Jenn was a pretty woman. Damn beautiful, in fact.
And that was the crux of things, wasn’t it? She was a beautiful woman and even showing the wear and tear of a bad day she’d been pretty enough to leave him struggling to keep his eyes off her.
Trim and petite, with those perky little breasts just hinting from behind her shirt in a way that stirred up a man without even trying.
And all that red hair…?. It was the color of the paprika that Junebug, the McDermot housekeeper, put on her deviled eggs.
And Jenn’s skin—that was like porcelain. Pure, flawless, luminous porcelain.
And that small, perfectly shaped nose.
And those soft, pink lips that were meant for kissing.
And those eyes…
Oh, yeah, those eyes…
The blue of a clear sky at twilight out on the range where no city lights diluted the rich, deep, deep hue…
Those eyes had just pulled him right in the minute they’d opened and he’d had his first look at them.
Not that he’d wanted to notice anything he’d noticed. Because he hadn’t. Any more than he wanted to be picturing it all again in his mind’s eye now.
He wanted to just see her as a passing stranger in need of a little assistance. Tall, short; thin, fat; beautiful or homely as a mud fence—he didn’t want it to make any difference to him one way or another.
“So don’t let it make any difference,” he ordered his refection as he scraped off the last of the shaving foam with his razor.
What he wanted—what he needed—was to put Jenn Johnson into perspective, he decided. And to remember a few things himself. Like the vow he’d made that the next woman he got involved with would be someone he knew like the back of his hand. Someone who had no secrets. Someone so open she verged on the boring.
Because getting burned by a secretive woman once was enough. There was no way he wanted anything to do with any woman he couldn’t read like a book.
And even though Jenn Johnson wasn’t purposely keeping secrets from him the way Sarah had, Jenn certainly wasn’t a woman he could read like a book. She was a woman who couldn’t even recall her own name.
So helping her out, giving her aid and comfort and a roof over her head—those things were just being neighborly and they were okay.
But thinking about her as much as he’d thought about her since he’d found her, feeling that old familiar eagerness in the pit of his stomach, shaving for her at eight o’clock at night and counting the minutes until he could meet up with her again in the kitchen—those were not so okay with him.
Matt washed his face a little rougher than was called for, as if the force could wipe away all those other things he wanted stopped.
He’d be damned if he’d let his inclinations toward Jenn Johnson have reign over him the way his inclination toward Sarah had had reign over him. He’d be damned if he’d invest any kind of emotions in her or let himself get lost in that curly paprika-red hair or those incredible twilight-blue eyes or that porcelain skin he was itching to touch.
He’d been a sap for a beautiful woman once and once was enough. He was nobody’s fool. He’d graduated magna cum laude from Texas A&M. He had a master’s degree in agriculture and animal husbandry. He’d run two ranches. He’d helped his older brothers come up with a new, heartier breed of cattle. He was a man who knew himself, who knew what he wanted out of life and where he was headed, and neither of those things included another woman he didn’t know backward and frontward, inside and out. And that was all there was to it.
He sloshed cold water on his face, committed to not losing one ounce of control to thoughts about Jenn Johnson in any personal sense. Because he was damn sure not going to think about her like that.
He was going to think about ways to figure out who she was and where she ought to be and who she ought to be with, and that was all.
That was definitely all.
But even as he swore to himself that he wasn’t going to get involved with her, another thought played at the back of his mind, taunting him.
Chemistry was chemistry.
And there just might be no small amount of it riding roughshod over him.
Regardless of what he vowed to himself or how strong his controls and convictions.
When Jenn stepped out of the bedroom half an hour later she’d changed into a heavy wool turtleneck sweater and a pair of jeans. She’d washed her face and reapplied some mascara and blush, and pulled her hair back into an oversize clip that left a spray of curls at her crown.
Nothing fancy. But at least she’d cleaned up and was more presentable than she had been.
Following Matt’s instructions, she went the rest of the way down the hall to the rear of the house until she found the brightly lit kitchen. The voices and sounds of clattering dishes that she’d heard when she’d arrived were gone now and so were the people making them. Instead only Matt McDermot was there, pulling containers from the refrigerator several feet across the room. He was so intent on what he was doing that he didn’t notice her standing in the doorway.
He’d cleaned up, too. His hair was somewhat less spiky than before and his handsome face was freshly shaved.
And the moment Jenn set eyes on him she felt that odd tingling sensation run through her again.
Of course it didn’t help matters that he repeatedly bent over to reach into the refrigerator and a terrific derriere took center stage.
She might have watched him much longer but from the doorway on the opposite side of the kitchen an elderly man came in, spotting her immediately.
“There she is,” he said as if he and Matt had been wondering what was taking her so long.
“Buzz Martindale,” Jenn christened him.
“Yep, that’s me all right,” he confirmed as he limped into the kitchen on a cane, favoring his right leg. “And Matt says you’re Jenn Johnson. Havin’ some head problems, are you?”
“It seems so,” she confirmed, going farther into the kitchen herself until they met at the counter where Matt was taking dishes down from a cupboard after tossing her a welcoming smile that seemed to draw her to him.
“How are you feelin’?” Matt asked, giving her the once-over with those forest-green eyes.
“The headache is better than it was. Still there, but better. The dizziness comes and goes. An ache seems to be settling into my neck and shoulders but I’m not so cold anymore.” Although being near him seemed to be what chased away the chills. Not that she’d ever say that, or even acknowledge it to herself.
“The neck and shoulder ache is prob’ly stress,” Buzz offered. “A good night’s sleep’ll get rid of that for you. Always helps me when I get it.”
“I’m
