by Megan McCoy
“I do, and ditto,” Mariah said, holding up her cell and giving Cassandra a sympathetic smile. Obviously she wasn’t the first person to be dismissed from the great Jeb Lyon’s presence, but it didn’t make her feel much better. Especially, since, dammit, the only thing she wanted was to hang around him. Pathetic and needy she felt, but she figured she’d get over that in a few days. Right now though, she had work to do and there were only a few hours to get through till she got to see him again. Life was good today. She hoped.
**
Utterly exhausted after a twelve-hour day of meeting and greeting, learning, doing, fixing and soothing, Cassandra headed back towards the Lyon’s Den. Her feet hurt in her new work boots. Her legs hurt from all the walking. Her hands hurt from all the shaking they’d done. Her brain hurt. Just because it hurt.
While all she wanted was a long hot shower and very early bed, vaguely she wondered if she was supposed to cook for the Lyon men, or just go to the crew/client mess, or if she could just go crawl into her, what proved to be just as comfortable as a five star hotel, bed. Early bed was such a treat. But she knew she had to meet with her new boss and discuss her new job after her new first day. He’d made that very clear. Too many firsts in the last few hours and tomorrow would be another full day with all the crew there for the entire day, gearing up for the new season.
She smiled, looking down at her scuffed up work shoes, so glad she’d actually read the guest list of recommended to-bring items and brought a few pair. She couldn’t imagine having gone through her day here with the professional pumps she wore throughout the hotel daily, even though she knew she could trek miles in them. Here she needed these sturdy work boots simply because of the terrain. It was nothing like the smooth floors of a hotel. Maybe she could use some jeans that weren’t quite so designer, and horror of all horrors, maybe some t-shirts. Most of the staff wore them and they looked so comfortable in this environment. Besides, she kind of wanted one like they all wore that said Rose’s Ranch with the entwined vines about the left breast area. Well, she’d figure it out, in the next couple of days. She hoped, and maybe Mariah would be a buddy to help her fill in some of the lesser known facts of ranch life.
She looked over the rolling hills to the west, and paused to admire the sunset. All the trees were greening up, some but still looked fairly bare. She wondered what it would look like in deep summer, all thickly covered as far as her eye could see. Of course, nothing could compare to a Chicago skyline looking over Lake Michigan, but this was gorgeous in its own way. Just different. Very different.
Was she homesick already? The fact she might get homesick, hadn’t occurred to her, but she had lived in Chicago all her life. The loop was her backyard. Lake Michigan was her beach. Navy Pier was her playground. This summer would be the longest she’d ever been away from her hometown. Maybe that was part of the draw. Something just totally different and unexpected… like Tyler telling her that he was breaking up with her. Maybe they would both end up being good things, eventually.
Pausing at the door, she heard some male voices and laughter from the kitchen. Should she intrude? Why did she feel shy suddenly? She could walk around behind and go to her room via the back door, maybe.
But then she heard, “Candy! Come on in!”
Taking a deep breath and trying to dismiss her nerves, she walked past the office into the kitchen where the three Lyon men sat at the island, passing around a plate of what looked like ten pounds of meat on it, next to a pile of baked potatoes, and some heavenly smelling bread.
“Hi, Cassandra,” Matt said. “Hungry?”
“Hi, Matt, good to see you,” she said, noting but not saying how different he looked with his jeans, t-shirt and day old stubble than in his interview suit. The gene pool stick had hit them all just really good and properly. “Did you all have a good day?” She sank down into the last seat with an empty plate and just hoped it was for her. Who else would it be for? She didn’t want to ask.
Why did these guys make her nervous? She was used to being one of the few or only females in a room of ego packed testosterone. Suited and tied testosterone seemed very different than blue jeaned and boots testosterone, though. She sort of liked it, she decided.
That was all it was, she was just not used to this type of guy. She’d get used to it, she assured herself. Accepting the huge platter of beef she handed to her, she felt a bit taken aback. What was she going to do with it?
Cut a piece off and eat, naturally. Picking up her steak knife and fork, she cut of piece of way too rare meat, and decided she wasn’t really that hungry. What was it with men and meat that could almost walk off the plate? Medium was a perfectly fine temperature for meat, just a bit of pink, not red and almost bloody. Were there any green vegetables at all? Immediately she planned tomorrow’s dinner. If they would all eat together again. Why did she not know how this was going to work, what her place in this house was? She figured she’d find her way in the next bit, but for now, she felt out of place and uncomfortable. Wondering if they were used to having people stay in the back room and invading their family, she tried not to yawn. Too much fresh air today.
Poking around at the bit of meat on her plate, she cut a sliver, and listened to the Lyon’s men chat about their day while she helped herself to a potato, too. She just wanted to say her piece, and then head to bed, but decided to wait for a break in the chatter.
“Clint and I counted three new foals this week, up on the back eighty,” Matt said. “We need to get that pond dredged out before summer hits. Blaze, you want to get someone assigned to that?”
Cassandra didn’t know what a dredge was, but it sounded complicated and were they really going to let this kid be in charge of it? Again, she wondered what titles they all went by. Then wondered why that even mattered to her. Too many years in the corporate world, where people did their assigned jobs and got all butt hurt and out of sorts if you asked them to do another.
“Yeah, the Bodines have a dredger. I’ll give them a call and get it set up,” Blaze said. “I got the roof to the cabin about finished. Should finish tomorrow. I’m going to put the barn roof on the schedule for later this summer. Clients like to watch shirtless roofers.”
Cassandra choked on her potato, and all three men laughed.
“Give the clients what they want, and they’ll come back.” Matt said seriously. “It’s our motto.”
“And they want shirtless men?” she asked.
“They sure seem to,” Blaze said and took another big slab of meat.
Was he going to eat all that? She couldn’t help the incredulity that filled her as she watched him dig in.
He continued between bites. “And that is a service we can provide.”
“I’m going back around to do more fencing with my crew tomorrow, and then we need to get the trail horses and wranglers all trained and set up. We have that new trail ready down by the river that the horses need to learn. When do the first clients come in?” Matt asked.
That one she knew. “Next Friday afternoon. We have arrival time set for the first group at two, and by the next Friday, almost all the rooms will be continually full for the next four months when it starts tapering off in September.”
“Good girl,” Jeb said. “Glad you knew that.”
Why that wanted to make her beam with pride when it should have irritated her, she didn’t know. She’d just ignore it for now. Take the compliment the way it was meant, Cassandra, she told herself. She listened to some more ranch conversation with half an ear and she ate her potato and thought longingly about the bread but decided against it. Maybe her jeans would be a little less tight soon, if she walked as much every day in these heavy boots as she did today.
Wondering when Jeb was going to ask her about her day and if she had any issues, suddenly she heard her name.
“Candy and I are going out in the boat for a bit. I want to show her around the lake some, and pick her brain,” Jeb said, leaving his plate on the table in a way that she
knew meant he realized it would be gone and cleaned before he got back. Shocked, her fork paused halfway to her mouth as her mind wondered if dishes were Matt’s job since Blaze said he didn’t do them.
“Okay?” she said softly, not certain if she was actually being asked or ordered. He was her boss after all, but was a boat ride a date thing or a work thing?
Silly, she scolded herself. Of course, it was work. What else could it be? He had no interest in her other than as a worker bee and just because she had some kind of ridiculous physical reaction to him did not mean he reciprocated in any way shape or form and she needed to remind herself of that.
Matt nor Blaze acted as if anything were out of the ordinary so she relaxed a bit. Someone probably took everyone out in the boat and really she needed to see how things were laid out—or what did he want to show her, exactly? Did it matter? She hadn’t been out in a boat in quite a while. Being alone in the dwindling light on a calm quiet lake with a hot sexy guy, was just a perk of the job here, obviously. Like shirtless guys. It seemed the perfect ending to a long day.
Popping the last piece of almost but not quite decently done piece of meat in her mouth, she got up quickly and followed Jeb out.
Matt and Blaze both waved in unison and chorused, “Bye! Be careful!”
Had they done this a lot? Was she just in a line of women who came here? Quickly she wondered again who had stayed in her room before her. A string of random housekeepers? Matt’s girls? Jeb’s? Blaze wasn’t old enough to have someone live in, was he?
Why was she thinking about that? That was not a line of thinking she should be contemplating when she could be admiring that amazing ass walking ahead of her. Okay. Ass admiring begun!
Cassandra knew she didn’t know much about cowboys—but she had seen a few movies, and she knew you could dress your male in just a pair of chaps, so when he turned around and showed his… oh yeah. Grinning, she thought of that taut tight behind clad in a bit of leather and just, nothing else. That thought woke her up a bit more. Better than coffee!
“Catch up, Candy,” he called back.
Oh, fine. She’d talk to his face, and try not to make a fool of herself. Luckily, she wasn’t male, and could hide the evidence of her arousal.
Oh! That was why the whole Candy thing didn’t bother her. The man turned her on, made her want. Almost laughing, she hurried to catch up. Okay, she knew how to deal with this. Of course, men had turned her on before, maybe not quite in this way and this strongly, but still. She could handle it. Nothing new here. Acknowledge it and move on.
“You have long legs!” she said, lengthening her stride. He was only a few inches taller than her five foot eight. Well, more than a few, five or six maybe. But still, she ought to be able to keep up. Would keep up.
“Sorry,” he slowed down and shot her a smile that almost made her catch her breath. Not fair! “You ever been on a row boat?”
“Pedal boat?” she asked. She’d been on many pedal boats in the small parks around Chicago. You sat in them, and then peddled like you were on a bike to move yourself around. They were fun, but her legs were so tired after her long day.
“Row boat. I go rowing every night I can. It relaxes me before bed,” Jeb led the way down to a small dock and she was back to following again.
He had to say bed. Just had to. Her mind went wild. Naughty mind! Until he held his hand out to help her down into what looked like a raft with sides. Small sides. “Do I need a life jacket?” she asked nervously.
“I don’t know,” he said with what seemed a twitch of a smile on his lips. Could her heart take it when she saw him smile again? That had been intense. “Can you swim?”
“In a chlorinated pool with lots of lights and a life guard on duty,” she retorted, gingerly settling into the seat. She didn’t want to let go of his hand. Only because he felt safe in this wiggling almost boat thing. No other reason!
“This is the same general idea,” he told her. “Just try not to swallow the water, if you fall in. Fish pee in there, you know.” He sat down in the middle of the boat and picked up the oars.
So he was serious about going out in this pile of sticks slung together with what? What held boards together on a boat? She was just going to trust that he knew what he was doing, and it was obvious he did when he pushed off with a practiced move and began rhythmic strokes away from the dock. The full moon gave her plenty of light as she watched his arms move, mesmerized. Her exquisitely detailed imagination flashed to those arms on either side of her, and—
“You okay, Candy?”
Dazed, she stopped looking at his arms and looked at his face. Yeah. That was better.
Or not…. His mouth that didn’t seem to smile often, twitched again. Surely part of his cowboy charm wasn’t that he could read minds, because that would be just mortifying.
“This feels… safer… than I thought it would,” she said. Yeah, those sex thoughts had thrown all worries of fish pee in her mouth right on out of her brain.
“Always good to be safe,” he agreed, and stopped rowing right underneath what had to be the biggest moon she’d ever seen.
She looked around. She always thought that the country, without streetlights and neon would be very dark at night. The moon seemed brighter though, without those city distractions.
“It’s so gorgeous out here,” she said, trying not to gasp at the rolling hills silhouetted in the moonlight. She could only imagine how pretty it was in the full green of summer and the vibrant colors of fall, snow covered in the deep winter. Not that she’d be here, of course, by then.
“Prettiest place in the world,” Jeb said but then he wondered why had he taken her out here? He could have easily talked to her in the kitchen. He just knew that all day long, she’d been all he thought about, from the moment he heard her getting harassed by the maids and waitresses, to how she kept her cool till everyone left and then kicked the table like a child having a tantrum. At least she’d kept her calm that long. His mind had raced all day to those long legs around him while that fire of hers was all concentrated on him.
“So my son hired you to help me out. Now that you’ve seen the place and met the people, do you think you can do that? If you don’t, I can have you packed up and outta here before dawn.”
“Did you hear something about me that makes you think I can’t do the job I was hired to do?” She began to bristle. There was that fire again. He liked it. To a point, but he knew how to extinguish it when need be.
He raised the oars again and began slow languorous strokes out further into the lake. He had to work out his own fire in some way. “Don’t get your panties in a wad,” he said, calmly. “I was just giving you an out if you need one.”
Cassandra bristled even more, and he tried to hide the grin that wanted to pop out. Damn, she was cute when she was mad. “That’s a fairly offensive statement,” she observed.
“Not if they aren’t wadded,” he said, practically. “To answer your question, no, I’ve heard nothing but good so far, but this isn’t the venue you probably are used to. We don’t have elevators or room service or anything fancy like that.”
“Oh,” Cassandra took a deep breath “I think I can deal with no room service for a few months, and I haven’t seen a need for an elevator yet,” she said, dryly. “But yes, there are quite a few small tweaks I’m planning to do with housekeeping. Streamlining a few things is going to make it much more efficient. Now, the kitchen, thanks to Mariah, runs almost perfectly, but there are a few suggestions she has I’d like to try to implement, and just see how it goes. Plus, Blaze told me she was thinking of retiring soon, so it will be easier in the future if we have standard procedures in place so whoever steps up can just step in.”
Jeb nodded, and continued rowing, making a big huge circle back to the dock. Now she sounded like she knew what she was talking about. Matt had said she was good. He didn’t think they needed a general manager, but maybe it had been a good idea. Riding herd over teenagers wasn’t muc
h fun for him.
Deciding not to provoke her too much, despite how adorable it was when she sparked, he said, “Sounds good. I have a few people in mind for her position. I’ll check in and see if you agree with me after a while. A few times a week we’ll have a board meeting out here, and cover anything you or I need to know that we might not have time or a place to talk about otherwise.”
“A board meeting?” she asked, smiling. “Two people in a row boat is a board meeting?”
“That’s what my wife and kids called it. It sometimes took the place of a board meeting their butts, but not always. Just depended.” He started pulling harder.
Swallowing the sudden lump in her throat, she looked at him, obviously startled and said, “Well, I hope to avoid that, too!”
“Will see, now won’t we?” he said and then he rowed in silence for a while, loving the sounds of the oars in the water and the beginning of the bug chorus on the lake. They’d be in full choir mode later on, but now they were just gearing up to it. She looked a little dazed and he figured he liked her quiet, too. So far, he hadn’t seen any moods that weren’t fun. He hoped things would progress quickly enough to paddle her out of one though. You could always tell a lot about a woman when she was bare assed and squalling over your lap. At least he could. Hopefully, that would happen soon after he kissed her, which wasn’t going to happen tonight but was going to happen soon. He hadn’t been this attracted to anyone since Rose had died and he was just going to go with it. Why not?
“Grab that rope and hand it to me,” he motioned with his head toward the floor.
The deck? Cassandra wondered what you called a boat floor, but didn’t care enough to ask while her head reeled and her body trembled. A board meeting! Why was she suddenly picturing herself bare bottomed over his blue jeaned lap? She was most certainly not. There was no way she was doing that—picturing that, she corrected herself quickly. What did this man do to her brain? Deprived it of oxygen, apparently, so she couldn’t speak or think. Also, apparently, he was used to that because he just bumped into the dock, then tied up the boat and stepped out, holding his hand to her.