UlteriorMotives

Chandra Ryan

Universal Defiance, Book One

On a rural settler planet, Kat must resort to putting out an
ad to find a husband. She doesn’t expect to find love—that’s a dream in these
parts—just a partner to help work her ranch. Then the devastatingly handsome
Jasper answers her ad and turns her on in ways she never dreamed possible. Too
bad he’s not who he says he is.

Jasper doesn’t know what he’s getting into when he ventures
undercover to investigate a legal claim against Kat’s ranch. But after a
toe-curling night under her roof and in her bed, he’s willing to do anything to
stay there. He can’t say no to the tough-as-nails businesswoman who makes his
body come alive.

When people start getting hurt, though, both Kat and Jasper
have to decide how valuable one piece of land is. And the ranch that brought
them together might be the very thing standing between them.

A
Romantica®
sci fi erotic romance
from Ellora’s Cave

Kat stared at the man on the platform. With thick dark-brown
hair and a muscular body that filled his clothes out nicely, he was handsome
enough. Not that his looks mattered. Not really. She needed a husband to be a
partner. She wasn’t some young, naive thing with silly notions of lust and
love. Practical and pragmatic were a much better fit for her life. Still, a
pragmatic woman could admit that having a man about the house who was easy on
the eyes wouldn’t be a hardship.

She chuckled under her breath as she made her way over to
him. She doubted she would fare as well if he were hoping for a piece of eye
candy for his wife. Oh she could be pretty when she needed to be. But coming
all the way to town to collect a man didn’t merit the fuss. She worked long
days on the ranch and this excursion had already caused enough of a delay. If
she got all gussied up, she’d not only lose that time but also the time it took
her to get back into her work clothes when they returned to the ranch. Time was
her most valuable commodity right now. She couldn’t afford to squander it.

“Excuse me, sir.” Her calm words broke through the chaos of
the port station and gained his undivided attention. This close to him, staring
into his rich, brown eyes, her stomach began to churn with nerves. She quickly
pushed through the sensation though. She didn’t have the time for silliness.
And it was the height of absurdity for her to be uncomfortable around her
soon-to-be husband. “I’m Katarina Maxim. My friends call me Kat.”

She held her hand out to him in casual greeting as she tried
not to fidget. She’d debated how to greet him as she’d driven to the station. A
kiss seemed rather forward. But she did want him to feel welcomed. A handshake
seemed like the best idea at the time. Now, as she waited for him to take her
hand, she started second-guessing herself.

“Katarina, that’s a lovely name.”

She noted that he’d called her Katarina but tried not to let
that color her first impression of him. She didn’t hate the name nor did she
hate being called by it. It just didn’t fit her. Not anymore. Katarina sounded
soft, delicate—refined even. As she’d been before her family had moved here.
She could only hope that he didn’t see her as any of those things. If he did,
he would be sorely disappointed when he got to know her better. “Kat. Only my
mother called me by my full name,” she pressed.

“Kat it is.” His smile seemed genuine but his palm was as
soft as new leather when he finally took hers. If he stayed, that would change.
This planet demanded calluses and blisters. Her hands were proof of that.
“Jasper Lee, ma’am. I’m honored to meet you. Out of the thousands of
applications you must have received, I am grateful you selected mine.”

Apparently his tongue was as smooth as his hands. That
didn’t bode well for their future. Smooth men didn’t do well when faced with
the harsh realities of settler planets. “I’m not a politician nor am I a
starlet, Mr. Lee. Out here we speak our minds and we keep our words
straightforward. My ranch is a great opportunity, especially if you’re looking
for a fresh start. But I think we both know there aren’t thousands of men out
there looking for backbreaking work on a world so uncivilized that its brothel
is its only restaurant.” She took a moment to look him over carefully. He
wasn’t a dandy. His stance spoke of power and awareness. She couldn’t very well
start patting him down like a horse at auction, but as far as she could tell,
her first impression had been spot-on. The man looked to be in shape. “But if
you’re willing to put in the time and the work, I’ve a feeling you could make
it here.”

He returned her careful examination and then nodded. “I’ll
do my best.”

She couldn’t ask for more. “That should do. If you’ll grab
your bags, my transport is just over this way. It’s not a long drive to the
ranch but I don’t make it back to town very often. If there’s anything you need
to pick up from the store, now would be the time to tell me.”

He grabbed two suitcases and then shook his head. “I think
I’ve got everything I need.”

She led the way to the transport, all too aware of his gaze
burning into her back. “The ranch is pretty self-sufficient as far as food
goes. Most everything else can be bought in town as long as it’s nothing too
fancy or extravagant.”

“Sounds good.” He could’ve said the words sarcastically but
she chose to believe he was being sincere.

At her transport, she pressed her palm against the
registry’s biometric screen and waited for the device to scan it. The doors
clicked softly as they unlocked when her identity had been confirmed. It only
took a moment to store his bags in the back and then they slid into their seats
and were ready to go. Only, as he shifted in the passenger seat to lock the
restraint, all the space between them seemed to disappear. The man took up
entirely too much room. Even though not a single inch of him touched her, she
could feel the warmth radiating from him and it made her stomach flutter and
her hands shake a little.

“Comfortable?” she asked, her tone holding more chill than
she’d intended. It couldn’t be helped though. His sudden nearness made her
twitchy and she hated being twitchy.

“Absolutely. Mind if I nap awhile until we get to the
ranch?”

Mind? That might just give her enough time to collect
herself. And, put into that context, nothing had ever sounded better. “Feel
free.”

As soon as he shut his eyes, though, the need to ask a
million and one questions bubbled up inside her and threatened to burst. She
didn’t know much about the man and now that he was here she wanted to know
everything about him. But if she woke him up, she’d have to deal with him
taking up too much space again. She didn’t seem as twitchy around him while he
slept. If she could just wait until they got to her ranch, she could ask her questions
while keeping her distance.

It seemed like a solid enough plan at first, but the more
she tried to concentrate on the road in front of her, the more questions kept
popping into her head. She couldn’t really be blamed for her natural curiosity.
Her mother had always encouraged her to read and reading had made her an
inquisitive person. Not only that, but it’d also given her a colorful
imagination. The two combined were hard to control on the dullest days and
today was anything but dull.

She held the questions at bay as long as she could. But
shortly before they reached her ranch she finally gave in and asked, “Why did
you answer my ad?”

He opened one eye to look at her.

“Sorry, I told you to nap.”

“That’s okay. I figured you’d have some questions. Truth is,
I needed a fresh start. With all the farmable land settled, I couldn’t stake a
claim of my own.”

She’d figured as much. The inner worlds were overpopulated.
If a person wanted someplace to call his own, he’d have to move to one of the
settler worlds. But there were no guarantees even if a person did move. Land
disappeared quickly once a doctor and a teacher decided to settle on a planet.
“We moved here when I was in my teens. Our ranch was one of the last parcels
left.”

“From what I saw at the surveyor’s office, it’s a good
parcel.”

She couldn’t stop her smile of pride. Her land meant
everything to her. “It is. Not many settlers came here to ranch. They were
miners or farmers. Couldn’t see the jewel right in front of them.”

“Must’ve been hard on you though. A teenage girl taken from
the comforts of the inner worlds and dropped out here? I can’t imagine you
thanked your parents for that one.”

“Not at first.” Oh the temper tantrums she’d thrown. She’d
sworn at the top of her lungs that she hated her parents more times than she
could count. Half the time she wanted them dead, the other half she thought
they were trying to kill her by bringing her out here. “But I grew to love it
over time. Everything has a cost. The more precious it is, the higher the price
you pay. It’s the way of things.”

“So it was worth it? Was the ranch worth losing your
childhood?”

She took a second to glance over at him before turning her
attention back to the road. As she turned down the long dirt driveway to the
ranch, she gestured at the rolling land around them. “No. This is worth so much
more. All the luxuries and comforts of an inner world are fake—brittle. If you
reach out to grab them, they’ll crumble like
cattul
rock. This is real.”

She parked the transport in front of the house and looked
around again. It was a hard life but she really did love it. She could’ve sold
after her parents’ deaths. Some had even encouraged her to do so. But somewhere
along the way her parents’ dream had become hers as well.

He grabbed his bags from the back as she got out of the
vehicle. The delay gave her just enough time to walk up the sidewalk and swipe
her keycard through the lock. The front door opened smoothly just as he joined
her on the stoop. “Now may I ask you a question?”

She stepped into the house before nodding. “Seems fair.”

“Why did you place the ad? Men outnumber women four to one
on this planet. If you were looking to find a husband, those are pretty good
odds.”

She had to suppress a shudder as she thought about her
options on the settlement. “I grew up here. Most of the men are like uncles and
fathers. Those who happen to fall in the right age group are like brothers. A
couple asked but I couldn’t marry any of them. Just didn’t feel right.”

“I see.”

She stopped in the foyer as she debated where to put him.
She’d spent so much time planning his trip and organizing all the paperwork to
get him here that she hadn’t given any thought to what she was going to do with
him once he got here. Now she could kick herself for her lack of foresight.

They were going to be married so it only made sense to put
him in her room. But they weren’t married yet and putting a stranger in her
room seemed like a bad idea. However, being in separate rooms would make it
more difficult for her to judge their compatibility. Then again, he might be
just as uncomfortable with the idea of sleeping in her room and might want some
privacy.

Thankfully he interrupted her debate by asking, “Everything
okay?”

“Where should I put you? In my room or a guestroom?”

“Wow, you certainly do speak your mind, don’t you?” He put
his bags down as he glanced around the front room. “I’m okay as long as I have
a bed under me, but I wouldn’t want to do anything to tarnish your reputation.”

Her reputation? Nobody out here cared who was sleeping next
to her. Still, his open look of sincerity went a long way in changing the
situation from an awkward to a humorous one and, before she could stop herself,
she started laughing. “The only thing people care about out here is if your
word’s good. We’ve got too many real problems to worry about what’s going on
between the sheets.” She cast a glance down to his suitcases before asking, “No
guns, knives or weapons of mass destruction in those bags are there?”

His eyes reflected her humor as he shook his head. “No
ma’am. Just a couple changes of clothes and some data readers.”

“Then my room it is. If we’re going to be spending the rest
of our lives together, best figure out who gets the south side of the bed.” She
took a couple steps toward her room before stopping and facing him again. “It’s
me, by the way.”

His laugh washed away the last of her unease. “I didn’t
doubt it for a second,” he said, his voice almost too soft for her to hear.

Their easy camaraderie lasted for the rest of the day. After
she’d helped him get settled in her room, she’d shown him around the ranch and
had introduced him to the hands and the workers. He’d asked intelligent
questions about the livestock and had taken an interest in some of the more
specialized equipment. Overall he’d shown a remarkable grasp of the business of
ranching. She got the distinct feeling that Mr. Lee did his research before
jumping into a new venture. Not a bad thing as far as she was concerned.

The mood that evening over dinner, however, changed. With
the cushion of the workers gone, a heavy silence slipped around them. He
fidgeted continuously and she became obsessed with trying to think up the
perfect conversation starter. It was a losing battle. She apparently couldn’t
think up a decent conversation to save her life right then.

“So, if you don’t mind me asking, why didn’t you sell after
your parents passed away?” His voice was tense and his body stiff as he sat in
his chair. “I mean, I know you like it here, but I’m sure you could’ve made a
handsome profit.”

The question itself didn’t bother her. She was actually
relieved that the silence had been broken. And they were going to be sharing
this land in good times and bad, which gave him the right to question her
devotion to it. Still, the awkwardness of the evening had her on edge so she
took a little extra time to steady her nerves before she answered. “There were
some offers. And, yes, some were more than profitable. But this is my home.
Ranching is the only skill I have. Where would I go if I sold? What would I
do?”

Her answer didn’t seem to relax him the way she thought it
would. His posture remained tight as he asked, “Didn’t you dream of doing
something, being something, before you moved here?”

“I dreamed a great many things, Mr. Lee. That’s part of
youth. When I became an adult, I put those dreams aside and stepped up to the
responsibilities of my life.” She took another bite of her dinner only to have
it land like a lead ball in the pit of her stomach. Her nerves were officially
shot. Damn shame too, seeing as how much effort her cook had put into the
meat-and-vegetable pie in honor of Mr. Lee’s arrival. “Now, may I ask you a
question?”

“Anything.”

“The background check I ran said you were a lawyer. What
kind of law did you practice and why did you decide to give it up?”