“Okay.”
“Paul. What’s the ‘I’ on the money clip for?”
“I don’t know. Nobody knows anything about Boyfriend except that if you have a debt and can get him a girl, the younger the better, he’ll take care of it. He’s one shadowy dude.”
“He needs to go to prison with a bunch of very large, very lonely guys. He’s lower than hired assassins. If Bonnie had gone—”
“Don’t.” A stone-cold hiss stopped her. “I have a lot to explain about the fire, but I wasn’t going to let Bonnie go with him. I’d have let them kill me first.”
“Then prove it. Fix this, Paul.”
“Look, I gotta go. Hector’s coming in. Make sure Bonnie doesn’t lose that . . . thing.”
“We could send it to you.”
“I suggested that. He won’t let me give out even a P.O. Box that anyone could follow. It’s in person or . . .”
“This is insane.”
“Yeah. Just don’t be stupid. Boyfriend is serious and Hector is scared. That makes him crazier than ever.”
“All right. I get it.” She hesitated, worry creeping back under the edges of her tough act. “Paul, be careful. Please.”
“I’m fine for now.”
“Thanks for letting me know you’re okay.”
“Yeah. I’m glad you are, too. Are you far away?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I guess. Talk to you later. Say hi to Bon.”
He was gone before she could ask any more questions. For several long moments she stared at the phone.
And had no idea what to do.
DAVID GLARED AT the two women in front of him and held back a curse. “Did I or did I not expressly tell you I don’t wish to talk to my father?” He swung his eyes from his mother to Kate. They sat over their Monday morning coffee and oatmeal after having dropped their bombshell. Neither gave a blink, much less an apology.
“You need to talk to him,” his mother said simply. “He helped you get off the ground. You have to share your difficulties.”
“I do not. I paid back his loan years ago, and none of this is your business. Either of you.”
Kate shrugged. “Blame me as much as your mum. I maybe pushed the hardest to call your father. I want you to succeed.”
“After all these years, Kate? Just how did you come to that?”
“I understand why you’re put out with me, but maybe I decided long ago I’d made a mistake by letting you go.”
“Letting me go? As I recall, it was much closer to, ‘David, don’t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out.’”
Contrition, practiced and perfect, filled her features. “You’re absolutely right. But time and experience have shown me they don’t come much kinder and harder working than you.”
“Well, bully for me, Kate. That doesn’t mean you get to come waltzing back and make decisions for me.”
“Of course not. I’m sorry. But you do know we could avoid all this completely if you’d just think about forgiving me a little and letting me help. We were good together once. We might be again.” She smiled up at him like a kid asking for a new puppy—all innocence and cunning.
“Kate . . .” he warned.
“She’s right, sweetheart. Maybe it’s you two who should talk.” His mother winked.
He ignored her. “I need you to call Da’ and tell him not to come. Rio had some good ideas to start with. I’m not going to lose the farm over an accident. There’s insurance.”
With an eight-thousand-dollar deductible. And the young driver of the truck had had only collision, no comprehensive. At one point, he’d had that amount put away for just such an emergency, but that cushion was gone. And he wasn’t going to give these two any such details. Not when the matchmaking gloves had officially come off.
“He’s already booked his ticket. He was quite excited to come. Said something about this being serendipity, as a matter of fact.”
“Mum.” He stared, breathing heavily, gaining composure. “I don’t like this.”
“It’s all right.” She smiled. “Sit down and eat something. You had a stressful weekend.”
“I’ll grab a granola bar in the office in the barn. Has Rio been through here yet?”
“She’s working early at the restaurant now, remember?” Kate said, as if she felt sorry for such plebian necessities.
“Damn.” Disappointment stabbed swift and sharp.
“‘Damn?’” Kate looked peeved. “What did you need? Maybe I can help.”
“Nothing—a question about the hay bloke. I’ll ask her this afternoon.”
“You aren’t really going to buy from a supplier three hundred miles away? That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if it saves me several hundred dollars. Assuming the hay is decent.”
“Big assumption.”
“Perhaps.” He purposefully switched subjects. “Are you two going out today?”
“No. We’re painting the sewing room and doing up the curtains. We were just thinking we should get the far room done, as well. The one Rio is in. That way we’ll have everything but the upstairs loo done.”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t paint Rio’s room without checking. She mentioned doing it herself once. Haven’t a clue if she’d still like to.”
“I should think you’d get to say,” Kate replied.
“What would ever make you suggest that? I don’t get a say about anything here.”
He left, sorry for being so blunt, but not for finally speaking the truth. And Kate. He didn’t want her sudden interest any more than he wanted his father back at Bridge Creek.
He pushed Kate out of his mind and focused his anger on his dear old da’. Colin Pitts-Matherson was half the dictator David had described and half Michael Caine dash and urbanity. He could charm or intimidate at will. During the three months he’d spent in Minnesota the past summer, he’d brought in much-needed business, but he’d overrun the place with his King Kong–sized ego. David had learned a lot—including that he’d made the right choice by not following in his father’s footsteps.
He could and would never live up to the Colin P-M legend, and his mother had just driven another nail into that coffin. She’d made it excruciatingly simple. He’d suffer through trotting out one more failure in front of his father—and then it would be over. Until the next time.
“HOW ARE THEY doing?”
Rio’s voice pulled him sweetly out of a reverie four hours later. He turned and leaned against the fence holding in his twelve new horses as she climbed onto the bottom rail and draped herself over the top one like a ginger sprite. His heart lifted in that way he still didn’t understand.
“I think they’re coming out of shell shock,” he said. “I’m starting to see a little personality. The bay over there, he’s the alpha. The two chestnut mares there are still vying for top girl. The little pinto holds his own, and your little palomino doesn’t make any waves.”
“She’s so pretty.”
They’d found the undersized three-year-old filly on their second trip. Rio had nearly cried at the wretched little thing huddled in a corner. There’d been no doubt she’d be one of their twelve.
“Look at them,” she continued. “Like a microcosm of society. All colors, all vying for place and status, all just needing to be safe and have a good life. You’re a good guy, you know.”
“Good. Crazy. Is there a difference in this case?”
She smiled softly. “Do things feel any better in the light of a new week?”
“Well, I did contact your hay guy. He sounds legitimate so I guess that’s a step toward better. I ordered three hundred and fifty bales. If I didn’t thank you enough, then I say it again.”
A flush blossomed beneath her dusting of freckles. “I’m glad. It’s just a drop in the bucket, I know, but at this point, every little bit could help.”
He fisted his hands on the fence rail and rested his chin on them. “My mother, of course, thinks if I can’t solve a
ll problems with one blow, it’s a waste of time. They’ve called my father up from Florida.”
“Kate actually told me, too. They were going to wait until he was about to arrive to tell you, but I said I’d tell you myself if they didn’t do it right away. They weren’t happy with me butting into your life.”
“Why does that not surprise me? Well, I’m more grateful for your support than you know. All I can say is batten down your hatches. If you think my mother is a tigress, wait until you meet Colin.”
“Mussolini, didn’t you call him?”
“Dictator mixed with Hollywood. He could order Attila the Hun to retreat and charm him out of his woman at the same time.”
“You got the charming DNA anyway.”
“Oh, it’s stand-up comedy time, is it?”
“Come on, you ooze charm, buster.”
“Ooze, ’eh?”
“You’re not terribly mean or forceful, though. More’s the pity.” A sudden, sultry little grin enflamed him.
“You don’t know as much as you think you do.”
With a growl that released all the pent-up frustrations from the weekend and the day, he encircled her waist with both arms and dragged her off the fence. She screeched and laughed uproariously as he spun her in his arms and pushed her backward. Her laughter stopped when he braced her against the side of the barn, bunched her shirt up with one impatient hand, and covered her mouth with his.
Her groans jolted his body into its hard response, and he pressed his pelvis into hers while his fingers pushed her bra up and over the round globe of her breast.
She dragged her mouth from his with a gasp when he grasped her nipple between his fingers. Her hips thrust forward and she dug into his glutes to yank him forward.
“Yessssss!”
The sibilance of her cry dove straight into his loins, and it was all he could do to stop himself searching out her zipper and his and taking her fully against the barn’s cool, white metal siding.
“You’re beautiful. Have I told you that?” he whispered.
“I want your shirt off.”
“I want everything of yours off.”
“I’m serious.”
She wedged her hands between them and seconds later was working the buttons of his plaid shirt. Warmth hit his belly, cascaded down his legs, and threatened the strength of his knees when she parted the shirt and exposed his skin to her ravenous fingers. The thought they might get caught out here in the middle of the day should have been ice water on his crazed desire, but the danger only fanned the flames.
“Rio . . .” He swallowed as her lips found the sternum line between his pecs. “This is not safe.”
“Too late. You started it.” Her lips moved butterfly-like down his stomach. The shivers that followed hit hard and deep. “Have I ever told you you’re beautiful?”
“You’re a crazy woman.”
She laughed, husky and vibrating, and continued her journey to the waistband of his breeches. His breath caught in his throat. His imagination took off to a dangerous place.
Her lips followed.
She kissed the swell of his erection, and he nearly choked. For a blissful second he allowed it, tempted to grasp her head and hold it there. Instead he groaned and dragged her up by the elbows.
“I know we can’t get away with that here. Do you see what happens if I let my mean and forceful side have its way?”
“I love it.” She pushed the shirt off his shoulders and pulled it from his arms. “Hel-lo, you magnificent man.”
“Now, that’s ridiculous.” He grinned as she stroked his shoulders, ran her palms down his biceps and forearms, and circled his wrists.
“Your name is David, right? I believe you were friends with some guy named Michelangelo.”
Their laughter bubbled joyfully, and he swapped their holds, grabbing her wrists and pinning her to the wall once more.
“You’re completely mad. Where do you dredge up such nonsense?”
He released her wrists and pushed up her T-shirt with both hands this time. The breast he’d exposed earlier still awaited him, the deep bronze aureole pebbled, the nipple erect and inviting. Bending sideways he took it into his mouth, letting all the textures tease him, as if he wasn’t already uncomfortable enough.
“David, David, David,” she murmured, the sounds coming from deep in her throat. “I think you could make it happen just like this.”
“That would make me happier than you can imagine.”
With a swift, desperate motion he dropped one hand to the juncture of her thighs and pressed. Her buckled-knee reaction gratified him to his toes.
“No!” To his surprise she shoved his hand away, whimpering. “Same as you—we can’t do this here.”
“Let’s find a place where we can.”
“Tonight?”
“You really want to wait?”
“Of course not. But I’m going to. Somebody has to control your baser side.”
“Rio.” He pressed into her again, loving the slight abrasiveness of her shirt fabric against his skin. With both hands he cupped her cheeks and tilted her face to his. Red silk waves flowed over his fingers. Blue gemstones met his gaze. “I didn’t expect this. I didn’t plan any of this. Not today. Not the last three weeks. It started as pure attraction because you are beautiful. But you need to know, it’s not just that anymore.”
“It’s not,” she agreed. “Not that I know what it is.”
“A connection.”
“I want to connect tonight.”
“I’ll figure something out. Maybe—”
“Daaaavid!” The call from someone in the barn made them both jump guiltily.
“Crap!” Rio grabbed his shirt from the ground, shook it out, and handed it to him, then straightened her own clothing. “See. I had a sixth sense—”
He threw on the shirt and began buttoning from the bottom. She took it from the top.
“Tonight,” she whispered, rose on her toes to kiss him, and disappeared around the end of the barn leaving him aching and wondrous.
Chapter Twenty-Five
* * *
ONE LOOK AT David’s hard, fit body that afternoon had turned all thoughts of him as a safe, solid presence upside down. Suddenly he was sexy and dangerous, and Rio craved time with him like a suffocating woman would crave air. But if there was some cosmic plan, God, Providence, or the Universe, was being just plain cruel.
The doorbell rang at seven-fifteen that evening. When David answered it, his speechless stare and the man he let into the foyer sent her hopes for the night spiraling into disappointment. She recognized him immediately. Thick hair, the same sable brown as David’s, waved across his forehead, and the same slender, muscular build filled out neat gray Dockers and a pale gray, V-neck sweater over a yellow polo with its collar preppily turned up. There was no doubt that, a full day early, Colin Pitts-Matherson had arrived.
“Da’.” David finally held out his hand, which Colin took without hesitation in an impersonal but cordial greeting.
“David.”
His mother bustled to the door. “Colin? Good heavens. We were planning to fetch you tomorrow.”
“Hello, Stella.”
Colin embraced his ex-wife with a good deal more warmth than he’d offered his son.
“We were waitlisted for an upgrade on our scheduled flight. I got a call this morning saying some first class seats were available on today’s but not ours. It seemed fortuitous to take them.”
The man definitely had clout. Airlines didn’t simply call the average person up and let him change his flights. And now that he was inside, he owned this room, too, with sheer presence.
“Well, come in then,” Stella said. “See who else is here.”
“You said you had a surprise. I, too, have brought someone along.”
For the first time, Rio noticed the quiet figure behind Colin. Taller by three inches, wiry and greyhound sleek, with a broad forehead and prominent nose, he waited patiently.
“How do you do?” David shook the stranger’s hand.
“Carter Maxwell,” the man replied in a sonorous voice—American, not British.
“David,” his father said. “Carter here might just be the answer to all your troubles.”
“I have troubles?”
“Don’t be obtuse. Pride and posturing have no place in a well-run business. Maxwell here has an interesting proposition for you. But we’ll get to that in good time. You should know, this is very fortuitous timing.”
“I see.” David’s face said he didn’t see at all.
“Now. What’s this lovely surprise I’ve been promised?” Colin strode into the living room, leaving his black, soft-sided suitcase next to the door.
David gestured for Carter Maxwell to follow. The man’s strong, impassive face made him look butlerish—not American at all.
“I guess the surprise would be me.” Kate stepped forward, her voice soft, the lift of her head self-assured, pleased.
Colin’s eyes widened in unmistakable joy. “Katherine? Am I dreaming? My dear, this is the most marvelous surprise. I never hoped to see you as part of the family again.”
“Oh Colin, I’m just a guest. I had the good fortune to run into Stella at the right time.”
“Seems as if the fates are on your side all at once.” Colin beamed at David. “Favoring you with perfect timing.”
Rio nearly choked.
“Not interested in the fates, Da’. I have guests for you to meet, as well.”
David’s smile wrapped Rio in warmth. “This is Rio Montoya and her sister, Bonnie. Ladies, my father, Colin Pitts-Matherson.”
Rio held out her hand. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
“Hi.” Bonnie smiled quickly.
His handshake was brief and self-assured. “Of course. The young misfortunates. I was dreadfully sorry to hear about your home. Glad you were able to find refuge here for a time.”
Rio rocked back in affronted surprise. Misfortunates? Refuge?
She took an unobtrusive corner seat with Bonnie while the formalities wound down in a whirl of hustle and chatter. Colin and Carter were ensconced in seats of honor, offered food and drinks, and peppered with “how are things in Florida?” questions. David was assimilated into the group like a captured human into the Star Trek Borg Collective.
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