the top of his dusty black Stetson to the tip of his scuffed brown boots, the man exuded virile masculinity. His bearing, his movements and what she could see of his face, his jaw, his mouth—all of it—looked handsome, sexy.
Cassie just hated that.
She deteriorated into a complete klutz around good-looking, sexy men. As C. J. McClean, she could hold her own with the rough-cut good old boys in the construction business any day. But around any eligible, attractive male she reverted to little Cassie, the awkward tomboy raised by her strange maiden aunt.
Jake Coffey was single, or so she’d been told. But why did he have to be so danged appealing?
He stopped on the pavement a yard short of her person, regarding her from behind reflective sunglasses. “Ms. McClean?” He did not remove his shades.
She kept her place up on the curb, which gave her only a slight boost against his massive build.
“Yes?” She was determined to keep this carefully civil. Deliberately cool. But she did not remove her sunglasses, either. Civil was one thing, but she refused to make this confrontation easy for him.
“I’m Jake Coffey. Owner of Cottonwood Ranch.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the spread at the bottom of the hill. “We’ve talked on the phone.”
She glanced at the logo on the pocket of his jacket—the same one was on his pickup—an unimaginative black silhouette of a horse’s head with Cottonwood Ranch in a semicircle of script wrapped below it. “I know who you are, Mr. Coffey.” She did not extend her hand.
They hadn’t “talked” on the phone the last time. They’d shouted. Well, she had shouted. He always kept his voice infuriatingly low while refusing to budge about anything. Lately, it had been this restraining order. “What brings you up to my turf?”
Cassie was glad she was wearing sunglasses because she almost rolled her eyes at her own baiting tone. Here we go, she thought, the klutzy tomboy is already acting defensive. Why couldn’t she ever just act normal?
He didn’t respond to her taunt. “Seems you and I have another problem this morning, ma’am.”
“We have a problem? I don’t have a problem.” Cassie spread a palm on the bib of her overalls. “My work is proceeding on schedule.”
He hooked his fingers in his back pockets and planted his booted feet wide, with his torso settled low on his hips and his pelvis thrust forward, like a man who sat atop a horse a lot, which she supposed he did. Under his worn denim jacket, tucked into a dusty pair of Levi’s, he wore a faded black T-shirt that stretched over a well-developed chest.
“Ma’am,” he repeated, looking over his shoulder in the direction from which the noise had started late yesterday, “we have a problem.” His soft voice belied his firm stance. He looked back at her.
His skin was weathered, tan, and he had a black five o’clock shadow though it was only eight in the morning. His full lips were chapped-looking and slightly pouty, turned down, as if he might spit out something vile at any moment.
A most unpleasant man. Most threatening.
Cassie cocked a knee and took a dainty swipe at her thigh as if his dustiness had somehow contaminated her overalls. “Okay. Exactly what is it now, Mr. Coffey?”
His head had ticked in the direction of her gesture, as if it distracted him. He clamped his lips tight and looked back up at her face. “I’ve been up most of the night with my horses.” His voice was tired, unemotional. “That rock crusher down there sent my broodmares crawling up the stable walls yesterday. Kept ’em skittish all night. Another day of this and I might lose a couple of my winter foals. If I do, I am holding you legally responsible.”
She’d listened to him on the phone often enough. His voice was always low, controlled like this. But in person, it carried a resonance that rolled from deep in his chest. She hadn’t felt that during their terse phone conversations. And underneath it all, she clearly sensed his rising ire.
She let one eyebrow arch high enough that it cleared the frame of her sunglasses. “I doubt you can do tha—” Unfortunately, the crusher drowned out her last word, underscoring the man’s argument.
I don’t, he mouthed as he made an emphatic jab at his chest.
“How can you—” Cassie shouted as the crusher took another vibrating bite out of the hill—boom, boom, ka-boom! Unfortunately, the noise halted before she finished on a high note “—possibly hold me responsible?” The men up on the roof turned their heads toward her shouting. More quietly she continued, “I am in no way liable for what happens to your horses.”
“You don’t have to make all that noise. You could have that rock chipped out by hand.”
Was this man insane? She yanked off her sunglasses so she could give him the benefit of her most incredulous stare.
“Mr. Coffey—” now it was she who kept her voice lethally low “—removing a ledge of imbedded red rock that size with little pickaxes—” she pinched a thumb and finger together in front of his face “—would take weeks, perhaps months, and we’ve got to have those lots cleared soon so we can pour concrete before the first fall freeze. If the noise disturbs you, I suggest you move your horses to a quieter location.”
She started to turn away, but he stepped around her, jerking off his sunglasses and matching her flabbergasted expression with an incredulous one of his own.
“Move twenty-two mares? Do you have any idea what that would cost? And where would I take them? Texas? That noise ricochets over the whole of the Flats. You can hear it all the way to the river! Cottonwood Ranch was down there a long time before you started building these fancy houses. You can just shut down those machines until after my mares foal—”
“Absolutely not. Do you know what that machinery cost? I can only rent it for a limited time, and while I’m paying for it, I’m using it every minute of the day.” Cassie had not reached her level of success by wasting money.
He planted his fists at his belt. They were into it now. “Not where there’s a noise ordinance.”
“For your information—” The accursed booming started up again, seeming to support Jake Coffey’s grievances all the more, and Cassie hated the fact that she had to raise her voice again. “I have obtained a noise variance.”
“Well, there you have it—” Coffey said sarcastically.
When she cupped a hand to her ear, he leaned closer, bringing the aroma of horses, smoky wood and fine leather forward with him. He smirked while keeping that maddening voice level.
“I reckon when my horses read that variance, they’ll calm right down.”
Cassie felt her blood pressure spike. Nothing irked her more than being mocked by a man. The Scottish temper that she had inherited from Boss McClean boiled right to the surface. “They can eat the variance, for all I care.” She narrowed her eyes as she stared into his infuriatingly calm ones. “Those crushers stay.”
Heads jerked around on the roof above.
She clamped her lips and gritted her teeth, hating herself for flaring up in the same way her father always had.
Jake
