The Gentleman Rancher

He glared right back. “I’ll still be here tomorrow.”

She breathed in deeply and appeared to be counting backwards from…one thousand. “Hopefully you’ll be at the hospital by the time I wake up,” she predicted.

Aware he had gotten under her skin as quickly as always, he straightened. “Then I’ll be here tomorrow night.”

“Like Paige said, it’s a big ranch house.” She propped her hands on her slender hips. “We can coexist without actually coming in contact with each other.”

Her heart was beating much too quickly—he could tell by the pulse in her throat. He twisted his lips into a crooked line then murmured, “That’s not what Paige said.”

“It’s what I inferred,” Taylor huffed.

Jeremy strolled closer, trying not to notice how quickly his body was responding to her. “You didn’t let me help you the last time you were in trouble,” he reminded her, making no effort to mask his frustration.

She stomped out the back door, through the screened porch. The door banged behind her. “That’s because you weren’t interested in helping me—you were trying to tell me what to do, think and feel, and I had enough of that from my family!”

Jeremy followed her across the decorative stones of the patio, toward the driveway. “You’re right. My behavior was bad.” He caught up with her next to her red Jeep. “It doesn’t mean I can’t make up for it now.”

Taylor lifted the cargo door in stormy silence. The back was crammed with belongings, everything from dishes to lamps to computer, to clothes. Lots and lots of clothes, Jeremy noted.

“Why would you want to do that?” she demanded.

Because of the way you looked when you came up out of thewater. Because I missed you. Because no one has ever mademe feel the way you do when we go toe-to-toe like this.

Jeremy watched her sift through to the large suitcase on the very bottom. She grabbed hold of it and tried to ease it out. The weight on top of it kept it from budging. She yanked all the harder.

He brushed her aside with his body, and accomplished with ease what she had failed to do. Ignoring the scowl on her pretty face, he set the suitcase on the pavement. “I like challenges.”

Muttering under her breath, she rummaged around until she was able to extract her laptop computer case, which had been wedged between two stacks of linens. The action caused the towels to slide toward her. Once again, Jeremy reached in quickly, catching the towels with one hand and steadying her by placing his other hand beneath her elbow.

She stumbled, regained her footing, and jerked free of him without so much as a thank you. “I’m not one of your family practice patients.”

Thank heavens for small favors, because if she was, he’d have to keep his distance from her emotionally for ethical reasons. He paused, furrowing his brow. “How did you know what my specialty was?”

She turned her gaze to the sky. “I think Paige might have mentioned it one hundred thousand times.”

He watched as she stood on tiptoe to catch and close the cargo door. “You remembered.”

She pushed a button near the suitcase handle and yanked on the retractable grip. “Hard not to, when something is repeated that often.” She waited until she heard the handle lock into place, then shifted the weight so the wheels were at an angle and hence able to easily roll. “And as long as we’re being honest…”

“Yeah?”

Ducking his attempts to help her, she struggled to manage the laptop sliding down one shoulder, without stopping her forward progress. “Why are you suddenly hitting on me?”

He reached forward to wrest the bulky suitcase from her, despite her obvious wish he wouldn’t. “You think that’s what I’m doing?”

Reluctantly, she let him help her. With a toss of her head, she marched forward. “I don’t know what you’re doing,” she called over her shoulders. “Except I am not one of those damsels in distress you are always dating, and then sending on their merry way when their crisis is over.”

Jeremy winced as she held the door. “How do you know about that?”

“Paige,” they said in unison.

He eased past, careful not to get her suitcase tangled up with the laptop case swinging off her shoulder. “I was just friends with all those women,” he said, striding back toward the bedroom wing.

“Unlike Imogen Tate?”

Jeremy tensed. “You know about that?”

“I know you dated her for two years, starting right after I left Texas, and asked her to marry you. Instead of saying yes, she dumped you for a professional hockey player…and you’ve been on the rebound ever since.”

Just because he couldn’t seem to find a woman who came close to the one standing in front of him did not mean he was on the rebound. The truth was, he realized now, he and Imogen had embarked on a relationship that met their physical needs yet never placed any emotional demands on either of them. They were solo operators, each going their own way, never connecting for anything more than sex and social convenience. The few times he’d tried to help Imogen with her problems or have her listen to his had been a complete bust. But figuring Taylor did not need to know any of that, he shifted the attention back to her. “What do you know about rebound?”

He stood in the wing that housed the guest bedrooms, waiting for her to pick one. She noticed his belongings in the first bedroom and headed all the way down to the opposite end of the hall.

Her know-it-all smirk harkened back to their med school days. “If you have to ask me that, it shows how little you understand about me.”

Suitcase in tow, he trailed behind her. “Uh-huh. Well, I know this. I know you didn’t waste any time in the romance department after leaving Texas.” He paused in the doorway of the suite she’d chosen. “How long did it take you to hook up with Baywatch Bart?”

“His name was Bartholomew Wyndham.”

Aware he was sounding a little jealous, Jeremy continued in a more nonchalant tone, “I saw his picture. Who poses on the deck of a yacht?”

Taylor snatched her suitcase from him and rolled it toward the walk-in closet. “A guy who runs Bart’s Charter Fishing Tours, perhaps?”

“Why’d you break up?” Was Taylor still carrying a torch for the guy?

Taylor set her laptop case next to the reading chair. “None of your business.”

Had he hurt her? Was that why she was so…defensive?

Figuring it wouldn’t hurt if they spent a little more time together, Jeremy came closer. “Why’d you get together?”

“Also. None. Of. Your. Business!” Taylor went back to her suitcase.

Jeremy watched her bend over to unzip it. “Find any more beach bums in Hollywood land?”

She extracted a toiletries bag and carried it into the adjoining bathroom. With the same ease she’d exhibited when they’d been med students, sharing a house with half a dozen other students of both sexes, she took out the facial cleanser and began to lather up her face. “I haven’t been dating anyone for the last two years.” Finished, she reached for a towel.

“How come?”

Briefly, she buried her face in the soft yellow terry cloth. “If you know so much about me, why don’t you know that too?” Taylor left the bathroom and began to rifle through the suitcase.

She gave him a look that said, “If you don’t mind…”

Taking the hint, he lifted a hand and eased out of the room. She shut the door behind him with a definite thud. Jeremy exhaled in frustration, then walked out the rear of the house, across the pool area to the guesthouse.

Paige’s light was still on. She answered his knock with a look of aggravation. Open book to her chest, she waved him in. “That didn’t take long.”

He sank into a club chair in front of the fireplace and stretched his legs out in front of him. “What didn’t take long?”