“And their father?”
Amanda didn’t get her answer. Just then a door slammed at the back of the house and boots clattered across the floor.
“Betty!”
Betty’s face folded into wry patience. “I’m in the kitchen, mister. Not in Casper.”
Amanda turned toward the sound of the voice, her hands unconsciously clenched around the mug. She didn’t exactly know what to expect this time, no matter Betty’s explanation. She didn’t know what she wanted. A different Jake Kendall? The same one? Would he seem smaller in this house than he had out in the soft mountain morning? Would he seem less distinct, more normal?
He seemed none of those things. Jake Kendall filled the doorway, his size undiminished, his strength and sensuality pervading the room. Amanda felt it in her chest like a slow sizzle; felt it in her fingertips and the base of her scalp. Jake Kendall was the most overwhelming man she’d ever known. And he didn’t even consider it.
He was scowling at her again. “I see you showed up.”
Amanda tried a faint smile. “One of my most infuriating habits. I can’t take no for an answer.”
His hat was still on, still pulled low over his eyes so Amanda could see no more than a glint of silver, like polished mirrors. Something deep inside those mirrors, though, sent littlefrissonsdown her back. He didn’t wear his coat today, and his flannel shirtsleeves were rolled almost to his elbows. Amanda saw the power in those forearms and wondered briefly what the rest of him looked like. It didn’t make her any more comfortable.
He didn’t move. “Work out a schedule with Betty, then. And remember—”
“Don’t get in the way,” she answered with him and nodded. “I tried to tell you yesterday, but you didn’t...uh, have the time. I’ve done this before. You won’t even know I’m here.”
He didn’t need to voice his disbelief.
The sudden static in the room even set Betty to fidgeting. “Did you have a reason for yelling at me?” she demanded of her boss. “Or are you just in another ornery mood?”
Jake considered his secretary. There was no perceptible softening of his features, but somehow he softened. “Maria back from town yet?” he asked, his voice just as gruff, just as short.
“Is her car in the driveway?”
Amanda could have sworn that the corner of his mouth crooked just a little. “See if you can catch her at the store and have her stop by the feed store on the way back. They’re supposed to hold some liniment for me.”
“You gonna eat a real lunch?”
“You gonna fîx it?”
Betty nodded briskly. “Peanut butter and jelly it is.”
They didn’t seem to need any more than that. Jake turned on his heel and walked back out the door, and Betty gave her head another slow shake and her coffee her undivided attention.
“He always that talkative?” Amanda asked.
“Only around company. Usually he’srealquiet.”
Jake didn’t even notice the clattering from the stallion barn as he strode back from the house. He didn’t hear Jose’s hair-curling Spanish response or the laughter from Clovis. His mind was on the woman he’d just left. On what she was going to do to his life if he let her.
Maybe it was because Lee was gone that he was suddenly so restless. Maybe it was the spring, his time to get out and reacquaint himself with the Wyoming mountains, when the foals were born and the wildflowers returned and he could forget about how empty that house had gotten all of a sudden.
Maybe it was past time to settle down, just like Betty kept telling him. He couldn’t honestly say he wouldn’t mind walking back into the house at night to a home-cooked meal from his wife instead of the housekeeper. He’d like to share the day with someone. He couldn’t even say he didn’t ache hard along about the middle of the night when that bed got so damn empty he’d be willing to trade almost anything to fill it.
But even flirting with the idea of filling it with that woman who sat up in his house right now was pure lunacy. She wouldn’t understand him. She wouldn’t fit into his life and help him the way a wife would. Hell, she probably thought a good time was a night out at the opera or theater or something. Not small talk about how the mares were faring or what it took to get a good horse to be a great cutting horse.
She wasn’t a farm girl, dressed in those tailored clothes. She was sleek and classy and expensive. She was the kind of person Lee wanted to become—smart and sophisticated and rich in ways he’d never get to taste. And aching for her wouldn’t do him a damn bit of good. He was just going to have to get through her time here at the ranch and then go on with his life just the way it had been.
“Hey, boss, you listenin’ to me?”
Startled, Jake looked up to find that he’d walked right into the stallion barn without even noticing it. In front of him stood Clovis and José, both dusty and disgruntled. The clattering continued from the general direction of the stall of the stallion Bill Nelson had asked him to handle. If the last two days were any indication, it was already too late. But that wasn’t what Jake was thinking about as he faced his foreman.
Jake lifted his hat and took a swipe at his forehead with his arm. “What, Clovis?”
