Caitlin stumbled to a halt. “Good morning,” she said coolly, and started around him. Tyler moved along with her.
“Nice day,” he said.
“Very.” She took a step to the right. Tyler took a step, too.
“Mr. Kincaid—”
“Well,” he said lazily, “isn’t that something? When I was trespassin’ on your property, you called me ‘Kincaid,’ but now that I’m gainfully in your employ, I’ve graduated to ‘Mr.’”
Caitlin flashed him a look. “It isn’t my property, Mr. Kincaid, nor are you in my employ. This ranch belongs to Jonas Baron.”
“You’re his stepdaughter.”
“Exactly.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, but I don’t see the difference.”
“I am not a Baron, Mr. Kincaid. That means I hold no legal interest in Espada and never will. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“Is there a reason you’ve been avoidin’ me, Ms. McCord?”
Caitlin flushed. “I haven’t been…I don’t like being made fun of, Mr. Kincaid.”
“Forgive me, Ms. McCord. I wasn’t makin’ fun, I was makin’ an observation.”
“Here’s an observation for you, Kincaid.” Her hazel eyes flashed as she looked at him. “I find it interesting that you seem to have developed a drawl in the last couple of days. And you can ditch the ‘forgive me’s’ and the ‘beggin’ your pardon’ nonsense. Expressions like those are lies, coming from you. I don’t think you’ve ever apologized to anybody in your life.”
Tyler tried to look wounded. “I’m a Southerner, Ms. McCord. We’re all gentlemen. Would a gentleman lie to a lady?”
He saw her mouth twitch but she stopped the smile before it got started. “You didn’t talk that way when we met, Kincaid.”
He grinned. “Maybe I was trying to impress you.”
“Maybe you were trying to convince me you were something you’re not.”
Tyler’s dark brows lifted. “Meaning?”
“Meaning, Abel doesn’t think you’re who you claim to be, and I’m starting to think he’s right.”
“Because of the way I talk?”
“Because of the way you act, Kincaid. Everything about you says you’re not the drifter you pretend to be.” Her nostrils flared. “And because you’re the first hand we’ve ever hired who has a cell phone in his duffel bag.”
Tyler bit back the curse that rose to his lips. “And you’re the first employer who’s gone through my things.”
“One of the men saw you using it.” She put her hands on her hips and looked into his eyes. “Or are you going to deny the phone is yours?”
“No point denying it.”
He reached past her for his shirt, which he’d left hanging on the tailgate. The scent of him rose to her nostrils, a combination of sun and man, and his arm brushed lightly against hers. Caitlin felt her heartbeat stumble, which was ridiculous. She didn’t trust Tyler Kincaid, didn’t like him—and she surely didn’t enjoy standing this close to him when he was half-naked. Lots of the men worked shirtless on a day like this but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have had the decency to cover up before he spoke to her instead of putting his body on display.
At least now he’d put his shirt on, rolled up the sleeves, smoothed down the collar. Dammit, why didn’t he do up the buttons? She certainly had no wish to look at the dark hair on his chest, or follow it as it arrowed down toward his belly button, over those hard abdominal muscles…
“Ms. McCord?”
There was a little tilt to the corner of his mouth and she knew, she knew, he’d done it deliberately, put himself on exhibit as if she gave a damn what his body looked like, or how many women had known the pleasure of it.
“Lots of things are against the law,” he said softly. “This isn’t one of them.”
She flushed. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said, owning a portable phone isn’t illegal.”
Caitlin straightened her spine. “You’re not a drifter,” she said flatly.
Tyler answered with a shrug.
“Why did you say you were?”
“You were the one who called me that, lady. Not me.”
“You didn’t try to correct me, Kincaid.”
“Correct you?” He laughed. “‘You want to wait,’” he said, mimicking her, “‘wait, but not on Baron land.’ You were into your Lady of the Manor routine. I figured correcting you would only have landed my butt in jail for trespass.”
Her color heightened but she kept her chin up and her indignation intact. “Who are you, then? And what do you want at Espada?”
He hesitated. He could tell her the truth, tell her the reason he’d come here, but the survival instincts he’d honed years before, that had kept him in one piece at the State Home and then in covert operations in the steaming jungles of Central America, were too powerful to let him make such a mistake. There were secrets here; he was certain of it. There was something in the way Abel looked at him, in the way Caitlin spoke of her role at Espada…
“Kincaid? I asked you a question. What do you want?”
He looked at the woman standing before him. Her eyes were almost gold in the morning sun; her hair was a hundred different shades of red and mahogany and maple. Her mouth was free of lipstick, full and innocent-looking, and he wondered what she’d say, what she’d do, if he told her that what he wanted, ever since he’d laid eyes on her, was to take her in his arms, tumble her into the grass, strip off that cold and haughty look, and the boyish clothes with which she camouflaged a woman’s body, and ignite the heat he knew smoldered in her blood.
Hell, he thought, and turned away.
“I told you what I wanted,” he said roughly. Grunting, he hoisted a feed sack on his shoulder and walked into the stable. “I want to talk to Jonas Baron.”
“About what?”
Tyler dumped the sack and headed out the door. “It’s none of your business.”
“Everything about this ranch is my business.”
“You just told me otherwise. You’re not a Baron, you said, remember?”
“I run Espada, Kincaid. Maybe you’d better get that through your head.”
It took all his determination not to turn around an
d show her that she might damned well run this ranch but she didn’t run him. This was a woman who needed to be reminded that she was a woman, and he ached for the chance to give her that reminder, but he knew it would be a mistake. Instead he decided to take the wind out of her sails.
“That’s fine,” he said easily, “but my business with Baron has nothing to do with Espada. Now, if you’re done questioning me, Ms. McCord, I’ve got these sacks to deal with and the stalls to muck out, so if it’s all the same with you—”
“Stalls? What about the horses?”
“What about them?”
“Why aren’t you working with the stock?”
“Ask Abel. I’m sure he’s a font of information.” He brushed past her on his way out the door.
“I told him you’re good with horses,” she said as she followed him back and forth. “And he knows we have a horse that needs gentling—oof.”
“Sorry.” Tyler caught her by the elbows as she tottered backward.
“That’s—that’s all right…”
Her heart rose into her throat. His hands were still on her. His eyes glinted like jewels in the shadowed darkness of the stable. And, as she looked into their green depths, she saw something that sent her pulse racing.
“I’ll speak with him,” she said. “With Abel. About putting you to better use.”
A smile curved his mouth, one so sexy and dangerous that it made her breath stop.
“Good.” His voice was soft and slightly husky. A shudder ripped along her spine as he looked down at her mouth, then into her eyes. “I’d like to be put to better use.”
“With—with the horses.”
The smile came again, lazy and even more dangerous. “Of course.”
Caitlin knew she was blushing and hated herself for it, hated this insufferably egotistical male even more for causing her face to redden.
“Let go of me, please.”
“Ever the lady,” he said, in that same husky whisper. “Except, I don’t believe it. I think there are times you’re not quite the lady you pretend to be.”
“I am always a lady,” she said coldly.
“In that case…” His hands slid up her arms and clasped her shoulders. “Maybe it’s time somebody showed you what you’re missing, Ms. McCord.”