climbed in, fastened his seat belt and started the engine. He was still smiling when he pulled out of the hospital parking lot.
Sara had liked the White Horse Ranch from her first close-up look at it, the first time she’d delivered Jared’s books to him. She admired the sprawling white ranch house with its hanging baskets of flowers and the white wooden fences that surrounded a well-manicured pasture. Jared ran purebred Santa Gertrudis cattle here, not horses. Sara enjoyed watching the calves. Pastures were full of them in spring, just in time for the lush new grass to pop up. Or, at least, that would have been the case if the drought hadn’t hit this part of Texas so hard.
“How do you have green grass in a drought?” she asked suddenly.
He smiled. “I sank wells and filled up tanks in every pasture,” he replied, using the Texas term for small ponds.
“Not bad,” she remarked. “Do those windmills pump it?” she added, nodding toward two of them—one near the barn and another far out on the horizon.
He glanced at her amusedly. “Yes. It may be an old-fashioned idea, but it was good enough for the pioneers who settled this country.”
“Your grandfather, was he born here?”
He shook his head. “One of his distant cousins inherited a piece of property and left it to him. He ranched for a while, until his health got bad.” His face seemed to harden. “He took a hard fall from a bucking horse and hit his head on a fence. He was never quite right afterward. He put a manager in charge of the ranch and moved up to Houston with his wife. One summer day, he shot my grandmother with a double-barreled shotgun and then turned it on himself.”
Her gasp was audible.
He noted her surprise. “My father brought him down here to be buried, although nobody knew how he died. None of the family ever came back here after that,” he said. “I guess we all have something in the past that haunts us. I shouldn’t have been so blunt about it,” he added, when he realized that she was upset. “I forget that you grew up in a small town, sheltered from violence.”
Obviously he considered her a lightweight, she mused. But it was too soon for some discussions. “It’s all right.”
He pulled up in front of the house, cut the engine and went around to pick Sara up in his strong arms and carry her up the three wide steps to the front porch. He grinned at her surprise.
“Coltrain’s nurse said to keep you off your feet for another day,” he mused, looking down into her wide, soft green eyes.
“So you’re becoming public transportation?” she teased, and her smile made her whole face radiant.
It made her look beautiful. He was captivated by the feel of her soft, warm little body in his arms, pressed close to his chest. He loved that smile that reminded him of a warm fire in winter. He liked the surge of excitement that ran through his hard body at the proximity. His eyes narrowed and the smile faded as he held her attention.
“Listen, don’t you get any odd ideas,” she cautioned with breathless humor. “He didn’t do that buttonhole surgery, he split me open at least six inches and sewed me back up with those stitches that you don’t have to take out later. We wouldn’t want my guts to spill out all over your nice clean floor, now, would we?”
The comment, so unexpected, caused him to burst out laughing.
“Good God!” he chuckled. He bent and brushed his hard mouth over her lips in a whisper of sensation that caused her entire body to clench. It was a rush of sensation so overwhelming that she felt her breath catch in her throat.
His eyebrows arched at her response. He pursed his lips and his green eyes twinkled. “What a reaction,” he murmured deeply. “And I barely touched you.” The twinkle faded. “Suppose we try that again…?”
She started to give him ten good reasons why he shouldn’t, but it was already too late.
His hard mouth crushed down onto her soft lips, parting them in a sensuous, insistent way that took her breath away. Her eyes closed helplessly. Her cold hands slid farther around his neck as his arm contracted and flattened her soft breasts against the wall of his chest. The kiss grew demanding.
“Open your mouth,” he bit off against her bruised lips.
She tried to answer that audacious command, but it gave him the opening he was looking for, and he took it. His tongue moved deep into her mouth, accompanied by a groan that sounded agonized.
He felt her shiver in his arms. His mouth roughened for an instant until he realized that she was just out of the hospital, and her side hadn’t healed. He lifted his head. His eyes were blazing. His face was set, solemn, his gaze intent on her flushed skin.
“Wh…why?” she faltered, all eyes.
An odd expression crept over his face. “When you smile, the emptiness goes away,” he said in a rough whisper.
She didn’t know how to answer that. But she didn’t have to. The door opened suddenly, revealing a tall, very attractive brunette in a blue business suit with a short skirt that stopped halfway between her knees and her panty line.
The brunette raised an eyebrow at the sight of Jared with Sara in his arms, and she didn’t smile. “Didn’t you expect me, darling?” she asked Jared in a honey-smooth tone.
Jared was still collecting his senses. “Max, this is Sara Dobbs. Sara, Max Carlton, my attorney.”
Sara had never seen an attorney who looked like that. The woman could have posed for a fashion magazine. She was sophisticated, beautiful and world-wise. Sara felt like a small child trying to play with adults.
“I have to get Sara to bed. Where’s Tony?”
Max shrugged. “I haven’t seen him. We have several contracts to go over.”
“We’ll get to them later,” Jared said, with an edge to his tone.
“Suit yourself, it’s only money. I like the house.”
The lawyer had yet to say one word to Sara. Jared noticed, and his irritation was obvious.
“Sara, you said?” Max asked, smiling at the woman in his arms. “Is something wrong with your leg?”
“She just had an emergency appendectomy and there’s nobody at her house to look after her while she heals,” Jared said shortly, turning toward one of the downstairs guest bedrooms.
“I see. Well, I’m sure you’ll feel better soon,” she told Sara as Jared carried her down the hall.
Jared ignored her. He turned into a pretty blue-themed bedroom with its own private bathroom and eased Sara down on the quilted coverlet.
He leaned over her, his big hands on either side of her head, and looked straight into her eyes. “Max is my lawyer. That’s all she’s ever been.”
“She likes you,” Sara replied.
His green eyes narrowed. “She likes my money.”
“She’s pretty.”
He bent and brushed his mouth softly over her lips, smiling as they parted for him now. “So are you,” he whispered, standing up straight. “I have to sign some contracts for Max. I’ll be back in a few minutes. TV control’s on the bedside table,” he indicated. “We have pay-per-view. Help yourself. I’ll have Mrs. Lewis bring you something to eat in a little while.”
“Mrs. Lewis? I thought she worked for the Hart brothers.”
“She did, but she had to retire just recently from doing heavy housework. Her arthritis got steadily worse and she had to leave them. But her doctor found a new drug that works. She still can’t do heavy work, but she cooks for me three days a week.”
She studied him curiously. “What do you do the other four days?”
He grinned. “I eat