Lone Stallion's Lady Read Free Page B

arrogant attitude of the maverick oilman he was.
    To make matters worse, he obviously recognized her. If looks could kill, Gina Henderson, a.k.a. Celia O’Hara, would right now be six feet under and pushing up daisies.
    She shoved open the door to the Explorer and stepped out onto sparse gravel. “Give me strength,” she whispered to any guardian angel who happened to be passing by. Leaving her briefcase, laptop computer and overnight bags in the car, she forced some starch into her spine as she marched across the lot. She was suddenly aware of her rumpled khaki skirt and sleeveless blouse that she’d thrown on hours ago in L.A. Her lipstick had probably faded and her hair was a tangled mess from the wind that had caught hold of it through the open windows and sunroof of the Explorer, but there wasn’t time to repair any of her feminine armor. Not that it mattered, anyway.
    An old shaggy dog, with more shepherd than Lab in his gene pool, was lying on a patch of bare ground near the porch. In the shade of a shrub, he gave off a soft “Woof” as she approached.
    “It’s all right,” she told the mutt, though she didn’tbelieve it for a minute herself. He thumped the ground with his tail and didn’t bother climbing to his feet.
    She stood in front of the stairs and looked up. “We’ve got to quit meeting like this,” she said to break the ice.
    He didn’t so much as crack a smile.
    She didn’t blame him.
    “What the hell are you doing here?”
    So much for pleasantries.
    “Looking for me?” he continued.
    “What?” She nearly laughed. If he only knew that she would have run in the other direction if she’d but guessed he was here.
    “I don’t believe in coincidence.” Blue eyes drilled into her.
    “Neither do I.” His voice brought back memories of laughter and seduction, memories she quickly cast aside. Her smile faded and she cleared her throat as she stared into a square-jawed face branded forever in her brain. “I’m actually here to see Garrett Kincaid.”
    “You know him?” His eyes narrowed as she reached the bottom stair. Yet he didn’t make a step toward her, didn’t move, didn’t offer the hint of a smile, just stood, jeans-clad legs apart, denim shirttails flapping in the honeysuckle-laced breeze, arms folded across that broad expanse of chest she’d known so intimately.
    This wasn’t the time for lies. “I work for Garrett,” she admitted, and could almost see the gears whirring in his mind with this new information.
    “You work for him?” he repeated, assessing her all over again.
    She mounted the steps and stood close enough to touch him for the first time since ducking out of the DeMarco Hotel five or six weeks ago as the first light of dawn had crept over Dallas. She blushed at the thought of their last meeting, but managed to keep her eyes trained on his.
    “He hired me.”
    “Then I take it you’re not a paralegal.”
    “No,” she admitted, wishing she could drop through the battered floorboards. “I’m a private investigator, hired to locate all of Garrett’s grandsons.”
    Deep grooves bracketed his mouth. “Anything else you lied about?”
    “Oh, yeah,” she admitted, blushing as she nodded and cranked her chin up a couple of notches. “Quite a few things, unfortunately. It, um…” She met his gaze, then looked away in embarrassment. “It seemed appropriate at the time, but… Well, I don’t see any reason to beat around the bush now, but I think maybe Garrett should be involved in this conversation.”
    “Why?”
    “This is his gig. He hired me and I don’t know what he’s already said to you, if anything. There are things he might want to tell you himself.”
    “I’ll bet.”
    She glanced at the house. “I take it he’s not here?”
    Trent shook his head and the afternoon sunlighttouched the thick mahogany-dark strands that brushed his collar and tops of his ears. “The foreman said he’s gone into town for some supplies.”
    Wonderful, she