Home Is Where Hank Is (Cowboys To The Rescue 1) (5 page)

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Authors: Martha Shields

Tags: #Contemporary, #Romance, #Fiction, #Forever Love, #Adult, #Bachelor, #Single Woman, #Sensual, #Hearts Desire, #Harlequin Treasury, #Series, #Cowboys, #Rescue, #Family Life, #Western, #Rancher, #Rodeo, #Teenage Sister, #Caretaker, #Household, #Manage, #Persuade, #Reconcile, #Relationships, #Marriage Minded, #General Romance, #Silhouette, #1990's

BOOK: Home Is Where Hank Is (Cowboys To The Rescue 1)
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Alex’s eyes narrowed. “You’re acting like you caught me rustling cattle or something. I’m just doing a little cleaning. It’s not a felony.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Just stick to your cooking.”
“Or what?” she demanded. “You’ll fire me?”
Silence fell over the room. If she’d been combustible, she’d have gone up in flames from the heat in his eyes. She had him and his ridiculous demands over a barrel, and they both knew it. But she didn’t feel any triumph.
“Look, I just need something to do. I’m bored here all d...” She trailed off as he walked slowly toward her. Ensnared by the intense, dangerous light in his eyes, Alex stood transfixed as he approached.
He didn’t stop until he was just inches away. She could feel the heat his large body generated, smell the faint odor of horses and sweat, see the flat line of his full, unsmiling lips.
“You’re the damnedest woman,” he said softly. “I’ve never met one that would argue a blue streak about doing more work.”
“I...I just need something to do besides cooking.” Alex heard the breathlessness in her voice, but she couldn’t help it. “And this old house needs somebody who...”
She trailed off again as his eyes dropped to her mouth. His thoughts were so clear she could read them as if they flashed across his forehead. He wanted to kiss her.
She forced her eyes away and stepped back, frightened, not because he wanted to kiss her but because she wanted him to.
She heard him cuss under his breath and he pulled the brim of his hat lower. “Oh, hell. At least make Claire help so we can still pretend it’s her chore. It’ll be her responsibility when you’re gone, after all.”
Alex nodded. “Okay.”
He stood there so long that she glanced up to see him looking around the room. His face softened as his eyes made the circuit. “I haven’t seen it look this good since Momma died. Momma loved this old house. She kept it shining from floor to ceiling.”
Alex felt her heart squeeze painfully. She didn’t know the full story, just that Hank’s parents died suddenly. “How did she die, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Pain flashed across his face. “In a flash flood. My father, too.”
Alex wanted to reach out to him. She knew how much losing one parent hurt. To lose two at the same time... “That’s when you left the rodeo, isn’t it? You came home so your parents’ and grandparents’ dream wouldn’t die.”
He looked at her as if he didn’t know what she meant. “I came home to take care of Travis and Claire. That was eight years ago.”
“Eight years? That means Claire was only nine when your mother died. Maybe she neglects her chores because she’s never been shown how to do them. I mean, she doesn’t have a mother to show her how, and if your cooks didn’t do housework, how can you expect Claire to know how?”
He shrugged. “It’s women’s work.”
It took an effort, but she managed not to roll her eyes. “Women aren’t born knowing how to clean a toilet, Mr. Eden. We have to learn how to do housework just like you had to learn to rope a cow—by example and practice.”
He regarded her for the space of three breaths. “Hank,” he said.
“What?”
“I’m just Hank, not Mr. Eden. Like I told you the day you arrived, we don’t stand on ceremony around here.”
“All right...Hank. So it’s okay if I spend my extra time cleaning up the house? I promise I’ll make Claire help.”
He shrugged.
“Good. So, was there something in particular you wanted? You’re not usually home in the middle of the day. Checking up on me?”
“No, I was close by the house and remembered I had to—” Hank frowned, unable to remember why he’d come home. He had a legitimate reason. What was it? Oh, yeah. “To make a phone call about some serum I’ve been expecting.”
“Oh, that reminds me.” She wiped her hands on her apron and turned. “You got a call this morning.”
Grateful for a crack in the tension, Hank followed her into the kitchen and took the note she handed him. He saw that it was the name and number of the real estate agent that was handling the sale of the ranch.
“Is it about your serum?” she asked.
Hank shook his head. “But I need to return this call, too. I’m glad I stopped by.”
“I won’t keep you, then.”
He nodded briskly, turned on his heel and climbed the stairs. Entering his office, he closed the door firmly and sat down behind his desk. He stared blindly at the dust on the lampshade for a long moment.
What the hell was wrong with him? All Alex had been doing was cleaning, for God’s sake. What kind of provocation was that? But the way his body reacted, she might as well have been doing a table dance. Never had he been aroused so much by so little.
This was insane. He had to get that woman off his mind, and keep her off. To that end, he took several deep breaths, then reached for the phone. He called about the serum first. It was in. He’d send Casey to fetch it tomorrow. His foreman’s wife, Lila, would probably enjoy the trip into town.
Then he dialed the real estate agent.
“Ranch Realty, Cheyenne Office,” said a cheerful female voice.
“Dennis Cowden, please.”
“One moment.”
After a few seconds of elevator music, a friendly tenor voice said, “Dennis Cowden.”
“Mr. Cowden, this is Hank Eden in Dubois. I got the message you called this morning.”
“Mr. Eden, glad you called. I got a fax this morning with our first offer.”
He named an amount that made Hank lean back in his chair.
“Course we’re not gonna take it.”
Hank sat up. “Why the hell not? That’s more than you thought we’d—”
“That’s right. But hell, it’s only been a month. Let’s give the big boys time to get in on the action. Corporations take a little longer to come up with an offer, you understand. So many people have to approve things. But I think we’ll see a substantial improvement over this offer.” The agent sounded enormously pleased with himself. “Yes, indeedy I do.”
“All right, then. I reckon you know what you’re doing.”
Hank hung up the phone thoughtfully. Damn, that was a lot of money. Claire and Travis were going to be poleaxed when he told them what their share of the sale would be. Should he go ahead and tell them about the sale?
No. He’d better wait until they got the best offer. No sense worrying them over details.
Hank turned and stared out the window at the barn he knew like the back of his hand. In a few months he’d be out from under the burden of running this place, and back on the rodeo circuit with a hell of a lot of change in his pocket. He should be jumping up and down with joy.
Why wasn’t he?
Chapter Three
A
s she filled the coffeepot with water, Alex saw the hands heading to the house for supper. She set the pot down, grabbed a large meat fork and ran to cut them off at the pass. Stationing herself in the mud room, she stood with legs spread and arms akimbo.
Jed entered first, laughing at some joke they’d just shared. He stopped when he saw her, but was nudged in by Derek’s forward motion.
Buck craned to see around Derek. “Hey! What’s plugging up the chute?”
“We got us a little filly up here, looks like she’s riled up and ready to buck,” Jed said over his shoulder.
“Howdy, Alex,” Derek said placatingly. “Something sure smells good.”
Aware of Claire coming up behind her, Alex waved her fork at them. “You’re not having any supper until you take off your boots and hats.”
“What’d she say?” Buck called from behind.
“She wants us to take off our boots and hats,” Derek told him.
“Don’t she know cowboys don’t take off their hats for nothing ‘cept prayer and sleepin’?”
“I reckon not.”
“Tell her.”
“Ma’am, you must have rocks in your head if you think we’re gonna—”
“You want any supper?”
With the fork waving under his nose, Jed leaned back into the men pushing him forward. “Yes’m, we do.”
“Then take them off.” Alex knew stubbornness was all she had on her side. Since the shortest one probably outweighed her by fifty pounds, they could easily push her aside and walk on in. “This is a mud room. It was built for muddy boots. And those shelves aren’t decoration. They are there to put your—”
“What’s going on?” Hank’s deep voice floated through the door.
Grinning at her as if certain he’d back them up, the hands stepped aside to let the boss through.
“She’s demanding that we take off our boots and hats, just for supper!” Jed complained.
Hank stepped into the mud room. Alex’s golden-brown eyes were blazing and her chin rose a notch as he came in. With an apron around her trim waist and a small pitchfork in her hand, she reminded him of his mother. He’d seen Sarah Eden face down an even bigger bunch of cowpokes, and win. Though taller and slimmer than his mother, Alex had the same grit.
“I’m not asking much,” Alex said. “But I spent all day putting a shine on that floor and—”
His eyes narrowed. “
You
spent all day?”
Her eyes cut back to Claire. “I mean, we spent the afternoon—”
“Did you help with that floor?” Hank asked his sister.
“I helped put down the wax when I got home,” she told him defensively. “Alex had already stripped the old stuff off.”
Hank tried to wither Alex with a look, but instead her chin set. “It doesn’t matter who did the work. I want to keep it clean. Your men haven’t been treating this house like it’s your home, they treat it like a barn. And so do you.”
Hank’s eyes narrowed, but instead of giving her a lesson in who was boss, he stepped into the hall. The only light illuminating the long expanse came from the dining room, but in its light he could see a faint sheen that he hadn’t seen in many years. The pungent, clean smell of wax assailed his senses. He hadn’t known he associated that smell with his mother until this very minute.
Guilt hit him as he realized how much the house had suffered during the past eight years. His mother had loved this house and kept it shining inside and out. Seeing it on a daily basis, he hadn’t realized it was slowly deteriorating. He saw it now as Alex must see it. Everything in it was dull and caked with dirt—the floors, the curtains, the furniture.
Hank’s eyes rested on his sister, but he couldn’t really blame her. He’d thrown the housework at Claire when their second cook left, thinking she could cope with it at age eleven.
The heavy weight of responsibility he’d carried for eight years descended again. It had been weighing him down since his parents died and left him a ranch deep in debt and two young siblings to raise. Every time he thought he’d lifted that weight—when he’d begun recording ranch operations with black ink instead of red; when Travis left to make his fortune on the rodeo circuit; when he realized Claire was finally grown—it descended again. Each time it came down heavier than before. Each time it made him chafe at the bit a little harder.
He hadn’t asked for this responsibility. He’d been a happy-go-lucky cowboy riding rough stock in every rodeo he could. He’d reveled in the hard life of a rodeo cowboy. He liked the hard bed of the camper on the back of his truck. He drank hard and loved every woman he could get his hands on. He knew he would inherit the Garden one day, but he always thought that day wouldn’t come until he’d grown too old for the circuit and settled down on the ranch with one of the curvaceous buckle bunnies he met along the way. He’d expected to raise his own children, not his brother and sister. He’d expected the ranch to feel like security, not a millstone.
Hank met Alex’s questioning eyes. This little lady had been at the Garden all of five days and already she was turning his life upside-down and inside-out If he wasn’t pondering the way her jeans clung to her round hips instead of taking care of the ranch paperwork, he was dusting off his pants before he sat down on a chair.
Trouble was, Alex was absolutely right. He hadn’t treated this house like a home, because it didn’t feel like
his
home. It still felt like his father’s. To Hank, the Garden had been a place to hang his hat until time for him to leave. He hadn’t cared whether he came home at night or camped out with the cattle—until the past five days.
Muttering a curse under his breath, Hank turned away from her expectant face. Giving a damn was the last thing he needed. Giving a damn meant he was getting soft. He had plans, and he didn’t want anything to get in his way—not even a pair of angel eyes attached to a body made for sin. He didn’t need to be reminded of how much the house meant to his mother. Not now. It was too late. The wheels to sell the ranch were already in motion. He wasn’t about to put on the brakes. He didn’t even want to.
Realizing he was taking a long time to make a decision, Hank threw a hard glance at his men. Hell, a clean house might help sell the ranch, so what harm would it do to give in?
He took off his hat and placed it on a shelf. When he sat on the bench and put his right heel in the boot jack, the hands grumbled, but took off their hats and waited their turn at the jack.
 
“That’s not fair!”
Claire’s words screamed down the stairs as Alex wiped off the stove. Startled by the harsh sound, she took half a step toward the open door between the kitchen and dining room. Hank’s reply stopped her. His voice was lower, but held an edge of steel unmistakable to her, one floor below.
“Life isn’t fair. Get used to it.”
“Mallory’s parents are letting her go! Why can’t I? Give me one good reason.”
“I don’t care what Mallory’s parents let her do. You’re not going there with just Mallory as chaperone. What’s wrong with Riverton? Or Lander?”
“We’ve already looked in all the stores in those one-horse towns. I hate being stuck in the rear end of nowhere!”
“Don’t use language like that.”
Realizing she was eavesdropping, Alex shook herself and closed the swinging door. It didn’t help because their voices escalated.
“You’re not my father! Why do you get to tell me what to do?”
“I’m your guardian, that’s why. Until you turn eighteen on May eighth, I’m responsible for you.”
“Mom and Dad must’ve been crazy to make you our guardian! You’re nothing but a mean old man who’s forgotten how to have fun.”
There was a slight pause before Hank’s low, tight voice said, “You don’t know what
mean
is. If Dad were still alive, he’d—”
“He’d what?”
“Never mind.”
“This is all your fault, anyway! I didn’t even want to go to the stupid prom. You forced me to accept the invitation from Ty Jordan. All I’m trying to do is find a stupid dress to wear to the stupid prom! And you won’t even let me do that!”
Hank’s voice came down a notch, so Alex had to strain to hear.
“If you don’t go to your senior prom, you’ll regret it. Surely there’s a dress here in Dubois that will fit you. If not here, then Riverton or Lander.”
“Haven’t you heard a single word I’ve said? There aren’t any suitable dresses anyplace I’ve been. That’s why I want to go to Laramie with Mallory. The university is there, and they are bound to have decent dresses with all the parties that go on.”
“I’m sorry, Claire.”
“I can’t believe this! I’ll be living in Laramie next year when I start college.”
“That’s next year. You’re not going to Laramie alone with Mallory. That’s final. Now get downstairs and help with the dishes. Alex does all your work around the house, so it’s the least you can do.”
The slam of a door reverberated through the house, startling Alex back into action. She felt color rise to her cheeks as she realized she’d been eavesdropping like a common snoop.
As she began loading glasses into the dishwasher, she heard Claire’s angry footsteps descending the stairs. A minute later the teenager shoved the swinging door so hard it rammed the counter.
“I hate him!” she cried.
“No, you don’t,” Alex said softly. “He’s your brother.”
“You heard?”
She shrugged. “You were so loud I couldn’t help it.”
Claire threw her hands in the air as she paced from the stove to the door of the walk-in freezer. “Can you believe how mean he is? I’m almost eighteen! I’m old enough to go a few miles down the road by myself.”
“Laramie is three hundred miles away. That qualifies for more than just a few. That’s a good day’s drive.”
“It’s less than four hours,” Claire exclaimed.
“Not if you’re going the speed limit.”
“All right, five hours, then. What’s the big deal?”
“That’s ten hours going and coming. When were you going to shop?”
“If we left at five, we’d get there before noon. We could shop until six and still be home by midnight. We had it all planned, but Hank has to ruin it.”
Alex shook her head. “I’m afraid I agree with Hank. You’re far too young to be—”
“You’re only eight years older than I am,” Claire pointed out. “And you came all the way from Alabama by yourself.”
Alex’s chin rose at the reminder of the differences between them. “That’s different. I didn’t have anyone at home worrying about me.”
Claire’s face softened and she gave Alex a hug. “Well, you do now. I wish you didn’t have to leave. I know you’ve only been here a few days, but I feel like you’re my sister.”
The words touched Alex deeply. “Thanks. But I didn’t mean to get sappy. I was just wondering...”
“What?” Claire prompted when she didn’t continue.
“My day off is Saturday, right?”
“Well, I thought so. I mean, that’s when all the other housekeepers’ days off were, but you cooked last Saturday, so I—”
“I’d only .been here two days then,” Alex explained. “It didn’t seem right to take a day off when I’d only worked one full day. But that doesn’t matter. Are you and Mallory planning to go to Laramie on Saturday?”
“Yes, this Saturday.”
“Do you think Hank might let you go if I went along to chaperone?”
Claire’s face lit up as if someone plugged in a Christmas tree. “Would you?”
“Sure, I don’t mind. It might be fun.”
Claire gave her an exuberant hug. “Thank you!”
“This dress must mean a lot to you.”
“Dress? Heck, no. Mallory’s the one who’s hot to go there for a dress. I want to see the campus of the university. I haven’t seen it in several years and since I’ll be going there this fall, I want to look around.”
“Why didn’t you tell your brother that?”
Claire wrinkled her nose in disgust. “He wouldn’t let me go just for that.”
“Well, he still might not. Better go ask if that will suit him.”
“Okay!” Claire gave her another hug, then turned to leave. She stopped in her tracks. “Oh, the kitchen. I’m supposed to—”
“Go on,” Alex urged. “It’ll just take a minute to ask. There’ll still be plenty of dirty pots and pans left when you get back.”
Claire threw her a look of such thankfulness and joy that Alex felt her heart twist into a knot. She watched blindly as the door settled back on its hinges in decreasing swings.
Had she ever been that young and carefree?
 
Several hours later, Alex wiped her hands on the frayed dish towel and scanned the kitchen one last time. Supper dishes and pans were clean and stored. Breakfast and the next day’s lunch were as far along as she could take them before sunrise.

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