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Zane smiled, and the tension drained from his face to be replaced by genuine awe of the woman standing near the desk. In the past six years, he’d imagined coming face to face with Ellery Rhodes’s widow more often than he would like to admit, but never had he thought that she would be so incredibly bewitching. His mistake. Once before Ellery Rhodes and Zane Sheridan had been attracted to the same woman, and that time Zane had come out the loser, or so he had thought at the time. Now he wasn’t so sure.
“Come on,” he suggested, his voice becoming dangerously familiar. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I was starved.”
Tiffany backed down a little. “I won’t change my mind.”
With a nonchalant shrug, Zane loosened the knot of his tie and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt. His chin was beginning to darken with the shadow of a day’s growth of beard, and he looked as if he belonged in this house, as if he had just come home from a long, tiring day at the office to share conversation and a drink with his wife.... The unlikely turn of her thoughts spurred Tiffany into action. As a slight blush darkened the skin of her throat, she opened the door of the den. Knowing it to be an incredible mistake, she led Zane past a formal dining room to a small alcove near the kitchen.
Louise had already placed the beef stew with gravy on the small round table.
“Sit,” Tiffany commanded as she pulled out a bottle of wine and uncorked it before pouring the rich Burgundy into stemmed glasses. Zane did as he was bid, but his face registered mild surprise when Tiffany took the salads out of the refrigerator and set them on the table.
After Tiffany sat down, Zane stared at her from across a small maple table. “Your housekeeper doesn’t live in?”
“No.”
“But she manages to keep the place up?”
Tiffany released an uneasy laugh. “I’m not that messy. I do pick up after myself, even do my own laundry and cook occasionally,” she teased. What must he think of her? That she was some princess who wouldn’t get her fingers dirty? Did his preconceived notions stem from his relationship—whatever that was—with Ellery? “Actually, Louise only comes in twice a week. Today I asked her to come over because of the interview with Rod Crawford. I thought I might need another pair of hands. But usually I can handle whatever comes up by myself.”
“That surprises me,” Zane admitted and took a sip of his wine. Tiffany arched her elegant dark brows. “Why?”
“Because of the house, I suppose. So formal.”
“And here you are stuck in the kitchen, without the benefit of seeing the crystal and silver,” Tiffany said with a chuckle. “Disappointed, Mr. Sheridan?”
His gray eyes drove into hers and his voice was low when he spoke. “Only that I can’t persuade you to call me by my first name.”
“I don’t think I know you that well—”
“Yet.” He raised his glass in mock salute and his flinty eyes captured hers. “Here’s to an independent woman,” he announced before taking another long drink.
She was more than a little embarrassed by the intimate toast, and after a few silent moments when she alternately sipped the wine and twirled the glass in her fingers, she decided she had to level with him. Against her wishes she was warming to him, and that had to stop. “Look,Zane. As far as I’m concerned, you’re close enough to certifiably crazy that I doubt if I’ll associate with you again,” she said half-seriously as she poured them each another glass of wine and then began to attack her salad. “There’s no reason for first names.”
“I’m not crazy, Ms. Rhodes—”
“Tiffany.” Gentle laughter sparkled in her eyes. “Just concerned, right?” Her smile faded and she became instantly serious. “Why? Why are you here, now, telling me all of this?”
“It took me this long to be sure.”
“Then you’ll understand why I’m having trouble accepting what you’re suggesting as the truth. You’ve had four years to think about it. I just found out this morning.”
Tiffany pushed her plate aside, crossed her arms over her chest and leveled serious blue eyes in his direction. “Let’s quit beating around the bush,” she suggested. “So what’s in this for you? You don’t impress me as the kind of man who would go traipsing halfway around the world just to set the record straight and see that justice is served.”
“I’m not.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“I have an interest in what happens here.”
Dread began to hammer in her heart. “Which is?”
“Personal.”
“What does that mean? A grudge—revenge—vendetta—what?” She leaned on one hand and pointed at him with the other. “This morning you said you knew Ellery. I got the impression then, and now again, that you didn’t much like him.” Her palm rotated in the air as she collected her scattered thoughts. “If you ask me, all this interest in my horse has to do with Ellery. What’s the point, Mr. Sheridan? And why in the world would you want to buy this farm? There must be a dozen of them, much more profitable than this, for sale.”
Zane set aside his fork and settled back in the chair. As he pondered the situation and the intelligent woman staring beguilingly at him, he tugged on his lower lip. “The reason I want this farm is because it should have been mine to begin with. That your husband got the capital to invest in this parcel of land was a . . . fluke.”
“Come again,” she suggested, not daring to breathe. What was he saying? “Ellery’s family owned this land for years.”
