Chapter Four #2
“Keely made it,” Clark mumbled, working his way through a third yeast roll liberally spread with butter. “Mmmm!” he added, closing his eyes and groaning at the delicious taste.
“Did you get a ticket?” Winnie asked, trying to divert him from the penetrating glance he was aiming at Keely, who squirmed in her chair.
“Ticket for what?” Boone asked, digging in the china cabinet for a plate.
“Speeding,” she replied.
He put his plate on the table and fetched silverware and a napkin. He poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot and sat down with the other three. Keely’s heart was already doing overtime, and she had to work at acting normal while Boone was so close.
“I got a warning,” he said tautly.
“My friend Nora is the county deputy clerk of court,” she reminded him. “If you get a speeding ticket, it will go through her office and she’ll tell me.”
His mouth twitched. “I got a small ticket.”
“There’s only one size,” she said.
He ignored her. He reached for a roll, buttered it and took a bite. He wore the same expression that was dominating Clark’s face. Fresh rolls were a treat. Their cook, Mrs. Johnston, couldn’t make bread, although she was a great cook otherwise.
“There’s some salad left,” Winnie commented, pushing the bowl toward him.
“Where did you learn to make rolls?” he asked Keely, and seemed really interested in her answer.
“When I lived with my father, he ran a big game park. One of his temporary workers had been in the military and traveled all over the world,” she recalled. “He was a gourmet chef. He taught me to make bread and French pastries when I was twelve years old.”
“What sort of animals did your father have?” Boone persisted.
“The usual ones,” she said, without meeting his eyes. “Giraffe, lions, monkeys and one elephant.”
“African lions?”
She nodded. “And one mountain lion,” she added. No one noticed that her fingers, holding her fork, went white.
“They have mean tempers,” Boone said. “One of my ranch hands had to track one down and kill it when he worked over in Arizona some years ago. It was bringing down cattle. He said it killed one of his tracking dogs before he could get a clear shot at it.”
“They tend to be vicious, like most wild animals,” she agreed. “They’re not malicious, you know. They’re just wild animals. They do what they do.”
“What was your job at a wild game park?” Boone murmured.
“I fed the animals and watered them and made sure the gates were locked at night so they couldn’t get out,” she said.
He finished his roll and followed it with sips of black coffee. “Not a smart job for a twelve-year-old kid,” he remarked.
“It was just Dad and me,” she said, “except for old Barney, and he was crippled. He’d hunted a lion who became a man-killer in Africa and it fought back. He lost an arm and a foot to it.”
“Did he keep the pelt when he killed it?” Boone asked.
She smiled faintly. “He made a rug out of it and slept on it every night. When he left us, he was still carrying it around.”
“The rolls were good,” Boone said unexpectedly.
“Thanks,” Keely replied shyly.
“You could get a job cooking,” he pointed out.
She frowned. “Why would I want to give up working for Bentley?”
His pleasant expression went into eclipse. “God knows.”
Winnie gave her brother a piercing look. He ignored it. He studied her face and frowned. “You’ve been crying,” he said abruptly. “Why?”
She paled. She didn’t want to talk about it.
“Why?” he persisted.
She knew it was useless to try to hide it from him. Someone would tell him, anyway.
“I almost got Kilraven killed,” she confessed, putting down her fork.
“How?”
“I got rattled and forgot to warn him that the man involved in a domestic dispute was armed,” she said quietly. “Luckily for Kilraven, the clip was missing and the man couldn’t figure out how to get the safety off.”
“Luckily for the man,” Clark elaborated dryly. “If he’d shot Kilraven, he’d be awaiting trial in the hospital.”
“That would depend on where he shot him,” Winnie replied.
“Kilraven’s steel right through,” Keely teased. “No bullet could get through that hard shell.”
“She’s right.” Clark chuckled. “They’d have to hit him with a bomb to make a dent in him.”
None of them noticed that Boone was sitting rigidly, with his eyes staring blindly into space. There was a look in them that any combat veteran would have recognized immediately. But nobody in his family had ever been in the military, except for himself.
Keely did notice. She knew that Boone had been in the war, that he’d been a front line, Special Forces soldier.
She knew that he was reliving some terrible memory.
Keely knew about those, because she had her own.
Without saying a word, her eyes communicated that knowledge to the taciturn man across from her. He frowned and averted his eyes.
He finished his coffee and got to his feet. “I’ve got to make a few phone calls,” he murmured.
“Keely made cinnamon buns,” Winnie said. “Don’t you want one?”
He hesitated uncharacteristically. “Bring me one in the office, with a second cup of coffee, will you?” he asked.
“Sure,” Winnie said.
“No.” His dark eyes slid to Keely. “You bring it,” he said.
Before she could answer him, he strode out of the room.
“Well!” Clark said, surprised.
“He’s in a mood to bite somebody,” Winnie said solemnly. “Boone’s a horror when there’s no audience to slow him down. If he disapproves of you dating Clark, he’ll make your life hell. I’ll take his dessert to him.”
“No,” Clark said. He looked at Keely. “You have to stop being afraid of him and stand up to him,” he told her. “This is a good time to start.”
Keely became pale. She hesitated and looked to Winnie to save her.
But Winnie hesitated, too. She frowned. “Maybe Clark’s right,” she said after a minute. “You’re afraid of Boone. He knows it, and uses it against you.”
Keely bit her lower lip. “I suppose you’re right. I’m a wimp.”
“You’re not,” her best friend replied, smiling. “Here’s your chance to prove it.”
“With your shield or on it,” Clark intoned dramatically.
Keely glowered at him. “I am not a Spartan.”
“An , then,” Clark compromised, and grinned. “Go get him!”
“We’ll be right here,” Winnie promised. “You can yell for help and we’ll come running.”
Keely had her doubts about that. Winnie and Clark loved Boone, but neither of them had ever been a match for his temper.
If she yelled for help, they’d assume that Boone was bristling and ready for a fight, and they’d be under heavy pieces of furniture trying not to get noticed.
Still, they had a point. She was almost twenty years old. It was time she learned to fight back.
She poured a cup of black coffee from the pot and took the cinnamon buns out of the oven. She put two of them on a saucer and added a napkin to her burdens. She glanced at her audience.
Clark flapped his hand at her.
Winnie mouthed, “Go on!”
She would have made a smart remark, but her heart was in her throat. It bothered her that Boone had asked her to bring dessert to him. Considering his reaction to her friendship with Clark, he had to be up to something.
* * *
She tapped nervously on the door.
“Come in,” he called curtly.
She balanced the saucer holding the cinnamon buns on the cup of coffee and gingerly opened his office door, closing it with her back once she was inside.
It was a small, intimate room, with ceiling-to-floor bookcases on two walls, French windows opening onto a small patio, and a fireplace with gas logs.
The carpet was deep beige, the curtains echoing the earth tones.
But the furniture was red leather, as if the very sedateness of the room commanded a touch of color.
Boone looked right at home in a big red leather-upholstered chair behind his enormous solid oak desk.
Over the mantel was a painting of Boone’s father.
It was a prophecy of what Boone would look like in old age—with silver hair and a distinguished, commanding expression.
“You look like him,” Keely mused as she put the coffee and its accompanying dessert gently in a bare spot on the paper-littered desktop. Her hands were cold and shaking and the cup rattled in the saucer. She hoped he hadn’t noticed.
“Do I?” He glanced at the portrait. “He was a head shorter than I am.”
“You can’t see height in a painting,” she pointed out.
She didn’t want to argue. She started toward the door.
“Come back here,” he said curtly. It wasn’t a request.
It was now or never. She took a steadying breath and turned. “Winnie’s waiting for me.”
“Winnie?” he asked with a cynical smile. “Or Clark?”
She swallowed. Her hands began to shake again. She clasped them at her waist to still them. “Both of them,” she compromised.
He leaned back in the chair, ignoring the buns and the coffee. “You and Clark have been like siblings for years. Why the sudden passion?”
“Passion?” she parroted.
“He’s dating you. Didn’t you notice?” he asked sarcastically.
“We went horseback riding,” she pointed out. “There are a lot of things you can’t do on a horse!”
His eyebrows made arches. “Really? What sort of things?”
He was baiting her. She glared at him. “You said you wanted cinnamon buns and coffee. There it is.”
She started toward the door again.
Incredible, how fast he could move, she thought dazedly when he was already at the door before she reached it. She had to stop suddenly to keep from running right into his tall, powerful body.
He turned so that her back was against the door. His dark eyes narrowed as he looked down at her. She felt like a small, delicious and decidedly alarmed bunny.
He knew it. He smiled slowly and his eyes began to glitter. “You’re afraid of me,” he said in a slow, deep tone.
Her hands spread behind her against the door and she tried to melt into it. He was very close. She could feel the heat from his tall, powerful body, smell the clean, spicy scent of him as he leaned closer.
Now he had an advantage, and he knew it. She’d done a stupid thing, trying to run.
“You aren’t afraid of Clark or Bentley, though, are you?” he persisted.
“They’re nice people.”
He made a short, rough sound deep in his throat. “And I’m not?”
She dragged in a ragged breath. Her eyes would only go as high as his top shirt button, which was unfastened.
Thick, black curling hair peeked out from under it.
She wondered if there was more across his broad, muscular chest under the fabric.
He never took his shirt off, or even opened it past that top button.
She was curious. Her thoughts surprised her.
She hadn’t thought that way about a man in a long time.
He recognized her fear for what it was. One lean hand came up to her cheek and brushed back strands of soft blond hair, the gesture sensuous enough to make her shiver. She couldn’t hide her reaction to him. She didn’t have the experience.
Pressing his advantage, he bent and brushed his nose lazily against hers in an odd, intimate little caress that made her breath stop in her throat.
“You smell of lilacs,” he whispered. “It’s a scent I never connect with any other woman.”
“It’s only shampoo,” she blurted out. She was shy and nervous. She didn’t understand what he was doing. Was this a pass? She couldn’t remember a man ever treating her like this.
“Is it?” He shifted, just a little, but enough to bring his long legs in contact with hers, in an intimacy she’d never shared with a man.
Instinctively her small hands went to his chest and pushed once, jerkily.
He pulled back from her with a rough word. His eyes were blazing when he looked down at her. “Did you think I was making a pass at you?” he challenged tightly. “You’d be lucky! I don’t waste my time on children.”
She was shivering. His whole posture was threatening, and he looked murderous.
“Hell!” he burst out, furious at his own weakness and her cold reaction to it. She was just a little icicle.
Her lower lip trembled. He was scary like that. She still connected anger with physical violence, thanks to a friend of her father’s. She cringed involuntarily when he lifted his hand.
Her blatant fear put a quick cap on his temper.
He stopped for a moment, puzzled. What he was learning about her, without a word being spoken, fascinated him.
She really was afraid of him. Not only of his ardor, but his temper, as well.
She thought he was raising his hand to strike her.
Which posed a worrying question. Had some man hit her in the past?
“I was going to open the door, Keely,” he said in a totally different tone, the one he used with children. “I don’t hit women. That’s a coward’s way.”
She forced her eyes up to his. She couldn’t tell him. She kept so many secrets. There were nightmares in her past.
He frowned. His fingers went to her cheek and drew down it with an odd tenderness. They moved to her soft mouth and traced it, and then lifted to smooth back her hair.
“What happened to you?” he asked in the softest tone he’d ever used with her.
She met his eyes evenly. “What happened to you?” she countered in a voice that was barely louder than a whisper to divert him.
“Me?”
She nodded. “When Clark was talking about bombs, you got all quiet and your eyes were terrible.”
The expression on his face went from tender to indifferent, in seconds. He was shutting her out. “You’d better go back to the others,” he said. He opened the door for her and stood aside, waiting for her to leave.
She went through it hesitantly, as though there was something unfinished between them.
“Thanks for the coffee and dessert,” he said tautly, and closed the door before she could say another word.