The Case of the Mesmerizing Boss by Diana Palmer Read Free Book Online Page A

her.
    “Don’t panic,” he said curtly as Beryl went ahead to lead the way to the guest room. “I won’t hurt you.” She colored involuntarily. “Dane…”
    Her reticence made him irritable. “Relax, can’t you? You’re among friends.” “You were never that,” she said stiffly.
    “I’m thirty-four years old,” he said as they moved down the long hall. “Maybe I’m tired of being alone. You said once that neither of us has anybody else.” “And you said once that you didn’t need anyone.”
    He shrugged. “I’ve spent fourteen years being a cop. It isn’t easy to change perspective.”
    The mention of his profession made her uneasy. She didn’t like thinking about the drug dealers she’d seen or what Dane had said about her being the only witness. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
    “I was thinking about the night I got shot,” she confessed. “About those men…” “You’re safe here,” he said. “Nobody is going to hurt you.” “Of course not,” she agreed, and forced a smile.
     
    The Case of the Mesmerizing Boss43
    Beryl settled her in while Dane went out to check on some new cattle that arrived shortly after they did. It was several hours before he reappeared, after Beryl and Tess had gotten acquainted. But the man who walked into the bedroom wasn’t the man she thought she knew.
    Dane was wearing the garb of a working cowboy. He was in a striped blue western-cut shirt, long-sleeved with pearl snaps, and worn blue jeans under equally worn batwing chaps held up by a wide, silver-buckled belt. He wore black boots with spurs and a battered black Stetson pulled low over one eye. Tess stared curiously. She’d never seen him dressed like that.
    “You look like you’ve been dragged through a brush thicket,” Beryl grimaced.
    “Not far wrong,” he said, nodding. “We had to flush some cows out of the draws. No job for tenderfeet, that’s a fact. Are you settling in?” he asked Tess. She nodded. He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Well, why the wide-eyed stare?”
    “You look…different,” she said, searching for a word to describe the change in him.
    “I don’t have to keep up a businesslike and impeccable image down here,” he said with a faint twist of his lips. “This is home.”
    Her eyes slid away. Home. She had an apartment, but she couldn’t remember ever having a home where she felt comfortable. Her grandmother’s house had been elegant but untouchable. Her memories of the time when her mother was alive were very dim and stark.
    “What are we eating?” he asked Beryl, uncomfortably aware of Tess’s apparent indifference to him.
    “Beef,” she replied. “And potatoes. What else is there?” she added with a grin. “For me, nothing. I’ll get cleaned up.”
    Tess watched him go. Her eyes were more expressive than she realized as she wrapped her arms tightly around herself and almost shivered, remembering the day he’d cured her of hero worship. She’d wanted so desperately to love him, but he wouldn’t let her.

44
    Diana Palmer
     
    Now he seemed to want to mend fences. Didn’t he realize that it was years too late?
    Beryl was giving Tess a curious stare after he left. “You’re afraid of him,” she said unexpectedly, her expression incredulous. “Honey, he wouldn’t hurt a fly!”
    Probably not, she thought, but he had hurt her in ways she could never confess to Beryl. “He never liked my father very much,” Tess said evasively. “Or me. He’s been kind to me since I got shot, but I still feel safer across town from him.”
    “He isn’t like that.” The older woman tried again. “Sharp, yes, even hot-tempered, but he isn’t vengeful. I’ve known him all his life. He was a sweet child until his father left. His mother took his father’s desertion out on him. I spared him as much as I could, but she was never much of a parent.” “Neither was my father,” Tess confessed. “See, you’ve got something in common.” “Right. We’re both human