High-Stakes Colton. Karen Anders

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СКАЧАТЬ afternoon light angled over him, defining the solid ridge of muscles across his shoulders and up his torso, thick and hard across his chest, casting his deeply tanned skin in a patina of bronze. The strong angle of his jaw was highlighted by a stubble of beard, the burnished skin across his cheekbones drawn smooth. He looked like a heavy weighted anchor, not even an earthquake could shake him. The kind of anchor she craved in the deepest part of her where that little girl who had grown up so alone lurked.

      It was an unspoken rule that Coltons did not talk to outsiders about family matters. Alanna had grown up an heiress, stood to inherit a large sum of money from all of the Colton holdings, it naturally made her wary of anyone who got too close.

      And Jake was too close.

      Not only in proximity.

      But when Fowler had growled and said Jake’s last name like it was a swear word, she couldn’t get over here fast enough to find out what had happened. Now she was standing here with a loaded question regarding her father’s violent and mystifying disappearance. She lived in an environment where she always had to watch her back, even from her family members. The police seemed to be at a dead end after first clearing Fowler, then Zane. The turmoil the family had been through the last couple of months would rival a soap opera. Then who could trust Marceline? She hated Eldridge and had been acting so secretive and...well...guilty. Did she have something to do with his disappearance? Then there was her stepmother, Whitney. Her insistence and dedication to finding her Dridgey-pooh seemed real, but was she a good actress, really worried and upset, or did she hire someone to murder her husband? But if her dad was dead, where was his body? A painful contraction clutched at Alanna’s heart.

      The need to talk to someone was an aching pressure against her breastbone, holding in the worry and the despair as each day passed. The fact that there was no news wore on her, tearing at her armor.

      But Jake was an outsider, an unknown. His reputation aside, she couldn’t trust anyone, not inside her family circle or outside it. Not to mention, he’d also undermined her this morning with his refusal to take her seriously over Zorro.

      “I suspect your brother isn’t the only one struggling with it.”

      His voice was quiet and full of understanding as if he knew all about the kind of suffering that took chunks out of her. He tested her sense of balance. This bond they seemed to share was as unexpected as it was unwanted. At least on her end. The fear of giving in to that need for comfort was just as strong as her attraction for him. The problem was she hadn’t determined if he was friend or foe. But even if he was the former, she couldn’t risk it. At this point, she had no control, nor did Fowler believe she had what it took to be the decision maker for the stables. He’d told that to her face once it was clear he was now in charge. He and her father were one in the same mind about her abilities.

      Jake would probably be just the same and letting an alpha get closer to her would be tantamount to jumping off the side of a cliff. She might as well give up. Besides, his time was limited. Once he realized Zorro was a lost cause, he would quit. All she had to do was resist temptation. Very potent temptation.

      “We’re doing the best that we can,” she said, her response flat. It was time to turn tail and run.

      She wasn’t too worried about him being inappropriate. Her worry was all about her misbehaving. Jake was potent enough and with his face and body and the sense that he was carrying the kind of pain she was made it all the more enticing to unburden herself to someone who would understand it. The pull of that was magnetic.

      Either she wasn’t quick enough or he had the instincts of a predator as he blocked her attempt to leave by simply stepping into her path and setting the towels down on the coffee table.

      “That’s all we can do,” he murmured. “The best we can.”

      There was something in his voice that resonated with her big-time, like he knew what it was like to fight against something, as if constantly climbing a hill. She didn’t want this...connection with him. But against her will, it was there.

      “I should get going,” she said, thinking to get out of his presence would be a good thing. “There’s still a lot of work to be done.” She should have curbed her impulse to come dashing over here after she’d seen the result of her brother and Jake meeting for the first time.

      “You do work hard here.”

      “You say that as if it surprised you.”

      “Maybe it did. I expected you to be the queen, I guess. Not the worker bee.”

      “You really can’t believe everything you read in the media, Mr. McCord.”

      “How about I open my mind and you start calling me Jake?”

      Did he want to be friends? Or more? She was getting the vibe that he wanted more, but now she wasn’t so sure. Maybe she was just projecting her own wishful thinking.

      Curious about his background was an understatement. “How did you get into...horse whispering?”

      He shrugged. “Fell into it. Had the knack and something that came naturally.”

      “Which is really all it is. A fancy and manipulative way of labeling natural horsemanship. There’s nothing mystical about it.” She had a deeper conviction before she’d seen him calm down Firecracker, but she still held the belief that it was all science, not magic.

      She paused to see if he would elaborate, but he said nothing more, and she took that to mean her line of questioning was over. Perhaps for the best. Information was fine, but in hindsight, the more he offered, she supposed, the more she owed in return. Maybe the less they had to talk about, the better.

      As if to prove her point, he said, “You were the force behind Colton Valley Ranch Stables. How long have you been working with the horses?”

      She stilled briefly, surprised he knew about her past. Not that it was a secret. Alanna knew reports of her work history out in the public domain were pure fluff. It could be that the people who worked for her talked, but it was discouraged. Still, it was more than a little unsettling to think he’d been checking up on her, or asking about her. Her guard increased. “I was the one who brought it up to my father when I was younger and had gotten into barrel racing. He was all about the cattle, but I loved the horses.” Still, she found it hard to maintain direct eye contact in the face of Jake’s rather intense focus. She doubted he missed much, and after dealing with Fowler’s surprise purchase of Zorro and her father’s sanctioning of it, her guard was in need of a bit more shoring up before handling this kind of test.

      “I’m guessing you’re an island here.”

      Her heart took a jolt. “How so?”

      “It’s not easy to buck traditions, especially in a male-dominated industry.”

      Those softly spoken words wormed under the armor she had just been shoring up. She blinked a couple of times, forcing herself to maintain steady eye contact, but it cost her. She could only pray he didn’t see how his words affected her down to that seething, frustrated woman deep inside her.

      “This is a man’s business,” she replied, feeling it was a pat and safe answer. There was no denying that ranching and the cowboy way were squarely in the male-dominated arena. Especially in Texas where the men had big, strong personalities, called their women “little ladies” and pampered the hell out of them.

      “I СКАЧАТЬ