Penny Jordan - Fight For Love

‘No … no, it isn’t,’ she told him calmly. ‘For one thing, I’m not exactly little—’ Her eyes held his, warning him that she was not going to allow him to browbeat her.

‘I’ve just had a long flight here … It’s very kind of you to meet me, but I do have a hotel room booked, so if you will excuse me.’

Her voice matched his for coldness, she made a move to walk past him, but he still held on to her arm, and the force he used to make her stand still left her short of breath, although she was too angry and too proud to let him see it.

‘Let’s get this over with just as quickly as possible, shall we, Miss Ames? You’re here to see what the old man left you, and for no other reason, no matter how much you might want to play at being a tourist. My plane is standing by to fly us out to the ranch … If you’d like to come this way …’

Anger took over. She dug her heels in, resisting his attempt to draw her forward.

‘Now, just a minute … I’m not going anywhere with you. For one thing, I don’t have the faintest idea who you are, and I …’

‘You what?’ His voice was soft, but the look he gave her was decidedly ugly. ‘Don’t go home with strange men? That’s not the way the old man told it …’

She had to bite down hard on the words springing to her tongue. Tip had been the type of man to indulge in a little harmless boasting. It was obvious now that this man standing in front of her was his grandson, even though he hadn’t introduced himself to her. Who knew what tall tales Tip had taken home with him? Seventy-odd or not, he had still been the sort of man who enjoyed female adulation. She had seen that and been tenderly amused by it, even though she had made it quite clear that their relationship was one of friendship only and she knew that she had won his respect, but even so she did not put it entirely past him to have returned home boasting about his English conquest. He had been that sort of man …

Unlike his grandson, she decided, risking a brief glance at the hard profile angled towards her. This man would never, ever discuss his relationship with women in his life; if indeed there was a woman hardy enough to brave that icy disdain!

The anger that had flared in her died suddenly, her interest piqued by his attitude towards her. What did it matter what he or anyone else here thought about her? Her relationship with Tip had been wholly innocent, and she ought to be amused rather than annoyed that a man as cynical and worldly as this one obviously was could be taken in by an old man, bluffing his way through life. Even so, she was still angry enough to want to taunt him a little.

Looking up at him through dark, curling lashes, she said sweetly, ‘Do I look the sort of woman who makes a play for older men?’

Her gibe bounced harmlessly off him, his eyes narrowing in bitter concentration on the upturned oval of her face as he said bitterly, ‘Yes … provided he’s rich enough to afford you. Gramps told us you worked in an art gallery—where they paid you peanuts. That fancy rig you’re wearing didn’t come cheap, lady …’

It took her a moment to catch her breath, and by that time he was hurrying her through the Arrivals hall.

What on earth had happened to this man to make him so bitter, so cynical about her sex? He was what … somewhere in his early thirties? Good-looking, if you liked the rough-hewn, domineering type. More than good-looking, she acknowledged with another quick glance at his impassive profile. He was dark enough to possess Indian or Mexican blood; she couldn’t remember Tip mentioning anything about either of his son’s wives. Women hadn’t held much importance in Tip’s life, except as the providers of sons and grandsons, and great-grandsons …

‘It’s very kind of you to come all this way simply to pick me up, Mr …’

The sweet sarcasm of her comment bounced back off him. With a hard sideways look, he told her laconically, ‘I didn’t … I had to come down to pick up the girls.’

The girls! Wild thoughts of tarty good-time girls joining them on the flight were swiftly banished when he added, ‘They’re at school here in Dallas, and school’s out for the summer now …’

‘Oh, I see.’ She didn’t, of course, but it was becoming a challenge to see if she could actually goad him into some sort of response, and so she added questioningly, ‘The girls … they’re your daughters?’

She could feel the heat in the sideways glance slashed in her direction, and she had to fight against responding to it.

‘My brother’s.’

She could almost feel the tight-lipped clenching of his jaw that went with the raw admission. Why should it cause him so much pain to tell her that? She frowned, deep in thought, trying to remember the little Tip had told her about his family. There had been another grandson; he had been killed, like her parents, in a road accident along with his wife. Ah, yes, she remembered it now. Something about a quarrel, but between whom and what about she didn’t know.

Tip hadn’t mentioned his great-granddaughters at all, but then, of course, they were female … and thus to be easily disregarded.

She frowned again as they walked out across the hot tarmac. Her captor was still holding her arm; standing between her and the hot wind racing across the exposed space, but she didn’t delude herself that he was standing so close to her from any gentlemanly concern for her.

This hostility, this almost ferocious dislike of her wasn’t something she had bargained for and yet, instead of frightening her, she found it challenging.

Again those callused fingertips brushed her skin, causing a faint frisson of sensation to whirl through her. Without turning to look at him, she knew that he was aware of her sudden shiver, and she hoped that he thought it was caused by dislike. It was rather unnerving to be so aware of him as a man, when quite plainly he loathed and detested the very sight of her.

He must have recognised her from the few photographs Tip had insisted on them having taken together, she mused as they approached an immaculate—although frighteningly small—Cessna aircraft, which brought her back to another matter.

‘You still haven’t told me your name,’ she reminded him when they stopped alongside the plane. Where on earth had it come from, this dangerous desire to goad him until she could see the grey eyes burn with controlled ire?

‘Jay—Jay Travers,’ he told her laconically. ‘I’m sure my grandfather mentioned me to you.’

His mouth twisted oddly over this last cynical statement, and deep down inside her something fluttered in feminine response.

‘Oh, yes,’ she countered sweetly, determined not to let him see how he affected her. ‘But only as ‘‘my grandson’’.’

There, that should put him in his place! He struck her as a man so fiercely proud and independent that he would loathe the very thought of being considered a mere adjunct to anyone.

He didn’t make any attempt to help her board the small plane, much to her relief. She didn’t like the way her thought processes became tangled up when he touched her.

As she entered the small cabin, she saw that it already had two other occupants.

‘You found her then, Uncle Jay. Great, now we can go! I’m just dyin’ to git back to the ranch …’

‘You quit talking like that, Rosalie … You know that Gramps sent us to school so that we could learn to talk properly and become ladies.’

Two voices, one brimful of mischief, the other slightly prim; two identical faces with matching sets of blonde pigtails; two small noses liberally sprinkled with freckles, and two pairs of grey eyes remarkably like those possessed by their uncle.

The girls were twins, and they were studying Natasha with open interest.