His handsome mouth twisted in a grin. “I don’t believe I whispered. I was asking you about corsets.”
“Well, I’m sorry to ruin your bunkhouse fantasies, but I don’t wear a corset and never have. But what I know from history is that tight corsets cracked ribs and deformed internal organs. They also constricted breathing and blood flow. I’m sure that’s obvious from the pictures, and I hardly think any of it was a thrill.”
“You’ve researched that, too—along with cowboys, huh, ice princess?”
It was only one silly insult among others he had already heaped on her in a brief time. But his remark cut dangerously close to memories that were still like open wounds. It’s not my fault you’re solid ice from the neck down.
For a second the old pain and humiliation rushed back, so fresh it numbed her. All over again she felt like one of those sordid, vulgar, shouting idiots on the tabloid TV shows—betrayed and publicly mortified by the very people she counted on most to sympathize with her.
The cowboy stood only a few feet away. His gleaming, invasive gaze held her while he waited for her to reply.
Hazel saved the day by arriving at the awful moment. She bustled into the parlor, skirts rustling, carrying an old-fashioned musette bag stuffed with faded envelopes.
“Here you go, Jacquelyn, some of Jake’s letters from the folks back East. I trust you two had a chance to discuss your upcoming ride?”
Jacquelyn had to fight to slow her pounding heart. It was now or never.
“Hazel, I can’t go,” she managed to say, with great difficulty, accepting the letters from Hazel. She hurried back to her chair to retrieve her recorder. Then she headed toward the wide parlor doors. During all the fluster of activity she refused to look in Clayburn’s direction.
“I’m sorry, Hazel, but it’s simply out of the question. I…I just can’t. I’m sorry.”
“All right, dear,” Hazel said, dismissing her. “It’s my fault, I suppose, for jumping to conclusions. One can’t assume the wood is solid just because the paint is pretty.”
“Yeah, she looks that way all right,” A.J.’s voice added behind Jacquelyn. “You ask me, though, the whole dang Rousseaux family needs to move their summer lodge out of here. They’d be more at home in a sunny condo in Florida or California. Among their own kind.”
Jacquelyn had been on the feather edge of rushing from the house, but Clayburn’s words acted on her like a brake. She turned to stare at him.
“And just what kind might that be, Mr. Clayburn?” she demanded, convinced her green eyes were snapping sparks.
“The grasping kind,” he told her bluntly and without hesitation. “I know all about your father and his dang plans to develop and ruin Mystery Valley. I’m no fan, Miss Rousseaux. I have no need for big-city developers and jet-setting money-grubbers who get rich off other men’s risk and labor. So what kind, Miss Rousseaux? The carpetbagging, uppity, Perrier-sipping, spoiled-brat kind who need to be brought down to size. That kind, Miss Rousseaux.”
He hurled each word at her like a poison-tipped spear.
But Jacquelyn only became even more determined and defiant. “I’ll have you know, Mr. Clayburn, that I don’t support my father in his company’s demand to develop Mystery Valley. But I’ll remind you that it’s not your place nor my place to make that decision for this community. It’s up to the town council to vote on it. And if you have an opinion, Mr. Rodeo Star, why don’t you hire someone to write it down for you and exercise your rights in this democracy of ours and give it to your town council.”
The silence almost boomed after she was through.
Hazel watched them both with the rapture of a tennis fan at Forest Hills.
Then suddenly A. J. Clayburn broke out in rude, lustful laughter. “I’ll be damned. You must be a writer. Nobody else I know could do that in a paragraph the way you just did.”
The anger almost choked her. “You know very well I’m a journalist, and it was not given to me, by the way, Mr. Clayburn. I had to work hard at it.”
“Even if Daddy does own the paper,” he taunted, his steely gaze shadowed by the rim of his hat.
“Even if Daddy does own the paper,” she defied, pronouncing every cold word.
“Then I’m half sorry we’re not going up on that mountain, miss. Maybe you could teach me a new word or two.” He looked at Hazel, resignation in his handsome smile.
“Hazel, I’ve changed my mind,” Jacquelyn announced, surprising even herself. “Mr. Clayburn, Hazel has my work and home phone numbers. Since we’ll be crossing one of the most difficult mountain passes in the Continental Divide, would I be too much of an ‘uppity, Perrier-sipping brat’ if I request at least one day to prepare?”
“You go right ahead, Miss Rousseaux. Do whatever you think is necessary,” he said as if patronizing her.
Hazel walked her out, looking way too pleased by Jacquelyn’s anger. Just as she was about to let the younger woman through the front door, Hazel whispered, “Don’t you worry about anything on the trip, Jacquelyn. A.J. will handle it. That’s why he’s the best one to take you. Oh, and by the way, don’t go teaching him any new words, either.” The older woman gave a meaningful pause. “He’d only want to learn the dirty Latin ones, anyway.”
Hazel’s Lazy M spread sat in the exact center of verdant Mystery Valley. Several thousand acres of lush pasture crisscrossed by creeks and run-off streams and dotted with scarlet patches of Indian paintbrush.
The town of Mystery, with a year-round population of four thousand, was a pleasant fifteen-minute drive due east from the Lazy M’s stone gateposts. The Rousseaux’s summer lodge was a ten-minute walk to the west, the ranch’s nearest habitation.
Jacquelyn, who had driven to Hazel’s place from the Gazette offices, turned east out of Hazel’s long driveway. Her thoughts, like her emotions, were still in a confused riot. What had she just committed herself to? How could she possibly ever endure such an ordeal—especially in the company of such a man?
Tears abruptly filmed her eyes. The extent of her vulnerability surprised and dismayed her. A. J. Clayburn’s crude baiting had brought back all the insecurities, all the bitter misery Joe and Gina had dragged her through.
Gina and Joe had proved perfect for each other, a matched set. As harmonious as the easy, breezy alliteration of their names. They were both charming, careless people, takers not givers, and honored no laws except self-survival and gratification of their sensual pleasures. And they had taught her a valuable lesson: it was easier to deal with known enemies than with phony friends.
At least, she had to admit as she reached the outskirts of town, A. J. Clayburn wasn’t feigning friendship.
She parked her car. When she entered the office, the red light was on over the darkroom door, which meant Bonnie was busy making photo-offset plates for the next issue of the paper. She left a brief note explaining Hazel’s imperious request, then hung up her hat for the day.
She was returning to her BMW, angle parked out front, when a throaty female voice
