The Devil You Know

She mentally shrugged. He hadn’t informed her of his social calendar, so how was she to know he would be here? And why was he?

His sister worried about his love life, or lack thereof, and Roni had flirted outrageously with him over the past year. He’d watched her every maneuver with sardonic amusement and great detachment. Most of the time. There had been that one kiss…

Anyway, she knew he wasn’t the kind to get emotionally involved. Unless he’d really fallen for the fair Geena?

The thought was so painful, she had to press a hand against her tummy to stop the tumult. Last Christmas, he’d made it clear by his indifference that he wasn’t, and never would be, interested in her. Her New Year’s resolution had been to enjoy life and stop daydreaming about one stubborn FBI agent who traveled fast, far and alone.

However, March had come and with it, the kiss, which had burned clear down to her soul and filled her with such dreams, such longing. Her resolve to forget him had gone up in smoke.

He’d left the ranch and she hadn’t heard from him until their encounter last Friday. If not for that, she wouldn’t have known he was in town.

So be it. Since he was using his real name, she wouldn’t have to guard her tongue every moment of the weekend, assuming he was staying until Sunday as she was. Now she waited to see if he acknowledged they knew each other or if they were going to pretend to be strangers.

“Roni and I are old friends,” Adam said with casual ease. “In fact, we’re almost relatives. My sister is married to her cousin.” His smile was all innocent warmth.

“I’m glad to meet you,” Roni said to Geena.

She almost laughed at her own earlier vanity in trying to appear taller, as if that might make her more commanding or something. The lovely Geena, wearing three-inch heels, was on level with Adam’s six-foot height. Scott was an inch taller than the other two.

As with her family—all the Dalton males tended to be tall and lean—she felt like the odd man, uh, person, out. However, she had learned long ago not to be intimidated by size or any other facet of human differences.

“It is a small world,” Geena commented when the group was seated in a pleasant arrangement before the library fireplace. “Adam didn’t mention relatives in the city.”

“My sister and her husband live in the Hells Canyon area north of here,” Adam said.

“So you’ve known Roni a long time?” the other woman asked.

“Only about a year, actually.”

Geena turned to Roni. “Is your brother in finance?”

“He’s a deputy sheriff. And he raises and trains cutting horses. Prize cutting horses,” she added for no good reason except she wanted this high-class female to know they had some good bloodlines, too, even if it was in the stock they raised.

Again, laughter nearly escaped her before she could sternly clamp down on herself. Geena probably wouldn’t be amused at the comparison.

When Adam gave her a narrow-eyed scrutiny, Roni returned it with a wide-eyed innocence, her smile as sweet as molasses taffy. He lofted one thick dark eyebrow sardonically, then turned the conversation to a business topic with Mr. Masterson.

At seven o’clock, they went into the dining room for a dinner that lasted until eight-thirty. The talk around the table ranged from the stock market to politics and the campaigns that were already being waged for elections that were months, or even years, away. Roni mostly listened.

Adam mentioned that another Dalton cousin was married to a woman whose father was running for governor. Drawn into the conversation, she reported that his campaign seemed to be going well and he was ahead in the polls.

After dinner, the two older couples played bridge while she and Scott selected CDs of soft music and chatted quietly. By eleven o’clock she could hardly keep her eyes open.

“We’d better call it a night before Cinderella turns into a pumpkin,” Adam said in amusement as she tried to hide another yawn. “The Daltons are an ‘early to bed, early to rise’ family. I learned that on my first visit to the ranch when Roni woke me up at six in the morning for breakfast. I had agreed to ride out with them on a roundup and a picnic in the mountains for some weird reason I can’t recall.”

That brought chuckles from the group as the family gazed from Adam to her.

“Scott, show Roni the breakfast room,” the stepmother told him. She smiled cordially at Roni. “I’ll tell the housekeeper to be sure the coffee is ready by six. Is there anything special you would like to eat?”

“No, cereal or toast is fine,” Roni replied.

Geena’s smile wasn’t quite as friendly when Roni bid them good-night and left the room with Scott at her side. After guiding her to the breakfast room, he led the way up the stairs. She ducked inside her bedroom before he could give her a kiss.

Alone, she dropped the good-natured pose. Curving her fingers into claws, she gave a throaty growl at her image in the mirror over the fireplace, then spoiled the effect by sticking her tongue out at herself.

Fighting a vague sense of despair, she smiled ruefully at her childish display and prepared for bed. Once settled for the night with the lamp off, she found her eyes refused to close or her mind to stop going around and around with fragments of thought. She hoped the weekend would go by fast. Or that Adam would have to leave in the morning.

Next she wondered where he was sleeping…and if he was alone in the bed.

“Arggghhh,” she groaned and pulled the pillow over her head as if that would block out the hateful images that sprang into her mental vision.

In the morning, Roni polished off an English muffin with strawberry preserves, drank the last swallow of milk and wondered what she should do with her dishes.

Adam strolled in, wearing khaki slacks and a chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up on his forearms. “I thought you would be up.”

“Yes. I nearly always wake when the sun comes up.”

He nodded as he went to the buffet and looked over the selection of hot and cold foods. Scrambled eggs and bacon were kept warm in a silver double boiler, a smaller version of those she’d seen at hotel buffets. The heat came from a tiny can of fuel of a type she’d used while camping.

The memory of another morning rushed into her mind like the rays of the rising sun that warmed the earth…

She and Adam had leaned on the fence and watched the horses munch hay from a rolled bale. A cool breeze blew down the valley from He-Devil peak. Most of the snow was gone from the pasture due to an unusually warm winter. With the coming of March, the storm pattern had changed, and snow was predicted by Monday, which was only two days away.

“You’d better head south,” she’d told him, “before the storm gets here. The county roads will be closed if we get a heavy snow.”

“Anxious to get rid of me?” he’d drawled.

She’d hated the amusement in his eyes, the way he had of treating her like a child when she was twentysix and had been making her own way since graduating from high school.

While Uncle Nick had helped so she hadn’t had to go into debt, she’d earned most of her way through college via a work-study program at the education company where she was now employed. She hadn’t felt truly young and carefree in years, maybe not since her father had died the winter before she’d turned four.

“Yes,” she’d answered. “You bother me in ways I don’t like. Because I seem to have no control over myself when you’re near.”

He sucked in a strangled breath.

She smiled wryly. “That got a reaction out of you.”

Suddenly he was close, too close for her comfort range. “Was that all you wanted—to get a reaction from me?” he demanded with an intensity she’d rarely seen in him.

He’d always kept them on a maddening level of casual amusement, as if he silently laughed at the attraction she was sure existed between them.

“No,” she said honestly. “No, I want more.”

She held her ground with an effort, refusing to look away from the gaze that was no longer cool, no longer amused. A tremor shook her as he came closer.

“Be careful what you wish for,” he warned, his voice soft, the tone harsh.

Once she’d wished her mother was alive, that her father would miraculously reappear, that Aunt Milly and Tink would come home, that the other orphans wouldn’t move on to high school and college and leave her behind…so many things she’d wished for. None had ever come true.