Stone Cold Charade (A Stone Family Novel) (10 page)

She just prayed Sam had returned from
her business trip. The prospect of having dinner alone with Ty had her stomach
in knots. Until she could understand why her body was betraying her, the less
time she spent in his company the better. If Sam wasn’t back, she was eating
dinner in her room, whether Martha liked it or not. There was no way she was
going to sit at the dinner table and play at making small talk with that man!
She was liable to throw her dinner plate in his arrogant face, or worse, borrow
Martha’s .45 and shoot him!

She felt more level headed and steady as
she stepped from the shower stall. Purposely choosing a pair of old jeans three
sizes too large, she cinched them with a leather belt. Pulling on another
oversized sweatshirt, she was glad Martha kept the house cool or she would
roast to death. Unfortunately, she had to keep wearing them because they made
her look at least twenty-five pounds heavier.

Wearing them was now part of her
camouflage. Her plan to keep Ty from getting too close formulated while she was
in the shower. Since the old Alex didn’t seem to affect him, what better way to
keep him at arm’s length for his visit than to be the frumpy Alex? Keeping him
ignorant of Fire was all that really mattered. She scraped her hair back into a
high ponytail, picked up her fake black rimmed glasses, and slid them on as she
exited her room and headed downstairs.

Approached the dining room she heard
voices drifting from inside. The voices were low, hampering her from hearing
the conversation. Slipping into the room, she breathed a sigh of relief. Sam
was back and having an intense discussion with Ty.

Stepping into the large, sand colored room,
she went to the oblong table that would comfortably seat twelve. The only other
furniture, a matching china cabinet boasting a fresh floral arrangement, sat
against the far wall. Pulling out a wooden chair, she sat across from Ty, and
greeted her sister as she took her seat. Sam, at the head of the table,
returned the welcome with an apologetic smile.

“How did the meeting go in Houston?”
Full of cynicism, Alex tapped her nails with attitude on the glossy table as
she casually held her chin in her hand and waited.

Sam beamed at Alex as if she had won the
blue ribbon at the county fair, her blue eyes alive with excitement at the
coming challenge. “Fine! I think I got him talked down on the price. Did you
get a chance to recoup? I almost sent Martha to check on you when you didn’t
make an appearance,” Sam trailed off as she caught sight of the fire in Alex’s
eyes and realized she hadn’t really been asking about the bull.

Alex was obviously wiped out. Fire had
just wrapped up an exhausting, nonstop six-month tour. Her face looked peaked,
showing how hard the last leg of her trip to the ranch had been.

She noticed how beautiful Sam was, and
knew that with her frumpy clothes there was little resemblance between the two
of them. She must look like the ugly duckling sitting next to her, as long as
her masquerade fooled Ty…

“Yes, I had a pleasant nap,” not directly
addressing Ty, but letting him know that he hadn’t affected her sleep in the
least. “Jetlag hit about an hour after you left, I just got up a few minutes
ago.” Alex was mortified by what she had just unwittingly given away.
My
jetlag was still plaguing me!
She could have kicked herself. She felt
stupid for slipping up so idiotically. Not taking her eyes off her sister, she
braced for the inquisition she knew was coming.

“Why would you have jetlag when you flew
in from L.A.?” Ty asked bluntly. He saw what little color she had left drain
from her face, and decided to chalk it up to their earlier argument. He knew
her well enough to guess she was trying to ignore him and what had happened
earlier. There was no way he was going to allow her to sweep that under the
carpet.

Turning her head, she finally
acknowledged his presence in the room, and noticed nothing in his appearance
had changed. Still clad in a western shirt and jeans, he was the epitome of
what a working cowboy should resemble, minus the Stetson.

“Flying always makes me tired, no matter
how long the flight is,” she exaggerated.

She prayed he bought her explanation,
the last thing she needed was him getting suspicious. She was hoping her sister
would play along, but she had a bewildered look on her face, which wasn’t too
surprising considering she didn’t know that she supposedly lived in California.

“So, what exactly do you do in L.A.? You
always had your nose buried in a book when we were growing up, that or playing
the piano,” remembering a time when Alex was so lost in her books and music it
was like talking to a brick wall.

She shifted uncomfortably in her chair,
avoiding eye contact; instead, she started to play with her fork
absentmindedly.

Pushing her glasses up with her other
hand, she understated, “I work in the entertainment industry down there. I do
research for Stone Enterprise’s production company. I help create illusions for
people. I make sure that the film sets are right for videos and assist in
creating the right atmosphere for their shoots.”

Sam had taken a drink of water from her
glass when she spoke, and by the time she finished she started a coughing
spree.
Well, that certainly is one way of putting how she makes a living!
Her eyes were watering as she looked poignantly at Alex, narrowing her eyes as
she gave her a look that clearly said, “Are you out of your mind?”

“Are you alright? Maybe I should go get
you some more water.” Alex rose to go to the kitchen.

Sam waved her back into her chair,
shaking her head no because she could tell she was just trying to escape. Ty
was making her anxious. She couldn’t remember a time when Alex’s behavior had
been so jumpy around him. She suspected there was more going on than she could
see, and she was not letting her leave until she figured out what was up with
the two of them.

“That sounds like it should be right up
your alley, you never did like living in the real world with the rest of us
mere mortals,” his mocking tone wasn’t lost on Sam. She exchanged a quick look
with Alex, wondering what he was referring to.

She felt like giving him a swift kick
under the table.
Obviously he still thinks we treat our employees like, how
did he put it? “Second class citizens”?
she thought scornfully.

Glancing up as he positioned his napkin
across his lap, he noticed Alex’s eyes flare. She leveled a look on him that
said, “You’re dead and you don’t even know it”, as she turned squarely in her
chair to face him.

“You have no idea how good I’ve become
at living in my own little world,” shaking her head and opening her eyes wide,
daring him to contradict her.

He missed seeing her all riled up.
She
always did let her temper get the better of her,
Ty simply lifted his
eyebrow with a smug expression on his face, which Alex didn’t have to see for
long because Martha stormed in with the dinner plates.

“You can say that again!” Martha said
dramatically.

Setting Alex’s plate in front of her
none too gently, Martha looked between the two before shaking her head and
rolling her eyes.

“Thank you, Martha!” Alex grinned,
choking down a retort to Martha’s irritation. She knew Martha had immediately
thought of Steven. She was hell bent on believing that they were an item
despite her repeated protests. She kept telling her that they were just
friends, and the Fire videos were make believe, but the woman could not get it
through her thick skull! Martha bought into the media hype, and lectured her
constantly that she needed a real man, which in her opinion, Steven was not.

She took a sip from her water glass to
help her avoid another slip up, what good was arguing with Martha anyway?

After swiftly serving everyone, Martha
headed back toward the kitchen in a huff. Alex breathed a short-lived sigh of
relief that she hadn’t elaborated and mentioned Steven again.

Pausing just as she entered the kitchen,
catching the swinging door on her hip, she had the last word, “She needs to
start living in the real world like the rest of us,” Martha said before she
slipped through, and left the door swinging in her wake, not waiting for Alex
to slip in a retort.

Sam cleared her throat and turned to Ty,
trying to get the subject away from Alex and her rapidly heating face. “So, how
did you get into the security business, especially ranch security? There can’t
be much demand for it,” she picked up her fork and began to eat her meal.

Alex was trying not to look too
interested in his answer.

“You would be surprised! Actually, a
friend of mine called me when I got out of the army. Ted needed some help on
his ranch in Wyoming when it was being hit for some large amounts of cattle.”

He spoke about his job appearing as
though he thoroughly enjoyed it.

“Why you?” Sam gestured with her fork
toward Ty.

“Maybe it has something to do with your
ability to exploit people’s weaknesses to your full advantage?” Alex asked sweetly,
raising her eyebrows.

Deciding to ignore her attempts to start
a fight, he answered Sam instead, “Because he knew I had been in the Special
Forces. Most of our work involves working in the dark, which is when rustlers
usually hit. Ted thought I’d be able to catch them in the act and recover his
cattle, and I did. From that point on ranches in the area, and all over the
state, were calling to find out if there were ways to stop, or deter, rustlers
from hitting their ranches. Business just spread from there, through word of
mouth mostly. Now I have more business then I know what to do with.”

Raising his glass, Ty took a sip;
causing Alex’s gaze to drop to his mouth. He waited intently until she raised
her puzzled eyes to his. Only then did he flick his eyes poignantly back to her
mouth. As if she was under some kind of spell, Alex shook her head to clear it.

G
od, I must really have jetlag bad!
Please God, let it be jetlag! Or let it be a virus, something I’m coming down
with, yeah, and something foreign that has weird symptoms,
Alex thought to
herself.

“Cattle rustling is big business in this
state,” Sam, feeling forgotten, confirmed while witnessing the exchange between
the two of them. He was just as affected by Alex as she was by him. He was not
immune to her sister, which is what he would prefer Alex to believe. Sam smiled
into her napkin when he blatantly flirted with her.

“Yes, I know.” Smiling and leaning back
in his chair, still staring Alex down, he instructed, “Until we catch the
rustlers I expect both of you to remain in the house at night. That goes for
Martha too,” he asserted, driving his point home by looking at Sam, all teasing
gone from his stern face. “These men are dangerous and they don’t like people
messing with their livelihood. Even if it’s just theft at this point, I do not
want to take any chances. Rustlers have been known to kill people who try to
put them out of business,” he said with a cold, calculating glint in his eyes.

Alex was taken aback by what she learned
in that single look. There was no resemblance to the Ty she had once known
visible in the man in front of her, just a stranger. One more deadly than any
she had ever met. It was there in his eyes like a caged leopard straining to
get out.

Growing uneasy, she turned back to her
plate, thinking about all that could have happened to him in the past six
years. It came as a shock to know she really didn’t know him anymore. He was a
military officer, trained to kill if necessary, with a past that Alex knew
nothing about and probably never would.

Alex’s sulking behavior hinted at her
unease. He wondered if it had to do with what he revealed about the rustlers.
He was here to protect the people on the ranch, not just the cattle. It was
understood from Max that his granddaughters were always his top priority, which
brought him back to protecting the Stone Girls, again. Growing up it was second
nature to him, but they were women now and giving them orders wasn’t going to
fly. Whether she liked it or not, Alex would do as he ordered or find herself hog-tied
to a chair at night. Glancing at Sam, he could see she would do as directed.
Alex, on the other hand, was the wild card. She would do the opposite just to
piss him off, and he knew she would.

He would have to pay close attention to
her in the evenings to make sure she stayed inside. Well, at least if Sam or
Martha commented on him paying her so much attention, he could always remind
them about her stubborn streak. If she went against him in this, it would place
her in danger if the rustlers hit again. He had no choice but to put her under
surveillance, along with the rustlers, for the time being. He would make sure
she remained safe no matter what. No harm would come to her. In his military
life, he had witnessed too many of his friends die. He would not let that
happen to this family.

Family
, such a simple word,
but sitting at the table he was reminded of the fact that Alex and her sisters
had been his family for more years growing up than his actual blood, aside from
his sister and mother. His uncle and cousins had played a fleeting role in his
life, especially after his father walked out. Sitting with them reminded him
how much he had missed feeling as if he belonged somewhere.