by Linda Turner
Tossing a mental coin, he decided to explore through the door to the left, but before he could make a single move, he heard a noise at the top of the stairs. Freezing, all senses on alert, he glanced up, ready to explain that he was there for biscuits and didn’t know where the kitchen was. But the words never left his mouth. He took one look at Lise in her nightgown and robe, her waist-length auburn hair flowing past her shoulders, and his mind went completely blank.
Chapter 2
She had no right to look so captivating so early in the morning, he thought with a frown. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d been expecting him and had set out to knock the air out of his lungs. The gown and robe she wore covered her body like a sack and were hardly flattering. But still, he was somehow seduced. It was her hair, he told himself. A woman with hair like that could tempt the devil himself. And Lord knew, he was no saint. All too easily, he could picture her naked in his bed, her fiery locks spread out, giving him tempting views of her body as she smiled and held out her arms to him.
Then his gaze lifted to her face, and he realized it was a hell of a lot more than her hair that attracted him. She had an innocence about her, a total lack of awareness of her own beauty that he found incredibly appealing. With no effort whatsoever, she reached out and grabbed his attention just by breathing, and she didn’t even seem to know it.
But he did, and alarm bells were going off all over the place in his head. Watch it, a voice cautioned in his ear. Remember who the lady is and why you’re here. You may have to seduce her before it’s all said and done. If you don’t keep your head about you, you may end up losing it. This is Simon’s daughter, for God’s sake!
It took nothing more than that to pull him up short. Silently cursing himself for momentarily losing sight of his mission, he jerked himself to his surroundings—and his very precarious position. If she’d come down five seconds later, she’d have caught him boldly exploring the house.
He watched surprise widen her eyes, then suspicion, and didn’t give her time to wonder any longer just what the devil he was doing in her back hall. Turning on the charm to distract her, he grinned at her. “Well, if it isn’t my lucky day. Good morning, boss lady. Were you looking for me? All you had to do was whistle, and I’d have come running.”
Stopping dead in her tracks at the sight of him, Lise felt the physical stroke of his eyes and couldn’t, for the life of her, understand how he made her so breathless with just a look. Growing up around cowboys, she’d seen his kind all her life. She knew better than to take anything he said seriously.
Not, she reminded herself, that she had any personal experience with flirtatious cowboys. The ones she knew had never even noticed she was a woman, and that had always been fine with her. She knew bull when she heard it, and she’d always wondered how the women in town and at parties could fall for one load of manure after another.
Now she knew.
Caught in the trap of his boyish grin, her heart was fluttering like a schoolgirl’s, and that irritated her no end. Her delicately arched brows snapping together in a scowl, she growled, “Stuff it, Trace. What are you doing in my house?”
Not appearing the least bit offended, he held up the empty biscuit pan he’d brought with him from the bunkhouse and winked at her. “The boys want more biscuits. I’d rather have you.”
She should have laughed at his outrageousness and put him in his place—it would have been no more than he deserved. But there was something about the glint in his eye that made her all too conscious of the fact that she stood before him in nothing but her nightgown and robe. Her mouth suddenly as dry as the outback itself, all she could manage was a nod toward the door on his right. “The kitchen’s through there,” she said hoarsely. “Excuse me. I need to get dressed.”
Turning, she fled up the stairs, leaving Steve staring after her in a way that may have flattered her immensely if she’d only turned around and looked. She didn’t.
“Did I hear somebody say something about biscuits?”
Jerking his gaze from the top of the empty stairs, Steve turned to find a short, rail-thin Aboriginal watching him with small black eyes that missed little. Obviously, the man had seen Steve gazing after Lise like he’d never seen a female in her nightclothes before.
His smile rueful, Steve made no apologies for his behavior. “There’s something about a woman who can put me in my place that really turns me on,” he said honestly. Holding out his hand, he grinned. “Hi. I’m Steve Trace. You must be Cookie. Do you think you could give my mama your recipe for biscuits? I’ve never eaten anything like them in my life.”
He spoke nothing less than the truth, though he would have said the same thing if the biscuits had been as hard as rocks. In order to do his job, he needed to gain the confidence of everyone who could help him discover more information about Simon, and Cookie was right at the top of the list. A trusted servant who had his own room inside the house, he, unlike the cowboys, was in a position to know everything that was going on with Simon and his daughter.
He wasn’t, however, a pushover. If he was flattered by Steve’s compliment, he didn’t show it. He shook his hand, but only briefly. “I don’t give out my recipes,” he said curtly. “Come in the kitchen. I just took another pan of biscuits out of the oven.”
Not waiting to see if he followed, the other man pushed through the swinging door, leaving Steve silently swearing behind him. His last chance to look around now gone, he was left with no choice but to step into the kitchen.
Standing in front of the mirror, Lise adjusted the collar of her cotton blouse for the third time in thirty seconds, only to realize that she, Lise Meldrum, was primping! “Oh, God!” she whispered. Horrified, she swore and quickly dropped her hand, leaving her collar just the way it was.
“Quit being a ninny,” she scolded her image in the mirror. “The man’s playing with you and you’re falling for it. Look at yourself, for heaven’s sake! You’ve got lip gloss on!”
Wincing, she couldn’t deny it. She’d definitely taken pains with her appearance, but not because she was trying to look pretty for Steve Trace, she assured herself. She was going into town later for supplies for the roundup, that was all, and she didn’t want to look like a hoyden. What was wrong with that? It wasn’t as if she was dressing for Steve. She had work to do in the study that would keep her busy all morning, and the trip to town and back would take all afternoon. If she was lucky, she’d be able to avoid him not only for the rest of the day, but from now until they left for the roundup. After all, organizing a roundup took a lot of work, and even though she’d been doing it for years, it didn’t get any easier. Between now and the morning when horses and men were loaded into trucks to begin the trek across the bush to the wildest regions of the station, she’d work every night until midnight and be up at dawn. She had too much to do to waste a single second between now and then thinking about Steve.
Her chin set at a determined angle, she turned from the mirror, and hurried downstairs to the study. She had letters and e-mail to answer from charities and youth organizations she contributed to every year in her father’s name and that took all of her attentions. By the time she finished, it was noon and time to leave for town. Quickly dialing the bunkhouse she wasn’t surprised when Tuck answered. They spoke every day, rain or shine, about what needed to be done that day, and she didn’t know how she would have run the place without his help.
“I’m leaving for Roo Springs in five minutes,” she told him. “Send one of the boys over to go with me. I’ll need help loading everything.”
“Sure thing,” he said easily. “Oh, and don’t forget to add metal fence posts to the list,” he reminded her before she could hang up. “After that storm we had last winter, we’re bound to need them.”
“I forgot about that,” she said, quickly jotting a note at the end of the extensive list of supplies she had to buy. “At the rate we’re going, I may have to make two trips to town and back just to haul everything.”
“Good idea. As soon as I gas it up, I’ll be ready to go.”
Her mind on everything she had to do, she checked one last time with Cookie to make sure she had his final list, then grabbed the keys to the diesel truck from a hook by the back door. The second she stepped outside the blistering heat of the day hit her in the face.
And she loved it. She always had. She’d been born and raised there, and the heat and wind and grit was as much a part of her as the color of her eyes. Given the chance, she would have parked herself in the porch swing and relaxed just by watching the wind blow. As usual, however, she didn’t have the time. Tomorrow, she promised herself, and climbed into the truck to drive it over to the gas tank behind the barn.
She had a little over a quarter of a tank of gas, but it was over a hundred miles to town, and there was no place between there and home to buy anything. She had a cell phone, of course, if she got into trouble, but she could just hear Nate and Tuck and the rest of the boys, as she liked to call them, if she ran out of gas on the way to town. They’d never let her hear the end of it.
“I must be living right. Is that smile for me, boss lady?”
Caught up in her reflections, Lise jerked her attention to her surroundings to find Steve leaning against the pickup bed on the opposite side of the truck. Watching her pump gas, he had that little grin on his face that she swore he wore just to irritate the hell out of her.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
But even as she asked, she knew. He was the most expendable cowboy she had, the one who didn’t know his way around the ranch yet and hadn’t a clue how things were done in the bush. And no one had time to teach him. Which was why he was the perfect one to go with her to town. He was big and strong and could load the truck without breaking a sweat—and he could be gone for hours and would never be missed.
“And here I thought you’d be thrilled we were going to spend the day together,” he replied teasingly, flashing his dimples at her. “Now I’m hurt.”
A quick retort sprang to her tongue, but she bit it back, refusing to give him the satisfaction. No, she told herself grimly. She wasn’t going to let him push her buttons so easily. So she ground her teeth on the sassy words and said instead, “I don’t have time for your jocularity. Get in the truck, Trace. It’s time to go.”
“Whatever you say,” he said with an easy grin. “You’re the boss.”
It was, Lise decided, going to be a long day.
It wasn’t, however, until she slid behind the wheel and joined him in the cab of the truck that she realized just what she’d been set up for. The diesel wasn’t one of those little midget trucks that was only big enough for two small people. It was big and roomy and had a cab that could, if necessary, hold up to four regular-size adults.
The problem was, Steve wasn’t a regular-size adult.
Lise knew she was no slouch when it came to size, but Steve made her feel like one of those small, delicate women who couldn’t open a door without using both hands. Lord, he was big! Her heart thumping in her chest, she would have given anything not to notice, but he made that impossible. Seated on his side by the window, with nearly three feet of space between them, he seemed to fill the cab of the truck.
And it wasn’t fair, dammit! she thought as she drove out of the compound and forced herself to stare straight ahead at the road. Without sparing him a single glance, she was aware of everything about him. The irritating man didn’t have an ounce of fat on him. He was just big. He shifted on the seat, stretching out his long legs, and she could practically feel the muscles in his thighs ripple.
Swearing silently under her breath, she tightened her fingers on the wheel and sternly ordered herself to ignore him. She might as well have told herself not to breathe. He was a man who was at ease in his own skin and comfortable with who he was. Slouching in his seat, he looked like a big, lazy jungle cat lounging in the sun. She wasn’t, however, fooled by the deceptive pose. She knew better than most how fast the man could move when the situation called for it. With no effort whatsoever, she could still feel the strength of his arms as they’d closed around her when he’d swept her out from under Thunder’s hooves yesterday.
Her heart lurching at the memory, she reached over and turned the air conditioner from low to high.
Arching a brow at her, Steve grinned. “Hot?”
A blush climbed high in her cheeks. She trained her eyes straight ahead. “It’s a little stuffy in here. The truck was sitting in the sun and hasn’t cooled off yet.”
His grin broadening, he murmured, “I see.”
Afraid he did see all too clearly, she pressed her lips together tightly. If he thought she was going to trade cryptic comments with him all the way to Roo Springs, he could think again.
Silence didn’t bother her. She could drive the entire way without saying another word.
It was a good plan, but she quickly discovered that Steve wasn’t the least perturbed by her lack of encouragement. Content to carry on the conversation by himself, he settled back in his seat with a contented sigh and said, “You know something? I think I’m going to like it here. It reminds me of Wisconsin.”
She’d sworn she wasn’t going to respond, no matter what he said. And she wouldn’t have—if his statement hadn’t been so outrageous. Jerking her gaze from the road, she looked at him incredulously. “I’ll be the first to admit that my American geography isn’t the best, but isn’t Wisconsin up north? By Canada?”
His dimples winking at her, he nodded sagely. “Yep. I grew up there.”
“And Wisconsin looks like this?”
When she glanced pointedly at the desert landscape that stretched as far as the eye could see, he had to laugh. “Not exactly. We’ve got a lot more trees and it’s a hell of a lot cooler. But we’ve also got cows. My parents own a dairy farm there, and I was milking cows almost before I was old enough to walk. I bet you were, too.”
She couldn’t deny it. “We only had a few we kept for milk, though.”
He laughed as he told her about his childhood. “God, it was cold in the winter! The snow would pile up higher than the house, and sometimes it didn’t melt again until spring. But my brothers and I had a great time growing up. As soon as we finished our chores after school, we’d go ice fishing or play hockey on an outdoor rink my dad built for us.”
Lise was captivated by how Steve’s face was alight with memories, his gray eyes sparkling, as he told her about good times and bad, including when the winter storms were so bad that they lost half their cows to the cold. But then there were the summers when there were fireflies to catch and camp outs in the woods and the nights he and his brothers laid out in the grass and oohed and aahed over meteor showers high in the heavens above.
And in spite of all her best intentions, Lise found herself smiling and remembering in turn. Oh, she had never seen snow, and even in their worst winter, they’d never lost a single cow to the cold. It was the summers that were bad in the outback, the summers that could kill. She’d only been a child, but she could still recall vividly the summer that was so dry the watering holes dried up. Dozens of cows died of thirst before the ranch hands could get water to them.
She doubted that Steve had any experience with a drought or could understand why a summer rain usually meant a party, but still, they were kindred souls. As children, they’d both listened to the lonely lullaby of a cow lowing. And if he was anything like her, when twilight fell and the dew turned the air cooler, he would think there was no sweeter smell on earth than the fresh earthy scent of the land.
“I can remember frying eggs on the patio out back and going swimming at nine o’clock at night,” she said quietly, her eyes trained on the road and the past at the same time. “I went on a walkabout once with Cookie—or at least I thought it was a real walkabout—but I was just six and we were only gone for four hours. But he taught me all about life in the bush, the dan
gers and the magic of it, and I loved it.”
“He’s been here that long?”
She nodded. “Since before I was born.”
“And what did your mother say about him taking you off for four hours? Was she worried?”
“She died in a riding accident when I was five,” she said simply. “I don’t remember that time period very well, but I think that’s why Cookie took me on the walkabout. I was lonely here all by myself except for my nanny, and he felt sorry for me.”
Steve had read what little information SPEAR had on her; he’d known her mother had died some time ago. But he’d had no idea she’d died when Lise was so young. The poor kid.
Instantly sympathetic, he frowned. “What about your father? Surely he didn’t leave you here with the nanny and cook when you’d just lost your mother. You weren’t much more than a baby!”
The very idea outraged him, but she only smiled ruefully. “And he had just lost the only woman he ever loved. He adored her. Maybe if I’d taken after her more, he would have stayed, but even at five, it was obvious that I wasn’t going to be small and petite the way my mother was. He had business interests that called him away, and to be perfectly honest, I think he jumped at the chance to go. He was never happy here after Mama died. That’s why he still never stays very long. He misses her too much.”
If they’d been talking about an ordinary man, Steve might have believed that. His own father would be devastated if his mother died first. But Art Meldrum was no ordinary man. He was Simon, a traitor without an ounce of conscience who was out to destroy Jonah—the man at the helm of SPEAR—any way he could, and bring down the entire secret organization. A man like that was incapable of love. He was a monster without a heart, and although Lise had, no doubt, had an incredibly lonely childhood, she’d been blessed every time the bastard had found an excuse to leave the station.
That wasn’t, however, something she was ready to hear. So he said instead, “Then he should have taken you with him. You were just a little girl, and you’d already lost one parent. You shouldn’t have lost the other one, too.”