A Man Of His Word
“Tell me, Ms. Donnelly,” he said through gritted teeth. “Do you ride?”
He knew—or thought he knew. In a heartbeat, she realized she needed to play innocent. “Of course. Everyone out here does. Do you?”
She couldn’t even see those lovely greenish eyes. They were narrowed into slits. He wasn’t buying it. “Sure do. What kind of horse do you ride?”
“Scout is a paint.” She wanted to cower before that hard look, but she refused to break that easily. With everything she had, she met his stare. “Yours?”
“Palomino.” He stepped around her so quickly that she couldn’t help but flinch. “In fact, I was riding him near the dam site in a pretty little valley the other day.”
“Is that so?” That was the best she could do as he threw open the door of an enormous, shiny black truck and yanked out a brown cowboy hat.
With a bullet hole through it.
She’d gotten a lot closer than she meant to. She hadn’t actually been trying to hit him. She’d been trying to go right over his head, just close enough that he could hear the bullet. But she’d missed. She’d come within an inch of killing a man. For the first time in her life, she felt really and truly faint. The only thing that kept her on her feet was the knowledge that fainting was a confession of the body. No weakness. No confession.
No matter if she was guilty of attempted murder.
Armstrong was watching her with cold interest. “Someone took a shot at me in that valley.”
She managed to swallow, hoping that her reaction would be interpreted as mere shock and not guilt. “That’s awful!” Her voice sounded decidedly strangled, even to her own ears. “Did you see who did it?”
He took a step toward her, until he was close enough that she could see how much his pupils had dilated. The almost-green was gone, replaced by a black so inky that he looked more like a sica, a spirit, than a man. “It was a woman.” His voice was low and quiet, which gave him an air of danger. “A beautiful Native American woman with long, black hair.” With his free hand, he reached out and grabbed a hank of her hair, twisting it around his hand until she had no way to escape. He pulled her face up to his. “Wearing buckskins and moccasins. Riding a paint.”
Beautiful. She swallowed again. He smelled vaguely of coffee and horse, with a hint of something more exotic—sandalwood, maybe. He smelled good. And he was less than a minute from committing assault.
“Buckskins, Mr. Armstrong?” She paused long enough to muster up a look of slight disbelief. “Most of us prefer T-shirts and jeans these days.” His mouth opened to protest, but she cut him off. “I can ask a few questions, Mr. Armstrong.” Oh, thank God her lawyer voice had returned. She pressed on. “While we do not approve of your uncle’s actions, we certainly wouldn’t resort to attempted murder.”
“A few questions?” His lips—nice, full lips, with just a hint of pink—twisted into a full sneer as he leaned in even closer. “I want answers.”
Friends close, enemies closer. She swallowed, and saw his eyes dart down to her mouth. This was playing with fire, but what else was there? “Are you going to kiss me?” Her lawyer voice was gone again, and instead she sounded like a femme fatale from a ‘40s film. Where that came from, she didn’t know. She could only hope it was the right thing to say.
It was. His jaw flexed again, answering the question for her. Then his other hand moved, brushing a flyaway hair from her face and stroking her cheekbone with the barest hint of pressure. A quiver went through Rosebud, one she couldn’t do a thing to stop. The corner of his mouth curled up, just enough to let her know that he’d felt that betraying quiver, too.
He wanted to kiss her, which should have made her feel successful—Aunt Emily would be proud. But his mouth had something else to say about the matter. “Are you fixing to take another shot at me?”
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.” She couldn’t even manage to pull off indignant. The best she could do was a throaty whisper better suited to that kiss that still hung in the air between them.
His hand tightened around her hair. Oh, no, he wasn’t about to let her off easy. “I thought lawyers were better liars.”
Now she was back on more familiar footing. “That’s funny. I always heard that liars were better lawyers.”
Her stomach turned in anticipation. She’d been kissed, of course, but she’d never been hit. She had no idea which way this would go.
Kiss me. The thought popped into her head from a deep, primitive part of her brain that had nothing to do with Aunt Emily or self-defense. How long had it been since she’d been properly kissed? How long had it been since she’d been this close to a man who looked this good, a man who smelled this good? That primitive part of her brain did a quick tally. Way too freaking long. That part didn’t care that this was the enemy, didn’t care that she’d perpetrated a crime upon his hat. It just cared that he was a man touching her hair, a man who seemed to see past all of her artificial “lawyer” constructs—a man less than three inches from her face.
Kiss me.
He didn’t. With a jerk of his head, he let her hair slip through his fingers and took an all-important step away from her. A sense of irrational rejection immediately took up battle with relief.
She wasn’t out of the woods yet, though. He was still watching her every movement, her every twitch. Her footing became more familiar. She could do this, whatever this was. “I do not take kindly to being a target,” he finally said into the wind.
“I don’t know of anyone who does.” She watched his face as she flipped her hair back over her shoulder. His eyes followed the movement. Why hadn’t he kissed her? “If I find out anything about it, I’ll let you know.”
He licked his lower lip. Yes, it did appear that a beautiful woman could muddle a man’s thinking. He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and fished out a business card. “If you find out anything,” he said, the sarcasm dripping off every syllable, “give me a call. I’d like to press charges. That address is wrong, but the cell number is still good.”
Armstrong Holdings, the card said. Wichita Falls, Texas. Daniel Armstrong, Chief Operating Officer. Damn. He wasn’t just some errand boy, he operated the whole company. Did that include the part that wanted to build the dam? “Of course,” she tried to say smoothly as she tucked the card into her pocket behind her glasses. She had the feeling that pressing charges was the least of her worries. But a cell phone number wasn’t exactly an in. She needed something more. “Where are you staying now?”
The steel left his eyes a little. Yes, maybe they were both back on familiar footing now, because a smaller version of that arrogant smile was back. “At my uncle’s house.” He slouched back against the side of his truck, one thumb caught in a belt loop, the other holding the apparently forgotten hat. Now that the anger had left his face—or at least gone deeper under cover—he was right back into handsome territory. “You should come to dinner.”
“Excuse me?” Of all the things she thought he might say at that exact moment, dinner wasn’t even on the list.
“Look, I can appreciate you not—” he shrugged his shoulders in defeat “—liking my uncle very much. But he’s not such a bad guy. You should see for yourself.”
The spawn of Satan wasn’t such a bad guy? Even Dan didn’t sound like he believed it. With her last bit of self-control, she managed to keep her snort to herself. Besides, a dinner invitation was exactly the sort of in she’d been angling for. Aunt Emily would be thrilled that Rosebud had managed to get invited to that creepy ranch house. God only knew what sort of dirt she could dig up from the inside.
He was falling into her trap—or, she suddenly realized, she was falling into his. After all, two could play at this game.
He notched an eyebrow at her. Oh, yes, play was the operative word. She mustered up her best sly grin as she pretended to think about it. “Quite the peacemaker, aren’t you, Mr. Armstrong?”
“Mr. Armstrong is my uncle.” His smile broadened. “Please call me Dan, Ms. Donnelly.”
Suddenly, she decided she might not mind playing this game. After all, she could string him along with a wink and maybe a kiss—okay, definitely a kiss—without giving away anything, including her body. Just so long as she was the one doing the stringing. “Rosebud,” she corrected him as she batted her eyes and managed a faint blush.
His smile grew warmer—she thought. “Saturday night? Around seven?”
Two days? He wasted no time. She wouldn’t have the chance to find out anything about him before then. She’d be walking into the devil’s lair with nothing but her wits and her looks to keep her safe. Sometimes, she thought as she carefully considered his offer, that was all a girl needed. “All right. Saturday at seven.”
If she wasn’t careful, that smile was going to be her undoing. “Would you like me to pick you up?”
Chivalry had apparently not died. But there was no way in hell she wanted this man in this truck to be seen picking her up on the rez. The wrong people would get the wrong idea, and she had enough to deal with right now. “I know where it is.”
He nodded his head in acknowledgment, and she felt the heat from three paces. Definitely a kiss. At least one. One kiss to hold her for the next three years—was that too much to ask? “Good. I’ll see you then.”
She couldn’t tell if it was a threat or a promise.
Four
Dan sat in his truck, fighting the urge to head straight for the barn, saddle up Smokey and head for the valley. The expectation of bad days were the whole reason he’d driven himself and his horse up here from Texas. He wasn’t going to leave Smokey, his champion palomino stallion, at home—being around Cecil practically guaranteed he’d need to ride.
A bad day at the office was always made better by taking Smokey out to check on the Armstrong oil derricks. Dan paid people to make sure the derricks ran properly, but there was something about getting his own hands dirty that made him feel like the company was all his. Usually, by the time he rode back in, whatever problem that had been bugging him had either ceased to be important or a solution had presented itself. Sometimes both.
He could sure use a solution to his long list of current problems, starting with who’d fired on him. He had a feeling that if he camped out in that valley long enough, his Lakota princess would come back to the scene of the crime. He’d rather take his chances there than go in and see his uncle. Going in would mean reporting back, and reporting back would mean having to say something about Rosebud Donnelly, and saying something about Rosebud was… tricky.
He couldn’t be sure, but damned if that woman hadn’t looked just like his Indian princess, minus the horse. She had the nerve to do it, too. The cold-eyed determination he’d seen when he called her on it told him she had nothing but ice water running through her veins. No doubt about it, that was the bearcat Cecil wanted dealt with. She was why Dan was here. Regular lawyers couldn’t budge her. He was supposed to woo her, for God’s sake, with all his “talking.” He was supposed to talk his way into her panties, compromise her position and report back.
He was no lapdog.
His princess. Somehow, he knew there was more to her than just that. Underneath all that cold determination, he’d seen something in her eyes, something that had spoken of a deep sorrow, a deep regret. Something that made him think that if she had taken that shot, she hadn’t shot to kill.
He couldn’t be sure. But he had a hunch, and he hadn’t had one lead him astray in a long time.
But what was he supposed to do with it? Make wild accusations—the kind Rosebud was making? What the hell was that about—”Men have died”? Cecil was an ass—that much he knew—but he wasn’t a killer. He didn’t need to be one—it was just a dam.
Most every person has a reason, his mother’s voice whispered in his ear. If ever there was a situation where his mother’s sensibilities would come in handy, this was it. He turned his phone over in his hand, debating whether or not he should check in with Mom. On one hand, her opinion on these sorts of matters was worth its weight in oil. On the other hand, he’d have to tell her about the gunshot, and once he did that, she’d go all Mom on him, and she was plenty busy keeping the day-to-day operations going while he was up here dealing with the Cecil “situation.” She was the reason he had time to spend days taking notes with Rosebud. Nope. He couldn’t bring Mom in on this yet. He needed her focused on the meetings and deals he’d lined up before he left.
Dan thought hard, trying to review the interview as his mother would. Rosebud Donnelly’s voice had cracked and Emily Mankiller had touched her, like a mother comforting her child. His first instinct—she’d lost someone, maybe a husband—had been true. Maybe Rosebud had taken a shot at him to make up for a different shot, a better shot. That had to be it.
Did that even the score? Was she satisfied? No, he decided. A woman like that was never satisfied with just once. He smiled at the thought. But he didn’t think she was going to take another shot at him. He’d looked her in the eyes. Her mouth may have been lying, but he didn’t think her eyes were telling the same tale.
No, they’d been saying something… different. He adjusted his jeans. Damn it all. He shouldn’t have gotten so close to her, so close to the way she smelled, to those beautiful eyes the shade of a doe’s fur in the early spring. He never should have touched her hair, one long swath of silk. He never should have shaken her hand.
For that matter, he never should have come here.
And now, he thought in resignation, he had to go in there.
Time to get this over with. Dan grabbed his dead hat off the dash. He needed a new one, pronto. A man didn’t go without a hat where he was from.
“Well?” Dan hadn’t even made it to the door of the dining room. He sighed. There was no avoiding his uncle. The whole house stunk of him.
Dan was so busy mulling over the best way to handle telling Cecil about the situation that he didn’t see the man in the black leather jacket sitting in front of Cecil until he stood up. Another Lakota Indian? What was Cecil doing with someone who sure as hell looked like one of the very people suing Armstrong Holdings?
“Dan Armstrong,” he said, making the first move. A fellow could tell a lot about a person by his handshake.
“Shane Thrasher,” the stranger said. His grip started out rock-hard, but quickly went limp, like he was trying to hide something. Dan decided he didn’t like the man, an opinion reinforced by his uncle’s warm smile for Thrasher. Nope. Didn’t like him at all.
“Thrasher is—what are you, again?” Cecil opened a lockbox Dan hadn’t seen before and pulled out a thick file. The box looked old—like the house. Definitely not something Cecil normally had in his office.
“Half Crow,” Thrasher replied as he sat back down. He acted like he’d sat in that chair a lot.
Hadn’t Emily Mankiller said something about the Crow tribe? Something about Custer and Little Bighorn and Greasy Grass? What Dan needed was an eighth-grade history book, but if he was remembering correctly, according to Ms. Mankiller, the Crow were the ones who worked with the whites against the Lakota.
“That’s right. I can’t keep you all straight.” Dan winced at Cecil’s words, even though Thrasher didn’t blink. “Thrasher is my head of security. An inside man, if you will.”
Head of security? Dan looked him over. More like gun for hire. The bulge at his side wasn’t hard to see. Maybe Rosebud Donnelly had taken a shot at Dan, maybe she hadn’t. Dan had a hunch that he needed to be more worried about Shane Thrasher than a beautiful, conflicted lawyer. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
A muscle above Thrasher’s left eye twitched in response. It appeared the insincere feeling was mutual.
Cecil was studying a thick file. “What did you think of that Donnelly woman?”
“She’s trouble.” An honest assessment—but he couldn’t figure out if she was the good kind or the bad kind of trouble. More than likely, she was both.
Thrasher snorted in a way that struck Dan as too familiar. Wielding a red pen, Cecil made a note in the file. “Think you can handle her?”
For the first time in his life, Dan wasn’t sure if he could handle a woman. In the space of one afternoon, he’d been impressed by, furious with and turned on by Rosebud Donnelly. The combination was dangerous. “I invited her to dinner Saturday night.” Cecil’s eyebrows shot up. “She accepted,” he added. In the space of a second, he’d seen a crack in her ice-cold lawyer front. He had the feeling that keeping her on her toes was the only way to get through to her. That, and making sure she wasn’t armed. But he’d be damned if he’d bring up any of that in front of Thrasher.
“That’s my boy.” Cecil’s grin was wide. He looked downright happy, in an evil sort of way. “What did I tell you, Thrasher?”
“You were right,” Thrasher replied, the butt-kissing tone of his voice at odds with the way his face kept twitching.
Dan had the sudden urge to punch that face. Instead, he dug his fingers into the chair’s armrest. “I thought it would help if she could see you as a person, not just an adversary.” Although, with that grin, Dan was having trouble seeing Cecil as more than an adversary right now, too.
Cecil gave him the same look he’d been giving Dan since the day after his father’s funeral—the shut-up-and-be-an-Armstrong look. “I don’t give a rat’s ass how she sees me. I’m not running some feel-good love-in around here. I want you to find her weak spots. I want you to bring her down. Understood?”
Right then, Dan wished he’d never had to leave Texas. In Texas, he ran a tight ship. Armstrong Holdings was one of the twenty best places to work in Texas, or so some award hanging in the reception area said. But the South Dakota division of Armstrong Holdings seemed to be a different can of worms, and Dan was feeling particularly slimy today. He reminded himself that Cecil’s lack of ethics was the exact reason he’d come—there was no place for slime in any part of Dan’s company. “She won’t make me any copies of her files, but she’ll let me see them to take notes.”
A look that was dangerously close to victory flashed over Cecil’s face. “Well, then, that’s something, isn’t it? I underestimated you, son.”
Son. The chair creaked. Dan was in serious danger of breaking off an armrest or two. Thrasher had the nerve to snort in amusement.
“I’ve got a fundraiser in Sioux Falls Saturday night. It’ll be just the two of you,” Cecil went on as he made another note with the red pen. “I expect results.”
Dan would also like to see some results—but he wanted to believe his reasons were more noble. “Interested lust” was better than “cold-blooded scheming.” Wasn’t it? At least Thrasher hadn’t gotten this assignment. But then, Dan didn’t think Thrasher would get anywhere with Rosebud. She didn’t seem like the kind of woman who went for jerks.
“What about him?” Dan didn’t even look at Thrasher—he was too afraid he’d lose the last of his cool and punch him.
“Don’t worry your pretty little head about me,” Thrasher replied as he stood, conveniently moving out of range. “In fact, I doubt you’ll ever see me again, Armstrong.”
Dan shot to his feet. But by the time he got turned around, Thrasher was gone. Dan swung back around, his fists ready.
“We’re all on the same side here,” was all Cecil said as he locked the box back up.
No, Dan didn’t think they were.
He didn’t know whose side he was on.
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