Diana Palmer - Date with a Cowboy - Iron Cowboy / In the Arms of the Rancher / At the Texan's Pleasure

“You cook?” Harley exclaimed, looking at the tall, muscular man with the olive complexion and wavy black hair in a ponytail. He looked as dangerous as Jared Cameron. And Harley had reason to know what dangerous men looked like.

Tony glared at him. “Yeah. I cook. What’s it to you?”

Harley actually moved back a step. “Nothing at all!”

“Lots of men cook,” Tony said belligerently. He glanced back at Sara and frowned. She was near tears and she wouldn’t look at Jared. Tony’s threatening expression melted into concern. He moved to the side of the bed. “I made you a nice apple strudel for dessert,” he coaxed, “with freshly whipped cream.”

She bit her lower lip. “You’re so nice, Tony,” she said, trying to sound normal even as her lower lip quivered.

“Here, hold this.” Tony put the spoon in Jared’s hand and sat down beside Sara, tugging her gently against him so that he wouldn’t hurt her. A hand the size of a ham rested against her back, covering almost half of it comfortingly as he drew her head to his broad shoulder. “Now, now, it’s all right,” he said softly.

She bawled. Jared and Harley glared daggers at the big man, but neither of them said a word.

Harley shifted on his feet. “Sara, I’ve got to get back home. You call me if you need anything, okay?” he added with a speaking glance at Jared.

“I will,” Sara said in a thin, sad voice. “Thanks.”

“No problem. See you.”

He hated leaving her, but the whole situation was getting out of hand. That big fellow who cooked wasn’t going to let Jared Cameron hurt Sara in any way. Harley knew she’d be safe, or he wouldn’t have budged.

Jared walked out of the room behind him, totally disgusted, still carrying the spoon.

Tony tugged a tissue from the box on the bedside table and dabbed it against Sara’s wet eyes.

“Now you stop that,” he said, smiling gently. “The boss has a nasty temper and he doesn’t always choose his words before he opens his mouth. But he never would have asked you to come here if he hadn’t wanted to.”

She looked up at him from swollen red eyes. “He was awful to Harley.”

Tony grimaced. “There’s stuff going on that you don’t know about,” he said after a minute. “I can’t tell you what it is. But it doesn’t help his temper.”

She blew her nose. “I’m sorry.”

“What for? Everybody cries,” he replied. “I bawled like a kid when my sister died.”

Her green eyes met his black ones. “Was it very long ago?”

“Ten years,” he said. “Our mother was still alive then. We lost our dad when we were just little kids.”

“I lost my grandad a little while ago,” she replied. “I still miss him. He taught history at our local college.”

“I like history,” he said. He would have liked to tell her that he’d minored in it during his college years, but it wasn’t the time for heart-to-heart talks. The boss was already gunning for him because he’d opened the door and let Harley inside.

“How long have you worked for Jared?” she asked.

“Seems like forever, sometimes,” he chuckled. “On and off, for about six years, I suppose,” he said.

“You know, he really doesn’t look like the sort of man who’d need a bodyguard,” she ventured.

“He doesn’t, does he?” he agreed. “You feel better now?”

She smiled at him with her eyes still red and swollen. “I’m better. Thanks, Tony.”

He stood up, and he was smiling now, too. “You’re a lot like her. My sister, I mean. She had a big heart. She loved people. She was always giving.” His dark eyes grew haunted, especially when he looked at Sara. “Don’t you let him push you into anything,” he said out of the blue.

She was shocked, and showed it. “What do you mean?”

His black eyes narrowed. “You know what I mean. He’s been around the world. You’re just a sprout.”

“Yes, but I can take care of myself,” she assured him. “Nobody will make me do something I don’t want to do.”

“That’s just what my sister said,” he told her, and he looked down at his apron. “I’d better get back in there and rescue my sauce. You need anything?”

She shook her head. “But, thanks.”

He grinned. “Goes with the job.”

If she could have walked, she’d have gone home. She was hurt by Jared’s sarcasm and she felt unwelcome. It was going to be an ordeal to get through the next couple of days. She wished she’d never become friendly with him. One thing was for sure. If she ever got sick or hurt again, she wouldn’t turn to him for help.

He walked in a short time later with a plate of spaghetti and homemade garlic bread. He pulled a rolling table to the bed and put the meal, plus a tall glass of milk, on it.

She was rigid with wounded pride. “Thank you,” she said stiffly, and in a subdued tone that betrayed, even more than her posture, how hurt she was.

He stood still, his hands in his pockets, and stared at her. “He’s a good cook,” he said, just to break the silence.

She put the napkin on her lap and sat sideways on the bed so that she could eat comfortably. It put him at an angle so that she didn’t have to look right at him.

“All right, I was out of line,” he muttered. “But it’s courteous to ask me before you invite people here to see you.”

“I didn’t invite Harley to come,” she said, eating spaghetti in tiny little bites.

He frowned. “You didn’t?”

She ate another bite of Tony’s delicious concoction, and never tasted a thing.

“People who live in small towns think of everyone as family. It would never occur to Harley that he wasn’t welcome to visit a sick friend, no matter who she was staying with.”

His eyes kindled. “It’s still good manners to ask first.”

“Yes,” she had to agree. “It is. I’m sure he wishes he had. I know I do.”

That was right on target. He felt smaller than ever. She could have died. He’d agreed to take her home and nurse her, and now he was laying down rules and regulations as fast as he could. He didn’t like Harley Fowler in his home, in Sara’s temporary bedroom. It made him angry. He couldn’t tell her that, of course.

He noticed suddenly that she was wearing the same clothes she’d worn to the hospital before her surgery.

“Don’t you have a gown, or pajamas?” he asked abruptly.

“There really wasn’t time to pack a bag when the ambulance got to my house,” she reminded him.

“Point taken.”

“If Tony could go by my house and get me some night things,” she began.

“No.” It came out belligerently. He shouldn’t have said that. But he didn’t like the idea of Tony, who already treated her like family, poking through her underthings.

“I’ll go,” he said. “Where’s your house key?”

“It’s in the zippered compartment in my purse.” She indicated it, hanging over the closet doorknob. “Can you make sure Morris has enough water while you’re there?” she added, hating even to have to ask. “Tony fed him already, he said, but Morris drinks a lot of water.”

He retrieved the key. “I’ll take care of him.”

“Thanks,” she said without meeting his eyes.

He gave her one last look and left her. He’d made a stupid mistake. He hoped he’d have time to make it up to her.

Tony was just clearing away supper when Jared stopped in the kitchen doorway. “I’m going over to Sara’s house to get her a few things to wear.”

Tony’s eyebrows arched. “You know where she lives?”

He cursed mentally. Of course he didn’t know where she lived; he’d never been to her house.

“And you can’t go alone,” the big man added solemnly. “They’d love to catch you out alone at night. They have all the equipment we’ve got, and more.” He took off the apron and tossed it aside. “I’m going with you.”