The Cowboy and the Lady. Diana Palmer

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      He came the rest of the way down without hesitation, his booted feet making soft thuds on the carpeted steps. He paused in front of her when he got to the bottom, towering over her, close enough that she could smell his woodsy cologne and the clean fragrance of his body.

      “For what?” he asked with a mocking smile. “A handkerchief?”

      “More like a shield and some armor,” she countered, hiding her nervousness behind humor.

      He didn’t laugh. “You haven’t changed,” he observed. “Still the little clown.” His narrowed eyes slid down her body indifferently. “Why did you come back here?” he demanded abruptly, cold steel in his tone.

      “Because Duncan insisted.”

      He scowled down at her. “Why? You only work for Black.”

      “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.

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