by Tina Leonard
Very long and complicated, though. Good thing they’d understood that neither of them was trying to make anything permanent out of their association, since everything about the two of them seemed to turn out long and complicated.
Except their lovemaking. That had been long and wonderful.
Calhoun came into the kitchen. “I thought about calling for a glass of water,” he said, walking by her in nothing more than a pair of faded blue jeans. “But I decided I could yell myself hoarse and just make myself thirstier before you’d come to my aid.”
Olivia quickly turned her head, chopping furiously. He had no shirt on and was barefoot. His jeans were low and casually tight to his body. He acted as if it was nothing to walk into a kitchen half-naked!
She heard him fill up a glass from the fridge, then he stood there and drank it, his back to her as if she weren’t there. Sneaking a quick peek, Olivia got an eyeful of broad back as he lifted the glass to his mouth. Calhoun in broad daylight was even better than Calhoun by moonlight in a trailer!
She went back to chopping furiously.
“You like your peppers chopped fine,” he said, suddenly beside her. “Are you making a paste?”
“It’s for meat loaf,” she said stiffly.
“Hmm. Sounds good. I like my meat loaf with just a bit of crunch,” he said. “That, I would have to say, is pretty close to puree. I bet it will still be good, though.”
“No doubt,” she said between clenched teeth. “For a man who’s just had his head scanned, you’re awfully peppy.”
“Well, the action appears to be down here. Can I help you?”
“No. No, thank you.”
He moved her hair back behind her ear. “Is something wrong? I seem to be on the receiving end of some bad karma with you lately.”
She laid the knife down, turning to face him. “Calhoun, we agreed we weren’t going to be anything except acquaintances, particularly for the week I’m here. I’m not going to take advantage of being on your ranch to make a play for you. I’d appreciate you not hitting on me in my kitchen.”
“Your kitchen?” he said lazily.
“My kitchen,” she emphasized. “Because you invited me to stay here, and so here we are, but just because I’m cooking doesn’t mean I’m trying to stir up your sauce.”
“Mason didn’t care about Marvella being your mother,” he said. “I wish I hadn’t let it throw me. I think I hurt your feelings, Olivia.”
“You did.” She turned back to her work, beginning to chop mushrooms. “It threw me, and it upset me, and that was the last thing I ever expected anyone to say to me when my father was in the hospital. I was worried sick about him! And then this strange woman says ‘I’m your mother,’ like she said, ‘Here are flowers for your father,’ and then she walked out of my life the same way she walked in. Nonchalant, like it didn’t mean a damn thing. I could have used some support about then,” she said angrily, “but what I got from you instead was the big hands-off, because I might mean trouble to the family. And you know what? I’m from a family where loyalty means everything, Calhoun. I totally understand family.” She shrugged at him. “But I wouldn’t cut other people out like they didn’t matter, then expect them to come back when I changed my mind.”
“It scared me, Olivia. I can apologize. But we just had a baby born yesterday who was the focal point of a lawsuit from Marvella. She tried to get to us through an employee’s child. How much easier would I make it for her if I fell in love with her daughter?”
“I’m not asking you to change your feelings, Calhoun. I’m just saying don’t ask me to run into your arms now that your family has given you the green light.” She paused, looking at him. “I’m not going to lie and say that I don’t care about you. I’m not going to deny that a part of me fantasized about the two of us, and maybe still does. But the strong part of me, the wise part, knows that you’d always be looking past me for Marvella. You’d never trust me. I had a marriage where there was no trust. I know nothing lasts that way.”
“You still live in the past,” he told her.
“Yes. And so do you. Only I didn’t need my family to give me permission to love, Calhoun. My father was against you, and I still was crazy for you. I made love with you. So maybe someday your family decides they don’t like me. Then I’m out. Well, that’s not love. Love is two people.”
Calhoun stared at her. “Olivia, I’m pretty new at this love thing, I’ll admit. I know I made a mistake.”
“Yeah. You did. You romanced my kids, you romanced me, my horse, you even got my father’s respect. But what you didn’t do was fall in love with me. You fell for everything around me, but not me. Once you found out who I really was, you vamoosed. I can live with that. I just think you should, too.”
Calhoun stared at Olivia, his heart beating uncomfortably hard. She was telling him there was no chance for them to move forward. As far as she was concerned, there was no them. They were finished.
He didn’t know what else to say.
“Don’t come in here,” she said softly, “and tell me that just because my kids prayed for some silly curse to work, and you took a bump on the head, that I am the woman for you. That’s just an excuse to say what you should have said before. I’m a grown woman, Calhoun, and next time I fall for a man, he’s going to be a man. Not a little boy who needs voodoo or some other silliness to admit his feelings.”
Calhoun swallowed. “I hardly know what to say to such a steamed-up little woman. I sort of sense that anything I say right now isn’t going to cut it. So I think I’ll head upstairs and watch Oprah and hope my concussion doesn’t kill me.”
“Good idea,” she said tightly. “I already have two children and a sick father to care for. They come first, Calhoun. They’re my family.”
“I got it, I got it,” he said, backing out of the kitchen with his hands in the air in mock surrender. “No nooky on the kitchen table when I’m concussed. No naked-Olivia-cooking-my-dinner fantasy when I’ve just gotten out of the hospital. And especially no chocolate-and-strawberries sex on the kitchen floor when I’ve just fallen out of a tree teaching your kids about bird feeders.”
“Calhoun,” she said, her tone warning.
“I got it,” he said. “I’m gone.”
He left, then peeked back around the corner. “I thought I saw potential weakening in your stance when I mentioned chocolate—”
“You didn’t,” she assured him. “Figment of your imagination.”
“Just checking.” Whew. This was no woman you cajoled out of a bad mood. He obviously couldn’t tease Olivia into a good humor.
The problem was, she had a point. He had moved back about ten yards when he’d found out about Marvella. Now he was relying on humor to smooth over what wasn’t funny—a very boyish maneuver. “Grade school,” he muttered. “Like tugging on a girl’s pigtails and being mean when really you just want her to like you.”
That wasn’t going to cut it with Olivia.
Frankly, it shouldn’t.
He was really messing up. Olivia might not believe in charms and curses, but one thing he did believe in stoutheartedly was that no man let a good thing get away from him if he really wanted it.
It was time to get smart.
He put on a shirt, combed his hair, brushed his teeth and put on some cologne. Boots were required for serious conversations, so he pulled those on, too.
Maybe flowers.
No, not flowers. It was December, and all he had around was a poinsettia, and he wasn’t going to hold out a potted poinsettia.
Taking a deep breath, he went downstairs and into the kitchen.
But Olivia wasn’t in there. The pot was empty and washed out. Peppers no longer lay on the cutting board, and that had been washed clean, too.
That was a very bad sign from a woman who claimed this domain as her own.
“Olivia!” he called, his heart beginning to race. “Olivia!
There was no answer, so he ran outside. The motor
home was still parked outside, which eased his mind a bit.
Banging on the door, he breathed even easier when Olivia opened it.
“Olivia,” he said. “I was…what are you doing?”
“I prefer to live in my own home,” she told him. And then she closed the door.
Chapter Seventeen
Olivia closed her eyes, then peeked to see if Calhoun was walking away. He was, and she relaxed slightly.
Gosh, he’d looked handsome. Smelled so good.
She’d wanted to drag him into the trailer for a repeat of their lovemaking.
But sex wasn’t enough to build a lasting relationship on. She knew that too well.
Whether it was more than sex, they would never know. Marvella’s words had proven prophetic, because even if she didn’t come between them as far as Calhoun was concerned, she did as far as Olivia was concerned.
Banging on her door startled her again. She opened it.
Calhoun stood outside holding a potted poinsettia. “I know I said beware the dragon bearing gifts, but I should also confess. Beware the ogre bearing gifts.”
“Now that’s more like it,” she said, opening the door to take the poinsettia. Then she let the screen door swing closed again.
“No invitation in?”
“No ogres allowed in my house. They mess up the carpet.”
He frowned. “Olivia, we need to talk.”
“I’m listening.”
A sigh escaped him. “I messed up,” he said simply. “And I have the worst feeling that you’re a high-risk kind of girl, and if I don’t tell you everything I should, I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and your motor home will be gone.”
“I was considering that,” she said, “but my kids are enjoying being here. I’m not going to steal their vacation time away from them.”
He nodded. “Could we start over?”
“No. There are no do-overs in romance. You may have had part of your brain jangled by falling out of a tree, but my memory is perfectly fine.”
“I don’t want to lose you,” he said, “because everything in my life changed when I met you.”
She stared at him.
“For the better,” he said. “Everything about you feels like home to me.”
“Calhoun, I don’t want to be your home. I want to be your raging passion, like your artwork, and I want to be your friend, and I want to be your onetime show.”
“Of course I meant all that, but I didn’t want to scare you,” Calhoun said. “I’m trying to take it easy on the stuff that seems cheesy. You know, like you really make me horny, and when I shave, I think about your breasts, and when I eat, I think about that curve of your behind, and when I’m putting out food for the dog, I lose my breath because I start thinking about that tiny little freckle on your third rib—”
“Calhoun, that’s a birthmark, not a tiny freckle.”
“No bigger than my pinkie,” he said. “That’s tiny.”
He had pretty big hands. Olivia figured he was doing his best to say that her birthmark was just a freckle in his eyes. She sighed. “I must admit I think about your love handles,” she said.
“I do not have love handles!”
“And I think about your beer belly,” she continued, “and the loose skin under your eyes, and your bald spot—”
He tore the screen open and grabbed her, kissing her until her breath left her. “You think about me,” he said, “because I gave you a rousing good time in bed. You think about me, Olivia Spinlove, because I love your kids, I honor your father and your horse digs my act. I appreciate your being in a snit over the whole Marvella thing, but now you’re holding it between us, which is exactly what she wants you to do, and so she wins. But you know something, Olivia? No one, including her, has ever beaten me at anything that mattered.” And he kissed her again, making her knees weak and her heart race before he set her away from him.
“Think about that,” he said, “while you’re deciding about playing hard to get. Think about my lie-detector test and tell me you could pass if I asked you if you love me. I don’t think you want to give me up, Ms. Spinlove. I sure as shooting don’t want to give you up, because you’re the only woman who’s ever, ever knocked my mind off of my nudes. All I ever wanted to do was paint nudes that Michelangelo would admire. Breasts Botticelli would praise. Hips that Renoir would swoon—”
“I think I get your drift,” Olivia said, interrupting. “You forgot all about nudes when you met me.”
“Well, I didn’t forget about one nude. And when a man can’t get his mind off of one special nude, then he best take stock of his situation. I took stock of mine, and I think you should make your family mine and vice versa.”
Olivia blinked. “I know you’re not proposing, because Helga said that every Jefferson male who’d ever gotten married had to leave the ranch to be with his true love. She said it was getting pretty tight around here and that she’d cut down her weekly grocery list.”
“I took a header out of a tree for you,” Calhoun said. “Could that count?”
“I don’t think so,” Olivia said.
“Are you saying you’d accept a proposal?”
She wasn’t falling for that. “Calhoun, you cannot have it both ways. You can’t prepropose on condition of knowing the outcome.”
He studied her. “Just checking.”
So? Was he proposing? She didn’t think so. Somewhere in here, she felt a Jefferson hook. One had to be very careful, she’d learned, when dealing with these men.
“I wasn’t proposing, anyway,” he said.
“I didn’t get the impression you were, cowboy,” she said mildly. “I would guess preproposals don’t often pan out. Sort of like looking for gold in your backyard pond.”
“Actually,” he said, brightening, “there was talk that on Widow Fancy’s farm—” He looked at her and hesitated. “Never mind.”
“Never mind what?”
“Just never mind.”
He strode away. “Just like that,” she murmured. “One second he’s talking about proposals, and the next he’s talking about Widow Fancy, and then he’s slipped away. Good thing Mason warned me about his state of mind, because he very nearly changed mine!”
IT WAS THE MEMORY of Widow Fancy’s rumored Civil War gold that made Calhoun remember his father’s sage advice: The treasure lies within.
If there was treasure, he needed to make certain he didn’t end up with fool’s gold. And that meant running the proper checks to make certain his exploration was on target.
Olivia didn’t seem interested in preproposals, but a smart man didn’t waste time gambling.
He was pretty certain that if he did everything right, he wouldn’t be coming up with a dry well.
At the house, he found Kenny and Minnie, baking with Helga. They had flour on their faces and cookie dough in their hair.
“Miss Helga is good to you, isn’t she?” he asked the children.
They loved Miss Helga. He could tell by the light in their eyes as they gazed up at her. So much attention she wanted to give them.
So much attention Kenny and Minnie were willing to soak up.
So much attention he wanted to give them, too. And he wanted theirs, even when he was getting thrown from a bull or bungee jumping without a bungee. What would he do without hearing their little voices call, “Calhoun!”
“Hey,” he said to them, “I had an idea. I wanted to run it past you, since you’re the minds behind the show.”
“Okay,” Minnie said.
“I was wondering,” Calhoun said, drawing them to him, “I was wondering if you ever thought about having a…you know. A father.”
Minnie’s eyes grew round. “We thought about it,” she said, “we just don’t think Momma’s ever going to say yes. We’ve given up,” she announced.
“Totally?”
“Totally,” Minnie said. “Right, Kenny?”
He nodded, the lock of hair Minnie called his bird perch sticking straight u
p out of his crown.
“If she said yes to me, would you like having me for a dad?”
Minnie and Kenny stared at him silently.
“Well, don’t be in a hurry to say yes,” he said.
“We’re not,” Minnie said. “We’re thinking.”
“You’re always thinking,” Calhoun said. “When I become your father, you’re going to start acting like a little girl. And you, Kenny, are going to learn to be a little boy. You’re going to know the meaning of childhood.”
“And I’m going to have a dress,” Minnie said, “a pretty one with lace and ruffles—”
“And I’m going to have, to have…” Kenny said, trying to keep up.
“A Sunday suit,” Minnie said, “to match my dress. And ribbons in my hair. And Kenny gets Sunday-best boots and a real haircut. Not Momma mowing his head with Grandpa’s old—”
“Yes,” Calhoun said. “All that. No more thinking and worrying, though. You leave that to the adults, until you’re old enough to worry. Maybe fifteen is appropriate. I think seventeen’s about when we started. I’ll ask Mason,” he said, thinking.
“In that case, we accept,” Minnie said. “You can try to talk a yes out of Mom, but we suggest you have two plans because she’ll probably have a no for you right out of the chute. That’s what we do.”
“Yes, I know,” Calhoun said, “and from now on, yes means yes, and no means no, and there’s going to be no second plans. If I become your father, that is.”
Minnie sighed. “You drive a hard bargain, cowboy. We’ll sharpen our negotiating skills.”
He tugged her hair and ruffled Kenny’s. “Come on, then. We’ve got chores to do.”
“Okay. Bye, Helga!” they said.
She hugged them and handed Calhoun a gingerbread man.
“Thank you,” he said.
She nodded.
“All right. Do you know where your grandfather is?”
“He was with the sheriff, but then he said he was going to go down and chat with Gypsy.”
“Sounds good. Now this is the hard part—”
“Not really,” Minnie said. “He’ll say yes.”