The Cowboy's Temptation (10 page)

With a deep sigh, he opened the steel door of the refrigerator and peered inside.

He had to blink to make sure his eyes were not deceiving him. He was bone tired and so hungry he could eat the stuffing out of one of the sofa pillows so he didn’t trust that his eyes were really seeing good food. Was that really another plate full of home cooked food?

He tentatively reached for the plate, waiting for the mirage to disappear. Sure enough, it was real. The plastic wrap covering the pot pie crinkled slightly with his touch.

He pulled the large bowl out of the refrigerator and took a sniff, suspecting this might be a leftover from months ago when he’d had a temporary cook help out. Bracing himself, he lifted the wrapping and took a cautious sniff. Surprisingly, it didn’t repulse him. In fact, it made his mouth start salivating. The odors coming from the bowl were carrots, celery, chicken and some spices he couldn’t identify. Pulling the bowl out, he looked around the kitchen, waiting for someone to pounce on him for stealing their meal.

Who in the world made this? A slender, sexy brunette popped into his mind but he quickly dismissed Elissa as the cook. She’d already admitted that she’d ordered most of her meals from restaurants while in New York so he had assumed she didn’t like to cook.

He heated the pot pie up in the microwave oven, then carried the meal to the family room, taking a seat on the large leather sofa to savor his meal. But as soon as he sat down, another smell wafted to his nose.

Was that lemon?

What in the world would smell like lemon? Jake looked around the room and noticed subtle changes. The windows were cleaned of dust, the furniture was polished to a high gloss and the cream and brown area rug covering the well beaten wood floors was freshly vacuumed. Who in the world had cleaned his house? This room hadn’t had a good cleaning for almost six months but now it was smelling like lemon furniture polish and vanilla. Again, Elissa’s image popped into his mind but he quickly dismissed it again as a possibility. She didn’t seem like the type to get down and dirty cleaning someone else’s house.

He reminded himself that he had misjudged her several times already. He had assumed that Ronny’s friend would be a spoiled, New York City gal that couldn’t do anything for herself, preferring to be waited on hand and foot.

Besides the first three days after she’d arrived, she hadn’t asked anyone to do anything for her that he knew of. And she was always up right after he left the house. He knew that because he watched for her from the barn. Jake had tried for a few days to ignore his mind’s pull to watch her graceful form as she walked around the ranch, but after a while, he gave in to the voyeuristic pleasure. She walked like she was dancing, seeming to walk on her tip-toes.

He found himself watching her whenever she was out of the house. And he didn’t deny that he enjoyed it when he found her inside the house. A lascivious grin settled on his face as he remembered her luscious body fitting itself to his for several memorable kisses.

Stop thinking along those lines, Jake, old boy. He shifted uncomfortably on the sofa as his body instantly reacted to the memory of their few kisses. How could such a petite, delicate wisp of a woman make his body react just at the memory of her body?

Jake shook his head at his wandering mind and dug into the chicken pot pie, discovering that one of his old favorites was even better than he remembered it. There were so many vegetables and chicken in the flakey crust, there was almost no room for the creamy soup. He ate every bite in the bowl, then sat back against the worn leather couch satisfied but still confused.

Then he looked around the room. He didn’t really understand why, but he felt more comfortable in the room tonight. There was definitely something about the room that was different but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“What the hell is going on here?” he thought, sitting up again. He glanced at the coffee table and noticed that most of the little nick knacks that had once been there were gone. Looking at the shelves, he saw all of them neatly arranged against the books. His eyes roamed over the other surfaces and, sure enough, all of them were cleared of the irritating clutter. Nothing was missing. But everything was moved to a more pleasing position, grouped to form interesting areas around the room instead of resembling clutter covering all horizontal surfaces.

“Who the hell is doing all this?” he said to the air.

Standing up, he walked through the large room, noting the small details that his mind had not taken in until now. The room was definitely clean and smelled fresh. Everything was dusted and polished. Walking into the living room, he realized that it was the same. All of his mother’s china was neatly stacked in the shelves, the silver polished and shining in the dim light, the old, weathered candles replaced with new ones in the wall sconces.

He walked from room to room, noting the slight changes that went beyond just a thorough scrubbing and polishing. The house seemed to shine and small things were rearranged in a more pleasing way. Jake hadn’t ever realized how much stuff his mother had collected until it was all moved to one area.

Going into his office, he pulled back the large leather chair and forced himself to go through the ledger. He pulled the stack of bills forward and picked up the first one.

Jake punched in some numbers on his computer and the appropriate screen came up. But the invoice was already booked into the correct line. He picked up the next one and, sure enough, that one was also booked.

Scrolling to the bottom of the ledger, he scanned the file and was relieved to note that all the invoices had been booked and were catalogued appropriately. They were even showing as being paid.

Annie must have come by again without him seeing her. She’d done a great job. Usually, he had to make several corrections once the accountant had gone through and paid all the bills but this time she’d gotten everything right.

With a sigh of relief, he sat back and ran through the numbers at the end of the spreadsheet. He was in better shape than he’d thought. The orders for the fresh supplies and grain were at the bottom and even those had been ordered. The reason for the increase in cash flow was in the smaller order. He played with a few numbers and was satisfied that Annie had done the correct order.

That was strange. Annie usually didn’t bother with supply orders. She only logged in the invoices and made sure they were set up to be paid.

Jake’s mind snapped to the little woman with disturbing blue eyes and tiny, blistered hands. He knew that she’d been in school with Ronny and had studied math. Could she have done all this?

Jake looked at the clock. It was only eight o’clock. He had been planning on working for several hours going over these invoices. But since they were all done, he had nothing to do.

He wandered out to the patio and spotted exactly what he had been hoping to find. The mystery woman herself, sitting on a deck chair staring at the stars.

 

With a purposeful stride, he walked straight through the family room and quietly stepped onto the patio.

 

“I was wondering about something,” a deep voice said from behind her.

Elissa jumped and almost fell out of her chair. She’d heard Jake go into his office and was sure he’d be in there for hours. She had felt safe wandering out to watch the stars, amazed at how bright they were when there wasn’t a layer of smog and mile after mile of street lights and building lights to blur their brilliance.

“What are you wondering about?” she asked, once she’d caught her breath.

 

“Well, there are some strange things going on around here and I thought you might be able to solve the mystery.”

“What’s the mystery?” she asked, trying to keep the quiver out of her voice. Why did she always get so nervous when he was around? And why did he have to be so tall and muscular? She watched him with wary eyes as he walked in front of her and leaned against a patio table, crossing his arms over his chest.

“For one thing, I thought Ronny was making all those meals for you and I was just benefiting from the leftovers. But seeing as how she’s still in the hospital and Rick is with her, that throws a wrench into that answer.”

Elissa sat quietly still. Was he angry that she’d been using his kitchen? She had grown to love cooking but she’d give it up if she was irritating him. Maybe she hadn’t cleaned the counters or had left a mess somewhere. Was he angry? She couldn’t tell. His face was in the shadows. The only part of him that was in the light was his muscular thighs encased in tight jeans and his black cowboy boots.

“Nothing to say?” he hesitated for a moment, waiting for her reply. When she didn’t answer his unspoken question, he went on. “And then there’s the house that is cleaned. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“What’s wrong with a clean house?” she asked, unsure of his mood.

 

“Nothing. In fact, I even like the changes. Makes it feel much cozier, less cluttered. Don’t you agree?”

 

If she said yes, he might find out that she was the one that had moved everything. So she remained silent.

“But really, the most interesting discovery is that all my books are up to date and the supplies ready to be ordered. All I needed to do was push the ‘send’ button and the order was placed. That’s really a miracle, let me tell you,” he said, his voice ending in a slightly stronger twang than normal.

“Are you angry?” she asked, looking down at the cement.

 

“Angry?” Jake repeated. “Well, that’s an interesting question. I’m not sure exactly what I’m thinking until you confirm my suspicions.”

 

There was a long silence while she waited for him to clarify his suspicions.

He walked over to her chair and leaned down, his face in the light and she could see his eyes clearly now. They were on fire but not with anger. It was some emotion she was too nervous to define. She pushed herself back in the chair, no escape available to her with his arms trapping her in her seat.

“Are you cooking the meals every night?”

 

“No,” she said honestly.

 

He didn’t say a word but one eyebrow went up.

 

“I cook them during the day while Ronny was at school,” she whispered.

 

“And the cleaning?”

 

“In the afternoons.”

 

“And the ledgers?”

Elissa shrugged her shoulders but wouldn’t look him in the eye. She stared at the top button of his shirt instead. “I was cleaning your office. The desk was piled high. It drove me nuts to see all that clutter. So I took care of it.”

Jake’s eyes widened. He shook his head slightly as he asked, “You didn’t like the clutter so you took care of it.”

 

Elissa nodded her head, getting irritated with his continuous stare.

 

“How long did it take you?” he demanded. “It was weeks worth of invoices that had been stacked up.”

 

“Only a few hours,” she said. “Figuring out your system was a little bit of a challenge but once I understood what you needed, it was pretty simple.”

Jake laughed quietly. “You understand that I dread doing that each week and you’re prettily sitting there telling me that it was simple? Darlin’ are you trying to get a job offer out of me?”

He took her hands and gently pulled her up to stand next to him, pulling her closer to him when she tried to pull away. “You’re more of a mystery than I realized. You’ve been cooking, cleaning and doing my accounting for me for the past two weeks, haven’t you?”

Elissa pulled back, tired of being intimidated by him. “Well, there wasn’t much to do while Ronny was working. I need to keep busy.”

 

“I thought you were a stock broker. Don’t you have investments to handle and personal matters to deal with?”

Elissa turned her back to him and moved over to the fence. Jake followed and stood next to her. It took her a long time to reply, but she finally admitted. “I hate my job.”

“Why?”

 

“It’s useless.”

 

Jake nodded. “So you don’t like making rich people richer?”

 

Elissa laughed. “Don’t sound so disdainful. I did your books. You’re an extremely wealthy man, Jake. You have more money than all of my clients put together.”

 

“Money isn’t everything.”

 

Elissa sighed. “I know. But what is?”

 

Jake shook his head. “I don’t know.” They stood at the fence, staring out at the stars, both deep in their own thoughts for a long time.

 

Jake finally broke the silence. “Thank you.”

 

“For what?”

 

“For the meals. For cleaning the house. And most definitely for logging in all those numbers.”

Elissa laughed. “You’re welcome. Can I keep doing it?” she asked. She was suddenly embarrassed. “I mean, until I go home again. I’m not sure how long Ronny will need me…but, I guess she might need some help for a while,” she finished off hopefully.

“You’re a great cook. And I’d appreciate anything you can do for the books. I hate computers and I hate crunching numbers. I’ll pay you what I paid Annie.”

 

“Who is Annie?” Elissa didn’t like the stab of jealousy she felt when the other woman’s name came off Jake’s lips so easily

Jake’s smile was bright as he heard the anger in her voice. “No need to get jealous. Annie is just a woman who comes in every once in a while to load the costs into the computer. She’s happily married and just gave birth to her fourth child. That’s why she hasn’t been out in a while.”

Elissa’s chin went up slightly. “I’m not jealous,” she exclaimed, but the words didn’t ring true even to her ears.

 

Jake moved closer. “I think you are,” he said.

 

“No, I’m not,” she declared and stopped retreating. “You can see whoever you like. I don’t care.”

Jake’s hand reached out so quickly she didn’t know how it happened but the next moment, she was sitting on the top fence post, and Jake was standing between her knees. The intimate position made Elissa gasp. “Let me down,” she demanded.

“Not yet. I want you,” he said. “And I think if you were completely honest with me, you’d admit that you want me just as intensely.”

 

“No!”

Jake leaned forward slightly and kissed the pulse at the base of her neck. He moved up to her ear, nibbling at her earlobe, then made his way across her neck, her jaw line, kissing her everywhere but her mouth.