Just at that moment she glanced up, her gaze meeting his. Her eyes widened, and he was embarrassed to have been caught staring. He didn’t allow his eyes to fall, however. He had a pretty good idea of how she’d interpret it if he looked away now.
Her lips tightened before she opened them to ask, “Did you need something else, Mr. Sellers?”
“No, ma’am.”
Neither of them moved. Behind her, the gelding made some movement, but she ignored him. Her brown eyes, seeming too big for the small, oval face, held on Grey’s challengingly.
“You can use any bed in the bunkhouse,” she said finally. “Dinner’s at nine. Later than you’re used to, maybe, but I don’t like eating while the sun’s up.”
“Are you inviting me to dinner, Ms. Beaufort?”
“Hospitality forbids that I let a guest go hungry, Mr. Sellers, even an uninvited one. Don’t read anything else into the invitation, however. I figure having you come up to the house is easier than carrying a tray out there,” she said, gesturing with her chin toward the bunkhouse behind him.
“Yes, ma’am,” Grey said.
He realized that watching her limp across the barn had destroyed whatever perverse pleasure he had taken in baiting her. To do that now would make him feel petty, like taking cheap shots at someone who was not quite capable of defending herself.
Of course, she hadn’t seemed to have a problem dealing with his sarcasm, so he knew that was all in his head—and he knew why. He didn’t much like that reason being there, and he knew damn well she wouldn’t. He suspected she wasn’t the kind who would welcome pity, however dressed up it was and masquerading as something else.
“I don’t want you to get the idea that it’s an invitation to anything else, Mr. Sellers,” she said, bringing his attention back with an unpleasant jolt. “I don’t want to be your friend. I don’t want any closer acquaintance with you. I didn’t want to be your host, not even for one night, but it seems that choice has been taken out of my hands. So…Dinner. That’s all.”
“Grey,” he suggested. “I don’t get called Mr. Sellers often enough to feel real comfortable answering to it.”
He smiled at her, the nice, safe, polite one he pulled out for little old ladies and loan officers and cops who were holding ticket books. Not the smart-assed one he’d been carefully pretending to hide while he sparred verbally with an attractive woman from across a porch railing.
Her lips tightened. “Nine o’clock, Mr. Sellers. No need to dress up.” She turned her back and began to unsaddle the horse.
From the quickness of her movements there was no doubt she knew exactly what she was doing, and that she had been doing it on a regular basis for a long time. Despite his previous acknowledgment that this was one proud, prickly woman, Grey set down the bag he was holding and walked into the barn. It was already dusk, the light from the dying sun fading quickly.
He was surprised at how much darker the barn’s interior was than it had been outside. And surprised at how familiar were the smells. How evocative. He took a deep breath, inhaling a combined fragrance of hay, horse manure and oiled leather. Scents that would always mean home to him.
He walked toward the horse and his rider, watching as her small hands worked efficiently. As soon as she had loosened all the straps, Grey stepped forward, moving in front of her without warning. He lifted the saddle off and set it atop the rail of the nearest stall.
When he turned around, Valerie Beaufort’s eyes were on his face. There was a bloom of heat in her cheeks, and her lips were set so tight they were nothing but a white line.
“Don’t you ever do anything like that again,” she ordered.
The madder she got, the quieter her voice. He had noticed that on the porch. Which must mean she was furious right now.
“I don’t know what kind of men you’re used to being around, Ms. Beaufort, but I was raised to be a gentleman. I would have done the same for any lady.”
“You’re a lying son of a bitch,” she said. “You figured you’d just help the poor little cripple out, whether she needed it or not. Maybe get on my good side by showing what a gentleman you are. Or maybe you just wanted to feel better about yourself by doing your good deed for the day. I don’t really give a damn why you did that, but if ever I want your help, I’ll ask for it. If I don’t ask, Mr. Sellers, then you leave me the hell alone.”
A matching anger grew as she spit words at him. Maybe it was the nagging headache he’d fought all day. The need for a drink that he hated like hell to admit. Or maybe it was pure guilt because she had come too close to the truth. Whatever the reason, his own rage suddenly boiled up past his normally well-developed self-control.
He grabbed her upper arms, locking his fingers around them hard enough to make her flinch. Her pupils dilated in shock. Ms. Rich-bitch Beaufort had probably never had a man touch her, he thought, in anger or any other way. With this kind of attitude, who the hell would want to? Despite the fact that his brain was already telling him he had made a huge mistake, he shook her. Not hard, just a single, sharp movement.
The bones of her upper arms were thin under his hands. As childlike as the rest of her appeared to be. Vulnerable. And realizing that should have destroyed his anger. It should have made him ashamed of the fact that he was manhandling someone so much smaller than he was.
Someone who was also…crippled. It was the word she had used. He didn’t like having it in his head. The fact that it was there, just as she had accused, seemed to fuel his anger.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with you, lady,” he said, his voice low and deliberately menacing, his hands still gripping her arms. “I came out here because I was hired to do a job. And because I need the money. Believe me, I don’t want to be your friend, either. And if you think offering to feed me gives you the right to be rude, you need to rethink your policy on hospitality. I would have taken that saddle off for any woman. That’s how I was raised. You can be damn sure, however, that being nice to you is a mistake I won’t make again.”
He released her so abruptly she staggered. He fought the urge to grab her elbow and steady her until she regained her balance. Instead, he pushed between her and the flank of the roan and strode angrily across the barn and then outside to where he’d left his bag. He scooped it up without looking back and walked into the bunkhouse, slamming the door closed behind him.
The noise didn’t help his headache appreciably. Neither did the blood that was pounding through his temples. It had been a long time since he had really lost his temper. A long time since anyone or anything had driven him out of the fog of apathy that had surrounded him since he’d quit the External Security Team. He couldn’t even begin to explain why he had lost it now.
But it made him ashamed. And exposed. As if he had opened himself up and revealed to this woman that all the gears and cogs that were supposed to be turning smoothly inside his head had gotten a little out of whack. Or maybe, considering what he’d just done, a lot out of whack.
He threw the bag on top of the bunk nearest the door and watched the dust lift in a small cloud around it. She’d probably file a complaint. He hoped it was with Beneficial Life rather than with Joe Wallace. After all, he could con Wallace with some tale about why this hadn’t worked out.
And he’d have to pay back the money somehow. He didn’t have a clue how he was going to manage that. He sat down on the edge of another bunk and put his aching head into his hands.
Way to go, hotshot, he thought, everything he had said to her running through his head. The way to win friends and influence people.
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