his mother would. Rosebud Donnelly’s voice had cracked and Emily Mankiller had touched her, like a mother comforting her child. His first instinct—she’d lost someone, maybe a husband—had been true. Maybe Rosebud had taken a shot at him to make up for a different shot, a better shot. That had to be it.
Did that even the score? Was she satisfied? No, he decided. A woman like that was never satisfied with just once. He smiled at the thought. But he didn’t think she was going to take another shot at him. He’d looked her in the eyes. Her mouth may have been lying, but he didn’t think her eyes were telling the same tale.
No, they’d been saying something… different. He adjusted his jeans. Damn it all. He shouldn’t have gotten so close to her, so close to the way she smelled, to those beautiful eyes the shade of a doe’s fur in the early spring. He never should have touched her hair, one long swath of silk. He never should have shaken her hand.
For that matter, he never should have come here.
And now, he thought in resignation, he had to go in there.
Time to get this over with. Dan grabbed his dead hat off the dash. He needed a new one, pronto. A man didn’t go without a hat where he was from.
“Well?” Dan hadn’t even made it to the door of the dining room. He sighed. There was no avoiding his uncle. The whole house stunk of him.
Dan was so busy mulling over the best way to handle telling Cecil about the situation that he didn’t see the man in the black leather jacket sitting in front of Cecil until he stood up. Another Lakota Indian? What was Cecil doing with someone who sure as hell looked like one of the very people suing Armstrong Holdings?
“Dan Armstrong,” he said, making the first move. A fellow could tell a lot about a person by his handshake.
“Shane Thrasher,” the stranger said. His grip started out rock-hard, but quickly went limp, like he was trying to hide something. Dan decided he didn’t like the man, an opinion reinforced by his uncle’s warm smile for Thrasher. Nope. Didn’t like him at all.
“Thrasher is—what are you, again?” Cecil opened a lockbox Dan hadn’t seen before and pulled out a thick file. The box looked old—like the house. Definitely not something Cecil normally had in his office.
“Half Crow,” Thrasher replied as he sat back down. He acted like he’d sat in that chair a lot.
Hadn’t Emily Mankiller said something about the Crow tribe? Something about Custer and Little Bighorn and Greasy Grass? What Dan needed was an eighth-grade history book, but if he was remembering correctly, according to Ms. Mankiller, the Crow were the ones who worked with the whites against the Lakota.
“That’s right. I can’t keep you all straight.” Dan winced at Cecil’s words, even though Thrasher didn’t blink. “Thrasher is my head of security. An inside man, if you will.”
Head of security? Dan looked him over. More like gun for hire. The bulge at his side wasn’t hard to see. Maybe Rosebud Donnelly had taken a shot at Dan, maybe she hadn’t. Dan had a hunch that he needed to be more worried about Shane Thrasher than a beautiful, conflicted lawyer. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
A muscle above Thrasher’s left eye twitched in response. It appeared the insincere feeling was mutual.
Cecil was studying a thick file. “What did you think of that Donnelly woman?”
“She’s trouble.” An honest assessment—but he couldn’t figure out if she was the good kind or the bad kind of trouble. More than likely, she was both.
Thrasher snorted in a way that struck Dan as too familiar. Wielding a red pen, Cecil made a note in the file. “Think you can handle her?”
For the first time in his life, Dan wasn’t sure if he could handle a woman. In the space of one afternoon, he’d been impressed by, furious with and turned on by Rosebud Donnelly. The combination was dangerous. “I invited her to dinner Saturday night.” Cecil’s eyebrows shot up. “She accepted,” he added. In the space of a second, he’d seen a crack in her ice-cold lawyer front. He had the feeling that keeping her on her toes was the only way to get through to her. That, and making sure she wasn’t armed. But he’d be damned if he’d bring up any of that in front of Thrasher.
“That’s my boy.” Cecil’s grin was wide. He looked downright happy, in an evil sort of way. “What did I tell you, Thrasher?”
“You were right,” Thrasher replied, the butt-kissing tone of his voice at odds with the way his face kept twitching.
Dan had the sudden urge to punch that face. Instead, he dug his fingers into the chair’s armrest. “I thought it would help if she could see you as a person, not just an adversary.” Although, with that grin, Dan was having trouble seeing Cecil as more than an adversary right now, too.
Cecil gave him the same look he’d been giving Dan since the day after his father’s funeral—the shut-up-and-be-an-Armstrong look. “I don’t give a rat’s ass how she sees me. I’m not running some feel-good love-in around here. I want you to find her weak spots. I want you to bring her down. Understood?”
Right then, Dan wished he’d never had to leave Texas. In Texas, he ran a tight ship. Armstrong Holdings was one of the twenty best places to work in Texas, or so some award hanging in the reception area said. But the South Dakota division of Armstrong Holdings seemed to be a different can of worms, and Dan was feeling particularly slimy today. He reminded himself that Cecil’s lack of ethics was the exact reason he’d come—there was no place for slime in any part of Dan’s company. “She won’t make me any copies of her files, but she’ll let me see them to take notes.”
A look that was dangerously close to victory flashed over Cecil’s face. “Well, then, that’s something, isn’t it? I underestimated you, son.”
Son. The chair creaked. Dan was in serious danger of breaking off an armrest or two. Thrasher had the nerve to snort in amusement.
“I’ve got a fundraiser in Sioux Falls Saturday night. It’ll be just the two of you,” Cecil went on as he made another note with the red pen. “I expect results.”
Dan would also like to see some results—but he wanted to believe his reasons were more noble. “Interested lust” was better than “cold-blooded scheming.” Wasn’t it? At least Thrasher hadn’t gotten this assignment. But then, Dan didn’t think Thrasher would get anywhere with Rosebud. She didn’t seem like the kind of woman who went for jerks.
“What about him?” Dan didn’t even look at Thrasher—he was too afraid he’d lose the last of his cool and punch him.
“Don’t worry your pretty little head about me,” Thrasher replied as he stood, conveniently moving out of range. “In fact, I doubt you’ll ever see me again, Armstrong.”
Dan shot to his feet. But by the time he got turned around, Thrasher was gone. Dan swung back around, his fists ready.
“We’re all on the same side here,” was all Cecil said as he locked the box back up.
No, Dan didn’t think they were.
He didn’t know whose side he was on.
Five
Her
