I make time to speak to you.”
He seemed to find her words extremely funny. His laughter was loud and hard, bouncing off the nearby waterfall and drawing the attention of several tables. “Of course he was. Pa knows what I like, and he really came through for me this time.”
“Perhaps we should limit ourselves to—”
“I figure I owe him big time for picking out such a looker.”
She blinked in surprise, not sure she’d heard correctly. “I beg your pardon?”
“If you come to my place in Texas to evaluate my kid, it doesn’t hurt that you won’t scare off the crows.”
“I see.”
He slid forward in his chair until their knees nearly touched. In a voice trimmed to conspiratorial tones, he said, “’Course, it gets kinda lonely at the ranch. You get finished sizing up Sarah, the two of us might work on a little…bunkhouse etiquette.” His finger touched her knee suggestively. The look in his eyes was glazed with self-assured passion. “You catch my meaning?”
“Yes. I believe I do.”
She stood, so abruptly that the chair wheeled back on its castors and bounced off the lip of the atrium reflecting pool.
Cody stared up at her, expecting her to haul off and slap him. Instead, he watched her indignation turn into exasperation. He had to give her credit. If she was alarmed by his aggression, she hid it well.
He rose slowly, not sure what to expect. Her eyes glittered; he could see anger in their dark, chocolate-colored depths, and a curious…disappointment. With him? That jarred Cody, yet at the same time, he was aware of his own faint, peculiar sense of relief.
She closed her appointment book with a firm snap. “Mr. Matthews, I don’t believe we can continue this discussion. I’m afraid this meeting has been a waste of time for both of us.”
He tried for bewilderment. “Did I say something wrong?”
“I don’t believe you’ve said anything right. Frankly, I find that strange, because your father struck me as sincerely concerned about your daughter’s welfare. And he thinks very highly of you. I understand that you graduated from Princeton at the top of your class. That you’ve been very successful in your business and running a ranch, as well.”
Her chin angled upward. The movement caused a few golden curls to escape along the nape of her neck. Cody found he had to resist the urge to nudge them back into place. He looked away only to meet up with Joan Paxton’s glare of smoldering dislike. She wasn’t finished with him yet.
“What I can’t understand,” she continued, “is why that sort of man would deliberately sabotage this meeting by behaving in a manner that can only be described as repugnant.” She fished a handful of dollars out of her purse, then slapped the bag back under one arm. “I believe your daughter could use my help. For her sake, I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you’ve come to this meeting drunk.”
“Nope,” Cody protested. For good measure, he winked again. “But a few drinks for you probably wouldn’t be such a bad idea. You could stand to loosen up a little. You’re pretty uptight.”
She released a ragged strand of breath, and a moment later he saw color leap to her cheeks. For one frozen moment he felt guilty. There was a sour taste in his mouth, as if maybe he had been drinking. Let up, Matthews. You’ve gone too far now.
But Miss Joan Paxton had more starch in her spine than he expected. The subtle flex of her facial features, the flare of her nostrils—she was struggling for control and winning. Her guard was up now. Her determination transformed her eyes, making them seem lit by fire from within. All bristling anger and indignation, she was damned near beautiful, so attractive that it ignited a sharp thrill in Cody’s senses and almost made him forget just how much he didn’t want to have anything to do with someone like her.
“No, I don’t believe you have been drinking.” Those few syllables were no more than chipped slivers of ice. “I would say there’s only one other possibility.”
“And what’s that, Jo-Jo?”
“That your unfortunate daughter has a jackass for a father.” She tossed the bills on the table. “That should pay for my drink. I wish you luck, Mr. Matthews. I suspect you’re going to need it.”
She pushed past him. He watched her walk through the artificial jungle of the lobby, cutting a precise, angry swath that could have rivaled anything Sherman had planned for Georgia. She didn’t look back. He didn’t expect her to. The role he’d played for her benefit had been Oscar caliber.
He found himself staring in the direction she’d gone long after he’d lost sight of her. Staring…and wondering why success didn’t have a better feel to it. He’d accomplished what he’d set out to do. He’d made her despise him. That final look from her had been sharp enough to slice steel, and maybe that was part of what was bothering him. The fact that Joan Paxton thought he was a first-class son of a—
Ah, hell, where was all this silly regret coming from? So what if some high-brow diplomat’s brat hated his guts? Hadn’t he learned a long time ago how to separate his ego from the core of every dispute? People didn’t have to like him. They just had to give in.
He rubbed a hand across his jaw, his mind fleecy. After today, he’d be glad to head back to Luna D’Oro. If there was any place on earth he understood the how and why of himself, it was at the ranch, surrounded by the people who meant the most to him.
After adding enough cash to the table to cover the drinks—including a generous tip for the uncomplaining waitress—Cody stopped by the front desk. The clerk handed him a pink message slip. It was from Pa, urging him to call the ranch. Cody’s gut belly flopped at the word emergency underlined twice in red pen. By the time he put a call through on the lobby courtesy phone, chaos was already sliding through his system, spreading tentacles of ice-cold, sweaty fear up his spine.
Merlita picked up the phone, letting loose a string of rapid Spanish when she realized it was him. Cody cut in, and in weeping fits and starts, the housekeeper explained the situation at home as his heart leaped to his throat.
Sarah had been taken to the hospital.
THE STEAM OF HER ANGER carried Joan right through the front door of the efficiency apartment she’d recently rented. She banged the door shut, then wished she was the temper-tantrum type so she could take pleasure in banging it shut again.
She was furious and frustrated and…disappointed.
William Cody Matthews had been a disaster. An ill-mannered, backwoods baboon who hadn’t deserved the courtesy of a meeting. She was tempted to call his father and chastise the man for playing such a cruel joke; it would have felt wonderful to channel some of the outrage she felt right now. But she knew a better way to manage that.
Peeling off her jacket and shoes, she plopped down at the tiny kitchen table. Shoving aside a snowdrift of mail, she ripped a piece of paper from her notebook and carefully smoothed it out in front of her.
She felt calmer already.
All her life she’d used the same method to handle anger, disappointment and confusion. List making was her personal mantra, the worry beads she fingered to deal with
