Wildfire (2 page)

"You were right the first time," Rae said slowly. "Tanner West is a dangerous man."

"Yeah," Glenna said dreamily, sighing as she turned away from the window. "Back to work. I guess I'd better get to the post office." Sudden-

ly her eyes brightened. "Maybe I'll walk today. If Tanner stays put, I just might happen to run into him."

When the other woman grabbed up a handful of envelopes from the desk and rushed out of the room, Rae laughed and returned to her chair.

Nothing that Glenna had told her came as any great shock. She wouldn't put anything past Tanner. But the fact that her friend hadn't expected Drew's defense of Tanner did surprise her. It was exactly the kind of thing Drew would do. Because Drew was the kind of man Johnny would have become, if he had been given the chance. A man whose personal integrity was never in doubt, a man whose sense of loyalty was unquestionable.

She glanced again at the framed portrait on her desk. Johnny would have been thirty-two now. Only a little younger than Drew. And although physically the two men were nothing alike, there was the same look of innate sweetness about them. Drew was calm and assured, like Johnny, and Drew held the same concern for his fellow man.

Drew McCallister would do all the things Johnny had not been given the chance to do. He would be the kind of father who set a solid, loving example for his children. And the woman lucky enough to become his wife would be cherished, truly and deeply cherished. Drew would—

"Dreaming erotic dreams, Rae?"

Even as her eyes flew open, Rae already knew who had invaded the private territory of her thoughts. Tanner's low, husky voice was unmistakable.

The door to the outer office stood open, and he leaned lazily against the frame, watching her with those dark devil's eyes.

After a moment he pushed away from the door and moved on into the room. "Is this what you do all day? Sit in here and think sexy thoughts? Naked bodies, hot and sweaty, all tangled up together? Is that what keeps you going? Do you—"

"Why are you here, Tanner?" she interrupted, her tone indifferent.

His shrug was brief, a casual movement of broad shoulders. "I'm just your average tourist, paying a visit to foreign climes. See, I had a sudden yen to step across the line and stand elbow to elbow with moral probity. You're a native, Rae, so maybe you can tell me ... Does goodness always feel so damned dusty?"

Raising one brow, she tapped her pen impatiently on the desk, silently urging him to get to the real reason for his visit.

He gazed at her just long enough to make her shift in her chair before saying, "Joe wants you to come out to the ranch this afternoon. A couple of people have dropped dead, so his will needs revising."

The tapping stopped as Rae's hand froze in mid-air. "Me?" she squeaked, her eyes widening in surprise. "Old Joe ... I mean, Mr. McCallister wants me to revise his will? Are you sure that's what he said?"

"Joe isn't an easy man to misunderstand. He mostly talks at the top of his lungs."

After staring at her pen for a second, Rae raised her gaze to Tanner. "But why me? Everyone—at least everyone of Joe McCallister's stature— uses Donnie Lee." Donnie Lee Coker was not only born and raised in Dicton, he had practiced law there for more than thirty years.

"Why me?" she repeated.

Tanner took a seat in the chair across from her, then slid down and slung one leg over the padded arm. Only when he was comfortable did he turn his attention to her question.

"It probably has to do with the fact that Joe and Coker were some kind of rivals back in their wild and woolly days. For the past twenty or thirty years, Joe has been using Amos Roach over in Kliester, but since Amos is one of the ones who dropped dead, he decided to give you a shot. He wants you to start with the will and see how that goes, then maybe he'll turn over the rest of it to you."

"That doesn't explain why he asked for me. There are plenty of other lawyers in town for him to choose from. Jake Watkins. .. Obie Jennings . .. Doesn't T. J. Goolsby specialize in agricultural law?"

"Now I see why you don't have any clients," Tanner said wryly. "I'm sure there are a lot of reasons why he picked you, but the main one is, using you will put Coker's big fat nose out of joint."

His grin was slighdy malicious. "You have to admire Joe. It's a neat, unmistakable insult. By tomorrow morning everyone in Welch County will know Joe would rather use an outsider, a female to boot, than go to Donnie Lee Coker."

Now that sounded like something Joe McCallister would do, Rae conceded silently. Back in his heyday, the elder McCallister's feuds had been as famous as his extramarital affairs.

"John Joseph McCallister wants me to revise his will," she murmured aloud, shaking her head in amazement.

Tanner chuckled. "Now you're getting it. And here's a bonus for you: If you take your time with all the legal mumbo jumbo, draw out the whereases and heretofores, you might even get to stay for dinner. Does the thought of sitting at the same table with Drew make you hot, Rae?"

At the change in Tanner's tone she glanced up sharply. He had moved and was now leaning across her desk. Before she could stop him, he reached out and began to twine a single auburn curl around his forefinger.

Rae flinched, jerking her head away. And then uneasiness gave way to anger. He had no right. He had no right to stand there casually touching her hair. Casually touching her private thoughts and feelings.

As he kept his gaze trained on her face, Tanner's dark eyes narrowed, and he let out a long, low whistle.

"Voodoo woman," he said, his normally husky voice growing deeper. "When you get mad, you don't look like somebody's kid sister anymore. Those baby-blue eyes look like opals ... like lightning in the tropics. You ought to get mad around Drew sometime, Rae. Then he might actually see you."

Swearing a silent curse, Rae exhaled a short, exasperated breath. She knew better than to let him see her anger. Any reaction at all from her would only add to his enjoyment.

Gritting her teeth, she watched in silence as Tanner moved around to her side of the desk and leaned against it, his long legs inches away from hers.

"You know what your problem is?" he asked, still watching her.

She tilted her chair back, raising her head to meet his dark gaze. "Yes," she said flatly, "men who are dense enough to think I'm interested in their opinions."

He chuckled softly. "No, your problem is you. You've got the wrong idea about yourself. Somewhere along the line—it probably started back when you were still in the cradle—somebody told you that you were a good little girl, and like an idiot, you bought it. Which is why you've spent your whole life living a lie, wondering why you don't feel easy in your own skin."

"You know nothing about me," she said tightly.

"Maybe, maybe not. Sometimes I get this crazy idea about you. Sometimes I think maybe there's fire in you. And not a tame little Girl Scout fire either. Wildfire, Rae. Burning hot and hard ... like on the night I first saw you."

He paused just long enough for the memory of a starburst-charged moment to fill the space between them.

"Lone Dees madness," he murmured. "It was all right there in your eyes for anyone to see. Do you know how many babies are born nine months after Lone Dees? Is that what it was, Rae? Do we have to wait another ten years for what's inside you to come spilling out? Or is it always there, waiting for the rest of the world to catch up?"

He smiled. "One thing's certain, if it's there, you don't know what to do with it. That's why you keep it hidden and pretend like it doesn't exist. But I'll tell you something, sweetness"—although he hadn't moved, when his voice dropped to a husky whisper, he seemed closer—"if it's there, and if you ever decided to let it out in the open, you'd have men howling after you like freakin' alley cats, tearing at each other's throats just to get a chance at being the one chosen to service you."

Rae's breath caught in a soft gasp, and she closed her eyes to block out the sight of him. "Do you have to be so crude?" she asked, her voice stiff and hoarse.

"What's your problem? 'Service' is a perfectly respectable word. I could have said they would all want to f—"

"Stop it!"

Rae was furious, not a new sensation in her dealings with Tanner, but this time she was more angry with herself than with him. Why in hell did she fall into every single trap he set for her?

"Relax." There was a definite hint of laughter in his voice now. "I said sometimes I think that. The idea is too incredible to last very long. Because you really are a good little girl. Aren't you?"

Forcing the stiffness from her spine, Rae opened her eyes and shot an irritated glance in his direction. "Don't you have something to do? Somewhere to go?"

Instead of answering, he reached behind him to pick up the framed picture from her desk. "So this is the fabled Saint Johnny," he said slowly. "The late husband for whom you still pine." He cut his eyes toward her. "He looks more like your brother than your husband. He has that same wholesome, All-American, good-as-gold look."

Slowly, carefully, she took the portrait from Tanner's hands and placed it on the far corner of her desk, out of his reach.

"How do you know about Johnny?"

He reacted with a short, harsh laugh. "That's a stupid question. You've been in this town long enough to know how it works."

Yes, Rae knew how it worked. She had come to Dicton because she found big-city law in a big-city firm too impersonal. She had dreamed of a small practice that would allow her to give each client the personal attention he or she deserved. But one of the drawbacks of small-town life was that everyone's business was everyone's business.

Less than a month after she had moved here from Fort Worth, Rae had run into a chatty stranger in the drugstore and had been staggered to learn that the woman not only knew what kind of shampoo Rae used, she also knew that Rae wrote to her parents every Monday without fail.

"I know things about you that you wouldn't believe," Tanner was saying now. "You want me to tell you what you wear to bed? A pink, candy-striped cotton nightshirt. Wholesome gear. Virtuous. But I also know that sometimes in the middle of the night, the little candy-striped nightshirt starts to feel restrictive. So you strip it off. . . and for the rest of the night there's nothing but air and freedom between your body and the sheets."

Rae felt furious heat flood her face. This time she counted to ten before she spoke.

"I've heard a lot of rumors about you," she said slowly, "but no one mentioned the fact that you were a Peeping Tom along with all the rest."

"Didn't they?" He raised one dark brow. "Now that surprises me. I didn't think there was any sin, any deviant behavior, that hadn't been laid on me. As it happens, I haven't been peeking through the windows of your chaste little bedroom. Not that I wouldn't like to. Oh yes, I'll have to give that idea some thought.. . because since the first time I set eyes on you, I've been wondering about that red hair of yours."

He paused, letting his gaze travel slowly down her body. "I've been wondering if the color runs true. You know, I can close my eyes right now and see how that peculiar shade of red would look against the smooth, creamy skin of your belly."

Rae had to grip the arms of her chair to keep from flying at him. Tanner had gone too far this time. He was standing in her office—a place of business, for pity's sake—in broad daylight, and he was calmly talking about pubic hair. Her pubic hair!

She wanted to tell him he had no right to imagine her naked, that he had no right to make her feel so exposed, so vulnerable. But she didn't say any of that. She didn't so much as blink an eye.

"You mean there's actually something about me that you don't know?" she asked, leaning forward to pick up her pen. "What happened to the famous small-town grapevine?"

This time his husky laugh held genuine amusement. "Just give me time. You never know, maybe I'll drop by Rusty's Tavern some Thursday night. I think Dr. Vaughn is usually there on Thursdays."

Mention of the local gynecologist brought Rae's head up sharply. He wouldn't. He couldn't—

And then she saw the look in his eyes and knew he had suckered her again.

"Will you please—" she began.

"Or maybe I'll just leave it to my imagination," he murmured, as though he were actually giving the matter serious thought. "We could make that the ultima Thule of our relationship. They say a little mystery keeps a friendship alive, and to tell you the truth, ours could use some help, because I know so damned much about you and your worthy little life."

"Tanner, would you please—"

"You were nineteen when you married the boy next door. Our hero, Johnny." He nodded toward the picture. "He was twenty-three, a brilliant student, an athlete with a room full of trophies, already in law school when you married him. He was being groomed for a career in politics like his father. The next Bobby Kennedy, they said."

He paused, rubbing his chin with a thumb, as though weighing his next words. "But then when you'd been married for seven months, your Johnny got careless. He dove into a lake, hit an underwater rock, and broke his neck."

The words, spoken without inflection, brought back a flash flood of memories—terror and pain, guilt and rage, and the ever-present unquenchable loneliness,