Charlotte Maclay - In A Cowboy's Embrace

“I’ll show you later, if you’d like.”

Cliff wasn’t sure he wanted to know, or if Stevie was old enough to be hearing this conversation. “Let’s get this stuff inside. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. You didn’t happen to put dinner on before your nap, did you?”

Half dragging the smallest suitcase, Stevie staggered along the walkway and up onto the porch that went across the front of the house.

“Dinner?” she questioned. The wheels on her suitcase rattled on the uneven concrete path.

The case Cliff was carrying weighed as much as an anvil and didn’t have wheels. “Uh, that’s what housekeepers usually do—take care of dinner arrangements.”

She brightened. “Oh, sure. I can do that.”

“Great. I’m due for a shower. It’ll take me only about ten minutes and then we can eat.”

Tasha looked at him askance. How on earth did he expect her to have something ready to eat in ten minutes? Maybe that was how things were done in Reilly’s Gulch.

But five minutes after putting her bags in her room, she still didn’t know the secret of getting dinner here so quickly, though she’d searched the entire kitchen and the minuscule phone book for the number of a pizza or deli delivery service. Even Chinese would have worked. The best she could find was a diner in town and Sal’s Bar and Grill. Neither of them delivered.

She went down the hall, glancing briefly into the living room where Stevie was watching TV, and knocked on Cliff’s door. There was no sound of water running, so he must have finished his shower.

“Be there in a minute,” he called.

“I can’t find the phone number.”

There was a pause. Then the door opened and Tasha realized she’d made a serious mistake in timing. He had a clean pair of jeans on, which he hadn’t yet bothered to snap, and no shirt. The broad expanse of his chest, furred by only a modest amount of sandy-blond hair, invited a woman’s caress. His nipples peaked in perfect circles of brown; muscles ribbed his washboard stomach. Overall he reminded her of the bronze sculptures on display in New York City museums but far warmer and more tempting to touch.

She licked her lips. Being this man’s housekeeper was definitely going to be a challenge when her mind kept toying with other ideas.

“What phone number?” he asked.

It took her a couple of heartbeats before she recalled why she was standing at his bedroom door. “For a deli or pizza place that delivers. I can’t find a thing in the phone book—”

His shaking head suggested she’d made another error in judgment. “No pizza parlors here, Goldilocks. What I had in mind was for you to fix dinner.”

“Fix?” A few minutes ago Melissa had been Goldilocks. Now Tasha had acquired the nickname.

“As in cook. You do know how to cook, don’t you?”

“Well, of course I do.” She gave a disdainful huff. “Every Greek girl learns to make baklava almost before she can walk.”

He shook his head again, a truly irritating habit he’d developed. “Let’s try for soup and sandwiches. More times than not, that’s what Stevie and I have when Sylvia isn’t around.”

Tasha could handle that. Cliff didn’t have to look at her as if she were totally incompetent. In the city, you ordered takeout. No need to spend your time slaving over a hot stove. It didn’t mean she couldn’t cook—just that she didn’t have many occasions to. She was on the road a lot, and when she wasn’t her hours were grueling.

As she walked away from his bedroom door, she wondered if he’d be all that swift at picking delis out of the phone book that wouldn’t stiff him with a bad case of salmonella or inflate their charges. It took talent and experience to survive the inhumanities of the big city.

From her perspective, cow country looked easy.

TEA SANDWICHES. She’d removed the damn crusts and cut them in triangles. Cliff could hardly believe this was what Tasha considered dinner, but he was too hungry to complain.

With the same delicacy as her mother, Melissa selected one of the tuna triangles and took a dainty bite.

Cliff ate his in a single gulp and took another one from the plate Tasha had prepared.

“My mommy says you’ve got horses, Mr. Swain.”

“Why don’t you call me Uncle Cliff and I’ll call you Melissa. Unless you’d rather I call you Ms. Reynolds?” he teased.

She giggled. “I’ve got an Uncle Bryant, too. We’re going to see him tomorrow and my Aunt Ella.”

“Eat your dinner,” her mother reminded the girl, who after one bite had evidently forgotten her meal.

“I’ve got a horse all my own,” Stevie said. “She’s a cow pony and goes like the wind. Her name’s Star Song.”

“Can I ride her?” Melissa asked. “Can I?”

“Sure. I guess.” Stevie shrugged and glanced at Cliff for direction.

“Now wait a minute, young lady,” her mother said. “I don’t want you trying to ride on your own. You’ll need proper lessons—”

“I can teach her,” Cliff said impulsively before thinking through his offer. If he had his way, Melissa and her mother wouldn’t be here long enough to saddle a horse, much less learn to ride one. “Or maybe your Uncle Bryant can teach you.”

“Can you teach my mom, too? She’s never, ever even been on a horse.”

In an instinctively mothering gesture, Tasha smoothed her daughter’s flyaway curls. “Thanks, but I’m not sure I trust anything that outweighs me by eight hundred pounds.”

Though she was tall, Tasha probably weighed little more than a hundred pounds. Not any more than a decent bale of hay. She had fine bones without an extra ounce of fat on her, long, slender fingers accented by the polish she wore and graceful hands she used to advantage whenever she wanted to make a point.

Cliff swallowed hard as he considered what else her hands would be capable of doing. “I’ve got a gentle mare that wouldn’t give you any trouble.” Not nearly as much trouble as his own imagination was giving him tonight. “She’s about eighteen years old and as placid as a horse can be. Used to be able to cut a calf away from its mama slick as glass, but she’s too old to work now. She could use some exercise, though.”

“I’ll think about it.” With a noncommittal smile, she turned her attention to her cup of chicken noodle soup.

From the looks of things, Tasha didn’t eat enough to keep a sparrow going—a skimpy cup of soup and a quarter sandwich. Meanwhile, Cliff devoured everything on the plate and finished Melissa’s uneaten sandwich. Finally he rummaged in the refrigerator for some leftover roast beef slices and gravy Ella had sent home with him after last Sunday’s supper and zapped a plateful in the microwave. If Tasha stuck around for as long as a week as his housekeeper, he’d be nothing but skin and bones, too weak to chase down a jaywalker, forget an ornery steer.

The kids finished their supper, such as it was. With a warning that it was almost bedtime, they charged off to Stevie’s room to investigate his toys.

Cliff carried his plate to the kitchen counter. “Tell me, how is it a woman like you, I mean, a cover model and all, agreed to fill in as my housekeeper?”

Stacking the kids’ soup bowls and plates, Tasha rose from her chair and brought them to the sink, moving so gracefully she appeared to exert no effort at all.

“Ella said I’d mostly be playing nanny while you’re at work, and I love kids. Stevie’s adorable, by the way.”

“Thanks.” Running water over the dishes, he wondered how he could tactfully phrase his question. “I understand why you’d want to come visit your sister on a vacation. Heck, you haven’t even seen her baby yet. But take a job? That, well, kind of surprises me.”