The heading at the top was Beneficial Life, and they looked official enough.
They’ll just send somebody else. At least this one knew the back end from the front end of a horse, which was something in his favor. To her, anyway. And for some reason, Val wasn’t afraid of him, despite what she thought she’d seen in his eyes.
The slamming of the truck’s door brought her attention from the papers she held to the man who had presented them. He walked around the back of the pickup and stood looking up at her.
“I know what you’re probably thinking,” he said disarmingly. “I can give you Joe Wallace’s number. You can call him and verify that he sent me out here, if that will make you feel any better. I’m not sure he’ll be in the office this late, but—”
“There’s a bunkhouse,” Val said shortly. “You can sleep out there tonight. I’ll talk to Beneficial Life in the morning.”
“Fair enough,” he said.
“And Mr. Sellers?”
“Ma’am?”
“I may not have a security system, but I do have a Smith & Wesson. And I know how to use it.”
“That’s a real comfort to me, ma’am,” he said.
The amusement was back in his voice, although his expression hadn’t changed. There was no twitch at the corner of his mouth. Not a hint of laughter in the silver eyes. Just a rich layer of amusement in his voice before he turned and picked up a nylon gym bag from the bed of the truck.
Her eyes followed him until he had disappeared behind the barn. Then, realizing what she had been doing, she touched her heels to Harvard and headed him in almost the same direction.
GREY SELLERS WAS STILL fighting the urge to grin as he approached the bunkhouse she’d directed him to. It looked as well kept as everything else on the place. He wondered how much help she had. So far, he had seen no signs of human life other than Valerie Beaufort herself.
After he’d arrived this afternoon and discovered she wasn’t home, he had wandered around a little. With an eye to security, he had told himself, justifying the snooping.
Although it had been a long time since he’d lived on a working ranch, he had immediately felt at home. It seemed to be the same kind of small-potatoes outfit he’d grown up on, minus the cows. Until a few minutes ago, however, it had looked as if he wasn’t going to get a chance to savor this kind of life again.
Sitting on top of that big old roan, Valerie Beaufort might look fragile enough that a good wind would blow her away, but she had a mouth on her. And a very clear sense of what she wanted. Or what she didn’t want, he supposed, in his case.
Grey wasn’t sure what had changed her mind about letting him stay. Maybe just his winning ways, he thought, again fighting the urge to smile. His sparkling wit. Since he’d taken time to shave before he’d driven out here and had, in the process, gotten a really good look at himself in the mirror, he couldn’t imagine it was his physical appearance. He looked rough. Like he’d been rode hard and put up wet. Which was pretty much how he felt.
The aspirin he’d taken before he’d left the office was wearing off. Driving out here over those narrow roads and looking into the afternoon sun the whole way hadn’t helped the headache his hangover this morning had begun.
And he could use a drink, he acknowledged. He had deliberately left the bottle of bourbon in his desk drawer. He didn’t drink while he worked. He never had. Griff wouldn’t have put up with it, of course. Not from anybody on the team. Too many lives depended on them being able to do their jobs and do them well. Not that the booze had been a problem back then. That had all come about since—
He heard the squeak of the double doors at the front of the barn. They had made the same sound when he had opened them earlier this afternoon and taken a look inside. He glanced up and found that since the Dutch door at the back was standing wide open, he could see straight through the barn.
Valerie Beaufort was leading her gelding inside. He’d been right about the fragility, he thought, automatically assessing her figure, revealed clearly by the narrow-legged jeans and cotton shirt she was wearing. She was too thin for his taste. Small breasts and hips narrow as a child’s. She had pushed her hat back, revealing hair the color of leaves turning in the fall. No wonder she had a temper, he thought.
It took a second or two for his brain to register the other, although it should have been obvious from the first. Her stride was uneven. Noticeably so. An unexpected frisson of emotion uncoiled in the pit of Grey’s stomach. And he wasn’t even sure what it was he was feeling.
Head down, eyes on the ground, she hadn’t noticed him watching her as she limped across the barn, the big horse docilely following. Despite the feeling that this made him some kind of voyeur, Grey couldn’t seem to look away, and whatever he had felt in his gut when he’d noticed the limp stirred again.
She had been too damned prickly for him to be feeling sorry for her, he decided. But maybe this was why she was so standoffish, he thought, remembering that determined lift of her chin when she warned him she had a gun. Maybe it was this, instead of all that money, like he’d been thinking.
Just at that moment she glanced up, her gaze meeting his. Her eyes widened, and he was embarrassed to have been caught staring. He didn’t allow his eyes to fall, however. He had a pretty good idea of how she’d interpret it if he looked away now.
Her lips tightened before she opened them to ask, “Did you need something else, Mr. Sellers?”
“No, ma’am.”
Neither of them moved. Behind her, the gelding made some movement, but she ignored him. Her brown eyes, seeming too big for the small, oval face, held on Grey’s challengingly.
“You can use any bed in the bunkhouse,” she said finally. “Dinner’s at nine. Later than you’re used to, maybe, but I don’t like eating while the sun’s up.”
“Are you inviting me to dinner, Ms. Beaufort?”
“Hospitality forbids that I let a guest go hungry, Mr. Sellers, even an uninvited one. Don’t read anything else into the invitation, however. I figure having you come up to the house is easier than carrying a tray out there,” she said, gesturing with her chin toward the bunkhouse behind him.
“Yes, ma’am,” Grey said.
He realized that watching her limp across the barn had destroyed whatever perverse pleasure he had taken in baiting her. To do that now would make him feel petty, like taking cheap shots at someone who was not quite capable of defending herself.
Of course, she hadn’t seemed to have a problem dealing with his sarcasm, so he knew that was all in his head—and he knew why. He didn’t much like that reason being there, and he knew damn well she wouldn’t. He suspected she wasn’t the kind who would welcome pity, however dressed up it was and masquerading as something else.
“I don’t want you to get the idea that it’s an invitation to anything else, Mr. Sellers,” she said, bringing his attention back with an unpleasant jolt. “I don’t want to be your friend. I don’t want any closer acquaintance with you. I didn’t want to be your host, not even for one night, but it seems that choice has been taken out of my hands. So…Dinner. That’s all.”
“Grey,”
