Fire and Rain

by Elizabeth Lowell

  By the time Carla filled a huge pot with water and lugged it to the stove, she finally understood why men rather than women chose careers as chefs; you had to be a weight lifter to handle the kitchen equipment. She turned the fire on high and mopped up the floor where she had spilled water on the way to the stove. The places she left behind were relatively clean, making the rest of the floor look much worse by comparison.

  For a moment Carla was tempted to slop a little tomato sauce on the sort-of-clean spots to even things up, thereby delaying the hour of reckoning when she had to clean the floor. She loved to cook but hated housework. She knew her own weakness so well that she worked twice as hard at cleaning, making up for her own dislike of the job.

  But it would look really nice with a few dollops of tomato sauce. Nobody would even notice.

  Carla managed to avoid the temptation only because she remembered the green beans, which should have been on the stove ten minutes ago. Another trip to the pantry yielded a gallon can of green beans. While they heated, she sliced bacon, fried it and sliced more onions to sauté in the bacon fat. From time to time she checked the spaghetti water.

  "I know a watched pot never boils, but this is ridiculous," she said beneath her breath, lifting the lid and testing the water with her fingertip.

  Dead cold.

  From the barn, corral and bunkhouse came the sounds of men wrapping up tasks in preparation for dinner. Two pickups came in from opposite directions, pulling horse trailers behind. Four men got out and stretched, tired and hungry from a long day of checking cattle on land leased from the federal government. The horses being unloaded from trailers neighed to the horses that were already rubbed down and had begun to tear great mouthfuls of hay from the corral feeding rack.

  The men would be just as hungry.

  Anxiously Carla listened as the bunkhouse door slammed repeatedly, telling her that the men were going in to wash up for dinner. Laughter and catcalls greeted a cowboy whose jeans showed clear signs of his having landed butt-first in the mud. He gave back as good as he got, reminding the other men of the time one of them had slipped in a fresh cow flop and another had been bucked off into a corral trough.

  Carla couldn't help smiling as bits of conversation drifted through the open window. For the first time she realized that she hadn't heard a human voice since Luke had vanished into the barn. The thought went as quickly as it had come, pushed aside by the fact that the spaghetti water was barely lukewarm. At this rate dinner would be at least half an hour late and Luke would be thinking he had gotten the bad end of the bet.

  Hurriedly Carla tasted the tomato sauce, added more garlic and checked the spaghetti water again. Nothing doing. The outside door into the dining room squeaked open and then closed. The room, which adjoined the kitchen, was more like a mess hall than a formal dining room. There were two long tables, each of which could seat ten comfortably and fourteen in a pinch, twenty chairs, a wall of floor-to-ceiling cupboards and not much else.

  It occurred to Carla that the tables were bare of plates, cups, utensils and napkins, not to mention salt, pepper, ketchup, steak sauce, sugar and all the other condiments beloved by ranch hands. Groaning at her forgetfulness, she dumped the half-cooked onions and bacon into the pot of green beans and frantically began opening cupboards, searching for plates. She was so busy that she didn't hear the door between the kitchen and dining room open.

  "Smells good in here. What's for supper?"

  "Spaghetti," Carla said without turning toward the male voice.

  "Smells more like cherry pie."

  "Ohmygod, dessert."

  She raced past the man who had walked into the kitchen. A fast look in the oven assured her that the cobbler had survived her neglect. All she had to do was maneuver the big pan out of the oven to let the cobbler cool. The kitchen towel wouldn't stretch to do the job of handling the pan.

  "Pot holders," she muttered, straightening from bending over the oven.

  "Looks like cobbler from here."

  The voice came from about a foot away from Carla's ear. Her head snapped around and she looked at the man for the first time.

  Long, lean and deceptively lazy-looking, Tennessee Blackthorn was watching Carla with an odd smile on his face.

  "Ten! Is it really you?" Carla asked, delighted. "The last time I heard, you had a phone call in the middle of the night, went into Cortez and never came back."

  "Never is a long time." Smoke-colored eyes swept appreciatively from Carla's oven-flushed checks to her ankles and back up. "Guess we can't call you niña anymore. You finally grew into those long legs and bedroom eyes."

  She laughed. "I love hungry men. They'll flatter the cook shamelessly in hopes of an early dinner. You're out of luck, though. The watched pot isn't boiling."

  "He's out of luck, period," Luke said from the back door, his voice cold.

  ~ 5 ~

  Carla didn't realize how much her expression changed when she turned toward Luke, but little escaped Ten's eyes. He measured the complex mixture of yearning and distance, hope and hunger in her look, and he knew that nothing had changed.

  "Still chasing moonlight over black water, aren't you?" he asked softly.

  If either Carla or Luke heard, neither answered. They were looking at each other as though it had been years, not hours, since their last meeting.

  "The pot holders are over there," Luke said in a clipped voice, gesturing toward a drawer near the stove, never looking away from Carla's vivid blue-green eyes.

  "Pot holders," Carla repeated, absorbed by the arching line of Luke's eyebrows, the clean curves of his mouth, the shadow of beard lying beneath his tanned skin.

  "Pot holders," repeated Luke.

  "Still smells and looks like cobbler to me," Ten said to no one in particular.

  "Don't you have something to do?" Luke asked pointedly, finally looking away from Carla.

  "Nope. But if you give me a cup of coffee I'll find something."

  Luke eyed the man who was both his friend and the ramrod of the Rocking M. Ten returned him stare for stare … and smiled. Luke barely controlled his anger. He knew he had no reason to be angry with Ten; of all the ranch hands, the ramrod would be the least likely to hustle Carla into bed. But hearing Ten talk about Carla's long legs and bedroom eyes had made Luke savagely angry. The fact that his anger was irrational, and he knew it, only made him more angry.

  "Coffee?" Carla asked, feeling a sinking in her stomach. "I forgot to make coffee!"

  "How the hell can you forget coffee?" Luke demanded, turning on Carla, glad to find a rational outlet for his anger. "Any ranch cook worth the powder to blow her straight to hell knows that the first thing you make in the morning is coffee and the last thing you clean at night is the coffeepot!"

  "Well," drawled Ten, "I guess that sure settles that. Carla isn't a ranch cook and we're going to starve to death opening cans with our pocketknives. Sure you wouldn't like to think it over, boss? Wouldn't want you to go off half-cocked and shoot yourself in the foot."

  Luke said something under his breath that made Carla wince. She turned away and began searching through cupboards with hands that shook. All she found was peanut butter, jelly and a jar of pickled jalapeño peppers. She grabbed the jar and shoved it into Luke's hand.

  "Here. Suck on one of those. It will cool you off."

  Ten's laughter filled the kitchen. Luke slammed the jar back onto the shelf and gave Carla a narrow-eyed look.

  "Listen, schoolgirl. This is the real world where men work hard and get hungry. I said dinner at six and I meant it. If you're too immature to get the job done I'll find a woman who can."

  Luke turned and left the kitchen before Carla could answer. Not that she had anything to say; she hadn't heard Luke so cold and cutting since the night three years ago when he had told her that she wasn't woman enough to love a man.

  "Hey," Ten said gently, "don't take the boss seriously. He's just upset about that black mare of his. She's going downhill fast an
d the vet can't figure out why."

  Carla made a neutral sound and kept on searching the cupboards. She found nothing useful. Part of the problem was that she was fighting against tears. The rest of the problem was that she wanted to throw things.

  "Is that big pot boiling yet?" she asked tightly.

  Ten lifted the lid. "Nope."

  "Close?"

  "Nope. I'll tell the men to take their time washing up."

  "Thanks."

  Carla finally found the pot holders, retrieved the cobbler and set it aside to cool. While looking for the pot holders she also found the coffeepot. Like everything else in the kitchen, the pot was oversize. It quite literally made gallons of coffee at a time. She filled everything, putting in twice the coffee any sane person would have wanted, and thumped the pot onto the stove to perk.

  By the time she lit the burner under the coffee, the spaghetti water was showing vague signs of life. With a heartfelt prayer she slammed the lid back in place and resumed searching the cupboards for plates.

  "What are you looking for?" Ten asked from the doorway.

  "Plates," Carla said despairingly, shutting another cupboard door with more force than necessary.

  "They're in the mess hall, along with knives, forks, spoons and all the rest."

  She flashed him a grateful smile. "Thanks."

  Ten shook his head as Carla rushed past him, all but running. "Slow down, niña. The men won't starve if they have to wait a bit for chow."

  "Tell Luke."

  "All right."

  Carla grabbed Ten's arm as he headed through the kitchen toward Luke's office at the other end of the house.

  "I was just kidding," she said quickly.

  "I wasn't." Ten looked down at Carla's unhappy face and shook his head. "You haven't been here two hours and already you look like somebody rode you hard and put you away wet. Have you tried telling Luke how you feel?"

  "The first day on a job is always tough."

  Ten made an impatient sound. "That's not what I meant. Have you told Luke that you're in love with him?"

  For an instant Carla felt as though the floor had dropped from beneath her feet. She tried to speak. No words came. Red flooded her face.

  "Hell, Carla. There isn't a man on this place who doesn't know it, except maybe Luke. Don't you think it's time you told him?" Ten sighed.

  Her lips trembled as she thought about a night three years ago. She licked her dry lips and said carefully. "He knows."

  Ten said something harsh beneath his breath, took off his hat and raked his fingers through his black hair. After a moment he sighed and said, "It's none of my business, but damn it, I hate seeing anything as gentle as you get hurt. Chasing something that doesn't want to be caught can be real painful."

  "That's not…" Carla's voice faded. "That's not why I'm here. I came to cure myself of loving … of my childish infatuation…" She swallowed twice and tried again, holding her voice steady with an effort. "I think Luke must have guessed why I'm here, so he's doing everything he can to help the process along."

  It was Ten's turn to be speechless. He shook his head and turned away, swearing softly. As an afterthought he added, "I'll set the table."

  "Thank you, Ten. I'll be more together tomorrow, I promise." Silently Carla added, I've got to be. I can't spend the summer holding my breath, feeling my heart beat like a wild bird in a net, listening, listening, listening for Luke's footsteps, his voice, his laughter.

  The rattle of the lid against the pot of spaghetti water jarred Carla from her unhappy reverie. The water was boiling energetically. She added salt and oil and began ripping apart packages of pasta. By the time the last package went in, the water was back to lying motionless in the pot. Anxiously she looked at the big kitchen clock. Six-twenty.

  At least the vegetable part of the meal was ready. It was only canned green beans, but the bacon and onion gave the limp beans a whiff of flavor. Carla would have felt better if she had had a few loaves of garlic bread to put out on the table as well, but there was no help for it. Pasta, meat sauce, green beans and cobbler were all that was available. And she didn't even have that. Not yet.

  Worst of all, the coffee water was barely warm.

  Stifling a groan, Carla rushed into the dining room and began helping Ten distribute cutlery around the tables, which had been pushed together to make a single large rectangle. The surface of the table itself dismayed her; it was no cleaner than the kitchen counters or walls. Whoever had wiped the table in the past had rearranged rather than removed the grease.

  "Wait," Carla said to Ten. "The table needs cleaning."

  "You start cleaning now and we won't eat until midnight."

  She bit her lip. Ten was right.

  "Where does Luke keep the tablecloths?" she asked.

  "The what?"

  She groaned, then had an inspiration. "Newspapers. Where does Luke keep the old newspapers?"

  "In the wood box in the living room."

  A few minutes later Carla ran back to the dining room carrying a three-inch stack of newspapers. Soon the big table was covered by old news and advertisements for cattle feed and quarter-horse stud service. By the time she and Ten had finished laying out silverware, the hands were beginning to mill hopefully in the yard beyond the dining room. One of the braver men – an old hand called Cosy – stuck his head in the back door. Before he could open his mouth, Ten started talking.

  "I said I'd call when chow was on." The ramrod's cold gray eyes measured Cosy. "You getting hard of hearing or are you just senile?"

  "No sir," Cosy said, backing out hastily. "I'm just fine. Planning on staying that way, too."

  Ten grunted. Cosy vanished. The door thumped shut behind him.

  "They must be starving," Carla said, looking as guilty as she felt.

  "Nope. They still remember the cookies you used to bake. When Luke told the men you'd be cooking for a few days, they started drooling."

  "Tell them to relax. I'll be here all summer, not just for a few days."

  Ten shrugged. "The last woman who stayed here more than three weeks was ugly as a rotten stump and drank to boot, but what really got her sent down the road was that she couldn't cook worth a fart in a windstorm."

  Carla fought not to smile. She failed.

  The left corner of Ten's mouth turned up. "Finally we took up a collection to buy her a bus ticket to Nome."

  "Alaska?" asked Carla.

  "Yeah. She got a job scaring grizzlies away from salmon nets."

  Feminine laughter bubbled up. Soon Ten was laughing, too. Neither one of them noticed the big man who had come to the kitchen through the living room and was now leaning against the corner counter, his thumbs hooked in his belt and his mouth a bleak downward curve. He glanced at the clock. Six-forty. He glanced at the stove. Everything looked hot and ready to go. Whiskey-colored eyes cut back to the laughing couple in the dining room.

  Just when Luke had opened his mouth to say something savage on the subject of cooks who couldn't get dinner ready on time, Carla grabbed Ten's wrist and looked at his watch.

  "The pasta should be done by now, if the hands don't mind it al dente."

  "What?"

  "Chewy," she said succinctly.

  "Hell, after a day on the range, we'll eat whatever we can get, any way we can get it, including raw."

  Carla grimaced. "Yuck. Pasta sticks to your teeth that way."

  Laughing, shaking his head, Ten leaned forward and tugged gently on a shining strand of Carla's hair. "I'm glad you're back. You bring sunlight with you."

  Almost shyly, Carla said, "Thanks, Ten. It's good to be back. I love this place."

  "The place or the owner?"

  The question was so soft that Carla could pretend not to have heard it at all. So she smiled at Ten and turned toward the kitchen without answering, not knowing how much her sad smile revealed of her thoughts. As soon as she was through the door she spotted Luke leaning against the counter, impatience and anger in ev
ery hard line of his body.

  "I was wondering when you'd remember that you were hired to cook, not to flirt with my ramrod."

  "I wasn't flir—"

  "Like hell you weren't," Luke said curtly, interrupting Carla. "Watch it, schoolgirl. Ten smiles and is handsome as sin, but that soft-drawling SOB has broken more hearts than any twelve men I know. He's not the marrying kind, but he's plenty human. If you throw yourself at him hard enough, he might just reach out and grab what's being offered. And we both know how good you are at throwing yourself."

  Carla went pale and turned away.

  Luke swore harshly beneath his breath, furious with her and Ten and himself and everything else that came to mind. He watched with narrowed, glittering eyes while Carla grabbed two pot holders and went to the kitchen range. By the time he realized that she was reaching for the wildly boiling kettle of spaghetti and water, it was too late. She was already struggling with the huge kettle, her whole body straining as she lifted at arm's length the weight of five gallons of water and ten pounds of pasta.

  Just as Carla realized that she couldn't handle the kettle – and hadn't the strength to lower it without splashing boiling water down her front – Luke's arms shot around her body. He covered her hands with his own and lifted, taking the weight of the kettle from her quivering arms. Together they gently set the heavy pot on the back burner once more. For a few moments neither one moved, shaken by the realization of how close Carla had come to a painful accident.

  Luke bent his head, brushing his cheek so lightly against Carla's hair that she couldn't feel it. When he took a breath he smelled flowers. The scent was dizzying, for it carried with it a promise of womanly warmth, a promise that was repeated in Carla's curving hips pressed against his body. She was trembling, breathing with soft, tearing sounds.

  Desire turned like an unsheathed knife in Luke's guts, hardening him with shocking speed. He lifted his hands and stepped back as though he had been burned. And he had, but by something hotter than boiling water.

  "My God, schoolgirl!" Luke exploded. "Don't you know better than to try to lift five gallons of boiling water off the back of this stove?"