One of a Kind: Lionhearted / Letters to Kelly. Diana Palmer

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      “Oh, you!” She hit him gently and then laughed. He was impossible. “Okay, you can come to supper.”

      He beamed. “You’re a nice girl.”

      Nice. Well, at least he liked her. It was a start. It didn’t occur to her, then, that a man who was seriously interested in her wouldn’t think of her as just “nice.”

      Hettie came back into the room, still oblivious to the undercurrents, and got out a plastic bowl. She filled it with English peas from the crisper. “All right, my girl, sit down here and shell these. You staying?” she asked Leo.

      “She said I could,” he told Hettie.

      “Then you can go away while we get it cooked.”

      “I’ll visit my bull. Fred’s got him in the pasture.”

      Leo didn’t say another word. But the look he gave Janie before he left the kitchen was positively wicked.

      But if she thought the little interlude had made any permanent difference in her relationship with Leo, Janie was doomed to disappointment. He came to supper, but he spent the whole time talking genetic breeding with Fred, and although he was polite to Janie, she might as well have been on the moon.

      He didn’t stay long after supper, either, making his excuses and praising Hettie for her wonderful cooking. He smiled at Janie, but not the way he had when they were alone in the kitchen. It was as if he’d put the kisses out of his mind forever, and expected her to act as if he’d never touched her. It was disheartening. It was heartbreaking. It was just like old times, except that now Leo had kissed her and she wanted him to do it again. Judging by his attitude over supper, she had a better chance of landing a movie role.

      She spent the next few weeks remembering Leo’s hungry kisses and aching for more of them. When she wasn’t daydreaming, she was practicing biscuit-making. Hettie muttered about the amount of flour she was going through.

      “Janie, you’re going to bankrupt us in the kitchen!” the older woman moaned when Janie’s fifth batch of biscuits came out looking like skeet pigeons. “That’s your second bag of flour today!”

      Janie was glowering at her latest effort on the baking sheet. “Something’s wrong, and I can’t decide what. I mean, I put in salt and baking powder, just like the recipe said…”

      Hettie picked up the empty flour bag and read the label. Her eyes twinkled. “Janie, darlin’, you bought self-rising flour.”

      “Yes. So?” she asked obliviously.

      “If it’s self-rising, it already has the salt and baking powder in it, doesn’t it?”

      Janie burst out laughing. “So that’s what I’m doing wrong! Hand me another bag of flour, could you?”

      “This is the last one,” Hettie said mournfully.

      “No problem. I’ll just drive to the store and get some more. Need anything?”

      “Milk and eggs,” Hettie said at once.

      “We’ve got four chickens,” Janie exclaimed, turning, “and you have to buy eggs?”

      “The chickens are molting.”

      Janie smiled. “And when they molt, they don’t lay. Sorry. I forgot. I’ll be back in a jiffy,” she added, peeling off her apron.

      She paused just long enough to brush her hair out, leaving it long, and put on a little makeup. She thrust her arms into her nice fringed leather jacket, because it was seasonably cool outside as well as raining, and popped into her red sports car. You never could tell when you might run into Leo, because he frequently dashed into the supermarket for frozen biscuits and butter when he was between cooks.

      Sure enough, as she started for the checkout counter with her milk, eggs and flour, she spotted Leo, head and shoulders above most of the men present. He was wearing that long brown Australian drover’s coat he favored in wet weather, and he was smiling in a funny sort of way.

      That was when Janie noticed his companion. He was bending down toward a pretty little brunette who was chattering away at his side. Janie frowned, because that dark wavy hair was familiar. And then she realized who it was. Leo was talking to Marilee Morgan!

      She relaxed. Marilee was her friend. Surely, she was talking her up to Leo. She almost rushed forward to say hello, but what if she interrupted at a crucial moment? There was, after all, the annual Jacobsville Cattleman’s Ball in two weeks, the Saturday before Thanksgiving. It was very likely that Marilee was dropping hints right and left that Janie would love Leo to escort her.

      She chuckled to herself. She was lucky to have a friend like Marilee.

      If Janie had known what Marilee was actually saying to Leo, she might have changed her mind about the other woman’s friendship and a lot of other things.

      “It was so nice of you to drive me to the store, Leo,” Marilee was cooing at Leo as they walked out. “My wrist is really sore from that fall I took.”

      “No problem,” he murmured with a smile.

      “The Cattleman’s Ball is week after next,” Marilee added coyly. “I would really love to go, but nobody’s asked me. I won’t be able to drive by then, either, I’m sure. It was a bad sprain. They take almost as long as a broken bone to heal.” She glanced up at him, weighing her chances. “Of course, Janie’s told everybody that you’re taking her. She said you’re over there all the time now, that it’s just a matter of time before you buy her a ring. Everybody knows.”

      He scowled fiercely. He’d only kissed Janie, he hadn’t proposed marriage, for God’s sake! Surely the girl wasn’t going to get possessive because of a kiss? He hated gossip, especially about himself. Well, Janie could forget any invitations of that sort. He didn’t like aggressive women who told lies around town. Not one bit!

      “You can go with me,” he told Marilee nonchalantly. “Despite what Janie told you, I am no woman’s property, and I’m damned sure not booked for the dance!”

      Marilee beamed. “Thanks, Leo!”

      He shrugged. She was pretty and he liked her company. She wasn’t one of those women who felt the need to constantly compete with men. He’d made his opinion about that pretty clear to Marilee in recent weeks. It occurred to him that Janie was suddenly trying to do just that, what with calf roping and ranch work and hard riding. Odd, when she’d never shown any such inclination before. But her self-assured talk about being his date for the ball set him off and stopped his mind from further reasoning about her sudden change of attitude.

      He smiled down at Marilee. “Thanks for telling me about the gossip,” he added. “Best way to curb it is to disprove it publicly.”

      “Of course it is. You mustn’t blame Janie too much,” she added with just the right amount of affection. “She’s very young. Compared to me, I mean. If we hadn’t been neighbors, we probably wouldn’t be friends at all. She seems so… well, so juvenile at times, doesn’t she?”

      Leo frowned. He’d forgotten that Marilee was older than Janie. He thought back to those hard, hungry kisses he’d shared with Janie СКАЧАТЬ