and already Granddad was pushing the two of them together. “What are you thinking?”
“Well,” Gus said, feigning innocence. “He ain’t married. I asked him.”
Shaking her head, she laughed. “Did you really?”
“Ah, only in the course of hiring him. I wasn’t trying to fix you up or nothing.”
She breathed an inward sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. I can do that for myself.”
The last thing she needed was a matchmaking grandparent. Especially when it came to Jackson Kane.
Long ago she’d taken that painful summer, locked the memory in a closet inside her mind, and tried not to visit there too often. Occasionally, like today with Jackson so ever present, the memory sneaked out, but she’d learned to skirt around it, not look too close, and shove it back inside as quickly as possible. Remembering what-might-have-been hurt too much.
“Well, he ain’t half-bad is he?” Granddad was rattling on. “I mean, he’s decent looking. He knows horses. And he’s clean.”
“Clean?” Latching onto the silly notion, she giggled. If she were to make a list of characteristics for a potential husband, would this one have made the list? “Clean?”
Gus chuckled and pulled her into the hook of his arm.
At that moment, the door swooshed open, and Mr. Clean himself entered the room. Half-inclined on her grandfather’s side, Shannon looked up and burst out laughing.
With a puzzled grin, Jackson glanced behind him then ambled into the room. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the now familiar Dum-Dum.
Granddad was right. He was definitely clean. The smell of his morning shower swirled in the door with him.
She couldn’t help noticing the strong, dark, clean hands unwrapping the orange sucker or their graceful, effortless movements. She loved his hands, had always admired those hands that could hold a thrashing horse with an iron grip, but could also hold her with such tenderness.
The paper crumpled into his fist and that tiny sound startled her to awareness. Good golly, Miss Molly. What was she thinking? And why?
But she knew the answer to that. Granddad’s silly nonsense had her noticing that Jackson Kane was much more than clean. He was cowboy sexy and more attractive than a man had a right to be.
Looking at him stirred some primal urge Shannon hadn’t felt in a long time. Ten years to be exact.
Her heart thudded in her throat until she wondered if she was the one with the heart problem instead of Granddad.
With his talk of seeing her settled with a good man, and her desperate need to make him happy, Granddad had her thinking things she shouldn’t.
Insanely ridiculous thoughts that she’d never allowed before danced through her mind.
Though the subject had never been broached, what if she had married Jackson back then? What if he’d known about the baby? Would he have asked her to marry him? Would she have agreed?
Pushing up from Granddad’s hug, she turned her back to Jackson and began to straighten the bedside table. Her hands shook and she was acutely aware that her odd behavior created curiosity in the two men.
Shannon had been certain she’d settled this issue years ago, but Granddad’s inadvertent teasing said the problem of Jackson Kane was a long way from being over.
Chapter Three
One month later, life on the Circle W had returned to some semblance of normality. To Shannon’s relief, Gus, though straining at the bit, was trying hard to follow doctor’s orders. Except for the thirty-minute prescribed walk he took each morning, he mostly puttered around in the house, grumbling about old age and bossy granddaughters.
True to his word, Jackson had gone above and beyond the amount of pay he received as assistant trainer. Long after he should have gone home to his aunt Bonnie’s house in Rattlesnake, he worked on the ranch tending to things that he knew would bother Gus if left undone.
“You gonna stand there and stare at me or get acquainted with this new colt?”
At Jackson’s amused voice, Shannon realized she had indeed been staring at him.
Morning looked good on him, she thought, noting that he’d come quickly when she’d called with the news that the mare was in labor. The moisture of his morning shower still glistened on his inky-black hair and the clean, fresh scent of soap and shaving cream amounted to sensory overload.
They were inside a stall in one of the horse barns to do the all-important job of imprinting a newborn foal. Jackson had arrived only moments before the mare delivered the new baby. They’d watched while the tiny bay had suckled and bonded with his mother, then lay down to sleep. That la-la land between sleep and wakefulness was the perfect time to handle a new colt.
The scene of mother and baby was as moving now as it had been the first time she’d experienced it. She always felt softer, more feminine somehow, after witnessing the miracle of birth. For some reason, having Jackson in the stall intensified the feelings.
Shannon went down on her knees beside the animal. “Hand me that brush on the wall behind you. I’ll stroke his withers and sides while you handle his head.”
Petting, rubbing and brushing, Shannon and Jackson worked to imprint the colt so that he would not be afraid of humans. Shannon was acutely aware of the movement of Jackson’s muscular shoulders as he caressed the animal’s ears and face. Longing, totally unwanted, shimmied through her.
More than once in their month of working side by side, awareness had simmered between them. This morning was no different.
“How you doing with Domino?” he asked, voice quiet in the dark, musty-scented barn.
“He’s coming along,” she hedged. What a lie. Domino was not cooperating. After more than a month, he could be ridden, but he had no manners and wasn’t safe for most people to ride.
“Need any help?” Stroke, rub. Touch. Caress.
The shiver went over Shannon again. She had to stop looking at his hands. Still rotating the brush over the brown hide, she looked up at his face instead. Big mistake. Eyes like fudge sauce studied her. Little sparks of lightning shot off beneath her skin.
“No, I do not need help.” To cover her other, less certain feelings, she chose to feign annoyance. “I’ve told you before. I know how to train a horse better than any horse whisperer. Domino has to learn who is boss and I can teach him that.”
“I’d sure like to get my hands on him.”
Pure stubborn pride made her say, “Forget it. You have plenty of other horses to train.”
She probably could use some help from Jackson. He was good, excellent even. And she had grown to depend on him. She looked forward to his arrival each morning and enjoyed working with him all day. And if she felt an extra burst of energy in his presence or if she noticed how clean and masculine he smelled, well, so what. She was a woman.
