It Takes Two: Deep in the Heart, Book 1 (3 page)

Now he looked at Annie’s trim, jeans-covered thighs striding into the house, and he desperately tried to conjure up the pleasurable image of LouAnn’s marshmallow-soft legs wrapped around his backside, urging him toward his pleasure. The memory seemed more distant and faded than the horizon in Desperado.

The snake, still in its prison by the steps, seemed to promise revenge, the forked tongue trembling as Annie walked inside the house. Zach hurried past the serpent as fast as he could.

“Would you like some iced tea?” Annie flung the question over her shoulder as she glided into the kitchen.

With great difficulty, Zach snapped his attention away from her enticing posterior and back to where it belonged. On his job. “Tea is fine,” he answered.

She got out glasses and a pitcher. The old man came into the kitchen, along with the child, whom Zach thought looked heartbreakingly like her mother.

“Papa, this is Zach Rayez, the man I told you about earlier. Zach, this is my father, Travis Cade.”

“Hello, sir,” Zach said, extending his hand.

The old man ignored it, leaving no one in any doubt of what he thought of Zach’s presence in his house. “Come on, Mary; we’ll go play outside,” he said instead, walking out of the kitchen. The little girl followed behind him.

Annie turned unblinking eyes on him. “I suppose an apology is in order for my father’s behavior. However, surely you can understand his feelings.”

“I do,” Zach replied. “I understand them all too well. I’m sorry I had to meet him under these circumstances.”

It was true. He was no more welcome in this house than that old rattlesnake outdoors was, and he couldn’t blame the old man for feeling that way. Annie handed him a glass of iced tea, which he took, grateful for the coolness of the glass and the sensation of her warm fingers barely brushing his.

She opened a closet in the kitchen and tossed her boots inside, putting a pair of worn-out leather sandals on her feet. Annie’s feet were brown to begin with, but had seen lots of sun too, turning them a toasted almond color. Currant-colored polish on her toes complemented the earthiness of her skin. Zach thought about LouAnn’s little white toes and her delicate white feet that rarely saw any sun except in St Tropez, and he wondered why he felt attracted to Annie. She was nothing like what he aspired to have in his life for himself.

After setting a plate of brownies down in the middle of the table, Annie sat down across from him. Her fingernail scratched at an old scar in the table, as if she was trying to think of something the two of them had in common they could talk about.

Although Zach usually was a master at the art of conversation, especially with women, he didn’t know what to say, either. There wasn’t much that he and Rattlesnake Annie had in common. And sitting there, simply gazing at her, seemed to be enough for him. An odd feeling of contentment settled over him.

Annie’s gaze rose to meet his with the slow, gentle grace he found so fascinating about her. He watched in amazement as her eyes traveled over his shoulders, across his cheeks, skimming down to where his shirt disappeared inside his belt. It felt strange to sit and observe her considering him so carefully with those indigo eyes of hers. He endured her perusal, though, without minding it. For a quick second, when it seemed that she forced her eyes to meet his again, he saw what he thought was admiration in them.

Dawning wonder filled him. Was it possible that, against her will and in spite of the fact that he’d come on a mission that pitted them against each other from the start, Annie was attracted to him?

He found that thought intensely flattering. He sensed Annie gave neither body nor heart easily. He wished, with all his soul, that he were in a position to explore the secrets veiled behind her eyes.

Zach struggled to contain his lustful thoughts. Papa and his rifle held more than a touch of menace, and he didn’t feel like becoming target practice for some redneck farmer in Desperado, Texas. Zach reminded himself that he’d done this type of job, and had the conversation he needed to have with Annie, in many a blue-and-white gingham kitchen. He was making it harder than it had to be.

Zach looked into Annie’s eyes, knowing that his words would quickly chill the admiration he’d seen there. “I understand your reluctance,” he began.

“Do you?” she asked, her eyes appraising. “Do you really?”

He hesitated, knowing he was treading on dangerous ground. “I understand probably as well as anyone can. However, I’m prepared to buy your land at a fair price. My job is to make certain that you feel good about this deal.”

“You can’t possibly make me feel good about selling my land.”

“Then you’re aware that Ritter International may take you to court on the premise that your refusal could be blocking a major state project. A court battle would be emotionally involving, not to mention costly.”

The reference to cost had to be made. It was obvious from looking around at Annie’s furnishings that she wasn’t a wealthy woman. She was probably scraping by, crop to crop, like so many other farmers in Texas. The threat of legal hassles was doubtful, but one Zach wanted to mention anyway. He was fairly certain Carter had an eye on his presidency at Ritter. One poor little farmer like Annie wasn’t going to stand in Carter’s way of impressing the board with his finesse.

“I will do whatever it takes to make certain that this land stays in my family,” she vowed with quiet assurance.

“If you sold your land, you’d be well off financially—”

“That might play a part in your consideration, but it doesn’t in mine,” she assured him. “Not where my heritage is concerned. Can’t you understand that?”

Instantly, Zach realized she was referring to his obvious Hispanic background. Zach looked at his tea glass for a moment, unwilling to discuss that with Annie. How he felt about his heritage was a personal topic he wouldn’t talk about with someone he was trying to broker a deal with. “What if you lost your land? You’ll always have that fear, that threat, hanging over your head. At least my way, you could sleep at night, knowing Mary’s future was secure.”

That was probably his trump card, he thought. If Annie was this loyal to her heritage, she’d most likely be fierce where her family was concerned.

“Mr. Rayez—”

“Please, call me Zach,” he inserted smoothly.

She swallowed and glanced away for a moment, seemingly reluctant to use his name. “Zach,” she said, “I realize that growing up in the city and being city-bred, you may not understand about land. But there’s a history involved. I’m one-quarter Indian. I feel honored to have a piece of America. I own a piece of the land the Native American people were deprived of. That means more to me than you might be able to imagine.”

She measured him with a glance and took a sip of her tea. He watched, fascinated. Her natural, berry-colored lips were full and endlessly pouty in the center. Just right for sealing themselves around a man’s mouth and hanging on for a good, long kiss. LouAnn was a practiced kisser, but her little doll-baby lips didn’t quite fit his much wider mouth. And when she pouted, it was downright unattractive.

“Secondly,” Annie said, bringing him out of his musings, “there is my family to think about. My parents lived in this house, as did my grandparents. In fact, the land comes through my grandmother, who was white. My grandfather was full Comanche Indian. They fell in love, much to the dismay of my grandmother’s family, who once owned a great deal of this valley. Their wealth and social position made it unbearable that their daughter would fall in love with an Indian, and they cut her out of their lives and out of their will, giving her this one-hundred-acre parcel and nothing more. ‘Good riddance, and don’t come back, as long as you have that Injun slavering after you,’ they told her. When I think about giving up this land, I think I would be betraying my grandmother’s suffering. It would hurt her to know that all she’d had in the world to pass down had come to nothing.”

It was important for everyone to own land, or something of value. Half-Mexican himself, and struggling in an Anglo-oriented business climate, he’d had the need to call something his own. He understood the willingness to fight to get ahead.

He understood ambition.

What Zach didn’t understand was the overpowering attraction he felt for this lovely woman. He wanted Annie, wanted her in the worst way. With the same driving need that he’d wanted his successful climb to the top, he wanted her.

But he would never cheat on LouAnn. He would never cheat on anyone. Not that he was suddenly ingrained with a moral streak or anything like that. But that was his one principle. Cheating on a woman didn’t do any good—his own father had proved that theory. And he wouldn’t dream of hurting Annie by acting on his desire for her. He wanted to kiss the ground her burnished feet walked on; he wanted to pour her bathwater into a martini glass and drink it.

These were fantasies he could hold close to him at night—because he would never hold her close during the daytime, in the harsh light of reality.

Zach knew he could never have Annie Aguillar.

Deep in her heart, Annie recognized that the emotions Zach Rayez stirred up inside of her were unhealthy. She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter what he thought about her, that their worlds were so different he couldn’t possibly understand a way of life that mattered greatly to her. Yet some need inside her wanted Zach to appreciate why she felt the way she did.

“Would you like a tour of the farm?” she asked suddenly.

Zach hesitated, and for one awful moment, Annie was sure he was going to refuse. She perceived her invitation was out of the ordinary. Land deals required cool participation on the part of both parties; there was no room for sentiment. She knew that, but the truth was, it was the only excuse she could think of to entice him to stay a little longer.

“Sure,” he said easily, looking at her with his intense gaze. “I’ve got some time to kill.”

Shivers of something akin to pleasure tingled her spine. Intuition told Annie that Zach was glad for the excuse to linger. Of course, he might welcome a chance to view what he was supposed to be purchasing, Annie reminded herself.

She stood up and walked out of the kitchen. A wave of self-consciousness swept over her when Zach followed. Did he find her appealing at all? Was she too tall and lanky, her hair and skin too dark to suit him? Or did he feel the same tightly triggered response she did whenever they stood close enough to touch?

Walking onto the porch, she held the screened door open, allowing him to pass by her. His hard-packed physique brushed her arm, and the scent of an enticing, musky aftershave made her mouth go dry. Annie slowly let the door close, with the sharp recognition that part of the reason she was lapping up this man’s sex appeal like a starving kitten lapping milk was the fact that there weren’t many men like him in Desperado. Most of the men from around here were good ol’ boys, with no more sophistication than the cows they raised. Zach had a keen intellect, she sensed, sharpening it to manipulate people into doing what he wanted them to do.

And while nice enough, the males in Desperado who weren’t already married were a picked-over lot, too—although that wouldn’t have mattered if she’d had a mind toward marrying again. The major problem was she’d grown up with these folks, learned her letters in school with them and outrun them during recess. She felt sisterly toward the men she knew. Zach raised a different kind of emotion in her altogether.

He stepped off the porch, cursing when the snake flicked a maraca-rattle warning at him. Annie smiled as he strode away from the wooden box and turned to wait on her.

“What are you going to do with that damn thing, anyway?” Zach asked sharply when she reached his side.

She laughed at him and received a grim smile in return. Tossing a casual wave at her father and Mary, Annie turned toward an open field, lightly touching Zach’s arm to guide him. “There’s a man in town who buys rattlesnakes. I’ll call him to come pick it up tomorrow.”

“It’s hard to imagine why someone would collect rattlesnakes.”

The muscles in his arm had bunched at her touch, and Annie withdrew her hand reluctantly. It felt so good to have this handsome man’s attention to herself—even if it was just for an hour. “Crazy Cody has several markets for snakes, with more demand than he can usually satisfy,” she replied absently, her mind on the man beside her, whose long stride, she noticed, matched perfectly with hers. “The university can use them for research. Medical laboratories need the venom for making antidote to snakebite.”

They stopped walking at the edge of a cornfield, which began maybe five hundred yards from the house. Zach gazed down at her, and Annie’s heart beat a little faster. The scent of sun-warmed man reached her, filling her with body-aching desire.

“Good for Crazy Cody. But why do you have to catch them?”

Did the gruff tone of his voice imply he was worried about her safety? A thrill ran over her at the thought, and she smiled into his eyes. “The money comes in handy,” she said simply. “And I like to keep them off the land, anyway. I worry about Mary getting bitten.”

Zach’s lips tightened, and Annie realized she’d given him the perfect opportunity to drive in another reason why she should sell her land. Not for a moment did she give Zach any credit for his self-control. Something told her he was merely waiting for the right, most ripe moment to make his case again.