New Way to Fly (11 page)

Amanda stared at him, wide-eyed. “Come on, Brock. You're just teasing me because you know I'm a city slicker.”

Brock shook his head. “Not a bit. Actually, at nine sections my place is just medium by Crystal Creek standards. But it's still a nice working ranch. At least,” he added with a wry grin, “it will be once I do a hell of a lot more work.”

“Your father…” Amanda began hesitantly and then paused, her cheeks once again showing that faint flush that always betrayed her discomfort. Brock looked at her intently, wondering how much she'd already been told about him.

“My daddy was no ball of fire,” he said gently. “It's taken me years to get the place into a good working position, and it'll take more years to get it showing a real strong profit. It'll take some diversifying, too,” he added grimly, “and a lot of penny-pinching. But I'll get there.”

“What will you do first?”

Brock grinned. “First? Good question. Well, I wish I could get done renovating my house, but I seem to be kind of stuck.”

“Renovating?” Amanda said, her eyes brightening. “Are you doing that right now? I love the idea
of renovating,” she added with an awkward little smile. “Sometimes I really wish I'd gone into interior design instead of clothing.”

“Lord, girl, if you want a real challenge, why don't you drop out and pay me a visit someday? That's what I need, actually, some advice on design and things before I can go any further.”

“Really?” she said, tentatively.

“Hey, I mean it, Amanda,” he urged. “Sometime when you're out our way, why don't you stop by for a cup of coffee and tell me what to do with my kitchen? I'd surely appreciate the help. Hell, I'd even pay.”

Amanda smiled. “I'd love to,” she said with evident sincerity. “And I certainly wouldn't charge you. I'd just do it for fun.”

“Now, that's sure the wrong way to do business.”

“I know,” she said. “But I'm not even sure what's the right way, Brock. These days, it's so hard to do business at all.”

He nodded in silent agreement, spooning up mouthfuls of the lime sherbet.

“You know who I feel sorry for?” Amanda said suddenly.

“Who?”

“Mary Gibson. If it's tough for a young strong man like you to make a living on a ranch, how is poor Mary ever going to manage? I guess she has a lot of debts to start off with, and apparently she
doesn't know all that much about running the ranch even though she's lived there most of her life.”

“That's true,” Brock said. “Bubba, her husband, he was always a real take-charge kind of guy. He believed the little woman should be in the kitchen with her apron on, cooking up a good supper for her working man. I doubt that Mary was ever very much involved in decision making.”

“And now she has to do it all herself, and she's alone there.”

“Not entirely,” Brock said, remembering young Luke Harte's shambling figure down in the Gibson ranch yard.

Amanda gazed across the flickering candle. “You're talking about that hired hand of hers? Luke something, isn't that his name?”

Brock nodded. “Luke Harte. You met him?”

“Just briefly.” Amanda paused. “It wasn't all that pleasant. He was quite rude to me,” she confessed, meeting Brock's eyes. “Mary apologized for him and said he was just being protective of her.”

Brock hesitated. “Well maybe he was,” he said at last. “I know he's been a lot of help to Mary since Bubba left. I just…”

“What?”

“I don't know,” Brock said at last. “I don't like the whole idea, that's all.” He looked up, meeting Amanda's gaze again. “People are gossiping about them,” he said abruptly.

Amanda stared. “About
Mary?
And Luke Harte? You're joking, Brock. Why, he can't be much older than I am. He's certainly twenty-five years younger than Mary, at least.”

“That doesn't stop people from talking. There's a certain kind of people, Amanda, who'll talk about anybody, any mean ridiculous story they can think of, just to be gossiping. God, I hate it.”

“So do I,” she said. “Especially when it's aimed at somebody like Mary, who's just so sweet.”

“She's always been real good to me,” Brock said. “In fact, she was like a mother to me when I was a boy. I used to talk to her a lot when I was growing up.”

He hesitated, watching as Amanda pursued the last crumbs of her chocolate cake. Then he asked abruptly, “Did you sell her some clothes? Mary, I mean? Did she buy anything from you?”

Amanda nodded. “Quite a lot. Two nice designer suits, and some really good slacks and sweaters. Oh, and a couple of silk blouses, one that I haven't delivered yet.”

Brock looked at her in surprise. “I wouldn't have thought Mary could afford that kind of thing,” he ventured cautiously.

“Why not? Those clothes cost her less than four hundred dollars altogether. That's not a lot of money for good designer fashions.”

Brock's dark eyes reflected his disbelief. “Come on, Amanda,” he said slowly. “What gives?”

She glanced up at him, startled and defensive. “I don't know what you mean.”

“I was looking in shop windows at ladies' clothes when I walked down here,” Brock said. “I saw what they cost. How could Mary buy all those things for that little money?”

“I was…actually, I was able to give her quite a good deal,” Amanda told him stiffly.

“Yeah,” Brock drawled, looking with thoughtful interest at the woman across the table. “Obviously you were.”

But from the shuttered expression on her face, he guessed it would be dangerous to pursue the matter. Instead he scooped up the check, helped his companion into her silk jacket and followed her from the restaurant, conscious that every man in the room was watching Amanda Walker with admiration as she moved quietly among them, her dark head high, her dress swinging above beautiful shapely legs.

 

A
MANDA DROVE
through the city streets toward her apartment. She arched her shoulders wearily and frowned at the lights of Brock Munroe's truck in the rearview mirror, wondering what had possessed her to invite him back to her place for a drink.

Not that she hadn't enjoyed the evening. In fact, she'd been surprised by the ease and warmth of their
dinner conversation, and by how interesting the man actually was when you managed to get past his rough cowboy exterior.

Amanda moved restlessly in the driver's seat, troubled by a random memory of what it was like to dine out with Edward. She recalled his subtle witty stories and brittle jokes, usually at other people's expense, interspersed with long awkward silences while Amanda searched her mind for something to say, anything that he might find entertaining.

She hadn't felt that way at all with Brock Munroe. During the whole evening, she'd had the pleasant sensation that she was bright and fascinating, a beautiful woman with an impressive mind and all kinds of positive attributes.

It
did
feel good for a change, Amanda told herself with a wry private grin, to spend time with somebody who thought you were wonderful. It did wonders for your self-esteem.

Amanda pulled up in front of her building and waved an arm to indicate the visitor parking, then ducked into her own reserved space. She sat behind the wheel for a moment, thinking about the man she'd just spent the evening with.

He was far more complex than she'd given him credit for, this Brock Munroe. He presented a cheerful disheveled appearance, but he was no fool. And he might have given Amanda all kinds of praise, but
she suspected that deep down, he wasn't really convinced of her value or her sincerity.

“So who cares?” Amanda muttered aloud, gathering up her handbag and gloves with an abrupt angry gesture. “Who the hell cares one bit what Brock Munroe thinks? I'll never see him again, after I get this evening over with.”

She met him in the lobby with a cool gracious smile, rode silently up to her floor and unlocked her apartment. She glanced at him critically as she opened the door. He'd obviously spruced up a bit for this date, put on a pair of dark tan jeans and a crisply ironed cream-colored shirt under his brown leather jacket. The Western cut of the clothes flattered his wonderful physique, showing to fine advantage the broad shoulders and lean hips, the long muscular thighs that felt like iron when she brushed against him inadvertently as they entered the foyer together.

Still, she had to suppress a little shudder of alarm when she imagined Edward meeting this man, and thought about what Edward would probably say later on the subject of Brock Munroe.

“Who
was
that masked man?” she heard him asking in his flat nasal imitation of a Texas drawl. “Say, did anybody get the number of his horse? Does he wear those boots to bed, d'you think?”

Amanda shook off the mental image and gave Brock a brief automatic smile, hanging his leather
jacket in the closet while he stood gazing at her apartment in silence.

She was conscious of a sudden heaviness in the air, of a growing discomfort and annoyance.

Brock hated her apartment.

She could tell just by the set of his shoulders, the sudden tension in his brown hands, the guarded look in his dark eyes when he turned to her.

Don't say it,
Amanda warned him silently, indicating the leather sofa and moving gracefully through the room toward the kitchen.
Don't you dare say what you're thinking, because I can't bear to hear it, and I'll just…

“Would you like a mixed drink, or a glass of wine?” she asked, pausing in front of her small black-lacquered china cabinet.

“Do you have Scotch?”

“Almost a whole bottle. I don't drink Scotch very often.”

“That's fine, then. A little Scotch on the rocks, please, with just a touch of soda.”

Amanda nodded, took a heavy crystal tumbler and a wineglass from the cabinet and vanished into the kitchen. She mixed his drink with trembling hands, painfully conscious of him sitting there in her living room, looking around at the elegant decor and forming judgments.

And why did his judgments matter to her so much anyhow? She'd already dismissed the man as being
of little consequence, impossibly far away from her in matters of sophistication and taste. Brock Munroe was nothing to her but a passing acquaintance, a friend of a friend.

So why did it cause her such embarrassment to sense his silent criticism? Why did she hate the idea that he was looking at her apartment and her life with wry humor and private scorn?

Amanda put the ice cube tray back in the fridge, pausing to press her hands to her hot flushed cheeks for a moment.

Finally, her composure somewhat restored, she carried the drinks into the living room, set them on the glass coffee table and sank into a black sling chair opposite Brock.

“So,” she inquired with a challenging glance, “what do you think of my New York look?”

“I hate it,” he said quietly, reaching for the drink. “Don't you?”

Amanda stared at him, aghast at his rudeness. Her cheeks turned pale and her blue eyes flashed dangerously. “Of course I don't hate it,” she said evenly. “I chose this decor myself, and put a lot of time and thought into it.”

Brock leaned back on the couch and sipped his drink, gazing at her steadily over the rim of his glass. “That's not what I mean,” he said finally. “I suppose it's stylish as hell, and it shows that you're first-rate at what you do, and all that. But when I look at
something like this, I always wonder if people really
like
it, or of it's just done for effect. I mean,” he added reasonably, waving an arm to take in the quiet room around them, “how could anybody possibly like this?”

“Let me get this straight,” Amanda said, so angry that she could hardly control herself. “You're accusing me of hypocrisy, is that it, Brock? Of creating a certain look just to impress other people at the expense of my own preference?”

Brock considered this, his dark eyes calm as he looked around at the wrought iron and glass, the cold abstract atmosphere of the place, the stark monochrome color scheme. His eyes rested briefly on the only painting in the room, a huge modernist work above the dining table that featured two broad intersecting red lines on a field of pale gray.

The purchase of this painting, by one of Edward's favorite artists, had cleaned out most of Amanda's savings. She tensed as Brock raised a cynical dark eyebrow, almost ready to strike the man if he made some disparaging comment. But he didn't, just nodded and turned back to her with an easy smile.

“Yeah,” he drawled. “I guess that's what I'm saying, Amanda.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“That's what I'm saying. I think this place…” He paused to wave a hand once more to include everything in the room. “I think this is a form of hypoc
risy, if that's how you want to put it. I don't think it's really your own taste. I'd say you've done it just for effect.”