Do You Take This Enemy?. Sara Orwig

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СКАЧАТЬ he commanded, assured that he had a viable proposition for her.

      Ashley was breathing as hard as if she had run a race, but she was silent. He was as aware of his hand on her arm as if he had touched a burning brand, and he stood close enough to catch a tempting, flowery scent. As their gazes locked, he could feel the sparks snapping between them and suddenly, he wondered if her ragged breathing was for a reason other than anger. Was the lady responding to him when he looked into her eyes? Fascinated by what was happening between them, he let the silence lengthen.

      He had come over here to give her a good business offer, but his interest had shifted from her ranch to her. How long had it been since a woman had made him feel anything? Since the loss of Ella, and then both of his parents, he had been buried in grief. Yet here was this wild, volatile chemistry that had broken through grief—a chemistry that had ignited the moment he looked into Ashley’s eyes. He suspected she was feeling it, too.

      “Listen to me,” he repeated in a husky voice, and she merely nodded. “I can rebuild this ranch. It’ll help your dad, yet he’ll still be a big part of it because he knows horses and I don’t. My money will be backing you and with both ranches joined, we’ll have one of the most successful spreads in the Southwest.”

      “Mr. Brant, you’re plenty good-looking. Find yourself another woman. I’m sure you can,” she said, yanking her arm out of his grasp.

      “It isn’t your body I want.”

      “You’re not getting your hands on this land.”

      “Just remember, mine would be yours, too. I want to join them. Running something this large has to be hard on your dad and on you as well.”

      As she looked away, a flush brought pink to her cheeks. When he saw her fists were clenched, he realized that he had struck a nerve.

      “Look, we can help each other,” he insisted. “You have room for me to run cattle.”

      “I’ve always heard that you’re driven with ambition,” she said, looking him in the eye again.

      “Damn straight, I’m ambitious.”

      She tapped her toe on the ground and crossed her arms in front of herself, shaking her finger in the direction of his truck. “Get in your pickup and get off our land. Your ten minutes are up. I’m not marrying a Brant. No way in hell. And you’re not getting your hands on our ranch.”

      They stared at each other, and he knew he was running out of time.

      “I can end all of the Triple R’s debt and with no demands on you—” he began.

      She tossed her head and a curtain of silky black hair swung across her shoulders. “Get off our land. You’re trespassing.”

      “I’ll go, but you think about it. For both of us, it would be a means to an end.”

      He moved toward the door of his pickup. “You could protect yourself with a prenuptial agreement. You have lawyers.” He opened the door of his pickup and paused, his gaze raking over her again.

      “How far along are you? Five months?”

      “Seven months.”

      “Seven! Then, Ashley, you better think about my offer,” he said, liking the way it felt to call her by her first name. “You don’t have much time left to make choices. You’ll be so busy when your baby comes, you won’t have time for this ranch. A paper marriage would take a huge burden from your father. Life and family are more important than land or money,” he added harshly. “I can promise you that.”

      While her eyes narrowed, he climbed into his pickup and started the motor, backing and turning, driving slowly so he wouldn’t stir a cloud of dust in her face. He looked into his rearview mirror. Ashley Ryder stood with her hands on her hips, still watching him. Even pregnant, she was one good-looking woman.

      Mule-stubborn, she was trouble, yet she still had him attracted. She was gutsy, quick-witted and he suspected she was tough, willing to give up her plans and successful career in advertising to come home to help her father—all admirable enough qualities to offset stubbornness.

      The Ryders were trouble, but they’d never been dumb. They were smart people, and he knew she had heard what he’d said, and she would think about it. For a first visit, it could have gone much worse.

      If they joined their ranches, he could buy more cattle and expand. He knew for a fact that the Ryders’ horses weren’t taking up all the land they owned. Their ranch was as big as his, and it had been talk around the county for some time now about how Quinn Ryder had cut back and was in poor health, and the ranch was failing. The old man needed help desperately, yet couldn’t afford to hire it, and Ashley was going to be too busy to take charge completely. Quinn Ryder’s brothers had their own problems that kept them from stepping in. Ashley was seven months along. That didn’t leave a lot of time if they wanted to be married before the baby was born.

      Gabe was lost in thought about Ashley and the future until he rounded a bend on his Circle B ranch and saw the two ranch houses ahead. The main road led to the old family home, a sprawling house that had been added to through generations. A branch of the road led to the house he had built for Ella.

      Grief swamped him, and he gripped the steering wheel tighter, his throat closing up. He and his son Julian now lived in the family house. Memories tore him up in his home, so he had moved, but it made little difference because the memories still hurt. First he’d lost Ella, then two years ago, both his parents. Too many losses too close together.

      He took a deep breath and tried to think about the Ryders and what he had just done in proposing to Ashley.

      He had calculated how much land he would gain down to the last acre and he had flown his own plane over the Triple R, studying it carefully. It was the only way he could expand. Each of his neighbors was a descendant of settlers who had acquired the land at statehood or earlier, and no one around here was willing to sell. As far as he could see, Ashley was his best hope. She and her dad needed what he was offering. Gabe hoped she was mulling over his offer right now.

      Ashley stood watching the dust hang in the road behind Gabriel Brant’s red pickup. She shook with anger. There would be a next time. The Brants didn’t give up on anything they set their mind to. The two families were still fighting over Cotton Creek, only now the battles were in lawyers’ offices instead of with fists.

      Marry him! Paper marriage, sham marriage, it wouldn’t matter. Anything that tied a Ryder to a Brant was impossible. For four generations—five counting hers and Gabe’s—the Ryders and the Brants had fought over water rights. They had fought over damming up Cotton Creek, over the boundaries of their two ranches where Cotton Creek angled between the two and was the boundary line—a boundary line that kept shifting as the creek had shifted and changed. Now this miserable Brant wanted to break all traditions.

      She thought of the generations of hate, years of silence. Even in her childhood, she could remember her father’s rage at finding dead horses and overhearing him talk to Gus, their foreman, about killing cattle. When old Thomas, Gabriel Brant’s father, had run for the Texas senate, her dad had done everything he could to defeat him, including making very generous donations to Thomas’s opponent. Yet, in spite of her father’s efforts, Thomas Brant had won, giving the Brants even more power.

      Ashley had always heard that Thomas Brant was ruthlessly ambitious. The son obviously СКАЧАТЬ