Texas Temptation

“Good morning.”

Glancing upward, he narrowed his eyes and focused on a slender form silhouetted by the rising sun. She stood at the edge of the derrick platform twenty-five feet off the ground, her hand lifted in a wave.

He froze.

He couldn’t breathe. His heart pounded with bruising force against his ribs. He wanted to scream at her to move back, to get away from the edge, but his voice had suddenly gone numb.

“Jared?” she called down, and stepped even closer to the edge. “Are you all right?”

His hands were shaking now. He clenched them into fists and, without taking his eyes off her, walked stiffly to the metal platform steps, then moved slowly upward toward her. At the top of the stairs, he paused, his jaw tight, and stared at her.

Brow furrowed, Annie asked, “Is something wrong?”

As she stepped away from the ledge, the steel band around Jared’s chest loosened and he could breathe again. “What the hell are you doing up here?”

“Waiting for you.”

“You haven’t got any gear on,” he said more sharply than he intended. He was still waiting for his heart to slow down, trying not to think about how close she’d been to the edge....

“Gear?” She frowned at him. “Jared, for heaven’s sake, I’m just looking around.”

“There’s no place on a rig for sight-seeing, Annie. You want a tour, take the bus.” He knew he was being unreasonable, but he didn’t care. “Next time you come up here, you better have a damn good reason, and you better be wearing a safety belt and hat.”

“A hat!” She stared at him incredulously. “You’re not even drilling yet.”

“That would have made me feel loads better if I’d driven up and found you in a dozen pieces. And now that I think about it, you don’t need to be up here at all. You need something, let me or one of my crew handle it for you.”

She moved close to him, close enough that he could see the flecks of green sparkle in her hazel eyes, close enough that he could smell the flowery scent of her skin. He wanted to move away, but he held his ground.

“I’ve been in the field now for almost two years.” She tilted her chin upward. “I’ve been on a dozen rigs like this. I know what I’m doing.”

Don’t worry about me. I know what I’m doing....

How many times had he awakened in the middle of the night, drenched with sweat, with those words pounding in his head?

He couldn’t take that chance again. Not with Annie. “I don’t want you up here.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “You can’t be serious.”

“Damn straight I am. You have no reason to be up on the rig.”

Her mouth thinned, and he felt his gut tighten as he stared at her lips and remembered how soft they’d felt under his, how warm. He quickly pushed the thought aside.

“Jared, I know what’s bothering you, and it’s understandable, but I have a job to do here.”

“Your job,” he said tightly, “involves the logging and mapping and soil samples. Once I’ve hired my crew, we’ll take care of everything else.”

She shook her head. “That’s not my style. I know most geologists keep their distance, but my policy is strictly hands-on.”

He tried to ward off the impulse to throw her over his shoulder and carry her off the rig. “I set the policies around here. I’m responsible for three crews of six men twenty-four hours a day. I won’t be responsible for you, too.”

Her eyes flashed with anger. “Responsible for me? Of all the—” She leveled her gaze on his. “Jared, sit down.”

“What?”

“I said, sit down.” She pointed to the floor of the platform.

He narrowed his eyes, then did as she asked, stretching one leg out in front of him and bending the other. She sat facing him, curling her legs under her in a way that made him think about how long and slender those limbs were in her tight jeans.

She laced her fingers together and stared at them for a long moment. A hawk swept close to the derrick, screeching as it soared past, and a prairie dog chattered a warning to the underground community that a predator was close by.

He waited for her to speak, watching as a breeze ruffled the ends of her hair. She combed the loose strands away from her face and finally lifted her gaze to his. Her eyes were soft now, edged with a sadness that twisted his insides.

He understood with painful clarity how his brother had fallen in love with this woman. And he also understood why he had to keep his distance.

“Jared.” She reached out and laid her hands on his. “It wasn’t your fault.”

His jaw clenched as he stared down at her fingers resting on his knuckles. Her skin was smooth and cool, yet her touch burned. But he didn’t want her understanding. And he sure as hell didn’t want her pity. “So I’ve been told.”

She frowned and her fingers closed around his. “Dammit, Jared, it wasn’t your fault. It was an accident. A terrible tragic accident. There was nothing you could have done to prevent it.”

“He didn’t belong up here,” Jared said tightly. “He wasn’t familiar with the operation yet. He didn’t have the experience.”

“And you think you could have stopped him?”

It was a question he’d asked himself every day for almost four years. A question he’d never have an answer to. “I should have insisted. He didn’t understand the risks.”

She shook her head. “He understood more than you give him credit for. The need to be a part of it, every aspect of it, was in his blood just as strongly as it was—and still is—in yours. You couldn’t have taken that away from him.”

Jared stared at Annie, amazed at the compassion lighting her face. She’d lost her future with the man she’d loved, yet she sat here and attempted to comfort him. Anger at himself, as hot as it was black, shot through him. “I was the one with working experience on this rig. Jonathan was green, right out of the classroom.”

Annie felt Jared’s hands tighten beneath her touch. His jaw was taut, and his eyes... Lord, the pain she saw there was like a sharp knife twisting in her chest. She drew in a slow ragged breath and forced herself to hold his gaze with her own.

“Do you realize,” she asked quietly, “that’s the first time you’ve even said his name?”

His lips thinned and he looked away, but for one split second, so brief she almost thought she imagined it, Annie saw—and understood—the depth of Jared’s anguish. The first year after Jonathan’s death, she’d seen that same look staring back at her from the mirror. She’d felt that grief. She’d lived it. Time had slowly healed her, but Jared, apparently, hadn’t been so fortunate.

She felt a desperate need to free him from his torment, to ease the pain he’d lived with for the past several years. But what could she say? What could she do? Jared wasn’t going to let anyone get that close. The wall he’d built around himself served not only to keep everyone else out, but to keep him in, as well. And of all the people he didn’t want help from, Annie was first on the list, she knew. If anything, Jared wanted her as far away from him as possible.

Because she couldn’t stop herself, she leaned in closer and stroked the back of his hands with her thumbs. The coarse texture of his skin amazed her, but not nearly as much as the moisture that gathered in her eyes and fell onto Jared’s fingers. Was she crying for Jonathan or for Jared?

Dammit, Jared thought. Not tears. He could stand anything but tears. He reached for her then and pulled her into his arms, cradling her body against his. “Aw, jeez, Annie, don’t cry. Please don’t cry.”

“I’m not,” she insisted with a sniff. “Not really.”

He smiled as she wiped at her eyes, but when she laid her head against his shoulder his smile faded.

A heat began to build in him. Even though he’d been half-asleep when he’d kissed Annie yesterday, he’d never forget the taste of her. The sweetness, and the shimmer of innocence that had made his blood race and his pulse pound.