The Case of the Mesmerizing Boss

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“You’re twenty-two,” he said. “Years too young to be that cynical.”

“Oh, I learned from an expert,” she said, lifting her face. “You taught me.”

Her expression made him uncomfortable. “I’ve never had anyone of my own,” he said shortly. “My father left when I was a boy. He couldn’t take the pressure of responsibility. I worshiped him, but my mother hated him, hated me because I looked like him. Jane said she loved me when we were first married, but she walked out on me and didn’t look back.” He leaned over her, his eyes black as coals. “You wanted to love me, and I wouldn’t let you. I hurt you, made you afraid of me. Don’t you get it, little girl? I don’t know what love is!”

“You needn’t look at me as if I’m any threat,” she said defiantly. “I gave up on you years ago.”

“Yes. I know.”

She averted her eyes. “I don’t love you. I had an inconvenient fascination for you that you put into perspective for me. You won’t have to fight me off ever again.”

His lean hand went to her face. He touched her cheek lightly, catching her chin when she tried to jerk away. His eyes probed hers relentlessly.

“That goes double for me,” he said. “I won’t ever touch you that way again.”

She watched him, too aware of the warm fingers on her softly rounded chin. “You would have forced me,” she choked out.

His face contorted. He wanted to deny it, but he couldn’t. He’d been out of his mind. “You don’t understand,” he said bitterly.

She stared at him as if she didn’t quite comprehend. He sounded tortured, haunted. “Dane?” she whispered.

He wouldn’t look at her. “You were a virgin,” he said huskily. “But I wasn’t. I’d had women. You were soft and vulnerable and loving, and I wanted you in a way I…couldn’t handle.”

Wheels turned in her mind. Men were vulnerable sometimes; even in her innocence she knew that. She’d avoided the thought for years, but a part of her had realized how desperate he was for her that day, how hungry. “You scared me out of my mind,” she laughed nervously. “Every time I went out with a man, I was afraid he might become like that, and I wouldn’t be able to get away in time.”

“That isn’t surprising,” he replied. “Will you believe that it hasn’t been easy for me, either? You can’t imagine what it does to me when you cringe every time I come close to you.”

Her chest rose and fell slowly. She searched his eyes. “It was a long time ago, wasn’t it? I suppose I blew it up in my mind until it was nightmarish.”

He saw the faint softness in her eyes and hesitated. “Tess, is it only fear that you feel when you’re with me?” he asked. His eyes fell to her mouth, to the helpless parting of her lips under the intent stare. His thumb moved slowly, the nail just lightly tracing the moist inner surface of her lower lip in a movement that made her breath catch. “Or is there something more, in spite of the way I frightened you?”

She pulled back frantically, oblivious to what he’d said at the last in her desperation to get away from that maddening touch. Her eyes widened and her heartbeat became rushed.

He had to drag his eyes back up to hers. His own breathing was uneasy. So it wasn’t all terror. Something inside him thawed a little, even as he watched her futile attempts to hide what he’d aroused in her with that sensuous little brush of his hand. Amazing that in all his thirty-four years, he’d never thought of touching a woman’s mouth exactly like that.

“No,” he said, almost to himself. “It’s a little more complicated than fear, isn’t it?”

“Dane…”

“Your doctor says you can leave in the morning. In the meanwhile, there’s a uniformed officer outside the door. He’s been there since you were brought in, and he’ll be there until I take you home.”

She watched him nervously as he put out his cigarette.

He caught her scrutiny and his dark eyes slid to meet hers. “You make me want to be gentle. That’s a first,” he said quietly. He studied her thoughtfully. “Maybe I could make you want my touch, if I tried.”

Cold chills worked down her spine. “No,” she whispered huskily. “I won’t let you touch me. Not the way…you did that day!”

“I’ve never been with a virgin, little one,” he said, his voice deep and slow. “I’ve never been a gentle man, either, I guess, but I set new records on wildness with you. It made me take a long look at myself. I didn’t like what I saw.”

Her hands linked together and she looked at them, not at him. “I don’t want to talk about it, Dane.”

He had to search for the right words. “Haven’t you realized by now that most men…that a man who loved you would want to be gentle? That it wouldn’t be like that with someone who loved you?”

“How do you know if someone cares?” she asked with bitter cynicism. She looked up at him. “I thought you did,” she said huskily. “I thought you liked me, at least, but you made me afraid of you so that I wouldn’t be a threat to your privacy. My father didn’t want me, either. He landed me with my grandmother because he didn’t want me.” She shivered. “Nobody ever wanted me….” She lay back against the pillows, looking ten years older than she was. “Please go away, Dane. I’m too tired to fight anymore.”

Why hadn’t he known how she felt? After all these years, he still knew next to nothing about her. Of course she’d felt rejected when her father left her with her grandmother; more so because of all his affairs. And then he’d planned to marry Dane’s mother, further isolating her. She’d wanted someone to love, and she’d had the misfortune to pick a man who didn’t even know what it was, who’d known nothing but resentment and dislike all his life, a man with a failed marriage behind him and a crippled body to boot.

He grimaced at the defeated expression on her face. He felt responsible for her anguish, as if he’d caused it. Certainly he’d added to it.

“Do you like horses?” he asked.

“I’m afraid of them.”

“Only because you don’t know much about them. When you’re up to it, I’ll teach you to ride.”

Her eyes met his. “Don’t do this to me,” she said unsteadily. “Please don’t. I don’t need pity.”

He started to speak, but he didn’t know what words to use. He drew in a long breath.

“I’ll see you tomorrow. Try to rest.”

She nodded. Her eyes closed, blocking him out. She wasn’t going to let him get to her again. No matter what she had to do to protect herself, he wasn’t getting a second shot at her!

Chapter Three

THE LASSITER BAR-D was a working cattle ranch. Besides Josе Dominguez and Hardy, who were horse wrangler and cook, respectively, Dane employed a ranch manager, Beryl’s husband, Dan, and half a dozen cowhands and other assorted personnel necessary to keep the place running. One man did nothing but look after the purebred bulls. Another took care of the tanks used to water the cattle. Still another was a mechanic.

Tess hadn’t really wanted to let Dane spirit her out of the hospital and down to his ranch, but she hadn’t been strong enough to fight him. He’d cleared it with the doctor, had had her bags—packed by Helen—already in the car, and the minute she was released, had headed straight down to Branntville.

Tess was uneasy about the prospect of several days in Dane’s company. He was acting strangely, and she was nervous—much more so than usual.

He’d never been much of a talker unless he had to socialize as part of his job, so the trip down to Branntville was undertaken in silence. Tess stared out the window, buried in her own thoughts and occupied with the twinges of pain she was still feeling from the wound in her arm.

“Is that a ranch?” she asked when they reached the outskirts of Branntville, her eyes on a huge white-fenced property with a black silhouette of a spur for a logo.

“Yes. Cole Everett and the Big Spur are known all over the state. Cole married his stepsister, Heather Shaw. They have three boys, all teenagers now.”

“It’s very big, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Except for the Brannt Ranch, it’s the biggest north of the King Ranch.”

“Brannt Ranch? Is Branntville named for the people who live there?”

He nodded and indicated a ranch house far in the distance. “King Brannt owns the spread now. Talk about a hard case,” he murmured. “King makes up his own rules as he goes along. He married a beautiful young girl, a model named Shelby Kane, daughter of the movie star Maria Kane. Nobody thought he’d ever marry. He says Shelby came up on his blind side.” He smiled mockingly. “He’d do anything for her.”

“Did she take to ranch life?” Tess asked curiously.

“Like a duck to water. She and King have a son and a daughter. The daughter, I understand, is sweet on one of the Everett boys.”

“What a merger that would be,” Tess said.

“They’re young yet. And marriage isn’t always the end of the rainbow,” he added with faint bitterness.

“I guess it has to have common ground, doesn’t it?” Tess asked absently, staring out at the horizon. “Two people need more than physical attraction to make a marriage.”

He glanced at her. “Such as?”

“Respect,” she said. “Shared interests, similar backgrounds—things like that.”

“And no sex?”

She shifted uneasily, her eyes on the windshield. “I guess if they wanted kids…”

His eyes darkened. “Children aren’t always possible.”

“I suppose not.” She glanced at her hands. “Maybe some people don’t mind intimacy.”

“Tess,” he said heavily. “You don’t have a clue, do you?”

She flushed. “Don’t I?”

His dark eyes played over her profile, and the fire in his blood kindled. She knew nothing of men and women. It was his fault that she had such hang-ups. He’d hurt and frightened her. Now he wished he’d been different. If he could learn tenderness, it would be sweet to lie with her, to share the beauty of a man and a woman together with her. His body tautened as pictures danced in his mind. Tess, loving him. He could have groaned out loud. He’d thrown away something precious. Ironic that it should have taken a bullet to bring him to his senses, when it was a bullet that had robbed him of them in the first place.

“Here’s the ranch.”

He turned in between two rows of barbed-wire fences where red-coated cattle grazed. “I share a purebred Santa Gertrudis stud bull with the Big Spur,” he explained. “We’ll have to replace him pretty soon, though. We’ve been using him for two years, and that’s enough inbreeding.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Are you interested in ranching?” he asked suddenly.

“Well, I don’t know much about it,” she faltered, her gray eyes darting up to his. “I guess it’s complicated, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes. But it isn’t as difficult a subject as it sounds. You don’t ride, either.”

“I guess…I could learn,” she said hesitantly.

He smiled to himself as he rounded a curve, and suddenly they were coming up to a sprawling one-story white wooden frame house with beds of flowers all around it and tall trees.

“How beautiful!” she exclaimed.

Dane’s heart swelled at her delight in it. “It belonged to my grandfather,” he told her. “He left it to me when he died.”

“Oh, it’s charming,” she said breathlessly. “And the flower beds! I’ll bet they’re glorious in the spring!”

“They are Beryl’s contribution to beautifying the landscape. There are magnolia trees and azaleas and camellias, all sorts of blooming things. She can tell you, if you’re interested.”

“I love to garden,” she confessed. “I’ve never had anyplace to do it, except in my apartment window, but I used to do all the yard work at my grandmother’s house.”

He pulled up at the steps and turned off the engine, staring at her quietly. “I don’t know you,” he said, his voice soft and deep. “I don’t know a damned thing about you, Tess.”

“Why would you want to?” she asked evasively. “Look, is that Beryl?” A short, white-haired woman had come onto the porch.

“That’s Beryl.”

“It’s about time you got here!” the woman muttered. “Late, as usual. Is this her?” She stopped in front of Tess and looked her over. “Thin and sickly, she is. I’ll take care of that with some good home cooking. How’s that arm, lovey?” she asked gently. “Still hurt?”

Tess smiled, at home already. “It’s much better.”

“If you’re through running your mouth, I’d like to get the walking wounded into the house,” Dane drawled. “She isn’t going to get better standing out here in the cold.”

“It’s not that cold at all,” Beryl scoffed. “Why, in little more than a month there’ll be flowers everywhere!”

Tess could picture that, but she wouldn’t be around to see it, she thought wistfully. She let Dane help her inside, unable to stop herself from stiffening at the feel of his lean arm around her.

“Don’t panic,” he said curtly as Beryl went ahead to lead the way to the guest room. “I won’t hurt you.”

She colored involuntarily. “Dane…”

Her reticence made him irritable. “Relax, can’t you? You’re among friends.”

“You were never that,” she said stiffly.

“I’m thirty-four years old,” he said as they moved down the long hall. “Maybe I’m tired of being alone. You said once that neither of us has anybody else.”

“And you said once that you didn’t need anyone.”

He shrugged. “I’ve spent fourteen years being a cop. It isn’t easy to change perspective.”

The mention of his profession made her uneasy. She didn’t like thinking about the drug dealers she’d seen or what Dane had said about her being the only witness.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I was thinking about the night I got shot,” she confessed. “About those men…”

“You’re safe here,” he said. “Nobody is going to hurt you.”

“Of course not,” she agreed, and forced a smile.

Beryl settled her in while Dane went out to check on some new cattle that arrived shortly after they did. It was several hours before he reappeared, after Beryl and Tess had gotten acquainted. But the man who walked into the bedroom wasn’t the man she thought she knew.