Jared Clayton.
She didn’t know whether to cry in relief or anger. “Didn’t anyone teach you to knock on doors?”
“Not at this house.”
“Hey,” a voice behind him said, “get a move on. This is heavy.”
Jared stepped aside, and several of the ranch hands carried a dark-haired man and the wheelchair in which he was still seated through the service porch and into the kitchen, where they lowered him to the floor.
“I’m sorry,” she said, more in response to the injured man’s plight than anything.
From what she’d heard, the one-time rodeo cowboy had been involved in a tragic car accident a while back, and he’d been recuperating at Jared’s ranch. Yet her gaze and her focus turned to Jared. “You scared me.”
“Oh, yeah?” Jared’s features—quite handsome in the light—softened a tad. “And you don’t think seeing a shedevil, wielding a meat cleaver in her hand and dressed like a ghost in flowing white didn’t give me a start, too?”
Sabrina glanced down at her gown, realizing how threadbare the fabric had become, how sheer the material.
Her hair hung down her back, but she freed the side tresses, allowing them to cover the front of her gown the best they could.
As Matthew wheeled himself out of the kitchen and into the living room, the ranch hands backed out the door, closing it and leaving her with Mrs. Clayton’s oldest son. He still hadn’t formally introduced himself, although he really hadn’t needed to.
He crossed his arms across a broad chest and shifted the bulk of his weight to one, denim-clad hip. “Who are you?”
She crossed her own arms, hoping that would help hide what her hair couldn’t. “I’m Sabrina Gonzalez.”
“The bookkeeper who’s taken up residence in my mother’s house.”
It wasn’t a question, yet his tone, his condescension, set her off, provoking a retort that was completely out of character. “And you’re the rude, arrogant man who called earlier.”
Jared had been accused of worse, but he didn’t take any guff off anyone. Never had, never would.
Granny had done her best to teach him and his brothers to be cordial and polite, but it didn’t come easy to Jared. Not when he had reason to believe someone was a liar or a cheat. And he didn’t trust Sabrina Gonzalez any farther than he could throw her—something that wouldn’t be too tough. She was just a slip of a thing, with a slinky veil of black hair that nearly reached her waist.
Jared, who’d always favored long-haired women, found it intriguing. Attractive.
But he didn’t dare give this particular woman more than a passing glance. She was, after all, the one with the easiest access to Granny’s accounts. And it didn’t take much skill to put two and two together. He could do the math on that.
“Are you going to put down your weapon?” he asked.
She glanced at the cleaver, then replaced it into the butcher-block holder. Turning to face him again and recrossing her arms, she gave a little shrug. “The ranch is off the beaten path, and I wasn’t sure if this was a home invasion.”
“My guess is that you watch too much television.”
Her eyes, the color of a field of bluebonnets in the spring, were big and expressive. Her lashes, thick and dark, didn’t need mascara.
She was a beautiful woman, even without makeup and dressed in an old gown. Of course, her bedtime attire and sleep-tousled hair had an appeal in and of itself.
To much of one, he decided.
He knew better than to allow himself to be swayed by lust and did his best to shake off any sexual interest in her.
“So what were you doing awake and prowling around in the house at this hour?” he asked
She paused, as if deciding whether to tell the truth or to lie. “Sometimes I have trouble falling asleep, so I came for a glass of milk.”
“You might try whiskey. It works for me.”
The hands that she’d tucked under her arms loosened, leaving him a glimpse of the gentle swell of her breasts.
Her white cotton gown had seen better days, but her body was damn near perfect. What he could see of it, anyway.
He pulled out a chair from the antique oak table, took a seat and studied her.
Early twenties. Just over five feet tall. High cheekbones, big eyes. Lips that were kissable in spite of the pretty pout she wore.
He wondered what her hard-luck story had been. “So how’d you meet Granny?”
She remained standing. “I was referred by Mr. Whitaker, and I came out to the ranch for an interview.”
Grant referred her? If so, that was interesting. Grant had been the one to pick up on the discrepancies in the account.
“I’d originally applied for work at his office,” she added, “but he’s cutting back on his workload. He knew Mrs. Clayton needed a bookkeeper, so he gave her a call.”
By the way she tried to cover herself, Jared suspected she was embarrassed to be standing before him in her nightgown, but apparently she was too proud to make excuses and flee.
And he was too ornery to give her a reason to leave.
Besides, he had some questions to ask her.
That is, until a young, sleepy voice sounded in the doorway of the kitchen. “Aunt Sabrina?”
The woman turned to where a small, dark-haired boy of about five or six stood, rubbing his eyes.
She crossed the distance between them, placing her hand upon his shoulder. “It’s okay, Joey. I’m sorry the men woke you. Why don’t you go back to bed? I’ll be there in a minute.”
“I was worried ’bout you,” he said. “Worried you left me here and wouldn’t come back.”
She stooped, her gown pooling onto the kitchen floor. She wrapped her arms around the boy. “I’d never leave you, Joey. Not on purpose.”
“But my mommy…”
“I know, honey. But that wasn’t on purpose.”
Jared raked a hand through his hair. He wasn’t sure what that was all about. But it sounded like the hint of a hard-luck story to him, and knowing Granny, she’d been more swayed by Sabrina’s tale of woe than her qualifications, resume or references.
“Come on,” Sabrina told the boy. “I’ll walk you back to the bedroom.”
As she ushered Joey through the doorway, her hair covered most of her back, swaying with her steps. But the thin material of her nightgown did little to hide her shapely hips.
Jared suspected she wasn’t aware that the light was playing a trick on her, baring a slight outline of the panties she wore. Something decent and conservative. A pair worthy of any churchgoing matron.
Yet on Sabrina, with her ebony hair flirting with the elastic waistband, they fit her bottom in a way that would tempt a saint. And Jared was far from saintly.
Especially when he was determined to uncover a liar and a thief.
Chapter Two
On most nights, when those dreaded bouts of insomnia struck, Sabrina would finally fall asleep just before dawn, only to find it hard to wake up when it was time to begin the next day.
But that wasn’t the case this morning.
After