Single In The Saddle

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  “Stagnant.” Ramon gestured toward the pool. “Like that, with no water flowing.”

  “Yeah.” Big Clyde’s face brightened. “Stagnant.”

  Andy popped up from the bottom of the pool again. “I think I got it this time!”

  Jasper made a megaphone of his hands and turned toward the house. “Plug it in again, ma’am!”

  Stony braced himself for another gusher. Instead, water bubbled merrily out of the opening at the top of the rocks and spilled over the various levels to splash into the pool below.

  A cheer went up from the men. Andy threw up handfuls of water in celebration, and even Stony had to admit the effect was kind of nice.

  Big Clyde put a hand on Stony’s shoulder. “She means well.”

  “I know.” Stony sighed. “Everybody around here means well. I just feel as if I landed in the middle of a carnival.”

  Big Clyde grinned at him. “Stuffs movin’.”

  INDEED. STONY STOOD in the doorway of his bedroom and stared at the transformation. Before coming in the house he’d taken off his shirt and muddy boots and brushed off his jeans as best he could. Then he’d made a quick trip down the hall to put Daphne’s violets in her room. He’d wondered as he passed by his room if there was something different about it.

  There sure as hell was, he discovered as he returned from Daphne’s room and took a better look at his own. He didn’t dare step in there without a shower. Maybe even a manicure.

  He tried to work up some righteous anger, but instead he was floored by how inviting the room looked. Although he would never have imagined such an arrangement, it seemed like the only way the furniture should be set up. He wanted to hate it, because then he could reestablish his authority by demanding that Daphne put everything back the way it had been before. Unfortunately for his authority, he liked what she’d done.

  “The boys helped me.”

  He turned to find Daphne standing in the hallway, her expression anxious.

  She twisted her hands together nervously. “I thought it was a bit of an invasion of your privacy, so I’d understand if you’re upset. If you are, I’ll get a couple of the hands to come in and we’ll put it back the way you had it.”

  “I don’t want to put it back. Much as I hate to admit it, this looks good, better than the way it was.”

  Relief showed in her dark eyes and she smiled.

  “But I would be interested in why you did it.”

  “Uh...” She glanced away. “The boys thought as long as we’d feng shuied everything else, we might as well do your room.”

  He crossed his arms over his bare chest, wishing he could hold her close while they had this fascinating discussion. He had an idea where such talk could lead. “And which one of them brought over the lace tablecloth to hang from the bedposts?” He snapped his fingers. “I know. Big Clyde had one in his hope chest. I should have figured on that.”

  She blushed. “I bought the tablecloth when I was in town yesterday. It was on sale.”

  “We don’t have a table that big.” He heard himself say we and winced. The word had come to his lips so easily. Too easily.

  She crossed her arms in imitation of him. He wondered if she had as big an urge to hold him as he had to hold her.

  “I might as well tell you that when I woke up in that bed the first morning I was here, I looked up at the bedposts and imagined how pretty a lace canopy would look draped over them,” she said. “Then I found your note and...well, I stopped dreaming about lace canopies.”

  He studied the expression on her face, trying to read what was going on in that mind of hers. “You must have started dreaming about them again at some point, if you bought that tablecloth.”

  “I’m a designer. I saw the lace tablecloth on sale and naturally thought of your bed.”

  “I like the way your mind works. You should go shopping more often.”

  She glanced away. “I thought of your bed purely in a decorative way.”

  “Uh-huh. You’re the one who lectured me about how colors and textures affect people. What did you suppose would happen while I’m lying in bed looking up at that filmy material you chose to hang there? You don’t think I’ll dream of you and the bits of lace trimming on your nightie, the one you’re wearing as you lie not twenty feet away from me? You don’t think this lace roof over my bed will drive me absolutely, completely around the bend with wanting you?”

  She looked back at him, and the conflict going on in her mind was obvious. “You’re right. It’s not fair. We should take it down.” She started to move past him.

  He caught her arm. “Oh, no, you don’t. That’s staying up there.” He pulled her close but resisted the urge to kiss those full lips. “And you have an open invitation to sashay down the hall any night and enjoy it with me,” he murmured, watching her eyes darken. “I’ll even let you lie on your back, so you can appreciate the pretty pattern of the lace while I’m deep inside you.”

  She wrenched from his grip and fled. He heard the front door bang after her. With a long sigh he started toward the bathroom for a cold shower. At least he had the satisfaction of knowing that the canopied bed would prey on her mind as well as on his. And she had no one to blame for that but herself.

  A BRISK WALK FINALLY reduced Daphne’s tension to the point where she could face Stony again. She returned to her room to comb her hair before starting on dinner and found the pot of African violets. Although there was no note or card, she knew they had to be from Stony. Her heart quickened with hope.

  Yet when she tried to thank him for the violets as they sat down to dinner, he shrugged off the gesture as if buying them for her had been almost an afterthought. Frustrated with his refusal to acknowledge even the slightest bit of sentimental feeling for her, she remained silent through the meal and avoided him for the rest of the evening. But in the days that followed, she took very good care of the little pot of violets.

  With the waterfall in place, she also checked the sky every morning, hoping to glimpse rain clouds on the horizon, but the sky remained relentlessly blue and the land grew thirstier every day. Several times she caught Stony eyeing the waterfall and she knew he was begrudging the water it took; but the birds and small animals loved it. The yard became a colorful gathering place for wildlife.

  Daphne had little time to watch the activity, though. Her carton of catalogs and samples arrived, and her growing business kept her on the move with constant trips to town. Although sexual tension remained high between her and Stony, she managed to keep her yearnings in check during the brief times she was with him. Unfortunately, she thought about his canopied bed more than was good for her during the restless nights, and consequently wasn’t as alert as she would have liked to be for her third meeting with Agnes Farnsworth.

  As they sat on Agnes’s sunporch surrounded by catalogs, Daphne gulped from her glass of iced tea and hoped the caffeine would keep her awake. During the first appointment Daphne had learned that Agnes was the mother of two daughters, both married. One lived in Rio Verde, and this morning Agnes mentioned hiring Daphne to feng shui her daughter’s house as a Christmas present.

  “I’d love to,” Daphne said, glancing up from the color wheel she’d been consulting. By agreeing to a job so far in advance, she was also committing herself to stick around. With luck, that wasn’t a foolish thing to do. “It couldn’t be a surprise for your daughter, though. You’d need to make sure she and her husband want it done. Not everyone goes for the concept.”

  Agnes gazed at her. “For instance, like your cousin Stony?”

  Daphne could feel the warmth stealing into her cheeks. “Right ”

  Agnes put down her glass of iced tea and leaned across the wicker cocktail table. “Daphne, I’m a plainspoken woman, so you’ll have to forgive me for being blunt, but you’re no more Stony’s cousin than I am.”

  By now Daphne’s cheeks felt like a couple of stove burners. “What makes you say that?”

  “Remember last time you we
re here I asked you a little about your family and Stony’s? You managed to change the subject, not once, but twice. Most folks, especially Texas folks, love to explain all about their kin.”

  Daphne squirmed. “Well, I—”

  “And just now, at the mention of his name, you lit up like a stoplight. I’m not a gossip and I won’t give away your secrets to the whole town, but if I’m going to have you redoing my house and then Suzanne’s house come Christmas, I want to know who I’m dealing with. You’re not in trouble with the law or anything, are you?”

  “Goodness, no!” Daphne put a hand on her pounding heart and sank back against the cushions of the wicker love seat.

  “Then, what brings you to Rio Verde? I have a hard time believing you traveled all the way from Hawaii to this little Texas town just because you had a burning urge to start a business here. It’s a nice-enough place to live, but our chamber of commerce usually has to bribe folks to transfer a business to Rio Verde.”

  Daphne quickly thought through her options. If she insisted on sticking to her story, Agnes might decide against the redecorating job. If Agnes backed out, that could affect her other clients, because Agnes was apparently the ringleader among the women in town. Besides, Daphne liked Agnes, and lying to her had never felt like the right thing to do.

  She started to pick up her glass of tea and realized her hand was shaking too much to take a drink without spilling it everywhere. She put the glass down.

  “Oh, my stars, you are upset.” Agnes hurried around and moved the catalogs so she could sit next to Daphne and put a comforting arm around her. “What is wrong, darlin’?”

  Too much caffeine, too little sleep and too much stress had Daphne fumbling in her purse as tears gathered in her eyes. “It’s just...it’s just everything!” she burst out. Embarrassing herself in the process, she started to sob.

  With a mother’s instinct, Agnes had soon dragged the whole story out of her.

  Daphne dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose. “This is so unprofessional. You’re free to cancel our agreement, Agnes.”

  “Cancel it?” Agnes patted her hand. “I’ll do no such thing. In fact, I’ll help you rummage up some more clients.”

  “Well, thanks, but I—”

  “You deserve it. Thanks to Jasper and his gang, you were plopped down in the middle of nowhere and expected to build up a business from scratch. That isn’t easy to do, but I’m sure you can do it, because you have spunk and wonderful new ideas. I’d consider it a privilege to help you.”

  Daphne choked back a fresh flood of tears. “Thank you.”

  “But like any mother on the face of the earth, my help comes with some advice. You’re free to take it or not. I’ll make the same rule with you as I do with my two girls. If you don’t take my advice, don’t come complainin’ to me about poor results.”

  “You probably think I should move away from the Roughstock Ranch, and you’re probably right. It’s just that I—”

  “Why would you want to move away? Aren’t you in love with him?”

  Daphne glanced at her and slowly nodded.

  “Have you told him that?”

  Daphne shook her head.

  “Then tell him. Don’t wait for him to say the words. These men are slow. The good ones are, at any rate. The Romeos of the world say it every five minutes, just to get what they want, but Stony isn’t like that. My advice is to make him a good dinner, give him a good time in bed, and then tell him how you feel.”

  “Agnes!”

  Agnes regarded her gravely. “Told you I was plainspoken. Have the courage to put your cards out on the table, is what I say. Now, about the living room walls, what do you think of purple?”

  MAYBE IT WASN’T FAIR, but Stony partly blamed Daphne and the lace canopy for Jolly Boy stepping in a gopher hole. If Stony hadn’t been short on sleep from lying in bed thinking about the interesting shadows that lace would make on Daphne’s naked body, he might not have been running his horse so fast that he hadn’t seen the gopher hole until it was too late. He could have steered around it. Then again he might not have, but he felt better laying the blame on Daphne, her sexual appeal and her decorating schemes.

  Thank God Jolly Boy’s right front leg was only sprained. Stony was in no emotional shape to handle anything worse. Rio Verde’s only vet was headed out to do an emergency cesarean on a neighboring rancher’s mare and wouldn’t be available, but he assured Stony that ice treatments throughout the night would probably be adequate for Jolly Boy’s sprain.

  Stony realized that if he wanted to find a silver lining in the cloud, it would be that he’d spend the night in the barn putting ice on Jolly Boy’s leg and wouldn’t have to face the sweet agony of lying in that canopy bed tonight, just down the hall from Daphne. He was damn near close to breaking on that score.

  Jasper had offered to spell him during the night, but Stony didn’t want to trust the job to anyone else, not even Jasper. He’d owned Jolly Boy for ten years, and although he’d tried to tell himself that any mount would do and he shouldn’t get attached to just one, he always chose the big bay when it came time to saddle up. For the next little while he’d have to ride another horse to give Jolly Boy a chance to heal, but he didn’t want that to become a permanent situation.

  “I’ll see that you get somethin’ to eat, then,” Jasper told him as he left the barn. “And I’ll tell Daphne what happened.”

  Stony looked up from his job of wrapping Jolly Boy’s foreleg prior to immersing it in a bucket of ice. “I’d appreciate that. Tell her she can switch off the waterfall. I won’t be there to hear it tonight.” He hated to admit how much he’d enjoyed the sound of the water each night. It had been like camping next to a rocky stream. True, it had probably heightened his sexual frustration, because the splashing water had a sensual tone to it. Hell, these days everything had a sensual tone to it.

  Stony had expected one of the boys to bring him a plate of food from the bunkhouse, but instead Daphne showed up with fried chicken, potato salad and an ice-cold beer, all packed into a little basket. The food smelled wonderful, but he nearly forgot his hunger when he emerged from the stall and took a good look at her. Red Riding Hood meets the wolf, he thought grimly.

  She’d changed out of her town clothes into the cutoff jeans he liked so much. But the part of her outfit that had his mouth watering was her blouse. None of the buttons down the front seemed to be fastened. Instead, she’d tied the thing together just below her breasts. Unless he was a poor judge of such things, and he usually wasn’t, she wore no bra underneath.

  If she’d decided to drive him completely insane, this was the outfit to do it with. But damned if he’d make a move on her, because if he did, she’d probably set up all her conditions again. He didn’t want to deal with conditions.

  “I was sure sorry to hear about Jolly Boy.” She handed him the basket. “Is it all right if I go in to see him?”

  “Sure. Just talk easy to him so he doesn’t try to move suddenly and pull his foot out of the bucket.” He stood watching as she unlatched the stall and slipped inside. Definitely no bra. That couldn’t be an accident. A woman like Daphne didn’t just forget to put on underwear.

  “Go ahead and eat,” she said over her shoulder. “You must be starving.”

  “Yeah.” Oh, yeah. “Thanks.” He sat down on a bale of straw and started in on the meal while he listened to her croon softly to his horse. Another sensual sound to add to the list. Damned if he wasn’t getting aroused just thinking about that tempting blouse of hers. One little tug and the whole thing...but he needed to put that thought clean out of his mind and concentrate on the meal she’d brought.

  He’d eaten most of his dinner when she came back out of the stall and latched it behind her. “This is really good,” he said. He took a sip of beer and swallowed. Perfect temperature on the beer. “Did you make the potato salad?”

  “With my own two hands. In my experience, most guys like fried chicken and potato salad.”


  That caused him to lift his eyebrows. “You mean you made this because you thought I’d like it?”

  “As a matter of fact.”

  Oh, he sensed a trap coming. Feed a guy good, tantalize him with the promise of sex, and then refuse to go to bed with him unless he proposes. He was a little tired of the game. He gazed deliberately at her breasts. “Nice outfit.”

  “Mmm.” She smiled.

  He took a shaky breath She could play this better than he could, apparently. “Look, Daphne, I appreciate the food, but you’d better take the basket and go back up to the house before I forget myself. I know you wouldn’t want that without me having a wedding ring in my pocket, and I can guarantee I don’t have one of those.”

  She just smiled that tantalizing smile that made his fingers itch to rip off her clothes and back her up against the stall door. “Jasper said I should turn off the waterfall,” she said. “But I had an idea that might help Jolly Boy.”

  “Please don’t try to tell me that Jolly Boy will heal faster listening to splashing water.”

  “That’s possible, but I was thinking he might heal faster with his leg in the water, especially with the pump on and the water moving.”

  He stared at her. “Daphne, that is a damn fine idea.”

  “Thank you. I’ll help.”

  “You can help by taking this basket and getting your cute little fanny out of here. I have a horse to doctor.” He held out the basket.

  “What if I told you I’ve changed my mind about staying a virgin?”

  The basket clattered to the floor of the barn as he stood there absorbing her words, his heart hammering. “I’d say—” He had to stop and clear his throat. “I’d say you have damned poor timing.” He gestured back to the horse. “Jolly Boy—Hellfire, woman, why now?”

  “Because I can’t stand it.”

  God, he wanted her. His erection strained at his jeans. But his horse needed treatment.

  “Let me help you with Jolly Boy tonight,” she said. “And then...we’ll see.”