A Man of His Word

Oh, hell.

“Mr. Armstrong,” she said without turning around. How on God’s green earth was she supposed to muddle his thinking when her own mind was exactly as clear as the Dakota River during the spring floods? “Thank you for coming today.”

He stood next to her. She didn’t know how she felt it, but one moment, she was alone, and the next, his solid warmth was close enough that she thought he was touching her arm. Moving slowly, she turned to meet his gaze.

As she did, the breeze surged like a trickster, throwing her hair around. The look in his eyes went from curious regard to recognition—the wrong kind of recognition. His nostrils flared as his jaw clenched. She was no longer facing a compassionate man. Any fool could see that Dan Armstrong was fighting mad.

“Tell me, Ms. Donnelly,” he said through gritted teeth. “Do you ride?”

He knew—or thought he knew. In a heartbeat, she realized she needed to play innocent. “Of course. Everyone out here does. Do you?”

She couldn’t even see those lovely greenish eyes. They were narrowed into slits. He wasn’t buying it. “Sure do. What kind of horse do you ride?”

“Scout is a paint.” She wanted to cower before that hard look, but she refused to break that easily. With everything she had, she met his stare. “Yours?”

“Palomino.” He stepped around her so quickly that she couldn’t help but flinch. “In fact, I was riding him near the dam site in a pretty little valley the other day.”

“Is that so?” That was the best she could do as he threw open the door of an enormous, shiny black truck and yanked out a brown cowboy hat.

With a bullet hole through it.

She’d gotten a lot closer than she meant to. She hadn’t actually been trying to hit him. She’d been trying to go right over his head, just close enough that he could hear the bullet. But she’d missed. She’d come within an inch of killing a man. For the first time in her life, she felt really and truly faint. The only thing that kept her on her feet was the knowledge that fainting was a confession of the body. No weakness. No confession.

No matter if she was guilty of attempted murder.

Armstrong was watching her with cold interest. “Someone took a shot at me in that valley.”

She managed to swallow, hoping that her reaction would be interpreted as mere shock and not guilt. “That’s awful!” Her voice sounded decidedly strangled, even to her own ears. “Did you see who did it?”

He took a step toward her, until he was close enough that she could see how much his pupils had dilated. The almost-green was gone, replaced by a black so inky that he looked more like a sica, a spirit, than a man. “It was a woman.” His voice was low and quiet, which gave him an air of danger. “A beautiful Native American woman with long, black hair.” With his free hand, he reached out and grabbed a hank of her hair, twisting it around his hand until she had no way to escape. He pulled her face up to his. “Wearing buckskins and moccasins. Riding a paint.”

Beautiful. She swallowed again. He smelled vaguely of coffee and horse, with a hint of something more exotic—sandalwood, maybe. He smelled good. And he was less than a minute from committing assault.

“Buckskins, Mr. Armstrong?” She paused long enough to muster up a look of slight disbelief. “Most of us prefer T-shirts and jeans these days.” His mouth opened to protest, but she cut him off. “I can ask a few questions, Mr. Armstrong.” Oh, thank God her lawyer voice had returned. She pressed on. “While we do not approve of your uncle’s actions, we certainly wouldn’t resort to attempted murder.”

“A few questions?” His lips—nice, full lips, with just a hint of pink—twisted into a full sneer as he leaned in even closer. “I want answers.”

Friends close, enemies closer. She swallowed, and saw his eyes dart down to her mouth. This was playing with fire, but what else was there? “Are you going to kiss me?” Her lawyer voice was gone again, and instead she sounded like a femme fatale from a ‘40s film. Where that came from, she didn’t know. She could only hope it was the right thing to say.

It was. His jaw flexed again, answering the question for her. Then his other hand moved, brushing a flyaway hair from her face and stroking her cheekbone with the barest hint of pressure. A quiver went through Rosebud, one she couldn’t do a thing to stop. The corner of his mouth curled up, just enough to let her know that he’d felt that betraying quiver, too.

He wanted to kiss her, which should have made her feel successful—Aunt Emily would be proud. But his mouth had something else to say about the matter. “Are you fixing to take another shot at me?”

“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.” She couldn’t even manage to pull off indignant. The best she could do was a throaty whisper better suited to that kiss that still hung in the air between them.

His hand tightened around her hair. Oh, no, he wasn’t about to let her off easy. “I thought lawyers were better liars.”

Now she was back on more familiar footing. “That’s funny. I always heard that liars were better lawyers.”

Her stomach turned in anticipation. She’d been kissed, of course, but she’d never been hit. She had no idea which way this would go.

Kiss me. The thought popped into her head from a deep, primitive part of her brain that had nothing to do with Aunt Emily or self-defense. How long had it been since she’d been properly kissed? How long had it been since she’d been this close to a man who looked this good, a man who smelled this good? That primitive part of her brain did a quick tally. Way too freaking long. That part didn’t care that this was the enemy, didn’t care that she’d perpetrated a crime upon his hat. It just cared that he was a man touching her hair, a man who seemed to see past all of her artificial “lawyer” constructs—a man less than three inches from her face.

Kiss me.

He didn’t. With a jerk of his head, he let her hair slip through his fingers and took an all-important step away from her. A sense of irrational rejection immediately took up battle with relief.

She wasn’t out of the woods yet, though. He was still watching her every movement, her every twitch. Her footing became more familiar. She could do this, whatever this was. “I do not take kindly to being a target,” he finally said into the wind.

“I don’t know of anyone who does.” She watched his face as she flipped her hair back over her shoulder. His eyes followed the movement. Why hadn’t he kissed her? “If I find out anything about it, I’ll let you know.”

He licked his lower lip. Yes, it did appear that a beautiful woman could muddle a man’s thinking. He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and fished out a business card. “If you find out anything,” he said, the sarcasm dripping off every syllable, “give me a call. I’d like to press charges. That address is wrong, but the cell number is still good.”

Armstrong Holdings, the card said. Wichita Falls, Texas. Daniel Armstrong, Chief Operating Officer. Damn. He wasn’t just some errand boy, he operated the whole company. Did that include the part that wanted to build the dam? “Of course,” she tried to say smoothly as she tucked the card into her pocket behind her glasses. She had the feeling that pressing charges was the least of her worries. But a cell phone number wasn’t exactly an in. She needed something more. “Where are you staying now?”

The steel left his eyes a little. Yes, maybe they were both back on familiar footing now, because a smaller version of that arrogant smile was back. “At my uncle’s house.” He slouched back against the side of his truck, one thumb caught in a belt loop, the other holding the apparently forgotten hat. Now that the anger had left his face—or at least gone deeper under cover—he was right back into handsome territory. “You should come to dinner.”

“Excuse me?” Of all the things she thought he might say at that exact moment, dinner wasn’t even on the list.

“Look, I can appreciate you not—” he shrugged his shoulders in defeat “—liking my uncle very much. But he’s not such a bad guy. You should see for yourself.”

The spawn of Satan wasn’t such a bad guy? Even Dan didn’t sound like he believed it. With her last bit of self-control, she managed to keep her snort to herself. Besides, a dinner invitation was exactly the sort of in she’d been angling for. Aunt Emily would be thrilled that Rosebud had managed to get invited to that creepy ranch house. God only knew what sort of dirt she could dig up from the inside.

He was falling into her trap—or, she suddenly realized, she was falling into his. After all, two could play at this game.

He notched an eyebrow at her. Oh, yes, play was the operative word. She mustered up her best sly grin as she pretended to think about it. “Quite the peacemaker, aren’t you, Mr. Armstrong?”

“Mr. Armstrong is my uncle.” His smile broadened. “Please call me Dan, Ms. Donnelly.”

Suddenly, she decided she might not mind playing this game. After all, she could string him along with a wink and maybe a kiss—okay, definitely a kiss—without giving away anything, including her body. Just so long as she was the one doing the stringing. “Rosebud,” she corrected him as she batted her eyes and managed a faint blush.

His smile grew warmer—she thought. “Saturday night? Around seven?”

Two days? He wasted no time. She wouldn’t have the chance to find out anything about him before then. She’d be walking into the devil’s lair with nothing but her wits and her looks to keep her safe. Sometimes, she thought as she carefully considered his offer, that was all a girl needed. “All right. Saturday at seven.”

If she wasn’t careful, that smile was going to be her undoing. “Would you like me to pick you up?”

Chivalry had apparently not died. But there was no way in hell she wanted this man in this truck to be seen picking her up on the rez. The wrong people would get the wrong idea, and she had enough to deal with right now. “I know where it is.”

He nodded his head in acknowledgment, and she felt the heat from three paces. Definitely a kiss. At least one. One kiss to hold her for the next three years—was that too much to ask? “Good. I’ll see you then.”

She couldn’t tell if it was a threat or a promise.

Four

Dan sat in his truck, fighting the urge to head straight for the barn, saddle up Smokey and head for the valley. The expectation of bad days were the whole reason he’d driven himself and his horse up here from Texas. He wasn’t going to leave Smokey, his champion palomino stallion, at home—being around Cecil practically guaranteed he’d need to ride.

A bad day at the office was always made better by taking Smokey out to check on the Armstrong oil derricks. Dan paid people to make sure the derricks ran properly, but there was something about getting his own hands dirty that made him feel like the company was all his. Usually, by the time he rode back in, whatever problem that had been bugging him had either ceased to be important or a solution had presented itself. Sometimes both.