“Yes. It is.”
Cole couldn’t remember the last time he’d had any kind of meal that didn’t come in a microwavable cardboard tray or a plastic box, and his mouth watered at the very thought of it.
“Good,” he said. “Because I can’t cook to save my life. Not that I expect you to all the time, but—”
“I don’t mind. I like to cook. And since you’re paying for everything for the next six months, it’s only fair.”
She stirred something briskly in one of the pans on the stove, a concentrated look on her face. She was such a tiny little thing that a good strong wind could have blown her away, but she bustled around like a bee around a hive. It appeared that a kitchen was one of the places she actually felt comfortable. He had a quick flashback to what he’d told Cliff about how great it was to have a woman to come home to, and for a split second it felt like the truth.
Expelling a weary breath, he hobbled to the kitchen table.
“Cole? Are you all right?”
He sank into a chair. “I’m fine.”
She took a few tentative steps toward him. “You don’t look fine. What happened?”
He pulled his boots off, grimacing at the effort. “Murphy picked today to ride most of the perimeter of the ranch checking the fence. Nothing like riding a horse for six hours when I haven’t been on one in over ten years.”
“Why today?”
“I think he wanted to remind me how much fun I had working on the ranch when I was a teenager.”
“He did it on purpose?”
“Oh, you bet he did.”
“Even when he saw you were hurting?”
“Especially when he saw I was hurting.” He rose. “I need to get a shower.”
“Okay. Dinner will be ready by the time you get out.”
He walked stiffly into the bathroom, stripped off his dirty clothes and took a shower. A few minutes later, as he was drying off, he could hear Ginny rattling around in the kitchen as she finished dinner. Dinner she was cooking for both of them. Such a small thing, really, but he couldn’t remember the last time anybody did anything for him.
Except maybe his grandmother.
He remembered coming home from school and she’d be there, always with a big smile and a plate of cookies or brownies. And then she’d talk to him. It had seemed so strange at first, having somebody ask him how his day had gone and then telling him all about hers. He’d rarely said much, but she’d filled in the blanks, talking when he wouldn’t. Even though he’d never actually told her, those had been some of the best times of his life. It had been his first taste of how much one person could care about another person just because they shared the same blood.
Or maybe just because that person needed it badly.
God, how he missed her. He hadn’t been back to see her nearly enough in the years before her death, but he’d carried her memory with him always, because it had been his one and only encounter with the notion of family. He’d always thought there was time—time to tell her that she’d meant everything to him at a point when he had nothing in his life but a mother he didn’t even know and a worthless father who couldn’t stay out of prison. But he’d never quite found the words. And then she’d died. A sudden stroke, and she was gone before he could even make the trip from Dallas to Coldwater.
And then he really was alone.
He got dressed and went to the kitchen. He still hurt like hell from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, but the hot shower had taken the edge off the pain.
He pulled out a chair at the table. Ginny spun around. “You look better.”
“I feel better. Need some help?”
“No. Of course not. You can barely walk. Sit down.”
She didn’t have to tell him twice. It felt so good to collapse in a chair and relax.
“I’ll switch with you this week and I’ll sleep on the sofa,” she said. “At least until you’re feeling better.”
“You don’t know what you’re offering. It’s not the most comfortable sofa in the world.”
“I don’t mind.”
She pulled a casserole out of the oven and placed it on the stove top next to a bowl of green beans and a plate of hot rolls. She filled two plates and brought them to the table. After one bite, Cole knew that if this was the kind of cooking he had to look forward to for the next six months, at least his stomach was going to be happy.
“Tell me about your job at the bank,” he said as they ate.
She shrugged. “It’s just a job.”
“You’re a teller, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What do you want to study in college? Something to do with finance?”
“Maybe.” She shrugged, staring at her food. “I’ll be filling out the application soon. My grades were good in high school. I don’t think I’ll have any problem being accepted.”
“That’s good.”
She focused on her chicken casserole, teasing her fork through it. “Yes. Probably finance. I imagine there are a lot of job possibilities with that major.”
“Why don’t you look at me when you talk?”
She jerked her head up. “What?”
“You don’t look people in the eye very often. Are you afraid to?”
“Afraid?”
“Have something to hide?”
“No!”
“Am I that ugly?”
Her eyes flew open wide. “Of course not!”
“There. That’s better.”
She looked at her plate again. He caught her chin with his fingertips and eased her head up. “I don’t know why you act like a scared rabbit most of the time, but I wish you’d stop it. I don’t want to spend the next six months talking to the top of your head.”
He didn’t know why, but he let his hand linger in just that position, with his fingertips beneath her chin, looking into her eyes. For the first time he noticed that there were flecks of gold spattered against the dark brown of her irises.
Beautiful.
That was the word that came to mind, though he knew it couldn’t possibly be true. Ginny was as plain as any woman he’d ever known. So why was it when he looked into her eyes right now, he suddenly saw so much more?
Finally he let his fingertips fall from her face. To his surprise she didn’t turn away. Her gaze softened, and a warm light entered her eyes.
“Thank you,” she said. “For what you did today.”
Suddenly he was the one who had the urge to look away. “It was just a little kiss, Ginny. No big deal.”
“You know it was more than that. You didn’t have to…to go to those lengths. I just want you to know I appreciate it.”
She continued to stare at him, and it made him feel very uneasy. “Actually,” he told her, “I’m surprised you’re not mad at me for breaking the rule.”
“The rule?”
“No touching.”
She turned away instantly, and he responded by leaning closer to her. “Of course, if you’d like me to break the rule a few more times, I’m sure I can arrange it.”
She spun around. “What?”
“And while you’re at it,” he added, “feel free to make a few more rules, and we’ll break those, too.”
She looked at him with disbelief. “Cole, just because you kissed me at the bank, it doesn’t mean—”
“Are you sure, Ginny?” he said, running his fingertips along her arm. “I think you were enjoying yourself when I kissed you. Wouldn’t you like to enjoy yourself a little more?”
Slowly she narrowed her eyes into a sharp, angry glare, then yanked her arm away from him and stood up. She grabbed their empty dinner plates, took them to the sink and dropped them with a clatter. She twisted the faucet, splashing water on the plates, then turned it off just as abruptly. Cole stared at her with astonishment.
“Come on, Ginny! What are you getting so mad about?”
She dried her hands on a dish towel, then flung it to the counter and headed toward the hal
l. She stopped at the doorway and spun around.
“It was a nice thing you did today, Cole. Maybe the nicest thing anybody’s ever done for me. So why do you have to be such a jerk when all I was trying to do was say thank-you?”
Jerk?
He rose from his chair and circled the table. “Hey! All I did was suggest that it might be nice to pick up where we left off today. Would that really be so awful?”
“But we’ve been through all this before!”
He stopped in front of her. “You can protest all you want to. But the truth is that you want it as much as I do. And if you don’t give in sooner or later, it’s going to be a very long six months for both of us.”
“I have no intention of giving in to anything!”
Cole threw up his hands in frustration. “God, Ginny, do you have to be so uptight? Sex is good. Sex is fun. Sex is—”
“No!”
She turned to head down the hall, but he caught her arm and turned her around. “Hold on, now,” he said gently, knowing he was on the verge of making yet another tactical error. “Just listen to me for a minute, will you?”
He lowered his voice, softening it around the edges, which was a tough thing to do considering his current frustration level. But he reminded himself of just how ineffective a strong come-on had been in Vegas, and he had no desire to repeat that experience. He had to remember how young and innocent she really was.
“Now, sweetheart,” he began, “I know you may not understand this because you’ve never had a relationship before, but men…well, men are a little different from women. They have certain…needs.”
She swallowed hard but met his gaze evenly. “If that’s true, then I suppose you’ll be wanting to go somewhere else to fulfill those needs.”
Cole blinked. “What?”
“I can’t stop you, Cole. But if you decide to be with another woman, please do me a favor and be discreet.”
He stood there, stunned. He’d assumed it was just a fragile wall that separated them, one he could knock down with a flick of his fingers. Instead it was an impenetrable fortress he wasn’t even going to be able to blast his way through. This was not just a matter of getting her to loosen up a little. She truly didn’t want him. She was legally and morally free to have him, and still she didn’t want him. And she was making it quite clear that she never would.
The blow to his pride was greater than he ever would have imagined. This little waif of a woman who should have been so easy to seduce was turning him away. For the next six months, he was going to be sharing a house with a woman he couldn’t lay a finger on.
Then he told himself it didn’t matter, that he should be keeping his eyes on the prize. In six months, when he sold this ranch and got back on top again, women would be standing in line to jump into his bed. Beautiful women. Stunning women.
Willing women.
Then again, six months was a long time. He was a man who was used to making things happen quickly, so it sounded like forever. Could he really wait that long?
Did he have to wait that long?
“You know what, sweetheart?” he said. “That’s not such a bad idea. Thanks for the suggestion. And of course I’ll be discreet,” he added, with a touch of sarcasm. “I’ve got a twelve-hundred-acre ranch riding on it.”
He strode into the kitchen, yanked on his boots, grabbed his car keys and stormed out of the house.
WHAT A HELL of a way to spend an evening.
Cole had stalked out of the house with every intention of grabbing the first woman he came into contact with and satisfying that need he’d talked so big about, but by the time he reached the city limits of Coldwater, his foot wasn’t quite so heavy on the gas pedal, and his enthusiasm was starting to wane at the prospect of woman hunting. He drove through town, then turned onto the state highway and kept moving down the road, and before he knew it, he’d reached the city limits of Tyler.
Damn. What was he going to do now?
He could go home.
No. Then he’d be admitting to Ginny that he’d rather be home having her turn a cold shoulder to him than be out on the town living it up.
He spotted a movie theater and pulled into the parking lot. He went into the lobby, where he bought a ticket to the next movie playing. A couple of fairly attractive women were giving him suggestive looks, and with Tyler being a reasonably large town, he could have slipped away for a few hours with one of them and nobody would have been the wiser.
Nobody but him.
What was the matter with him, anyway? He wasn’t married to Ginny. Not really. So why was he acting like a man who was thinking of cheating on his wife?
Because she looked at you like that. Like you were betraying her.
He sat through the movie—some dumb action-adventure thing with lots of cussing and gunfire and explosions—but he found the more he tried to concentrate on it, the more he thought about Ginny. He thought about what had happened at the bank today. And he thought about her thanking him for it. And by the time the movie was over and the credits were rolling, he was thinking, She’s right. You really are a jerk.
When he’d gone over to that bank this morning, he’d told himself that his intent was to settle an old score with the people of Coldwater, to make them eat some of their hateful gossip for a switch, but that was only part of it. Mostly he’d gone over there because he didn’t want to leave Ginny out in the cold to bear the brunt of it all by herself. Yet when she thanked him for it, what had he done?
He’d acted like a jerk.
It was after ten o’clock by the time he pulled onto the ranch and drove down the road to the foreman’s house. It was dark, which, thankfully, meant Ginny was asleep, so he wouldn’t have to face her tonight. He got out of his car and came through the kitchen door. As he shut it behind him, he heard a voice in the darkness.
“Cole?”
He flinched at the sudden sound, then flipped on the kitchen light and glanced into the living room.
“Ginny? Why aren’t you in bed?”
She rose up on one elbow. “I told you I’d sleep on the sofa.”
If he hadn’t already felt like the jerk she’d said he was, he certainly did now. He’d stormed out of here like some kind of an idiot, threatening to go find a woman who would put out because Ginny wouldn’t, and here she was sleeping on that bag of bricks because she didn’t want him to be uncomfortable.
She sat up, her hair sleep-mussed, and he saw she was wearing one of those all-encompassing nightgowns she seemed so fond of. He came into the living room, but as he drew closer, she leaned away, pulling the blanket over her breasts.
Cole sighed with frustration. Never in his life had a woman reacted to him like this. Never. Then again, would she be so shy around him if only he’d kept his promise and kept his distance?
He sat down on the end of the sofa, resting his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together. “Do you know where I was tonight?”
“No,” she said quickly. “And I don’t want to know.”
“I went to a movie. I left here, drove to Tyler, saw a movie and came home.”
The silence was so complete he could hear the kitchen clock ticking. Glancing sideways, he saw that her eyes had grown wide and disbelieving, her face peeking over that blanket she’d pulled almost up to her chin.
“Was it…a good movie?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Wonderful.”
“Why didn’t you…?”
“Why didn’t I do what I said I was going to do? Hell, Ginny, I don’t know.” He stared at his hands, tapping his fingertips together, then turned to look at her. “Why did you suggest it in the first place?”
She shrugged. “You said you had…needs.”
He squeezed his eyes closed. “Do you think we can forget I ever said that?”
“Forget it?”
“Yeah. And maybe even forget about the rest of tonight, too. The part after dinner, anyway.”
She stared at him with a confused express
ion. He didn’t blame her.
“I suppose we could.”
He nodded. “Good. That’s good.”
They sat in silence for a long time. Cole tried to think of something else to say that might make this situation feel a little less awkward, but nothing came to him. Finally he stood up.
“I’m going to bed.”
She nodded.
He started toward the bedroom. Then he stopped and turned back, thinking it was time he righted another wrong.
“Just for the record,” he said, “I think it’s downright ridiculous for either of us to have to sleep on that nightmare of a sofa when we can share a halfway comfortable bed.”
“Cole—”
He held up his palm. “It’s not what you think. I swear I won’t touch you, Ginny. I know now that you’re serious about that, and I’ll keep my promise.”
Her eyes widened with that look of wariness he was coming to know so well—the one he really wished he could make disappear.
“See, I’m kind of hoping that when I go into that bedroom right now, you’ll come with me, but if you don’t believe I’ll keep my word, it’s okay. You can stay out here.”
Ginny huddled under the blanket, wanting desperately to trust him. She couldn’t believe he’d gone to a movie. Cole McCallum, who collected women like other people collected coins or stamps, went to a movie.
The question was, why? When she’d practically given him an engraved invitation to go find another woman, he’d chosen not to.
Still, no matter how sincere he sounded, she couldn’t make herself get up from the sofa. Seconds ticked by. Finally he sighed with resignation.
“Good night, Ginny.”
She watched Cole disappear into the hall, his boots clunking against the hardwood floor. Once he was gone, the silence seemed to scream at her, echoing the frustration she felt.
Just when she thought maybe she had Cole figured out, he did something that shook everything up all over again. He seemed so impossibly complicated she didn’t think she’d ever understand him. One thing she did know, though, was that when he’d asked her to join him in bed and she’d refused, he’d actually looked disappointed. Not disappointed that she wasn’t going to be sharing his bed in a husband-wife sense, but disappointed that he’d offered her something in friendship and she’d turned it down.
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