Against The Rules. Linda Howard
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own seat. Still breathing hard, he checked their position, then wiped the sweat from his forehead and turned back to her. “Now we know where we stand,” he said with grim satisfaction.
Cathryn jerked herself erect and turned her head to stare out at the sweeping ranchland below. Fool! she berated herself. Stupid fool! Now he knew just how powerful the weapon he had against her was, and she had no illusion that he would hesitate to use it. It wasn’t fair that his desire for her didn’t leave him as vulnerable as she was, but the basic fact was that his desire was simply that, desire, without any of the accompanying emotions or needs that she felt, while the mere sound of his voice submerged her into so many boiling needs and feelings that she had no hope of sorting them out and understanding them. He was so deeply associated with all the crises and milestones of her life that even while she hated and feared him, he was so much a part of her that she couldn’t fire him, couldn’t kick him out of her life. He was as addictive as a drug, using his lean, hard-muscled body and educated hands to keep his women under control.
I won’t be one of his women! Cathryn vowed fiercely, clenching her fists. He had no morals, no sense of shame. After all her father had done for him, as soon as Ward was in the grave, Rule had taken over. Nor was that enough. He had to have the ranch and Ward’s daughter too. In that moment Cathryn decided not to stay, to return to Chicago as soon as the holiday was over. Ricky’s problems were not hers. If Rule didn’t like the way things were, he was free to seek employment elsewhere.
Then they were circling over the sprawling, two-story frame house to signal their arrival to the ranch, and Rule banked the plane sharply to the left to line up with the small runway. She felt stunned at how little time it had taken to reach the ranch, but a glance at her watch told her that more time had elapsed than she’d thought. How long had she been wrapped in Rule’s arms? And how long had she been lost in her thoughts? When she was with him everything else seemed to fade out of her awareness.
A dusty red pickup came bouncing across the field to meet them as Rule took the plane in for a smooth, shallow landing; they touched down so lightly that there was scarcely a bump. Cathryn found herself looking at his hands, strong and brown and competent whether they were flying a plane, mastering a fractious horse or soothing a flighty woman. She remembered those hands on her body, and tried not to.
As Cathryn went up the three steps to the porch that ran the width of the house she was surprised that Monica didn’t come out to greet her. Ricky didn’t come out, either, but she hadn’t really expected Ricky. Monica, on the other hand, had always at least kept up appearances and made a big show of affection when David was alive and visited with her. She opened the screen door and went into the cool dimness; Rule was right behind her with her luggage. “Where’s Monica?” she asked.
He started up the stairs. “God only knows,” he grunted, and Cathryn followed him with rising irritation. She caught him as he opened the door of the bedroom that had always been hers and went inside to drop the bags by the bed.
“What do you mean by that?” she demanded.
He shrugged. “Monica ranges far and wide these days. She’s never been too keen on the ranch anyway. You can’t blame her for hunting her own amusements.” He turned to leave and Cathryn followed him again.
“Where are you going?” she asked sharply.
He turned back to her with exaggerated patience. “I’ve got work to do. Did you have anything else in mind?” His eyes strayed to the bedroom door, then back to her, and Cathryn set her jaw.
“I had finding Monica in mind.”
“She’ll show up before dark. I noticed that the station wagon is gone, and she hates driving after dark, so she’ll be here by then unless she has an accident.”
“You’re so concerned!” Cathryn lashed out.
“Should I be? I’m a rancher, not a chaperon.”
“Correction: you’re a ranch foreman.”
For a moment his eyes flared with temper; then he damped it down. “You’re right, and as the foreman I have work to do. Are you going to stay here and sulk, or are you going to change clothes and come with me? There’ve been a lot of changes since the last time you were here. I thought you might be interested, boss.” He stressed the last word slightly, his eyes mocking her. He was the boss, and he knew it; he had been for so many years that many of the ranch hands had been hired since Ward’s death and had no loyalty to a Donahue, only to Rule Jackson.
She wavered for a moment, torn between her reluctance to spend any time in his company and her interest in the ranch. The years she had spent away had been an exile and she had suffered every day, longing for the vast spaces and the clean smell of the earth. She wanted to see the land, reacquaint herself with the things that had marked her earliest days. “I’ll go change,” she said quietly.
“I’ll wait for you at the stables,” he said, then let his eyes drift down the length of her. “Unless you’d like some company while you change?”
Her fierce “No!” was automatic, and he didn’t act as if he had expected any other answer. He shrugged and went down the stairs. Cathryn returned to her room and closed the door, then twisted her arms up behind herself to unzip the dress and take it off. For a moment she thought of Rule helping her with the zipper; then she shivered and wrenched her mind away from the treacherous idea. She had to hurry. Rule’s patience had a time limit.
She didn’t bother to unpack. She had always left most of her jeans and shirts there at the ranch. In Chicago she wore chic designer jeans; on the ranch she wore faded, worn jeans that were limp from use. She sometimes felt that when she changed clothes, she changed personalities. The chic, polished wife of David Ashe again became Cathryn Donahue, raised with the wind in her hair. As she stamped her feet into her boots and reached for the tan hat that she had worn for years, she became aware of a sense of belonging. She pushed the thought away, but pleasurable anticipation remained with her as she ran down the stairs and made her way out to the stables, pausing in the kitchen to greet the cook, Lorna Ingram. She was friendly enough with Lorna, but was aware that the woman looked on Rule as her employer and that that precluded any closeness between them.
Rule was waiting for her with outward patience, though his big-boned chestnut nudged him in the back and shifted nervously behind him. He also held the reins to a long-legged gray gelding, a horse Cathryn didn’t remember having seen before. Having been around horses all of her life she had no fear of them and rubbed the animal’s nose naturally, letting him learn the smell of her while she talked to him. “Hi, fella, you’re a stranger to me. How long have you been here?”
“A couple of years,” answered Rule, tossing the reins to her. “He’s a good horse, no bad habits, even-tempered. Not like Redman here,” he added ruefully as the chestnut nudged him again, this time with enough force to shove him forward several steps. He swung up into the saddle without offering to help Cathryn, a gesture she would have refused anyway. She was far from helpless on a horse. She mounted and urged the gray into a trot to catch up with Rule, who hadn’t waited.
They rode past the stables, and Cathryn admired the neat paddocks and barns, several of which hadn’t been there during her last visit. Money on the hoof either grazed without paying attention to them or sent soft, curious nickers their way. Playful, long-legged foals romped over the sweet spring grass. Rule lifted his gloved hand to point out a structure. “That’s the new foaling barn. Want to take a look at it?”
She nodded and they swung the horses’ heads in that direction. “There’s only one mare due right now,” he said. “We’re just waiting on her. The last few weeks have been busy, but we have a break now.”
The stalls in the foaling barn were airy and spacious and scrupulously clean; as Rule had said, there was only one occupant now. There in the middle of a large box stall stood a mare in a posture of such utter weariness that Cathryn smiled in sympathy. When