Lonesome Ryder: Lonesome Ryder / Restaurant Romeo

“Fine, six forty-five it is,” she said.

“Good. I’ll eat in here…in my recliner…by myself.”

He made it crystal clear that he didn’t want or need her company. Not that she cared, of course. She’d rather eat in a cafeteria with a bunch of teenage students during a food fight than dine with him anyway.

When she walked off he jacked up the volume of the TV where an old Western, starring John Wayne, was playing. If he was trying to annoy her, he was doomed to disappointment this time. She was a John Wayne fan from way back and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was one of her favorites.

Liberty Valance had nothing on Wade Ryder, she decided on her way down the hall. Both men leaned toward mean and nasty and deserved a good shooting.

2

LAURA NEATLY STACKED HER underwear and socks in the empty dresser and hung her clothes in the walk-in closet. Pensively she contemplated ways to give the living area a more welcoming appearance. For sure, she’d let plenty of light into that dark room, place scented candles and potpourri on the end tables and fill the area with vases of wildflowers. Then she’d rearrange the furniture to give the room better balance.

Laura stashed her suitcases in the corner of the closet then hiked off to appraise the kitchen and check to see what kind of food was on hand for supper. She was pleased to find an ultramodern kitchen at her disposal, but the reckless arrangement of food in the cabinets offended her sense of order. She set about organizing the boxes, cans and jars in alphabetical order so she wouldn’t waste valuable time rummaging to locate items while cooking.

She was halfway through the process when Wade hobbled into the kitchen on his crutch and braced his battered body against the doorjamb. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he all but roared at her.

Refusing to let him rile her, Laura pivoted and tossed him a high-voltage smile. “I’m reorganizing the kitchen.”

“It was the fine the way it was,” he grouched. “I’ll never find a damn thing now.”

“You won’t have to because I’m in charge of KP duty for the next six to eight weeks,” she reminded him, striving for a noncombative tone—which wasn’t easy since he was glaring thunderclouds on her sunny smile.

“You’re working here, not taking over the place,” he growled. “Put that stuff back where it was…now.”

Even bruised and mauled, the man could still come off looking ominous and intimidating. Laura forced herself not to shrink away from him the way she’d done when they first met. Learning to hold her own was good practice, she realized. Her fairy godbrothers were no longer waving their magic wands, paving the way for her and running interference. She’d landed her new teaching position by herself and she was taking absolute control of her life for the first time in twenty-five years. Wade was a test of her character and gumption and she had no intention of failing the test.

“When my employment is terminated I’ll arrange your kitchen the way you had it.” She gestured carelessly toward the cabinets. “I’ll cram stuff on the shelves so you’ll have to waste time locating ingredients. Happy now, Mr. Ryder?”

“No,” he mumbled, shooting her a disgruntled glance.

Admirably she shrugged off his hostility and resumed the task of arranging items that began with N. Silence reigned for several moments while she progressed through O and P and skipped over Q to place a box of rice on the shelf.

“Where’re you from, Seymour? You don’t speak Oklahoman.”

“Colorado.” She plunked down the spaghetti sauce next to the rice.

“What happened? Did the school administration fire you and you had to leave the state to outrun your reputation?”

Laura gnashed her teeth as she swiveled around to meet Wade’s insolent smirk. The man didn’t know how close he’d come to having a jar of spaghetti sauce smack him right between his moss-green eyes. “No, as a matter of fact I come highly recommended by my principal.”

She had no idea why she was defending herself to him. She certainly didn’t owe him an explanation and he didn’t deserve one. She’d never had acceptance issues with her associates, either. Most people gravitated toward her friendly, nonconfrontational nature. All except His Grouchiness. He seemed to derive wicked pleasure from provoking her.

“No doubt, you came with all sorts of recommendations,” he said in a tone that implied scandalous activities. “Did the principal’s wife resent the competition? Did you move on before she stamped a scarlet letter on your forehead?”

Laura quivered with outrage. The horrible man had the audacity to stand there, assassinating her character, judging her by his lowlife standards and condemning her in one felled swoop. “I was not having an affair with my principal,” she defended hotly. “For your information my principal was a she!”

“Gad, that’s even worse,” he said distastefully.

The man was insufferable! “I came here to be on my own and work in the same school system with my college roommate, not that it’s any of your business,” she all but shouted.

Wade shook his tousled raven head. “I’ve got a news flash for you, Seymour, the PTA isn’t going to approve of striking up your old affair with your college roommate, either.”

Laura didn’t know what possessed her to react so violently to his goading. Her ability to apply restraint and self-control, after years of dealing with challenging students, failed her completely. Before she realized what she’d done, the container of salt that she had clenched in her fist was sailing across the room and smacked Wade squarely in the chest. With a horrified gasp, she watched him stare at the container that plopped on the tiled floor. He turned his death-ray glare on her and Laura’s face flushed with mortification. Damn it, she’d let him get to her.

With extreme effort, Wade doubled over to retrieve the salt container then tossed it back to her. “I guess you don’t think I’m injured in enough places already, huh?”

Regretful and embarrassed, Laura emitted an inarticulate sound and refused to meet his mocking gaze.

He smiled wickedly, then added, “I’ll bet your résumé failed to mention that you’re prone to violence when provoked. How many students have you clobbered when they’ve managed to tick you off, Seymour?”

Laura was so frustrated and angry that she was shaking. Her heart jackhammered in her chest, spurred by an overdose of adrenaline. She wanted to grab this infuriating rascal by the throat and strangle him for making her lose her temper. She almost never lost her temper. But Wade Ryder, the devil incarnate, had witnessed her complete loss of control.

“You aren’t going to let loose with the waterworks, too, are you?” he taunted. “If you’re going to cloud up and rain every day, I’ll make sure I have flood insurance.”

“I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction of seeing me cry,” she snapped at him. “Just go away.”

“Nope, this is my house and my kitchen.”

“Fine then, I qu—” Laura shut her mouth so fast she nearly cropped off the tip of her tongue. No matter what the man said to her, no matter how often he goaded and insulted her, she wasn’t going to quit. She wanted this job. She needed this job for a dozen good reasons.

He arched a dark, challenging brow, daring her to complete that sentence. “Yes, Seymour? You were saying?”

Laura might not have been the modern-day version of Einstein, but she was smart enough to deduce that A: Wade Ryder didn’t like her. And B: He didn’t want her crowding his private space. And C: He was trying to provoke her into quitting her new job before she had twenty-four hours under her belt. She didn’t understand why he wanted her gone because she didn’t know him well enough to determine what made him tick. But, for pure contrariness alone, she wasn’t giving this cantankerous rancher the satisfaction of hearing her say she quit. She wasn’t a quitter and she’d dealt with troublesome students during her four years of teaching at the elite private school in Colorado—a job her brothers had pulled a few strings to secure for her….

The thought served to bolster her firm resolve. She was going to tough it out on her own, no matter how snide and sarcastic Wade Ryder proved to be. She wasn’t a wuss, even though most of her former students weren’t in the juvenile delinquent category of kids who tested her temper and challenged her authority on a daily basis—not like Mr. I’m-Gonna-Give-You-Hell-Just-To-See-If-You-Can-Take-It Ryder. No matter how mad he made her—and he’d made her plenty mad already—she wouldn’t quit. She’d stay, if only to aggravate him.

“I’m not quitting,” she told him as she squared her shoulders and tilted her chin to a determined angle. The fact that she was trembling with frustration probably detracted from her defiant stance, but she’d get better at dealing with this rascal. Now that she knew he was deliberately trying to get rid of her, she’d refuse to take him seriously, wouldn’t allow him to annoy her. In fact, she could be as disagreeable as he was if she really tried.

“If you aren’t quitting then you better toughen up,” he goaded her. “I have no intention of letting up on you.”

“Why? Because it goes against your sour, surly nature to be nice to people?” she flung back.

Wade didn’t so much as flinch when she flashed him a smirk. With jerky, agitated motions, she resumed stocking the kitchen cabinets in alphabetical order. He felt like a first-class ass for provoking Laura. His conscience—which he was trying to ignore—was screaming some pretty raunchy curses at him for behaving so badly.

Silently he marveled at her organizational abilities that the White House would envy. Hell, the woman could probably run a small country all by herself and still take a couple of days’ vacation each week. But if he was to succeed in his campaign to rout Ms. Temptation from his house then he couldn’t pay her compliments or cut her any slack.

An apology flocked to his tongue, but he refused to voice it because being nice to her would defeat his purpose. And damn it, he was uncomfortably aware of Laura Seymour in her trim-fitting, perfectly creased jeans and her pink knit blouse that displayed the full rounded swells of her breasts. Her perfume kept trying to lure him across the kitchen to get a stronger whiff and his good hand itched—and so did the injured one—to map the alluring contours of her goddesslike body.

Sheesh! Of all the women in all the world why did she have to be the one hired as his temporary housecleaner, cook and bottle washer…? Bottle, that’s what he needed, he decided instantly. After a few drinks he’d be numb to the goddess in designer jeans.

Wade hobbled across the room and reached up to the top shelf to retrieve a bottle of hooch. He accidentally bumped into Laura when she grabbed the box of tea bags to align them beside the spaghetti sauce. Her breasts brushed the side of his left arm and Wade snatched a quick breath—only to be assailed by that citrusy scent that had been driving him crazy from the far side of the room.

When he glanced down his gaze collided with those enormous powder-blue eyes, surrounded by a hedge of long, thick lashes. Then his attention dropped to the teasing hint of cleavage displayed by her V-necked blouse. Feeling like a kid who’d been caught with his hands in the cookie jar—or wherever—because he knew that she knew what had momentarily distracted his attention, his gaze bounced guiltily back to her face. Her full, tempting lips were only a scant few inches from his. Wade didn’t dare draw breath, for fear of breathing in her essence so deeply that he’d succumb to the reckless urge to kiss her and find out if she tasted as delicious as she looked. Gawd, he’d known she’d be pure trouble!

“What are you doing?” she asked, a hitch in her voice, a flush of color on her face.

Checking you out, though that’s the last thing I’d planned to do, the voice of honesty replied. But Wade decided to play dumb. He could do dumb if he had to. “Whaddya mean, what am I doing?”