around her in favor of mooning over Mop. At least that was what she presumed Guin was doing.
“You are, aren’t you, girl?” she asked the dog. “Thinking of that philandering komondor who’s probably gone back to Bucket now that he’s had all he wants of you. But isn’t that just typical of a man? They take what they want and then vanish, leaving the woman to deal with the consequences by themselves.”
Guin watched her with sad eyes but offered no comment.
“Oh, I know,” Esther told the dog. “You’re head over heels in love with that rake. Nothing I say is going to have any effect. A woman in love must be the most senseless creature on the face of the planet. But mark my words, Guin. Once a man has had you, he’ll have no more use for you.”
Guin yawned ostentatiously.
“Right. You don’t believe me. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Just as Craig had warned her by listing all the reasons she shouldn’t look for anything further from him. And just in case she hadn’t taken the hint, he’d made it plain that he could hardly wait to get out of here this morning.
All of a sudden she was on the edge of tears. It hurt. It hurt so badly she wanted to cry out. How was it possible she could care so much about a man she hardly knew? Even her dislike and distrust of men in general hadn’t protected her against Craig Nighthawk. He had slipped within her defenses almost effortlessly, and now it was costing her.
Glumly, she stared down at Guinevere and wondered why females cared so much about creatures who didn’t reciprocate. And why females insisted on charging right ahead despite all the warnings.
“We take the cake, don’t we, Guin?”
This time the Saint Bernard chuffed a sound of agreement.
Jo’s footsteps sounded on the stairs, forcing Esther to put aside her melancholy thoughts. The important thing to remember, she reminded herself as Jo stepped into the kitchen, was that Craig had not once lied to her. She had walked into this with her eyes wide open, and now she had no one to blame but herself.
“So, what happened to the five-star hunk?” Jo asked.
“He had to run back to his place to take care of some business.”
Jo waggled her eyebrows. “Well, he’s certainly one of the most interesting specimens I’ve seen in a while. Yummy, actually. I don’t suppose he has a brother?”
“Just a sister.”
“Rats! But really, he’s rotten, right? A not very nice person.”
“Actually,” Esther said on a repressed sigh, “he’s very nice.”
“I suspected he must be,” Jo said in a serious tone.
Esther looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because he got past your tower walls. I figure he must be a combination of Albert Schweitzer and Albert Einstein.”
That statement jolted Esther. It created an image she didn’t like. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, don’t take it to heart, sweetie! It’s just that you’re so damn unapproachable I kind of figured no man would ever be good enough for you.”
“I don’t avoid men because I’m a snob. I avoid them because of…well, you know.”
Jo cocked her head and pulled out a chair, sitting across from Esther. “Isn’t it basically the same thing, Esther? Because one man was a dyed-in-the-wool, alcohol-soaked son of a gun, you’ve been assuming all men were no better.”
“Not exactly.”
Jo shrugged and smiled. “I don’t want to fight with you about it. I like being your agent and would like to continue as your agent.”
Esther was appalled. “Jo, I’d never dump you simply because we had a disagreement. You know that!”
But Jo’s expression said that she didn’t know that, and that disturbed Esther even more.
“Jo?”
The agent hesitated, then said, “Well, frankly, Esther, you cut everything out of your life that might even remotely cause you pain. You’ve moved out here to the middle of nowhere, as far as I can tell you don’t talk to anyone except me—and now this gorgeous Mr. Nighthawk—and you don’t even want to hear the reviews of your shows. You use me as a bulwark against everything in the larger world that might touch you. Naturally, I assume that if I cause you too much discomfort I can expect to be discharged.”
Esther could hardly believe what she was hearing. Was this how she looked to Jo, whom she had trusted implicitly for the last eight years?
“You’ve turned yourself into an emotional shut-in, Esther.” Jo shrugged. “That’s your prerogative, and I’m certainly not going to tell you that you have to do anything different. It just surprises me to see that an ordinary mortal has gotten past your defenses. Now, shall we go out and look at the paintings for the London show before you throw me out?”