The Rancher's Mistress

‘No, but he won’t be a minute. I’d have waited for him but, like he says, we’re not joined at the hip.’

A pretty insensitive thing to say to a new bride, Alex reflected, doubting if Margot was quite as impervious as she appeared to be on the surface. Greg needed to practise some tender loving care.

People were flooding into the dining room, the majority of them dressed the way Margot was, with only a couple of the women wearing skirts. There was just the one long table, with no particular seat allocation from what Alex could gather.

Cal pulled out a chair for her halfway down the table and took the one next to her himself, introducing her to those within earshot. Seated down at the other end of the table, Margot looked to be deep in animated conversation with her own nearest neighbours.

‘Greg tells us you’re pretty big in Europe, Alex,’ said one of the women.

‘Greg exaggerates,’ Alex replied lightly. ‘I’m just one of many.’

‘Modest as they come!’ declared her brother, passing behind her on his way to the chair left vacant at Margot’s side. ‘Hi, everybody! Had a good day?’

The ensuing chorus established that everyone had indeed. Glad to be out of the limelight, Alex listened with enjoyment for the following few minutes as one after another expounded on events.

Eighteen was the lower age limit for guests, Greg had told her, though most of this group were in their thirties and forties, with one couple approaching retirement age from the look of them. Children would be too much of a responsibility on a working ranch, she guessed.

None of the men she had seen riding in with Cal were present, which meant that the hands must have their own dining quarters. Not quite the classless society she had visualised, then.

She was vitally conscious of the closeness of Cal’s knee to hers beneath the chequered cloth, steeling herself not to jerk away on the couple of occasions that they momentarily touched. The degree of physical awareness he aroused in her was undeniable. Like being connected to the national grid, she thought whimsically.

Judging from the way some of the other women reacted to him, she wasn’t on her own in finding him pretty electrifying either. Probably as much to do with what he did for a living as his general appearance. There was something inherently alluring about cowboys—even modern-day ones.

Greg hadn’t exaggerated about the food. It left little to be desired either in quantity or quality. Alex had never seen steaks as big or in such profusion, never eaten chicken that tasted the way this did. The vegetables were home-grown, with three varieties of potato alone. She had no room left for the banana cream pie or fruit cobbler that followed.

The whole party adjourned to the veranda for coffee afterwards, leaving the two women who had served up the meal to clear away. Darkness was coming down fast, the stars already twinkling in a sky of grey velvet. The jet lag Alex had been conscious of earlier seemed to have dissipated. She felt exhilarated, eager for the morrow when she could maybe start doing some of the things she yearned to do. With staff on hand to take care of the general housework and cooking there was obviously no need of help in that direction, which left her free to apply herself in others. All she had to do was prove herself capable.

Cal was seated nearby. One leg lifted carelessly over the other knee, hands linked behind his head, he looked surprisingly relaxed. Surprising because Alex hadn’t imagined him the type to spend an evening lazing around with the guests. He had hardly spoken a word to her during supper. Not that he’d had very much opportunity, she supposed, considering the way the woman who had seated herself on his other side had monopolised his attention.

She stole a glance at him, feeling a sudden frisson down her spine as the grey eyes turned unexpectedly her way.

‘You must be finding this very dull compared with what you’d normally be doing of an evening,’ he commented.

‘Not in the least,’ she denied. ‘I like to get up early, so I’m very rarely late out of bed.’

There was mockery in the slant of his mouth. ‘Always alone?’

Alex looked back at him steadily. ‘I don’t really think that concerns you.’

‘You’re right,’ he agreed, ‘but it interests me. The way you look, you certainly can’t be short of men in your life.’

‘The way I look generally attracts the wrong kind of men,’ she said.

Dark brows lifted. ‘What would you consider the right kind?’

‘Those with a little more to them than an inflated income and an ego to match,’ she retorted smartly. ‘Money can’t buy everything.’

‘It can go a long way.’ He ran a reminiscent gaze down the slender length of her body, returning to view her flushed cheeks and sparking eyes with a smile that made her want to kick him. ‘Why are you really here, Alex?’

The question took her by surprise. It was an effort to keep her voice even. ‘I’d have thought that was obvious.’

‘Don’t bother feeding me any “had to see big brother again” line. You neither of you come across as pining from lack of contact.’

‘Perhaps because we’re English, and the English don’t parade their emotions. If I’d realised I was unwelcome,’ she added tautly, ‘I certainly wouldn’t have come!’

Cal shook his head. ‘I didn’t say you were unwelcome, only that I doubted if the chance of seeing Greg again would be enough to bring you all the way out here. Hardly your scene, is it?’

‘You’ve no idea what my scene might be!’

‘I know what it isn’t. You’re as out of place on the Lazy Y as I would be in front of a camera!’

The way his chair was angled she was, to a certain extent, boxed into a corner, anything he said to her unlikely to be overheard above the general chatter. Done purposely? she wondered.

‘If you’re so perceptive,’ she challenged, ‘perhaps you’d like to take a guess at what other motive I might have had!’

‘Running away from something, maybe.’

Her breath caught in her throat. He couldn’t know, she reassured herself swiftly. The story was hardly of world interest. She conjured a laugh, hearing the brittle edge. ‘And there I was congratulating myself on having committed the perfect crime!’

‘Or someone,’ he continued, as though she hadn’t spoken. He gave her no time to form a response. ‘What do you plan on doing with yourself while you are here? Your brother’s going to be pretty busy.’

‘Real or manufactured jobs?’ Alex regretted the question the moment it was out, seeing the grey eyes suddenly harden, but it was too late to retract it. She made an effort to modify it instead. ‘You seem to have been piling on the pressure a bit hard.’

‘Been complaining, has he?’

‘Not in so many words. More an impression I gathered.’

‘You’ve been here all of three hours. You think that time enough to start making snap judgements?’

‘I don’t need to read a whole book to get an idea of the plot,’ she countered, abandoning the pacification. ‘I think you’re probably giving Greg the run-around in the hope of showing him in his true colours—or what you consider his true colours. He’s not the kind of husband you’d have chosen for Margot, is he?’

The hands had come down from behind the dark head, now, to rest on the arms of his chair, fingers curving the edge of the wood. Strong fingers, accustomed to controlling mettlesome horseflesh—among other things.

‘If we’re going in for plain speaking, no, he isn’t,’ came the blunt agreement. ‘If she had to marry anybody this soon it should have been someone she knew something about.’

‘Someone you already had in mind yourself, by any chance?’

‘Someone she had in mind before meeting up with that brother of yours!’

Blue eyes clashed with grey, holding fast through sheer effort of will. ‘Obviously not in any serious sense. If she’s old enough to be married at all, she’s old enough to make her own decisions.’

His lip curled. ‘I guess you’ve been making yours most of your life!’

‘Only since I realised it was my life.’

‘Never made any mistakes?’

‘Nothing radical.’ It was a long way from the truth, but Alex was in no mood for ethical debate with herself. ‘Anyway, it isn’t me we’re talking about.’