Cowboy's Kiss

by Victoria Pade

  Ha!

  He supposed he’d given her credit for better sense than to think the ranch was like that. But why else would she have come here? Surely if she had had any idea of the reality of it, it would have been the last place on earth she’d have ever shown up.

  And that’s what he’d been counting on. Not in a million years had he thought the mystery woman in the will would actually take that part of the inheritance seriously enough to move here.

  He’d figured on buying her out and never having to set eyes on her. Even when she’d turned down his offer through the lawyers, he’d thought it was just a ploy to raise the price—the way he’d done the night before, trying to get her out.

  But no, here she was, moved in as if she belonged.

  And giving orders!

  Jackson was in the kitchen by then and he poured water into the coffeemaker with such disgust at that very thought that he splashed more on the counter than he got in the reservoir.

  Damn woman had a lot of nerve to get on his back about how he was to treat her daughter. Where did she come off jumping on him about being mean to that child before he’d so much as spoken to the girl?

  And she thought he had a bad attitude, did she? Well, by God, he had a right to his attitude. How would she like some stranger prancing into her life, her house? Uninvited. Unwanted. Just showing up and announcing she was there to live. And not only her, but her and a child. Lock, stock and barrel.

  And fiery hair. And sparkling Irish eyes. And one of the sweetest little behinds...

  Jackson shook himself out of that bit of mind wandering, wondering what was getting into him. It had been happening ever since she’d walked into the honky-tonk. Right in the middle of a full head of steam his crazy brain would flash a picture of her. A picture that was all too vivid and in more detail than he had any business having noticed. Or remembering.

  Damn her all to hell.

  Well, he’d meant what he’d said about there not being any free rides around here. He’d give her a taste of what old Shag had dished out so heartily. Shag nice? Shag had been as ornery as a grizzly bear. By the time he’d finished with Linc, Beth and Jackson, any one of them could run the ranch single-handedly. And if this blasted woman wanted to live here, she was going to learn what it was all about, too. From the ground up.

  As Jackson watched coffee as black as coal tar drip into the pot, he realized that the more he thought about putting that mouthy little woman to work, the more the idea appealed to him. Dirt and grime and dust. Manure and chicken droppings. Sweat and blisters and backaches to beat the band.

  Oh, she was in for it. If he had to have her here, he was going to have some fun with it.

  “We’ll just see how long you want to stay when you find out it’s no picnic.”

  No sirree. Sweet little behind or no sweet little behind, he was going to work it right off and relish every minute of it.

  Every single, solitary minute of it.

  And in the meantime, he’d just have to find a way to get the image of that particular backside out of his mind....

  * * *

  After traveling, getting in late, arguing with Jackson Heller and then stewing about it until the wee hours of the morning, Ally slept late. Luckily, so did Meggie, who slipped into her bedroom at eleven and finally woke her.

  “I don’t hear anybody else in the house,” the little girl whispered as she climbed onto Ally’s bed.

  “Jackson had to go somewhere,” Ally told her in a normal voice. “We’ll have the place to ourselves for the day. I thought we could explore, get to know our way around, and then maybe swim after a while.”

  “Did you ask if it was okay?”

  “Of course it’s okay. We aren’t going to do anything but look around and swim,” Ally answered with a laugh, although she was beginning to wonder if being here at all was okay. Still, she couldn’t show that concern to her daughter. “Go get dressed. I need to call your grandmother and give her the phone number up here. Then we’ll see about something to eat.”

  “Remind Grandma to give the number to Daddy if he calls.”

  “I will,” Ally assured, biting back the urge to warn her daughter not to get her hopes up. Again. Instead she said, “Make your bed,” and sent Meggie back across the hall.

  Twenty minutes later Ally had left the message on her mother’s answering machine, dressed in her swimming suit, a pair of tennis shorts and a big shirt that covered it all, and had made her own bed.

  Breakfast was just cereal and milk, and while Meggie dawdled over hers, Ally checked out the kitchen.

  Like every room in the house, it was huge, open, airy and more functional than fashionable.

  Navy blue tile made up the countertops and back splashes. White cupboards lined three of the four walls; the matching appliances were all commercial size, though not industrial looking. Only the eight-burner stove and two ovens were stainless steel, but the mammoth cooking center was recessed in a cove all its own and was hardly unsightly.

  In the center of the room was a butcher block large enough to hold a side of beef, and off to one end was a breakfast nook that would easily seat twelve.

  To Ally’s chef’s eye, the place was a dream. Until she opened the cupboards and discovered only rudimentary pots, pans and utensils, and nary a Cuisinart to be found.

  If she stayed she’d have to send for hers.

  If?

  That thought surprised her, for it was the first time she’d seriously doubted that she would make her home here. She’d considered this move permanent. The new beginning she’d promised Meggie and herself. She’d thought it only a matter of time and seeing what she needed and didn’t need up here before she definitely sent for her things.

  The fact that she was hedging now made her realize just how intimidated she’d actually been by Jackson Heller. This was not something she was happy to acknowledge even to herself. And certainly not something she’d give in to.

  “Let’s take a look outside,” she suggested to Meggie then, as if familiarizing themselves with the place would remind her that she’d come here intent on making this more than just a lark she could be scared away from.

  The house itself was a two-story H-shaped structure built like a mountain cabin of split logs and mortar. Within the rear arms of that H began what yawned into four hundred square feet of brick-paved patio with enough tables, lawn chairs and loungers to service a large garden party.

  There was also a net hammock to one side and an enormous bricked-in barbecue with a pit next to it that Ally warned Meggie to stay away from when she suffered a mother’s paranoid vision of her child falling into it.

  Beyond the patio was the pool, predictably as large as any public one around. To the east was the former bunkhouse Beth had pointed out the night before from the sliding doors off the kitchen. She’d explained that after some quick and extensive remodeling, it had been turned into the home she and her Native American husband had moved into only in the past few days.

  Beside that was a much smaller house Ally imagined was a guest cottage, and—at some distance farther out—there was a barn, a pigsty, an extensive chicken coop, several paddocks where a number of horses grazed peacefully, and a windmill that turned eagerly against the hot breeze that was blowing as Ally and Meggie headed in that direction.

  The main house, the cottage, the patio and pool and even the renovated bunkhouse could have been on any highbrow estate playing at being rustic without actually accomplishing it. But the barn and everything around it, though well tended, left no doubt that this was a working ranch. And in the temperatures of that late August day, the smells that greeted them let them know it for sure.

  “P-yew,” Meggie said as they approached the barn, its great doors open wide.

  “Animals and the scents that go with them on a sweltering summer day,” Ally informed.

  “Camp wasn’t like this.”

  The camp her daughter referred to was one they’d just spent two months at befo
re coming here—another of Ally’s attempts to raise Meggie’s spirits. Ally had accepted a job as the camp cook in order for Meggie to be able to go while Shag’s will was in probate.

  “We were in the mountains where it was a whole lot cooler and we never really got near the stables. The horses were always brought to us, remember?”

  But before they headed into the barn where a long center separated a dozen stalls on either side, Meggie spotted a filly in the adjoining paddock and veered off in that direction, apparently forgetting her complaint about nature’s odors.

  They spent nearly two hours on that area of the property, going from horses to cows to pigs to chickens to goats, as if they were at the zoo. When they finally did check out the barn, they even happened upon a box in one corner where a mother cat and four kittens had residence.

  By that time Meggie had brightened somewhat and stopped shooting furtive glances around as if they were thieves in the night who might be caught at any moment, even though they never saw anyone at all.

  And when her daughter dropped to her knees to play with the kittens, for just a moment Ally had a brief glimpse of the little girl Meggie had been before the divorce. It reminded her why they’d come here and gave her a renewed sense of determination not to let Jackson or his threats frighten her off.

  Back at the house Ally made sandwiches while Meggie fretted over their eating Jackson’s food. Ally assured her that, as soon as Shag’s son got home, she would discuss with him providing for her and Meggie’s share of things like that.

  Then Ally filled two glasses with ice and tea, and took it all outside onto the patio, where they passed what was left of the afternoon.

  Only as it neared five o’clock did Ally begin to consider that Jackson could be back anytime, and since she didn’t want to be caught lounging next to the pool as if this were some kind of resort, she herded Meggie inside for a shower and a change of clothes for them both.

  Ally was just getting dressed in a pair of khaki shorts and a yellow T-shirt after her shower when she heard the sound of a helicopter very nearby. Having lived her life until then in the suburbs, the first thing she thought was that it was a hospital flight-for-life. She rushed to the window just as it landed on a square of tarmac to the west of the house, a patch she’d noticed earlier and somehow thought might be the beginnings of a tennis court.

  But the tarmac was a landing pad and the helicopter was not medical. It was private.

  And as she took a closer look, she realized Jackson was the pilot.

  She didn’t know why she kept on standing there, watching as he flipped switches and turned knobs on the panel control in front of him, but she did. She didn’t move when he climbed out of the aircraft, either.

  Tall and terrifically handsome, there was something very commanding about him. He wore sunglasses that lent a dashing, dangerous air to his appearance, and a white dress shirt that almost made him seem more like an executive than a cowboy—except that the sleeves were rolled to his elbows, the collar button was open rakishly, and no self-respecting executive would have been caught dead on the job in his tight jeans and roach-killer boots.

  Of course, Ally had never seen an executive who could do for a pair of jeans what Jackson Heller could. His legs were long and so thickly muscled they bulged against the denim. His hips were narrow but not so narrow that they were slight. And the outward curve of his zipper stirred up things inside of her that hadn’t been stirred up in a long time.

  Ally wondered at that fact. At herself for being stuck to the window like glue, studying the way he walked—smooth, graceful, confident, and with just a hint of swagger to the slightly bowlegged gait.

  She ordered herself to move away, to stop gawking like a hormonal teenager who’d never seen a man with quite that much raw masculinity and just plain sensuality oozing out of his every pore.

  But there she stayed, anyway.

  It was just curiosity, she reasoned. Purely academic. It wasn’t as if she were really interested. Or mesmerized. She was only appreciating the sight the way any red-blooded woman would have.

  It didn’t mean anything. Good-looking or not, Jackson Heller was too unpleasant and difficult for her to enjoy anything but the sight of him. And Lord knows, she would not have been in the market for a relationship even if Jackson had been different. Her hands were full trying to get Meggie through the divorce residual, trying to get both their lives back on course. The last thing Ally needed, wanted or would even entertain thoughts of was any kind of involvement with a man, even a man who wasn’t as cantankerous as Jackson Heller.

  No, she told herself as she watched him step around the barbecue pit, this was just a bit of voyeurism. She was still human, after all, and cantankerous or not, he was a gorgeous hunk of manhood. She just didn’t want anything more than the sight. At a safe distance. When he didn’t know she was looking.

  And when she was out of the range of his temper.

  The bedroom door opened just then and Ally spun away from the window as if she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t be. She expected to find Meggie, but instead a tiny little boy stood there solemn faced, reminding her suddenly of the very person she’d been spying on.

  “‘Lo,” he said in a serious voice.

  “Hi,” Ally answered with a note of question to it.

  “I’m Danny. We comed for supper and there’s a girl in my room and this one was my dad’s ‘fore we went to live at Kansas’s,” he informed, sounding almost as put out as Jackson about Meggie and Ally having trespassed on territory he considered his own.

  Meggie came up behind the smaller child just then and said in a hushed aside aimed at Ally, “He just walked in!”

  Ally nodded to her daughter and smiled at Danny. “Your dad is Linc, isn’t he?”

  Danny nodded in return, slowly, stoically. “Who’re you guys?”

  Ally introduced herself and Meggie, and as if that made it all right for them to be there, Danny took an arrowhead out of his pocket and held it for them to see. “This makes me strong. My uncle Ash gived it to me and he’s downstairs, too, wis my aunt Beth and uncle Jackson and my Kansas and they’re all wonderin’ where you are.”

  With the exception of Jackson, the rest of the Hellers must have arrived while Ally was in the shower, because she hadn’t heard anything. It had been bad enough to think of having another confrontation with Jackson alone, but now she wondered if they’d formed some sort of joint force with which to face her.

  Maybe Jackson had managed to win them over to his side and they were all waiting downstairs to tell her she’d better accept his offer and leave, or face the wrath of the whole family circle.

  Ally’s stomach lurched at the prospect, but she forced another smile for Shag’s grandson and said, “Then I guess we’d better go downstairs so they can stop wondering.”

  Whether for her own reasons or because she sensed her mother’s uneasiness, Meggie had suddenly lost the blush of color the day had put into her cheeks, and her hazel eyes were wide. Wanting to spare her daughter any scene that might be about to unfold, she suggested Meggie and Danny go out the front door and around to the barn to see the kittens.

  Meggie hesitated, clearly wanting to escape but worried about leaving Ally alone, so Ally turned her by the shoulders and gave her a little push. “Everything will be fine,” she assured in a tone that sounded as if she were convinced of it.

  Then she followed the two kids down the stairs and watched them go outside before she headed for the kitchen where the sounds of Heller voices drifted out.

  As she approached the swinging door, she overheard Linc say something about Jackson yawning, teasing him over not sleeping well the night before. All she could make out of Jackson’s reply was something about “that damn woman.”

  Ally took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and went in—that damn woman trying to look as if she were ready, willing and able to take them all on.

  But when everyone looked at her from various spots
around the kitchen, four of the five expressions were just as warm and friendly as they’d been the night before, dispelling her fear of what she was about to face.

  Only Jackson scowled at her.

  But somehow that had more effect than the rest combined.

  “There you are!” Beth said. “I was just going upstairs to get you. We thought we’d throw together a little supper while we got to know each other.”

  “Great,” Ally said, hating the tentative tone in her voice and amending it. “I just met Danny.”

  “Is that where he got off to?” Linc mused. “What’d he do, go tell you to get yourself down here?”

  “Something like that.” Ally answered Linc’s smile with one of her own to assure him she hadn’t taken offense. “Is he always so sober and serious?” she asked, her gaze skirting over to Jackson as if the question were about him. Which it actually could have been.

  Still, she was trying to pretend he wasn’t there and that those blue eyes of his weren’t boring into her as if he wanted to boot her out of his kitchen, his house, his life. Literally.

  Linc slapped his brother on the back much the way he had the night before. “Danny and Jackson here—the old and the young version of sober and serious—that’s them, all right.”

  Jackson turned his scowl on Linc for a moment, then went to the refrigerator to get himself a beer.

  Ally noticed he didn’t offer her anything to drink as courtesy might have dictated.

  Kansas must have noticed, too, because she jumped in and did.

  Since everyone except Beth was drinking beer, too, Ally accepted one of those before peering at the foodstuffs that were on the butcher block now that several grocery sacks had been emptied and everyone had gathered around it.

  “What can I do?”

  “Know how to make guacamole?” Beth asked.

  Ally smiled. “A pretty good one, actually.”

  “Then you can have the job.”

  Ash piped in. “We’re having burritos with Jackson’s green chili. It isn’t for sissies,” he warned as if he’d had a previous surprise with that dish himself.

  On cue, Jackson took a container out of the freezer and put it into the microwave, waiting there as it thawed rather than joining the group.