Porcupine Ranch

“Have you got a minute?” he asked, setting the dish on the counter. “We need to talk about something.”

Hannah couldn’t remember any good conversations that began with that statement. Here it came. He was going to fire her. She wouldn’t be able to help Samuel.

But what really clenched her stomach into hard little knots was knowing Clayton viewed her as a failure.

Damn it, why did she care what he thought of her?

She braced herself, straightening her back and looking him in the eye. “Yes?”

Clayton stood for a moment gazing at her, his eyelids drifting to half-closed. He lifted one hand and pushed her hair back from the side of her face, his fingers barely stroking her cheek.

Her breath caught in her throat. The touch set off little sparks, and she wanted him to continue doing it.

When his hand fell away, her belligerent hair sprang right back as if his fingers had never been there. But the skin he’d stroked remembered. Something inside her remembered exactly the way his touch had felt.

“You smell like roses,” he said softly, his lips forming the words as though caressing them, and she wondered how those lips would feel if they replaced his fingers on her skin.

“My grandfather loved roses,” she whispered, trying to force her thoughts away from such fanciful thoughts. “He—”

She couldn’t remember what she’d been about to say. The expression on Clayton’s face took her words away. Took her breath away for that matter. He looked like one of those men in the movies just before they kissed the girl.

She was fantasizing again! Why would Clayton want to kiss her?

But what if he did and found out that she could no more kiss than she could sing, dance, play piano or make small talk at parties? She’d die of embarrassment if that happened!

“What?” she croaked.

He blinked. “Huh? What?”

“You wanted to talk to me.”

“Oh. Yeah. I did.” He drew a hand over his own cheek and chin—the same hand he’d touched her hair and cheek with. “I wanted to talk to you about…oh, yeah. About lunch. I know this is a big change for you from your last job.” That was the quintessential understatement! “But there’s a little difference between cooking for a retired man and cooking for a bunch of cowboys. We do a lot of physical labor, and we like our meals to be hearty. Roasts, chicken, meatloafs, bacon and eggs for breakfast, things like that. Protein. Food for energy.”

Of course he hadn’t been thinking about kissing her. He’d only been thinking about criticizing her. Clayton sounded just like Hannah’s dance teacher after she’d broken her toe in class, like her voice teacher when he told her he’d had to buy ear plugs and hide the crystal, like her parents who’d finally given up on her and let her go her own way.

Well, she thought, thrusting her jaw forward and clenching her fists, she’d left all that behind her. She wasn’t going to give in to it again. Her own way hadn’t been so bad.

“We usually eat around seven. Can you get something together by then?” he asked.

“Of course I can,” she blurted, surprising herself with her bravado. “And I won’t break my toe doing it, either!”

Chapter Four (#ulink_54685ed8-8489-5742-bb1e-df69af201220)

Clayton got out of the house as fast as he could, climbed onto his horse and rode toward the corral at a gallop.

He’d almost kissed Hannah Lindsay. What the hell had he been thinking?

He hadn’t been thinking. That was the whole problem. Something about Hannah Lindsay scattered his brains the way the west wind scattered the dust.

He’d better maintain a little more control in the future. That was the last thing he needed right now— to get involved with a delicate, sweet-smelling flower, inhale her scent, touch her butterfly soft lips—

His self-reprimand wasn’t going too good. He’d better rephrase it.

He didn’t need to get involved with a woman who’d turn his brain to mush, distract him from the ranch that required all his attention, especially now. A woman who, like his mother, would soon wilt in the scorching Texas sun.

If he’d needed proof of her fragility, he’d gotten it when he’d criticized her luncheon fiasco. She’d lifted her head bravely which only added to her look of vulnerability, emphasizing the hurt in her dark eyes.

But even as he’d seen that hurt and felt guilty for causing it, he’d also seen her lips, slightly parted, full and tempting. He’d had to fight the urge to pull her into his arms, comfort her, kiss away the pain, replace it with desire. Her hair had been soft when he’d touched it, and she’d made a barely audible sound that was somewhere between a gasp and a moan.

Every emotion showed on Hannah’s open face. As clearly as he’d seen the pain, he saw that she’d wanted him to kiss her. And, heaven help him, he would have if she hadn’t been the one to interrupt.

He had an uneasy feeling that Hannah Lindsay was going to cause him some real problems. Or maybe that uneasiness just came from the pasta salad with picante sauce that was crouching in his stomach like a spicy, soggy rock.

He reined in at the corral.

Dub looked up, pulled his hat brim low over his face and tugged on the reins to turn his horse to ride away.

“Didn’t hire that one for her cooking, did you?” Bear guffawed as he plunged a vaccination needle into a big Simmental’s rump.

Clayton scowled. “One more comment like that, and you’re all out of here.” In shock and disbelief he listened to the words coming from his own mouth. Had he really said that? What would he do if even one of the men walked? Every able-bodied man in the area was already working on one of the various ranches.

Dub halted and thumbed his hat back from his face. “I been seeing signs of a porcupine around here,” he drawled. “Looks like he’s been trying to eat these tough old mesquites and live oaks. After he’s been on an awful diet like that, I’d sure hate to run into the prickly critter.”

Clayton shifted in his saddle, aware of the implied comparison. “Sorry, fellas. I didn’t mean to snap.”

Hannah was causing problems, and she wasn’t even around.

Except in his thoughts.

Mugger rode up. “We got a break in one of the irrigation lines down in the hay field.”

“Damn! Okay, let’s go take a look.” Clayton turned his horse in that direction, surprisingly relieved at having a crisis to handle. Even though they couldn’t spare the precious water draining away, a broken irrigation line would be a simple, straightforward problem compared to Hannah.

She had to make dinner. Hannah didn’t see any way around it. She found some chicken breasts in the freezer and a recipe for chicken Kiev in her cook-book. It was a short recipe, and a dish she’d always enjoyed eating. Surely Clayton and the other cowboys would like it.

With the chicken thawing, she looked around in bewilderment. What was she supposed to do now? Without her computer, she felt lost.

She tried to recall what her housekeeper did. Sweep, mop, dust, vacuum. But the details were sketchy. While Mrs. Henson cleaned, Hannah worked, completely involved in her computer, with the rest of the world tuned out.

She wandered into the living room and drew a finger across the smooth surface of one of the multitude of small tables. Even in the dim light, she could see the mark. However, she’d always felt that being able to write your name in the dust didn’t count—it was only when the sides of the letters collapsed.

Nevertheless, she could probably dust. She went upstairs to the linen closet and got a washcloth. That should work.

As she was starting back, she noticed the dark outline of a computer screen through the half-open door down the hall. She hesitated, then decided that was as good a place as any to start dusting.