Silken Threads (6 page)

Resting her head on the gilded edge of the large tub, Cassandra forced her muscles to relax and allow the hot water to work its special magic on them.

Her eyes would not stay closed, however, because when they were, his face floated before her. His eyes burned deeply into hers with unspoken accusation as the memory of the afternoon’s fiasco rose fresh in her mind.

Her humiliation at the first meeting with Kirk North seemed hotter than the water she lay in, and she could still feel the way her cheeks had flamed from her initial faux pas in her father’s office.

She had entered his office in a cultivated mood of aggression and defensiveness. Cassandra had believed she needed to establish her authority immediately in order to survive the coming year. She had been foolish and careless in expecting to find a typical cowboy whom she wanted to impress with her power, especially after having read his personnel file. Instead she’d found the one person who had already proven he was far from her own preconceived notion of a cowboy.

Cassandra remembered her father’s funny smile after she’d made her thoughtless entering remark. He had liked the situation she’d put herself in. Cassandra knew he had sensed the first round of victory went to him.

Not yet, Father!
she promised herself.

The rest of the afternoon had taken on the aspect of a marathon: Her father had gone over all the details of her new position so Kirk North would clearly understand whom she was and why she was going to Twin Rivers.

Whenever she’d glanced at Kirk, his face had been devoid of expression. In fact, after the first few words he’d spoken to her, his face had become an emotionless mask.

The most disconcerting part was the way he’d spoken to her. Whenever he referred to her, it was in the third person. She’d wanted to yell at him, but she knew better. Instead, she’d reinforced her determination to be strong.

Closing her eyes, Cassandra tried to think of something else but failed.

“I believe we’ve covered everything,” Gregory Leeds had said with a smile. “I’ll expect detailed reports monthly,” he had added to Cassandra.

“Of course,” she’d replied.

Then her father had turned to Kirk. “All the arrangements have been made for the new stud?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll be finalizing them on the way back. The papers have been authenticated and certified by the Appaloosa Horse Club and by the Breeders Association.”

“I expect good news at foaling time.”

“Plan on it,” Kirk had said. Then he’d stood and looked at her. “Ma’am, I’ll see you at the airport, seven fifteen.”

“I’ll be there,” Cassandra had said, forcing a perfectly formed but patently false smile to counter his all too intense gaze.

“I’m sure of that.” Then he’d turned back to her father and shaken his hand before leaving the office.

When the door had closed behind him, her father had fixed her with a withering stare. “That was a poor way to start things off.”

Cassandra, her defenses not rebuilt, lowered her eyes. “I know.”

“It’s not too late, Cassie. You don’t have to go through with this.”

Cassandra had raised her eyes, and a slow smile spread across her lips. Until her father had spoken, she’d felt extremely vulnerable, but his invitation to give up was the very thing she needed to strengthen her resolve.

“But I do, Father, and I will!” With that, Cassandra had stood. “Will I see you later, at home?”

“If not tonight, I will certainly be there to see you off in the morning.”

“As usual,” Cassandra said to the bathroom ceiling as she opened her eyes and chased away the afternoon’s memory. Her father had always been a busy man—too busy to give her the time she had always wanted, especially since her accident. She had wanted to spend her last night in New York with him and her mother, but as usual, Gregory Leeds was too busy to have dinner with his only daughter.

So, after she and her mother had eaten a quiet meal, she’d packed her bags. Afterward, she’d gone for a short walk, knowing she might not be back for a year.

Cassandra stood under the shower, the water cascading from her tall lithe frame like a waterfall. Fifteen minutes later, she was in a soft cotton nightgown, sitting on the edge of her bed.

Glancing at the clock, she saw it was almost one a.m. She knew she should try to sleep; she would have to get up in less than five hours. She didn’t feel the least bit tired.

Sleep and Cassandra had become flirting strangers since her father had made his decision. He won’t break me! she declared to herself, refusing to let herself dwell on the one aspect that frightened her more than anything else in the world—the one thing that would make this job an unending personal hell.

Forcing herself to stop thinking about horses, Cassandra lay down and turned off the bedside lamp. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but instead, Kirk North’s handsome face returned to haunt her again.

“No!” she yelled, sitting up and turning on the lamp. The low flood of gentle yellow light helped calm her down, but Kirk’s face would not disappear, nor did her body’s reaction. Again, as had happened in her father’s office, Cassandra felt the heat rising within her.

She remembered the way he had so easily handled Somner, and she remembered, too, the hard, tough way he had stared her would-be-fiancé down. The power radiating around him was dangerous, Cassandra knew, for she could feel its call even now.

And I have to spend twelve months with him. What will happen? Can I do it?

“I will make it,” she promised. Cassandra understood instinctively, she could not allow herself to fall under Kirk North’s mesmerizing aura. If she was to be his boss, she had to prove she could do the job better than he could.

Ranching is just another type of business,
she tried to tell herself. She tried, but failed.
What was a ranch without horses?

Cassandra shivered. She was nine again, riding along the beautiful green meadow in Long Island. The sun was warm overhead; the large, powerful Thoroughbred beneath her moved at a swift pace.

She remembered her father’s proud look, and then—“Stop!” she shouted, wrapping her arms around herself to keep from shaking, and to will an end to the memory.

Thankfully Cassandra was able to divert her thoughts away from the past, rescued from the horror by thinking about something no less dangerous but far less frightening—Kirk North.

When she had gone into the meeting with her father and Kirk, she had known Kirk was not just a cowboy, a fact she had chosen to disregard in making her first power play. She had read his personnel file. Kirk North was a well-educated man who had graduated in the upper ten percent of his class at the University of Arizona. She had been surprised, too, to learn that Kirk had earned three medals during his service in the Army.

No, Cassandra realized, Kirk North was no cowboy. At last, Cassandra’s tired and warring mind could fight no longer, and a few moments later, she fell into a light but troubled sleep.

Cassandra stifled the yawn and gazed from the corner of her eye at the handsome man seated next to her. They had been together for five and a half hours, and in all, he’d spoken to her three times.

She sensed his dislike of her, tried to accept it, but could not. She had apologized to him yesterday and had been determined to make this work. Having belatedly realized one very important fact, she knew if she were to succeed in her quest for freedom and self-validation, Kirk North would play a major role. Without him and his knowledge, she would never be able to do her job.

His antagonism had flared as soon as she’d gotten out of the limousine at the airport. It wasn’t just his antagonism, there was ‘something else’ about him. As it happened yesterday, her entire being had reacted to him, and she’d forced herself to remain poised, her emotions hidden.

No sooner had the chauffeur begun to take her bags from the trunk than she’d seen his amused smile. “Have you ever lived on a ranch?” he’d asked.

“
No.”

“
There isn’t much call for a large wardrobe,” he’d told her, his eyes sweeping over the abundance of her luggage.

“
Mr. North, I haven’t brought a large wardrobe,” she’d responded in icy tones.

“
Yes, ma’am,” he’d said without losing his infuriating grin.

The next time they’d talked was when they’d boarded the plane. In the aisle, Kirk had nodded his head and offered her the window seat.

“
How gallant,” she’d said. Only she hadn’t meant to speak the words aloud, just to herself.

“
Not really,” Kirk had responded, “I need the aisle to stretch my legs.”

Nonplussed, Cassandra refused to look at him as she went to her seat. But as she tried to hide her embarrassment, a different type of warmth rose in her cheeks, sped on its way by the simple action of his hand touching the bare skin of her elbow, guiding her to her seat. With his touch had come a tingling, which, a half a heartbeat later, had engulfed her body.

She tried but could not control her reaction to that lightest of touches.

Thankfully, for Cassandra, the plane had taken off on schedule and breakfast served. Breakfast, as everything else had been since she’d gotten to the airport, was a silent affair with the silence continuing long after the food trays had been removed, and Kirk had opened the
New York Times.

Two hours into the flight, Cassandra had broken the silence Kirk had imposed. “Could we talk?” she’d asked. She’d had to wait a full minute for his reply.

“About?”

“Our situation.”

“Go ahead.”

Cassandra had wanted to scream. For the two hours she’d been sitting next to him, the aura surrounding him like an all-encompassing umbrella had grated unmercifully on her nerves. Yet Kirk had seemed oblivious of her presence.

“I realize you don’t like me,” she’d begun, but he cut her off.

“You’re supposed to be my new boss, Miss Leeds, not a mind reader. You don’t know whether or not I like you.”

His voice had held the flinty edge of decisiveness. She had seen it, too, in the brown depths of his eyes when he’d turned to emphasize his words. Caught within his gaze, Cassandra found herself fighting the trap her emotions were leading her toward—a pitfall that could only end in disaster. Concentrating with all her might, Cassandra broke the spell.

“Whatever...but it is my job to make sure Twin Rivers makes a profit this year. Without your cooperation—”

“I’m the general manager, Miss Leeds. As such, I’m paid a rather high salary to cooperate with you.”

“Then why are you treating me like this?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Like hell you don’t!” With that, Cassandra had turned from him to look out at the blue sky. She had felt, too, the first pangs of a loneliness she knew would only get worse. I will survive!

When the announcement of their landing came over the loudspeaker, Cassandra spoke again. “How long is the trip from Denver to Phoenix?” she asked.

Kirk’s brow furrowed for a moment. “About twenty-four hours.”

“What?”

“Miss Leeds, we aren’t going to Twin Rivers today.”

“We aren’t? … What are you talking about?”

“We’re going to Wyoming to sign the papers for a new stud.”

“Whose idea was that?” she demanded, thrown off stride by this news. “My father’s?”

“Arrangements were made two weeks ago. Weren’t you told?” he asked, surprised by her lack of knowledge and anger.

“Apparently not.”

“The ranch’s plane is at the Denver airport, and we’ll leave just as soon as possible. You know,” Kirk ventured thoughtfully, ignoring her hostility, “this will be a good opportunity to see one of the things I hope will help Twin Rivers show a profit.”

“Why can’t the papers be mailed and signed?”

Kirk almost succeeded in hiding his brief flash of annoyance. “They could have been, especially since I know and trust the breeder. I’ve never seen the stallion, and I learned a long time ago never to sign anything without seeing what I’m getting first. Sometimes, no matter how good a stud’s papers are, you can look at him and know he isn’t the right one. I think he’ll be fine. In fact, two of our ranch hands are meeting us there with a horse trailer to take him back to Twin Rivers.”

“All of that for a…horse?” she asked, not able to keep the disbelief out of her voice.

Kirk studied her beautiful face for several long seconds while he held his irritation in check. “A stud, Miss Leeds, is not just a horse. A good stud ensures the herd will flourish. A good stud also brings the price of foals higher.”

“I suppose the female doesn’t count in the greater scheme of things?”

“Mare, Miss Leeds, mare. Brood mares count, Miss Leeds, but the value for the type of horse we breed is in the stud.”

“Of course,” Cassandra replied tersely.

Hearing the sibilant tones in her answer brought home to Kirk the obvious: he was as much to blame in this war of nerves as she. He was angry about the loss of his freedom as general manager and foreman, although Gregory Leeds had assured him he had not lost anything, and he been demoted to baby-sitter. Combined with that, were the memories of his first reactions to her in the restaurant. He knew he was venting his frustrations.

Yesterday he had seen a very special woman, the kind whom he would have chased to the ends of the earth. No sooner had this happened than his illusions had been broken, and he’d seen that in reality, she was a spoiled and shallow rich girl about to play with her daddy’s money.

Kirk knew Cassandra Leeds would soon learn many lessons in life, for no matter who you were, or who your father was, if you didn’t gain the respect of the people on the ranch, your life would be a lonely series of days, and the ranch itself would flounder. Cowboys were a different breed of men. There were always jobs for them, and it was easier to move on than to work for someone they didn’t respect.

In fact, it was the rule for a cowboy, but not for a foreman and general manager. For Kirk, Twin Rivers was an important job. Without it, his goals would be set back.

Although he tried to rationalize his emotions, he could not rid himself of the feelings battling within him. He could not deny—and he had tried to since yesterday afternoon—his attraction to Cassandra in a way he’d never been to another woman.

Kirk knew the kind of poison a woman like Cassandra Leeds was to a man like himself. Added to that was the fact she was the boss’s daughter.

When the plane finally landed in Denver, Kirk led Cassandra to the baggage counter, where they claimed her five suitcases and his one leather traveling bag. With Cassandra, a porter, and his baggage cart in tow, he left the main terminal and walked the quarter-mile to the private hangar where the ranch’s twin engine Beechcraft waited.

While the luggage was loaded, Kirk left to file the flight plan. When he returned and went to the plane, Cassandra looked around. “Where’s the pilot?”

“You’re looking at him,” Kirk stated. “It was one of my money-saving cuts.”

“I should have guessed,” she whispered, still looking at him.

“Would you like to see my papers?” he asked.

“No,” she replied as she stepped onto the small passenger step and entered the plane.

They waited on the runway until the tower gave them permission to taxi, and soon they were airborne. An hour later, they were flying over yet another range of mountains.

“Have you ever flown in a small craft?”

“Not one with propellers, or as slow as this is,” she replied, thinking of the many times she’d flown in her friends’ private jets.

“Naturally. But at least this gives you a chance to enjoy the scenery.”

It wasn’t his tone this time, but his words that made her look at him. “Did I hear you right? Did you say I would enjoy the scenery?” she asked, her voice filled with incredulity.

Kirk set the controls and put the plane on autopilot before turning to look at her. Once again, her beauty tore at him, striking deep within him and making him want to reach out, shake her, and tell her about the realities of life. “Would you prefer that we didn’t talk unless it was about business?”

Cassandra, her pulse racing with the intensity of his stare, felt the tension in the air as if it were a thick and tenaciously clinging fog. “No,” she whispered, her mouth was dry and parched for no reason.

“You’re a jet-setter, you’ve been all over the world, Miss Leeds, but have you ever been out west?”

“California,” she replied after moistening her lips.

“Look out there,” he said, motioning toward the ground. “Look at the mountains; look at the harsh beauty of the land. It takes a lot to live here, and it takes more to conquer it.”

Cassandra followed his pointing finger, and her breath caught at the magnificence of the endless mountain range. Although it was late spring, snow still covered the mountain peaks in startling contrast to the lush green slopes beneath them. Kirk’s words echoed in her mind until she began to understand what he was saying.

As she looked at the bountiful vista spread out below her, her own desire to make a success out of her life returned forcefully. Without taking her eyes from the scene, she spoke in a low, intense voice. “I intend to do just that, Mr. North. I intend to live here. But I don’t want to conquer the land, just make the ranch work.”

“They’re one and the same thing, Miss Leeds,” Kirk said, surprised at the sound of determination in her voice.

“Can we stop the formality? My name is Cassandra.”

For the first time since she’d met him, Kirk gave her a full smile. She wished he hadn’t. The crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes spread outward into his cheeks. Cassandra realized she had never before met a man like Kirk North, never.

“Okay,” he said.

“Kirk?”

“Yes?”

“How much longer?” Cassandra asked.

“A half hour. After we land in Sheridan, we’ll go to the ranch and look over the stud. We’ll fly out tomorrow morning and should be at Twin Rivers by mid-afternoon.”

“What is Sheridan?” she asked.

Kirk favored her with a sideways glance. “A small town by your standards.”

“That should be interesting,” she commented, looking out at yet another oncoming mountain range.

“The Big Horns,” Kirk told her as he shut off the autopilot and took back control of the plane.

~~~~

Once Kirk arranged for servicing the plane, they went to the waiting rental car and, with only one of her five suitcases; she and Kirk drove out to the ranch. “The Broken Spur,” Kirk had told her.

How quaint, she had wanted to say, but had held back the remark, hoping to keep the tension light. Cassandra knew Kirk was barely tolerating her, and she was starting to believe he had every right to do so.

She was now his boss, but knew nothing about ranching, a fact he knew all too well. I’ll change that soon enough, she promised as she concentrated on the passing scenery. The mountains bordering the road were indeed formidable; the rough green vegetation seemed less dense than it had appeared from the air.

“What is that stuff?” she asked.

“What stuff?”

“The small bushes.”

“Buffalo grass,” Kirk replied.

“I thought buffalos were extinct,” Cassandra replied immediately.

Kirk waited a patient moment before answering her. “Buffalo grass is the basic vegetation of Wyoming. It’s what the range animals graze. This part of the country is a bit hostile to lawn grass.”

Cassandra heard the undertone of condescension, but ignored it. “Is it what we have in Arizona?”

“Not quite, but not too far off, either. The open ranges aren’t exactly what you thought they’d be, are they?” As he asked the question, he tried to see her face.

Cassandra smiled. “Nothing is like the movies; I’ve learned that lesson already. Tell me about the stud,” she requested, instantly regretting her demand.