Cowboy's Kiss (9 page)

She followed Jackson to where he stood with one booted foot on the lowest of the six steps that led to the porch. When she got there, he nodded in her direction and said, “This is Ally Brooks, Josh. You've probably heard all about her by now. Ally, this is Josh Mercer.”

“Hi,” Ally said, wondering about the curious introduction. Why had this boy probably heard all about her, and from whom?

“Nice to meetcha,” Josh answered, looking down at his feet rather than at her.

But his teenage shyness didn't extend to Jackson when he switched his attention back again. “You still gonna fly me into the hospital next time in the helicopter?” he asked eagerly.

“Sure. Said I would, didn't I?”

“They're gonna fit up a hook then. I'll be glad to get it.”

“Looks like you're doin' good, though. Last time I saw you, you weren't movin' much yet.”

“Pretty good, yeah.” The boy came down the steps then. “Mom's in the barn. I'll go tell her you're here and we'll bring up ol' Buck.”

Jackson gave just one nod at that, turned around and hitched a hip on the stair railing to wait.

Ally watched Josh go and, when he was out of earshot, she said, “What happened to him?”

“He was fixing a thresher—that's a piece of farm equipment,” Jackson added in case she couldn't figure it out.

Ally ignored the condescension. “His hand couldn't be saved?”

“Nope.”

“But he's just a boy. What was he even doing near a dangerous machine, let alone trying to fix it?”

For the third time Jackson's expression showed disbelief. “Josh and his mom run this place themselves. His father was mule-kicked in the head and died of a brain hemorrhage about five years back. Josh's been doin' more than his fair share ever since. He's a good boy. But accidents happen,” Jackson added. “And out here there's the chance of a lot of them.”

She knew he was seizing the opportunity to point that out and scare her. And, truthfully, she was picturing Meggie in Josh Mercer's shoes. But rather than giving in to the fear Jackson was trying to encourage, she reasoned that she'd make absolutely sure her daughter was never in a position to repair farm machinery and vowed to give the little girl some new warnings of things to be wary of.

“Hello, you handsome devil, you.”

That drew Ally out of her thoughts. She looked up to find the owner of a very sultry voice headed their way, with Josh bringing up the rear, leading the horse.

The woman, who had to be Josh's mom, had on a pair of the tightest blue jeans Ally had ever seen and a V-neck T-shirt that looked as if it had been spray-painted on so that every lush, well-endowed curve of hers was shouting to be noticed.

Although she'd have been noticed even had what she worn whispered. She was tall, thin, tan and very attractive, with sun-shot blond hair pulled back into a French braid that hung past her shoulders—something Ally's own unruly curls wouldn't allow her to do.

The gleaming golden hair framed a lean, high-cheekboned face that would have turned heads anywhere in the world. Her features were perfect, that rare female countenance that was no doubt pretty in her girlhood, but had changed to beauty with a few years and a little maturity added.

And she had eyes only for Jackson—big, round nearly coal black eyes.

Suddenly Ally was very aware of her own appearance in comparison to Ms. Mercer. Short, freckled, frizzy haired, dirty and grimy was her own self-conscious, self-demeaning assessment. She was certainly no competition for this woman who could have been every man's dream of a farmer's daughter.

And suddenly Ally wished herself back into that truck.

But it was too late now and all she could do was tough it out.

“How come it takes a mare in heat to get you over here for a visit?” the sultry voice kidded Jackson as she reached them.

He laughed, but Ally couldn't tell if there was a sensual undertone to it or if she was just imagining it.

“Hello, Marilyn. How's it going?” was all he said in answer.

“Goin' good. Goin' real good,” she said in a slow bedroom drawl that somehow appraised, approved and devoured him, leaving no doubt things hadn't been nearly as good before his arrival.

“This is Ally Brooks. Ally, this is Marilyn Mercer.” He finally introduced them.

Marilyn Mercer's gaze hung on Jackson for a long moment before it swung away to take Ally in. “Ally Brooks—the whole town's talkin' about you,” she said with a friendly enough smile, as if she didn't consider her any threat at all.

“What did I do to be so interesting?”

“The mystery woman Shag Heller left part of his holdings to, finally showing her face? Why, that's fresh fodder. And small towns live for gossip,” she informed. “We'll all be discussin' you until somethin' juicier comes along.” Then her eyes slid back to Jackson and her voice turned even sultrier. “Won't we?” she added as if the subject might come up as pillow talk between them.

And that was apparently the extent to which Marilyn Mercer was going to be distracted from him, because she acted as if the two of them were suddenly completely alone, and proceeded to flirt outrageously.

So outrageously that it was embarrassing to watch. Without saying anything—though she didn't think either Jackson or Marilyn would mind or even notice that she'd left—Ally went to the horse trailer to watch Josh instead.

But the horse was fairly cooperative, the teenager surprisingly adept using only one arm, and Ally didn't really have any interest in the process. Which made it difficult for her to keep her gaze from wandering back to the scene at the foot of the porch steps again and again.

Were Jackson and Marilyn Mercer more than just neighbors?

Certainly the overtures the blonde was making were not merely friendly. She was in shameless pursuit. Nearly predatory.

But what about Jackson? Was he encouraging it?

It was hard to tell. He didn't seem to be trying to escape. And that crooked smile on his face wasn't from pain. But did he look enamored?

Maybe.

Maybe not....

He lifted his hat then, finger-combed his hair and put it back again. At a more rakish angle.

That added a few points to the enamored column. He might not be as obvious as Marilyn Mercer, but he was flirting back, all right. With that hat of his.

Except that he also took a step away from her at the same time.

Hmm. Mixed messages? Maybe he was enjoying the strokes to his ego even though they embarrassed him a little.

Or maybe something really was going on between them and he just didn't want it going on with Ally watching. Maybe it was something too personal and intimate to be paraded out here for her or Josh to see.

Then Ally watched him snatch a quick eyeful of the cleavage that peeked out of that V neckline, and she took it as confirmation of the latter of those possibilities.

“I think I'll wait in the truck,” she told Josh as he closed the rear of the trailer when he had the horse settled inside. Not that she needed to explain to the boy, who went about his business in bashful silence as if she weren't there and headed for the barn again.

Ally barely noticed the pain that shot all the way up her arm from her abused palm when she grabbed the handle to the passenger door. Or the sting of landing heavily on her rear end on the seat inside. Or the loud sound she made as she slammed the door after herself.

She just wondered how long she was going to have to sit in that hot truck after a long day of taking that man's orders and putting up with him when she'd earned the right to go home to her daughter and a cool shower and some food to fill the ache in her stomach.

Maybe she'd honk the horn to remind Jackson Heller that he and his
neighbor
weren't the only two people in the world and that he needed to get those buns of his over here, take her home and save this little tête-à-tête for a time when he could do it without an audience!

But just as her hand snaked across the cab to the wheel, she caught sight of him touching his hat brim with a two-fingered goodbye and stepping around Marilyn to come to the truck.

When he climbed in a moment later, she bit back an it's-about-time.

What she couldn't seem to keep herself from saying as he pulled away from the front of the property was, “So, is that a backdoor romance like you said Shag had, or a front-door one?”

Very slowly, Jackson turned his head until he was staring straight at her. “Excuse me?”

She wanted to stop herself from the course she'd tripped onto, but she seemed to have lost the ability. Instead she nodded over her shoulder at the house they were leaving behind. “Your involvement with your neighbor.”

“With Marilyn? I'm not involved with Marilyn. Though she'd like it if I was,” he added with a slight chuckle that said he was flattered if not interested. “What's it matter to you, anyway?”

Matter? What did he mean
matter?
Of course it didn't matter to her.

But that question was like a bucket of water that brought her back to her senses enough to manage an elaborate shrug and some forced calmness into her voice. “It doesn't
matter.
I was just wondering if she was the woman in your life.”

He went back to watching the dirt road they were on. “No, she's not.”

“Who is, then?”

This time he shot her one of those sidelong glances. “Well, let's see. Women in my life...there's Beth, of course. And Kansas. And I guess now I'd have to say you and Meggie—for the time being, anyway—wouldn't I?”

He was teasing her. He knew exactly what she'd been asking him and he'd purposely skirted it.

But this calm, better-natured side of him was such a nice change from what she'd been dealing with all day that she didn't mind a little teasing. In fact, it actually helped ease some of what was itching at her from the inside and let her tease back.

“What does that mean? That you're a monk or something?”

In profile she saw his eyebrows shoot up and disappear under his hat. “A monk?” he repeated in mock affront at the very idea.

“Well, if you don't have a lady friend...” She let that trail off into a challenge.

“Not having a particular lady friend doesn't make me a monk.”

“So there isn't any one particular lady friend?”

Again the glance from the corner of his eye. “Is there a reason you're fishin' in this pond?”

“Just curious. Back there I didn't know whether to rescue you or give you some privacy.”

“What did you decide?” He actually grinned at her and suddenly Ally had a vivid image of what she hadn't even noticed in her behavior before—huffing into the truck, slamming the door, nearly honking at him...

And she knew that while she may not have been conscious of what she was doing at the time, he had been.

“I...I just didn't know what to do,” she hedged, embarrassed. And inexplicably warmed by that wide, white-toothed grin of his, too.

Once more he went back to watching his driving, but his tone turned ruminative. “There are times when I feel the need to be rescued from man-hungry females around here, all right. I like Marilyn well enough, but she can be one of the worst. Trouble is, it'll take a whole lot more than a little door slammin' to save my neck from her noose.”

Ally was beginning to realize that he dropped the
g
s at the end of his words only when he chose to. And he seemed to choose to either in anger or at moments like this when he was very nearly charming. Even if he was still goading her. “I didn't slam the door. It slipped,” she lied.

He laughed. And unlike the laugh she'd heard from him in response to Marilyn, this sounded more genuinely amused.

Ally liked it. Although she would have liked it better if it had also had that sensuous ring she'd thought the earlier one had had.

“I guess it would go a whole lot further in protecting me from the Marilyns of Elk Creek if I just hooked myself up with a particular lady friend, wouldn't it?” he said reflectively.

“If you could find one who would have you,” Ally countered.

Her reward was that laugh again.

“Think that'd be hard to do, do you?”

“As mean and ornery and cantankerous as you are?” she answered, tempering the words with more of a teasing tone.

“Mean and ornery and cantankerous, am I?”

“On your
good
days.”

“Guess you better hope you never see a bad one.”

“With all my heart—you can bet on that.”

He chuckled at her then, a low rumbling from his chest that seemed to mingle devilish delight and enough sensuality to let her know what the real thing sounded like—not what she'd heard before with Marilyn Mercer.

That knowledge went a long way in making her feel better. In fact, it sent sparks skittering up her spine.

“Scarin' you, am I?” he asked, clearly enjoying this.

But then, so was she. “I'm terrified,” she said with enough facetiousness to disabuse him of the notion.

“Want to take my offer to buy you out and save yourself?” he challenged, for the first time almost making it sound as if he didn't really want her to accept it.

“I'm not
that
terrified.”

He laughed once more, filling the cab of his truck with a rich masculine noise that swirled around her, found its way into her pores and sluiced through her veins to make those sparks dance everywhere this time.

They'd made it home by then, and as Jackson pulled around the ranch house to the garage, Meggie came running from Hans and Marta's place to greet her.

When he stopped the truck, Ally got out to meet her daughter without another word to Jackson.

But even as she focused on the little girl, she took with her a secret pleasure at what she'd just learned about Jackson Heller.