it and you know it,” she teased. “What about the rest of the men? Are they all ready? How’s Frankie’s foot? He didn’t seem to be favoring it as much today as he has been.”
Just last week, Frankie’s horse had stepped on his foot and he’d been hobbling around ever since. “It’s better than it was,” Tuck replied, “but it’s still tender. It should be better by next week. Even if it’s not, we’ve got the Yank to pick up the slack, so we should do fine.”
Her pulse kicking into high gear just at the memory of how he’d made her feel, Lise frowned. “You think he’ll be able to handle the work?”
He laughed. “Are you kidding? He’s big as a house! And from what you told me about the way he hauled you out from under Thunder’s hooves, he’s not only strong, he keeps his head in an emergency. You must have thought so, too, or you wouldn’t have hired him.”
She couldn’t deny it. Like Tuck, she’d thought he was just what she needed in a cowboy. Now she wasn’t so sure. There was something about the man that disturbed her, and she couldn’t for the life of her say what it was. For now, though, she was reserving judgment on Steve Trace, though she had no intention of admitting that to Tuck.
“It’s not like we’ve got a flood of cowboys beating a path to our door in search of a job,” she said dryly. “Beggars can’t be choosers. Sometimes, you’ve got to take what you get till something better comes along. Not that he’s not going to work out,” she amended quickly. “At this point, it’s too soon to tell. But at least we’ve got another hand for the roundup, and right now, that’s our main concern.”
If he didn’t work out after that, she thought, she’d send him packing. They’d be shorthanded again, but somebody would come along eventually. They always did.
The next day started early. Long before daylight, the men were up and dressed and wolfing down bacon and eggs and homemade biscuits in the dining hall. Feeling like he was back home again in his mother’s kitchen, Steve bit into his first biscuit of the morning and groaned in appreciation. Lise hadn’t been kidding when she said she fed her cowboys well. His mother was an excellent cook, but even she never made biscuits like this. “Damn, this is great!”
Looking up from the four biscuits he was slathering with real butter, Frankie grinned. “If you think this is good, wait till the roundup starts. You’re not going to believe what Cookie can do on a campfire.”
In the process of taking another bite of his biscuit, Steve stiffened slightly. “What roundup?”
“The one that starts a week from Monday,” he retorted. “Didn’t Lise tell you about it yesterday when she hired you? The summers are so hot, we have a roundup every year at the beginning of fall to check out the cattle and watering holes. The whole crew goes.”
“Including Lise?”
He nodded. “Yep. We load the horses up in trailers, along with all the gear, and head out for a couple of weeks in the bush. It’s just like being in the Old West. It’s great!”
Steve didn’t doubt that it was. But he wasn’t ready to leave the compound yet, dammit. Certainly not for two or three weeks! He had to get inside the house and search it, and he couldn’t do that if he was miles away, traipsing around the bush playing cowboy.
There wasn’t, however, a hell of a lot he could do about it without blowing his cover. He’d come there pretending to be down and out and in need of the job Simon had promised him, and when the boss said you had to go out in the bush, you went without complaint. Damn. Now what was he supposed to do?
“Hey, that’s my biscuit!” Chuck bellowed when Barney snatched the last one in the pan right out from under his nose. “You’ve already had five, you pig! Gimme that!”
“Not on your life, junior. You just ate four, yourself. This one’s mine.”
Furious, the younger man looked ready to punch him, and Steve wasn’t sure if it was because Barney had stolen the last biscuit or because he’d called him junior. Either way, Steve knew an opportunity when he saw one. Grinning at the two men, he drawled, “Geez, fellas, they’re damn good biscuits, but you don’t have to fight over them. Here, Chuck, take mine.” Tossing him the last one on his plate, he rose to his feet and grabbed the empty biscuit pan. “I’ll get a hot one from the kitchen. Anybody else want one?”
When five hands went up, including Chuck and Barney’s, he had to laugh. “If Cookie can keep up with you guys, he must be some cook. I’ll be right back.”
Chuckling, he strode out, but his smile died the second the door to the dining hall closed behind him and he headed for the house thirty yards away. He was taking a chance, making a move when Lise and the cook were both there, but what other choice did he have? With the roundup starting in a matter of days, he was running out of time.
Another agent would, in all likelihood, have had a game plan in place before he even thought about stepping into the house, but Steve had never operated that way. He was a roll-with-the-punches, fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kind of guy, which was what made him a damn good agent. He didn’t act—he reacted—and nine times out of ten, his instincts were right on the money.
That didn’t mean the old ticker wasn’t pumping out the adrenaline as he approached the door. Every nerve ending was on alert, his muscles tense, though he liked to think he hid it well. His gait easy and relaxed, he opened the back door as if he had every right in the world to be there.
Not sure what to expect, he stepped inside and found himself in a small back hall. Stairs directly in front of him gave access to the upstairs, and to the right, a swinging door obviously led to the kitchen. Through the door, he could hear pots and pans rattling as Cookie sang to himself in an off-key baritone.
So he hadn’t heard him come in, he thought with a soundless sigh of relief. Now, where the hell was Lise?
Standing perfectly still, he cocked his head and thought he caught the faint strains of what sounded like the weather channel coming from a television upstairs. Pleased, he smiled slowly, his gray eyes glinting with satisfaction. So Cookie was tied up in the kitchen with the dishes, and Lise was upstairs. He couldn’t have planned it better if he’d tried. He couldn’t do a search now, not when either one of them could walk in on him at any second, but at least he could discover the floor plan. Then if he had to search the place in the middle of the night, he wouldn’t run into a lamp or something and wake the household.
The question was, which way did he go first? Hesitating, he stared down the hall, then to his left, and wondered which led to the study. He knew there was one—last night when Tuck had returned to the bunkhouse and joined the poker game, he’d mentioned that he’d been talking to Lise in the study. It was there, no doubt, that Simon had concealed records of his illegal activities.
Five minutes, Steve thought grimly. He didn’t care how well the bastard had hid them, give him five minutes and he felt sure he could find them.
Tossing a mental coin, he decided to explore through the door to the left, but before he could make a single move, he heard a noise at the top of the stairs. Freezing, all senses on alert, he glanced up, ready to explain that he was there for biscuits and didn’t know where the kitchen was. But the words never left his mouth. He took one look at Lise in her nightgown and robe, her waist-length auburn hair flowing past her shoulders, and his mind went completely blank.
Chapter 2
She
