Backlash

by Lisa Jackson

  “Of course not.”

  “He’s not interested in the ranch, you know.”

  “He doesn’t claim to be.”

  “Look, Tessa,” Mitchell said gently. “From what I hear, McLean’s had plenty of women—so don’t get any ideas—”

  “I don’t have any ‘ideas,’” Tessa protested. “Denver doesn’t interest me in the least!”

  “Tell that to someone who’ll buy it,” Mitchell murmured.

  “You think I’m lying?”

  “Nope. I think you’re deluding yourself. Just like you always do with Denver McLean.”

  Tessa wanted to throttle her brother. Instead, she decided to change the subject before things really heated up. “What was all that baloney about Dad being in town? Where is he?”

  “At the house. Sleeping.”

  “Hung over?”

  Mitchell shrugged. “I suppose. When I came in last night, I found him on the couch, passed out.”

  “Wonderful,” Tessa said on a sigh. She slit the twine on a bale of hay and forked yellowed grass into the manger. “Denver won’t be as understanding as John was.”

  Mitchell asked, “What’s all this nonsense about you buying the place?”

  “It’s not nonsense.”

  “Just impossible,” Mitchell decided.

  “And why’s that?”

  “Financing, for one thing. Who’s gonna back you now that old John’s gone?”

  “I’ve already talked to Rob Morrison at the bank.”

  Mitchell let out a hoot. “That guy? He’s still wet behind the ears. How old is he, twenty-two? Twenty-three maybe?”

  “At least he was willing to listen to me,” Tessa grumbled.

  “Big deal. He was probably hoping to put the make on you.”

  “No way—he was interested in what I had to say.”

  “Or sneaking a peek down your blouse when you were signing the papers.”

  “Knock it off!”

  Yanking the pitchfork from her hands, Mitchell gave her a knowing look. “He’s been after you for the past six months.”

  “That has nothing to do with it.”

  “Of course it doesn’t,” he mocked, shaking some hay into the manger as he winked at his sister. A crooked smile slashed across his jaw. “But it just might work, you know. His old man does own the bank.”

  “That’s enough!” she said, ripping the pitchfork from his fingers. “I don’t have to take this abuse from you.” Or Denver McLean, she added silently. She was tired of inquisitions. “Don’t you have something more important to do than snipe at me? Maybe you could muck out the barn.”

  “Touchy this morning, aren’t we?” he teased. “I don’t suppose that has anything to do with the fact that Denver’s here.”

  “Out!” she muttered, aiming the pitchfork at his chest and jabbing playfully.

  Mitchell took off his hat in a sweeping gesture and bowed.

  She poked at him again.

  “I’m leaving already,” he said, hands raised, backing toward the door. But as he reached the doorway, he added, “Just be careful, Sis. Denver’s back. Don’t let him walk all over you.”

  “I won’t,” she swore, lowering the pitchfork a little as he turned on his heel, opened the door and disappeared.

  * * *

  Denver snapped the file closed and rubbed his eyes. It was late afternoon, and he’d been studying tax forms, income projections, profit and loss statements and invoices for nearly six hours. The sandwich Milly had left him on the corner of the desk was still there, the bread dry, the filling oozing a little.

  His stomach rumbled and he took one bite before tossing the rest back on his plate.

  Tessa hadn’t shown up at the house. He’d seen some of the crew assemble for lunch, staying only long enough to catch their names and tell a disappointed Milly that he couldn’t join them.

  Driven to check the figures and get out of this place with its painful memories, he’d worked until he saw several of the hands drive away. Though he listened all afternoon, he hadn’t once heard Tessa’s voice nor seen her through the window.

  Also, Curtis Kramer hadn’t bothered showing up at all. Not only had the old man avoided the den, but as far as Denver could tell, Curtis hadn’t set foot on the ranch. Curtis could be anywhere, Denver told himself; the ranch was huge, and much of the spread wasn’t visible from the house or this one solitary window. But still he felt uneasy. Something wasn’t right, and it gnawed at him. He twisted his pencil between his fingers and glowered at the stack of unpaid bills lying haphazardly on the desk.

  Frowning, he stretched, hearing his back crack. For the hundredth time he looked through the window. Where was Tessa and what the hell was going on here?

  * * *

  Tessa climbed a back fence. She ran through the fields to her father’s house. He hadn’t bothered showing his face all day, and his absence was glaringly obvious.

  She opened the gate and sprinted along a weed-choked path to the back door of a small, rustic cabin. Originally this house had been built as a temporary shelter for the first homesteading McLeans. Little more than three rooms, the cabin had quickly been replaced by the main house on the knoll for the McLean family. Afterward, the cabin had become quarters for the foreman and his family.

  Tessa had grown up here. She’d shared a room with her brother, Mitchell, until the age of seven, when Curtis had converted the back porch into a private room for his son.

  She glanced around the yard. The grass was yellow and dry, but the old tire swing still hung from a low branch on the gnarled maple tree near the front porch. The screen door sagged, and the hinges were so rusty they creaked as she pushed open the door. “Dad?” she called as she strode into the living room. “Dad—are you here?”

  “Back here,” he growled.

  She followed the sound of her father’s raspy voice to the kitchen alcove where Curtis was scrambling eggs over a wood stove. A cigarette burned unattended in an ashtray on the windowsill and an open bottle of beer rested near the back burners.

  “Milly’s expecting you for supper,” Tessa said softly.

  “Guess I won’t make it.”

  “You have to.”

  He shook his head. His face had become lined with the years, and the veins across his nose had broken. His hair, snowy white, had thinned, but he was far from bald. “Why?”

  “You know why. Denver’s back.”

  “Humph.” Curtis snorted in disgust and drained his bottle.

  Tessa noticed that the alcove reeked with the smell of stale beer. Empty bottles were stacked neatly back in their cases near the old refrigerator.

  “What difference does that make?”

  “A lot. He owns the place.”

  “Bah.” Curtis scraped his eggs onto a plate and held up the pan, offering some of his haphazard meal to his daughter. She shook her head and watched as he lowered himself into the same chair he’d used for thirty years.

  “Dad, listen, Denver wants to talk to you, he expects you to run the ranch—”

  Curtis reached for his beer and took a long draft. “So what’s he gonna do? Fire me?”

  “Maybe,” she said, panicked.

  “Doesn’t matter. He’s plannin’ on sellin’ the place anyway, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “But nothing. The new owner isn’t going to want a man pushin’ seventy to run the place, not even if his daughter is the best horsewoman in the state.” He smiled a little then, his faded eyes shining with pride.

  “I wouldn’t fire you.”

  He glanced up sharply.

  “I’m planning to buy the place.”

  “You?” He held his fork between his mouth and plate. “How’re you going to manage that?”

  “I’ve already talked to the bank, and if I have to I’ll sell part of my stock—Brigadier, Red Wing and Ebony.”

  Her father snorted. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve heard yet,” he muttered. “The reason you wa
nt the ranch is to breed horses, so if you have to sell Brigadier and the mares what would be the point?” He shoved a forkful of eggs into his mouth and swallowed.

  “I’ll still have the other mares,” she said. “Besides, when I buy the ranch, I’ll own the McLean stock. Including Black Magic.”

  “Magic doesn’t mean half to you what Brigadier does.”

  “I know. But he’s a great horse.”

  “I don’t know, Tessa,” her father said, leaning back in his chair to study her. “You love those horses you plan on sellin’. Seems to me you aren’t thinkin’ straight. But then maybe you can’t when Denver McLean’s around.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just what I said. You seem to lose all your common sense when that man looks your way.” Disgusted, he took another bite.

  “So do you,” she pointed out. “Denver won’t like it that you’re not working. Mitchell and I can’t cover for you all the time.”

  “Don’t bother,” Curtis grumbled as he scraped his plate into the trash. “Denver McLean’s no fan of mine. He wasn’t before the fire and he sure as hell hasn’t changed his mind in the past seven years.” He found his now-dead cigarette, frowned and lit another. “Take my advice and stay away from him.”

  “He’ll only be around a week or two.”

  “Long enough.” Blue smoke curled to the ceiling. “Maybe you should move back here while he’s at the ranch. I don’t trust him.”

  Tessa laughed. “You don’t trust him, he doesn’t trust you—this is insane.” Shaking her head, she walked to the back door. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Just be careful,” he warned, his pale lips thinning. “Denver’s not the man he was.”

  “None of us are the same.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah,” she said, yanking open the Dutch door and stepping onto the front porch. “I know. Try and show up tomorrow, okay?”

  “Don’t know why,” Curtis said, coughing.

  He was right about one thing, Tessa mused. Denver had changed. Gone was any sign of the soft-spoken young man with that special wit and genuine smile. In his stead was a cynical man, hard-featured and grim, who didn’t trust anyone.

  The wind, warm and moist, pushed the straggling strands of hair from her eyes. She squinted against the lowering sun, staring at the tall ranch house silhouetted against a blaze of lavender and pink. The house had been owned by generation after generation of McLeans, and now she intended to buy it.

  If she could.

  Gazing across the golden meadows of stubble, she watched the ruddy-hided Herefords, heads bent as they plucked at the dry grass. Calves mimicked their mothers, trying in vain to eat the tiniest scrap of straw. Maybe Denver was right. Maybe she couldn’t handle this much land alone.

  But she didn’t like being beaten, especially not by Denver McLean. Pride thrust her jaw forward mutinously.

  Halfway across the field, she saw him. Her heart somersaulted. Back-dropped by the fields and dusky hills, Denver looked again like the man she’d fallen in love with. He was still lean and trim, and his hips moved with the fluid grace of an athlete as he walked with quick, sure steps. His chest was broad, shoulders wide and he held his head high. The wind tossed his black hair away from his face, and his features, growing more distinct, weren’t as hardedged as they had seemed the night before.

  “Where’ve you been?” he asked as he met her.

  “I thought I’d check on Dad.”

  “He didn’t show up today.” It wasn’t a question.

  “No, he, er, wasn’t feeling well.” Nervously, she avoided his eyes.

  “Mitch said he went into town.”

  She couldn’t lie. He’d find out the truth soon enough. “No. Mitchell thought he had, but I took the truck in and picked up the feed.”

  “I could have come with you,” he said softly, and stupidly her pulse leaped.

  “You were busy.”

  “Not that busy.”

  They were closer to the house now, near a thicket of oaks at the corner of one field. The last rays of sun filtered through the branches, dappling the ground and casting luminous splotches on the few standing puddles that hadn’t dried from the storm.

  She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “So, have you solved all the ranch’s financial problems yet?”

  “Hardly,” he admitted, scowling.

  “You could start by selling the place to me,” she pointed out, placing herself squarely in his path. Overhead, leaves shifted restlessly in the wind.

  “Not without Colton’s consent.”

  “So get it.”

  “I will. Just as soon as I figure out where he is.”

  “Don’t you have any idea?” she asked skeptically.

  “Your guess is as good as mine. He’s been undercover so long he’s probably forgotten who he is.” Denver felt the muscles in his jaw tighten, just as they always did when he considered his younger, reckless brother and his passion for danger. Since graduating from college, Colton had been traveling as a free-lance photojournalist, assuming fake identities to gain the most spectacular, honest camera shots of men fighting wars throughout the world. “Last I heard he was in Afghanistan. But that was a few years back.”

  “John never heard from him,” Tessa said on a sigh. She reached up and grabbed one of the lowest branches of a small oak, and Denver took in the way that her upstretched arms pulled the cotton of her blouse taut over her breasts, showing all too clearly the pattern of lace on her bra and the dark peaks of her nipples.

  Denver noticed everything about her. The way her hair shimmered gold in the fading light, the dusting of perspiration across her brow, the pensive pout of her lips and the provocative swell of her breasts. Beneath her tan, he noticed the small freckles swept across her nose and the flush to her cheeks.

  Swallowing hard, he glanced away from her, concentrating instead on the cattle moving restlessly over the arid hills. “Why do you want this place?” he asked, his voice uncomfortably tight. The fragrance of her perfume caught in the breeze and swirled around him in a delicious cloud. “And don’t give me some baloney about how hard you and your family have worked here. There’s got to be more.”

  “There is. A lot more.” She let go of the branch. The limb snapped up, leaves rustling. “I’ve never wanted to live anywhere else.”

  “You haven’t been anywhere else,” he reminded her, hoping to chase away her girlish fantasies, fantasies that could trap him as easily as they had her.

  “I’ve been to Seattle, Dallas and Phoenix.” Glancing over her shoulder, she added, “John thought I should see a little more of the world.”

  Denver’s mouth thinned. “Did he?”

  “Um-hmm. He liked showing me cities I hadn’t seen.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “And of course, I went to college—not away to a campus, but I drove into Three Falls three times a week.”

  “Three Falls isn’t much in the grand scheme of things.”

  “And L.A. is?” she taunted.

  “Yes.”

  She arched one beautiful brow, saying more clearly than words that she didn’t believe him.

  “If you had ever gone there, you would have seen that Southern California is more than cars, smog, beach and Disneyland.”

  “I didn’t get a chance, did I?” she said.

  He moved quickly. One hand wrapped around her wrist and he pulled, yanking her to him. Her breasts crushed against his chest, her eyes were level with the determined line of his mouth, and she could barely breathe. “I thought we were going to put all that behind us,” he growled.

  She watched a muscle tighten in his jaw, smelled soap mingled with musk and wondered at the beads of sweat on his lip. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have said anything.” He was too close—the pressure of his arms around her too possessive. Forbidden flames licked through her blood as she shifted her gaze to those blue, blue eyes.

  “Why
do you insist on taunting me?”

  “Me, taunt you?” Her mouth dropped open, and in that second he groaned.

  “It’s more than that,” he rasped. “It’s as if you’re deliberately fighting me.”

  “I only offered to buy the ranch. Nothing more.”

  “And you haven’t meant to torture me?”

  “What in the world are you talking about?” she asked, but her blood was already on fire, pulsing through her veins.

  “This!” He covered her lips with his. They molded perfectly against hers, moving gently, the pressure bittersweet and familiar. Her knees buckled and she couldn’t think, didn’t let herself. His tongue was hard and wet and warm, pressing insistently against her lips.

  She moaned softly, her mouth opening of its own accord. His tongue slid enticingly between her teeth to plunder the soft recess of her mouth. Her traitorous body wanted more. Seven years she’d waited for just this moment!

  She drank in the smell of him, drowned in the power of his arms, felt the warm river of desire flow from deep within. She savored everything about him, tasting the salt on his lips, feeling as if she’d sampled a long-forbidden wine.

  “Tessa,” he whispered, barely lifting his head, his eyes glazed. “Don’t do this to me.”

  “I—I haven’t done anything.”

  He groaned and kissed her again, his lips stealing down the length of her throat, past her collar, to the V where her blouse met over her breasts.

  He still cares, she thought for a wondrous moment, ignoring the part of her that thought he might be using her. Her fingers laced through the coarse strands of his hair and she let her head loll back.

  Nuzzling lower, he pressed wet kisses to the hollow between her breasts, and she arched closer to him, her braid nearly dragging to the ground, her arms twined around his neck.

  Her breasts strained upward, through two thin layers of cloth, and his mouth closed over one rounded mound.

  Tessa’s mind whispered a thousand warnings. She refused to hear any. Eyes closed, feeling the coming night shroud them, she was conscious only of the play of his lips across her breast.

  She felt her blouse open, knew tiny buttons were sliding free of their bonds. Fresh air touched her skin, and then his tongue, quick and sure, stroked against the lace of her bra, torturing her so that she pressed her hips urgently upward.