and imposing, but no more so than Tyler’s own home back in Atlanta. He concentrated on the irony in that in hopes it would keep him from thinking about the banging of his own heart as he rapped on the door, then stepped inside to confront the woman who might have borne him.
Carmen was round. Round face, round body—even her shiny black hair was round, braided and twisted high on her head in a coronet.
And she was not his mother. Tyler knew it, the minute she turned from the stove and smiled at him.
“Señor?”
“Abel sent me,” he told her, while his heartbeat returned to normal. “He said it would be okay if you fixed me something to eat.”
She smiled even more broadly, sat him at a massive oak table and fed him huevos rancheros, homemade biscuits and cups of fragrant black coffee until he thought he’d burst.
“The men who work at Espada are lucky to have you to cook for them. Your children, too,” he said casually, because he needed to be certain, even though he already knew.
“Ah, my children,” Carmen said happily, and told him all about Esme, her daughter, who was twenty and in her second year at the university, and about her son, Esteban, who was a doctor in Austin.
“Dr. Esteban O’Connor,” she said, and chuckled. A blush colored her dusky cheeks, making her look younger than her years. “The child of my youth—and of a youthful indiscretion.”
Tyler smiled. “And how old is this child of your youth?” he said, even more casually, and Carmen told him that Esteban was going to celebrate his thirty-fifth birthday next month.
Tyler had nodded, tried to ignore the sudden emptiness inside. It wasn’t a surprise; he’d known, hadn’t he, that this warmhearted woman wasn’t his mother? She’d never have given him life, then abandoned him.
“That was a wonderful meal,” he’d said. “Gracias, Carmen.”
He’d dropped a kiss on her cheek and gone to find Abel, who’d set him to work.
Work was what the old man had given him, all right, Tyler thought now, grunting as he unloaded feed sacks from the back of a pickup truck. Hard work, too, as if hoisting heavy sacks and shoveling manure were tests he had to pass before he could be trusted with anything as important as risking his neck trying to break a horse.
All the time he worked, whatever the job, he kept his eyes open, alert for something, anything, that might give him some clue about his birth, about how his mother—his parents—had fit into the enormous puzzle that was Espada. He knew it was foolish, that he’d left this place when he was only a day or two old. What memories would a newborn infant have? Not a one. He understood that.
Still, he looked at everything as if the most simple thing could be the key to unlock the mystery of his past.
And then, on the third morning, Caitlin McCord came strolling toward the stable and he knew he’d been kidding himself. Part of him had been searching for clues to John Smith’s birth—but part of him had been watching, and waiting, for her.
He felt as if someone had landed a hard right to his jaw.
She was beautiful. How in the world had he ever mistaken her for a boy, even at a distance?
It was a hot day. China-blue sky, brutal yellow sun, with no breeze or a cloud to ease the sizzling temperature. He was sweating and so were the other men. Even the horses were feeling the heat, but Caitlin looked untouched by it.
He drank in the sight of her. She was wearing a sleeveless blue T-shirt and he could see the musculature of her arms, the strength of them, and he wondered why it was that he’d never before thought how sexy that could be. She was wearing jeans, as he was, but hers were a faded blue, almost white at the knees and hems. They fit her snugly, cupping her bottom, skimming the length of those incredibly long, long legs as lovingly as a caress. Her hair was pulled back from her face but a couple of auburn curls had escaped at her ears and on her forehead.
Tyler drew in his breath.
She looked, he thought, like a cool, clear drink of water—and he was a man dying of thirst.
He tossed the last sack from the truck, then straightened up. She was going to pass within a couple of feet of him and the truck but her gaze never drifted right or left. His belly clenched. She was going to walk right on by and pretend he wasn’t even there.
To hell with that, he thought, and jumped down in front of her.
“Good morning.”
Caitlin stumbled to a halt. “Good morning,” she said coolly, and started around him. Tyler moved along with her.
“Nice day,” he said.
“Very.” She took a step to the right. Tyler took a step, too.
“Mr. Kincaid—”
“Well,” he said lazily, “isn’t that something? When I was trespassin’ on your property, you called me ‘Kincaid,’ but now that I’m gainfully in your employ, I’ve graduated to ‘Mr.’”
Caitlin flashed him a look. “It isn’t my property, Mr. Kincaid, nor are you in my employ. This ranch belongs to Jonas Baron.”
“You’re his stepdaughter.”
“Exactly.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, but I don’t see the difference.”
“I am not a Baron, Mr. Kincaid. That means I hold no legal interest in Espada and never will. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“Is there a reason you’ve been avoidin’ me, Ms. McCord?”
Caitlin flushed. “I haven’t been…I don’t like being made fun of, Mr. Kincaid.”
“Forgive me, Ms. McCord. I wasn’t makin’ fun, I was makin’ an observation.”
“Here’s an observation for you, Kincaid.” Her hazel eyes flashed as she looked at him. “I find it interesting that you seem to have developed a drawl in the last couple of days. And you can ditch the ‘forgive me’s’ and the ‘beggin’ your pardon’ nonsense. Expressions like those are lies, coming from you. I don’t think you’ve ever apologized to anybody in your life.”
Tyler tried to look wounded. “I’m a Southerner, Ms. McCord. We’re all gentlemen. Would a gentleman lie to a lady?”
He saw her mouth twitch but she stopped the smile before it got started. “You didn’t talk that way when we met, Kincaid.”
He grinned. “Maybe I was trying to impress you.”
“Maybe you were trying to convince me you were something you’re not.”
Tyler’s dark brows lifted. “Meaning?”
“Meaning, Abel doesn’t think you’re who you claim to be, and I’m starting to think he’s right.”
“Because of the way I talk?”
“Because of the way you act, Kincaid. Everything about you says you’re not the drifter you pretend to be.” Her nostrils flared. “And because you’re the first hand we’ve ever hired who has a cell phone in his duffel bag.”
Tyler bit back the curse that rose to his lips. “And you’re the first employer who’s gone through my things.”
“One of the men saw you using it.” She put her hands on her hips and looked into his eyes. “Or are you going to deny the phone is yours?”
“No point denying it.”
He reached past her for his shirt, which he’d left hanging on the tailgate. The scent of him rose to her nostrils, a combination of sun and man, and his arm brushed lightly against hers. Caitlin felt her heartbeat stumble, which was ridiculous. She didn’t trust Tyler Kincaid, didn’t like him—and she surely didn’t