by Natasha Deen
Destina smacked Aya’s fingers with the broad part of the brush.
“Ow!” She pulled her hand back.
“Go. You’re arrogating me.”
She laughed. “Aggravating. I’m aggravating you.”
“That, too.” Destina scrubbed at the potato hard enough to mash it. “Go! See what Jim wants.” She blushed as she spoke his name.
“Oh, yeah, love really calms,” Aya said as she wiped her hand on a checkered dishtowel. “You’re a veritable picture of tranquility.” Laughing, she side-stepped Destina’s hip check and walked into the hallway.
“Pops, Spencer’s upstairs doing homework. He wanted you to lend him a hand with math, multi—” Her eyes locked onto Nate. Hell, everything locked onto him. His presence commanded her attention in the same way a red flag demanded a bull’s focus. Unlike her bovine counterpart, however, sexual need, not rage motivated Aya’s urge to charge. Nate exuded a sensuality that electrified the air and left her short of breath. “What are you doing here?”
“He’s going to stay with us,” Pops answered from behind him, “in the main house. The bunkhouse is full to capacity.”
A frown pulled her eyebrows together. “It’s built to handle ten, and only four men stay there.”
Pops snorted. “Little Bear is big enough for three men, and with the way Laurie snores, we’re lucky the guys don’t demand hazard pay.”
He was right, but truth and fact were of little comfort to her slighted feelings. The forced intimacy compelled by sharing a roof with the unwilling object of her desires, chafed and irritated.
Nate shifted his duffel bag from one shoulder to the next and kept his eyes fixed on the banister handle. That he refused to make eye contact did more than chafe. It rubbed her feelings and her pride until they were red, raw, and bruised. Wounded emotions didn’t drown the howling voice of her physical attraction and this served to make Aya more snappy and annoyed. Her jerky steps closed the distance between them as she repressed the urge to scream and wail like a preschooler. “There’s a spare room in the basement.” She tried to sound nonchalant, but her words came out bitter and grudging.
Pops shook his head. “Destina wants to use it as a sewing room. He’ll stay in the upstairs guestroom.”
Her fingers reflexively curled into a fist. Back and forth, open then closed, they bent and unfurled in the same tight pulse as her heartbeat. She swallowed the urge to lash out. It slid down her throat, cutting her ego, and leaving razor marks on her pride.
“I need to get dinner on the table.” Her gaze flicked to him then to Pops. “Supper will be ready in forty minutes.”
Aya stalked back to the kitchen, the linoleum floor absorbed the angry slam of her cowboy boots hitting the ground. Destina, still standing by the ceramic sink and peeling potatoes, turned and met her gaze.
“I know that look, Señorita. Still furious at love?”
She sighed, grabbed a potato, and hacked into it with more force than necessary.
“No, I’m angry at myself,” Aya answered. “My pride is hurt and I’m behaving like a two-year-old who got her toy taken away.”
“Oh, si, this happens to me whenever Spencer has to turn on the computer for me.”
Aya’s lips twitched. “This wound is more personal.”
In low tones, she explained her rush of attraction with Nate, and his subsequent rejection, ending with, “The worst part, his snubbing has done nothing to temper these stupid hormones. After all these years, you’d think my brain would have pulled the plug on my libido. But no, my sex drive has to wait until the most inconvenient time to resurrect itself.” She grabbed another potato and slashed into it. If only she could do the same thing with the unwanted emotions and desires taking root in her.
Destina’s dark eyes turned hard. “He met Spencer and rather than wanting you more, he wants you less?”
A string of Spanish words followed her question. Though Aya was fluent in the language, Destina spoke so rapidly, all she caught were the words “shrivel,” “sex,” and something about a goat or camel.
“I should take him out back and teach him a lesson.”
Aya laughed at the image of her sweet, plump Destina by the woodshed with Nate. “A marshmallow has more fighting skills than you. All he’d need to do, is give you a puppy-dog look, and you’d be holding him to your breasts and telling him all was forgiven.”
Destina glanced down. “With my G-cups, he’d be very comfortable.” Her giggle skipped along Aya’s injured pride, lyrical Band-Aids for a gaping wound whose initial cut had little to do with Nate.
“Aya?”
The deep voice sent tingles along her spine, and the knife slid from her grasp. Destina gripped her hand and squeezed. Aya smiled at her. She rinsed the potato and set it in the bowl—slowly, so she could catch her breath and still her traitorous libido. Then she turned to face Nate.
Destina did the same, and a soft gasp escaped as she laid a damp hand against her breast. “You’re wrong,” she whispered in Spanish.
Aya bent her head to catch the words.
“He hasn’t even given me a puppy-dog look, and already I want to cradle him against my breasts.”
Aya rubbed her lips together to keep from laughing and turned a dispassionate expression to Nate. He stood at least twenty feet away from her, at the entrance of the great room which joined the kitchen—too far away for her to feel his heat or smell the spicy aroma of his aftershave...so why did his scent and warmth surround her? He stuck his hands in the back pocket of his jeans, and his shirt stretched across the wide breadth of his chest. A sigh of appreciation escaped both women
“Yes? Did you need help finding towels?”
“I’ll help,” Destina piped up.
Aya shot her a dark stare. “Shush.”
The older woman eyed Nate. “I may be old,” she whispered, “but my libido and I are good friends—and we wouldn’t mind making his acquaintance.” She flashed him a winsome smile. “What do you think about May-December relationships?”
He grinned, and Aya’s knees buckled.
“I think the twenty-year-old who’s courting you better have a lot of energy.”
Destina laughed, her face lighting at Nate’s high-wattage flirtations. Aya chuffed and elbowed her in the ribs. “Whose side are you on?”
The housekeeper’s gaze flitted from Nate to Aya, her expression shifting from lust to fidelity and back again. “I’m on the side of the potatoes,” she sighed, turning back to her task.
“Aya?”
Ah, hell. Why did her insides have to shiver at the way he said her name?
“I wanted to talk to you—I think we’ve gotten off to a rocky start, and I’d like to rectify this.”
Her lip curled, an instinctive reaction at the empty placations and rationalizations awaiting her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Dinner’s supposed to be in forty minutes.” She fought the urge to glare at him. “Looks like it’s going to take an hour, and I have hungry people to feed.”
“Can I help? We can—”
“No.” She took a breath to steady herself. “We’re fine, there’s nothing to talk about.” Her voice sounded hard as granite, but she heard the pebbles of hurt tumbling amongst the words. Feminine dignity flexed its fist at the weakness within her and demanded she stand stoic, emotionless.
His expression flickered and sputtered into resignation. He mumbled, low and inaudible, turned, and walked away.
“He seems familiar,” Destina said.
“Of course he does,” Aya snapped. “When a woman shuts her eyes and gives into wild fantasy, he’s the image behind her closed lids. If he was any taller, darker, or more handsome, the entire world would explode because no one can be that amazing without sending the earth off its orbit.”
“It inhales, doesn’t it?”
Her brain googled her mental dictionary for the translation. “Inhales?”
“Si. When something stinks, it inhales.”
The spinning of her thoughts slowed into comprehension. “No, it sucks.”
Destina’s brow furrowed. “What sucks?”
“You said ‘it inhales’ and I’m telling you that it sucks.”
“Si, isn’t that what I said?”
Aya’s mouth opened, but no intelligent discourse on colloquialism and their use came to mind. “Talk to Spencer. He’s the one teaching you all the slang; he should explain it to you. “ She grabbed another potato. The soft gust of breeze from the window above the sink ruffled the cotton curtains, but couldn’t blow away the aching, prickly feeling.
“Sucks. Inhales. After many years, a man hitting your heart does both.”
Aya’s laugh held no humor. “Of all my organs he hit, my heart wasn’t it. And I know exactly what to do with a man who can’t handle my maternal status and my son: stay the hell away from him.”
****
Mason raced up the stairs, and felt like smashing himself into the nearest wall in the hopes it would smack some sense into him. This was, by far, the stupidest thing he’d ever done—and that included the time he had hacked into Oxford University’s database, made himself a professor, and created a “Sexual Positions 101” class in the register’s calendar.
Aya was gorgeous, wild, and—if he wasn’t careful—she would be his undoing. The sight of her transfixed him, the sound of her voice urged his surrender. He burst through the bedroom door and found Jim sitting on the bed.
“Didn’t Spencer need your help?” Even as he asked the question, the aloof, logical side of him cursed the inquisitiveness. In battle and in business, fostering intimacy with an opponent meant losing.
“That’s our code for me to sneak him candy.” Jim waved his hand in a dismissive gesture, but the pride and love he held for Spencer gave his lean, weathered face a glow even Leonardo Da Vinci couldn’t have replicated. “What about Aya? How’s the plan going with her?”
“Dismally,” Mason told him as he closed the door. “We’ve both underestimated her. My pretending to be a ranch hand and winning her confidence has about as much chance of succeeding as a snowball lasting two minutes in the Sahara.”
Jim frowned. “It snows in the desert, you know.” His lips twitched. “So says Spencer, and he knows everything.”
“You’re missing my point.” Mason sat on the edge of the cushioned window seat. “The point is, she’s going to find out. Your granddaughter—” His memory flashed to the image of Aya and her horse hurtling along the grass to confront him, the love that poured from her as she’d taken Spencer from the bus, and the contempt she’d blasted at him. “Your granddaughter is a passionate, determined woman. She’s more likely to shoot me before she gives up the farm. And if she finds out who I really am, she’ll shoot me in a spot where my death will be long and painful.”
“It’ll work.” He fixed Mason with a hard stare, but the way Jim began to pace the room voided the conviction of his words. “Your photo has never been in the papers—she has no clue what Mason St. John looks like. Denis will back up your work history, and I’ll help you figure out the chores. There’s nothing for her on this farm, except worry and anxiety. With your reputation as a negotiator, you can persuade her to sell.”
“If I bargain with all my wits, I’ll be lucky if I convince her to shoot me in a non-lethal spot,” he muttered.
Jim pulled at the patchwork quilt. The nervous gesture didn’t seem to ebb the tension within him because he paced to the window. His gray hair, lined face, and wiry frame heightened the aura of strength and honor. It reminded Mason of his father and tossed his already disordered emotions into more turmoil.
“We’re not talking solely about my granddaughter, Mr. St James, we’re talking about your father’s last wishes,” Jim said.
Mason’s conflicting feelings graduated to chaotic. Duty commanded him to ignore Aya and concentrate on his father. Getting his mind off her, however, was an easier task to jot down in his mental “to do list” than to execute. In the span of an hour, his focused will, his very identity was cracking into two separate and opposing factions. One side—the familiar, comforting traits of emotional aloofness, business before pleasure, and stoicism urged him to stick with the original plan. But Aya Michaels—and her son, for that matter—fired cannons and bombs at his professional shielding, ripped it down, and allowed his repressed, softer side to run free. The Michaels family played on the strings of his heart, complicated the detachment of negotiating a business deal, and left him lost, bewildered. He despised his confusion and held nothing but scorn for the emotions, blaming them on a beautiful woman and the ghosts of his past.
Mason shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, but they clung to him, tenacious and barbed. “Let’s stay focused on Aya, for now.” God, how her name rolled off his tongue, sweet as honey. “Surely you’ve explained the benefits of selling.”
Jim sighed. “She’s like her mother. Mulish, honor-bound, and protective. Aya’s determined to keep the land, but farming is hard, cruel. It leaves her at the mercy of storms and drought, crop failure, and insects. Organic farming is even more back-breaking.”
“If it’s such a brutal life, why does she stay?”
He scrubbed his hand across his forehead. “That’s a long, sad story, Mr. St. John—”
“Mason—Nate—” He sighed and waved Jim on.
“Suffice to say, she’s mixing up honor with duty, love with guilt, and punishment for character. She wants to make it work for the sake of her parents. But my son and his wife are long dead, and the dead have no dreams.” Jim moved to the window seat and looked out. “I thought she would sell. Aya’s an artist, not a farmer. It never occurred to me she’d stay—that she’d want this little, tiny life. She’s got real talent, and more than that, the passion to succeed. If I or her parents had thought for a second she’d have given up her dreams...” He turned, determination melding with a pleading gaze that twisted Mason’s heart. “One way or another, Mr. St. John, you must get this land from her.”
He opened his mouth, but no placations came to mind. Saving the land and damning Aya. Last night, it was Plan A. Today, it was the last thing he wanted to do.
His cell phone vibrated, and glancing down, he saw the picture of his father on the screen. “It’s my dad.”
Jim rose and left, closing the door behind him.
Mason answered the call and prayed he would be man enough to answer the higher call of familial responsibility.
****
With six men, three dogs, two women, and one small boy, Aya thought she would lose track of Nate in the crowd. She was wrong. In the same fashion animals knew a storm would herald their destruction if they didn’t seek higher ground, Nate thundered toward her, shaking the leaves of her sedate life and ripping away at the roots of her celibate resolve.
She could no more seek higher ground than run into a cave and hide. But damn it, did he have to hover, offering to help with the salad, or grabbing the roast from the oven? By the time she sat for dinner, Aya was hot, flushed, and what she was hungering for wasn’t on the table, but sitting beside it.
“Can I cut you a slice of roast beef?” asked Nate.
He rose from his chair beside hers and etched her awareness with miles and miles of strong, long, male legs.
“Mom’s a vegetarian,” Spencer piped up.
Nate stiffened with surprise. “A vegetarian cow farmer? Unusual, isn’t it?”
Her lips twisted with self-mockery. “I guess I’m an unusual woman.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
Nate’s softly spoken words snapped her attention from her napkin to his face. The warm, intimate light in his eyes left her unbalanced and grasping for her scattered thoughts.
Aya turned her concentration back to the sage-colored cloth on her lap. Directing her comments to her cutlery, she said, “Thank you for the offer, and the compliment.”
“Can I dish out some carrots for you, instead?”
He towered ov
er her, and the conciliatory tone in his voice coaxed her to make eye contact, but she refused to comply. First, because she’d have to crane her head back to meet his eyes, and she didn’t like the power position it put him in. Second, if she turned and looked at him by her eye-level, she was right on par with the most delicious and tempting part of his anatomy. It was meat of an entirely different sort, and whetted more than her appetite.
To avoid inducement, she gave careful consideration to dishing the sweet peas on to her plate. “I’m fine, thank you. I’ll help myself.”
She felt, rather than saw Nate shrug in surrender. As he served roast beef to the rest of the table, Aya fixed Spencer’s plate. She tried to match her movements and rhythm to Nate’s, but even her best laid plans failed, and she found their hands grazing each other’s, their culinary paths crossing and intersecting. He sat down, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe now, her hormones would go back to normal levels.
“Hey, someone pass the rolls,” Little Bear hollered from his position at the end of the wooden table.
Both Aya and Nate reached for the basket. His fingers touched hers and a thrill—the long-forgotten excitement of crushes, broken hearts, and dreams—burned her hand and left lesions on her girlish hopes. She pulled away and leaned back. “Go ahead.”
His fingers curled around the bowl and a sudden, intense flush of jealousy washed over her. She scolded her fevered brain and demanded her emotions rein themselves in. Envying an inanimate piece of dishware had to be the height of sexual desperation. But as Nate leaned past her and his shoulder brushed against her arm, her body took her to new levels of carnal distraction. Every neuron jumped and shivered with pleasure and the desire for more contact with him. A blush of embarrassment crawled from her neck to the tips of her hair, and she sent up a silent prayer of thanks her almond-colored skin would hide any sign of her emotion. What it didn’t hide, however, was the obvious indications of her arousal—two, hard nipples straining through the fabric of her T-shirt. Aya slouched in her seat, shoved a forkful of macaroni in her mouth and hoped if anyone noticed, they’d believe she was cold.