The Reluctant Texas Rancher (Harlequin American Romance) (10 page)

“I’m not discussing this here,” he said.

Hargett shook his head in disgust at the goats, then turned back to his grandson. “Then I’ll do the talking. It’s time you put all your knowledge to good use and come to work for Anderson Oil as my protégé.”

Travis tensed all the more. “I have no interest in being an executive.”

“Do what I tell you and one day you’ll be running the place,” he pressed.

Travis let out a short, impatient breath. “You tried this on Dad. It didn’t work there and it won’t work on me. Now…if you don’t mind, Grandpa Hargett, I’ve got goats to transport.”

Hargett Anderson stared at his grandson. “You’re serious,” he said finally. “All that education. Editor of
Texas Law Review
at the University of Texas. And this is what you’ve been reduced to!”

S
INCE
THEY
DROVE
separate vehicles back to the ranch, Liz had no chance to find out what Travis was thinking or feeling. And once there, of course, they had work to do.

“You did a great job of picking out the goats,” Tillie exclaimed, as Liz helped Travis get the last of the dozen angora goats into the pasture closest to the barn and put out supplemental feed and water.

Reba nodded in approval, too. She watched a tall female dubbed Queenie—for her propensity of becoming herd queen, no matter what group of angoras she was placed in—roam the pasture, her horned head held high.

On the other side of the herd was the lone male, dubbed Buck, for obvious reasons.

The other goats hadn’t been named.

Liz wasn’t sure they would give them monikers. At least not right away.

Tillie shook her head in admiration at the flock. “White, charcoal, beige and blue-gray. They’re beautiful, Liz and Travis. Just beautiful.”

It was true, Liz thought. The horned animals had fluffy, full coats. “They’ll need shearing in another month,” she said.

Faye Elizabeth beamed. “It’s been a while since we did that. It’ll really give us a chance to work together as a team.”

Which was, Liz thought guiltily, something they rarely did anymore.

Reba turned to Travis. “Given that this was your first experience with goats, what did you think?”

Oh, no,
Liz thought.
Don’t answer.

Goat herding on cattle ranches was more of a lady rancher thing. Men preferred driving big expensive tractors for land management.

Travis, bless his heart, considered carefully before replying. “I’m thinking you should probably follow the breeder’s advice and get a couple of guard donkeys to scare off predators, when you do put them out in the far pastures.”

“Not a bad idea,” Tillie said. “I’ll get to work on researching that this evening.”

More conversation followed and then the other women headed back to the house.

Liz turned to Travis. He had been a good sport so far. Unable to help herself, she said playfully, “Not exactly what you had in mind when you offered to be the Four Winds’s only cowboy, is it? Even temporarily.”

He snorted in laughter. Rubbed the muscles at the back of his neck. “Life is full of surprises.”

“Like your grandfather’s visit?”

Travis straightened the brim of his hat, dragging it lower. “I knew that was coming. I was just hoping to avoid it.”

Glancing at the setting sun and the vivid streaks of red and pink in the blue-gray sky, Liz asked, “You’re really not interested in being groomed by Hargett to one day run Anderson Oil?”

Travis lounged against the wooden fence, observing the goats. “I don’t belong in a CEO’s office, Liz. I like writing contracts. Solving technical legal problems. Not chasing down energy sources.”

Liz could see that. Could see a lot of things when Travis opened up to her this way.

He took in the breathtaking vista of the Four Winds, confiding quietly, “My dad felt the same way. He was so dead set against it that he hid the fact he was heir to a large oil company.”

Liz had heard that story; it was the stuff of Laramie County legends.

“My dad was so determined to be his own man, as a matter of fact, that he took a ranch job with the McCabes, while saving up the money to start his own operation.”

Liz considered the irony. “And now you’re hiding out and working on our ranch.”

“Not quite the same thing. My dad’s exodus was entirely voluntary.”

“Whereas you’re stuck,” Liz concluded, not sure how she felt about that.

“Only temporarily,” Travis corrected. He reached over and playfully tugged on a strand of her hair, the way he had when they were younger. He paused to look deep into her eyes, intensifying the intimacy between them. “I’m relying on you to get the lawsuit against me dropped and my license reinstated sooner than anyone thinks.”

“
W
E
DON
’
T
HAVE
TO
DO
THIS
tonight, if you don’t want,” Liz told Travis an hour later, when she walked into the homestead. He’d been on the go since dawn, as had she, and it was nearly ten o’clock.

Freshly showered, but not shaved, he shrugged. “May as well get it over with. Besides, along with everything else I have to do tomorrow, I hear I’m going to be picking up a couple of jackasses. If they can find the perfect ones, anyway. I’m told that can be a little harder than locating goats.”

“That’s true.” Liz grinned, glad he was starting to find the humor in the situation. “Although I’m sure the ladies would prefer you use the term guard donkeys instead of jackasses.” She drew a breath. “Sorry this gig hasn’t turned out the way you envisioned it.”

His gray eyes twinkled. “Are you kidding? This is exactly how I figured working for four Cartwright women would be. Peppered with a little fighting and a lot of meddling…and some highly unusual requests.” He exhaled slowly. “Not to mention a lot of very fine dining, and plenty of peace and quiet in which to think—if you can discount the occasional mooing of a lovesick cow or the bleating of some ticked-off goats being shuffled around.”

“Well, as long as you have your sense of humor intact…!”

Liz opened her laptop computer and retrieved the file of questions she had prepared earlier in the day. “Let’s get to it.” She met his eyes. “Did you and Olympia ever sign a disclosure agreement about your relationship?”

Cocking his head, he studied her for a long moment. “I didn’t think it would be necessary.”

“So you didn’t even offer it up as a possibility,” Liz surmised.

Annoyance flickered across his features. “I did.”

Her fingers hovered above the keyboard. “Before or after you got involved?”

His attitude turned matter-of-fact. “We were only together for about four weeks.”

Having met Olympia, Liz was surprised it had gone on that long. “Was this before or after you were representing her?”

“It started just before she asked me to and signed with our law firm.”

Curious, Liz paused. “Did you know she was interested in signing with HB&R at the point you became intimately involved?”

“I knew she was thinking about it. She had asked to look at the standard client-attorney representation forms from the firm. Basically, she wanted to know what the services were, what my billing rate versus that of one of the senior partners was, and so on.” He shrugged. “She was supposed to come into the office to discuss it, but she’d twisted her ankle playing tennis and couldn’t drive, so I went to her place.”

Liz pushed away her emotional reaction to his naivete. “Alone,” she specified casually.

Travis nodded. “It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing. She asked me to pick up a prescription for her at the pharmacy.”

Liz stifled a groan of dismay. “Tell me it wasn’t pain medicine.”

“It was pain medicine. But she didn’t take any while I was there, because she was drinking wine and knew better than to mix the two.”

“Will she testify to that?” Liz pressed.

Looking momentarily dejected, he shook his head, indicating he didn’t know.

Forging on, Liz said gently, “Tell me what happened when you got there.”

“She was on the sofa. She had her leg propped up on some pillows, and her ankle was packed in ice.”

“Did she seem to be in pain?”

“Initially, yes,” he replied.

“But as the evening wore on?”

Travis grimaced. “This is going to sound really dumb.”

Liz waited.

“She said she couldn’t climb the stairs. She asked me to carry her up to bed.”

“And you did?”

“I knew it was over-the-top dramatic,” he admitted. “But I was raised to be a gentleman.”

“And you were both single.”

“Very single. So…when we got to her bed and she invited me to stay…I did.”

This was the sticking point. “Because you wanted to sign her as a client.”

“No.” Travis’s tone was flat, unequivocal. “I would have given that up to have a relationship with her. I still intended to bring her into the firm, if at all possible, because I knew it was a big deal and I’d get credit for it.”

Liz nodded, seeing where this was going, from a professional perspective. “You could have made your disclosure and handed over her business to one of the founding partners....”

“Right. But she wanted me as her lawyer. And she wanted an ongoing relationship with me.”

Liz knew how ambitious Travis was, how pressured by at least some of his family to succeed. Particularly in light of his refusing to join Anderson Oil.

She sympathized with what a dilemma it must have been. Olympia offering him the world, Travis eager to gain acceptance into the firm. “Did you have any qualms about it?”

“Not at the time,” he admitted honestly. “Looking back, I probably should have. But she didn’t think it would impact our working together, and we agreed to keep our relationship private.”

“So you brought her into the firm, as your client,” Liz said.

“And my bosses at the firm were delighted, because she was an excellent businesswoman, and an heiress to an oil fortune who was ready to strike out on her own. She was also going to be a pretty big client. There was only one catch.”

Again Liz waited.

“She wanted a lower billing rate for all her business.”

Liz paused. “I didn’t think Haverty, Brockman & Roberts ever did that.”

Travis exhaled. “They don’t. But it was going to be a deal breaker, so I kept working on them, and finally was able to convince my bosses that the volume of business Olympia was going to bring in, as she built her oil operation from the ground up, would more than offset any loss. And since it was my rate being cut, not theirs, they finally agreed.”

Liz thought about what a coup that must have been for Travis. “Olympia was happy, I’m guessing?”

He nodded. “Ecstatic—in terms of business.”

“And personally?”

“She began to lose interest in us almost immediately.”

If Travis was heartbroken, Liz noted, he sure wasn’t showing it. “So you stopped seeing each other.”

“And sleeping together,” he clarified.

Liz paused, adding two and two, not just from an attorney’s perspective, but a woman’s. “Has it occurred to you that Olympia—”

“—only hopped into bed with me and stayed there until she got her lower billing rate?” Travis asked sagely. “Yes. It has.”

So he knew he’d been duped. And was accepting responsibility where it was due. Learning from his mistakes. Moving on. Liz couldn’t help but admire him for that. It would have been very easy for him, under the circumstances, to assuage all blame, become bitter, angry, lash out.

“Did you work harder for her, after that?” she asked quietly.

Travis put the kibosh on that notion. “I gave my client the best of my ability, same as always.”

No more, no less.

Liz sat back in her chair and studied him. She felt she already knew the answers to these questions, but had to ask them nevertheless. “Were you hoping Olympia would take you back, if you were successful on her behalf?”

Again, there wasn’t the slightest bit of indecision on his face. “No.”

A mixture of relief and respect flowed through Liz. “Why not?” she asked, even more quietly. Restless, she stood and moved away from her computer.

“Because I realized a sexual affair wasn’t enough.” Travis stood, too, and came toward her. “I wanted more from a relationship.” His voice dropped another husky notch and his eyes darkened. “I wanted what I once had, with you.”

Chapter Ten

Liz hitched in a breath at the words she had longed to hear. She took a nervous step back. Memories of the way he had kissed her the last time they’d faced off like this sent a burning flame throughout her entire body. Wary of leaping in too soon, too fast, she lifted a palm. “Travis. We promised this wasn’t going to happen again.”

Something hot and sensual shimmered in his eyes. He caught her hand in his and came closer still. “
You
said that.” He slipped an arm around her waist. “
I’ve
been holding on to hope that it would.”

She flushed, heating at the intoxicating feel of him pressed against her.

Liz tilted her head back. “You realize mixing pleasure and legal representation is what got you into trouble before.”

His intelligent gray eyes sparked with sheer male determination. “Pursuing pleasure minus any real feeling or commitment is what got me in trouble before.” Travis sifted his fingers through her hair. “Now I have both.” He paused to gaze intently into her eyes, before adding quietly, “We stopped short of where we should have gone before, and it was the single biggest mistake of my life.”

His unexpected declaration sent emotion bubbling up inside her, and Liz swallowed. There was no harm in talking honestly, was there? “Mine, too.”

His eyelids lowered and he gave her a light, tender kiss. “So let’s make a promise here and now,” he coaxed softly. “Let’s not do that again....”

Liz had told herself there would be no more hot, passionate, wildly out-of-control kisses between them. That no matter how intimate the conversation or situation became, she would be smart and restrained. That vow fled the moment he kissed her again.

It wasn’t so much the possessive feel of his mouth or the way he slid his tongue over her lower lip.

It was the way he took charge and dominated the moment—and her. The way he made her feel so ravished and cherished all at once.

“Travis…” She caught her breath. Tried to be strong.

“Liz…” Mocking her playfully, he shifted his hands to her spine, molding her against him so there was no mistaking his desire, or the pounding of his heart beneath his shirt. No mistaking the cavalcade of feelings roaring through her, or the dampness gathering between her thighs.

Her fingers were in his hair. Holding him at bay or bringing him close? All she knew was that the dark strands were soft and thick and silky.

“You’re impossible.” She pushed out the words.

He grinned at the defiant edge. “Determined,” he corrected, rubbing his thumb across her lips. “And yes,” he agreed with sexy confidence that made her hormones surge, “I am....”

He turned his attention to her lips again, kissing her ardently. The stubble on his jaw felt deliciously masculine rubbing against her face, and she inhaled deeply, breathing him in.

Leather. Soap. Man.

Power.

Lust.

So much lust.

Groaning in desperation, Liz turned her head. “We shouldn’t use sex to escape from our problems....”

Not the least bit dissuaded, Travis nuzzled the side of her neck, finding the nerve endings just below her ear. “How about we use sex for our pleasure then?”

If only it could be that simple, Liz thought wistfully. But it couldn’t.

She moaned as he cupped her hips, pressing her intimately against him, until she could feel her whole body swaying as she succumbed to yet another slow, sultry kiss.

He responded in kind and Liz slid her hands up his arms, enjoying the feel of his biceps, so warm and solid, beneath her palms. “Because pleasure isn’t uncomplicated.”

She sighed again as he divested her of her shirt and murmured, “It can be.”

Her nipples beaded against her bra, begging to be touched. “Not,” she gasped, “when feelings are involved.”

His lips found her breasts. His thumbs gently caressed her bared belly, making her muscles quiver. “Are there feelings involved here?”

A shiver went through her and Liz shut her eyes against the overwhelming pleasure. “How can there not be? I care about you.”

He flashed her a lopsided grin. “And I care about you.”

Heaven help me.
“As friends.”

Something flickered in his eyes at that. Something she couldn’t read. Didn’t want to read…

Studying her noncommittally, he leaned in and kissed her again. “Friends can have sex.”

Liz put a hand on his chest, not sure if she was stopping him or inviting him to come closer. She hitched in another breath as her nipples hardened all the more. “Not if they’re smart, they don’t.”

And I’m a liar, because I want you. So much.

He grinned, the twinkle in his eyes igniting all her erogenous zones. Mischievously, he reached behind her and undid the clasp on her bra. He viewed her rapaciously, making her feel beautiful. “Stop thinking of reasons why not to be together.” He dropped his head and dragged his lips across her collarbone, to the inner curves of her breasts.

She could feel him, hard and ready. “I’m just trying to help us…”

He kissed her again and turned her, pushing her back against the wall, freeing his hands for other things. Such as undoing the zipper on her jeans. “You’re trying to ignore what we feel.”

Liz shut her eyes as he found her there, too.
Oh my.
She rubbed up against him, taking what he gave, soaking in the feel of him, his scent. “Which is?”

“Lust.” He stroked her softly. “Friendship.” Going deeper still. “Compassion.”

The mind-blowing intimacy of his touch had her arching in pleasure. On the brink, Liz drew in a shaky breath. She should push him away. Instead, she pressed herself against him, still kissing, wanting more. Knowing all the while he was missing the most important thing.

Liz caught his face in her hands, looked deep into his eyes and in a throaty whisper added her own analysis of what it was they were both searching to find. “And…a yearning to go backward in time to when things were so much simpler.”

His rich laugh washed over her like a sweet caress, a kiss. “Things
are
simple.”

“Since when?” she asked with a rough exhalation of breath, her heart suddenly in her throat.

He dipped his head and rubbed his lips across her temple. “Since I want you and you want me, and we both wish we hadn’t been apart all these years.” His voice was raw. Persuasive. He kissed her again, until she met him stroke for stroke, parry for parry, keeping her focus on the ultimate goal. “Let go of your defenses, Liz. Of your rules and restrictions and plans for the future…” His big body cradled her tenderly. “Let life just happen to you for a little bit....”

She searched his face. “Is that what we’re doing?”

His eyes darkened. “It sure as heck is what I’m doing....”

And what he wanted from her, too.

He opened the snaps on his shirt and yanked her to him, so her bare breasts pressed against the hardness of his chest. In the feminine heart of her, she could feel the tingling.

“But—”

He pushed down her jeans, then his. “No buts. No talking. Nothing but this…”

Nothing but the pleasure he was giving her and she was giving him.

Then they were kissing again and he was lifting her and the sensation of being filled by him stole her breath. She couldn’t get enough of him. The hardness. The tenderness. She tried to set the pace, but he held her right where he wanted, right where she needed to be. Desire swept through her, turning to a deep, all-encompassing need. She pressed herself closer, letting the world spiral out of control as she savored every intoxicating kiss, and each slow, fierce, deliberate thrust.

They moved together, surrendering to each other, to these feelings, to whatever this was, Liz thought with a contented sigh, and would be.

F
ROM
THE
WALL
, they moved to the bed, where Travis made love to Liz all over again. Afterward, he cuddled her close, savoring the soft femininity of her body. “I meant what I said. I want us to commit to an ongoing…” He searched for the proper word and, because nothing would actually suffice, lamely came up with, “…thing.”

Liz lifted her head and studied him with vulnerable eyes. “You mean a relationship, at least of sorts.”

He wanted a hell of a lot more than that. He wanted to know she was his, and he was hers. But he had already pushed her too fast and too hard by seducing her back into bed with him, without giving them a chance to get their lives sorted out first, so he nodded.

Looking wary, and maybe a little panicked again, just as he had feared, Liz disentangled herself from his arms and stiffly rose to her feet. “I’m not sure we should enter into a relationship at this time.”

Could she sound—or act—more lawyerly? He saw the emotional force field go up around her, effectively shutting him out. Knew he’d do anything to break down the barrier that kept them apart. “Why not?”

She wrapped the blanket around her and perched on the edge of the bed. Briefly, she closed her eyes. “I’m all for exclusivity—for now, but beyond that…”

His emotions in turmoil, Travis rose and pulled her against him, stilling her restless movements. He ran his hand up her arm, over her shoulder, not stopping until it rested beneath the thick, silky fall of her hair at her nape.

She locked eyes with him. “You’re in the middle of a crisis. You’re relying on me to help get you out of it, the same way I’m counting on you to help my family manage the ranch.”

Frustration gathered like a fist inside him. “So we need each other.” He slid a possessive hand down her spine and felt her tremble. “So what?”

Her eyes revealed her responses but she lifted a shoulder, feigning indifference. “So…once your law license is reinstated, you’re not going to need me anymore.”

He studied the rosy hue of her cheeks, knowing he was already halfway to where he wanted to be. Halfway home. “But you’ll still need
me,
” he pointed out casually.

She looked miserable and resigned—a rarity for her. “We’ll find another ranch hand, Travis. Maybe even a lady wrangler, if it will make ‘the ladies’ happy.”

He threaded his fingers through her hair. Tilted her head back and waited until she looked directly at him again.

“And I’ll still want you.... And you’ll still want me, no matter how much you deny it.”

Liz shook her head sadly and splayed her hands across his chest, forcing distance between them. “What you’re going to want to do,” she corrected, “is resign from your job on the Four Winds and resume your career.” Determination lit her eyes. “And I’ll support you in that decision, because it will be the right thing.”

Selflessness had gotten her exactly nowhere. Travis knew, because it had landed him in the very same place. He backed her to the bed and fell down onto it with her. Deciding that talking was useless right now, he kissed her again, sliding his hands beneath her hips and lifting her until she was arching against him.

“I’m not going back to Houston,” he said with a calm he wasn’t close to feeling.

Liz bit her lip. “Maybe you will and maybe you won’t,” she replied, even as she wrapped her arms around him. “The point is, you’re a talented attorney and you will land somewhere, Travis. When that happens, you’ll leave Laramie County and this ranch. And our affair will be all over.” Her breath hitched. “But I’m okay with that.”

He lifted a mocking brow. “You are?”

She nodded. “I have to be.” A mixture of sorrow and acceptance laced her voice. “We both do.”

“Because…?” he prodded, ignoring the thudding of his pulse.

“We’re grown-ups. And adults deal with the way things are, not the way we wish they were.” Liz smiled briefly and slid her fingers through his hair. “But that doesn’t mean, since we’ve started this—” she tenderly kissed a corner of his mouth, then the center “—that we can’t enjoy each other now....”

L
IZ
TOLD
HERSELF
she was diverting him, distracting them both, really, for fear that he would discover how much he meant to her. Yet everything she’d told Travis was true.

They couldn’t fall in love. They could take the risk of being together and enjoy each other—for now.

Beyond that it was foolish to think.

So she gave their lovemaking her all. When they were done, she lay spent, wrapped in his arms. “I’ve got to go....”

“I know.” He held her tighter.

“And I will.” Just as soon as her breathing slowed…and her heart resumed a normal beat.

The next thing Liz knew, sunlight was streaming in through the windows. She jerked awake. “Oh, no. No, no, no!”

Travis swore. Sat up and looked around, as disoriented and disheveled as she.

“I can’t believe I spent the whole night here!”

Momentarily, Travis looked pleased. Then he grasped the ramifications of what they had done and swore again.

Liz glanced at the alarm that hadn’t gone off—probably because it hadn’t been set, she noted wryly. “Seven o’clock.” She clapped a hand to her forehead. “That means they’re all up!”