The Taming Of Tyler Kincaid

“That’s not my fault, baby,” Tyler snapped. “I kept my end of the deal.”

“And you’re known for that, aren’t you? For always keeping your end of the deal. Cool-headed Tyler Kincaid, never undermined by sentiment, in business or in his dealings with women.”

Tyler puffed out a breath in exasperation. “Look, there’s no point to this. I don’t want to quarrel with you—”

“No. You just want to tell me I overstepped my bounds, that I had no right to waltz into your house, into your life.”

“Dammit!” Tyler threaded his hand through his hair again. “Look, if I’d wanted a birthday party, I’d have thrown one for myself.”

Adrianna rolled her eyes. “Good God, what a sin! Arranging a party—”

“Don’t you get it? I didn’t want a party.”

“A party to which I invited a bunch of your friends—”

“They’re not my friends.”

“Of course they are!”

“They’re people I know, that’s all. They only bother with me because of what I can give them.”

“Which is precious little, Tyler.”

Tyler’s mouth thinned. “What in hell is that supposed to mean?”

Adrianna swung away from him and stalked into the bathroom. “That magazine article the other week called you ‘brilliant.’ Figure it out for yourself.”

He strode after her, watched as she stripped off the gown, pulled a T-shirt and jeans from her nightcase and put them on.

“I’ve set up deals for half the men who were here tonight,” he growled, “and the other half wishes I would. You think that’s giving them precious little, huh?”

“Is that what you think people want from you? Deals? Money? Power?”

Tyler stared at his mistress. She was fully dressed now, still wearing those high heels. Now, strangely, they struck him not as sexy but sad.

“Look,” he said, struggling to sound calm, “it’s late. We’re both tired. I think it’s best if I drive you home.”

“I’m perfectly capable of driving myself home, thank you.”

She was, and he knew it. Tyler shrugged his shoulders, folded his arms and leaned against the wall.

“Suit yourself.”

“I intend to.” Adrianna shot him a glittering smile. “It would never have worked, Tyler. I guess I always knew that, in my heart. After a while, whenever I looked at you, I’d see the look in your eyes that says ‘Keep Out,’ and it would have killed me.”

Her words drained the anger from him.

“It isn’t you,” he said softly. “Despite anything I said, it isn’t you.”

“Sometimes…” She drew a deep breath. “Sometimes, I wonder if there’s anybody inside you, Tyler. If you feel things, like the rest of us.”

“Adrianna…”

“The thing is…” she said, with a little laugh. “The thing is, I fell in love with you. And I know you could never fall in love with me.”

He thought of lying to her, of softening the blow, but he knew, too, that the one thing he could give her now was the truth. He reached out, tucked a strand of golden hair behind her ear.

“No,” he said gently, “I couldn’t. I wish it were different. I really wish—”

Adrianna put her hand lightly over his mouth. “Don’t lie to either of us, Tyler. That isn’t your wish. We both know that I’m not the woman for you. I’m not the one you’re looking for.”

Tyler gave a mocking laugh. “I’m not looking for a woman. Not now, not ever.”

“Everyone’s looking for someone, whether they know it or not.”

“You’re wrong.”

Adrianna smiled gently, rose on her toes and pressed a light kiss to his mouth.

“Goodbye, darling,” she whispered.

Tyler watched her walk from the room. He sank down on the edge of the bed, listened to the distant click-click of those ridiculous high heels fading, then to the even more distant sound of her car. At last, he stood and walked slowly to the window.

The moon was setting, dipping into the branches of the old oak just outside his bedroom.

There was nobody inside him, Adrianna had said, but she was wrong. Tyler smiled bitterly. The boy named John Smith was still there, whether he liked it or not. There was an emptiness in his heart, a yearning sometimes that he couldn’t put a name to or get rid of by burying himself in his work, or even by pounding his gloved fists against the body bag at his gym.

She was wrong about him looking for a woman, too. How could a man look for a woman when he was still searching for himself?

He stood at the window for hours, watching as night gave way to dawn. At six, exhausted, he fell on his bed and slept. When he opened his eyes, it was after nine.

Tyler reached for the telephone.

“Carol,” he said, when his secretary answered, “you remember that private detective we used last year? The one who found out who was selling our research plans to our competitors? I’d like his name, please, and his phone number. No, no that’s fine. I’ll call him myself.” A moment passed. Then Tyler scrawled down the name and number his secretary gave him. “Thank you,” he said.

He disconnected, took a deep breath and dialed.

CHAPTER TWO

CAITLIN MCCORD had a passion for horses, dogs and kittens but, because she was a reasonably sane woman, she didn’t like them all in one place at the same time, especially if the dog was barking, the horse was rolling its eyes and the kitten was hissing like a rattlesnake.

The horse, a chestnut mare with the unlikely name of Charlotte, was beautiful, terrified and new to Espada. Caitlin had spent the best part of half an hour rubbing her velvet nose and feeding her carrots while she told her they were destined to be friends. When the mare nuzzled her shoulder, Caitlin smiled, led her from the stables to the paddock and saddled her.

That was when the dog, a black-and-tan hound with a clever nose and a foolish disposition, came wandering by.

“Woof?” said the dog.

The mare rolled her eyes and danced backward. Caitlin held firmly to the bridle, calmed the horse, shooed the dog and devoted another five minutes to telling her life was not as awful as she imagined. When the horse nuzzled her again, she decided it was time to ease herself gently into the saddle.

That was the moment the dog reappeared, this time in hot pursuit of a ball of hissing orange fluff.

Caitlin felt the mare’s muscles bunch beneath her thighs. The animal whinnied, reared and pawed the air before she brought it under control again.

Abel Jones, Espada’s foreman, had been watching the goings-on from his window at the eastern end of the stables. He stepped out the side door into the paddock and spat a thin stream of tobacco juice into the grass.

“Ornery critter, that horse.”

“She just needs to run off some steam.”

“Manuel ain’t doin’ nothin’ much this mornin’.” Able spat another stream of juice down toward his boots. “He’ll take her out, if you like.”

Caitlin shot a grin in Abel’s direction. “And spoil my fun?” She leaned forward, ran a gloved hand over the chestnut’s quivering, arched neck. “I’ll do it. Just toss me my hat—it fell off when this little girl tried to make like Trigger.”

The old man bent down, plucked the Texas Rangers baseball cap from the dust, dusted it against his thigh and handed it up. Caitlin pulled the cap on, tucked her dark auburn curls up under it and tugged the brim down over her eyes.

“Open the gate, please.”

“Sure you don’t want to give Manuel somethin’ to do?”

“Open it, Abel.”

The foreman grunted. There was no mistaking an order, even when it was issued in a quiet voice.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and flung the gate to the paddock wide. Horse and woman shot through in a blur.

“That there mare’s a wild one,” Manuel said, coming up alongside. “Think the señorita can handle her?”

Abel’s narrowed eyes stayed locked on the receding figures of horse and rider. “She’ll handle the mare, all right.” He worked the mouthful of chewing tobacco into his cheek, spat and wiped his pepper-and-salt mustache on his sleeve. “It’s a stallion’s gonna give her trouble, someday.”

Manuel gave the foreman a puzzled look. “We got a new stallion? Nobody told me about it.”

The old man laughed. “It’s what they call a figger of speech, kid.”

“A what?”

Abel sighed, reached for a pitchfork and thrust it at the boy.

“Go muck out the stalls,” he said, and stomped away.

Tyler Kincaid was driving a battered old Chevy pickup along an unpaved road that undulated through the Texas countryside.

He’d paid some old geezer four hundred bucks for the truck after the plane he’d chartered had flown him to a small airfield just outside town. The P.I. he’d hired said there was a private landing strip on the Baron ranch but Tyler had decided that a man reconnoitering a situation was better off doing it without drawing too much attention to himself. That was why he’d dressed inconspicuously, not in a suit and tie but in weekend clothes—faded jeans and a cotton T-shirt. He’d even resurrected his old Stetson and his roper boots from the back of his closet.

Tyler had figured he could rent a car someplace near the airstrip but he’d figured wrong, which was how he’d ended up with the Chevy. The old truck groaned and rattled like the bucket of bolts it was, and there was dust kicking up through the holes in the floorboard and settling like tan snow on his boots but according to the map in his bag, he didn’t have far to go. It was only another ten or twelve miles to the Baron ranch.

The radio worked, anyway. Tyler fiddled with the dial, settled for a station playing the kind of country music he hadn’t listened to since his years breaking horses in the hot Georgia sun, first at Boys Ranch and then on his own, after he’d left the Marines. The sentimental songs were made for the hard life of a cowboy. Right now, he just wanted them to take his mind off what he’d set out to do because he suspected that if he thought about it too long, he might admit he was making a mistake.

Why pay a private investigator to dig into the circumstances of his birth and then go out on his own? It was foolish, maybe foolhardy…but this was his life. If anybody was going to find the answers he sought, it was going to be—

The engine hiccuped, made a noise like a sick elephant and came to a convulsive stop.

Tyler frowned, did a quick appraisal of the dashboard gauges. Gas was okay and so was the oil. The engine temperature read normal. He waited a couple of seconds, then turned the key.

“Dammit,” he said, and flung the door open.

It was hotter than blazes with the sun beating down. A chorus of insects filled the silence with a melody of their own devising.

Tyler walked to the front of the pickup and lifted the hood, springing back as steam spewed into the already humid air. He mouthed an oath, waited until the cloud dissipated, then leaned forward and peered at the engine. It was a mess. Rust and dirt, frayed wires and worn hoses…It was years since he’d done much more than pump gas into his Porsche but he reached right in. There were some things a man just didn’t forget. Things like how you really couldn’t expect to get very far with a radiator that leaked like a sieve, and a temperature gauge that had evidently packed it in a long time ago.

Tyler slammed the hood shut, wiped his hands on his jeans and tried not to think about the old codger back at the airstrip, who had to be looking at his four hundred bucks and laughing his head off.

“Hell,” he said, and then he sighed. It was his fault, nobody else’s. Any man who’d lost touch with reality enough to think he could breeze into a town that was little more than a wide spot on the road, flash some hundred dollar bills and expect not to be taken, was a jerk.

Now what?

He stepped away from the truck, looked back toward where he’d been and then ahead, toward where he was going. The view both ways was the same, nothing but a rolling, dusty road that stretched from horizon to horizon with tall grass waving on either side and trees backing up the grass. He was halfway between nowhere and no place. It was a great title for a country ballad but not a very useful location otherwise.

Tyler stomped back to the truck. He snatched his hat from the front seat and put it on, yanked the map from his bag and checked it. The road went on straight for a couple of miles before taking a sharp right. According to the P.I., he’d see the wrought-iron gates and longhorn logo that marked the entrance to Baron land just before it did.

Going ahead was the only logical choice. If life had taught him anything, it was that taking a step back was never an option.

Tyler folded the map, tucked it into the bag and looped the straps over one shoulder. He tipped the wide brim of the Stetson down over his eyes and started walking toward Espada.

Three weeks of digging, and all the P. I. had come up with was the name of the ranch where John Smith had been born. Well, it was something. At least he knew now that John Smith had begun life not in Georgia but in Texas.

That was how he thought of the boy he’d been, as if he and Smith were two separate people. The skinny kid with the ropy muscles who’d had to fight for his place in the world was a stranger to the successful man who had everything he could possibly want.

A jackrabbit zipped across the road ahead, moving so quickly it was almost a blur. Maybe the rabbit had places to be, Tyler thought with a tight smile. If the rabbit didn’t, he surely did yet here he was, walking a dirt road in Texas when he had a life to live, a corporation to run…and, if he chose, a relationship to mend. Adrianna had phoned and left a message. It hadn’t taken much reading between the lines to realize she’d be willing to take him back, on his terms.

The thing of it was, he wasn’t sure that was what he wanted.

She was lovely, and charming, and he’d enjoyed the time he’d been with her, but the affair had run its course. He was willing to admit that was his fault but what Adrianna had said about him wasn’t true. There was nothing the matter with him. He did feel things. If he never spoke of love, it was simply because he couldn’t bring himself to lie.

He liked women, liked their soft laughter and their scent, but that didn’t mean he was going to pretend there was more to the best of male-female relationships than a few months of companionship, good times and sex.

Sex was something he never lied about. It was a need, a powerful one, and if you shared it with a beautiful, interesting, willing woman, it was one of the most pleasurable things in life.

A smile curled across the corner of Tyler’s mouth. Finding women to adorn his arm and warm his bed had never been a problem.

For now, though, he was going to concentrate his energies on an enigma named John Smith. And Smith was an enigma, one not even the detective he’d hired had been able to unravel.

“I have to tell you, Mr. Kincaid,” Ed Crane had said, when they’d met for breakfast the prior week, “this is one of the toughest investigations I’ve ever done.”

Tyler’s eyed had narrowed. “Meaning?”

“Meaning,” Crane had replied, around a mouthful of buttermilk gravy, “all I know is what’s in that report I sent you this morning.”

“Humor me,” Tyler said, with a smile that made the phrase a lie. “I haven’t had time to do much besides glance at it. Smith was born in Texas?”

“Uh-huh.”

“On a windblown acre of dusty soil?”

“No, sir, Mr. Kincaid. We’re talking about a ranch the size of a small country.” Crane offered his best good old boy smile. “Anywhere but Texas, this Espada would be flying its own flag. Cattle, horses, oil wells—this isn’t any windblown acre. It’s a miniature kingdom.”

“A kingdom,” Tyler said slowly.

“Yes, indeedy. Ruled by an old hard-ass name of Jonas Baron. The guy was eighty-five last summer, he’s on wife number five, he’s got three sons and a stepdaughter—a kingdom and a king, sir, that’s the setup at Espada.”

“And John Smith was born there.” Tyler eyed Crane over the rim of his coffee cup. “To whom?”

Crane’s smile faded. “Well, that’s the problem. We haven’t been able to turn up a record so far. But there are some strong possibilities.”

Tyler put down his coffee cup. “Such as?”

“I’d rather wait until I have all the facts, sir.”

“And I wouldn’t.”

Crane cleared his throat. “Well, there’s a housekeeper, woman named Carmen. She was pregnant that winter, would have delivered just about the middle of the summer.”

Tyler nodded, waited to feel some reaction but didn’t. Whoever his mother had been, she’d dumped him fast enough. Only a fool would feel anything for a woman like that.

“Possibilities, you said.”

“Yes, sir. There were a couple of married ranch hands working at the place that summer, one, maybe two, with wives who were expecting.”

Tyler smiled stiffly. “A fertile place, this Espada.”

Crane grinned. “Yeah.”

“Anyone else?”

“Jonas Baron’s wife—wife number one—was expecting, too. But that one’s easy to rule out.”

“Yes. You already said, Baron has three sons.”

“He does, Mr. Kincaid, and they were all born after the year you specified.” Crane reached for another biscuit, thought better of it and let his jowly face settle into more serious lines. “Besides, the baby and Mrs. Baron both died in childbirth. The two of them are buried out there, on the ranch.”

“Which leaves us with the housekeeper and the cowboys.”

“That’s right, sir. So, what do you think? You want me to keep on digging?”

For a moment, Tyler had been tempted to tell the man to end the investigation. His mother was either a housekeeper or the wife of an itinerant cowboy. Either way, she’d abandoned him with less thought than most people gave to an old shoe. Not that it mattered. He’d done just fine on his own. He wasn’t even sure exactly why he’d started this search. He’d been in a strange mood the night of his birthday, that was all.

On the other hand, he’d never been able to resist a puzzle. It was part of the reason he’d succeeded in business. What made people take one path, instead of another? His mother had given birth to him, then dumped him on a doorstep. Why? Why hadn’t she turned him over to an adoption agency? And why would a woman rise from the bed where she’d just delivered a child and go all the way to Atlanta to get rid of it?

“Mr. Kincaid? Shall I keep going? Another couple weeks, I’ll have a better fix on things. You just need to be patient.”

Patient, Tyler had thought. It was a logical suggestion, easy for a man to make when it wasn’t his past that was being uncovered but after thirty-five years, what was the rush? But there was a rush; he didn’t understand it but he could feel it, in his belly. So he’d nodded, told Crane to keep on digging. The meeting had ended, Tyler had returned to his office and buried himself in work.

An hour later, he’d given up pretending. How could a man work when his head was filled with pictures of a place he’d never seen and images of three faceless women, one of whom was probably his mother? He’d called in his personal assistant and his first vice president, told them he was going away for a while and that he’d keep in touch by e-mail and phone. They’d both looked surprised but he knew they wouldn’t question him. Nobody ever questioned Tyler Kincaid.

“Fine,” his P.A. said.

His vice president shook his hand and wished him a pleasant vacation.

Tyler hadn’t bothered correcting him. There wasn’t much he could have said that wouldn’t have made him look even more surprised, so he’d smiled and said he’d certainly try. And here he was, trudging into a gully on a dusty road in the middle of nowhere, his shirt stuck to his skin with sweat, looking for answers that probably wouldn’t matter a damn once he found them.

“Hell,” he said, and came to an abrupt stop at the bottom of the slope. Was he crazy? Who gave a damn about John Smith? He’d ceased to exist years ago. What did it matter if—

“Look out!”

He heard the hoofbeats and the cry almost simultaneously, spun around and saw a horse crest the top of the slope and fly toward him. Tyler flung himself out of the way and the animal thundered by with only inches to spare.

Tyler went down in the brush at the side of the road, then he scrambled to his feet. The horse and its rider, a boy who didn’t look as if he had enough muscle to control a pony much less a horse that looked as high-strung as this one, were drawing up a couple of dozen yards down the road. The horse turned, blowing hard. The rider rose in the saddle and looked at him.

Tyler waited for some word. An apology. A question. Are you okay? seemed like a good start but the boy didn’t speak. He sat down again, straight as a ramrod in the saddle, while the horse blew and snorted. The kid was wearing a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead so he couldn’t see his face, but every inch of the boy’s posture indicated contempt.

Tyler drew in a breath, enough to calm his runaway heart rate. Then he plucked his hat from the dirt, knocked off the dust and jammed it on his head as he moved into the center of the road..

“You damned near ran me down,” he yelled.

The horse tossed its head. The boy said nothing. Tyler tucked his hands into his back pockets and walked toward them.

“Hey, kid, did you hear me? I said—”

“I heard what you said.” The boy’s voice was low. There was an edge to it that suggested he was accustomed to giving orders. “You’re trespassing.”

“This is a public road.”

“It’s a private road. Or am I supposed to believe you opened the gate three miles back, walked under the arch and never noticed?”

Tyler frowned. He hadn’t come through any gate that he knew of though he supposed it was possible, considering how lost in thought he’d been.

“Well? Is that your story, cowboy?”

Tyler’s frown deepened. The kid’s voice had an interesting quality to it, one that sent a funny sensation dancing along his spine. A couple of dark auburn curls had escaped from the baseball cap he was wearing. No, not dark auburn. Red, and chestnut; maple and even a touch of gold…

Holy hell. He must have been out in the sun longer than he thought. It would be a hot day at the North Pole before he cared one way or another about the sound of a boy’s voice, or the color of his hair.

The horse whinnied and danced sideways. “Did I say something that amuses you?” the boy asked coldly.

“I didn’t see any gate,” Tyler said, just as coldly. “Not that it matters a damn. Public land or private, you haven’t the right to—”

The boy touched his knees lightly to the chestnut’s sides. The horse took half a dozen steps forward. Tyler had been away from horses for a long time but the animal had a look that said it had a touchy disposition and, probably, a hair-trigger temper.

“If the gate was open, it’s because some no-account left it that way and I assure you, I’ll deal with him.”

“Yeah,” Tyler said slowly, his eyes locked to the rider’s shadowed face, “I’ll just bet you will.”

“You just turn around now and head back out the way you came.”

The presumptive quality of that throaty voice, the command issued by a skinny boy who couldn’t have been a day older than, what, sixteen, seventeen, made Tyler’s muscles knot.

“You’re pretty good at giving orders,” he said softly. “What happens when you run into a man who won’t take them?”

The boy hesitated, then touched his knees to the chestnut’s sides again. The horse moved closer, as much a weapon now as if the boy had picked up a stone.

“You mean, what happens when I run into a fool that doesn’t use the brain he was born with?”

“Yeah,” Tyler said, and in one quick move he reached up and grabbed the boy by the front of his T-shirt. The chestnut whinnied and danced away but Tyler hung on and hauled the kid from the saddle…

Except, as soon as he’d dragged him halfway down the length of his body, he knew it wasn’t a boy at all.

It was a woman.