things like lasagna and stuffed shells. Maybe she’d share them.
Lyn always was conscious of the fact that Cal was a cosmopolitan man. He’d eaten fancy foods in New York that she’d never even heard of and though he praised her cooking and told her he’d missed ranch life and plain, hearty ranch fare, she worried that she wouldn’t do a good job for him.
Man, did he ever hate haying.
Cal itched all over. The seeds from the alfalfa had gotten into every crevice, every orifice, every pore. For the last two hours of the day, he fantasized about jumping in the stock pond, imagining the cool water sluicing over him, cleansing his skin of the prickly, dry hay.
The thought reminded him of a time in New York when he’d still been pretending he enjoyed wearing a suit and tie, a time he’d taken his girl of the moment out to a deserted reservoir and the two of them had gone skinny-dipping. And that thought brought to mind another, entirely inappropriate fantasy, one too close to home.
In his daydreaming, Lyn was riding with him. When they reached the stock pond, they dismounted and disrobed. He watched, pulse pounding and body stirring, as she pulled off her boots and stepped out of her jeans, then slowly, teasingly, unbuttoned her shirt one button at a time until the garment hung loosely around her, an open strip down the center showing him that beneath the practical work clothes she’d worn no undergarments of any kind.
He walked toward her and pushed the shirt off her shoulders, then turned her toward the pond, and together they took the few steps to the edge of the cool water. They waded in and as the water reached his waist, then his chest, he drew her into his arms, feeling her slippery curves against him….
He groaned as he dismounted and put away the horse. He must be nuts, torturing himself like this. Lyn was his employee. In no way had she given him any reason to believe she’d welcome a bout of wild sex, in or out of the stock pond. She was a woman who’d been physically abused by someone, probably her ex-husband if the hospital records of her previous injuries were any guide. He’d bet she’d run screaming if she knew of the thoughts slipping into his head with increasing regularity. Hell, she’d gone stiff as a board when he’d given in to that stupid impulse in the kitchen yesterday and grabbed her. His only excuse was that she made him forget good sense when she was around. He snorted. Some excuse. He’d even noticed her hands shaking with fear when she’d been close to his side doctoring his cut and still he’d hugged her to him without a thought as to how it might affect her.
He stomped to the house, thoroughly annoyed with himself. Why in hell couldn’t he stop thinking about her?
It must be the proximity thing, he decided. She’d been living in his home for over two months now, sleeping in a bedroom just steps away, making his meals, washing his clothes, helping with anything he asked. She never complained, no matter what he asked of her.
Of course, until yesterday she hadn’t spoken to him except for the barest, briefest possible responses, so he didn’t really know for sure that she wasn’t the whiny type.
But deep inside, he did know.
According to his sister’s husband, who had lived here in Jackson County all his life, Lyn was raised around Belvidere, the next little town to the east. Cal had spent his childhood in the county, but he didn’t recall ever knowing who she was. Of course, she’d have been five or six years younger than he was, anyway. Her mother had died when she was small and her daddy had never married again. Lyn was a quiet little thing who had worked with her father and took care of his house. People remembered she was a good cook, something he’d already learned.
But other than that, nobody remembered much. Her daddy had leased ranch land from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, and after Cal’s father had died the same year that Cal had started college back East, apparently Hamill had bought his property. Lyn would have been a young teenager, he figured, if her daddy had bought it then.
He should remember her, but he didn’t. Cal honestly couldn’t remember much about that time. After an accident at the end of his senior year of high school in which his friend Genie had died, he hadn’t been able to get out of town fast enough. And he’d been gone less than six months when his father had suffered a fatal heart attack and died and the ranch had been sold to Lyn’s father.
With an effort, he shook off the past. Though he’d always regret those lost last months with his father, he’d come to terms with Genie’s death, as had her family. Her brother Deck and he had repaired the hard feelings between them. He was home again, in more ways than one.
But his home needed work. A lot of work. Hamill hadn’t been much of a rancher, according to Deck. He’d only worked the outfit for three years before he died and the ranch was bought by a guy from up near Philip who hadn’t done much with it, either. He’d had it until he retired and moved up to Sturgis.
And that’s when Cal had bought the land that had once been his father’s. When he’d heard the asking price, he’d been shocked. When had dusty-dry sod in the Badlands gotten so expensive? He’d decided it was a good thing he’d worked on the New York Stock Exchange and made a small killing in the process. He’d need it to start up a ranch from scratch.
His thoughts circled back to Lyn…nobody remembered anything much after her daddy passed away and the ranch changed hands. They thought she’d married. The couple had drifted over to Rapid, someone thought. But nobody had seen her in a while, which was unusual enough in western South Dakota to raise eyebrows. Wonder where that Hamill girl went off to? The area was so sparsely populated that the locals joked that they knew everyone in the whole damned state.
He stopped in the mudroom that he’d added on recently and peeled off his boots. He carried both his shirt and his undershirt in his hand; he’d taken them off outside the door, shaken them out and used them to dust himself down. Tossing them into the washing machine, he moved into the adjacent bathroom to shower off the rest of the day’s grime. When he was finished, he grabbed one of the big bath sheets his sister Silver had bought when she redecorated his home, wrapping it around his waist. He’d seen Lyn outside firing up the barbecue grill when he’d come in, so he strode through the house in nothing but his towel. God, it felt good to get that scratchy seed off him.
Padding up the stairs, he walked down the hall to his bedroom. Every time he walked through the house, he felt more and more satisfied at the changes that had been made. And still were being made. He’d hired carpenters to repair some of the woodwork and sagging doors right after he’d bought the place. Then Silver had hired painters and wallpaperers and she’d gone through and spruced the place up with her own little touches, adding stenciling, rugs and window treatments. He’d been called out of town while she was still working on it and when he’d gotten home, she’d practically finished redecorating. Good thing, too, since she’d decided to marry Deck only weeks later. Now she was busy designing their own home while she got ready for the baby that would arrive near Valentine’s Day.
His bedroom door was ajar and he pushed it wide as he walked into the room.
Lyn whirled at his entrance, one hand going to her throat where she stood in front of his dresser putting away stacks of clothing. She didn’t make a sound, but her face went so completely white she scared him.
“Whoa, sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought you were outside.”
“I— I wasn’t.”
He nearly smiled but she still looked too rattled. “I can see that.” He waited, but she didn’t move a muscle. Finally, he cleared his throat. “Um, how about you finding some other chore to do while I get dressed?”
