by Diana Palmer
Meredith dragged the bedspread up under her arms, over her clothes, and tried to steady her breathing. When she remembered what she and Rey had been doing, she blushed.
The door, ajar, was pushed completely open, and Leo came in with a tray. On it were a china cup and saucer, with a silver coffeepot, a silver cream and sugar service and a napkin and spoon. On a china plate were some dainty little chicken salad sandwiches.
‘‘I thought you might be hungry,’’ Leo said with a gentle smile as he put the tray on her lap. It had legs, so it would stand alone over her lap. ‘‘Mrs. Lewis came over to fix supper, and I had her make you these.’’
‘‘Thank you!’’ she exclaimed. ‘‘And thank Mrs. Lewis, too. I was just starting to feel empty!’’
Rey made an odd sound and she reached for a tiny sandwich very quickly, not daring to glance at him after the enthusiastic and unwise remark she’d just made.
Leo turned his eyes toward his brother. ‘‘Something wrong with you?’’ he asked curiously.
‘‘Stomach cramp,’’ Rey said without turning. ‘‘I had chili and salsa for lunch. Heartburn’s killing me!’’
‘‘You should go and take an antacid tablet,’’ Leo advised. ‘‘And drink some milk.’’
‘‘I guess I’d better.’’ Rey took a long breath and turned around, feeling more normal, finally. He glanced at Meredith. ‘‘I’m glad you’re okay.’’
‘‘I’ll be fine. Thanks for the conversation,’’ she said, and wouldn’t meet his eyes. But she smiled shyly.
He just looked at her. Suddenly his dark eyes began to burn. He studied her intently, as if something had just happened that shocked him.
‘‘Are you all right?’’ she asked impulsively.
He took a slow breath. He was still staring at her, to his brother’s covert amusement. With her hair around her shoulders like that, sitting up in bed, smiling at him, he felt as if his whole life had just shifted five degrees. She was uncommonly pretty with her hair down. She had a warm, kind heart. She’d put her life on the line for a total stranger. Why hadn’t that occurred to him in Houston, when they first told him that she’d saved his brother from attackers?
‘‘Leo probably owes you his life,’’ Rey said carefully. ‘‘But it bothers me that you risked your own to save him.’’
‘‘Wouldn’t you have done that same thing, even for a total stranger?’’ she mused.
He hesitated. ‘‘Yes,’’ he said after deliberating for a few seconds. ‘‘I suppose I would have.’’
‘‘See? You have all sorts of potential as a prospective husband,’’ she added with a wicked smile, which got wider when he reacted. ‘‘You’re sexy, you’re rich, you drive a nice car, and besides all that, you like animals.’’ She began nodding her head. ‘‘Definite potential.’’
His high cheekbones flushed and he glared at her. ‘‘I don’t want to get married.’’
‘‘Don’t worry about it,’’ she said soothingly. ‘‘It’s perfectly natural for a bachelor to resist matrimony. But you’ll come around.’’ She wiggled both eyebrows. ‘‘If you get me a ring, I’ll let you see my collection of used chewing gum wrappers and bottle caps.’’
He was still glaring.
Leo chuckled. ‘‘I’d love to see your used chewing gum wrappers, Meredith,’’ he said enthusiastically. ‘‘In fact, I may start collecting right now!’’
Rey stared a hole through his brother while, inside him, something froze.
‘‘I’ll even consider marrying you,’’ Leo added wickedly.
She laughed, not taking him seriously. ‘‘Sorry. It’s Rey or nobody. My heart’s set on him.’’ She frowned. ‘‘Pity I couldn’t trade you something for him,’’ she murmured to Leo.
Rey was getting angrier by the second, and uncomfortable at the idea that Leo was trying to cut him out.
‘‘Make me an offer,’’ Leo told her. ‘‘But he can’t cook, and he has a temper worse than a sunburned rattler. Besides that, you can’t domesticate him. He wears his spurs to the dinner table.’’
‘‘So do you!’’ Rey accused.
‘‘I sit more daintily than you do,’’ Leo said imperturbably.
Rey rammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and glared at Meredith again. ‘‘You can’t give people away.’’
‘‘I’m not trying to give you away,’’ Leo said calmly. ‘‘I want to make a profit.’’ He scowled suddenly and his eyes widened as he looked at his brother’s boots.
Meredith was staring at them, too. She pursed her lips and exchanged a look with Leo.
Rey glared back at them belligerently. ‘‘What?’’ he demanded hotly.
Both Leo’s eyebrows went up, along with both hands, palms out. ‘‘I didn’t say a word!’’
‘‘Neither did I,’’ Meredith assured him.
Rey looked from one to the other and finally looked down. There, on one of his feet, was a dainty little foot sock with a tassel on it, covering the steel toe of his brown cowboy boot. He’d unknowingly picked it up under Meredith’s bed while he was kissing her.
Rey jerked it off, cursed royally, shot a furious glance at Meredith and his brother, who were trying valiantly not to look at him, and stomped out.
Helpless laughter erupted from the two people left in Meredith’s room, and the sound of it infuriated Rey.
Leo was obviously ready to set up shop with their recently disclosed nurse, and Rey didn’t like it. Leo was the plague of housekeepers everywhere, but he was also easier on the eyes than the other brothers, and he was charming. Rey had never learned how to use charm. He always looked uncomfortable when he smiled. Especially with women like Meredith, who was painfully shy and naive. He wasn’t used to such women. But what made it so much worse was the dropping sensation in his stomach that he’d experienced when he’d stared at Meredith. He hadn’t had anything like that since Carlie, who made his pulse race almost as fast as Meredith did when he kissed her.
He could still taste Meredith on his mouth. She didn’t know much, but she made up for her lack of knowledge with enthusiasm and curiosity. He thought about carrying the lessons much farther, about baring her to the waist. His heart began to slam into his throat as he tried to imagine what she looked like under her blouse. He already knew that the skin of her shoulder was warm and soft, like silk. He remembered her husky moan when he’d kissed her there, the way her fingers had bitten into his back like little sharp pegs.
He’d been away from women for a long time, but he still knew what to do with one, and his imagination was working overtime just now. Meredith had attracted him when she was just his cook. Now that he knew about the intelligent, capable woman underneath the flighty camouflage, he was fascinated with her. She was everything a man could wish for.
Not that she wanted him, oh, no. She’d made it plain. But that teasing speech about marriage had unnerved him. His freedom was like a religion. He didn’t want to get married. Of course he didn’t!
But it was natural to think of Meredith with children. He could picture her baking biscuits for him every morning and holding a child in her arms at night while they watched television. He could picture her playing catch with a little boy out in back, or picking wildflowers with a little girl at her skirts. She was kind and sweet. She’d make a wonderful mother.
There was her job, of course. He knew something about her profession, that it was supposed to be high pressure. She’d be called upon to make life and death decisions, to comfort the sick and grieving, to make herself involved in the daily lives of her patients so that she should counsel them on how to maintain good health. Besides all that, she had a college degree.
Rey was college educated, too, with a degree in management and a minor in marketing. He was the mind behind the business decisions, the coordinator of the labor pool, and the director of marketing for the brothers’ cattle cooperative. He was good at what he did. He enjoyed conversations with other educated people, and he’d convinced himself t
hat Meredith wouldn’t know Degas from Dali, Domingo from Dwight Yoakum, Hemingway from Dr. Seuss. Now he knew better, and his respect for her increased.
She’d saved Billy Joe’s life at the gun club. He recalled that she must have known what to do for Leo as well, when she’d found him after he was mugged. Leo really did owe her his life. She was competent, confident, and she wasn’t hard on the eyes, either. She had wonderful qualities.
But he didn’t want to marry her. He wasn’t sure about Leo. His eyes narrowed as he recalled the way Leo conspired with her. Leo had known all about her already. Obviously they’d been talking together since her arrival at the ranch, because Leo hadn’t been a bit surprised when she rushed over to manage Billy Joe’s heart attack.
Why hadn’t he noticed that? Leo had called for Meredith when he was in the hospital. He was obviously fond of her. Maybe he was interested in her romantically, too. He’d been interested in Tess, before Cag had walked off with her, but Tess hadn’t realized it. Or if she had, she’d ignored it. Leo wasn’t hard on the eyes, either, and when it came to charm, he had his share and Rey’s as well.
As he walked down to the barn to talk to one of his men, Rey had a terrible premonition that Leo had been serious when he joked about being willing to marry Meredith. Would she be desperate enough, lonely enough, frightened enough, to marry Leo and give up her job and living with her father? Her father had beaten her badly. She might be looking for a way out of the torment, and there was Leo, successful and handsome and charming, just ready to take her in and protect her.
Rey felt himself choke on dread. He couldn’t imagine living in a house with Meredith if she was married to his brother. He’d rather throw himself headfirst into a cement mixer!
But, then, Leo had been teasing. Leo was always teasing. Rey forced himself to breathe normally and at least give the appearance of someone who was relaxed. Sure, it was just a joke. He didn’t have to worry about the competition. There wasn’t any. He pulled his hat lower over his eyes and walked on down the aisle to the man who was doctoring a heifer.
Several days later, Meredith received a huge bouquet of assorted roses from Billy Joe, now out of the hospital and back on the shooting range. She put them in water in the kitchen, along with the card, which the brothers blatantly read.
‘‘He’d marry you,’’ Rey drawled with pure acid in his tone as he dragged out a chair and sat down to lunch. ‘‘He’s been widowed twenty years.’’
Meredith gave Leo a mischievous glance and fiddled with putting biscuits in a linen-lined basket. ‘‘He’s not bad-looking for a man his age, and it wouldn’t hurt him to have a nurse under his roof.’’ She glanced at Rey’s eloquent back. ‘‘But can he cook?’’
Rey sipped coffee noisily.
‘‘And does he slurp his coffee?’’ she added without missing a beat.
‘‘That was done deliberately, to show you that I don’t give a damn about manners!’’ Rey growled.
‘‘All right, just don’t expect me to take you to any nice restaurants while we’re courting,’’ she said easily, setting the basket of biscuits on the table.
‘‘Lady, you aren’t taking me as far as the mailbox,’’ he said curtly.
He looked ferocious. That black temper was already kindling. Meredith studied his bent head curiously. You never knew about men. She’d seen some very mild-mannered ones come to the emergency room with wives who’d been beaten within an inch of their lives. It didn’t hurt to see how far a man would go when he got mad. Especially after her experience with her father.
‘‘You’ll have to learn to scrape the mud off those enormous boots, too,’’ she went on in a conversational tone. ‘‘And not slurp your soup. Your hair could use a good trim…’’
‘‘Damn it!’’
He shot to his feet, eyes blazing in a rigid face, with a dusky flush creeping along his high cheekbones with all the warning color of a poisonous reptile.
Meredith stood her ground, watching him clench those big fists at his side.
‘‘Rey,’’ Leo cautioned abruptly, and started to get to his feet.
Meredith went right up to Rey, looking him in the eyes, quiet, still—waiting.
Rey was breathing through his nostrils. His jaw was clenched with fury. But intelligence won easily over bad temper. His chin raised slowly. ‘‘You’re testing me,’’ he said out of the blue. ‘‘You want to know if I’ll hit you.’’
‘‘It’s something a woman needs to know about a man,’’ she said very quietly. ‘‘And she needs to find it out where she can get help if she needs it.’’ She didn’t look at Leo, but Rey knew that was what she meant. She smiled gently. ‘‘No, you don’t hit,’’ she said in a soft, quizzical tone. ‘‘You do have a temper, but it’s not a physical one.’’
He was still breathing through his nose. ‘‘If you were a man, it might be,’’ he told her bluntly.
‘‘But I’m not a man,’’ she replied.
Her eyes were almost glowing with feeling. He got lost in those soft, warm, grey eyes. He hated the way he felt when he was near her. He’d been fighting it ever since he carried her up to her garage apartment after she’d fainted at the hospital. He liked the feel of her in his arms. He liked kissing her. He liked the way she picked at him and teased him. No woman had ever done that before. As his older brothers had been before they married, he was taciturn and uncommunicative most of the time. His very attitude put most women off.
It didn’t put Meredith off. She wasn’t afraid of his temper, either. She made him into a different person. It wasn’t something he could easily explain. He felt comfortable with her, even while she was stirring him to passion. He could imagine just sitting in front of the television with her and holding hands, late at night.
The image intimidated him. He sat back down, ignoring Meredith, and started putting butter and strawberry preserves on four biscuits.
Leo gave him a measuring look. ‘‘Don’t eat all the biscuits.’’
‘‘I’m only getting my share. She,’’ he jerked his thumb towards Meredith, ‘‘didn’t make but eight this morning. That’s one for her, four for me, and three for you.’’
‘‘And why do you get four?’’ Leo asked belligerently.
‘‘Because she proposed to me,’’ he said with pure smug arrogance, and a look that made Leo’s teeth snap together.
‘‘I did not,’’ Meredith said haughtily, sitting down across from him. ‘‘I said I was thinking of you as a marriage prospect, not that I actually wanted to go through with a ceremony.’’ She cleared her throat. ‘‘I’ll have to see how you work out.’’
Rey smiled faintly. ‘‘That sounds interesting.’’
He didn’t necessarily mean what it sounded like he meant. She mustn’t jump to any conclusions here. But her cheeks were getting very rosy.
He noticed that. It was a devilish game they were playing, and he could do it better. He stared pointedly at her soft mouth as he put a cube of fresh pear into his mouth, slowly and deliberately.
She felt very uncomfortable in odd places when he did that. She ate her beef and gravy and tried to ignore him.
‘‘I like having fresh fruit,’’ Rey said with a slow smile. He speared a grape with his fork and eased it slowly between his lips.
She moved restlessly in her chair. ‘‘It’s healthy stuff.’’
‘‘No wonder you were trying to get us to eat right,’’ Leo said, trying to break the growing spell Rey was casting on her. ‘‘You teach nutrition, I suppose.’’
‘‘In a way. I’m supposed to counsel patients on changing bad habits and making lifestyle changes when they’re warranted,’’ she explained. If only her hand didn’t shake while she was holding the stupid fork. Rey saw it and knew why, and she hated that damned smug smile on his lean face!
He picked up a piece of perfectly cooked asparagus spear and slowly sucked it into his mouth, using his tongue meaningfully.
‘‘I have to fix dessert,’’ Me
redith choked, jumping to her feet so quickly that she knocked her chair winding and had to right it.
‘‘I saw that chair jump right out and trip you, Meredith,’’ Rey commented dryly. ‘‘You ought to hit it with a stick.’’
‘‘I ought to hit you with a stick instead!’’ she raged at him, flushed and flustered and out of patience.
‘‘Me?’’ Both eyebrows arched. ‘‘What did I do?’’
She pictured hitting him across the jaw with the biggest frying pan she had. It was very satisfying. Pity she couldn’t do it for real.
She went to the cupboard and drew out the ingredients for an instant reduced fat pudding. She had some low-fat whipped cream in the freezer that she could top it with. Meanwhile, Rey would finish his meal and stop using fruits and vegetables to torment her with. She could have kicked him.
Behind her, Rey was talking comfortably to Leo about some new equipment they were ordering, and about routine chores that had to be completed before Thanksgiving this month and the Christmas holidays next month. Most of the ranch hands would have Thanksgiving, the day after, and that weekend free. Next month, they’d have Christmas Eve and Christmas Day free, along with four days before or after, depending on the schedule. Some of the men had families in far-flung locations and they had to travel a distance for the holidays. The Harts made a practice of giving the men time off to go home during the holiday season by staggering work schedules, so that there was an adequate crew here to work when days off were assigned.
Then they moved on, naturally, to a discussion about Thanksgiving dinner.
‘‘You’re going to stay until after Thanksgiving, aren’t you?’’ Rey asked Meredith.
She had her back to them. ‘‘Yes, I’d like to,’’ she said, because she’d already been planning special menus and light, noncaloric desserts for it. ‘‘Unless you’re planning to go away for it,’’ she added quickly.
‘‘The family has a Christmas party, when we all get together. We sort of save Thanksgiving for just us, so the others can have the day with their wives and kids,’’ Leo told her. ‘‘It’s been sort of hit and miss since Mrs. Lewis has been plagued with arthritis. As you know, we got her to come back to work just briefly, but her hands won’t hold out to make bread and do any scrubbing with them, despite medicine. She has her children up from Corpus Christi for the holidays and cooks for them. We sort of got leftovers.’’