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

beings.”
    Once she got used to the new routine, Tess found the ranch fascinating and the pace relaxing. She insisted on helping Beryl as much as she could. Her arm was sore, but as she told Beryl, the doctor had said it wouldn’t hurt to exercise it, to prevent it from becoming stiff. She set the table at mealtime and did what she could to lessen the strain of her presence, and she enjoyed the warmth of the other people who lived on the ranch.
    But she carefully kept her distance from Dane, to his dismay. There was always some reason why she had to leave a room once he entered it, why she had to be unavailable if he was in the living room after dinner, instead of in his study working.
    In the office, their relationship was strictly professional. She took dictation, answered the phone and kept things running smoothly. But here, where he was in his element, he was a different man. She had trouble adjusting to him on a personal level. Even when he’d been shot, he’d been the professional lawman, except for that once. And it had happened at the apartment he kept in town, not here at the ranch. If he had an inner sanctum, this was it. This was the first time she’d seen it; he’d made sure of that.
     
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    Here, away from the world, he was relaxed and not so severely on his guard. He limped a little because of the primarily physical work he did on the ranch, and his temper was more noticeable than at the office, but he was also less driven and stoic. That fact was what made Tess so nervous. She was vulnerable here, away from prying eyes. Beryl never intruded. Neither did any of the ranch hands. It made her uneasy to be totally at Dane’s mercy.
    He noticed that she avoided him and became impatient with it. And finally, three days later, he confronted her while she was helping feed a stray calf in the barn.
    He was angry. The set of his jaw and the glitter in his eyes would have told her, even without the taut stance of his body.
    ”Stop avoiding me,” he said without preamble, his very tone intimidating.
    She looked up at him nervously. She was wearing jeans and a denim coat over her blue blouse, with her hair plaited at her nape. She looked very pretty, even without makeup, something Dane noticed.
    “I’m feeding the calf….” she said hesitantly, indicating the bottle she was holding to the calf’s mouth as she balanced its small head on her knee.
    “That isn’t what I mean, and you know it.” He whipped off his Stetson, the quick action unnerving, and knelt beside her. He was in working garb, too. His jeans and boots were much more disreputable-looking than hers, his batwing chaps stained and worn. The cuffs of his long-sleeved chambray shirt were speckled with mud and blood, like the sleeves of his open shepherd’s coat. He looked up, catching her eyes in a look she couldn’t break. “I’ve tried to tell you that I regret what I did that day,” he said roughly.
    She flushed. Her heart was beating her to death. She didn’t want to analyze why.
    “I thought you were more experienced than you turned out to be, or I wouldn’t have taken it that far, that fast.” “You said so before,” she faltered.
    “You didn’t listen before.” He ran his hand through his thick, damp hair. “You go out with men occasionally. You must know by now, at your age, that intimacy can be rough.”
     
    46Diana Palmer She looked down at the calf. She didn’t answer him.
    “Right?” He caught her softly rounded chin in his lean fingers and tilted her face up to his. “Tell me.”
    “There hasn’t been…anybody,” she said unsteadily. “Not…that way.”
    His face changed all at once. He frowned slightly, his eyes falling to her parted lips and then back up to her eyes. “How deep are the scars I gave you?” he asked quietly.
    Her thin shoulders moved restlessly. “Pretty deep,” she said with a humorless laugh. “Dane, I have to finish this.”
    He withdrew his hand, draping