McDonough needed to know what had happened here today. The woman’s incompetence. Her rudeness.
Her provocative sexual games.
Lucas strode from the stable.
If anyone was going to be ordered off this sorry bit of real estate, it sure as hell would not be him.
CHAPTER THREE
BY LATE afternoon, the clouds that had hung over the horizon most of the day finally began moving.
Better still, as far as Lucas was concerned, they were building, turning into impressive thunderheads as they drew closer. Unless he was reading the signs wrong, the oppressive heat that held the valley in an iron grasp was about to break.
He threw open the guest room window in hopes of catching a breeze. There was none but the scent of rain was definitely in the air.
It couldn’t come soon enough.
The guest room was boxy and hot. An ancient electric fan stood on an oak dresser but there was no way to coax more than a flutter from it. Under normal circumstances, he’d have been out the door hours ago but these were not normal circumstances.
He was as good as trapped here, thanks to a promise he’d foolishly made to his grandfather.
At least he hadn’t seen the woman again. He’d gone straight through the front door, up the stairs to this room without seeing a soul. As far as he could tell, he was alone in the house.
Just where in hell was Aloysius McDonough?
Lucas looked impatiently at his watch. Five-thirty. If McDonough didn’t show up soon…
If he didn’t, what?
No matter what happened, he was stuck here until tomorrow, when the car rental agency delivered a replacement vehicle.
Maybe it hadn’t been so smart to ignore the car key the woman had tossed him in the stable. Maybe he should go back and search for it.
Or maybe he should search for her.
Lucas snorted. He wouldn’t do, either. He’d wait this out, go home and tell his grandfather that McDonough had been too ashamed to show up and admit there was no mare for sale.
Thunder rumbled in the distance and a spiked streak of lightning sizzled from the almost-black sky. The storm was coming on quickly now, turning day into night.
Hard to believe that only yesterday he’d been in Manhattan at about this same hour, having drinks with his two oldest friends, Nicolo and Damian. Drinks, some laughter…and then dinner.
Lucas’s belly growled.
He hadn’t eaten since early morning. There seemed to be an entirely different meaning to hospitality on El Rancho Grande. First, you damn near rode a man down, then you didn’t show up for an appointment and if neither of those things got rid of an apparently unwanted guest, you tried starving him out.
Lucas folded his arms and glowered at his reflection in the age-speckled mirror over the dresser.
The possibility of that key still lying on the stable floor was growing more and more appealing. Why, when you came down to it, should he feel obligated to stay here? Hell, he’d kept his promise to come to this—this alien outpost.
It was Aloysius McDonough who hadn’t kept his.
Was that enough reason to disappoint Felix? Lucas sighed at the obvious answer and began to pace.
He had to calm down. Otherwise, by the time McDonough deigned to show up—assuming that ever happened—he’d say or do something rash. And he didn’t want that.
Who was he kidding?
He wanted exactly that. More to the point, he wanted to tell McDonough what a fool he was to run a ranch straight into the ground, to employ a woman who dressed like a man, had the surliness of a man…