Tyler waited for some word. An apology. A question. Are you okay? seemed like a good start but the boy didn’t speak. He sat down again, straight as a ramrod in the saddle, while the horse blew and snorted. The kid was wearing a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead so he couldn’t see his face, but every inch of the boy’s posture indicated contempt.
Tyler drew in a breath, enough to calm his runaway heart rate. Then he plucked his hat from the dirt, knocked off the dust and jammed it on his head as he moved into the center of the road..
“You damned near ran me down,” he yelled.
The horse tossed its head. The boy said nothing. Tyler tucked his hands into his back pockets and walked toward them.
“Hey, kid, did you hear me? I said—”
“I heard what you said.” The boy’s voice was low. There was an edge to it that suggested he was accustomed to giving orders. “You’re trespassing.”
“This is a public road.”
“It’s a private road. Or am I supposed to believe you opened the gate three miles back, walked under the arch and never noticed?”
Tyler frowned. He hadn’t come through any gate that he knew of though he supposed it was possible, considering how lost in thought he’d been.
“Well? Is that your story, cowboy?”
Tyler’s frown deepened. The kid’s voice had an interesting quality to it, one that sent a funny sensation dancing along his spine. A couple of dark auburn curls had escaped from the baseball cap he was wearing. No, not dark auburn. Red, and chestnut; maple and even a touch of gold…
Holy hell. He must have been out in the sun longer than he thought. It would be a hot day at the North Pole before he cared one way or another about the sound of a boy’s voice, or the color of his hair.
The horse whinnied and danced sideways. “Did I say something that amuses you?” the boy asked coldly.
“I didn’t see any gate,” Tyler said, just as coldly. “Not that it matters a damn. Public land or private, you haven’t the right to—”
The boy touched his knees lightly to the chestnut’s sides. The horse took half a dozen steps forward. Tyler had been away from horses for a long time but the animal had a look that said it had a touchy disposition and, probably, a hair-trigger temper.
“If the gate was open, it’s because some no-account left it that way and I assure you, I’ll deal with him.”
“Yeah,” Tyler said slowly, his eyes locked to the rider’s shadowed face, “I’ll just bet you will.”
“You just turn around now and head back out the way you came.”
The presumptive quality of that throaty voice, the command issued by a skinny boy who couldn’t have been a day older than, what, sixteen, seventeen, made Tyler’s muscles knot.
“You’re pretty good at giving orders,” he said softly. “What happens when you run into a man who won’t take them?”
The boy hesitated, then touched his knees to the chestnut’s sides again. The horse moved closer, as much a weapon now as if the boy had picked up a stone.
“You mean, what happens when I run into a fool that doesn’t use the brain he was born with?”
“Yeah,” Tyler said, and in one quick move he reached up and grabbed the boy by the front of his T-shirt. The chestnut whinnied and danced away but Tyler hung on and hauled the kid from the saddle…
Except, as soon as he’d dragged him halfway down the length of his body, he knew it wasn’t a boy at all.
It was a woman.
A slender woman, but one who had all the right parts in all the right places. Round, high breasts that pressed against his chest. Rounded hips that meshed with his. An incredible mass of silky auburn hair that fell to her shoulders when her baseball cap dropped to the grass. Enormous hazel eyes, the irises shot with green and gold, stared into his; delicate bones and surprisingly hard muscle twisted under his hands.
“Damn you,” she gasped, “let go of me!”
Her skin was hot, and so was the smell of her. Sweat, horse, summer meadows and woman…she smelled of things he’d once known and things he’d never had, and the feel of her against him, of those soft breasts and narrow hips, of that tilted pelvis and the long, endless legs, turned him as hard as stone.
She felt his erection. She had to. He had her trapped against him. He saw her eyes darken, saw her mouth tremble. What the hell are you doing, Kincaid? he asked himself coldly, but even as he asked it, he wondered what would happen if he tumbled her down into the soft grass, how long it would take to strip the clothes from her, touch her, turn the anger and growing fear in her eyes to need…
Tyler dropped his hands from her and took a step back.
“A woman’s an idiot,” he said roughly, “to take on something that’s too much for her to handle.”
Caitlin’s heart was slamming against her ribs. Was he talking about the horse or about what had just happened between them? All her talk about this being private land was just that. Talk. What did a man like this care if he were trespassing? She was alone out here. And even though she was strong and fit, she’d be defenseless against a man like this. She’d felt all that tightly leashed power, that almost-terrifying maleness…and she’d felt something else, too, something even more frightening. For a heartbeat, as he held her, she’d felt like a sleeping cat coming slowly awake under the expert stroke of a man’s hand.
Heat rushed under her skin. She covered it by bending down and retrieving her cap. When she looked up again, her face gave nothing away. The only way to handle the situation was to show no fear, even though her heart was still banging like a drum.
“I assure you,” she said crisply, “I can handle the chestnut. As for you—if you turn around right now and walk on out, I won’t report you.”
“Report me?” He laughed. “Damn, but you’re good at this, lady. We’re in the ass-end of nowhere, and you’re making threats.”
“We’re on private land, as I’ve already told you. And I make promises, not threats.” Caitlin looked him over, from head to toe. He was a drifter. The battered old hat, the worn boots, the very fact that he was traveling on foot through the hot Texas countryside…but there was something about him. It wasn’t just his looks: The long, muscular legs. The narrow hips and broad shoulders. The face that was handsome in a dark, dangerous way. It was more than that. The way he held himself, maybe, or the way he looked at her out of those emerald-green eyes. There was an authority to him—and that was ridiculous. Drifters had no authority, no aura of command…
“Do I pass muster?”
Her gaze flew to his. He was watching her from under his sooty lashes, arms folded, his expression unreadable. She could feel herself blushing again but she fought against it and against the desire to turn away from that penetrating stare.
“Texas is filled with men like you,” she said.
“Really.” He shifted his weight, tucked his hands into his back pockets. “And what kind of man is that?”
“You’re broke, you need a job, a place to sleep and eat.”
Tyler started to laugh but thought better of it. Behind her, the chestnut eyed them warily, its reins trailing through a bed of wildflowers.
“And?”
“And, we don’t hire drifters. You’re not going to find work at Espada.”
He jerked as if she’d slapped him. Espada. Of course. He’d been so damned caught up in playing games with the woman…
“Espada,” he said softly. His eyes