he had let her get to him.
Lane had played poker with men who made it a point of talking smack in an effort to throw him off his game, and not once had he ever let any of it affect him. For one thing, he recognized the insults as a psychological ploy and simply tuned the men out. And for another thing, they all had better sense than to cross the line and accuse him of cheating. But when Taylor made it clear that she thought he had swindled her grandfather out of his ranch, she had unknowingly touched on one of his hot buttons and he’d damned near gone off like a Roman candle in a Fourth of July fireworks display.
He was a psychologist specializing in human behavior. He had been schooled not only in how to be a patient and observant listener but also how to keep his emotions in check. The last thing a client wanted to see from his therapist during a session was a judgmental expression or outright shock when they revealed some of their darkest secrets. Those psychology tools had served him well over the years and he had used them quite successfully as a professional poker player to keep from alerting his opponents to the cards he had been dealt.
But when it came to Taylor, it was as if his skills didn’t even exist. All she had to do was look at him with those big green eyes of hers and his training seemed to go right out the window.
The first time he’d noticed his uncharacteristic reaction to her had been when she told him that she wanted the other half of the ranch. She’d looked him square in the eye and the passion and determination in her striking green gaze had sent a streak of heat straight to the region south of his belt buckle. He had even found himself wondering if she would be that passionate when he made love to her.
His body tightened to an almost painful state and he rattled off every curse word he could think of. He forcefully slammed the car door and locked it with the remote. As he walked back to the house, he glanced down at the small bag in his hand. She couldn’t have put much more than a few changes of clothes in it, indicating that she wouldn’t be staying more than a night or two. That suited him just fine.
The sooner she went back to California and left him alone, the better. Then maybe he could figure out what the hell had gotten into him and what he was going to do to get rid of it.
* * *
Well before dawn, Taylor rolled over in bed and glanced at the clock on the bedside table. She hadn’t been able to sleep more than a couple of hours and those had been filled with fitful dreams of the tall, dark-haired man sleeping in the bedroom directly across the hall from hers.
Deciding she couldn’t stand another minute of tossing and turning, she sighed heavily, threw back the covers and sat up on the side of the bed. How was she going to get Donaldson to sell her his interest in the ranch and leave the Lucky Ace for good? And why on earth did she find him so darned attractive?
She still wasn’t entirely convinced that he hadn’t somehow managed to cheat her grandfather in that poker game. But Donaldson had presented a compelling argument for his innocence and even though she knew how good her grandfather was at the game, she was starting to have her doubts. After all, he was human and as much as she hated to admit it, he could very well have made a mistake when he mentally calculated his odds of winning that fateful hand.
But what disturbed her the most about Donaldson was her reaction to him. The moment he’d approached her at the party to introduce himself, she had caught her breath, and she wasn’t entirely certain she had breathed normally since. She had never experienced that kind of reaction to any of the men she’d dated in the past, let alone one she had just met and didn’t trust.
Exhausted from the emotional roller coaster she had been on for the past three weeks and unsettled by her reaction to the man across the hall, she decided to do the one thing that always helped her put things in perspective. After a quick shower, she was going to start cooking.
Twenty minutes later, Taylor tied her damp hair back in a ponytail as she walked into the spacious kitchen. After washing her hands and starting the coffeemaker, she prepared to get to work. Checking the pantry and refrigerator for available ingredients, she decided on what she would make for breakfast then reached into one of the cabinets for a set of mixing bowls.
“Do you mind if I get myself a cup of coffee?” a deep male voice asked from close behind her.
Jumping, she almost dropped the bowls she held as she spun around to face Donaldson. Her heart racing, she took a deep breath. “I think you just took ten years off my life.”
“Sorry,” he said, hanging his hat on a peg by the door before pouring himself a mug of coffee. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought you heard me.” His deep chuckle sent a wave of goose bumps shimmering over her skin. “It’s kind of hard not to make noise in a pair of boots on a hardwood floor.”
Her heart skipped a beat as her gaze traveled the length of him, down to his scuffed cowboy boots. No man had a right to look that good so early in the morning.
Last night at the party, she had thought he was extremely handsome in his dark blue jeans, white oxford-cloth shirt and expensive caiman-leather boots. But that was nothing compared to the way he looked now. Wearing well-worn jeans and a chambray work shirt, he was downright devastating. With his dark eyes, black hair and a fashionable day’s growth of beard stubble, Donaldson had that bad boy appeal about him that was sure to send shivers up the spine of any woman with a pulse.
Disgusted with herself and her wayward thoughts, Taylor set the metal mixing bowls on the counter and reached for a carton of eggs. “Where’s my grandfather’s housekeeper?”
“Marie retired right after the first of the year and I just haven’t gotten around to hiring another one,” he answered.
She wasn’t surprised. The woman her grandfather had hired after her grandmother died had to be getting close to seventy. But on the other hand, she wouldn’t have put it past Donaldson to have fired the woman, either.
“I’ll have breakfast ready in a few minutes,” she said, cracking eggs into one of the bowls with one hand while she reached for a whisk with the other. “Why don’t you have a seat at the table?”
“What are you making?” he asked as he sat down at the head of the oak trestle table that had been in her grandmother’s family for over three generations.
“Blueberry and ricotta–stuffed French toast with blueberry syrup, link sausage and blueberries and cantaloupe covered with vanilla sauce,” she said, dipping extra thick slices of bread in the cinnamon-spiced egg mixture before placing them on the heated stovetop griddle.
“Sounds good, but isn’t that a little fancy for a typical ranch breakfast?” he commented. “You must really like to cook.”
She shrugged. “Since I graduated from the California School of Culinary Arts, then went to Paris for a year to study pastry, you might say I’m rather fond of it.”
“Do you have your own restaurant?”
Arranging the food on two plates, she shook her head. “No, I’m a personal chef. I’m mainly hired for dinner parties and other special in-home occasions, like graduation and anniversary celebrations.”
“That sounds like an interesting job,” he said conversationally. “Do you have many clients?”
Nodding, she poured vanilla sauce over the fruit. “When I first started, I registered with the personal chef association and they referred clients to me. Now the majority of the calls I get are referrals from clients or from people who
