Cowboys Do It Best. Eileen Wilks

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СКАЧАТЬ she said, facing him as she closed the front door on her friends. “Are you ready to go to work?”

      His gaze drifted lazily from her breasts up to her face. He was supposed to leave this woman alone? He shook his head, doubting himself already, and drawled, “I’m ready whenever you are, sugar.”

      Frost warnings went up in those blue eyes. “We’ll go out the back door. Come on.”

      Her house was small, but immaculate. What little he’d seen so far of her operation made him think it would be just as scrupulously tended, too, and he liked that. Chase wasn’t especially tidy with his own things, but he was downright nitpicky when it came to horses, their gear, housing and care.

      “There’s a phone in the barn and another cordless unit in the kennel, but don’t worry about answering if it rings,” she said, pausing next to the back door to pick up a cordless phone. “I keep one of the cordless phones with me all the time so I can book appointments.” She frowned at the phone in her hand. “Dammit, I can’t put this on my belt if I can’t fasten a belt.”

      “I’d be glad to help.” He couldn’t quite say that without smiling.

      She turned the frown on him, then turned away, tucking the phone into her sling next to her arm. “The horses have already been taken care of this morning,” she told him, opening the back door and ignoring his offer. “Usually I do it, but Raul came over early today as a favor.”

      And who, he wondered, was Raul, and just what kind of favors did he do for her? Chase liked the idea of doing “favors” for his new boss. He didn’t like the idea that someone else might already be doing for her what he was trying to persuade himself he shouldn’t do. “Raul?” he asked. “Is he a...friend of yours?”

      She paused, holding the door open and looking at him suspiciously. “Why?”

      He gave her his most innocent smile. “Just wondered why you didn’t offer him the job.”

      She continued to frown. “Raul is in the eleventh grade. He can’t put in the kind of hours I’ll need in the next couple of weeks, but he’s a good hand.”

      Chase nodded blandly as desire tightened down another notch. It doesn’t matter if another man is in the picture or not, he told himself. Not if he intended to keep his distance.

      Was that what he intended? “I guess I’ll meet Raul this afternoon, then.”

      “Right,” she muttered, giving him one last, wary look. “Well, come on.”

      She’d barely set foot on the painted gray floor of the wooden porch when a black-and-white tornado shaped like a dog ran up to her, yipping and twisting itself in tight, excited circles. For the first time, Chase saw what Summer looked like when she wasn’t suspicious or hurting. When she smiled and meant it.

      His breath caught in his chest.

      “Hmm?” she said, stroking the head of the frantically happy dog. “Did you say something?”

      “Quite a watchdog you have there,” he managed to say. She was beautiful. It came as a shock. Not just pretty or sexy or desirable. When Summer smiled with that soft look in her eyes, she was flat-out beautiful. “I imagine she’d be hell on a burglar, running around in circles until the poor fellow got dizzy from watching her.”

      The light in her eyes changed from tenderness to amusement. “Oh, Kelpie here is pretty useless as a watchdog. She loves everybody. But I’d better take you over and introduce you to Hannah.” She walked over to where a large brown lump rested on the edge of the porch. The lump lifted its head and thumped its tail once when Summer lowered herself into a careful squat to pet it. “Hannah knows Rosie, so she didn’t mind when you two came up to the door, but we’d better give you a formal introduction now.”

      Did she seriously think that decrepit old hound was a watchdog? Willing to play along, Chase set his bag down and hunkered down beside her. He caught just a whiff of Summer’s scent. Strawberries. It made him smile, because it suited her. “Hi, there, Hannah,” he said to the lump. “My name’s Chase.”

      “I had something a bit more basic in mind,” Summer said dryly. “Here, give me your hand.” She reached out. and took it.

      Heat lightning. That was all Chase could think of when she took his hand in hers—the hot, unexpected stroke of lightning that can flash unpredictably across a cloudless summer sky. Involuntarily, wanting only to hang on to the sensation a moment longer, his hand closed around hers. Her skin was soft, but her hand wasn’t. It was a strong hand, tough and capable.

      That, too, stirred him.

      He heard the hitch in her breath. But she didn’t look at him, didn’t acknowledge what arced between them. Instead, after a second she said, as level and calm as if nothing had happened, “Now we let Hannah smell our hands, so that she remembers your scent and mine mixed together.”

      “Sounds like a good idea to me,” he said huskily, and stretched out their joined hands. The hound lifted her nose and sniffed at them. “Your scent and mine, mixed together...”

      She jerked her hand away. She wasn’t quite fast enough, though, to rise to her feet without Chase’s assistance. He got hold of her good arm and steadied her.

      Chase didn’t want to see all the color drain out of her face again, the way it had earlier. He’d cracked enough bones himself to know she had to be hurting. She wasn’t about to admit it, though, or go rest. Chase understood the need to keep on going when it made more sense to quit, and he was beginning to get the idea that this woman had an oversize helping of pride.

      She pulled away. “Mr. McGuire, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your hands to yourself.”

      Would she, now? “Well, I can’t quite promise to do that, ma’am. Not when you’ve been hurt and are maybe a bit too stubborn to admit you need a hand now and again. But I’ll keep what you said in mind.”

      “That’s not what I meant,” she said, “and you know it. A man like you is well aware of—”

      “Just a minute,” he said. “That’s the second time you’ve said that—‘a man like me.’ Now, I know we’ve never met. I’d remember. So you must have heard some gossip...or else you’re getting me mixed up with someone else. Like your husband, maybe?”

      She looked as startled as if he’d reached out and slapped her. “I didn’t—you—did you know Jimmie?”

      “I ran into him a couple times. Look, I know some rodeo wives get a bad feel for the rodeo and everyone connected with it, especially if their husbands stay on the circuit as much of the year as Jimmie did.”

      She just gave him a hard, baffled stare and turned and started across the yard. Chase was left to pick up his bag and follow. Had she reacted that way because she’d been so much in love with the good-looking bum she’d been married to? Or did she already know plenty about Jimmie Callaway and just not want to discuss it?

      The kennel was a long, cinder block building on the other side of the paddock, about twenty yards from the stable. It was painted white, with trim the same dark green as the little house they’d just left, and typical of what he’d seen so far. Not fancy, but sturdy and well maintained.

      Chase automatically slowed СКАЧАТЬ