In Bed With The Wrangler

Six

Amber hung up the phone after their fifth call to China, her expression somber as Royce’s mood.

“That’s it.” He voiced his defeat out loud.

“Are you sure?”

“Can you think of anything else?”

She shook her head.

He slipped the phone from her hands, setting it on the end table next to the sofa in the living room. The deadline was the deadline, and they hadn’t been able to penetrate the Chinese bureaucracy to make their case to Cheng Li. The deal was canceled.

It was nearly 3:00 a.m. Only a few lights burned in the house, and Stephanie had headed to her own ranch an hour ago. Amber tipped her head back on the gold sofa cushion, closing her eyes. She’d struggled through translations for hours on end, and the strain was showing in her pale complexion.

Royce gave in to the temptation to smooth a lock of hair from her cheek. “You okay?”

“Just sorry I couldn’t help.”

He dropped his hand back down. “You did help.”

She opened her eyes. “How so?”

“I understand now what is and isn’t possible.”

“Nothing’s possible.”

“Apparently not.”

She blinked her dark lashes, and her hand covered his. “How bad is it?”

He rested his own head against the sofa back. “It’ll play havoc with our cash flow. We may have to sell off some of our companies. But, to start off, I’m going to have to call the division heads to keep them from panicking. Firing Barry was a significant move.”

“Will they be angry?”

He shrugged. “That’s the least of my worries.”

Amber didn’t answer, and Royce was content to sit in silence. He turned his hand, palm up, wrapping it around her smaller one. For some reason, it gave him comfort. Simply sitting here quietly, with her by his side, made the problems seem less daunting.

Her hand went limp in his, and he turned to gaze at her closed eyes and even breathing. She was astonishingly beautiful-smooth skin, delicate nose, high cheekbones and lustrous, golden hair that made a man want to bury his face against it.

He felt a shot of pity for the hapless Hargrove. Imagine having Amber in your grasp then having her disappear? Not that the man wasn’t better off. Royce glanced at the portrait of his parents on their wedding day. He usually put it away while he was at the ranch, unable to bear the look of unbridled adoration on his father’s face.

And that’s the way it would have been with Amber, too. Her husband would have gone completely stupid and helpless with longing, only to have her change her mind and move on. Poor, pathetic Hargrove. He wouldn’t have known what hit him.

Royce extricated his hand from hers, shifting to the edge of the couch, positioning himself to lift her into his arms.

“Amber?” he whispered softly, sliding one arm around her back and the other beneath her knees.

She mumbled something unintelligible, but her head tipped to rest against his shoulder. He lifted her up, and she stayed sleeping, even as he adjusted her slight body in his arms.

She weighed less than nothing. She was also soft and her scent appealing. There was something completely right about the scent of a beautiful woman, particularly this beautiful woman, fresh, like wildflowers, he supposed, but sweeter, more compelling.

He moved his nose toward her hair, guessing it was her shampoo. Hard to tell, really. He mounted the staircase, taking his time, reluctant to arrive at her room where he’d have to put her down.

His imagination wandered to that moment. Should he help her undress? Slip her between the sheets in her underwear? Would a gentleman wake her up or leave her in her clothes? Never having been a gentleman, Royce wasn’t sure.

This had to be the first time he’d put a woman to bed without immediate plans to join her. He couldn’t help a self-deprecating smile. It figured. He also couldn’t remember a moment in his life when he’d been more eager to join a woman in bed.

He pushed open her door, carefully easing her through the opening. Then he crossed to the queen-size, brass bed and leaned down, laying her gently on top of the comforter.

She moaned her contentment, and his longing ratcheted up a notch. Their faces were only inches apart, his arm around her back, the other cradling her bare legs. He knew he had to leave her, but try as he might, he couldn’t get his body to cooperate.

“Amber,” he whispered again, knowing that if she woke he’d have no choice but to walk away.

“Mmm,” she moaned. Then she sighed and wriggled in his arms.

His muscles tensed to iron. His gaze took in her pouty lips and, before he knew it, his head was dipping toward hers. Then he was kissing her sweet lips.

Just to say good-night, he promised himself. Just a chaste-

But then she was kissing back.

Her arms twined around his neck, and her head tipped sideways, lips parting, accommodating his ravenous kiss. Her back arched, and her fingertips curled into his short hair, even as her delicate tongue flicked into his mouth.

He leaned into her soft breasts, stroking the length of her bare legs, teasing the delicate skin behind her knees, tracing the outline of her shapely calves and daring the heat of her smooth thighs.

He wanted her, more than he’d ever wanted a woman in his life. Passion was quickly clouding reason, and his hormones warred with intelligence. Another minute, another second, and his logic would switch completely off.

He dragged his mouth from hers. “Amber?” he forced himself to ask. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

Her eyes popped open, and she took a sudden jerk back against the pillow. She blinked in confusion at Royce’s face, and in a split and horrible second, he realized what had happened.

The woman had been dreaming.

And Royce wasn’t the man she’d been dreaming about.

In the morning, Amber was grateful to find Stephanie in the kitchen at breakfast. She needed a buffer between her and Royce while she got over her embarrassment.

She’d hesitated a moment too long last night. When she’d realized it wasn’t a dream, she should have kept right on kissing him. She should have pressed her body tightly against his and sent the signal that she was completely attracted to him, nearly breathless with passion for him, and that making love was exactly what she wanted.

Instead, all he’d seen was her shock and hesitation. He’d been offended and abruptly left the room. She didn’t blame him. And she wasn’t brave enough to try to explain.

“Morning, Amber.” Stephanie was her usual bright self as she bit into a strip of bacon, legs swinging from the high chair at the breakfast bar.

“Morning,” Amber replied, daring a fleeting glance at Royce.

He gave her a cool nod then turned his attention back to Stephanie. “Two days at the most,” he told Stephanie.

“I’ll definitely get you something,” she responded and blew out a sigh. “This is the worst possible time.”

“I can’t imagine there being a best possible time.” Royce stood from the breakfast bar and carried his plate and coffee mug over to the sink. He downed the last of the coffee before setting everything on the counter.

Amber helped herself to a clean plate from the cupboard and took a slice of toast from the platter.

“Royce has to call a division heads meeting,” Stephanie told her. “We need to ask for financial reports from everybody. But he’s worried about panic.”

“Who would panic?” Amber addressed her question first to Royce, but when he didn’t meet her eyes, she turned back to Stephanie.

“I need a pretext for the meeting,” said Royce. “Barry Brewster’s firing is bad enough. Add to that a sudden meeting and financial reports, and the gossip will swirl.

“We have over two thousand employees,” he continued. “Some very big contracts, and some very twitchy clients.” His gaze finally went to Amber, but his face remained impassive, his tone flat. “If you don’t mind, we’ll start a rumor you were the cause.”

“You mean the cause of Barry Brewster being fired, not the money problems?”

Royce didn’t react to her joke. “Yes.”

“Are you leaving today?” asked Stephanie.

At first Amber thought Stephanie meant her, and the idea made her clench her stomach in regret. But then she realized Stephanie was talking to her brother.

Royce nodded.

“Where-” Amber clamped her jaw to slow herself down. It was jarring to think of him leaving with this tension between them. “Where are you going?” she finished, feigning only a mild interest.

“Chicago.”

“You don’t think that will bring on the gossip?”

She assured herself her caution was sincere. It wasn’t merely an attempt to keep Royce here at the ranch.

His eyes narrowed.

“If you come rolling into the office, people are sure to think something’s up.”

“She’s right,” Stephanie put in.

“I don’t see an alternative. I have to talk to the division VPs.”

“Bring them here,” suggested Amber.

Both Royce and Stephanie stared at her.

“There’s your pretext. Come up with a reason to bring them here. Something fun, something frivolous, then take them aside and have whatever discreet conversation you need to have.” She paused, but neither of them jumped in.

“A barbecue.” She offered the first thing that popped into her mind.

Royce’s voice turned incredulous, but at least there was an emotion in it. “You want me to fly the Ryder senior managers to Montana for a barbecue?”

“They’d never suspect,” she told him.

“A barn dance,” Stephanie cried, coming erect on the seat. “We’ll throw a dance to christen the new barn.”

“You’re both insane,” Royce grumbled.

“Like a fox,” said Stephanie. “Invite the spouses. Hire a band. Nobody throws a dance and barbecue when the company’s in financial trouble.”

Amber waited. So did Stephanie.

Royce’s brows went up, and his mouth thinned out. “I find I can’t disagree with that statement.”

Finished with her own breakfast, Stephanie hopped up and transferred her dishes to the sink. She gave Royce a quick peck on the cheek. “See you guys in a while. I have to get the students started.”

As she left the room, Amber screwed up her courage. She definitely needed to clear the air. “Royce-”

“If you have time today,” he interrupted, “could you give me as much information as possible on the cattle ranch finances?” His voice was detached, professional, and his gaze seemed to focus on her hairline.

Amber hated the cold wall between them. “I…”

“Stephanie’s going to pull something together for the horse operation, and I’ll be busy-”

“Of course,” Amber quickly put in, swallowing, telling herself she had no right to feel hurt. “Whatever you need.”

He gave a sharp nod. “Thanks. Appreciate you helping out.” Then he turned and strode out of the kitchen, boot heels echoing on the tile floor.

Amber was curled up on the webbed cushions of an outdoor love seat on the ranch house deck, clouds slipping over the distant mountains, making mottled shade on the nearby aspen groves. She flipped her way through a hundred-page printout from the ranch’s financial system, highlighting entries along the way.

Gopher, one of Molly’s young pups, had curled up against her bare feet. At first, she’d been wary of his wet nose and slurpy tongue. But then he’d fallen asleep, and she found his rhythmic breathing and steady heartbeat rather comforting.

She hadn’t seen Royce since breakfast, and Stephanie was obviously busy getting her own financial records together. Amber’s thoughts had vacillated from heading straight for home, to confronting Royce about last night, to seducing Royce, to helping him sort out his business problems and earning his gratitude.

She sighed and let her vision blur against the page. For the hundredth time, she contemplated her mistake. Why had she panicked last night? Why hadn’t she kissed him harder, hugged him tighter and waited to see where it would all lead?

She was wildly attracted to him. She was truly free from Hargrove now, and there was no reason in the world she couldn’t follow her desires. So what if she’d only known him a few days? They were both adults, and this was hardly the 1950s.

Gopher shifted his warm little body, reminding her of where she was and that, 1950s or not, she’d blown her chance with Royce. The choices left were to leave him, seduce him or impress him. Since she was completely intimidated by the thought of seducing a man she’d already rebuffed, she decided to go with impressing him.

She forced herself to focus on the column of numbers in her lap.

There it was again.

She stroked the highlighter across the page.

Yet another payment to Sagittarius Eclipse Incorporated. It was for one hundred thousand dollars, just like the last one, and the one before that.

She skipped back on the pages, counting the payments and pinpointing the dates of the transactions. They fell on the first day of every month. Where other payments in the financial report were for obvious things like feed, lumber, tools or veterinary services, the Sagittarius Eclipse payments were notated only as “services.”

Amber’s curiosity was piqued. She flipped to the back page. Scanning through the total columns, she discovered one-point-two million dollars had been paid out to Sagittarius Eclipse in the current year, the same amount the year before.

She pulled her feet from the love seat cushion. Gopher whimpered and quickly scooted up next to her thigh, flopping against her.

She smiled at the little puff ball, set the financial report aside and scooped him into her arms. He wiggled for a moment, but then settled in next to her like a fuzzy baby.

“I suppose if I hold on to you, you can’t do any harm,” she whispered to him, checking Molly and the other pups as she rose to her feet. They were curled together at the far end of the deck. Nobody seemed to notice as she carried Gopher through the doorway.

There was a computer close by in the living room, and she sat down in front of it, moving the mouse to bring the screen back to life. She hadn’t graduated in Public Administration without knowing how to search a company. Using her free hand, she called up a favorite corporate registry search program.

An hour later, she knew nothing, absolutely nothing about Sagittarius Eclipse Incorporated. They had to be an offshore company, and a hard-to-trace one at that. She could hear her father’s voice inside her head, warning her that when something didn’t seem right, something definitely wasn’t right. But since she wasn’t nearly as suspicious as her father, she refused to jump to any conclusions.

Shifting the sleeping puppy, she dug into her pocket to retrieve her cell phone, dialing Stephanie’s number.

“Yo!” came the young woman’s voice.

“It’s Amber.”

“I know. What’s going on?”

“You ever heard of a company called Sagittarius Eclipse?”

“Who?”

Amber repeated the name.

“What are they, astrologers or something?”

“I hope not.” Amber nearly chuckled. If Ryder Ranch was paying for a hundred grand a month of astrology services, they’d better be accurately predicting the stock market.

“Never heard of them,” said Stephanie. “How are things looking at your end?”

“Best I can come up with is to stop work on the new barn,” said Amber. And maybe quit paying for unidentified “services.” But something stopped her from mentioning the strange payments to Stephanie.

“I hate to say it,” Stephanie returned, “but I’d better not buy Blanchard’s Run.”

“I thought that was a foregone conclusion.”

“A girl can hope.”

This time, Amber did laugh at the forlorn little sigh in Stephanie’s voice. “Suck it up, princess.”

“Easy for you to say. It’s not your business being compromised.”

Amber couldn’t deny it. What’s more, she couldn’t ignore the fact that she didn’t have a business to compromise. Nor did she have a career to compromise. The only thing she’d ever been able to call a vocation was her role as Hargrove’s loyal fiancée and future wife. And she’d completely blown that job yesterday.

“What else have you got?” she asked, shoving the disagreeable thoughts to the back of her mind.

“Let me see.” Stephanie shuffled some papers in the background. “I can delay a tack order, struggle through with our existing jumps. Man, I hate to do that. But the horses have to eat, the employees need paychecks, and we don’t dare cut back on the competition schedule.”

Royce’s deep voice broke in from behind Amber. “I see you’ve changed your mind.”

She jerked around to face him in his Western shirt and faded jeans. A flush heated her face. Yes, she’d changed her mind. She’d changed her mind the second he left her bedroom last night.

But he was staring at the puppy in her lap, and she realized he was referring to a completely different subject.

“Royce is here,” she said into the mouthpiece.

“Tell him I’ll be down there before dinner.”

“Sure.” She signed off and hung up the phone, adjusting Gopher’s little body when she realized her arm was beginning to tingle from lack of circulation. “He’s very friendly,” she told Royce.

“Are you taking him home?”

“Have you ever heard of a company called Sagittarius Eclipse?” she countered, not wanting to open the subject of her going home. She’d pretend she didn’t notice he was anxious for her to leave.

“Never,” he answered, watching her closely, the distance and detachment still there in his expression and stance.

She debated her next move, unable to shake the instinct that told her the payments were suspicious.

“Why do you ask?” he prompted.

“The ranch is making payments to them.”

“For what?”

“That’s just it. I can’t tell.”

“Tools? Supplies? Insurance?”

“Insurance, maybe.” She hadn’t thought of that. “The entries only say ‘services.’” She reached behind her for the report, and Gopher wriggled in her lap.

“Better put him back outside,” Royce suggested.

Amber moved to the screen door, deposited the puppy on the deck and returned to point out the entries to Royce.

“I searched for the company on the Internet,” she offered while he glanced through the pages she’d noted. “I can’t find anything on them, not domestically, not offshore.”

He raised a questioning brow.

“I learned corporate research at U of C.”

Royce’s jaw tightened, and she could feel the wheels turning inside his head.

She dared voice the suspicion that was planted inside her brain. “Do you think McQuestin could be-”

“No.”

“His niece?”

“Not a chance. Not for these amounts.”

“McQuestin had to know, right?” The man worked with the business accounts on a daily basis. Whatever was going on with Sagittarius Eclipse, McQuestin had to be aware.

“It’s legit,” Royce said out loud, but his spine was stiff, and he was frowning.

“What do you want to do?” she asked. Maybe this was the tip of the iceberg. Maybe Sagittarius Eclipse would help them solve some kind of embezzlement scheme. Maybe she could even help alleviate the company’s cash flow problems.

He reached into the breast pocket of his blue-and-gray plaid shirt, retrieving his cell phone and searching for a number. His hair was damp with sweat, face streaked with dust, sleeves rolled up to reveal his tanned, muscular forearms. Amber’s gaze went on a wayward tour down his body, her hormones reaching with predictability to his sex appeal.

He pressed a button on the phone, and the ringing tone became audible through the small speaker.

Amber pointed to the screen door. “Do you want me to-”

Royce shook his head. “You’re the one that found it. Let’s hear what McQuestin has to say.”

A woman’s voice bid them hello.

“Maddy? It’s Royce.”

“Oh, hey, Royce. He’s doing okay today. They think they got the last of the bone fragments, and the infection’s calming down.”

“Good to hear,” said Royce. “Can I talk to him for a minute?”

Maddy hesitated. “He’s pretty doped up. Can I help with something?”

“It’s important,” said Royce, an apology in his voice.

“Well. Okay.” The sounds went muffled for a few moments.

“Yeah?” came a gravelly voice.

“It’s Royce, Mac. How’re you feeling?”

“Like the bronc won,” McQuestin grumbled.

Amber couldn’t help but smile.

“You married yet?” McQuestin’s voice was slightly slurred.

“That was Jared,” Royce corrected.

“Mighty pretty girl,” McQuestin mused. “Should have married her yourself.”

“Jared might have had an objection to that.”

“He’s too busy…Hey! Did you wash the ears?”

Royce and Amber glanced at each other in amusement.

“Mac,” Royce tried.

“What now?” MacQuestin grumbled.

“You know anything about Sagittarius Eclipse?”

There was a silence, during which their amusement turned to concern.

“I paid ’em,” said McQuestin, obviously angry. “What else would a man do?”

“What exactly did you pay them for?”

McQuestin snorted. “You tell Benteen…” Then his voice turned to a growl. “Somebody should have shot the damn dog yesterday.”

Maddy’s voice came back. “Can this wait, Royce? You’re really upsetting him.”

“I’m sorry, Maddy. Of course it can wait. Keep me posted, okay?”

“Will do.” McQuestin’s voice still ebbed and flowed in the background. “Better go.”

Royce signed off.

“Who’s Benteen?” asked Amber.

Royce’s voice was thoughtful, and he placed the phone back in his pocket. “My grandfather. He died earlier this year. You think you could dig a little deeper into this?”

Amber nodded. Her curiosity was piqued. She’d like nothing better than to sleuth around Sagittarius Eclipse and figure out its relationship to the Ryder Ranch.