up the next one. “I want to show you that I can do this.”
“You don’t have anything left to prove, Daisy.”
“Maybe,” she said, “but it’s important to me to carry my own weight.”
“You treat these guys any better and they’re going to be trying to hire you away.”
She laughed a little. “Max already offered to back me in opening my own restaurant. But I think he was kidding.”
Frowning, Jericho glanced back at the men sitting beside the fire. “I’m not so sure.”
Daisy stood up and laid one hand on his forearm. “No worries, Jericho. I’m exactly where I want to be.”
She picked up the clean dishes and walked toward camp, leaving Jericho staring after her. The problem here was, Daisy was exactly where he wanted to be, too.
* * *
Only two weeks had passed, and Jericho was a man possessed. He spent most days doing everything he could to avoid being around Daisy. But it seemed that no matter what, she found a way to be near him. Her scent clung to the air of the main house. Every breath he drew reminded him of her.
Her laughter rang out and his ears were attuned for the sound, even from rooms away. The meals she prepared were raved about and even their clients, the fussy lawyers and busy bureaucrats, were charmed by her.
He couldn’t even escape her at night. His dreams were full of her. And the knowledge that her room was only three doors down the hall from his plagued his mind constantly.
Her dog wasn’t helping the situation any, either. Ever since he’d found the little thing that last night in the forest, the poodle had officially adopted him. He could hardly take a step without watching first where he set his boot, afraid he’d crush the damn thing. He’d taken plenty of ribbing about his newfound friend from the other guys, too. Hell, he’d often thought about getting a dog himself, but his plans hadn’t included a dog so small it could sit on the palm of his hand.
“Is there a reason you look like you want to bite through a brick?”
Jericho came up out of his dark thoughts with a fierce scowl on his face. He turned on his old friend and said, “This is all your fault, you know.”
“What’d I do?” Sam argued, his own features twisting up into a frown.
“You brought Daisy here. You’re the one who offered her the damn job.” Of course Jericho was the one who had hired her, but that was beside the point. “She doesn’t belong and she never will and pretending otherwise is just making a bad situation worse.”
Sam’s features cleared up and a smile tugged at his mouth. “She’s getting to you, isn’t she?”
“Hell, no, she’s not,” he lied. Damned if he’d admit to Sam what he couldn’t admit to himself. “She’s just a distraction is all.”
“She is that,” Sam agreed and opened a stall door to pour feed for one of the horses. When he was finished, he stepped back, closed the stall again and walked to the next one. “A pretty woman’s always a distraction. And one that can cook, too?” He whistled, low and long, shaking his head for emphasis. “Well, that woman’s a treasure to a man who isn’t too stupid to see what’s right in front of him.”
Jericho stared at his friend’s back hard enough to bore holes right through his body. “Now I’m stupid?”
“Didn’t say that, but won’t argue the point, you being the boss and all.”
“Thanks very much,” Jericho muttered and shot a look toward the main house. The barn doors were open, watery winter sunlight slanting across the neatly swept stone floor. Inside the house, Daisy would be bustling around the kitchen preparing lunch for the employees. She was probably singing, he told himself, in that slightly off-key voice of hers. His insides stirred at the thought, and he told himself he was in bad shape.
“You’re the one making yourself miserable, you know,” Sam told him casually as he continued making his rounds down the row of horse stalls. “Nobody else here has a problem with her. She’s doing a good job and she’s nice on top of it.”
“Nice.”
Sam shot him a look. “Yeah, nice. You might want to try it.”
Oh, that was the problem, Jericho thought, shoving both hands into his jeans pockets. He wanted to be more than nice to her. He wanted her under him, over him. He wanted to slide his hands over those luscious curves, look down into her whiskey eyes and see his own desire-ravaged face reflected back at him. And he wanted it now.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered and stalked out of the barn. What he needed, he told himself, was a hard hike up the mountain. Maybe a night or two on his own. Get his mind clear. Get his sense of control and order back. Get the hell away from Daisy Saxon before she drove him completely crazy.
* * *
Daisy was worried.
Jericho had been gone for two nights already and, with no signs of coming back, he was about to make it three. He’d disappeared up the mountain with hardly more than a word to her or anyone else. Sam didn’t know where he’d gone—or he simply wasn’t saying—and the other guys were just as clueless.
They didn’t seem concerned either. They only said that Jericho did this from time to time and she shouldn’t worry herself over it. But how could she not?
She’d become accustomed to seeing him every day. To hearing him move around the house. To knowing that he was right down the hall from her every night. Without him there, something vital was missing. Even Nikki was moping around the house as if she’d lost her best friend.
The house was closed up for the night. There were no clients at the moment and the other employees lived in a separate log home on the other side of the compound. She and Nikki were alone and though she wasn’t scared, she was uneasy. Wrapping her arms around her middle, she shivered in her short cotton nightgown and stared out her bedroom window at the moonlit darkness beyond the glass.
“Where are you?” she murmured.
How long was he going to stay out there on his own? Why was he gone? She’d so hoped they’d made a connection on their two days in the woods together. She remembered with perfect clarity that deep, lingering kiss that still had her waking up in the middle of the night with her body aching and her heartbeat racing.
How could he just leave? Doesn’t he care if people worry?
Behind her on the bed, Nikki whined in sympathy.
But Daisy didn’t want sympathy. She wanted Jericho. Home. Where he belonged. Funny, but she hadn’t even realized until this moment that she’d already begun to think of this place as home. Strange how quickly she’d acclimated to being here. To this way of life. So completely different from life in the city, living on the mountain was slower yet so much more…fundamental. Here, everyone worked together to make sure life moved as it should. The employees at the camp were a family and she’d slid into their company so easily, she’d come to rely on all of them.
But
