Lethal Attraction: Against the Rules\Fatal Affair Read online

  He stopped drinking and began eating normal meals again. He grew stronger and gained weight, both from the food and from the hard physical work he was doing. He never talked about what had happened. The other ranch hands left him strictly alone except for what contact was necessary during work, but Rule was uncommunicative at the best of times. He worked and he ate and he slept, and whatever Ward Donahue asked of him he would have accomplished or died in the effort.

  The affection and trust between the two men was evident; no one was surprised when Rule was made foreman after the previous foreman left for another job in Oklahoma. As Ward said to anyone who would listen, Rule had an instinct for horses and cattle, and Ward trusted him. By that time the ranch hands had become used to working with him and the transition was a peaceful one.

  Shortly afterward Ward died of a massive stroke. Cathryn and Ricky were at school at the time, and Cathryn could still remember her surprise when Rule came to take her out of class. He led her outside and there told her of her father’s death, and he held her in his arms while she cried the violent tears of fresh grief, his lean callused hand smoothing back her heavy mahogany red hair. She had been slightly afraid of him, but now she clung to him, instinctively comforted by his steely strength. Her father had trusted him, so how could she do less?

  Because of that tentative trust, Cathryn felt doubly betrayed when Rule began to act as if he owned the ranch. No one could take her father’s place. How dare he even try? But more and more Rule took his meals at the ranch house. He finally moved in completely, settling himself in the corner guestroom that overlooked the stables and bunkhouse. It was particularly galling that Monica made no effort to assert herself; she let Rule have his way in anything concerning the ranch. She was a woman who automatically leaned on whatever man was handy, and certainly she was no match for Rule. Looking back, Cathryn realized now that Monica had been utterly lost when it came to ranch matters, yet she had no other home for herself and Ricky, so she had been locked into a life that was alien to her, totally unable to handle a man like Rule, who was both determined and dangerous.

  Cathryn was bitterly resentful of Rule’s takeover. Ward had literally picked him up out of the gutter and stood him on his feet, held him up until he could stand on his own, and this was how he was repaid, by Rule moving in and taking over.

  The ranch was Cathryn’s, with Monica appointed as her legal guardian, but Cathryn had no voice in the running of it. Without exception the men went to Rule for their orders, despite everything Cathryn could do. She tried to do plenty. Losing her father had shocked her out of her shyness, and she fought for her ranch with the ferocity of the uninformed young, disobeying Rule at every turn. At that stage of her life Ricky had been a willing accomplice. Ricky was always willing to break rules, any rules. But no matter what she did, Cathryn always felt that she was no more irritating to Rule than a mosquito he could casually brush aside.

  When he decided to branch out into horse breeding, Monica provided the capital over Cathryn’s vociferous opposition, dipping without argument into the funds set aside for the girls’ college educations. Whatever Rule wanted, he got. He had the Bar D under his thumb…for the time being. Cathryn lay awake at night and thought ahead with relish to the day when she would be of age, savoring in her mind the words she would say when she fired Rule Jackson.

  Rule even extended his domination to her personal life. When she was fifteen she accepted a date with an eighteen-year-old boy to attend a dance. Rule found out about it and called the boy, quietly informing him that Cathryn wasn’t old enough yet to date. When Cathryn discovered what he had done she lost her temper, goaded into action and recklessness. Without thinking, she hit him, her palm slamming across his face with a force that numbed her arm.

  He didn’t speak. His dark eyes narrowed; then, with the swiftness of a snake lashing out, he grabbed her arm and hauled her upstairs. Cathryn kicked and scratched and yelled every inch of the way, but it was a useless effort. He handled her with ease, his strength so much greater than hers that she was as helpless as an infant. Once they reached her room, he jerked her jeans down and sat on the bed, pulled her across his lap and gave her the spanking of her life. At fifteen Cathryn had just begun shaping from adolescence into the rounder form of womanhood, and the embarrassment she suffered had in some ways been worse than the pain inflicted by his callused palm. When he let her go she scrambled to her feet and repaired her clothing, her face twisted with fury.

  “You’re asking me to treat you like a woman,” he said, his voice low and even. “But you’re just a kid and I treated you like a kid. Don’t push me until you’re old enough to handle it.”

  Cathryn whirled and went flying down the stairs in search of Monica, her cheeks still wet with tears as she screamed that he should be fired, now.

  Monica laughed in her face. “Don’t be silly, Cathryn,” she said sharply. “We need Rule…I need Rule.”

  Behind her Cathryn heard Rule quietly laughing and felt his hand stroke her tumbled mahogany-red hair. “Just settle down, wildcat; you can’t get rid of me that easily.”

  Cathryn had jerked her head away from his touch, but he had been right. She hadn’t been able to get rid of him. Ten years later he was still running the ranch and it was she who had left, fleeing from her own home in panic that he would reduce her to the position of mindless supplicant, with no more will of her own than the horses he so easily mastered.

  “Are you asleep?” he asked now, drawing her back to the present, and Cathryn opened her eyes.

  “No.”

  “Then talk to me,” he demanded. Though she wasn’t looking, she could visualize his sensually formed mouth moving as he said the words. She had never forgotten anything about him, from the slow way he talked to the dark, slightly hoarse tone of his voice, as if his vocal cords were rusty from lack of use. He gave her a swift glance. “Tell me about your husband.”

  Cathryn was startled, her dark eyes widening. “You met him several times. What would you want to know about David?”

  “A lot of things,” he murmured easily. “Such as if he asked you why you weren’t a virgin when he married you.”

  Bitter, furious, Cathryn choked back the words that tumbled to her lips. What could she say that he wouldn’t use against her? It’s none of your business? He would only reply that it was more his business than it was any other man’s, considering that he had been the one responsible for the loss of her virginity.

  She tried not to look at him, but against her will she turned to him, her eyes wide and vulnerable. “He never asked,” she finally said in a quiet voice. Rule’s profile was etched starkly against the blueness of the sky, and her heart lurched; it brought painfully, vividly to mind that summer day when he had bent over her with the hot molten sun and brazen sky behind him, outlining him like a graven image. Her body tightened automatically in remembered response and she tore her gaze away from him before he turned and saw the rawness of her pain mirrored in her eyes.

  “I would have asked,” he rasped.

  “David was a gentleman,” she said pointedly.

  “Meaning I’m not?”

  “You know the answer to that as well as I do. No, you’re not a gentleman. You’re not gentle in any way.”

  “I was gentle with you once,” he replied, his dark eyes moving over her with slow relish, tracing the curves of her breasts and hips and thighs. Again the hot tightening of her body warned her that she wasn’t indifferent to this man, had never been, and pain bloomed in her.

  “I don’t want to talk about it!” As soon as the words left her mouth she wished they could be unsaid. The ragged panic in her tone made it evident to anyone with normal intelligence that she couldn’t treat that long-ago incident with the indifference that the years should have brought, and Rule was more intelligent and intuitive than most. His next words proved it.

  “You can’t run forever. You’re not a kid now, Cat; you’re a woman.”

  Oh, she knew that!