Star Bright (4 page)

She discarded that outfit and slipped into a blue suit—a prim jacket and straight skirt, finished off with a pair of matching pumps.
Not.
Parker Harrigan wanted a horsey person, not a Wall Street wannabe. She tossed that ensemble onto the bed and tugged out a knit top and a pair of faded jeans. Too casual. Definitely something she might wear on a boring Tuesday if she got the job, but not appropriate for an interview. Next in line was a basic black dress, sleeveless with a modest scoop neckline, but again, it looked too formal, even with a scarf at her throat. She went through the remainder of her hundred-dollar wardrobe and eventually returned to her first choice, the airy gathered skirt and peasant blouse. It said, “I’m not trying to impress anyone.” Unfortunately, it didn’t make her look very professional.

Oh, well.
If Parker Harrigan didn’t hire her because of her appearance, then he wasn’t very smart, and she’d be better off working for someone else. She took a final glance at herself in the mirror, thrust her feet into white canvas slip-ons, flicked the skirt with her fingers, and marched from the bedroom.

When she arrived at Parker Harrigan’s front gate, she saw an intercom mounted on a concrete post. There was a number pad for people who knew the gate code. Along the fence line, she saw what looked like infrared cameras. Was this a ranch or a high-security compound? She punched the button on the intercom. Some man came on the line who used improper verb tenses and had a thick Southern drawl.

“Who’d you say you was, lady?”

“My name is Rai”—
oops
—“Anna Pritchard. I’m here to apply for the bookkeeping position. Mr. Harrigan is expecting me.”

“Well, Rae-Anna, I reckon you can come on in.”

The gate swung open. Rainie thumped her hand on the steering wheel of the dilapidated Mazda as she drove through the entrance. “Your name is no longer Rainie, you idiot. You have to remember that.”

As the car bumped along the rutted dirt road, she took in the scenery that lay ahead. Separated by a packed gravel parking area peppered with dusty pickups, a huge post-and-timber home, a monstrous metal structure, and a clutch of outbuildings composed the ranch proper. Beyond that, fenced pastureland undulated like a rumpled green carpet. Rainie saw a potbellied man in jeans and a cowboy hat ambling toward the house.
Parker Harrigan, no doubt.
Maybe she should have worn the faded jeans and knit top, after all.

She parked beside a battered red Dodge with huge tires and a jacked-up undercarriage. The vehicle put her in mind of the monster trucks she’d seen on television that competed in mud races. This would be like working in a foreign country—traveling over a tooth-rattling road, parking in the shadow of a monster truck, and trying to communicate with people who spoke a different language. Unfortunately, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and she needed this job.

As Rainie collected her purse, the older man disappeared into the house without a backward glance. That was a bit odd. The polite thing would have been for him to wait on the porch to escort her inside.

As she exited the car, the front door of the house swung open again and a younger man stepped out. She guessed him to be an inch or so shy of six feet tall, but his bearing compensated for the lack of height. Broad shouldered and narrow at the hip, he had an athletic, muscular build. Faded jeans skimmed his powerfully roped thighs, and a wash-worn blue chambray shirt showcased an upper torso well toned from hard work.

“Howdy,” he called, flashing white teeth as he grinned. “You must be Anna. Glad to see you made it without any mishaps.”

Rainie recognized the voice.
This
was Parker Harrigan? If she hadn’t been desperate for work, she would have climbed right back in the car. He was way too
everything
. Way too young. Way too handsome. Way too sexy. Glistening black hair fell over his high forehead in lazy waves. His sun-bronzed face was a study in masculinity. His thick eyebrows arched expressively over twinkling brown eyes and a hawkish beak of a nose. His jawline was as sharply angled as a carpenter’s square. Underscored by a strong, cleft chin, his full mouth somehow managed to look both firm and yet silken at once.

Rattled, Rainie shifted her purse from one hand to the other. All her instincts urged her to be smart for once in her life and drive away. This would never work.

“I, um . . .”

Just then the older man emerged from the house. With a tip of his Stetson to Rainie, he descended the steps and struck off across the yard. She followed him with her gaze.

“Come in,” Harrigan said, gesturing at the doorway behind him. “I just made a fresh pot of coffee, and my stepmother, Dee Dee, brought over a plate of her famous peanut-butter cookies. You’ll love ’em.”

Rainie’s feet had put down roots. “You, um . . . well, you’re not what I was expecting. I really don’t think—”

“What were you expectin’?” he asked with another devastating grin.

“Someone older?”

He chuckled and narrowed an eye at her. “You ever heard of age discrimination? That goes two ways, you know.”

Fair enough. Rainie felt her feet move, and the next thing she knew, she was mounting the plank steps.

Parker’s first thought when he clapped eyes on Anna Pritchard was,
Holy shit.
She was the most gorgeous little bookworm he’d ever seen, fragile of build but delightfully well-rounded in all the right places, with delicately molded features, large hazel eyes, and a mop of brownish blond hair that fell in a cloud of curls to below her narrow shoulders. At the sight of him, she froze like a startled doe. For a second, he thought she might dive back into her rattletrap car.

He was relieved when she didn’t. He truly was in dire need of a bookkeeper. He just hoped she was as smart as she was beautiful. He swept his gaze the length of her as she ascended the steps. Her clothing, which looked as if it came from a thrift shop, didn’t suit someone with such an elegant bearing.
Strange.
She had “rich girl” written all over her, but she dressed like a pauper.

He directed her through the entry hall into the kitchen and motioned for her to sit at the rectangular oak table, where the plate of cookies and an application form awaited her. She hesitated before taking a seat, her pretty gaze darting around the room as if she expected a bogeyman to leap out at her.

“How do you take your coffee?” he asked.

“Um, black will be fine.”

Parker dumped some sugar from the bowl into his own cup and gave the contents a brisk stir. She placed her purse on the floor and then picked it back up as he advanced toward the table. After setting a mug in front of her, he took a seat across from her, rocked back on the chair, and took a swallow of scalding hot liquid.

“So, what did you think of the drive? You gonna be able to handle it in the dead of winter?”

She blinked as if he’d posed the question in Greek.

“It snows here,” he explained. “By January, we’ll have white stuff hip-deep to a tall Texan. They plow, of course, but the surface conditions can still get nasty. You done much drivin’ on ice?”

“No. I grew up in southern California.”

“You’ll need studded tires,” he informed her, “and maybe some drivin’ lessons in an empty parking lot come winter so you can learn how to handle a vehicle when it goes into a slide.”

“I’m sure I can learn quickly.”

She truly was beautiful, Parker thought as he studied her face. “Fast study, are you?”

“Fast enough.”

He nodded. “Here’s my thought on how we should proceed. I’ll take care of some work in my home office while you fill out the application. When you’re done, give me a holler, and I’ll review the information. If everything looks good to me, we’ll talk wages, benefits, hours, and all that kind of stuff. I’ll also give you the grand tour so you can decide if the work area is suitable.”

She popped open the clasp of her handbag, then pressed it closed. “Okay. That sounds good.”

Parker inclined his head at the cookies. “Make free with the goodies. Dee Dee will be offended if you don’t.”

Chapter Two

A
s Rainie began filling out the application, her stomach cramped with anxiety. She’d never been a good liar. If she wasn’t careful, Parker Harrigan might catch her later in a discrepancy.
Name.
That was simple, only not. Over the intercom earlier, she’d almost blurted out her real one.
Date of birth.
She had to look at her fake driver’s license to verify that. When it came to everything else, she decided it would be better to stick as close to the truth as possible. That way, she wouldn’t make a stupid mistake six months down the road.

In the end, she lied about only her name, date of birth, and job references. Otherwise, she stuck with the facts.
Pray God he doesn’t check me out.
Nothing she wrote down could be verified because he’d be using the wrong name. Lorraina Hall had attended Pepperdine University. Anna Pritchard hadn’t. Lorraina Hall had lived in San Diego. Anna Pritchard hadn’t. She used her dad’s real first name, giving Pritchard as his surname.
Marcus Pritchard?
It sounded totally wrong to her, but maybe it wouldn’t to Parker Harrigan.

Her blouse was wet under her arms by the time she finished filling out the application. Harrigan had asked her to holler when she completed the form. She swallowed, feeling as if a gooey clump of cracker had caught in her throat. She took a sip of her coffee, now gone cold. Then her gaze fell on the cookies. She stuffed a handful into her purse so he’d think she’d eaten some.

“I’m done,” she called out.

Seconds later, she heard the tap of his boots on the wood floors as he moved toward the kitchen. When he stepped into the doorway, her stomach clenched again. She wasn’t sure why she found his physical strength and attractiveness so unsettling. A simple matter of aftershock, maybe. Peter had battered more than just her body. A person didn’t survive experiences like that without having to deal with some emotional issues over the months that followed.

Harrigan sat down across from her, flashed a disarming grin as he rocked back on the chair, and then slapped a big hand over her application to pull it toward him. The impact of his palm on the table made her jump so violently that she nearly came to her feet. He gave her a long look. There was a question in his eyes.
What’s your problem?
After regarding her for a tension-packed moment, he focused his attention on the form. As he read, he nodded occasionally. What did that mean? The frown that pleated his forehead seemed too intent. He kept backing up to reread things. She half expected him to look up and say, “What a pack of lies.” Oh, God, she felt sick. Where was the bathroom? Would he hear her retching through the closed door?

“Looks good,” he said with a final nod. Settling a twinkling brown gaze on her, he smiled and said, “The job is yours if you want it.”

“It is?” Wincing at the squeak in her voice, Rainie curled her toes inside the canvas slip-ons.

He sat forward, bringing the elevated front legs of the chair down to the floor. The sound seemed to crack in the silence like a rifle shot. Rainie jerked, and bile surged up her throat. Were all ranchers so physically imposing? This man’s every movement seemed forceful. Maybe it came from pitting his strength against powerful animals all the time. Did most ranchers become incapable of doing things slowly and gently?

“Of course the job’s yours,” he confirmed. “There’s no question that you’re qualified. More than qualified, actually. My only concern will be keepin’ you happy so you don’t decide to leave. Unfortunately I can’t make the work more excitin’. I can make the wage and benefit package appealin’, though. How does a startin’ wage of sixty a year strike you?”

“Sixty?” Unable to collect her thoughts, Rainie could only gape at him.

“With a full package of benefits, of course,” he added quickly. “I provide great medical insurance with dental and optical. There’s also prescription coverage on a slidin’ scale, dependin’ upon the cost of the drug. In other words, if you’re willin’ to take a generic, the percentage you have to pay is far less. I haven’t looked at the policy recently, but I think the copay for office calls is still only twenty-five dollars. The insurance covers the rest.”

He was talking too fast. Rainie rubbed her temple, barely able to assimilate one thing before he moved on to the next.

“If you want to start a retirement fund, I’ll hook you up with my broker. I don’t match funds or anything like that.”

“No, of course you don’t.” In her experience, only major corporations contributed to pension and retirement plans. “I would never expect that.”

“I do offer paid vacations, though, two weeks the first year, three the second, and a full month after you’ve been here five years. You’ll work Monday through Friday, eight to five, with an hour and a half off for lunch and breaks. We have an honor system here, so it’s entirely up to you how you divvy up that time. Some people take a short lunch to allow for more breaks throughout the day. I don’t care as long as I get an honest day’s work out of you. Unless there’s some kind of emergency, you’ll have all weekends off. You can take twelve paid sick days a year—or use them as comp time.”