He blinked twice before answering. “Only when he and his girlfriend fight, and he decides it’s time to make a few points.”
“With whom?”
“With his girlfriend, for starters,” he said. In the face of her stare, he shrugged. “He feels a periodic need to make her jealous.”
“Right.” He said that as if it made perfect sense.
“And secondly?” she asked trying to keep her smile down to casual when it wanted to kick up to laughter at the sheer absurdity of what she was hearing.
“And to the hiring officials at the local theme park.” The man’s gaze narrowed its focus to just south of her eyes. “Seems they didn’t think Homer looked Indian enough.”
He was staring at her mouth, she realized. Did she have lipstick on her teeth? She switched her smile to the closed-lip variety. The last thing she wanted to do was to scare off the first “possible” of the last twelve months before she’d had a chance to adequately explore his…possibilities.
“Have they seen him lately?” she asked with an arch of her brow.
“Nope.” He pushed his Stetson back further. His chin jerked in Homer’s direction. “Who taught you that little trick?”
“A friend.” It was her turn to shrug. “He guaranteed it as the most effective method of taking the starch out of a man.”
“Everyone knows Homer is harmless,” the man said. If she wasn’t mistaken there was a touch of reproach in his tone.
“Everyone except the poor defenseless visitors who come to this town.”
He shrugged. “We don’t have a movie theater,” he explained and added as if to make it more acceptable, “and it’s only the female visitors.”
The man squatted next to Homer. The muscles in his thighs strained the worn material of his jeans as he slid an arm behind the other man’s back.
“Damn, she’s got a sharp knee,” Homer groaned as he leaned on the other man.
“I warned you this could happen, Homer.” The first man shifted his arm around the other man’s waist and took his weight against him. “Not everyone gets your sense of humor.”
“What’s not to get?” Homer grunted as he lurched to a crouch.
Both men flashed her a glance, and for no valid reason whatsoever she felt guilty. She slipped her shoulder under Homer’s free arm. “I’m sorry.”
With Homer’s arm draped across her shoulders, the ice pack he was holding bumped her collarbone. The weight of all that muscle almost dropped her to her knees. She couldn’t see his face, but his fingers curled around her upper arm as he said, “You should be.” They tightened slightly as he added, “Just about ruined my whole act.”
Ridiculously, she found herself apologizing again.
The first man looked pointedly down at her before mentioning, “You’re a little bit short to be a prop.”
“Consider me moral support then,” Jessie said, reaching for the ice pack as the other man stood, taking Homer with him. By the time they reached their full height, the only part of Homer touching her was his hand.
“Do they grow everyone in this neck of the woods this big?” she asked, looking up, way up, at both men.
The first man shifted two steps to the left and then nothing of Homer touched her. Homer glanced at the other man, laughed, shrugged and chucked her chin with his finger. “Everything’s bigger and better inTexas.”
She pulled her face away. “Even the fools, it seems,” she observed as they deposited Homer into an empty booth.
The first man stood and cut the teen a disgusted glare. “That’s been the walking truth lately.”
As his deep blue eyes met hers, a shiver of excitement snaked down Jessie’s spine. The intensity in his gaze told her that this man didn’t do anything by half measures, and indicated a strength that whispered he could be trusted. Oh damn. As slim as the chance was that a man this masculine and this sexy was unattached, she offered up a little prayer of thanksgiving that he’d stumbled into her path. She couldn’t think of anyone more perfectly suited for her first ever fling than this man. And to think she’d wasted a year looking for him in bars and meat markets that masqueraded as gyms!
He put his right hand in his pocket. His biceps bulged enticingly against his sleeve, making her mouth water with the urge to sink her teeth into it, and his weight relaxed into his hips in a way that just screamed sex. Oh wow, she caught her breath, trying not to eat him up too obviously with her eyes. Mystery man was so much more than perfect. He was a fantasy come to life. All she had to do was convince him that she was perfect for him and her longstanding to-do list would become a thing of the past. That is, if she didn’t totally freak him out first by gawking at him rather than holding up her end of the conversation.
“What? No more defending the tradition?” she asked after she handed the ice pack back to Homer.
“You struck me with the truth.”
If she wasn’t mistaken, that was a smile ghosting the corners of his mouth.
“That happens.”
That ghost of a smile became a sensual reality. “Does nothing get you flustered?”
A smile like that would do it any day. She clamped down on her body’s response, crossing her arms over her chest to hide her tingling nipples. “Not much anymore.”
“Why not anymore?” he asked as Homer slumped back in the booth, closed his eyes, and clutched the ice pack to his groin, clearly concerned with nothing but alleviating the effects of her knee.
Jessie contemplated the last four years of her life. There was nothing like working at a school full of adolescent boys determined to see who could make her scream first to keep a woman on her toes. “Combat training.”
“Uh-huh.” His smile faded to a glimmer. The rest of his expression settled into lines of pure male interest as his gaze traveled a leisurely path from her head to her toes.
There was no doubt he liked what he saw, and the knowledge struck her with the force of lightning, electrifying every nerve ending into a state of eager anticipation. Her knees wavered as he did an even slower perusal on the way back up, pausing to check out the rapid pulse in her throat before taking that last little trip up over her face. By the time his gaze met hers, that smile had deepened at the corners and her breath was coming in halting stutters.
“Are you going to be in town long?” he asked.
She couldn’t even begrudge him his knowing smile as she was reacting so very visibly to his interest, but she’d kill him if he was married or had a girlfriend. She’d made out with men for a good twenty minutes and never been as remotely turned on as this man made her feel with just a look. She really, really wanted to know how good he could make her feel if he set his mind to it.
“I suspect I’ll be in the area for a while.”
“Maybe I could show you the highlights sometime?”
Oh please let that invite mean he was free and available for plucking.
She kept her thoughts to herself and feigned shock. “You mean this wasn’t it?”
His amusement was slow and leisurely, starting in his eyes, moving to his lips before spreading outward, infusing his face with a heavy sensuality that had her breath catching in her throat. “Not quite.”
“Is there something around here that could top it?”
His gaze flicked to the front of her blouse and his smile broadened. “Oh yeah.”
Jessie gripped her arms with her fingers to keep from dissolving into the floor. She couldn’t help it. She had to know. “Are you married or otherwise attached?”
His right eyebrow cocked at her. No doubt he was surprised by her aggressiveness. Truth be told, she was a little surprised herself, but she’d been waiting so long for someone like him.
“No.”
She closed her eyes on a silent “Thank God”.
When she opened them he was still staring at her. He might have wanted to say more, but the bartender chose that moment to call out, “Would you like another cup of tea?”
Her walking fantasy
closed his sexy mouth. Rats!
“Yes,” she answered, biting back a sigh. Tea and a little distance might just keep her from acting the total fool. “Thank you.”
She gave Homer a last pat on the shoulder, fetched her tea and headed back toward her booth. She held her breath as she waited to see if her man would follow.
He did. She released her breath on a long steadying exhale as he poured himself a cup of coffee and strolled toward her. “I get the impression you weren’t too scared by Homer.”
“Was I supposed to be?” she asked, snagging some sugar from another booth since her bowl was empty. As she stood, she caught those blue eyes appraising her ass. From the curve of his lips, she knew he liked what he saw. She took a little longer straightening than she needed to, teasing him, feeling a little drunk on her daring.
He took a sip of his coffee. “I’d think that when a strange man in full Comanche paint waves a tomahawk over your head, it would be prudent to at least be alarmed.”
She sighed. “I have a problem with that.”
His eyebrows rose as he waited for the woman to seat herself. “You have a problem with being alarmed?”
She bit her lip and smiled. “I have a problem with being prudent.”
Especially lately. She’d discovered the bubbling sense of freedom that had taken her in the wake of her mother’s death was harder to control than the resentment she’d felt at Alzheimer’s slow destruction of the person her mother had been. It kept sneaking past her guard when she least expected, encouraging her to make up for lost time. Lost opportunities. She looked at the big man in front of her, from the tip of his worn boots to the top of his equally battered hat. And, man, this was one hell of an opportunity.
“Uh-huh. Care to explain?”
She slid into the opposite seat. “I have an inappropriate funny bone.”
He grabbed a packet of cream off the table and added it to his coffee. “Homer?”
“I found it impossible to quake in fear of a man who reeks of mothballs.”
That he’d been expecting some other response was evidenced by the way his laughter caused him to choke on his coffee. While he wiped his mouth with a napkin, she asked, “I’m kind of in a pickle here. Seeing as how you were a bit delayed in your chivalrous impulses, and therefore owe me, do you think you could help me find Mac Hollister? I don’t know what’s up with the guy, but every time I mention his name, people either break into laughter or get all quiet and wary.”
The man swore under his breath as every eye in the place pointedly skirted his direction.
It took Jessie two heartbeats before realization dawned. “You’re Mac Hollister?”
He grimaced. “Yeah.”
“The Mac Hollister who owns the Circle H?”
“The only one around these parts.”
“Well, hell!” Disappointment slammed into her hopes. “You’re not sixty, squinty-eyed and choking on a wad of chewing tobacco.”
He carefully lowered his cup to the table, eyeing her as if she’d just slipped a screw.
“You have a problem with the way I look?” he asked.
She shook her head sadly, and sighed. It just figured her first walking invitation to her first affair would come with a hitch.
“I do, and so will you.”
She rose and stepped out of the booth. Mac stood also, in a display of manners she liked. With a sad thought to what might have been, she stuck out her hand. “How do you do, Mr. Hollister. I’m J. C. Sterns, your new cook.”
Chapter Two
Mac slapped his hat against his thigh. Thoughts of lawsuits danced through his head. “You’re the big, strapping cook I asked that damned agency for?”
“No,” J. C. Sterns countered, her voice laced with enough sweetness to set his back teeth to aching. “I’m the cook capable of creating ‘mouthwatering meals in quantities to keep all of Texas in heaven for a week’ that you demanded.” She arched a brow at him. “I believe that’s a quote.”
“I recognize my own words when I hear them,” he growled, frustration eating at his gut. He dropped into the opposite side of the booth. The hard plastic creaked in protest. Running his hands through his hair, he felt like throwing things. He needed a cook who could wield huge pots and pans with ease, a cook who knew the ins and outs of cooking from the barnyard up. He did not need a slender bit of femininity fluttering around his ranch dropping handkerchiefs while she got her fill of the Wild West. No matter how drop-dead sexy she was. “Look, obviously some kind of misunderstanding has occurred—”
“I don’t think so. I’ve been hired for a job, and I intend to do it.”
What little patience he had was gone before she completed the statement. He never did take well to being told what to do. “Not on the Circle H, you’re not.”
She reached into her purse, pulled out a folded paper. As she spread it flat on the table between them, the pink of her nails very bright and very feminine against the stark white paper, he recognized the contract he’d signed with the employment agency. She pointed to his boldly scrawled signature at the bottom with one long finger. “Is that your signature?”
He slapped his hat against the side of the seat. “You know damned well it is.”
“Are you prepared to pay me the six month severance since you’re not going to give me the trial period?”
Damn! He’d forgotten about that clause. “Not likely.”
The woman, J. C.—damn, she didn’t look like a cool impersonal J. C.—refolded the contract. “Then I suggest we get going.”
He slammed his hand down on that escaping bit of paper. “Weare not going anywhere.”
Her chin came up and out. Just figured that she’d have a stubborn side.
“Yes, we are.” She took a deep breath that thrust those full breasts up against her shirt. Through the thin silk he could make out the shape of her nipples. They were as small and as neatly feminine as the rest of her. His cock tingled with interest. “I’ll be honest with you, Mr. Hollister. I came to Texas without any job prospects. My credentials are excellent, and I didn’t foresee any difficulties.”
He could hear it coming. “But…?”
“But I land every job until the people get a look at me. One woman actually told me she didn’t want me around because her husband had a tendency to wander.”
“I could see where that would be a problem.” She was a very tempting woman, the kind a man wanted to toss onto the nearest bed and take a month or two to sate himself in. The kind of woman who just reeked trouble the same way she reeked city.
“Yes. Well…” She cut him a glare from under her thick lashes. “I was just as glad not to land that job, but that was the only one. Four other employers turned me down simply because I am a woman.”
“You haven’t been on too many ranches, or you’d realize just how much of a problem being a woman presents.”
Especially when the woman in question was a walking pot of simmering sexuality he’d love to immerse himself in.
“This contract states I have a two-week period during which I intend to prove myself.” She folded up the contract with efficient movements. She shoved it back into her purse. “Until those two weeks are up, you’re stuck with me.”
Too bad for her he didn’t agree. “Well, honey, as pretty as you are, there are some circumstances I’d have no trouble being stuck in with you, but…” She glanced up from zipping her purse as he stood, “working as a cook on my ranch simply isn’t one of them.”
Mac settled his hat on his head, watching J. C. Stearns’ expression go from disbelief to anger, her eyes from light to dark green with the intensity of emotion she banked.Damn! He bet she’d be a live wire in bed, all snap and sizzle beneath his touch. He was tempted to let her come to the ranch for the trial period just to find out, but then he thought of the chaos all that dainty feminine beauty would cause among his men, and he booted the temptation aside.
While she stood there, working up an argument to his decision, he t
ipped his hat in farewell and headed for the door. Bull shot him an incredulous look. He probably was insane, but he needed solutions not more hassle. Bright sunshine struck his eyes as he opened the glass door.
“See you next week, Bull, Homer,” he called over the clatter of the attached cowbell.
Mac's Law Page 2