Cowboy's Kiss (3 page)

By that time Meggie had brightened somewhat and stopped shooting furtive glances around as if they were thieves in the night who might be caught at any moment, even though they never saw anyone at all.

And when her daughter dropped to her knees to play with the kittens, for just a moment Ally had a brief glimpse of the little girl Meggie had been before the divorce. It reminded her why they'd come here and gave her a renewed sense of determination not to let Jackson or his threats frighten her off.

Back at the house Ally made sandwiches while Meggie fretted over their eating Jackson's food. Ally assured her that, as soon as Shag's son got home, she would discuss with him providing for her and Meggie's share of things like that.

Then Ally filled two glasses with ice and tea, and took it all outside onto the patio, where they passed what was left of the afternoon.

Only as it neared five o'clock did Ally begin to consider that Jackson could be back anytime, and since she didn't want to be caught lounging next to the pool as if this were some kind of resort, she herded Meggie inside for a shower and a change of clothes for them both.

Ally was just getting dressed in a pair of khaki shorts and a yellow T-shirt after her shower when she heard the sound of a helicopter very nearby. Having lived her life until then in the suburbs, the first thing she thought was that it was a hospital flight-for-life. She rushed to the window just as it landed on a square of tarmac to the west of the house, a patch she'd noticed earlier and somehow thought might be the beginnings of a tennis court.

But the tarmac was a landing pad and the helicopter was not medical. It was private.

And as she took a closer look, she realized Jackson was the pilot.

She didn't know why she kept on standing there, watching as he flipped switches and turned knobs on the panel control in front of him, but she did. She didn't move when he climbed out of the aircraft, either.

Tall and terrifically handsome, there was something very commanding about him. He wore sunglasses that lent a dashing, dangerous air to his appearance, and a white dress shirt that almost made him seem more like an executive than a cowboy—except that the sleeves were rolled to his elbows, the collar button was open rakishly, and no self-respecting executive would have been caught dead on the job in his tight jeans and roach-killer boots.

Of course, Ally had never seen an executive who could do for a pair of jeans what Jackson Heller could. His legs were long and so thickly muscled they bulged against the denim. His hips were narrow but not so narrow that they were slight. And the outward curve of his zipper stirred up things inside of her that hadn't been stirred up in a long time.

Ally wondered at that fact. At herself for being stuck to the window like glue, studying the way he walked—smooth, graceful, confident, and with just a hint of swagger to the slightly bowlegged gait.

She ordered herself to move away, to stop gawking like a hormonal teenager who'd never seen a man with quite that much raw masculinity and just plain sensuality oozing out of his every pore.

But there she stayed, anyway.

It was just curiosity, she reasoned. Purely academic. It wasn't as if she were really interested. Or mesmerized. She was only appreciating the sight the way any red-blooded woman would have.

It didn't mean anything. Good-looking or not, Jackson Heller was too unpleasant and difficult for her to enjoy anything
but
the sight of him. And Lord knows, she would not have been in the market for a relationship even if Jackson had been different. Her hands were full trying to get Meggie through the divorce residual, trying to get both their lives back on course. The last thing Ally needed, wanted or would even entertain thoughts of was any kind of involvement with a man, even a man who
wasn't
as cantankerous as Jackson Heller.

No, she told herself as she watched him step around the barbecue pit, this was just a bit of voyeurism. She was still human, after all, and cantankerous or not, he was a gorgeous hunk of manhood. She just didn't want anything more than the sight. At a safe distance. When he didn't know she was looking.

And when she was out of the range of his temper.

The bedroom door opened just then and Ally spun away from the window as if she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't be. She expected to find Meggie, but instead a tiny little boy stood there solemn faced, reminding her suddenly of the very person she'd been spying on.

“‘Lo,” he said in a serious voice.

“Hi,” Ally answered with a note of question to it.

“I'm Danny. We comed for supper and there's a girl in my room and this one was my dad's ‘fore we went to live at Kansas's,” he informed, sounding almost as put out as Jackson about Meggie and Ally having trespassed on territory he considered his own.

Meggie came up behind the smaller child just then and said in a hushed aside aimed at Ally, “He just walked in!”

Ally nodded to her daughter and smiled at Danny. “Your dad is Linc, isn't he?”

Danny nodded in return, slowly, stoically. “Who're you guys?”

Ally introduced herself and Meggie, and as if that made it all right for them to be there, Danny took an arrowhead out of his pocket and held it for them to see. “This makes me strong. My uncle Ash gived it to me and he's downstairs, too, wis my aunt Beth and uncle Jackson and my Kansas and they're all wonderin' where you are.”

With the exception of Jackson, the rest of the Hellers must have arrived while Ally was in the shower, because she hadn't heard anything. It had been bad enough to think of having another confrontation with Jackson alone, but now she wondered if they'd formed some sort of joint force with which to face her.

Maybe Jackson had managed to win them over to his side and they were all waiting downstairs to tell her she'd better accept his offer and leave, or face the wrath of the whole family circle.

Ally's stomach lurched at the prospect, but she forced another smile for Shag's grandson and said, “Then I guess we'd better go downstairs so they can stop wondering.”

Whether for her own reasons or because she sensed her mother's uneasiness, Meggie had suddenly lost the blush of color the day had put into her cheeks, and her hazel eyes were wide. Wanting to spare her daughter any scene that might be about to unfold, she suggested Meggie and Danny go out the front door and around to the barn to see the kittens.

Meggie hesitated, clearly wanting to escape but worried about leaving Ally alone, so Ally turned her by the shoulders and gave her a little push. “Everything will be fine,” she assured in a tone that sounded as if she were convinced of it.

Then she followed the two kids down the stairs and watched them go outside before she headed for the kitchen where the sounds of Heller voices drifted out.

As she approached the swinging door, she overheard Linc say something about Jackson yawning, teasing him over not sleeping well the night before. All she could make out of Jackson's reply was something about “that damn woman.”

Ally took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and went in—
that damn woman
trying to look as if she were ready, willing and able to take them all on.

But when everyone looked at her from various spots around the kitchen, four of the five expressions were just as warm and friendly as they'd been the night before, dispelling her fear of what she was about to face.

Only Jackson scowled at her.

But somehow that had more effect than the rest combined.

“There you are!” Beth said. “I was just going upstairs to get you. We thought we'd throw together a little supper while we got to know each other.”

“Great,” Ally said, hating the tentative tone in her voice and amending it. “I just met Danny.”

“Is that where he got off to?” Linc mused. “What'd he do, go tell you to get yourself down here?”

“Something like that.” Ally answered Linc's smile with one of her own to assure him she hadn't taken offense. “Is he always so sober and serious?” she asked, her gaze skirting over to Jackson as if the question were about him. Which it actually could have been.

Still, she was trying to pretend he wasn't there and that those blue eyes of his weren't boring into her as if he wanted to boot her out of his kitchen, his house, his life. Literally.

Linc slapped his brother on the back much the way he had the night before. “Danny and Jackson here—the old and the young version of sober and serious—that's them, all right.”

Jackson turned his scowl on Linc for a moment, then went to the refrigerator to get himself a beer.

Ally noticed he didn't offer her anything to drink as courtesy might have dictated.

Kansas must have noticed, too, because she jumped in and did.

Since everyone except Beth was drinking beer, too, Ally accepted one of those before peering at the foodstuffs that were on the butcher block now that several grocery sacks had been emptied and everyone had gathered around it.

“What can I do?”

“Know how to make guacamole?” Beth asked.

Ally smiled. “A pretty good one, actually.”

“Then you can have the job.”

Ash piped in. “We're having burritos with Jackson's green chili. It isn't for sissies,” he warned as if he'd had a previous surprise with that dish himself.

On cue, Jackson took a container out of the freezer and put it into the microwave, waiting there as it thawed rather than joining the group.

Ally tried to ignore him and the fact that she could feel that fierce stare on her again from off her right shoulder, and instead searched for a subject on which to make conversation as she peeled ripe avocados.

She knew a lot about Shag's children. At least about their lives up until his death. He'd talked freely about Beth being married to an Indian who owned and oversaw a charitable foundation for Native Americans. About Linc riding rodeo and having lost his wife, Virgie, to a car accident just weeks after Danny was born.

She even knew Jackson had been married young and very briefly, then divorced—though she didn't know any of the details. What Shag hadn't said was how unpleasant Jackson was and she wondered if the divorce was what had made him such a hard case. Or maybe his being such a hard case had driven his wife away....

But rather than address that part of her curiosity, she decided to update herself on the other changes that had apparently taken place in the Heller clan since their father's death.

She started with Beth and the most obvious question. “When is your baby due?”

“We aren't sure,” Beth answered with a laugh.

Ash chuckled from beside his wife as he chopped onions. “Approximately nine months from just before we got divorced.”

“Or about three months from when we got remarried,” Beth added as the two of them seemed to share a private joke.

“What that translates to,” Kansas added, “is that the baby is probably due in about a month. As close as anyone can tell.”

“Shag said you lived on the Wind River Reservation, so I didn't expect to find you here,” Ally said to Beth and Ash again, wondering suddenly if the reason they'd remodeled the bunkhouse was because Jackson had been so difficult to live with when they'd made the move.

“I came back right after the divorce,” Beth told her. “Ash followed three weeks later and when we worked things out between us, we decided to stay.”

“But not here in the house...” It was a leading statement, though Ally carefully didn't glance at the still-staring man who was uppermost in her mind even when she was among these other people and he was keeping himself removed from them all.

“We wanted our own place,” Ash said, giving no clue as to whether or not his surly brother-in-law was the reason.

Linc asked what she needed for the guacamole and brought the spices, lemons, limes, sour cream, tomatoes and Tabasco sauce for her.

“And how about you and Kansas? You guys can't have been married long,” Ally said then, beginning to feel as if she were catching up on old acquaintances.

“Since the Fourth of July,” Kansas answered, standing on tiptoe to kiss her husband's cheek.

“Kansas owns the general store, so anything you need she either has or can get for you,” Beth informed.

“And Linc rides in rodeos,” Ally added what she knew.

Or what she thought she knew until Linc said, “Not anymore. Now I'm running that honky-tonk you walked into last night. Which, by the way, you also own a share of, since the building was part of what we all inherited.”

He dipped a chip into her guacamole just as she finished it and went into rapture—eyes rolling, face scrunched up blissfully, moaning like a lovesick cow. “That's incredible!”

Ally laughed. “
That's
what
I
do.”

“Make avocado dip?” This from Ash.

“Cook. Actually, I'm a chef,” she said with exaggerated flair to let them know she didn't take herself as seriously as the formal title might have seemed.

“Hear that, Jackson?” Linc called as if his brother were a mile away rather than a few feet. “A genuine chef right under your own roof. I'll tell you, the honky-tonk could use somebody who can make guacamole like this. Jackson? You with us?” he asked when the other man didn't respond.

Then, in the silence that followed, the slow purposeful sound of Jackson's heels on the tile floor warned of his approach. He came to stand directly across the butcher block from Ally, bracing both hands on the table and leaning toward her as if he'd have pressed his nose to hers if he'd been able to, just to be more menacing.

Showdown II.

He glared at her as he answered his brother. “I think that's a fine idea. She can get a place in town, cook for The Buckin' Bronco and live real well on what I'll pay to buy out her share of the ranch.”

Ally stared back at him, meeting him eye to eye, stubbornness to stubbornness, and also spoke to Linc without breaking the standoff. “I'd love to cook for the honky-tonk. But I came to live at the ranch and I'd still live here even if I did. I wouldn't think of moving into town
or
selling out,” she said pointedly, firmly.