Chapter Three #2
“Do you want to know what it is?” she asked with a world-weary smile.
“It’s a feeling of futility, of knowing that no matter what you do, you can’t hold out physically against a man who’s enraged and bent on hurting you.
Because you know if you fight back, it will be even worse, maybe fatally worse.
I don’t like it,” she added, her pale eyes beginning to glow, “and he’s never getting the chance to do this again.
He’s my father. I love him, and I feel sorry for him. But I’m nobody’s victim. Not even his.”
He pushed his hands into his slacks’ pockets and smiled at her. Her face was bright with color, and her eyes were alive, like peridots in sunlit water. He remembered her long blond hair around her shoulders and he wondered what she’d look like in pink silk. The thought shocked him and he scowled.
“Did I glue my nose on upside down?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
He let out a short laugh. “No. I had a wild thought. Do you need an advance on your salary? I mean, is there anything you have to get for the trip that you can’t afford?”
“I don’t have a car,” she began, and hated remembering why.
He glared. “I didn’t say you were going to have to get to Jacobsville on your own. You’ll go with Leo and me. Simon drove my car up from Jacobsville.”
“Do I get to ride in the car, or have you got me earmarked for the trunk?” she returned.
He pursed his lips. Odd feelings were kindling inside him. “Keep that up and you’ll be riding on the back bumper.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Nice. Real nice. I can see you’re going to be a great boss.”
“If you don’t burn the biscuits, I will be,” he said.
“I’ll stick close to your brother,” she promised. “He’ll protect me.”
He didn’t like that, but he wasn’t going to let it show. “Leo’s a tease,” he said flatly. “Don’t get your hopes up. He’s not a marrying man. Neither am I,” he added deliberately.
Her eyes widened. “Well, gee whiz, that’s a major disappointment! And to think, I was only willing to take the job because of the marriage prospects!”
His face shuttered. “Sarcasm doesn’t get you any points with me. I’m just making the position clear. We need a cook, not a prospective soul mate.”
“Speak for yourself,” she told him, turning back to her door. “I think Leo likes me already.”
“I just told you…!”
She opened the door and looked back at him with pure irreverence. “Your brother can speak for himself. You don’t own him, and you don’t own me. I’ll do what I please.”
“Damn it…!”
“With charm like that, it’s no surprise to me that you’re still single,” she said as she walked into the house.
“I can be charming when I’ve got a reason to be,” he said icily. “But that’s something you’ll never know!”
“Lucky me!”
He started to speak, closed his lips tight, and walked back to his car.
She closed the door quickly and leaned back against it, almost shivering with anger. Of all the conceited, infuriating men she’d ever met, that one took the cake!
* * *
The next day, Rey phoned her midmorning to tell her that he and Leo would pick her up at one for the drive down to Jacobsville.
She had her suitcase packed and the house closed up when the big luxury car pulled into the driveway. It was a late-model car, and it looked odd, sitting in front of the shabby little house.
As she walked to the car, Meredith saw curtains fluttering and knew that the neighbors were getting an eyeful.
They probably thought she was being carried off by the mob.
That amused her and she smiled, glad that something diverted her mind from her father and her pain, and the misery of the past few months.
“We hadn’t planned to ask you to help us move cattle,” Rey drawled when he saw how she was dressed, in jeans and a striped shirt and boots.
“I haven’t volunteered, either,” she assured him. “But I didn’t think you’d want me to do housework in a dress.” She gave him a wry glance. “Those old black-and-white sitcoms weren’t historically accurate, you know. I never saw a woman vacuum the carpet wearing a dress and high heels and pearls!”
“You can do housework in a suit for all I care, as long as you can bake me a pan of biscuits every morning,” Rey said, taking the suitcase and putting it in the trunk.
“Good morning,” Leo called from the open window of the front seat, grinning as Rey opened the back door and helped her inside.
“Good morning,” she said brightly. “You look much better.”
“I feel better, except for the headache.” He gave her a long look. “You aren’t in very good shape yourself. Face hurt?”
“Yes. I guess we’re both like walking wounded, huh?” she asked with a grin as she leaned back into the warm leather seat.
“Maybe we should take a nurse with us,” Rey muttered as he got in and started the car.
Meredith cleared her throat, but before she could speak, Leo turned to his brother. “I don’t need nursing, thank you very much!” Leo said curtly.
“Neither do I!” Meredith agreed.
Rey glanced at them as he pulled out into the street. “I’ve seen accident victims who looked better than the two of you.”
“Don’t let him insult you, Meredith,” Leo told her. “I’ll tell you all about his weak spots so that you can deal with him.”
She wouldn’t have expected Rey to have any of those, but she was keeping her mouth shut and her options open for the time being. Her new boss looked formidable, and even Leo seemed curious about his lack of warmth.
“Are you all from Jacobsville originally?” Meredith changed the subject.
“No, we’re from San Antonio,” Leo said. “We inherited the Jacobsville property and it needed a lot of work, so we made it our headquarters. It’s convenient to Houston and San Antonio, and frankly, it’s isolated and gives us some privacy. We don’t like cities as a rule.”
“Neither do I,” she said, recalling her grandmother’s beautiful flower garden at the old place near Fort Worth. She smiled. “I wish Dad hadn’t taken the job in Houston in the first place.”
“What does he do?” Leo asked.
“He’s retired,” she said, not wanting to go into specifics. It hurt to talk about her family. Her father was a sore spot just now, anyway.
“Simon talked to the authorities,” Rey interrupted.
“They’re going to make sure he gets counseling and he won’t be released until he’s kicked the alcohol habit.
” He glanced over the seat at her, his dark eyes intent.
“They think it will be better if you don’t have any contact with him for a few weeks, until he’s through the worst of the withdrawal symptoms.”
“I know about withdrawal,” she replied, absently smoothing her hand over her jeans. “Bad habits are hard to break, even new ones.”
“You two must read a lot,” Rey replied. “I never saw so many books in one place as I did at your house. Even our library isn’t that stuffed, and we all read.”
“I love reading,” she agreed. “We have a television, but neither of us had much time to watch it. Until recently,” she added reluctantly, and winced at the thoughts that went through her mind. “I hope they get those men who mugged you, Mr. Hart,” she told Leo fervently.
“Leo,” he corrected. “It’s really Leopold, but nobody calls me that,” he added with a grin. “We’re pretty informal with our employees.”
“Do you have a lot?” she asked curiously.
“A good many in Jacobsville,” he replied.
“Although we don’t have a full-time vet, we do have several accountants, livestock managers, computer programmers, salesmen…
you name it, we’ve got one. It’s big business these days to run cattle.
We even have a man who does nothing but keep up with legislation that may impact us. ”
“Do you have dogs and cats?” she asked.
“Always,” Rey replied. “We have border collies that help us herd cattle, and we keep cats in the barn to help handle the rats.”
“We had a cat in the house,” Leo added, “but it was Cag and Tess’s, and they took it with them when they moved into their new house. At least she won’t have to cope with Herman,” he told his brother, and laughed.
Rey smiled involuntarily. “You might not have wanted to work for us if we still had Herman.”
“Who’s Herman?” she wanted to know.
“He was Cag’s albino python,” he told her. “He weighed a hundred and ten pounds and lived in a cage in Cag’s bedroom. He gave Herman up when he married Tess. He said it would be crazy to keep an animal that big and dangerous around their son. They’re still over the moon about that little boy.”
“Yes, but there are people who don’t even consider things like that,” Meredith murmured absently. “I remember a little girl who had to have plastic surgery because she was bitten in the face by her father’s pet boa constrictor.”
“Herman didn’t bite, but Tess almost had a heart attack when she first came to work for us and found him in the washing machine.”
“I can sympathize with her,” Meredith said. “I haven’t come across many snakes. I’m not sure I want to.”
“We have rattlers and water moccasins around the place,” Rey told her. “You have to watch where you walk, but we’ve only had one person bitten in recent years. Snakes are always going to be a hazard in open country. You can’t be careless.”
“I’ll remember.”
“We’ve got a big garage apartment,” Leo told her. “It’s got picture windows and a whirlpool bath. Tess lived there until she and Cag married. I think you’ll like it.”
“I don’t mind where I stay,” she said easily. “I’m grateful to have a job at all. I really couldn’t go to work in Houston looking like this. It would have been embarrassing for my boss.”
“You won’t have people staring at you on the ranch,” Leo assured her. “And it won’t take too long for those bruises to heal.”
“I’ll be fine, but you’ll have to take it easy for a few days still, I’m sure they told you that,” she returned at once. “No violent exertion. Concussion is tricky.”