A Tradition of Pride (13 page)

She was wary. "Why?"

"You live here and I work here. That makes it inevitable that we'll run into each other again. I can learn to tolerate you if we don't keep crossing swords every time we meet," he concluded.

"Tolerate me?" Lara gasped. He was the one who had come and disrupted everything. She hadn't been happy exactly, but she hadn't been discontented with her life, either. Now she wasn't certain that the same thing would hold true. "You are insufferably arrogant."

"And you are an insensitive bitch." Dimples were carved in his lean cheeks. "Are we going to continue to trade insults or shall we make a pact of peaceful coexistence?"

Fuming inwardly, she held her silence for several seconds before she grudgingly agreed. "A pact."

There was a mockingly arrogant inclination of his head, "Good. Shall we return to the study before your father decides that you seriously burned your hand?"

"You go ahead," Lara refused tightly. "Make my excuses. I'm sure you can come up with something that's convincing."

After letting Rans have a head start, Lara hurried up the stairs to her room. The pact would never work. Whenever Rans MacQuade was around, her reaction to him was inevitably warlike…or loverlike, a small voice added.

Chapter Seven

THE LEATHER REINS were looped around her wrist as Lara walked between the row of trees. The branches arched above her head, covered with new leaves of a bright spring green. The bay hunter blew softly against her shoulder. Lara paused to stroke its velvet nose.

A tear slid down her cheek, tickling the corner of her mouth. Impatiently she brushed it away, wondering where it had come from. It was spring. The pecan trees were bursting with life. She should feel happy, instead of trapped in this melancholy mood.

Not even Angie's letter in the morning mail had cheered her up as it usually did. Instead her friendly prattle about her husband, Bob, and the redecoration of their house had struck a sad chord. Angie's letter had been no different from others Lara had received from her, but Lara was different.

Once she had found contentment in the emptiness of her marriage. She had honestly believed her life to he fulfilling. She had even boasted to Angie that it was everything she wanted. Now she wondered.

A pickup track drove past the orchard, stirring up dust. Lara recognized it as the one Rans always drove before she heard the brakes being applied. Quickly she scrubbed her cheeks, to be certain there was no trace of tears.

A slam of the truck door confirmed that he had stopped. Within seconds Lara saw him vaulting the white fence and walking toward her. Surprisingly, their tentative pact had worked thus far. It had only been tested in meetings that had included her father.

She couldn't begin to guess why he was stopping to see her now. He was definitely not someone she wanted to see at this particular moment when her spirits were so downcast.

"Hello!" he called. "Problems?"

Lara shook her head. "No." Her hand continued to stroke the blazed face of the bay, avoiding the directness of Rans's gaze when he reached them.

"I thought your horse might have gone lame again. That's why I stopped," Rans explained.

"He's fine. Fully recovered," she assured him. "I was just cooling him off before we got back to the stable," she could feel the piercing examination of his eyes and wished the pact was not in force. She didn't feel like being polite to him. "I'm sorry you were delayed without cause."

"You've been crying. Is something wrong?" he observed quietly.

"You're mistaken." A hand moved defensively to her face.

"Your mascara is smudged."

Lara ran a quick finger beneath the lower lash of each eye, a telltale dark brown staining her finger. "Perspiration," she lied. "We galloped nearly all the way here."

"Really?" Rans mocked her excuse. "That's also why your eyes are red and swollen, too, I suppose."

"I'm tired and in no mood to match words with you." Irritation flashed through her at his damnable perception. She gathered up the horse's reins and looped them over its head. "It's time I was getting back to the house."

"The No Trespassing message came through loud and clear," he replied dryly, stepping to the horse's head and taking hold of the bridle.

"Good."

Her coordination was jerky as Lara gripped the reins along the hunter's neck and held the stirrup to mount. When she started to swing into the saddle her boot slipped off the metal stirrup, sending her down. She stumbled and would have fallen to the ground if Rans's long length hadn't been there to check her fall.

Her flesh melted at the searing contact with his masculine form. The bay's hindquarters swung away from the pair while Rans's grip immediately tightened around her waist. He was so strong and she was so weak. Lara wanted to lean against him and absorb some of his strength.

For a few seconds she allowed herself to do that. Her head rested against his chest, listening to the rapid and strong beat of his heart, and feeling the warmth of his breath near her skin. The brushing touch of his mouth against her hair triggered an awareness of what she was doing. Her defenses had crumbled to the point where she was inviting his caress.

Her hands stiffened against the rippling muscles in his arms as Lara pushed herself from the disturbing warmth of his body. She stared at a button on his shirt. His grip loosened, making no attempt to check her withdrawal.

"I'm sorry." Lara wasn't certain why she was apologizing to him. Maybe the words were really spoken for herself. "I was more tired than I realized."

"Let me give you a leg up." His voice was tautly controlled.

"Thank you," she murmured, feeling choked by a sudden surge of emotion.

The bay was swung back into position. His large hand was offered palm upward for her boot. Effortlessly Lara was boosted into the saddle. She had lacked the courage to look at Rans until she was safely removed from his nearness.

The enigmatic light in his brown eyes held her captive, her heartbeat skipping erratically all over the place. His left hand held the reins while his right rested on her knee. An empty ache started devouring her insides.

"I have to go," Lara murmured desperately, as if he was asking her to stay.

"Tell your father I'll stop by with the quarterly reports tonight." Rans stepped away. He seemed suddenly very aloof and indifferent.

"Yes. Yes, I will," she answered tightly, reining the horse away from him as scalding tears welled in her green eyes.

Lara barely remembered any of the ride to the house. She simply gave the bay hunter his lead and let him take her back. Trevor was on his way out when she rounded the corner of the house.

He paused to wait for her. "I'm glad I saw you before I left," he said. "I left a note in the kitchen to let Sara know I wouldn't be here for dinner this evening. Knowing her, she is liable to throw it away thinking it's a scrap of wastepaper so would you pass the message on to her to be safe?"

"Yes," she agreed automatically. "Where will you be?"

A raven brow lifted with cynical dryness. "Do you care?" Trevor jeered.

Lara sighed and ran a weary hand over her forehead. "No." she started to walk past him to the front door, but he caught her arm.

"You seem different," he frowned curiously. "I can't put my finger on why."

His touch made her skin crawl. "You are mistaken, Trevor," she said with freezing scorn.

"Am I?" His dark head tipped to the side in considering thoughtfulness. "I'm not sure."

"Don't you have some place you have to be?" Lara snapped, not wanting to be subjected to his probing for fear of what he might discover … or what she might discover about herself.

His dark eyes flicked impatiently to his watch.

"Yes, I'm late now. We'll talk another time, Lara."

Not if she could help it, she thought as he released her arm and walked swiftly to his car parked in the driveway. Lara didn't wait to see him leave, but hurried into the house, rubbing her arm where he had touched her.

The courtyard was darkened by evening shadows. Lara turned away from the glass-paned door, twirling the liquor in her glass and listening to the clink of ice against the sides. She ran a nervous hand along the waistband of her long skirt, a vivid floral pattern against a background of black.

After the quiet meal shared with her father, Lara had not wanted her own company. To be alone meant to think. That was one thing she didn't want to do. So she had accompanied her father to his study, sharing an after-dinner drink with him, breaking her usual custom of abstinence.

But his company hadn't proved to be the distraction she had hoped. Soon after they had entered the study, Martin Alexander had become immersed in the notes she had typed for him to day, leaving Lara to restlessly wander about the room.

"What time is it?" he asked with a frowning glance from his papers.

Looking at the delicate gold oval of her wristwatch, she answered, "Nearly half past eight." How could time go by so slowly?

His mouth straightened with grim impatience. "That mechanic said he'd have my car out here by no later than eight o'clock. I shouldn't have left it with him. I could have waited to have the oil changed and the tires rotated another time when I wouldn't be needing it the next day."

"I'm sure he'll be here if he said he would bring it tonight," Lara assured him absently.

"I hope so or—" His sentence was interrupted by a knock at the front door. "Maybe he's finally here," he grumbled, rising from his desk to answer the door.

Taking one of the books from the shelf, Lara flipped through it disinterestedly and slid it back in its place. With a dispirited sigh, she wandered to the red brick fireplace. Through the open study door, she heard the voices in the entry hall and stiffened.

"Rans. Come in," Martin instructed in a surprised and pleased tone. "I didn't expect to see you tonight."

"I mentioned to your daughter this morning that I would be bringing the quarterly reports to you."

"It probably slipped her mind," was the dismissing reply. "Come into the study."

In a flash of honesty, Lara realized that everything had been a lie. It had not been a mere whim that had prompted her to wear the decidedly flattering outfit of a black chiffon blouse and complementing flowered skirt. Nor had it been a desire for a change that had led her to style her hair to flow freely down her back, gold combs holding it away from her face.

She hadn't joined her father in his study because she hadn't wanted the solitude of her own company or because she had wanted the companionship of his. Subconsciously she had plotted her actions, arranging circumstances so that she could see Rans MacQuade and hopefully have him notice her.

The discovery panicked Lara. Even the drink in her hand had been calculated in a weak attempt to gain courage. She wanted to run but it was already too late. Footsteps were approaching the door. Quickly she swallowed the remainder of her drink, but her legs were shaking when she turned toward the door.

"Good evening, Mr. MacQuade." A stiffly polite smile curved her mouth as he stepped into the room, tall and vital and compellingly attractive. "I'm afraid I didn't pass on your message to daddy. I forgot all about running into you this morning while I was riding." A half truth since she had forgot the message but not their meeting.

"No harm, done." Rans shrugged, running an impersonal eye over the length of her.

"How about a drink, Rans?" Martin Alexander inquired. "A whiskey, maybe?"

"Sounds fine."

As her father started toward the built-in bar near the door, there was another knock on the front door. He glanced at his daughter.

"Maybe that's the mechanic." He shook his head, not holding out much hope. "Do you want to help yourself, Rans, while I answer the door? Lara can show you where things are if you can't find what you want."

But Rans didn't require her assistance as he stepped behind the bar. She covertly watched him dump several cubes of ice in a squat glass and pour a shot of whiskey from the bottle beneath the counter over the ice.

He glanced at the empty glass in her hand. "Would you like another?"

"Please." She carried her glass to the bar for him to refill. "A Bacardi cocktail. Sweet."

A few minutes later he handed the glass back. "How's that?"

Lara sipped it experimentally. "Perfect," she smiled nervously, clutching the glass in her trembling hands. "I shall have to remember your talent."

His mouth quirked in dry amusement. At that moment her father reentered the room, smiling in a slightly harried fashion.

"The mechanic is here with my car," he announced. "I have to drive him back to town. Can you stay for a few minutes, Rans? I'd tike to go over these reports with you since you're here. I shouldn't be gone long."

"I can stay for a while," Rans agreed.

"Good." Martin Alexander nodded. "Lara can keep you entertained while I'm gone."

With that, he left the room. Lara had seen the glittering mockery that had been in Rans's gaze at her father's last remark. His attitude didn't lessen the tension that scraped at her raw nerves.