Jake was jealous. He was sick at heart. He was so tired of it all, so much more alone. Because now Amanda was here, and he was kept from her, too.
He’d seen her handwriting on the yellow tablet on the table, quick, strong strokes with an ink pen. He’d seen the way she’d dealt with the computer, an old friend, an easy tool, and felt foolish that he couldn’t even get one to start up.
He wanted his situation to change. He ached to see those places Amanda had talked about. He wanted to share the world with Amanda and then be able to come home and take charge of his own business. He wanted the chance to ride his own horses in competition.
But he knew better. And that was what followed him through the day and slept with him in the night. That was the only companionship he’d be allowed, and the pain of it was fresh and sour all over again.
He didn’t hear from Amanda for three more days. He’d been up to the meadow again to find Sweet William grazing and the red car gone, and returned to work even harder, sensing already somehow that she was moving away. Afraid she was. He knew it was coming. He just couldn’t stand the thought that it was coming so soon.
Not till Lee leaves, anyway, he rationalized. She’d at least stay to visit Lee.
Jake spent his days as he always did in the spring, working with the new foals, easing them into their working relationship with humans, sharpening the older horses after the lethargy of winter, opening the training back out into the fresh air where it belonged after those months in the indoor ring. He spent too much time on horseback for his ribs to heal quickly, but it didn’t matter. He spent too many hours outside to do anything but drop into a dead sleep when he got home, but that was the only way he’d rest. Clovis and José trained more horses than usual, and this year he let Willy begin. But this year his heart wasn’t into it.
“Boss,” Clovis announced, leaning over the fence to the corral where Jake was working Sidewinder on a lungeing line. “Why don’t you go ahead and knock off early? We’re all goin’ into town tonight. Horses is all fed and bedded down.”
Jake barely looked away from his work. “Yeah, Clovis. Okay.”
“No, boss,” his hand insisted. “I mean it. You’re gettin’ that raggedy look about you again, and you’ve been a mite... peevish lately. What with Lee comin’ in a couple o’ days, you might think to ease up a little so’s you don’t snap the little thing’s head off.”
Jake actually worked up a grin for his foreman. “Peevish, is it?” he retorted.
“If you’da’ yelled at anybody but Betty this afternoon, she might have taken real offense.”
Clovis was right. Jake had no business taking this out on the people who worked for him. He had a lot of failings, but being hard on the help wasn’t one of them.
“Okay, Clovis,” he conceded, actually slumping with the weariness of it. “Let me put Sidewinder up and I’ll close shop for the day.”
“Good.” The little man stepped down. “By the way, I’ll betchya if you ask Sweetpea real nice tomorrow she might let Grayboy come callin’.”
Jake really did grin at that. The thought of that majestic act reduced to candy and flowers was enough to brighten anybody’s day. “I’ll give her the good news,” he assured the man.
Jake hoped Maria had left something for him to eat. With everybody else in town for the evening, she wouldn’t have to worry about feeding them. He probably should apologize to Betty, too, while he was at it. He shouldn’t have ridden her case for short-ordering the feed. It was the feed store’s fault, not hers. Besides, he knew better than to think he could run the ranch without her after all this time. If it weren’t for Betty, nothing would get done. For yet the hundredth time, Jake wondered if she knew. If she guessed. He’d never had the courage to find out. He didn’t now.
Betty was gone. Maria was gone. Jake took a bemused look around as he stepped back out of the stallion barn to find that the only cars remaining were his pickup and the four-wheel drive he used when he didn’t feel like climbing a horse.
He looked up to the house and got more confused. Had the electricity failed again? There were a few dim lights up there, but they flickered, just like lanterns or candles. Jake took a quick look over his shoulder, but the yard lights were still on. For just a second, his heart lurched. Anticipation sweated his palms. Could there be somebody in the house, after all?
Somebody who’d lit candles deliberately? He loped up to the back door without another thought.
Again he was greeted by a banquet of aromas—wood smoke and food. These food smells were different, though, alien and piquant. Not stew, not steak, not any of the food groups he recognized. Hanging up his jacket, Jake peeked around into the kitchen.
“Ever had Chinese food?” she greeted him with a broad smile.
Jake stepped in, his pulse racing at the sight of her, his gut suddenly on fire, with dread, with hope, with all the warring emotions a man battles when he knows he’s falling in love. More when the man knows that it won’t do him any good.
“Chinese?” he echoed a bit stupidly.
Amanda was standing over by the stove where she had piles of chopped-up food waiting to go into the skillet. Garlic. That was what Jake smelled. Garlic, spices, exotic, enticing aromas. And soft, dancing amid them, the smell of spring.
Amanda nodded, and her hair drifted like smoke. “Chinese. I thought I’d start with something simple. Beef with broccoli, cashew chicken, maybe some fried rice. What do you think?”
He thought he’d rather forget the food and concentrate on her. She was in a dress tonight. Suddenly he realized that it was the first time he’d seen her in a dress, a soft, simple dress the color of an autumn evening sky, that clung to her just the way that damn cotton T-shirt had, and revealed almost as much leg as those panties. He was already beginning to ache, and he hadn’t even got his hat off yet.
“Hello, Amanda,” he managed.
Her sudden smile was like a starburst. “Hello, Jake. Take off your hat and stick around a while.” Then she quirked an eyebrow at him. “Unless you’re looking for a sandstorm.”
Slowly he palmed his hat and lifted it off. “Chinese,” he murmured yet again, dragging a hand through his hair to force it back. “I’ve never had Chinese food before.”
