Pamela Britton - Winning The Rancher's Heart

She turned toward the stairs, but she paused as she stared out the cathedral windows along the front. T.J. ran through the grove of trees across the road, clearly on the trail of something. Sam followed reluctantly behind, her brown hair long and down her back, head bowed.

She had her phone.

Dear Lord in heaven. She might have to have the thing surgically removed. For a moment she contemplated telling her to put the thing away and keep an eye on her brother, but the property was fully fenced. How much trouble could they get into searching for a dog? Besides, she needed to get to work.

Work.

She had a list of chores he wanted done daily. And now he wanted help planning an event. She placed her hand on the smooth burl railing. And he wanted her to act as a maid. And a hostess. Lord, it sounded like she’d be busy in the coming weeks. But busy was good. Busy kept her mind off thinking of Trev and how much she missed him still.

“Knock, knock,” she said, rounding the corner of his office. There was a double row of windows downstairs and the same in his office, although she could see the A-line of the roof from where she stood because the second-floor windows were snug up against it. Jax sat behind a massive desk made out of a slab of burl that matched the stairwell railing.

“Take a seat.” He waved toward the same chair she’d sat in yesterday.

“Okay, I meant to ask you, but what is it made out of?”

He motioned with his hand as if the answer should be clear. “It’s a tree root.”

She felt her brows lift. “Of course. What else would it be?”

He seemed puzzled by her lame attempt at humor. It made her wonder yet again what she’d gotten herself into.

“Are your kids looking for the dog?”

“Out there right now.” She took a seat, the wooden surface uneven and uncomfortable.

He leaned back in his chair and he seemed such a contradiction. He lived on a ranch, yet he looked more like the CEO of a big corporation with his short-cropped hair, the ends dipped in gray. He wore a white button-down shirt, and from what she could tell, jeans and boots. No cowboy hat today. Probably no big buckle. No wide smile of greeting, either. His sister was so sweet and open, yet his face was as closed as the garage door on the other side of his home, his entire demeanor unapproachable. Even his office was a contradiction. It was meant for show. All wide-open space, expensive furniture and sparse furnishings, and yet he had a Lego cowboy sitting in between two massive computer screens, one of them with a COWBOY TOUGH sticker stuck to the back.

She caught him staring at her. Something in his eyes made her smile fade.

“So I thought it would be a good idea to give you a to-do list this morning.” He glanced at the screen on his right.

She shifted in her seat. A to-do list? In addition to her housekeeping list? The man knew how to keep a woman busy.

“Great.”

He slid a sheet of paper in her direction. “You’ll see the first item on the list is to call animal control.”

She almost shoved the thing back at him. “No.” And she even surprised herself with the sharpness of her tone.

“Excuse me?”

It was the third time that day she’d said no to him, but she didn’t care. “I told you we should catch him.”

“He’s a stray.”

“He’s lost and alone and scared. I see it in his eyes. I refuse to send him to a place where he’ll feel even more alone and afraid.”

He shook his head. “You presume he’s lost. It’s more likely that he was dumped.”

Her stomach lurched at the thought. Who would do such a thing? “I still don’t want him to go to a shelter. They’ll kill him.”

“Not necessarily. Someone might adopt him.”

“A dog like that? One that doesn’t want human company? No.”

She could tell he wasn’t pleased by her argument. Great. Five minutes into her meeting with the man and already she’d managed to antagonize him.

“Just let the kids try to catch him. I’m sure once Tramp realizes we want to help him, he’ll come around.”

“Tramp?”

She nodded. “From the movie. Doesn’t he look just like him?”

“I don’t know. Never seen it.”

She sat back in her seat, winced when her spine made contact with the back. “Never?”

He shrugged. “What can I say? I don’t watch a lot of TV.”

The poor, sad little man. “Well, trust me. He looks just like him.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it.”

She glanced down at the list he handed her again. “Research caterers?” She tipped her head up. “I don’t have a computer.”

Another blank stare. “Not even a tablet?”

She shook her head. “I had one, a laptop I mean, but my daughter dropped it on the way here. It fell out of the back seat of my truck and shattered the screen. I have a smart phone, but that’s it.”

His look was akin to someone being told ten plus ten was two. For some reason, it made her want to smile. Nerves, she told herself. Smiles and silly giggles had always been her go-to reaction when she was tense.

“Will that be a problem?” she asked.

He slowly shook his head. “I’ll have a laptop delivered to you by the end of the day.”

Of course he would. She glanced down at the list again. “I guess that means I can’t do items three, four and five, either. I’d need access to email for that.”

“You don’t have email?”

“Of course I do, I just think it’d be easier to research and solicit bids from caterers using a laptop instead of a phone, don’t you?”

He pressed his lips together. “Okay then. Maybe now would be a good time to go over the housekeeping list I gave you yesterday.”

“Sure.”

His brows drew together. “Is there something wrong with your chair?”

She realized then that she’d been shifting around in it a lot. “This thing is like some kind of medieval torture device. Clearly, whoever you asked to decorate this place didn’t actually expect anyone to live here.”

He kept doing that—kept looking at her like she had Christmas lights hanging from her nose. Just then the phone on his desk rang. He glanced at the number and answered. He listened intently for a moment and then replied in perfect French, something she didn’t understand, and he spoke it so fluently and so well that it was her turn to have her mouth drop open.

Who was this man?

She’d been expecting a sun-bronzed, boot-wearing cowboy. Maybe someone quite a bit older than her. But someone who was kind and approachable, like his sister. Instead she sat across from Clint Eastwood in his younger years. Maybe when he’d played the role of Dirty Harry.

He hung up and said, “All right, let’s go over the list I gave you yesterday.”

“I don’t have it with me.”

“That’s okay.” He clearly had a copy because he read from it. “Floors. As noted, use your best judgment when those need to be done. I’m not around a lot of the time, so you might not need to do them very frequently.” He met her gaze for a moment, but quickly looked away. “Windows, as needed. You’ll find all the cleaning supplies in a pantry in the kitchen. I’ve tried to think of everything you’ll need. Let me know if you’ll need anything else.”

She nodded, not that he was looking at her.

“Dusting, empty the trash, cleaning the light fixtures—that’s all self-explanatory, and like the floors, I’ll leave that up to you.”

He set the paper down. “One thing I wanted to mention was laundry. It’s not on the list, but I was going to ask if you’d mind doing mine in addition to your own.”

“No. I don’t mind at all.” Could he see how flushed her face had turned at the thought of folding his underwear? She hoped not.