They were quiet for a moment, and Lauren looked timidly at their faces. Both were wearing expressions of deep concentration.
* * *
Jared was tired, dirty, and in dire need of a drink as he trudged up the stairs. The ride from the ranch had been hot even on this early-October day. The trails were dusty, choking off a man’s breath. It hadn’t rained since the day of the funeral. He stopped abruptly in mid-stride and forcibly thrust that thought from his mind.
As he reached the top of the stairs, he noticed that the door at the end of the hall was slightly ajar. For some reason he couldn’t name, he stepped lightly as he approached his room. So stealthy were his footsteps that his spurs didn’t even jingle. Thorn would be proud of him, he thought with a smile.
He stopped outside his room and put his hand on the doorknob, but an overwhelming curiosity compelled him to continue down the hall until he stood in front of the door to the guest bedroom.
Why not open it? She probably wasn’t in there. And if she were, what the hell? This was his house, wasn’t it?
He pushed open the door. Thanks to its well-oiled hinges, it opened silently. Lauren sat at a small desk. She was writing acknowledgments to letters of condolence. She had insisted on a project, and Olivia had grudgingly, and with a secret respect for the girl, assigned her this tedious job.
Well, well. The old boy hadn’t done so badly for himself, Jared thought. All he could see was her back, but Lauren turned her head slightly as she bent over the letter she was composing.
It was completely silent in the room except for her pen scratching across the paper and a small clock ticking on the bedside table. Dust motes danced in the warm afternoon sunlight that projected into the room at slanted angles.
Lauren straightened her shoulders slightly and sighed deeply as she dipped her pen in the inkwell. Jared held his breath lest he be discovered, but she bent over the paper once again. From his position at the door, Jared had only a partial view of her face—a smooth ivory complexion with a hint of blush at the cheekbone, and a pair of small eyeglasses perched on the straight, slender nose.
Her clothes were too proper to be true, he thought. The white, high-necked shirtwaist and the maroon skirt could have belonged to a schoolmarm. It was fetching the way the buttons on her blouse followed her spine as if inviting a man to trace his fingers along that graceful back up to a slim column of neck above which was piled a luxuriant mass of hair. God, what hair! It was coal-black with dark blue highlights that added to its richness. A few tendrils had escaped the heavy bun on the top of her head and lay coyly on her neck. Jared wondered what those curls would feel like between his fingers.
She was slender. Maybe too slender. Skinny.
Moving slowly, hoping not to attract her attention until just the right moment, he reached into his breast pocket and took out a cheroot and a match. He clamped the cheroot between his teeth and, putting on the face he showed the world, struck the match against the doorjamb.
The sound was like a cannon shot in the small, quiet room, and Lauren bolted out of her chair. She drew herself up sharply against the desk when she saw Jared, and clutched a dainty, tight fist to her breast.
Jared’s eyes flitted to her chest, and he amended his first speculation. No. She wasn’t skinny.
She looked at him in terror from over the top of her spectacles, and Jared was momentarily taken aback by his first full look at Lauren’s face. What in hell color eyes were those? Blue? No, gray. Goddam. He had to hand it to his old man. She wasn’t bad at all.
Lauren felt like a cornered animal as she leaned against the desk for support. Jared lit the cigar, his eyes never leaving her. The smoke wreathed his face as he lazily pushed the flat-crowned hat back off his head with his thumb. It caught on a thin leather cord tied around his neck and hung against his shoulders.
He squinted at her through narrowed eyes in an insolent and lascivious fashion, raking her body up and down until her cheeks were on fire with embarrassment.
Lauren did not move or speak as she returned Jared’s scrutiny. His hair was brown, with sun-bleached strands giving it the golden highlights she had expected. His complexion was dark, a combination of heredity and long hours in the sun. His eyes, though brown, were light, amber-colored. Like two perfect topazes.
There was a lot of Ben in him, particularly in his physique, but his face showed none of Ben’s merriment. The stance, the face, the expression communicated arrogance, conceit, and contempt.
He leaned negligently against the doorframe, ankles crossed, dressed in much the same manner as the first time she had seen him in the back of the wagon, except this time there was a colorful bandana around his throat. The silver spurs on his boots fascinated her, and she stared at them for a moment before her eyes traveled up the long body to catch his amber eyes, which were still fixed on her in an unsettling appraisal.
“Miss Holbrook, I came to offer my humblest apologies. I understand that on our first meeting, I was somewhat indisposed and behaved abominably.” His voice was Ben’s. It held the same soft timbre and low pitch, but was full of sarcasm. Lauren wondered what she had done to earn this disdain. He was the one who deserved ridicule. “What can I do to redeem myself?”
“You might start by apologizing for entering my room without invitation,” she commented.
He was surprised at her aplomb and cocked a skeptical eyebrow. He recovered quickly, however, and said in soft, conspiratorial tones, “Would you invite me into your room, Miss Holbrook?”
She flushed at his emphasis on the “miss.” Realizing that she still held her fist against her chest, she lowered it quickly, touching her watch fleetingly. At the same time, she took off her eyeglasses with the other hand. Smiling wickedly at her discomfiture, Jared watched her hands, particularly the one that fondled the watch.
“It’s still there,” he said quietly. “I’m not a thief.”
She was furious at having drawn attention to her body.
He pushed himself away from the doorjamb with a shove of his shoulder and crossed the room with the slow, predatory gait of a stalking cat. His spurs jingled on the hardwood floor.
Lauren’s throat closed completely when he stood only inches in front of her. He towered over her, and she had to tilt her head back to look into his face. It required a tremendous amount of courage to do so, but she instinctively knew that it would be to her disadvantage if he thought she were afraid of him.
Her false bravado evaporated as he raised his hand and extended it toward her. The long fingers reached out and, by an act of will, she didn’t recoil.