Lonesome Ryder: Lonesome Ryder / Restaurant Romeo

Blushing profusely, her gaze focused on his mouth, Laura gestured toward the top shelf where his hand had stalled in midair. “If you’re reaching for that whiskey bottle, that isn’t a wise idea. Pain medication doesn’t mix with liquor. Your doctor wouldn’t approve, Mr. Ryder.”

“First off, I decided to forego that pain medication because it makes me woozy.” He ignored her when she muttered something about preferring woozy to downright cranky.

“Secondly, you can drop that mister stuff, professor,” he instructed, then backed away from temptation personified.

“I’m not a college professor,” she clarified. “I’m a secondary school instructor.”

“Yeah, whatever. Fact is that my doctor is Jack Daniel’s and he makes house calls.” He snatched the bottle off the shelf and set it on the counter with a decisive thump. “Hand me two glasses.”

“I don’t want a drink,” she informed him.

“I’d hope not. You’re on the clock. I want two glasses, one for each hand.”

She stared pointedly at his left wrist that was draped in the sling. “You only have one good hand,” she reminded him.

“So what? Just hand me the damn glasses.”

She didn’t move, just stared him down as if he was one of her belligerent students.

“Fine then, I’ll get it myself, which only goes to prove that I don’t need you.”

Before Wade could reach around her to grab the glasses she plucked them off the shelf and set them down with a clank.

“Thanks, professor,” he said, and not very politely.

“You’re welcome, Ryder. But you should know that you don’t get extra credit for doing things for yourself when you’re supposed to be resting all those body parts you injured while bull wrestling.”

“I wasn’t bull wrestling,” he corrected.

“Yeah, whatever.”

When she tossed his caustic words back in his face he gnashed his teeth, then realized his jaw was as sore as the rest of his abused body.

“According to your cousins’ version of the incident that required immediate medical attention,” she went on, “you valiantly distracted the big bad bull before he flattened Vance and Quint. But I suspect that you were just trying to clamber out of the way so that thousand-pound brute could vent his frustration on your cousins.”

Wade’s chest swelled with indignation—which served to remind him that his ribs were exceptionally tender. “I didn’t turn tail and run,” he huffed and puffed and blew her theory down. “My cousins may be ornery cusses, but I didn’t see any sense of all three of us getting trampled so none of us could handle the ranch chores.”

“Oh, I see,” she said in pretended thoughtfulness. “You just wanted an excuse to take some time off and let your cousins handle the hard work.”

The comment cut like a Weed Eater. “Hell no! Are you nuts, lady?” he roared. “The last thing I wanted was to be laid up and have a woman under my roof!”

Wade slammed his mouth shut and cursed himself soundly. It was never wise to let the enemy know your battle plan. If Laura hadn’t figured out that he was trying to get rid of her any way he could, she surely suspected it now.

She regarded him through her narrowed gaze then went back to alphabetically stocking the shelves. “So, you’re saying that you’re afraid of women and that fear defines who you are.”

“I’m saying nothing of the kind,” he said, highly affronted. He twisted the cap off the whiskey with a vicious jerk and purposely slopped the amber liquid on the counter as he filled his glasses. “You think I’m afraid of you? Not hardly. You’re all of five foot nothing and I’m six-three in my stocking feet. Whaddya gonna do? Break my other leg? I don’t think so!”

“I’m not referring to physical fright,” she clarified. “I’m talking about emotional terror.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he protested.

She reached over to grab a dish towel to mop up his mess then tossed him a sly glance. “Then you’re saying that you don’t appreciate women in the same capacity that most men do.”

“If you’re asking if I like sex, which is none of your business, by the way, the answer is: Yes, I like sex as much as the next heterosexual guy. I just want sex on my terms. No strings attached, no commitment.”

“So basically you’re saying you just don’t like women, but you don’t mind using them to scratch the occasional itch,” she paraphrased.

Hoo-kay, so that sounded cold and insensitive. But yeah, she’d pretty much hit the nail on its proverbial head. Thanks to Bobbie Lynn he’d never let a woman close enough for prolonged periods of time to form an emotional attachment. “Right,” he replied. “Sex is impersonal. You get some when you need some. Like filling an empty fuel tank.”

She paused momentarily from her chore to glance sideways at him. He could tell she was offended, which was fine by him. He didn’t want to like her and he didn’t care if she liked him, either. The less she liked him the sooner she’d realize working here was a mistake and she’d take a hike.

“This is fascinating,” she said, staring at him with those luminous baby blues that had the power to make him weak in the knees. “Explain to me how sex can be impersonal when the act itself involves baring pretty much everything you are to someone else in the most intimate manner possible?”

Wade grabbed some ice cubes from the fridge, plunked them in his glasses and then tossed back a shot of booze. It gave him time to formulate his reply. “Well, ya see, professor, this is where we get into the differences between men and women,” he lectured authoritatively. “Women think you’re supposed to attach meaningful emotion to sex, but men just like to get laid because it makes ’em feel good all over.” He noticed her face had become splotchy with color, so he pressed the issue. “A man’s psyche isn’t so difficult to understand, despite all that mumbo-jumbo those psychological experts like to spout. We just want two things from life. One—” he waved the glass of Jack Daniel’s in her face “—is a swig of booze, and the other is getting naked with a woman when the mood strikes.”

She was highly offended or extremely embarrassed—he wasn’t sure which. Her peaches-and-cream complexion turned candy-apple red. Her eyes were shooting sparks, too, he noted.

“You want to know what I think?” she asked in a tone that reminded him of a hissing cat.

“No, not particularly.” He downed another slug of booze. “But you’re probably planning to tell me anyway, right?”

Apparently that really ticked her off because she glared at him and said, “I think you’re a throwback to the caveman era and your Neanderthal mentality sucks!”

Unfazed, he took another drink. “You’re entitled to your opinion, professor, but don’t come crying to me when you think you’ve landed Mr. Right and he doesn’t meet all your fairy-tale expectations of love and romance.”

He winced when her fuming glance zeroed in on his right hand that held his sweating glass of booze. He knew what she was going to ask before the words were out of her mouth.

“Is that a wedding band? It certainly looks like one. Why are you wearing it on the wrong hand?” she quizzed him like any self-respecting schoolmarm.

“Because I married the wrong woman. It’s a reminder never to make that disastrous mistake again, so long as I live.”

“Ah,” she said pensively. “No wonder you have so many hang-ups. That explains a lot.”

He stiffened and glowered down from his advantageous height, annoyed by that smug little smile on her rosebud mouth. “That doesn’t explain squat. I don’t have hang-ups.”

“Sure you do.” She returned to her task of stocking the cabinets. “You probably got your itsy-bitsy heart broken and you’re holding all women responsible for the traitorous act of one femme fatale. What did she do? Cheat on you?”

“None of your damn business,” he said through his teeth.

“That’s why this house shows no signs of a woman’s touch. You’ve become a card-carrying woman-hater, haven’t you?”

She thought she was so damn smart, did she? Well, she was right, but he didn’t cotton to how easily she’d read him.

“You tried to erase all evidence that there was a woman in your house who got under your skin.” She stacked three cans of tuna then reached over to grab three cans of turkey. “You figured you couldn’t make a woman happy so why try, right? It’s easier to give up, to quit.”

She turned toward him then, all fierce determination. “Well, you need to know that I’m not a quitter, Mr. Ryder, no matter how hard you try to drive me away. I intend to do my job exceptionally well. One look at you testifies to the obvious fact that you need my assistance to keep this place shipshape while you recuperate. Now, go take a load off your broken leg while I whip up supper. Go on, scram,” she ordered, shooing him on his way. “You’re slowing me down.”

Wade was so frustrated by the unexpected turn of events that he was halfway across the room before he realized he’d allowed her to boss him around. Hell! He’d let that woman have the last word. That would never do.