Kissing her had been crazy. Hell, there were better ways to silence a woman like this.
And yet, as she went on standing there, meeting his gaze without backing down, Cade felt the blood begin to thrum in his ears.
What if she really did defy him? He wouldn’t—he couldn’t—let her get away with it.
Was he going to have to pick her up bodily and carry her into that little house, up the stairs to whatever dark bedroom was hers? Her mouth, even that vicious tongue, would soften then, he was sure of it. Every part of her would turn soft under his lips and his hands, until finally she would cry out his name and beg him to bury himself inside her…
The unbidden images sent a sharp wave of desire coursing through his body, tightening every muscle he possessed. Something of what he was feeling must have shown in his face because Angelica suddenly took a step back.
“You’re a despicable human being,” she hissed, and she turned and fled.
Cade stood still for a moment. Then he gave a shaky laugh, turned and trotted down the steps. He wasn’t despicable. He was stupid. When you started having fantasies about women like Angelica Gordon, you were in trouble. What man knew that better than he?
Too much Texas sun, he thought, and he climbed into the rented truck, tilted back the seat, pulled down his cap and settled in to wait.
He had the definite feeling Angelica was going to take her own sweet time about reappearing.
After five minutes on the road, it was obvious Cade wasn’t heading for Interstate 20, the highway that tied Dallas and Fort Worth to West Texas. He steered the pickup down one narrow dirt road after another, always, Angelica noticed with displeasure, driving at least ten miles over the speed limit.
“This isn’t the way to Odessa,” she finally said, when they had to stop at a train crossing. Cade didn’t answer, and her voice rose a little. “I said, this is not the way to my wells.”
“No,” he said with a tight smile. “It’s the way to mine.”
Angelica’s eyes flashed. “Very witty, but—”
“Did you bring the map I asked for?”
“Yes, but what’s the point if—”
The crossing gates lifted. Cade shifted into gear and the truck shot forward.
“Plot us the most direct way to get from Route 302, just outside Notrees, to the wells.”
“Notrees? But why would we—”
“Can you figure a route, Angelica? Or would you rather I did it myself?”
She glared at him, then whipped the map from her purse and snapped it open.
“Notrees to the wells,” she said, “yes, sir, Mr. Landon, sir.”
Cade laughed. “Now you’re getting the idea, sugar.”
She shot him another furious look, then buried her face in the map. When she looked up again, they were on a dusty airfield, pulling alongside a small aircraft.
“What is this?” she said in surprise.
“A Piper Apache,” Cade answered, deadpan.
“You know what I mean, dammit! Did you rent a plane? The company can’t afford—”
“Gordon can’t.” He opened his door and got out of the truck. “But I can. Well? Are you coming, or are you just going to sit there?”
Angelica muttered something, threw open her door and stepped down to the ground. She walked toward Cade, who was already standing in the open doorway of the small plane. He held out his hand, but she ignored it and hoisted herself inelegantly on board.
“It must be nice to own a company that has money to burn,” she said coldly.
Cade didn’t bother answering. The money he was burning today was strictly his own, but that was none of her business.
“Where’s the pilot?”
“You’re looking at him,” he said with a lazy smile.
“You mean—” Angelica stared at him as he climbed into the pilot’s seat. “You mean, you’re driving this thing?”
“I’m flying it, yes.” He reached out, tapped a gauge on the instrument panel, then looked at her and grinned. “You’re as transparent as glass, sugar. What’s the matter? Do you want to see my license before you trust yourself to my tender, loving care?”
Angelica tossed her head. “I’d sooner trust a scorpion,” she said, and flounced into the seat beside him, “but what choice do I have?”
Cade laughed. “None at all,” he said, and Angelica gritted her teeth at how very true that was.
* * *
The flight was smooth, she had to admit, and Cade seemed to be a competent pilot. And it was fascinating to watch the West Texas landscape unroll beneath them, juniper and oak-covered hills giving way to the mesquite and scrub oak of the plains.
Still, Angelica was relieved when the Apache began its descent. There was something disconcerting about sitting close beside Cade in the little plane, the warm sunlight heating the cabin. It was too intimate, too much like—like being the last people on the planet.
He brought the Apache to a stop in a place that seemed devoid of life and climbed down from the plane. Angelica ignored his outstretched hand, as she had at the start of the flight, and jumped to the ground herself.
The wind moaned and whipped at her hair. Except for a fast-moving horned lizard, a lonely stand of pump jacks and a dusty pickup truck that might have been the twin to the one they’d left behind in Dallas, they were alone.
“So much for your navigation skill,” Angelica said with a frosty smile. “I hate to tell you this, but we’re nowhere near—”
Cade went to the truck, opened the door and got behind the wheel. An instant later the engine coughed to life. He rolled down the window and looked at Angelica.
“Well? Are you coming?”
Damn, she thought, and started toward him. The wind snatched at her hair again and the coated rubber band that had secured it flew off. The copper-colored strands burst free and slapped across her face.
With grim determination, she climbed into the truck and slammed the door.
Cade stepped on the gas, and the truck lurched over the rutted road. Questions danced through Angelica’s mind. Where had Cade gotten this truck? Whose was it? How had he made a
rrangements to have it here, ready and waiting?
“I have a buddy lives in Notrees.” Angelica swung toward him. His eyes were on the road ahead. “I called him last night, asked him if he had something he could leave out here for me to use.”
“Fascinating,” Angelica said politely.
Cade sighed. “What route do I take?”
The one straight to hell, she wanted to say. But she didn’t. Cade was about to have a very bad day. He’d had a free hand so far, but if he really imagined his pseudo-work outfit and his pickup truck were going to win him any points from a gang of roughnecks, he was in for a big surprise. Men who sweated to wrest oil from the earth hadn’t won their nickname for their charm.
“Well?” Cade said dryly. “Do you want to tell me how to get to the Gordon site or shall I guess?”
“Take the first right after we get on the main road and I’ll direct you from there.”
“Fine.”
Better than fine, Angelica thought.
Cade Landon, captain of industry, was about to meet his Waterloo—and she was going to relish every moment.
* * *
A couple of hours later, Angelica was sitting on a wooden bench in the dubious shade of a scrub oak, trying to hang onto a smile that felt as if it had been pasted on her face.
Lunch had just ended, and a good thing, too. It had been an impromptu feast, with Cade—and with her, the men kept insisting, though anyone could see it was an out-and-out lie—as guests of honor.
Two hours, she thought glumly, two whole hours of Cade and the crew exchanging hair-raising tales of derring-do in the Middle East, in Texas, in Oklahoma and in places she’d never heard of before, accompanied by enough oversize sandwiches and long-necked bottles of beer to keep a small army happy.
Now, her men—her men, dammit—had whisked Cade off to show him some piece of equipment that had them all close to ecstasy, leaving her behind.
“You just sit here and stay comfortable,” Tom, her foreman, had crooned.
Angelica’s jaw tightened. “Damn you to hell, Cade Landon,” she muttered under her breath. “You’re nothing but a lying, sneaking rat!”
She had spent the past couple of days gloating over how he didn’t know a thing about the oil business only to learn that, as far as her crew was concerned, Cade Landon was the oil business!