Rocky Mountain Cowboy (9 page)

Hawk turned to her. Not for the first time this morning, he let his eyes wander over her in admiration. In her new work clothes, she looked a lot less like a Hollywood fashion plate and a lot more like a very pretty cowgirl. He liked the transformation. It made her seem more approachable, more like she belonged here. And he was discovering that it wasn’t just Tom’s desires he was trying to fulfill. He wanted her to stay as much as Tom had.

“It wasn’t really Tom’s death that put us behind. We’ve had a few problems lately.
Our tractor went down while Steve was baling, and it took a couple of weeks to get the parts to fix it. Then the baler gave out, and we had to buy a new one. That really put us back, but we finally got the baling done, so now we gotta hustle to get it all picked up and stacked in the yard where we can keep it dry.

Jenny frowned. “Eli mentioned a few problems. Can I help?”

Hawk’s scowl was clearly etched with angry frustration by that point. “I’ve got a handle on them, for now,” he replied impatiently, then gave her a hard-won half grin. “But I can really use an extra pair of hands about now, like I told you last night.”

A rueful grimace was all she could offer. “It’s been awhile since I’ve done ranch work, but I’m hoping I still remember how
, and that I haven’t gotten too soft.”

“All any of us can do is try, Jenny.”

His words of encouragement were received with silent gratitude and the ardent hope that she wouldn’t disappoint him.

Hawk put the truck in gear again and pulled it between the the first two rows of baled hay. With smooth precision, he put the truck in park, but kept the engine running.

“Drive slowly between the rows, and I’ll toss the bales into the back,” he directed her as he yanked on his work-stained gloves. “I’ll holler when you need to stop so I can hop in to arrange the bales.”

Jenny stared at him speechlessly. Those bales
looked large and heavy; awkward to handle. And he was just going to throw them into the truck bed? He was dressed like she was— in boots and jeans and a long sleeved heavy cambric shirt to protect his arms from the hay chaff. Like her, he wore a t-shirt underneath, only hers was lacy and embroidered. He had a work-worn straw cowboy hat on. Her new one sat on the seat beside her. He looked big and strong and very capable, but didn’t they have machinery that could load these bales? She asked.

He had hopped out of the truck
and stood beside the open door of the cab. “It’s busted.”

Since that seemed to be all the explanation she was going to get, she looked over, in horror, at the long stick
-shift column on the floor. She had never driven a flatbed, but maybe it was like a tractor, she thought. These gear shifts— there were two for heaven’s sake— looked ancient, though.

“I don’t think I can drive this,” she confessed, embarrassed.

Hawk gave her a reassuring grin as he motioned her behind the driver’s seat. “Sure you can. It’s easy. Let me show you.” He pulled the brim of his hat down more securely on his head, then leaned into the cab, took her right hand, and placed it over the black ball on top of the gear column. “Hold the brake and press the clutch in. Slip it out of neutral,” he instructed as his gloved hand moved hers into the motion of shifting. “Now slip it into first gear.” She felt the gear slip into place and, thank god, stay there. “Now leave it there. You’ll be going slow enough you won’t need to change gears. Just remember to work the clutch, though.” He gave her a broad smile, obviously confident that she could now handle this monster of a truck. “Don’t forget to brake when I holler.”

By the end of the first two rows, his confidence
had vanished. Through the rear view mirror, Jenny could see his frustration mount. He needed a slow smooth trek down the rows, so he could lift and toss the bales onto the bed of the truck. What he got was a halting series of stops and lurches forward that broke his rhythm and made the job difficult. And when she had to turn into the next row, the truck’s lack of power steering nearly defeated her meager muscle power.

Gritting her teeth, she strained to make the turn. Her biceps and shoulders grew sore quickly, but she was determined not to let the monster truck defeat her. Two hours later, they had a full load of hay to take back. Jenny guessed the same job would have taken Hawk a lot less time with an experienced hand. She couldn’t help wonder if he wasn’t silently reevaluating exactly how much help she was really going to be.

By the end of the first day, they had half a field cleared, and it was the small one. The rest of the day hadn’t improved her struggle with the truck much. Her braking was horrid, knocking off bundles of hay when she hit them too hard, which she did frequently. She managed to grind the gears too many times to count. She got a tire stuck in a mud puddle on a turn that was so wide, she collided with a bale of hay. And she nearly ran Hawk over when she put the damn gear column into reverse by accident. Through it all, though, he had only cussed at her once, and that had been when she had almost flattened him underneath the rear wheels of the truck.

She was so exhausted by dark that she could barely keep her eyes open at dinner. As soon as she finished eating, she excused herself and went upstairs. In her room, she sat down on the edge of her bed and remained there for a long long time, just resting her aching body so she could get up and walk to the bathroom.

Eventually she stripped out of her dusty work clothes, put on her red kimono and walked toward the bathroom that adjoined her bedroom. She was taking her hair out of its single braid, picking out pieces of hay chaff and groaning at how painful it was to raise her arms, when she noticed the shower was occupied.

“Dammit, Peter, how could you have beat me to the shower again?” she cried in frustration. “Hurry and get out! Tonight, I need some really hot water for once. I am sore, sore, sore, and I need to soak.” Stepping up to the plastic curtain that was drawn closed across the tub, she was just about to peek in when a male voice that was definitely not Peter’s answered her.

“Hand me a towel and it’s all yours.”

Jenny jumped back with a startled shriek. Her
butt met the sink. Her heart was pounding hard as a long tanned, lightly haired forearm reached out from around the shower curtain, hand out-stretched, fingers wiggling. Shaken by how close she’d come to looking at Hawk naked, she grabbed a towel and quickly shoved it into his open palm.

“Anxious to get rid of me, huh?” Hawk was laughing as he pulled the curtain aside and stepped out of the tub, clothed only in the towel she’d handed him.

Flustered, turning ten shades of red, she stammered, “No, no, I... Ah, I’ll... come back ... later.”

Before she could make a swift retreat, he stalled her departure with a hand on her forearm. “No, I’m finished.”

The longer she stared at him, the less she wanted to leave. Confronted with his near nudity, she couldn’t seem to stop herself from looking. His white towel was slung low on his narrow hips and tucked into his leanly muscled waist, below his very fascinating male navel.

Most of his bronze skin was still wet. He reached for another towel and began to dry his chest, then his arms, then his dripping hair as if she wasn’t standing less than three feet from him. While his face was buried in the second towel, Jenny gave him a most thorough assessment, her mind running away with itself with visions of what she might have seen had she peeked first and complained later.

He was incredibly, undeniably, profoundly masculine. His chest was devoid of hair, which allowed his muscular upper body clear definition. From waist up, he was so deeply tanned, Jenny knew he must work outside in the warmer weather without a shirt. His wide shoulders and powerful arms were roped with muscle from the physical labor he did every day, as was his lower body, at least what she could see of it. And like a true cowboy who spent most of his life on a horse, his lightly haired legs were bowed just enough to tell her what he did for a living. Even his feet were beautiful— long and narrow and well-shaped, very white and even soft.

In her profession, she’d seen a lot of physically beautiful men, and this man was definitely an eye-catcher. She’d found that really handsome men were usually full of themselves. So far, though, she hadn’t seen any indication of that kind of ego in her father’s partner. Was it really possible someone this good looking could also be a genuinely nice guy?

Lost in speculation, she was caught staring when Hawk lowered the towel from his head. The slow discerning half-grin he gave her told her he was completely aware where her eyes had been wandering.

“The shower is still running,” he reminded her.

Jenny was helplessly enthralled by the teasing sparkle in his electric blue eyes. She couldn’t seem to form a reply, he unnerved her so.

“Better get in while the water is
still really hot
,” he advised with another of those devastating half grins. “I’m sorry you’re
sore, sore, sore
tonight. Guess that truck was more of a bear than I thought.”

“Yes.” It was all she could say, and it sounded stupid, but her mind wasn’t working well at the moment— just her senses.

“Well, I’ll leave you to your shower.” Grabbing his clothes off the hook on the back of the door that led to the hallway, he turned and handed her a clean towel from the rack. “Soak well. I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow again.”

Her eyes followed him out the door, lingering as long as they could on the way his tight butt muscles moved beneath the towel he wore. It took a moment to recover after he left. She took a deep breath and decided her father’s partner might end up being
a very big distraction.

∞∞∞

In the next
four days, she made some progress with the monster truck so that they finally finished clearing the two remaining hay fields. Hawk had been right about hard work being a better cure for her heartache than Irish coffee. She was so bone tired by the end of each day that after a hot soak in the shower each night, she fell into an exhausted sleep that wasn’t interrupted by dreams of any kind until the alarm went off in the morning or someone woke her.

By the end of the week, they were ready to repair fence line, and Jenny nearly cried for joy that they would not be using the
flatbed truck. She had a wide grin on her face when she met Hawk outside and discovered he was driving his own truck. Besides the usual thermos of coffee and jug of water, he was loading a roll of barbed wire and a wire stretcher, plus a few wood posts and a post hole digger into the bed of his pickup.

The moment he saw her, he gave her a wickedly irresistible grin, one that revealed deep grooves on either side of his chiseled lips. “I see you’re wearing your hat today, not just carrying it. Looks good on you.”

She tipped her head in acknowledgment and opened the door of his silver pick-up. “I’ve decided I don’t need any more sunburned cheeks.”

“Amen to that.” He joined her in the cab of his Dodge. “You’re in a good mood today. Get a good night’s sleep?”

“I did, but the reason for my good mood is the fact that I don’t have to drive that monster truck today.”

His response was a deep rich laugh that rolled over her skin like warm oil. “Better wait to see what I have in store for you.”

For nearly half an hour they followed a rutted firebreak road into the foothills west of the house. It was a sunny morning, and the sky was a deep endless azure blue that was so typical in the Colorado Rockies. In all her travels, the only other place she’d ever seen skies so crystal clear and remarkably blue was in the Alps. A sweetly-scented, warm breeze blew through the open windows of the truck. Because the weather promised such warmth, Jenny wore her flannel shirt unbuttoned over a lace-edged camisole. With her face tilted toward the open window, she drew in a deep lung full of the clean air. No L.A. smog. Just sweet pine and damp earth.

“What a different landscape from L.A.,” she noted wistfully. “I’ve gotten so used to palm trees. You know some of them are as tall as some of these lodge pole and ponderosa pine.”

From beneath the brim of his cowboy hat, Hawk stared at her speculatively. “Do you miss it already?”

“No, not at all.”

She looked surprised by that discovery. He was enormously pleased. She was wearing her long hair loose today, and while she looked cute with it braided, he liked it best tumbling down past her shoulders. With her brown felt hat tipped low onto her forehead, she looked sexy as hell. A dark red lock curled over her collarbone, brushing the lacy edge of her scooped-necked t-shirt. Damn, but it was a pretty t-shirt!

She’d been here for over a week, and they’d been working together for
five days, sun-up to sun-down. Except for nearly being run over by the flatbed the first day out, he had thoroughly enjoyed being with her each day. She was a hard worker, and she took his mind off Tom’s death. He hoped he took her mind off her grief and loss, too. He knew she’d been worn out at the end of each day. She barely got through dinner each night without dropping head onto her plate.

She’d been pretty good about getting up at dawn, too, but this morning he’d had to awaken her himself. She’d been sound asleep, halfway beneath the blankets,
lying on her stomach, without a stitch of clothing on. Her long smooth bare back and narrow shoulders had made him ache with a sudden need to run his fingertips down the supple stretch of her spine. Her long dark red hair had contrasted sharply against the pristine white of her sheets, spread across her shoulders and pillows like rich silk. It had been a deeply arousing sight, one he hadn’t been able to get out of his head all morning. It didn’t help to look over at her now and wonder about what he hadn’t seen.