Slowly, she came to her feet, tucking a tousled strand of hair behind her ear. "How long have you been standing there?" she demanded.
He shifted on his feet, his powerful body seemingly rippling with the movement. "Long enough to hear you babbling to yourself."
She knew he couldn't hear her Superiors, but how much of her side of the conversation had he eavesdropped on? And she'd been about to make the ultimate of confessions! Opting for the offensive, she thrust up her chin and gave him what she hoped would pass for a haughty look. "Aren't I allowed some privacy around here?"
He pinned her with a shrewd look. "Sure, as long as its near the main house. With all the strange things that have happened around the ranch, you of all people should know better than to run off on your own." His voice held a heavy dose of censure.
"I wanted some time alone to think. Out loud." Anxious to change the subject, she brushed past him, heading back toward the house. "What did you want, J.T.?"
He grabbed her arm before she could pass, bringing her up short. "An explanation."
So did she, for so many things, but it looked as though her answers would have to wait until tonight, when she'd have some privacy in which to contact her Superiors again.
The heat of J.T.'s fingers filtered through her sweatshirt, wreaking havoc on her senses and flowing through her blood like a narcotic. The clean, masculine scent of him drifted on the breeze, curling around her. His touch aroused her in a primitive, shameless way. When she looked into his gaze she saw an answering hunger there, a need to take possession and never let go. Had making love bonded them more spiritually than before?
She tugged on her arm and he let it go. The sensations receded and she took a safe step back. "An explanation for what?" If she could only clear the husky need from her voice, she'd be fine.
He looked disoriented for a moment; then the smoky desire faded from his eyes. He straightened, a determined cast to his features. "To this."
Horror ripped through her when he lifted her sketch pad for her to see. Head spinning, the wildflowers around them became a blur of colors as she focused on the one object that betrayed her most private thoughts and visions. She'd been so caught up in everything else, she hadn't noticed the sketch pad in his hand.
She recovered from her shock. Barely. "You went through my things?" she choked, shaking off the panic creeping up on her. "You had no right!" She tried to grab the sketch pad, but he jerked it out of her reach.
A ruthless light came into his eyes, made more chilling by the outright anger in his voice. "You came to my ranch with nothing more than the clothes on your back. This is my pad of paper and you're living under my roof for the time being. Considering the strange things that have happened since your arrival, I had every right to see what you've been drawing." He flipped the pad open to the sketch of him as a youth. "Somehow, I hadn't expected this. I'd like an explanation, Caitlan. Now."
Caitlan trembled from the inside out, and it had nothing to do with the sudden disappearance of the sun behind a cloud. She wrapped her arms around her waist in an effort to ward off the tremors invading her body. How could she tell him she didn't know what possessed her to draw those pictures, that the images had been so clear in her mind that she'd reproduced them without any real effort. "I… I was just drawing how I thought you'd look as a young boy." The excuse sounded lame even to her own ears.
His eyes narrowed, skepticism mingling with blatant disbelief. "And you hit it right on the bull's-eye. It's impossible you could be this accurate when you didn't know me at that age." He thumbed to another page, his expression grim. "And how in the hell do you know what Amanda looked like?"
I have visions of her. Oh, God, what explanation could she give him that wouldn't make her sound like a psychiatric patient? She grasped the first logical answer that came to mind. "I saw pictures."
"Where?"
"In your office. The bottom shelf in your bookcase."
He thought for a second, then fury blazed in his eyes. "So, you went snooping through my personal things?"
She bristled at his accusation. "Unlike yourself, I wasn't snooping. I was looking for a good book to read to pass some time and I saw the photo albums and looked through them. What crime is there in that?"
"You went through the cigar box." His voice was flat, his words more a statement than a question.
"Yes," she said very faintly. A shiver passed through her when she remembered all the momentos in that box, and her reaction to each of them.
He stared at her for a long moment. She could see him struggling to accept her tale for the truth. She prayed he wouldn't realize the sketches she'd drawn of him as a boy were exact duplicates of the ones he had stashed in the cigar box. Oh, what a tangled web she'd woven! And she couldn't even explain how or why.
"I don't like strangers going through my personal things," he finally said in a terse tone. "Stay out of my office unless I'm in there, Caitlan." Turning, he walked away, retaining her sketch pad.
Strangers. The word made her feel so lonely, so solitary. After everything they'd shared he still thought of her as an intruder in his life. But what had she expected from a man whose heart had been battered and bruised? A declaration of love? No, he'd warned her up-front that he didn't have a heart to give, and she had no right asking for it. The thought brought on an avalanche of feelings she didn't want to acknowledge.
Panicked at the thought of him having free access to study her drawings, she quickly caught up to him, breathless. "Can I have my sketch pad back, please?"
"No."
"It's mine," she argued heatedly.
He slanted her an uncompromising look. "It's mine."
Caitlan drew a deep breath, not knowing what to say. She walked silently beside him, watching him brood and think.
Minutes later the barn came into view, along with Frank, Randal, and Mike, standing in a semicircle in front of the structure. Loud, angry voices carried their way, and J.T. frowned, glancing at his watch. The hands weren't due back in for another hour. "I wonder what's going on now," he muttered, picking up his pace.
J.T. watched as Randal shoved at Mike. The other man automatically bounded back, fists raised, face contorted in rage.
"Come on," Mike challenged. "Give me a reason to plant my fist in that face of yours!"
A taunting smile curled Randal's lips. "You're nothing but a washed-up Marine," he retorted, puffing out his chest like a peacock.
"Both of you, cool it," Frank said, doing his best to stop the two men from brawling by insinuating himself between them. Randal and Mike yelled accusations and insults at each other until their language became descriptive and crude, and they shoved at Frank to get to one another.
J.T. swore, then glanced at Caitlan beside him. "Go on up to the house," he ordered.
"I'll be fine-"
"Now!" His tone brooked no argument. He gave her a gentle shove toward the walkway and strode purposefully to the group of men.
Knowing J.T. wouldn't appreciate her verbally refuting him at a time like this, she headed toward the house but stopped after a few yards. There was no way she'd leave J.T. unprotected when Randal had murder in his eyes. She stood off to the side, out of the way, but within hearing and viewing range, so she could monitor the situation.
J.T. reached the trio, tossed the sketch pad on a clump of grass a few feet away, and assessed the situation as best he could without knowing any details. Randal looked like hell, his face unshaven, his eyes bloodshot. The faint scent of stale whiskey reached J.T.'s nostrils, enough to confirm that Randal had been tipping the bottle while working. Mike looked like a formidable opponent, jaw clenched, the muscles across his shoulders bunched as he affected a boxing stance.