by Mindy Neff
Jack saw Sunny’s eyes cut toward the terrarium, where the garter snake slept in a small rock cave. “Um, I haven’t really had to deal with snakes on the job. When I was in school and worked at an animal clinic, I usually let one of the other doctors handle the snakes.”
“But what if Gordie got sick and there was nobody else to take care of him?”
“Gordie is your snake?”
“Yes.”
“Well, let’s hope he doesn’t get sick. Snakes are pretty hardy, anyway.”
“But what if he did? Would you be scared of him?”
“Honestly? Yes, I’d be afraid of him. But I’d find a way to help him.”
Tori nodded and turned her attention to Simba, who was quivering with ecstasy.
Jack liked Sunny’s honesty, and the fact that she didn’t talk down to his daughter.
“I’m going to put Sunny’s things in the guest room, then we’ll be out working with the cattle,” he told the child. “If you need me…”
“I know, Daddy. I’ll call the barn.” She sounded so perfectly agreeable, rather than put out the way most kids her age would be when faced with an over-protective parent. Jack sighed. He wished he knew what had happened to his daughter’s sparkle, couldn’t help but wonder if he was doing something wrong.
“Can Simba stay in my room and play?”
“Sure, if he wants to.”
“Cora said we could make cookies in a while if Beau will get out of the kitchen,” Tori said. “Simba can help.”
Jack laughed. “I imagine Beau will want to supervise. Be sure to save me a cookie, okay?”
He automatically put his hand out to escort Sunny farther down the hall, his palm connecting with the small of her back. Her skin was warm through the cotton T-shirt, and he felt the heat shoot straight up his arm.
Hell, if he reacted to an innocent touch, how was he going to survive seeing her walk his halls in her pajamas?
Annoyed with himself, he went into the yellow room and set the suitcase on the bed. “This used to be my brother Linc’s room. Cora had a hand in re-decorating it. She said yellow was a good color for a guest room.”
“Where is Linc now?”
“Breeding horses over in Dallas.”
“Do you keep in touch?”
“Couple of times a year. He likes being an uncle to Tori.” Jack watched as Sunny wandered around the room, running her hand over the daisy-patterned quilt on the queensize, iron-rail bed.
“This is beautiful.”
“My mom quilted it.”
Sunny touched a gold-framed photograph of his mother that sat on the nightstand, then stooped to smell the fresh roses in a cobalt-blue vase. “She was a great woman. I always envied her green thumb. She had the most beautiful garden.”
The mention of his mother brought a wave of sadness to Jack. Doris Slade had been a saint in his eyes. And he still missed her, still held his father responsible for her death. “Yeah, she was great.”
“Did these come from your mom’s garden?” Her fingers caressed a delicate yellow rose petal.
“Yes.”
“I noticed it’s still flourishing. Who keeps it up?”
“I do.”
She looked at him as though he’d told her the sky was green.
“Is that so hard to believe?”
She shrugged. “You just don’t seem the type to fuss with flowers.”
“My masculinity’s healthy enough.”
Sunny’s hand jerked, nearly knocking over the vase. She glanced at him and found she couldn’t hold his gaze. Yes, his masculinity was definitely healthy. Too healthy, if her pounding heart and sweaty palms were any indication. It was as though he was taunting her, seeing if she’d react.
She swallowed hard when he moved across the room, coming straight for her. He was so close she could see the shadow of stubble on his cheeks and chin, the vein that pulsed at his temple, the tiny scar near his eyebrow where the branch of a tree had caught him when they’d been out horseback riding the summer she’d graduated from high school.
She looked up into his pale blue eyes, eyes that stood out against the deep walnut of his brows and hair. Time seemed to stand still. She felt as though she was caught in a storm and chaos swirled around her, yet here, right in the center of the tempest, was an eerie calm, a surreal cocoon of sensuality.
His lips were so close. His gaze rested on her hair, her eyes, her mouth. Unconsciously, she leaned forward, pulled against her will as if by a gravitational tug. So many years had gone by since she’d felt his mouth on hers, given herself over to this man, his strong arms, his skillful touch.
Yet the kiss she’d expected never came. He reached past her and flicked a switch on the wall.
Sunny blinked.
“The light plug,” he said. “Now when you hit the switch by the door, the lamp will come on. You won’t have to stumble in the dark.”
He stepped back and she let out a breath. She felt like a fool. A raging mass of hormones. What in the world was she thinking?
“Thank you. I probably would have figured that out.” She skirted around him, opened her suitcase and took out a baseball hat. “We’d better get started. I’ve got supplies in my Suburban.”
“Sunny—”
She held up a hand, annoyed because she knew her disappointment and yearning had been written all over her face. “Look, Jack. Let’s stick to business, okay? We’ve got a big job to do, and time’s important.”
“You wanted me to kiss you just now.”
She looked straight at him, didn’t bother to deny what was obvious. Using a variation of Jack’s earlier words, she said, “My femininity’s healthy enough. Let’s leave it at that, okay?”
Chapter Seven
Jack grabbed the hose and ran water over his head and neck. He was hot and dusty. After that odd moment earlier in the bedroom, he and Sunny had been wary of each other, but duty soon took precedence.
She’d worked like a demon right beside him all afternoon, shoving annoyed cattle into makeshift chutes, sitting on calves to draw blood samples and inject vaccinations. They’d both earned a break.
Letting the water hose run in the trough, he glanced over at Sunny. She’d wiped her forehead with her arm, leaving behind a smear of dirt. Her curly hair, once shoved beneath a baseball cap, had long ago escaped, and cascaded around the shoulders of her long-sleeved, green cotton shirt. The seat and knees of her jeans were covered with dirt.
And damned if she didn’t look good enough to pose for a layout in a ranch magazine.
“Want a splash?” he asked, holding the water aloft.
She gave him a mock glare and peeled off her suede gloves. “I found out yesterday I’m a little dangerous with water hoses.”
He grinned, remembering her wet shirtfront at the salon. “I’ll hold it for you.”
“As if I’d trust you not to make me look like a contestant in a wet T-shirt contest.”
That he’d want to see. He took a bandanna from around his neck and doused it with water, then shut off the hose and went over to her.
“Ye of little trust. You’ve got a smear of brown on your face. I’d hate to speculate on what it is.” He touched the wet cloth to her cheek, watched her eyes widen in surprise, then close in utter appreciation.
The exquisite expression nearly made him groan. He paused for a moment and her eyes popped open.
“Feel good?” He had to clear his throat to speak.
She seemed to realize the intimacy of the act and sidestepped, taking the bandanna from his hand. “Thanks, I—I’ll get it from here.”
Finding himself more drawn to her than he’d like, Jack looked out over the ranch. The men had done a good job moving the herd and setting up temporary corrals, but they had a long way to go. This wasn’t going to be a one-day operation.
Sunny had been thorough, as well, which had slowed the process. She’d visually inspected each cow, drawn blood, and together they’d worked out a system of collecting s
amples and cross-referencing with a special tag on each animal’s ear.
“When will your friend have the lab results from what you gathered yesterday?”
“I told Marty to put a rush on it. Should be a day or two. It’ll require a bit more time for these new samples, though, because of the volume.”
And until then, he couldn’t sell his beef.
Even if they didn’t get a firm diagnosis on the dead cow, Jack couldn’t chance having a single one of his cattle carrying disease. The economic repercussions were too risky, involved too many sectors.
Sunny handed him back his bandanna and he looped the damp scarf around his neck, which helped to cool him off. The humidity was worse today. From the look of the sky, they were due for a storm. Rain would turn this pasture into one hell of a mud puddle.
“The guys have been slowly parking the herd closer to the ranch. I think tomorrow we’ll run them through the chute shed.”
She glanced at the sky. “Probably be a good idea. I’ll be glad for the rain to cool things off, but I’m not crazy about rolling around in muck. Cows in mud are just as slippery as pigs.”
Jack leaned a hip against the trough. “You wrestled many slippery pigs?”
“You ought to remember. I beat your time by forty-five seconds at the Founder’s Day competition. Remember?”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “I remember.” And he remembered showering with her afterward, taking his time with the soap as he washed every bit of mud off of her.
Not two weeks later, she’d left town without a backward glance—without giving him a chance to offer an explanation for the damning scene she’d walked in on between Lanette and him.
He straightened away from the trough, annoyed with himself for inadvertently bringing up the past, for allowing the memories to surface. Other than his mother, Sunny had been the only woman he’d ever truly given his heart to—and she’d tossed it back without ever saying goodbye.
“I think we can call it a day. Beau and Cora will have supper ready pretty soon.”
SUNNY NODDED AND FELL in beside him as he headed for the house. Keeping up with Jack’s moods was hard. One minute he’d tease and the next he’d turn into a silent bear.
And darn it all, his stride was hard to keep up with as well. He was practically running, as though his tolerance for civil behavior was at an end.
After a day of strong-arming cows, Sunny wasn’t up for a foot race.
Perhaps reminding him of the pig wrestling hadn’t been such a good idea. “Would you slow down? I know I smell, but you’re not exactly a sweet rose yourself.”
He glared at her, but did slow his steps. She could see a muscle working in his jaw, the coiled strength in his arms. As a teen, he’d been known to brood—a modern-day James Dean, the bad boy with a chip on his shoulder. But with her, he’d learned to laugh, to lighten up.
She didn’t like it when he went all lockjawed like this.
“It’s going to be a long two weeks if we keep this up,” she said.
“Keep what up?”
“This seesaw relationship. Why don’t we just get what’s between us out in the open and quit tiptoeing around? We had a past together—”
“Have. We have a past.”
“Whatever. It’s over. But memories are bound to crop up. Let’s try to be friends so we can get through the examination of your cattle and prevent whatever happened to those two cows from happening to the rest of the herd.”
“Do you believe that’s possible? For us to be friends?”
“Anything’s possible if you set your mind to it.”
He stopped then and wrapped his hands around her upper arms. It was the first time he’d deliberately touched her since she’d come back. Her nerves skittered, and her breath stalled.
“When I look at you, I’m not thinking about friendship.”
Oh, man. Her heart was pounding in earnest now. A smart woman would run. Evidently, her brain cells had fried in the sun, because she whispered, “What do you think about?”
He stepped behind a shed, nearly sweeping her off her feet as he dragged her with him. “That there’s something else we ought to get out of the way.”
When his lips came down on hers, her first instinct was to struggle. But emotions surfaced quickly, the past superseding the present. For a moment, she was transported back ten years. She knew this man’s touch, his kiss. Knew the strength of his hands and how quickly the fire in him could ignite—sending her up in flames, as well.
He tasted of salt, cool water and masculinity. The brim of his hat grazed her cheek as he pushed his fingers through her hair to angle the kiss deeper, knocking off her baseball cap.
The feel of the cap slipping brought her to her senses.
She tugged back, breathing hard. “Whoa. That’s not part of the rules.”
His chest was rising and falling as fast as hers, yet his voice was utterly controlled. “I wasn’t aware there were rules.”
“There are always rules.”
“I’m a man who likes to break rules, sugar bear. You ought to know that.”
Yes, she did, and hearing him say the words sent a thrill through her that was entirely inappropriate.
Still, he wasn’t the only sinner standing out here in the heat. She herself had broken a few rules by going to Houston to get supplies for this cattle diagnosis.
She’d also just broken a major one by letting Jackson Slade kiss her.
“In our case, I think it would be wise to, um, not break them. Anymore. For the time being.” Now she was babbling….
She took a breath. “I’m only here for a short while, Jack. Let’s not complicate things.”
He watched her for a long time, his hands clenched at his sides. “Sugar bear, your mere presence complicates things.”
With that, he turned and strode toward the house, yanked open the back door and let it slam behind him. Hopefully, Beau wasn’t fixing a soufflé for supper.
For a moment, Sunny stood in the fading sunlight, wondering if she should just head for her car and go back to her mother’s.
Being in close quarters with Jack definitely complicated matters.
But the clock was ticking. She had less than three weeks of vacation left. After that, she’d either have to return to California or file an official report so she could stay here legitimately, make this official business.
But that wouldn’t work, either. She just remembered that three weeks from now she’d be at a veterinarians’ convention in Washington, D.C., teaching a seminar on diagnostic procedures.
You’re the only one we can trust, Sunny Leigh.
Her mother’s words came back to her. It was important to prove herself, not let down her mother or this town.
Or Jack.
Sunny sighed and started for the back door. If she didn’t turn up answers in the next couple of weeks, the Forked S was going to be scrutinized by the Department of Agriculture. And in all likelihood, they would send George Lansing to assist.
Sunny and George didn’t get along. He was one of those slick, charming men who hated women. Especially women in power. She knew he wanted her job. If he found out she’d been conducting the investigation on her own, had used government equipment when she was technically on vacation, he’d make a mess of trouble for her.
He was also just cocky enough to quarantine the entire town and every ranch within a hundred-mile radius. She’d seen that sort of thing happen before, knew what it could do to the local economy. No one was allowed in, not even to drive through.
Extreme measures like that caused people to panic—and the media to swarm. Hope Valley would be stigmatized forever.
She needed to be here at Jack’s ranch, where she was on hand to check anything that cropped up. She’d just have to make a better effort to keep distance between them, to watch her words and stick to business. No more trips down memory lane over pig wrestling. And no more fiery kisses.
SUNNY WANTED NOTHING MORE than to relax in a hot
bath. Her body ached in places she hadn’t known it could. Usually, she didn’t get quite as physically involved in chasing down cattle as she had today. But Jack’s crew was limited, since several of the men were still out rounding up the herd and sectioning off the stock she’d already checked and tagged.
She lowered herself into the tubful of silky bubbles and eased back against the porcelain rim. That kiss by the shed hadn’t help matters, either. Her nerves were strung so tight she felt like a rubber band about to snap.
Pleading exhaustion, she’d skipped dinner with Jack and Tori and the ranch hands. Beau hadn’t been pleased, but he’d been a good sport and shooed her upstairs after thrusting a roast-beef sandwich and a glass of tea into her hands.
Simba was thoroughly enamored with Tori, and Sunny felt a tad abandoned by her pet. But the sweet smile on the little girl’s face was worth loaning out her dog for a while. Tori was determined that Simba and Twinkie become friends. Simba was all for the relationship; Twinkie, however, was still tentative.
The spicy scent of the bath gel lulled her. Just when she was almost totally relaxed, someone knocked on the bathroom door.
Adrenaline shot through her. Her heart slammed against her ribs. “Um…I’m in the tub.”
She heard a mumble: Jack’s voice. She couldn’t make out his words. She glanced at the bubbles. They covered her. Not that it made any difference, since the door was closed.
“What? I can’t hear what you’re saying.”
The door opened slowly and she forgot to breathe. Used to living on her own most of the time, she rarely locked bathroom doors. Still, she wasn’t accustomed to having her privacy breached. She snatched up a towel and covered herself. It immediately absorbed water and clung to her curves like a terry-cloth body mold.
Jack moved just far enough into the bathroom to talk to her, keeping his gaze focused on the mirror instead of her. She could see his reflection, and knew he could see hers. At one time, he’d seen all of her there was to see. But that had been a long time ago.
“For heaven’s sa—”
“I just got a call from the barn. One of my mares is about to foal.”
Sunny automatically sat up, sloshing water, forgetting about modesty. She held the wet towel to her front, but her back was exposed. “Is it a problem birth?”