The Millionaire's Club: Connor, Tom & Gavin

“Can I take your order, folks?”

Nita looked up from her menu, expecting Sheila, the regular waitress. Instead she found Valerie Raines, the new, younger addition to the restaurant staff. She was a speck of a thing, skinny and petite, with eyes that made Nita think of shuttered windows. She was friendly enough, but always seemed a bit on the wary side, always on her guard.

“Hi, Valerie, I’ll have a cheeseburger, fries and a soda.”

“Sounds good,” Connor said. “I’ll have the same.”

“And I’ll take one of your sweet smiles,” someone said, and all three of them turned to see Gavin O’Neal approaching the booth from the back of the diner. He flashed Valerie a charming grin. The Cattlemen Club men sure were a good-looking bunch, although Valerie looked less than impressed.

“Sheriff,” she said, her eyes going from wary to icecold, before she turned on her heel and walked away.

“Whoa, talk about the cold shoulder,” Connor said.

“What did you do?” Nita teased. “Leave her a lousy tip?”

Gavin shook his head. “I don’t get it. I leave her a good tip and I’m sweet as candy to her but she seems inclined to dislike me. Must be the badge.”

“Care to join us?” Connor asked.

“No, thanks. I was on my way out. I just wanted to stop and see how your father is doing.”

“Better,” Nita said. “He should be home in the next day or two.”

“Glad to hear it. Give him my best,” he said, and turned to Connor. “Your brother mentioned that you have experience reading maps. Is that true?”

“Some, sure.”

“I’d like you to take a look at a copy of the map from the museum. I feel like we’re missing something. Something obvious.”

“I could come into the club sometime this week.”

“I don’t want to drag you away from your—” he glanced at Nita “—business. Why don’t I bring it by Nita’s place later this week, after Nita’s father is feeling up to the company?”

“Nita?” Connor asked.

“Fine by me,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind getting a peek at that map to see what all the fuss is about.”

“Settled then,” Gavin said, dropping his hat on his head. “I’ll see you two later this week. Enjoy your lunch.”

When he was gone, Nita said, “Well now, aren’t you Cattleman’s Club men covert.”

“What do you mean?”

“He doesn’t want to drag you away from your business? Why doesn’t he just say ‘assignment’? That’s what it is, right?”

“You asked for help, and I’m helping. That’s all there is to it.”

“Uh-huh. Whatever you say.”

“Two cheeseburgers and fries and two sodas,” Valerie said, unloading her tray onto the table. “Can I get you anything else?”

Nita shook her head. “Nothing for me.”

“I’m good, too,” Connor said.

Valerie reached in her uniform pocket for their bill, but as she pulled it out, it slipped from her fingers and fluttered to the floor. “Oops.”

As she bent over to get it, a gold, heart-shaped pendant suspended from a delicate chain slipped from inside her uniform. Etched on its face were two intricately intertwined roses.

“Oh, my sister would love that,” Nita said.

Valerie set the bill on the table and looked at Nita questioningly.

She pointed to the pendant. “Your necklace. Her name is Rose. She likes anything with roses on it.”

“Oh!” Valerie pressed a hand over it and slipped it back beneath her collar.

“Did you get it here in Royal?” Nita was always on the lookout for a birthday or Christmas gift.

“Family heirloom.” She flashed them a forced smile. “You two enjoy your lunch.”

“She’s an odd one,” Nita said after Valerie was gone. “I’ll bet she’s hiding something. Some juicy secret.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Everyone has a secret. Something they’ve done or said or felt that they don’t want anyone to know.”

“Oh yeah,” Connor said, his interest piqued. “What’s yours?”

Nita’s violet eyes sparkled with mischief. “Well, if I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret, now would it?”

Okay, so he hadn’t really expected her to just blurt out that she’d done in Jonathan Devlin, especially after she’d so vehemently denied it that morning. But a tidy little confession would have been convenient. Though he had a tough time imagining her killing anyone, she did seem to have a quick temper. If she felt her family was threatened, who knows what she might be capable of?

They ate in silence for a while, and he could tell by the glances she kept shooting his way, the quiet would be short-lived. Finally she said, “So, tell me about yourself. Your brother says you used to be in the army.”

“Rangers.”

“Sounds exciting. Why’d you quit?”

Talk about secrets. When he’d left the military, it wasn’t exactly by choice. “Just wasn’t for me anymore,” he told her—the oversimplified version of the events that led to his leaving.

“What do you do now?” she asked, then added with a knowing smile. “Besides your Cattleman’s Club missions.”

“My father retired recently and I took his place at his engineering firm.”

“Engineering? Sounds boring.”

“Someone has to do it,” he said, even though she’d pretty much nailed it. Engineering bored him to tears. It always had, even in college, but he’d stuck it out and got his degree with the highest of honors, because it was expected. Thornes weren’t quitters, his father liked to boast.

“But why you?” Nita asked. “Can’t he sell the business?”

He sat back in his seat. “You sure do ask a lot of questions.”

“Yeah, I have a curious nature. It gets me into trouble.”

“You don’t say.” He didn’t have any difficulty imagining that. She had trouble written all over her.

“Like the time when I was six and I played I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours with Bo Wilders behind the bunkhouse.”

A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Six, huh?”

“Don’t tell me you never played that game.”

“Not to my recollection.”

“Well, Bo was bragging that he could pee on a tree, and made fun of me because I couldn’t. Of course I had to prove him wrong, and you can imagine the mess that created.”

Connor broke into a grin. “I can imagine.”

“My daddy caught us and I got the whole birds-and-bees speech.”

If Connor had been caught doing that, it would have cost him a lashing from his father’s belt and a long lecture on respect and responsibility. As far as Connor could tell, his father had two expressions when it came to his sons—disinterest, and disappointment.

And maybe in Jake’s case, exasperation.

“Sounds like you had an exciting childhood,” Connor said.

“Yeah, that’s one way to look at it. I’m not sure my daddy would agree with you, though.” She polished off the last of her burger and took a long pull on her soda straw. “You about ready to go? We’ve got work to do.”

Connor nodded. He pulled out his wallet and tossed a tip down on the table. “Let’s get to it.”

“I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into,” Nita said as they stood to leave.

“Don’t worry about me. I can take whatever you can dish out.”

“That’s good,” she said with a grin that could only be described as devious. “Because by the time I’m finished with you, you’re going to be a full-fledged cowboy.”

Chapter Four

Connor limped up the stairs to his bedroom. He’d always considered himself in supreme physical condition—until Nita got her hands on him, that is. He never imagined learning the proper way to ride a horse could do so much damage to a man’s…pride. He ached something fierce in places he’d never ached before, in muscles he hadn’t known existed until today. Rangers training had been a breeze compared to what she’d put him through.

After she felt confident he knew how to ride, and despite Jimmy’s assurance that the boys had done a thorough job, she and Connor had gone out to make sure all the holes had been adequately filled and it was safe to let the horses back out to pasture. It was nearly dark before they rode back.

Since Jane wasn’t there to cook, Jimmy had made a roaring bonfire and they roasted hot dogs on sticks. Afterward, they sat around the fire under a sky blanketed with stars drinking beer and swapping stories. Socially, the hands treated Nita like one of the men. An equal. But when it came to her running the farm, it was obvious they respected her authority and had no trouble taking orders from her. She was tough, but fair.

It had been a long day and now all Connor wanted to do was collapse in bed and sleep off the pain. Instead of going home and sleeping last night after receiving his assignment, he’d spent half the night doing his laundry and preparing for another who-knows-how-many days away from home. He’d had a total of about six hours sleep in the past three days. Hopefully, after a solid eight hours, he’d feel half-human by morning.

“You’re walking a little stiff, there, Connor.”

He reached the top landing and turned to see Nita climbing the stairs behind him, a self-satisfied grin on her face. She knew damn well what she’d done to him and looked awfully proud of herself for it.

“I’ve felt worse,” he said. As a Ranger he’d been shot three times, nearly blown up and just about flattened like a pancake when his parachute opened late. Although the pain he was feeling tonight definitely ran a close second.

“The boys giving you trouble?” she asked.

“Boys?”

Her eyes traveled down to the vicinity of his crotch. “The family jewels.”

He just about laughed out loud. He couldn’t recall a woman ever coming right and asking him about his boys. “The boys are fine,” he assured her. “It’s the rest of me that aches.”

She followed him to his room. “There’s a bottle of pain reliever in the bathroom cabinet.”

“I think I just need sleep,” he said unbuttoning his shirt. He grabbed his bag from the bed and tossed it on the floor. Unpacking would have to wait until morning.

“Tough guy, huh?” She leaned in the doorway watching him. “I think I know what might make you feel better.”

“Oh yeah?” he asked. “What?”

She stepped in his room, lacing her fingers and cracking her knuckles. “Take off your shirt.”

He looked at her, eyebrow raised.

She noticed the expression on his face and laughed. “Don’t get your boxers in a twist. I’m only going to give you a back rub.”

“A back rub?” Connor wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Not that he couldn’t use a backrub right about now, but they hardly knew each other. It might be…awkward.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, walking toward him and rolling her sleeves. “Are you shy?”

He couldn’t help wondering, by her taunting tone, if that was some sort of challenge. There was something about her, something wild and sexy and a little out of control. At the same time he’d never met a woman who seemed so confidant, so sure of what she wanted. It both intrigued and disturbed him. Intrigued him because, well, hell, who wouldn’t be with a woman like Nita? She was a walking contradiction. A puzzle he was itching to solve. And that was exactly the thing that disturbed him. She had a way of making him feel.

Things he never let himself feel. Things he shouldn’t feel.

“It’s that curious nature of yours that I’m worried about,” he told her.

“If I was making a pass at you, believe me, you would know it. I don’t mince words.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

She propped her hands on her hips. “Well, do you want a back rub or not? I guarantee you’ll enjoy it.”

Oh, he didn’t doubt that for a second. He just didn’t feel it was proper considering they’d only met that morning. But the thought of not letting her made him feel like a prude.

“Yeah, what the heck,” he agreed.

“Then take the shirt off and lay down on your stomach.”

He shrugged out of his shirt and tossed it over the footboard, sat down and pried off his boots, then stretched out on the bed, laying his head on the pillow.

He felt the bed shift as Nita climbed on. She straddled his legs, plopped down and made herself comfy on the back of his thighs. Then her hands were on his shoulders, her skin warm and a little rough, her thumbs working themselves deep into the muscle. If he hadn’t been so achy and exhausted, he might have been turned on by her touch, but the truth was, there was nothing sexual about her actions. All he felt now was relaxed.

Nita gave a low whistle, as her hands slid lower. “You military men sure do know how to grow the muscles.”

If he wasn’t half-asleep already, he would have laughed. “Out of curiosity, do you ever have a thought that you don’t say out loud?”

“Cowboy, if you knew what I was really thinking, you wouldn’t have let me anywhere near your bed.”

He glanced over his shoulder and gave her a wary look.

She grinned. “I’m just pullin’ your leg.”

He settled his head down on the pillow and closed his eyes.

“And the answer to your question is no. I pretty much say whatever’s on my mind. A lot of people don’t appreciate that. They say it’s not ladylike.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Not really. I was born this way. If people don’t like it, tough. I’m not out to impress anyone.” She smoothed her hands over his skin. “What are all these marks on your back from?”

“Burn scars. I was a little too close to a building when it exploded.”

“No kidding. And what about this one on your shoulder?” she asked, skimming her fingertips over it.

“Bullet wound.”

“It looks recent.”

“It was.”

“Some covert mission you can’t talk about, I’m assuming.”

“Yep.” He was fighting to stay awake, but he could feel himself beginning to fade, feel sleep overwhelming him. What the woman could do with her hands. He felt as if he were melting into the mattress.

She worked her hands lower, where he was the most sore.

“Hmm, feels good,” he mumbled. So relaxed.

Nita dug her thumbs into the knots in his lower back. She was sure his backside was aching pretty good, too, and wondered what his reaction would be if she touched him there. She sure wouldn’t mind. He had a body that wouldn’t quit—wide shoulders and arms the size of tree trunks. A thick, muscular chest that tapered down into a firm torso and slim hips. And she could just imagine the equipment he was packing under those jeans.

Even though he was now technically her employee, she wasn’t immune to all that strapping muscle and tanned skin. Not that a man being her employee had ever stopped her before. In fact, that made it all the more exciting. The stolen moments in the stable when no one was around. A quick roll in the field at sunset. Nights on a blanket under the stars after everyone else had gone to bed.

A little shiver of excitement passed through her when she thought of taking a tumble with Connor.

Those relationships—if you could even call them relationships—were always brief and uncomplicated. That was all men seemed to want from her, which worked out just fine since she’d never wanted to get married. She didn’t even want to settle down. Not that she wouldn’t enjoy the companionship. She might have thought about kids someday way in the future, someone to take over the farm someday. But in her mind, to have kids you ought to be married, and marriage meant compromise, losing your identity. She wasn’t going to do that for anyone. Not after knowing what it had done to her momma.

Katherine had been from a wealthy Dallas family—a city girl. But when she’d met Will Windcroft she’d fallen desperately in love with him. She’d married him after only three months of courting and left the excitement of the big city for a simpler life on the horse-breeding farm. According to what Nita had been told, as happy as they appeared on the outside, deep down her momma missed her life in Dallas and never quite adjusted to the harsh conditions of the farm. But she knew Rose and Nita were happy there, and she loved Will too much to leave him. Not one to cause a fuss, she’d never told her husband how she felt, and tried to keep up the facade of the happy wife.

Nita sometimes wondered if the cancer had only been a symptom, and what her momma really died of was a broken heart. She would probably never know. What information she did have came from her sister and her mother’s old friends. Her daddy, all these years later, still wouldn’t talk about it. She knew there wasn’t a day that passed that he didn’t think about his wife and miss her terribly. Sometimes Nita would pass by his room and hear him talking to the picture of Katherine that he kept next to his bed.

She was sure Katherine was the reason why her daddy had raised Rose and Nita to be independent, to stand up for what they wanted and believed in. He taught them to follow their dreams and not compromise themselves for anyone or anything. Katherine was the reason why he hadn’t made a fuss about Rose moving to the city instead of staying to help on the farm. Rose always had been like their mother in that way.

Nita heard a soft snoring sound and realized Connor had fallen asleep.

She sat back on his thighs and grinned. She really had worn him out. He’d done pretty well today considering his lack of experience. She had a feeling he was the adaptable sort, though she hadn’t completely figured him out yet. He was so guarded, so…controlled. He seemed to say exactly the right thing all the time, whether it was what he was feeling or not. The concept was foreign to her, since, as they had determined earlier, she wasn’t shy about speaking her mind.

She grazed her fingers over the puckered skin on his back. Burns, bullet holes—what he must have seen, must have been through. No wonder his eyes looked so old. So…wounded.

She very gently climbed off the bed and tiptoed to the door. She wouldn’t mind getting into Connor’s head, seeing exactly what made him tick. She wouldn’t mind getting to know other parts of him as well. She wondered if a guy like him would be interested in a woman like her. It might have been her imagination, but when she’d stepped up on the porch that morning, before he realized who she was, she could swear she’d seen male appreciation in his eyes.

That, she decided, flicking off the light and glancing back at his peacefully sleeping form, would be something worth looking into.

“The number one rule on the farm is safety,” Nita told Connor. She stood in the corral with Buttercup, a chocolate-brown mare.

Apparently her back massage had done the trick last night. He’d awoken that morning feeling refreshed and full of energy. So far he’d followed her through her daily routine and had learned how to feed and water the horses, how to muck a stall and how to put on a halter and saddle.

A great deal of what they did was hot, dirty, physically demanding work. But it was good, honest work. And though he couldn’t put his finger on the exact reason, there was something about it that made him feel so…peaceful.

His orders now were to sit on the fence and observe as she trained the horse, and so he had for the past hour. Normally that would have had him crawling out of his skin, the way sitting behind a desk had. This was different. It was a beautiful fall day, with blue skies as far as the eye could see, and though the air was cool, the sun felt warm on his back and shoulders.

Simply watching Nita was a treat in itself. She had a way with the big graceful animals, some kind of second sense. She could anticipate the horses every move, every thought. It was obvious she really loved what she did, loved them, and the feeling was most definitely mutual.

It was all he needed to see to convince him there was no way she would ever do anything to hurt her animals. The poisoned feed, the holes—there was no way she could have done it herself. She just wasn’t capable.

“When you approach a horse, especially in the corral, you never do it from behind,” Nita said. “Horses have a blind spot and they get startled easily. Make sure she can see you. And approach from the left if you can.”

“Why the left?” he asked.

“Because that’s the side they’re used to being handled on. Although Buttercup here is a big cream puff. It would take an awful lot to spook her. Isn’t that right girl,” Nita crooned, stroking the mare’s neck. As if answering her, the mare lowered her big head and nudged Nita’s shoulder.

“It’s all about respect,” she told him. “If you respect them, they’ll respect you.”

“You make it look so easy.”

“Believe me, it’s not always like this. I may not have bullet holes in me, but I’ve been bitten, kicked, thrown from the saddle and stomped on more times than I can count. I like the challenge.” She stroked the horse’s neck, affection in her eyes. “Not that I don’t appreciate a horse like Buttercup every now and then.”

“Is she yours?”

“She belongs to a family in Fort Worth. I’m training her for their daughter. I’ll miss her, though. She’s a real sweetheart.”

“How long do you usually have a horse you’re training?”

“It could take a month, sometimes two. Sometimes even longer. It just depends on what they’ll be using the horse for, and how it takes to the training.” She looked over at him. “You sure this isn’t boring you to tears?”

He was finding it all quite interesting. Horse farming had never been something he imagined himself enjoying. The truth was, he never much considered anything but his chosen course, first with the army, then taking his father’s place at the engineering firm, though technically speaking, that hadn’t been chosen by him. He followed in his father’s footsteps because that’s what had been expected of him. To make up where his rebellious twin brother lacked.

Not that his father ever noticed.

“I’m sure,” he told Nita.

She shrugged. “Okay. I guess we’re about done here.”

She called to one of the hands and instructed the young man to take Buttercup and set her out to pasture with the other horses, then she and Connor walked toward the stable together.

“We need to talk about security for the house and the stables,” he said.

“What kind of security?”

“An alarm to start.”

She frowned up at him. “You really think that’s necessary?”

“I do. Clint Andover, another member of the Cattleman’s Club, is a security expert. I’d like to have him out to evaluate the property and tell you exactly what you would need.”

She took off her hat and drew a sleeve across her forehead. “An alarm sounds expensive.”

“I’m not going to lie to you. It probably will be.”

“Connor, I can’t—”

“Don’t worry Nita, we’ll figure something out.”

Up went the chin. “I’m not a charity case.”

“I’m not suggesting you are. I was thinking maybe you could set up some sort of deferred payment plan.”

Meaning, he could pay Clint and when Nita made payments to Clint, he would divert the money back to Connor. It was the only way they could make it work, because he knew she would never take money from him.

It wasn’t as if he couldn’t afford it. He lived a pretty simple life. Being in the Rangers meant active service, and missions all over the world at a moment’s notice. He could be gone for weeks, sometimes months, at a time. The less complicated his life, the better. No houseplants to water, no pets to board, no significant other left behind to wonder if he would return home in a pine box. And he’d grown so used to living that way, it was permanently ingrained in his personality. He had more money than he would ever spend sitting around gaining interest. It seemed a waste not to use it on something.

“I don’t like the idea of owing anyone money,” Nita said.

“At least let me call him and see what he has to say. It’s worth the safety of the people and the animals here. And it could be good for business.”

She looked up at him, squinting against the afternoon sun. Even with her eyes half-closed they were the brightest he’d ever seen. “How do you figure?”