Lone Calder Star (Calder Saga 9)

Boone was certain that if he ever got his hands on that old man, he’d soon show his father that Garner wasn’t so tough. There would be fear in the old rancher’s eyes when he was done—enough that he would be too scared to tell anyone. Not even his granddaughter.

Boone lifted his head, letting his mind wrap around the thought that had just sprung into it. He turned, confidence once more surging through him as he again faced his father.

“There is a way.” But his statement drew no response. Boone raised his voice in a demand to be heard. “I said there’s a way to get to the old man.”

“Really?” Max flicked him a jaundiced look.

“It’s one you’ll like.”

Max released an exasperated sigh and demanded, “And what would that be?”

“Have you forgotten the old man has a granddaughter?”

Chapter Eight

The sun was directly overhead, shrinking the shadows around the feed store to mere dark slits. Aided by the sun’s warming influence, the thermometer mounted on the outside of the building registered a temperature in the low seventies.

An hour ago, Holly Sykes had taken advantage of the balmy weather and propped the front door open. Dallas welcomed the stimulating freshness of the air and ignored the dust that occasionally swirled in with it. The boost to her lagging energy had come at just the right time. She dragged in another deep breath of it and let it out in a weary sigh.

With only one more final exam to take, Dallas reminded herself that after tomorrow night, the stress and long hours would all be over. There would be no more classes until after the first of the year. Dallas suspected it might take that long to catch up on all her missed sleep.

With the printer chattering away in the background, Dallas continued the mindless task of paper-clipping the appropriate receipts to their invoice, ready for the check to be attached. This was one time when she was grateful for the tedious side of getting the payables done.

“I don’t see how you can hear yourself think with that racket going on.” The deep, male voice came from a point somewhere near her right shoulder.

Startled, Dallas jerked her head around and felt a jolt of shock when she saw Boone Rutledge looming tall next to her desk. Her gaze swept hastily up the muscled expanse of his chest and shoulders to the hard and manly angles of his face and halted when it encountered the steady regard of his dark eyes. For a split second, she felt oddly trapped.

“Sorry.” Dallas hastily rolled her chair back from the desk and stood. “I guess I didn’t hear you come in.”

“How could you, as noisy as that thing is?” He nodded in the direction of the printer, busily spitting out checks.

“It is loud,” she agreed and glanced at the empty chair in front of her boss’s desk. “Were you looking for Holly? He was here just a minute ago. I’ll—”

“I saw him outside,” Boone interrupted. “I stopped in for a salt block, and he went to get it, said you’d write me a ticket to sign.”

“Be happy to.” Dallas immediately headed for the front counter, privately doubting that it was his sole purpose for coming in.

Ever since she had come to work at the feed store, whenever the Slash R wanted something it was either delivered or collected by a ranch hand. To her knowledge, Boone Rutledge had never picked up anything.

“You need to have Holly get you a new printer, one that’s quieter.” Boone sauntered up to the counter and leaned a hip against it inches from her, watching while she began filling out the ticket.

“I’ll tell him—and mention that you said so,” Dallas added, openly acknowledging the power of the Rutledge name but with a trace of reckless defiance in the look she gave him.

Boone smiled in response, but with a satisfaction that made Dallas uncomfortable. Or maybe it was the way his gaze traveled over her, taking note of the upswell of her breasts and the full curve of her lips.

“It’s not often that beauty and brains are wrapped in the same package,” he murmured. “But you seem to have both.”

Dallas held her tongue with an effort and pushed the completed ticket over to him. “Sign anywhere.”

He glanced at the ticket, then back at her. “Got a pen?”

With tension licking along her nerve ends, Dallas silently offered her ballpoint pen to him. He took it while seeming to make sure his fingers brushed hers. Dallas tried to convince herself that she only imagined the contact was deliberate. Yet it didn’t diminish the urge to wash her hands.

As Boone scratched his name across the ticket, Holly Sykes walked through the door, mopping his forehead with a blue bandanna. “Dallas got you all fixed up, did she?” he observed.

“She certainly did.” Boone laid the pen aside and waited while Dallas separated his copy of the ticket from the rest. “I thought I’d swing by the Corner Café for lunch. Why don’t you join me?”

She thought he was talking to Holly until she glanced up and discovered he was looking straight at her. “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. Did you say something to me?” she asked, to stall for time.