Lone Star Rancher (6 page)

She felt his anger as a physical force. It wasn't directed at her so much as at himself. For being weak and giving in to their desire? The insult and hurt of it lodged deep within her psyche.

Lifting her chin, she regarded him without emotion.
“This afternoon was a very enjoyable interlude, but I don't expect it to change either of our lives.”

With that, she hopped out of the truck and went to the house. Upstairs, under the hot shower, she vowed to put the moment of insane passion behind her and to never let herself be vulnerable to any man again.

After all, it wasn't as if she'd let herself fall for him or anything serious like that.

O
n Thursday, Jessica lazed on the patio in the sun, its warmth soothing the tangled mix of emotions that had haunted her since Monday and the mindless interlude down by the lake.

For the thousandth time, she wondered how she could have been so lost to common sense and her usual caution around men. She mentally winced each time she thought of those ecstatic moments in Clyde's arms. Losing her head was so unlike her.

She was pretty sure it was the same for him. Okay, so they'd both succumbed to an irresistible attraction. Doing a lengthy postmortem didn't clear up any of the hazy thoughts that whirled through her brain.

So. She wouldn't think about it again.

Ha, easier said than done. She flopped over onto her tummy. Her hand hit something soft and furry.

“Hey, Smoky,” she murmured, opening her eyes.

The dog wagged his tail and pranced around the patio, inviting her for a romp.

“Okay, let me get some shoes on,” she told him.

Going into the house, she quickly changed from her swimsuit to cropped pants and a T-shirt and donned a pair of sneakers. Soon she and Smoky wandered about the grounds. She stopped to pull a few weeds she spotted in the shrub and perennial beds in front of the house and along the walkways.

Lavender, sage, basil, thyme and several other herbs she didn't recognize were planted near the kitchen. She wondered who took care of them. She'd seen no one working in the yard.

“Pixies?” she asked the dog, who wagged his tail and looked wise.

Following the dog, she wandered past the stable, which was empty, and stopped in front of a rustic shed. Hearing a cat's meow, she went inside, shutting the dog out.

“Oh,” she murmured. Stooping, she peered under an old table at a mother cat and three kittens, the little ones looking like fuzzy balls of black, yellow and white.

She resisted picking them up, although they were so darling. Instead she stood. Glancing around the shed, she notices piles of furniture stacked to the ceiling.

The carved table sheltering the cat family caught her eye. It was old and scarred, yet the detail of the work was exquisite. With a little work, it would look lovely in the foyer of the main house.

Mmm, maybe she should point that out to Clyde. He might not be aware of the piece out here going to waste.

She and Smoky continued their roaming. They went down to the creek and found a stepping stone path across it. Going up the hill beyond the stream, a long barn, surrounded by green fields and a high fence, came into view.

Inside the fence were hundreds of chickens, pecking and cackling as they searched for food.

Spotting a man using a hose to rinse off his boots, she went down the slope and called out a hello. Beside him was a wheelbarrow filled with eggs.

“Hello,” he answered her friendly greeting. “You must be Clyde's guest.”

The man was in his early forties, she estimated, perhaps Latino and Native American mix. He had a thin, leathery face, an almost gaunt build and a brilliant smile.

“Uh, in a manner of speaking,” she said, returning the smile as a shiver went down her spine. “I'm Jessica.”

“Clinton Perez,” the man said with a nod of his head.

From talking to Clyde's mother, she'd learned Clinton was a cousin to Ruben Perez, the gardener on Ryan Fortune's ranch. Rosita, Ruben's wife and the Double Crown housekeeper, was the woman who had seen the red ring around the moon before the body of Christopher Jamison had been discovered.

“You must be the foreman in charge of the egg operation,” she said.

“Right. My wife Cimma and I, along with our two kids, collect and deliver free-range eggs to several restaurants in San Antonio.”

“I know a free-range chicken is allowed to wander around and eat insects or whatever on its own. What do free-range eggs do?”

He turned off the water and looped the hose over the faucet. His deep chuckle was pleasant. “They come from free-range hens. If you've eaten any eggs since you've been here, you might have noticed the deep gold of the yolks. That's because the chickens are outside in the sunlight, absorbing Vitamin D. Through insects, they get other protein besides that from the chicken feed.”

Jessica fell into step beside him when he wheeled the barrow of eggs to a concrete block building. Inside, it was cool, the light from high windows dim.

“Now I wash the eggs,” he told her as if continuing a lecture. He placed the eggs in colanders, each holding three or four dozen, and ran them under a spray of water.

Next he flicked a switch and light appeared under a sheet of white plastic that formed the top of an otherwise metal table. He checked each egg against this backdrop.

“My grandmother raised chickens and sold eggs,” she told the foreman. “She used a lightbulb to check for double yolks or fertilized eggs.”

“We don't have roosters, so there'd better not be any fertilized eggs,” he told her with a grain of wry humor. “But I do check for double yolks. For some reason, people don't like eggs to be different from each other.”

“May I help? I liked doing that for Gran.”

“Sure. My wife usually does this part, but she's not feeling well today.”

Jessica took Clinton's place at the light table while he resumed washing the eggs. “I hope it isn't anything serious,” she said politely.

“She'll be fine.” He hesitated. “She miscarried two days ago. It's probably just as well. At our age, we hadn't planned on having more, but once we'd accepted the idea, the whole family was looking forward to a new little one. Now we're disappointed.”

“Oh, I'm sorry,” she murmured, sympathetic at the loss of the baby.

At once her mind reverted to Monday. She recalled she'd been spotted by this man while frolicking in the creek with the dog. Her face heated as she wondered if the foreman had also seen her and Clyde in the lake.

“Are your children in school?” she asked to divert the conversation to safer channels.

“Yes. They're teenagers. Our son is a senior and our daughter is a sophomore. They're in the FFA program. Both are studying farm management.”

Jessica recalled that FFA stood for Future Farmers of America. Her grandmother had told her that once only boys could belong to the organization, which Jessica had thought very odd. She knew two classmates, both female, who'd taken over their family ranches when their parents had retired.

For the next hour she worked alongside Clinton. When they finished all the eggs, he thanked her and complimented her on her good work. “Now for the next load,” he said and, lifting the handles on the wheelbarrow, headed outside.

“Do you have a lot of eggs?” she asked.

“Around two thousand on a good day.”

Her mouth dropped in amazement.

Clinton laughed. “Hey, Clyde,” he called. “Jessica is a pretty good worker. Maybe we ought to hire her before someone else snatches her up.”

Her heart started going lickety-split upon seeing her host coming toward them. Other than the briefest of meetings in the hall or kitchen, she hadn't laid eyes on her host since…well, since the ill-advised episode at the lake.

He smiled, but there was a scowl in his eyes as he checked her over. “I don't think she needs our money. She has plenty of her own.” He spoke to her. “I wondered where you'd gotten to. Maybe we need to arrange for a message center.”

“My family always left notes on the refrigerator when I was growing up,” she told him. “I suppose we could do that. Smoky and I were out for a walk. I didn't think about where we were going or how long we would be gone. I assumed we would be safe enough anywhere on the ranch.”

She caught the slightly perplexed glance as Clinton's dark eyes flicked from one to the other.

“Yeah, you should be,” Clyde agreed. The tension eased from his shoulders. “Ready to head for the house?”

Nodding, she bid the other man goodbye and fell into step with Clyde. Noticing a cat lying on the porch of the foreman's house, she told him about the kittens in the shed.

“There's also a table in there,” she said, unable to hide her enthusiasm as she described the intricate carving. “It would look wonderful in the foyer when you first come in the front door.”

“Huh,” he said.

“I've redone some pieces that Mom and I sold at the hardware store. I could refinish the table. If you would like,” she added at his silence.

“It's messy,” he finally said. “It'll probably need stripping and some repairs before it can be stained and varnished again.”

“I enjoy doing things like that,” she said, immediately planning the project.

He studied her for a long minute before opening the kitchen door and letting her precede him into the house. “Fine. I suppose you need something to fill your time.”

She wondered if that was what he thought of their moments at the lake—something to fill the time of an otherwise boring afternoon. She swallowed hard but the knot in her throat refused to dissolve.

“Yes,” she said when she could speak, “it would be something interesting to fill the time.”

Although she could think of other things….

 

Morning dawned gloriously bright. Jessica, full of plans, bustled out of bed and down the stairs in record time. Clyde was in the kitchen, sitting at the island and drinking coffee.

“Well, hello,” she said after a flash of surprise. Noting his distant manner and dark expression, some perverse nature, hidden deep within, surfaced. She smiled brilliantly at him, then fluttered her eyelashes.

His dark eyebrows shot up, then dropped. He narrowed his eyes as he studied her old cut-off jeans and a faded T-shirt from some forgotten trip to a far corner of the globe.

“Are those your work clothes?” he asked.

“Yes. I want to start on the table while it's cool. Is there a room in the barn or stable where I can work?” She removed one egg from the refrigerator, paused, then held up another one with a question in her eyes.

He shook his head to the offer of breakfast. “I thought the arbor next to the guesthouse would be a good place. It's shady all day and usually pleasant. There's an electrical outlet and a faucet on that wall.”

“That sounds perfect.”

“I've put a tarp down on the tiles.”

“Could you help me with the table before you leave?”

“It's already there. I bought a bottle of stripper, a scraper and rubber gloves in town yesterday afternoon. Your sister recommended the items.”

“Oh.” Jessica was seized with a bout of homesickness. “How is she? Did you see the girls? Were they all okay?”

“Leslie seemed fine. Also your brother-in-law. Your nieces weren't there.”

“They have a lot of after-school functions.” Jessica sighed. “It's odd to be so close and yet unable to see them. I feel as if I'm in some kind of prison.”

He flicked her a glance from those dark, see-everything Heathcliff eyes.

“A very elegant prison,” she quickly added.

“But still, a prison,” he murmured, his eyes locking with hers.

“Not really.” She scrambled the egg while the bread toasted, then took her seat at the counter. “I know I can leave at any time, but I…I don't want to. It's so nice not having to dread the ring of the phone.”

“Don't you have a cell phone?”

“Usually, but I turned it in before I left New York. Roy had that number, too. Sondra is getting me another one in her name.”

“Being a celebrity is tough.”

His tone was noncommittal, so she couldn't tell if he was being sardonic or sympathetic. She shrugged.

“But you learn to handle it, I suppose, when guys come on to you all the time,” he continued.

“Yes,” she said coolly. “However, that's usually the least of your problems. Unless you run into a nutcase like Roy.”

“What's the biggest problem?”

Seeing that he appeared serious, she answered in the same vein. “Fads, for one thing. I've seen people who were tops at seventeen and finished at twenty because they no longer epitomized the current fashion.”

“That didn't happen to you.”

“I've been lucky,” she admitted. And she worked hard, but she didn't say that. “Time is the biggest problem. I'm thirty-three, nearly ancient in the high-fashion world.”

“So what do you want to do with the rest of your life?”

“The usual. Settle down. Marry. Have a family.”

He nearly choked on his coffee. She grinned when he cast her a doubtful look.

“Hey, you can take the girl out of the country…”

“But you can't take the country out of the girl,” he finished when she stopped.

She nodded. “Being here has made me realize how much I miss my family. I'm booked for some major photo
sessions for two more years, then, unless it's something really special, I plan to retire and raise petunias.”

He gave a snort, which she assumed was amusement.

“Well,” she said, “I'm ready to start on the table.”

After straightening the kitchen, she headed outside. Smoky, her most constant companion, rushed over to greet her. She patted his head and promised him a walk later in the day. “For now I want to get to work. This table is a work of art. Do you know who carved it?” she asked Clyde.

“The rancher who owned this place. He used the shed as a workshop when his son took over the ranching chores. When he died, I think the furniture was stored and his son's wife bought new stuff. The wife sold to us, lock, stock and barrel, after her husband died.”

“Would it be okay if I looked through the shed? I saw a rocking chair that has possibilities.”

“Be my guest.”

After brushing on a thick layer of furniture stripper, she spread an old newspaper over it to keep it from drying too fast. Clyde observed, which made her nervous. He finally said he'd see her later and left to deal with the increasing herd of cattle around the main house.