Mac's Law Read online

  He adjusted his hat against the glare as the door swung shut behind him. He wasn’t even halfway to his truck before he heard the cowbell jangle and the rapid tattoo of high heels coming up fast. He pulled his hat low over his brow and pretended the steps weren’t coming two for his one, and getting louder by the second.

  “Mr. Hollister!”

  Damn, he even liked the sound of her voice when she screeched. Tucking his chin deeper, he walked faster. The staccato tattoo picked up its beat.

  Curtains began to flutter as she yelled his name again. The knowledge that he was providing the town with its entertainment this Saturday evening brought him to a halt.

  His sudden stop caused the woman to crash into him. Her nose hit the middle of his back, and she stumbled. Mac spun and caught her before she could fall to the dusty sidewalk. She felt good in his arms. Dainty. Lush. Tempting. He released her faster than he would a bouquet of poison ivy.

  “What part of the word ‘no’ don’t you understand?” he asked as she straightened her suit jacket with one hand while rubbing her nose with the other.

  She checked her palm for blood, looking at him over her fingers. “The part that doesn’t fit in with my plans.”

  Now why didn’t that surprise him? “Woman, what do you want from me?”

  She smoothed the front of her skirt, and shifted her purse strap higher on her shoulder. “A ride out to my job, for starters.”

  He wanted to throw up his hands. He settled for frowning. “Don’t you ever give up?”

  Her answer was short and to the point. “Not when it’s important to me.”

  Mac whipped off his Stetson and slapped it against his thigh. Conscious of windows opening, he made an effort to lower his voice.

  “And what makes this job so damned important to you? It’s only an average ranch on an average amount of land with an average crew.”

  “You mean despite the principle that you’re reneging on the contract simply because I’m a woman?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You can’t do that, Mac.” The comment came from his right.

  Hell, luck really wasn’t on his side, Mac decided, realizing he’d pulled up short in front of his best friend’s office. Zach leaned against the doorjamb, looking big and all Indian with that long black hair blowing around his face. Hair he refused to cut despite the way it angered the local judge. Hell, probably precisely because it angered the local judge. Zach was funny that way. “It’s against the law,” Zach continued with pseudo helpfulness, knowing damned well the hornet’s nest he was stirring.

  Before Mac could flip him off, a splat of tobacco juice landed within two inches of his brown leather boots. Mac looked up.

  “Didn’t you have a woman cook out at the Circle H last year?” Henry Morgan, Zach’s grandfather asked as he strolled closer.

  That bit of information had the Sterns woman pulling herself to her full height, and the light of battle entering her eyes. “Well?” she prompted when he didn’t answer immediately.

  Mac was beginning to feel like Custer at his last stand. “Sort of.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “There are only two sexes; male or female, so which was it?”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen the McGillicutty woman.” Another voice jumped into the fray. Mac almost groaned out loud when he recognized Arnie Miller, the town handyman and former mechanic. There was nothing Arnie liked better than to stir the pot. As if to prove that point, Arnie offered up, “The woman was as old as the hills and built like them, too.”

  “I gather your last employee was female, then?”

  Mac slapped his hat harder against his thigh “She was old,” he said as if that explained everything. Dust flew as his hat assaulted his thigh again. “Dammit woman, can’t you just take no for an answer?”

  The woman’s gaze dropped to the hat, and then back to his face. The smallest of smiles touched her lips. “No.”

  “Well, why the hell not?”

  “For the simple reason I can’t afford to.”

  Mac blinked. He looked J. C. Sterns up and down, from one expensive end to another. “You can’t afford to?”

  “You needn’t look so skeptical. You know from my résumé that I left my last job three months ago.”

  “Why, Mac Hollister!” a quavery voice called from two doors down. “I am disappointed in you! It’s bad enough you’re reneging on an honest deal, but to leave this poor thing penniless as a result, well it’s too much.” Grandma Ortiz raised her bullhorn to her mouth again. “I bet your dear Mamma is turning over in her grave, God rest her soul.”

  His ears were turning red. Mac just knew it, and that hadn’t happened since he was thirteen and got caught by his father with a girl up in the hayloft. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Grandma Ortiz that his mother would be even more shocked if he ended up seducing a woman under his protection, but he bit his tongue. Grandma Ortiz was a respected fixture in Round the Bend. Smart-mouthing her would likely get him tarred and feathered.

  Henry spat again, this time in the direction of two doors down. “A body can’t get any privacy since that woman went and ordered that fancy listening device from that electronics catalogue.”

  “I heard that Henry Morgan!”

  “Then pay attention and turn that damned thing off!”

  Grandma Ortiz rapped the porch railing with her cane. “If that’s the way you feel Mister Morgan, don’t you come around here with any invented excuses this Thursday when I set to making my peach tarts.”

  Henry visibly paled. “I’d better get over there right away and make my peace,” he muttered before excusing himself all around. As he stomped down the steps, he continued to mutter, “She could have at least warned me before I opened my mouth that she was going to make those tarts Thursday!”

  Jessie looked around at the small crowd fencing her and Mac in. On all sides, complete strangers picked up their argument and ran with it. She raised her gaze to Mac’s.

  “When did I lose control of this conversation?”

  He snorted in disgust, grabbed her arm and shouldered their way clear. “About the time you stepped off the bus. Welcome to Round the Bend.”

  Jessie looked back over her shoulder as Mac hustled her along. She shook her head as no one noticed their leaving, too caught up in continuing the discussion to care.

  “I wonder who’s going to win the argument, you or me?”

  An answering grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. It took his face from rugged to sexy with one quirk. If he hadn’t put his hand under her arm in preparation of helping her in, she would have made a fool of herself staring. Damn! The man had a face she could stare at forever. As it was, she had to worry about remembering to breathe as his finger on the inside of her arm teased all sorts of interesting nerve endings to life.

  He opened the door of a dusty blue pickup and handed her up. “No doubt we’ll find out in church.”

  “Church?” Did she look the religious type?

  Mac ambled over to his own side of the truck. As he swung around the front she had a nice view of his broad shoulders in their denim shirt tapering down to the tight butt blocked from her view by the hood of the truck. Damn! What fun was ogling if she missed the good parts? The man was a tease, pure and simple.

  The driver’s door creaked as he opened it and swung in. “It’s either show up in one of the town’s two churches or be forever branded a sinner.”

  The door clunked shut and the hot interior was suddenly filled with his scent. He smelled like spring looked. Clean, earthy, and full of promise. She savored another breath and asked, “Would that be so bad?”

  He started the engine. “Not if you don’t mind being the town’s only cause.”

  She shuddered at the thought. “I’m a Methodist.”

  “Thought you might find religion.” The truck pulled out from the curve.

  “I’ve always had religion,” she clarified. “I just have a problem doing what I�
�m told.”

  “So I noticed,” he muttered under his breath. As he shifted to second gear, he shot her a sideways glance. “Are you really broke?”

  His eyes were bright blue against the tan of his face. Full of intelligence and life. She couldn’t have handpicked a more perfect man for her first affair. But, he was her boss. Jessie sighed before answering honestly. “Close enough.”

  She was broke, scared, and hopeful, a strange combination of emotions that bubbled through her system like sparkling wine. Because she was also free. For the first time in her adult life, and she was so going to make the most of it.

  “And that’s why you took the bus rather than driving? You don’t own a car?”

  “I didn’t need one in the city.”

  Jessie looked out the window and saw the town was already behind them. “My bags!”

  With a thrust of his chin, Mac indicated the back of the pickup. “Larry must have put them in the back when you told him where you were going.”

  “Larry?”

  “He runs the general store and bus depot.”

  “Oh yes. I did ask about the Circle H there. He’s the one who told me to wait over at the Bar and Grill for you.” Jessie saw the way her reluctant employer’s face fell from good humor to anger. It wasn’t hard to guess what he was thinking about. “I really am an excellent cook.”

  “Your cooking abilities aren’t the problem here.”

  “Then just what is?”

  “You’re the problem.”

  Her hand clenched on her purse. She was not losing this job. “I’m sure we can work out any personality conflicts between us.”

  Mac pulled over to the side of the road, applying the brakes so hard, if it hadn’t been for her seat belt, she would have flown through the windshield. He unfastened his seat belt and ran his arm across the back of the seat as a cloud of brown dust rose around them. Jessie suddenly became conscious of their isolation. Flat brown nothingness, periodically broken up by a scraggly tree, spread out on either side of the vehicle for as far as the eye could see. And in front of her seethed an angry man.

  “Just how old are you?”

  Not angry, she corrected herself. Frustrated. “I’m twenty-nine, but my age has nothing to do with my qualifications for this job.”

  Mac snapped the rearview mirror around until she could see her reflection. Her hair was coming loose at the temples.

  “That’s the problem, honey.”

  She assumed he meant her appearance.

  “I have fourteen women-hungry men working my ranch. Their ages run from twenty-two to forty-eight, and not one of those men is going to miss the opportunity to try to get you into his bed.”

  “I can handle men,darling .”

  He ignored her jab.

  “Because you spent the last four years working at a boy’s academy, you think you can take on my ranchhands?” He swore and slapped the wheel with his palm. “You’re kidding yourself. We’re talking men here, not boys.”

  Jessie opened her hands on her lap. She thought of everything she’d gone through in the last four years, not only her mother’s last incoherent years, but also as the prime outlet for a hundred high-spirited boys. There were teen crushes, frogs in her bed, hot spices in her food, and fledgling seduction attempts. The last made her smile.

  “I never kid myself. I can handle your men.” Of that she had no doubt. “And unless you’re prepared to write a sizable check right now, you don’t have any choice but to sit back and let me prove it.”

  She wasn’t going to back down, Mac realized. For probably more reasons than she was revealing, the woman was determined to keep this job. Which meant there was no point in continuing the argument because he sure as shit didn’t have the money to buy her off, which meant they were both going to have to make the best of what was, no doubt, going to be a bad situation. Son of a bitch, his luck was running badly. Tipping his hat lower over his eyes, he turned the ignition and spun back onto the blacktop.

  “Let’s hope you can,” he said resignedly, “because for the next two weeks, you’re going to have to.”

  She looked up from checking her seat belt. “You mean it? I’ve got the job?”

  “You’ve got the trial period.” He did some quick mental calculations. “With that plus some severance pay, you should have enough to tide you over until your next job.”

  “You’re so sure I’m going to fail.”

  Mac kept his eyes firmly glued to the road. “Honey, something as fancy and as delicate as you, just wasn’t meant to live out here.”

  Her soft “You’re going to eat those words” filled the cab with the snap of a gauntlet being thrown down. Everything masculine inside him surged to the fore at the feminine challenge, eager for the chance to spar with her, to find a venue in which to assert himself. He tamped down the aggressive reaction, knowing she had no idea what her challenge did to him. Had no idea of the kind of man he was. What kind of lover he was.

  He cut her a glance only to find her looking out the window. It didn’t matter. She’d soon find out that he wasn’t like the men she was probably used to. Gentlemen who asked before touching, and took orders in bed rather than giving them. Men who were his complete opposite.

  He’d been brought up to make hard decisions in the blink of an eye, to wrestle with nature and come out the winner. To face the impossible and through sheer force of will, twist it into a done deal. He wasn’t soft, and he wasn’t a pushover. This was his domain and he was master of all he surveyed, which would include her as soon as she set foot on his land, something she hadn’t yet figured out. His lips twitched as he envisioned her reaction when that reality kicked in. No doubt she’d go off like a rocket, and kick up a fuss the men would be talking about for years. And when she was done with that, well then he had no doubt, she’d start slinging orders.

  He shook his head. He bet she was damned good at giving orders, too. J. C. Sterns was a damned competent woman who exuded self-confidence, but while he’d do just about anything to keep his woman happy, he didn’t take orders from anyone.

  His knuckles whitened as he clenched his hands around the steering wheel. Ah hell, when had he started thinking of her in terms of his?

  He cut her another glance, taking in the thickness of her hair, the clean lines of her profile, the stubborn set of her mouth, and shook his head as his cock, oblivious to common sense, swelled and fought for space in his tight jeans. J. C. Sterns wasn’t his woman, was never going to be his woman, and the sooner he and his penis accepted that reality, the better they all would be.

  As if to challenge his silent declaration, the woman ran her pink tongue over her full lips, pausing only to deliver a teasing flick to the corner nearest him. His pulse, his cock and his interest all spiked to attention. He forced his gaze back to the road and swallowed a hungry curse. Oh yeah, the next two weeks were going to be a real pleasure trip. One long fucking excursion in blue-balls hell.

  * * * * *

  “What does J. C. stand for anyway?” Mac asked as he helped her down from the cab.

  “Nothing much,” Jessie replied. No way was she telling anyone her middle name. He stepped back to reach over the side for her two suitcases.

  “What’s your real name?” The question ended on a grunt as he hauled the big one out.

  “Jessica.”

  “What do your friends call you?”

  “J. C.”

  He stared at her a minute. Long enough to make her wonder if her shirt had come unbuttoned. Then, as if he’d reached a decision, he nodded and swung her other suitcase over the side. Holding both at his side, he said, “I think I’ll call you Jessie.”

  He turned on his heel and headed for the house.

  Jessie stared at his broad back as he strode across the lawn with her belongings. She had a feeling it wouldn’t do much good to protest his adaptation of her name. The man swung those hips in a purely masculine way that boasted an arrogant confidence. As he strode onto the wraparoun
d porch of the two-story farmhouse with its twin oak sentinels, she remembered to protest. “You can call me Ms. Sterns or J. C.”

  “I like Jessie better,” he called back as he vanished into the dark interior of the house.

  “And that settles that,” Jessie muttered as she picked her way across the soft lawn in her high heels.

  He popped back out the front door just as she reached the bottom of the stairs, frowning as she pulled her heel out of the grass. “I hope you brought some sensible clothes with you.”

  She smoothed a crease from the jacket of her linen suit. It was her best outfit. “I wore this today in the hopes of impressing my new boss.”