Round-the-Clock Temptation (2 page)

The one thing he didn't see, however, was horses, which struck him as odd.

He parked, grabbed his things from the back seat and stepped out into the cool, dusty air. Duffel bag in hand, he climbed the stairs to the porch and knocked on the front door. Several minutes passed with no answer so he knocked again.

“Can I help you?” a feminine voice inquired and Connor turned to find a woman climbing the steps behind him. She was tall and slim, dressed from head to toe in work-faded denim and a pair of battered cowboy boots. A farm hand, he assumed. A fine-looking one at that.

And young. She didn't look a day past eighteen.

“Ma'am,” he said, removing his hat. “Name's Connor Thorne.”

Hands on her hips, she eyed him up and down from under the brim of a black Stetson, as if she wasn't quite sure what to make of him. Finally she said, “You're older than I thought.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“You look older than your brother. But being twins, I guess you're not.”

“You know my brother?”

“Of course I do.”

He should have figured. Before Jake had settled down, he'd been a shark with the ladies, though this one looked a bit young even for him.

She removed her hat and a mane of shiny black hair spilled down around her shoulders. She gazed up at him with a pair of wide, startlingly brilliant violet eyes.

Holy cow, he didn't even know eyes came in that color. Whoever this girl was, she was a looker. At thirty-eight, he didn't typically date women young enough to be his daughter, but this girl had a fresh, wholesome quality that intrigued him.

He also had a job to do, one that would leave no time for a roll in the hay with a stable girl.

“I'm looking for Nita Windcroft,” he said. “She's expecting me.”

“Well—” she looked him up one side and down the other “—this is your lucky day, cowboy, because you just found her.”

S
alvation manifested itself in many forms.

This particular brand had showed up in tight jeans, a flannel shirt and cowboy boots.

And he was looking at her as though her hair had caught fire.

“
You're
Nita Windcroft?”

“That's what it says on my birth certificate.”

He shook his head, as if he couldn't believe it. Connor may have been Jake's identical twin, but they were complete opposites. Sure, they looked alike—the same height, the same dark brown hair, though Connor's was cut military short. They both had eyes the color of the Texas sky at dusk on a cloudless day—deep, relentless blue. But Connor seemed darker somehow, more intense.

The lines bracketing his eyes were carved deeper in
his skin, the worry lines in his forehead more pronounced. This man had obviously done his fair share of frowning. In their depths his eyes held the life experience of a man twice his age.

The things that man must have seen to have eyes like that.

“You're really Nita?” he asked, looking down one side of the porch, then the other, as if he expected the real Nita suddenly to appear.

“Not what you were expecting, huh?”

His eyes roamed over her, slowly. Deliberately. Something about the way he looked at her, the way he studied her features, made her feel self-conscious and exposed.

“Not exactly.”

More like,
hell no
, considering the look on his face.

“I thought you would be…older,” he said.

“If you got your information from the old biddies in town, you probably thought I was some nasty hag.”

She could tell by the look of guilt in his eyes, that's exactly what he'd thought, but he was apparently too polite to tell her so.

“If you'd like, I could show you my driver's license.”

He finally cracked a smile—even though it was just a little one—and the change in his face, the softening of his features knocked her for a loop. “No, ma'am, that won't be necessary.”

“You can call me Nita,” she said, extending a hand for him to shake.

He gripped it firmly. Not the sissy shake some men used on a woman, as if the slightest pressure would snap her like a dry twig. On the other side of that coin
were the men who felt they had something to prove, the ones who turned the shake into some kind of contest of brute strength. Connor's handshake was just right.

Having him stay here, getting in her way, might not be so bad after all.

“I guess we should get this show on the road,” Nita said. “I had Jane, our housekeeper, make up the bedroom in the guesthouse so you'll have some privacy.”

He paused. “I'd prefer to stay in the main house if that's not a problem.”

The only empty bedroom in the main house was right next to hers. The thought of this man sleeping within shouting distance gave her an unexpected little shiver of excitement. She wondered what he looked like when he slept. Did he lie on his stomach, his back? Did he wear pajamas or did he sleep in his birthday suit?

Maybe one day she'd be lucky enough to find out.

Or maybe she'd be better off not letting her imagination run off with her again. Her daddy always accused her of being too curious, too brazen, for her own good.

“You can stay wherever you'd like,” she told Connor. “We've got plenty of room. I'm just grateful you're here to keep an eye on things. The staff have been instructed to assist you in any way possible.”

“I appreciate that,” he said—so somber, so serious and businesslike. He really was different from his brother.

“Well, okay, let's get you settled in.” She reached for the door handle, but in a flash he'd grabbed it and opened the door for her.

Well, damn. She couldn't remember the last time anyone but her daddy had opened a door for her. To the farm hands, she was just one of the men, and was treated
accordingly. That was the way she liked it. She had no delusions about the kind of woman she'd become. She wasn't pretty or worldly like her sister Rose, and she certainly wasn't what you would call feminine. She could drink any of the farm hands under the bar and was known to cuss a blue streak when the circumstances demanded it. She couldn't cook, and had no inclination to learn, and would rather muck a stall than clean a toilet. Not a dream wife by any stretch of the imagination.

Not any kind of wife at all.

Not that she didn't appreciate a good-looking man in a pair of tight jeans, she thought, taking a not-so-subtle peek at Connor's rear end as she eased past him into the house.

As Connor stepped in behind her, he gazed around the interior, at the cream-colored walls and French doors that opened to the office, up the wide staircase that led to the bedrooms. “Not your typical farmhouse.”

“Nope. My momma was a city girl and my daddy knew she wasn't happy living in the old farmhouse, so he built her this one. I was just a baby when we moved in. Two years later cancer took her.”

Most people would mumble some sort of apology, or words of regret. Connor only nodded.

Not the talkative type, was he?

“Kitchen's that way,” she said, pointing to the right. “Meals are at 6:00 a.m., noon and 6:00 p.m. sharp. Jane's room is behind the kitchen. Through those doors over there is the office. The family room and Daddy's suite are at the back of the house.”

“How is your father?” Connor asked.

“His surgery went well. He'll be home in a day or two, but he's going to be off his feet for at least a cou
ple of weeks. It could have been a lot worse. If he hadn't had Jimmy, our stable manager, with him, who knows how long he would have laid there.” She'd seen men hurt before, but when they cut away her daddy's bloody pant leg and she saw the bone jutting through the skin, she'd felt dizzy and sick to her stomach.

She'd never seen him looking so pale and weak and broken down. It disturbed her more than she would ever let on. He was her protector. Her hero. Larger than life and invincible. Even though she was a grown woman now, she wasn't ready to let go of that fantasy. Instead it had been snatched away. Stolen from her by the Devlins.

She turned to Connor. “We need to find out who did this.”

There was fire in Nita's eyes, a volatile, vivid anger—one Connor recognized all too well—and he suddenly felt sorry for any man who dared cross her. But through the anger, he could see a flicker of something else, something that might have been fear or hurt. It was gone so quickly, he couldn't pin down the exact emotion.

“That's what I'm here for,” he assured her. “We'll get to the bottom of this.”

She gave him a brusque nod. “I'll show you to your room.”

He hooked his bag over his shoulder and followed her up the stairs. Her boots echoed against the bare wood steps and her backside swayed temptingly in front of him. She may not have the overly accentuated curves and feminine sweetness some men liked, but something about her stirred a yearning in Connor, a deep longing he hadn't felt for a very long time. A recklessness that
tempted him to throw common sense aside and act on his feelings.

As he always did in these cases, he shoved those feelings deep down and kept them under lock and key. He'd learned long ago not to let his emotions get away from him. When he did, bad things happened. People got hurt.

And pretty as she was, she could still be a murderer.

Nita led him down the hall to his room. “Jane will change your linens once a week and you'll find fresh towels in the bathroom closet,” she said from the bedroom doorway. “There's only one bathroom upstairs so I hope you don't mind sharing.”

“I don't mind.” Connor set his bag on the hand-stitched quilt draped over the full-size bed. The room was decorated in creams and beiges with dark blue and green accents and the pine furniture looked to be antique. It was a small room, but he didn't need much space.

“If you leave your dirty clothes in the bathroom hamper Jane will wash them for you.”

“I can do my own laundry.”

Nita laughed—a husky, rich laugh. “You'll have to get through Jane first, and I'll warn you, she's temperamental as a rattlesnake when it comes to other people using her fancy new washer and dryer. Ever since I plugged up the drain and flooded the laundry room trying to do a load.”

“Long as she doesn't mind,” Connor said.

“Believe me, she doesn't. She takes a lot of pride in keeping the household running smoothly. Normally she would be here to greet you and show you around, but she's at the hospital with Daddy.”

“She's been with you a long time?”

“Ever since Momma got sick. Jane practically raised me and my sister.”

Which meant she would be unlikely as a suspect, but he had to consider every angle. Every possibility.

She nodded toward his bag. “Would you like some time to unpack and settle in?”

“No, ma'am, I can do that later. I'd like to get started. I'll need a tour of the house and the property.”

“We'll have to be careful. The boys haven't gotten all the holes filled yet, and I don't want any more horses or people hurt. I'm assuming you can ride.”

He hadn't ridden since he was a kid, but he was sure once he was in the saddle it would come back to him. “I'll manage.”

“Well, then, why don't we head out to the stable?”

They started down the stairs, side by side, and Nita's scent drifted his way. She smelled like fresh air and dust and faintly of sweat. And something else, something sweet, and a little flowery. Since he couldn't imagine her wearing perfume, he decided it was probably her soap or shampoo. And it was distracting him.

Now he understood what his brother, Logan and Gavin had been alluding to when they asked Connor if he would mind working with a woman like Nita. They weren't worried that he wouldn't like her. They thought he might like her too much. But he wouldn't let this attraction he was feeling cloud his judgment.

“Tell me about this feud,” he said to get his mind back on track. “I've heard a lot of rumors. What's it really all about?”

“It's been going on for over a hundred years. My
great-great-grandfather, Richard Windcroft, lost half his land to Nicholas Devlin in a poker game. The Windcrofts swore that he cheated, but the courts ruled in Devlin's favor. A few weeks later Nicholas was shot dead and my grandfather was blamed, but there wasn't enough evidence to convict him. We've been at odds ever since.”

“Do you think Richard killed him?”

“He swore he didn't, and Windcrofts are honest men.”

“So, if the Devlins are behind the threats, why do they want you off the land?”

“They've
always
wanted our land.”

“But why now?”

Nita shrugged. “I don't know. Do they even need a reason?”

“Do you think there could be a connection to Jonathan Devlin's death?”

She stopped and spun to face him, her eyes dark with anger. “Don't think I don't know what people are saying. I may have hated Jonathan Devlin, but I didn't have anything to do with his death. Not me or anyone else here. You got that?”

Whoa. She didn't pull any punches. He hadn't known too many women who were so in-your-face direct.

“I don't listen to gossip,” he told her. “Only facts. And right now, the facts don't point to the Devlins.”

“If it's not the Devlins, then who would do this. And why?”

“That's what we're going to find out.”

 

“It's the damndest thing,” Jimmy Bradley said. He, Nita and Connor stood in the west corral studying one
of the holes the farm hands hadn't yet filled. After touring the property, Connor understood how someone could dig holes in the more remote areas undetected. Under the cover of darkness, unless someone was out guarding the perimeter, it would be nearly impossible to see them. But whoever had done this one had dug not three hundred yards from the bunkhouse where the farm hands slept. The question was, why?

The holes were definitely made with a shovel, and the guilty party had left footprints in the fresh dirt. Connor crouched down and inspected the tracks. They were cowboy boots, and large, so he was guessing it was a man. Which could have been half the population of Texas for all he knew. Without a boot to compare it to, the prints wouldn't do him much good. He'd call Gavin and have a deputy come out and photograph them just in case.

One thing the prints did tell, him however, was that Nita hadn't done this—not that he'd thought she had.

“Could it be someone working on the farm?” Connor asked Jimmy.

“No, sir,” Jimmy said with a firm shake of his head. “A few of the hands might be a little wild, but they're good, honest men and loyal to the Windcrofts. They would never do this.”

Connor stood and brushed the dirt from his hands. “What about a past, disgruntled employee?”

“Well, there was one man we let go early last year,” Jimmy said. “And it wasn't on the best of terms.”

Nita shot him a deadly look. “He wouldn't do this.”

“I need to know who he is and what happened,” Connor told her. “I need to investigate every possible angle.”

Her chin rose a notch. “His name is Sam Wilkins. The gist of it is, my daddy caught me and him in a…
compromising
position in the stable. Daddy asked Sam if he planned to marry me. When Sam said no, Daddy ran him off the farm with a shotgun.”

Connor fought the grin that mental picture stirred up. “So, this man, he took advantage of you?”

The look she gave him was one of pure disdain, and her chin rose even higher. “Excuse me, but do I look like the kind of woman a man could take advantage of?”

At that very second, no. In fact, he was pretty sure she could hold her own with a grizzly bear. An emotion that felt like envy burned through him when he thought of the lucky individual who'd had his hands on that lean, lithe body of hers. He wondered if she'd be the shy, demure type in bed, or rowdy and assertive.