Michael's Father

by Dallas Schulze

  "Good morning." A faint, sleepy huskiness lingered in her voice.

  **'Morning. There's coffee," he added, nodding to the coffeemaker.

  **Is there a horse in it?" she asked.

  **A horse?" His eyebrows climbed in question. Then he remembered their first conversation about how strong Westerners liked their coffee. He grinned. "Barely strong enough to float a small horseshoe," he told her.

  "Not much reassurance." But she took a cup from the wooden cup rack that sat beside the coffeemaker. Megan's delicate shudder as she sipped the thick black brew made Kel's smile widen.

  "This tastes like there's a horse actually in it," she muttered.

  "Cream in the fridge," he suggested as he finished stirring the pancake batter. "You want some pancakes?"

  "I'm supposed to be the one cooking for you," Megan said as she took the carton of cream from the refrigerator.

  "Not breakfast." He flicked water onto the big cast-iron griddle that rested across two of the stove's burners. The droplets sizzled and bounced, vanishing in a heartbeat. "There's plenty of batter."

  "Okay. I usually make do with toast and tea. I haven't had pancakes in ages." He was aware of her watching him as he used a measuring cup to dip batter onto the hot griddle.

  "Ranch breakfasts tend to be on the hearty side," he said, nodding his head to where half a dozen sausages sizzled on another burner. "It's a long time between now and lunch."

  "Colleen said you couldn't cook," Megan commented, watching as he flipped the pancakes at just the right moment.

  "I can't. But Aunt Jemima does a fine job." He nodded to the box. "And frying a sausage doesn't take much skill. But you don't want to see what I can do to an egg."

  "Bad?"

  "Criminal."

  "I've been known to fry a respectable ^g," she said, her eyes smiling at him over the rim of her coffee cup. "How about tomorrow morning I return the favor and cook you breakfast?"

  "That's not part of your job," he reminded her.

  "But since this is a trial week, I should do my best to impress, don't you think?"

  If she only knew! She'd already made quite an impression, he thought as she turned to get out a plate and silverware for herself. Kel found his eyes drifting over her slender curves. She was wearing a plain cotton shirt the exact color of raspberry sherbet. It was tucked into a pair of softly worn jeans and he wanted nothing more than to put his hands around her waist and pull her close to him.

  **Is something burning?" Megan turned, plate in hand, her short straight nose wrinkled, her eyes questioning.

  **Damn!" Kel turned and began quickly scooping the pancakes off the griddle. The undersides were considerably beyond done. Irritated with himself, he stacked them on a plate to be thrown out. "Good thing I made plenty of batter," he muttered.

  /// could just keep my mind on the pancakes and off Megan Roarke, I'd be doing all right.

  The rest of the pancakes turned out golden brown and perfect. Since Kel watched them as carefully as a chef hovering over a pan of hoUandaise sauce, they didn't have a chance to do otherwise. Megan poured juice for both of them, adding, at his request, a tall glass of milk for Kel. She tried not to think of what a perfect domestic picture they would have presented to anyone who happened to be watching.

  She asked Kel what kind of work he'd be doing that day, and as she Ustened to him talk about moving cattle on to smnmer range, she thought how nice it would be to have a home of her own and a man of her own to sit across the table from. To talk about what the day

  would hold, to make plans for the future with, to dream with.

  She'd had the dream since she was a child, and it didn't take a therapist to tell her that it was at least partially a reaction to the circumstances of her own childhood. She'd never known anything remotely approaching the kind of idyllic family life in her fantasy.

  When they'd finished eating, she insisted that she'd do the cleanup. Kel, with a glance out the window to where the pale light of dawn was giving way to golden sunshine, agreed. He'd already lingered longer over the meal than he normally did.

  "Breakfast tomorrow is my treat," Megan reminded him as she stacked their plates and carried them to the counter.

  "Right." Just looking at her across a breakfast table was a treat, he thought, his eyes drifting over her. In that raspberry-colored shirt, with her pale hair curling onto her shoulders, she looked downright edible. He supposed it was a Uttle too eariy in their relationship for him to suggest that she forget the bacon and eggs and offer herself as a main course.

  Kel turned away before the urge to suggest just that became overwhelming.

  Megan leaned against the counter to watch Kel stride across the packed dirt of the ranch yard. It ought to be illegal for a man to be that attractive, especially first thing in the morning before she'd had a chance to get her defenses in order. Not that she was sure there was any defense. How did she go about

  convincing her pulse not to beat double time whenever she saw him?

  Kel disappeared into the bam and she turned away from the window with a sigh. She was here to take care of his house, not to fall in love with the man. She only hoped her heart didn't forget that.

  Her first full day on the Lazy B set the pattern for the week that followed. After breakfast, she tidied the kitchen, decided what to make for lunch and dinner, then went to work on the rest of the house. The house was large but not difficult to care for and she had plenty of free time.

  She and Colleen shared lunch and then spent most of the afternoon together. Megan sensed a loneliness in the girl and suspected it might be a recent development. She couldn't quite imagine such a bright, pretty young woman not having plenty of friends. Perhaps, after the accident that had injured her leg. Colleen had withdrawn. An understandable reaction, particularly for a nineteen-year-old.

  Whatever the cause of her loneliness, it was a feeling to which Megan could easily relate. Shy, introverted bookworms made few friends, and it had always been so much easier to lose herself in a book than to risk the almost inevitable rejection she'd get from other, more active children—children whose parents actually wanted them.

  Gun joined the Bryans for dinner each night, and the tension between him and Colleen remained the same as it had been that first night. Megan wondered at its source but didn't feel as if she knew Colleen well

  ■■;

  enough yet to probe for answers. If Kel let her stay past this trial week...

  If she didn't have the good sense to leave on her own before she risked a broken heart...

  Two big ifs, she thought ruefully as the end of the trial week neared. She liked it here, liked the work, liked the quiet, Uked the sense of family that lingered in the big house.

  And liked Kel Bryan more than was wise.

  There was a danger in that. She could end up hurt if she stayed. But she knew that, if he asked her, she wouldn't be able to say no.

  At the end of the agreed-upon trial period, Kel sat in his study waiting for Megan to join him when she was done tidying up after dinner. When he'd said he'd like to talk with her, she'd given him a wary look before murmuring her agreement. Colleen had given Megan an encouraging look and thrown a warning glance in his direction. He'd already had an earful from his little sister, who seemed to think Megan's continued presence was a foregone conclusion.

  Gun, who knew all about the trial period, had given Megan a discreet thumbs-up as he left. The memory made Kel frown. His friend's easy charm had never bothered him before, but he found it irritating when that charm was directed toward Megan. The feeling came perilously close to jealousy, which should be reason enough for him to give her a check and send her on her way.

  Kel frowned at the brightly lit computer screen. He was supposedly updating records on some breeding

  experiments he was running, but his mind kept wandering. In a few minutes, Megan was going to walk in here, expecting him to tell her whether or not she had a job for the summer.

 
By all reasonable criteria, there could be only one answer. She'd proven herself more than capable of the job. The house was clean enough to pass even Grace Cavenaugh's critical eye, and when it came to cooking, Megan's style was a httle more exotic than Grade's, but if he had a complaint, it was that he was eating too much.

  And she'd been good for Colleen. His little sister was happier than she'd been since the accident. She'd been downright insistent that Megan stay on, which was more interest than she'd shown in anything else these past few months. That fact alone ought to be enough to insure Megan the job.

  So why was he hesitating?

  The cursor seemed to be blinking faster, as if impatient with his inaction. With a muttered curse, Kel exited the program and turned the computer off. In the resulting silence, he could hear the steady ticking of the clock on the fireplace mantel. It sounded as impatient with his indecision as the cursor had been. She's perfect for the job. And she was the only applicant. If you let her go, you *re going to be back to frozen dinners, burned steaks and dirty clothes.

  Yeah, but maybe he'd be able to go to sleep at night without staring at the ceiUng while his imagination presented an endless series of pictures as to what Megan might—or might not—be wearing to bed.

  Thoughts that had done little to ensure him a decent night's sleep.

  So let her stay and let what happens happen.

  As if he didn't know exactly what would happen. Restless, he stood up and moved to the window. Pulling aside the coffee-colored drapes, Kel stared out into the darkness.

  If Megan Roarke stayed, they were going to end up in bed together.

  He'd be lying to himself if he pretended otherwise. And she'd be lying to herself if she didn't admit the same. The awareness between them was too strong to be ignored. It was there whenever they were together. She felt it, too. He could see it in her eyes, those wide blue-gray eyes that were starting to haunt a great deal more of his thoughts than he liked.

  So what if you sleep with her? You're both adults. There's nothing wrong with an affair. It would be no different from sleeping with Carla.

  Except that he'd already spent more time thinking about Megan in the week since they'd met than he'd spent thinking of Carla in the three years he'd been seeing her. That should have been a warning. He'd married the last woman who'd lingered in his thoughts like that, and look what a disaster that had been.

  Roxanne had envisioned life as a successful rancher's wife being a series of luncheons, dinners and perhaps an occasional masked ball. Kel's mouth twisted bitterly as he remembered her horrified expression when she'd realized how isolated the ranch was. She'd apparently pictured something along the lines of a Kentucky bluegrass country horse farm, with neat

  green fields, picturesque white fences and plenty of opportunities for her to exercise her talents as a hostess. A Fourth of July barbecue had not been what she had in mind.

  He'd been fortunate that, while on a trip to Boston to visit her family, Roxanne had met a wealthy businessman twenty-five years her senior who was looking for exactly what she had to offer. Since she was marrying into more money than even she could imagine spending, she'd forgone her right to a piece of the ranch, simply dusted the Wyoming dirt from her dainty heels and departed for points east.

  Their marriage had lasted a year, and Kel doubted it would have lasted that long except that they were undeniably compatible in the bedroom. But by the time they'd divorced, even that compatibility had worn thin. He hadn't been sorry to see her go, but he'd been bitterly angry with himself for being such a fool.

  The Bryan men simply didn't have much luck when it came to marriage. Maybe he'd just been canying on the family tradition. His mouth twisted in a humorless smile. The third generation of marriages to end in divorce. At least this time there hadn't been any children involved, he thought, remembering his parents' stormy union and eventual parting.

  One thing his brief marriage had taught him was not to mistake lust for love. He'd wanted Roxanne enough to convince himself that the ache in his groin was caused by an equally strong ache in his heart. It wasn't a mistake he planned to make again. Which was why the decision to hire or fire Megan Roarke was not as easy as it might have been.

  He'd wanted Roxanne, and look where that had gotten him. His desire for Megan was, if anything, even stronger than what he'd felt for his ex-wife. But he wasn't twenty-five anymore—full of ideals and still thinking he could succeed where his father and his grandfather had both failed. He was thirty-six, and well beyond the stage of thinking with his zipper.

  There was a tapping at the door, and Kel was immediately aware of a subtle pressure behind that same zipper. He ground his teeth together, forcing back his automatic response. It was getting pretty bad when she didn't even have to be in the room to elicit this response.

  "Come in," he snapped.

  He didn't sound particularly welcoming. Megan swallowed hard and pushed open the door. Bearding the lion in his den, she thought, wishing it didn't seem quite such an accurate description.

  She'd known this talk was coming. But she didn't have any idea what he was going to say. She didn't believe that he could have any complaints about how well she'd done her job. Certainly, Colleen had none.

  But there was that odd tension that lay between her and Kel, that awareness that made her skin tingle whenever he walked in the room. She knew he felt it, too. Knew, also, that he didn't like it. He might just decide that it would be easier to let her go.

  Kel was standing in front of his desk when Megan entered and she hesitated a moment just inside the door, struck, as always, by the impact he had on her senses. She would have thought that, after a week, the

  effect would have lessened somewhat, but it hadn't. She still felt a Uttle weak-kneed and breathless every time she saw him.

  "Have a seat," he said, gesturing to a comfortable-looking leather chair.

  Megan shook her head and came farther into the room. "I think Fd rather stand."

  **You look hke you're facing a firing squad." He lifted one dark brow as his eyes raked over her tense expression.

  ''Should I ask for a blindfold?" she asked.

  **I don't think so."

  Kel leaned back against the desk, bracing his hands on either side of his hips and angling his long legs out in front of him.

  "You've done a good job," he said, apparently deciding to cut through the preliminaries and right to the heart of the matter. "But then, you know that."

  It wasn't exactly a question, but Megan chose to answer him anyway. "I told you I'd be good at this job," she said evenly.

  "Well, you are." He paused and ran his fingers through his hair, looking uncharacteristically undecided. "Very good," he added, half to himself.

  "Thank you." He isn't going to offer me the job, she thought. He's decided that the sexual awareness between us offers too much potential for trouble, and he's going to tell me thanks but no thanks.

  "I'd like you to stay on," Kel said slowly, as if the words were pulled from him. "But there are a couple of things we need to discuss," he added, before she

  could decide whether the surge of emotion she felt was relief or panic.

  "What kind of things?"

  "First of all, the job is only going to last two or three months."

  "I know that."

  **Once her daughter has her baby and gets back on her feet. Grade will be coming back."

  "You said up front that it was only a temporary job," Megan said, nodding her understanding. "That suits me."

  "So you said. I just wanted to be sure we were clear on that." He straightened away from the desk, and Megan had to suppress the urge to step back so that he wouldn't seem to loom over her.

  "I understand that it's a temporary job," she said again, as much to prevent the silence from stretching as anything else.

  "Good." He ran his hand through his hair again, rumpling it into thick, dark waves, and she had to curl her fingers into her palms against the desire to smooth
it back into place.

  "What else?"

  "What else?" He looked at her, his eyes brooding and shadowed.

  "You said there were a couple of things we needed to discuss," she reminded him.

  "Right."

  But he didn't say anything, only continued to watch her, those green eyes seeming to see right through to her soul. Her pulse, never completely steady when he was around, b^an to beat too quickly, making her feel

  breathless. Or maybe it was just being so close to him that made her breathless. And wasn't he closer than he had been a moment ago?

  "What was it you wanted to discuss?" She could barely get the words out past the tightness in her throat.

  "Just this."

  His big hand cupped the back of her neck, tilting her head. Suddenly there was not even a heartbeat of space between them. And then his mouth came down on hers and Megan forgot all about breathing.

  There was nothing tentative about the kiss, none of the gentle exploration that normally went with a first kiss. For an instant, Megan stood paralyzed in his embrace, feeling the impact of his mouth on hers all the way to her toes.

  And then her arms went around his neck and she was rising on tiptoe to get closer to him, to deepen the kiss. She felt the brush of his mustache against her upper lip, soft in comparison to the firmness of his mouth. He always showered before dinner, and he smelled of soap and masculinity, a tantalizing combination that made her want to get closer still, until not even a shadow could find its way between them.

  This was what she'd wanted since they'd met, what they'd both wanted. Giving in to the urge that had haunted her all week, Megan let her hand slide upward, her fingers slipping into the thick darkness of his hair. She felt as if she'd waited her entire Ufe for this kiss, this moment. This man.