First Comes Marriage

She inhaled sharply, trying to breathe against the tightness in her chest.

“Tomorrow morning, I’d like you to leave. I’ll talk to Marty about giving you a room—although after tonight, I’m not sure you’ll ever recover with this town.”

CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_c34d9dba-0145-5250-9064-13e80241ce13)

JAKE’S EYES KEPT wandering to the door. It’s still early—she may not be up yet. He knew she hadn’t left. Her rental was still in the carport.

“Earth to Jake! What do you want us working on today?”

Jake snapped to attention. “Go about your regular chores,” he said dismissively. “I’ll deal with the cleanup.” He watched his staff file out silently; they had worked with him long enough to know he was in a mood.

“Kell, have you gotten your physical yet?”

Kelly shook her head and mumbled, “I’ll get to it.” She left quickly, and he fought the urge to throw something at her. He worried about her. She tried to hide it, but he knew there was something wrong. He couldn’t let Meera go yet, not until she finished the physicals. And there is absolutely no other reason I want her to stay.

He hung around the kitchen, rearranging dishes in the dishwasher. After he was done, he went into the pantry. I know Jolene had a teapot. A teapot she used to drink fertility tea while she was planning on leaving me. He shook his head. Every woman in my life is determined to torture me. He couldn’t figure Meera out. Why was she so desperate to have the town like her? It was as if some internal motor was driving her to make sure she was acceptable. She’d worked herself to the bone getting that barbecue organized. She hadn’t snapped her fingers and hired an army to put it together. Though if she had, he wouldn’t be calculating damages right now.

He gave up looking for the teapot and glanced at his watch. He couldn’t waste away the day. He walked toward his ruined field and barn; he would hear her car leaving. His stomach turned as he saw the damage from afar. He’d had more than a hundred hay bales in the barn, and most of them were burned, charred or waterlogged and full of ash. With the drought this year, he didn’t have enough grazing fields to get through the winter. He’d managed to get a good deal on hay to keep the animals fed.

He stopped and stared, painful knots twisting his stomach. He couldn’t afford to replace that much hay, especially not at current prices. He wouldn’t make a profit this year. Again. He did some quick calculations. With the loss of hay, and this field, he would have to sell at least fifty steers or send them to slaughter right now. He wouldn’t get the same price he would get in a few months, but if he had to buy more hay and grain to feed them, he’d have to take out a loan and with interest—he did some quick math—he’d be screwed, anyway. Either way, the ranch was going to take a big hit.

He blew out a breath. Meera’s more trouble than she’s worth. Although truth be told, he should have checked the grill. That’s what he’d been walking over to do when her smile distracted him. He was furious at himself. He didn’t remember Jolene turning him upside down like that. But then, he’d never met a woman like Meera before. The way she’d come back from the humiliation of her tofu dogs...it took courage to face up to Hell’s Bells like that. He had seen her retreat to the guest cottage. Most women would have stayed there licking their wounds, but not Meera. She’d marched right back as though she owned the evening.

As he approached the field, he squinted. What the... He ran the last few yards. Meera was standing at the edge of the field, tossing debris into a trash bag as big as she was tall. She was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, and her legs were covered in soot and dirt. He remembered the disdain in her eyes the first day they met when he patted his dirty hands on his jeans. What is she doing getting her hands dirty? He knew the answer even before he asked.

“What’re you doing?”

“I’ve been taught to take responsibility for my actions, so I’m not leaving you with this mess.”

Her determination made his heart speed up. Why didn’t she just leave or hire staff to clean up after her? She was a princess; why break a sweat?

“You don’t have to do this.”

“Actually, Jake, I do. It’s my fault, and I need to fix it.”

He took in the firm set of her lips and locked on to her earnest, brown, almond-shaped eyes. She had guts coming out here to face him after the way he’d stormed at her last night.

Inexplicably, he wanted to take her in his arms and tell her it would all be okay, that he would take care of it. Manual labor was for hardy ranchers like him. She might have the heart for it, but she was too delicate to toil away in the heat.

He pointed to the big white tent that had fallen once the fire went out, then gestured to the area she was working on. “This is the easy part, you know. Wait till you see what’s under the tent—it’s ash and mud, and the barn has entire sections that’ll need to be rebuilt. Any idea how many gallons of water they dumped?”

She looked down. “I can’t undo what happened yesterday, but I’m going to make it right. I’ll also pay for whatever damage I caused.” He stepped closer, distracted by the ruined barn behind her. He pictured his last balance sheets. The numbers weren’t looking good.

“Meera, this is not your problem. Let me handle it.”

“I have to take responsibility.”

“Look, I know your heart’s in the right place, but you have no idea what you’re doing here. This field, my barn, they’re ruined. My father built that barn with his own two hands and no magic credit card can replace that.”

She made a strangled sound, her lips trembling. “I should at least pay your building costs. And what about this field?”

“The fields are used to feed the animals—they graze on grass. Without grass to feed them, I have to either sell or slaughter about fifty head in the next week.”

Her face crumpled. She took a shaky breath and sat down on the dirty tent, burying her face in her hands. “You’re going to kill fifty animals because of me!” Something stabbed at his chest. She looked so heartbroken. What was he supposed to do? She didn’t understand that this was how the cattle business worked. He let out a breath. I’m so going to regret this.

He sat down next to her. “It’s not your fault entirely. I was going to check the vent on the grill and got distracted.”

She gazed up at him with glistening eyes. “With what?”

“Huh?”

“What did you get distracted with?”

His mind brought up an image of her standing in nearly the same spot, smiling as if the world belonged to her. Inexplicably, he felt a kinship with Meera. They had nothing in common, at least not superficially, but beneath her uppity exterior, he sensed her kind soul. It made him want to know what else lay beneath the princess shell.

She was looking expectantly at him, waiting for an answer. “I got distracted with you.” He reached out and took her hand, needing to feel contact with her.

Her eyes widened, then she squeezed back. He exhaled. It wasn’t just him; she was feeling it, too.

“The point is, this isn’t all on you. And I didn’t mean what I said yesterday—I was angry at myself and taking it out on you. You’re welcome to stay here. God knows you have your hands full with the town. You don’t need to worry about this.”

She sniffed. “I appreciate your generosity, really, but this happened because of me. I’ll take you up on the offer to keep staying here, though. I still need to finish the physicals on your staff.” She extracted her hand from his, then stood up and dusted her palms on her jeans. “If you’ll be patient with me, I want to work on cleaning this up when I’m not twiddling my thumbs at Dr. Harper’s practice.”

Obviously, he wasn’t going to be able to talk her out of it, but maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. It was one more hand to help clean the mess up, and he couldn’t afford to increase the hours of the other staff. But did he really want her around, distracting him?

“Suit yourself.” He tried to keep his voice nonchalant. “How much time do you have?”

She checked her watch. “I have another hour, maybe more before I have to get ready.”

“I’ll be back.”

He went to the shed and returned with a forklift.

“You ever drive one of these things?”

Meera’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “No! I have no idea how to operate that. I’ll crash it.”

He smiled and held out his hand. “Don’t worry, I’m not trusting you with heavy machinery. I’ll be driving.”

She took his hand, and his heart thumped wildly as she squeezed into the cab next to him.

It was a tight fit and she was half sitting in his lap. He tried not to notice the way her leg touched his or how small she felt snuggled in beside him. He put her hand on the clutch and showed her how to put it in gear, then he stepped on the accelerator. She yelped as they moved forward, and he couldn’t take his eyes off the wild expression on her face.

Focus, Jake, focus. He showed her how to operate the lift and pick up the large tent in sections, moving it to the side.

Once they’d dealt with the tent, they parked the forklift and surveyed the damage underneath. There was ash mixed in with pieces of tables, chairs and the wooden dance floor. Flecks of the red-and-white-checkered tablecloth were strewn everywhere.

“The rental company is gonna charge you a pretty penny.”