told himself he wasn’t going to make a fool out of himself by going over there and dragging her away from three sets of ogling male eyes. However, once his footsteps headed in that direction, he didn’t seem to be able to stop them.
He arrived in time to hear her say, “My brothers taught me how to get even when some rabbit-shy horse bucks me off.”
“How’s that, Tate?” one of the cowboys asked.
“Why, I just make that horse walk back to the barn all by himself!” Tate said with a grin.
The cowboys guffawed, and Tate joined in. Adam caught his lip curling with laughter and straightened it back out.
“Don’t you have some work to do?” he demanded of the three cowboys.
“Sure, Boss.”
“Yeah, Boss.”
“Just leaving, Boss.”
They tipped their hats to Tate, but continued staring at her as they backed away.
Adam swore acidly, and they quickly turned tail and scattered in three different directions.
He directed a cool stare at Tate and said, “I thought I told you to stay away from my cowhands.”
“I believe your exact words were, ‘Finish your work before you go traipsing around the ranch,’” Tate replied in a drawl guaranteed to irritate her already irritated boss.
“Is your work done?”
“Had you been home for lunch, I’d have offered to show you the bookkeeping system I’ve set up. Everything’s been logged in and all the current invoices have been paid. I have some suggestions for ways—”
He interrupted with, “What the hell are you doing out here half-dressed, carousing with the hired help?”
“Carousing? I was just talking to them!” Tate flashed back.
“I want you to leave those boys alone.”
“Boys? They looked like grown men to me. Certainly old enough to make up their minds whether or not they want to spend time with me.”
Adam grabbed the hat off his head and slapped it against his thigh. “Dammit, Tate. You’re a babe in the woods! You’re playing with fire, and you’re going to get burned! You can’t run around here half naked and not expect—”
“Half naked?” she scoffed. “You’ve got to be kidding!”
“That T-shirt doesn’t leave much to the imagination! I can see your nipples plain as day.”
Tate looked down and realized for the first time that twin peaks were clearly visible beneath the T-shirt. She decided to brazen it out. “So what if you can? I assume you’re familiar with the female anatomy. Besides, you’re not my father or my brother. You have absolutely no right to tell me what to wear!”
Since the erotic feelings Adam was experiencing at the moment weren’t the least fatherly or brotherly, he didn’t argue with her. However, he had appointed himself her guardian in their stead. As such, he felt it his duty to point out to her the dangers of such provocative attire.
He explained in a reasonable voice, “When a man sees a woman looking like that, he just naturally gets ideas.”
Tate looked sharply at Adam. “What kind of ideas?”
“The wrong kind,” Adam said emphatically.
Tate smiled impishly and batted her lashes at him. “I thought you were ‘flat not interested’ in li’l ole me.”
“Cut it out, Tate.”
“Cut what out?”
“Stop batting those lashes at me, for one thing.”
Tate pouted her lips like a child whose candy had been taken away. “You mean it isn’t working?”
It was working all right. Too damn well. She was just precocious enough to be charming. He was entranced despite his wish not to be. He felt his body begin to harden as she slid her gaze from his eyes, to his mouth, to his chest, and straight on down his body to his crotch. Which was putting on a pretty damn good show for her.
“You’re asking for it,” he said through clenched teeth.
She batted her eyelashes and said, “Am I going to get it?”
“That’s it!”
The next thing Tate knew she had been hefted over Adam’s shoulder like a sack of wheat, and he was striding toward the house.
“Let me down!” she cried. “Adam, this is uncomfortable.”
“Serves you right! You haven’t been the least worried about my comfort for the past three weeks.”
“Where are you taking me? What are you planning to do with me?”
“Something I’m going to enjoy very much!”
Was Adam really going to make love to her? Would he be rough, or gentle? How was she supposed to act? Was there some sort of proper etiquette for the ravishing of virgins? Not that she had ever worried too much about what was proper. But she felt nervous, anxious about the encounter to come. Finally, Adam would have to acknowledge that greater forces were at work between them than either of them could—or should—resist.
The air inside the adobe house hit her like a cooling zephyr. The dimness left her blind for an instant. Just as she was regaining her sight, they emerged once more into sunlight and she was blinded again. Several more strides and she felt herself being lowered from Adam’s shoulder.
Tate barely had time to register the fact that they were in the courtyard when Adam shifted her crosswise in his arms. Grinning down into her face, he said “Maybe this will cool you off!” and unceremoniously dumped her into the pool of water that surrounded the fountain.
Tate came up spluttering. “Why you!” She blinked her eyes furiously, trying to clear the water from them.
“Why, Miss Tate, are you batting your eyelashes at me again? Guess I’ll have to try another dunking.”
He took one step toward her, and Tate retreated to the other side of the fountain. “I’ll get you for this, you rogue! You roué!”
Adam laughed. It had been so long since he had done so, that the sound brought Maria to the kitchen window to see what Señor Adam found so funny. She shook her head and clucked when she saw the new bookkeeper standing dripping in the fountain. She grabbed a bath towel from the stack of laundry she was folding on the kitchen table and hurried outside with it.
She handed it to Adam and said in Spanish, “This is no way to treat a young woman.”
Adam’s eyes crinkled at the corners with laughter. “It is when she’s bent on seducing an older man.”
Maria hissed in
