Читать книгу Betting on the Cowboy - Kathleen O'Brien - Страница 13

CHAPTER FOUR

JUST WHEN GRAY thought Rowena must have changed her mind about interviewing him, the front door finally opened.

But the elegant blonde knockout who stood there, smiling coolly, wasn’t Rowena. No way Rowena could have changed that much, not even after sixteen years, not even after the mellowing experience of falling in love and getting married. Gray considered himself a connoisseur of beautiful women, and even when he was only thirteen he’d understood that Rowena’s fiery good looks weren’t a product of cosmetics, clothes or hairstyles. She was all dramatic, gypsy bone structure and primal energy.

And, of course, there was the problem of the coloring. She might have dyed her hair, but no way even contact lenses could transform Rowena’s flashing eyes, which had been the color of melted emeralds, into this cool pair of iced-sapphire blue.

Cool. Ice.

The words triggered something. He dug around in his psyche for a couple of seconds, then pulled it out. Aw, heck. Wouldn’t you know it would be one of the guilty memories, one of those inexcusable episodes from his angry years? He seemed to have an inexhaustible supply. Some more rotten than others.

This one really reeked. God, he’d been such an ass back then.

But at least he recognized her now. This was the middle Wright sister, Bree. She’d been his age, so they’d been in the same class, but she hadn’t been in his group. She had hung with the student council crowd, the prissy, overachiever girls who had annoyed the heck out of him in those days.

He wouldn’t ever have guessed that she’d grow up to be so gorgeous. When their mother was killed and the Wright girls left town, the middle sister had still been in that awkward stage, unsure what to do with anything she possessed, from her thick, nearly white hair to her long, gangly legs.

But she knew now. From crown to polished toenail, she was slick and citified and possessed a distinctive eastern seaboard chic. The look might still be a bit icy—alabaster skin, blue suit to match her violet-bluebell eyes, sleek Grace Kelly French twist showing off expensive pearl earrings. But she somehow managed to pack a visceral wallop, even so.

“Hi, Bree,” he said, hoping his surprise—and his more pleasantly primitive reactions—weren’t too obvious. “I assumed you probably were a partner in the dude ranch, but I didn’t realize you had moved back to town, too.”

“Hello, Gray.” She smiled politely, all professionalism and poise. “I haven’t moved back. I’m just here for a visit, and to help out a little with the soft opening, if I can. Most of the time, I’ll be a partner in name only.”

“That’s a shame,” he said. And he meant it. He would have enjoyed spending time with a woman this attractive—assuming she wouldn’t scuttle his chances of getting the job.

He wondered if it was even remotely possible that she’d forgotten about...the ice.

He had to laugh at his own wishful thinking. No, it was not even remotely possible she’d forgotten. But perhaps she would want to pretend she had. Her whole bearing announced that she had more than her share of pride.

“I’m so sorry we kept you waiting.” She took a step forward, putting one foot onto the porch, which surprised him. They were going out, not in?

Suddenly, from somewhere in the house behind her, a strange, high-pitched noise rang out. He glanced over her shoulder, wondering what on earth could have made such a sound. But her face remained utterly impassive, not even a twitch revealing that she’d heard it.

Man, she was good. He wouldn’t want to have to play poker with her. Their gazes locked, and he blinked first. After a couple of seconds, he actually began to wonder whether he had imagined the sound.

She stepped across the threshold, pulling the door shut behind her, and gave him another smile. “Rowena is running a bit late for the interview, so she asked me to show you around the ranch. We’re all very excited about the plans for Bell River, and we think you will be, too.”

She didn’t wait for him to agree, but moved on down the stairs without looking back, taking his cooperation for granted—which made sense, of course. After all, she was the boss lady and he was just a hired hand, assuming he got the job.

Mr. Minimum Wage. Still, Gray wasn’t complaining. The view he got while she walked ahead of him was pretty spectacular. It made him think like a college kid...it made the phrase “Boss Lady and the Hired Hand” suggest all kinds of interesting, if idiotic, possibilities.

God, what a sleazeball that made him sound like! Good thing she couldn’t read his mind. He had to laugh at himself, proving his grandfather right about how unprofessional and self-indulgent he was.

“One day, son, you’ll learn that real life is not all about games and girls.” Gray’s grandfather’s face, as he stood in Gray’s college dorm on Gray’s nineteenth birthday, had been rigid with fury. He’d just realized that Gray wasn’t going to cave in to his demands to come home for the summer, not even at the risk of losing the Harper Quarry millions.

The old man never had been able to tolerate being thwarted. He’d run his cold eyes over Gray’s expensive suit, and then over the equally expensive red dress Gray’s girlfriend was almost wearing.

“If you honestly believe you can make your own way, without the safety net of the Harper name, you’re going to have to do a hell of a lot of growing up.”

Gray had yawned and gone back to knotting his tie. He and Carla had reservations at nine, and she was eyeing him appraisingly, obviously wondering if he had the starch to stand up to the old tyrant.

So Gray had met his grandfather’s gaze in the mirror and grinned. “Oh, dear. Will I have to become like you?”

His grandfather’s mouth had tightened. “You couldn’t be like me if you tried, you insolent whelp. But, like it or not, if you’re going to be poor, you will have to get serious. You will have to get focused. And by God, for once in your spoiled life, you will have to get dirty.”

Well, the old man hadn’t been lying about that, as Gray had soon discovered. But he’d been wrong to assume that getting dirty would bother him. He’d thrived on it, actually, and kept himself so focused that it had been a very, very long time since Gray had found any female special enough to take his mind off “real life.”

The subtle stirring of interest Bree Wright had just set in motion...well, frankly, it felt darn nice.

Still, she was talking, and he should be listening. He caught up with her and kept his eyes sensibly on the path as they made their way toward the stables. He tried to pay attention as she detailed the ranch’s horsemanship program.

They had built fifty stalls, she explained, because, though they had only twenty horses at the moment, the plan was to increase to fifty head within a year. They also had three ponies for young riders and a “bring your own mount” option for guests who preferred a familiar seat.

“Nice,” he said appreciatively as they entered the large, well-designed stables and heard the soft nickering of the animals. He gazed down the wide, clean walk between the stalls. Half a dozen horses poked their heads out, and his practiced eye evaluated them quickly. All excellent specimens, as far as he could see.

Bree didn’t seem inclined to take him in any farther, though he was itching to get a closer look. Apparently this was only the nickel tour, skimming the high points until she could turn him over to Rowena.

Or else she simply wasn’t a fan of horses. He allowed himself a quick up and down while she was consulting her watch. That hairdo wouldn’t survive five minutes on horseback, and those high heels had definitely not been bought with the thought of tramping through sawdust and hay. Maybe more than a decade on the East Coast had eradicated her inner cowgirl completely.

After a few seconds, he realized he was still staring at her impossibly long legs, so he yanked his gaze up where it belonged and said the first thing that came into his mind. “Are you a good rider?”

She glanced at him, as if surprised by the question, and lowered her arm, letting her watch fall over the back of her hand.

“I haven’t ridden in years, but I used to be all right,” she said, but she touched her earring when she said it, and he had already learned that the gesture was her tell. The question had made her uncomfortable. “I was nothing compared to Ro, of course. She was the horsey one.”

He winced, hearing in her voice that she still accepted the childhood labels without question. Big mistake. Labels, he knew all too well, had a way of being self-fulfilling. He had been “the spoiled brat.”

“Really.” He tilted his head. “And which ‘one’ were you?”

Her eyebrows drew together gently. Then she smiled. “I was the prissy one. The ice queen. I thought you might remember that.”

Well, that brought the elephant out and plopped it on the table, didn’t it? He admired the cool aplomb that allowed her to mention it first. Maybe the episode really didn’t bother her as much as it bothered him. Maybe it was easier to live with the memory of having looked foolish than to live with the memory of having been cruel.

“I do remember,” he said flatly, without any attempt to make light of it all. Yes, they’d been kids. But even ninth graders bled when they were cut. “I remember that I was an insensitive jackass. You deserved better, and I knew it, even then. It may be sixteen years too late, but I want you to know I’m sorry.”

When he had started his speech, she had already begun to exit the stables. At his final word, sorry, she stopped walking and gazed placidly back at him, her elegant, symmetrical features half in shadow, half in sunlight.

“Thanks,” she said, but he didn’t know her well enough to guess whether the simple word was sardonic or sincere.

Truth was, “jackass” might be an understatement. He and his friends had always made fun of girls like her, the ones who were so bloody virtuous and civic-minded, always on committees to organize this and decorate that. But then, that January, just a month or so before her mother’s death, she had ratted on his best friend for smoking behind the bleachers.

Irked, Gray had decided she needed to be taken down a peg.

So, inspired by the instructions on one of his grandfather’s housekeeper’s frozen foods, he had printed out bold red letters on a piece of plain white paper. Then he’d recruited the girl who sat behind Bree in biology to surreptitiously tape it to the back of her shirt.

Caution: Contents Are Frozen. Thaw Before Eating.

She’d worn it for two whole class periods, in which apparently she had no allies. Finally, after school, one of her buddies saw it and yanked it off. By that time, the joke had made its way around the building like a virus, becoming more vulgar by the minute. Even Gray had felt naive when he realized some of the nasty interpretations that could be applied—though of course he pretended to have meant them all along.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, though,” she added with a smile. “You had good reason to be rebellious. What happened to your parents...it was so unfair. I didn’t understand anything about it that day, of course, but I found out soon enough. When you’re furious with life, with fate, with everything, it can make you...” She seemed to search for the right way to express herself. “Less than kind.”

He nodded. “True. Although in some ways isn’t that just a cop-out? People still have choices about how they’ll express their anger.” He appreciated her generosity, though. “I have to say,” he added, “that tragedy doesn’t seem to have had a similar effect on you.”

Flushing, she rolled the pearl of her earring between two fingers and laughed softly. “That’s nice to hear. But then, you’ve known me all of...ten minutes? I suspect that the people who know me better would emphatically disagree.”

People who knew her better... He wondered whom she meant by that. A husband...an ex-husband? A lover?

Or...he glanced toward the pine-dappled path they’d taken to the stables, and saw Rowena striding briskly toward them, her black hair blowing out behind her in the breeze.

Or a sister?

“Gray!” Rowena met them at the stable door and held out her hand. “Gosh, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it? But you haven’t changed a bit! I would have known you anywhere.”

He accepted her warm, welcoming handshake. He would have recognized her, too, of course. Those eyes. Those cheekbones. But he couldn’t say she hadn’t changed. Though she had been in the eleventh grade the last time they met, and she was now probably nearly thirty-two, a married stepmother juggling family and business, she didn’t look a day older. Instead, she seemed, paradoxically, to have grown younger. Softer.

Was that what marriage to Dallas had done for her? Had love really erased all that dangerous tension that had once tightened the muscles in her face and in her body, until she had seemed a hairsbreadth away from exploding?

“I’m so sorry to keep you waiting,” she went on. “You’ve seen the stables, then? I hope Bree has been persuasive. Her mission was to convince you that Bell River Dude Ranch is the perfect place to work.”

Bree frowned, as if this was the first she’d heard of such a mission, but Gray spoke up quickly. “Absolutely. She’s made it sound terrific. I’d want to work here even if you weren’t the only place in town willing to hire me.”

Rowena laughed, but Bree’s deepening furrow told Gray that she hadn’t been brought in on the joke. When Gray and Rowena had spoken on the phone yesterday, he’d laid everything out frankly, black sheep to black sheep, and asked for her help. In the strictest sense, this meeting wasn’t even really an interview, because she’d already offered him the job.

“I was just about to show him where the Phase Two construction will start,” Bree said, obviously treading carefully. She pointed west. “We’ll be adding a pool and a lodge, just over there. Both of them will allow us to offer many more activities. Your position would be greatly expanded during Phase Two, I’m sure, and—”

Rowena laughed again, reaching out to touch Bree’s upper arm gently. “I don’t think Gray really cares much about Phase Two,” she said. “He’ll be long gone by then.”

Bree’s face went very still, and she twirled her left earring with a studiously careless motion. “Long gone?” she repeated without inflection.

He glanced at Rowena, who nodded subtly, giving him permission to tell Bree the details. “I talked to your sister yesterday, and I explained my situation. I need the dirtiest, most menial job she has, but I need it for only a month. Four weeks, to be exact.”

“Only a month?” Bree raised her eyebrows. “And that’s because...?”

“Because that’s what my grandfather requires, before he’ll put me back in his will.”

She stared at him a long minute, and the expression in her eyes subtly hardened as she did so, as if she was revising down her estimation of him.

Finally, she turned to Rowena. “You think this is the best decision for the ranch?”

“What do you mean?”

Bree glanced once, quickly, at Gray, then returned her gaze to her sister. “Shouldn’t we have employees who really want to work at a dude ranch? At this dude ranch? Surely that’s in our best interests. And yet, knowing that Gray wants this position for his own personal agenda, and no other reason, you hired him anyway? Sight unseen?”

“Not exactly unseen,” Rowena corrected, a slight edge creeping into her voice. “We’ve known Gray for years, Bree. But otherwise, yes. I knew, and that’s exactly what I did.”

“Why?” Bree’s one-word question dripped disapproval.

As Rowena prepared to respond, Gray thought he detected a spark of the old firebrand. Her green eyes narrowed, and they seemed to blaze hot inside her thick fringe of black lashes.

“Because he is willing to work for practically nothing, which is about what I’ve got left in the budget. Because a month will get me through the soft opening and give me time to replace him. Because he’s handsome and smart and charming, and the guests will be eating out of his hand.”

“But, Ro, he—”

“I’m not finished.” Rowena’s syllables were crisp and staccato, and Bree subsided. “Most important, I’m hiring him because no one else will. Because I know what it’s like to try to outrun a reputation that got tied to your tail so long ago it feels grafted to you. In a town like Silverdell, that’s pretty darned hard to do.”

Gray watched as Bree tried to swallow her opposition—a self-control that seemed to be something of a struggle. As complex emotions swept across her classically beautiful features, rendering them infinitely more interesting than perfection ever could, his curiosity was piqued.

Though of course everyone had gossiped about their mother’s murder, Gray hadn’t really known the Wright sisters very well. Rowena had been older, too sophisticated to bother with a boy like him, and Bree had always seemed too deadly wholesome to be worth his time. The little one...he couldn’t remember her name...hadn’t registered at all.

Now, though, he sensed layers and textures in Bree’s personality that went far beyond “prissy” or “icy” or “dull.” And layers between the two sisters, too. Undercurrents both deep and powerful—and touchingly human.

He suspected that, at its heart, this mini-confrontation had very little to do with Rowena’s choice for a job as insignificant as the part-time assistant social director...and much more to do with years of unresolved family baggage.

Well, okay, then, maybe he knew them better than he had realized. They all belonged to that sorry club—the children who had survived the unsurvivable and didn’t really know why. Or where to go from there.

A large bird, maybe an eagle, landed somewhere high in the pines over their heads, causing the sunlight to shift as the branches swayed. For an instant, the light seemed to catch on two crystal sparkles at the outer edges of Bree’s cool blue eyes.

Tears? Gray frowned. Was the ice princess fighting back tears?

She blinked, then, and the illusion disappeared. But he was left with a sudden, inexplicable hunger to know her better, to find out more about her.

A lot more.

And...just his luck. He had only four weeks to do it.