His heart said no, not a good idea.
The last person on this planet he needed to get mixed up with was a woman from New York City. That was just way too close to things he’d walked away from.
And yet, he’d found himself volunteering the Alamo in her moment of need, the manners his gram raised him with defying his better judgement. He’d been almost relieved when she so curtly declined his help.
As he swung her cases—plural—out of the rental’s trunk, he heard the unmistakable sound of Deputy protesting. A ten-second detour put him at his front door.
‘Sorry, boy, got distracted. Come on out.’
Deputy looked about as ticked off as a dog used to the sole attention of his owner possibly could, but he was a fast forgiver and barrelled down the porch steps and pathway ahead of Ellie’s cases.
In the half second it took to push the door to the old barn open, he and Deputy both saw the same thing. Ellie, legs spread either side of the little stove, hands and face smudged with soot, a burning twig in her hand. He only wanted to dash to her side and wipe clean that porcelain skin. Deputy actually did it. With his tongue.
Ellie gasped.
Jed barked a stiff, ‘Heel! ’
Deputy slunk back to his master’s right boot and dropped his head, sorry but not sorry. Ellie scrabbled to her feet, sputtering. There was nothing for him to do apart from apologise for his dog’s manners and place her suitcases through the door.
As if he hadn’t come off as enough of a hick already.
Then his eyes fell on the work of modern art poking out of the fireplace. He stepped closer.
‘I’ve never made a fire.’
He struggled not to soften at the self-conscious note in her voice. It was good to know she could drop the self-possession for a moment, but he wasn’t buying for one moment that it was permanent. Ms. Ellie Patterson might be pretty in pastels but he’d wager his future she was tough as nails beneath it.
He didn’t take his eyes off the amazing feat of overengineering. An entire log was jammed in there with twigs and twisted newspaper and no less than four fire-starters. And she’d been about to set the whole lot ablaze.
He relieved her of the burning twig and extinguished it. ‘That would have burned down the barn.’
She looked horrified. ‘Oh. Really?’
Deputy dropped to his side on the rug closest to the fire, as though it was already blazing.
Dopey dog.
‘Less is more with fires….’ Without thinking he took her hand and walked her to the sofa, then pressed her into it. He did his best not to care that she locked up like an antique firearm at his uninvited touch. ‘Watch and learn.’
It took him a good five minutes to undo the nest of twigs and kindling squashed inside the wrought-iron fireplace. But then it was a quick job to build a proper fire and get it crackling. She watched him intently.
He stood. ‘Got it?’
Her colour surged and it wasn’t from the growing flames. ‘I’m sorry. You must think me so incredibly inept. First the cows and now the fire.’
He looked down on her, embarrassed and poised on his sofa. ‘Well, I figure you don’t have a lot of either in Manhattan.’
‘We have a fireplace,’ she started without thinking, and then her words tapered off. ‘But we light it with a button.’
Well, that was one step better than ‘but we have staff to do it for us.’ Maybe she knew what she was talking about when she teased him about being the Calhouns’ butler.
‘I’m sure there’s a hundred things you can do that I can’t. One day you can teach me one of those and we’ll be even.’
Her blue eyes glittered much greener against the glow of the growing fire. ‘Not sure you’d have much use for the intricacies of delivering a sauté in arabesque.’
‘You’re a chef?’
His confusion at least brought a glint of humour back to her beautiful face. ‘Sauté onstage, not on the stove. I’m a dancer. Ballet. Or…I was.’
‘That explains so much.’ Her poise. The way she held herself. Those amazing legs. Her long, toned frame. Skinny, but not everywhere.
The lightness in her expression completely evaporated and he could have kicked himself for letting his eyes follow his thoughts. ‘What I mean is it doesn’t surprise me. You move like a professional.’ Her eyebrows shot up. ‘Dancer, I mean.’
Deputy shot him a look full of scorn: way to keep digging, buddy!
But as he watched, the awkwardness leached from Ellie’s fine features and her lips turned up. The eyes that met his were amused. And more than a little bit sexy. ‘Thank you, Jed. I’m feeling much less self-conscious now.’
So was he—stupidly—now that she’d used his name.
He cleared his throat. ‘Well, then… I’ll just leave you to unpack.’ He glanced at the fire. ‘As soon as those branches are well alight you can drop that log on top. Just one,’ he cautioned, remembering her overpacked first effort. ‘As long as you keep the vent tight it should last awhile. Put a big one on just before you go to bed and it should see you through the night.’
‘I’ll do that now, then, because as soon as you’re gone I’m crawling into bed.’
‘At 7:00 p.m.?’ Why was she so exhausted? It couldn’t just be the steer, even for a city slicker.
She pushed to her feet to show him the door. ‘I think my week is finally catching up to me. But I’m going to be very comfortable here, thank you for the hospitality. You’ve done your hometown proud.’
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her Larkville wasn’t his hometown, but she didn’t say it to start a conversation, she said it to end one.
He moved to the door, surprised at how his own feet dragged, and whistled for Deputy. ‘Sleep well, Ellie.’
His buddy hauled himself to his feet and paused in front of Ellie for the obligatory farewell scratch. She just stared at him, no clue what he was expecting, but then his patient upward stare seemed to encourage her and she slid her elegant fingers into his coat and gave him a tentative rub. She released him, and Deputy padded to Jed’s side and preceded him out the door.
Jed stared after the dog, an irrational envy blazing away as she closed the door behind him. He pulled the collar of his shirt up against the air’s bite and hurried back to his house. It was ridiculous to hold it against a dog just because he’d been free to walk up and demand she touch him. Her sliding down his body earlier today was a heck of a lot more gratuitous than what just happened in the barn.
Yet… The way her fingers had curled in his dog’s thick black coat… Her eyes barely staying open. It was somehow more…intimate.
Deputy reached
