Backlash Read online

  “What about that stallion that disappeared last spring—the best stallion on the place?”

  Tessa cringed inside. She had hoped Denver hadn’t heard about that. “Black Magic was lost. But we found him again—”

  “He wasn’t found. He just showed up.”

  Her voice was tight. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, Black Magic returned and he’s fine!”

  Denver’s lips twisted. “The point is that things are going to hell in a hand basket around here.” He thumped his fingers on a stack of past-due bills. “This place is drowning in red ink.”

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “Isn’t it?” His eyes flashed.

  She bit back a hot retort. “Things are just beginning to turn around, Denver,” she said, ignoring the doubt in his eyes. “Tomorrow, when it’s light, I’ll take you around the ranch, show you the progress that isn’t recorded in the checkbook.”

  His jaw shifted to the side, but he didn’t argue.

  “A ranch is more than dollars and cents, debits and credits, you know. A ranch is horses and cattle and machinery and people working together on land that matters.”

  One corner of his mouth curved up. “You haven’t changed, have you?” he said, his voice husky. “Still a dreamer.”

  “I know what’s valuable, Denver. I always have. And sometimes it doesn’t show on a checkbook stub.” She gazed directly at him, wishing the strain near his eyes would disappear.

  “You’ve been wrong,” he reminded her.

  “I don’t think so—not about the things that really matter.”

  His jaw clenched and he looked away—through the window to the dark night beyond. The desk lamp was reflected in the rain drizzling down the panes. “I should have talked to you a long time ago, I suppose.”

  “It would have helped,” she replied, feigning indifference. He looked as if he wanted to say more. For a second she caught a glimpse of him as he had been years before. His blue eyes turned as warm as a July morning. Then, as swiftly as the warmth appeared, it disappeared again. “It doesn’t matter now,” he said, clearing his throat. “It’s all water under the bridge.”

  “Right,” she lied. The entire room seemed filled with him, and, absurdly, she wanted to linger. “Can I get you anything? Make a fresh pot of coffee?”

  The corners of his eyes softened a bit. “Don’t bother.”

  “It’s no bother.”

  “Tessa,” he said quietly, “don’t.” Skin tightening over his cheekbones, he added, “If I need anything, I’ll get it. I know my way around.”

  Goaded, she quipped, “You’re the boss,” and was rewarded with a severe glance.

  Reaching for the doorknob, she heard the sound of an engine in the distance and recognized the rumble of her father’s pickup. She glanced out the window. Curtis Kramer’s dented yellow truck bounced into the yard.

  “Company?” Denver asked.

  “Just Dad.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Good. He and I have to talk.” He watched the beams of headlights through the rain-speckled windows, and his mouth compressed into a thin, uncompromising line.

  The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. “What about?”

  “Everything. We’ll start with what he knows about all the money he’s managed to lose for this ranch.”

  “Denver,” she whispered. “Don’t—”

  “Don’t what?”

  Her eyes sparked. “Don’t judge before you have all your facts straight.”

  “But that’s what I’m here to do,” he said, turning to her, his voice cold. “Get my facts straight. Curtis can help clear up a few cloudy issues.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “He’s been in charge a long time and things”—he gestured around the shabby room, to the scarred desk, the dingy walls and threadbare drapes—“haven’t gotten any better. In fact, this place seems to be on the verge of falling apart.”

  “And you blame Dad.”

  “I don’t blame anyone. Not yet. But there’s got to be a reason, Tessa. I just want to know what it is.”

  The screen door banged shut and Tessa heard her father call out. “Tessa? You ’round? Milly?”

  A satisfied smile crossed Denver’s lips as he stood and started for the door. But she clamped her arm around his elbow, her fingers tight over his bare forearm. The feel of his skin shocked her. Hard muscles flexed beneath her hands, soft hair brushed against her fingertips.

  Denver stopped, glaring at her fingers as if they were intruders.

  “Dad didn’t start the fire, Denver,” she insisted. “No matter what Colton said. Dad wasn’t behind it.”

  “Who said anything about the fire?”

  “You didn’t have to,” she replied, meeting his seething gaze with her own. “It’s written all over your face.”

  “Is it? How?” He shoved his face close to hers, so close that she saw the pinpoints of fire in his eyes, read his anger in the flare of his nostrils. “What is it you see when you look so closely, Tessa?” he bit out.

  The scent of rain lingered in his hair.

  Tessa could barely breathe. Though her senses were reeling, she wouldn’t back down, not for a second. Her fingers dug into his arms. “What I see,” she said evenly, though her heart was hammering out of control, “is a bitter man, hell-bent on extracting his own punishment for an imagined crime, a man whose irrational desire for retribution clouds his judgment.”

  “Is that right?” he mocked.

  “And more! I see a man who’s taking all his bitterness out on a tired old man and a woman who once thought he was the most important thing in her life!”

  A muscle worked in his jaw. “Then you’re a blind woman, Tessa.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Maybe you’d better take a harder look.”

  “Don’t worry, I will. You left this ranch and haven’t stepped foot on it in seven years. Seven years, Denver. So what gives you the right to come back now?”

  The cords in his neck tightened. “I own the place. Remember?”

  “You and Colton.”

  “Well, he isn’t around, is he?”

  “Tessa? That you?” her father called through the study door.

  “In here, Dad!” she shouted back.

  “What in blazes are you doin’ in here at this time of—?” Curtis Kramer shoved open the door and stepped into the dimly lit room. Color seemed to wash out of his weathered face. “Well, I’ll be,” he muttered, unconsciously smoothing his white hair with the flat of his hand. The scent of stale whiskey and cigarettes followed him as he crossed the room. His pale eyes focused more clearly. “I was wonderin’ when you’d show up.”

  Unspoken accusations hung like cobwebs, dangling between them. Denver’s eyes had turned so frigid, Tessa actually shivered.

  Through tight lips, Curtis said, “I figured it wouldn’t be long before you and Colton would want to check things out.”

  “I’ve already started.” Denver’s jaw was rigid, his eyes blazing with warning, but Curtis, whether bolstered by the whiskey or his own sense of pride, didn’t back down.

  “Good,” he shot back. “About time you took some interest in things.” Hooking his thumbs in the loops of his jeans, he turned to Tessa. “I’m gonna make me a sandwich. You want anything?”

  “I’m fine,” Tessa lied. Beneath her ranch-tough veneer, she was shredding apart bit by bit, and she wouldn’t have been able to eat a bite if she’d tried. She heard her father amble down the hallway to the kitchen as she whirled on Denver. “What was that all about?”

  “What?”

  “You know what! You were baiting him, for God’s sake.”

  “Was I?” He arched an insolent eyebrow. “All I said was that I was going to look things over.”

  “It wasn’t so much what you said as how you said it. You implied something was going on here that wasn’t aboveboard.”

  “You’re overreacting.”

&nb
sp; “Just don’t act like my dad’s some kind of criminal, okay? Try and remember who stayed here and held this ranch together while you and your brother took off to God only knows where.”

  “I went to L.A.,” he said, his voice cold. “Just as I’d planned.”

  She turned away. All these years she’d harbored some crazy little hope that he’d really cared for her, that he’d considered staying with her on the ranch, that she could have convinced him to stay in Montana with her if not for the fire. She hadn’t really believed his words that their affair had meant nothing to him.

  Her chin trembled, but she met his gaze. His eyes glared back at her without a hint of warmth in their cerulean depths. “So you said.” She strode furiously down the hall to the kitchen. Her cheeks were flaming with injustice, and she felt her fists curl as tight as the hard knot in her stomach.

  Her father was sitting in one of the beat-up chairs at the table. His cigarette burned in an ashtray, and a cup of coffee sat steaming on the stained oilcloth. “So he’s back,” Curtis grumbled, eyeing the local newspaper with disinterest.

  “For a little while.”

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Humph.”

  “As long as it takes,” Denver said from the hall. Leaning one shoulder against the doorjamb, he crossed his arms over his chest, the cotton weave of his shirt stretching taut over his shoulders.

  “As long as it takes to do what?” Curtis asked.

  Denver’s expression was calculating, his features hard. “I’m here to figure out why this ranch has lost money for the past five years.”

  “That’s simple enough,” Curtis said. “The silver mines were a bust.”

  “We made money before the mining.”

  Curtis took a long drag on his cigarette. “But John took out loans for the equipment. Besides, prices are down and we had two bad winters—lost nearly a third of our herd. It’s no mystery, Denver. Ranchin’ ain’t exactly a bed of roses.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Denver mocked.

  Curtis squinted through the smoke. “Seven years hasn’t improved your disposition any, has it?”

  One of Denver’s dark eyebrows cocked. “Should it have?”

  Stubbing out his cigarette, Curtis shook his head. “Probably not. You McLeans are known for your bullheadedness.”

  Surprisingly, Denver’s lips twitched. “Unlike you Kramers.”

  “Right,” Curtis said, but he chuckled briefly as he pulled his jacket from a hook near the back porch. Squaring his stained hat on his head, he shoved open the back door and headed outside.

  “You don’t have to badger him, you know,” Tessa said, keeping her back to Denver’s lounging form.

  “I thought he was badgering me.”

  “Maybe he was,” Tessa decided. “But you deserved it.” Through the window, she saw her father’s old truck bounce down the lane. Rain ran down the glass, blurring the glow of the taillights. “Dad’s just an old man whose only crime is that he’s given his life to this ranch.”

  “And what’s mine, Tessa?” he asked, his voice low.

  She turned and caught him staring at her—the same way he’d studied her in the past. His face had lost some of its harsh angles, his expression had softened, and his eyes—Lord, his eyes—had darkened to a seductive midnight blue.

  “You left me,” she whispered, her throat suddenly thick. “You left us all—without a word of goodbye.”

  He glanced away. “I regret that,” he admitted, shoving a lock of dark hair from his forehead.

  “Why, Denver? Why wouldn’t you see me in the hospital?”

  His eyes narrowed and the line of his jaw grew taut again. “Because it was over. There was no point.”

  “You could have explained it to me.”

  “Unfortunately, I wasn’t in tip-top shape,” he said, his words cutting like a dull knife.

  “Neither was I! You were in the hospital—I didn’t know if you were going to live or die. My father was being accused of heinous crimes he had no part in, and no one would tell me anything! Good Lord, Denver, can you imagine how I felt?”

  The corners of his mouth turned white. “And can you imagine what I was going through?” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “I was told I would never be the same, that I would probably never use my arm again. Both my parents were dead because of the fire, and a woman I trusted had set me up to cover for her old man!”

  “No!” Tessa’s eyes widened in horror. “You couldn’t believe—”

  “I didn’t know what to believe!” Advancing on her, his eyes boring into her, he said, “I just knew that my entire life had gone to hell!”

  He was so close that she could feel the heat radiating from his body, sense the anger simmering within him. “You could have given me a chance to explain before you set yourself up as judge and jury!”

  “It was too late for explanations.”

  “Maybe it’s never too late.”

  He gave a wry smile and some of his anger seemed to melt. Reaching forward, he brushed a strand of hair from her eyes, his fingertips grazing her cheek. “Still the dreamer, aren’t you, Tessa?”

  She swallowed hard, fighting a losing battle with the raw energy surging between them. “I—I think I’ve dealt with the past seven years realistically. At least I didn’t run away.”

  Sucking in a swift breath, he dropped his hand. His eyes blazed again. “Is that what you think?”

  “That’s what happened. And now you’re back, sweeping back in here like some sort of avenging angel—accusing my father of everything from arson to involuntary manslaughter.”

  “I haven’t accused him of anything.”

  “Not in so many words, maybe,” she said, her temper flaring wildly. “But it’s obvious you blame him for the fire, just as you blame me.”

  “When Curtis was here, we were talking about running the ranch.”

  “Were we?” She strode across the room, tilting her head back, forcing her eyes to meet his. “You could have fooled me.”

  “I don’t want to talk about the fire,” he snapped.

  “Then leave it alone, Denver. Leave all of it alone. Because, believe it or not, we’ve been working our tail ends off around here to save this place—a place you don’t give a damn about!” She strode out of the room, letting the screen door slam behind her, then fumbled for the light on the porch.

  “Mule-headed bastard,” she muttered, tugging her boots on before running down the back steps. The rain was coming down in sheets, pounding the earth, turning the dust to mud. Bareheaded, Tessa stalked furiously down the well-worn path to the paddocks. She leaned against the wet fence, feeling the wind tease her hair and toss the wet strands across her face. She didn’t care. This summer storm couldn’t match the tempest of emotions raging deep in her soul.

  Damn! Damn! Damn! Her fingers flexed and curled. Why did he have to come back? Why now?

  Closing her eyes, she prayed the cool rain would wash away the pain, dampen the fires of injustice that burned so brightly in her heart.

  “Tessa?” Denver’s voice, so near, made her jump, her heart still fluttering at the sound.

  “Leave me alone!”

  “What do you think you’re doing out here?” he asked so calmly she wanted to scream.

  “Trying to put things in perspective.”

  Leaning over the top rail, his eyes squinting against the darkness, he stood so close that his shoulder brushed hers. She didn’t move. Couldn’t. Raindrops, reflecting the blue glow from the single outside lamp, collected in his hair and drizzled down his throat.

  He hadn’t bothered with a jacket, and his shirttail flapped in the wind. “Aren’t you afraid of drowning?” he asked softly.

  “In case you haven’t heard, we’re in the middle of a drought!”

  His eyes searched the dark heavens. “Not tonight, we’re not.”

  “The rain feels good.” Why did she feel so defensive around him? Slowly count
ing to ten, she tried to control her temper. “Besides, we need every drop we get. The river’s low and the fields are tinder-dry.”

  As the wind slapped against his face and the rain plastered his hair, Denver said, “This is crazy. Let’s go inside where it’s dry.”

  “I’m fine out here.”

  “Are you?” He tried to smother a smile and failed as he brushed a drip from the tip of her chin. His gaze shifted restlessly over her face. “You look like a drowned rat.”

  “I bet you say that to all the girls,” she snapped, but couldn’t help smiling.

  “Only when I’m trying to impress them.”

  “So you’re still the charmer you’ve always been.”

  He laughed, a low rumbling sound that warmed the cool night. “Low blow, Tessa.”

  “You deserved it. You haven’t been pulling any punches yourself.”

  “I guess I haven’t.” The breeze snatched at his hair, ruffling it. “Come on inside. I’ll pour you a cup of coffee.” The determined line of his jaw relaxed, and he looked more like the young man she’d loved so fervently. He touched her lightly on the shoulder, his fingertips warm through her wet blouse. “Truce?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know if that’s possible, Denver.” But she let him take her hand and told herself that the tingling sensation she felt in her palm was because of the storm. Hands linked, running stride for stride, they dashed through puddles in the backyard to the house.

  In the kitchen he tossed her a towel, and Tessa wiped the rain from her face. As she sat in one of the chairs at the table, she studied him. His face had become lean and angular over the years, his skin dark and tight. But no amount of reconstructive surgery had been able to straighten his nose—a nose that had been broken when he fell from a horse at the age of twelve.

  He’d changed. The lines of boyish dimples that had creased his cheeks had deepened into grooves of discontent, and his sensual mouth was knife-blade thin. A webbing of lines near his eyes indicated that he still squinted—but did he laugh and tease and smile as he once had?

  After pouring the coffee, he handed her a steaming mug. She took a sip, nearly burning her tongue. Cradling her mug in her hands, she leaned back in a chair and tossed the wet hair from her eyes. “I didn’t really think you’d show up,” she said. “I expected you’d sell your half of the place by phone.”