A Damaged Trust

Chapter One

“Hello.”

The voice, deep and amused, came from behind Carrie as she squatted by the uneven tilt of her grey Porsche. She didn’t pay any attention at first, wrapped up in her own problems as she was, so she didn’t acknowledge the greeting. Instead, she reached down for the jack that was lying on the ground beside her. Deftly fitting it under the Porsche, she leaned over to feel with her hands and to guide the jack to a safe position before beginning to pump on the lever to raise the car.

“Need any help?” Deeper and more amused than ever, the voice spoke again. This time, Carrie took in the words and realized with a vague surprise that someone was addressing her.

Putting a supporting arm to rest on the curved bumper of the incapacitated car, she slowly turned her head to look around her, swiveling on her heel to do so. She was right; someone
had
spoken to her, and that someone was still there. She muttered disgustedly to herself. It had been a hot, long and exasperating day, and Carrie was already late. She was also in a temper, a state of mind that many of her acquaintances, after having experienced the brunt of her anger once, were reluctant to provoke again. It took a lot to provoke Carrie, but a whole lot of straws in the manner of several annoying mishaps had been piled on the proverbial camel’s back, and the flat tyre smack in the middle of Colorado’s finest midday heat had been quite the last straw. She was feeling, in a word, perverse.

She raised her eyebrows at the someone who was indolently leaning against the flank of a very elegant Mercedes. It was a dark blue, a positively gorgeous dream of a car. She tightened her lips at the new-looking tyres in obviously excellent shape and turned her gaze to the owner. He exuded quite a different impression from the car, as different as two unlikes could be. She took one sweeping, indifferent look at the man before enquiring too politely, “Did you say something to me?”

“Yes, I did.” The ruffian had quite a devilish smile, white strong teeth gleaming saturninely against the darkness of a few days’ growth of beard in a tanned face. “I was wondering if you needed any help.”

Normally Carrie would have thanked a man for making such an offer, even though she was perfectly able to change a flat tyre herself. If she had been really tired, she might even have stepped gladly out of the way to take advantage of such generosity. As it was, she regarded the man for a minute without answering. She took her time as she inspected the long length of him, parked as it was with one leg crossed over the other and arms folded in front of a powerfully muscled chest. He wore faded blue jeans and a light blue cotton shirt that seemed to strain a bit across the shoulders. It and the jeans had obviously seen better days. His devilish grin became even more pronounced as Carrie inspected him calmly, but other than that, he did no more than wait for her reply.

Her large eyes travelled unhurriedly back to his face, and she stated briefly, “No.” She turned back to the car and began to pump the lever of the jack.

The man spoke again. “I hope you loosened the nuts on the wheel before you started to jack the car up. Otherwise the wheel will spin around if you try to loosen them after the car is off the ground.” From the sound of his voice, it didn’t seem as if he had budged from his position. Carrie deigned to ignore him, hoping that her rudeness would make him go away. Somehow, though, she doubted this, since he hadn’t already taken the hint by now. She knew she’d been terribly obvious. At any rate, she wasn’t going to turn around and find out. She continued to pump the lever until the flat tyre began to spin when gently pushed. Then, quickly removing the already loosened nuts, she slid them into the dirt beside her with one hand and then started to tug off the wheel. It seemed to stick a little, but then gave way suddenly, sending her back on her bottom with a thump. A smothered sound came from behind her, a sound much like that of a snort or a chuckle. This, of course, added nothing to the sunniness of her disposition, yet still she refused to look around. His presence was not wanted and she was trying her best—or her worst—to discourage her audience.

Normally Carrie would have enjoyed such masculine attention, especially since the character across the road was not a bad-looking fellow. He might even be called handsome, she mused thoughtfully as she dusted off the seat of her pants—that was, if one could see enough of his face to find out. But she was not in the mood to enjoy flirtation at the moment, and did not care for any male attention of any kind. In fact, she very much set against it. The very reason for this trip in the first place had been an unwise attachment to one of the opposite sex. And that experience, she knew, would keep her burned little fingers away for a long, long time.

Carrie was used to the pain by now, but it didn’t make the hurt any easier to take. She rolled the tyre off to the back of the car and heaved up her spare. Rolling it around to position, she squatted down and prepared to give a big heave up. Then there were two extra hands on the wheel beside hers, and Carrie turned startled blue eyes up to stare at the shadow the sun was making of the man’s face. A glimmer of white blurred in front of her eyes; he must be smiling, she thought hazily. Then the white abruptly disappeared.

He said harshly, “You’re crying. What has made you cry? Did you hurt yourself on something?”

Carrie sniffed angrily, the anger directed at herself, and unreasonably, at him. “I am not crying,” she informed him icily, one corner of her mind whispering to her the word “perverse”. “And,” she continued as she pushed one big hand away, “you must have misunderstood me. I don’t want your help.”

He replied softly, “Oh, I don’t think that I’ve misunderstood you at all. However,” he plucked her up and put her out of the way, still speaking easily, “you’re going to get my help, like it or not.”

He moved back to the wheel and hoisted it smoothly back into place. Then, as she simply stood and watched, he quickly put the nuts into place, twirling them a few times before lowering the car with a few muscle-rippling pumps. He turned back to Carrie. She had herself quite under control by then, and she wore a very patient expression.

That white gleam streaked across his face again and he drawled, “That's better. Think you can finish yourself?” His tone was light, but she noticed a searching look in his eyes as they went over her face.

She lifted one mocking eyebrow and her tone matched his. “I daresay.” There was no evidence of her sadly damaged pride at the too easy tears, or of the dull ache in her chest that had never gone away. She showed this stranger a smooth, cold mask.

He walked over to his side of the road, speaking carelessly over, his shoulder. “Don’t bother to say thank you. It was nothing.”

Temper boiled below the surface of Carrie’s bland face, but she kept it securely battened as she said, quite every bit as dry as he, “My dear fellow, I had no intention of doing so.”

He said nothing, but grinned much like the Cheshire Cat would have, and leaned back against the fender of the Merc. Forcing back a sigh of exasperation, she turned and bent to finish the job of tightening the nuts as tight as she could, very much aware of a dark, watching presence just out of sight behind her left shoulder and telling herself that she disliked it very much indeed. As she gave the last nuts a final twist, the man spoke one more time.

“Be sure to see that someone stronger has a go at tightening those nuts for you when you get home.”

Carrie twirled the jack lever in her hand and couldn’t stop from replying, “You mean you’re not going to do it for me?”

He opened his car door. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She resisted the temptation and didn’t throw the lever through his windshield as he pulled onto the road and soon disappeared, although she would have very much liked to.

The word that came to her mind as she put the tools away in the trunk, of the car was “insufferable”. However, she put him out of her mind as she slid into the driver’s seat. She was late, and she had other things to think about. She was sure that her family would be worried by now.

Starting the engine quickly, competently, she switched gears and took off down the road. She drove very fast and well, handling the powerful little car as easily as one might a kitten. It was a natural talent that came almost automatically to her. She had a keen eye for dimensions and distances and her hands were very strong and steady. Racing along the long, lonely road, she had plenty of time to take glances about her and appreciate the fierce, radiant glow of the afternoon sun as it beat down on her head through the open sunroof. Soon her fair hair would be bleached almost white in places in that old familiar way, reminiscent of past summers spent home on the Colorado ranch. The hot air was arid, causing her to lick her lips as the wind repeatedly whipped them dry. She was unused to the desert-like climate, having been away for several months at her apartment in the city.

She took in the surrounding landscape with pleasure, her eyes drinking in the remembered golden lands, the different types of cacti and the sage bushes, the running fences across open, flat land, and the purple shadow and red colour of the mountains that surrounded the valley, like a frame surrounding a picture, on every side that she looked.

Again, as she had a hundred times before, she wondered why she’d ever left Colorado and home, how she could have given up this bright vivacity and richness of colour, this vibrant warmth from the, sun. But again, as always, the question brought to mind the reason she had for leaving, the bid for independence she had made, the search for a life of her own.

Her thoughts shied away from the direction they were headed. She didn’t want to think about that now. All she wanted to think about was the fact that she was headed for home, and she was going to hug the people she loved the most.

Nothing would diminish that pleasure. She tried to keep her mind on that thought, but a fair-haired, handsome face floated uppermost. It
would
be nice to get home, she thought desperately. It would. It would.

The racing grey streak ate up the long country miles and Carrie soon saw the stretch of open road that heralded the last leg of her journey, the last bit to home. Posts flashed by, faster than could be counted, part of the fences of the Metcalfe ranch. Travelling a half a mile down the road, she slowed the car suddenly and turned down a private road that cut straight into the heart of the huge property. She pressed her foot down hard on the gas pedal as soon as she was on private property, making the sleek Porsche roar down the long paved road as she became more and more eager to reach her destination.

A small spot in the distance grew rapidly into what could be distinguishable as buildings, and a group of riders on horses a short distance away pulled up at the honk from Carrie’s horn. A far-off figure stood in the saddle on a rangy roan horse, and waved a white cowboy hat, giving a whoop that Carrie swore afterwards that she could hear even at that distance. He set his horse towards the clump of buildings at a dead run.

“Ralf!” Carrie laughed under her breath as she recognized the roan and the figure flattened on the horse’s back. She inched the car faster as she kept an eye on the rider, and chuckled to see the figure shake a menacing fist in the direction of the car as it pulled ahead. The fence posts flashed by now in an undistinguishable blur. The rider on the horse urged the animal faster.

The wind had torn her hair into a mass of tangles by the time she had pulled up in front of the house, braking hard. She twisted in her seat to see what the rider was doing, then she was out of the car and jogging his way, not quite reaching him before he dismounted from the now sweating horse. He turned and wrapped his arms around her, swinging her off her feet and very nearly breaking her ribs. When he finally let go of her, she had to wheeze to get her breath back.

“You (gasp) big ape, you nearly (gasp) broke my ribs!” she huffed between breaths. The other riders had caught up with the two and they dismounted, each wearing grins as wide as their faces could possibly permit.

“Howdy, Miss Metcalfe,” the leanest, most wrinkled of the bunch spoke in a drawl. “Your brother here shore was getting a little worried when you didn’t show up for lunch like you promised.”

“Jack, you old buzzard, what are you calling me ’Miss Metcalfe’ for?” Carrie demanded, grinning up at the man. “Are you in a huff because I didn’t give you the first hug? Come here, old mule!”

She threw her arms around the thin man and squeezed tightly. At first, Jack pretended to be embarrassed and tried to push her away, but in the end he patted her awkwardly on the back with a happy light in his eyes, for all his coughing and grumbling.

She then turned and said hello to the other two riders, young fellows and fairly new to the ranch. They looked embarrassed and mumbled something in reply—she took it to be a greeting—then looked either at the sky or at the ground and each getting red around the ears. Carrie looked away to hide a grin, then turned back to Ralf, who had been patiently waiting in the background.