The Cowboy and the Lady

“I’m his partner,” she replied. “Didn’t you know?”

He stared at her intently. “How did you manage that?” he asked contemptuously. “Or do I need to ask?”

She saw what he was driving at and her face flamed. “It isn’t like that,” she said tightly.

“Isn’t it?” He glared at her. “At least I offered you more than a share in a third-class business.”

Her face went a fiery red. “That’s all women are to you,” she accused. “Toys, sitting on a shelf waiting to be bought.”

“Tess isn’t,” he said with deliberate cruelty.

“How lovely for her,” she threw back.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked down his arrogant nose at her. There was a strange, foreign something behind those glittering eyes that disturbed her.

“You’re thinner,” he remarked.

She shrugged. “I work hard.”

“Doing what?” he asked curtly. “Sleeping with the boss?”

“I don’t!” she burst out. She looked up into his dark face, her own pale in the blazing light of the crystal chandelier. “Why do you hate me so? Was the bull so important?”

His face seemed to set even harder. “A grand champion, and you can ask that? My God, you didn’t even apologize!”

“Would it have brought him back?” she asked sadly.

“No.” A muscle in his jaw moved.

“You won’t…you won’t let your dislike of me prejudice you against the agency, will you?” she asked suddenly.

“Afraid your boss might lose his shirt?” he taunted.

“Something like that.”

He cocked his head down at her, his hard mouth set. “Why don’t you tell me the truth? Duncan didn’t invite you down here. You came on your own initiative.” He smiled mockingly. “I haven’t forgotten how you used to tag after him. And now you’ve got more reason than ever.”

She saw red. All the years of backing away dissolved, and she felt suddenly reckless.

“You go to hell, Jace Whitehall,” she said coldly, her brown eyes throwing off sparks as she lifted her angry face.

Both dark eyebrows went up over half astonished, half amused silver eyes. “What?”

But before she could repeat the dangerous words, Terry’s voice broke in between them.

“Oh, there you are,” he called cheerfully. “Come back in here and keep us company. It’s too early to turn in.”

Jace’s eyes were hidden behind those narrowed eyelids, and he turned away before Amanda could puzzle out the new look in them.

“Off again?” Marguerite asked pleasantly. “Where are you taking Tess?”

“Out,” he said noncommittally, reaching down to kiss the wrinkled pink cheek. “Good night.”

He pivoted on his heel and left them without another word, closing the door firmly behind him.

Terry stared at Amanda. “Did I hear you say what I thought I heard you say?”

“My question exactly,” Marguerite added.

Amanda stirred under their intent stares and went ahead of them into the living room. “Well, he deserved it,” she muttered. “Arrogant, insulting beast!”

Marguerite laughed delightedly, a mysterious light in her eyes that she was careful to conceal.

“What is it with you two?” Terry asked her. “If ever I saw mutual dislike…”

“My mother once called Jace a cowboy,” Amanda replied. “It was a bad time to do it, and she was terribly insulting, and Jace never got over it.”

“Jace took to calling Amanda ‘lady,’“ Marguerite continued. She smiled at the younger woman. “She was, and is, that. But Jace meant it in another sense.”

“As in Lady MacBeth,” Amanda said. Her eyes clouded. “I’d like to cook him a nice mess of buttered toadstools,” she said with a malicious smile.

“Down, girl,” Terry said. “Vinegar catches no flies.”

Amanda remembered what Marguerite had said about Tess, and when their eyes met, she knew the older woman was also remembering. They both burst into laughter, dissolving the sombre mood memory had brought to cloud the evening.

But later that night, alone in her bedroom, memories returned to haunt her. Seeing Jace again had resurrected all the old scars, and she felt the pain of them right through her slender body. Her eyes wide open, staring at the strange patterns the moonlight made on the ceiling of her room, she drifted back to that Friday seven years ago when she’d gone running along the fence that separated her father’s pasture from the Whitehalls’ property, laughing as she jumped on the lower rung of the fence and watched Jace slow his big black stallion and canter over to her.

“Looking for Duncan?” he’d asked curtly, his eyes angry in that cold, hard face that never seemed to soften.

“No, for you,” she’d corrected, glancing at him shyly. “I’m having a party tomorrow night. I’ll be sixteen, you know.”

He’d stared at her with a strangeness about him that still puzzled her years later, his eyes giving nothing away as they glittered over her slender body, her flushed, exuberant face. She’d never felt more alive than she did that day, and Jace couldn’t know that it had taken her the better part of the morning to get up enough nerve to seek him out. Duncan was easy to talk to. Jace was something else. He fascinated her, even as he frightened her. Already a man even then, he had a blatant sensuousness that made her developing emotions run riot.

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?” he’d asked coldly.

The vibrant laughter left her face, draining away, and some of her nerve had gone with it. “I, uh…I wanted to invite you to my party,” she choked.

He studied her narrowly over the cigarette he put between his chiseled lips and lit. “And what did your mother think about that idea?”

“She said it was fine with her,” she returned rebelliously, omitting how hard she’d had to fight Bea to make the invitation to the Whitehall brothers.

“Like hell,” Jace had replied knowingly.

She’d tossed her silver-blond hair, risking her pride. “Will you come, Jason?” she’d asked quietly.

“Just me? Aren’t you inviting Duncan as well?”

“Both of you, of course, but Duncan said you wouldn’t come unless I asked you,” she replied truthfully.