“I’ll have something to eat when you guys get back in.”
Jake swung around on her. “You get some rest. You’ve had a rough day.”
Amanda shot him a sardonic grin. “And you haven’t. Go on. It’s about time you learned what this greenhorn can do.”
“I already told you,” he said, brushing a finger across her cheek. “I don’t think you’re a greenhorn.”
“I’m still waiting to find out what you think I am,” she said.
But Jake did no more than shake his head and walk away. Amanda couldn’t move from the couch for a long time after she heard the back door slam again. She hadn’t realized she had tears left.
Jake wasn’t entirely sure he could put one foot in front of the other. His head was reeling, and his chest felt like it was going to cave right in. He ached everywhere he wasn’t numb, and he still had to get back in for something to eat.
The wind was easing up a little. The snow had finally stopped after depositing about two feet, but it was drifting dangerously, so that they’d almost lost one of the mares. As it was, he was afraid some of the stock they’d left out in the pastures would be forfeit. But it looked like he was going to save the foals.
“Come on, boss,” Clovis encouraged him as he pushed open the barn door. “Maybe we can get something hot in us. Make us feel better.”
Jake didn’t even notice that Clovis was looking worried, and that the worry was aimed right at him. He was too tired. He hurt too much, and the day wasn’t over yet. They still had to get the horses fed for the evening and check on the foals they already had. But for now, Clovis was right. Maybe they could find something in the main kitchen. He hadn’t realized until Clovis said how hungry he was, that he was, too.
The smells met them the minute they stepped into the mud-room. Simmering meat and spices, hot coffee, apples.
“Hey, howdy!” Clovis crowed, shucking his coat and shaking the snow off him. “There’s real food in this house.”
Jake peeled off his gloves and shoved them into his pocket. He picked at his buttons and did his best to slip out of his coat without lifting his arms. When he couldn’t quite complete the task, he bit back a groan. The pain shot right up his neck this time, taking his breath away.
“How many people for dinner?” he heard and lifted his head to see Amanda standing before them clad in Lee’s flannel nightgown, robe and a flour-dusted apron. Another image of her briefly flashed, tear-streaked and soft, her breasts so heavy and full in his hands, her moans the music that drove a man mad. How could she possibly believe that he didn’t think much of her? He thought too much of her.
Her face crumpled briefly into distress and then settled itself back into greeting. Jake fought the sudden urge to pull her back into his arms.
“Four of us,” Clovis told her. “Did you really cook dinner?”
She chuckled as she led them both into the kitchen, where the fireplace there crackled and a Coleman lantern hissed on the table, providing the only light. “Didn’t have anything else to do. Since the electricity’s out, there wasn’t any television, and somebody threw my computer away.”
“They—”
No more was said. Jake took his first good whiff of what smelled suspiciously like stew and almost fainted from relief. He wasn’t going to have to scare up cold cuts and beer. There was real food, hot food, and light and warmth from the kerosene heaters. He might just make it, after all.
“Jake.”
He almost didn’t hear her. “What?” he asked.
She was smiling, a bright, false smile that belied what he was sure he looked like. “Get washed up. Dinner will be on in five minutes. Okay?”
Rubbing at his raw face with a cold hand, he nodded and turned to his room. Aspirin wasn’t going to do it this time. He wasn’t going to make it through the night this way. He wasn’t going to make it through dinner, not with Amanda sitting so close to him, smelling like smoke and spices, not with his body caving in under him even as it ached for her.
Jake felt as if he were breaking apart into a million pieces, torn by what he wanted and what he knew he could have. Battered by experience even more than work, drained by the effort of control.
There was only so much he could do; didn’t anybody realize that? There was only so much any man could do who’d been dealt his cards. But day after day, year after year, Jake fought the elements and the ranch and the odds, and then walked back in to face that house alone. And he knew now that that wouldn’t change. Because the kind of person he wanted to share his house with was Amanda. The kind of woman who built something for herself from nothing, who had the courage to calmly face trouble and realistically face danger, and then could pull herself back together to take care of somebody else. The kind of woman who challenged him toe to toe and then made him laugh.
But Amanda Marlow was someone he could never expect in his house. Not now, not ever. And aching for her wasn’t going to change that. It wasn’t going to change him, and that was what made that kind of dream impossible. The woman he could have he didn’t want, and the one he needed, wanted, desired, he could never have.
Jake trudged over to the bedside table where the two medicine bottles still waited unopened alongside a full glass of water. He picked them both up and looked at them, desperate for the relief they could offer. Weighing them, studying them, balancing them so that the pills inside clicked against the plastic.
Frustration welled in him like acid. Futility beat him down. The pain that blossomed had nothing to do with his injured ribs. Jake Kendall hadn’t wept since his mother had died. But he fought tears in that empty, silent room with the sounds and smells of life not more than thirty feet away. And that hurt worst of all.
Giving in to the fury of it, he hurled the bottles as hard as he could, shattering one against the far wall. Pills skittered across his hardwood floor like beads from a broken necklace. The little plastic bottle rolled unseen beneath his chest of drawers. And Jake Kendall turned away and slowly trudged into the bathroom to wash his hands for dinner.
She hadn’t meant to see it. She’d only come back to help. Jake had looked so haggard standing in the kitchen, the pain and fatigue etched on his face, the hours dragging him down, and she knew he was still showing a facade. Clovis, José and the other men would never know just what that day had cost Jake. Amanda only meant to slip back into his room and help him change into a dry shirt without anyone realizing he needed the help.
