Wildfire (3 page)

"And I know that his were the last human hands to touch you." Relentlessly Tanner went on, his deep-set eyes measuring her reactions as he spoke. "But since Johnny Anderson was a saint, you might say he doesn't count. You probably still qualify as a virgin. And I'd take a guess that he was one of the fools who perpetuated that trash about your being a good little girl."

"Johnny wasn't a fool," Rae ground out. "Don't talk about him. Don't ever—" She broke off abruptly and clamped her teeth together as she struggled for composure.

"Say it," Tanner urged in a low whisper.

He was leaning close now, so close, she could feel his breath on her face and see that his eyes were ablaze with the wild, demonic light.

"Let go, Rae," he said, his voice low and hoarse. "For once in your life, really cut loose. Let it all come pouring out, so hard and fast that it takes me under. Come on, tell me I'm not fit to breathe Johnny's name. Tell me I'm an arrogant devil who'll burn in hell for blaspheming your deity."

She drew in several short, shaky breaths. "Johnny wasn't a god," she said finally, the words unsteady. "And he wasn't a saint, He was simply the best man I've ever known."

Two beats later he straightened away from her with a short, contemptuous laugh. "Poor Drew. If you ever catch him, he'll always be second best. He'll never quite measure up to the ghost of love past."

"Drew doesn't have to compete with anyone," she said tightly. "He wouldn't even try. He has too much integrity, too much sensitivity, to attack a dead man."

He studied her face for a long moment. "You think you know Drew, don't you?"

As he spoke, Rae thought she caught a flash of that strange, restless hunger, but it was gone too quickly for her to be sure.

Seconds later when he pushed away from her desk, there was no emotion at all in his eyes. "I guess I'll leave you to your dusty little dreams now."

He sounded bored, as though he had suddenly grown tired of baiting her. With a perfunctory "See you around," he turned and began to move toward the door.

"Tanner?"

When he paused to glance over his shoulder, Rae raised her gaze from her still-trembling fingers and met his eyes. "You've had a fun half hour, getting on my nerves, saying stupid things, but—" She moistened her lips. "You don't go around saying these things about me to ... to anyone else, do you?"

"You mean, does Drew know that your almost-but-not-quite virginal heart beats faster for him? I don't know. Probably not. Modest is our Drew. He doesn't know he's the most eligible bachelor in the county." He raised one dark brow. "Anything else?"

"As a matter of fact there is." She relaxed her fingers and picked up her pen again. "How did you know about the nightshirt?"

He grinned. "Paula told me."

"Paula? I don't know anyone named Paula."

"She's a salesgirl at Beatty's. You were shopping there the other day, and when she tried to sell you a cotton candy-striped nightshirt, you very politely explained why it just wouldn't do for you."

A sound of exasperation escaped her. "And now it's all over town? That's ridiculous."

He smiled. "Not all over town. In fact I imagine Paula forgot all about it by the next day. But I just happened to see her that night. And I just happened to bring up the subject of Dicton's good little lady lawyer."

Pausing at the door, he turned to look her over one last time. The demonic light had been extinguished, and now there was nothing more than superficial interest in his eyes.

"You won't get Drew, you know. That's a shame, really. You might be a good match for him, and having you out at Ashkelon would definitely make the place more interesting. But the fact is, sweetness, you haven't got a prayer. If you stay for dinner tonight, you'll see why."

And then he walked out, leaving Rae torn between curiosity and exasperation.

T
he white rock road threw up clouds of dust behind the Volvo as Rae drove west toward Ashkelon.

Today she was putting her professional life on the line. It was that simple. If Old Joe liked her, she had it made, because others in town would automatically follow his lead. But—and this was probably the most important but in Rae's career— if the elder McCallister decided he didn't like her, she might as well pack up her law books, take out her knitting, and start living on the money Johnny had left her. Because although Joe McCallister wouldn't tell people not to use Rae, word would quickly get around that he had found her unsatisfactory, and then not even eccentrics like Seraphina Rodale would bring her their business.

Drawing in a bracing breath, she loosened her grip on the steering wheel. It was too late to worry about it now. And as Johnny used to say, the sweetest apples were always out at the end of the shakiest limbs.

For the past couple of miles Rae had been driving alongside the white board fence that marked McCallister property. Now she spotted the gate with a tall white arch over it. A single word, ASHKELON, was painted in neat black lettering on the crosspiece of the arch. There was nothing ostentatious about the McCallister standard. It was simple and clean. Aristocratic.

Slowing almost to a stop, she turned onto the paved milelong drive that led to the ranch house. The drive was also bordered by white board fence, tied into occasional barbed-wire cross sections.

A quarter of a mile up the drive, she passed a wooden side gate that gave access to the gravel road leading to the ranch's outbuildings. In the near distance she could see a handful of men working together to put up a new section of corral fence.

As Rae drew nearer, one of the men straightened and moved away from the others.

Tanner.

He was shirtless, his tanned, muscular flesh glistening with perspiration in the bright June sun, tight jeans following the outline of his lean hips.

It was incredible. Even from this distance Rae felt that Tanner was seeing things he couldn't possibly see, looking through the metal of the car, through flesh and bones, right to the center of her.

Catching her gaze on him, he brought his index finger to his forehead in a mocking salute, laughing when she acknowledged him with a short nod.

As she drove past, she had to fight the urge to look in her rearview mirror to see if his attention was still turned toward her. She cursed him silently for being Tanner, for disrupting her thoughts on this important day.

Moments later, when a two-story white house with green shutters and precise landscaping came into sight, Rae shoved Tanner West out of her mind. She didn't have time to worry about him today.

"Don't go to the front door," Glenna had warned. "Even the governor uses the side door at Ashkelon."

Parking in the small, paved lot at the side of the house, Rae stepped from the Volvo and reached in for her briefcase. After taking a moment to smooth one hand over the skirt of her navy-blue suit, she started up the walk.

On the other side of the tall hedge bordering the walk was the pool. Rae couldn't see it, but she knew it was there. Glenna had told her.

In the past the McCallisters had been gregarious folk, every weekend an occasion for a party. Movie stars and world leaders had been entertained in this house. Since Joe's stroke, there weren't so many parties, but Rae could tell that the house remembered. The memory of its encounters with fame was evident in every immaculate line.

Before Rae reached the side door, it was opened by a stout woman in her early fifties. Feena Tease, the McCallisters' housekeeper, attended the same church as Rae, and they had spoken on several occasions, but now a brisk nod was the only indication the older woman gave that they had ever met.

"Mr. McCallister is in his study," Mrs. Tease said, turning to lead the way.

As she followed the housekeeper through a vast family room, Rae caught a glimpse of the pool through a long row of windows. Next they traveled down a hall, making a couple of turns before her guide stopped outside an open door.

"She's here," the other woman called out loudly, and before Rae had time to blink, Mrs. Tease was gone.

Drawing in a steadying breath, Rae moved through the doorway, then stopped abruptly. She had been told of the elder McCallister's collection of first-edition books, but nothing she had heard had prepared her for what she saw now. Every wall was lined with bookshelves. From floor to ceiling, in every direction, there were books. The number was staggering, overwhelming to the uninitiated, which Rae most definitely was.

It took a moment for her to realize that the room contained other things. An antique-horsehair settee and heavy wine-colored drapery. A scattering of plants and an impressive collection of Oriental porcelain.

And last but by no means least, in a wheelchair behind a massive mahogany desk, shouting into a telephone, was the man Rae had come to see.

John Joseph McCallister must have once been a powerful man. His upper body still looked strong, his posture erect, his shoulders broad. Although his hair was snow white—in startling contrast to coal-black eyebrows—there was nothing feeble about Joe McCallister. Even if his voice hadn't filled the room, his presence would have.

"Do you think I give a flying fig for your stupid management screwups? I need that equipment, and by God, I need it yesterday! Now get off your bony ass and ship me my damn bailers!"

He slammed down the receiver and without pausing to draw breath said, "Here's the deal. My cousin's wife passed away, and I don't feel any need to provide for her squirrelly daughters. I'm richer than I was when I made the will, so I can do more

for some of my long-term personnel, but I'm also meaner, so there are a couple of people I want to cut out."

He pulled a manila envelope from a drawer and tossed it across the desk to her. "There it is. Sit down and I'll tell you exactly what I want done."

Short and sweet. This was a man who knew what he wanted and wasn't going to put up with people who wasted his time. Rae could deal with that.

She sat down and went to work.

Little more than an hour later they were wrapping it up. Rae glanced up from her copy of the will. "And you say you want to leave the codicil as it is?"

He turned his head toward her, his gaze growing sharper. "Why? What's wrong with it?"

"The language grows a little ambiguous here." She paused. "It's not very likely, but it could possibly cause Drew trouble later, after you're gone."

"I don't want to hear 'not very likely' and 'possibly.' If the damn thing's wrong, fix it. What in hell do you think you're here for?"

Flipping through the pages of his copy, Joe located the section in question and studied it for several minutes.

"Why didn't I notice that? Why the hell didn't Amos notice it?" He shot a look of grudging admiration her way. "When Tanner told me you were sharp, I thought he was either crazy or working some deal of his own, but I'll be damned if he didn't know what he was talking about."

Rae's brow creased in confusion. Tanner told him she was sharp? Tanner despised her. Why on earth would he help her out by recommending her to Joe McCallister?

Glancing up, she saw that the old man was now leaning back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.

"I want to make sure everything is in order," he murmured, "just in case I kick off anytime soon. There's a damned epidemic of it. People dropping like flies."

He lowered his gaze from the ceiling and caught her watching him. "The boys have worked hard, damned hard, to make this place what it is. I want them taken care of." He moved his head restlessly. "Tanner won't get much. He doesn't expect anything, but he's earned his share. I have to give him that. No matter what he does in his free time, he never misses a day's work. And when he first started, back when he was just a kid, it was backbreaking labor. I had the crazy idea I could work that bad streak out of him." He shook his head. "It didn't happen. He would do every job I set out for him without complaining, do it better than men twice his age, then he'd go out and raise hell just the same as always."

Feeling that some comment was expected of her, Rae said, "He certainly seems different from Drew."

The old man reacted with a gruff bark of laughter. "Night and day. I always said that. Different as night and day. Look in Drew's eyes, and you'll see peace. Look in Tanner's, and you'll see the fires of hell raging. I don't think the boy will ever be at peace."

Then, as though talking about Tanner somehow disturbed him, Joe fell into a brooding silence.

Shifting restlessly in her chair, Rae cleared her throat and said, "Glenna tells me Drew graduated from A&M at the top of his class."

"Glenna? Glenna Baxter?" The old man was suddenly alert again. "She had a smart-ass attitude as a girl, and I can't see how turning into a woman has changed her much. Not that she's not right about Drew. A man couldn't ask for a better son. Even though his mother spoiled him some, I made sure she didn't ruin him. I might have had to drag Tanner out of trouble a few times, but not Drew. No, it was always Tanner. From the very first, he was either working with the men, in here reading my books, or out beating the crap out of somebody. How do you figure somebody like that? The pieces just don't fit."

He let out a slow breath. "He never picked on anyone smaller or weaker, I'll say that for him. In fact, he usually fought men three times his size. But he could never tell me what the fights were about. Oh, he'd say something like the guy was a butt-head and needed hitting, but he couldn't tell me the real reason. Sometimes I think that when Tanner fights, he isn't attacking a person at all. I think he's trying to work out something inside himself, something that even he doesn't understand."

Joe stopped talking and rubbed his face with a hand that trembled slightly. It was the first sign of age Rae had seen in him.

A moment later, however, he managed to shake off whatever was troubling him and gave a short laugh. "I've been rambling, but I'm not going to apologize. Even if I weren't paying for your time, one of the pleasures of being old and rich is that I can say whatever I damn well please and people have to put up with it."

He pushed the wheelchair away from the desk. "It's time for my nap. You've got two days to work out those changes."

And with the quiet whir of an electric motor, John Joseph McCallister was gone.

Rae sat with her head turned toward the door for a moment before slipping her copy of the will into her briefcase and rising to her feet. Only as she moved toward the door did it hit her.

She had won.

Even though Joe hadn't said a word about her handling the rest of his legal affairs, today was a victory. Because working for Joe McCallister, even in a minor way, would be a signal to the town. What two years of hard work hadn't done, an hour with one old man had. Rae was in.

When she stepped out of the study, she paused, uncertain which way to go. She had been too nervous to pay attention when she had followed Mrs. Tease. Had they approached from the right or from the left?

"Maybe I should wet my finger and check for wind direction," she muttered, feeling slightly foolish. And she would feel even more foolish if she had to stand around in the hall until someone came along to rescue her.

She should have unraveled a ball of twine on her way in, she decided, and a smile twitched at her lips at the thought of casting John Joseph McCallister as the Minotaur. She had definitely felt a little sacrificial during the first few minutes of their time together.

"Meditating again, Rae?"

The husky voice sent her whirling around. Tanner stood a few feet down the hall, leaning against the wall as he inspected her neatly dressed figure.

"I should have known," she muttered under her breath. "Hello, Tanner."

Although he had put on a shirt, and had even managed to fasten a couple of the buttons, Tanner still looked out of place. Stained Stetson, scuffed and dusty boots, blue chambray work shirt with a corner tear in the sleeve. Tanner was Ashkelon's manager, but he looked more like a vagrant, hired for a couple days' work.

There had been a spark of something, some unidentifiable emotion, in his dark eyes when she first turned to him, but now, as she continued to study him, the spark faded, and his lips twisted in a contemptuous smile.

"So how do you like the old wickiup?" he asked, waving a hand at the surroundings. "Are you going to get to see more of it? Staying for dinner, Rae?"

"Apparently I'm more efficient than you thought. I finished too soon and wasn't invited."

Having done the polite-conversation bit, she started to walk away, but she stopped when she heard his lazy voice. "You're going the wrong way."

She counted to ten and turned to walk in the opposite direction. After taking a couple of steps, she stopped again and glanced back. "Why did you recommend me to Mr. McCallister?"

"Don't you know? I did it to annoy you."

"That is the most stupid—Why on earth would it annoy me?"

Tanner's lips stretched in a slow smile as he moved closer. "I learned more than how to run a ranch from Joe. He also taught me some wicked chess moves. You owe me now, Rae. Don't you see the irony? You can't stand the sight of me, but now you're in my debt."

Throwing up a hand, she said, "You have got to be the most incredibly irritating—"