Wildfire (4 page)

"Did you get a look at Drew's guest on your way in?" he asked abruptly.

Blinking at the sudden change of subject, she studied his face. And then she understood. This was what Tanner had been referring to earlier, the thing that was supposed to show Rae why she didn't stand a chance with Drew.

Refusing to be drawn into another of his games, she said, "Good-bye, Tanner," and walked away. He gave a soft laugh. "Run, run, little mouse." An instant later he caught up with her, grasped her arm, and forcibly changed her direction.

"What—Will you let go!" she said in a tight whisper, glancing around nervously.

"Gonna hit me, sweetness?" he asked, laughing. "Go ahead, I'd like it."

As he pulled her after him, down the hall and up the narrow back stairs, Rae had to either go along with him or go limp and sit on the floor. And she was pretty sure her already bruised dignity wouldn't survive the latter.

On the second floor he walked her into a small sitting room and finally stopped before a window. "I wanted you to see the view from up here," he said calmly.

As an explanation for his actions, it fell short, but rather than argue the point, Rae looked out the window.

Directly below them was the swimming pool. On the surrounding patio were clusters of potted greenery and tables capped with yellow-striped umbrellas. Bright sunlight hit the water, making the pool look like a bowl full of blue diamonds. Resting on one of the tables was a tray of drinks.

It was all very pretty, very pleasant, and although Rae didn't know what she was supposed to be looking at, the pool had given her some idea of where she was. She would be able to find her way out now.

But then, at the instant she made the decision to leave, at the very moment she began to turn away, Rae saw what Tanner had brought her here to see.

Drew was in the pool. And he wasn't alone.

Leaning closer to the window, Rae watched as a woman with long blond hair rose from the water. Her skin was colored gold from the sun, and she wore—

Sweet Pete, Rae thought, nearly choking. Were thong bikinis legal in Welch County?

Here was the definition of voluptuous. And it had little to do with the fact that most of the woman's body was exposed. It was an attitude, her expression, the way she held herself when she walked.

Exhaling a slow breath, Rae shot a look at the man beside her. "Okay, you've had your fun," she said. "She's beautiful and sophisticated, and I'm neither."

She paused and glanced down at her hands, fiddling unnecessarily with the latch on her briefcase. "I've never seen her before ... but, well, if Drew likes her, I'm sure she's a very nice person."

A short, husky shout of laughter brought her head up. "Nice?" Tanner said, incredulous. "Nice? What a dull little word, definitely not to be used in conjunction with the woman down there. But even if she were nice, you can bet that's not what Drew sees in her. And it's not her looks or upper-crust exclusivity. When Drew looks at Lynda, he sees hot, Rae. Capital H-O-T, hot."

With a small troubled frown, Rae shook her head. "No . . . no, you're wrong. Drew isn't like that."

"For Pete's sake, go out and buy a clue." His voice had grown suddenly harsh. "All men are 'like that.' Ants and elephants. Bunny rabbits and Gila monsters. If it's male, it notices hot."

Reluctantly she turned her attention back to the scene below. Hot? What kind of description was that? Then, as Rae watched, the blonde gave Drew a look—just one little look—and an instant later he was out of the pool and at her side.

How did she do it?

Hot, Rae told herself in a grudging, gloomy admission. Lynda was hot.

"Lynda knows how to get a man's attention." At some point, while Rae was caught up in her moody musings, Tanner had moved closer,, and now his words were a husky whisper against her ear. "She's had a lot of practice. Not like you, my wholesome friend. Look down there, Rae. Take a real good look. That's the kind of woman Drew brings home and takes on his little trips to Las Vegas. Does she look wholesome to you?"

When she tried to move away from him, he held her in place with an arm at her waist, making her catch her breath in a silent gasp. The heat from his palm seemed to burn right through her suit all the way to her flesh. How could a human hand generate such heat?

The fire in his touch and the stroke of his breath on her ear made it difficult to concentrate. And perhaps that was why Tanner's next words seemed to come, not from him, but from somewhere inside her own head.

"Drew is a good man. So good, he needs a contrast. In Lynda he senses something that's just a little bit dangerous, just a little wild, and he's drawn to that. You see, sweetness, Drew hasn't learned one of the basic facts of life yet. He doesn't know that cereal boxes sometimes mislead you about the prize inside."

Needing desperately to get away from him, from the callused hand and husky voice, Rae turned and pressed her back against the wall, putting a scant few inches between them.

"You've made your point," she said, struggling to keep her voice calm. "I don't know why you went to so much trouble, but I get the idea."

He moved his shoulders in a careless shrug. "Friends are supposed to help each other out. We're friends ... aren't we, Rae? Somebody had to tell you that you're wasting your dusty little daydreams. You could change your hair, your clothes, and even that blessedly blunt way you talk, but you still wouldn't be hot. Because hot's not on the surface. It's how you handle what's inside you."

His words held her still, the tone and tenor mesmerizing her. After an endless moment she pulled up what strength he hadn't absorbed through his palm and slid sideways, away from him, straightening her jacket in agitation as she moved.

"I don't need you to tell me I could never be like her," she said without looking at him. "I recognize my own limitations."

"Do you? I doubt it. You could be hot. . . hot enough to start a forest fire. All you need is a couple of lessons." He gave a soft laugh. "Want me to teach you, Rae?"

Ignoring him, which she had been trying to do for two years, Rae swung around to leave. But once again, almost against her will, she found herself turning back to him, examining his features with reluctant curiosity.

"Why do you do this?" she asked. "Why are you always trying to get a rise out of me?"

He leaned against the wall and crossed one long leg over the other. "Who knows? Maybe I'm just the kinda guy who, if the buttons are there, I'm gonna push 'em."

Pulling her gaze slowly from the amusement in his dark desperado eyes, Rae walked away quickly. And this time she didn't stop.

But she should have known that Tanner wasn't through with her yet. She hadn't reached the top of the stairs before she heard his voice again.

"Or maybe I'm attracted to my opposite the same as Drew. Maybe for a town oudaw, a good little lady lawyer is the most intriguing thing around."

"
T
he mariachi band is nice."

The words were barely out of Glenna's mouth before the waiters—who seemed to have been hand-picked for peevishness—all stopped what they were doing, yelled, "Ole!" then went back to being surly.

It was Friday night, and Rae and Glenna were trying out a new restaurant, Tres Hermanas, along with most of the rest of Dicton. In an area where watching county workers fill potholes was considered high entertainment, the opening of a new restaurant was like having the circus come to town.

When their waiter brought iced tea and an appetizer plate to the table, he knocked over the salt, splashed tea on the table, then glared at the women, his expression daring them to mention his ineptitude.

Watching him leave, Glenna repeated, "The mariachi band is nice."

"The owner should have done a little research," Rae said, shaking her head. "Dicton is too small to support another Mexican restaurant. Reg Neeland has one for upper-income people, and LaDonna Pugh—"

"—has one for the rest of us," Glenna finished for her. "The owner's from Dallas. And everybody knows that nobody knows beans in Dallas. Not even refried ones."

As she spoke, Glenna picked up something small and round and cheesy from the appetizer tray and took a bite. Instantly her eyes widened in surprise. She dropped the unidentified morsel, swallowed half her tea in one gulp, then sat staring at the tray in wary fascination.

After a moment she glanced up. "The mariachi band is nice."

Since the rest of their meal was no better than the appetizers, the restaurant's fate seemed to be sealed. Barely adequate food, grudging service, and an out-of-town owner. Three strikes, you're out. Reg and LaDonna didn't have to worry about competition.

It was as Rae sat drinking coffee and Glenna ate her dessert—something gooey that smelled of cinnamon—that the latter glanced up and, with fork poised midair, stared beyond Rae toward the door.

"Who is she?"

Glancing around, Rae saw four people enter the restaurant. Drew, Tanner, and two women. She didn't have to ask who Glenna was talking about. The blonde at the front of the group looked as though she had stepped from the pages of a fashion magazine.

"Lynda," Rae said. "I don't know her last name."

"That woman doesn't need a last name." The brunette shot a glance at Rae. "Is she with Tanner? Please don't tell me she's with Tanner."

Rae shook her head. "Not Tanner. Drew. She's staying out at Ashkelon. I got a glimpse of her last week when I went out to talk to Old Joe."

"Look at the way she moves. No, wait, they're passing right behind you. Don't look yet," Glenna added quickly. "Look at that hair. What do rich women do to their hair to make it look so ... so rich? Look at the way she—"

"Will you stop telling me to look? Didn't your mother ever tell you that staring is rude?"

Glenna exhaled what was a cross between a groan and a sigh. "You don't see people like that in Dicton. She's sophisticated. She's pampered. She's—"

"Hot," Rae said, her voice clipped.

"Yeah, that's it. That's it exactly. She's hot."

Crumpling her napkin, Rae dropped it on the table. "Are you through with that goo yet? I'm ready to go."

"Let me make a quick trip to the ladies' room first. I want to pass by their table and get a better look. I hate her, Rae. I really actually totally hate her. She's at the same table with Tanner, and she makes every other woman in town look like Broomhilda in comparison. Why doesn't she go back to where she came from and leave our men . . ."

Glenna was still muttering as she walked away. Rae, alone now at the table, stared steadily at the outsized sombrero on the opposite wall, using it as a focus to keep her eyes from drifting in the direction of Drew's table. She didn't want to see Lynda with her rich-looking hair and her Hot factor. She didn't want to be reminded that—

"You're looking especially wholesome tonight."

With an inward groan Rae raised her chin and turned her head toward the voice. Tanner stood beside the table. Tonight he wore a white western-cut shirt with his jeans. His boots were polished, his hair almost neat.

It was the first time she had seen him since that day at Ashkelon. But unfortunately out of sight, out of mind didn't work when Tanner was involved.

By recommending her to Old Joe, he had made it impossible for her to ignore his existence.

After Rae had finished work on Joe McCallister's will, the old man hadn't given her a single sign of approval, but neither had he criticized. And according to Glenna, when you were dealing with John Joseph McCallister, the absence of criticism was the equivalent of high praise. As a result, although none of the cases were big or spectacular, her practice was definitely picking up.

In fact, Rae would have been feeling a little smug about her future in Dicton except for one thing. Every time a new client walked into her office, she was forced to remember that Tanner was responsible, which was exactly the result he had been hoping for.

"Hello, Tanner," she said, keeping her voice even.

With a short laugh he swung a chair around from the next table and straddled it, folding his forearms on the back as he ran his gaze over her stiff features.

"Hello, Rae." His tone mocked her politeness; his dark eyes gleamed with reckless mischief. "I just thought I'd stop by to see how you're feeling. Lukewarm? Room temperature?" When she shot him a look, he laughed again. "Definitely frostbitten."

"Has it ever occurred to you that I am just exactly how I want to be?"

"Nope." The word was amused but uncompromising.

"You are what you are because other people told you this is what you should be. You were never given a choice. You can't tell me that when you were a little girl in pigtails somebody gave you a list and you checked off 'Repressed.' Uh-uh. I don't buy it."

Her lips tightened. "I am not repressed. I just don't happen to be obvious."

He moved his shoulders in a brief shrug. "Sometimes obvious is what it takes. If you think Drew is going to start carrying a shovel so he can dig down to the real you, think again. It's like the old joke about talking to a mule. First you have to hit it in the head with a two-by-four to get its attention."

He rubbed his chin with the knuckle of his index finger, studying her with those unnerving dark eyes. "Why don't you switch your sights to someone who can appreciate your less than obvious charms? Bud Arnold over at the post office is looking for a woman, has been for twenty years now. His requirements aren't what you would call exacting. If you can cook, you're in. Or maybe you'd prefer someone who still has hair. Let's see . .. Jerry Don Boyd just got a divorce. His wife took him to the cleaner's, so right now all Jerry Don needs is a good listener."

When she stubbornly refused to comment, he rose to his feet and swung the chair back around. "And then of course there's me," he said, his husky voice taunting her. "I've always loved a challenge."

He watched her, taking in the way the fingers of her right hand clenched around the paper napkin, and then, with a low, lingering laugh, he turned and walked away.

An hour later, when Rae walked into her small house, she was still fuming. Throwing her purse on the couch, she walked straight through to her bedroom and stood in front of the full-length mirror. First she examined her face close up, then she stepped back and studied herself from a distance, turning first this way, then that.

Her auburn hair was pulled back in a French twist, but as usual a few curls had escaped on her forehead and at her temples. Her dress, pale blue linen trimmed with white piping, was attractive and well made. Her figure wasn't bad. There were the required number of curves with no unsightly bulges. Her skin was her best feature. Smooth and creamy. Not a blemish, not a single freckle.

She looked nice and friendly. An objective person might even be moved to say she was pretty. In a wholesome, good-as-gold sort of way.

Swinging away from her reflection, she flopped back on her bed. Damn his eyes, Tanner was right. She looked like somebody's kid sister.

The next day Rae entered her okay-so-I'm-dull phase. For a week she wore her dowdiest clothes and no makeup other than powder. Once, she even showed up for work with her hair pulled back in a tight little bun, causing Glenna to choke on her breakfast Twinkie.

But then on the following Friday, as she sat trying to wade through a year of Seraphina Rodale's electricity bills, something happened to Rae. Something unfolded inside her, a little piece of personal growth that took her by surprise.

She had paused in her work, resting her chin on the palm of one hand to gaze at Johnny's picture, when out of the blue, it occurred to her that she had never fought for anything in her life.

Her parents were wealthy and kind; she was an only child, healthy, intelligent, and relatively conformable; she had fallen in love with Johnny as a child, and he loved her back; she had been hired by a well-established law firm while still at law school.

It was a pattern. All of it, everything Rae had ever wanted, had been handed to her. Not once had she been forced to pursue, to struggle to achieve. She had never had to use her determination and ingenuity to get what she wanted.

If she possessed such things as determination and ingenuity, she thought with an uncomfortable frown.

Leaning back in the chair, she studied the ceiling for a while, her expression blank, her thoughts involved. And that was when she made the decision.

It was time for Rae to find out just exactly what she was made of.