Courting the Enemy (15 page)

“How could you make love with a man as gorgeous as Grady?” Emma asked, forcing her to spell out what had her in such an emotional tizzy.

“How could I betray my husband is what I meant,” Karen responded, changing the spin but not the reality.

“Caleb is dead,” Gina reminded her gently. “And he wouldn’t want you to be alone.”

“Maybe not,” she agreed. “But he wouldn’t want me with Grady, not in a million years.”

“Sorry, sweetie, but the choice isn’t his to make,” Emma said. “It’s yours. Are you in love with him?”

Karen nodded. If she could tell the truth to anyone, it was these women who’d stood by her for years now. “I didn’t want to be. I shouldn’t be, but I am. There’s no point in denying it anymore.”

“Is he in love with you?” Gina asked.

“How can I know that? This all started over the land. How can I possibly trust him?”

“Sell me the land,” Lauren said, repeating the offer she had made weeks ago. She scowled impatiently at the others. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m serious. Being back here has reminded me of who I really am. Why do you think I keep turning up? I want to come home for good.”

Karen considered what her friend was offering. Despite Lauren’s insistence, Karen didn’t believe for a minute that Lauren really wanted to own a ranch…but Grady didn’t have to know that. She could tell him she planned to sell, see how he reacted. It would be the ultimate test of his feelings for her. She would finally know which mattered more to him—the land or their relationship.

“What’s going on in that head of yours?” Gina asked, regarding her worriedly.

“I was just thinking about Lauren’s offer.”

Lauren’s expression brightened. “Are you going to take me up on it?” she asked.

She sounded so eager that for a minute Karen almost believed that’s what her friend really wanted.

“You could finally travel the globe, do all those things you dreamed about doing back in high school. And you’d have a place here any time you wanted it,” Lauren added.

In her enthusiasm, Lauren didn’t seem to be aware of the shocked gazes of the others, Karen included.

“Okay, Lauren, what’s going on?” Emma demanded. “Why are you really pushing so hard for this? It doesn’t have anything to do with helping Karen out, does it?”

“Of course it does,” Lauren said indignantly.

“And?” Gina prodded. “What else? Why are you so anxious to flee Hollywood? What are you running away from? Is there another broken romance you haven’t told us about?”

“I’m not fleeing anything. And I haven’t been involved with anybody since my last divorce. I’m just thinking of embracing a different lifestyle.”

“Why?” Gina repeated.

“Why not?” Lauren said with a shrug. Because she was such a good actress, she even managed to carry off the air of nonchalance, but none of them were buying it now.

Emma, who knew her best, finally sighed. “I guess we’ll hear the real story when she wants us to know. We might as well stop badgering her.”

“Good idea,” Lauren said approvingly. She turned her attention back to Karen. “So? What have you decided? I’ve got my checkbook with me.”

“I’m not going to sell the ranch to anybody,”
Karen said, feeling guilty at the disappointment that spread across Lauren’s face. “I’m just going to let Grady think I might.”

“You’re testing him?” Gina asked, looking uneasy. “Do you think that’s wise?”

“That could be the only way she ever finds out for sure what he really feels for her,” Emma said, her expression thoughtful. She hesitated, then said slowly, “I say go for it.”

“If he asks me, I’ll back you up,” Lauren agreed.

Karen turned to Gina. “Well?”

Gina sighed. “Do what you have to do,” she said with obvious reluctance. “But lying has a way of backfiring. If it were me, I’d take a different route, but then I’ve had a lot of bad experiences with liars lately.”

“Care to explain that?” Emma asked.

“Nope,” Gina said. “Let’s get one life straightened out at a time. Mine can wait.”

After making that ominous declaration, Gina excused herself and departed, leaving the rest of them staring silently after her.

“It has something to do with that mysterious man who’s been hanging around,” Lauren said. “I know it does.”

“Pestering her for answers won’t do a bit of good. When it comes to being tight-lipped, Gina’s even worse than Lauren,” Emma said, grinning across the table at the woman she’d just accused of keeping too many secrets.

“Spend a little time having your life splashed across the front pages of the tabloids and you’ll keep your own counsel, too,” Lauren retorted. “Come on, Emma, my ride just abandoned me. Take me back
into town. I think we ought to be long gone before the sexy Mr. Blackhawk returns. He might come to the conclusion we’ve been out here conspiring against him, especially when he hears what Karen has to say about selling the ranch to me. I don’t want to be around when he concludes I’ve stabbed him in the back. He doesn’t seem like the kind of man to take defeat really well.”

Karen hugged her friends goodbye, straightened up the kitchen and put a roast in the oven for dinner. She might as well feed Grady well before she broke the bad—albeit false—news to him.

It seemed to Karen there was something different about Grady when he got back to the ranch shortly before supper time. He looked relaxed, more at peace in some way she couldn’t quite define. The kiss he brushed across her lips was lighthearted, as was his teasing “Hi, honey, I’m home.”

She regarded him intently. “You certainly seem to be in a good mood.”

“I am,” he said.

And she was about to ruin it, she thought despondently. Oh, well, it had to be done.

But maybe not until after dinner.

“Put your things away. Dinner will be ready in about fifteen minutes.”

“Smells delicious. What are we having?”

“Roast beef.”

He grinned. “Not filet?”

She chuckled at the taunt. “That remains to be seen.”

All during dinner she struggled with herself, trying to force the lie about an impending sale past her lips,
but the mood was too special, too sensual, too emotionally charged, to deliberately ruin it. At least that’s what she told herself when she stayed silent right on through dessert and afterward, when she found herself once more in Grady’s arms.

“Make love with me,” he whispered as he held her.

Karen gazed into his eyes, saw the heat and longing there, and couldn’t resist.

His touches were magic, just as they had been before. Her body pulsed and throbbed and burned with each increasingly intimate caress.

And when he entered her, she felt that same astonishing sense of fulfillment even as her senses spun out of control.

In the peaceful aftermath, Grady held her. Tonight there were no tears to spoil the closeness, just the dread of a lie she was determined to tell.

Finally, when their breathing had eased and their bodies had cooled, she dared to broach the subject of the ranch.

“I had an offer on the ranch today.” That much at least was true, which made the words easier to get out. Yet guilt flowed through her when she felt his body go still.

“Oh?”

“Lauren’s interested.”

Grady didn’t seem nearly as shocked by that as she might have expected. Or maybe it was just that he was totally focused on what the news meant for him and his determination to restore the land of his ancestors to Blackhawk control.

“Have you accepted?” he asked, his voice neutral.

“I’m considering it.”

“I see. Mind telling me why you’ll consider her offer and not mine?”

Karen hesitated. This was tricky territory, even trickier than the blatant lie she had just told. He deserved honesty, though, at least about this.

“You know why,” she said.

“Because of Caleb. Even though you know that his animosity toward me wasn’t justified.”

She nodded.

Grady met her gaze, his expression sad but accepting. “I think what you and I have found these past few months is something special, but he’s always going to be between us, isn’t he?”

“No,” she said. “Not Caleb. The land. I’m afraid to trust what you and I have because of the land. I know how badly you want it, and if it were mine alone to give, it would be yours. But it’s mine only because my husband died trying to protect it. I have to consider his feelings.”

For a moment he seemed to be struggling with himself over something, but then his expression hardened.

“So sell it,” he said bitterly. “Get it out from between us. Then we’ll see where we go from there.”

She didn’t know how to interpret his expression or his words. She did know that when he left the bed and the house, her heart went with him.

G
rady had struggled to keep a lid on his temper when Karen had made her big announcement about possibly selling the ranch to Lauren. He’d seen straight through the ploy. Maybe Lauren had made an offer on the land, maybe she hadn’t, but Karen had been deliberately testing him. Looking back on the exchange, he was pretty sure he hadn’t passed it with flying colors.

Oh, he’d told her to sell it, but he’d said it grudgingly, no doubt about it. He’d set up a test of his own—sell and then we’ll see if there’s anything between us. They were quite a pair. Despite everything they’d shared, trust was severely lacking. He wondered if they’d ever have any faith in each other’s motives…in each other’s love.

Why hadn’t he simply countered with an announcement of his own? Why hadn’t he told her of the con
clusion he’d reached earlier in the day, that she mattered more to him than the ranch?

That one was easy. Because, despite knowing that a relationship with her was more important, it had hurt that she was deliberately trying to back him into a corner, to rob him of something she knew he had valid reasons for wanting.

He rode hard over his own acres for the next few days, trying to push Karen out of his head, but she wouldn’t go. He made almost hourly calls to Dooley and Hank to make sure that she was safe, that there had been no new incidents. He’d been careful to skirt the real reason for his absence, letting them conclude that he’d had sudden business to attend to at his own ranch. Dooley grumbled that they weren’t getting a lick of work done with all the baby-sitting they were doing.

“I suggest you not describe sticking close to Karen as baby-sitting,” he suggested wryly. “I doubt she’d appreciate it.”

“Nope,” Dooley agreed, not sounding the least bit remorseful. “And to tell the truth, she’s getting tired of seeing our faces around all the time. When are you coming back over here?”

“I’m not sure,” Grady said honestly.

“Well, hurry it up. Hank and me have real work to do now that the weather’s beginning to turn for the better.”

“I’ll try to wrap things up over here soon,” Grady promised. Just as soon as he finished kicking himself in the butt for walking out on Karen in the first place.

At the end of the week, when he turned up alone at Stella’s, craving company as much as food, Grady
weathered the stormy expression in Cassie’s eyes when he slid into a booth at the back.

“Why aren’t you at the ranch with Karen?” she demanded. Evidently she was unaware of the fact that he’d been gone for days now. She regarded him with an accusing look. “When she refused to stay with Cole and me, you promised to keep an eye on her.”

“Hank and Dooley have everything out there under control,” he assured her. “I checked with them less than twenty minutes ago.”

“I hope you’re right,” she said direly. “Because if anything happens to her, Grady Blackhawk, you’ll have all of us to answer to.”

Grady took the threat seriously, but it was no match for the guilt he would live with for the rest of his life if something went wrong because of his own stupid pride. He sighed. It was time to face the music.

“Make that meat loaf to go,” he said, sliding back out of the booth.

“I hope it wasn’t something I said,” Cassie told him with total insincerity.

He frowned at her. “You know damn well it was. In fact, double the order. I might as well take a peace offering with me.”

She grinned. “Take the roast chicken instead. It’s her favorite.”

“Whatever you say.”

He packed the two dinners into the truck and headed toward Karen’s, anticipation mounting with each mile he covered. He envisioned a little fussing and feuding when she first spotted him, but he ought to be able to get around that with an abject apology. Hell, he’d even help her draw up the papers to sell
the ranch to Lauren, if that was what she really wanted.

And once Karen had accepted the sincerity of his apology, they could make up the way men and women had been getting back on track for years—in bed. The prospect had him stepping down just a little harder on the accelerator.

Grady was less than a mile away from the ranch when he thought he smelled smoke. As he rounded the last curve in the road, he spotted an orange glow on the horizon that had nothing to do with the setting sun. Panic crawled up his throat and made it impossible to swallow.

Sweet heaven, he thought, just as a car made a squealing turn out of the driveway onto the highway, nearly sideswiping the truck, before speeding past him in a blur. Shock had him hitting his brakes and staring, first in one direction, then the other.

There was no question about it, the ranch was on fire.

And the person most likely responsible had just come within inches of running him off the road.

Karen had just gotten out of the shower and pulled on her old flannel pajamas when she thought she smelled smoke. No sooner had the thought registered than the smoke detectors downstairs went off in a simultaneous blast of sound.

She jammed her feet into a pair of shoes, grabbed her robe and raced for the stairs. Thick gray smoke was already swirling at the foot of the steps.

“Think,” she ordered herself. “Take just a second and think.”

There was a rope ladder by the bedroom window.
She could get out that way. It was safer than risking running straight into the fire the second she reached the first floor. And judging from the number of alarms blaring at once, the fire was already too widespread for her to be able to put it out herself, assuming she could even get to the fire extinguisher she kept in the kitchen.

Turning back to the bedroom, she paused long enough to grab the cordless phone and dial nine-one-one.

“It’s already bad,” she told the emergency operator. “I can’t see the flames, but the smoke is all through the downstairs.”

“Can you get out?” Birdie Cox asked, her manner calm and reassuring, even as she was barking directions to the ranch into a speaker that would rouse all the volunteer firefighters in the area. “Are you on a portable phone, hon?”

“Yes and I’m going out the bedroom window,” Karen said. “I have a rope ladder. I’ll be fine.”

“Look below,” Birdie advised. “Make sure there are no flames coming out of the windows downstairs. Now you leave this line open, tuck the phone in your pocket and go. I want you to tell me when you’re safely on the ground, you hear me?”

“You’ll be the first to know,” Karen promised as she dropped the ladder out the window after first looking to make sure it was safe. Smoke was billowing out, but there were no flames.

Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to climb through the window and onto the ladder. It wasn’t a long drop, but she didn’t look down again until she felt the ground under her feet. Then she stepped back
and took a good, long look at the house, trying to assess where the worst of the fire was located.

“Birdie, I’m outside and I’m okay,” she reported. “It looks to me like the worst of this is in the front of the house.”

“I’ve got two fire engines and a dozen men on the way. Don’t try to be a heroine. Sit tight and let them handle this.”

Even as Birdie spoke, Karen could hear the distant wail of a siren and something else—the frantic shouting of her name.

“Dammit, Karen, where are you?”

Dear God, it sounded as if it was coming from inside the house, and there was no mistaking the fact that it was Grady. She raced toward the front door, screaming as she ran.

“Grady, I’m outside. Grady!”

She was halfway up the front steps when she spotted him silhouetted in the thick smoke. He turned slowly, then bent over, coughing. Frantic, she almost ran toward him, but he began moving again, dodging flames and falling debris.

He was still coughing when he reached her, and there were streaks of ash on his face and holes made by burning cinders on his clothes, but she’d never been so glad to see anyone in her life. She threw herself into his arms. They tightened around her at once, and she could feel a shudder course through him.

“Thank God,” he murmured. “I saw the flames just as I turned in.” He held her away from him. “Are you okay? Were you inside? What happened?”

The rush of adrenaline that had kept her on her feet
suddenly evaporated, and her knees went weak. She sagged against him.

“Oh, darlin’,” he whispered, holding her. “It’s okay.”

Feeling safe at last, she finally dared to look at the house, where flames were roaring through the roof even as volunteer firefighters began swarming everywhere. Tears stung her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. All of her memories were in that house and they were being completely destroyed in that terrible inferno. It was as if her life were going up in flames. How could anything ever be okay again?

The streams of water being directed at the house merely sizzled and steamed in the heat, doing little to dampen the blaze.

When she moaned at the sight, Grady scooped Karen up and carried her to his truck, tucked her inside, then turned on the heater. He found a blanket in back to wrap her in, then climbed in behind the wheel.

His fingers slid into her hair, and he caressed her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “Talk to me, Karen. Are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you? Did you get burned?”

“No,” she whispered, her voice choked. “What happened? How did this happen?”

Grady’s expression turned grim. “Maybe we ought to wait and see what the firemen have to say about that. And Michael should be here soon. I called him.”

She regarded him suspiciously. “Why did you call the sheriff? You think this was deliberately set, don’t you?” she said, without waiting for his reply.

“Don’t
you?
” he asked mildly. “Or did you leave the stove on? Or maybe forget to put the screen in
front of the fireplace? Or was there a short in some wiring?”

She frowned at his mocking tone. “It could have been any of those things,” she said, not ready to believe the alternative—that someone had deliberately burned down her home.

“Really?” he asked with blatant skepticism.

“Okay, no, I hadn’t turned the stove on all evening. And there was no fire in the fireplace. But it could have been the wiring,” she insisted stubbornly. “It’s old.”

“Whatever,” he said. “Where are Hank and Dooley?”

“I haven’t seen them since before supper time,” she said. “I told them to take the night off.”

He stared at her incredulously. “Why did you do
that?
”

“Because they’d been watching me nonstop for days now. They needed a break.”

“Sit here,” Grady ordered, looking more furious than she’d ever seen him.

She was shivering too badly not to comply. Even with the heater blasting and a blanket wrapped around her, she was cold. An aftereffect of the shock, she supposed.

“Where are you going?”

“To check the bunkhouse, then to take a look around. Maybe they’ve pitched in to help the firefighters.”

She nodded and watched him go. Only as he walked away did she wonder at the coincidence of Grady arriving for the first time in days just as a fire destroyed the ranch that stood between them.

Grady was furious enough to knock some heads together. Dooley should have known better than to leave. Hadn’t they talked about this a dozen times a day? Karen was never to be left alone, not even if she insisted.

When he reached the bunkhouse, there was no sign of either man. Of course, if they’d been on the property in the first place they would have heard the sirens, if not smelled the smoke, and run to help. Which meant they’d left, probably for a night on the town.

On his way back to the truck, he kept an eye out for either of the hands, but he was within sight of Karen when he spotted the two men climbing from Hank’s pickup, horror evident in their expressions as they stared at the charred, smoldering ruins of Karen’s home.

“What the hell happened?” Dooley asked when he spotted Grady.

“That’s what I intended to ask you. Why were the two of you away from here tonight?”

“The boss insisted,” Hank said defensively.

“I told you we shouldn’t listen,” Dooley grumbled. “We should have stayed right here, just the way Grady told us to.”

“Where’d you go?” Grady asked.

“Into town.”

“Winding River?”

“No, the other direction, over to Little Creek. There’s a bar over there with country music on the juke box and some pretty waitresses. It’s usually packed with hands from all over,” Hank said. “We didn’t stay long. We had supper and came straight back, because Dooley here was nagging me like an
old woman.” Hank’s gaze strayed back to the fire. “Guess he was right to be worried.”

Grady paused, thinking about that. “See anyone you recognized?”

“The place was packed. It’s Saturday night, payday for most of the men around here,” Dooley said.

“Think,” Grady said. “Was there anybody in there you knew?”

For a long time neither man responded. Then Dooley glanced at Hank. “Didn’t I see you talking to Joe Keeley?”

“Who’s that?” Grady asked.

“He works for the Oldhams,” Hank said.

So, Grady thought, the Oldhams could have known that Karen was here at the ranch unprotected. One glance at Dooley and he saw that the old man had reached the same conclusion.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Dooley asked.

“We should tell the sheriff and let him deal with this,” Grady said, though he was itching to take on the task himself. The image of Karen’s tear-filled eyes and heartbroken expression was the deciding factor.

“Let’s go,” he said grimly. He faced Hank. “Karen’s in my truck. You go over there and sit with her. This time I don’t care if she tries to bribe you with a million bucks, you don’t let her out of your sight until we’re back. Is that clear?”

Hank nodded. “I’m sorry about what happened,” he said, casting a devastated look toward the house. “It’s been so peaceful around here lately, I thought it would be okay.”

“I know,” Grady said.

“If she asks where you’ve gone, what do I tell her?” Hank asked.

Grady smiled ruefully. “I suppose telling her not to worry her pretty little head about it is a bad idea.”