by Gayle Eden
When the wagon was out of sight, she took off her hat and jacket, laying both on the bench by the stable doors. Sighing because it had been a long and full day, tense until she’d seen the genuine interest rather than the raised brow snobbery she half expected. Jordan was used to whispers and gossip. She was used to rejection. Her life, even at school was filled with it.
Inside her was a fiery determination to prove herself. She had tried for years with her father, and it was nearly too late by the time they had come to better terms. Her pride kept rebuffing him, and his pride kept pushing. Now they wrote each other, and soon would see each other again—at Lucas and Falon’s wedding.
For many years, Jordan struggled with finding who she was, in the muddle of lies and pretenses. She was at first horrified to discover her mother had conceived her in a brothel. Later, she understood. She tried to love Andrea, too, and eventually the pain of her rejection had made her come to the truth of that. In time—she had no real expectations. Yet she realized what the woman had grudgingly given her.
She had always loved her father, even though the pain of his pride kept her saying she didn’t. She loved her brothers and Alex like that too. She had been the outsider for too many years, in any group, a contradiction—so that pride was all that kept her going.
Sitting on the bench, looking out over the land she owned, a part of the McCabe spread, a piece of her real blood and family, Jordan finally felt that acceptance and belonging she missed. She felt the right kind of pride, in having built something with promise. Something with a future.
Turning her face up, toward sky streaked with sunset, she closed her eyes and thought of another, more private ache. A sinewy face, with velvet brown eyes, in contrast to the hardness that encased Ryder Douglas.
She would never forget the day she’d met him, having been riding to the Landry spread as he was riding out to town to pick up something for Sara.
That long stare he had given her under the brim of his flat crowned hat. The kind of fire that skittered over her skin and down her spine. She had said something polite. To be honest, his inflexible face and cynical expression had intimidated her as much as his manner of dress. The strapped down colts and poncho, the leather trousers molding to his lower half—and the, don’t even think about it, I am trouble, expression on his face.
It was later, when she’d gone riding with Corey that they ended up with a moment alone while Corey talked to some hands on the range. That day she was dressed in trousers and blouse, her boots, and Ryder was sitting his horse with his hat brim low, a cheroot in his teeth, his clothing dusty from range work and squint lines a little harsher beside his eyes.
“I’m Jordan.” She had offered her gloved hand.
His hands had been folded on the saddle horn, holding the reins in a relaxed manner. She however sensed he was alert.
“I know who you are,” he had said in a tone that relayed he didn’t care who she was and didn’t make polite conversation.
“You’re Ryder?” She had arched her brow.
“Yes.” Something had flicked in his eyes after he looked her over. However, he hadn’t said anything else that day.
It took another week and a half before they met again. She had been seeing to the mount she had rode, in the barn, and he’d entered to stall his own. Merely looking up as she’d walked past—
Determined not to be polite to him anymore, because she was fed up with hard assed men. She had stopped short, doubting her own ears when he'd offered; “You’re a born horsewoman.”
Turning on her heel, she met his gaze for a second, until he looked back to his task, lifting the saddle off and setting it aside.
“Thank you. I’ve always enjoyed it.”
He’d put the tack up and went to brushing his horse, as if the conversation was finished.
Already having figured out he was A, a man of few words. B A hard assed and cynical one. C, one with demons he kept to himself, and E someone who didn’t like her eastern ways and accent. Paying her that compliment or acknowledging her skill, likely choked him—she nonetheless took off her hat and strode to where he brushed the horse down.
Leaning her arms on the stall door, Jordan looked him over and noted his height, the masculine things about his build that any red-blooded woman would. The edge of hardness and aloofness just added to it.
She should not find such raw and rugged harshness alluring. She should not care or be fascinated by the fact he was not like the other hands; polite and flirty, willing to talk. His manner of dressing with a Mexican flare aside, there was something of the gambler and rambler there. Something that warned people off and made him a lone wolf.
“Do you know who my real father is?”
He murmured, “Just because I don’t waste talk, don’t mean I don’t listen.” Hanging the brush on the peg, he had faced her, waiting for her to step back so he could open the stall door. She did and he had said in passing, “Don’t appear to have disadvantaged you much.”
She took it he referred to the quality of her clothing and voice. By then she guessed Corey or Sara had passed on her education and basically her life story. Leaning back against the closed stall door, while he tossed that poncho over his shoulder and washed his hands, she supplied, “The facade can hide many things, if we try hard enough.”
He had dried his hands and turned, the flipped back poncho showing an embroidered black shirt. “You waiting for me to express sympathy for who your Ma was, or that your old man didn’t claim you?”
She had flushed and being full in her bitterness at that time, Jordan reacted inwardly to that. But said only, “Not at all. I merely sensed your contempt for either my accents or my appearance—”
“And you wanted to remind me, that all your advantages were disadvantages?”
“I do beg your pardon,” her own tone was icy. She pushed away and made to go past him. “I mistook your compliment as a sign you may actually be capable of civil conversation. My mistake.”
She had made it to the door, sensing he was behind her, when he drawled, “It was an observation.”
She stopped and whirled around. “Must you be rude?”
“Yeah—I must.” His brown eyes held hers.
“I’ve done nothing to you. In fact, I don’t even know you,” she had supplied. “Nevertheless, I won’t bother you again.”
“You’ll bother me,” he had murmured after she’d turned. Jordan was already walking when she heard that and his muttered, “You’ll bother me too damn much.”
With the bitter venom of her own problems with Finn in her veins, at that time, she had managed to make her word a truth. That didn’t mean she wasn’t aware of him. She always was. That didn’t mean their gazes didn’t meet, and she didn’t feel him looking at her.
It took time to realize what he meant by that parting comment. When it dawned on her—she’d been hot and restless too many nights, muttering to herself that she’d never, ever, entangle herself with a man like that. She would find some equally compelling creature of the opposite sex to stir her. Having been east again, boarded trains with dozens of them, had them flirt with her in several states, no one had compared to that flinty faced loner.
There was too, that day on the porch, the day that she’d attended the celebration of Morgan’s recovery. She wasn’t sure what got into her. She’d been working hard on the ranch with Lucas. Been worried about Morgan, and yes, she’d been trying to prove her McCabe blood by ranching until she dropped in the bed at night, with every bone aching.
Ryder had been on the porch, reared back in that chair, the poncho flipped back over his shoulders. His skin a little more sun browned, dressed in a cream embroidered shirt with puff sleeves and fancy cuffs, a pair of sinful brown leather trousers with conchos, that molded to his long legs. His fancy Spanish boots. She had seen him watching her, felt him eyeing her from the time she arrived. Even though his reared back posture in that chair, the clamped in his teethed cheroot, made him appear not to.
/> She’d felt that tension, that kind of awareness so often around him. Now she put it down to being tired and too distracted to care, but she’d gone to stand against the porch support—basically in front of him and beside the boot, he had propped. It was not that his face wasn’t still harsh and sinewy, or that his brown eyes shaded by the brim of his hat were any more welcoming, but something impulsive pushed her to break her own decree of not speaking to him.
She’d said, “You seem to impress people, despite your lack of conversation. Noah and the hands, some of whom helped with our fall round up, couldn’t stop singing your praises. Sara tells me you’ve held a foreman’s position.”
“You don’t want to talk about my ranching skills.”
“I don’t?”
“No.” He’d moved the cheroot and looked her up and down. “I don’t play with fancy little school girls. You’ve figured that out by now.”
“Oh, Yes.” She’d not looked away even though she felt the sting of his words. “I’ve ignored my own good manners in your case and avoided you, too.” She let her own gaze travel over him, head to toe in an obvious way. Meeting his gaze again she murmured, “Am I still bothering you, Ryder?”
He had stilled for a moment and then tossed the cheroot. After looking around, apparently to make sure they were unheard, he stared at her and offered, “You’re looking a mite too deep at me, Miss Jordan—to see where I’m bothered. It’s a little below my gun belt.”
She’d flushed.
He’d added, “That’s all you’ll get here.”
“No thanks.”
He had smiled cynically. “I didn’t think so. Now, since we’ve established you’re too green to disguise a little attraction, and curiosity, behind pretending to be polite, and I’m only interested in one thing, why don’t you go back to ignoring me—for your own sake.”
“You don’t have to be so discourteous,” she had accused, oddly aroused behind her anger. Mostly angry. “Nor so crude, either.”
“What I’m being, is blunt,” he retorted softly, his eyes still not so soft. “I don’t need your conversation. I don’t even need your politeness. I do not intend to flirt with you like the hands do, or exchange stories about our history. I’m a hard man and I make no excuses for it—because I make no promises to people who expect more. You know what your appeal is. If you want something besides sex, there are plenty of men who will oblige you.”
Jordan flinched inwardly, aware her anger showed. She realized that he was calling her little more than a child. Later, she would realize that everything he did fit his standoffish character. He was telling her he had nothing more to offer, nor would he.
The last thing she’d said to him was, “Well then, if I ever speak to you again, they’ll be no mistaking, on either side, why I’m doing it.” Her stare had raked him slowly, and she’d made her voice a bit husky and low saying, “Just so we’re both clear, let me be equally as blunt. My temper can run hot or cold, we McCabe’s are like that. But my blood and body demand a little more than you appeal to at the moment.” Her gaze lingered just at the lacing on his crotch. “Why don’t you work on that, while I’m “graduating.”
Opening her eyes on a snort at her own bravado, Jordan collected her things and headed for her house. She strode thinking mostly of how good it would feel to take off her boots and strip out of the suit, rattle around in her robe, with some coffee. Now that the tense part was over, she’d been found acceptable by the “good townsfolk” of PineFlatts—she could finally relax.
Reaching her house, she entered the parlor and left her hat and gloves on the side table. She made her way up the polished stairs, to the cream and rose bathing room. An hour later Jordan still lay in deep bubbles and scented water, her toes peeking through as she had her feet propped on the bottom rim.
Frowning she did a fast sift through the past year and lost count of the times she’d seen Ryder Douglas, lost count of their eyes meeting and her looking away.
When she and Rose went over swatches in the Landry parlor, or she rode with the sisters, he always came up in general conversation because he, along with Noah, ran the spread. She understood from Corey that Sara and he exchanged letters, which he didn’t share. That they had been close. However, both knew how to keep their secrets.
She also got the idea he wasn’t completely distant with his nieces. According to Corey, he was a serious taskmaster who worked himself just as hard. He was a man who focused on what he did, and one who could work well with other men but didn’t make friends. It was about respect, she knew. In addition, perhaps his being a Forman before drew some line with him. That didn’t explain much of his hardness though.
Jordan remembered confiding in Corey this year that she’d bought a bottle of champagne for her birthday. She’d been in a hotel back east, and half way through drinking it, she’d started thinking of Ryder—been tempted to board a train, ride to the ranch, and take the only thing he could offer. Corey had laughed, but surprisingly told her that temptation was something she completely understood. She’d confided in Jordan, that she’d been tempted by several men the last few years. Jordan only wished there was someone she wanted half as much.
She still had days, nights, hours, like that. Mostly, after she’d seen him. She wondered things she would not let herself find out. If he went into town to one of the brothels, mostly. She didn’t want to know. She was old enough now to figure he’d been betrayed or deeply hurt by a woman, or women. She knew from living around the men she did—that men like that weren’t giving out flowers and pretty words, and courtship.
Truth be known, there were nights her natural hungers completely understood that nothing but the sex attitude. If she could bring herself to notice another man, she’d have already gained some experience. She didn’t want another man. She was actually, after the long winter—convinced that she might— if she’d sleep with Ryder, get him out of her system. It was that want what you can’t have thing, she was half-sure. The obsessive thinking of him—was just that.
Jordan sat up, slicked her fresh washed hair back and then stood, sleuthing scented water off her skin. Her body wasn’t bad; long waist and pert breasts, not overly large, but full. She had long legs and was fit.
Later, in her bedroom, she sat at the vanity, in her peach silk robe. Her long cinnamon hair was damp and framing her face. Nose slim, bones angular. She had no complaints about her dark pink lips and green eyes. That listing answered no questions either. She knew he wanted her. She knew, he could obviously resist her. It was bloody frustrating to keep wanting him.
She went to her bed and lay there, adding the picture of him today, with all the others she filed away for her private thoughts. Ryder had been around, having escorted Rose and Corey. He’d spoken to her hands, nodded to a few townsfolk. He had watched her, dammit. She’d felt him a dozen times as if he were touching her.
One look, one exchange, as he sat far down the table and ate. She’d been toasting with champagne and he had raised his glass, for a split second as she drank, and he did, their eyes held. It had not been the bubbles that made her tingle. It was those velvet brown eyes were by turns closed and yet hungry.
Chapter Ten
Alex had slept in his office again, taking clothing to the hotel, bathing and changing, coming right back.
He seriously needed more life than this. Thinking of life, something besides work, invariably brought an image of Corey Landry to his mind. Once he stopped seeing Corey as Falon and Rose’s younger sister, Alex began to enjoy her company more. Corey fascinated him, with her, I am what I am, character. There was a touch of minx in her, too.
She was obviously not as at ease at socials where she wore some very lovely dresses—the impeccable Rose doubtless picked out. They always flattered Corey, showed her feminine figure. Her eye rolls at compliments on it were telling.
Her dancing improved. Alex admitted she moved very well. There was nothing like observing her at the ranch. It was there she was most confi
dent and at ease. Where she fascinated him most.
Alex didn’t think he had met many women who moved in a man’s world and spoke their language the way Corey did. She had quite a talent for cursing. Though he never forgot she was a woman, simply because she was attractive, had curves—well displayed in snug denim trousers and chambray shirts, too. He was used to her cropped curls, and rather thought they suited her. Alex admitted to himself that he relaxed around Corey Landry, because she had no pretenses. It was actually very easy to forget everything—and just enjoy himself in her presence.
Being in her presence—was normally at socials, or when she came to the McCabe home, he lived in with Lucas and Falon, and sometimes Falon’s son Asher. However, Alex had been thinking over this year, that he would like to buy some land and build his own house. He was considering asking Corey to go with him to look at a few places.
She was certainly amusing and stimulating company. Rose was busy wedding planning, Jordan with the Academy, he knew Corey had hardly been off the ranch since the spring foaling. Alex mused he would take a buggy and pack a picnic.
He needed to get out of PineFlatts for a change too. For a man determined not to go into law, he ended up doing just that. Now—there was pressure from some of the township for him to sit on boards, councils, oversee all sorts of things. The banker was at the hotel where he had lunch, three times a week—talking about a possible career in politics.
Alex was starting to feel that mire around his feet, like he had most of his life, being a Croft. For a while, he thought he could dream of something different, something opposite. Hell, out here, he had thought he could find something else in himself— besides that.
Grunting, he stood and collected his suit coat. Closing blinds before he left the office and locking the door. Alex had the land maps in his briefcase and headed out of town, toward the Landry spread. He could pick Corey up in the morning if she agreed to join him. Bloody hell, yes. He admitted it was with a bit of that suffocated panic of ending up just like two hundred years of miserable ruthless Croft’s that he didn’t want to delay.