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“I wasn’t thinking about that, but since you ask, Ma’am, you are definitely an easy touch. I knew that even without the old man.”
His slow smile warmed her all the way to her toes. Or would have. If she wasn’t already boiling mad. Jabbing her finger into Jake’s chest, she forced him to retreat, yelling, “I was not Bert’s mistress.” She curled her fingers into a fist and followed Jake down the porch steps, pounding him in time with her angry words. “I did not manipulate him with sex. I did not sleep with Bert and I’m not going to sleep with you.”
Jake abruptly halted, brushing her fist aside as one brushed off a fiy. “Who’s talking about Bert? I’m talking about Tom.”
“Tom!” Gwen screeched. “You think I’m sleeping with Tom?” She hauled back her right arm to slug him.
Effortlessly Jake captured her arm. “What’s wrong with you? I’m talking about you taking in Tom, like you took in Mack.”
Gwen froze, her left arm halted mid-swing. “You’re talking about me hiring Tom?”
“Sure. What the hell were you talking about?”
“Nothing. Never mind. Let go of me.” She concentrated on brushing off her sleeve where he’d gripped her arm. “I’m a little sensitive about inheriting Bert’s property. His nephew Gordon has made a number of unsavory accusations.”
“Tom says he’s a no-account. No one’s going to pay any attention to his sour grapes.”
“About Tom.” She concentrated on the tanned skin in the vee of Jake’s shirt. “I know he’s old, but—” A finger pressed against her mouth stopped her.
“Tom’s going to work out just fine.”
“That’s sweet of you to say, but—”
“Honey, I haven’t been sweet since my ma weaned me.”
She decided to overlook what he’d called her. His drawl hinted of the South. She had the impression down there everyone called everyone “honey.” The issue here was Tom. “I’m glad you have no objection to my hiring him. I’m confident you can find something for him to do that won’t be beyond his capabilities.”
“Tom knows more about cows and horses than I’ll ever know.”
“Tom?”
“He’s a horse doctor, a veterinarian. Took his son and then his grandson into his practice, and they nudged him out. Thinking they were doing him a favor. Didn’t want him dropping dead in the office.”
“How do you know that?”
“Tom’d thumbed a ride with somebody partway here. I picked him up and brought him the rest of the way. We got to talking and he told me all about it.”
“And you believed him? He doesn’t talk like any veterinarian I’ve ever met.”
Jake chuckled. “Tom thought a city lady would be more likely to hire him if she thought he’d add a little local color. I could have told him that wasn’t necessary.”
“You should have told me who he was.”
Jake shrugged. “What difference would it have made? You’d still have hired him.”
Unwilling to argue the point, she switched tactics. “I expect the people who work for me to keep me informed. Is that clear, Mr. Stoner?”
“Sure, boss,” he said easily. “Didn’t I just tell you about Tom? I know you hired him because you felt sorry for him, but forget that. If you’re serious about this ranching business—”
“I’m serious.”
“Tom can teach you about the livestock.”
“That’s what I’m paying you for.”
A grasshopper landed near Jake’s boot. “Knowing about cows and horses and caring for the land takes a heap of studying on. You’ll need Tom when I’m gone.” He ground the insect under his toe. “I’m just passing through.”
“Jake, it’s none of my business, but... A man like you could do anything he put his mind to. Why don’t you settle down?”
He picked his hat up from the ground and carefully brushed the dust from it. “No, Ma’am, it’s not your business,” he finally said. “Besides, there’s no way to explain it. Settling down’s something I can’t do. I have to move on when I’m not needed anymore.”
“Who decides when you’re not needed? You? Like you decided about kissing me?”
He gave her a long look. “You telling me you didn’t want me to kiss you?”
“The question was, are you the one who decides you’re not needed anymore?”
“No.”
“All right, then. As long as we both understand how it is.”
“I understand. I doubt you do.” He settled his hat on his head. “One other thing, boss lady, be mighty careful about laying down the law around here, and saying what you will and won’t do, unless you’re damned sure you can back up your words.”
“That sounds very much like a threat,” Gwen said slowly. “I’m not sure why. I’m not so stupid I’d hire an expert on ranching and then disregard his advice.”
Cool gray eyes rested on her face. “Then take this advice, boss lady. Don’t be issuing any ultimatums about whether or not you’ll sleep with me. If I decide to sleep with you, I will.” A lazy smile crawled over his face. “And, honey, you’ll want me in your bed.” He turned and headed toward the pickup, sweeping his glove from the ground in passing.
He had the truck door open by the time Gwen found her voice. “You’re fired!”
He looked at her through the open window. “You can’t fire me.” The pickup engine roared to life, and Jake backed the truck away from the house.
“And don’t call me honey!”
The truck backfired, then bounced noisily around to the barn.
“I thought there was more in the air last night at the dinner table than the smell of roast beef.”
Gen looked over her shoulder at the housekeeper. “Maybe you smelled the carrots.”
Doris laughed, wiping her hands on her apron as she walked out on the porch. “It appears to me Crissie isn’t the only one with a crush on our handsome cowboy.”
“Have you been at the cooking sherry? You’ve obviously been eavesdropping, so you know he kissed me. It wasn’t my idea, and he won’t be kissing me again.”
“I think he will if he wants to.”
“I don’t care what he wants.” Clasping her hands around a porch pillar, Gwen swayed back. “I don’t want him kissing me.”
“Why not?”
“He’s not my type.”
“That man is any woman’s type. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about having a sexy hunk like him in your bed.”
“I’m not interested in sexy hunks. I want to put down roots for Crissie and me. I want to keep this ranch from going under. If and when I decide to get married, I want a stable, dependable man who’s willing to settle down here and create a home and family with me.”
Doris moved to gently massage Gwen’s spine. “You’ve weathered a lot of changes in the past year. Your brother and his wife being killed in that car accident, you taking in Crissie, Bert dying and leaving you his place. You quit your job, moved down here and barely got settled before Lawrence got ill and Rod quit. You’re reading all hours of the night trying to cram your head full of ranching know-how, sorting Bert’s papers for Prudence, trying to make a home for you and Crissie and make a go of the ranch. You need a little fun, Gwen. Jake claims he’ll be moving on. Nothing says you can’t play around a little with him until he does.”
“Doris Kent. Are you advising me to have an affair?”
“He’s a good-looking male. You’re a single female. Do the math, Gwen. You’re the CPA.”
“You’re a single female. You sleep with him,” Gwen retorted.
“I would. If he looked at me like he looks at you.”
Gwen couldn’t care less how Jake Stoner looked at her. Even if Doris was dying to tell her. Which she must be, or she wouldn’t have brought it up. Gwen certainly couldn’t tell the older woman to shut up. The silence stretched out. “Well?” Gwen finally demanded. “How does he look at me?”
“The same way Mack looked at that roast last night as I carved it for dinner. Like he was starving to death.”
CHAPTER THREE
JAKE tossed and turned in his bed as snores reverberated down the hall. If they were on a trail drive, the cattle would have stampeded halfway back to Texas by now. Jake didn’t know how a man as little as Tom could make that much noise. No wonder a body couldn’t sleep.
All the inventions they’d come up with in this century, you’d think they could stop a man from snoring. Gwen’s car even had buttons to lock the doors and open and shut the windows. The next time Jake came back, he’d remember that. Funny how he couldn’t recall the events and the people who’d brought him back, but knowledge soaked in and lay dormant until the time came when he needed it. He knew how to drive Bert’s thirty-year-old pickup. He knew about television, although the last time he’d seen it, the picture had been in black and white—and they sure didn’t show all those advertisements for things women never used to talk about in front of men. He couldn’t imagine what he’d see the next time he came back.
Except Michaels had promised this was the last time.
Michaels. Damn the man, or whatever he was. Jake could appreciate a good shenanigan as well as the next man, and being returned to his own house sort of tickled his funny bone, but doggone it, then Michaels had gone too far. Taking a man who hadn’t lain with a woman for over one hundred years and plunking him down with a boss lady like Gwen.
Jake stared grimly at the ceiling. For a plugged nickel, he’d pull his freight. Except he couldn’t.
A man like him shouldn’t have calico fever, and he had it in a bad way. He wanted a woman. Not any woman. Gwen. He wanted her under him, those green eyes begging him to bury himself in her. Michaels wasn’t here. He’d never know if Jake took her. Jake snorted. He had a feeling Michaels knew everything.
After Jake finished building his place—this place, he’d planned to marry Marian. Then Ma’s letter had come. He and Marian had argued about whether Jake was obligated. Marian had demanded he choose between her and Luther, then thrown a fit at the guarded look she’d seen in Jake’s eyes. Before he said, she knew he’d be going after his little brother. Luther had appreciated Jake’s doing his duty as little as Marian did. Jake smiled cynically. Marian had changed her mind quick enough after meeting Luther when Jake had brought his brother to the ranch. Later, Marian was the one insisting Jake do his duty and go after Luther.
Jake had a feeling Michaels hadn’t thought much of the way Jake did his duty. When Jake looked into Michael’s eyes, he saw the judgment. And his own sins.
He’d been decent enough to deny himself Marian’s body, telling himself he could wait until they were wed. Someone—fate?—owed Jake a woman. An intriguing thought hit him. Maybe Michaels wasn’t such a bad guy. Maybe he’d sent Jake on this particular job to give Jake his last shot at a woman. Where Jake was headed, maybe men didn’t lay with women.
If Jake was going to have only one more opportunity to sleep with a woman, he didn’t mind one bit if that woman was Gwen. Those eyes of hers switched shades of green with every thought. He wondered how it was a handsome woman like her hadn’t harnessed some man by now. When it came to men she was barely green-broke. Willing to kiss, but skittish.
Jake folded his hands behind his head. Gwen had gotten all riled up after that kiss, but not because he’d kissed her. Because she’d liked him kissing her. And that, she hadn’t liked. He laughed softly. He could kiss Gwen all he wanted, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. Jake would go when Michaels decided he’d go. And not before.
Maybe next time Jake wouldn’t stop with just a kiss. She’d like that, too. Just because he’d lived over a hundred years ago, didn’t mean Jake didn’t know a thing or two about pleasing women.
Jake waited until Doris took Crissie to the kitchen to clean up before he sat back in his chair and pushed aside his dinner plate. “Can you ride?”
Despite Doris’s astounding observation this afternoon, Gwen had no intention of crawling into bed with Jake Stoner. She ought to fire him; but unfortunately, she needed him. Tom whatever-his-name-was might be a retired veterinarian, but she doubted very much if he was up to the physical demands of the ranch. She needed Jake’s muscles. But that’s all she needed. A fact she planned to make perfectly clear to Jake Stoner. She employed him. Nothing more.
Accordingly, Gwen had avoided all speech with him at the dinner table. Doris obviously knew Tom and the circumstances of his hiring, and the two of them, along with Crissie, had done the talking. Gwen wished she had the nerve to insist Jake and Tom eat in the kitchen, but she knew Doris wouldn’t take kindly to the idea. Bert had fed his hands in the family dining room. As long as Doris did the cooking, the hands would eat in the dining room.
Jake was waiting for her answer. “I’ve ridden a few times,” she said. “Mostly when I came down to visit Bert. I’ve been meaning to ride more, but Lawrence always took me in the pickup.”
“Which horse?”
“Susie, named for Susan Magoffin. Bert named all his horses after historical sites or people related to this area.” Gwen warmed to her topic. “There’s Willy, after William Bent from Bent’s Fort, and Kearny for Colonel Stephen Kearny who led the Army of the West, and Cimarron for the river, and Vegas for Las Vegas, New Mexico, not Nevada, and—”
“Which one’s Susie?”
“The tan one,” Gwen said coolly. Jake might not share her enthusiasm for local history, but he didn’t need to be rude. “Bert called her a buckskin.”
“So you can’t ride,” Jake said in disgust. “If you could, he wouldn’t have put you on that old nag.”
“She’s not a nag. She’s perfectly sweet.”
“She’s so old if you fired a six-shooter behind her, she’d barely switch her tail.” He sighed heavily. “There’s no help for it. Be at the corral by the barn after breakfast.”
“I plan to spend the morning going over Bert’s books.”
“Change of plans. The corral after breakfast.”
“That sounds like an order, Mr. Stoner,” Gwen said tightly.
“Good. I wouldn’t want you to think you have a choice in the matter.” He smiled lazily across the table.
“Now see here, Mr. Stoner, I will not—”
. “What? Succeed? Learn? Become a rancher?”
“I will not be ordered around by someone who works for me.”
“Do you know when to move the cows?” he asked.
“I’m sure Bert wrote it down somewhere.”
He gave her a pitying look. “You don’t know. Do you know the difference between noxious weeds and good grass? And I don’t mean that stuff that grows in town. Do you know if the stock ponds are filling okay? If the calves are getting enough milk? When to wean them? Which bull to put to which cows?”
“I’m a CPA, not a rancher. I hired you and Tom to tell me those things.”
“Honey, you were a CPA. Now you’re either a rancher or a squatter who doesn’t know a damn thing about livestock or the land and who’ll go belly-up.”
“I don’t see how—”
“You will by the time I get through. Tomorrow morning. At the corral.” Jake pushed back his chair and stood up. “If you’re a good girl and do what you’re told, maybe I’ll let you play boss the rest of the day.” He strolled out of the room.
A slight choking sound broke the silence. Gwen turned on Tom who was hiding the lower half of his face in his napkin. “You think that’s funny? Wait until he tries to run your life.”
“Don’t come across many like him anymore. All rawhide and iron,” Tom said, his voice filled with admiration.
“All bully and blowhard.”
“The man’s right, you know. You need to learn if you’re going to keep this place going. He’ll make a good instructor. I watched him this afternoon. He’s patient, thorough, even-tempered, and careful. Jake’s not one to rush heedlessly into a situation without checking things out, and he’s steady. It’d take a lot to disturb his equilibrium.”
“Equilibrium is a pretty big word for you, isn’t it? What happened to words like purdy and aint?”
“Jake told me he disclosed my little secret.”,
“After the fact.” Another example of him thinking he knew better than anyone else. “And I wouldn’t exactly call Jake Stoner overly cautious.”
“I didn’t say overly cautious. The man knows his worth, I’ll grant him that. Some might even make the mistake of thinking he’s on the arrogant side.”
“Thinking that is no mistake. He’s a cocky, presumptuous, arrogant, overconfident male who suffers from excessive testosterone.”
Tom chuckled. “You’re not talking about his ranching abilities. You’re talking about him kissing you this afternoon.”
Gwen sprang to her feet. “Was the whole world watching? I was not talking about a stupid kiss. I’d forgotten all about it.”
Gwen walked slowly toward the corral by the barn. She wanted to ride a horse. Jake’s order had nothing to do with her decision. She wouldn’t even allow him to ride with her. She’d tell him to saddle up Susie, and then she’d order him to—to do something. Something out of her presence. Something to remind him who was boss.
A mud-colored horse with white down its nose threw up its head and watched Gwen walk toward the corral where the horse was penned. The buckskin mare grazed on the other side of the pasture.
Jake Stoner leaned back against the corral fence, his elbows resting on the top rail, one boot hooked over the bottom rail. “Shouldn’t have slept half the day away. It’s going to be hot.”
“Do you practice being obnoxious, Mr. Stoner, or does it come naturally?”
“Call me Jake, honey.”
“I’m going to call you unemployed, if you don’t quit calling me honey. My name is Gwen.”
“With that honey-colored hair, I think you’d be used to men calling you honey.”
“My hair is ash blond, but men don’t call me ashes,” she snapped. “Now call Susie over so I can ride.”
He nodded over his shoulder. “He’s an eight-year-old gelding. Mostly quarter horse. Some Arabian. Your friend Bert knew what he was doing when he trained horses. You’ve got some good, well-trained ones. I think you and this horse will work well together. He’s not too spooky for a beginning rider, but enough of a horse to challenge you.”
“I’m not riding Vegas. I prefer to ride Susie,” Gwen said firmly.
“Sure, riding her once in a while won’t hurt. Today you’re working with him, Vegas, if that’s his name.”
“It’s his name, and I’m riding Susie today. Right now.”
Still leaning against the corral, Jake shrugged his shoulders and crossed his arms over his chest. “Okay.”
Gwen tapped her foot. “Well? I’m waiting.”
“What for? If you want to ride the mare, go ahead.”
“I would like her saddled.”
He nodded to his right. “There’s a saddle.”
Gwen silently counted to ten. “I want you to call Susie over here and I want you to saddle her for me.”
“Nope.”
“What do you mean, nope? You can’t refuse. I gave you an order.”
“You’re sure a great one for giving orders, aren’t you?”
“You listen to me, Mr. Stoner. This is my ranch, my land, my horses, and my saddles. I own them, and you work for me. When I tell you to saddle me a horse, I expect that horse to be saddled.”
“The Indians used to say a man couldn’t own the land. I’m not sure you can own a horse, either. If a horse trusts you and wants to work with you, he will. If he doesn’t, he won’t.”
“Then, Mr. Stoner, I’ll fire the horse just like I’m firing you.”
“Honey, when are you going to get it through that pretty head of yours, you can’t fire me?”
“Don’t call me honey and I certainly can fire you.”
“Don’t call me Mr. Stoner, and you can’t fire me because you need me, or I wouldn’t be here. And as soon as you quit acting like a spoiled little brat, and admit you’re scared spitless, we might get somewhere.”
“I am not afraid of horses.”
“I didn’t say you were. Most ranchers were born and raised to it. You don’t know a cow from a heifer. You’d be an idiot if you weren’t scared about pulling up stakes and bringing your little girl down here to start a new life. I’d be terrified if I had to walk into some fancy office up in Denver, sit down at a desk, and pretend I knew about taxes. I also know I’d have to learn. Like you have to learn.” He paused before adding in a flat voice, “If you’re going to be stubborn and deny your ignorance and refuse to learn, tell me now. I’m not wasting time or energy on a gutless greenhorn.”
Gwen moved over to the corral fence and grabbed the top bar with her hands, then leaned back the length of her arms. “Why don’t you say what you’re really thinking? What everybody around here thinks. That I’m an idiot for leaving a perfectly good, high-paying job for some fantasy which exists only in Hollywood. You think I have no more business out here on a ranch than that horse would have trying to tap dance on Broadway.” She pulled herself up to the fence and pushed back again. “You think I bought these stupid cowgirl clothes and moved out here in the middle of nowhere and I don’t have a clue what to do.”
Gwen kicked at the dirt with the toe of her boot. “Well, you’re right. I don’t have a clue, but I’m not stupid. I intend to learn. Crissie is going to have what I never had—a stable childhood, roots.”
“A white picket fence,” he said with sarcasm. “I don’t see what’s so stable about leaving a high-paying job for the uncertainties of ranching.”
She owed him no explanation, but she gave one anyway. “I’ve always been good with numbers, so going into accounting was a logical move for me. There will always be taxes, which means stable employment. It’s long hours of computer time and paperwork, but I didn’t mind until I had Crissie. During the height of tax season I worked from seven in the morning until ten or eleven at night. That’s no way to bring up a child. I knew I had to quit the accounting firm, but I didn’t know what I’d do. Then Bert died and left me his ranch. Here, even if I have to keep long hours, I’ll have Crissie at my side. That’s important to me. And best for her.” Gwen dug her fingernails into the wooden railing. “I’m not quitting here. I’m not running back to Denver with my tail between my legs. I’m here, and I’m going to stay here. I’m never leaving.”
“You’ll leave. You’ll get tired of the mud and the dirt and the bugs and the hard work and long hours and the loneliness. Tired of pulling calves and doctoring horses and feeding in winter. You’ll miss your restaurants and stores and movie theaters. You’ll get tired of playing cowgirl and run back to the city where you belong.”
Gwen flung up her head. “I belong here. Since you obviously don’t think so, you’re the one who doesn’t belong. I know I have a lot to learn, but I’ll find someone to help me who doesn’t spend all his time trying to chase me away. Pack up your things and get out.”
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