The Cowboy and the Lady. Diana Palmer

go by yourself.”

      He looked briefly uncomfortable. “Uh, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

      She blinked at him across the luxurious carpeted room with its modern chrome-trimmed furniture. “I beg your pardon?”

      “It’s no deal unless you come along.”

      “Why?”

      “Because we’re partners,” he said stubbornly, his lower lip thrusting forward. “And mostly because Duncan Whitehall won’t discuss it without you. He’s considering our agency because of his friendship with you. How about that? He came looking for us.”

      That was strange. She and Duncan had been friends for many years, but knowing how his brother felt, it was odd that he’d insist on her presence for business.

      “But Jace hates me,” she murmured, wide-eyed. “I don’t want to go, Terry.”

      “Why does he hate you, for heaven’s sake?” he asked, exasperated.

      “Most recently,” she admitted, “because I ran over his quarter-million-dollar bull.”

      “Come again?”

      “Well, I didn’t actually do it. Mother did, but she was so afraid of Jace that I took the blame. It didn’t endear me to him, either—he was a grand champion.”

      “Jace?”

      “The bull!” She folded her arms across her chest. “Mother can’t accept the fact that the old days, when we had money, are gone. I do. I can stand alone. But she can’t. If she wasn’t able to visit Marguerite at Casa Verde for several weeks a year, and pretend nothing has changed, I’m not sure she could manage.” She shrugged. “Jace hated me anyway. It just gave him a better reason to let him think I crippled the animal.”

      “When did all this happen?” he asked curiously. “You never mentioned it after your trip…of course, you looked like death warmed over for a couple of weeks, and I was head over heels with that French model….”

      She smiled. “Exactly.”

      He sighed. “Well, it doesn’t change things, anyway. If you don’t go with me, we forfeit the account.”

      “We may forfeit it anyway, if Jace has his way,” she reminded him. “It’s only been six months. I promise you he hasn’t gotten over it.”

      His pale eyes narrowed. “Amanda, are you really afraid of him?”

      She smiled wanly. “I didn’t realize it showed.”

      “That’s a first,” he observed, amused. “You aren’t the shrinking violet type, and I’ve seen that sweet temper of yours a time or two in the past year.” His lips pursed. “Why are you afraid of him?”

      She turned away. “Now, there, my friend, is a question. But I’m afraid I don’t have an answer.”

      “Does he hit?”

      “Not women,” she said. “I’ve seen him deck a man, though.” She winced at the memory.

      “Over a woman?” he fished, grinning.

      She averted her eyes. “Over me, actually. One of the Whitehalls’ hands got a little too friendly with me to suit Jace, and he gave him a black eye before he fired him. Duncan was there, too, but he hadn’t got his mouth open before Jace jumped in. Trying to run my life, as usual,” she added unfairly.

      “I thought Jace was an old man.”

      “He is,” she said venomously. “Thirty-three and climbing fast.”

      He laughed at her. “Ten whole years older than you.”

      She bristled. “I can see what fun this trip is going to be.”

      “Surely he’s forgotten the bull,” he said comfortingly.

      “Do you think so?” Her eyes clouded. “I had to watch Jace shoot him after the accident. And I’ll never forget how he looked or what he said to me.” She sighed. “Mother and I ran for our lives, and I drove all the way home in a borrowed car.” The skirt of her dress swirled gracefully around her long, slender legs as she turned away. “It was a lot of fun, with a sprained wrist, too, I’ll tell you that.”

      “Don’t you believe in burying the hatchet?”

      “Sure. So does Jace—about two inches deep at the peak of my forehead….”

      “How about if you go home and pack?” he suggested with a grin.

      “Home.” She laughed softly. “Only you could call that one-bedroom efficiency apartment a home. Mother hates it so. I suppose that’s why she spends her life visiting old friends.” Visiting. There was another word for it: sponging, and Jace never tired of using it. If he’d had any idea that Beatrice Carson, not her daughter, had steered that car broadside into Duke’s Ransom, he’d have thrown her out for good, despite all his mother’s fiery protests.

      “She isn’t at the Whitehall place now?” Terry asked uneasily, visions of disaster clouding his pale eyes.

      Amanda shook her head. “It’s spring. That means the Bahamas.” Beatrice had a schedule of sorts about where she visited and when. Right now she was with Lacey Bannon and her brother Reese. But Marguerite Whitehall’s turn was coming up soon, and Amanda was already afraid for her. If Beatrice let anything slip about that stupid bull while she was on the ranch…

      “Maybe Duncan will protect me,” she murmured wistfully. “Since it was his idea to drag me out to Casa Verde. And I thought he was my friend,” she groaned.

      Terry toyed with a stack of photographs on his neat desk. “You’re not really sore at me, are you?”

      She shrugged. “I don’t know yet. But if Jace turns thumbs down on the account, don’t blame me. Duncan should have let you handle it. I’ll only jinx you.”

      “No, you won’t,” he promised. “You won’t regret it.”

      She glanced at him over her shoulder with a wry smile. “That’s exactly what Mother said when she coaxed me into going to Casa Verde six months ago. I hope your predictions are more accurate than hers were.”

      

      * * *

      Late that night she sat curled up in her comfortable old armchair long after the prime time shows had gone off, watching a news program that she didn’t really see. Her eyes were on a photograph in an album, a color snapshot of two men: one tall, one short; one solemn, one smiling. Jace and Duncan, on the steps of the big Victorian mansion at Casa Verde with its green trim and huge white columns and sprawling wide front porch scattered with heavy rocking chairs and a swing. Duncan was smiling, as usual. Jace was openly glaring at the camera, his dark, hard face drawn into a brooding scowl, his eyes glittering like new silver under light. Amanda shivered involuntarily at that glare. She’d been holding the camera, and the glare had been for her.

      If only there were some way out of this trip, she thought wildly. If only she could lock the door and put her head under the pillow and make it all go away. If only her father were still alive to control Beatrice. Bea was like a child, backing away from reality like a butterfly from an outstretched hand. She hadn’t even protested when Amanda took the blame for hitting the bull and brought Jace’s wrath onto her head. She sat right there and let her daughter take the responsibility for it, just as she’d let her take the responsibility for dozens of similar incidents.

      And Jace had been given reason to hate her mother long before that accident. But Amanda was too tired to think about that, too. It seemed that she spent her life protecting Bea. If only some kind, demented man would come along and marry her vivacious little headache and take it away to Alaska, or Tahiti, or lower Siberia…

      She took one last look at the Whitehall brothers before she closed the album. Now why had Duncan insisted that