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Marta cocked her head. “Has round two begun yet?”
“Round…” Caitlin laughed. “Jonas and Tyler Kincaid, you mean. Yes, I just showed Mr. Kincaid into the library.”
“Ah. Well, I don’t hear any thuds or grunts so far, so I assume they’re behaving themselves. I was just about to have some coffee. Won’t you join me?”
Caitlin hesitated, then smiled. “I’d love to.”
“Good.” Marta linked her arm through her stepdaughter’s and they walked slowly toward the solarium. “Are you all right? That was, um, it was an unfortunate scene that took place, down by the bunkhouse.”
“Kincaid forcing himself on me, you mean,” Caitlin said stiffly.
“Did he, really? From what little I saw, and from what Jonas said, I had the impression that what you and Mr. Kincaid were doing was mutually agreeable.” Marta motioned Caitlin to a chair. “Perhaps I’m wrong.”
Caitlin plopped down in the chair and stretched out her legs. “You’re definitely wrong,” she said, as Marta poured coffee. “Tyler Kincaid grabbed me and—and…” Her eyes met Marta’s and she flushed. “All right. He kissed me, I kissed him back—but only because he caught me by surprise.”
“Of course.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” Marta said mildly, “that I can understand how such a thing could happen. Your Mr. Kincaid is an extremely good-looking man. Some of Carmen’s butter cookies, dear?”
“No,” Caitlin said calmly, “thank you, but I don’t want any cookies. And I don’t want you jumping to conclusions, either. Tyler Kincaid is only good-looking if you like the type.”
“I agree.” Marta smiled into her coffee cup. “But what women wouldn’t like that type? Tall, dark, gorgeous…I’m old enough to be your Mr. Kincaid’s mother, dear, and I’m very happily married to your stepfather, but I can see why you’re attracted to him.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” Caitlin put down her cup and saucer, hard enough so the delicate china rattled. “I am not attracted to him. I hardly know the man, and what little I do know, I don’t like. And I wish you’d stop calling him that.”
“Calling him what?”
“My Mr. Kincaid. All I did was give him a job.”
“That’s what I meant.”
“He said he wanted to see Jonas. And he needed work.” Caitlin plucked a cookie from the platter and bit into it. “You’d have done the same thing.”
“Undoubtedly,” Marta said gently.
“And on top of that, my horse got spooked and Kincaid decided to play Galahad. I’m sure he thought he saved me from getting hoofprints tattooed on my skull.” She put the rest of the cookie into her mouth and chewed it. “Well,” she said grudgingly, “maybe he did. The point is, I hired him on and he did his job well—until today.”
“When he forced his unwanted attentions on you.”
“Yes. No. Oh, what’s the difference? I’d have fired him, too, if Jonas hadn’t come along and made a scene.”
“Jonas is very protective,” Marta said softly. “He loves you, Catie. You know that.”
“You mean,” Caitlin said tightly, “he loves me as much as he can, considering that I’m not of his blood.”
“I mean,” her stepmother said, taking her hand, “that he’s stubborn and pigheaded. All the Baron men are, or do you really think Slade, Travis and Gage are any better?”
Caitlin sighed. “No, you’re right. They’re all impossible. Maybe it isn’t a Baron trait. Maybe all men are like that. Just look at how pigheaded Tyler Kincaid is—”
A crash echoed through the house. Both women jumped to their feet.
“They’re killing each other,” Caitlin said.
“I think it was just a door slamming.” Marta looked at Caitlin. “But I do suspect Mr. Kincaid’s meeting with your stepfather is over.”
“You get yourself off my property, Kincaid.” Jonas’s voice roared through the house. “You got five minutes, you hear? After that, I’ll put some buckshot into your tail.”
“Good,” Caitlin said grimly. “Jonas fired him.”
“Indeed.” Marta sighed and put her arm around Caitlin. “Will you excuse me, Catie? I think I’d better go remind your stepfather that he’s not supposed to get his blood pressure up past the boiling point.”
“Of course.” Caitlin hesitated. “Marta?” she said, just as the older woman reached the door.
Her stepmother looked back at her. “Yes?”
“He is good-looking,” she said softly. “Isn’t he?”
Marta smiled. “If I were twenty years younger, I’d think about giving you some competition.”
“Oh, I didn’t…I wouldn’t…I was talking hypothetically.”
“Hypothetically,” Marta said, and flashed a grin, “Mr. Kincaid is…I believe the current term is ‘a hunk.’”
“Go tell Jonas to calm down,” Caitlin said, and began to laugh.
Marta chuckled and hurried away. Still smiling, Caitlin circled the room, piling the coffee things on a tray, picking up another cookie, pausing to straighten the embroidered throw pillows on a love seat and, at last, almost as an afterthought, making her way to the window.
Yes, there he was, the all-powerful Tyler Kincaid, in full retreat.
Caitlin’s head lifted. “No more Mr. Tough Guy now,” she muttered, “are you, Kincaid?”
No sir, he certainly wasn’t. He was hightailing it down the hill, the way men always did after Jonas Baron gave them a tongue-lashing…
Except, he wasn’t.
Tyler was strolling down the hill. Hell, he was swaggering, shoulders easy, head high, hands tucked into his pockets. And he was in no hurry, despite Jonas’s five-minute warning. He paused at the paddock, put one booted foot on the bottom rail and watched Manuel working one of the new horses. It seemed like a century rolled by before he stepped back, tucked his hands back into his pockets and made his way toward the bunkhouse.
“Idiot,” Caitlin whispered.
What was he trying to prove? Not that she cared, one way or the other. Tyler Kincaid was none of her business. Did he really think his act would keep the men from knowing the truth, that Jonas had run him off?
She folded her arms, watching through narrowed eyes as he climbed the steps to the door of the bunkhouse. Ten minutes from now, he’d be gone, and ten minutes later, he’d be forgotten. Hired hands came and went on Espada, and nobody so much as remembered their names.
Tyler Kincaid might think he was somebody special, but he wasn’t. The men would forget him, she’d forget him…
She’d forget the way he’d kissed her, too. The way she’d felt when he’d touched her.
Caitlin’s breath caught.
“Goodbye, Kincaid,” she said firmly. Then she turned her back to the window, picked up the coffee tray and left the room.
* * *
The following week seemed interminable but at long last Friday slipped into Saturday, and there was at least a little time to relax.
By evening, Espada was quiet. Marta and Jonas had gone out to dinner. The men w
ere either down at the bunkhouse, playing cards or watching TV, or in town, all duded up in pressed jeans and shirts, easing the work of the past days with the help of a couple of drinks and some much-wanted female companionship.
“Come to the Phillips’s with us,” Marta had said to Caitlin, but Caitlin had smiled, kissed her stepmother and told her, truthfully, that she was looking forward to taking a shower, putting on her sweats and curling up with a good book.
“Sounds like fun,” Marta had said, but Jonas had glowered.
“Sounds like the girl’s plannin’ on bein’ an old maid,” he’d growled. “Give Leighton a call, why don’t you? Bet he’d be happy to take you to the movies or maybe out for dinner.”
“Leighton?” Caitlin and Marta had said in unison.
“Well, why not? He’s your cousin, after all.”
Caitlin hadn’t been able to resist. “He isn’t,” she’d said primly, “he’s a Baron.”
“Exactly.”
Marta had rolled her eyes. “Come along, Jonas,” she’d said, and dragged him off while Caitlin tried to figure out what that had been all about.
She was still thinking about it as she stepped from the shower an hour later.
“Leighton,” she said, and rolled her eyes the way her stepmother had done.
Better to spend the evening with a tarantula than with Leighton. She didn’t like the man. Nobody did, even though he’d been trying to ooze charm ever since Travis, Slade and Gage had all married and made it clear that not a one of them wanted Espada.
“Looks like Jonas and I are the only Barons left in Texas,” he’d said heartily, the last time he’d paid an unwanted visit.
Well, Leighton was kidding himself. Jonas had this idiotic bug in his head about leaving his land to a Baron but surely he’d never leave it to that Baron. Leighton’s son, Gray, maybe, but Gray was off at some Eastern college, learning to be a lawyer. As for Leighton himself…Jonas wasn’t a fool. He’d never leave his beloved Espada to a man who couldn’t tell a steer from a bull, who’d cringe at the smell of good, honest-to-God horse manure.
Jonas was just trying to suggest she do something instead of staying home. That she’d even let herself think anything else only proved what a long week it had been. A skittish colt had kicked Manuel and broken his wrist; a freak hailstorm had done in the roof on the old barn and what should have been a simple trip to pick up a newly purchased stud turned into near-disaster when an eighteen-wheeler suddenly jackknifed ahead of the truck and horse trailer Caitlin was driving. She’d had to do some quick maneuvering to avoid plowing into it but she’d managed while Abel sat beside her, muttering epithets she’d never heard before—and she’d heard most everything, after spending so many years on a ranch.
