No, this elevator ride was a gift thrown into her lap. If she was ever going to have a baby, she had to take advantage of this opportunity. What this man looked like didn’t matter. What mattered was he had spreadsheets that needed checking.
Before she could talk herself out of it, she thrust her hand toward him. “Mr. Anderson, I’d like to introduce myself. I’m Claire Eden, a certified public accountant with Whitaker and Associates.”
He turned to her, and that one dark brow rose again. His dark brown eyes traveled from her feet to the top of her head. Claire knew she didn’t look her best after her sprint through the rain but she couldn’t help it, and his insolent onceover made her ire rise.
She tamped it down firmly and kept her hand extended, the smile plastered on her mouth. Her eyes locked on his, and she forced herself not to tremble under the intensity of his unrelenting dark gaze. “Please excuse my appearance, I got caught in the storm. I don’t usually accost people in elevators, Mr. Anderson, but I’d really like to work at Pawnee Investments and was wondering if you could get me an appointment with Mr. Townsend.”
His face hardened, as if suddenly cast in stone. “You don’t read newspapers, do you?”
Since he obviously wasn’t going to shake her hand, she pulled it back and tugged self-consciously at her wet skirt. “I’ve been out of town the past three days. Why?”
He seemed to struggle with himself for several seconds, as if fighting inner demons. Finally he asked through clenched teeth, “Just what would you do with an appointment, Ms. Eden?”
Confused by the almost violent emotions she sensed, Claire said warily, “I’d show him how, with my help, he can make better use of Pawnee Investments’ money.”
“No.”
She blinked. “No? Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
She’d never met a man so incredibly rude. Even her brothers couldn’t match this man’s arrogance. Several sharp retorts crossed her mind and because of the day she’d had, she was in the mood to let them fly. But she didn’t. Like the diplomatic businesswoman she needed to be, she shoved the anger to the back of her mind. “Could I possibly ask why?”
He turned to face the elevator door. “You can ask.”
Surprise froze Claire, but just for an instant. With two cowboy brothers, she had a lifetime of experience taking arrogant men down a peg or two. She drew breath to do just that when sudden blackness descended like a lead curtain, and the elevator jerked to a stop.
Thrown off balance, Claire lurched against him. Steel arms caught her as his back rammed into the elevator wall. They were thrown sideways, then slammed to the floor. Claire landed hard on top of him, her legs tangling with his, her forehead glancing off his chin.
Even with the cushion of his body, her landing wasn’t soft. Jacob Anderson was as solid as the Rocky Mountains.
As they hit the floor, a dim light came on overhead.
Claire blinked in shock. Slowly she pushed herself up to lean on one hand, the other rising to push back a lock of hair. She could barely make out his features as he gasped for breath. “What happened?”
“Ah...Ah...”
The fall had knocked his breath out. She panicked. She couldn’t lose this man now. Then she remembered all the times she’d seen bucking broncs do the same thing to her brothers. Buttons flew as she tore open his shirt and massaged his iron-hard chest. “Breathe! Com‘on, com’on! Breathe!”
Air finally whipped into the vacuum of his lungs. As he took in great gulping breaths, she slumped forward in relief.
“Damn.” Jake’s need for air finally satisfied, he closed his eyes and let his heavy head fall against the elevator wall. What the hell just happened? One minute this young woman had been harassing him, the next she was on top of him, ripping off his shirt.
Memory flooded in as oxygen reached his brain. The storm. It must’ve knocked out the power, then did its damnedest to knock him out. This woman’s quick actions had—while probably not saving his life—saved him from a nasty few minutes trying to get air. “Thanks for the massage.”
“What happened? You don’t think that storm blew a transformer?”
Hoping he imagined the faint trace of panic in her voice, he lifted his right shoulder hesitantly, grateful it still worked. “It’s about the only thing that’ll stop an elevator. Don’t worry, everything will be fine.”
“Fine? We could be stuck in here for hours.”
“Ms. Eden, the last thing we need to do is panic.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t patronize me. I’m not a child.”
“Then don’t act like one,” he said harshly.
Suddenly she snapped like a thin branch in a strong wind. “You rude, arrogant son of a cross-eyed snake! You’re just like my brothers. No, I take that back. You’re ten times worse. At least they’re civil to people. At least they care. I’ll never have a baby now, but what’s that to you? You’ve got half the money in Colorado. You could get pregnant thousands of times.”
“What are you talking about?” Though she wasn’t shrieking, her low, angry tones told Jake she’d been pushed over the edge—of what he didn’t know.
“You don’t care that my car broke down on the way back into town and I’m probably going to have to shell out money to buy a new one just when I need thousands of dollars to get pregnant or never have children. Try that on a small-business accountant’s salary.”
“Will you please—”
“You don’t care that my brothers call practically every day and keep breathing down my neck to marry some cowboy they’ve picked out. You—”
Her tirade broke off with a gasping hiccup. After a shudder that traveled the length of her slender frame, her eyes cleared.
Then she looked down at him with dawning horror.
Chapter Two
J
ake didn’t know what made the young woman’s outburst end as suddenly as it began. He could only be grateful. Then he realized he’d probably be stuck for hours with a crazy woman. A lovely lunatic who wanted a job.
Everyone wanted something from the head of Pawnee Investments. Lately, he felt as if he’d been picked clean by a flock of vultures.
He planted his bands on the floor to push up but found himself pinned down by the woman on his stomach.
“Oh, no, I’m—” She scrambled to her feet,
Jake ignored the sharp pain in his back as he pulled himself up. He stretched to knock out a few kinks, then reached for the emergency phone.
Her quiet voice stopped him. “I can’t believe I ripped into you like a she bear protecting her cubs. I’ve never lost control like that, except with my brothers. It’s just that I’ve had a really rotten day and I—” She cut herself off abruptly. “But you don’t care about my troubles, and you certainly don’t owe me anything. Not even a minute of time. All I can say is I’m sorry.”
He studied her with surprise. She was apologizing? Women didn’t apologize. They sucked you dry and never gave anything in return. “Apology noted.”
Shrugging a cramp out of his neck, he opened a small panel beneath the floor buttons and yanked out a phone. A female voice answered after one ring. A few short questions later, he cursed and hung up the phone.
“A transformer?” the young woman—Claire, that was her name-asked.
He nodded. “They’ve called the Public Service Utility. Might be an hour, might be four or five. There are outages all over the city.”
She went limp like a rag doll on a pole, slumping against the far wall. “Sure, why not? The perfect end to a perfect day.”
“Pardon?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
Jake felt unexpected curiosity about the slight figure who suddenly looked beat-up and forlorn. She was taller than average for a woman, only about four or five inches under his own six-foot-two frame. The emergency light in the elevator was only as bright as a night-light, so he couldn’t make out the exact shade of her hair, but it was dark and straight and the locks escaping her fancy braid fell to her shoulders. Her skin looked pale, almost translucent in the shadows. Her high cheekbones framed a wide mouth with full lips that were tightly compressed.
Not the face of a cover model, but her even features held a soft beauty that reminded him of his favorite photo of his mother.
He felt a sudden urge to ask if her mussed hair and wrinkled clothes had anything to do with her day being less than perfect. The desire to make this young woman talk to him—perhaps even smile at him—stabbed deep and strong. It felt like life, like hope, like something he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. The simple caring of one human being for another. How long had it been since he’d cared how someone felt?
His eyes narrowed. But how could he possibly feel this way about someone so totally lacking in self-control she’d yelled at him over nothing?
Yet...she did apologize. And how many people had the courage to yell at him?
“Staring is rude.”
Jake gave his head a slight shake to clear it. There were reasons he didn’t trust people anymore. He’d spent too many years protecting himself from men and women who demanded his compassion, his money or both.
When her words penetrated his thoughts, he raised an eyebrow. “What do you expect from...what was it now? A rude, arrogant son of—what kind of snake was it?”
She winced at the reminder. “Cross-eyed. That’s one of my favorite names for my brothers. You remind me of them. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“No, really. I never lose control like that. I don’t know what—”
“Alan Townsend is dead.”
The horrified look on her face equalled the shock value of his words. He’d said them deliberately, harshly, to punish her for getting to him, for making him want things he knew didn’t exist. But the words punished him as well. His only friend...dead.
“No,” she breathed.
He pulled the cold, protective coat of indifference around the core of emotions threatening to erupt and nodded stiffly.
“When? How? He was the same age as you.”
His eyes narrowed. “Been studying us, have you? Townsend 101? Anderson 201?”
“Someone brought a magazine to—Never mind. Please, Mr. Anderson, I didn’t know. You’ve got to believe me. I’ve been checking the books at a car dealership in Limon for three days. I haven’t seen a Denver paper since Monday.”
The stricken expression on her lovely face convinced him she was telling the truth. From somewhere deep inside, he dug up the details. “He died in Aspen the day before yesterday.”
“Skiing accident?”
Jake shook his head. “An aneurysm. He got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and fell over dead.”
All the color drained from her face. “And I yelled at you for— When all the time you—” She closed her eyes tightly. “I’m so sorry.”
Jake had heard those words over and over the past two days, especially this morning at the funeral. But for the first time he believed them. Her distress touched something inside him that seemed to need touching. He felt comforted and felt a sudden urge to comfort her.
Damn!
She’d sneaked up on him again. He felt like a faucet, running hot, then cold, then hot again—and Claire Eden was turning the spigots.
What he needed was a quick exit. He’d punished her, and himself, now he just needed to get the hell out of there before he did something stupid.
But he couldn’t. They were stuck for God knew how long.
What the hell was he going to do? He needed to steer the conversation away from Alan. That subject was too raw, too painful, too full of emotions he couldn’t deal with in front of a stranger.
“Listen,” he said, trying to mask his desperation. “We may be stuck in here for a good long while. Let’s sit down and you can tell me about your ideas for Pawnee Investments.”
She gaped at him as if he’d asked her to take off all her clothes. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I assure you, I’m not.”
“After what I did? I couldn’t possibly—” She shook her head vehemently. “I’d have to be kicked up the evolutionary ladder several rungs to be pond scum.”
He smiled faintly at the image. “Indulge me, and I’ll think hard about kicking you.”
“Don’t you understand? I just blundered into a
faux pas
nightmares are made of, and you want me to make it worse by talking business?”
“Talking business always distracts me, and after your
faux pas
of nightmare proportions, it’s your obligation to distract me, don’t you think?”
The skin above her nose wrinkled as her brows tried to meet. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
He drew a quick breath and released it as quickly. “I won’t use the obvious metaphor. But yes, I’m serious. We could be stuck in here several hours. Why not spend the time productively? With Alan dead, I’ll have to oversee the bean counting at Pawnee Investments. I want to be certain the people counting those beans know what they’re doing.”
If it had been possible, Claire would’ve run screaming from the elevator. She wasn’t prepared for this. “I...I don’t have enough information about Pawnee’s assets to talk intelligently now. If we could meet tomorrow—”
“Wing it.” He folded his overcoat neatly and handed it to her. “Here. Sit.”
Claire stared blankly at the coat he held out to her. Didn’t the man have any feelings at all? How could he discuss business? His friend had just died.
“It’s not going to bite you,” he said impatiently.
His eyes looked like black holes in the dim light. She shivered. “I can’t sit on your coat.”
“Why not?”
“It probably cost more than I’m worth.”
His dark eyes searched her face a long moment. When he finally replied, his voice was soft, husky. “We’ll see about that.”
Claire swallowed to clear the sudden thickness in her throat. “Mr. Anderson, I—”
“Here.” He bent suddenly and placed the coat on the floor. “Sit.”
Claire blinked at the sudden change—from tender to domineering in seconds flat. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear he was a cowboy. “Maybe I prefer to stand.”
He straightened. The dim light and his height made it seem as if he were looking down his nose at her. “Don’t be ridiculous. We could be in here all night Are you going to stand the entire time?”
She lifted her chin and started to reply, then his words sank in. “All night? Surely it won’t be that long.”
“Probably not, but you never know.”
Claire frowned. “Okay. I’ll sit.”
As she settled on top of his folded coat, a warm, clean, very male scent invaded her senses. He sank to the floor on the opposite side of the elevator, and Claire watched his long legs stretch out alongside hers. They were a foot away, but she still felt their heat.
Suddenly the small, dim space seemed unbearably intimate. Jake’s presence filled the entire elevator, closing around her like a soft, warm blanket. Even when she closed her eyes and wracked her brain for something brilliant to say, she remained aware of him. Of every move he made. Of every breath he took. Nerve endings tingled all over her body, making her feel more alive than she’d felt in years. But it was
not
a reaction to him, just nerves. The anticipation of being offered a job that would let her have a baby.
“Are you always this stubborn?” he asked quietly.
Claire straightened against the wall and tucked her legs up under her. “I don’t like to be told what I can and can’t do.”
“Don’t make a very good employee, then, do you?”
Her chin lifted. “I’m an excellent employee.” .
He smiled tightly. “Good. Now, you were saying...”
She felt as if she’d just been put through some test, but didn’t know whether she’d passed or failed. Inhaling deeply, she started talking.
He listened with interest, occasionally asking probing questions about some detail she tried to gloss over. Having his attention focused on her forced her to concentrate on applying her real-life experiences to the corporate accounting principles she’d learned in college, and she soon forgot about her ruined clothes, the expensive car repairs and the babies she might never have.
Leaning back against the wall of the elevator, Jake watched with fascination as Claire’s face went from apprehensive to absorbed. He remembered a time when he’d been enthusiastic about which companies to invest in, how he could talk for hours about how to take advantage of loopholes in the tax laws. But that was years ago. Before he’d earned so much money he couldn’t keep track of it all. Before he had to fend off people who wanted to take away part of it, and part of him.
Before Alan died.
He hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything since Alan’s latest fling had called to tell him his best friend was being airlifted into Denver. Jake had rushed to the hospital, but Alan was dead on arrival. The shock of seeing his friend’s cold, lifeless face had immobilized him for a week. He’d begun to feel half-dead himself. But he didn’t know why until today.
Inheriting the Rocking T made him realize how far off track his life had veered. Townsends had lived on the ranch for five generations—over a hundred years—as long as Andersons had lived on the Bar Hanging Seven. Jake wanted to hand his home down to his sons and grandsons. Trouble was, he didn’t have any.
Alan’s death was like a kick in the gut. What if the elevator had plummeted instead of stopping? What if he died, too? The Anderson dynasty in Pawnee, Colorado would be over—like the Townsend dynasty was now over. Jake didn’t want that. He just didn’t know what the hell to do about it.
So for now he let Claire’s soft, feminine voice distract him from his morbid thoughts. At first he only half listened to what she was saying. Instead he watched her bright eyes and gesturing hands. During the time they’d been stuck in the elevator, he’d seen her scared, smiling, angry, mortified, uncertain and sad. The changes fascinated him. She seemed so vibrant, so utterly alive. Not like the women he usually met, who were sophisticated, humorless, cold. They either wanted to get his ring on their finger or his money or both. He hadn’t come across an exception yet.
Now that he’d seen other sides to Claire, he could smile as he remembered her earlier tirade. The only person who’d yelled at him during the past ten years was Alan. Everyone else treated him with false respect because of his money. Some comment she’d yelled at him nagged at the edge of his mind until he caught it.
I need thousands of dollars to get pregnant or never have children.
Jake frowned. What the hell had she meant by that?