and parents hadn’t thought him safe for their children.
However, his bloodlines were excellent, and Mary had seen promise in the powerful haunches that had lifted him over a seven-foot fence when he’d attempted an escape. Using her life savings of fourteen thousand dollars, she’d outbid the other person who’d been interested in buying him.
Attila was the one thing she loved in all the world. They had bonded the first time she’d petted him at the track where she’d worked as a handler, getting the excited horses in the slots so the races could begin.
Noticing a cabin connected to the stable via an enclosed breezeway, she knocked on the door, then entered when no one answered. The place had a main room with a woodstove and two smaller rooms behind that. Bedrooms, she discovered upon further exploration. The building hadn’t been used in a while, she decided, swiping a finger through the dust on a sturdy pine table in the first room.
The ranch apparently didn’t hire many workers. That was fine by her. Here, she would have privacy.
Pleased, she hurried back to the lodge to move the SUV and trailer down, then decided first she’d better ask her boss about staying in the cabin.
From the kitchen, she heard a string of curses as she mounted the steps to the back entrance. Smoke billowed from the screen door. Her boss came outside just as she approached wearing oven mittens and carrying a baking sheet of black lumps. With a couple of added curses, he tossed lumps, pan and all over the railing and onto the dried lawn.
“That could start a grass fire,” she mentioned in carefully casual tones.
He grabbed a hose from a reel mounted on the house and drenched the biscuits or whatever the lumps had been in their former incarnation, then turned off the water with a furious twist. “There, satisfied?” He stomped inside.
She followed, wary of his temper but curious about him and the operations of the resort. “Do you need some help?”
Giving her a look that should have sizzled her to charcoal, he nodded. “Can you make biscuits?”
After the briefest hesitation, she said she could. Spotting a bag of cornmeal, she added, “How about some cornbread? People like that with soup.”
“Whatever.”
He clearly wasn’t in the mood to discuss it. She washed her hands and set to work. In a few minutes, she slid a skillet of cornbread into the oven. When he left to answer the phone in the office, she quickly tasted the soup.
It was pretty good, but a bit salty. She added some pasta curls to absorb the salt and a dash of pepper to give it a little more balance. She also added garlic powder and a few dried onion flakes, plus a scant tablespoon of sugar.
After retrieving the baking pan from the lawn, she scrubbed it at the stainless steel sink, dried it, then put it with some pie pans she found in a cabinet beside the stove. Spotting a timer, she set it so she’d remember to check the cornbread, then explored the kitchen more fully. If she was also going to be the cook and chief bottle washer—and it looked as if that was her fate—she’d better know her way around.
“Do you serve dinner every night?” she asked when Jonah returned.
“Only when we have guests in the lodge. Right now we have six men here on a business retreat. They’ve been doing war games all week, but this is their last day. They’ll be leaving in the morning. Then we’re free until the hunters start coming in next month.”
“You don’t employ a cook?”
“She quit.”
Mary heard the undercurrent of anger in his voice, saw it in the tightening of his jaw. He looked like a man who could bite off iron and spit out horseshoes, as the starter at the race track used to say.
Her new boss continued. “It was too isolated, too lonely out here to spend a winter, she said.”
“Did she mean something to you?”
He looked rather startled at the question. “Not personally, if that’s what you’re thinking. I don’t get involved with the hired help.”
“Good idea,” she said and meant it. She relaxed a bit. She made it a rule not to get involved with anyone, so they were on the same wavelength. “I looked at the bunkhouse. No one seems to be using it.”
“That’s right. Keith and I have managed to run things without much help in the past, but business has picked up this summer. Companies like to use our place for retreats because it’s cheap.”
She wasn’t interested in the business prospects at the moment. “I can stay out there. That’ll keep the room here in the lodge free for paying guests.”
He shook his head. “It hasn’t been modernized. There’s no running water, and the only heat is from the stove.”
“I don’t mind—”
“I do. It’ll be easier all around if you stay in the lodge. Winter can come early here in the mountains. There’s no sense in wasting firewood out there.”
“You seemed to think it was okay for a male.”
“I thought he could cut his own firewood.”
“I can do that.”
He stuck his hands on his hips and gave her an impatient glare. “You won’t have time. I need help with the paying customers. We make them happy campers, they come back next year or tell their friends about the place. That means money.”
She understood the imperatives of finance all too well. “Fine. Uh, where do you and the Towbridges stay?”
“I have a room on the other side of the office. Keith and Janis have the original ranch house over at the other camp, about a mile down the road from here.”
Again she stored the info. The lodge and ranch were bigger than she’d first thought. The main structure was new or had been extensively remodeled. The bunkhouse and stable weren’t, but both had been repaired recently. The place had an air of…not exactly prosperity, but of hard work and plans for the future.
Up until three months ago, she’d had big plans, too—the Olympics with her and Attila in the cross-country steeplechase. As she’d thought, he was a powerful jumper and had a competitive spirit. He’d just needed careful training and someone he could trust to bring out his talents.
But early in June, leading in an important trial, he’d pulled up lame. A sprained tendon, the vet had said. Rest and several months of mending had been the recommended cure.
She’d needed a job and he’d needed a place to heal. So here they were. Actually this looked like the ideal situation. She would take care of the horses, which were out on the trail, she assumed, and help cook when necessary.
The timer dinged.
After removing the golden-brown cornbread from the oven, she flipped it out onto a platter, turned the oven off, wiped out the skillet and set it on the back of the stove, then glanced around to see what else was to be done.
Jonah was leaning against the doorway, observing her every move. Her insides
