Against the Wind Read online

  Jordan strode into the kitchen followed by Cal. “Leslie, this is Cal, my foreman and Julia’s husband. Whenever I’m not here, he’s in charge. Cal, this is Leslie Collins.”

  Cal shook hands with her, and she liked him at once. “What’s for dinner, Julia? I’m starved,” Jordan said, emphasizing it with a pat on his stomach.

  Julia’s smile was that of an indulgent mother. “That’s normal for you. Leslie made biscuits and your other favorite, apple pie.” She turned to Leslie. “Those are two things that Jordan loves.”

  The four sat down to dinner, as they called the noon meal, and it amused Leslie that Julia again imposed grace on Jordan.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Cal told Leslie. “It’s a ritual that they play out at every meal.

  Jordan buttered a biscuit and bit into it. “Well, I’ll be damned. Julia, your biscuit-making days are over around here,” he joshed. In a more serious tone, he added, “These are delicious, Leslie. I’ve never had better.” When she appeared embarrassed, he pinned her with a perceptive, green-eyed stare, seeing both her reservedness and her intelligent countenance and sensing that she was more than she appeared to be. He’d heard her yell at him as he’d walked away from her that morning after he’d hired her. She had guts.

  He ate a normal-sized meal, pushed his plate aside and took a healthy helping of pie. He tempered his desire for everything but good food. A glance brought Leslie into his field of vision. He summed her up. A black Madonna in a green-checkered apron. For some reason, he didn’t want to become curious about her, but with his experience, he could see that she was a pearl whose oyster hadn’t been shucked. Only a foolish man would get inquisitive about that kind of woman.

  * * *

  “Who was that man who brought the eggs to you around noon today?” Leslie asked Julia as they cleaned up after dinner.

  “That’s Ossie Dixon, one of the hands and my favorite.” Her right eye closed briefly in a suggestive wink. “Interested?”

  Leslie wished she hadn’t mentioned him. “That didn’t cross my mind, Julia. I’m not looking for a man and especially not where I work.”

  Julia dried her hands and massaged them with lotion. “He has quite a story. He’s been way up and way down, but he’ll make it. He’s a good man.”

  Leslie would have liked to know more, for she had begun to suspect that Saber Estates was a refuge of sorts. She wouldn’t probe, though, lest Julia misunderstand her motive.

  Bone weary, but happy, Leslie began the long trip home, hoping that her luck would hold and her old Ford wouldn’t choose that day to declare its mortality. Breakdowns were becoming a common occurrence, and she could barely afford the cost of towing and service. It was the morning trip, leaving home before daybreak, that worried her. She knew that if he ever found her alone on that deserted road with a car that wouldn’t run, she wouldn’t survive. And she was tired of running. Oh, God, she was so tired of picking up and looking for another place. Preston was the third town in which she’d lived during the past eighteen months. If she’d been guilty of any wrongdoing, any transgression against anyone, she wouldn’t complain about taking her medicine. But she’d been the victim. All she’d done was insist that her civil rights not be violated, and in spite of the trouble it had caused her, she’d do it again.

  * * *

  Leslie got to work half an hour early one morning of her third week at Saber Estates, and Jordan observed that she didn’t seem happy to find him standing beside the big oval kitchen window.

  “Good morning, Leslie. Julia tells me that you two are getting on very well.” He stirred his instant coffee, not looking at her or the cup but into the distance, thinking about her inexplicably strange behavior, of her friendliness with Julia and Cal, but not with him.

  “You’re early this morning,” he went on, making conversation.

  Her voice came to him soft and refined, and he liked it. “Good morning. I didn’t expect to see you in here.”

  He frowned at her seeming disinclination to talk with him. Did she dislike him, or just men in general? “Why not?”

  Her answer was a careless shrug. She was deliberately irritating him, and he decided not to be nice. “I live here, and I own the place. So I go and come as I please.” This time, she moved her shoulders in another, more elaborate shrug. “You took your time deciding whether to return my greeting,” he went on. “Testy this morning, eh?”

  He thought she’d been insolent, but he didn’t say it. Instead, he baited her. “At first I thought the cat had your tongue, but it looks like you’ve been out fencing with a pit bull.”

  * * *

  Leslie had arrived in a light mood and had planned to get a cup of coffee and relax for half an hour before beginning work. She was cross with Jordan without cause—just because he was there, and she knew it was unreasonable. It wasn’t his fault that he made her conjure up images that had no business in her mind. She didn’t know his motive for being there, and experience had taught her that trusting a man could be a big mistake.

  She sat down, pulled off her rain boots and asked him, “Do you respond to people who talk to you without giving you the courtesy of looking at you? Well, I don’t. As far as I could tell, you were speaking to the window. And if I’ve done any fencing today, it’s been right here in this kitchen.” She looked him right in the eye when she said it, and he stared at her for what seemed like minutes. Heat burned her face, but she didn’t back down and held his gaze as long as he held hers.

  He yielded; if he hadn’t, he’d probably have taught her a lesson that they would both have regretted, because he didn’t back down for women or men. He let his gaze stray over her brown face and shook his head. A conundrum if he ever saw one. If she was wary of him, she certainly wasn’t showing it right then. He suppressed a smile. Her intelligence, wit and temper were a combination that had always appealed to him in a woman. “I’ve probably been called a lot of things behind my back, but I’ll wager this is the first time I’ve ever been called a pit bull. And right to my face, too.” Her face ashened, and he couldn’t help enjoying her discomfort. He turned toward the stove to get hot water for another cup of instant.

  She stood and tied her apron. “If you’ll wait a few minutes, I’ll get you a decent cup of coffee. That stuff’s not fit to drink.”

  He looked around at her and grinned, deliberately aggravating her. Let her squirm. Pit bull! “Should be good enough for a pit bull,” he chided. When she seemed alarmed at the turn of the conversation, he decided to let up. “Thanks I’d appreciate some. I hate instant coffee.” He smiled to put her at ease. “Why are you here so early, Leslie?”

  “No traffic.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Is there ever any?”

  “For me, two cars equal traffic.”

  He didn’t believe it and let his expression tell her so, but when she turned her back and headed for the pantry, he let it drop. All right, if she didn’t want to be friendly; it was no skin off his back.

  * * *

  Leslie had refused Jordan any space in her mind since that morning in the kitchen when, for the second time, she’d been staggered by his uncommonly good looks. And he gave her plenty of assistance, ignoring her most of the time. Indeed, he barely spoke to her even at meals, except to tell her he enjoyed the food she cooked. And she was glad for his coolness. He was not a man easily ignored. But she didn’t so much ignore him, as she refused to let herself see him as he really was—six feet five, with black hair, green eyes, physically trim and knock-out handsome. Her defense against him was to pretend that he wasn’t there by not speaking to him or looking at him unless she was compelled to do so. If she seemed rude, she couldn’t help it.

  Jordan was demanding and most times not particularly friendly, except with Cal and Julia. And even though she sensed he was a gentleman, she told herself that she didn’t really like him. Sometimes, when her emotions betrayed her and her response to him confused her, she let herself believe that she disliked him,
though she couldn’t pinpoint a reason.

  On one of her homeward journeys, as her mind wandered, it occurred to Leslie that Jordan was something of an enigma. That morning she’d heard him speaking on the telephone and had been surprised at the level of his language. He’d sounded like a very polished, sophisticated man. “Not your typical farmer,” she said aloud. She’d noticed that he never came to the table without washing his face and hands. He was always cleanly shaven and, even though he worked beside his men, his hands were always clean, his nails well shaped and manicured. Since when did a working farmer have hands like Jordan’s? she pondered. Strong, elegant, beautiful hands. She wondered what it would be like if he touched her, and she shuddered. Was she crazy? She wasn’t going to waste thoughts on Jordan Saber or any other man. She shook her head as though to clear it of him, and laughed at herself. She already knew it would take more than a shake of her head to get Jordan Saber out of it.

  The next morning, as she gathered flowers for the dinner table, she slipped on the dew dampened grass and fell into a patch of thorny rosebushes.

  His deep voice startled her. “Taking an early siesta?”

  “I’m stuck here.”

  She watched as his brow creased in bewilderment. “Stuck? What do you mean, stuck? Can’t you get up?” He grinned at her, and she wished she’d been looking somewhere else. Her insides quivered, and the earth seemed to shift beneath her. “I can get up, if I want to leave my clothes here,” she told him testily. “I’m caught in these thorns.” She gestured toward the rosebush, and he hunkered down before her, still showing his white teeth in a roguish grin.

  “Let’s see what we have here. Hmm. At this rate, I won’t get any biscuits for dinner.” He peered down at her and must have assumed that she didn’t want him near her, for he said, “I’ll be out of your way in a minute. Just hold still.”

  But he couldn’t have guessed more incorrectly: she’d almost frozen, shocked by the thrill she got from his nearness.

  He picked off a thorny bush that had hooked itself into her blouse. “What’s the matter, Leslie, don’t you trust me? A guy doesn’t have to be a genius to do this.”

  Being so close to him unsettled her, and she didn’t know whether she didn’t trust herself to answer him or was numbed by the memory of another man who got too close to her. Jordan managed to pick the thorns from the back of her blouse, and she started to get up, but he stopped her with both hands on her shoulders.

  “You want a head full of these things, too?” he asked her, nodding toward the branch that hung just above her. “Hold on.” Without another word, he put an arm around her shoulder and the other under her knees, tilted her slightly and slid her from under the rosebush. He stayed here, hunkered before her, looking at her as if attempting to assess her in some way. Then he stood, lifted her to her feet, picked the flowers up and handed them to her, dusted off the back of his overalls and walked away.

  Coming to her senses, she called after him, “Thanks.”

  He stopped, turned around and grinned at her. “You’re welcome, provided you mean it. It was my pleasure.”

  She knew he could see her embarrassment from the distance that separated them. Feeling herself unsettled in strange ways, she walked slowly back to the house. Maybe she should leave Saber Estates before she had another experience like the one she’d had with Faron Walker. Jordan didn’t seem the type, but she hadn’t suspected that Faron was, either. And another thing. She hadn’t liked Faron at all. But Jordan…

  As she reached the back porch, she looked up into the censoring gaze of Ossie Dixon, who didn’t return her greeting but sucked his teeth as though in disgust, held the screen door open for her and went on his way. She didn’t know what she’d done to earn his displeasure, and she didn’t plan to spend a minute worrying about it.

  That evening after work, when she turned the corner into Euclid Street, where the women’s residence was located, immediately a brownish sedan headed straight in her direction, paused as if to allow the driver a good look at her, and then sped away. Inside her room, she locked her door and leaned against it. She couldn’t be certain that it was he, but who else? Surely not…Oh Lord, how had he found her? She hadn’t left a trail, not a single clue as to where she was going. She calmed herself with the thought that it might not have been Faron.

  She changed into a blue corduroy jumpsuit and went to the dining room for supper, looked around for company and joined Berle Cox, an administrative nurse at a nearby hospital.

  Berle welcomed her with a wide grin. “Girl, you’re a knockout in that shade of blue. How’s the new job? You gonna stay there, or you just passing through?”

  She liked Berle and welcomed her friendship, but the less people knew about her, the less of a chance Faron had of finding her. “I hope I’m fixed for the next six months or so. I have one more semester before I get my masters degree, and I’m hoping this job will put me over.”

  Berle peeled a radish and put both the peeling and the radish in her mouth. “Where’d you luck out?”

  Leslie pretended diffidence. “Honey, if the word gets out, half of this residence will be trying to take my job. They’re too hard to get. I’ll tell when I’m ready to leave, and somebody else can get a break.”

  Berle nodded. “You’ve got it right, girl. Some of these women could take salmon from a grizzly. A job or a man; to them, that’s fair game. I’m like you. I keep my business to myself.” She was tempted to be friends with Berle, but her mind told her that the less anyone knew about her, the safer she’d be. With friends, a person could get loose-tongued. Better not.

  * * *

  If Leslie thought Jordan an enigma, he’d taken to referring to her mentally as “that riddle in there with Julia.” You would have thought he was a snake, the way she acted around him. Her wariness of him was barely short of rudeness. And as friendly as Cal was, she seemed hardly more comfortable with him. He recalled her reluctance to enter the house with him when she’d come looking for work. What kind of experiences had she had with people—no, with men? That was it. She was wary of men. He walked on to the barn, puzzled and not liking it one bit. She gave him a strange feeling. He wasn’t a ladies’ man, and he had his ego under control. But damn. He wasn’t used to having women look straight through him and not see him. He’d swear that Leslie even managed to look around him if he got too close. Anyplace, but not at him. And he probably wouldn’t give a hoot, but the more he saw of her, the more she appealed to him. And her scent. From the first thing in the morning until she left late in the afternoon, her delicate woman’s scent could tantalize him. Sweet and clean as an early morning spring breeze. He whistled sharply. She worked for him, which meant she had no business being in his head.

  He finished examining the tack and was walking to the garage to get his pickup when he noticed a strange man leaning against the garage door. It wasn’t that the man was ill kempt and apparently down and out, though that was an apt description. Jordan didn’t judge a man harshly for that. He’d seen too many such men scramble to their feet when given a chance. But he knew when a man was honorable, and this one wasn’t.

  He walked up to the man. “Do you want something?”

  “You got a woman here named Collins?”

  He didn’t like anything about the man, and he’d wager that he wasn’t a friend of Leslie’s. “What do you want with her?”

  “Don’t know that it’s any of your business.”

  Jordan tensed. The man had to be a stranger to the region; every man within miles was familiar with Saber Estates, and most of them recognized Jordan. He liked this less and less.

  “Is that so? Are you a process server? Where’s your ID?” He noted the shifty glances, the nervous foot shuffling.

  “I’m not serving anything, and I don’t see that it’s your business.”

  Jordan moved closer, and the man backed away. “If it’s not my business, get off of my property. If you put one foot back on my land, you’re going to jail�
�after I give you a work over that you’ll never forget. And don’t you doubt it.” As the man hastened away, Jordan was certain that his intent had been criminal. He made a mental note to have a talk with Leslie, as it occurred to him, not for the first time, that he knew nothing about her. He corrected that. He knew that she was neither a farm laborer nor a household servant, and he’d only given her that job because he’d sensed her desperation. And all that polish. He meant to ask her where she had learned her domestic skills.

  Chapter Two

  The Friday morning of her fourth week at Saber Estates, Leslie did the unpardonable: she rushed into the kitchen one hour late, ten minutes before Jordan came in for his breakfast. Julia had become increasingly anxious about Leslie’s daily trips and, on this particular morning, feared that Leslie might have met with an accident or some other misfortune. She had sensed that Leslie lived right up to the edge of peril. But Leslie didn’t extend herself, never volunteering personal information and resisting answering questions about herself, so she kept her distance. She still hadn’t decided that she liked Leslie, though it was impossible not to respect her.

  She could only stare in amazement when Leslie burst into the kitchen with her entire body soaking wet. Quickly collecting her wits, she dropped the breakfast preparations and rushed Leslie to the basement, hoping to get her dry and warm before Jordan returned for his breakfast. But fate wouldn’t have it that way.

  She knew her scheme to get Leslie ready for work before he got there was doomed when she heard him call, “Where is everybody?”

  Impatience didn’t begin to describe his mood right then. It didn’t help that the rain had caused a flooding in his sweet potato beds and that he’d had to devise an emergency draining system while the rain poured down in torrents. He was hungry and damp, and there was no food and no one was cooking it.