She yawned yet again. “He wouldn’t have risked—”
“I think we’ve adequately covered that already,” he interrupted. He took a deep breath in an effort to cool the fury burning in his gut. She wasn’t listening and he was tired of beating his head against a brick wall trying to convince her of his innocence. “Look, it’s past midnight and we’re getting nowhere. Let’s put this discussion on hold until tomorrow morning.”
She stared at him for a moment before she finally nodded and rose to her feet. “That would probably be best.”
“Where are you staying?” he asked. “I’ll drive you to your hotel.”
Looking suspicious, she asked, “Why?”
“You’re too tired to be behind the wheel of a car,” he stated flatly.
“I’m staying right here,” she said, her stubborn tone indicating that hell would freeze over before she budged on the issue. Resigned, he followed her out into the hall.
“I’m assuming that you have a bedroom you used when you visited your grandfather?”
“My room is the one with the lavender ruffled curtains and bedspread at the opposite end of the hall from the master suite,” she answered. She started toward the kitchen. “I’ll just get my overnight bag from the car.”
“Give me your keys and I’ll get it for you,” he said, holding out his hand.
Even though she had made him angry enough to want to forget his manners, he couldn’t ignore the code of conduct his foster father had taught him and his brothers about how a man was supposed to treat a woman. When a woman had something that needed to be carried, a man stepped forward and took care of it for her—no matter how small or lightweight the object was. No excuses.
“I can get it,” she insisted, taking a set of keys from the front pocket of her jeans.
He took them from her and tried to ignore the tingling sensation that streaked up his arm when he brushed her fingers with his. “You’re tired and it’s probably heavy,” he said through gritted teeth. “Go on upstairs and I’ll leave it outside your door.”
“It’s the blue backpack on the front passenger seat,” she called after him as he left the house. She said something else, but instead of turning back to ask what it was, he continued on to the little red sports car parked by his truck.
At the moment, it was better to put a little distance between them. If he didn’t, he couldn’t be certain he wouldn’t lose his temper and tell her what he thought of her and her ridiculous accusations—or grab her and kiss her until they both forgot that she was a lady and he was trying to be a gentleman.
He stopped short. Where had that thought come from? He would just as soon cozy up to a pissed-off wildcat than to get up close and personal with Taylor Scott. She might be one of the hottest women he’d seen in all of his thirty-four years, but she represented the kind of trouble that a man just didn’t need.
Shaking his head at his own foolishness, he unlocked the Lexus and reached inside to get Taylor’s backpack. The light, clean scent of her perfume assailed his senses and reminded him of just how long it had been since he’d lost himself in the charms of a willing woman. The scent only added an unwelcome element to the level of his frustration and he cussed a blue streak when his lower body began to tighten. And it didn’t help matters one damned bit knowing she would be sleeping in the room directly across the hall from the one he had been using since moving to the ranch six months ago.
He clenched his teeth as another wave of heat surged through his body. How could he possibly feel this level of desire for a woman when she irritated the living hell out of him? For that matter, how had she managed to make him forget everything he’d learned in seven years of studying to become a psychologist?
He had known immediately that she was fishing for information and he’d successfully evaded answering her by turning the tables and asking questions of his own. He’d even found her interrogation mildly amusing. But what he couldn’t quite come to terms with was the fact that when she’d started making accusations, he had let her get to him.
Lane had played poker with men who made it a point of talking smack in an effort to throw him off his game, and not once had he ever let any of it affect him. For one thing, he recognized the insults as a psychological ploy and simply tuned the men out. And for another thing, they all had better sense than to cross the line and accuse him of cheating. But when Taylor made it clear that she thought he had swindled her grandfather out of his ranch, she had unknowingly touched on one of his hot buttons and he’d damned near gone off like a Roman candle in a Fourth of July fireworks display.