Lean, Mean and Lonesome. Annette Broadrick

her eyes off Rafe.

      The light mercilessly showed her that the man before her was no longer the boy she remembered. There were creases in his cheeks that bracketed his mouth. More creases covered his forehead. Deep lines were around his eyes. Whatever he’d been doing since she’d last seen him, Rafe’s life hadn’t been easy.

      The shock of being awakened from a sound sleep to find Rafe McClain had suddenly leaped back into her life had her reeling. “How did you get here?” she asked. What she really wanted to know was if this was some stress-induced dream she was having. Could she find a way to wake up and discover she was still tucked in bed with only Ranger for company?

      He leaned back against the door and allowed Ranger to check him out. When the dog appeared to be satisfied, he said, “The usual way. Plane and car—until I got to the ranch. Then I had to hoof it the rest of the way. Why does Dan have the gate padlocked? Does that have something to do with why he sent for me?”

      She shook her head, trying to clear it None of this was making any sense.

      Rafe McClain was back in Texas. He was here because of Dan.

      Dan. She shivered. “When did you talk to him?” she asked.

      “I haven’t. He wrote me a letter a while back. It took some time to catch up with me. Said he needed my help.” He shrugged his shoulders. “So I’m here.”

      She spun away from him, needing some space from the roiling emotions he provoked within her. Peering out the window, she said, “I don’t understand how you reached the house without someone seeing you.”

      “I didn’t figure getting myself shot was part of the deal. So I was careful.” He stretched and smothered a yawn.

      She forced herself to face him She leaned against the kitchen cabinet and asked, “Where have you been? I mean, where were you when Dan’s letter caught up with you?”

      “The Ukraine.”

      That surprised her, although she wasn’t sure why. “What were you doing there?”

      He lifted one of his eyebrows into a quirk. “You writing a book or something?”

      Some things never changed. Rafe had always had a sarcastic comeback when he didn’t want to answer personal questions. As far as he was concerned, every question was personal.

      Why hadn’t Dan ever mentioned to her that he was in touch with Rafe? The man’s name had never come up in all of these years. Now she finds out Dan had contacted Rafe. Why would he have thought Rafe could help him? So many unanswered questions. They continued to race around her head.

      She had to make a decision. Did she call the foreman and have Rafe evicted from the place? Surely she wasn’t expected to welcome him, despite the fact that the ranch belonged to Dan, who appeared to have invited him.

      Rafe drew up one of the kitchen chairs and sat down with a sigh. Mandy knew she was being rude. She could feel the hated color creep across her throat and cheeks.

      She’d often envied Rafe his beautifully tanned skin tha darkened into a burnished copper in the summer. In the su she turned an angry red and peeled. She’d long since decided she needed to stay in the shade. There was nothing she could do about her thin skin that reflected her embarrassment at the most inopportune times.

      This was one of them.

      He must have recognized her discomfort because he decided to answer one of her questions. “I’m a consultant.”

      A consultant. Somehow she had trouble seeing him in a suit and tie working for a corporation.

      “What kind?”

      His white smile flashed across his dark face. “Believe me, you don’t want to know.” He looked around the room “I like the way this place has been updated.”

      “So do I. Dan had it redone a couple of years ago.”

      “Do you live here now?”

      She paused. “No. I live in Dallas. I’ve taken some time off.”

      He glanced at her hands and she realized that she wa clenching them tightly. She deliberately placed them behind her and leaned against them and the cabinet.

      “You’re not married?” he asked, sounding surprised.

      She shook her head without quite meeting his gaze “No.”

      “Why not?”

      It was all right for him to ask personal questions, she noticed. “Why aren’t you married?” she replied, carrying the inquisition into his corner.

      “I never stayed in one place long enough, I guess. Mos women I’ve met tend to want their husband at home with them.”

      She couldn’t imagine Rafe in the role of husband. He was too untamed. “I suppose,” she murmured, wishing she knew what to do with him now that he was there.

      “So what’s your excuse?”

      Her gaze darted to his. She raised her chin. “Maybe no one has asked me,” she replied evenly.

      He grinned and her stomach did a somersault. “I don’t buy that one,” he said, his gaze sliding over her in an intimate perusal that made her shiver in response.

      She lifted her shoulder in a shrug. “No one that I wanted to marry, anyway.” She straightened and crossed her arms over her chest. “Dan says I have lousy taste in men.”

      Their gazes met and held for a long, silent moment before each looked away.

      “You never told me where Dan is,” he said.

      “He—he isn’t here right now.”

      “Well, where in the hell is he, damn it? You keep avoiding my questions. I came a long way to find out why the hell Dan needed me here. So where is he?”

      She had known that she was going to have to answer his questions and had hoped that she could talk about Dan without breaking down. But the lateness of the hour and her sense of vulnerability where Rafe was concerned weren’t helping her deal with the situation.

      She attempted to swallow around the lump in her throat. It was hard to put her thoughts into words. She wanted so much to be wrong.

      “I think Dan’s dead,” she said, her voice breaking on the last word.

      Two

      Rafe studied the woman before him. She no doubt believed what she was saying, but it had no meaning to him. None at all.

      “Dead?”

      He repeated the word as though he’d never heard it before. He shook his head. “He can’t be. I’d know it if something had happened to Dan. He...” His voice trailed away. He knew how stupid that sounded. He, better than most, knew how easily a life could be snuffed out. Rafe wiped a hand across his face, ignoring his exhaustion. “You’d better start at the beginning, Mandy, and fill me in on what the hell’s going on around here.”

      Mandy picked up a glass and absently filled it with water. He thought about asking her for a drink, then decided against it. At the moment he had more important things on his mind. She faced him once again, but her lustrous gray eyes stared past his shoulder and he knew she no longer saw him sitting there.

      While he waited, he looked for the young girl he’d known in the woman standing before him. There were traces of her in the way she stood, the way she moved. He still had the same strong reaction to her, he was sorry to discover.

      Although she was still slender, she’d added curves that would make any man take a second look. Her satiny smooth skin made his palms itch, wanting to touch her cheek. She still wore her reddish-brown hair long. Tousled waves tumbled around her shoulders, unnecessarily reminding him that she’d just come from her warm bed.

      She focused on him once more and