Cattleman's Choice

She stood quietly, forcing away her bad temper, hearing him without thinking until the words began to penetrate. She turned slowly and stared up at him. “Beat you?”

He drew in a slow breath, then glanced down at her bare arm where his strong, tanned fingers held it firmly. His thumb moved on the soft skin experimentally. “My father was a cattleman,” he said. “My mother couldn’t live with him. She ran away when I was four. He took me in hand, and his idea of discipline was to hit me when I did something he didn’t like. I had a struggle just to get through school—he didn’t believe in education. But by then, I outweighed him by fifty pounds,” he added with glittering eyes, “and I could fight back.”

It explained a lot of things. He never talked about his childhood, although she’d heard Jake make veiled references to how rough it had been.

Her eyes searched his hard face curiously.

He lifted his hand to her face and touched her lip gently. “I’m sorry I kissed you like that.”

She went flaming red. She felt as if his eyes could see right through her.

“I’ve never been gentle,” he said, “because I never knew what it was to be treated gently. And now, I’m thirty-eight years old, and I’m lonely. And I don’t know how to court a woman. Because I’m a savage. This,” he sighed bitterly, tracing her swollen lip, “is proof of it.”

She stared up at him, searching his eyes quietly as his hand dropped. “Didn’t you have any other relatives?” she asked.

“Not one,” he said. He turned away and went to stand by the window. “I ran away from home once or twice. He always came after me. Eventually I learned to fight back, and the beatings stopped. But I was fourteen by then. The damage had already been done.”

She studied his long back in silence, and then shifted, looking around the messy kitchen until her eyes found a facsimile of a coffee pot. She got to her feet. “Mind if I make some coffee?” she asked. “I’m sort of thirsty.”

“Help yourself.” He watched her with a familiar, unblinking scrutiny. “You look odd, doing that,” he remarked.

“Why?” she asked with a laugh. “I’m very domestic. I cook, too, or don’t you remember those dinners Uncle used to invite you to?”

“It’s been years since I’ve eaten at your table.”

She stared down at the pot she was filling. How could she possibly confess that she was too uneasy with him to enjoy his company? He disturbed her, unsettled her and she didn’t understand why. Which only made it worse.

“I’ve been too busy for guests,” she said. Her eyes went up to the tattered curtains at the window. “You could use some new curtains.”

“I could use a lot of things,” he said curtly. “This house is falling apart.”

“You’re letting it,” she reminded him. She put the pot on to boil, grimacing at the grease that had congealed and blackened on top of the once-white range.

“There hasn’t been any reason to fix it up before,” he said. “Just me, living alone, not much company. But I’ve hired a construction firm to do some renovations.”

That was startling. She turned to face him, her gray eyes wide and curious. “Why?” she asked without thinking.

“It has something to do with the reason I brought you in here,” he admitted. He finished the cigarette and crushed it out. “I need some help.”

“You!” she burst out.

He glared at her. “Don’t make jokes.”

“Okay,” she sighed. “What do you want me to do?”

He hesitated uncharacteristically. His face hardened. “Hell, look at me,” he growled finally, ramming his hands into the pockets of his worn, faded jeans. “You told Patty I was too savage to get a woman, and you were right. I don’t know how to behave in civilized company. I don’t even know which fork to use in a fancy restaurant.” He shifted restlessly, looking arrogant and proud and self-conscious all at once. “I want you to teach me some manners.”

“Me?” Mandelyn exclaimed in shock.

“Of course you,” he shot back. “Who else do I know with a cultured background? I need educating.”

She blinked away her confusion. “After all these years, why now?”

“Females,” he said angrily. “You always have to know it all, don’t you? Every single damned thing…all right,” he sighed roughly, running a hand through his thick hair. “There’s a woman.”

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She stood there like an elegant statue, staring at him. Patty! she thought. It had to be Patty! It was the only possibility that made sense. His unreasonable anger about what Mandelyn had said to Patty, his sudden decision to renovate the house coinciding with Patty’s return to Sweetwater. So that was it. The invulnerable man was in love, and he thought Patty had become too citified to like him the way he was. So he was making the supreme sacrifice and having himself turned into a gentleman. Pygmalion in reverse.

“Well?” he persisted, glaring at her. “Yes or no?”

She lifted her shoulders. “Surely there’s someone else.”

“Not someone like you,” he returned. His eyes wandered over her, full of appreciation and something much darker that she missed. “You’re quality. A real, honest-to-God lady. No, there’s no one else who could teach me as well as you could.”

She dropped her eyes to the coffee pot and watched it bubble away.

“Look on it as a challenge,” he coaxed. “Something to fill your spare hours. Don’t you ever get lonely?”

Her face lifted and she studied him. “Yes,” she said. “Especially since Uncle died.”

“You don’t date?” he said.

She shifted uncomfortably. There was a reason for that, but she didn’t want to discuss it with him, not now. “I like my own company.”

“It isn’t good for a woman to live alone. Haven’t you ever thought about getting married?”

“I’ve thought about a lot of things. What do you want in your coffee?”

She poured it out and braved the refrigerator for cream. Inside there was a basket of eggs, some unsliced bacon, some moldy lumps and what appeared to have been butter at one time.

“I don’t have any milk, if that’s what you’re looking for,” he muttered.

She gaped at him. “You have hundreds of cows on this ranch, and you don’t have any milk?”

“It isn’t a dairy farm,” he said.

“A cow is a cow!”

“If you want the damned milk, go milk one of them, then!”

She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. He scowled back. Eventually, she gave in with a sigh and put the cups on the table.

“That’s what I like most about you,” he said as she sat down gingerly in one of the rickety old chairs.

Her eyes came up. “What?”

He smiled slowly, and his blue eyes darkened, glittered. “You fight me.”

Her skin tingled at the way he said it. Before she thought, she said, “You didn’t like it last night.”