Kitabı oxu: «The Rancher's Mistress»

CHAPTER ONE

TAKING in the panoramic view of rolling grasslands and timbered mountain slopes, Alex felt well and truly over the rainbow. Wyoming! The name itself conjured up images of hard-thewed cowboys astride spirited steeds, of thundering herds of cattle and whistling lariats. That the old Western films she had loved as a teenager would bear little resemblance to today’s reality she didn’t need telling, but it did no harm to dream.

‘How long will it take us to reach the Lazy Y?’ she asked the man at the wheel of the station wagon, savouring the name.

‘An hour or so,’ he said. ‘We’ll be in good time for supper. Hope you’re not on a diet. The food is really something. Needs to be too, considering what it costs to spend a week on the ranch. Taking in dudes is a pretty lucrative business.’

‘It’s a working ranch too, though, isn’t it? At least, that’s the impression you gave in your letter.’

‘It’s that all right. Cal would sooner give up breathing than cattle-breeding.’

Catching the acerbic note, Alex shot her brother a glance. Handsome as he’d been at eighteen, when she’d last seen him in the flesh, he was even more so at twenty-six: blond hair bleached by the sun, features hardened into manhood. They had often been taken for twins when they were children, despite the two years between them. The resemblance was still there, of course, though obviously nowhere near as pronounced. Whether the empathy they had shared could be re-established after eight years apart was something else.

‘Do you get on all right with him?’ she queried.

The shrug was noncommittal. ‘Well enough.’

Not exactly ‘buddy-buddy’, Alex gathered—which wasn’t all that surprising, she supposed, considering the circumstances.

‘How about the guests?’ she said. ‘Do they join in with the general ranch work too?’

‘The ones who want to. Amazing how many seem to look on working their butts off fencing and riding herd as part and parcel of what they’re paying for!’

‘Perhaps they’re living out a private fantasy,’ Alex suggested lightly. ‘I always wanted to be a cowgirl myself.’

Greg’s quick grin momentarily restored the boyish look she remembered. ‘I’d say modelling was the better choice.’

She gave a wry smile. ‘Not so much a choice as an enticement. If I hadn’t been spotted by that photographer, I’d never have thought of it as a career. The problem now is having no particular qualifications to fall back on. Something you tend not to take too much into account at seventeen.’

‘You’re hardly over the hill yet,’ Greg observed, slanting a swift, appraising glance at the tumble of honey-blonde hair and finely sculpted profile.

‘Where photographic work is concerned, I’m fast getting that way.’ Alex took care to keep her tone matter-of-fact. ‘I’ve had a good run, but it’s time I started thinking about doing something else with my life.’

‘You know best, I suppose.’ He paused briefly. ‘Anything in particular in mind?’

‘I’ve done promotional work from time to time. A company I worked for last year offered me a permanent job selling costume jewellery in stores.’

Greg pulled a face. ‘Sounds a bit dull after the kind of life you must have led to date.’

‘I haven’t done that much candle-burning,’ Alex replied drily. ‘Riotous late nights aren’t to be recommended for anyone due to face a camera next day.’

‘You could always find yourself a rich husband. With your looks it should be a doddle!’

‘If I marry anyone at all,’ she declared on an emphatic note, ‘it certainly won’t be for money!’

‘You always were a romantic,’ he scoffed.

She might have been once, Alex reflected. If the last few years hadn’t rid her of her illusions, the last few weeks certainly had!

‘Was it love at first sight for you and Margot?’ she asked, putting the memories resolutely aside. ‘You said you met in Las Vegas.’

‘That’s right. Some friends she was visiting brought her to the nightclub where I was working behind the bar. We were married a week later.’

‘And you call me the romantic!’

The vivid blue eyes, so like her own, fixed on the near-empty road ahead, he said smoothly, ‘She wanted everything done and dusted before Cal could put his spoke in.’

‘He’s her brother, not her guardian. Surely—’

‘You wouldn’t know it at times. He treats her more like sixteen than twenty!’

Perhaps with some reason, Alex thought, trying to be fair-minded about it. Leaping into marriage with a virtual stranger was hardly sensible behaviour at any age. Greg hadn’t answered the first half of the question, which might suggest that love hadn’t been his prime motive. After drifting about the world for so long, a setup like the Lazy Y had to have some pulling power.

Scant evidence on which to make that kind of deduction, she chided herself. The man seated beside her was different in many ways from the boy she had grown up with, but that didn’t mean he’d become an out-and-out opportunist. She, of all people, should know better than to take anyone or anything at face value.

Twelve when their father had died, Alex had accepted her mother’s remarriage less than a year later rather more easily than Greg, who had bitterly resented the intrusion. His departure after four years of unceasing animosity to join a group intending to work their way round the world had come almost as a relief at first, but she had missed him badly as the days stretched into weeks and months. Letters had been few and far between, the content woefully inadequate. The group he was travelling with had gradually dwindled until there were only three of them left, but he’d never shown any sign of wanting to come home.

The news just a couple of weeks ago of his marriage and move to Wyoming had been a double shock as she had believed him to be still somewhere in Australia. Coming at a time when she so badly needed to get away from it all, his suggestion that she take a trip over to meet her new in-laws had seemed like manna from heaven. By the time she got back, the whole sorry business would hopefully be old news.

‘Mum sends her love,’ she said now, adding tentatively, ‘She hopes you’ll see your way to visiting some time.’

‘Not while he’s still around,’ was the more than half-anticipated answer.

‘It’s been eight years,’ Alex protested. ‘You might find him easier to get along with now.’

‘And cows might fly!’ Greg shook his head. ‘No way am I going back there. Mum made her choice when she married him.’

Alex gave up, recognising finality when she heard it. She could be obdurate herself when it came to something she felt strongly about, but this went beyond that.

‘Was it your brother-in-law’s suggestion that you invite me out to stay?’ she asked, by way of changing the subject.

‘More Margot’s. She’s looking forward to meeting you. She wanted to come with me to the airport, but I thought we should have some time on our own to start with. We’ve a lot of catching up to do.’ He put his foot down to overtake the only other vehicle in sight, shooting the speedometer needle over the seventy mark in total disregard of the speed limits and earning himself a horn blast from a gesticulating driver. ‘You never mentioned your own love life in your letters,’ he added, undisturbed by the censure. ‘Always providing I got them all, that is.’

‘I’d doubt it. You were hardly ever in one place long enough.’ Alex ran her hand under the silky curtain of hair at her nape, circling her small, firm chin in an effort to ease aching muscles. ‘I hope there’s plenty of hot water on tap. I feel in dire need of a shower!’

‘There’s plenty of everything on tap,’ Greg assured her. ‘And you didn’t answer the question.’

‘I didn’t realise you were asking one.’ She circled her chin in the other direction, concentrating on the movement. ‘If I haven’t mentioned men, it’s probably because there’s been no one special enough to write about.’

‘Maybe you’ll meet your one and only out here, then.’ Her laugh was short. ‘I’ll hardly be here long enough to develop any meaningful relationships.’

‘You never know. One look might be all it takes. You said you always wanted to be a cowgirl. This could be . your chance.’

‘It could at that.’ Alex summoned a suitably flippant note. ‘I’ll keep my eyes skimmed for a likely prospect.’

‘Don’t bother with the herd, go for the head bull,’ he advised. ‘Cat’s thirty-four. It’s high time he got hitched.’

‘Perhaps he’s married to his work. And I didn’t realise he was so much older than Margot,’ she tagged on contemplatively.

‘Her mother was into her forties when she had her. She died giving birth. Cal took over when his father was killed ten years ago. He started taking in dudes when beef prices went way down a couple of years later. There’s no call for any supplementary income these days but he still keeps them coming. Full capacity most summer weeks.’

‘It’s obviously a popular way to spend a vacation.’ Alex could think of no better way herself. ‘Are there likely to be any horses going spare? It’s been ages since I had chance of a ride.’

‘You’ll be able to take your pick,’ Greg confirmed. ‘Plenty of other activities too. Ever been hot-air ballooning?’

‘No—though I wouldn’t mind trying it. Not that I’m expecting to be treated like a paying guest. There must be plenty I can do to help out while I’m here.’

The thought alone was pleasurable. Stretching long, trouser-clad legs, Alex leaned back in her seat, determined to make the most of this opportunity. Mending fences, riding herd—it all sounded like heaven! Dorothy could have her Oz. She was going to be living her own fantasy this next week or two!

She must have dozed off after that. When she opened her eyes again the mountains were almost on top of them. They had left the main road, she saw, sitting up. The one they were on now was narrow, the surface roughened, the edges fenced off from the grassland either side. Horses grazed the immediate left-hand pasture.

‘Sorry about that,’ she said, stifling a yawn. ‘Flying always tires me out. How much further?’

‘We’ve been on Lazy Y for the last ten minutes,’ Greg returned. ‘That’s the homestead up ahead.’

Nestling at the head of the broad valley, the cluster of buildings resolved themselves into one large, central structure flanked by barns, with more buildings scattered among the trees beyond. Corrals occupied the foreground, one of them containing a mixed group of people in the process of unsaddling their mounts after a ride. Voices and laughter carried across on the still evening air as Greg brought the station wagon to a halt in front of the main house and killed the engine.

‘Back at the ranch,’ he said on an ironical note. ‘Cal’s probably still out there somewhere, but Margot will be around.’

Alex got out of the vehicle, easing her limbs and breathing in the sparkling air with enjoyment. No matter how warm the days, at six-thousand feet Wyoming summer evenings were cool; she could already feel the drop in temperature through the thin cotton of her shirt.

Her jacket was in the car where she had tossed it. She leaned in to get it. body supple as a willow, though a great deal more shapely, straightening again to view the house as she slid her arms into the sleeves. Two storeys of mellowed timber fronted by wide verandas, it fulfilled her mental image of what a ranch-house should look like to a degree. There was even an iron triangle hanging from a beam, complete with dangling metal rod. Used to summon guests over to the house for meals, she hoped. That would really add to the atmosphere!

The girl who appeared on the veranda was no detriment to the picture either. Small and slender in her jeans and blue and white checked shirt, and sporting a riotous crop of chestnut curls above a piquantly pretty face, she came running eagerly down the three broad steps.

‘Hi, Alex! It’s great to meet you at last!’ She went up on her toes to deliver a kiss on the cheek, laughing unaffectedly when her aim went a bit askew. ‘Aren’t you lovely and tall! Should have known you would be! Greg told me how much alike the two of you were.’ She stood back to direct a frank appraisal. ‘You’re more gorgeous even than I imagined! Is your hair natural?’

‘I’ve been known to have it streaked a time or two, but, otherwise, yes,’ Alex confirmed, laughing with her. ‘And you’re pretty gorgeous yourself, sister-in-law.’

‘Oh, gosh, we are, aren’t we? Sisters-in-law, I mean. I always wanted a sister!’

‘So how about saying thank you to the man who provided you with one?’ said Greg.

Margot flung her arms about his neck, the sheer adoration in her sparkling hazel eyes catching at Alex’s heartstrings. ‘Thank you, honey! Thank you, thank you, thank you!’

‘No need to overdo it,’ he admonished. He kissed the end of her nose and put her back on her feet, turning her about to deliver a light slap on her pert behind. ‘To duty, wench, or it’s going to be supper-time before we’re ready for it. Take Alex up to her room while I get the bags.’

A regular master of the house, thought Alex amusedly, moving to accompany the younger girl indoors. Not that Margot appeared to have any objections to being ordered around. That she was totally overboard where Greg was concerned was only too patently obvious.

It was too early as yet to say whether Greg returned any real depth of feeling, although, judging from his attitude just now, Alex somehow doubted it. Tolerant affection was the closest she could come to describing it, yet they’d been married little more than three months. Hardly time for the honeymoon to be over.

The house was no disappointment inside, either. Arches gave access to what looked like a vast living room on one side of the wide, pine-floored hall, and an equally vast dining room on the other, the central staircase branching left and right to open galleries.

The room Alex was to occupy was at the front of the house. Timber all the way through, it had woven rugs scattered across the floor and a hand-crocheted cover on the king-sized bed. The two windows were small and multi-paned. Designed to better resist the winter cold, Alex judged, loving the ambience of the place.

‘There’s a bathroom two doors down, and another the other side but no en suite I’m afraid,’ said Margot apologetically. ‘The guest cabins all have private facilities, but Cal said we’d knocked things about enough without trying to incorporate them here. Apart from the living and dining rooms, we don’t have paying guests in the house anyway. I hope you’ll be comfortable,’ she added, looking round. ‘It isn’t exactly luxurious.’

‘It couldn’t be better,’ Alex assured her. ‘None of it could!’

She went over to a window, looking down on the scene below with elation bubbling inside her at the thought of the days to come. Humping saddles, the recently returned party was headed for one of the barns, leaving their mounts in the confines of the corral. Another group of riders was coming in through the overbarred gateway, with its swinging sign. A working party this time, she guessed, spying coiled lariats hanging from one or two pommels. The real McCoy!

She watched the men dismount and start unsaddling, her eyes coming to rest on one lean and rangy figure in a beige shirt. The horse he was stripping was lean and rangy too, its hindquarters packed with muscular power. A fitting partnership, she thought, studying the taut stretch of blue jeans across hard male hemispheres.

‘Oh, good, the boys are back,’ exclaimed Margot, coming to stand beside her. ‘That’s my brother in the fawn shirt. We’re not a bit alike, as you can see even from here. He’s a Forrester through and through, whereas I take after my mother’s side. Cal more or less brought me up. I was only ten when Dad was killed. I owe him an awful lot.’

‘He only did what any brother would do in the same circumstances,’ said Greg, a trifle brusquely, from the doorway. ‘Don’t make a hero out of him.’

Margot laughed, apparently oblivious to any implied criticism. ‘Cal would be the last to want that. Can I help you unpack?’ she added ingenuously to Alex as the two cases were lifted onto the bed. ‘I’ll bet you have some lovely things!’

‘Judging from the weight, there’s a lot of them for certain,’ commented Greg on a lighter note. ‘Show me the woman who can go anywhere without taking her whole wardrobe!’

‘Show me the man who can refrain from making the same old comment,’ retorted Alex, equally lightly. ‘I didn’t bring anything particularly dressy, Margot, but I’d be grateful for some help in putting what I have brought away.’

‘You’ve only just time for that shower before supper,’ Greg warned her. ‘Less than half an hour.’

A shower wasn’t going to take her more than five minutes, Alex could have told him, and she certainly wasn’t going to be piling on make-up for the evening, but she took the point. Apart from what she needed for now, the unpacking could wait.

‘I’d better go and freshen up myself,’ said Margot. ‘You don’t need to go to any great trouble, by the way. Nobody does.’ She directed a bright-eyed smile at the other girl. ‘I’m really glad to have you here, Alex. The guests are fine, but they don’t stay around long enough to get to know all that well. Greg says you used to ride a lot. Do you still?’

‘Not as often as I’d like to,’ Alex acknowledged.

‘Well, you can catch up here. We’ve over seventy head to choose from. I don’t usually ride with the guests on short sessions, but I often go on the day-longs. They can be real fun.’

‘For some,’ commented Greg, bringing an apologetic expression to his wife’s face.

‘I know Cal’s been driving you hard, honey, but it’s only because he wants you to know how to run things, so that you can take over if needed.’

‘Sure he does.’ Greg didn’t try to hide the scepticism. ‘Anyway, it’s time we were out of here. You can fill Alex in on the rest of it later.’

Alex stayed where she was for a moment or two after they’d gone, a line between her brows as she reflected on the latter conversation. That Greg wasn’t too enthused about ranch work was apparent, yet what had he expected of life on a working ranch? It was probably true that in every relationship there was one who felt more than the other, but in his and Margot’s case the balance looked to be far too one-sided.

Shelving the matter for the moment, she moved to unlock one of the cases and extract her toilet bag and a wrap. First the shower, then she could decide what to wear for the evening.

There was no one in sight when she emerged onto the gallery, although she could hear voices coming from below. The bathroom proved both spacious and well-appointed, with a separate shower-cubicle in addition to the oversized bath. There were towels over the rails and more folded on racks above the bath, thick and soft and huge. Big country, big everything! she thought humorously.

As Greg had promised, there was no shortage of hot water. Accustomed to the low pressure back in her flat, she was almost knocked off her feet by the sheer force of it. Gasping, she turned the control down a couple of notches, glad of the cap protecting her hair. There wouldn’t have been time to dry it before supper and, while casual might be the order of the day, she certainly wouldn’t have felt comfortable sitting down to table with her hair dripping down her back.

Lulled by the warm flow, she stood for a few moments just enjoying it before starting to wash. Normally she cream-cleansed her face, in the interests of keeping her skin moisturised for the camera, but tonight she threw caution to the winds and applied a luxurious lather instead, relishing the feel of it, the fresh smell of it in her nostrils.

The sudden stinging pain as the suds found their way beneath her eyelids was excruciating. Eyes screwed up and watering, she rinsed off hastily and thrust open the shower door to grope for the towel she had left hanging on the convenient hook, only to feel it slide from her wet fingers onto the floor.

‘Let me help,’ said a deep male voice on a satirical note, freezing her where she stood.

Squinting through the tears, she saw the same lean and rangy figure she had watched earlier flick another towel from the rail in passing and the next moment was enveloped in it, with one free end offered in order for her to wipe her still streaming eyes.

Mingled embarrassment and anger conquered the pain. This was hardly the way she had anticipated meeting her host for the first time. He was making no attempt to move away, studying her with eyes the colour of burnished steel, a faint twist at the corners of his strongly defined mouth. A strong face altogether: skin taut over hard male cheekbones, jawline clean and forceful, the whole surmounted by a thick sweep of dark hair. At five feet nine in her bare feet, Alex considered herself a fair height, but he topped her by a good six inches.

‘Better?’ he asked.

‘Fine,’ she returned, struggling to hang onto some thread of composure. ‘Are you in the habit of just walking in on people?’

‘The door wasn’t locked,’ he said without apology.

‘You must have heard the shower running!’

‘Not through the door.’

‘So the least you could have done was back straight out again!’

‘You looked in need of assistance,’ he returned imperturbably. ‘Why the concern? I wouldn’t have thought you had any hang-ups about nudity in your line.’

Her first instinct was to hotly deny the implication, her second and more compelling one to poke him in the eye, if only metaphorically. He wasn’t the first to take it for granted that stripping down to the bare essentials was the only way to make a living in the modelling world, and he almost certainly wouldn’t be the last, but that didn’t make it any less aggravating.

‘I suppose you didn’t see anything you haven’t seen a thousand times before at that!’ she countered scathingly.

His lips widened in a brief, derisive smile. ‘A thousand might be stretching it a piece. If you’re through, I wouldn’t mind getting in there myself.’

‘By all means.’ Clutching the far from secure towel to her, Alex moved to pass him as he stepped to one side, promptly tripped over a trailing edge of towel and was saved from measuring her length only by the speed of Cal Forrester’s reactions. Held by the arm he had shot about her waist, with the slipping towel threatening to expose her assets to even closer scrutiny, she found dignity taking second place to the sudden vital awareness of his hard masculinity. ‘The head bull’, Greg had called him, but bulls were big and cumbersome, not lean and lithe. She felt her stomach muscles contract.

‘Better watch your step,’ he said, letting go of her. ‘You seem pretty accident-prone.’

‘I will, don’t worry,’ she retorted, pulling herself together. ‘Thanks again for the...assistance. I’d have been lost without you.’

The satire engendered a sudden glint in the grey eyes. ‘Any time.’

Alex made her escape without further mishap, gathering her wrap and slippers from the chair where she had left them as she went. As first impressions went she had certainly made an impact, she reflected wryly. Not that Cal Forrester had looked all that impressed, she had to admit.

Taking a look in the dressing-table mirror back in her room, she could hardly blame him. With her hair still tucked under the shower-cap and her eyes reddened by the soap, she looked far from a pretty sight. She dragged off the cap to allow her hair to tumble down about her shoulders, dropping the towel to reach for her wrap.

Slenderly curved at waist and hip, breasts high and firm, legs long and shapely, she had received many offers of nude work over the years, but it had never attracted her. She’d advertised everything from hosiery to make-up, modelled catalogue clothing and hostessed a television quiz-show for a couple of series, among other things, but had never quite managed to gain one of the real big-time contracts that would have made her a household name. Not that it mattered any more. She was through with that part of her life for good.

Throwing on a pair of harem trousers and a loose, silky top, she put a brush through her hair and applied a layer of amber lipstick. Her brows and lashes were dark enough not to need any enhancement, not that she would have bothered even if they hadn’t been. She much preferred to go natural when she wasn’t working.

The thought of seeing Cal Forrester again after that bathroom fiasco brought warmth to her cheeks. Right as she’d no doubt been in taking it that hers was far from the first female body he’d seen in the nude, it made little difference to her feelings when it came to her own exposure. She was no prude, but neither was she an exhibitionist—although he obviously took her for such.

What she certainly wasn’t going to do was let him see any discomfiture on her part, she told herself firmly. Let him make what assumptions he liked. What could a jumped-up cowboy stuck out here in the back of beyond know about it anyway?

Coming from just below her window, the sudden and enthusiastic clanging of iron on iron made her jump. The anticipated summons to supper, she assumed. The sun was lowering fast, gilding the edges of the clouds and spreading deep shadows across the landscape. Whatever she might feel about the owner, the Lazy Y was no disappointment so far, Alex acknowledged. She couldn’t wait to sample the rest.