like he felt his life was being taken over, at times.
So when had his baby girl grown up? Hadn’t he been a band booster and Future Farmers of America sponsor just yesterday? He clearly remembered sitting at the kitchen table, poring over course catalogs with her, back in the days when his opinion had mattered.
What had happened to the giggling girl who could rein a horse with one hand and hold a portable phone with the other? Somehow she had turned into a beautiful, stubborn woman who wouldn’t listen to her daddy when he told her she was picking the wrong man to marry.
Which reminded him—just how had he convinced himself that his attraction to Leah at Tammy’s wedding had merely been a healthy man’s reaction to a beautiful woman? He’d only attended out of obligation to Tammy, who had been one of Myra Jo’s best friends since they were gangly little girls.
But he’d been delighted by the diversion Leah had provided. She’d been cool, contained, an economy of motion, and he’d had the absurd desire to ruffle her feathers, to put a chink in the perfect armor she’d worn around herself. His reaction had surprised him. In fact, he still wondered what it was about her that intrigued him so.
The easy answer was that he was darn near celibate these days. He hardly saw Ysabel anymore, not with the travel demands her new promotion put on her. Even so, his relationship with Ysabel had always been more of a deep, abiding friendship with a little sex thrown in—hardly the typical dating couple, he was sure. So was he drawn to Leah because his body longed to be with a soft, sensual woman, or because he was drawn to her calm, professional demeanor in the midst of all the wedding hysteria? Since he liked to think of himself as being mature enough to handle his sex drive, he wanted to believe the latter.
Yeah, right.
And maybe her lush figure had stood out among the line of nearly anorexic sticks in attendance like a rose in full bloom in a vase full of cattails.
Much more likely.
Seeing Leah and Myra Jo together had also reinforced his concern for his daughter. She was dangerously thin. Not that her mother was any help. The rare times Myra Jo saw Julie, the first words out of Julie’s mouth contained a question about whether Myra Jo had gained weight or not. He’d forced himself to stay quiet and wait until after the witch was gone to reassure his baby girl of her intelligence and her beauty. Just thinking about his ex-wife was enough to make his neck ache.
Wade took one last swallow of coffee and threw the dregs from his cup onto the lawn. If he didn’t get busy, Leah would be arriving with her crew to find the pool area a mess and the hot tub still not working. He ignored the funny trip of his pulse at the thought of seeing her again. After all, hadn’t he just convinced himself that there was nothing unusual about his reaction to the curvy brunette?
As he worked on the pump in its crowded little shed, he reminded himself with each twist of the wrench that he’d better get his libido under control. He might have allowed himself a small fantasy or two at the Griffen wedding, but Leah worked for him now, and he wasn’t about to let any nonsense happen.
“Excuse me...” a hesitant voice said from the doorway.
He knew who owned the voice, even though the bright sun backlit Leah’s form and hid her face in shadows. Her full curves cast an intriguing picture, and he was stunned as the desire to find out what her softness would feel like if pressed between him and, say, the nearest wall ripped through him.
He pulled himself up short, amazed by the suddenness and intensity of his reaction. Hadn’t he just told himself to get his thoughts under control?
At the rate things were going, this wedding would be the death of him.
Two
“Excuse me,” Leah repeated, peering into the dim room. “Do you work here?”
She groaned when the man stood up and her eyes adjusted from the brilliant sunshine. She felt like a fool for asking Wade Mackey if he worked there, but he was supposed to be out of town.
“I’m sorry, Wade, I didn’t—”
“Don’t worry about it.” He stepped outside the pump house with her and retrieved his shirt. “Much to Myra Jo’s disappointment, I try hard not to look the part of the landed gentry.”
Now there was the unvarnished truth. If there was one thing Wade Mackey looked like, it was a dyed-in-the-wool cowboy. Make that Cowboy, with a capital C, she amended as she watched him slip the blue chambray shirt over his muscular arms and broad chest. Her mouth went dry as she watched his long fingers work the buttons, slowly hiding the enticing view from her.
“I take it you’re ready to set up for the wingding.”
Leah nodded, then cleared her throat before adding, “I’m sorry I disturbed you.”
“No bother at all. I was getting the hot tub running before Myra Jo calls in the National Guard to contain the disaster.”
She tried not to chuckle, but she couldn’t help it. “So is it safe to stand down from red alert?”
“Yeah, I think so. I was just about to fire things up and make sure. Did you need my help?”
“Oh, no, I just wanted to be sure it was all right for me to get started. We’ve got a lot to do before the girls arrive.”
“Help yourself to anything you need. I can call some of the boys up from the bunkhouse if you’d like.”
“Heavens, no, but thanks for the offer. I wouldn’t dream of taking the men away from their duties.”
“Their duties are to do whatever I tell them to do.”
Leah focused sharply on his words. In a second’s span, the good ol’ boy had been replaced by the boss. And she strongly doubted the warning she’d heard had been her imagination.
“Be that as it may, I have things under control,” she said in a polite tone. There was always some jockeying for position at the start of any job, and Leah had to be careful to establish her inability to be intimidated. Her fleeting hope that Wade’s tenseness at the convention center had been a momentary thing faded as fast as the dew under the sweltering Texas sun.
“Then I’ll leave you to your work. By the way,” he said over his shoulder as he headed back to his repairs, “get with me before you leave. We need to talk without Myra Jo around.”
“Fine. I’ll see you early this afternoon and we can visit.”
Leah walked toward the house to start her crew at their tasks, replaying the last few moments in her head. There was no doubt she had just been ordered—politely, of course—to be available to receive her instructions. Leah had never dreamed she would be working exclusively with Myra Jo. Since the girl’s mother was living in Dallas, it was easy to extrapolate Daddy Wade would be the PIC, otherwise known as the parent in charge.
Leah found that during the course of the morning she could hardly keep her mind off her coming meeting with him. She directed the luncheon on autopilot, and, thank goodness, everything went off flawlessly. But by the time the last cup of coffee had been served, and Myra Jo and her sorority sisters were lounging by the pool, Leah’s nerves were stretched thin.
With
