Unlikely Lover

“Mesquite,” he said. “It’s all over the place at the ranch, but don’t ever go grabbing at its fronds. It’s got long thorns everywhere.”

“Oh, we don’t have mesquite in Georgia,” she commented, clasping her purse.

“No, just peach trees and magnolia blossoms and dainty little cattle farms.”

She glared at him. “In Atlanta we don’t have dainty little cattle farms, but we do have a very sophisticated tourism business and quite a lot of foreign investors.”

“Don’t tangle with me, honey,” he advised with a sharp glance. “I’ve had a hard morning, and I’m just not in the mood for verbal fencing.”

“I gave up obeying adults when I became one,” she replied.

His eyes swept over her dismissively. “You haven’t. Not yet.”

“I’ll be twenty-two this month,” she told him shortly.

“I was thirty-five last month,” he replied without looking her way. “And, to me, you’d still be a kid if you were four years older.”

“You poor, old, decrepit thing,” she murmured under her breath. It was getting harder and harder to feel sorry for him.

“What an interesting houseguest you’re going to make, Miss Raymond,” he observed as he drove down the interstate. “I’ll have to arrange some razor-blade soup to keep your tongue properly sharpened.”

“I don’t think I like you,” she said shortly.

He glared back. “I don’t like women,” he replied and his voice was as cold as his eyes.

She wondered if he knew why she’d come and decided that Aunt Lillian had probably told him everything. She averted her face to the window and gnawed on her lower lip. She was being deliberately antagonistic, and her upbringing bristled at her lack of manners. He’d asked Lillian to bring her out to Texas; he’d even paid for her ticket. She was supposed to cheer him up, to help him write his memoirs, to make his last days happier. And here she was being rude and unkind and treating him like a bad-tempered old tyrant.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a minute.

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, unable to look at him. “You let me come here, you bought my ticket, and all I’ve done since I got off the plane is be sarcastic to you. Aunt Lillian told me all about it, you know,” she added enigmatically, ignoring the puzzled expression on his face. “I’ll do everything I can to make you glad you’ve brought me here. I’ll help you out in every way I can. Well,” she amended, “in most ways. I’m not really very comfortable around men,” she added with a shy smile.

He relaxed a little, although he didn’t smile. His hand caressed the steering wheel as he drove. “That’s not hard to understand,” he said after a minute, and she guessed that her aunt had told him about her strict upbringing. “But I’m the last man on earth you’d have to worry about in that particular respect. My women know the score, and they aren’t that prolific these days. I don’t have any interest in girls your age. You’re just a baby.”

Annoying, unnerving, infuriating man, she thought uncharitably, surprised by his statement. She looked toward him hesitantly, her eyes quiet and steady on his dark face. “Well, I’ve never had any interest in bad-tempered old men with oil wells,” she said with dry humor. “That ought to reassure you as well, Mr. Jessup, sir.”

“Don’t be cheeky,” he murmured with an amused glance. “I’m not that old.”

“I’ll bet your joints creak,” she said under her breath.

He laughed. “Only on cold mornings,” he returned. He pulled into the road that led to Three Forks and slowed down long enough to turn and stare into her soft blue eyes. “Tell you what, kid, you be civil to me and I’ll be civil to you, and we’ll never let people guess what we really think of each other. Okay?”

“Okay,” she returned, eager to humor him. Poor man!

His green eyes narrowed. “Pity, about your age and that experience,” he commented, letting his gaze wander over her face. “You’re uncommon. Like your aunt.”

“My aunt is the reincarnation of General Patton,” she said. She wondered what experience he meant. “She could win wars if they’d give her a uniform.”

“I’ll amen that,” he said.

“Thanks for driving up to get me,” she added. “I appreciate it.”

“I didn’t know how you’d feel about a strange cowboy,” he said gently. “Although we don’t know each other exactly, I knew that Lillian’s surely mentioned me and figured you’d be a bit more comfortable.”

“I was.” She didn’t tell him how Lillian had described him as Attila the Hun in denim and leather.

“Don’t tell her we’ve been arguing,” he said unexpectedly as he put the car back in gear and drove up to the house. “It’ll upset her. She stammered around for a half hour and even threatened to quit before she got up the nerve to suggest your visit.”

“Bless her old heart.” Mari sighed, feeling touched. “She’s quite a lady, my aunt. She really cares about people.”

“Next to my grandmother, she’s the only woman that I can tolerate under my roof.”

“Is your grandmother here?” she asked as they reached a huge cedarwood house with acres of windows and balconies.

“She left last week, thank God,” he said heavily. “One more day of her and I’d have left and so would Lillian. She’s too much like me. We only get along for short stretches.”

“I like your house,” she remarked as he opened the door for her.

“I don’t, but when the old one burned down, my sister was going with an architect who gave us a good bid.” He glared at the house. “I thought he was a smart boy. He turned out to be one of those innovative New Wave builders who like to experiment. The damned bathrooms have sunken tubs and Jacuzzis, and there’s an indoor stream…Oh, God, what a nightmare of a house if you sleepwalk! You could drown in the living room or be swept off into the river.”

She couldn’t help laughing. He sounded horrified. “Why didn’t you stop him?” she asked.

“I was in Canada for several months,” he returned. He didn’t elaborate. This strange woman didn’t need to know that he’d gone into the wilderness to heal after Caroline’s betrayal and that he hadn’t cared what replaced the old house after lightning had struck and set it afire during a storm.

“Well, it’s not so bad,” she began but was interrupted when Lillian exploded out of the house, arms outstretched. Mari ran into them, feeling safe for the first time in weeks.

“Oh, you look wonderful,” Lillian said with a sigh. “How are you? How was the trip?”

“I’m fine, and it was very nice of Mr. Jessup to come and meet me,” she said politely. She turned, nodding toward him. “Thanks again. I hope the trip didn’t tire you too much?”

“What?” he asked blankly.

“I told Mari how hard you’d been working lately, boss,” Lillian said quickly. “Come on, honey, let’s go inside!”

“I’ll bring the bag,” Ward said curiously and followed them into the rustic but modern house.

Mari loved it. It was big and rambling and there was plenty of room everywhere. It was just the house for an outdoorsman, right down to the decks that overlooked the shade trees around the house.

“I think this place is perfect for Ward, but for heaven’s sake, don’t tell him that! And please don’t let on that you know about his condition,” Lillian added, her eyes wary. “You didn’t say anything about it?” she asked, showing Mari through the ultramodern upstairs where her bedroom overlooked the big pool below and the flat landscape beyond, fenced and cross-fenced with milling cattle.

“Oh, no, Scout’s honor,” Mari said. “But how am I going to help him write his memoirs?”

“We’ll work up to it in good time,” Lillian assured her. “He, uh, didn’t ask why you came?”

Mari sighed. “He seemed to think I’d asked to come. Odd man, he thought I was afraid of him. Me, afraid of men, isn’t that a scream? Especially after what Beth and I did at that all-night department store.”

“Don’t ever tell him, please,” Lillian pleaded. “It would…upset him. We mustn’t do that,” she added darkly. “It could be fatal!”