Once Tempted Read Online Free PDF Page B

palpitating. Everything was going haywire inside her. Stunned, she stared at him as she gasped for breath.
    Blue-green eyes flecked with gold stared back at her dispassionately. He had dark hair. Thick and curly. How had he managed to remove his hat while he invaded her car, she wondered, infuriated that he was all smooth control while she was close to hyperventilating.
    Recovering enough to shoot him her dirtiest look, she wrenched the key to restart the car. Nothing, not even a sick metallic groan. Just an awful silence.
    “Oh my God! What have you done to my car?” Turning the key she jerked it one more time. “You’ve broken it.”
    “If anything, I saved it. You been driving like that forlong?” His voice was as dispassionate as his gaze. They could have been talking about Post-it notes or Brussels sprouts rather than the fact that her car had just croaked on her. And that he’d had a hand in its demise. Literally.
    “Hey, what are you doing?” Now he’d opened her door without so much as a by-your-leave. Did he have no manners?
    “Trying to get you out of this thing you charitably call a car. It’s still smoking.”
    A pretty effective reply. She unbuckled her seat belt and scooted out of the driver’s seat. She stood beside him then quickly stepped away. She was five foot ten in her high heels; he couldn’t have been more than six-one, yet he made her feel tiny. All that solid muscle and a hundred percent disagreeableness were to blame.
    Unsure whether he’d spoken the truth, she looked at the front of her car. To her chagrin, there was stuff coming out from under the hood. It sort of resembled the wisps of toxic vapors seeping out of a witch’s cauldron in a cartoon. Whether these wisps were steam or smoke she couldn’t tell. That this high-handed hulk could distinguish one from the other aggravated her even more. Maybe he had a lot of experience with tractors.
    “May I ask whether you have a reservation?”
    “No, I don’t. I’m here about a job.”
    “A job?” His gaze flicked over her. Then she saw him glance at her car, not at its crud-encrusted exterior, but at the bulging garbage bags piled up in the backseat. The nicer suitcases were stowed in the trunk and, as she had only two, she hadn’t been able to pack everything she thought she might need. Thus the presence of the depressingly ugly Hefty bags. During his visual sweep, his expression didn’t change—in fact, he was expressionless—but she could tell that in those few seconds he had formed an opinion.
    She’d spent eight weeks with the Bradfords’ relentlessdisdain and that, she decided, was quite enough. She let her own gaze pass over his worn cowboy boots and dirty jeans and smiled coolly.
    “Yes. I’m here to see …” Her mind went blank for an awful moment before she found the name. “I’m here to see Adele Knowles, and I was trying to figure out where I should park when I made the mistake of thinking you might help me.”
    Dismissing the obnoxious man, she glanced at what must be the guest ranch’s main building. It was large and constructed of pale creamy stone and wood. Windows dominated the façade and gave the building an open, expansive air. To combat the shadows of the afternoon, the lights were on, casting a golden welcoming glow. It looked nice. Really nice. But now, in addition to asking Adele Knowles whether she might have a job for her, Tess would also have to ask for a tow truck. Why the thought of having that detestable car towed caused tears to well in her eyes, she couldn’t say. She’d succeeded in keeping them at bay for so long, beating them back even when she’d hugged her parents goodbye and her dad had whispered for her to stay safe. Her shoulders sagged. She should never have agreed to Anna’s harebrained scheme.
    From behind her came the sound of crunching gravel. She turned and made a choking sound.
    “What are you doing to my car?”
    The man had one arm and shoulder inside the open