and started pacing again. “You’d have to know a little bit about what’s happened on the Lazy S over the past couple of months.”
Tate draped herself sideways across the chair in front of the desk, one leg swinging to release the tension, and said, “I’m listening.”
“My previous ranch manager was a crook. He’s in prison now, but besides stealing other people’s cattle, he embezzled from me. He left my affairs in a mess. Originally, I’d intended to hire someone else to try to straighten things out. Lately I’ve decided to put my medical practice on hold—”
“Wait a minute!”
Tate sat up and her feet dropped to the floor, depriving Adam of the delicious view he’d had of her derriere.
“Do you mean to tell me you’re a doctor?” she asked incredulously.
He shrugged sheepishly. “Afraid so. Over the past few months I’ve been transferring my practice to another physician who’s moved into the area, Dr. Susan Kowalski. Now I have time to supervise the work on the Lazy S myself. What I really need is someone I can trust to organize the paperwork and do the bookkeeping.”
Adam pointed to the computer on a stand near his desk. “That thing and I don’t get along. I can’t pay much,” Adam admitted, “but the job includes room and board.” That would keep her from sleeping in her truck, which was about all Adam suspected she could afford right now.
Tate wrinkled her nose. She had cut her teeth on the computer at Hawk’s Way, and what she didn’t know about bookkeeping hadn’t been discovered. But it was the kind of work she liked least of everything she’d done at Hawk’s Way. Still, a job was a job. And this was the best offer she had gotten.
“All right. I accept.”
Tate stood and held a hand out to Adam to shake on the deal.
When Adam touched her flesh he was appalled by the electricity that streaked between them. He had suspected his attraction to Tate, all the while warning himself not to get involved. His powerful, instantaneous reaction to her still caught him by surprise. He blamed it on the fact that it had been too damn long since he’d had a woman. There were plenty who would willingly satisfy his needs, women who knew the score.
He absolutely, positively, was not going to get involved with a twenty-three-year-old virgin. Especially not some virgin who wanted a husband and a family. For Adam Philips wouldn’t give her one—and couldn’t give her the other.
Tate was astonished by the jolt she received simply from the clasp of Adam’s hand. She looked up into his blue eyes and saw a flash of desire quickly banked. She jerked her hand away, said, “I’m sure we’re both going to enjoy this relationship,” then flushed at the more intimate interpretation that could be put on her words.
Adam’s lips curled in a cynical smile. She was a lamb, all right, and a wily old wolf like himself would be smart to keep his distance. He didn’t intend to tell her brothers where she was. But he was betting that sooner or later word of her presence on the Lazy S would leak out, and they would find her. When they did, all hell was going to break loose.
Adam shook his head when he thought of what he was getting himself into. Tate Whitelaw was Trouble with a capital T.
“Where do I bunk in?” Tate asked.
Adam dragged his Stetson off and ruffled his blond hair where the sweat had matted it down. He hadn’t thought about where he would put her. His previous foreman had occupied a separate room at one end of the bunkhouse. That obviously wouldn’t do for Tate.
“I suppose you’ll have to stay here in the house,” he said. “There’s a guest bedroom in the other wing. Come along and I’ll show you where it is.”
He walked her back through the house, describing the layout of things as they went along. “My bedroom is next to the office. The living room, family room and kitchen are in the center of the house. The last bedroom down the hall on this other wing was set up for medical emergencies, and I haven’t had time to refurnish it. The first bedroom on this wing will be your room.”
Adam opened the door to a room that had a distinctively southwestern flavor. The furniture was antique Americana, with woven rugs on the floor, a rocker, a dry sink, a wardrobe and a large maple four-poster covered with a brightly patterned quilt. The room felt light and airy. That image was helped by the large sliding glass door that opened onto the courtyard.
Tate sat down on the bed and bounced a couple of times. “Feels plenty comfortable.” She turned and smiled her thanks up at Adam.
The smile froze on her face.
His look was avid, his nostrils flared. She was suddenly aware of the softness of the bed. The fact that they were alone. And that she didn’t know Adam Philips…from Adam.
However, the part of Tate that was alive to the danger of the situation was squelched by the part of her that was exhilarated to discover she could have such a profound effect on this man. Adam was quite unlike the men her brothers had so peremptorily ejected from Hawk’s Way. In some way she could not explain, he was different. She knew instinctively that his kiss, his touch, would be unlike anything she had ever experienced.
Nor did she feel the same person when she was near him. With this man, she was different. She was no longer her brothers’ little sister. She was a woman, with a woman’s need to be loved by one special man.
Instead of scooting quickly off the bed, she stayed right where she was. She tried her feminine wings just a bit by languidly turning on her side and propping her head up with her hand. She pulled one leg up slightly, mimicking the sexy poses she had seen in some of her brothers’ magazines—the ones they thought she knew nothing about.
Adam’s reaction was everything she could have wished for. His whole body tautened. A vein in his temple throbbed. The muscles in his throat worked spasmodically. And something else happened. Something which, considering the level she was lying at, she couldn’t help observing.
It was fascinating. She had never actually watched it happen to a man before. Mostly, the men she had dated were already in that condition before she had an opportunity to notice. The changing shape of Adam’s Levi’s left no doubt that he was becoming undeniably, indisputably, absolutely, completely aroused.
She gasped, and her eyes sought out his face to see what he intended to do about it.
Nothing! Adam thought. He was going to do absolutely nothing about the fact this hoyden in blue jeans had him harder than a rock in ten seconds flat!
“If you’re done testing your feminine wiles, I’d like to finish showing you the house,” Adam said.
Humiliated by the sarcasm in his voice, Tate quickly scooted off the bed. She had no trouble recognizing his feelings now. Irritation. Frustration. She felt the same things herself. She had never imagined how powerful desire could be. It was a lesson she wouldn’t forget.
She stood before him, chin high, unwilling to admit blame or shame or regret for what she had done. “I’m ready.”
Then strip down and get into that bed.
Adam clenched his teeth to keep from saying what he was thinking. He didn’t know when he had felt such unbridled lust for a woman. It wasn’t decent. But he damn sure wasn’t
