When Night Falls by Cait London

her.”
    “Tessa Greenfield?” Uma’s sharply indrawn breath said she understood immediately.
    “Her husband was dead of a heart attack by the time I put the pieces together and got Roman under control. When I walked out, Tessa was still screaming, cursing at me.”
    A slight breeze riffled through the tops of the old elms, broken by fierce Oklahoma storms, and Mitchell heard his father whisper, Tell Grace that I’ve always loved her. Everything was my fault. Take Roman and go to her—
    “Tessa just lives across the county line, not eighty miles from here. She sold the ranch and moved when Max died, so she could have more of a social life than on the ranch. You came that close to Madrid and never came back in all that time?”
    When he shook his head, Uma looked off into the distance. “And that’s when you decided money meant everything, that and power. I saw the letters on your kitchen cabinet. Money and prestige weren’t enough, were they? You can’t get over this. You’re still wearing that guilt—that you were the reason he died and your family lost what was left of the old homestead.”
    “I think about it sometimes,” Mitchell said, unwilling to give her everything. “I imagine your father had a lot to say about—”
    “His feud is his own. But in a way, you both are alike, carrying dirty old laundry with you, when there’s nothing to be done about it. How does Roman feel?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You mean, you don’t talk about it, right? You just locked it up and—”
    “Lay off.”
    The slow rise of color in her cheeks told him that she didn’t like his attitude. “Don’t forget you’re in my town now, Mitchell Warren, Vice President of Sales. I know the peoplehere. I love them, and I won’t have you storming around, brooding, tossing off all sorts of porcupine needles—”
    “‘Porcupine needles?’” Mitchell stared at the woman pacing back and forth in the sunlight. He could have picked her up and carried her into the truck and used her passion in a way that would satisfy them both—or could he? He wasn’t exactly certain what would satisfy Uma.
    “Well, invisible barbs when someone comes too close.”
    In his adult lifetime, few people had lectured Mitchell. He didn’t like it; in his youth he had taken enough orders from Fred. “Anything else while you’re at it? Just what’s bothering you about me?”
    “Just don’t forget that you’re in my town. If you’ve got any big ideas about tearing everything apart—forget it.”
    He leaned back against the pickup and crossed his arms. “My, my, my. How you do talk. And by the way, it’d suit me if you’d keep my private life private.”
    She waved her hands again and shook her head. “As if I’m a pipeline to the world. I know what is private and what isn’t. Don’t fight me on this, Mitchell. You’ll lose.”
     
    After her morning with Mitchell, an afternoon with Everett was soothing. Uma hadn’t expected Mitchell to be able to rile her, but he had. He’d stood there, tall and powerful against that black beast of a pickup and his expression said he was amused.
    Amused. She amused him .
    Uma trembled slightly. Unless she was mistaken, Mitchell’s look at her was purely sexual—raw, vibrating through the bright sunshine and locking within her. The ride home had been silent, and he’d driven right to her home—something that was certain to irritate her father. Mitchell had reached across her and opened the door, his arm brushing her breast.
    In that frozen moment when neither moved, Uma’s heartstopped, her senses too aware of the currents between them. “Better go inside,” Mitchell had said softly, tauntingly. “Where it’s safe.”
    She shivered again as she realized Everett was speaking to her—“Uma, we could still have a good life together. I love you. You know that.”
    Uma wiped the counter in the kitchen that had once been hers to tend. Designing Everett’s travel and advertising brochures