Czytaj książkę: «Too Hard To Handle»

Chapter One

“Lady, you’ve got two minutes to get these loonies off my land.”

Christy Calhoun’s eyes widened as the gaze of the large, tanned man on horseback settled on her. He had scanned her nine companions and the cluster of recreational vehicles scattered around his property before turning to her and issuing the direct order. When he tilted his brown Stetson back off his forehead, she saw that the expression in his narrowed dark eyes was no friendlier than his words.

One quick glance at the older people milling around her resolved her unspoken question. They, in their eye-popping yellow T-shirts each picturing a human waving at a big-eyed alien and the words I’m not Suffering from Alienation, were the loonies; she, in jeans and a white sleeveless T-shirt, was, by default, the lady.

He was more than large, she decided with a blink. Caught between her and the glare of the late-May sun, he looked very big. Huge. And hard as granite, if the thighs gripping his saddle were any indication. He was, with his broad chest and shoulders wide enough to fill a doorway, more than a tad intimidating.

Before Christy could utter a word, a motor home, the last of their caravan, trundled off the road and up the grassy slope in their direction, smoke pouring out the front grille. Slamming to a stop well behind the other vehicles, the driver leaped out and dashed toward the cluster of people. Before he had gone ten feet, the motor home’s chrome grille erupted and flames shot out, blistering the paint and shooting up a plume of dark smoke.

Swearing, the large cowboy swung off his horse and pointed to the hill behind him. “Move,” he shouted to the stunned observers. “Now. To the other side. The damn thing’s going to blow.”

Christy took a last look at the blazing motor home then turned to check the people swarming up the hillside. Noting they were all accounted for, she slid her arm protectively around the petite woman beside her. “Come on, Aunt Tillie. The man said to move.”

“We’ll be fine, dear,” the older woman murmured, hiking up her long skirt and obediently trotting up the hill after her friends. “Just fine.”

“Not if we don’t hustle.”

“Oh!” Tillie skidded to a stop and turned back. “My bracelet. It’s gone.”

Halting beside her, Christy wrapped her fingers around her aunt’s wrist and tugged. “Come on, it’ll be there when we get back.”

“But it’s Walter’s. I mean, the one he gave me. His last gift.”

Christy closed her eyes and sighed. After four days on the road with her lovable, exasperating aunt, she recognized the determination beneath her breathy voice. Come hell or high water, Tillie would go back for that bracelet. “Where is it?”

“There.” Tillie pointed to a spot twenty feet behind them where the gold band glittered in the sun.

“I’ll get it. You keep moving.” Christy nudged her aunt toward the others and waited until they crested the hill before she turned back.

From behind them, Shane McBride watched with mingled fury and disbelief as the trim redhead reversed herself and dashed back toward him and the inferno. Not on my land, he thought grimly, angling to cut her off. No way. She might be a UFO-hunting trespasser, but if she was hurt on his property, she could tie him up in a legal snarl for months. He launched himself at her just as the RV exploded.

A gust of hot air hit him with the force of a sledgehammer, throwing him off balance just as he snagged her. Fiery cinders rained on his back.

Shifting his weight to break the redhead’s fall, Shane rolled with her across the grass, coming to a stop with her pinned beneath him. He held her there, hip to hip, sinking into her softness, waiting for the adrenaline to stop roaring through his body, feeling the swell of her breasts press against his chest.

Instead of rolling aside and tugging her to her feet, pure physical appreciation kept him where he was a few seconds longer than necessary. It had obviously been too long since he’d been with a woman, he thought wryly, because she felt damn good. Way too good.

Struggling for air, she shoved at his shoulders. “I can’t…breathe.” Looking up, she blinked at the lick of flame in the man’s dark eyes, so close to her own. It was gone in an instant. Muttering a curse, he shifted to her side, rising to his feet with a fluid power that had her blinking again. It took her longer to move. His hard body had imprinted itself on hers, and she shivered at the aftereffect of heat, flexing muscles and a bar of rigid flesh pressing into her belly.

He leaned over her, extending a large hand. Waiting until her fingers touched his palm, he tightened his grip and pulled her smoothly to her feet. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” Dazed by her racing pulse and the heat from his body, but not hurt. Christy shook her head as she looked around the grassy knoll. “I’m fine. I think.” Taking in the bits of twisted metal and smoldering grass, she shivered and turned back to him, impulsively squeezing the hand she still held. “Thanks for your help. I’m Christy Calhoun, and I’m really sorry about all this.” She gestured vaguely at the shambles around them. “I know it sounds crazy, but I was after my aunt’s bracelet, not trying to get blown up.”

Turning away to conceal his aroused state, he scowled at the gaggle of older people at the top of the hill then down at her. “Shane McBride. I own this land. If you haven’t figured it out yet, you’re trespassing.”

“Welcome to my world,” Christy muttered.

“No, ma’am, you’ve got that wrong.” His deep voice had an edge of lethal softness. “There’s no welcome on this ranch for trespassers or idiots looking for UFOs. I’ve had all the broken fences, burned grass and campers that I intend to deal with. So I’d advise you to turn your cute little butt around, go back out the same cut fence you came in and travel on down the road.”

Looking around at the disaster area, she said, “We didn’t cut the fence. It was already down.”

“I know,” he said with strained patience. “It was done yesterday by a tourist who claimed he was running away from a UFO. He zigzagged on and off the road and took down nearly a quarter mile of fence. My fence.”

“Well, we won’t do anything like that,” she assured him, lifting her hands in a universal gesture of innocence. “Honest, we’re really a law-abiding group of…” He half turned, raising his brows when she stopped, flushing, apparently remembering where she was.

“What I mean is, we didn’t know we were trespassing when we pulled over. We thought it was open land since…there wasn’t a fence.” As her words dwindled away beneath his skeptical gaze, Christy’s thoughts darted to her aunt who, as leader and navigator of the group, had made the decision to stop precisely where they were.

Aunt Tillie.

A nasty suspicion drew her thoughts even further back to a conversation she’d had with one of her cousins two weeks earlier.

Brandy would know what to do, she had thought at the time, waiting for her cousin to answer the phone. After all, hadn’t Brandy been the latest victim among the cousins? Hadn’t she—

At the sound of a sunny contralto greeting, Christy had said, “Brandy? Thank God!”

“Christy? Hey, I’ve been meaning to call. How’s the fianceé?”

“Ex-fianceé. But that’s not why—”

“Ex?” Brandy cleared her throat. “Isn’t that the third man you…? Never mind. How’s the job going?”

“Gone, but that’s not why—”

“Gone? When?”

“Actually, the same day I got rid of fianceé number three. I was more upset about the job.”

“But you’ve been writing for that magazine for the last two years.”

“Yep, but it got caught up in a merger, and it’s dead meat,” Christy said succinctly. “Brandy, that’s not why—”

“So what are you going to do?”

This time, Christy’s sigh was long and loud. She should have known she wouldn’t control this conversation; she never did when talking with her cousin. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “I’m a little stressed here. When my magazine bit the dust, the editor of a travel magazine called me with an offer.”

“Christy, that’s terrific!”

“You haven’t heard about my first assignment.”

“Nothing can be that bad,” her cousin said in a firm voice. “In the major scheme of things, a year isn’t that long.”

“A day can be that long if I’m working with Aunt Tillie.”

“Working with…?”

“Aunt Tillie,” Christy confirmed grimly. A fey, spry, enchanting, adventurous, hair-raising dynamo of a woman. A woman fascinated by aliens and UFOs and…a psychic. She had daily conversations with Uncle Walter, a man whose exuberant spirit was apparently undaunted by the insignificant fact that he had passed on to another plane years earlier. She was also a matchmaker, who wreaked havoc in the life of any niece or nephew unfortunate enough to become the object of her attention.

But that had all been family lore, at least as far as Christy was concerned. Born into a military family that moved with regularity, she’d had only intermittent contact with her infamous aunt. So minimal, in fact, that she had always thought the stories were highly exaggerated.

Until this past year.

“She’s gathered a herd of senior citizen extraterrestrial believers and organized them into a caravan. The plan is to visit the Nevada and Arizona hot spots of UFO sightings. The seniors, of course, fully expect to find proof of visitations.”

“Good grief.”

“My thought exactly. And since my first assignment is to write an article on seniors traveling together, I got stuck with Aunt Tillie and her goofy friends.”

After a thoughtful pause, her cousin asked cautiously, “How’d your editor know about Aunt Tillie?”

“She didn’t. But Mom certainly does. Among other things, she said I couldn’t turn Aunt Tillie loose on the rest of the world in an RV.”

“Aunt Tillie got her driver’s license back?” Horror lifted Brandy’s voice a notch.

“Last week.”

“Good grief.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. So, with the family breathing down my neck and designating me as the sacrificial lamb, I cleared the idea with my editor. She thought it might have a nice, light touch. I’m leaving in about ten days.”

Before her cousin could recover, Christy circled back to the original reason for the call. “Brandy, have you ever heard Aunt Tillie call me her little wanderer?”

“Sure. Not lately, but all the time when we were kids. I figured it was because you always meandered away and the family had to send search parties out for you.”

“Yeah, I did too.”

“Did? Past tense? Not now?”

“No indeedy. She said something yesterday that put a whole new light on the subject.”

“Don’t tell me. Aliens again?”

“What’s with her, Brandy? The woman is obsessed with E.T.s. Now she seems to think I’m one of them.”

“Oh boy. Did you ask Aunt Tillie about it?”

“You bet your sweet patootie I did.”

“And?”

“She said she knew the moment I was born that I was what UFO buffs call a wanderer. She’s just been waiting for me to bloom. Damn it, Brandy, this isn’t funny. I don’t want to bloom.”

Her cousin’s snort of laughter was not comforting. “You’re doomed, Christy. There’s not a darned thing any of us can do when she goes into high gear. One consolation, though, she’ll find you a husband—one who’s good with aliens, of course. That’s always a top priority with her. After all, she’s still convinced she married me off to a real, honest-to-God E.T. Just be grateful that Uncle Walter isn’t involved.”

“I don’t want a husband, especially one who hangs around with aliens. I’ve sworn off men. Three ex-fianceés are more than enough for any woman. And the thought of Uncle Walter sending me messages from the great beyond is the stuff of nightmares,” Christy said with a shudder. “Good grief, the man has been dead for at least fourteen years. Is he ever going to quit talking to her?”

“Has she mentioned his opinion of your wandering soul or a husband?”

“Well…”

Her cousin’s laughter was no longer muffled. “Doomed, Christy. That’s what you are. Doomed!”

Earlier, other cousins had laughingly warned her that she, too, would one day be drawn into her aunt’s sphere of influence. And her life would never be the same.

Just as they’d predicted, it had happened. The fateful meeting had taken place one rainy afternoon a year earlier, after her move to San Diego, not far from her aunt’s home in Rancho Santa Fe. Less than an hour into the visit Christy had been hooked. Enchanted by the tiny woman who loved so openly, she became her staunch supporter and as fiercely protective of her as the rest of the family.

Now, wincing as she remembered Brandy’s prediction, Christy tried to rein in her overactive imagination. Granted, this stop had not been on their itinerary; they had been scheduled to drive another fifty miles similar to the last hundred since leaving Las Vegas. Miles of heat-shimmering road carved through stark landscape covered with chaparral and dotted with stumpy Joshua trees and yucca.

True, Aunt Tillie had been sitting beside her in the passenger seat humming a bit off-key when she’d spotted the lush oasis ahead—which coincided with the end of the barbed wire fence—and directed her to pull off the road onto the grassy slope.

But there was no way that Aunt Tillie could have known a man like Shane McBride would be here.

Absolutely none.

This stop was definitely just a spur-of-the-moment thing, she reassured herself. It had nothing to do with Shane, nothing to do with aliens. And definitely nothing to do with husbands.

Nada.

Relieved, she gazed up at Shane and shivered as she felt an involuntary tug of attraction. He did bear a startling resemblance to her three ex-fianceés. Not in physical looks, although they had all been large, solid men, but in his aura of power and control. Of course, it was that very aura that had been the problem.

Three times.

Number one owned a computer company, number two a marketing firm, number three was a real estate broker. All three men were aggressive types whose companies were leaving their competitors in the dust. Unfortunately, they handled their personal lives with the same drive, and she had always been a sucker for the self-assertive types.

But, that was then and this was now—and there was a limit. She had sworn off powerful men. For good. Especially the strong, silent types who assumed control as if by divine right; they were nothing but trouble. She had once believed she could tap into their gentler side, touch the tenderness she thought was just beneath the surface, but three bad experiences had finally opened her eyes.

Men like that were drawn to her generous spirit and open affection, just as she had been drawn to their strength, but it was the old water-and-oil combination. It had taken a while, but she had finally learned her lesson. If she ever started looking for a man again, and that was a big if, it would definitely be for a sensitive, caring type.

So if, through some convoluted mental process, Aunt Tillie had concluded that Shane McBride was connected to aliens or would make a terrific nephew-in-law, she could just think again. In fact, the best plan would be to get Tillie back on the road so the matter could die a natural death.

Her eyes narrowed in thought, Christy glanced again at Shane just as he turned to check on the older people walking down the hill.

“Look,” she said in a determined voice, “I’ll do my best to get this crew on the road. In the meantime, if it makes you feel any better, you can be as rude to me as you like, but when you talk to my aunt, I hope you have the courtesy to—” She caught her breath, almost choking. “Good grief, your shirt.”

He looked over his shoulder at her. “What about it?”

“It’s burned. And so is your back.” Shock lifted her voice a notch. “Why on earth didn’t you say something?”

He shrugged. “I had other things on my mind.”

Yeah, like rescuing her, she thought with a stab of guilt. Giving his sleeve a tug, she said, “Come on, I have some ointment in the motor home. It’ll keep you from blistering.”

In less than two minutes, Shane was sitting on a stool hastily pulled outside with his shirt on his lap to cover his reaction to his nurse, while Christy dabbed a cooling salve on his burns. The touch of her soft hands on his back didn’t help a bit. Seconds later, the seniors milled around him, offering sympathy and suggestions. His foreman, Hank Withers, a quiet man, tall and spare, joined them, dismounting behind the group, quieting his mare and Shane’s gelding.

Tillie, wearing raspberry tennies, pulled up a camp chair and plunked it in front of Shane. When she sat, her long purple gathered skirt, held up by green suspenders, pooled around her feet. Leaning over, she plucked his shirt from his hands, shook out the dust and spread it across her lap, looking with interest at the logo on the pocket. She drew a slim finger across a swirl of stars with the word Galaxy embroidered in red beneath it.

Flexing the shoulder on which Christy was doctoring a raw spot, he said to the older woman, “I’m Shane McBride.”

“Of course you are,” she assured him earnestly. “Our host.” Smiling at Shane, she added, “You can call me Tillie.”

Host?

Christy cleared her throat. “Aunt Tillie, Mr. McBride wants us to leave.”

Tillie tilted her head, studying Shane before switching her gaze to her niece. “You must have misunderstood, dear. It’s the scene of an accident. Nobody leaves. At least, not until the insurance people come.” Her brows drew together in thought. “Or perhaps it’s the rental people—or the police. And, who knows, that could be several days.”

Beaming at Shane, she said, “When you lowered the fence for us, I knew we were meant to pull over for a rest.”

Christy stiffened. “Aunt Tillie, the fence was broken by a man who claims he was being chased by a UFO.”

“Wonderful! I knew we were in the right place.” Her eyes sparkled with delight.

Shane wanted to scowl to show he meant business, but there was something about her expectant look, her bright blue eyes and mop of silver curls that stopped him. It would have been like taking a potshot at Tinkerbell. “No, ma’am, I don’t think wonderful’s quite the word. He was as drunk as a skunk.”

She twinkled at him, clasping his shirt to her chest. “Just think! Actually chased by a UFO. We expect to have the same good luck. Don’t we?” she asked, turning to her friends for confirmation.

They nodded, apparently sharing her enthusiasm. The only exception to the general fervor, Shane noted, was the very curvy lady with the mass of red hair who was still dabbing at his back. She just sighed.

“Lovely shirt.” Tillie handed it back to Shane and waved at the group assembled around her. “These are my friends. They release water, read palms, hunt and catch people, fly, gamble, fix things, open minds and create.”

Still grappling with the idea of being host to a gathering of UFO hunters, especially those with the qualifications just revealed by their fluttering leader, Shane got to his feet and shrugged on his shirt.

Christy dropped the ointment back into the box of medical supplies and slid between Shane and the seniors. They were a formidable group, individually or collectively, she realized, and it made no sense at all, but she still felt as protective about them as she did Tillie. No doubt it had to do with what the family called her nurturing nature—or an addled mental state resulting from too much contact with her aunt.

“Shane,” she said hastily, “I’d like you to meet our resident dowser.”

A diminutive woman with graying brown hair stepped forward and gave his hand a firm shake. “Ruth Ann Watts. Glad to meet you.”

Christy gestured to a tall, slim man with eyes like blue lasers. “The man who catches people.”

Remaining where he was, leaning against a tree trunk, the man nodded. “Jack Beatty, retired cop.”

Another gesture from Christy. “The man who hunts for people.”

“Search and rescue,” a small, wiry man in dark glasses explained. “Claude Rollins.”

Waving a couple forward who resembled Jack Sprat and his wife, Christy said, “Skip and Opal Williams.”

Skip gave an amiable nod. Opal bustled forward, pumping Shane’s hand. “My husband’s a mechanic, and I read palms.” Before she stepped back beside Skip, she turned Shane’s hand over and took a quick peek at it.

A portly, bald man reached out to shake Shane’s hand. “Jim Sturgiss, retired Air Force. Howdy.”

“Ben Matthews.” Short and muscular as a wrestler, the next man nodded. “I’m the creative one,” he said, dry humor lacing his deep voice.

Grinning at the baffled expression in Shane’s eyes, Christy touched a tall woman in jeans and cowboy boots on the shoulder. “Our gambler.”

“Melinda Rills,” the tall woman said, echoing Christy’s amused smile. “Stock market and casinos.”

The last man stepped forward and extended his hand. Pale and pudgy, he was obviously still reeling from the explosion. “Dave Davidson, the one who opens minds. I’m a retired psychology teacher, and I don’t usually go around blowing things up. I’m sorry this happened on your property.”

“Well, Boss, if I was a bettin’ man, I could’ve lost ten bucks back there. I never thought you’d let them stay.”

“It’s only for a couple of days,” Shane muttered, as he and Hank headed toward the barn. “At the most.”

He wasn’t sure what had happened. Maybe the explosion had rattled his brain. Or it was Tillie looking at him as if he were her last hope for salvation. Or Christy. Hell, he didn’t know. With all of them talking at once, assuring him that they would clean up the area while they waited for the rental people, it had been hard to think.

Partly, though, it was Tillie. The little woman with the weird clothes and incandescent smile had worked some sort of magic. The others he could have kicked off the property without a qualm, but not Tillie.

And, as much as he disliked the idea, not Christy. Not the redhead. Just one look at her had his body on red alert, and that was asking for trouble. Big trouble. Even worse had been the feeling of instant recognition that had poured through every cell of his body when he’d first seen her. If he’d believed in fate or destiny, he would have conceded that she was the one woman he’d been looking for all of his life.

But he wasn’t a dreamer. Two women who had liked his money a hell of a lot more than they’d liked him had helped him grow up fast. And he didn’t believe in fate—at least not where a wife was concerned. None of the women he’d met had ever been right. Not for a lifetime. He doubted one existed. But, damn, at first glance she sure came close.

“How much of the fence did you fix?” he asked abruptly, deliberately changing the direction of his thoughts.

“Not much.” Hank shrugged his lean shoulders. “After the explosion, Milt, here,” he nodded at the gelding, “came flying over the hill and it took me a while to catch him.”

“We’ll head back tomorrow and finish up.”

“What about them?” Hank gestured over his shoulder at the people milling around the motor homes, his hazel eyes questioning.

“We’ll leave that one section of fence open for them.”

“What about the herd?”

“We’ll have to wait to move it in there until they’re gone.” Shane dismounted when they reached the barn. “Who’s cooking tonight?”

“Red.” Hank sighed. “Beans again. You know, we’re gonna have a mutiny on our hands if we don’t get another cook out here. And don’t even suggest Adelaide. Half of us got food poisoning the one time she tried.”

“Yeah. I know.” Remembering, Shane winced. The housekeeper was a jewel, but not in the kitchen. “I’ve called all the temp agencies in Vegas, but the odds of finding someone are slim to none. Anyone who can cook for more than one person at a time has been snatched up for the summer by dude ranches or local camps. And Hector called this morning with more bad news after he pulled into Dallas. Said his dad is worse off than he thought, and he’d probably have to stay two or three weeks.”

Hank groaned. “A couple of days without a cook is bad enough, but two or three weeks? Boss, you gotta do something.” Taking the reins from Shane’s hand, he said, “I’ll take care of the horses, you go make a miracle.”

An hour later, Shane closed the telephone directory with an irritated thump. Nothing. There wasn’t a cook to be found in the whole damn county.

Maybe there was hope for Shane after all.

Christy braked to a stop and hopped off her bicycle at the front gate, looking at the gracious old house surrounded by lush, well-tended grass. It was no Tara, but then she had always thought such magnificence was overrated. This was a home—pale creamy yellow, two stories, with a wraparound porch that was cozily furnished with an oak swing and wicker chairs punctuated with bright floral cushions. Enclosed by a white rail with gently curved spindles, it all but shouted a welcome. It was the kind of home she had dreamed about as a child moving from place to place. It was a deeply feminine house, she reflected, for such a hard man.