Ally tried to ignore him and the fact that she could feel that fierce stare on her again from off her right shoulder, and instead searched for a subject on which to make conversation as she peeled ripe avocados.
She knew a lot about Shag’s children. At least about their lives up until his death. He’d talked freely about Beth being married to an Indian who owned and oversaw a charitable foundation for Native Americans. About Linc riding rodeo and having lost his wife, Virgie, to a car accident just weeks after Danny was born.
She even knew Jackson had been married young and very briefly, then divorced—though she didn’t know any of the details. What Shag hadn’t said was how unpleasant Jackson was and she wondered if the divorce was what had made him such a hard case. Or maybe his being such a hard case had driven his wife away....
But rather than address that part of her curiosity, she decided to update herself on the other changes that had apparently taken place in the Heller clan since their father’s death.
She started with Beth and the most obvious question. “When is your baby due?”
“We aren’t sure,” Beth answered with a laugh.
Ash chuckled from beside his wife as he chopped onions. “Approximately nine months from just before we got divorced.”
“Or about three months from when we got remarried,” Beth added as the two of them seemed to share a private joke.
“What that translates to,” Kansas added, “is that the baby is probably due in about a month. As close as anyone can tell.”
“Shag said you lived on the Wind River Reservation, so I didn’t expect to find you here,” Ally said to Beth and Ash again, wondering suddenly if the reason they’d remodeled the bunkhouse was because Jackson had been so difficult to live with when they’d made the move.
“I came back right after the divorce,” Beth told her. “Ash followed three weeks later and when we worked things out between us, we decided to stay.”
“But not here in the house...” It was a leading statement, though Ally carefully didn’t glance at the still-staring man who was uppermost in her mind even when she was among these other people and he was keeping himself removed from them all.
“We wanted our own place,” Ash said, giving no clue as to whether or not his surly brother-in-law was the reason.
Linc asked what she needed for the guacamole and brought the spices, lemons, limes, sour cream, tomatoes and Tabasco sauce for her.
“And how about you and Kansas? You guys can’t have been married long,” Ally said then, beginning to feel as if she were catching up on old acquaintances.
“Since the Fourth of July,” Kansas answered, standing on tiptoe to kiss her husband’s cheek.
“Kansas owns the general store, so anything you need she either has or can get for you,” Beth informed.
“And Linc rides in rodeos,” Ally added what she knew.
Or what she thought she knew until Linc said, “Not anymore. Now I’m running that honky-tonk you walked into last night. Which, by the way, you also own a share of, since the building was part of what we all inherited.”
He dipped a chip into her guacamole just as she finished it and went into rapture—eyes rolling, face scrunched up blissfully, moaning like a lovesick cow. “That’s incredible!”
Ally laughed. “That’s what I do.”
“Make avocado dip?” This from Ash.
“Cook. Actually, I’m a chef,” she said with exaggerated flair to let them know she didn’t take herself as seriously as the formal title might have seemed.
“Hear that, Jackson?” Linc called as if his brother were a mile away rather than a few feet. “A genuine chef right under your own roof. I’ll tell you, the honky-tonk could use somebody who can make guacamole like this. Jackson? You with us?” he asked when the other man didn’t respond.
Then, in the silence that followed, the slow purposeful sound of Jackson’s heels on the tile floor warned of his approach. He came to stand directly across the butcher block from Ally, bracing both hands on the table and leaning toward her as if he’d have pressed his nose to hers if he’d been able to, just to be more menacing.
Showdown II.
He glared at her as he answered his brother. “I think that’s a fine idea. She can get a place in town, cook for The Buckin’ Bronco and live real well on what I’ll pay to buy out her share of the ranch.”
Ally stared back at him, meeting him eye to eye, stubbornness to stubbornness, and also spoke to Linc without breaking the standoff. “I’d love to cook for the honky-tonk. But I came to live at the ranch and I’d still live here even if I did. I wouldn’t think of moving into town or selling out,” she said pointedly, firmly.
“Live here, work here,” Jackson warned.
“And I’ll bet you have all kinds of plans for that, don’t you?” she heard herself say with more courage than she felt and too much challenge to be smart.
He didn’t answer her, leaving another tense silence to hang there between them. Around them.
Ally wondered how it was possible that under those circumstances she could be noticing every rugged plane of that handsome face and feeling some of the same stirrings she’d felt watching him from her bedroom window earlier.
Then that great face, which looked as if nature itself had carved it, slowly eased into a small smile.
Not a nice smile. But one that sent shivers up her spine.
He looked at her as if she were a rabbit in a cage and she had the distinct impression that he was going to enjoy meting out the rough time he had in store for her.
Ally reminded herself that she’d come here for Meggie’s sake. That already—in just this one day—she’d glimpsed a little of what she hoped this place would accomplish in giving her daughter back her childhood. And for the second time since she’d arrived she told herself she could handle anything in order to do that.
Finally it was Linc who broke the silence and some of the tension in the room by laughing at Jackson, slapping him on the back yet again and saying to Ally, “Don’t let him buffalo you. If you knew Shag and could put up with him, you can put up with old Jackson here.”
But old Jackson just went right on staring at her, smiling that smile.
And Ally got the message loud and clear: Don’t be too sure.
* * *
The evening turned out to be pretty pleasant once Ally managed to get used to Jackson’s ever-present glare. He kept to himself otherwise, and Linc, Kansas, Beth and Ash were all good company.
By the time they left, around nine, Ally felt as if she’d known them forever and could count them as friends.
Meggie had spent most of the time watching an animated movie with Danny, but once everyone had said good-night and gone, Ally told her to go upstairs and get ready for bed.
“Not yet,” Jackson vetoed from behind, having followed her in from the front door after seeing Linc, Kansas and Danny off.
“What?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at him.
“There are some people the two of you have to meet and then I’ll show Meggie the chores she’ll need to do tomorrow while we’re off working.”
It took a moment for all of that to register and for Ally to choose which to take issue with first. “Whatever work I do, Meggie will need to be with me.”
“No, ma’am, she won’t. The people you’re about to meet are Hans and Marta. Marta does the housekeeping here and Hans takes care of the grounds and the handiwork close to home. They’ll look after the girl while we’re gone, make sure she’s doing what she’s supposed to.”
Issue number two.
Ally turned to face him. “I’ll do what you feel is necessary to earn our keep, as you put it, but Meggie—”
“It’s okay, Mom,” Meggie interrupted, suddenly at Ally’s side, sounding worried and as if she were feeling responsible for smoothing the waters. “I can do chores. I fed Grandma’s cat before, remember?”
Ally put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders and hugged h
er close, besting Jackson with a glare fiercer than he’d given her all night. She didn’t say anything else. Not then, with Meggie there. But Jackson Heller had not heard the end of this. Not by a long shot.
He ignored what her expression conveyed and turned toward the kitchen, saying as he went, “Hans and Marta went into Cheyenne today but I saw them coming back as Beth and Ash left. We’d best get over there before they turn in for the night.”
Apparently that meant Ally and Meggie were to follow him, which Meggie was quicker to do than Ally. Ally might have just stood there staring daggers at his broad back except that her daughter took her hand and dragged her along.
The small cottage Ally had thought was a guest house was where the two caretakers lived. Marta and Hans were well into retirement years and seemed more like resident grandparents than employees.
Hans was thin, wiry and bald on top; he slipped his dentures in as Marta welcomed them into their home. She was as wide as she was tall—but agile in spite of it—with rosy red cheeks, white hair cut like an inverted bowl, and kind, jolly eyes.
There was an underlying tone of joyousness to her high voice as she asked Meggie what kind of things she liked to eat for lunches when Jackson informed her she was to look after the little girl during the days while he and Ally worked.
The older woman seemed to view the news as a gift that delighted her and Meggie responded to that, warming up to her, and to Hans’s teasing, too.
Ally only hoped her daughter wasn’t just putting a good face on things to keep the tension with Jackson down to a minimum.
They didn’t stay but a few minutes before leaving Hans and Marta to go to bed. From there Jackson led the way to the chicken coop while explaining to Meggie that one of her daily chores would be to feed the chickens, gather eggs and bring them to Marta.
“Meggie is just a little girl,” Ally warned from behind the two of them, trying again to make it clear she didn’t want her daughter to have to do this.
“On a ranch even little girls work,” Jackson informed in a tone of voice more even and equable than Ally’s had been.
Meggie shot her a look that begged her not to make waves, and again Ally put off further argument as Jackson showed her daughter what to do.
Ally watched like a hawk, staying close to Meggie, ready to swoop should Jackson take one step out of bounds.
But, to her surprise, what she witnessed was patient tutelage that even she couldn’t find fault with.
In spite of that, she was still bristling when they left the chicken coop. “Are you finished?” she demanded of him.
“For tonight. There’ll be more she’ll need to do tomorrow and along the way. Plus whatever Hans and Marta need help with.”
Ally turned to Meggie. “Go on up to the house, honey, and get ready for bed. I’ll be there to tuck you in in just a few minutes.”
Meggie glanced from Ally to Jackson and back again, but in the end she left them without another word.
Ally watched her go, waiting until her daughter had slipped through the sliding doors into the kitchen before turning to Jackson in the white glow of moonlight.
He was having his turn at watching her again, his weight more on one hip than the other, his arms crossed over his chest, his expression daring her to come at him with all she had.
“Meggie is not your slave and you are not to order her around.”
One bushy eyebrow arched. “Doing chores doesn’t make anybody a slave.”
“I didn’t bring her up here to work. What I do will have to count for us both.”
“No, ma’am, it won’t. I don’t give a damn what any piece of paper says about your owning this place. I run it and if you want to live on it, you—and your daughter—will do what I say in regards to it. Gathering eggs and feeding chickens and anything I set that child to do, she’ll do. Just the same as you’ll do what I tell you to do or neither of you will stay. Understood?”
“I understand that you’d better not—for a single second—forget that Meggie is my daughter and that our living here does not give you any authority over her.”
“As far as the ranch goes, I have full authority. I’ll set her to doing chores and I’ll speak up about anything else I need to speak up about when it comes to that. But beyond what she does for her keep is your business.”
If Ally hadn’t seen his patience with her daughter a moment earlier she might have thought that he intended to mistreat Meggie to drive them off. But there hadn’t been anything abusive in his actions. And since her daughter had seemed willing to comply, and gathering a few eggs and feeding some chickens was not a huge, hard job, she supposed it was possible she might be jumping the gun slightly to be so angry over it all.
She decided to reserve judgment on what he might be up to. Temporarily. But she would still keep close tabs on what he required of Meggie and how he acted toward her.
First, though, another warning.
“Bear in mind that you can push this only so far. I’m cooperating because I realize we’ve come into your domain. But legally I don’t really have to. We can be here, on our share of this place, doing anything we please, whether you like it or not.”
Wow! She’d surprised herself. She sounded every bit as tough as he did.
At least to her own ears.
Apparently it hadn’t had quite the same potency to his, because there was that smile again—the one he’d shown her at the beginning of the evening. The one that said she was really in for it and that if she thought she could avoid anything she was mistaken.
“Five o’clock tomorrow morning,” he said. “Be ready to move cattle. I have a herd needs to get to a pasture with more grass on it. You can ride a horse, can’t you?”
“As a matter of fact, I can.” Though she didn’t tell him that she’d learned just a few weeks ago at camp and that she had ridden only on timid ponies that never went faster than a sightseer’s walk.
He looked dubious but only eyed her up and down with a slow, steady gaze that seemed to take in every inch of her. “You’ll need to dress in something different than what you’re wearing. Jeans. No shorts. No sandals. Wear socks.”
She considered snapping to attention and saluting him but thought better of it. She had enough to deal with, just fighting the unwelcome and wholly surprising rush of her blood through her veins, the sense that she could actually feel heat from the gaze he’d rolled over her.
“And you’d better do somethin’ else with all this,” he added, reaching to catch a long, curly strand of her hair between his fingers. “Tie it up off your neck or you’ll die of the heat.”
Had his voice grown slower, thicker, huskier? Or was it just that Ally heard it that way through some very confusing emotions that suddenly popped up inside of her at even that small contact?
Let go! she ordered. But only in her mind. Somehow the words didn’t go beyond that, and instead she found herself looking up into the shadow of his eyes, too aware of the way the moonlight kissed the hollows of his cheeks, christened the sharp rise of his cheekbones and dusted his mustache. The mustache that made his mouth so intriguing....
Ally pulled back, realizing only as she did that they’d somehow moved closer together, that she was suddenly not too far away from that mustached mouth.
Oh, Lord.
“I’ve been dressing myself for some time now, and I think I can figure out what to do with my own hair,” she snapped, though it lacked the bite she’d meant for it to have.
He’d lost the smile she was coming to think of as sinister and seemed as taken aback as she was by the currents that had passed between them.
After her comment, his smile slid into place again.
He shrugged a broad, powerful shoulder to let her know he’d only been offering a suggestion, that he didn’t really care whether she took it or not, or what consequences she might suffer if she didn’t.
“At 5:00 a.m. Sharp. And that doesn’t mean that’s what time you get yourself out of bed. That means
you’re downstairs, dressed and ready to go then.”
“I’ll be there.” She sneered back at him, turning around and following the same path her daughter had to the house as he stayed right where he was.
The whole way she could feel Jackson’s gaze on her as surely as she’d watched Meggie. Well, if he was looking for some sign that he’d cowed or frightened her, he was going to be disappointed. She kept her back straight as a board and her walk confident.
But internally she was a mass of jelly, though not over the prospect of being ready to work at five in the morning or of wondering what that work might entail.
What had left her quivering inside was that moment when he’d held her hair and she’d been drawn to him.
That same moment when she must have lost her mind.
Because for just a split second she’d actually had a flash of curiosity about what it might have felt like to melt into his arms....
Chapter Three
Ally was not a morning person and when she left her bedroom at 5:00 a.m. on the dot the next day, her doubts about being at the ranch were at an all-time high.
A small house in Elk Creek without a resident tyrant who ordered her up before the sun, cooking at the honky-tonk—all seemed vastly more appealing.
But that wouldn’t have been too different from what she’d left behind, and then Meggie wouldn’t be around the animals she loved and have the advantages of the ranch, which was why they’d come in the first place, so Ally discarded the notion of calling ranch life quits before it had even begun.
Besides, she thought on her way downstairs, wouldn’t Jackson have a heyday over her being shooed away by something as minor as one crack-of-dawn day!
And she was not about to give him the satisfaction.
He was already in the kitchen when she got there. Dressed in worn jeans and a chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up above his elbows, he looked ready for work and ruggedly terrific.
Ally forced herself to think about something else. Like the ground coffee beans he was pouring straight from the can without measuring.
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