me?”
Oh, dear. He hadn’t been told. Darn that Alana and Trent. They should have given him a heads-up.
“Ramses.” She smiled sheepishly. “My cat. After the pharaoh. He thinks he’s king of the world, and if I’d left him behind in Colorado, he wouldn’t have spoken to me for a month. Seriously. He has major catt-itude. Didn’t Alana and Trent tell you I was bringing him along?”
Clearly not.
“I hate cats.”
Big surprise. He probably hated puppies, babies and fuzzy little chicks, too. “I promise you won’t even notice him.”
His lips tightened in a way that projected “Famous last words.”
Oh, well. Nothing she could do about it now. It wasn’t like she could ship Ramses home.
“You’ll see. He’s adorable. Nobody can resist Ramses.”
Nobody but him, she would bet.
She headed toward the front seat of the rental where Ramses had spent the past few hours riding it out—much to his dismay. The orange Peke-faced Persian stared up at her in the same way Cabe Jensen did—with a combination of resentment and disgust.
“Hey there, buddy.” She lifted the travel kennel up to her face. Ramses’s gaze moved from her to the pasture behind her, then back to her face again, pupils flaring, smooshed-in nose lifting up as if he’d caught a whiff of the pines and freshly cut grass behind her. “You okay?”
As a reply, the cat let out his trademark Persian howl, a cross between stepped-on kitty and wailing banshee. Her gaze darted to Cabe, but he just raised his brows and shook his head.
“Great,” she thought she heard him mutter.
Relax, she told herself. It wasn’t as though she and Ramses would be seeing a lot of the man. He was the proprietor of a guest ranch, one that specialized in people with disabilities. This time of year the ranch catered to a different type of clientele, Alana had told her: big-game hunters. According to Alana it was a booming business. Elk and antelope and a whole host of other animals made their home in the high California desert.
“Got anything else in there I need to know about?” he asked.
“Nope.” She cradled Ramses’s cage in front of her. “This is the last surprise.”
This time, she was certain she heard him grunt. “I hope so.”
She hoped so, too.
* * *
HE COULD FEEL her behind him.
Stubborn, opinionated woman. Why wasn’t he surprised she’d brought along her cat? And what the hell was in the suitcases he lugged up the steps of his home? Damn things weighed as much as a ship anchor.
“Wow. This is pretty, Cabe.”
Hadn’t she been in his home before? He frowned.
Now that he thought about it, she hadn’t. He’d given her a wide berth when she’d visited the ranch last summer.
“How long have you lived here?”
“All my life,” he said, struggling to get the multiple pieces of luggage up the first flight of stairs. It was like carrying bales of hay, and it took everything he had to keep his breathing under control. Damned if he’d let her see him struggle.
“You sure you don’t want help with that?” she asked, almost as if she read his mind.
“Just hold on to your cat.”
“Not my hat?”
He glanced back down at her. She smiled up at him. He decided to ignore her.
She wouldn’t let him. “The house looks really old.”
He paused for a moment, ostensibly so he could respond to her comment, but really so he could catch his breath at the top of the steps. He felt as if his arms had stretched two inches by the time he set her luggage down.
“It was built in 1859,” he all but wheezed.
“No kidding.”
At the bottom of the steps was the family room, the hardwood floor so shiny it reflected the image of a massive stone fireplace that sat kitty-corner from the front door. Claw-footed furniture was arranged around the room, a beige-and-brown cowhide lay in the middle of the floor, matching pillows on the sofa. Across from the family room, still along the front of the house, was a drawing room, and behind that, toward the back, the kitchen overlooked a side pasture that stretched all the way to the main road.
“Our family was one of the first to settle in the area.”
“Neat.”
At the look of approval in her eyes, he picked up the luggage again. Sure, he was normally a lot friendlier to his guests, and sure, he was probably a bit hard on her, but Saedra Robbins annoyed the heck out of him with her I-can-do-anything-you-can-do attitude. That was why he’d be boiled in hoof tar before he let her see how out of breath he was.
One step at a time.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Attic.”
He heard her laugh. “Going to lock me in there?”
Now there was an idea. Granted, Trent and Alana might not approve, but it sure would make his life easier. She rubbed him the wrong way, but he was also man enough to admit that part of his problem was how gorgeous the woman was. Not just mildly pretty. Not even vaguely pretty. She was breathtakingly beautiful with her wide blue eyes, full lips and heart-shaped face that featured a tiny button nose and softly rounded chin.
“Not unless you misbehave.” He was only half-kidding.
Maybe things wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d had a spare cabin for her to stay in, but with the ranch fully booked, it’d made sense to have her stay in his home. Frankly, it’d been the only option. Even the hotels were booked this time of year.
“Hmm.” Her long blond hair fell over one shoulder as she pretended to consider his words. “That sounded like a challenge.”
Was she flirting with him? He drew himself up as best he could considering his burden, arranging his face into a mask of indifference. She would learn he had no interest in women, not even a beautiful one. His damn sexual attraction was just an annoyance—nothing more.
“It was meant as a warning.”
He’d made it to the top of the steps, thank God, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Funny that she could stand beneath him on the steps, smaller by at least a foot, and yet he could still feel the urge to run away.
“Did you hear that, Ramses?” She turned the cage around so she could peer at her cat. She pitched her voice down low and gruff. “We’ve been warned.”
This
