The Enemy's Daughter. Linda Turner

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      She was already reaching for some of the fence posts. She had hardly picked two of them up before he took them away from her. “Hey, give me those! What are you doing?”

      “Loading the truck,” he retorted. “That’s why you brought me along, remember? So why don’t you grab a seat in the shade and let me do my job?”

      Lise couldn’t believe he was serious. “Don’t be ridiculous. I can help.”

      “Maybe so, but you’re not going to. I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself.”

      His jaw set at an angle she was just beginning to realize was as immovable as Gibraltar, he gave her a hard look and just dared her to argue with him further. She told herself he was kidding, but there was no glint of laughter in his steely gray eyes, no smile on his mouth. Obviously not caring that they might be drawing the eye of everyone on the store’s huge loading dock, he glared at her, silently daring her to pick up so much as a box of nails from the supplies still waiting to be loaded.

      Standing toe to toe with him, she should have told him she was the boss and could load any damn thing she wanted. It would have been the wise thing to do. After all, who was supposed to be giving whom orders? But the darn man didn’t play fair. He’d done it again, made her feel like a dainty, feminine woman, and she didn’t know how to handle it. Without a word, she found a seat on a nearby wooden crate to watch him work.

      That’s when alarm bells clanged in her head. What was she doing? she wondered wildly. Just because the man had opened a few doors for her and wanted to wrap her in cotton like a china doll didn’t mean he was interested in her. No one had ever looked twice at her before, and she didn’t expect that to change just because this cowboy had walked into her life. He might have told her stories about his childhood, but what did she really know about the man himself? Nothing. For all she knew, he was just a charming drifter who never stayed anywhere long and left a string of broken hearts behind him. He wouldn’t break hers, she promised herself. She wouldn’t make an idiot of herself over him and have every cowboy within a hundred miles laughing at her.

      That didn’t mean, however, that she couldn’t enjoy watching him work. With an ease that stole her breath, he picked up a heavy role of wire as if it weighed no more than a matchbox and tossed it into the bed of the truck. Muscles rippled in his arms. His back strong and straight, his broad shoulders handling the task with no effort whatsoever, he didn’t even break a sweat. Fascinated, Lise had to admit that he really was something to see.

      Chapter 3

      From the outside, the Flamingo Café looked like a dive that would blow away in a stiff wind. Constructed of rusty corrugated tin with faded pink flamingos painted on the side, the entire building leaned slightly to the left. It had no class and very little eye appeal, and Steve loved it. The second he followed Lise inside, he couldn’t help but grin. Everywhere he looked, there were pink flamingos.

      “This is great!”

      Surprised, Lise arched a brow. “You like it?”

      “Are you kidding? It reminds me of a place back home—the Lily Pad.” He laughed just at the thought of it. “God, I’d forgotten about it. It was wild! There were frogs everywhere, from all over the world. And the best frog legs you ever tasted in your life. On Friday and Saturday nights, they had a band, and you could forget about getting a table if you didn’t get there by seven o’clock.”

      “Don’t tell Mabel about that,” she warned as a waitress arrived to show them to one of the few empty tables in the space. “She’s the owner,” she explained when he lifted an inquiring brow. “And she’s always trying something new—which is how she got hooked on flamingos to begin with. Someone gave her some as a gag, people commented on them, and the next thing you knew, the place was full of them. If she thought she could do the same thing with frogs and actually sell frog legs, the place would turn into a zoo.”

      From what Steve could see, it was that already. Every available inch of space was taken up by either a table or a flamingo, and whatever Mabel was serving, the locals were eating it up with a spoon. Picking up a menu, he flipped it open and blinked. Beef Wellington, steak tartar, grilled fresh salmon with dill sauce. Who would have thought it out here in the middle of nowhere?

      Glancing up from her own menu, Lise smiled slightly. “Mabel likes to surprise people. Believe it or not, she studied in Paris. You name it, she can cook it.”

      Steve didn’t know about the other items on the menu, but he soon discovered Mabel knew what she was doing when it came to the salmon. Taking his first bite a few minutes later, he groaned as it all but melted in his mouth. Swallowing, he told Lise, “Do you realize I’ve only been in this country two days. Two days! And I’ve already had the two best meals of my life! This is incredible.”

      Suddenly noting that she’d hardly touched the beef Wellington she’d ordered for herself, he frowned. “What’s the matter? You’re not eating.”

      “Nothing,” she said with a shrug. “I’m just not as hungry as I thought I was. I ate a big breakfast.”

      Steve didn’t doubt that—he had, too. With Cookie’s cooking, who could resist pigging out? But breakfast was hours ago, and they’d left the station just as lunch was about to be served. Since they’d arrived in town, they’d been so busy collecting supplies that they hadn’t even had time for a candy bar, which was why they’d decided to have an early dinner before heading back to the station. Neither one of them had had anything to eat in hours.

      “Are you feeling all right? You look a little pale. You’re not sick, are you?”

      He studied her with sharp eyes that missed little. Her gaze quickly dropping to her food, Lise silently cursed her expressive face and tried not to squirm. No! she wanted to cry, she wasn’t all right. Damn the man, why did he have to be so comfortable to be with? In spite of her best efforts to keep her guard up with him, he had a way of sneaking past it when she least expected it. Who would have thought he would like the Flamingo? The men she knew cringed every time they walked into the café, though they had no complaint with the food. And then there were his manners.

      The man was a drover, for heaven’s sake. A stockman, a cowboy who bummed around the world in search of work. He could have been crude and rough and boorish, but he was nothing like that. He not only opened doors for her, he did it for every other woman he encountered, and he didn’t even seem to realize it. It was ingrained, as was his flashing smile and the way he carried heavier items for her without her having to ask for help. And she found that incredibly appealing—and far too dangerous for her peace of mind.

      She should have brought someone else with her to help her—anyone else. The other men didn’t flirt with and tease her. They didn’t make her constantly aware of the fact that she was a woman. They didn’t make her wonder what it would be like to kiss them….

      Suddenly realizing where her thoughts had wandered, she stiffened, her cheeks heating with embarrassment. If he guessed what she was thinking, she’d die right there on the spot. “I’m just tired,” she said stiffly. “This time of year’s always hectic, and I haven’t been getting enough sleep. I’ll be fine once I get my second wind.”

      That sounded good, but Steve wasn’t buying it. Over the course of the day, she’d grown progressively quieter and more withdrawn, and he found himself missing the woman he’d ridden into town with. For the life of him, he didn’t know what had happened. Had he said something he shouldn’t have? Something that made her suspect his real reason for СКАЧАТЬ