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“Yep! Come on, Kendra! Slim says I can take Sugar Cube out for a walk today.”
“Uh, maybe I’d better not leave until I see Ms. Archer.”
“Penny will find you when she’s ready,” Abby assured her.
Casting a look through the empty doorway where Rafe had disappeared, Kendra reluctantly stood. “Well then, thank you for inviting me.” Maybe the grilling could work both ways. She’d like to hear Abby’s opinion of the disturbingly impossible Rafael Alvarez—and the unknown woman he was breaking a date with.
“SO WHAT’S your take on the Kincade woman, Rafe?” Mitchell demanded, looking around the conference table at the assembled members of Texas Confidential.
“She’s got spunk. And I suspect she could give stubborn lessons to a mule. We need some factual information on her.”
“Do you think she’d go through with her threat?” Jake asked skimming a hand over his short, dark hair.
“Maybe. I’m more concerned that she might do something foolish if she’s left on her own. I don’t think she’s faking her hated for Stephen Rialto, though I’d be a lot more comfortable if I knew why.”
“Maybe he had her boyfriend or a lover killed,” Cody suggested.
Mitchell frowned. “She wouldn’t explain?”
“I seem to make her nervous,” Rafe admitted with a shrug.
There was a discreet shuffling of feet and a couple of not-so-hidden smirks.
“Imagine that,” Penny murmured.
“Charm’s starting to fail you in your old age?” Brady asked with a grin.
Rafe faced his fellow agents with a self-deprecating smile. “I prefer to think that my charms simply overwhelm the poor woman.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Oh, brother.”
Mitchell put a stop to the teasing. “We have to decide how to handle her. If she knows as much as she implies about our operation she could be a problem.”
“On the other hand, if she’s as good with a computer as she claims, she could be an asset,” Brady put in.
“Or she could be someone whose job it is to infiltrate us,” Penny pointed out.
Jake frowned. “She’s with my wife and daughter.” And there was still a touch of almost awed pride in those words. “Abby may be able to learn something from her.”
Mitchell turned the silver lighter over and over in his fingers. He turned to Penny. “Find out if we can get any information out of Washington, D.C. yet,” he ordered. “In the meantime, we’ll string her along. We’ll keep her here until we have more information. It’s possible we can use her.”
“There’s a problem with that,” Rafe said. “Even if she’s as good with a computer as she claims, there’s no way I can bring her along as my assistant. You know the sort of people Rialto surrounds himself with. Young, attractive—”
“Oh, listen to that ego,” Cody teased.
“No,” Mitchell said thoughtfully, tapping a thumbnail against the lighter. “In this case, Rafe’s right. In the past five years Rialto has only hired female staff with a certain ‘look.’ Ms. Kincade doesn’t fit.”
“Exactly,” Rafe agreed.
Mitchell set the lighter on the table. “So fix it.”
“What?”
The other agents began to snicker.
“Do what’s necessary to make her fit in. Clothes, hair, whatever.”
“Me? Why me? Penny—”
“Hey, I have enough to do around here. Glamorous women are your department, Rafe,” she said archly.
“You know they are merely substitutes while I wait for you, darlin’.”
“Well while you’re waiting,” Mitchell growled around the end of his unlit cigar, “take care of Kendra Kincade.”
“Now wait a minute, how am I supposed to do that?”
The others began gathering their stuff in preparation for the end of the meeting.
“This isn’t funny, guys.” They ignored him with wide smirks. He rounded on Penny. “I’m at least going to need a feminine point of view here.”
“Not mine,” she said firmly. “Why not ask the widow, Lydia?”
“Yeah,” Cody agreed. “Now there’s a lady who knows how to fill out a dress.”
Penny snorted. “Bear in mind that Lydia’s favorite shade of yellow definitely won’t suit Kendra’s coloring,” she pointed out coolly. “Also, Kendra doesn’t have Lydia’s abundantly obvious charms.”
Jake nudged Brady and muttered, “This could get interesting.”
Mitchell surveyed them in silence. Rafe knew when he was licked. With an exaggerated sigh, he acquiesced. “All right. I’ll see what I can do. When should I start?”
“Right after I meet with Ms. Kincade,” Mitchell said. “Forgo your outside duties so you can stay near the phone lines. Our information says Rialto’s appointment secretary is supposed to call the candidates today or tomorrow to set up interviews. Penny will continue to pose as your assistant, but they might ask to speak to you. I want you around if that happens.”
“Does this mean I get to hang out down here and chase Penny around the conference table?”
Penny fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Be still my foolish heart.”
“What about the roundup?” Cody interrupted.
“Slim’s hired plenty of extra help,” Mitchell promised.
“In that case,” Cody said, “maybe I’ll give you a hand after all, Rafe.”
“You will report to Slim and find out if he needs someone to ride herd on any of the new men,” Mitchell said sternly.
Cody’s lips tightened at the rebuke, but he remained silent as the meeting broke up.
An hour later, Rafe was invited to join Kendra, Mitchell and Penny in the library upstairs.
“Kendra has tentatively convinced me that she may be an asset as your assistant, Rafe.” Mitchell informed him as if it were the first time they’d spoken on this issue. “She has some rather impressive computer knowledge. That being the case, you need to prepare her for the assignment.”
“Prepare me?” Kendra queried.
Rafe noted the way Kendra bit down on her lip. She wasn’t pretty, he told himself, yet there was something naively appealing about her.
“Yes sir.”
“Rafe will drive you over to Chet’s to gather your belongings. I’ll see you at dinner this evening.”
It was clear dismissal. Kendra rose from her seat. “You won’t be sorry.”
Mitchell’s smile didn’t reach his watchful eyes. Rafe was relieved to see the older man had as many reservations as he did about this woman.
There was no chance to ask Mitchell if he’d discovered anything about Kendra during their talk. Rafe led her outside to the ranch’s battered pickup truck. The drive to Chet’s was almost silent. None of Rafe’s conversational topics drew her out. Kendra watched the scenery and answered in monosyllables.
“You know, if you’re having second thoughts, it isn’t too late to change your mind,” he finally told her.
Kendra twisted on the seat to stare at him. “I’m not.”
“You’re awfully quiet for someone who just got what she claims to want.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“For starters, I’d like to know more about these people he had killed that you cared about. Were they friends, lovers, relatives, what?”
“What difference does it make? Rialto is slime and I want him to pay for his crimes.”
Color climbed her neck. She turned mutely back to the window. The sun sent prisms of color bouncing around the cab of his truck from the crystal earrings she wore. What was she hiding? He turned the truck into the drive leading to their neighbor’s dude ranch, determined to learn what was behind her animosity.
Penny had called ahead, so Chet’s staff knew they were coming. Apparently, so did Chet’s sister. Lydia flew out of the house, a welcome smile on her lips.
“Rafe! First you cancel our date and then Chet tells me you’re stealing one of our customers away!” As soon as he stepped from the truck she slid her arm through his, beaming up at him, her generous breasts pushing against his arm.
“Mitchell is a friend of Kendra’s parents. When he ran into her this morning he invited her to spend a few days with us.” The prepared lie rolled off Rafe’s tongue with practiced ease.
“It was really too naughty of you taking Settled Sue like that. Chet was most unhappy.”
“I’ll apologize when I see him,” Kendra said. She held Lydia’s gaze for several seconds before turning and disappearing inside the house.
Rafe had seen disapproval in those expressive eyes of hers, but he wasn’t sure if the look was for what Lydia had said, his lie about her visit with Mitchell, or the way Lydia clung so sweetly to him.
“Are we still on for tomorrow night?” Lydia asked.
“Uh…”
“Please don’t tell me you’re going to cancel tomorrow as well.”
Looking into her anxious eyes, he didn’t have the heart to sever another date. He liked Lydia, and he knew this week was especially hard for her. She was coming up on the anniversary of her husband’s death.
“I plan to pick you up—”
“No, I’ll pick you up. I want you to ride in my new convertible. I take delivery tomorrow afternoon. Is five o’clock too early?”
“That will be fine.” He disengaged himself gently. “But right now I’d better go in and give Kendra a hand with her luggage.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Kendra said, striding onto the front porch, a computer bag over one shoulder, pulling a wheeled a suitcase behind her. “I’m not a heavy packer.”
“And it appears you never got around to unpacking.”
Kendra didn’t respond. She seemed surprised when he took the heavy case from her and lifted it easily into the back of the pickup truck.
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow, Rafe?” Lydia asked anxiously.
Rafe nodded and Lydia visibly relaxed.
“Goodbye, Kendra. I hope you and Mitchell have a nice visit.”
“Thank you. And please thank your brother for me.”
Lydia’s smile widened until her dimples showed. “Oh, I will. Bye, Rafe.”
“I know it’s none of my business,” Kendra said as he turned the truck onto the main road, “but are you and Lydia…”
“Good friends.”
Kendra stared out the window. “Does she know that?”
Rafe relaxed. “Now darlin’, you wouldn’t be jealous, would you?”
Red scorched her cheeks. “Of course not. I was wondering because of the way she hung on you.”
“She normally isn’t like that. Her husband was killed during a holdup near their home a year ago this week.”
“Oh.”
“Lydia moved back here to lend her brother a hand.”
Kendra relaxed. “Chet seems nice.”
“So is Lydia.” Rafe liked the hard-working Chet. Once Lydia made it clear she wasn’t looking for anything permanent, Rafe had allowed himself to be attracted to the tall, curvy, vivacious woman.
“May I ask you a question?”
“Ask away.”
“Is there really a problem with rustlers in this day and age?”
