repulsed by a woman in his life. It left him feeling inadequate. Worse, it brought back memories of the woman who’d rejected him, who’d given him away at the age of six because she didn’t want him.
She felt his eyes on her and lifted her head. Gray eyes widened and stared as her hands remained suspended just over the black keyboard.
He was wearing a vested gray suit. It looked very expensive, and his eyes were dark and cutting. He had a cigar in his hand, but it wasn’t lit. She hoped he wasn’t going to try to smoke it in the confined space, because she was allergic to tobacco smoke.
“So you’re Ed’s,” he murmured in that deep, cutting tone.
“Ed’s assistant,” she agreed. “Mr. Caldwell…”
“What did you do to land the job?” he continued with a faintly mocking smile. “And how often?”
She wasn’t getting what he implied. She blinked, still staring. “I beg your pardon?”
“Why did Ed bring you in here above ten other more qualified applicants?” he persisted.
“Oh, that.” She hesitated. She couldn’t tell him the real reason, so she told him enough of the truth to distract him. “I have the equivalent of an associate in arts degree in business and I worked as a paralegal for his father for four years in a law office,” she said. “I might not have the bachelor’s degree that was preferred, but I have experience. Or so Ed assured me,” she added, looking worried.
“Why didn’t you finish college?” he persisted.
She swallowed. “I had…some personal problems at the time.”
“You still have some personal problems, Miss Murry,” he replied lazily, but his eyes were cold and alert in a lean, hard face. “You can put me at the top of the list. I had other plans for the position you’re holding. So you’d better be as good as Ed says you are.”
“I’ll give value for money, Mr. Caldwell,” she assured him. “I work for my living. I don’t expect free rides.”
“Don’t you?”
“No, I don’t.”
He lifted the cigar to his mouth, looked at the wet tip, sighed and slipped it back down to dangle, unlit in his fingers.
“Do you smoke?” she asked, having noted the action.
“I try to,” he murmured.
Just as he spoke, a handsome woman in her forties with blond hair in a neat bun and wearing a navy-and-white suit, walked down the hall toward him.
He glared at her as she paused in the open door of Ed’s office. “I need you to sign these, Mr. Caldwell. And Mr. Bailey is waiting in your office to speak to you about that committee you want him on.”
“Thanks, Edna.”
Edna Jones smiled. “Good day, Miss Murry. Keeping busy, are you?”
“Yes, ma’am, thank you,” Leslie replied with a genuine smile.
“Don’t let him light that thing,” Edna continued, gesturing toward the cigar dangling in Matt’s fingers. “If you need one of these—” she held up a small water pistol “— I’ll see that you get one.” She smiled at a fuming Matt. “You’ll be glad to know that I’ve already passed them out to the girls in the other executive offices, Mr. Caldwell. You can count on all of us to help you quit smoking.”
Matt glared at her. She chuckled like a woman twenty years younger, waved to Leslie, and stalked off back to the office. Matt actually started to make a comical lunge after her, but caught himself in time. It wouldn’t do to show weakness to the enemy.
He gave Leslie a cool glance, ignoring the faint amusement in her gray eyes. With a curt nod, he followed Edna down the hall, the damp, expensive cigar still dangling from his lean fingers.
Chapter Two
From her first day on the job, Leslie was aware of Matt’s dislike and disapproval of her. He piled the work on Ed, so that it would inevitably drift down to Leslie. A lot of it was really unnecessary, like having her type up old herd records from ten years ago, which had never been converted to computer files. He said it was so that he could check progress on the progeny of his earlier herd sires, but even Ed muttered when Leslie showed him what she was expected to do.
“We have secretaries to do this sort of thing,” Ed grumbled as he stared at the yellowed pages on her desk. “I need you for other projects.”
“Tell him,” Leslie suggested.
He shook his head. “Not in the mood he’s been in lately,” he said with a rueful smile. “He isn’t himself.”
“Did you know that his secretary is armed?” she asked suddenly. “She carries a water pistol around with her.”
Ed chuckled. “Matt asked her to help him stop smoking cigars. Not that he usually did it inside the building,” he was quick to add. “But Mrs. Jones feels that if you can’t light a cigar, you can’t smoke it. She bought a water pistol for herself and armed the other secretaries, too. If Matt even lifts a cigar to his mouth in the executive offices, they shoot him.”
“Dangerous ladies,” she commented.
“You bet. I’ve seen…”
“Nothing to do?” purred a soft, deep voice from behind Ed. The piercing dark eyes didn’t match the bantering tone.
“Sorry, Matt,” Ed said immediately. “I was just passing the time of day with Leslie. Can I do anything for you?”
“I need an update on that lot of cattle we placed with Ballenger,” he said. He stared at Leslie with narrowed eyes. “Your job, I believe?”
She swallowed and nodded, jerking her fingers on the keyboard so that she opened the wrong file and had to push the right buttons to close it again. Normally she wasn’t a nervous person, but he made her ill at ease, standing over her without speaking. Ed seemed to be a little twitchy, himself, because he moved back to his own office the minute the phone rang, placing himself out of the line of fire with an apologetic look that Leslie didn’t see.
“I thought you were experienced with computers,” Matt drawled mockingly as he paused beside her to look over her shoulder.
The feel of his powerful body so close behind her made every muscle tense. Her fingers froze on the keyboard, and she was barely breathing.
With a murmured curse, Matt stepped back to the side of the desk, fighting the most intense emotions he’d ever felt. He stuck his hands deep into the pockets of his slacks and glared at her.
She relaxed, but only enough to be able to pull up the file he wanted and print it for him.
He took it out of the printer tray when it was finished and gave it a slow perusal. He muttered something, and tossed the first page down on Leslie’s desk.
“Half these words
