“Pardon me.” She commented, “I’ll try to sound more obtuse so you won’t feel challenged.”
Her acerbic tone didn’t daunt him at all; probably because he didn’t get the insult. She ached to dismiss him, but beneath his continued scrutiny she felt a flush heat her skin. Nervously she stood up and quickly smoothed her black matte jersey skirt over her thighs. Then she crossed to the wall behind her, covered with paintings and photographs. She could still feel the almost physical force of his stare.
“Mr. Clayburn, Hazel has told me her plan, but I’m afraid I’m not a camper, nor a horse packer. It seems she thinks I’m the best one to write about McCallum Trace, but there’s a fine young college boy interning at the office, and I think he’d be a much more appropriate choice for your—”
“You don’t have to convince me. I’m Mohammed. I can come to the mountain myself.” He jerked his head toward the door where Hazel had gone. “It’s the mountain you got to worry about moving.”
Jacquelyn looked at the empty doorway. The sinking feeling betrayed her cold bravado. The cowboy was, unfortunately, right; truer words and all that. Hazel was the mountain, and Jacquelyn Rousseaux might have an Ivy League education and a trust fund which she eschewed in order to make her own money and be her own woman, but she did not possess a backhoe.
So in the end her battle was with Hazel, not the man stuck in the room with her. Her innate Southern politeness finally won out.
“So…I understand you’re a rodeo champ,” she said, going back to her seat to wait for Hazel.
“That’s old news around here. Heard anything more interesting?”
His insolent, taunting tone made her want to spar with him. Worse was the strange feeling she had whenever his gaze raked over her. She realized she must have been far too long without male companionship because his every glance, his every stare was making her feel exposed and strangely flustered.
“You writing about cowboys, too?” he asked.
In spite of her better judgment, she retorted, “Actually I was thinking about it.” Archly she said, “In researching my articles on Jake McCallum, I read something about Montana cowboys. Is it true y’all are defensive because you’re just imitations of the true Texas cowboys?”
“’Y’all?”’ he repeated, raising one eyebrow.
To her chagrin he was unruffled. Then, to her surprise, he had managed to turn the question to her.
And Hazel seriously thought Jacquelyn would spend five days—not to mention nights—alone with this insulting, boorish hick?
There was no use in continuing the small talk. She turned her attention to an old, nineteenth-century tintype photo of Hazel’s grandmother, Mystery McCallum. Mystery wore a swag-fronted, bustled gown and a tight-laced corset to give her the wasp waist that had been fashionable then.
When A.J. spoke, his voice was so close to her ear that Jacquelyn almost flinched.
“I’ve heard that all those tight lacings sometimes kindled ‘impure desires.’ You being female and all, tell me—is that possible, you think?”
She spun around to face him, stepping back away from his invasion of her personal space. But not before she caught the scent of him—a decidedly masculine aroma of good leather and bay rum aftershave. The smell made her stomach quiver, as if it had some kind of hormonal effect on her, as if it kind of…kind of…turned her on.
She took a step backward and vowed to get out more and meet men now that she was unattached again. In her deprivation she was becoming a little too worked up about nothing. Certainly rawhide and dimestore aftershave weren’t her perferred sexual stimulants.
But then she caught another whiff of it, and she wondered if he wasn’t getting the best of her without even trying. Only pride stopped her from running from the room in terror, her nose pinched to protect her from her own unwanted chemical reactions.
With great effort she tossed him a bored, dismissive glance. “I’m so sorry. Did you say something?”
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