Clueless Cowboy

by Mary Connealy

  “Did you land on your back? Did you hit your head?” Her hands flowed over him like warm rain. She caressed his forehead, brushed back his hair.

  Her concern was too genuine, her touch too gentle. It awakened a need as real as thirst or hunger. A need he didn’t know he had until now. A need so profound it scared him into action. He pushed her hands away and sat up.

  “No, be careful. I think you might have lost consciousness for a minute.” She pushed his shoulders back on the ground.

  He found safety in hostility. “I’m fine. Back off.”

  She held him down. His eyes ran over the whipcord muscles in her slender arms.

  “Don’t fool around. You need to see a doctor. Lie still while I call an ambulance.” She jumped up.

  He grabbed her wrist and pulled her right back down on top of him. “Knock it off, Florence Nightingale.” She’d have the whole state down on him in a minute. He’d have to prove he was all right. Time for Plan B: Send her running.

  He dragged her head down and kissed her.

  Emily jerked back and knelt on his chest. There was nothing soft and feminine about her knees.

  She dug her kneecap into a rib and he let her go. She stood as he rolled onto one elbow and grinned. “I told you I was fine. The only thing you could offer me was that sweet sympathy.”

  Her faced flushed with anger. His plan was working.

  “Come back here.” He patted the ground beside him. Now she’d go away and stay away from the barbarian over the hill.

  “Dinner’s ready, hotshot.”

  “You’re really feeding me?” Delight wiped all his planning from his mind. Then he remembered. “Where’s your kid sister? Have you managed to keep our little secret for three whole hours?”

  “My sister is staying with friends overnight.”

  Jake realized Emily had no survival skills to admit something like that to a complete stranger. He needed to teach her to be more careful. “She’s gone all night? You arranged some time alone with old Jake? Good girl.”

  The rage on her face convinced him to stand up for his own safety.

  “Do you want to eat or not?”

  “I want to eat.”

  “I left it baking. If you have chores, you’ve got a few minutes before it’s done. But I need to get back and turn the heat down on the pie.” She started around the house.

  He was beside her like a shot. “Pie? You made pie? You know how to make pie and tell the time from the sun?”

  “That’s right.” She looked sideways at him. “I’m the last of my kind. You’ve stumbled on to Jurassic Ranch, hotshot.”

  He was starting to like his nickname. “So you made me a pie? You must really be hoping to impress me.”

  “If I want to make an impression on you, I’ll use a hammer on your skull.”

  “I think I can smell it.” He stepped up their pace as they walked under the canopy of trees on the wooded path.

  “I’ve always figured perfume was wasted on men. The way they like hanging around in bars, I thought essence of beer and cigarettes was the way to go.” Emily nodded like she was planning to go into business immediately.

  “Are you trying to pick a scent to attract me?”

  “Dream on.” She walked faster. “I’m making a scientific observation. You’re going to eat your dinner with the dog if you don’t mind your manners.”

  “You know I’m having a wild thought.”

  “Not another one.” Emily looked sideways at him.

  “I’m thinking I might behave. Not because I believe you’d feed me in the dog dish. I’ve decided you’re mostly hot air with these threats.”

  “Welcome to the party, Einstein. Your brain must’ve been runnin’ wild all afternoon to figure that out.” They crested the hill and headed across Emily’s sloping lawn. “I didn’t have much time to get ready for company.” Her chin rose. “You’ll take it as it is and like it. Our house isn’t a showplace like the Barretts’.”

  “I think your memories are about twenty years old, honey. I’ve been living a life a caveman would pity the last two weeks. The old Barrett ‘showplace’ is a dump and it doesn’t interest me at all right now. If the food I smell is for real, I’ll gladly fight over it with the dog.” He felt confident making the offer because there was no sign of a dog anywhere.

  He pulled open the wooden door of the screened porch and held it open for her. She stepped past him onto the creaking wood floorboards painted brick red. Heading quickly to the inner wooden door, she shifted around so her back was pressed to the entrance, obviously reluctant to let him in.

  He’d pretty much insulted her nonstop from the moment they’d met, and she hadn’t paid much attention. From her expression, he suspected offending her home might be a mistake. Jake reached around her for the doorknob and she dodged away from his arm. He swung the door open and held it as she rushed ahead of him.

  Jake stepped inside and his heart skipped a beat. The appliances were ten or twenty years old. The floor was beige linoleum trying to look like ceramic tile, roughed up in spots and curling in one corner. The walls were papered with faded yellow checks. The cupboards were fifty-year-old scarred oak, with little round white knobs, a couple of them missing. A round table with a white Formica top and tubular steel chairs upholstered with gold vinyl were against one wall of the small room, with a doorway on each side—one leading to the bathroom, another to a living room.

  It was home. A real home. He’d never seen anything like it, and he loved it to the point of being speechless.

  She moved quickly to the oven.

  To cover his reaction to the house, Jake crossed his arms and leaned against the counter nearest the door, fighting a strong desire to move in.

  To further his efforts to appear cool and collected, he said, “You’ve really got that happy homemaker bustle down. Where’s the housedress? You need something in calico, floor length, and an apron made from flour sacks.”

  Emily checked whatever was in the oven. “Thanks. I thought I was acting more like June Cleaver, but you’ve backed me up a hundred years.”

  “June Cleaver, huh? Speaking of the Beave, how’d you arrange the privacy? Drop the munchkin along the road because you were desperate to be alone with me?” He had to tease her to keep from begging to stay. He breathed in the delicious aromas.

  “Stephanie was invited to stay overnight at the neighbors.”

  “You shouldn’t admit that to me.”

  “Why not?” She shut the stove and grabbed silverware, letting it clatter onto the table with no regard for her namesake, Emily Post.

  “I’m a stranger. You just told me you’re completely alone. That’s crazy.” Jake had to focus to scold her. The aroma in the kitchen was enough to make him polite.

  “Oh, sorry. Maybe if you wore a sign around your neck to remind me you’re dangerous.”

  Jake shook his head. “You have no survival skills.”

  “Yeah, and which one of us is starving?”

  She had him there.

  “She’s staying with Helen and Carl Murray. They are lovely people, and you should be so lucky as to someday have friends that nice.” Emily set salt, pepper, and napkins on the table.

  Maybe he’d been born suspicious. “You told her I’m here, didn’t you?”

  “Relax, I didn’t say a word. I promised, remember? In South Dakota, that still means something. I agreed to it to protect you from Stephie for a little while longer.”

  “Can’t you just tell her not to trespass? Don’t you people know anything about private property?”

  “Don’t you know anything about living in the country? What are you planning to do, hide forever? Every little town around here will notice a newcomer. Will you drive to Rapid City every time you need milk?” Emily turned to the oven and jabbed a fork into something.

  Jake wondered if she were pretending it was him.

  Since Emily’d asked about his plans, however sarcastically, he decided to share his dream
with her. “I’m going to live off the land.” He couldn’t control the pride and excitement. “I’m going to grow a garden and raise a cow and some chickens. I’m going to burn wood for fuel. I’ll even make candles.” His heart expanded with the longing to live close to nature. To experience health and clean air and simple food. He looked to her to share the beauty of it.

  “Are you nuts?” She looked at him as if he’d grown a second head.

  The woman had no vision. How far out in the wilderness did he have to go to find the true pioneer spirit?

  “No electricity?” She pulled the meat loaf out and set it on a pot holder on the table.

  Jake shook his head, waiting.

  “No gas?”

  “My mind’s made up, and I’m hungry.” He’d have been crankier if hot food hadn’t been steaming in front of him.

  “What have you been doing for food? No refrigerator? No stove? Are you cooking over an open fire? Eating canned stuff?”

  He felt a flush climb his neck. “Well, I tried to build a fire. I did get one going. . .once. It takes an insane amount of time to collect firewood and light it and then, well, my cooking pan isn’t right.” He wanted to live off the land, not rough it by way of Cabela’s and all their luxury camping equipment.

  “Pan? One pan?”

  There was that blasted compassion again. He wanted her to insult him so he could yell at her. Now that was fun. Instead she started that bustling thing again, all docile fifties’ homemaker, putting hot casserole dishes on the table.

  It smelled so good a wave of dizziness passed over him. He nearly collapsed into a chair. He wasn’t starving, exactly, but he hadn’t eaten anything good for two weeks. The food and her kindness drew him like a moth to a flame.

  She slapped a plate in front of him so hard he looked up to see if she was angry. She spooned his food up without setting herself a place, like he was wasting away before her eyes.

  Since she seemed worried, good manners demanded he put her mind at ease by eating. “What is all this? It smells fantastic.”

  “It’s just plain food. Meat and potatoes and a vegetable. You must be starving if you think this is special.” She piled corn beside the creamy slices of potato and a slab of steaming meat.

  “It’s fantastic food.”

  “You didn’t eat this at home?” Emily scooped again for a bit, then sank onto the chair opposite him.

  “Our housekeeper made. . .oh, I don’t know. . .fancy stuff.” Jake wished she’d stop shaking her head and staring at him like he was an extraterrestrial.

  “Didn’t your mother ever cook?”

  “I didn’t have a mother. And whatever housekeepers Dad hired were French chef types.”

  “No mother?”

  He’d hoped he’d skimmed over that lightly enough, but she latched right on to it. “Look, I’m not going to discuss her. She’s just another predatory female as far as I’m concerned.”

  He saw the questions in her eyes, but Emily was all mercy and restraint. She dropped the subject.

  “Eat your supper. It was blazing hot from the oven, but it should be cool enough now.” She injected a lighter tone. “If you’ve never had meat loaf before, you’re going to die from pleasure, so say good-bye now.”

  Four

  Emily watched Jake take a cautious bite of meat. It looked like he was afraid it would bite him back.

  She covered her dismay over his denial of his mother by serving up her own food, then watched the blissful expression on his face as he chewed in silence, and felt a surge of pride that he was enjoying her cooking. As he wolfed down his meal, she tried to get their relationship back where it belonged by being rude.

  She set her spoon down with a sharp click. “I’ve finally figured it out.”

  Jake swallowed but, instead of speaking, put another forkful of meat loaf in his mouth.

  “I know how to keep that mouth of yours quiet. I’ll feed you. It’ll cost a fortune, but the silence will be worth every penny.”

  Jake gulped down the last bit of food on his plate. Emily dished him seconds. He held his fork determinedly away. She could tell what it cost him.

  “This is delicious. I didn’t know how starved I was. But there’s more to it than that. I feel like I’ve been hungry for this food all my life.”

  “Now do you believe I didn’t follow you here?” While she had him softened up, she’d clear the air.

  “No woman who can cook like this would ever have to chase a man. You must have a husband around here somewhere.” Jake peeked under the table.

  Emily laughed. “All women cook like this.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a woman cook. Our chef didn’t like me watching.” He started eating again.

  Emily had been so fascinated by Jake’s ecstatic reaction she’d forgotten her own meal. She took a few bites of a perfectly tasty meal that was nowhere near as interesting as Jake. “How can you live in a house without seeing where your food comes from?”

  Jake just kept eating, apparently willing to let her say anything to him if he could have food.

  “Have you ever had home-baked bread?”

  Jake said, “No,” around his potatoes, then swallowed. “You can bake bread?”

  “You make it sound like cold fusion. How about ice cream, churned by hand?”

  Jake shook his head.

  “We try to make it a couple of times a summer.” Emily smiled. “Feeding you’s going to be fun. I hope you’re this easy to please all the time?”

  “Is this food really easy? Honestly, Emily, no fooling around. You didn’t work on this all afternoon.”

  “Sorry if it deflates your ego, hotshot. I spent. . .maybe half an hour throwing this together.”

  “The pie, too?”

  “Yep, but I had a crust and sliced apples in the freezer.”

  “Do you think you could teach me?”

  Emily’s own ego deflated. If she taught him she lost a perfect chance to make him her slave. “How am I going to give cooking lessons while you’re hiding out from Stephie?”

  Jake set his fork down with a clatter. “We’ve come full circle. What are we going to do?”

  Emily missed his gushing compliments. “There’s no way we are going to be able to keep Stephie in the dark.”

  Jake sighed. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I came out here to escape my old life. I’m no hotshot. I’m just a guy trying to slow down. If my business associate finds me, I’ll be right back working hundred-hour weeks.”

  When he mentioned hundred-hour weeks, she suppressed a smile. She had just endured calving and spring planting. She wondered what kind of easy life Jake pictured with no electricity and firewood to chop for heat. He was in for a rude awakening.

  He picked up his fork and tapped it against his plate. “I’m going to die young if I don’t make some changes.”

  All her amusement evaporated. “Is something wrong?”

  He rubbed his hand across his mouth. Resting both forearms on the chipped Formica of her grandmother’s table, he shook his head. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m healthy. Surely you noticed I’m a nearly perfect male specimen.”

  Laughter surfaced from under her worry.

  He chuckled, too.

  Then she sobered as she thought of what he’d said. She looked into the rich chocolate brown of his eyes. “Seriously, what do you mean about dying young?”

  His smile faded. “It’s. . .well. . .my father died a year ago of a heart attack. He was fifty-six. We look alike. We act alike. He was a workaholic. I’ve spent the last year trying to slow down, but there seems to be only two speeds at Hanson and Coltrain—the speed of light or quit.”

  Hanson and Coltrain. She stored up this information about his identity. “So you’re a workaholic, too?”

  “If anything I’m worse than Dad. He at least took time to marry and have a son, though I’m sure I was an accident. . .or more likely a trap my mother set.”

  “Why a trap?”
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br />   Jake stared at his plate. “If she wanted me. . .why’d she leave me behind when she took off?”

  Emily had no answer for the confusion and sorrow in his voice. She’d lost both her parents and knew that pain. But her folks had loved her and Stephie.

  With a dismissive shake of his head, Jake went on. “I’m glad he managed to have a kid, even if he never spent a moment with me once I was here.”

  The derision twisted Emily’s heart. “Well, life can’t be so bad if you’re glad you were born.”

  Jake glared. “What’s that. . .cornpone wisdom?”

  Now wasn’t the time to get irritated just when he was talking about himself, but he sounded so superior. “I’d say it’s just plain wisdom.”

  “I came out here to find a simple life. I wanted to get close to the soil. I didn’t want anyone to know where I was because Sid will come charging in here from Chicago and wheedle me into going back. And I wasn’t supposed to have to deal with neighbors.” He looked furiously at her as if all his troubles could be blamed on her existence.

  Sid. Chicago. Hanson and Coltrain. Jake Hanson and Sid Coltrain maybe? “The world is full of people, in case you haven’t noticed. There is nowhere to really be alone. People aren’t your enemy. Look in the mirror, hotshot. There’s your enemy.”

  “I told you not to call me that.” Jake stood with a fluid grace she tried not to admire.

  Emily thought it was a shame his temper didn’t scare her. Something needed to control her.

  He rounded the table and she rose, backing away, retreating nearly to the living room before he caught her wrist.

  “Let go of me.”

  Their eyes caught. The wounded man lured her. His hand tightened and he pulled her close. The timer went off.

  His eyelashes fluttered. He released her and stepped away. Turning his back to her, he ran one hand through his hair, standing it wildly on end.

  She hurried to the stove, snapped off the timer, and yanked open the oven door. She grabbed two pot holders and pulled out her bubbling apple pie, sliding in onto the stove top. She clicked the heat off, braced her hands on the countertop on either side of the stove, and tried to gather her scattered wits.