Cowboy's Kiss (4 page)

“Live here, work here,” Jackson warned.

“And I'll bet you have all kinds of plans for that, don't you?” she heard herself say with more courage than she felt and too much challenge to be smart.

He didn't answer her, leaving another tense silence to hang there between them. Around them.

Ally wondered how it was possible that under those circumstances she could be noticing every rugged plane of that handsome face and feeling some of the same stirrings she'd felt watching him from her bedroom window earlier.

Then that great face, which looked as if nature itself had carved it, slowly eased into a small smile.

Not a nice smile. But one that sent shivers up her spine.

He looked at her as if she were a rabbit in a cage and she had the distinct impression that he was going to enjoy meting out the rough time he had in store for her.

Ally reminded herself that she'd come here for Meggie's sake. That already—in just this one day—she'd glimpsed a little of what she hoped this place would accomplish in giving her daughter back her childhood. And for the second time since she'd arrived she told herself she could handle anything in order to do that.

Finally it was Linc who broke the silence and some of the tension in the room by laughing at Jackson, slapping him on the back yet again and saying to Ally, “Don't let him buffalo you. If you knew Shag and could put up with him, you can put up with old Jackson here.”

But
old Jackson
just went right on staring at her, smiling that smile.

And Ally got the message loud and clear:
Don't be too sure.

* * *

The evening turned out to be pretty pleasant once Ally managed to get used to Jackson's ever-present glare. He kept to himself otherwise, and Linc, Kansas, Beth and Ash were all good company.

By the time they left, around nine, Ally felt as if she'd known them forever and could count them as friends.

Meggie had spent most of the time watching an animated movie with Danny, but once everyone had said good-night and gone, Ally told her to go upstairs and get ready for bed.

“Not yet,” Jackson vetoed from behind, having followed her in from the front door after seeing Linc, Kansas and Danny off.

“What?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at him.

“There are some people the two of you have to meet and then I'll show Meggie the chores she'll need to do tomorrow while we're off working.”

It took a moment for all of that to register and for Ally to choose which to take issue with first. “Whatever work I do, Meggie will need to be with me.”

“No, ma'am, she won't. The people you're about to meet are Hans and Marta. Marta does the housekeeping here and Hans takes care of the grounds and the handiwork close to home. They'll look after the girl while we're gone, make sure she's doing what she's supposed to.”

Issue number two.

Ally turned to face him. “I'll do what you feel is necessary to
earn our keep,
as you put it, but Meggie—”

“It's okay, Mom,” Meggie interrupted, suddenly at Ally's side, sounding worried and as if she were feeling responsible for smoothing the waters. “I can do chores. I fed Grandma's cat before, remember?”

Ally put her arm around her daughter's shoulders and hugged her close, besting Jackson with a glare fiercer than he'd given her all night. She didn't say anything else. Not then, with Meggie there. But Jackson Heller had not heard the end of this. Not by a long shot.

He ignored what her expression conveyed and turned toward the kitchen, saying as he went, “Hans and Marta went into Cheyenne today but I saw them coming back as Beth and Ash left. We'd best get over there before they turn in for the night.”

Apparently that meant Ally and Meggie were to follow him, which Meggie was quicker to do than Ally. Ally might have just stood there staring daggers at his broad back except that her daughter took her hand and dragged her along.

The small cottage Ally had thought was a guest house was where the two caretakers lived. Marta and Hans were well into retirement years and seemed more like resident grandparents than employees.

Hans was thin, wiry and bald on top; he slipped his dentures in as Marta welcomed them into their home. She was as wide as she was tall—but agile in spite of it—with rosy red cheeks, white hair cut like an inverted bowl, and kind, jolly eyes.

There was an underlying tone of joyousness to her high voice as she asked Meggie what kind of things she liked to eat for lunches when Jackson informed her she was to look after the little girl during the days while he and Ally worked.

The older woman seemed to view the news as a gift that delighted her and Meggie responded to that, warming up to her, and to Hans's teasing, too.

Ally only hoped her daughter wasn't just putting a good face on things to keep the tension with Jackson down to a minimum.

They didn't stay but a few minutes before leaving Hans and Marta to go to bed. From there Jackson led the way to the chicken coop while explaining to Meggie that one of her daily chores would be to feed the chickens, gather eggs and bring them to Marta.

“Meggie is just a little girl,” Ally warned from behind the two of them, trying again to make it clear she didn't want her daughter to have to do this.

“On a ranch even little girls work,” Jackson informed in a tone of voice more even and equable than Ally's had been.

Meggie shot her a look that begged her not to make waves, and again Ally put off further argument as Jackson showed her daughter what to do.

Ally watched like a hawk, staying close to Meggie, ready to swoop should Jackson take one step out of bounds.

But, to her surprise, what she witnessed was patient tutelage that even she couldn't find fault with.

In spite of that, she was still bristling when they left the chicken coop. “Are you finished?” she demanded of him.

“For tonight. There'll be more she'll need to do tomorrow and along the way. Plus whatever Hans and Marta need help with.”

Ally turned to Meggie. “Go on up to the house, honey, and get ready for bed. I'll be there to tuck you in in just a few minutes.”

Meggie glanced from Ally to Jackson and back again, but in the end she left them without another word.

Ally watched her go, waiting until her daughter had slipped through the sliding doors into the kitchen before turning to Jackson in the white glow of moonlight.

He was having his turn at watching her again, his weight more on one hip than the other, his arms crossed over his chest, his expression daring her to come at him with all she had.

“Meggie is not your slave and you are not to order her around.”

One bushy eyebrow arched. “Doing chores doesn't make anybody a slave.”

“I didn't bring her up here to work. What I do will have to count for us both.”

“No, ma'am, it won't. I don't give a damn what any piece of paper says about your owning this place. I run it and if you want to live on it, you—and your daughter—will do what I say in regards to it. Gathering eggs and feeding chickens and anything I set that child to do, she'll do. Just the same as you'll do what I tell you to do or neither of you will stay. Understood?”

“I understand that you'd better not—for a single second—forget that Meggie is my daughter and that our living here does not give you any authority over her.”

“As far as the ranch goes, I have full authority. I'll set her to doing chores and I'll speak up about anything else I need to speak up about when it comes to that. But beyond what she does for her keep is your business.”

If Ally hadn't seen his patience with her daughter a moment earlier she might have thought that he intended to mistreat Meggie to drive them off. But there hadn't been anything abusive in his actions. And since her daughter had seemed willing to comply, and gathering a few eggs and feeding some chickens was not a huge, hard job, she supposed it was possible she might be jumping the gun slightly to be so angry over it all.

She decided to reserve judgment on what he might be up to. Temporarily. But she would still keep close tabs on what he required of Meggie and how he acted toward her.

First, though, another warning.

“Bear in mind that you can push this only so far. I'm cooperating because I realize we've come into your domain. But legally I don't really have to. We can be here, on our share of this place, doing anything we please, whether you like it or not.”

Wow! She'd surprised herself. She sounded every bit as tough as he did.

At least to her own ears.

Apparently it hadn't had quite the same potency to his, because there was that smile again—the one he'd shown her at the beginning of the evening. The one that said she was really in for it and that if she thought she could avoid anything she was mistaken.

“Five o'clock tomorrow morning,” he said. “Be ready to move cattle. I have a herd needs to get to a pasture with more grass on it. You can ride a horse, can't you?”

“As a matter of fact, I can.” Though she didn't tell him that she'd learned just a few weeks ago at camp and that she had ridden only on timid ponies that never went faster than a sightseer's walk.

He looked dubious but only eyed her up and down with a slow, steady gaze that seemed to take in every inch of her. “You'll need to dress in something different than what you're wearing. Jeans. No shorts. No sandals. Wear socks.”

She considered snapping to attention and saluting him but thought better of it. She had enough to deal with, just fighting the unwelcome and wholly surprising rush of her blood through her veins, the sense that she could actually feel heat from the gaze he'd rolled over her.

“And you'd better do somethin' else with all this,” he added, reaching to catch a long, curly strand of her hair between his fingers. “Tie it up off your neck or you'll die of the heat.”

Had his voice grown slower, thicker, huskier? Or was it just that Ally heard it that way through some very confusing emotions that suddenly popped up inside of her at even that small contact?

Let go!
she ordered. But only in her mind. Somehow the words didn't go beyond that, and instead she found herself looking up into the shadow of his eyes, too aware of the way the moonlight kissed the hollows of his cheeks, christened the sharp rise of his cheekbones and dusted his mustache. The mustache that made his mouth so intriguing....

Ally pulled back, realizing only as she did that they'd somehow moved closer together, that she was suddenly not too far away from that mustached mouth.

Oh, Lord.

“I've been dressing myself for some time now, and I think I can figure out what to do with my own hair,” she snapped, though it lacked the bite she'd meant for it to have.

He'd lost the smile she was coming to think of as sinister and seemed as taken aback as she was by the currents that had passed between them.

After her comment, his smile slid into place again.

He shrugged a broad, powerful shoulder to let her know he'd only been offering a suggestion, that he didn't really care whether she took it or not, or what consequences she might suffer if she didn't.

“At 5:00 a.m. Sharp. And that doesn't mean that's what time you get yourself out of bed. That means you're downstairs, dressed and ready to go then.”

“I'll be there.” She sneered back at him, turning around and following the same path her daughter had to the house as he stayed right where he was.

The whole way she could feel Jackson's gaze on her as surely as she'd watched Meggie. Well, if he was looking for some sign that he'd cowed or frightened her, he was going to be disappointed. She kept her back straight as a board and her walk confident.

But internally she was a mass of jelly, though not over the prospect of being ready to work at five in the morning or of wondering what that work might entail.

What had left her quivering inside was that moment when he'd held her hair and she'd been drawn to him.

That same moment when she must have lost her mind.

Because for just a split second she'd actually had a flash of curiosity about what it might have felt like to melt into his arms....

A
lly was not a morning person and when she left her bedroom at 5:00 a.m. on the dot the next day, her doubts about being at the ranch were at an all-time high.

A small house in Elk Creek without a resident tyrant who ordered her up before the sun, cooking at the honky-tonk—all seemed vastly more appealing.

But that wouldn't have been too different from what she'd left behind, and then Meggie wouldn't be around the animals she loved and have the advantages of the ranch, which was why they'd come in the first place, so Ally discarded the notion of calling ranch life quits before it had even begun.

Besides, she thought on her way downstairs, wouldn't Jackson have a heyday over her being shooed away by something as minor as one crack-of-dawn day!

And she was not about to give him the satisfaction.

He was already in the kitchen when she got there. Dressed in worn jeans and a chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up above his elbows, he looked ready for work and ruggedly terrific.

Ally forced herself to think about something else. Like the ground coffee beans he was pouring straight from the can without measuring.

“Are you making mud?” she asked, her grumpiness echoing in her voice.

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye, slowly, steadily, clearly accustomed to the hour and unperturbed by her mood.

And in that instant she had a flood of realization about him—the satisfaction she'd thought to deny him had been, instead, accomplished when she'd shown her temper. It told him he was getting to her and he liked that.

So, of course, she decided on the spot that he'd seen the last of it.

“Why don't you let me make the coffee?” she suggested, if not bright and cheery, at least almost congenial.

“That's right, you're a
chef.
Guess you ought to be doing all the cooking.” He stepped away from the coffeemaker and swept a hand toward it as an invitation to have at it.

Ally dumped all the ground beans back into the can and started over, measuring them this time and then adding vanilla to them before starting the machine.

As she did she suffered Jackson's unrelenting stare that seemed to assess her jeans, T-shirt, and hair piled atop her head and held there by an elastic ruffle.

Apparently he couldn't find fault with anything because after a while he went to the butcher block and swung a leg over one of the stools there.

“Change of plans,” he said then. “On my way in from the chicken coop last night Ash came out and asked if I'd help him move some furniture this morning. So we won't be heading out for the cattle until I'm done with that.”

Ally took a quick glance through the window above the sink and found that Beth's place was still dark. Which meant that Ally was up this early for no good reason, and that Jackson had known last night that she didn't need to be and could have let her sleep awhile longer.

She fought the urge to vent her aggravation at that fact and demand to know what she was supposed to do until he needed her. Instead she said, “I think I'll go back to bed, then.”

He shook his head and chuckled as if she were out of her mind. “Not when you have my breakfast to fix and lunch to pack for us all.”

“Us all?”

“There'll be four ranch hands working with us. Figure three sandwiches a man. Plus whatever else
chefs
rustle up for midday meals.”

He was trying to get her goat every time he said
chef,
because he made it sound like a joke. And while Ally had slightly mocked the title herself the night before, she hadn't done it disparagingly. Which was the way he did it.

Still, she was not going to let him see that he was succeeding in goading her.

“And for breakfast?” she asked as if she were the waitress and he the customer.

“Bacon, eggs, hash browns, toast. The bacon and potatoes both crisp. Eggs over easy. Toast light, plenty of butter. Tabasco on the side for the eggs,” he answered as if he were, indeed, in a restaurant.

“Will I be needing to go out and slice the bacon off the hoof, coax the chickens to lay the eggs, pick the potatoes, and bake the bread first?”

Apparently she'd actually amused him with that bit of facetiousness, because a genuine smile came very near to slipping out before he checked it.

Still, Ally had seen enough to know that a smile made the corners of his eyes crease and tilted one side of his mouth more than the other.

It also had the oddest ability to warm her from the inside out....

“You should find everything in the fridge. This time,” he answered as if those things she'd only been joking about were possibilities for the future.

But then it occurred to her that anything was possible for the future, since she didn't have the foggiest idea what living and working here would really entail.

“Does every day start this early?” she asked conversationally as she took what she needed from the refrigerator and began making breakfast.

“I sleep in until six now and then,” he answered matter-of-factly enough for her to believe he was being honest and not just trying to paint a worse picture for her benefit.

Then, as if he couldn't sit still anymore, he got up, put place settings on the butcher block, and made the toast while she cooked everything else at once on a huge griddle.

“You don't want to be out working in the worst heat of the day if you can help it,” he informed her as he did. “It's better to get going in the coolest hours. Plus, there's always so much to do on a spread like this one, there's no time to waste lying in bed.”

“And what about weekends? Holidays?”

“There are still chores. Animals need food and water and lookin' after no matter what day it is.”

“Is that what I'll be doing—looking after animals?” she ventured cautiously, hoping to avoid more of his you'll-do-anything-I-tell-you-to-do bluster.

Maybe it was the early hour or the quiet intimacy of the kitchen, but he answered her civilly, straightforwardly. “You'll be doing everything I do, or would do if I didn't have your help.”

“Which involves?”

“Too many things to talk about. You'll see as we go along.”

“But it won't be nice,” she guessed.

He shrugged and poured two cups of coffee while Ally filled their plates, and they both sat on stools at the butcher block and began to eat.

“Guess that all depends on what you consider
nice,
“ he answered. “Along with the everyday chores and upkeep and care of the animals, there's heat and wind and fires and dust galore in the summertime. Harvesting, canning, drying a winter's supply of what comes out of the gardens in the autumn. Blizzards in the winter that'll keep everybody from reaching town. Planting, rounding up the stock, calving in the spring—”

“But it
is
all work and no play—is that what you're saying?”

Again the shrug while he ate the eggs he'd smothered in Tabasco sauce without so much as a flinch. “The nearest neighbor is five miles away and doing the same kind of work.”

“Which means they're too busy to socialize, too?”

“Yep.”

“So all we have to look forward to here is sweat and toil and days that start before dawn,” Ally summarized, realizing that while what he said might be true, he was still putting a worse spin to it than could possibly be the case or no one in his right mind would live the life he did.

She raised her chin to him and said with conviction, “I'm not afraid of hard work and long hours. I've done it before.”

“Done much ranchin', have you?”

“Ranching isn't the only thing that takes hard work and long hours.”

“And you're up for it?”

“Bright and early.”

He watched her with more curiosity in his expression than had been there before. “Why?” He repeated the question he'd asked the first night she'd been here. “Why do this when you could live in the lap of luxury somewhere, pick and choose what you do, set your own schedule?”

But despite his almost amiable tone, she was no more inclined to tell her problems to him now than she had been then. So she merely met his stare evenly and said once again, “I'm not afraid of hard work and long hours.”

He chuckled a little at her reticence to confide in him, then nodded, slowly, as if he knew something she didn't—like just how hard that work was going to be and how long the hours. “I guess we'll see, won't we?”

Ally knew
he'd
see, all right, because she didn't have a doubt that he'd be watching her every move just the way he was watching her right then.

With those blue eyes that she could get lost in if she wasn't careful.

Good thing she was.

* * *

A quick glance at his wristwatch when Jackson finished helping Ash move furniture told him the morning was headed for nine o'clock and he was getting a late start on his own day's work.

Still, he made sure he wasn't needed any longer before he headed out of the remodeled bunkhouse.

“Wait for me,” Beth said, catching up with him as he did. “I want to talk to Ally for a few minutes before you take her away.”

Jackson didn't comment, he merely held the door open for his sister and then followed her out into the bright August sunshine.

But a few steps away from the bunkhouse, Jackson spotted Meggie at the chicken coop and sent Beth to tell Ally to get a move on while he veered in that other direction.

“How you doin', Miss Meggie?” he asked as he approached.

The little girl smiled a shy, tentative smile up at him. “Good,” she answered, sounding unsure of it. “I did just like you said—I threw the chickens' food around first so they'd go eat while I took the eggs. And it
worked,
“ she finished as if it were magic.

“‘Course it worked. Think I'd steer you wrong?” He plucked an egg and added it to her basket. “Got another job for you to do today while your mother and I are gone.”

Her expression turned pensive, almost fearful, and Jackson wondered if it was just him she thought such an ogre or if something else was the cause.

If it was him, he was sorry for that. He might be damned unhappy about having these two city girls on his hands, but scaring children was not something he did under any circumstances. He liked kids. And just in case he'd frightened this one, he wanted to show her there was no cause.

“See that big ol' doghouse over there?” he asked in a friendly enough tone, pointing out what he was talking about. “How'd you like to give it a coat of paint for me? Spruce it up some?”

“I never saw a dog here,” she answered.

“Name's Mutt—because that's what he is. A big black-and-white hound with a long tail and ears that hang way down. He's around somewheres—or he will be. He likes to wander but he always finds his way home again. Let's give him a nice clean house to come back to.”

“Think I can do it?”

“Don't know why not. I'll show you how soon as we're through here, and Hans will be around if you need help.”

“Can I paint flowers on it?”

“I only have a can of barn red for now. But maybe we'll get some other colors later on and you can add them.”

The little girl's smile turned more pleased than wary, making him feel as if they'd gotten off on a better foot. Hoping to keep that going, he pitched in to help her gather the eggs.

They did it in companionable silence, with Meggie glancing up at him every few minutes to give him a smile that seemed to offer friendship now.

She was the spitting image of Ally. Her curly coppery hair was the same color, though it was a short cap around her head rather than long like her mother's. Her skin was just as pale and flawless, her lips as pink, and her ears as small and perfect. Only her eyes were different—plain hazel instead of her mother's striking green.

The one thing he couldn't judge the similarity of was their smiles, because he'd never seen Ally's.

Not that he cared.

But somehow he couldn't help wondering.

Any more than he could help thinking about her every minute since she'd walked into the honky-tonk...

Lord help him, it scared the hell out of him.

Not that he'd admit that to a single living soul.

But there'd only been once before in his whole life that this same thing had happened to him, one other woman he couldn't pass on by and forget about.

Sherry.

And that had been a disaster.

A disaster he
wouldn't
repeat. Ever.

“I think that's all of them.” The little girl's voice interrupted his musings.

Jackson took a look at the nests he'd been emptying by rote, without really watching what he was doing, and found she was right—the eggs were all gathered.

“Good job,” he praised, not only for what she'd done with the eggs but for pulling him out of thoughts he didn't want to be lost in. “Remember what I told you to do with them?”

“Take the basket to Marta,” she repeated.

“Right. And while you do that I'll get the paint things together.”

He watched the child as she did as she was told, telling himself that there wasn't any connection whatsoever between the fact that he couldn't get Ally out of his mind and that he hadn't been able to get Sherry out of his thoughts all those years ago.

The only reason he couldn't stop thinking about Meggie's mother was because she'd gotten his back up. The
only
reason.

It didn't have anything to do with any kind of attraction to her. No sir. She was just a vexation. A thorn in his side that couldn't be ignored until he could get rid of it. Get rid of her.

And that was all there was to it.

Marta must have seen Meggie coming, because the older woman came out of her house and met the child halfway, sending Meggie on a return run at full speed once she'd accepted the egg basket.