LITMIR.BIZ

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to the faded, peeling sign on one building, had once manufactured bricks. Now it was secured by a tall chain-link fence that trapped windblown leaves and trash inside, and looked empty and forlorn.

      The odometer slowly rolled over—one mile, two, three. She was beginning to wonder if she’d been sent on a wild-goose chase, when a barn came into sight ahead on the left. It was octagonal in shape, painted bright red, and in huge block letters around the sides was painted The Old Mayfield Barn. Directing muttered curses toward the postal clerk, she slowed to turn right onto a dirt road.

      About four or five miles, he’d said. She’d gone exactly four and a half miles when she turned into a driveway and stopped. A pipe gate formed an arch over the cattle guard that stretched across the drive, and a sign dangling from the arch announced that this was, indeed, the Rawlins Ranch. For a moment she simply sat there, engine idling. Since she’d come up with this less-than-brilliant plan to visit J. T. Rawlins on his own turf, she’d convinced herself that he would be so impressed by her professionalism, won over by her sincerity or maybe simply worn-out by her determination, and would agree to cooperate fully. In fact, she hadn’t let herself consider any other outcome.

      But what if he wasn’t impressed, won over or worn-out? What if his determination to have nothing to do with her was stronger than her determination to write this book? What were the chances she could persuade Senator Chaney that twenty-one out of twenty-two wasn’t bad—that no one else could do better?

      Slim to none. He’d been adamant that, without even one of the brood, as he called his ex-wives and children, there would be no book. Simple enough, then. She wouldn’t take no for an answer. However stubborn J. T. Rawlins was, she would be more so. He would talk to her if for no other reason than to get rid of her.

      Slowly she shifted her foot to the accelerator. The driveway was dirt and gravel and ran between two fenced pastures. Several hundred yards back from the road sat a house the color of an unbaked pumpkin pie, with trim the same hue as fresh cream. The house was oddly laid out—two halves side by side, connected by a deck. The neatly maintained lawn was yellowed from lack of rain, but the flowers planted in beds around the house and in pots all over the deck bloomed as beautifully as if the climate was fit to sustain life.

      Natalie parked in the shade of a massive tree that was already losing its leaves, climbed out and smoothed her dress. The place wasn’t exactly quiet—a dog barked somewhere, music was coming from the direction of the barn, and there were birds, crickets, wind rustling in the trees—but it was a different type of noise than she was accustomed to. At home in Alabama, she lived in an apartment complex where something was always going on—TVs blaring, kids playing, couples fighting. There was a fire station two blocks away, so sirens were a daily part of life, as well as traffic, construction and aircraft flying overhead.

      She tried the house first, knocking on one front door, then the other. When she got no answer at either, she headed out back. The dead grass crunched underfoot, and the horses in the pasture lined up at the fence to watch her pass. As she neared the barn, she could tell the music came not from there, but somewhere on the other side. She followed it around the corner, then came to a sudden stop.

      The source of the music—country, she thought, wrinkling her nose—was a portable radio sitting on a tree stump. Parked a few feet beyond it was an old pickup truck, its green paint sadly faded by the sun. The hood was propped open, and bent under it was a man. In faded jeans. Dirty boots. With lots of warm tanned skin exposed that glistened with sweat under the blazing sun. A white T-shirt hung from the truck’s outside mirror, and an oil-stained rag was draped over the open window.

      Natalie swallowed hard. She’d always had a fine appreciation for men in snug-fitting jeans. The harder the body, the more faded the jeans should be, because faded denim was soft, yielding, gloving—and these jeans were pretty damned faded.

      After all but drooling for a moment or two, she cleared her throat. “Excuse me. I’m looking for J. T. Rawlins.”

      The man straightened, turned and gave her a long look. She stared back into a seriously handsome, seriously boyish face. He might be anywhere from fifteen to twenty, she guessed—way too young for her womanly appreciation. He didn’t smile, come closer or offer his hand, but subjected her to a thorough appraisal before he spoke. “Who are you?”

      “Natalie Grant. I believe Mr. Rawlins is expecting me.”

      The next response came from behind her. “Why would he be expecting you when he told you very plainly that he wasn’t interested in your book?”

      She turned to find a bigger, impossibly harder version of the boy standing a few yards away. He, too, wore scuffed boots and snug jeans that rode low on narrow hips, and had discarded his shirt in deference to the day’s heat. He, too, showed lots of warm, tanned skin, stretched taut over muscle and bone, and wore the same unwelcoming look as the boy. “Mr. Rawlins, I presume.”

      “Ms. Grant.”

      “I take it you didn’t receive my most recent letter.”

      “We got it. We considered barring the gate to you and having the sheriff run you out of the county.”

      “But you didn’t.”

      He shifted the toolbox he carried from one hand to the other. “Some pests will go away if you ignore them long enough. Others require a different solution.”

      She didn’t particularly appreciate being called a pest, but she could hardly blame him. She had been a bit persistent. “And what solution did you decide on for me? Capitulation?”

      “Hardly.” His expression was as dry as the air. “More like compromise.”

      She mimicked the dry reply. “The sooner you deal with me, the sooner you get rid of me?”

      He responded with a shrug that made the muscles of his chest and belly ripple enticingly. She’d known the odds were better than even that J. T. Rawlins was a handsome man. His father was. His eight half siblings were as beautiful as genetics, pampering and virtually unlimited wealth could provide. There wasn’t a crooked or unbleached tooth in the bunch. Not an inch of untanned skin or a pinch of untoned flab. Not one single hair on one head that would dare rebel enough to create a bad-hair day. They were all artificially, phonily gorgeous.

      And they couldn’t hold a candle to their illegitimate half brother. His tan came from hours in the sun, his muscles from hard work. His dark hair was perfectly tousled, as if he’d combed it with his fingers. His smile, she would bet, was naturally perfect, as everything else was, though she doubted she would get the chance to see it. That would be her loss.

      “Compromise,” she repeated. “As in you’ll tell me everything I need to know, and then I’ll disappear from your life?”

      “As in I’ll answer the questions I want. As for the rest of them…well, you’ll have to live without the answers.”

      “Or get them someplace else.”

      With a glint in his dark eyes, he shook his head. “That’s part of the deal. You talk only to us. We don’t want you asking a lot of questions about us in town, or bothering our friends and neighbors. And my mother and my brother are off-limits. You don’t ask about them, you don’t get to talk to them, and you don’t mention them or Jordan any more than necessary in your book.”

      Natalie studied him for a moment. Though his skin glistened with sweat, he didn’t seem to notice the miserable heat or the dryness that sucked the moisture from her pores. He didn’t seem to notice anything at all besides her, though it was a wary prey-watching-predator sort of attention. She wondered what it would be like to have that same intense focus in a man-woman way. Not that she was looking for a relationship. No trust, no love, no concern for anything but the story.

      With that in mind, she turned her own attention back to the story. She could do without the brother—he was important only in that he was J.T.’s brother—but she really wanted an interview with Lucinda Rawlins. She wanted to know how the affair had started, how an unsophisticated waitress from Oklahoma had caught the eye of the powerful senator

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