A Groom For Gwen. Jeanne Allan

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      CHAPTER THREE

      JAKE tossed and turned in his bed as snores reverberated down the hall. If they were on a trail drive, the cattle would have stampeded halfway back to Texas by now. Jake didn’t know how a man as little as Tom could make that much noise. No wonder a body couldn’t sleep.

      All the inventions they’d come up with in this century, you’d think they could stop a man from snoring. Gwen’s car even had buttons to lock the doors and open and shut the windows. The next time Jake came back, he’d remember that. Funny how he couldn’t recall the events and the people who’d brought him back, but knowledge soaked in and lay dormant until the time came when he needed it. He knew how to drive Bert’s thirty-year-old pickup. He knew about television, although the last time he’d seen it, the picture had been in black and white—and they sure didn’t show all those advertisements for things women never used to talk about in front of men. He couldn’t imagine what he’d see the next time he came back.

      Except Michaels had promised this was the last time.

      Michaels. Damn the man, or whatever he was. Jake could appreciate a good shenanigan as well as the next man, and being returned to his own house sort of tickled his funny bone, but doggone it, then Michaels had gone too far. Taking a man who hadn’t lain with a woman for over one hundred years and plunking him down with a boss lady like Gwen.

      Jake stared grimly at the ceiling. For a plugged nickel, he’d pull his freight. Except he couldn’t.

      A man like him shouldn’t have calico fever, and he had it in a bad way. He wanted a woman. Not any woman. Gwen. He wanted her under him, those green eyes begging him to bury himself in her. Michaels wasn’t here. He’d never know if Jake took her. Jake snorted. He had a feeling Michaels knew everything.

      After Jake finished building his place—this place, he’d planned to marry Marian. Then Ma’s letter had come. He and Marian had argued about whether Jake was obligated. Marian had demanded he choose between her and Luther, then thrown a fit at the guarded look she’d seen in Jake’s eyes. Before he said, she knew he’d be going after his little brother. Luther had appreciated Jake’s doing his duty as little as Marian did. Jake smiled cynically. Marian had changed her mind quick enough after meeting Luther when Jake had brought his brother to the ranch. Later, Marian was the one insisting Jake do his duty and go after Luther.

      Jake had a feeling Michaels hadn’t thought much of the way Jake did his duty. When Jake looked into Michael’s eyes, he saw the judgment. And his own sins.

      He’d been decent enough to deny himself Marian’s body, telling himself he could wait until they were wed. Someone—fate?—owed Jake a woman. An intriguing thought hit him. Maybe Michaels wasn’t such a bad guy. Maybe he’d sent Jake on this particular job to give Jake his last shot at a woman. Where Jake was headed, maybe men didn’t lay with women.

      If Jake was going to have only one more opportunity to sleep with a woman, he didn’t mind one bit if that woman was Gwen. Those eyes of hers switched shades of green with every thought. He wondered how it was a handsome woman like her hadn’t harnessed some man by now. When it came to men she was barely green-broke. Willing to kiss, but skittish.

      Jake folded his hands behind his head. Gwen had gotten all riled up after that kiss, but not because he’d kissed her. Because she’d liked him kissing her. And that, she hadn’t liked. He laughed softly. He could kiss Gwen all he wanted, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. Jake would go when Michaels decided he’d go. And not before.

      Maybe next time Jake wouldn’t stop with just a kiss. She’d like that, too. Just because he’d lived over a hundred years ago, didn’t mean Jake didn’t know a thing or two about pleasing women.

      Jake waited until Doris took Crissie to the kitchen to clean up before he sat back in his chair and pushed aside his dinner plate. “Can you ride?”

      Despite Doris’s astounding observation this afternoon, Gwen had no intention of crawling into bed with Jake Stoner. She ought to fire him; but unfortunately, she needed him. Tom whatever-his-name-was might be a retired veterinarian, but she doubted very much if he was up to the physical demands of the ranch. She needed Jake’s muscles. But that’s all she needed. A fact she planned to make perfectly clear to Jake Stoner. She employed him. Nothing more.

      Accordingly, Gwen had avoided all speech with him at the dinner table. Doris obviously knew Tom and the circumstances of his hiring, and the two of them, along with Crissie, had done the talking. Gwen wished she had the nerve to insist Jake and Tom eat in the kitchen, but she knew Doris wouldn’t take kindly to the idea. Bert had fed his hands in the family dining room. As long as Doris did the cooking, the hands would eat in the dining room.

      Jake was waiting for her answer. “I’ve ridden a few times,” she said. “Mostly when I came down to visit Bert. I’ve been meaning to ride more, but Lawrence always took me in the pickup.”

      “Which horse?”

      “Susie, named for Susan Magoffin. Bert named all his horses after historical sites or people related to this area.” Gwen warmed to her topic. “There’s Willy, after William Bent from Bent’s Fort, and Kearny for Colonel Stephen Kearny who led the Army of the West, and Cimarron for the river, and Vegas for Las Vegas, New Mexico, not Nevada, and—”

      “Which one’s Susie?”

      “The tan one,” Gwen said coolly. Jake might not share her enthusiasm for local history, but he didn’t need to be rude. “Bert called her a buckskin.”

      “So you can’t ride,” Jake said in disgust. “If you could, he wouldn’t have put you on that old nag.”

      “She’s not a nag. She’s perfectly sweet.”

      “She’s so old if you fired a six-shooter behind her, she’d barely switch her tail.” He sighed heavily. “There’s no help for it. Be at the corral by the barn after breakfast.”

      “I plan to spend the morning going over Bert’s books.”

      “Change of plans. The corral after breakfast.”

      “That sounds like an order, Mr. Stoner,” Gwen said tightly.

      “Good. I wouldn’t want you to think you have a choice in the matter.” He smiled lazily across the table.

      “Now see here, Mr. Stoner, I will not—”

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