What makes Cody Matthews so obnoxious?

Joan smiled at what she’d written across the top of the paper. She was pleased with the harsh directness of her words and wondered if she’d need a second sheet. There were so many things not to like about the man.

Ten minutes later she had a sizable compilation of sins. Feeling in control once more, she scanned the list she’d made.

Overbearing arrogance

Ego the size of a planet

Poor taste in clothes—especially belt buckles

Beautiful bedroom eyes

Lascivious nat—

Wait a minute! Beautiful bedroom eyes? Where had that come from? Those eyes didn’t belong on her list.

Annoyed, she stood up and filled the teakettle. Waiting for the whistle, she leaned against the doorjamb and stared at the list on the table.

All right, so he did have great eyes. She’d give him that one. But they didn’t make up for all his bad qualities.

No. Number four on her list was simply a slip of the pen.

Dear Reader,

Growing up in my house, I remember thinking that my poor father was at a real disadvantage. Females outnumbered him three to one. Even our pets were female.

But Dad was a real trouper. The father/daughter relationship he shared with my sister and me was pretty special. Even though I suspect he would have preferred to be watching golf on TV or out fishing, he still found time to be a guest at our backyard tea parties, a customer at our imaginary shoe store and the first one to sample our latest triumph from the Easy Bake oven.

As I was creating Cody Matthews, my hero for this book, I envisioned him sharing that same kind of bond with his own daughter, Sarah. But what would he do, I wondered, if something happened to change that bond? Something he didn’t understand or have any clue how to handle? Suppose his daughter went from being an angelic daddy’s girl to the devil in blue jeans, all in a matter of weeks.

That’s one of the dilemmas facing Cody in this book. And that’s where Joan Paxton comes in. Even the greatest father in the world needs help now and then, especially if he’s a single parent. Only one problem—Cody is just as stubborn as his daughter. He’d rather wrestle a bull than admit he can’t handle his own child!

Poor Joan. She’s the one who can bring the Matthews family back from the brink of disaster, but she’s got her work cut out for her. I hope you enjoy reading just how she accomplishes bringing Cody and Sarah back together, and most of all, how she finds love along the way.

Ann Evans

That Man Matthews
Ann Evans

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book, a story about fathers, has to be dedicated to one of the best dads I know—my brother-in-law, William Wilson Marsh.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

CODY MATTHEWS took one look at Merlita Soledad’s broad, dark features and immediately recognized trouble ahead.

His live-in Mexican housekeeper was normally a pleasant apple dumpling of a woman, a whirlwind of efficiency when it came to keeping the ranch house organized. She had a generous heart, a bone-crushing hug and an ancient recipe for the best darned chilies rellenos in south Texas. But when she was angry, she had a tendency to mangle the English language, and right now she was grinding it up like a steak in a blender.

“You try it, jefe,” she demanded, her arms planted across her chest, her nostrils flared wide. “You tell me how you like.”

“Lita, if I don’t leave soon, I’m gonna be late for the afternoon flight to Washington.” He tried to give the woman back the plate and fork she’d thrust into his hands when she’d invaded his study. “You know I love your cocoa cake. I’ll be home tomorrow night. Save a piece for me.”

“No,” Merlita said with a firm shake of her head. Her arms tightened, and he caught his first glimpse of the kitchen paring knife she held between her capable fingers. “You taste my cake. It’s important. You, too, Señor Walt.”

Cody didn’t think it wise to argue with a woman who held a knife. He glanced at his father. Walt Matthews cradled a similar plate of the sweet chocolate dessert, but from the crinkle bisecting his forehead, it was clear he didn’t have a clue what was bothering Merlita, either.

With an uncertain smile Cody settled back, hooking one leg over the side of his desk. If the woman was desperate for a compliment, he’d have no trouble giving it, and then he could be away from Luna D’Oro and off to the airport.

He stuck his fork into the wedge of chocolate and scooped a generous helping into his mouth. “Mmm…” he began. “Still my favorite dess…”

The words trailed away as he stopped chewing. Whoa! Sam Houston’s underwear, something was mighty wrong with this batch!

He cast a suspicious look at his plate. The cinnamon and chocolate couldn’t disguise the fact that the cake was just plain awful. He wanted to spit the mouthful in the trash can next to his desk. But Merlita’s dark eyes were throwing off sparks now, and he didn’t dare.

Again he looked to his father for help. Pa had taken a small bite from his own dish. Cody could see he was having trouble swallowing.

“It’s…uh…a little different from your usual, isn’t it?” Cody ventured.

“Sí.”

“Trying a new recipe?” his father asked when he finally appeared to get his tongue under control.

“No,” Merlita said, looking indignant. “Emperor Maximilian ate my great-great-great grandmother’s cake in the Spanish court of kings. I do not change her recipe. But how you like it?”

“Might be a tad overcooked,” Cody suggested, clearing his throat and wishing he had something to wash the taste out of his mouth. “Or maybe the mixing bowl didn’t get cleaned well enough. Some soap-suds—”

“Tu eres loco? I don’t cook in dirty bowls!” Merlita exclaimed in horrified tones. She waved away his words with a broad sweep of the hand that held the paring knife. “It’s the salt. Dos. Two cups.”

“Oh.” Cody and Walter exchanged looks. Neither of them had a clue what went into the making of Mexican cake. Or what to say now. Cody settled on evasion. “Seems like a lot of salt.”

“That’s because it should be sugar. Someone switches the labels on the jars in my cupboard. A funny joker with yellow hair.”

“Oh. I see.” Cody straightened, suddenly understanding. He set the plate down on the only exposed corner of his desktop. Sarah! He should have known. Wasn’t it always Sarah these days? “Lita, darlin’, I—”

“You promised, jefe,” Merlita reminded him, making her point with the tip of the knife. “No more, you say. You say you straighten her out but good. You are el jefe grande around here, but you are not a man of your word.”

“I did talk to her. But I’ll talk to her again—”

“You do more than talk now. This is times three she makes jokes on me. The rubber bug in my guacamole. The bubbling soap pouring out of my washing machine. I can take no more. Comprende? She does not stop? Via con dios, jefe. I go home to Mexico.” The woman’s eyes narrowed threateningly. “And I take my rellenos recipe with me.”

With a clatter of annoyance, the housekeeper scooped up the plates and forks and left the study. She muttered a litany of Spanish complaints all the way to the kitchen.

Cody turned back to his desk, searching through the mess of paperwork for his plane ticket. He smiled at his father, whose faded-blue gaze gleamed with knowing concern. “Don’t say it, Pa,” Cody warned. He didn’t have time right now for a lecture about things he already knew.

“I didn’t say a word,” Walt Matthews protested.

“No, but you’re thinking it.”

“It’s still a free country, ain’t it? Man’s got a right to think whatever he wants.” Leaning heavily on one of the metal crutches that helped him get around, Walt came slowly to join him at the desk. “But I’m not one to stick my nose in where it ain’t welcome.”

Cody looked up with a laugh. “Since when?”

“Fine. Just don’t come looking for me to cook when Merlita up and takes a bus back to Chihuahua.”

“Damn! Where the hell is that ticket?” Cody complained as he threw down an empty envelope. “Someday I’m going to get this desk organized. If I miss this flight, it will be tomorrow afternoon before I can get another one out.”

“That might not be such a bad thing. Give you a chance to talk to Sarah.”

“Pa—”

Walt cut him off with a forestalling hand. “None of my beeswax, I know.”

Cody sighed. Might as well give in. He wasn’t going to get away from Luna D’Oro today without discussing Sarah. “It’s just a little harmless fun, Pa. You remember what I was like as a kid, don’t you? Always trying to pull a fast one on you and Mom and the bunkhouse crew? Nothing Sarah’s done is malicious. In fact, you have to admit that some of her pranks are pretty clever for a twelve-year-old.”

“That isn’t what you said last week when you turned on the air conditioner in the Rover and five pounds of rice flew out the vents and nearly scared you off the road.”

“Surprised, not scared.”

“Same thing.”

Cody rolled his eyes. He didn’t want to argue. Especially when Walt was probably right. Sarah—his sweet, precious baby girl—had turned into a royal pain in the butt in the past couple of months. Mouthy. Disobedient. With enough practical jokes in her bag of tricks to torment the family every day for the next ten years. And he didn’t want to even think about what her final school report was going to look like this year.

He stopped looking for the plane ticket long enough to glance at the picture he kept on his desk. Sarah, of course. The candid shot taken last year at the ranch’s annual cookout.

Pa’s camera had caught her pressed up against Cody, all smiles and girlish delight, hugging him with every bit of the strength and love she had in her. Nothing in that pert little nose and dimpled grin looked even remotely defiant. Her pale sunlit hair was made for angels, not devils. If there was any hint of the stubborn, willful behavior they’d seen lately, it was in the slight clef in his daughter’s chin. She’d inherited it from her mother. It was pure Daphne.

“Here’s your ticket,” his father said, rescuing it from beneath a pile of handbills advertising everything from horse auctions in San Antonio to Stampede Days in Laredo. He handed Cody the folder, and then another right beneath it. “And take this with you on the plane, too. Try reading it this time.”

Cody slipped the plane ticket into the inside pocket of his buckskin jacket. He barely glanced at the flyer his father had shoved into his hand. He knew what the old man was up to.

The flyer contained information about a parenting conference that had taken place two weeks ago in Austin. Struggling to understand what was causing the change in Sarah’s behavior, the two Matthews men had planned to attend, but at the last minute the deal Cody had made for Williston property had looked as if it might fall through. Walt had been forced to go alone.

He’d come back full of excitement and ideas and the flyer—with one name circled on the workshop list. A Virginia teacher and educational therapist named Joan Paxton had conducted a seminar on how to deal with kids suffering from attention deficit disorder. The blurb about her in the brochure was full of the kinds of things Cody hated most—sweeping praise from pompous-sounding academics and vague promises about what her lecture could accomplish. But Pa kept pressing Cody to contact the woman, see if she could give him some one-on-one advice.

Only one thing wrong with that idea, Cody had said. Sarah did not have attention deficit disorder. The flyer had been relegated to the read-when-I-get-around-to-it pile on his desk.

“I’m telling you, son,” Walt interrupted Cody’s thoughts. “The woman had every person in the audience taking notes. She knows her stuff. And if you’d talk to her, she might help us figure out what’s eatin’ Sarah.”

Anxious to be gone, Cody was hardly listening now. Absently he asked, “Why would she be willing to talk to me in particular?”

“’Cause I asked her to.”

That grabbed Cody’s attention. “What? You didn’t tell me that.”

“I went up to her after the workshop and told her how much I enjoyed her speech. We got to talking, and before I left she said she’d be happy to discuss Sarah’s problems with you.”

“How could you do that?” Cody asked. He dragged a hand through his dark hair, striving for patience. “Look, Pa. Sarah is my problem. I don’t want or need any stiff-necked, tight-assed schoolmarm telling me what’s wrong with my kid. I haven’t done such a bad job for twelve years that I need to call in reinforcements now.”

“I’m not saying you have. But what’s wrong with asking for a little help? And come to think of it, have you done anything about hiring a nanny yet?”

“I haven’t had time to call an agency.”

“You haven’t made time.”

Unfortunately that was true. Cody had stalled on that suggestion. The idea of hiring full-time live-in help to raise Sarah rubbed him the wrong way. Sarah was twelve, for God’s sake, not a baby who needed her diaper changed. Which was, by the way, the kind of thing Cody had done for her when she’d needed it. That and a lot of other things. Now, suddenly, he couldn’t handle his own daughter?

“You didn’t have help raising me after Mom died. I didn’t turn out so bad.”

His father shook his head. “No, but I shoulda worked harder on that ornery streak of yours.”

Cody grinned. “I got it from you, didn’t I?” He headed for the door. “I’ve got to go, or I’ll never make the plane. We’ll talk when I get back.”

“Son?” His father’s serious tone brought him up short. “Here’s something else you need to consider. How will you explain Sarah’s behavior to her other Grandpa, if he decides he wants to become part of her life?”

Cody felt his heart drop. He couldn’t admit it to his father, but that worry had been nibbling at him ever since Edward Ross had reentered their lives. So far, the Connecticut millionaire had kept a low profile, but if the old man ever decided to investigate the circumstances of his granddaughter’s birth…Cody shuddered at the thought.

“He won’t interfere in our lives, Pa,” Cody said in a determined voice, more to convince himself than his father. “He’s too busy hobnobbing with senators and movie stars. He doesn’t have time for twelve-year-old girls who only want to talk about horses and how soon they’ll get to wear makeup.”

“Don’t you believe it, son. What’s Edward Ross been doing with his time since he’s retired? His only child killed in a plane crash years ago. His wife dead, too. Then he finds out he has a grandchild—a girl who looks a heck of a lot like Daphne. You think he’s not gonna want to be a part of her life? A big part?”

The older man slipped one arm out of his metal crutch support and rubbed his hip absently. “You’re foolin’ yourself, son. Believe me, at that age, a man looks back on his life and starts thinking maybe he should have done things differently.”

Cody frowned, a little surprised by the remorseful tone in Walt’s voice. His father had few regrets about the way he’d lived his life. The accident that had robbed him of the full use of his legs was about the only thing he might want to change. How different everything might have been if he’d never climbed up on that bull.

“Pa?”

His father seemed to snap out of his reverie. He straightened, fixing Cody with a hard stare. “So maybe you’re right, and Edward Ross leaves us alone. That still takes me back to the point I’ve been trying to make. You know everything there is to know about raising cattle, Cody. Making land deals. Playing the stocks. But what do you really know about what goes on in a little girl’s head?”

“I know she doesn’t have attention deficit disorder, damn it.”

“Let’s be sure. I have the number for the private school where this gal teaches in Virginia. Alexandria’s not that far from D.C., is it? You could stay over. I’ll set it up for you.”

Cody glanced at his watch. Only way he’d make the plane now was if he ran into no traffic at all and sprinted through the airport like a long-distance runner. Conceding defeat, he sighed heavily and nodded. “All right. Make the call to her. And set up all the appointments for nannies you want. Call me tonight at the hotel and tell me where and when to show up.”

His father grinned. “You won’t be sorry.”

“I already am.”

“This woman’s sophisticated, intelligent. Did I mention her father was Alistair Paxton, the diplomat?”

“Ah, jeez, a blue blood. You know how I feel about that kind of woman.”

“You’re not fixing to make her your wife.”

“You know what I mean. Just the thought of being around another Daphne-type, even briefly, makes my gut ache.”

“All right,” Walt said hurriedly, apparently eager to shore up any damage his words might have done. “You don’t like her, you cut the conversation short and come on home. I’ll have a dozen nannies waiting for you, ready to be interviewed. One of them is bound to please you.”

“I can hardly wait,” Cody said without enthusiasm and rushed to his car.

PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE mentioned her resemblance to Daphne, Walter thought, as he waved the Rover away from Luna D’Oro’s front drive. But Cody was already riled up enough about being strong-armed into agreement, and he’d turn as prickly as a desert cactus if he thought he was being manipulated, as well.

Of course, everything else aside, meeting Joan Paxton would still be a good thing for Sarah. The woman was razor sharp when it came to kids. If Cody didn’t let his ego get in the way, she might be able to help him cope with Sarah. God knows, reprimands, incentives and being sent to her room hadn’t done any good with the girl lately.

Walt made his way slowly back to the rear of the house, where the hacienda’s courtyard portal offered peace and quiet and a great view of the setting Texas sun.

He was worrying for nothing. When Cody met Joan, he’d see reason. He just had to listen to her for a few minutes, give her half a chance. And he would, because she was a looker, and Cody had always had an eye for pretty blondes. The fact that she bore a passing resemblance to Daphne, Sarah’s mother, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, was it?

Walter frowned as he settled down on a chaise longue with a weary groan. Oh, well. Too late now.

Gently he lifted his legs onto the lounger. If he got his right hip to stop giving him fits in a few minutes, he’d call her, set up a time when she and his son could get together. It was short notice, but Walt still had a little of the old Matthews charm in him. He could make it happen. Could be that by this time the day after tomorrow, Cody would either have hated her on sight and come home, or he’d be convinced she’d hung the moon.

Even with that damned resemblance to Daphne, Walter was betting on the latter.

AW, HELL, I SHOULD HAVE known.

Cody picked Joan Paxton out the moment she walked through the crowded lobby of the Alexandria Hotel, and he knew right off she wasn’t going to have anything to say that he’d want to hear.

He’d been regretting the decision to meet the woman almost from the moment he’d agreed to it. When Walt had called him in his D.C. hotel room, the resentful, trapped feeling in his chest had gotten worse.

The Paxton woman would meet him at four in the afternoon in the hotel lobby, Walt had told him. Then—when he got home—there would be three interviews with prospective nannies waiting for him. From some ridiculous agency called Cultivated Kids, whose logo in the phone book, Pa had said, was a garden row of child-flowers, their faces beaming up toward the sun. As if Sarah was a crabgrass-clogged daisy who just needed a healthy dose of weed killer.

Damn Sam Houston’s whiskers! He didn’t need a gardener for Sarah. He didn’t need outside help with Sarah at all.

Truth be told, he liked her fine just the way she was. Bright. Imaginative. Sure, she was a handful. Had been from the moment she’d come wailing into his life without a single instruction manual. With Daphne horrified at the thought of being a mother, Cody had raised her almost single-handedly. He’d followed gut instinct and horse sense, and hell, she hadn’t turned out so bad.

A little rough around the edges, maybe. A little wild and unpredictable at times. But he liked those traits in her. They made her an individual. They made her funny and interesting and someone he could be proud to call his daughter. Sarah was going to turn out to be one hell of a woman, not some watered-down, homogenized prima donna who only cared about the latest fashions from Paris and how hard she’d have to work to find a rich man to marry.

From behind a planter he watched the Paxton woman make her way to the hotel front desk. Oh, yes, he knew her type well enough. Tall. Blond. Prissy. Spoiled rotten, no doubt, by that diplomat father of hers.

He didn’t know what it was about cool ice princesses that always got to him. But since Sarah’s birth he’d had two serious relationships with women, and both of them had been carbon copies of Daphne.

The last one had ended six months ago. All right, so maybe he was willing to consider dating again—it got lonely at the ranch, damn it—but he’d never give another tall, uppity blonde a second look. They were just too much trouble, he’d told Pa, and he’d meant it. Which was probably why Walt had deliberately neglected to mention that Joan Paxton was a Daphne look-alike.

The severe, dark suit she wore said she was all business and it accentuated her height. She wouldn’t have to lift her chin too high to meet his six-foot-three frame. She moved with stiff authority, like a general inspecting his troops, and her shoulders were thrown back as though she’d forgotten to take the coat hanger out of her jacket before she’d slipped it on. She looked like she’d forgotten how to smile, too, but he had to admit she had a nice, tight rear end that shifted prettily without being provocative.

Cody frowned as his insides twisted unpleasantly. Yep, she reminded him so much of Daphne that he had to resist the urge to check for his wallet.

Wearily he rubbed his hand over his face. It had been a long, tiring day. The boardroom fight with Williston’s lawyers had reduced his brain to mush. If he really was going to be faced with a bunch of Mary Poppins wannabes tomorrow, he needed to relax. Not try to make nice with an aristocratic intellectual who’d take one look at him and decide he’d done everything wrong the past twelve years.

He watched Joan Paxton ask directions. She’d punished her hair by twisting it up into one of those silly French things that all but destroyed any pretense of femininity, but she couldn’t hide the truth that her hair was one of her best features. The color of sunshine, tendrils that looked as fine and soft as a kitten’s ear surrounded a pretty, heart-shaped face.

She turned her head to follow the concierge’s pointing finger, and a few wisps of golden hair had the audacity to escape their French prison. Impatiently she lifted a manicured hand to smooth the disobedient curls back into place.

Glancing at her watch, she made a beeline for the hotel atrium where they were to meet in five minutes. He’d bet she’d never been late for an appointment in her life.

In another moment she had disappeared behind the jungle of plants and fake waterfalls that all fancy hotels insisted on cluttering up their lobbies with these days. But he could imagine her sitting there, glancing at her watch. Maybe tapping her foot.

Cody frowned again, then exhaled in disgust. What had Pa been thinking?

“No way in hell,” he muttered under his breath.

There were other people he could consult about Sarah’s behavior problems. Authorities of his own choosing. Not someone who would blame attention deficit disorder or him. Not someone who would probably suggest drugs that would turn his baby girl into a complacent little zombie with the personality of navel lint. No! No overbred blue blood was going to tell him how to raise his kid. And Cody was definitely not going to give said blue blood the opportunity to figure out that the Matthews household wasn’t exactly what it seemed to be.

Instead, he’d send a bellman to her with a message. Apologize for the inconvenience, cancel the meeting. Perhaps sometime in the future, he’d suggest. A vague-enough promise he never intended to keep.

There was still Pa to deal with. He was a stubborn old cuss. Once he’d wrung that promise out of Cody, he wouldn’t let up. There would be at least two more trips back here to D.C. to complete the Williston deal. Cody could hear Walt’s argument now. Surely one of those trips would allow him time to reschedule a meeting with Joan Paxton?

Of course, if he and the schoolmarm didn’t hit it off, he could say he’d given it his best shot.

He tipped his Stetson to the back of his head as an idea came to him. He was suddenly glad he hadn’t had time to change out of his comfortable buckskin jacket and jeans. Boots and western garb would suit this interview just fine. If he’d learned one thing from his father, it was how to make a Texas drawl and good-old-boy attitude work for him. In the corporate world, he’d used his rough frontier persona more than a few times to set those bean counters on their ears.

Joan Paxton would be easy to chase off.

A little snake-oil charm. A lot of Texas arrogance. Maybe he’d even shamble into his best aw-shucks, dumb-cowpoke routine, the one that never failed to get a cackling laugh out of Merlita. Miss Joan Paxton would hightail it home but quick and count herself lucky to get away.

Leaving him with no chance of another meeting.

Leaving him to find his own solution to Sarah’s wayward behavior.

He could spend the rest of the evening working out his frustrations in the hotel gym. Relax afterward in a hot whirlpool. Maybe he’d even stop by the hotel gift shop, see if he could find something to take back to Merlita. Just in case Sarah had been up to tricks again in his absence.

Striding toward the atrium, Cody’s lips curved into a satisfied smile.

Ten minutes.

Tops.

CHAPTER TWO

THE ATRIUM was filled with tourists just back from a bus trip to Arlington Cemetery and businessmen anxious to unwind from meetings held in hotel conference rooms. Waitresses, ever cognizant of the big tippers, had come out of the piano bar and were circling the tables of men.

Joan Paxton sat with her head down, making notes in her appointment book. She wouldn’t have minded a glass of water, but it was impossible to catch a server’s attention, and she soon gave up.

She glanced at her watch again. The man was ten minutes late.

Not a good sign, Mr. Matthews.

She refused to think of him as anything but Mr. Matthews, regardless of the fact that Walt Matthews had told her that his son hated formality. What kind of name was Cody, anyway? It was like Howdy Doody. No real adult had a name like that. It made her think of cowboys and Indians and Wild West shows. Understandable, considering the man lived in Texas, but if William Cody Matthews was really the successful businessman his father said he was, you’d think he’d have used his more professional-sounding first name.

Stop, she told herself firmly. You’re just finding fault because you’ve been upset lately. Mr. Matthews isn’t the reason your professional and personal life are in chaos right now. Don’t take it out on him.

Headmaster Mueller was the one who deserved her scorn. And quite a bit more than that if he didn’t keep his roving hands to himself. Which he might not.

Last week, after he’d cornered her in the supply closet and she’d slapped him so hard her hand still stung the following day, he’d seemed so sure of himself, almost amused. After all, in spite of her solid credentials, she was still just a teacher at the school, while he was the man who had almost single-handedly built, financed and ran the Virginia Academy for Gifted Children.

If she ever touched him again, he’d told her, she’d be looking for another job. Her face felt warm even now to think that she had countered that threat with one of her own. That if he ever touched her again, he’d be looking for a doctor. Since that time he hadn’t tried anything. But now she was always uncomfortable in his presence, feeling his eyes on her constantly, and the knowledge that she was under his scrutiny had begun to wear on her nerves.

How mortifying the whole episode had been. How unlike her. Struggling in a supply closet with a man old enough to be her grandfather. Threatening bodily harm to another human being. What would her father have said about such a tasteless display, such unladylike behavior?

She stared down at the latest to-do list she’d begun in her book, not really seeing the words she’d written there. Distasteful as that incident had been, she supposed she could manage Mueller. It was her most recent argument with Todd that had left her reeling. A week ago, when the tension had finally come to a head at their favorite Italian restaurant, she had been stunned to watch their relationship reach an unexpected and bitter climax.

What happened? Joan asked herself for the hundredth time. Todd Ingles was the man she was supposed to marry someday, the man she’d known since high school, the man with whom she intended to share a lifetime of dreams. And yet, after she’d told him what had happened with Mueller, he’d been unsympathetic and uncommunicative. Unable to understand his attitude, she’d finally asked him what the problem was.

“Now, don’t take this the wrong way,” he’d said to her over a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. “But are you sure you haven’t been sending Mueller the wrong signals?”

It was fortunate that the restaurant had been crowded and noisy, because Joan was so shocked she dropped her fork, and it clattered on the table. “What is that supposed to mean?” she asked when she could find her voice.

Todd shrugged as he twirled pasta on his fork. “Just that Mueller never struck me as a skirt chaser. You know his background, his education. He’s been published in the Journal, for Pete’s sake.”

“Oh, I see,” Joan had said, unable to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “A degree from Harvard prohibits you from being a lech?”

“I’m not saying that. He just seems too refined to play those kinds of high-school games. He’s well respected. Monied. His ancestors are founding fathers.”

“So are mine. And I’ll bet my father never tried to put his hand up an employee’s skirt. Are you saying I might have led him on?”

“Of course not. I’m just saying you might have misinterpreted the situation—”

“Todd, it’s hard to misinterpret someone shoving their hand down the front of your blouse. He tried to kiss me.”

Recognizing that he had chosen the wrong side in this argument, Todd reached over to cup her hand. “Well, why wouldn’t he? You are a beautiful woman.”

Joan withdrew her hand and stared at him. “Don’t. You’re only making it worse.”

“All right, I’m sorry. But so he got a little frisky. He’s probably feeling his age and trying to prove to someone that he still has what it takes to get a woman to look at him. You don’t want to piss him off, do you? This job pays well. It’s prestigious…”

Her mouth had gone dry. Carefully she took a sip of water and just as carefully replaced the glass on the table. She gave him a level, knowing look. “The only one at this table who cares whether Mueller gets…pissed off, is you. Isn’t that right?” When Todd didn’t respond right away, Joan folded her napkin and quietly laid it on the table. Her appetite had completely disappeared. “What are you afraid of?” she asked softly. “That when he retires next year and the board chooses a new president of the school, he won’t give his endorsement to you because your girlfriend wouldn’t…put out?”

“Don’t be like this. You’re not thinking straight. Tomorrow—”

“No, don’t say anything more.” It had occurred to her suddenly that she really did not know this man. They’d been together for so many years. When had they stopped communicating? “I know how badly you want your own academy, Todd, and how frustrated you are that it’s taking longer than you’d planned. I just never realized that you’d want it so badly you’d be willing to see me humiliated in order to make it happen.”

“Joan, I’d never let Mueller hurt you. I love you.”

“Do you? I wonder sometimes.”

And she couldn’t stop wondering, even now, after she’d left him sitting in the restaurant alone, after she’d dumped the flowers he sent to her classroom, and after she’d boxed up her belongings and moved into a small apartment on the other side of town. She’d given up her own apartment two years ago to move in with Todd. She didn’t know where she’d end up now, but she knew she couldn’t stay at Todd’s place one day longer.

Maybe when she went up to the Cape with her mother this weekend…Her mother had never been a fan of Todd’s, but she could be quite objective when she chose to be. All those years as the wife of a career diplomat had rubbed off on her. Somewhere between the Burbanks’ barbeque and the Olsons’ regatta Joan would confess everything, ask for advice…

God, thirty-one years old and asking for advice on her love life from her widowed mother. What was she thinking? She rubbed absently at her temple, realizing that she was getting a headache.

She turned her attention to the well-worn appointment book on her lap. With the tip of her pen, she ticked off the items on her list:

Buy new swimsuit for weekend

Birthday card for Mother

Haircut with Denise

Clothes to cleaners

Black pumps to shoe repair

Talk to apartment manager about light in the stairwell

She frowned at what she’d written. A compulsive list maker, Joan prided herself on her organizational skills and the ability to prioritize. There was nothing on this list that couldn’t be handled in one afternoon. All of it was so mundane-sounding. So normal. And yet, it was reassuring in a way to know that in spite of her current difficulties at work and with Todd, the requirements of life still marched on, needing attention.

“A new bathing suit, huh? Ever try one of those French thong things?”

Joan wasn’t the skittish type. The husky, male voice coming from behind her and laced with amusement didn’t make her jump or suddenly swivel in her chair. It only annoyed her to realize that a total stranger was reading her notes over her shoulder. She turned her head slowly, prepared to make sure that a man with such odious manners would know just what she thought of him.

The first thing she saw was the belt buckle. Large, silver. It was a spectacle of male adornment that had been hammered and engraved by a craftsman’s loving hands. Unfortunately not by a craftsman with any sense of style or taste.

It depicted the head of a long-horned cow, or at least that’s what Joan thought it was. Behind the head was a wandering outline of the state of Texas. Or New York. Hard to tell.

Her eyes traveled upward, away from the snug jeans that delineated strong male thighs, past an elaborately stitched and fringed buckskin jacket. Her gaze stopped momentarily at the open neckline of a faded blue shirt. Fascinating. Not the shirt, but the glimpse of swirling midnight hair that covered a muscular chest. Thick and crisp and extremely touchable.

That interest unsettled her. Todd’s body was nicely muscled, but practically hairless. His torso had the pale, smooth perfection of a Greek statue. Until recently, she’d thought it the most magnificent body in the world. Until recently, she’d thought Todd the most perfect man.

She lifted her eyes to the stranger’s face. Sun-bronzed, with the hard features of a renegade, this man would never be called handsome. Rugged, maybe, but even that seemed too tame, too polite a term to describe him.

Suddenly Joan realized that her scrutiny hadn’t gone unnoticed. One inquiring brow rose with devilish interest, and he winked. She would have been embarrassed to be caught staring if she hadn’t felt that his breach of manners warranted an indignant look.

“So what do you think?” he asked with a grin. “About the swimsuit, I mean. You look like a gal who wouldn’t mind attracting a little attention. I know I’d give you a second glance.”

She wanted to tell him that as pickup lines went, he had the worst she’d ever heard, but it was probably better not to indulge in conversation with this man, no matter how attractive he was. “I’m really not interested in your opinion,” she said in the haughtiest tone she could manage, and then added with her most withering look, “or your attention.”

The stranger faked a wounded look at her rebuff. Then unexpectedly, he was shaking her hand as though her arm was a pump and he was bent on drawing water. “Howdy. You must be Joan Paxton. I’m Cody Matthews. Mind if I call you Jo-Jo?”

She barely registered the fact that this mannerless cretin was the man she’d planned to meet. She was stunned, but he had already flung himself into the chair opposite her before she found her voice. “Actually I’d prefer being called—”

“Sorry about the delay, Jo-Jo, but I didn’t think you’d mind waiting.” His dark brows rose again. “How ’bout a drink? I’m parched.” He threw back his head, spotted a waitress nearby and bellowed, “Hey, honey! We need some service over here.”

Oh, God. Was this Walter Matthews’s idea of a joke? How could this Neanderthal be that sweet old man’s son? The man she’d met at the seminar had been soft-spoken, asking her advice with an oldfashioned courtesy you seldom saw anymore. But this man…after a few minutes in his company, she’d be certifiable.

The waitress came to take their order. Cody Matthews tilted his hat to the back of his head with one finger and turned his appraisal of Joan into a leer. “What’s your pleasure, Jo-Jo?”

My pleasure would be for you to end this meeting and go away, she thought. And then the rest of that line of thinking faded as she got her first good look at his eyes. Remarkable. Startling robin’s-egg blue in that darkly tanned face. Beneath the hat, his hair was solidly black, silky and crisp-looking, if just a shade too long to please a fashion editor. She felt a moment’s regret that these two features should be wasted on a loud obnoxious moron like William Cody Matthews.

“Don’t keep this little gal waitin’, Jo-Jo.” He turned a hundred-watt grin on the waitress and patted her arm. “Time’s money, ain’t it, honey?”

The waitress had obviously been well-trained. She didn’t move a muscle. Joan was the one who bridled at such familiarity. It reminded her unpleasantly of the way Headmaster Mueller had begun his little games with her, finding those opportunities to touch and hug. “A glass of white wine, please,” she said quickly, ordering the first thing she could think of to give the poor woman a chance to escape.

Cody’s gut tightened. He should have guessed. Every woman in his life had loved wine. It was a drink to be sipped and fawned over, and personally, he had no patience for it. “Shoot,” he said with a dismissive shake of his head. “Wine’s no better than cow piss. Give me a double scotch. No rocks.”

The waitress hurried away and deliberately he leered after her. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Paxton woman stiffen. Her complexion had gone the color of new milk, and he knew he’d made one hell of a first impression.

Kind of a shame to blow her out of the water like this, ’cause up close she didn’t look that much like Daphne, after all. Her nose was shorter and her eyes were nicer than Daph’s had been. A warm brown. But she had the attitude down pat. That regal distain that had been Daphne’s specialty and had eventually helped to kill their relationship.

“Mr. Matthews—”

“Call me Cody, gal. Mr. Matthews is my pa. ‘Course he doesn’t like that kind of formality any more than me. Reminds us too much of standing before the judge waiting to hear him pass sentence.” He made a loud snorting sound. “And we’ve both been that route often enough. How ’bout you? You ever been on the wrong side of the law?”

She looked honestly stymied by that question. It was a good five seconds before she formed an answer. “No, I can’t say that I have.”

“No, of course you haven’t. You’re a diplomat’s daughter, aren’t you? You probably went to some snotty private school and got taken everywhere in your father’s limousine and never once complained about having to put up with piano lessons.”

“Actually it was violin lessons.”

She was watching him closely now, as if he’d turned into a bug stuck on a pin. He lifted a speculative brow. “I’ll bet you never even jaywalk.”

Joan ducked her head to allow herself time to think. There was something about the look in his eyes, the way those words hissed out between his teeth, as though he begrudged them. She realized that for some reason he found her objectionable. It was odd, really, when he was the one who was clearly being outrageous. But she’d never been the type of woman to run away from a challenge. Surely, if she tried hard enough, she’d find something worth salvaging from this conversation.

She lifted her head to look at him sharply. “Mr. Matthews, perhaps we could discuss your daughter? Your father was very insistent that I make time to speak to you.”

He seemed to find her words extremely funny. His laughter was loud and hard, bouncing off the nearby waterfall and drawing the attention of several tables. “Of course he was. Pa knows what I like, and he really came through for me this time.”

“Perhaps we should limit ourselves to—”

“I figure I owe him big time for picking out such a looker.”

She blinked in surprise, not sure she’d heard correctly. “I beg your pardon?”

“If you come to my place in Texas to evaluate my kid, it doesn’t hurt that you won’t scare off the crows.”

“I see.”

He slid forward in his chair until their knees nearly touched. In a voice trimmed to conspiratorial tones, he said, “’Course, it gets kinda lonely at the ranch. You get finished sizing up Sarah, the two of us might work on a little…bunkhouse etiquette.” His finger touched her knee suggestively. The look in his eyes was glazed with self-assured passion. “You catch my meaning?”

“Yes. I believe I do.”

She stood, so abruptly that the chair wheeled back on its castors and bounced off the lip of the atrium reflecting pool.

Cody stared up at her, expecting her to haul off and slap him. Instead, he watched her indignation turn into exasperation. He had to give her credit. If she was alarmed by his aggression, she hid it well.

He rose slowly, not sure what to expect. Her eyes glittered; he could see anger in their dark, chocolate-colored depths, and a curious…disappointment. With him? That jarred Cody, yet at the same time, he was aware of his own faint, peculiar sense of relief.

She closed her appointment book with a firm snap. “Mr. Matthews, I don’t believe we can continue this discussion. I’m afraid this meeting has been a waste of time for both of us.”

He tried for bewilderment. “Did I say something wrong?”

“I don’t believe you’ve said anything right. Frankly, I find that strange, because your father struck me as sincerely concerned about your daughter’s welfare. And he thinks very highly of you. I understand that you graduated from Princeton at the top of your class. That you’ve been very successful in your business and running a ranch, as well.”

Her chin angled upward. The movement caused a few golden curls to escape along the nape of her neck. Cody found he had to resist the urge to nudge them back into place. He looked away only to meet up with Joan Paxton’s glare of smoldering dislike. She wasn’t finished with him yet.

“What I can’t understand,” she continued, “is why that sort of man would deliberately sabotage this meeting by behaving in a manner that can only be described as repugnant.” She fished a handful of dollars out of her purse, then slapped the bag back under one arm. “I believe your daughter could use my help. For her sake, I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you’ve come to this meeting drunk.”

“Nope,” Cody protested. For good measure, he winked again. “But a few drinks for you probably wouldn’t be such a bad idea. You could stand to loosen up a little. You’re pretty uptight.”

She released a ragged strand of breath, and a moment later he saw color leap to her cheeks. For one frozen moment he felt guilty. There was a sour taste in his mouth, as if maybe he had been drinking. Let up, Matthews. You’ve gone too far now.

But Miss Joan Paxton had more starch in her spine than he expected. The subtle flex of her facial features, the flare of her nostrils—she was struggling for control and winning. Her guard was up now. Her determination transformed her eyes, making them seem lit by fire from within. All bristling anger and indignation, she was damned near beautiful, so attractive that it ignited a sharp thrill in Cody’s senses and almost made him forget just how much he didn’t want to have anything to do with someone like her.

“No, I don’t believe you have been drinking.” Those few syllables were no more than chipped slivers of ice. “I would say there’s only one other possibility.”

“And what’s that, Jo-Jo?”

“That your unfortunate daughter has a jackass for a father.” She tossed the bills on the table. “That should pay for my drink. I wish you luck, Mr. Matthews. I suspect you’re going to need it.”

She pushed past him. He watched her walk through the artificial jungle of the lobby, cutting a precise, angry swath that could have rivaled anything Sherman had planned for Georgia. She didn’t look back. He didn’t expect her to. The role he’d played for her benefit had been Oscar caliber.

He found himself staring in the direction she’d gone long after he’d lost sight of her. Staring…and wondering why success didn’t have a better feel to it. He’d accomplished what he’d set out to do. He’d made her despise him. That final look from her had been sharp enough to slice steel, and maybe that was part of what was bothering him. The fact that Joan Paxton thought he was a first-class son of a—

Ah, hell, where was all this silly regret coming from? So what if some high-brow diplomat’s brat hated his guts? Hadn’t he learned a long time ago how to separate his ego from the core of every dispute? People didn’t have to like him. They just had to give in.

He rubbed a hand across his jaw, his mind fleecy. After today, he’d be glad to head back to Luna D’Oro. If there was any place on earth he understood the how and why of himself, it was at the ranch, surrounded by the people who meant the most to him.

After adding enough cash to the table to cover the drinks—including a generous tip for the uncomplaining waitress—Cody stopped by the front desk. The clerk handed him a pink message slip. It was from Pa, urging him to call the ranch. Cody’s gut belly flopped at the word emergency underlined twice in red pen. By the time he put a call through on the lobby courtesy phone, chaos was already sliding through his system, spreading tentacles of ice-cold, sweaty fear up his spine.

Merlita picked up the phone, letting loose a string of rapid Spanish when she realized it was him. Cody cut in, and in weeping fits and starts, the housekeeper explained the situation at home as his heart leaped to his throat.

Sarah had been taken to the hospital.

THE STEAM OF HER ANGER carried Joan right through the front door of the efficiency apartment she’d recently rented. She banged the door shut, then wished she was the temper-tantrum type so she could take pleasure in banging it shut again.

She was furious and frustrated and…disappointed.

William Cody Matthews had been a disaster. An ill-mannered, backwoods baboon who hadn’t deserved the courtesy of a meeting. She was tempted to call his father and chastise the man for playing such a cruel joke; it would have felt wonderful to channel some of the outrage she felt right now. But she knew a better way to manage that.

Peeling off her jacket and shoes, she plopped down at the tiny kitchen table. Shoving aside a snowdrift of mail, she ripped a piece of paper from her notebook and carefully smoothed it out in front of her.

She felt calmer already.

All her life she’d used the same method to handle anger, disappointment and confusion. List making was her personal mantra, the worry beads she fingered to deal with any problem. As an only child growing up in a household where her father was seldom home and her mother was more interested in her social calendar than raising a daughter, Joan had found lists to be the perfect sounding board. Goals. Fears. Fantasies. Once written down, they became tangible. And once tangible, they became manageable.

A smile curved her lips as she remembered a few of the more important ones: Reasons Why Father Really Can’t Come Home for Christmas, full of a ten-year-old’s unreasonable self-pity. The Pros and Cons of Attending College in Europe, revealing an appalling desire to escape her parents. Why I Will Make an Excellent Teacher, a list that had given her the courage to admit she could never follow in her father’s footsteps.

Oh, there had been plenty of harsh words exchanged in the Paxton household that day. But despite the stale rhetoric and hollow bribes and clever arguments from her father, despite the emotional extravagance that quickly became cruelty and bitterness from her mother, Joan had been adamant—thanks to the list curled in her hand in the pocket of her jeans.

Maybe there were better ways to deal with stress and emotion than making lists, but she’d yet to find one that worked as efficiently for her.

Her recent problem with Headmaster Mueller had never made it to paper. The idea of seeing any of that in bold print had been too humiliating. And her breakup with Todd—that had happened too fast. She was firmly convinced that both those horrid situations had turned ugly simply because she hadn’t taken the time to deal with them in black and white, to weigh her options and make sensible decisions. The result was the emotional turmoil she was still trying to sort through.

Well, she wouldn’t let William Cody Matthews occupy any more of her valuable time. Relegated to a list, he would become insignificant. Forgotten. And she knew just the list she wanted, too.

Across the top of the paper she wrote in big, block letters, What Makes Cody Matthews So Obnoxious. She smiled at the harsh directness of the words and wondered if she’d need a second sheet.

Ten minutes later she had a sizable compilation of sins. Feeling in control once more, Joan scanned the words she’d written, her frustrations released on paper.

Overbearing arrogance

Ego the size of the planet

Poor taste in clothes—especially belt buckles!

Beautiful bedroom eyes

Lascivious nat—

Her eyes bumped back up. Wait a minute. Beautiful bedroom eyes? Where had that come from? Those eyes didn’t belong on her list.

Annoyed, she rose and filled the teakettle with water. Waiting for the whistle, she leaned against the doorjamb and stared at the list on the table. What unconscious imp had caused her to make mention of that man Matthews’s eyes? She wasn’t even sure what bedroom eyes looked like, for heaven’s sake! She regarded the sheet of paper from afar, as though it was a confessional priest who had suddenly betrayed her confidence.

All right, so he had great eyes. She’d give him that. She was probably just missing Todd. And though she had no more than a street artist’s impression of Cody Matthews—all surface and no insight—she was convinced his looks couldn’t make up for that unbearable personality. Number four on the list was a slip of the pen—a harmless notation caused by inattention.

The teakettle whistled, and she jumped. With a cup of hot Earl Grey in hand, she shoved the list into the stack of personal papers she’d brought from Todd’s apartment. She was not willing to give Matthews any more thought. Better to lump him into that worthless brotherhood of men like Todd who didn’t know the first thing about how a woman’s mind worked.

She spent the rest of the evening going through a box of mementos she and Todd had collected in their years together, throwing out most of them. By the time she crawled into bed, she felt physically and mentally drained, sure that her sleep would be deep and soundless.

But in the end, her subconscious mind turned traitorous.

Later that night, when sleep slowed Joan’s brain to a crawl, her usual dreams of Todd faded into the recesses of her mind like phantoms. Instead, into a space where dreams hung like midnight stars, there paraded a herd of silver longhorns. They thundered across vistas of tall prairie grass that rippled slowly in golden waves.

Full of raw, earthy power.

Dangerous.

And chased by a black-haired cowboy whose eyes reflected the brilliant blue of a cloudless sky.

CHAPTER THREE

A WEEK LATER, Joan created a new and unexpected list—The Pros and Cons of Finding a New Teaching Position and/or Relocating.

She wasn’t certain what had prompted her to make it. Maybe it was frustration over Headmaster Mueller’s continued sly and silent observation of her. Maybe it was the impasse she’d reached with a sulky, unreasonable Todd, who’d withdrawn every cent from their joint savings account and refused to consider that some of the money belonged to her. Or maybe it was just the fact that the school term was nearly over. Around this time of year she was always overtaken by a slightly sad feeling of finality, the realization that her children were moving on, away from her protective influence.

Regardless of the reason, in the span of one evening she made the decision not to return to the academy in the fall. The next day she tendered her resignation before she could change her mind. Mueller seemed surprised and annoyed by it, and even Todd made an appearance at her classroom door, demanding an explanation that she refused to give.

Anxious not to lose the momentum of such life-altering actions, she took a fellow teacher’s advice and sent an application and letters of recommendation to a small private school in Oregon. It seemed a daring change, so much so that Joan couldn’t sleep for two nights after she’d mailed the letter.

By the weekend she was feeling disheartened. Every summer she had worked a temporary job. It helped financially and kept her busy during the months until school started again. Since moving out of Todd’s place had been expensive, extra money in the bank would be especially helpful if she had to relocate. But the classifieds in Friday’s paper indicated pitifully few summer jobs available, and by Saturday afternoon, a dozen job applications had yielded nothing promising.

Her job search over for the day, Joan went up the stairs of her apartment building slowly, her feet aching, her hair beginning to tumble down her neck. She retrieved her mail from the box, sighing over a couple of bills. If she couldn’t find temporary employment, how long before her mailbox was stuffed with demands printed in increasingly irate colors? How long before even her tiny efficiency became unaffordable? Her head filled with gloomy thoughts, she fumbled to insert the key into her front door.

The lock was stubborn, as usual, the notches bent out of alignment by some previous tenant. She wiggled and shook the key, but the lock held tight. Shoving strands of hair out of her eyes, she tried to remove the key, but it refused to budge.

Today’s failure coupled with this new irritation curdled Joan’s frustration into anger. She glared at her key ring, dangling impotently from the lock. Nothing seemed to be going right lately. Not even a dime-store lock would cooperate.

Rattling the knob, she gave the door a hard kick that only succeeded in squashing the toe of her high-heeled shoe. “Open up, damn you. What do you think you’re guarding? Fort Knox?”

The words bounced off the empty corridor walls. An open display of anger wasn’t her style. She tilted her head back, concentrating on calming her breathing.

Stalactites of peeling paint hung from the ceiling, held in place by a network of cobwebs. Farther down the corridor one of the hall lights wasn’t working. She hated this place. Moving so quickly out of the home she’d made with Todd had been a mistake, a sacrifice of common sense for the sake of foolish pride.

“If you break it off in there, I’m pretty sure you’ll have to call a locksmith. And on the weekend, it’s likely to cost a small fortune.”

She jumped at the sound of the male voice behind her. The folded newspaper and handful of mail slid from her grasp to land in a haphazard mound at her feet.

She turned to see William Cody Matthews seated on the steps that rose to the next floor. With daylight sliding toward extinction, shadows lay heavy in the corridor. His features were cast in an odd half-light, and partially hidden by the newel post, he looked like a prisoner behind bars.

The first thing she noticed was that he was dressed very differently from the man she’d met nearly two weeks ago. The flamboyant Texas garb had been replaced by jeans and a sport shirt—the trappings of an average Joe. Well, not so average, she amended. He still wore that ridiculous belt buckle. Still had those great eyes, the blue gone almost to sapphire in the dismal light of the hallway.

Every nerve went electric at finding him here. She’d never expected to see him again, and she wasn’t sure it was wise to be alone with him now. Her mind raced as she wondered what her next move should be.

She could see he’d caught her thoughts. He tilted a look of clear blue toward her, his eyes warm and engaging. “I was beginning to think you’d never come home.”

If his affable attitude was meant to soothe her distress, it was a dismal failure. Her heartbeat quickened as he rose from the stairway, coming toward her with the easy confidence of a man completely in command of his surroundings. He nudged her aside so that he could reach the key still imprisoned in the lock.

“Let me try.”

He worked the key slowly out of the lock, then began to reinsert it with all the finesse of a master locksmith. Twisting the metal this way and that, he slid back the bolt in no time. Instead of opening the door, Cody Matthews removed the key, then leaned against the jamb with his arms crossed over his chest.

“You know, old locks are like women. You have to go slow.”

Her pulse stuttered. “Mr. Matthews—”

“It’s like this,” he continued, without acknowledging she had spoken. “You made the same mistake with this lock that I made with you. You tried force. Tried to make it behave the way you think it should, when what you really need to do is get a better feel for it. Find out what makes it work.”

“What are you doing here, Mr. Matthews?”

“I’d like to talk to you. May I come in?”

The thought was unthinkable. “Certainly not.” She extended her palm. “My keys, please.”

She half expected him to refuse. Instead, he let them drop into her hand. She felt oddly relieved when his fingers found no excuse to touch hers. Before she could react, he bent to retrieve the paper and mail at her feet. The classifieds were on top. She noticed with resentment that he didn’t bother to hide his interest in the ads she’d circled, leaving her with all her camouflage blown.

“Looks like you’ve had a busy day. Any success?”

“That’s none of your business.”

He shrugged, seeming to take no offense. “No, it isn’t, but I think I might be able to help you, anyway.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’re full of lots of ideas that you think will help me. Unfortunately I’m not interested in any of them.” A sudden thought made her look at him sharply. “How did you find me?”

“I was at the school yesterday afternoon, but I guess I missed you. A teacher friend of yours told me where you live.” He glanced around the corridor, frowning a little. “She said you’d just moved here recently, but I have to admit, I don’t see this place as quite your style.”

Her patience snapped. “I think you should leave.”

He smiled at her, seemingly unaffected by the sharpness of her voice. “But then you’d miss the opportunity.”

“What opportunity?”

“The chance to see a jackass apologize.”

She wasn’t expecting that. Was it just her imagination, or was he not quite the same obnoxious man she’d met in the Alexandria Hotel? Still too bold. Still provoking. But the crudity had vanished. Of course, he could just be a very good actor…Through the intricacies of her own flaring sensations, she realized the mistake of engaging in any further conversation.

“I don’t think—”

“Miss Paxton, I don’t apologize well or very often—”

“Really? I would expect you spend most of your life apologizing for your behavior.”

She read the accuracy of that dart on his face. He scowled, and then unexpectedly he laughed. For a moment his features seemed incapable of forged feelings, then he shook his head. “I knew you wouldn’t make this easy for me.”

“I can’t think of any reason why I should. Can you?”

“Not a one. I was an ornery SOB the day we met, and you have every reason not to believe a word I say, but I’m honestly sorry we got off on the wrong foot.” He expelled a heavy breath, ran a distracted hand across the back of his neck and pinned her with an earnest glance. “How about we start over? If you’re too nervous to invite me in, we can go someplace neutral, have a cup of coffee. Crow’s a lot easier to swallow if you have something to wash it down with.”

“You don’t make me nervous,” she said quickly, then chided herself for feeling the need to protest.

“I didn’t think so. You’re not the nervous type, are you?”

“No.”

“Good. I need someone who’s not afraid.”

“I don’t understand. And after the way you behaved, I can’t believe you’d come here…”

She let the words trail away, aware of a sudden change. He was still watching her closely, and something flickered in his eyes. Desperation, uncertainty…the light was too dim to be sure.

“Listen,” he began. “I wouldn’t have come here—I’d have written off our meeting as a stupid mistake—but right now I can’t afford to make any more. You were right about what you said. My daughter does need your help. So that’s why I’m here. To apologize for my previous behavior and ask you to hear me out. Frankly, circumstances have made me pretty desperate.”

His words had grown soft by the end of that statement, and his tone of voice carried a fatigue and fear so profound it stunned her. After a long silence she asked quietly, “What circumstances?”

“After you walked out of the hotel, I got a call from home. My daughter, Sarah, had been taken to the hospital with a concussion. It wasn’t serious, but it could have been.” Cody Matthews turned his gaze down the hallway, concealing his emotions as though he waged some private debate. Her eyes were drawn by the sight of muscles bunching along his jawline, and when he turned his head toward her again, his look was tame and collected. “Please. All I’m asking for is ten minutes of your time. This is hard for me, but my daughter needs something that I don’t know how to give. Help me figure out what it is. And how to keep an emergency trip to the hospital from ever happening again.”

Joan drew a deep breath, then let it out slowly. She felt a sense of panic, as though she were poised on the precipice of a very long drop, but his words had the power to catch her heart. A child in need? When had she ever been able to refuse an appeal like that? She slid past him to turn the doorknob, looking up at him at the last minute. “Ten minutes and a cup of tea,” she said sternly. “I won’t promise you anything more than that.”

Within the confines of her tiny efficiency Cody Matthews seemed an overpowering presence, an invasion that left her self-conscious and uneasy. She should have known he wouldn’t settle on the couch to wait. Instead, he wandered the room restlessly, as though he could find clues to her personality through the few items she’d bothered to set out. He said nothing, and it made her uncomfortable to watch him touching the fragments of her life in such a dismal setting.

He studied a small photograph of her parents and herself, an informal shot taken aboard the family sailboat. It was a silly tangle of arms and legs and wind-tossed hair—her father had scrambled into the picture at the last minute—but they were laughing and cuddling close. Many stately, stuffy pictures had been commissioned of Alistair Paxton over the years, but none of them meant as much to Joan as this one.

“Pa mentioned your father was the Alistair Paxton,” Cody remarked. His finger skimmed across the picture, as though he could make contact through the glass. “He doesn’t look much like the ‘Dean of Diplomacy’ here.” He tossed her a sideways glance that was startlingly direct. “But then, that’s probably why you like it, isn’t it?”

She replied with a vague nod, a little thrown by his astuteness. Not even Todd had ever guessed the truth of her relationship with her parents. Before the conversation could become any more personal, Joan escaped to the kitchen.

She ran water into the kettle, then pulled china down from the cupboard. One of the cups clattered as she set it on the counter, tattling a tale of nervousness she’d claimed not to feel. The sound annoyed her. She’d once attended a State Department dinner, met the president, for heaven’s sake. Who was this man Matthews to make her so jittery?

The water was ready in an irritatingly short time. Taking slow, steadying breaths, she came out of the kitchen bearing two cups and a new resolve to find out what Cody Matthews wanted as quickly as possible.

He’d made himself comfortable at the dining-room table that doubled as a desk. Like a good friend who’d stopped by for a bit of neighborly gossip. One ankle was crossed over the other knee, and he smiled at her as she joined him.

Determined to keep the conversation businesslike, she rescued a yellow legal pad and pen from beneath the uncharacteristic litter of paperwork that had been piled up for days on the corner of the table. “Do you mind if I take notes?”

“Suit yourself.”

“You said your daughter suffered a concussion?”

“She’s fine now and back at the ranch.”

“How did it happen?”

He took a sip of the tea, not bothering to hide a small grimace of distaste. “She took a nosedive off one of the barn roofs.”

“Intentionally?” Joan asked quietly, hoping that Sarah Matthews wasn’t the self-destructive type.

Cody Matthews bit back an agitated response. “Hell, no. Sarah’s not suicidal. She was trying to jump onto the back of her horse, like they do in the movies. She missed.” After a pause, his fierce expression mellowed. “I suppose I ought to start at the beginning. How much did my father tell you about my situation?”

“He said you have a twelve-year-old daughter who’s been behaving wildly—”

“Sarah is free-spirited,” he interrupted. “Not wild.”

“You asked what your father told me.”

That calm response won a sheepish look from him. “Sorry. Go on.”

“Your father attended my lecture on attention deficit disorder. He felt it might be the root of Sarah’s problem.”

“I don’t believe my daughter has attention deficit disorder,” Cody stated.

The brevity of that answer should have warned her off the subject. Instead, with slow deliberation, Joan set aside her pen, dunked her teabag one last time, then slipped it onto the saucer. She didn’t look at him, but she was determined to persevere. Denial was a common reaction from parents of troubled children, and taking exception to his attitude would serve neither of them well.

After a moment she said, “I’m not a physician, Mr. Matthews. Nor have I met or even spoken to your daughter. So I wouldn’t presume to offer a diagnosis.”

“Damn,” he said with a look full of regret. “I’m going to end up apologizing to you more in one day than I have in my entire lifetime. I’m sorry if I sounded defensive. Sarah’s my only child, and I get a little crazy when this subject comes up. She’s a bright, strong-willed kid. There’s nothing wrong with that.” He looked at Joan, as though daring her to disagree. “In fact, I happen to like her that way.”

“How long has her behavior been what your family considers unacceptable?”

“Off and on for about two months. Worse lately.”

That was a good sign. A recent change in behavior might indicate the problem was situational. “Have you spoken to your daughter about it?”

“I’ve taken away her allowance. Cut her riding privileges. I haven’t spared the discipline, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. I mean, have you talked to her about the way she’s been acting? Tried to discover if there’s a reason behind it.”

He made an odd face, one full of contradictions. There was regret there, but frustration and annoyance, as well. “Lately Sarah and I have had problems communicating.”

“What about Sarah’s mother? Has she spoken to her?”

He shook his head sharply. “Daphne was killed in a plane crash shortly after Sarah was born.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Sarah doesn’t ask about her mother. She doesn’t even remember her.”

Joan didn’t like the way his face had become a chilling mask of banality when there was such bitterness in his voice. Had he loved Sarah’s mother so much—still missing her even now, after all this time—that he could not discuss her? His abrupt statement was patently false, of course. What young girl didn’t want to know everything about a mother who had never been part of her life?

Joan wanted to ask more, but the hot message glowing in Cody Matthews’s eyes told her that lingering over this line of questioning would gain her nothing. It was absurd and frustrating to feel so much and know so little.

“Who else makes up your household?”

“My father. Merlita, our live-in housekeeper. Ranch hands.”

“No one else?”

“No.”

His mouth flattened, as though he was angry with himself for allowing emotion to seize him, even temporarily. His fingers played along the rim of his cup a long moment. Long enough for her to notice that his hands were beautifully shaped and not at all what she’d expect from a high-powered businessman. Tanned and unmanicured, they were a workingman’s hands.

She made a few more notes on her pad. When she looked up, she discovered that he was watching her intently. His thumbs were hooked under his belt; the slight movement of his fingers made the dining-room light shoot sparks from that preposterous buckle. Her hand stilled, but her chin inched upward. “Something wrong?”

“You take a lot of notes.”

“They’ll give me a better picture of your daughter’s situation.”

“May I read them?”

“Of course,” she said, trying not to register anything but the mildest agreement. “If you feel that they threaten you in some way.”

The look he gave her sent shivers down her spine. “You have a sharp tongue for a woman who’s fresh out of work and just moved out on the love of her life.”

The knowledge that he knew such intimate details about her personal life left her stunned, but she refused to show it. She met his eyes. Trying to modulate her voice, she said, “And you have quite a belligerent attitude for a man whose ten minutes are up and who still seems to need my help.”

Not a flicker of a response crossed his face. Had she overestimated her ability to carry her own weight in a contest of words with this man? A hush took over the room, unbroken except for the growl of afternoon traffic in the street. And then, just before his silence could unnerve her completely, he made a low sound in his throat that could have been laughter.

“All right,” he said, and his face had lightened a little. “What else would you like to know?”

Relieved, she dived into safer water. “Has Sarah had a physical recently?”

“Yes, I had the doc check her out thoroughly when she was in the hospital last year to have her tonsils out. Nothing to worry about there.”

“What about her education? What’s that like?”

“Public school in Goliath—that’s the nearest town of any size. I’d prefer better, but there’s nothing private near the ranch, and I’m not going to pack her off to some fancy boarding school thousands of miles away, see her head stuffed with a bunch of nonsense and have her sent home only on holidays.”

Joan showed no trace of opinion on this information, but secretly she was pleased by Matthews’s determination to keep his daughter close to home. She herself had been sent to all the best schools abroad, and with a tinge of the old regret, she wondered if her parents had ever been as impassioned about her as this man seemed to be about Sarah. She shook off the thought immediately. Now was not the time to mourn for things that had never been. “Has the school done any special testing? What do her teachers think?”

“She’s ahead of most of her class, but her grades have been up and down this last semester. Her teachers say she’s quick and eager sometimes, but often disruptive and disobedient. One of them—Miss Beasley—is the same crab-apple old witch I had when I was Sarah’s age, so I don’t know what to believe from her.”

“Do these behavior problems occur only during school hours?”

“No.”

“During certain hours of the day or night?”

“No.”

“Before or after meals?”

“No.”

“Does she get enough sleep?”

“The kid sleeps like a rock.”

“No insomnia? No nightmares?”

“Nightmares? No. Where are you going with this?”

“Sometimes the symptoms of ADD can mimic other problems. You have to eliminate other possibilities that could be causing this behavior. Dyslexia, for instance. Or anxiety. Even depression.”

Cody made a face at that. “Sarah isn’t dyslexic, and she has nothing to feel anxious or depressed about.”

“Mr. Matthews, do you or any other family members suffer from ADD?”

“Absolutely not,” he said firmly.

Another sore subject, she thought. But she had to be honest with the man. For Sarah’s sake. “It tends to run in families. What about on her mother’s side?”

“We don’t have much contact with her mother’s side of the family. But from Daphne…no.”

Hesitation in that short answer caused her to snap a direct look his way, but judging by the look on Cody Matthews’s face, this, too, was forbidden territory. She sighed, setting her pencil down. When she spoke, her tone was soft, carefully neutral. “I’m afraid this isn’t going to help much. No single question or test can determine if a child has ADD. Have you considered taking Sarah to someone who can give her a complete neurological examination? Someone who can also work up a detailed history of Sarah’s past?”

The soft illumination from the dining-room light revealed an evasiveness on his face. His eyes and mouth had become almost too indifferent, too implacable, yet there was an odd vulnerability in the mask of his features. As annoyed as she was with this deception, she felt moved by his desperation, because a man like Cody Matthews couldn’t begin to fathom a once-loving child who now indulged in an insolent indifference to reason.

He looked down at his hands to see that he had made fists of them, and his brow furrowed as though he found the sight surprising. He played with the handle of his teacup, and she watched him wrestle with his reluctance. “I don’t want someone poking and prying into family business, upsetting Sarah with a bunch of questions. I just want my daughter back.”

The admission seemed torn from him, and he fell silent, into the pit of what he probably considered parental failure. Observing him, Joan felt sure there was a weight of sorrow here she didn’t fully comprehend, some dark, unknown current too strong to chance exploring.

She could see now why his father had said Cody Matthews was likely to balk at outside help, why he had deliberately sabotaged their first meeting. He was a proud man, a proud parent. He’d obviously been determined to immerse himself in practicalities, weathering Sarah’s stormy behavior with a pragmatic unsentimentality until the worst was over. Unfortunately the worst had stayed and stayed, until the man was left with no more choices.

Matthews had turned his head, pretending an interest in the scratch of a magnolia branch outside the window. Without thinking, Joan laid her hand on his forearm to recapture his attention.

“Mr. Matthews, there’s no shame in a father admitting he doesn’t understand his daughter. The fact that you’re trying to help her now, that you’re willing to consider other alternatives, is a very positive sign….”

The words trailed away as his head swung back, his glance falling to his arm where her hand still lay. He looked at her, and she thought the blue of his short-sleeved shirt turned his eyes almost turquoise, so brilliant against the sooty blackness of his lashes. There was something new in the look he gave her, something besides frustration and fatigue. It brought a quick, suffocating tightness to her chest, alarming in its intensity, yet carrying with it the gentleness of a caress.

His head tilted toward her as though in puzzlement, and when he spoke, his voice was low. “My father thinks you’re some kind of miracle worker. Are you?”

“No,” she murmured, suddenly barely able to draw breath.

He smiled, no more than a lazy curl of his lips. She wasn’t sure whether it was one of acceptance or subtle mockery, but it was absurdly charming nonetheless, a smile made to make a woman melt. More disturbing, Joan realized how easily she could fall victim to it.

“I’m a man in need of miracles, Joan Paxton. Work just this one,” he said in a silken tone, “and whatever you want most in life, I’ll see to it that it’s yours.”

It was all silly imagination, wasn’t it? The way his words seemed to work in some secret place within her. She felt as though her center of balance had radically altered, and that all the forbidden fantasies of last night’s dream were on the verge of materializing into life.

His eyes were still on her. She lost the courage to hold his gaze and lowered her head—to discover that her hand was still poised on his arm. The hard muscled flesh felt warm. The feathering of crisp, dark hair tickled her palm. She disengaged her hand so quickly that an outsider might have thought she’d burned herself.

She rose abruptly. The stack of paperwork on the corner of the table slid to the carpet. Willing away her awareness of him, she picked up their cups in a rush that surely must have been embarrassingly noticeable. “What I’d like is a little more tea. How about you?”

By the time she finished speaking she was in the kitchen, so she didn’t catch his response. She knew it was ridiculous, but the thought of rejoining him in the dining room, where the energy in the air moved like an invisible tide, seemed more than she could manage at the moment. Instead, she asked from the safe distance of the kitchen doorway, “Did you say you wanted another cup?”

He was bending to retrieve the paperwork from the floor, but he lifted his head long enough to give her a wry glance. “No, thank you. I’m not really a tea drinker.”

She turned back to the kitchen counter, concentrating on pouring water from the kettle. The odd intensity that had crackled between them only moments ago had passed, but the silence was becoming uncomfortable. She should say something, shouldn’t she? But just when she found an innocuous topic, he stunned her with his next words.

“So, you’ll come to my ranch?”

Sure she’d heard incorrectly, she returned to the kitchen doorway, kettle in hand. “What?”

He was sorting through the jumble of paper, stacking it neatly into piles. “I want to hire you to come to Luna D’Oro. You can evaluate Sarah in person.”

“I couldn’t possibly.”

He looked up at her. “Why not?”

“I have obligations here.”

“No, you don’t. I told you, I know all about your quitting your job, moving out on your boyfriend. One of your fellow teachers—Marilyn, I think her name was—seemed fascinated by the whole thing. She didn’t have all the reasons why, but she liked to talk, and I know when to listen.”

“I’ll definitely have to speak to her about that.”

“Money’s not an issue,” he continued. His blue eyes sparkled.

The still-hot kettle was almost unnoticed in her hand, and she repositioned her fingers around the handle. “It doesn’t have anything to do with money. I don’t have the qualifications you’re looking for.”

“I disagree. Do you think that when it comes to Sarah, I’d take suggestions from just anyone? I checked your credentials. In addition to teaching, you act as an educational therapist for your school. You were invited to take part in that seminar in Austin because of a paper you had published in Higher Education. You know your stuff. And while I may not agree with your findings, I think you’d be impartial. Objective.”

“It takes time to do a complete evaluation.”

“You can take as long as you like. You don’t have a new job to start until the fall, do you? And only if you get that position in Oregon.”

“I’m definitely crossing Marilyn’s name out of my address book,” she muttered.

“But you’ll come?”

“It isn’t just Sarah who would have to be evaluated. It’s important to know how she interacts with others in the family. It would mean a huge emotional investment from every member of the household.”

“I’ll make sure everyone cooperates.”

She gave him a tight challenging look. “Including you?”

“If I have to.”

She withdrew to the kitchen with the excuse that the kettle needed fresh water. While she ran tap water into it, she stared at the wall, thinking.

It was so odd, really, to be mouthing so many objections to Cody Matthews’s idea, yet at the same time, to be overcome by a moment of complete exhilaration and conviction. She could help Sarah Matthews. She could help father and daughter develop coping skills if it turned out the child did have ADD. She’d experienced such conviction before, but never without gathering more information, and certainly never without at least meeting the child in question. But somehow, she just…knew.

Placing the kettle back on the stove, she drew a deep breath, thinking of the motherless and alienated child waiting back in Texas. Joan emptied her lungs, then returned to the doorway.

Matthews looked up from the papers he’d stacked on the table, giving her a questioning glance. “Well?”

“I’ll do it.” Annoyingly, he looked as if he hadn’t expected any other answer. It made her tone sharper than she intended when she continued, “But for no longer than two weeks.”

“All right. I think I should warn you that life on a ranch can require some getting used to. We’re out in the boondocks, but we’re completely self-contained. The land is unforgiving of mistakes, so it’s my world down there. I’m blunt and demanding, and I run Luna D’Oro on my terms. My people call me el jefe grande—the big boss. If that offends any of your female sensibilities, you’d better tell me now.”

She allowed a skeptical expression to flit across her features, refusing to be cowed by the note of challenge in his voice. “Actually, you’ve managed to offend me so frequently in the short time I’ve known you, a few more transgressions will hardly make a difference.”

He laughed out loud at that. “Why, Miss Paxton, you can be pretty blunt yourself.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Not at all. Just means it ought to be interesting. Let’s call this a done deal, shall we?” He extended his hand and she took it, meeting his gaze squarely as he smiled broadly at her.

He wrote out a check that seemed generous, but not foolishly so. Then he rose from the table. By the time they reached the front door, Cody Matthews had promised to send a messenger around with an airline ticket before the week was out. The idea of leaving Alexandria on such short notice was disconcerting, but better to make the break from her past a clean quick one, she thought.

“Someone will pick you up at the San Antonio airport,” he told her. “Although my foreman will probably pitch a fit at having to pick up another ‘expert’ to handle Sarah.”

Her brows rose. This was something she hadn’t considered—that others had come before her and failed. “You’ve brought others to your home?”

“Not like you. Nannies. Two in one week.”

“What happened?”

“Sarah gave the first one a series of interesting bedmates. I believe the one that sent her packing was a king snake.” He cocked his head, and the movement allowed the lamplight to limn his mouth as it curled with amusement. “Harmless. But enough to scare a skittish woman, I suppose.”

She sensed he wanted a reaction, and she refused to give it to him. “And the second?”

“My attorney advises me not to discuss the details of the case.”

She frowned, unable to hide her surprise. “Mr. Matthews—”

“I’m kidding,” he said with a laugh. “You need to lighten up, Miss Paxton. Are you always so serious?”

The teasing glint disappeared from his blue eyes, and for a moment she was stunned by the curious intimacy of his gaze. It reminded her of those moments at the table when her hand had been on his arm. She felt the power of physical awareness arc between them, a temptation to reckless things. It was gone in an instant.

Unsettled, she found her voice, wishing him a safe trip back to Texas.

“Pack for hot weather,” he instructed.

She nodded blindly, but just as she was closing the door behind him, he snagged the edge of it with his hand. “One more thing,” he added, and an unholy grin laced his features with subtle mischief. “This belt buckle is special. It was a gift from my daughter, so I wouldn’t advise telling her what you really think of it.”

He was gone before she could ask what he meant by that. Scowling, she leaned against the door. While she didn’t like that silly buckle, she’d never said a word to him about it, had she? She’d only—

The blood drained from Joan’s cheeks. The list. All his flaws itemized on paper. What had she done with it? She hurried to the dining-room table where the papers Cody Matthews had retrieved from the floor now lay neatly stacked.

Two envelopes down, right beneath the electric bill, lay the list she’d compiled—What Makes Cody Matthews So Obnoxious. The words practically leaped off the page. “Poor taste in clothes—especially belt buckles!”

Scathing.

Satisfyingly petty.

And listed right below it, where he could not have failed to read it, “Beautiful bedroom eyes.”

CHAPTER FOUR

HE SHOULD HAVE SENT one of the ranch hands to pick her up.

In twenty-four hours he had to be in Dallas, negotiating his way past a school of legal sharks determined to chew up his plans for the property he’d bought in San Antonio. He should be gearing himself up for the mental gymnastics of that confrontation. Not bumping along the dusty, knotted ribbon of road that led to Luna D’Oro with Miss Joan Paxton seated primly beside him on the sun-cracked seat of the ranch pickup.

The truck smelled like feed-store molasses and needed new shocks. It was rattling the fillings right out of his teeth, for Pete’s sake. He should have thought to bring the Rover. But it had been an impulse decision to pluck the keys from Tomas’s hand at the last minute to run this errand himself.

He slid a glance across the seat as the pickup lurched into and then out of a pothole. The woman looked tired and uncomfortable, trying to hang on to that ramrod posture of hers, in spite of every rut and curve that threatened to toss her around the cab like a pea in a hollow gourd.

She’d hardly said two words since they’d left San Antonio. There was a pinched look around her lips, and he wondered if some grievance against him was fermenting in her. She was probably angry because he’d taken one look at her expensive luggage, snorted in disgust and then tossed the bags into the truck bed with little more respect than he’d give sacks of grain.

He hadn’t been able to help himself. In spite of his suggestion that she dress in casual, comfortable clothing, she’d come off the plane looking like a Madison Avenue executive: tailored suit, designer attaché case and an air of indomitability. She looked primed for a nine-o’clock appointment with a company president, not a twelve-year-old child. Cody knew that the moment Sarah saw her she’d become as balky as a barn-sour nag.

He felt some of his old rebellion and resentment rise. How could this haughty blue blood succeed where he could not? What had he seen in Joan Paxton that day in her apartment to make him think she’d have some special talent for figuring out what the hell was wrong with Sarah? The woman had admitted she wasn’t in the business of working miracles, so why had he pushed her to take the job?

’Cause you’re flat-out desperate, that’s why. And if he wanted to deny that, he had only to remember last night—the latest go-round with Sarah over the poor showing she’d made for the school year.

She was already barely hanging on by her teeth in two subjects. Last week Miss Beasley had sent home a note about Sarah’s final exam.

Maybe he ought to float the latest problem past Joan Paxton and get her opinion. No sense stalling. Hells bells, wasn’t that the reason he’d brought her here? He chewed the inside of his cheek a moment, thinking that the woman had one heck of a challenge ahead of her.

“Sarah’s in the doghouse with me right now.” He broke the silence. “I’d like to think that means she’ll be on her best behavior, but there’s no telling how she’ll react to you.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her head swing in his direction. “Given what you’ve told me, I’m not expecting to be welcomed with open arms,” she said mildly. “What did you tell Sarah was the reason for my coming here?”

“I told her that I knew she was having a hard time in school lately. At home, too. And that I didn’t seem to be helping the situation much. I said you were an educational expert for children her age, and that you might be able to give us some advice.”

“How did she respond to that?”

“Suspicious looks. A surly attitude. We ended up in an argument.”

“Over what?”

“Her school progress reports this year have been going steadily downhill. Math. Science. Now history. Just before Sarah’s last test, her teacher, Miss Beasley, sent home a note saying that because she didn’t finish some big semester project, if she got anything less than a B on her exam she’d ‘jeopardize her chances for promotion.’ Which, if I remember correctly, is diplomatic teacher talk for being held back a year.”

“So how did Sarah do?”

“She thinks she passed the test. We won’t know for sure until we pick up her grades at the end of this week. But she’s all in a huff. She got a real attitude when Beasley claimed she hadn’t turned in the written portion of her project.”

“What kind of attitude?”

“She called Miss Beasley a liar.”

He sensed her grimacing reaction. “And your response to that?”

Cody took his eyes off the road for a moment to meet her inquiring gaze. “Personally, I think Miss Beasley is still the same dried-up, embittered old biddy she was when I had her as a kid, but I couldn’t let Sarah call her teacher a liar. I lectured her until I ran out of breath and then sent her to her room without supper. I told her if she got held back a year, she could kiss her horse goodbye.” He snorted, remembering what a storm of protest that comment had brought. “She still wasn’t speaking to me this morning. When I told her I would be back around noon and she’d better be there ready to meet you at lunch, she just looked at me.”

Joan Paxton nodded absently, and he wished he could tell what she was thinking. He switched his attention back to the highway.

“Why do you think she called her teacher a liar?” she asked after a long silence. “Why not just call her mean or crazy or too hard? Why specifically that accusation?”

He thought about it a moment, but came up empty. “I don’t know. Maybe she felt cornered. Maybe she’d got caught not completing an assignment,” he said at last, “and that was the first thing she could think to say.”

“Is it possible she did complete it? That Miss Beasley is wrong?”

That approach surprised him. He’d expected her to state Sarah’s behavior was classic ADD. “I’d like to think that Beasley’s wrong, but Sarah’s record on follow-through has been crap lately. More likely this is just one more project she decided not to finish.” He slid a glance toward her. “And isn’t sticking with a project a problem for ADD kids?”

She lifted an amused brow. “You’ve been reading up.”

He shrugged. “Just trying to get a better feel for it.”

She gave him a smile that made the interior of the cab feel suddenly airless, then turned her attention back out the window, seemingly absorbed in the flat, boring landscape. A few wisps of hair trailed against the high collar of her blouse, like gold filaments unraveling from a tapestry. He wondered why she insisted on confining it in that roll, when it would have looked magnificent caught in a stray breeze, swirling around her head and shoulders like the gilded hooded cape of some ancient warrior queen.

He was annoyed with himself for noticing, and for turning so fanciful all of a sudden. Experience always left its mark, and long ago he’d had his fill of women with flawless, aristocratic features who had very little going for them underneath all the window dressing. Sure, she seemed bright, in addition to good-looking. She might even have a spark of interest in him—if he could believe that list he’d read in her apartment. But there was no sense in trying to ignite that spark, because it always got out of control, and sooner or later they’d both end up burned. No more Daphnes, he’d sworn six months ago. And he’d meant it.

He squinted ahead, down the long highway. She was here to help Sarah. Not him. Whatever magic this woman might be able to work with his daughter, he’d better plan on staying immune to it himself.

SPARSE.

That was the only word that came to mind as Joan watched the dry monotony of southern Texas parade past her window. Nothing moved out here. No brooks giggling over slick rocks. No ancient hardwoods competing for space along riverbeds and waterfalls. Not even a puff of dust as a jackrabbit sprinted across the road.

The land here looked hot and hostile. Even the rock formations dotting the landscape resembled the jagged teeth of some fire-breathing dragon, and the battered pickup seemed to be rattling them down into the bowels of the beast.

As though he’d heard some unspoken complaint, the man beside her notched up the air-conditioning. Cool air fanned her cheeks.

“Gonna be another hot summer,” Cody Matthews said suddenly. His eyes flicked over her suit. “Too hot to spend it wrapped up like a New York banker. You bring anything cooler?”

She tossed a quick look his way. In jeans and a well-worn Stetson, he was once more playing the tall, laconic Texan. “I’m sure what I’ve brought will be fine.”

“Uh-huh. First scorcher we get, I’ll be scooping you up out of a dead faint.”

“I doubt that. I’m very adaptable.” She kept her voice as smooth as whipped cream, having already decided that William Cody Matthews was a man who delighted in keeping a person off balance.

“We’ll see,” came his skeptical reply. He gestured over the steering wheel, pointing toward a line of dark clouds on the horizon. “Might get some rain soon. That’ll cool things down a bit.”

“It’s much more dry and barren than I expected.”

“You get used to it.”

She couldn’t miss the affection in his voice. “You like living here.”

“I was born and raised here. My grandfather bought the property Luna D’Oro sits on when there was nothing there but an abandoned line shack. Pa got busted up on the rodeo circuit and decided to try his hand at ranching. Ended up striking oil, instead. Not enough to put us on easy street, but enough to add considerably to the land. Since that time, I’ve expanded our holdings, bought the house we live in now. I can’t imagine living anywhere else but on the ranch.”

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