“When do you want to eat?” It was an effort to get out the question.
She could feel his eyes on her back as he twisted open one of the bottles. Unable to stand it, she finally looked over her shoulder at him, seeing him take a long drink. His eyes, always startling in their translucency, steadily watched her. Absurdly she felt her cheeks heat all over again. She swallowed and turned to heft the pot onto the stove. “Well?”
“Whenever it’s ready.” Suddenly he stepped closer and touched her cheek. She nearly jumped a foot.
Matthew smiled faintly and held up his thumb to show her the smear of chocolate. “Dessert, I presume?”
Jaimie snatched up the dish towel and wiped her face. “Go away. I’m sure you don’t want your...date to get lonely.”
His smile died, but the watchful look in his eyes didn’t. He lifted his hand and tasted the chocolate on his thumb.
Jaimie’s heart jerked. For the rest of her life, she knew that she would associate chocolate with Matthew. She turned away, crumpling the towel in her hands.
His voice was quiet. “It’s one of my favorites.”
Of course it was. That was the reason she’d made it for him. She heard his steps carry him from the room. Back to that woman with the fabulous figure. After adding the pasta to the boiling water, she felt for a chair and sank onto it.
When Daniel came into the kitchen and crouched down beside her chair, she stared at him.
“Hey,” he grinned. “Don’t look at me like I just sprang from a pod or something.”
Jaimie dragged herself together. “Sorry. I did’t even hear you come in.”
He shrugged and straightened, tossing his hat over to the pegs by the door and landing it perfectly. “Whatcha cooking?”
“Spaghetti and garlic bread.” Brushing her hair out of her eyes, Jaimie stood up. Washing her hands gave her something to do. Everything was ready to serve as soon as the pasta was cooked.
Daniel leaned against the counter beside her, crossing his ankles. “Kinda late for supper, isn’t it?” He rolled up first one long denim sleeve, then the other.
“Matthew has a, um, a guest.”
“No kidding?” He made a surprised grunt. “Who?”
“Donna. Are you hungry?”
“Blanchard?” He rolled his shoulders. “Since when has Matt taken up with the neighbor-lady?”
Jaimie’s shoulder lifted. “Who knows. So, are you hungry or not?” She wanted, more than anything, to think that Daniel would be joining the cozy twosome at that elegant dining table. “I can set you a place—”
“Nah. I already ate at Jefferson’s.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll have a plate in here, though,” he said. “Supper was a few hours ago,” he added, his lips twitching. “Wouldn’t want to interrupt the budding lovebirds.”
Jaimie dropped the crystal bowl she’d planned to serve the chocolate mousse in. She cried out when it hit the floor, exploding into a shower of tiny shards.
Daniel scooted back a few inches. “Don’t move,” he ordered.
How could she? She was surrounded by glass and, as usual, her boots were anywhere but on her feet. Suddenly Daniel reached over and lifted her right off the ground and out of the field of broken glass. Startled, she closed her hands over his shoulders.
“What the hell are you doing?” Matthew paused in the doorway, his fingers curling. Daniel and Jaimie both looked over at him, for all the world looking like they’d just gotten caught with their hands in the cookie jar. His eyes narrowed on his brother’s gaze. Daniel’s eyes glinted, but he didn’t set Jaimie down.
Matthew seriously considered strangling his brother.
“I broke a bowl,” Jaimie explained, her color high. Like it had been that night outside the diner. After he’d made an ass of himself kissing her. Before he’d made an even bigger ass of himself in the motel room.
“I heard.” Matthew forced his fists to relax. He was vaguely aware of Donna moving up behind his shoulder and then was disgusted with himself that he’d nearly forgotten her, waiting for him in the living room. “Clean it up,” he suggested abruptly and turned toward Donna.
“Everything all right?”
He nodded and they returned to the living room. Donna sat on the couch, easily giving him room to sit beside her, if he chose. He stepped around the cherry coffee table and sat in a wing chair. He felt like an idiot. In his own home. And it was all that redhead’s fault.
He was aware of Donna asking after Squire. And he was aware of answering. But his thoughts were all on that scene in the kitchen. Of Jaimie.
In his brother’s arms.
Eventually he found himself sitting at the table, with Jaimie unobtrusively moving quietly back and forth, serving this, filling that. He wondered if she’d been a regular waitress, in addition to that cocktail stint she’d mentioned. She was good at what she did. If he’d been more interested in his dining companion than his cook, he would have hardly noticed her.
But notice her he did. Even the excellent food failed to distract him.
He shook himself mentally and put more effort into concentrating on Donna. She looked as nice as she ever did. But that spicy perfume she wore was giving him a headache.
It was dark and beginning to snow again when Donna finally announced it was time she went home. In good conscience Matthew couldn’t let her go by herself. So he followed her in his truck. He noticed absently as they left that both Joe’s and Dan’s pickups were gone.
Twenty minutes later he pulled up behind Donna’s aging Bronco and walked her to the house. She paused on her porch, her dark eyes looking up at him. With something akin to panic, he wondered if she was waiting for him to kiss her. Good God, what had he gotten himself into? He should’ve never made that phone call.
Donna smiled slightly. She was old enough to recognize an uneasy male. “It’s been an...interesting evening, Matthew.”
“Look, Donna...I—”
She smiled again and leaned up to kiss his cheek. “The meal was delicious,” she said. “Your Jaimie is a wonderful cook.”
“She’s not my Jaimie.”
Donna merely smiled. She leaned back against the closed door. It would be pointless to ask him in for coffee, and they both knew it. “So, you want to tell me what this was all about?”
He felt like a heel. “Is there a law against asking my neighbor over for supper?”
“No. No law.” She shifted, crossing her arms over her chest. “I was a tad surprised though.”
He sighed faintly. “I s’pose I should apologize. You know. For being—”
“A bit distracted?” she suggested. Her smile widened. “No sweat, Matthew. I had a great meal. A handsome man to look at across the table.” She chuckled when he snorted. “To tell you the truth, I thought perhaps you were gonna make another offer on this place.”
Surprise held him. “Last time I did, you weren’t interested.”
“Maybe I’m interested now.” She shook her head and moved past him to lean against the wooden porch railing that had needed a new coat of paint for about five years now. “I’m getting tired of fighting,” she admitted. “The weather. Beef prices.” She looked over her shoulder at him. “If you’re still interested in buying, I’m interested in selling.” Her lips tilted. “At least I can trust you to not run sheep.”
At that, his self-disgust over the evening eased. Some. He joined her at the rail. “You’re serious about this. What’ll you do?”
“Buy a house somewhere. Get a job.” She smiled again. “Meet a man.”
“Ouch.”
A gust of wind blew through the porch, bringing snow with it and rattling the storm door behind them. “So, what do you think? Interested in increasing the Double-C again by a few acres? Good grazing land,” she pointed out...needlessly, considering he’d been leasing her land for the past few years.
“Yeah, I’m still interested. I’ll get back to you.”
“Good enough.” She turn
ed and pulled open the door.
“Donna—”
“Yes?”
“Thanks.” She smiled again. And if Matthew had a lick of sense in his pea brain, he would be kissing those lips, rather than itching to get his hands on a certain redhead.
“Goodnight, Matthew.” She let herself into the house and closed the door.
Matthew watched the snow drift down, big fat flakes that glimmered in the circle of light cast by the bare porch bulb. He sighed, settled his hat and headed for his truck.
Chapter Six
It didn’t take long for Matthew to realize that Jaimie had turned the tables on him. She was avoiding him. For the better part of a week now she’d been anywhere but in Matthew’s range. He would walk into the kitchen and she would find some reason to go outside. He would find her in the barn, cooing to the horses and cuddling D.C., and she would disappear into the house. He almost thought he had her when he came upon her cleaning the shower in his bathroom. But the phone rang, and by the time he’d finished the call, Jaimie had gathered her supplies and disappeared again. Even his own dog seemed to have glued herself to Jaimie’s side.
It was mighty irritating. A fact that did nothing to improve his mood. For crying out loud, what did it matter to him if she avoided him? He had enough on his plate without messing with that redhead.
Such as working out the details of buying Donna’s spread. Such as figuring out why his feed invoices seemed to be skyrocketing for no apparent reason. Such as getting a decent night’s sleep, undisturbed by increasingly vivid dreams of a certain sassy female.
Impatiently Matthew shoved the feed records into a folder. He would have to wait for Emily to look them over. She was a CPA. Surely she would be able to spot what he couldn’t. If he didn’t get himself out into some fresh air, he would start climbing the walls. Never mind the fact that he’d been up, as usual, well before dawn, checking the stock. Tending the new calves that had dropped. Making sure the stock’s water hadn’t frozen over. Splitting fresh bales of hay.
He left the bulging folder in the center of his desk and headed for the kitchen. It was as clean as a whistle, all signs of breakfast cleared away. He stood in the middle of the empty room, aware that he was listening for some sound. Some indication that Jaimie was in the house. But the only thing he heard was the steady ticking of the clock hanging on the wall.
God, he was losing it.
He grabbed his hat and vest and stomped through the mudroom, the storm door slamming shut behind him. The last few days had been warming, a tempting prelude to spring, and his boots slogged through the slush toward the horse barn. He knew from long experience, though, that even after spring officially began, the snow could still come. Would still come.
He stepped into the barn. The interior was warm, smelling familiarly of horse and hay. His boot heels rang on the concrete aisle between the stalls, and several horses greeted him, their heads bobbing as he stopped to greet each one, slowly working his way to the end stall. When he reached it, Jasper snorted softly and nudged Matthew’s palm, looking for his usual bite of carrot.
Matthew obliged, stepping into the stall with his horse. “Hey, Jas,” he murmured, running his hand over Jasper’s bloodred coat. Jasper shifted, pressing his weight against Matthew’s shoulders. “You’re sniffing that fresh air out there, aren’t you?” Jasper snorted softly. “Me too, bud,” Matthew muttered.
He reached around to the halter hanging from a hook and slipped it over Jasper’s head, then led the horse out into the aisle before retrieving his tack. Matthew knew Jasper was as anxious to get on the way as he was himself, and in minutes they were heading off across the north pasture.
It wasn’t entirely a pleasure ride. Second nature had Matthew’s eyes checking fence. Before the snow had gotten heavy, they had moved the cattle to the lower pastures. Now most of the stock congregated near the feed and water, with few venturing out to the farther reaches. Jasper’s head bobbed, but Matthew held him to a walk while he worked from one huddle of black-coated Angus to the next. A couple times, he dismounted to more closely check the soon-to-be mamas.
Satisfied at last, Matthew swung back up in the saddle, settled his hat lower, shading his eyes against the sun’s glare on the snow, and gave Jasper his head.
Jaimie, arms full with a load of firewood, caught sight of man and horse tearing off toward the trees to the west of the buildings. He was a man entirely in his element. So much so that it made her chest hurt.
What would it be like to belong somewhere the way Matthew belonged to the Double-C? To be part of something so large and beautiful and challenging.
Her arms were straining against the weight of the wood, but she watched Matthew until he was an indistinguishable rider on the horizon. Indistinguishable? Please. She would recognize the way he sat in the saddle, the tilt of his cowboy hat over his brow, even if she was half-blind.
She huffed, impatient with herself, and continued on with her load, shouldering her way through the door of Joe’s and Maggie’s house where she stacked the firewood in the wrought-iron box alongside the fireplace.
She straightened her back, kneading her fingertips against the knots there. If Joe had only brought the wood in like he’d promised before he’d gone to town, she wouldn’t have just spent the last hour traipsing back and forth to the cord of wood stored on the far side of the big house. He would have been able to carry twice what she could, in half the time.
Oh, well. Dusting her hands against the seat of her jeans, she peeked through the open door to the master bedroom. She was glad to see that Maggie was still sleeping. Jaimie knew for a fact that her sister-in-law had been awake most of the night.
The foreman’s house was sturdily built, yet cozy. When one of the occupants was up all night pacing back and forth, it was generally noticeable to the other occupants. Last night Jaimie had finally tossed back her blankets, planning to investigate when she’d heard her brother’s voice after he’d come in well after midnight. Only by stuffing a pillow over her head had Jaimie been able to block out the softly hissed argument that had ensued between Joe and his wife.
She’d planned to talk to Joe earlier this morning about it, and to that end she’d pitched in, mucking out stalls. But he’d left her to the chore alone, mumbling something about driving in to Weaver.
She heated herself a mug of cocoa, absently picking a sliver of wood from the sleeve of her dark green sweater. She’d been trying to ignore the tension between Maggie and Joe for weeks now. But it was getting harder and harder to pretend that everything was hunkydory between the couple. Not while she lived right under their roof.
Too antsy to sit around and be quiet so that Maggie wouldn’t be disturbed, Jaimie took her mug and let herself back outside. The air was fresh, touching her cheeks and nose with a brisk bite. Enjoying the freedom of not being bundled inside a heavy coat for the first time in weeks, Jaimie meandered toward the horse barn. Sandy trotted along, her tail going a mile a minute.
She was truly at loose ends. No wash loads awaited her. No dusting or vacuuming or cooking, either. There was an assortment of items packaged in Joe and Maggie’s fridge, just waiting for Maggie to be tempted. Squire was still in Casper and Dan was out.
She should have been feeling lonely, Jaimie realized as she drained her cocoa and set the mug on a shelf in the tack room. But she found that she enjoyed the solitude that some of her days brought. She reached for the saddle that Matthew had told her to use months ago.
One thing about Matthew. He wasn’t stingy with the horses. Once he’d satisfied himself that Jaimie wouldn’t break her neck, he’d given her an open invitation to the horses. Except Jasper, who, beautiful though the horse was, didn’t much care for anybody except Matthew... and the mares, of course.
Jaimie left the saddle braced against the wall to retrieve the rest of her tack, her lips twitching. Jasper enjoyed the mares, all right. More than once he’d kicked through a stall or two, anxious to have his way.
; She let herself into Daisy’s stall, chuckling when the mare butted her shoulder. Sandy waited patiently outside the stall while Jaimie saddled and bridled the spotted gray mare. She led Daisy out into the clear day, smiling when the mare breathed deeply, shaking her head, jangling the bit. Sandy barked and pranced around, anxious to go.
Jaimie laughed at the dog’s exuberance. Once she was settled in the saddle, she looked in the direction Matthew had headed earlier.
No. She wasn’t going to follow him. She simply wasn’t.
Resolute, she headed Daisy in the opposite direction, calling to Sandy who followed along as Daisy leisurely picked her way across the gravel road to the open field. They wandered contentedly for nearly an hour, staying near the snowplowed road, keeping the outbuildings in sight. Jaimie felt a surge of pride in the well-kept facilities. The strength and basic solidity of the entire ranch. Just as quickly she told herself to get a grip. She had no right to feel so proprietary.
Despite her stern warning, though, she couldn’t help enjoying the ride. Couldn’t help dreaming, just a little, that the Double-C really was her home. Sandy had stopped following them earlier, and eventually the crisp air started to bite through Jaimie’s heavy cable-knit sweater. She clicked to Daisy, who set off in a smooth lope, covering the distance back in a third of the time.
By the time Jaimie dismounted outside the horse barn, her cheeks were cold. She removed the saddle and walked Daisy until the horse had cooled, then led her back into her stall and replaced the tack. Daisy was munching away, seemingly oblivious to the brush Jaimie used to groom her, when Jaimie realized they weren’t alone.
She looked over to see Matthew leading Jasper back to that end stall. Daisy lifted her head at the sound. Her tail swished, and she shifted. Jaimie knew how the mare felt. If she had a tail to swish around at the sight of Matthew, she’d be swishing away.
She watched him toss his vest over the top rail, and it occurred to her that he didn’t know she was standing on the far side of Daisy four stalls over and across the aisle. Taking shameful advantage, Jaimie looked on silently while Matthew returned a somewhat unwilling Jasper to his stall.
The Rancher And The Redhead Page 9