“Well?”
She was waiting.
Jonah cleared his throat. “I do believe that you’re asking me to justify my decision to send Kip and the men without you.”
CJ pursed her pretty lips. “Absolutely.”
“Well, that isn’t your place, Celia Jo. It is my decision to make. It is my ranch. They are my horses.”
“You’ve made that quite clear.” Her voice rose, but it also tremored.
Jonah uncrossed his legs and shoved off the desk to tower over her. Well, that was a mistake. She tipped her head back, and now he had the urge to slide his hand behind her neck and kiss her mouth into silence. Bad idea.
“Kip and the men were waiting.”
“I told them dawn. I was there at dawn.” CJ was not going to fade away. She stiffened and stood on her tiptoes. “Charlie trusts me. Why don’t you?”
Why indeed? He had done more than enough to test her stamina. Really, he’d offered her no faith at all. But when he’d gotten up before dawn to be in attendance when the men moved out and she was very obviously going to be the last to arrive, it rankled him. The men were invested in these mustangs. Wasn’t she? Kip’s anticipation was palpable. CJ’s absence was stark.
But honestly? The men had ridden off only ten minutes before she ended up here, in his office. She was right. She had set the guidelines for the men. Kip had been uncomfortable when he was put in charge. He’d been respectful but asked if they could wait for CJ. No. They couldn’t.
Was she going to quit now? It was what he’d wanted. Jonah felt CJ’s angst through the short puffs of breath she blew out in frustration. But now that Charlie was here—it would be mortifying. The old man would see right through him. Would know what Jonah was up to. And it was the old man Jonah had been trying to protect by forcing CJ’s hand into quitting instead of just sending her on her way.
He met her stare. It was steely, but behind the anger, he saw hurt and a wicked high amount of determination. Blimey, the woman was trouble. Jonah raked his hand through his hair. Everything had gone wrong. She was supposed to give up.
And, now, he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted her to.
Chapter 6
There they were. CJ marveled at the corral of mustangs, tossing their heads, snorting and whinnying. The men had done well. They knew what they were doing. CJ adjusted herself in the saddle and gave Charlie a sideways glance. He’d insisted on riding out with her. His slouch on his horse was comfortable, familiar. He was where he belonged.
“They’re beauties.”
Yes. Yes, Charlie, they were. Beauties she should have rounded up. CJ adjusted her seat and the leather of the saddle creaked beneath her weight. Her bay tossed its head, sniffing the air and the scent of the other horses, wild and untamed.
“Ya know, he’s just watchin’ out for his ranch.”
Charlie’s observation grated on CJ’s already raw nerves. She brushed back a wayward strand of hair that blew in the dry morning breeze. Charlie didn’t seem to notice the stiffening of her shoulders.
“Jonah was a headstrong boy when his mama shipped him from over yonder. He bucked that English tradition they have. Uptights. When he landed here, he was weak of faith and strong in spirit. His uncle didn’t help as much as his mama wanted. Jonah ran circles around him, but gained his favor. Figgers, since he inherited this here ranch.”
CJ wasn’t impressed with Charlie’s reminiscing about the man she disliked more than she’d ever disliked anyone before. But she didn’t have the heart to shut the old man down. Besides, Charlie’s familiar voice, gravelly and wobbled with age, soothed her nerves, even if his words prickled her soul.
She couldn’t help but ask. “What made you take such a liking to him?”
“Boy was hurtin’. Like you.”
CJ met Charlie’s gaze. He gave a short nod. “Tryin’ to prove hisself in a world where they didn’t think he was who he should be.”
“What do you mean?”
Charlie shrugged, as if she should know. “Jonah Sparks was next in line to be some aristocrat or somethin’. But he didn’t want it. Starched collars an’ all that. He wanted to find his freedom from all that rigmarole. He did—eventually. But he had to find freedom in who God made him to be. Same as you.”
CJ licked a thin sheen of desert dust off her lips. “I am free.”
“Are ya now?”
The whinnies of the wild ponies drew CJ’s attention. Kip waved his arm over his head, and Sam, the lazy ranch hand, reciprocated the signal as he rode inside the corral among the mustangs.
Free? No. Not free. Trapped. Within the confines of Jonah’s expectations. Of society’s expectations. Even her brothers’ expectations. Lace and petticoats. She loved them, felt like a princess in them, but the scent of horses and leather made her heady. The creak of a saddle, the rush of wind in her face when she rode, and the exhilaration of breaking a horse made her come alive. What if Jonah felt the same way? England confined him. What if his uncle’s death and the inheritance of the ranch became his ticket to be who the Creator had made him to be? A businessman, a rancher. Free. “I wonder if even God thinks I should take up sewing and homemaking.”
CJ didn’t realize she’d spoken her cynicism aloud.
Charlie chuckled, as he always did. He was never shocked by her sarcasm. “Doubt God thinks anything but that yer His daughter in cowboy boots. An’ a pretty one at that. You an’ Jonah, yer two peas in a pod that ain’t been snapped open yet so ya can see the light o’ day. The good Lord is doin’ His work in ya. ’Bout time ya both stop fightin’ each other and listen up.”
“I think Jonah Sparks is as deaf as a dead steer,” CJ muttered.
Charlie nudged his horse with his heels and started forward toward the mustangs. “An’ what’s yer excuse?”
The screams scorched Jonah with the shock of a branding iron. He jolted from his office chair and vaulted around his desk. The ledger he’d been working on fell to the floor. The scream was unmistakably female. It was unmistakably Celia Jo. Jonah’s long strides swallowed up the distance from his office to the front door. He met the concerned expression of Charlie as the elderly man struggled to his feet from the rocking chair on the porch. Bonita followed Jonah’s long strides.
“Miss Matheson, señor!”
Jonah didn’t bother to respond as another terrified scream ripped through the otherwise peaceful morning and catapulted him into a run. Remmy whinnied from the corral where she leisured, her leg still bandaged. Jonah swept the yard with his gaze as he sprinted toward the ramshackle stucco adobe that had once been the ranch’s first home. Dear Lord, have mercy. This was why he didn’t want a female foreman. This was the underlying fear in his mind, in his heart. She was beautiful. Tantalizing. And she was the only woman in charge of men who rarely saw another female.
Nightmarish visions raced through Jonah’s mind as he vaulted over a tumbleweed and slammed through the door of the adobe.
“CJ!” His shout ripped from his throat as he jolted to a halt. He scanned the room. No man. An open window. The low-lying cot that sagged in the middle. An end table. And in the corner, CJ, her arms wrapped around her torso. Her body quivered, uncontrolled, and her brown eyes engulfed her pale face. The freckles he had so long tried to ignore as being kissable stood out like miniature hoofprints across her delicate cheekbones.
“Celia Jo?”
Her chest rose in short, spasmodic breaths.
“Roadrunner?” God bless the clothes she was wearing. Jonah realized the early morning hours might have served him an entirely different vision than CJ in her typical shirt and trousers. She must have just taken her clothes from the pegs lined on the wall where she stood and dressed.
She met his gaze. “Kill it.” She pointed. “Kill it now.”
Her words chilled him. They were decisive, strong, and aimed at… well, dash it all! So Celia Jo Matheson was afraid of something!
The fuzzy, eight-legged tarantula on the middle of her cot was as lar
ge as his hand. It was more than apparent the beast perched between her and the doorway, keeping her figuratively trapped. She could have simply chosen to walk around the end of the bed, since the head of it was, after all, pushed against the wall. But it seemed CJ believed a tarantula was capable of leaping five feet and landing on her shoulder. It was quite obvious that she had reached the limits of her stiff-necked, stubborn, do-it-herself stamina. The spider had squelched her into submission with the mere twitch of its seventh leg. Something Jonah had been attempting to do since the moment CJ descended from the train in a fluster of petticoats, flowery dress, and leather boots.
“Kill it.” There was steely resolve in her voice, but her eyes reflected so much fear and sheer horror that Jonah almost wanted to grace the tarantula with his gratitude. CJ was like the wild mustang, and the spider had broken her.
Jonah covered the space between him and the hairy spider in one stride. Its black eyes gored up at him, unmoving and perched on the top of its body. Legs six and eight lifted. CJ screamed.
“Please, Jonah…”
Her shaking plea broke his final defense. Dear Lord in heaven, save him from Celia Jo.
Jonah snatched a book from the end table.
“Not my—” CJ protested a moment too late. With a nudge from the butt of his pistol he’d grabbed on his way out the front door, Jonah urged the spider onto CJ’s copy of The Legend of Obadiah Walker. A dime novel.
“Curious.” He shot a wry smile in her direction. CJ scowled.
Oh, the things a man could learn about a woman in a few moments in her private quarters.
“Aren’t you going to kill it?” CJ whispered, her lips quivering with the tremors of irrational fear mixed with surprise.
“This wretched creature deserves a chance at a happy life.” Jonah was goading her. But now it was—well, it was because she was adorable. She needed him. Was this what he had actually wanted all along? Not to diminish her strength and independence as one broke a mustang, but to simply see her as a woman who occasionally needed a hero?
He escaped through the door with the tarantula and flung it into the desert. The arachnid flipped onto its back then righted itself and scurried away toward the horizon.
“You should have killed it.”
Well then. CJ’s words bounced against his back as she came outside and stood behind him. He turned. By jove, she was beautiful. When he really stopped and recognized her with the vision Charlie insisted he use, Celia Jo Matheson was untamed and matchless.
And swooning…
Jonah slid his arm around her waist as her knees buckled. She grappled for something to hold on to and found his shirt. She leaned against his chest, her head fitting perfectly beneath his chin. And here he was—Jonah’s observation was almost out of body—holding his foreman. All because of a hairy, eight-legged spider whose only offense was to bed down on the lady’s quilt.
He must find that tarantula again one day… and thank it.
Chapter 7
The solid chest against her cheek was far preferred over the tickling creep of the tarantula. Though she hadn’t touched it and it hadn’t touched her, she could still feel the sensation crawling over her skin. Tarantulas wouldn’t kill a person, but did it matter? It was unfortunate the good Lord hadn’t allowed them to die by falling off the ark during Noah’s flood. Spiders were her nemesis. Her weak spot. The cruelty of their creepy existence was hard enough to bear, let alone finding one had taken up residence on her favorite quilt. And how was she supposed to sleep there tonight?
Jonah’s chest rose in a deep intake of air, as if he’d been taking shallow breaths and finally needed to truly breathe. She couldn’t lift her face. Mortified. Of all the people to rescue her, it was Jonah Sparks. Of all the people to witness her weakness, it was Jonah. She couldn’t lift her face for another shameful reason: she didn’t want to.
The scent of a freshly laundered shirt mixed with a hint of leather and the distinct waft of coffee filled her senses. She missed this. Knowing that while she was strong and free, she was also cared for. Cared for by Jonah Sparks.
CJ raised her head and pulled away. Jonah’s fingers caressed her upper arms as he let go, almost as if he didn’t want to. He cleared his throat. She ran her hands over her hair and tucked it behind her ears, flipping her braid over her shoulder.
“Well.” It was all she could think to say.
“No gratitude? I did rescue you, I believe.” The goading British tone awakened her senses.
“It was a spider. I was perfectly capable—”
“Please,” he interrupted her, an eyebrow rising beneath a dark curl that sprang over his forehead. “My sainted grandmother has been awakened from her grave by the pitch of your screams.”
CJ opened her mouth to protest then snapped it shut. What could she say? She had screamed like an infant at the sight of a freakish, gothic monster in the middle of her bed. “I hate spiders.”
“So I see.”
“They’re gruesome, horrid creatures. And they absolutely shouldn’t be furry.”
“I would be more concerned about a black widow, my dear.”
He might as well have said “my darling” the way the unexpected endearment curled around her heart. She stiffened. And yet, just the other morning, this very man had sabotaged her authority on the ranch and set Kip in charge of the mustang roundup.
“I’ll be fine.” She would do her own spider eradication if there were any more to be found.
“Nonsense.” Jonah brushed past her and back into the adobe. CJ followed.
He walked around the small room, eyeing the corners of the ceiling and walls, looking behind the end table, the trunk, and any shadowy place a spider could hide.
“My uncle was bitten by a black widow once.”
His accent threatened to mesmerize her. CJ leaned against the doorjamb and crossed her arms.
“His arm swelled to rival the size of his leg. Thought it might pop open. I didn’t witness it myself, but he told me of it when I visited here as a lad.”
CJ swallowed. Swollen arms. Spider bites. Stealthy black widows could kill you, and if they didn’t, their poison was painful. Excruciating. A tarantula was a kitten in comparison.
She shivered but tilted her nose upward. She would not be bested by Jonah Sparks or a spider. Well, maybe it was too late to claim that on the latter, but she could stand firm in regard to the former.
Jonah was on his hands and knees, peering into the dark places beneath her cot. Fine man. His shoulders were wide, dark curls flipped over his shirt collar, and his hands were strong with veins that emphasized the breadth.
She needed him gone from her room. Before she lost her mind and found herself attracted to the brute.
“I’m fine now.” CJ closed her eyes. “Thank you,” she ground out, “for—assisting me.”
“You mean rescuing you?” Jonah rose to his feet and ran his hands down his pants to brush off the dust.
“You didn’t rescue me.” Her response was as lame as a wilted cactus flower.
Jonah’s lips stretched in a sardonic and patronizing smile. “I most certainly did. And I most certainly shall continue to.”
Continue to? CJ crossed her arms over her chest, trying not to look as vulnerable as she felt. “I am capable of caring for myself.” Their eyes locked. “And your ranch,” she added for good measure.
“Well then.” Jonah reached for his pistol that he’d rested on her bed. He holstered it and brushed past CJ, pausing in the small doorway to stare down at her. She could feel his breath against her skin. Tickles toyed with her stomach as he tipped his head toward her.
“I counted three black widows, one tarantula, and four other unidentified eight-legged monsters in my brief perusal of your quarters.”
CJ felt all color drain from her face.
“Now.” Jonah tapped her nose. “You may decline my offer of assistance and continue to abide in a room where a poisonous fate most certainly awaits you, or you may
agree that this antiquated and run-down clay shelter is no longer suited for any human’s residence.”
Eight spiders? She’d been sleeping here with spiders? How many had crawled over her skin as she slept, tapped her nose with their legs as Jonah had just touched her? CJ couldn’t move. Jonah’s body shared the doorway and was close to pinning her against the frame.
“Wh–where will I stay?” Irritation riddled her at the tremble in her voice.
Jonah edged past her and extended his hand. He was delusional if he thought she would actually fit hers inside of it!
“Charlie’s presence in the main house will help to ease the awkwardness of your moving in.”
“I will not live in your house!” For so many reasons. She snatched her hand away from his that still stretched forward. She could only imagine Jonah’s satisfaction that she couldn’t battle against spiders, let alone live by herself. That would imply she wasn’t capable of being trusted with the management of his ranch. Not to mention Kip—the other men. Their imaginations would run wild with the idea of her sleeping in the main house. Charlie might eliminate some of the indecency, but not all.
Jonah was watching her. Well, boots and spurs, he didn’t have to look so smug!
The Cowboy’s Bride Collection: 9 Historical Romances Form on Old West Ranches Page 53