Undercover Cowboy

by Beverly Bird

  Besides, she thought, Jack Fain was making her nervous.

  Jack watched her slam her way through the back door. She ate like a fullback, he thought, but there wasn’t a spare piece of meat on her. He was relatively sure that if he ever peeled those jeans off her he would find lean, fluid muscles beneath satin skin. And it shook him again to realize that he was even thinking of peeling those jeans off her.

  Scorpion’s woman, he reminded himself. And that was only the first of the reasons why it was probably a good idea to leave her jeans the hell alone.

  He stood up to follow her, and for one brief, deadly moment, he forgot where the assassin was. The man came in on him from his left. Jack stopped short, the hairs on his nape lifting. The assassin gave him an odd look at the way he froze. Jack hooked his hat down over his eyes and waited for some flare of understanding or recognition on the man’s face anyway.

  Nothing happened.

  Scorpion passed him, brushing close enough to him that Jack could smell his madness—a sour, lingering sort of thing that was perhaps purely in Jack’s imagination. He went outside and Jack followed him, watching a moment to make sure he stayed with the others. Then he lengthened his stride to catch up with Carly Castagne.

  “Hold up there, cowgirl.”

  She spun back to him. “Don’t call me that!”

  “Sorry. Carly.” He paused. “Carlotta doesn’t suit you,” he realized again, aloud. He thought she almost smiled.

  “That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said yet. No one but Theresa and Michael call me by my full name, so don’t get into that habit, either.”

  She started walking again. He fell into step beside her.

  “Look,” she went on, flashing those eyes up at him. “I’ve really got to get you folks practicing your riding so I can run over to the chutes. I don’t have time to chat with you, Mr. Fain.”

  “Jack. And I’d like to go with you.”

  That stopped her again. “To the chutes? What for?”

  “It sounds like something it might be interesting to see.”

  Scorpion was four steps behind him, still to his left. He was talking intently to Myra. It made Jack uncomfortable for Myra’s sake, but there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. He let his attention drift back to Carly and his grin spread more fully this time.

  “Is it me you don’t like,” he heard himself ask, “or is it men in general?” And even he wondered what this could possibly have to do with Scorpion.

  Carly gasped, hearing an echo of so many of Holly’s accusations. It hurt. Then there was the fact that she really had been trying to be reasonably polite, at least until he had ticked her off at lunch.

  “What have I done?” she cried.

  “It’s subtle,” he allowed. “Sort of a grudge with nothing to hang it on.”

  “Well, even if I had a grudge, I can’t think what business it might be of yours.”

  “Humor me.”

  She decided to do it, just for the hell of it, just to see what his reaction would be. “Okay. I don’t like you.”

  He’d expected her to be honest, and he wasn’t disappointed. He half smiled. “I can’t think of anything I’ve done to set you on edge.”

  “How about that business back at the house?” Suddenly she was angry. “I don’t trust you, Mr. Fain.” And she didn’t, she realized. But it was just a feeling…with nothing to hang it on. He just seemed dangerous. Cold and calculating and… different somehow.

  She went on doggedly, admittedly fishing. “If you’ve got a redheaded ex-wife, then my father is going to come walking into this barnyard at any moment. And let me tell you, that would startle a few people, myself included.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Dad died eleven years ago.”

  Jack felt a knock of surprise. She said it so flatly—but then he saw her eyes change, going darker.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’m over it. Now.”

  “Are you?”

  “Sure. He’s gone. I’m here. And he left a lot of responsibility on my shoulders, so if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go see to some of it.”

  There was some strong bitterness there, he realized. He would think about that later. For now he wondered where Scorpion fit into this. Coincidentally, the assassin had first killed in Dallas at roughly the same time this woman’s father had died.

  Jack began walking after her again.

  “Who’s Michael?” he asked, probing. He already knew, of course. When he’d called Paul earlier, he’d found out. “Your husband?”

  Carly glanced over her shoulder at him. “No. My brother.” She meant to leave it at that. But there was something intrusive about him, some edge that genuinely seemed to want to know more. “My ex-husband went scurrying off after someone who looked very much like Leigh, as a matter of fact, tripping over his tongue the whole way. She showed up on a Tuesday looking for a job. On Thursday, they were both gone.”

  Ah, Jack thought. So that was how it had ended for Scorpion in Oklahoma. There was a lot of bitterness there, Jack amended. He realized again that Scorpion was going to have his hands full if his plan was to tell Carlotta who he was so that he could get in her bed. He’d have a hard time even if he didn’t tell her who he was, if he just tried to start up with her from scratch. The bastard had left some scars behind.

  “We’re not all that bad,” he heard himself answer.

  Carly pulled ahead of him. “Who?” she asked.

  “Men. In general.”

  She shook her head. He wasn’t sure if it indicated denial or disinterest. “I’ve got work to do.”

  “Well, we’re not.”

  She grabbed her hat from a fence post and plunked it back on her head so that he could no longer see her eyes. “Not all of us wander off after we’ve committed ourselves to something,” he went on.

  One of her brows disappeared beneath her hat brim. “You couldn’t prove it by me.”

  Jack went on the offensive. He told himself he was doing it to gather information. He told himself he wanted to know for sure how she’d react if Scorpion revealed himself to her. “So it’s safer for you to stay ticked off at men than to give another one a chance to let you down?” he said, guessing. “Is that it?”

  Her face closed down. “Will you please excuse me?”

  She told herself she was definitely going to walk away from him this time. But then his eyes moved strangely, slanting a little toward the other guests. Carly followed his gaze, frowning. None of them appeared to be especially impatient.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked suddenly, following her instincts. They were fairly clamoring now. “You could have gone a million places if you just wanted to escape an ex-wife. Why Oklahoma?”

  His golden eyes came back to her and he tipped his hat. “I wanted to learn how to ride a horse and castrate steers, ma’am.”

  He went to join the others. She watched him go, her eyes narrowing.

  “And pigs can fly,” she muttered, her heart thumping.

  Chapter 3

  Carly left the guests in the paddocks to practice their riding. She organized them in a buddy system, hoping to prevent any major misadventure or injury. She put Winston and Leigh in one pen, with Reggie and Brad in the next. She put Jack Fain with Myra in the last one, not sure why she felt so smug about separating him from the blonde.

  She’d asked Theresa to watch over them from the house. She wasn’t overjoyed at leaving them to their own devices, but she couldn’t figure out any other way to do everything she had to do today. If the calves weren’t castrated by dusk, it wouldn’t matter how well the guests learned to ride. They wouldn’t be going anywhere.

  There was also the matter of Holly, she thought. While she was working with the guests, she had noticed her daughter striding purposefully down the driveway, her long brown hair swinging, her hands shoved with too-deliberate insouciance into the pockets of her shorts. As soon as she was able, Carly swung up on her mare a
nd cantered after her.

  “Where are you headed?” she asked when she caught up with her.

  Holly continued walking. “Becky’s.”

  Carly swallowed a groan. Becky was trouble with a capital T. She was fourteen, and had just finished her freshman year at high school. Carly hadn’t yet figured out why Becky would want to hang around with an eleven-year-old, but nothing she could think of was good.

  Still, she refrained from saying so. She could already hear Holly’s response. You have to make something bad out of everything. Why do you have to ruin everything? I’ll bet that’s why my dad left.

  And Carly would have to fight herself against telling her that she had never had a dad, that she’d had a biological father who’d been gone by the time she was born. It tore Carly’s heart out every time they had the fight, and she avoided it whenever possible.

  “I really could use your help around here today,” she said finally, instead.

  “Becky’s dad is taking us to the roller rink.”

  And there it was. The gauntlet was thrown. Carly stepped carefully over it.

  “Not today, honey. It’s just not possible. I need you here.”

  Holly stopped and looked up, her eyes on fire. “Why? You said-”

  “Please,” Carly interrupted. Then she heard her own pleading tone, and she was angry at herself.

  The kid was eleven years old! Holly needed parental authority, not some woman who was tiptoeing around her, wary of starting a fight! So why did Carly always feel so guilty for laying down the law?

  Because you can’t give her a daddy.

  “Not today,” she said again, tightly. “Aunt Theresa’s watching the guests to make sure nobody falls off. But if they do, there’s not a lot she’ll be able to do about it in her condition. So hang around for a while just in case she needs your help. I’ll drive you to the rink myself, tomorrow.”

  She turned her mare around before Holly could protest any further. How she was going to find the time to drive into town tomorrow was anybody’s guess.

  Holly watched her mother go. Her throat hurt. She hated this place! All anybody ever did was work. What her mom needed was a foreman—she had heard her and Aunt Tee talking about that a lot. Then maybe she wouldn’t be so busy all the time. Maybe she’d be nicer. Maybe she’d find a husband. Maybe they’d be normal.

  Holly felt tears burn at her eyes. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing worse in the world than being different.

  Then, suddenly Holly’s thoughts broke off as something interesting happened back at the paddocks. One of those goofy tourists—the one who was kind of handsome, even if he was old—left the place where he was supposed to be riding and went after her mom.

  Holly started walking back toward the house. Something strange and squirmy happened to her heart. Something like hope.

  Maybe hanging around this afternoon wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  Carly passed the paddocks and took off down a well-worn path that ran beside them. Jack let her go maybe a hundred yards before he went after her.

  She had expressly warned them not to do anything other than walk their horses and get used to them. She’d said she’d be back within the hour and they could speed things up then. But by the time Jack cleared the fences, she was nearly out of sight. The rutted trail wound its way past a huge oak that spread out its ageless branches to shield the sun from that part of the path. He lost her in the shadows there.

  There was no help for it.

  “Giddy-up,” he muttered to his horse, feeling foolish. “Come on, you old beast, get the lead out.” The horse twitched its ugly, split ear and plodded along obstinately.

  Well, when in Rome, Jack thought. He didn’t have spurs but he figured he could make up for that with impact. He thumped his heels hard into the animal’s sides.

  The horse bolted.

  It happened so abruptly that Jack almost toppled backward. He grabbed the saddle horn to keep himself from falling. He lost his hat, but it didn’t matter because Scorpion was back in the paddocks and with any luck he would stay there. Luck was half the game, after all.

  Jack had almost reached her when he finally made some sense of the horse’s rhythm and instinctively began moving his hips along with it. It didn’t matter. Carly Castagne was hot as a hornet anyway.

  “Let’s get one thing straight, cowboy, “ she snapped when he sawed on his reins, stopping beside her. “When I say jump, then you jump. If I say stand still, you don’t move a muscle. Got it? There are five other people in this group and I won’t let you put them in danger of getting hurt. If you had done this stupid, imbecile, macho act while they were still close to you, every one of their horses would have taken off after you! And maybe they wouldn’t have had your thick-brained luck and stayed on!”

  Jack wiped the back of his wrist over his forehead. She had a point and he wouldn’t argue with her.

  “Sorry. I have a few questions.”

  Impossibly, suddenly, Carly felt like crying. She did not need this. There was so much work to be done between now and the time they left, it was mind-boggling. And she had just added another errand to the list.

  By next week this feeling of helpless desperation would pass. She knew that. It always did after the dust settled from these auction trips. But right now the last thing in the world she needed was six tourists on her hands, one of whom was arrogant, hardheaded and looking at her with golden eyes that made her feel…entirely too much like a woman again.

  Her heart constricted as she realized that that was what had been bothering her about him from the start. It was the way he looked at her, as if he knew her. As if he knew every good, sweet thing about her. And to hear Holly tell it, there were precious few of those.

  But her mind was reluctant to stay on Holly now.

  He had lost his hat. His hair was golden, too, she noticed for the first time. He must have spent a good bit of time outdoors in the not-too-distant past, because it was sun-bleached, almost two-toned, with streaks of rich brown near the roots.

  She didn’t have time to be noticing this.

  She didn’t want to notice, she thought, panicked. She had been alone for a very long time now, and she had learned that the best way to handle that was to avoid the ache that inevitably came when she allowed herself to think about what she was missing.

  Jack watched her lay her calves ever so gently against her mare’s ribs. Her horse started moving again. He followed her lead and his own horse began walking sedately beside hers. Easy enough, he thought, if you knew what you were doing.

  “What do you want to know?” she asked wearily.

  He’d meant to ask her about the terrain they’d be crossing and heard himself wonder instead, “Don’t you have anyone to help you around here?”

  Her chin came up a notch, almost as though she was warding off the world. Alone. He had seen her eyes change for a moment there, going vulnerable, looking overwhelmed for the space of a heartbeat. For the first time he wondered what her life was like. It struck him that it probably wasn’t easy, and it was about to get worse. He felt an alarming, amazing shaft of regret.

  A pawn. She’s just a pawn.

  “Plank and Gofer,” Carly answered flatly. He had almost forgotten his question. “And two other part-time guys on those rare occasions when I can pay them.”

  “You’re the owner, right?”

  “One-third. Along with my sister—Theresa—and my brother, who you probably won’t meet. There hasn’t been enough money in recent years to hire too much help.”

  She rode with easy grace, just slouched enough to appear thoroughly relaxed…or very tired.

  “I didn’t realize Theresa was your sister,” he said idly, digging.

  Carly shrugged. That startled everybody. Theresa was so voluptuous and feminine, even when she wasn’t pregnant, and she had those big, dark eyes. They didn’t look much alike.

  “She takes after my father,” Carly said. “She got all the Spanish genes
. I caught a few from my mother’s side.”

  “So where’s your mother?”

  “Dead, like Dad.”

  Jack’s brows shot up.

  “Cancer got Mom,” she went on, reading his expression. “Then Dad just…died. He wasn’t much without her.”

  “And you were left to hold everything together,” Jack guessed.

  Carly scowled at him. “It wasn’t like that,” she said defensively. Yes, it was.

  “Whose idea was it to take in tourists?”

  She flinched visibly. “The IRS.”

  Ah, Jack thought. “And Holly’s your daughter?”

  She slanted her eyes his way again. “Well, aren’t you just smarter than the average bear?”

  Jack’s mouth quirked halfway to a grin. “She looks like you.”

  “No. She looks like her father.”

  Not really, Jack thought, not if they were talking about Scorpion. Still, it had been a very long time since Scorpion had looked like himself, and Jack wanted to make sure.

  “The guy who went after the blonde?” he asked. “So Holly is…what? About eleven?”

  Carly nodded.

  They were coming up on the chutes. Jack could see a knot of people working in the distance. “So how rough is this country we’re going to be crossing?” he asked suddenly.

  Her spine straightened a little at the change of subject. “Don’t worry. I’ll get everyone over it, man and beast alike. I always do.”

  “Describe it to me.”

  Carly scowled at him. “Why? You’ll see it when you see it. I wouldn’t take you anywhere that I didn’t think you could get through, believe me.”

  “Call it inherent caution.”

  A sensation like butterflies fluttered briefly in her tummy. It didn’t have anything to do with the way he looked at her this time. It was all well and good to take his money, she thought, to drag him across Oklahoma and Kansas and deposit him at the other end of the trail. But for the first time she wondered if it was going to be that simple.