Heartless

“I did. Had to give it up. This damned German business is wearing me ragged.”

She recalled that he was haggling for another computer company with a concern in Berlin that produced a new brand of microchip. Negotiations for a merger were going into their third week while the bosses hemmed and hawed about whether or not they wanted to sell for the price Jason was offering. Eventually he was going to have to spend some time overseas working personally on the takeover, because the man he’d delegated that authority to was quitting. His wife was English and he wanted to move to London. Jason would have to replace him, but there was no time for that now. It was too sensitive a negotiation to bring in a new outsider. Jason would have to do the job himself.

“You could send Grange to Germany and let him deal with them for you,” she murmured with a mischievous grin, naming his new livestock foreman. Grange had worked for the Ballenger feedlot, but Jason liked him and had hired him on at the ranch for a bigger salary. Grange had proved to be an asset. His military background had made him the perfect foreman. The former army major had no trouble throwing out orders.

He made a face at her. “Grange negotiates like a military man. You know they won’t let men fly overseas with guns.”

“Grange is big enough to intimidate those businessmen without guns.”

He gave her a cool appraisal. He didn’t like it when she talked about Grange. He didn’t like Grange’s interest in her. Not that he made an issue of it. He just made sure Grange was otherwise occupied when Gracie visited the ranch. His black eyes slid over her slender body in the tight jeans and T-shirt. His hand on the steering wheel contracted violently. Gracie didn’t notice. She was smiling out the window at a group of children playing in the dirt yard of an old, ragged house beside the road.

THE SALE BARN WAS FULL. Gracie walked behind Jason, pausing when he did to speak to cattlemen they knew along the way. The auctioneer spotted Jason the moment he walked in and they nodded at each other. She didn’t see the Jacobsville cattlemen, but there was a huge crowd. They might be on the other side of the arena. The only seats left were against a wall, but he didn’t mind that.

He politely addressed a strange cattleman wearing a designer suit and highly polished new boots. The man looked him over with faint distaste, noting the working-cowboy gear, complete with spurred boots, batwing chaps and old chambray shirt.

“Nice day for a sale,” Jason said cordially.

The man smirked. “For those of us who can afford to buy something, sure it is. You work for a local ranch?” he added, giving Jason a demeaning look. “They sure must not pay very well.” He turned away again.

Gracie noted the exchange and grinned up at Jason, but he didn’t return the smile. His black eyes were fiery. They sat down and waited for the noise to subside so that the auction could begin.

She leaned up to Jason’s ear. “Who is he?” she whispered, indicating the man a row in front of them.

He didn’t answer. Instead he gestured toward the auctioneer at the podium tapping the microphone.

He welcomed the cattlemen, summarized the contents of the sale and began with a lot of purebred Black Angus calves. Jason leaned back, just watching, as bidding opened.

Gracie loved going to these auctions with him. It was one of the more pleasant memories of her early teens, tagging along after him through sale barns and learning the cattle business. It had irritated him at first, and then amused him. Finally he understood that it wasn’t the business that attracted her, but the novelty of his company. She was standoffish, even cold, with boys her own age and men of any age, but she adored Jason and it showed. As the years passed, she acquired a nickname—Jason’s shadow. He didn’t seem to mind. Glory had never cared much for cattle, but Gracie had always been fascinated by them. Even now, he rarely asked anyone except Gracie along when he went to auctions or to look at new equipment or even just for a drive over his property. A loner most of the time, he was supremely comfortable with her.

She studied her program and tapped his hand. He glanced where she was pointing at the program and nodded.

It was the next lot, a consignment of purebred Santa Gertrudis open heifers. Jason kept replacement heifers, as any cattleman did, against necessary culls after breeding season. But these young females were exceptional. They were from a division of the King Ranch, with exquisite bloodlines. Jason wanted to improve his seed stock. This was a bargain at the price.

The auctioneer named the consignment and opened bidding. The fancy rancher in front of them raised his hand to accept the price. There was an increase on the base price of ten dollars a head. Jason scratched his ear. The price jumped by twenty dollars a head.

“I told you they knew I was coming,” the cattleman in the row ahead of them said smugly. “Didn’t I tell you prices would jump when I started the bidding?”

Jason didn’t say a word. But his eyes were coldly amused. The cattleman ahead of him jumped the ante by ten dollars, Jason doubled that bid. The price went up a hundred, five hundred, a thousand, two thousand.

“Who the hell’s bidding against me?” the cattleman in front muttered in a whisper to his companion, looking around. “Nobody here looks like they could afford to buy a cattle trailer, much less purebred Santa Gerts!”

“Bid higher,” his companion suggested.

“Are you nuts?” the man grumbled. “I’m at my limit. I wish I could get in touch with my boss, but he’s not in his office. He won’t be happy that I let someone outbid me for these heifers. He was keen to have them.”

The bid came again. The cattleman in front sat mute, fuming. Jason scratched his ear.

The bid was called once, twice, three times, and the auctioneer banged his gavel and shouted “Sold!”

He didn’t name the buyer, as Jason had already agreed before the sale began. He had Jason’s blank check and he knew where to send the consignment, and how. Jason and Gracie got up and walked out of the auction barn into the sunshine. The cattleman who’d been in front of them walked out, too, punching in numbers on his cell phone. He ran into Jason and bumped him.

“Watch the hell where you’re walking, will you?” the man snapped at Jason and kept walking.

Jason stared after the man with retribution in his dark gaze. But after a minute he stretched comfortably and glanced down at Gracie. “Hungry?”

“I could eat a cow,” she murmured with twinkling eyes. “Even a Santa Gert!”

“Barbarian,” he chuckled. “Come on.”

He was driving one of his standard ranch pickup trucks. They were nice, but not top-of-the-line. He cut costs where he could. The grumbling cattleman and his companion climbed into a luxury car and roared off. It was a nice car. But it wasn’t in the same league as Jason’s big Jaguar.

“I hope we don’t run into that fancy rancher who was in front of us,” she muttered. “He’s got a major attitude problem.”

“He’ll get it fixed soon enough,” Jason said easily.

“Nice of him to come over here and show us how real cattlemen dress for a sale,” Gracie remarked as she climbed up into the pickup and belted herself in. She gave him a speaking glance. “You’re disgracing us, dressing like that for a fancy auction!”

“Speak for yourself,” he shot back as he put the truck in gear. “You’re not exactly the belle of the ball.”

“I’m comfortable,” she said. “You said not to dress up.”

His dark eyes cut around to hers and he gave her a look that made her feel warm all over. “You’d look good in a flour sack, honey,” he told her solemnly. “But I like the pigtails.”

She laughed nervously, tugging at one. “They’re too young for me, I guess, but I couldn’t get my hair up this morning.”

“I like it.”

He pulled out onto the road and drove to a nearby steak restaurant that he favored, parking on the side. He and Gracie walked up onto the porch just as the luxury car pulled into the front parking lot.

Jason gave her an amused grin. “Well, he does have good taste in food.”

“I’ll bet somebody had to tell him it was a nice place to eat,” she shot back.

The waitress showed them to a table about the time the cattleman and his companion got to the line.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” Cy Parks drawled as Jason and Gracie were seated at a booth across from his table.

“Look who’s talking, Parks,” Jason shot back.

“How’s Lisa?” Gracie asked.

Cy’s eyebrows levered up and down. “Pregnant,” he said with an ear-to-ear grin. “We’re over the moon.”

“Wow,” Gracie said softly. “Congratulations.”

“Our son needs a playmate,” he explained. He looked up as J. D. Langley and Harley Fowler, who was Cy’s foreman, and Leo Hart came walking back to his table with full salad plates. He gave them a snarly look. “Salad! Good God, I never thought I’d see the day when ranchers would sit down to plates of rabbit food!”

“We’re joining the green lobby,” Leo chuckled. “Hi, Jason. Gracie. Been to the sale?”