Taming Clay Read online

  Screw you. What do I care about his life? As long as I get what I want out of him, the world can have what’s left.

  She closed the file. Maybe she would read them all later, but the temper that was rising so rapidly wasn’t going to straighten out the mess the woman had made. She took one deep breath then started to work, sorting out those that had an online address listed plainly on the bill and the ones that didn’t.

  * * *

  “Are you just going to stand in the doorway or actually speak?” she asked after she waited for several minutes.

  “I didn’t want to interrupt you. You should stop and eat,” Clay said lowly.

  She looked up at him in surprise then glanced at the window. “It’s later than I thought,” she said as she rolled her neck then rose and stretched.

  “How’s it going?”

  “Not bad. Unfortunately there’s a real trend. I’ve only found a couple that have been paid. The electric and the phone. I’m sure those were for her benefit,” she said as she followed him out the door.

  “Figures. I’m glad she at least did something I paid her to do,” he growled.

  “Ah, there she is. Have a seat, Hailey. Smothered steak, peas, potatoes, and cornbread. Tea, water, or coffee?”

  “I’d love some tea if it’s sweet.”

  “It is. Sit, I’ll get it,” Isobell said and turned to get a glass.

  “Clay, has anybody used that computer since you fired Pepper?” she asked carefully.

  “No, why?”

  “Just curious,” she said without looking up. When he was silent for a long time she finally looked up and saw the steady gaze leveled at her and she shrugged her shoulders.

  “I checked the management software. There are no entries for the last four weeks. So, I got curious as to what she did with her time and checked the browser history. She evidently spent a lot of time on shopping sites, eBay, chat rooms. Things like that.”

  Clay snorted in disgust without saying anything and started eating. She wasn’t about to tell him about the chat room logs. When she swallowed she looked up at the firm jaw line and wondered if he ever really relaxed it.

  “I know there’s a computer in your office and I see one on that desk over there in the corner. Does Laine have one?”

  Clay nodded slightly. “Yeah. There’s a second computer in my office. That’s the server. The other four are connected to it.”

  “Is that where the ranch management software is installed?”

  He nodded without looking up.

  “Backups?”

  Clay waited several seconds before he lifted a hard gaze to her. “No. Are you gonna eat that food or just talk?”

  “I can do both. You don’t have a backup of what’s on there? What if something happens to it?” she asked easily then took a bite as she waited.

  Clay shook his head slightly as he took another bite then a swallow of tea before he answered her. “I guess we’d be screwed. If you know that goddamned much about it, do whatever it takes to make you happy and let me eat my food,” he growled.

  Hailey bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling when she saw Isobell shake her head without turning around and waited until she was sure her own voice would be even. He had looked and sounded so much like a spoiled little boy that she had wanted to laugh.

  “Okay. I’ll find a backup hard drive tomorrow that we can get and we’ll get that set up. Sometime in the future we’ll talk about off-site backups. Is that safe in your office fireproof?”

  She cleared her throat and dropped her head when his fork hit the plate and his head came up slowly. She was trying desperately not to smile and she knew if she looked up at him she would.

  “Hailey…”

  “Last question. I swear,” she said without looking up at him.

  He waited at least a full minute before he answered her. “Yes. It’s fireproof,” he finally said then stuck a piece of steak in his mouth and looked back down.

  “Good. That’s good,” she said then chanced one look up at Isobell and had to look back down when she found her facing them, leaned back against the counter with her hand propped against her lips. The amusement in her eyes was plain to see and Hailey cleared her throat again before she took a swallow of tea and started eating.

  She waited until she was about halfway through before she chanced one look back up at Isobell who was standing at the sink washing dishes now.

  “Isobell, this is wonderful. I have a lot of skills. Cooking is not one of them. My best in the kitchen usually runs towards a good sandwich. But I do toast really well,” she said then grinned when Isobell laughed.

  “And coffee. Anybody who drinks as much coffee as you do has to be good at making coffee,” she said without turning around.

  “Oh, yeah. Drip, perk, on the stove, over a campfire. Give me a pot, coffee, water, and heat source and I can make do. I’ll even do instant in a pinch.”

  “I thought so. Clay didn’t drink but about three cups out of the two pots you went through this afternoon. I’ll be sure and triple the amount of coffee we order for the next trip in for supplies.”

  “That would be good. I can do without a lot of things. Food, sleep, a hot bath, soft bed…but not coffee,” she said then closed her mouth when Clay lifted a steady hard gaze to her then shifted it to Isobell and back to her again. She couldn’t help the smile that time.

  “What? You said you didn’t want to talk. You didn’t say I couldn’t.”

  Isobell laughed out loud then quickly turned back to the sink when Clay sent her a hard gaze and looked back down at his plate without saying one word.

  Hailey didn’t miss a beat and she didn’t even try to hide the grin. “Isobell, are you married?”

  “No. I haven’t found the right guy. Maybe he’s out there somewhere. If not, I’m doing just fine without him. You’ve never been married?”

  “Nope. Much to my daddy’s chagrin. He was dead set I was gonna marry the neighbor’s boy. And I was dead set that I wasn’t. I won. Well, I guess to be fair, I won by default. I mean he did die before the fight was finished. But I would have won anyway. He wasn’t the only stubborn one in our family.”

  Clay snorted and rose then carried his dishes to the counter and set them by the sink and turned to walk out the door without saying a single word. Hailey bit her lip and waited until she was sure he had time to get back to his office or wherever he was going before she looked back up at Isobell to find a wide smile.

  She chuckled softly and said, “Supper must usually be a quiet affair?”

  “It is. He seldom says a word. You’re a real breath of fresh air. I believe I’m going to enjoy you being here.”

  “Me, too,” she said as she rose and carried her plate to the counter. “Provided he doesn’t take me out and string me up somewhere,” she added then laughed quietly.

  “I think he likes you.”

  Hailey laughed in surprise and turned back to face her. “Really? What clue did I miss?”

  Isobell shrugged her shoulders and said, “You probably won’t believe it, but his voice is not quite as harsh with you as it normally is. You have to understand, Hailey. He usually watches the people who do your job pretty closely for a while. And he did Pepper for a couple of weeks. But I think he decided he could trust her too soon and gave her free rein. He doesn’t normally trust easily and you can see where it got him. So…it may take him a while to take a chance on doing that again. Still, like I said, that edge to his voice is not quite a sharp when he’s talking to you.”

  “She was a real bitch, you know. I’ll tell you someday about some of the stuff I found on that computer. But I don’t think he should read it,” Hailey said quietly.

  “Oh, I know she was. And she hated me being in the house all day. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what she was after. The longer it went on the more pissed I got. Enough that I made it a point to interrupt them any time I knew she was in his office alone with him. He needs a decent woman in
his life. But she damn sure wasn’t it,” Isobell hissed then took in a deep breath and blew it back out.

  “Anyway. I think he likes you. Go, I’ll take care of this. It’s what I do. I’ll bring you a fresh cup of coffee in a bit,” she said as she waved Hailey away.

  “Thanks. But you don’t have to do that. I’ll come get it. And supper really was delicious.”

  “Thank you very much.” Hailey frowned as she went through the door, thinking about the things Isobell had said. Truthfully she had already thought that he’d softened just a little for a couple of seconds. But she was right. His tone didn’t have quite the same pitch of angriness to it that it had when she had first appeared in his doorway that morning. So maybe there was hope that she would at least last a few weeks.

  She started for her office then reversed directions and went to his instead. The door was open again so she walked through it and found him behind his desk. When he looked up at her in silence she pointed at the computer on his desk.

  “I need to see the server to see what kind of ports it has,” she said simply.

  He looked back at the computer screen in front of him and pointed to the opposite side of his desk. “There.”

  She walked around the desk and crouched to check to make sure it had USB ports then nodded and rose. “Do you know what size drive it has?”

  “No. It’s drive F. That’s about all I know about it.”

  “Who set it up?”

  “Guy from town. He tried to sell me a backup drive but I didn’t think it was worth the expense. Pick out what you need,” he said evenly.

  “Okay. I’ll be in the office,” she said then went through the door, leaving him staring at the empty doorway again.

  His frown deepened as he shifted his eyes back to the computer screen, but he wasn’t seeing the screen. His mind was on the woman across the house. He liked her and he didn’t need to like her. He just needed her to do the job. In less than a full day she’d already proven just how badly he needed a good business manager.

  He hadn’t lied about the guy trying to sell him a backup hard drive. He’d dismissed him and it had never crossed his mind again in the four years since. They had converted everything to the computer after that. Supply management, all of the ranch records, all of the financial records. If anything happened to that computer…the financial records, maybe they could be recreated. Supply management, the lists that they had painstakingly built to allow Laine and Isobell to quickly mark what was needed would be lost, but could be recreated. But the ranch records…how many cattle, when they were born, who they were sold to, when each section of range had last been grazed, blood lines…all of those things would be lost. They had no paper trail of the majority of those things. And it had taken a slip of a girl from New Mexico to walk into his house and make him realize that.

  Why hadn’t any of the dozens of women who had held her job before her brought that up? He thought back along the line of women that would probably stretch halfway to Bozeman if you stood them side-by-side. Some lasted a couple of days, some a couple of weeks. One had even managed to stick it out for four months. He knew he was difficult to work for and he didn’t really give a rat’s ass. He was who he was and he’d be damned if he’d change just so somebody could feel warm and fuzzy. He paid them to do a job. If they couldn’t do it, he didn’t need them. But this one…Hailey. She was different.

  God knows he shouldn’t compare her to Pepper. It hadn’t taken him but a couple of days to figure out what Pepper wanted. He had avoided her when he could, ignored her when he couldn’t. Something that she would pout about like a little kid to try and make him feel bad. That hadn’t worked. Somehow he couldn’t see Hailey resorting to tactics like that. Every time he’d snapped at her so far she’d either snapped right back or given him a calm, cool answer. He liked that. And she hadn’t backed up from saying whatever was on her mind once that he could tell. He liked that, too.

  He leaned back in his chair and turned his gaze to the darkening sky outside the window as he tried to pinpoint exactly what it was that had gotten him into this mess. What was that thing that said he could trust Pepper to do her job and let it rock on for a month before he decided to check up on her? He had to admit that part of it was that by going over the details of her work every day put her inside his office with him as they talked about each transaction. And he had quickly grown tired of teasing smiles, inviting, supposedly shy glances, and enough double entendres to fill a book. Once he stopped doing that, about the only time he had to see her was when she intentionally sought him out for one question or another that didn’t need asking or answering.

  He didn’t understand why he had made the decision to hand her the checkbook and set her free to do the job on her own instead of firing her. He was uncomfortable enough around her to give her that much freedom just to not have to be close to her so much. Why hadn’t he just fired her instead?

  Because if you’d fired her, you’d be cooped up here in this house doing the job yourself instead of out there on the back of a horse. And now Hailey’s here. You’re already starting to trust her. You like her. How much of that’s because you miss being out there with the cattle? How much is that influenced by your hope that she works out so you can get back to what you want to do? You did that once. Are you going to do it again?

  “Maybe. You’ve never run my life before. What the hell makes you think you’re gonna do it now,” he muttered to that little voice of caution at the back of his mind.

  Chapter Three

  “Dammit,” Clay muttered as he shoved himself up and sat on the side of the bed. He never had trouble falling asleep any time, day or night. Not tonight. He pulled his jeans on then rose and walked out on the balcony of his bedroom and looked up at the star-filled sky. The air was crystal clear and crisp for mid-summer, but not cool enough to make him go back for a shirt and socks. Instead he closed his eyes and breathed in the fresh air. Maybe that was it. He hadn’t been out on the range for three days now. Tomorrow he’d at least take a short ride and see if that helped. He turned and walked back through the door and out onto the landing inside the house. He could see the light on in her office but her bedroom door was shut. She probably just forgot to turn it off. He knew she had worked late. She’d still been at it when he went to bed. Okay, it was a waste of electricity, but she had worked hard all day. He’d cut her a little slack and turn it off on his way back up.

  He went silently down the stairs and turned to the living room without looking back at the office again. The bare feet made no noise as he padded across to the bar and poured a double shot of whiskey, downing that quickly then pouring a second one. He capped the bottle and started back to the stairs with the glass in his hand, skirting under the open staircase to go by her office and turn off the light. His steps slowed when he realized she was behind her desk and finally stopped in the doorway. When she didn’t look up he spoke softly.

  “Hailey, it’s late. Call it a day.”

  Hailey jumped and jerked her head up to look at him then blew out a quick breath that she immediately hoped he attributed to him scaring her and not the real reaction to finding him standing in the doorway with nothing on but a pair of jeans.

  “Jesus, you scared me. I didn’t even hear you come down,” she said and forced her eyes back to the computer screen.

  “It’s one o’clock in the morning. That stuff will be there tomorrow. You don’t have to try to do it all in one day.”

  After the initial rush of fire had spread through her and settled into that slow burn, she finally chanced looking back up at him. His voice completely surprised her. It wasn’t harsh at all. It was soft and quiet.

  “I didn’t realize it was so late. You’re right. I should get some sleep. Is that whiskey?” she asked as she rose and started across the office.

  Clay held her eyes for just a couple of seconds then dropped his to the glass in his hand. “Yeah. Help yourself if you want one.”

  She waited until
he backed out of the doorway before she flipped off the light switch and walked through it then past him.

  “Thanks. I think I could use it tonight. I’ve made good progress. Unfortunately, I’ve found several that are past due.” She immediately wished she hadn’t told him that yet when the harsh tone was back.

  “Goddammit. One fucking month. Took her one fucking month to screw up my credit.”

  She waited until she had a drink poured before she turned back to face him and had to catch her breath again. The only light in the room was the soft lighting behind the bar and the image of him there, bare-chested in the soft light with such a firm jaw line made that fire jump a little.