Trading Places with the Boss

He didn’t let go. “Intimidation can come in many forms,” he noted dryly. “Some of them just your size.”

“Are you accusing me of using my feminine wiles to intimidate you?” she said, looking more amused than anything else.

He opened his mouth to say something that would get him into a lot of trouble, but luckily, he thought better of it in time.

“Shelley, I just want to talk to you. Don’t make a federal case out of it.”

“Okay.” She made a face that made it obvious she was surrendering to the inevitable. “Come on up to my room. I’ll give you fifteen minutes.”

Rafe drew in a deep breath, looking down at her. Okay, here was the crux of his dilemma. Every part of him yearned toward an evening alone in her room. He could already see the soft light, feel the romantic music coming in over the sound system, taste the way her mouth would yield under his….

No way. Couldn’t be done. How about the bar?

The music there would be throbbing with sensual urgency, the atmosphere provocative, the sense of impending possibilities tantalizing, her mouth would be just as tempting—and alcohol would be involved.

No. Too dangerous.

“Let’s walk down to the canal,” he said quickly, deciding a public walkway filled with tourists would pose the least risk. “Soak up some of the ambience.”

A slight frown appeared, but she nodded. “Fine. Let’s go.”

The evening air was unusually warm. The crowd was thick and in a rollicking mood. Lights from the boutiques and clubs bounced off the water and laughter formed a foundation for the music that filled the night. The scene was celebration.

But Rafe felt edgy. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket to keep from reaching out to help guide Shelley as she walked along beside him. Glancing sideways he saw that she came up above his shoulder. The perfect fit for him. He could already feel how it would be to put an arm around her slender form and curl her up against him.

He swore softly, fed up with the way his mind kept trending.

“You rang?” she said quizzically, glancing upwards in a way that emphasized the almond shape of her big brown eyes, her dark lashes leaving long shadows on her cheeks.

He swallowed hard and looked to the heavens for help. “Sorry,” he said shortly. “I just had a thought.”

“Quite an unusual experience for you I guess,” she said archly. “Do you swear every time you get one of those?”

He stared at her, fighting off the impulse to grab her and either shake her or kiss her. “You know what?” he said instead. “You’re as big a brat now as you were when we were kids.”

She glared at him. “Why not? You’re as big a bully.”

The crowd surged around them and someone bumped against Shelley, sending her reeling into his arms.

“Sorry,” said a disembodied voice but Rafe’s first instinct to go after the perpetrator evaporated as he looked down into her face and felt the fragility of her body against the strength of his.

Time stood still. He couldn’t breathe. The background faded into a swirling mist and all he could see were her huge eyes.

Then things went back to normal and they pulled apart, avoiding each other sternly, walking quickly toward the river. Rafe turned into a viewing bump-out and she settled alongside him as he leaned his elbows on the railing and stared into the inky waters below.

It was too late to pretend he didn’t react to her like a bug on a hot skillet. Everything she did, every time she moved, everything she said, triggered a response in him of one kind or another. If he couldn’t conquer it, at least he had to learn to hide it. He stood very still, steeling himself. Time to take back the controls, all the way around. Otherwise he was going to turn into a mushy mess. And that couldn’t happen.

Shelley was floundering. She had no idea what was going on with Rafe. He was acting so weird. He probably hated her.

And why not? She’d never liked him much.

Of course, there had been that New Year’s Eve party when they had both had a little too much to drink. He’d hung around making caustic comments and she’d given as good as she got—but when midnight came, he’d kissed her. The surprise of that kiss had shocked them both and they’d drawn apart unable to look each other in the eye. If it had been anyone else, that kiss might have launched a torrid affair. But since it was the two of them, they hadn’t spoken to each other since—until this weekend. The fact was, any sort of civil relationship between them just wasn’t meant to be.

Sighing, she looked out at the water, enjoying the bobbing lights reflected there. A slight breeze pressed the lacy fabric of her skirt against her legs.

“I love San Antonio,” she murmured, mostly to herself as she drew her shawl closer around her shoulders.

He turned to look at her, then looked away again.

“Funny how it used to seem like this huge city when I was young,” he said. “Now it seems more like an overgrown small town.”

“That’s what I like about it. You can wrap your arms around it and become a part of it so easily.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it. I like small towns. In fact, it’s cities I hate.”

She bit her tongue. If he was going to make everything into an argument, she just wouldn’t talk anymore.

The silence stretched between them. She risked a quick look his way. His attention was on the other side of the river, giving her an opportunity to study him for a moment. He had a rugged, masculine appeal, untamed and proud of it. Pure Texas. She remembered he’d always looked so very good riding a horse.

But that was then. And remember, she’d never liked him much. She had to keep that in mind at all times.

Suddenly, as though there had been no pause in their conversation, he spoke softly.

“My mom brought me to San Antonio for a weekend one November when I was a kid, to see the Christmas lights on the river.”

That surprised her, and not only because he was talking like a normal person for a change. “Just you? Not any of the others?” There were plenty of Allmans.

He shook his head. “Just me. I was about thirteen and she thought I needed something special. I think she was trying to make up for the fact that Pop was making it pretty plain that he considered Matt his fair-haired child and thought of me as good for nothing much.”

He stopped, frowning fiercely. Why the hell was he telling her all this? Of all people, she was the last…

But maybe it was because they’d known each other forever, practically grown up side by side. Too bad he couldn’t just think of her as a sister. But the feeling that swelled in him whenever he looked at her had nothing to do with brotherly love. So he had better stop looking.

“You were her favorite,” she said softly.

“Me?” That startled him. When he thought of his mother, he remembered a warm smile and a feeling of peace. She was just about perfect in his book. No one could ever touch her. It still hurt to know she was gone. “Nah. She didn’t have favorites. She was good to everyone.”

Shelley nodded. “She was a wonderful woman and she died much too young.” Reminders of that awful time, when Jodie’s sweet mother was dying of complications from heart surgery, made her wince. “But believe me, she had a special soft spot for you.”

He turned to look at her, frowning. “You were just a kid. You paid attention to things like that?”

She couldn’t hold back a smile. “Of course.”

His gaze lingered, then he turned away and her smile drooped.

But he’d unlocked a lot of memories. She’d spent so much time at that house, with that family, probably because she didn’t have much of a family herself. All she had was her always busy single mother. No one else. Millie avoided any talk about who her father was, so she’d made one up for herself. Tall, handsome, kind and loving, he was ideal—though he tended to evaporate into mist whenever she tried to reach out to him. That was the trouble with fantasy fathers.

So that really didn’t fill the lonely hole in her heart. She’d prayed every night for a brother or sister, until she’d finally gotten old enough to begin to understand why that wouldn’t ever happen. So she’d attached herself to the Allmans.

“You seem to have grown up okay despite losing your mother,” she told Rafe now. “And being left to the untender mercies of your father.”

He shrugged. “Pop’s okay.”

That almost made her angry. It wasn’t the way she remembered things.

“He can’t hit you anymore, can he?” she said softly. “You’re bigger than he is now.”

He reacted as though she’d said something crazy.

“What? Ah come on, he never hit me all that much.”

He turned to lean with his back against the railing, his arms crossed over his chest. This was something no one would ever understand. His father had always been rough on him. But that only made the times he came through and surprised the old man all the more satisfying.

“Anyway, that was the way his generation dealt with things. Say what you want about Pop, he’s a man of his time.”

She shook her head, wondering how he could defend the man. Jesse Allman was a character, a legend around their hometown of Chivaree, Texas. A hardscrabble sort of guy, he’d managed to work his much-scorned family out of poverty and up into dizzying success. He was a genius in his own way, and adept at turning his life around and making something of himself. But he hadn’t been a gentle father.

“You wouldn’t hit a child, would you?”

He gave her a look of weary resignation. “It’s called spanking, Shelley. And no, I don’t suppose I would do that. How about you?”

She shrugged. “I’m never going to have children.”

He stared at her, then shook his head. “Going for that big career in the sky, are you?”

For some reason, she felt like shivering. Was she really considered a career woman now? Oh, well, she supposed that was better than some things she might be called.

“Something like that,” she admitted reluctantly.

He turned back to look at the water. “You’re doing pretty well. I’ve heard good things about your work from Clay in Legal.”

Clay Branch, her supervisor in the legal division, another bothersome man in her life. “Maybe if I do a good job at this competition, Clay will finally pay some attention to my requests to get management training.”

“You want to be a manager?”

“I want to move up in my field. And that’s pretty much my only avenue, don’t you think?”

“Maybe so.” He grinned. “I guess that’s why you’re jumping at the chance to boss me around, huh?”

“I didn’t set up the framework for this competition.” She gazed at him challengingly. “But I’m not running from it, either. Do you feel threatened by that, Mr. Boss Man?”

Rafe didn’t respond but he moved restlessly, indicating he was ready to walk on, and she obliged. They passed a small club. Pieces of acoustic guitar music floated out into the night. The crowd was thinning out and the lights were not quite so bright in this direction.

“You used to live here in San Antonio, didn’t you?”

She nodded, feeling suddenly wary. It was not a period of her life she relished discussing. “Not for long,” she murmured, looking away.

“And you worked for Jason McLaughlin during that time, didn’t you?”

His question hit her like a slap in the face and she gasped softly. She sneaked a quick look at him. How much did he know?

Back in Chivaree, the McLaughlins were the family who founded and ran the town, and the Allmans were the outcasts. Things had changed over the last decade, and now the Allmans were riding high, running a company that was putting the McLaughlins into the shadows.

But the old legends still hung on. The McLaughlins were considered legitimate. The Allmans were the outlaws. And the two families had always hated each other.

So it was a big deal for Shelley, who had grown up identifying with the Allmans, to have worked for a McLaughlin. In many quarters, that would be considered the move of a traitor. Looking back, she considered it the move of a crazy person, a woman who had temporarily lost her mind and good sense. It certainly wasn’t something she bragged about, or wanted to remember fondly.

“That was a long time ago,” she said evasively.

“Only a little over a year, isn’t it?” He stopped, hands shoved into his pockets and looked at her searchingly. “So I guess this will be a reunion of sorts for you.”

Her heart was thumping in her chest and she reached up to finger her gold necklace nervously. “What are you talking about?”

“I just noticed it on the roster. McLaughlin Management is in the competition.” His stare was hard and penetrating. “Jason is here. Didn’t you know?”

“No, I didn’t know.” She wanted to reach out for something to lean on but she knew she couldn’t allow herself that luxury. This was something she hadn’t prepared for. She knew Jason’s business was doing very well, but they had never entered the competition before. Why did they have to decide to start now?

“Or is that exactly why you asked to be included in the team even though you had your turn last year?”

She looked into his face, bewildered. Did he really think she wanted a chance to get close to Jason McLaughlin again?

Then he knew—or at least suspected—about her past relationship with the man. That was embarrassing.

Still, a lot of people knew, so why wouldn’t he? It wasn’t anything she was proud of. And she certainly didn’t yearn for a repeat performance, if that was what he was implying. Anger shivered through her.

“Don’t worry, Rafe. I won’t be taking time off from the competition to dally with our competitors. We’ll put up a good fight for your beloved trophy.”

She started to stomp off but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

“Shelley, don’t act like I’m all alone in this. Of all people, you should understand. We both come from dirt-poor backgrounds. We know what it’s like to scramble for a little dignity.”

She turned her face away, unwilling to join him in this, even rhetorically, as he went on.

“We’re not like the McLaughlins, either one of us. No silver spoons for us. We fight for every inch. So I think you understand me when I say we’ve got to win this thing. And a good part of the satisfaction in that will be beating the McLaughlins.”

“Beating the McLaughlins,” she echoed softly.

“Sure. They’ve always got the establishment behind them. We’re the little guy. We have to try harder.”

That was Rafe to a T—always trying harder. Always trying to show his father that he could be good at things. And the funny thing was, he was very good at just about everything. Too bad Jesse Allman never seemed to notice.

But she didn’t want to waste her time feeling empathy for Rafe. He was studying her reaction and she knew it. He wanted to know that she was on the side of Allman Industries, that she wasn’t going to defect to the enemy. Rebelliously she refused to give him that comfort.

She looked out at the water again. “I thought maybe, now that Jodie is marrying Kurt McLaughlin, the feud between your two families would begin to fade away.”

His mouth hardened. “The feud will begin to fade away when the McLaughlins stop being coldhearted bastards. Except for Kurt, of course. He’s always been different from the rest of them.”

She nodded. She had to agree on that score. Kurt had started working at Allman Industries some months before, despite a lot of resistance and bitterness from his own family. And when Jodie had come home to work there, too, a romance between the two of them had quickly blossomed.

Shelley loved Jodie and wished her the best, but she had to admit she was a little worried at first about the McLaughlin angle to it all. Her own experience told her that all the years of antagonism between the two families was based on more than pure spite.

She was still thinking about the McLaughlins as they started to walk back toward the hotel. There had been a time when she’d been so in love with Jason McLaughlin she could hardly see straight. And maybe that was why she didn’t realize what a jerk he was until it was too late.

No. Wait. That wasn’t really fair.

Jason hadn’t been so much a jerk as she herself had been blind and hopelessly naive. She hadn’t known he was married at first. From what she learned later, the marriage was stormy—with the two of them separated more often than they were together. She had started dating Jason during one of those separations. Still, only a fool would have believed his lies about it being over for good. Anyone with half a brain should have seen where things were headed. Only, she had been too overwhelmed by the chance to be with Jason. She had a brain, she just hadn’t used it. She still cringed when she remembered the day his wife had returned to find Shelley ensconced in their apartment. The bitter contempt in the woman’s eyes had been like a brand on her soul. And she knew she deserved every bit of that scorn.

“So I know you’re going to cooperate here. Right?”

He wanted reassurance. Well, too bad. At this point she wasn’t sure he deserved it. Looking at him, she made a face.

“Are you still obsessed with being number one all the time, Rafe? Is that all life is to you, always winning?”

“What’s wrong with winning? It’s better than being a loser.” His dark gaze raked over her sardonically. “Or maybe you prefer losers?”

“Not really. I’d say I prefer people of goodwill.”

He started to say something, then stopped himself and shook his head. “Goodwill, huh? Hey, I’m dripping with it.”

“Really?” The picture that conjured up almost made her laugh. She raised her eyebrows instead, then smiled faintly and made a grand gesture with her hand. “Perhaps I should clarify. I prefer people with a broader scope,” she said, purposefully making it sound snooty.

“Oh.” She was happy to see amusement begin to bubble in his gaze. “Broad scope, eh? Excuse me while I adjust my cravat.”

She gestured again, chin in the air. “You’re excused. Carry on.”

“Such graciousness. You put me to shame.”

She smiled impishly. “Then my work here is done.”

A faint grin actually appeared on his face. “Oh, no, honey. I’m going to be more of a challenge than you can imagine.”

Her breath caught in a little hiccup in her throat and she blinked to cover it up. “That’s a little scary. I can imagine a lot.” She flashed him a look. “I’ll clarify even further. I prefer men with a little sophistication.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “I suppose what you really prefer is Jason McLaughlin.”

Her head whipped around and she glared at him. To her complete shock, he actually looked chagrined.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “That was a low blow.”

“You should know,” she said tartly. “You’re the king.”

“Of low blows?”

“And other assorted indignities.”

“Indignities.” He mocked the way she’d said the word, humor softening the edges. “Gettin’ sorta high falutin with your language there, girl. I knew you way back when we were both prairie rats. You can’t fool me.”

He was teasing her, but in a gentle way, not the way he used to when they were young. If he didn’t watch out, she was going to start to like him.

“Maybe you can’t be fooled,” she said. “But at the same time, you can be persuaded. You’re a smart guy. You know there’s nothing wrong with reaching for something a little higher.”

A boisterous bunch of young people was headed straight for them. Reaching out, he put a hand at the nape of her neck, guiding her with a protective touch as the youngsters passed.

“Just as long as you don’t forget where you came from,” he murmured.

The feel of his hand on her skin was seductive and she felt a lazy sense of warmth seeping into her system. Taking a quick step to the side, she managed to pull away as she pretended to need the room to turn and face him.

“Well, look at you,” she said earnestly. “You were in a business suit this afternoon. You had on a tie and everything. Your shirt was crisp and white and your slacks had a great crease. You looked wonderful. Your father never looked like that in his life.”

His face twisted into a thoughtful frown. “So I’m aiming for a higher place just like you think I oughta, just by wearing a suit?” He gave her a look of pure exasperation. “Listen, Shelley. Nobody ever worked harder to make a ‘higher place’ in this world than my father did.”

“Except maybe my mother,” she shot back. “How do you think she managed to run Millie’s Café on her own? Nobody handed her anything.”

A reluctant grin began to surface again on his handsome face. “Well…my pop can outhustle your mom.”

Her chin went out. “Cannot.”

His eyes twinkled. “Can, too.”

She smiled back, just barely, flashing her eyes at him. “Well…maybe. But he can’t cook like she can.”

He nodded. “You got me there.”

They were back in front of the hotel. Without saying a word, they both paused. Neither seemed anxious to go in. She turned to look at him and he met her gaze.

“So you swear you didn’t come to the conference because of McLaughlin?” he demanded.

She hesitated, then held up her hand like a Girl Scout. “I swear to you. I probably wouldn’t have come myself if I’d known he was going to be here.”

He nodded slowly as though thinking that over. “So tell me…why did you come? Just what is your ulterior motive?”

She couldn’t keep meeting his gaze after that. Because the truth was, “ulterior motive” was a good phrase for her purpose. She had agreed to come at the last minute, knowing it would give her an opportunity she wouldn’t otherwise have to do a little detective work that needed to be done. But she couldn’t tell Rafe about that. To do so would involve telling a secret that wasn’t hers to share.

Taking in a deep breath, she raised her gaze to his again. “You know, there are some things that are just plain private,” she said firmly, though her pulse gave a nervous flutter as she noted his reaction. “My reasons have nothing to do with the business,” she added. “And anyway, you have no right to ask me.”

“You won’t tell me.” He looked astonished at her defiance.

She shook her head and shrugged, her palms out. “You have no need to know.” It was only the truth. Why couldn’t he accept it and move on?

His eyes looked very dark in the lamplight. “You realize that means I can’t put my suspicions to rest.”

She turned her head so fast her long silky hair whipped around her shoulders. He was being impossible. But then, that was his nature, wasn’t it? She’d almost forgotten with him seeming so approachable.

“Then you just suspect away all you want, honey,” she told him with her thickest Texas drawl. “As long as you do a good job for me tomorrow. Because for the time being, I…am…the…boss.” With a look daring him to dispute what she’d said, she whirled and strode for the elevators.

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