“No problem. Just pick it up, follow me, and I’ll show you your room. You can come back and get the other stuff later.”
She glanced back the way they had come. “I thought I’d be staying in oneof the cabins.”
“Sorry, those are for paying guests. You’re an employee.” Bridger started walking.
Libby grabbed the leather handles, hoisted up the bags, and followed himup the stairs.
“Your room’s at the far end next to the bathroom,” he said.
“What do you meannext to the bathroom?Are you telling me the bathroom isn’t en suite?”
Sam Bridger actually grinned. “Mine is.”
Libby swore a nasty oath beneath her breath. She was surprised he even knew the meaning of the French word. She couldn’t believe she’d have to stomp down the hall in her nightgown in the middle of the night.
Suspicion crept through her. “Where’s your room?”
Sam’s mouth edged up at the corner. There was a ruggedness about him that should have made him less handsome but didn’t.
“My room’s at the other end of the hall.”
“Where does your aunt sleep?”
“She’s got her own quarters off the kitchen.” Bridger opened the bedroom door and stepped backto let her in.
Libby spotted her big bags tossed up on the queen-sized four-poster bed, dropped the ones she was carrying, and fought an urge to rub the muscles in her lower back. Her gaze went to the door.
“There’s a lock,” Bridger said, reading her mind. “But you don’t have to worry. I’d never cross the line between employerand employee.”
Libby clenched her teeth. Dear God, the man was insufferable. She hated the place already, and she had only just arrived!
Chapter Four
Leaving Libby with instructions to change into her work clothes and meet him in the kitchen, Sam strode back down the stairs and out the front door, slamming it behind him harder than he intended.
Dammit!If Martin Hale were still alive, Sam would curse him straight to hell.
For chrissake, he wasn’t the kind of man who let a woman carry her own bags! Or made her feel anything less than welcome. He’d been raised to treat women with respect, even a certain reverence. He was nearly a foot taller than Libby and at least seventy pounds heavier. It wasn’t fair to make the same demands on her that he would make on a man, no matter how sexist that sounded.
But Martin’s video had been specific. No special treatment. She must carry her own weight, just like anyother employee.
Sam had known Marty Hale for years. When they first met, Sam had been a twenty-year-old kid, just enlisted in the army for a three-year stint after graduating from junior college. Martin had spent two weeks every summer at the ranch for fourteen straight years, had continued even after Chet Bridger had died. He knew Sam well enough to trust that if he accepted the fifty-thousand-dollar payment, he would uphold his endof the bargain.
He would treat Liberty Hale the same as any other person who worked on the ranch for the summer. Which, considering she was one of the most beautiful, sexiest females he had ever laid eyes on and he was a red-blooded male, wouldn’tbe easy to do.
After a couple of deep breaths, Sam walked back into the house, heading for the kitchen. Though the stainless appliances, cabinets and countertops were new, the room itself was as old as the house, built sixty years ago, a big country kitchen with yellow daisy wallpaper and pale yellow curtains.
An old-fashioned butcher block sat opposite the sink, and there was a long wooden dining table surrounded by ladder-back chairs nextto the window.
Both Sam’s parents had passed—his dad six years ago, quickly followed by his mother. They’d been a close family, and the loss had hit him hard. Aunt Clara, his mom’s older sister, had helped him through the worst of it. She had arrived at the ranch for Olivia Bridger’s funeral and never left. Sam was thankful every day tohave her there.
Standing at the stove stirring a pot of chili, Clara was a silver-haired woman, still attractive at sixty, with a few extra pounds smoothing out the wrinklesin her cheeks.
She smiled. “So...is she as pretty as she looks inher pictures?”
Photos of Libby had been included in the video, along with cosmetic ads from magazines, though Marty had shown Sam pictures of her on his phoneover the years.
“They don’t begin to do her justice.”
