“I asked your philosophy about breaking horses,” she reminded him.
He paused before answering. “I don’t like to think of it as breakin’. I like to think of it as buildin’. I think if you’ve got a horse to train, it’s like bringin’ up a kid. Your future relationship with the horse depends on how well you do it.”
She was surprised at this easy, unexpected flow of words and risked a quick look at him out of the corners of her eyes. “You’ve trained a lot of horses?”
“A fair number. Even some tough ones.”
She turned around and studied him. His deep-set gray eyes were thoughtful and clear, with silvery motes swimming in their depths.
“And how do you go about training a horse that doesn’t cooperate?” She was thinking of Sidewinder, the two-year-old quarter horse who had, of late, appointed himself the bane of her existence. Or so it seemed.
Colt’s eyes, those marvelous eyes, met hers with a crinkle of amusement. There was nothing hard about them now. “You have to train an uncooperative horse like porcupines make love. Very gently, ma’am—Mrs. Burke.”
She whipped back around, not wanting him to see that she was charmed as well as embarrassed. She shoved the biscuits into the oven and slammed the oven door. The noise it made reverberated into an awkward silence. Well, perhaps it was only awkward for her. She didn’t dare look at him.
“Mr. McClure, how many eggs can you eat, and how do you like them cooked?” she blurted.
“You better call me Colt. And I can eat five eggs. Or six. Sunny-side up.”
“I don’t usually cook for the help. From now on, you’ll eat with the ranch foreman at his house.” She was setting boundaries now; she discouraged familiarity with the hands.
“That’s fine.”
She drew a deep stabilizing breath. “Maybe I’d better explain things. Frisco’s my foreman, and he’s been here since my late husband was a boy. Dita’s his wife, a hard worker. She does the work of a man around here. Eddie’s their nineteen-year-old son, and he cooks, handles odd jobs and works in the garden.” She didn’t tell him the rest about Eddie; Colt would figure that out for himself.
“This Dita—you mean to say she’s a regular hand?”
“That’s what I mean to say, all right. She’s in her forties and as strong as an ox. She’s also solid and dependable, which is more than you can say for some.”
“I see,” Colt said, although she knew he was puzzling over a forty-something-year-old woman being employed as a hand. Well, Dita was a blessing, and you had to take help wherever you could get it. Also, Dita and Frisco and Eddie were her family. They weren’t related by blood, but they were all she had now that Justin was gone; her own parents had died when she was a teenager.
“You have any objection to hard work, cowboy?” she asked Colt.
“That’s what I’m looking for,” he said evenly.
“I’d say you’ve found it at the Banner-B.”
“Looks like it, all right. Speakin’ of which, what do you want me to do today?”
“Dig postholes,” she said. “You’ll find the posthole digger in an empty stall in the barn, and my foreman will show you where to start.”
She caught him eyeballing her breasts, but he quickly glanced away when he saw that she noticed. Still, she felt her nipples pucker under the soft robe. And in response to what? A cocky attitude, a penetrating gaze?
Colt McClure wasn’t her type; he was a drifter, no doubt, and there was something hard about him. Something tough. And something dangerous enough to set off wild alarms inside her head.
She’d meant to ask Colt where he’d worked last, and she wanted him to supply references, but her physical response to him was getting way out of line. It embarrassed her and made her feel guilty—she hadn’t even looked at another man since Justin. She’d figured that sex was something she’d never experience again, like wearing suits to work and drawing a regular paycheck.
Fine, but then why was she feeling something breathtakingly akin to lust simmering just below the surface of her skin? Why had her heartbeat gone all aflutter under the chaste folds of her robe?
And the man who was responsible for her turmoil was totally unaware. Colt McClure wolfed down eggs and biscuits as if there were no tomorrow. He had a sensual mouth and big hands, and for an instant she imagined that mouth exploring hers and those hands caressing her breasts.
No!
The man was an unknown quantity with nothing to commend him but the right physique for the job and a willingness to work at the Banner-B. Bethany probably shouldn’t have hired him, but what else was she to do? She’d promised Justin to make the ranch a success, and she couldn’t do it all alone even with Frisco and his family’s help. And maybe she wouldn’t be able to do it at all if cousin Mott succeeded in snatching the place out from under her.
Oh, why had she thought of that? Sudden tears welled in her eyes, and she blinked them away. If Mott succeeded—but she’d already made up her mind that she wouldn’t allow it, no matter how powerful he was, no matter what his political connections.
“Anything wrong, Mrs. Burke?”
Bethany couldn’t let herself seem vulnerable to this man. Or to anyone else for that matter. Vulnerability was too often seen as weakness. But oh, sometimes she felt her loneliness like a vise around her heart, and sometimes she thought she couldn’t stand the pain of it.
She tossed a spatula into the sink with a distracting clatter and made a blind beeline for the hall stairs. She called out over her shoulder, “Any questions about the job, ask Frisco.”
“I thank you kindly for breakfast,” he called after her. “And do you have any sheets for my bed?”
She pretended that she hadn’t heard, but she wished she’d thought of that. Of course he’d need sheets. And maybe some other things, too.
It was the other things that she didn’t dare to contemplate. Felt guilty for even thinking about. But she was sure that they also had something to do with bed.
CHAPTER TWO
BY ONE O’CLOCK IN THE afternoon, the day was rolling along full blaze ahead. Colt swiped at his forehead with one sleeve of the shirt he’d tied around his waist in an attempt to tan away some of the prison pallor. He hadn’t been out in the sun much for the past three years—inmates were allowed only one hour a day exercise in the pen.
He squinted for a moment at the line of dust rolling toward him from the horizon, then threw himself into the task at hand—digging holes. It wasn’t an interesting job, but it gave him time to think.
Thinking was a pastime he’d cultivated in prison because there hadn’t been a whole lot else to do except explore the prison law library for information that would win him a new trial. New information had surfaced, finally. And he’d been sprung, thank God. The trouble was, he hadn’t thought out what he wanted
