The Other Side Of Paradise

Giving her a look that should have sizzled her to charcoal, he nodded. “Can you make biscuits?”

After the briefest hesitation, she said she could. Spotting a bag of cornmeal, she added, “How about some cornbread? People like that with soup.”

“Whatever.”

He clearly wasn’t in the mood to discuss it. She washed her hands and set to work. In a few minutes, she slid a skillet of cornbread into the oven. When he left to answer the phone in the office, she quickly tasted the soup.

It was pretty good, but a bit salty. She added some pasta curls to absorb the salt and a dash of pepper to give it a little more balance. She also added garlic powder and a few dried onion flakes, plus a scant tablespoon of sugar.

After retrieving the baking pan from the lawn, she scrubbed it at the stainless steel sink, dried it, then put it with some pie pans she found in a cabinet beside the stove. Spotting a timer, she set it so she’d remember to check the cornbread, then explored the kitchen more fully. If she was also going to be the cook and chief bottle washer—and it looked as if that was her fate—she’d better know her way around.

“Do you serve dinner every night?” she asked when Jonah returned.

“Only when we have guests in the lodge. Right now we have six men here on a business retreat. They’ve been doing war games all week, but this is their last day. They’ll be leaving in the morning. Then we’re free until the hunters start coming in next month.”

“You don’t employ a cook?”

“She quit.”

Mary heard the undercurrent of anger in his voice, saw it in the tightening of his jaw. He looked like a man who could bite off iron and spit out horseshoes, as the starter at the race track used to say.

Her new boss continued. “It was too isolated, too lonely out here to spend a winter, she said.”

“Did she mean something to you?”

He looked rather startled at the question. “Not personally, if that’s what you’re thinking. I don’t get involved with the hired help.”

“Good idea,” she said and meant it. She relaxed a bit. She made it a rule not to get involved with anyone, so they were on the same wavelength. “I looked at the bunkhouse. No one seems to be using it.”

“That’s right. Keith and I have managed to run things without much help in the past, but business has picked up this summer. Companies like to use our place for retreats because it’s cheap.”

She wasn’t interested in the business prospects at the moment. “I can stay out there. That’ll keep the room here in the lodge free for paying guests.”

He shook his head. “It hasn’t been modernized. There’s no running water, and the only heat is from the stove.”

“I don’t mind—”

“I do. It’ll be easier all around if you stay in the lodge. Winter can come early here in the mountains. There’s no sense in wasting firewood out there.”

“You seemed to think it was okay for a male.”

“I thought he could cut his own firewood.”

“I can do that.”

He stuck his hands on his hips and gave her an impatient glare. “You won’t have time. I need help with the paying customers. We make them happy campers, they come back next year or tell their friends about the place. That means money.”

She understood the imperatives of finance all too well. “Fine. Uh, where do you and the Towbridges stay?”

“I have a room on the other side of the office. Keith and Janis have the original ranch house over at the other camp, about a mile down the road from here.”

Again she stored the info. The lodge and ranch were bigger than she’d first thought. The main structure was new or had been extensively remodeled. The bunkhouse and stable weren’t, but both had been repaired recently. The place had an air of…not exactly prosperity, but of hard work and plans for the future.

Up until three months ago, she’d had big plans, too—the Olympics with her and Attila in the cross-country steeplechase. As she’d thought, he was a powerful jumper and had a competitive spirit. He’d just needed careful training and someone he could trust to bring out his talents.

But early in June, leading in an important trial, he’d pulled up lame. A sprained tendon, the vet had said. Rest and several months of mending had been the recommended cure.

She’d needed a job and he’d needed a place to heal. So here they were. Actually this looked like the ideal situation. She would take care of the horses, which were out on the trail, she assumed, and help cook when necessary.

The timer dinged.

After removing the golden-brown cornbread from the oven, she flipped it out onto a platter, turned the oven off, wiped out the skillet and set it on the back of the stove, then glanced around to see what else was to be done.

Jonah was leaning against the doorway, observing her every move. Her insides tightened at the scrutiny, but she didn’t let her tension show. Instead she gazed back at him, her expression devoid of any emotion while she wondered what it was about him that made her nervous.

It wasn’t simply that he was attractive. He was that and more, but she’d met other handsome, self-confident men in her work. Perhaps it was the alert intelligence in his eyes. His earlier irritation over the cooking disaster was gone, replaced by curiosity. She liked anger better. It was focused emotion that didn’t lead to questions. Curiosity, coupled with a keen mind, often did. She had a gut feeling that he thought a female wrangler might be more trouble than she was worth.

“What’s next?” she asked with false cheer.

“You’ll have six horses and two pack mules to see to when the men get here. Keith called. They’re on their way.”

“I’ll put fresh straw in the stalls. I noticed the round bales in the lean-to beside the stable. Is that what I should use?”

He nodded.

She left by the back door, glad to escape his perusal. He’d nearly made her stutter with that penetrating stare. From now on, she’d be on guard. She hated showing any signs of weakness to an enemy.

Enemy? Jonah Lanigan was simply a man harried by a shortage of help. He was her boss, nothing more or less. He couldn’t hurt her. No one could, unless she left herself open and vulnerable.

Glancing over her shoulder, she stopped abruptly. The far peaks were sharp and black against the twilight sky. They jutted up beyond the surrounding hills like jagged teeth, their silhouettes wicked and threatening. She felt danger all around—

The door banged behind her.

Jonah came out on the porch. “The men are here. Go take care of the animals and their gear. You also need to stop by the office and fill out some forms.”

She nodded and went to meet the bearded and unkempt adventurers at the stable. “Hi. I’m Mary, the wrangler,” she told them, friendly but casual. “I’ll handle the stock. Go on inside. The soup is ready.”

“Thank God,” one of the weary travelers murmured. “I haven’t been so tired since I was nine and our scout troop got lost and marched ten extra miles before finding the place we were to camp.”

“Good thing you had some experience in the woods,” one of the other men said. “We would still be wandering around in the hills otherwise.”

The first man looked pleased. “We did pretty good at getting back by ourselves, didn’t we?”

Mary witnessed new energy enter the little group of warriors as they recalled their accomplishments over the long weekend. They’d planned strategy and held mock battles with paint balls. They had worked on their team skills as well as their navigational ones.

“And found our inner man, uh, men, or something like that,” a third added, causing the others to chuckle.

“The boss will be proud when we report back.” The first man gave Mary a wink and handed over the reins to his mount, a gentle cowpony now gray in the muzzle.