he didn’t like that at all. He frowned at the boys so furiously, they leaped to do his bidding.
“Oh, oh yeah, sure Jace.” They both stood back, still grinning, as she skirted cautiously around them. As she reached to pull out a chair, the boys seemed to recall their manners and, as one, vaulted to do it for her. She saw them coming and managed to dart aside just in time to avoid being flattened in the rush. As it was, they tripped over each other, hissed a few expletives into each other’s ears, and had a minor skirmish, but they eventually dragged the chair out. They gazed at Alexis like a couple of puppies waiting for a treat. Jace decided it was time he took matters in hand.
“You two sit down,” he ordered them. “You’re scaring the hel…heck out of her,” he growled. For a moment, he considered telling one of them to pour her some coffee, but realized that putting anything hot into their hands at this moment was just asking for trouble.
He poured some for himself, and when he held up the pot inquiringly, she nodded and gave him a nervous smile as she seated herself.
There was a moment of awkward hesitation before Gil and Rocky realized they were supposed to be passing food and hurriedly grabbed for platters of toast and eggs which they shoved at Alexis. Bewildered, she reached jerkily for them before the contents sailed down her shirtfront.
Jace sighed. It was a good thing she would be leaving today or they would never get any more work done. He might be hoping for something that wasn’t going to happen, though. The real teacher they’d hired, Rachel Burrows, was only slightly less attractive than this woman.
Still, he’d better send her on her way directly after breakfast because Gil and Rocky had some branding to do and the way things were going, they’d be decorating each other’s rumps with the Running M brand.
He sipped his coffee as his gaze drifted over the bright red-brown fall of her hair. It cascaded down her back and contrasted with the pale gold camp shirt she wore with a pair of faded jeans. The combination of colors made him think of fall leaves, but her green eyes looked like spring.
When he realized what direction his thoughts were taking, Jace choked on a sip of coffee and coughed several times. Alexis gave him a concerned look, but neither Gil nor Rocky spared him a glance. They were so enthralled with her that he could have dropped dead on the tabletop and they would have done no more than reach across his cold, stiff body to get the butter for her. Obviously, it was time he got this situation under control.
“Miss Chastain, we appreciate you stopping by,” he began lamely. “But there’s been a mistake. You’re not the one we hired for the teaching position, so we’ll just wait until Miss Burrows comes, and…”
“But she’s not coming,” Alexis interrupted, blinking those big green eyes at him.
Gil and Rocky turned and stared at him as if he’d suddenly begun singing soprano. He ignored them.
“Not coming?”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you last night. You see, Rachel and I are old friends, college roommates, in fact. On her way here, she came to visit me at the pal…place…at my place, and said she had this job, but was going to have to call and resign from her contract, so I came instead.”
Jace stared at her for a long moment, trying and failing to take this in. He leaned forward on one elbow and stared at her. In a dead-level voice he said, “She signed a contract. When a person signs a contract, they’re supposed to fulfill it, at least that’s the way the rest of the world does it.”
“Uh, yes.” A nervous smile fluttered across those full lips. “And she feels really terrible about not being able to fulfill it, but something…came up. Something very important, and she can’t come. I have a letter from her, though,” Alexis added eagerly. “We thought it would get here faster if I brought it rather than depending on the postal system. I’ll go get it.”
She scooted back in preparation for a dash to her room. As soon as she moved, Gil and Rocky were on their feet to assist her. Another scuffle ensued while they fought over her chair. The tenuous hold Jace had on his temper snapped like a stretched elastic band.
“Will you two please eat your breakfast and get out of here?” Jace roared. “You’re so jumpy you’d make a snail nervous.” They gaped at him and bounced back into their chairs. “Miss Chastain, why don’t you just tell me why she didn’t come, what came up that was so important?”
Alexis met his gaze, which was beginning to look mighty scary. This was what she’d been afraid of. Oh, he looked big and intimidating and very, very businesslike this morning. It didn’t help that he also looked virile and manly, and slightly disreputable with a day’s growth of beard shadowing his jaw.
It would have been so much easier if Rachel had handled this in a professional manner, calling and talking to Jace in person, but she’d been afraid of a lawsuit, of being talked into coming here when her heart had been somewhere else, that she’d ducked her responsibility. So Alexis was covering for her. It wasn’t the first time she’d done it. Covering up for people was an old habit of hers because she hated to see her loved ones hurt. Besides, Rachel was a rare commodity, a true friend who’d never spilled anything about Alexis or her family to a tabloid.
She drew in a deep breath and looked at the hard, curious face of the man sitting across the breakfast table from her. She had to tell him the truth about Rachel.
She glanced around the kitchen, at Gil and Rocky, and then back at him. Nope. No way out of it. Finally, she picked up her cup and mumbled something into it.
“What? She what someone?”
Alexis took a sip of coffee, cleared her throat, then beamed a high-voltage smile at him. “She met someone.”
“Someone? You mean a man?”
“Oh, not just any man. Her soul mate.”
“Soul mate.” The two words dropped into the atmosphere like stones thumping into mud.
“At least that’s what she said. It was love at first sight. She couldn’t leave him.” Boy, oh boy did that sound lame, and unprofessional, and well, a little stupid. Alexis sighed. “It’s not as bad as it sounds….”
“She’s not here to fulfill her teaching contract because she met her soul mate and she can’t leave his side. Does that about cover it?” he asked testily.
Alexis attempted a smile. “Well, it sounded a little more romantic when she said it.”
He glowered at her.
She started to her feet once again. “I’ll go get the letter and you can read…”
“Sit down,” he growled.
She plopped back into her chair.
Gil—at least she was pretty sure it was Gil—dragged his gaze away from her face long enough to ask, “What difference does it make, Jace, as long as we have a qualified teacher to teach the kids?”
“Yeah,” Rocky agreed. “Miss Chastain here is obviously well-qualified.”
Jace raised a brow at him. Rocky’s eyes were glued on a part of her anatomy that had nothing whatsoever to do with her teaching ability. Blushing, Alexis crossed her arms over her chest.
Leaning
