Radclyffe - Homestead

Feeling a little more settled, she stopped in the barn to check the mother cat who’d wandered in from the fields during a rainstorm and promptly deposited five newborn kittens in a bed of straw she’d carefully built on a wide, deep windowsill. Tess had been feeding the mother ever since, and every day the mother let her get a little closer to the sanctuary before hissing to warn her off. Tess made it to within three feet of the litter today and counted that all five kittens were still there and growing well. Two orange ones like their mama, a tortoise, a gray striped, and a black with a white blaze on its chest. She knelt down and held out her hand, and the mother cat ambled over to allow Tess to scratch behind her ears. Tess hadn’t tried to pick her up and doubted the cat would like it, being as she was the independent sort. But no matter how independent she might be, she liked the attention.

“You’re going to have to let me pick them up, you know,” Tess murmured, stroking the cat’s soft fur. “Otherwise, we’re going to have a pack of wild kittens running around, and before long we’ll have an entire country of them right here on the farm.” The mother arched her back and looked unperturbed by the notion of a new generation of felines on her adopted territory. “But we’ve got time, don’t we?”

The mother cat didn’t answer, just purred to announce that she would consider Tess’s concerns and let her know how she felt about trusting her kittens to a human.

Tess laughed and walked out to the barnyard. She stopped before she’d gone ten feet. A black SUV was parked by her front porch. She didn’t know the vehicle, a shiny, new oversized monster designed more for carting people around than goods and equipment. Not a farmer’s car. A corporate car. Her spine stiffened. She could only think of one person who might be driving a car like that around here, and she’d made it clear that person did not have an open invitation to drop in. She strode forward, her jaws clenched tight, formulating her verbal assault, just as the driver’s door opened and a gorgeous blonde stepped out.

Tess slowed, surveyed the woman. She looked…Nordic, somehow. Her blond hair was so pure gold it almost seemed white. Even from twenty feet, the woman’s deep-blue eyes, as crystal clear as a high mountain lake, were captivating. Tess had a hard time looking away as the stranger walked to the front of the car and stopped, waiting, her gaze holding Tess’s. Another door opened and her passenger stepped out. Clay.

Tess didn’t need to look to know. The heat-laden air shimmered, as if a pulse of energy coursed through it. Her skin tingled. Imagination, of course. Who else would it be? Tess steeled herself and pulled away from the blonde’s hypnotic aura.

“I don’t remember making an appointment,” Tess said.

Clay smiled, the lopsided half-rueful, half-apologetic grin that once had Tess’s heart melting a little. But it would take more than a smile to melt the ice that encased her heart now. She waited.

“Tess, sorry to barge in, and I promise not to make a habit of it,” Clay said, the grin disappearing. “But I called and didn’t get an answer, so I thought I’d take a chance you’d be out working somewhere.” Clay gestured to the blonde. “This is Ella Sorenson, my assistant.”

Assistant. Tess tried to square the memory of the rebellious teenager on the big black motorcycle with the present businesswoman who looked polished even in casual clothes, accompanied by an equally polished assistant. She couldn’t.

“Hello,” Tess said, trying to sound at least a little bit civil. She didn’t know the blonde, after all, and her relationship to Clay really didn’t matter. Shouldn’t matter, anyhow.

“Please to meet you, Ms. Rogers,” Ella said in a mellifluous alto that sounded cultured and confident and sexy. All the things Tess was not feeling right now.

Tess folded her arms across her chest and focused on remembering all the reasons she did not want to talk to Clay. “What do you want?”

“Can we talk?”

Tess stared off into the distance. Why, all of a sudden, had Clay appeared wanting to talk? How Tess longed to say no. She’d waited day after day after day for exactly this—for Clay to appear around some bend in the road, calling out that she needed to talk. Needed Tess. And night after night, she’d gone to sleep confused and hurt, her waiting for nothing. She sighed and cut her gaze back to Clay. Their eyes met and Tess’s heart gave a little jolt.

She’d always loved Clay’s eyes, so intense and penetrating, as if Clay were reading her mind without the need for words. Sometimes when she’d been cold, Clay would slip her jacket around her shoulders without being asked. When she was tired, Clay would ease an arm around her shoulders and guide her head down to her chest, never saying a word. She’d imagined Clay had known her, been able to intuit what mattered to her. Clay had touched her all the way through.

“Fine. But I don’t have long. I need to bring the cows in soon.”

“Thank you,” Clay said.

“I’ll wait for you outside, Ms. Sutter,” Ella said, turning back to the SUV.

“You can’t wait in the car,” Tess called, feeling grouchy for no reason at all. “It’s too hot out here. You’ll roast.”

Ella smiled over her shoulder, looking even more beautiful, if that was possible. “I’ll turn the air-conditioning on, but thank you—”

“Don’t be silly,” Tess said. “Sit on the porch—it’s shady. I’ll bring you something to drink. Lemonade? Seltzer?”

Ella canted a hip, a whimsical expression passing over her face that Tess would swear was completely genuine.

“You know, I would absolutely love a lemonade.”

Tess laughed, charmed in spite of herself. “Well then, go ahead and sit down. I’ll bring you out a glass in a minute.” She looked at Clay. “Let’s go back to the kitchen.”

“Thanks,” Clay said, hurrying to catch up as Tess strode off without waiting for her. She swore she could hear Ella laughing behind her.

“Sit anywhere,” Tess said, not looking at Clay. She needed another minute to collect herself. Clay and the past had been too much on her mind all day, distracting her, destabilizing the order of the world she had built for herself. She couldn’t let that go on any longer. At the refrigerator, she took out the pitcher of lemonade she’d made earlier that morning and rummaged on the second shelf for a can of soda. She paused before closing the door and half turned to face Clay. “Do you still drink Coke?”

Clay sat at the big oak table exactly where Pete Townsend had been a few hours before. She shook her head. “Gave it up. If there’s enough lemonade, I’ll have that. If not, water’s fine.”

Tess put the soda back in the refrigerator and poured three glasses of lemonade. She put two on the table and stood regarding Clay, resolving to forget, as Clay apparently had, the secrets they’d once shared. “We should start over—as if we’d just met. We really are strangers.”

The words dropped like splinters of ice, plunging Clay into the cold. She turned in her chair and looked up, uncertain where Tess was going with her pronouncement, not sure if her comment indicated progress or something a great deal more final. “Can you do that? Just erase the past?”

Tess regarded her for a long moment, her expression unreadable. “Why not? It’s not like the past has anything to do with what’s happening now.”

Clay wasn’t so sure. Since she’d arrived in New York—since she’d seen Tess standing in the late-day sun by the mailbox at the side of the road—she’d felt as if doors were opening on memories she had buried and now wanted to reclaim. She liked the hum of excitement, of being alive, pulsing inside her. Feelings she’d lost and not known she’d missed until now. But she had a job to do, a mission to complete, and if Tess needed to forget they’d ever known one another in order for them to talk, she would have to try.

Her father’s warning to guard against past entanglements came back to her, and she winced inwardly. He had been right, again. He’d known her history with Tess might be a roadblock to negotiations, but she wasn’t going to let that happen. She wasn’t going to let personal feelings affect her business judgment. “All right. We’ll start fresh.”

“Good,” Tess said, although she didn’t look any happier.

Clay smiled. “Will that make you less suspicious of me?”

“Afraid not. I’ll be back in a minute.” Tess took the glass of lemonade and left.

Actually, she was gone more like five minutes. Clay wasn’t consciously counting, but her gaze kept straying to the big clock on the wall with its Roman numerals to mark the hour and broad, fat hands sweeping around its face. She hadn’t been immune to the chemistry that had sparked between Ella and Tess outside in the yard. Ella’s beauty was irresistible—even after all this time, Clay wasn’t used to it. And Tess—Tess was radiant, as fresh and wondrous as spring blossoms opening after a rainstorm. Why wouldn’t the two of them appreciate each other? She’d never seen Ella really notice a woman before, but Ella had clearly noticed Tess.

The tightness in her chest didn’t ease until she heard Tess returning. She forced her shoulders to relax and sipped the lemonade. Tart and tangy, with just the slightest bit of sweetness lingering on her tongue after the initial burst of flavor. Tess’s taste had been just the opposite, all light and honey until an unexpected explosion of heat raced through her mouth, scorching her to the core. The first time they’d made out, under a moonlit sky on the deck of a sailboat moored next to the boathouse where Tess worked, she’d planned to go slow, to be gentle, knowing Tess was inexperienced. Only Tess hadn’t given her a chance to be either of those things. The first kiss had rocketed from tentative to tempestuous in a few breathless seconds, Tess’s teeth raking her lip, her hands grasping Clay’s shirt, palms grazing over her breasts until her nipples stood up like windswept stones in a storm.

“Something wrong with the lemonade?” Tess asked.

Clay jumped. “No. It’s great. Thanks.”

Tess’s chair scraped out and she sat down, bringing with her a hint of honeysuckle and loam. “What do you want?”

Swallowing the sand in her throat, Clay said, “What makes you think I want anything?”

“I don’t have time to play games,” Tess said wearily. “You’re here for a reason, and it can only have to do with the drilling. There’s nothing else to bring you here.”

Clay sat back in the chair, stretched her legs out underneath the table. She couldn’t avoid the conversation, as much as she wanted to. She’d managed plenty of hard sells before, but this was more than a business transaction. This was…this was personal, and she couldn’t let it be. “Do you think you can listen to me without prejudice? For just a minute or two?”

Tess studied the woman across from her. Clay Sutter was a woman you would notice—strikingly attractive, polished, assertive. Tess hadn’t been lying when she’d told Clay they should start over from here. She didn’t know this Clay Sutter. The Clay she’d known had been ready to take on the world, filled with passion and unbridled confidence. The woman at her kitchen table, despite her commanding presence, struggled with some kind of burden that showed in her eyes, in the rigid set of her shoulders, in the fatigue that burrowed through her voice. As strong as she had to be to do what she had come to do, she labored to carry the weight.

Despite the stirrings of sympathy, Tess was wary. Clay was a threat—the company she represented was potentially dangerous. Like most farmers, Tess didn’t trust big business. She wasn’t much of a fan of the government, either. When it didn’t rain, when nor’easters blew the topsoil away, when floods rotted the seeds in the ground, no one came to bail them out. Oh, sure, there were government subsidies to be had, but most of that money went to the large corporate farms, owned by the wealthy few with the kind of influence to buy friends in the government. The average small farmer saw almost nothing from the millions of dollars set aside to presumably support them in times of market declines or natural disaster. No, in the end, the small farmer had only family, neighbors, and luck to count on. NorthAm was not her friend, and Clay was NorthAm. Tess would be foolish to trust her, even if they’d never met before.

But still, the shadows in Clay’s eyes pulled at her heart.

“I’m listening,” Tess said quietly, and she vowed to try.

“The Marcellus Shale extends from Ohio through Pennsylvania and southern New York. There are other drill sites already operational in Pennsylvania and Ohio, some in New York, but the deposits in the eastern part of the state have never been tapped. We—my company, NorthAm—are interested in a thirty-square-mile area of land locally that’s directly over what we believe are the largest deposits of fuel in the entire shale. There could be enough natural fuel to increase the national yield by twenty-five or thirty percent. That would have a profound influence on fuel economics here and around the world.”