by Natasha Deen
“So, you don’t eat any kind of meat?”
She jerked, almost choking on the mouthful of food and told herself his statement wasn’t a double entendre. “I eat seafood.” Aya meant the words to flow, a calm stream of sounds. Instead, they snapped from her mouth like artillery fire from a gun chamber. He looked taken aback. The entire table looked taken aback. Oh hell. Aya avoided the narrowed gaze of her grandfather, his silent reprove of her rudeness. “I’m trying to cut back on my meat intake—I’m not a true vegetarian.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize this was a sensitive topic for you.”
She closed her eyes and sighed. “It’s not. Really.”
Aya forced herself to smile at him, though she wanted to bare her fangs and run him off her physical and emotional property. He circled her sexual territory, and if she wasn’t careful, he’d not only trespass on her land, but conquer it.
“I’m a little testy today, I’m sorry. Excuse me, I’ve got to take dessert from the oven.” Her chair scraped against the floor as she pushed it from the table and headed into the kitchen.
Aya leaned her hands on either side of the sink and took three deep breaths, trying to still her shaking insides. This was a mess. No. She was a mess. Ten years without sex, and she was tempted to ignore the questions of tomorrow, for a good roll in the hay tonight. A faint current tickled past her skin. The hair on the back of her neck rose as if exposed to a powerful charge. Her limbs stiffened. She raised her head. Nate’s image reflected in the window over the sink.
“Are you okay?” His steps, silent and graceful, brought him within a foot of her.
With each step, the current that had tickled her skin, burrowed into her, until a long-forgotten electricity surrounded her, sparked the air and left her body crackling with desire. He reached out as if to lay his hand on her shoulder, but pulled back.
“Fine, fine.” Her vocal box bounced and skipped like a CD player with a scratch, her brain stuck on the word “fine.” She moved away from him, stepped to the oven to take out the apple pie and set it on the counter.
“Are you sure?”
She heard the smile in his voice as he laid his hand on her shoulder. Pride and self-preservation made her want to shake it off, but a deeper, bigger part of her welcomed the comfort in his touch and the concern in his eyes. In the deeper parts of her, the awareness of his contact, the weight of him against her skin left her…wanting.
“I think I contributed to your rough day. There’s a misunderstanding I need to clear up.”
Tension laid its iron shawl on her shoulders. She shrugged out of his grasp. “If it’s about this afternoon, forget about it. I don’t take flirtations from guys like you seriously.”
Confusion, offence, and empathy chased other emotions across the sculpted planes of Nate’s face. “Slow down and explain,” he said. “Guys like me?”
Of all the emotions to choose, why did he pick vanity?
“I meant—” She grabbed a tray of rolls and stacked them into a bowl. “Gorgeous men can’t help but flirt. It’s in their genes, along with long lashes and sexy smiles.”
The edges of his lips twitched; surprise lit his eyes. “You think I’m gorgeous and sexy?”
He asked the question with such guileless sincerity, Aya stopped and stared. “Are you kidding?”
“Are you?”
Wary of the bait dangling in front of her, she said, “No. You’re gorgeous.” Aya gestured to his shoulders and waist. “You’re all muscular and fit, with your shiny, white smile and charms—” She stopped because talking about his assets brought to mind their practical applications, and she was starting to fondle the bread.
His lips parted in a wide grin, and the genuine pleasure he seemed to take from her compliment made her heart do a little flip.
“Thank you for finding me handsome,” he said. “I think you’re breathtaking.”
Her body effervesced at his words and left her skin tingling. Left more than her skin tingling. She wanted to dismiss his words, laugh them off, but with the way he watched her, she couldn’t find her breath.
“And you’re even more beautiful when you blush.”
“I’m not—”
He reached out, softly brushed his fingers along her heated cheek, then let his hand fall to the side, as her body went up in flames.
“Okay, so I’m blushing. A little.” She wanted to rub her hand against her flesh and erase the tattoo of his skin against hers. At the same time, the girlish desire to never wash her cheek again overwhelmed her. “Why are you here?”
“I wanted to talk to you about this afterno—”
She shook her head, impatient. “No, why did you come to this ranch?”
His brows pulled together, his eyes clouded over then cleared before she could name the emotion coloring them.
“I wanted a change of pace.”
“Don’t lie.” Her admonishment came out in perfect, stern-mother tones.
He blanched.
“Denis must have explained the tight finances on the ranch. We’re poor, but we don’t need charity.”
He nodded. An expression of wary uncertainty shaded his face and gave him a boyish charm. But he was no boy, and what Aya wanted to do to him, with him, was for adults only.
“I don’t understand why you’re asking me this.”
“Why does a man who wears Apo jeans come here for a job?”
His gaze dipped to his pants then lifted to her. Confusion muddied his eyes; he cocked his head, urging her explanation.
“When you were getting your bags from your truck, your shirt rode up, and I saw the label on your jeans.” Her cheeks heated and her heart raced, and together, they announced that she’d been staring at his ass. “That’s an expensive brand, Nate. How does a ranch hand afford thousand-dollar jeans? Why does a man who buys these jeans come to a farm that can barely pay him minimum wage? If Denis has promised to subsidize your paycheck, you can leave right now. We may be struggling, but we don’t take pity—even from old friends.”
He glanced at his jeans as though they’d told his secrets. “You’re very observant, aren’t you?” He asked the question softly, more to himself than her.
“The shine from the diamond-studded buttons helped my deductions,” she said wryly, folding her arms in front of her chest.
His gaze met hers. “You wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man, would you?”
Her eyes widened, and her hands dropped to her sides. “What the hell kind of question is that?”
He shook his head. “Never mind. The jeans were a gift from an ex-girlfriend. As for finances, I have previous investments,” he said. “The income from them gives me leeway with the jobs I take. Denis said you needed help, and I’m in a position to lend you a hand.”
“If you have that kind of money, why are you in ranching?”
A shadow crossed his face. His fingers curled into fists as he took a step back. “We’re a little off topic, Aya. I didn’t come in here to justify my job choices, I came to tell you—” He broke off, his eyes scanned the kitchen as though he would find the words to say hidden among the oak cabinets and tiled countertops. “Spencer reminds me of someone I knew long ago—someone I haven’t seen or remembered in years. A child I’m better off...forgetting. That’s why I seemed so surprised when I saw him this afternoon. I was seeing the past, not the present. It had nothing to do with you or him,” he added softly.
She wanted to ask about the child, but his pain palpitated in the air. Her heart melted, and her pride forgave him. She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand. Flibbertigibbet, that’s what she was, and all because a good-looking guy flattered her, soothed her ruffled pride, and did it all with an aching sense of vulnerability. Old wounds, not yet healed by the medicine of time, throbbed. Scar tissue around her heart pulled and yanked tight—he wasn’t the only one with a past he wanted to forget.
“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” she said. “I...appreciate the apology, but the fact is,
you’re going to be working under me—” She winced at the words and Nate, God bless him, remained stoic and attentive. No wolfish grins, no wiggling eyebrows. “It’s best to keep this relationship strictly professional. No flirting, none of it.”
The shadow again, this time bigger and darker, lingered on his face like a black cloud before his small smile broke through. “You’re right. This is just business, and we’d both do well to remember that.”
Chapter Three
“What the hell has gotten into you?” Mason glared at the mirror, but the reflection staring back gave no response.
He held up his hands, palms out. “Dishpan hands,” he said, “and you enjoyed scrubbing that roast pan.” His top lip curled in a contemptuous sneer. “You didn’t even like washing as a kid—what’s going on?”
Again, no response—not that he expected one. The part of his brain that had slipped into lunacy seemed to have enough sense to keep its motives hidden. But as Mason’s gaze slid to inspect the offending wrinkles on his fingers, the memory of dish cleaning with Aya soaped his memory and filled his body with happy bubbles. He caught his reflection smiling.
“This is what I’m talking about! What are you doing?” Once more, he glowered at the image in the mirror. Then, as realization that he was talking to himself soaked into his fevered synapses, it scrubbed his expression free of anger and left confusion in its wake.
Mason sighed. He crossed the carpeted room and stood by the window. Outside, twilight cleaved the sky, and divided the day from night. He offered a commiserative smile to the heavens. That’s how he felt. Cleaved. Halved. Split in two, with no hope of melding back into a cohesive whole.
His father’s dying wish or his carnal desires. The Jekyll side of him knew the answer: fidelity. However, the Hyde side of him, possessing all of Jekyll’s intellect but none of his honor, tormented Mason with visions of licking Aya’s body.
“Family or feminine charms.” He stared at the scenery beyond the windowpanes. The world settled in for sleep. He wished he could do the same. “She’ll hate you for your deception.” He spoke the words, hoping the vibration against his ear drums would continue along the nerves and shake his brain and body free of this desire for Aya. The tortured longing in his voice, however, only underscored his yearning. “You’ll hate yourself if you don’t get the farm,” he reminded himself of this salient fact, but rather than making his situation clearer, it only made circumstances more confusing.
A knock sounded at his door. Long used to hiding his emotions behind a smile and smooth comment, he schooled his features into the familiar mask. Shoving Jekyll, Hyde—and all the luscious images of Aya—into the darkest recesses of his mind, he called, “Come on in.”
Spencer stepped into his room. His dark hair stuck out at odd angles, as though he’d hurriedly changed clothing. The hems of the faded blue, rocket-ship pajamas he wore left the knobby bones of his wrists and ankles exposed. “Are you all right?”
“Sure, why wouldn’t I be?”
He crossed the beige-colored carpet and pulled his skinny frame on to the bed. “Our rooms are next to each other. I could hear you talking to yourself.”
Both Jekyll and Hyde gulped, and then hid. Mason, who didn’t have the option of gulping or hiding, cleared his throat and asked, “Just, ah, how much did you hear?”
Spencer’s bony shoulders rose up and down in a shrug, and his pink mouth puckered in thought. “Nothing. Did you lose something?”
“Sorry?” Mason moved from the window, away from the cold night air stealing through the cracks, and took a position by the dresser. He folded his arms in front of his chest. “Why do you think I lost something?”
“When I misplace stuff, Mom tells me to talk myself through it, retrace my steps until I find it.” His eyes, the perception of their size made bigger by his lens prescription, gazed out at him with childish candor. “Did that happen to you?”
“Ah—” Does my sanity count? “No, I didn’t.”
Spencer blinked, looking every bit the studious owl contemplating the secret of life and asked, “Are you sure?”
A smile he couldn’t repress tugged at the corner of his lips. From his hiding place in Mason’s frontal lobe, Hyde peeked out. Even his Jekyll side admitted a reluctant liking to the child. “I’m positive.”
“But your micro expression says different.”
He started. “My what?”
“Micro expression.” Spencer said it slowly as his thin fingers bounced in rhythm to each syllable. “They can come and go really quick, but they can show what people are really thinking. Dr. Paul Ekman discovered them.”
The bed sank under Mason’s weight as he took a seat beside his tiny companion. “And how do you know this?”
He shrugged. “There’s not much to do around here—I read a lot.”
“So, you read psychology books? Whatever happened to playing outside or riding a bike?”
“Bike riding won’t get me into Harvard.”
“Your mom puts a lot of emphasis on your education, huh?” If that was true, maybe it was a factor he could exploit for the sale—convince Aya of the importance of her son living in a cosmopolitan city with its museums and resources.
Spencer took off his glasses and inspected them. “Mom wishes I would do more kid stuff. But I’m not into sports.”
His lips twitched. “So, instead, you read psychology books for fun? What about your friends?”
“There’s no one to play with on the farm. I like TV, but mom doesn’t like me watching too much of it.” Spencer flopped on to his back, his arms and legs spread as though he would make a bed sheet angel. “Anyway, I like psychology. Mom helps with the big words.”
“I see,” Mason said, though confusion laid a thick fog in his brain. “No, I’m lying. I don’t get it. Why psychology? And why the early push for Harvard?”
Spencer turned his attention at the ceiling and gave Mason the opportunity to study him, wonder about the old man living in the child’s body.
He glanced at Mason, quick and furtive, then looked away. “It’s good to know why people do things. And my dad says people should plan for the future because when they don’t...mistakes happen.”
He said “mistakes” with a little hiccup, and Mason’s radar went on high alert. “Mistakes?”
“Yeah.” He rolled on to his side, and his skinny fingers traced the quilted stitching of the blanket. “You know, stuff you don’t plan or want to happen.”
Mason’s body went blisteringly hot, then contempt for Spencer’s father drenched him in icy cold. Did the man consider his son a “mistake?” He stretched out on the bed, consciously choosing a relaxed, casual position and, concentrating on projecting nonchalance into his tone, asked, “What kind of mistakes did your dad make?”
There it was again, that furtive look, the guilty, tortured darkness in his eyes. “Dunno.” He shifted away, curling into a scrawny ball and shot Mason a shy smile. “Besides, it’s my dream to help others,” he said in that high-pitched, little kid voice of his that gave his words a Yoda-ish edge. “Mom says families help each other make their dreams come true. My dad’s helping...kind of...”
Fingerprints smudged the lenses of his glasses, but those dark eyes—so much like his mother’s—held determination, earnestness, and a wisp of sadness. The emotions curled around the valves of Mason’s heart and yanked hard.
“I want to be a psychi—psych—the one who can give medicine.”
“Psychiatrist.”
His eyes lit with recognition. “Like my other great grandpa was.”
“I didn’t know you had a psychiatrist in your family.” Moron, both Jekyll and Hyde chided. Of course he didn’t. He barely knew their last names.
“He was a shaman for his tribe, but that’s kind of the same thing, isn’t it?”
Mason nodded. “Sure. They both help people.”
“It’s my backup plan.”
“Backup?” he repeated.
“If b
eing an astronaut or President doesn’t work out. I need something to fall back on.”
His lips quirked and he squinted at Spencer. “How old are you?”
“Nine.”
“Are you sure?”
The kid grinned, showing toothless gaps in his smile. “That’s what my curfew says.” He glanced at the alarm clock on the night table and jumped up. “I have to go to bed or I’ll get in trouble.”
“Okay. Good night. It was nice talking with you.”
“You, too.” He paused at the doorway. “About mom...I’m sorry she was mean to you. It’s my fault.”
“I doubt that.”
A shrug answered him, though whether it was in the positive or negative, Mason didn’t know.
“I think it’s ’cause the weekend’s coming.”
Stay quiet, commanded Jekyll. Let him put one foot in front of the other. Stay in the light and remember the plan. Say “Good night, Spencer,” and get him out of this room.
Spencer put one foot in front of the other while Mason’s brain played tug of war with Jekyll. At the crest of the doorway, the part of him that leaned toward the Michaels family, won.
“What happens this weekend?” he asked, giving into Hyde’s spontaneity, and heard his saner self mutter in derision.
“I’m supposed to spend the weekend with Dad.”
“And your mom misses you, right?”
“Actually, Dad hardly ever takes me. I haven’t seen him in months.” Spencer said it nonchalantly, but his rigid shoulders said something else entirely.
“How do you feel about it?”
The little boy shrugged, and his skinny fingers plucked at his clothing. But the shrug, oh God, it told Mason everything. It was the gesture of tiny shoulders too weak to carry the heavy, grown up burden of abandonment and lost hope.
Hyde sniffed, and even Jekyll’s lip trembled at the sight. Mason’s memory leapt to their earlier conversation. “Is that why you study psychology? To understand your dad?”
“No...”
Mason cocked an eyebrow
“Well,” Spencer amended, “not just him...” The room lapsed into silence, then he asked, “Did you have both parents when you were a kid?”