wary but not unfriendly. She was a tall woman, Grace noted, slender, but not delicate. Her short, dark hair was starting to gray; she wore black slacks, a short-sleeved cotton blouse and black cowboy boots.
“Hello.” Grace smiled at the woman. “My name is Grace Sullivan. I hope I’m not bothering you.”
“Not yet you’re not.” The woman moved closer and offered a firm handshake. “Mary Sloan.”
A wife? Grace wondered. Sister? She knew so little about the man. “I’m looking for Rand Sloan. Does he live here?”
The woman smiled, as if Grace had said something funny. “Rand hasn’t lived here for fifteen years.”
Disappointment stabbed at Grace. Not another dead end, she thought. She didn’t have time for another dead end.
“Would you have any idea where I might reach him?” Grace asked. “It’s important that I speak with him right away.”
“Take a number,” Mary said, then nodded over her shoulder. “He’s in the barn.”
He’s in the barn? Grace swiveled a look at the barn, tried not to let her chin hit her knees. That simple? After dozens of phone calls and three wasted trips, had she actually found the mysterious Rand Sloan?
Excitement skittered up her spine.
“Is it all right if I go on in?” Grace asked.
“Help yourself.” Mary walked past Grace and moved up the porch steps. The woman hesitated at the front door, then said over her shoulder. “But if you’re from that lawyer’s office in Wolf River, you best give him a wide berth.”
Grace frowned. “I’m not from a lawyer’s office.”
Mary nodded. “Good.”
The wooden screen door slammed behind the woman as she disappeared inside the house. Brow furrowed, Grace stared after her. Now that was odd, she thought.
But her excitement over finding Rand Sloan pushed the strange woman out of Grace’s mind. Gravel crunched under the sturdy flat heel of her ecru pumps as she made her way toward the large, weather-beaten barn. She wished she’d had time to change her clothes earlier, but if she’d wanted to catch her flight from Dallas to San Antonio, she’d had no choice but to go directly to the airport from the board meeting this morning. The off-white skirt and jacket might fit in at the glossy, teak, ten-foot-long table at Sullivan Enterprises, but on an isolated, dusty ranch one hundred miles from The Alamo, silk and high heels were definitely out of place.
The story of my life, Grace thought with a shake of her head.
She quickly ran through her proposal in her head as she approached the open barn doors. From the time she was old enough to read and write, if she had wanted something, Patrick Sullivan had insisted his only daughter present her case in an organized written and oral form. When she was eight, she’d gotten Princess Penelope’s Tea Party by demonstrating the usefulness of learning social skills; when she was sixteen and wanted her first car, she’d argued the necessity of independence and self-sufficiency. She’d used visual aids for that presentation. Even now, at twenty-five, she still had fond memories of that sleek, shiny black Porsche.
She pushed all thoughts of tea sets and cars out of her mind, then squared her shoulders and stepped into the barn.
“Hello?” she called out, hesitated when she saw the man bent over a stall in the corner of the barn.
When he glanced over his shoulder at her, her mind simply went blank.
Good Lord.
Grace had no idea what she’d been expecting. Someone older, certainly. Maybe middle-aged, with bowed, skinny legs, slumped shoulders and skin like crushed leather. Maybe a bushy mustache and graying temples. Your typical, well-worn cowboy.
There was nothing typical about Rand Sloan.
He was probably in his early thirties, she guessed, though there was something about his piercing black eyes that made him look older.
He straightened, pitchfork in his hand, and turned those eyes on her. Grace felt as if she’d been speared to the spot.
He was well over six feet, lean, hard-muscled and covered with dust. His jeans were faded, his denim shirt rolled to the elbows. Sweat beaded his forehead and dripped down his neck.
And then there was his face.
She thought of Black Knights and Apache warriors, could almost hear the distant drums of battle. The pitchfork he held in his large, callused hand might have easily been a lance or a sword. A dark stubble of beard shadowed his strong jaw. His eyebrows, the same dark shade as his hair, were drawn together in a frown.
His narrowed gaze swept over her, assessing, moving upward slowly, sucking the breath from her as he touched her with those eyes of his.
Her knees felt weak.
“Something I can do for you?” he asked in a raw, hot-whiskey voice.
Now there was a loaded question, Grace thought, and quickly dismissed all the options that jumped into her brain.
“Rand Sloan?” she asked, annoyed at the surprise in her voice and the breathless quality that accompanied it.
He stabbed the pitchfork into the ground and nodded.
“I…I’m Grace Sullivan. I’ve been trying to contact you for the past two weeks. You’re a hard man to get a hold of.”
Grace blushed at her words. What woman wouldn’t want to get a hold of this man?
“Sometimes I am,” he said simply. “Sometimes I’m not.”
“You don’t have an address or phone number and I tried just about—”
“Why don’t you just tell me what you want, Miss Sullivan?” His eyes dropped to her hand. “Or is it Mrs.?”
“What? Oh—it’s Miss. Grace, I mean.”
He lifted a brow. “Miss Grace?”
“No.” Dammit. There was that blush again. She rarely blushed, and now she couldn’t seem to stop. “Just call me Grace.”
He nodded, his expression telling her that he was waiting for her to answer his question.
And what was the question? Oh, yes. He’d asked her what she wanted. She had to think a minute to pull her thoughts together.
“I’m from the Edgewater Animal Management and Adoption Foundation,” she finally managed. “Maybe you’ve heard of us. We rescue wild horses and care for them until they can be adopted out. We’d like to hire you to round up some stray mustangs in Black River Canyon and bring them out.”
“You went to a lot of trouble, Grace.” He turned his back to her and stabbed another flake of straw. “My answer is no.”
No? Just like that? No?
Grace stared at him, did her best not to
