The Countess and the Cowboy

by Linda Wisdom

  J.T.'s eyes were too knowing as he gazed at his onetime protégé. "You be careful, boy," he advised, waving his cigarette at Tyler. "It sounds like that gal could tie you up in knots if you don't watch yourself."

  Tyler looked off into the distance. He didn't want to admit to even J. T. that he feared Letitia DeMarco with the honey colored hair and flashing aqua eyes already had him tied up in knots.

  "Considering the way things are going already, I'd say you could call it more a cross between heaven and hell, JT.," he murmured. "My money's on it turning into more hell than heaven before this is over."

  Chapter Three

  Letitia viewed the dark musty cavern called the master bedroom closet with the same trepidation she felt when she viewed a haunted Salem house more than a year ago.

  "If I could whip a haunted house into shape, a dark and dank closet should be a piece of cake," she told herself as she backed away from the closet. She began to sit on the bed and checked herself just in time. The comforter, which might have had a lovely print at one time, was now a dingy gray.

  "There is no way I can put clothing in there until it is much cleaner," she concluded, looking back inside with great caution. She looked at the pile of cleaning supplies at her feet. She doubted all of them together were strong enough to handle such a daunting task. "Which one should I begin with? And which one will banish all that nasty dirt?" She picked up one pump action bottle of a pine-scented cleaner. "I seem to recall commercials saying you were very handy in getting rid of dirt. Let's find out if they were right."

  After Letitia had left the kitchen, she'd returned to the master bedroom to change into more suitable clothing before cleaning the room. Since old clothing wasn't something she owned, the best she could come up with was a pair of melon-colored shorts with a melon and pale green print blouse that skimmed her waist.

  "You looking for something in particular or just waiting for the maid to come in and put everything away before running your bath?"

  She turned so suddenly her hair whipped in front of her face. She pushed the strands away from .her eyes and reached for a band to pull it up into a loose ponytail.

  "Do you enjoy frightening people out of their wits? As for a bath, after viewing the sludge you call water, I think I'll pass." She raised her arms to pull her hair through the band.

  Tyler braced his shoulder against the doorjamb looking as if he had all the time in the world to waste. Except his eyes were riveted on the enticing sight of bare flesh revealed between the rising hem of her blouse and shorts. "Those are pretty fancy duds to clean in, countess," he noted, casting a lazy gaze over the rest of her form and clearly liking what he saw. "Those little shorts silk?"

  She lifted her chin that necessary inch. "I normally don't clean, I delegate, but I'm sure I can handle it. After all, many women do it every day of their lives and I haven't heard of any casualties."

  "Yeah, well, something tells me you're not just any woman." He kept his eyes focused on her bare legs.

  You better believe it, buster! Letitia's lips curved in an amused smile. If he hoped to disconcert her by visually stripping her, he was going to learn better men than him had tried over the years and failed miserably!

  "Shouldn't you be out overseeing the men punching cows and branding them or whatever you do out there?" she asked. "After all, isn't that what a foreman does?"

  Tyler's lips compressed in a tight line to keep the laughter from spilling out. "Yeah, we do have a nasty habit of beating up those little doggies off and on," he drawled. "When we're not castrating them, that is."

  Letitia's eyes widened at the idea. She suddenly felt a bit queasy. "All right, so I don't know a lot about ranch life, but I'm a quick study." She bent down to pick up a bottle of lemon oil and a dust rag, not even noticing she still held the bottle of pine cleaner.

  "Going to polish the closet?"

  "I'm just using whatever will get rid of those cobwebs." She repressed a shudder as she set the lemon oil down and spritzed cleaner on the cloth. Then she changed her mind and walked into the closet, spraying it everywhere she could reach. "It appears any house I'm in has these nasty things. There's probably a ghost lurking somewhere in here too." Her voice was muffled as she ventured farther inside the closet. She was grateful the light inside still worked.

  "If it's Harvey, I wouldn't worry. He's a pretty easy going guy." Tyler tipped his head to one side to catch a better view of her shapely buttocks as they swayed to some private rhythm. "This is just a suggestion, mind you, but why don't you use the dust mop? The long handle would mean you wouldn't have to get inside there and breathe in all those years of dust and you could still get a majority of the dirt out."

  Letitia's loud coughs proceeded her escape from the dirty cavern. "A dust mop? With a long handle?" She glared at him as if this was all his fault. "

  "I'm sure Myrna has one."

  Letitia's mutters closely resembled curses on Tyler's entire family as she pushed him to one side.

  "Was it something I said?" Faint amusement colored his amiable question.

  She spun to a stop and glowered at him. "I can handle ranch foremen who look upon me as some flighty socialite who's out here on a whim. I can also handle cooks who boast a job description that doesn't take them beyond the kitchen door. What I cannot handle are people who look down on others just because they might not be familiar with something they've grown up around. I may not understand the western life-style, but that doesn't mean I can't learn it." Her eyes, the color of aqua gemstones, snapped with lively anger. "And I will learn it. Mr. Ranch Foreman. You can count on it."

  He tipped his hat in reply to her challenge. "I'm looking forward to it, ma'am."

  Letitia started toward the stairs then looked over her shoulder. "Was there something else you needed?"

  He thought of the healthy whiff of perfume he got when she brushed past him. Amazing how the potent pine cleaner didn't have a chance against French perfume. His body tightened in sexual reaction. The lady had endured a long plane ride, an even longer truck ride on a not so smooth road and now she was preparing to clean house! Where did she get all this energy? He figured it had to be from all the fancy parties she attended over the years. Dancing and drinking French champagne all night could be wearing on the body if you weren't in good shape. "Not just yet, countess, but I'll be sure and let you know when I do."

  Letitia's fingers lingered on the wall as she paused.

  She shot him a look over her shoulder that positively sizzled. Her eyes danced with wicked lights and her lips curved in the kind of smile that left Tyler aching to cover with his own mouth.

  "Don't take too long, cowboy." To his ears, her husky voice made some pretty interesting unspoken promises. With a saucy twitch of her butt, she sauntered off.

  Tyler took off his hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He wasn't surprised to find it had come away damp. "Damn," he muttered, replacing his hat with the intention of getting out of there as soon as possible. "Why couldn't she have climbed back in that plane and gotten out of here before I smelled that perfume!"

  "YOU HAVE TO STOP laughing, Jack!" Letitia ordered her brother as she fingered piles of dust-covered papers on a desk she was certain came over by covered wagon more than a hundred years ago, in a room that she supposed to be the office only because of the journals piled in a sagging bookcase and a battered metal filing cabinet in one comer. "It's not that funny."

  "You spent the afternoon cleaning your bedroom. Ticia, before today, your idea of housecleaning was making your bed and picking up your damp towels in the bathroom. And now, you're cleaning and talking about running a ranch. What do you even know about ranching?"

  She gritted her teeth. "I can ride a horse."

  "You can, what?" he teased.

  "I can ride a horse and you know it! I just don't like them. I know cattle turn into steaks, I can read books on the subject and I'm a very quick learner. Besides, I have a very qualified foreman who can teach m
e what I don't know. Giancarlo even said he was one of the best in the state although I can't understand why the ranch is doing so badly if he's supposed to be so good."

  Giancarlo just never said that the man had a chest a woman itched to caress, eyes that should be considered illegal and looked like something out of the old Wild West.

  "Giancarlo also took you for well over a hundred thousand dollars," Jack reminded her. "I can't imagine his word would exactly carry a lot of weight."

  "The ranch is worth much more than that." Letitia thought about Tyler's unwelcome news that the ranch was virtually broke. Just as she was. She wondered how she managed to get into these situations. If she believed in such a thing, she'd think it had something to do with her karma.

  "Ticia, do you need anything?" Jack asked during her long silence.

  She knew he meant money. "No, everything is fine," she brightly replied, perhaps too brightly. "Although I could use some reference materials to help me understand this part of the country."

  "What do you need?"

  Letitia rattled off a list that sent her brother into waves of laughter. "It's not that funny!" she argued.

  "It will be if your employees find out how you're learning about the West and ranch life," he said, chuckling. "All right, I'll send you whatever I can find by the end of the week. But Ticia-" he took a deep breath "-don't feel bad if you have to leave there. You can always come back here, you know. Holly and the kids would love to have you back."

  The pull was strong to confess to her brother that ranch life was already turning into a passel of unpleasant surprises. She even opened her mouth to say just that, but something held her back.

  "Everything is fine, Jack," she assured him. "And I would appreciate anything you can send me. My love to Holly, Caroline and Ryan." She hung up before she gave into the need to beg her brother to come take her back to Salem. She couldn't call it home; it was her brother's home. Actually, if Letitia thought about it, this was the first time she had a place she could call all hers. Even when she was married she didn't live in her own home. She and Stephano had shared a suite in the family mansion. He saw no need to buy a house when the suite was larger than many people's homes.

  "All mine," she murmured, looking around at more piles of newspapers, old receipts, bills she hoped had been paid and a journal she discovered was a day-to-day account of the work done. It was the owner's office. And now her office. The thought was downright scary. She collapsed in the leather chair, disturbing another pile of dust. She sneezed several times and waved the flying molecules away from her face. "If I tap my heels together three times and ask to go home, will it happen?"

  On a whim, she did just that. Letitia opened one eye, then the other. She sighed. "I guess I am home."

  She jumped up when she heard voices coming from the rear of the house. A quick glance at her watch told her she was in danger of missing dinner and her rumbling stomach warned her that wouldn't be a good idea.

  Letitia brushed her clothing with her hands and swiped at stray hairs as she hurried down the hall to the kitchen. Her bright smile wavered when she encountered a long table in the adjoining dining room filled with men who looked at her with varied forms of curiosity. The braver ones ventured more than a few looks at her bare legs. She wished she'd now taken the time to change into pants. Or checked a mirror to see if there was dirt on her nose.

  "Good evening," she greeted them, calling on her finishing school training as she deliberately broadened her smile. She'd encountered heads of state, diplomats and royalty during her marriage and her few years of wandering the continent. If they couldn't rattle her composure, a bunch of cowhands shouldn't be able to. "I'm Letitia DeMarco."

  "Ma'am." A gray-haired man nodded as he pushed his chair back and stood up. He shot a telling look up and down the table until all the chairs were pushed back and the men stood dipping their heads in silent greetings. "I'm J. T. Walker, the old man around here who refuses to retire. I look after the barns, handle the tack and watch over our pregnant mares."

  A covert glance told Letitia that Tyler wasn't there. "You gonna just stand there looking like a picture out of Vogue or are you gonna sit down and eat?" Myrna demanded, walking up behind her. She gestured toward the head of the table. "Guess that'll be your seat, as you're the boss."

  "Thank you, Myrna." She walked to the head of the table and seated herself.

  "Well, you've already met Ben," J.T. began pointing to faces as he reeled off the names. "That's Sam, Chad, Tony," he went on, pausing each time to allow Letitia time to fit the name to the face. "Jake's over there!'

  She smiled and nodded at each man even if several of them didn't smile back at her with the same friendliness she accorded them.

  "I'm sure it will take time for me to get to know all of you," she told them. "I realize I'm not Giancarlo."

  "Wouldn't matter if you were. He never bothered coming out here to even look over the place," one of the men muttered into his coffee. "We were left to do what we know best without any interfering from folk who ride around in fancy cars and don't worry about anything more than what to wear to the next party. Don't know why he even bothered keeping the place."

  Letitia's smile froze. "I'm not Giancarlo."

  His eyes swept over her knit sleeveless top with cold insolence, stopping level with her breasts. "Yeah, I noticed."

  "Chad," J.T. growled. "The lady is our boss." Chad stood up. "I never signed on to work for a woman," he argued. "And I don't intend to work for some society dame."

  Before Letitia could protest his words, another voice cut in with chilling precision. "Who said you were? Last I heard, you took my orders. That hasn't changed yet."

  Tyler stopped long enough to hang his hat on the rack before walking over to take his seat. He kept his gaze centered on the other man. "You have any other complaints we should discuss?"

  Chad's face tightened. He grabbed his chair and sat back down. "I'll let you know."

  Tyler looked relaxed, as if he wasn't discussing anything more major than the weather. "You do that. We'll have a nice talk."

  Letitia stared down at the coffee cup filled with the dark brew Myrna had poured. From the way the men were talking she began to wonder if a showdown at noon would be next. She mentally thanked the fates for modem cowhands not wearing guns to the table. She feared she wouldn't be able to dive under the table fast enough.

  "Eat up." Myrna set platters filled with sizzling steaks, fried potatoes and vegetables at each end of the table. A large covered basket filled with biscuits was next.

  "If you're slow, you'll lose out," Tyler advised her, forking up one of the smaller steaks and dropping it on her plate.

  "I usually eat a light dinner," she demurred.

  "For us, this is light," he explained. "Our main meal is at dinnertime. You call it lunch in the city."

  She nodded, reaching for the potatoes just as the bowl was swept away.

  Letitia decided it would be best to remain quiet and just listen as the men slowly relaxed and began talking about the day's work and what was planned for the next day. She mentally filed away phrases about post holes, fencing, and vaccinations. Considering how many times the men would cough or pause while talking, she assumed they were also censuring their language in deference to her presence. She'd never felt so much like a fifth, and very unwanted, wheel. Even Tyler gave her little more than a few cursory glances as he ate. She might as well not have been there.

  Except Letitia noticed Tyler more than she would have liked to. He'd changed into a clean shirt since she last saw him and after seeing a few damp ringlets of hair against his nape, she figured he'd also showered and shaved. A normal occurrence before dinner? Or in her honor? She felt even grubbier and wished she'd done more than just wash her hands.

  After making room where there wasn't any for berry cobbler, Letitia wanted nothing more than to curl up in a corner and go to sleep. She was jolted out of her stupor when Tyler stood up.

  "Is t
here a chance we could talk?" she asked, mentally slapping her cheeks to wake herself up.

  He stared down at her for a moment. Just when she thought he was going to put her off, he replied. "All right." He gestured for her to precede him.

  Letitia mentally ran down her choices and found all of them wanting. "The office?"

  "You're the boss."

  His sardonic tone followed her down the hallway. "To begin with, I wonder if I might have a daily report on what you have the men do," she began, once seated behind the desk. "I thought it might be a good way to familiarize myself with the ranch and what goes on here."

  Tyler was grateful the bulky desk kept Letitia's legs out of sight. They were long and smooth and a pale gold color and they kept his mind wandering in their direction when he should be concentrating on how to talk her into selling him the ranch!

  "The best way for you to do that is to ride with the men and observe things firsthand," he advised.

  Letitia's face froze. "Ride?"

  Tyler perched himself on the chair arm. "Yeah, ride. Of course, we don't have any fancy English saddles, countess, but I'm sure we can fix you up. You can ride, can't you?"

  She was stung by his mocking challenge. "Of course I can ride! It's just not one of my favorite activities," she added quietly unwilling to divulge one of her pet peeves. Her ex-husband, most of her friends and even her brother enjoyed horseback riding. She always considered it a way of getting seasick without being on board a ship.

  Tyler shook his head in disbelief. "You now own a working ranch and you don't like to ride? There's a lot of territory that can't be reached by jeep, countess. How did you expect to look over your land? By private airplane?"

  "I said I didn't like horses, not that I couldn't ride them!" she argued, then took several deep breaths to regain her rapidly diminishing composure. "Look, I know I'm not what you expected."

  "No joke there," he said under his breath.