“Too good.” She wanted to kiss him again. From the warm glow in his eyes, he wanted that, too. Summoning all her strength, she stood and backed away from the chair. “You’d better finish feeding her.”
His gaze traveled over her nightgown, lingering where her aroused nipples pushed against the flannel. Finally he looked up into her eyes. “We’ve always been able to talk to each other, Matty. We should be able to talk about this.”
She didn’t want to talk. She wanted to make love to him, as unwise as that might be. But he wasn’t suggesting that. He was suggesting conversation.
“I can talk better with my clothes on,” she said.
“Let me hook her up with the bottle before you leave, just so I know she’s not going to start choking again.” His movements were tentative, but he managed to position Elizabeth approximately the way she’d been lying before. Picking up the bottle, he offered it to the baby. She took the nipple eagerly, patting the bottle with both hands as she stared up at Sebastian.
Matty’s heart wrenched at the touching picture they made—Sebastian with his beard-shadowed jaw and Elizabeth with her baby-smooth skin. Touching and ultimately frustrating. He was everything Matty had ever wanted. And that sweet-faced baby in his arms might be the one thing that would keep her from having her chance with him.
OPPORTUNITIES to talk about that all-important kiss were in short supply, Sebastian realized later. By the time he finished giving Elizabeth her bottle Matty was dressed, had let the dogs out for a run and had coffee brewing. She’d also fixed her hair into a single golden braid, and he suspected she’d done it on purpose, as if taming her hair would tame her impulses.
While he grabbed a quick shave and shower, Matty changed the baby. He dressed quickly and found them both in the kitchen, Elizabeth perched in her infant seat on the kitchen counter and Matty hauling out a frying pan, eggs and bacon. The picture made his heart squeeze. He hadn’t realized how much he’d longed for a family scene like this one. Unfortunately it was an illusion.
And because it was, he couldn’t impose on Matty to cook for him. “Let me do that.” He moved to take the frying pan from her hand.
She lifted it out of reach. “You need to go feed your animals.” Setting the pan on the stove, she turned around and poured coffee into a mug. “Take some coffee with you. I know how you get without caffeine.” She held the mug toward him. “I’ll fix breakfast while you’re out in the barn.”
The coffee smelled terrific and he took it with gratitude. He lifted the mug in salute. “Thanks.” He took a swallow and sighed with satisfaction. “Good coffee.”
“Glad you like it.” With a faint smile she turned back to the stove and opened the package of bacon.
He liked more than the coffee. He liked the way her jeans fit smoothly over her butt. Tough to believe he’d never taken the time to admire that before. “Really,” he said. “Don’t worry about fixing breakfast. I’ll do it when I get back in.” He was used to Barbara, a reluctant riser who had left the coffee and breakfast preparations to him.
She continued laying slices of bacon in the pan. “And what am I supposed to do in the meantime, twiddle my thumbs?”
Barbara would never have asked a question like that, he thought. She had always jumped at the chance to dodge a chore. “Just relax. Read a book or something.”
“You mean the baby book Jessica sent?”
“No, I meant the one I brought over here last night.” Then he remembered the hot scene where her bookmark had been, which reminded him of their kiss, and he wanted to forget about coffee, forget about feeding his animals, forget about breakfast.
“I’m not on vacation, Sebastian.” She finished arranging the slices and wiped her hands on a paper towel. “Besides, we need to get going. After we take care of things at my place, I think we should make a run into town and look for a changing table and maybe a crib.”
He didn’t want to go to town. Outside the kitchen window he could see a storm threatening. Gray clouds hung over the mountains and the wind was kicking up. He wanted to light the fire and cuddle with Matty, which was, of course, the last thing he should be considering.
From her infant seat, Elizabeth made a gurgling noise, drawing his attention. She seemed to be looking at him. She jammed her hand in her mouth, pulled it out again, and gurgled again.
The nose, he thought. That could definitely be a Daniels’ nose on that baby. “She seems happy,” he said.
Matty turned the burner on low under the bacon and glanced over at Elizabeth. “I think she’s doing okay.”
He took a sip of his coffee. “Do you suppose she misses Jessica?”
“Probably. At least she’s young and adaptable.”
His gut clenched. “You say that as if she’ll never see her mother again. Jessica will be back in a few days.”
The bacon began to sizzle in the pan and Matty turned it with a fork. “Then why did she leave instructions on what immunizations she should have at four months?”
“What?”
Matty glanced at him. “I skimmed through the whole set of instructions while you were in the shower. At the end is the immunization schedule. It goes up through fifteen months.”
FIFTEEN MONTHS. Sebastian thought about that as he doled out hay and made sure the watering troughs in each stall were working. Fleafarm led Sadie through the barn as if giving a tour. His dog loved company, Sebastian thought. He should have kept one of her pups, but Barbara had been dead set against it.
Sebastian was only now beginning to realize how rigid and demanding Barbara had been, and that most women didn’t behave that way. His mother was a lot like Barbara, so he’d been programmed to accept that kind of behavior. But after having Matty in the house less than twenty-four hours, he could appreciate the benefits of having a willing partner.
A willing partner. Now there was a phrase with a sexy ring to it. Of course, he did seem to have sex on the brain at the moment. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this frustrated and confused about life in general.
Good thing he had this chance to work in the barn. The scent of horsehide and saddle leather and the presence of his animals always calmed him in times of stress. And that kiss, paired up with the recently unearthed immunization schedule for Elizabeth had provided a fair amount of stress.
Well, this little caper wouldn’t go on for fifteen months, and that was all there was to it. He wasn’t about to wait that long to find out whether he was the father of the little munchkin making goo-goo eyes in his kitchen.
Because if he wasn’t Elizabeth’s father, then maybe, just maybe, he would consider exploring this crazy new thing with Matty. Discovering his attraction to her after all these years had knocked him off his pins, and he still wasn’t sure what to do about it. He thought she might be interested in him, too. That kiss had aroused her, at least.
Still, she’d talked a lot about how he’d been carried away by the circumstances they found themselves in. He didn’t think that was true for him, but maybe she was trying to tell him she had been carried away. She wouldn’t want them to louse up their neighborly cooperation any more than he would. A love affair had the potential to do that.
It also had the potential to transform their lives into something spectacular.
It could go either way, and he’d question the wisdom of courting Matty even if the baby hadn’t shown up. The baby, however, made courting Matty the dumbest idea in the world. Of course, if it hadn’t been for the baby he might never have seen Matty in a different light. Literally.
He finished up in the barn, whistled for the dogs and started back up toward the house. He’d always been proud of the log house with its stone fireplace, relaxed design and generously-sized windows.
Those windows gave him a million-dollar view of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and he’d framed the view by planting aspens on either side of the front porch. The branches were bare now, but soon after his birthday they’d be bursting with tender green leaves. He loved spri
ngtime.
Returning to the house he’d built used to give him great pleasure when his marriage was new and all things seemed possible. The pleasure had eluded him in the past few years, but he felt its tug again this morning, and he didn’t have to look very hard for the reason. Matty was inside, waiting for him.
As the dogs pranced around him, the wind pulling at his hat smelled like rain, or maybe even snow. He wondered if it was a good idea to take a little baby out in that kind of weather. Yet going into town would be a distraction and give them some distance from that kiss.
They should probably do it. If the storm hit later today then the roads would get bad, and they might not have another chance this week to get the baby furniture. Not that he wanted baby furniture. It made the whole setup look way too permanent. He wouldn’t even mind that so much, if he just knew whether or not he was Elizabeth’s daddy.
He was not a man who enjoyed uncertainty.
8
FROM THE KITCHEN WINDOW Matty had a view of the path down to the barn, and when she saw Sebastian close the barn door and start toward the house, she cracked the eggs into the pan. Bacon and hash browns were staying warm in the oven and bread perched in the toaster.
She’d spent plenty of time in this kitchen when Barbara was still around, so she knew where everything was kept. Barbara had barely tolerated having to cook and had been eager for Matty’s help whenever Matty and Butch had come over for dinner.
Matty didn’t consider herself particularly domestic, either. She always preferred to be outside working with her animals than inside fussing over a stove or a mop bucket. But household help didn’t come cheap, so she did the work and found no value in complaining about it.
Even so, this was more effort than she’d put into a meal in years. And the reason was striding up the hillside toward her, head bowed against the wind, the collar of his sheepskin coat turned up to block out the chill.
She took this opportunity when he wouldn’t catch her to admire his awesome physique—strong legs that could grip a bucking horse or lead his partner through a country waltz, powerful arms that could lift an orphaned calf onto his saddle or comfort a grief-stricken young widow. Just looking at him elevated her blood pressure.
He liked his eggs over easy. Not crinkled and hard around the edges, although he’d eat them that way, and not hard-cooked, although he’d eat them that way, too. Sebastian never complained about the food someone served him, but Matty happened to know his preference was over easy and moist in the middle. She wondered if he liked his women that way. If so, she’d fit the bill.
The trick to over-easy eggs was keeping the temperature low. She slid the spatula under the eggs to make sure they weren’t sticking to the bottom of the cast-iron skillet. So far, so good.
From her infant seat propped on the counter, Elizabeth began to fuss.
“Not now, baby,” Matty crooned, watching the egg whites slowly grow opaque. Patience was everything when you were going for over easy.
Elizabeth started to cry.
Matty glanced at the baby, but couldn’t see anything wrong with her. Shoot. If she left the eggs they’d be ruined. She scoured her memory, trying to remember what her sister used to do to distract a crying kid.
Pris used to sing to her babies, nice little lullabies or perky tunes about cats and rabbits. Matty couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, although she obviously had to do something. And she didn’t know any kiddy songs, either. But she knew Alan Jackson’s Chattahoochee.
So she started singing to Elizabeth about muddy water and beer cans in the moonlight. Elizabeth kept on crying, so Matty got louder as she popped the lever down on the toaster.
When louder didn’t seem to cut it, Matty started to dance. Spatula in hand, she wiggled, kicked and stomped, flipping the eggs when the time was absolutely, perfectly right. If she had anything to say about it, these eggs were going to be primo.
When Elizabeth stopped crying, Matty looked over and saw the baby watching her with round eyes. She grinned and added a couple of flourishes. She’d loved line dancing to this tune back in the days when she did such things, a million years ago.
Because the dance steps were grooved into her memory, she didn’t have to concentrate on them and could focus on the eggs. There. Exactly right. She flipped the over-easy eggs onto a plate, stomping her feet in time to her singing. A moist-cooked egg had shimmy to it. These two babies shimmied beautifully.
With a cocky little grapevine step she sashayed over to the oven and swung her bottom in time to the rhythm while she dished bacon and hash browns around the outstanding eggs.
When the plate was loaded, she spun in time to the music…and came face-to-face with a grinning Sebastian.
She dropped the plate.
Swearing took the place of singing as she stared at the mess on the floor. Both dogs rushed forward. “Stay!” she ordered, pointing at them.
“I’ll put them outside until we get this cleaned up.” He shooed the dogs out the door while Matty brought the garbage pail over and then dug in the cupboard under the sink for a bucket and sponge.
“I’m sorry I startled you,” Sebastian said.
“Those eggs were perfect,” she wailed, scooping broken crockery and scattered hash browns into the garbage.
“The line dance was better.” His voice was rich with laughter and male appreciation as he crouched down to help. “I can have eggs any day.”
“Not like this, you can’t.” She swiped up egg yolk with the sponge and waggled it under his noise. “Over easy and moist in the middle. They were masterpieces.”
God, she was wonderful, Sebastian thought as he dropped another piece of broken plate in the garbage. He’d seen enough of her performance to know that nothing that exciting had ever gone on in this kitchen. Many an evening he’d shared the same dance floor with Matty, but he’d been with Barbara, and she’d been with Butch. He hadn’t let himself notice the tempting wiggle of her bottom.
Elizabeth started crying, and he glanced up at the infant seat on the counter. “What’s with the munchkin?”
“Don’t know. She wouldn’t be hungry this soon. I checked the schedule.” She kept mopping. “I found out that dancing makes her stop crying. Wanna take a turn?”
He chuckled. “Only if you’ll sing.”
“I can’t sing.”
“Sure you can. You’re just terrible at it.”
She glanced at him. “Are you insulting my singing?”
The floor was a mess, the baby was crying, and all he could think about was kissing her. Wisps of golden hair had escaped her prim braid to curl around her flushed face. Her blue eyes were bright with challenge…and something more potent than that.
Her breath hitched, as if she could read the message in his eyes loud and clear. “Because if you’re going to insult my singing, then you get to pick up the baby and find out if she has a poopy diaper, which I think might be her problem.”
She knew how to puncture a mood, all right. “Hey, you might sing bad, but you’re top-notch at that dancing thing.”
“Too late.” She returned to her cleaning. “You can’t sweet-talk your way out of it, now, cowboy. You’re on diaper duty.”
He grimaced and stood, knowing he might as well face this chore now as later. Going over to the sink, he washed his hands, hoping maybe Elizabeth would stop crying while he was doing that. She didn’t.
“While you’re changing her, I’ll make some more eggs.”
“We could have cereal instead.”
“No, I have my mouth set for eggs, and the bacon and hash browns are already made.”
“Then let me make them,” he suggested hopefully. “You probably don’t want to go through all that again.”
“As opposed to changing a dirty diaper?” She looked up at him and grinned. “I may not know much about this baby business, but I know which areas to stay away from.”
AN HOUR LATER they’d left the dogs to watch the place, belted Elizabeth’s seat in
to the back of Sebastian’s Bronco, and set off for Matty’s. By the time they pulled up in front of the barn at the Leaning L, Elizabeth had dozed off. They had a low-pitched but heated discussion about who would stay with the baby and who would feed Matty’s horses. Matty won.
She wasn’t a traditional female, Sebastian thought as he watched her hurry into the barn. She’d never be content to tend to household duties and let the men handle the ranch work. Barbara hadn’t been traditional, either, but in a different way. She hadn’t been interested in housekeeping, but unfortunately she hadn’t liked ranch work any better. Once she’d discovered how much physical exertion was involved, she’d started yearning for a desk job.
Now she had one, although she was seldom behind her desk. As a travel agent she had an excuse to go all over the place. He often wondered if the postcards she sent were her way of thumbing her nose at his willingness to be tied down to a piece of land and a bunch of critters.
Matty understood that in him. In fact, there wasn’t much about him that Matty didn’t understand. She even knew exactly how he liked his eggs. She must have been paying pretty close attention over the years to pick up on that. Of course Matty had always been sensitive to people’s likes and dislikes, but Sebastian wondered if there was more to it. He liked the idea that there was more to it.
And that made him a heel, because if Matty had a crush on him he couldn’t do a damn thing about it right now. And he needed to discuss that with her, somehow. She’d kissed him, and he’d kissed her back. They couldn’t pretend that nothing had changed. But it couldn’t keep changing in that direction.
As he sat waiting for Matty, he glanced around, taking inventory of the Leaning L in a way he seldom had the leisure to do. The barn was in pretty good repair, which didn’t surprise him considering Matty’s priorities. She’d want her animals housed in more splendor than herself, if it came to a choice. Obviously she didn’t have time to maintain both buildings in top condition.
Travis did all he could for her in the summer months, but Travis had his own place in Utah and he left every fall once the summer cattle were rounded up and shipped to market. Even from this distance Sebastian could tell the ranch house needed a coat of paint.
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